by Andre Norton
“Merlin!” she calls. “There’s my good cat.”
The two-legs shut the door upon them. She, too, smelled unhappy. Fenster, who shares the foodbowls with me, trots up and paws at her knees. The two-legs swoops her up and holds her like a human kitten, seeking comfort. Fenster, the slut, purrs.
“Kitty!” squalls a two-legs kitten. I flee beneath a table and shut my eyes. Over and over the bells ring. There are a lot of critical cats coming in tonight, a lot of two-legs-well, enough-people speaking in soft, nervous voices.
“I didn’t want to come out, but what could I do when Samantha was so sick?”
“We’re picking up Dook. He was just fixed.”
“They had cops patrolling Seventy-first. It’s good to see cops on the beat again.”
“I hope they catch that…”
The people growl in anger and in hope.
I lick the last traces of bitter water from my mangled ruff and wait.
The light beneath the door grows, waking me from my nap. One of the sisters carries Merlin, who protests separation from his human, back to the inner lairs. Merlin’s two-legs stands before Dr. Bell: both females, but how different. Merlin’s human is soft, long-furred, the wrappings that two-legs hide their bodies with carefully arranged and sparkly with the toys their females like. Dr. Bell is thinner, less carefully groomed: a lean barn dweller facing off against an indoor drowser upon cushions.
Their feelings hurt. Merlin’s human fears and aches; Dr. Bell wants only to escape to the inner lairs and the Free Folk who watch and do not ask hard questions. Clearly, she forces herself to remain and meet the other female’s eyes. Both females’ mouths move in sounds that, ordinarily, I would ignore. But Merlin has stuck a thorn in my feelings as well as my curiosity. I can not turn away.
“I know you’re on the cat’s side,” says Merlin’s human. “So am I. I want him back, of course I do. But I want what’s best for him. You’re the doctor. What you say to do, I’ll do.” Her eyes fill, but her voice is quite steady.
Dr. Bell flicks an eyebrow up in surprised respect at this pampered-looking female. “We’re trying our best. It’s not leukemia or feline AIDS. It could be his spleen or his liver. We just don’t know yet. But I have to say, it doesn’t look too good.”
The human looks down. “I know,” she whispers. She makes the hand and voice gestures of respect that two-legs use. “Thank you, Doctor,” she says and turns to go.
“You might wait a minute till you calm down,” Dr. Bell suggests. “So you can watch out on the way home. God only knows what’s out there.”
Which is why I like it here, her undervoice tells me clearly. I cure pain. And the cats I work with are decent; they don’t turn on their own kind.
Merlin’s human nods thanks. She draws a deep breath and forces calm upon her face the way we lower our inmost eyelids when we gaze into the sun.
“Who’s this?” she asks.
To my surprise, it is me she is talking about this time. I stroll out from beneath the table to let her admire me.
“That’s Puff. He was Merlin’s donor this morning.”
The next instant, Merlin’s human is down on her knees before me. She is quick in her movements, and her hand gestures are graceful, almost like paws. “Oh, the brave cat, good cat. But look, his ruff is shaved, and it was so pretty,” she croons at me. She glances up at the one called Dr. Bell. “Puffs a hero-cat.”
If she keeps that up, I think I may have a hairball, just to teach her. I raise a forepaw to clean it and ignore her outstretched hands.
“Puff’s a little standoffish tonight.”
“Is he all right? Did you take a lot of blood from him?”
Dr. Bell nods. “A good bit. He was scared.”
“Poor Puff. Thank you, Puff. Tell me,” again, she appeals to the other two-legs. “May I bring Puff treats when I come tomorrow? Whatever happens, I’m grateful to him.”
Still talking, she Wraps heavy clothes about her and vanishes into the night beyond the lights where the critical cats and the noisy kittens of both breeds wait.
If I had come to her, she might have felt better. What is that to me? She is just another noisy two-legs. Still, there had been that promise of treats…
I head for the inmost lairs. Merlin lies upon the sunshine pad. He is breathing too fast, but purring as he breathes. I paw the cage lock open and come in beside him, nuzzling his side. His eyes blink open, lazy, satisfied. Seeing his human has eased him; he seems stronger and happier. I am angry at myself that I care.
“She groomed me; we don’t like it when my fur is matted. She praised me and sang my name. Said I was a good cat and whatever I did was fine. I wish I were going home; I could run it to suit myself now. Such a good human.” He shuts his eyes, musing on what would have appeared to be the most delightful of Dreamtrails, but what I know has to be that idiot human of his.
“Did you see Her?” he asks eagerly.
“I saw her,” I admit. “She thanked me and would have stroked my back. But I was washing. Tell me, does she keep her word? She promised me food for helping you.”
“That sounds like her,” Merlin says, pleased. “She’ll bring you treats. And she understands what we Free Folk like-tender beef in tiny cans; fat salmon and cream and things you can steal off plates.”
If he keeps it up, I think again that I will have a hairball, and never mind the respect due to Soulsingers.
“You have made me strong for now, my brother,” he praises me. “She will be afraid without me.”
“Why is she afraid?” I hate to ask it, but my curiosity stretches and leaps. “She is sleek and well.” Not like you, I think. “And she is old enough to be as wise as a female who has raised many litters.”
Merlin shrugs, a ripple of massive shoulders on which the fur already has begun to wilt. “Humans fear more than we… pain, voices, fights. Even the pieces of paper that they carry scare them. My human more than most.”
He looks up. For a moment, the pain he has suppressed this evening twists his face and drives the wisdom from his eyes. It is not just body pain. “If she conquers her fears, she will be a Soulsinger, too. That is a hard choice for humans, who do not respect the soul art as we do. She fears, but I know she wants to slay her fear. I do not want to leave her till she does. I do not think I could hunt in peace if I left her now.”
The moment passes, and his eyes are deep and bright again as the autumn moon. “She will go to ground tonight, just like we do when we hurt. But she should not be left alone. Tonight, I shall watch her dreams. You shall help me, if you will. Have you never stalked a human’s thoughts? I promise, my brother, you will find this an interesting game.”
Once the two-legs turn down the lights and leave, we huddle together and hunt down the trail of Merlin’s human’s thoughts. She dodges in and out of the crowd of two-legs, watchful of the huge, foul-smelling things that honk and screech and have two-legs in them playing mating calls. She looks carefully away from the kittens trundled in their carriers by cautious two-legs.
Merlin was all the child I had, the thought lingers like rain in her thoughts. Not was, is. But for how long? Her eyes keep blurring. At that her fear nips her more shrewdly, like a rat. It is not safe to walk the streets with blurring eyes. It has not been a good year, she thinks. Faces shift and go… some clearly remembered; some blurred by years longer than the lifespan of Free Folk.
It is no kindness, the long memories of two-legs, I realize, and I wonder at the thought. Merlin shifts beside me and tries to chirp reassuringly. This far away, his two-legs does not hear him.
She does not look at the little suns that light up the sparkly toys behind clear walls. She does not sniff at the thousand intriguing food smells-or wince at the stenches of foul waters and foul air, or the wild two-legs whom not even a besotted Soulsinger would ever call “human” again.
At a gate scent-marked a long time ago by such two-legs, Merlin’s human pauses. To my surprise, she calls, not in the
speech of the Free Folk, but in what sounds like it.
“I told you she feeds the Folk who wander,” Merlin’s “voice” nudged me.
“Does she know what she is saying?” I ask. Merlin grimaces at me.
“She doesn’t need to.”
Two thin Folk drop from the undergrowth sloping up toward tracks on a bridge and trot toward her. “He’s sick, fellows. Red Brother, wish me luck, will you?” The larger cat starts toward her; a smaller one bats him away. Both withdraw.
“I see your point,” she whispers. “I didn’t bring any food, and I smell sad. I guess I’m not very good company for you today. Sorry.”
She turns and trots toward her lair, her eyes flicking in all directions as she crosses the street into a darkened square. Fears squeak in her thoughts: of the two-legs who leap from cars, the ones who pounce from hiding in the bushes, the ones who rush up in the street, or who linger in the halls. From her pouch, she pulls a jangling clutter of metal, an image of the Free Folk dangling from it, and uses it to get into her lair. I am surprised that any two-legs respects the Goddess of the Folk, much less bears Her image.
She sighs with relief when the door shuts behind her. Odd how doors mean prison to the Free Folk and safety to… all right, I won’t call them two-legs.
Her lair is small, scent-marked as though Merlin were a full male, and full of toys. Stacks of paper lie on shelves, ready to be tumbled into cozy nests; warm wraps lie on chairs and cushions; a dark cave full of things that bear her scent yawns open.
Merlin’s mind flickers into mischief. “‘Shoes,’ she says those are. For her hind paws. When I don’t like my litter, I mark them to teach her better. She calls me ‘rotten cat’ and laughs. I don’t do it much. It is a dirty trick.”
He leads me on a thought tour of the tiny lair. “My dishes… and my box… and that’s where I nap, on the fancy rug below the window. Someone sent it just for me from halfway round the world.”
A bell rings, and the human stops it. “No, they haven’t found the thief,” she tells it. “None of the papers even have a picture of him. But they found the first kid. All right, thank God. I’d like to find that crazy myself.” Her voice turns hard and angry. If she were one of us, her hackles would rise and her tail would lash like a mother in the kittening box with her litter when a stranger gets too close.
“Yes, I’ll be careful. Yes, the door’s locked. Stop worrying about me. I’ve got a sick cat to worry about. I have to visit him tomorrow. No, they don’t know what’s wrong with Merlin.” Her voice quivers and breaks. “I’m scared he won’t make it.”
Beside me, Merlin’s body tenses as if he wants to hurl himself through space and land beside her. Her hand goes out as if she seeks the comfort of his fur. Her face twists.
“Just thirteen. Yes, I know, it’s old, but they live to be twenty, sometimes… Thanks for thinking of us. He’s a hell of a cat, and he’s putting up a fine fight. Whatever’s best for him. I’ll take care. Bye.”
She lays down the bell and walks over to the cold box.
“Sliced turkey in there,” Merlin says.‘“She bought it for me.”
Ignoring the delicacy, she pours herself some bitter water. I wrinkle my nose. Merlin shrugs. “It’s like catnip, but they lap it up,” he explains.
She sits in a chair before a table on which rests a box that holds a window screen. She touches it, and it lights and purrs. She rests her fingers on a pad and moves them, clacking, back and forth. Suddenly, she glances down, looking. “I always come and sit on her lap when she tries to make songs…” Merlin tells me. She tightens her muzzle and blinks her eyes. Salt water runs from them.
The Soulsinger beside me yearns forward, but he is beginning to tire. His body sags and cools.
“Come back,” I coax. “You cannot hunt her dreams all night.”
“I cannot leave yet. Something is going to happen. I know it. Help me stay.”
I am Puff. I walk alone. I cannot imagine caring that much about any of the Free Folk, let alone a two-legs. But the big soulsinger already has my blood; he might as well have the strength of my heart, too. I crouch by his side and let my spirit flow toward him. He sighs and the cold at his heart eases.
Again, we hunt forward. The human prepares to sleep. When her breathing slows, Merlin nudges his spirit-self forward beside her head and extends a seven-toed insubstantial paw to touch her face. It melts against her skin. Merlin looks unhappy again. But the human smiles as if she feels the touch. Satisfied by that, Merlin purrs and settles his dreamself by his human’s side.
When I feel his breathing steady where his body crouches by mine, I reach out. Like a tabby tugging a stray kit back against her side, I ease his spirit back into his flesh. Then, as if an eyelid I didn’t know I had opened, I find that I can see within my companion. None of his bones are broken; no organs are diseased; no blood flows. Yet matters are all awry; his body has turned on itself, devouring its own strength.
I am surprised that his heart is only the size it is. It seems as if it should be much bigger.
“Gently done,” comes the familiar undervoice. I start.
Merlin turns his head slightly, wincing at the pain of the thorn in his neck. “As if you had known how to hunt a human’s thoughts thus all your lives. Do you know, deny it as you may, you are in the right place, my brother Puff? Puff, as you’re called, with your fur like smoke and your face with a smoke smudge across its muzzle, floating across minds to heal them. The humans are not the only healers here.”
The Soulsinger looks up at me, his eyes glinting too brightly. “They were not total fools, the humans who named you. But let me give you your true name now; your inner name.”
He jerks his head so our noses touch, and I feel his pain jolt through me. I know I do not want to hear this, but those eyes hold me. ” ‘Healer’ I name you. Be the healer of souls you were born to be.”
No! Careful not to yowl, I back away. I do not want to be a soul healer. I do not want to care so much-or care at all. I have already done too much. I am Puff who stands aloof, who takes my food and whatever else I can. I give as little as I can, and I go my own way.
“Who understands more than ‘now’?” he asks me. “Who fears for humans, even when he most scorns them? Who watches the sick Kindred and fails to hold aloof-even from one as sick as I?”
No! I start to yowl as I back out of his cage, then mute my cry lest I wake the sick kindred. I do not want to be like Merlin whose body fails and who yearns for the Dreamtrails-but who forces himself to stay and watch… because he loves. I do not want to heal bodies or souls and run the risk of failure, or of fear. It is too hard, too much for me.
The whole lair is empty, except for the breathing of the Folk. Many are caged. I sense their fear as if it were my own.
Fenster and Purvis lie curled up together. They blink when I try to edge into their warm huddle. I do not think they are altogether pleased.
“You have always gone your own way, slept your own sleep, dreamed your own dreams. Why should we welcome you?” Fenster asks.
How happy they look, wrapped in warmth and the forever “now” of happy Folk. Please let me share, I ask. It comes out as a kitten’s whimper.
“Because I am alone, and I’m frightened,” I confess.
Kinder far than I, they lick my shoulder till I sleep. I fear that Merlin stays awake, watching his two-legs dream.
I vow to myself I would stay away. But morning finds me again at Merlin’s cage. He is cooler, weaker, and his eyes have dulled.
“Good morning, Healer,” he mocks me. “Making your rounds like the human doctor?”
I show him my teeth. “Keep that up, and you can haunt your human’s dreams alone today.”
But I lie, and I know it.
“Rest,” I tell him. “I will follow your trails for you until she returns.”
I no longer doubt that she will do so.
Lazy Puff, the two-legs would call me. But I am not lazy. I hunt the stranges
t trail I have ever known as I track Merlin’s two-legged she.
It is hard, the life they have, these people. They ride, all crammed, standing together, on fearsome wagons through runs worse than the maze of any mouse, deep beneath the ground: places of fearful sounds and smells. They do not look at each other because, if they do, they may fight.
We know the rules for who goes belly up, who slinks away, and when. These two-legs have no such rules that I can see.
And yet, I saw a male offer a female heavy with young a seat, saw people pull back to give kittens room to breathe. Merlin’s human sits, too, blinking at a paper that she holds. “Child Snatcher At Large,” huge letters shout at her above a darkened square. She shuts the paper and blinks. An old male leaning on a stick limp into the wagon, and she rises for him. I sense his surprise and his pleasure. She has courtesy, this she of Merlin’s. He has trained her well.
Courtesy and neat hands; and yet she fears and remembered her fears. It must be hard for any two-legs, harder still for one with the rudiments of proper conduct.
Noise in the lair forces me back. I leap from Merlin’s cage just as Dr. Colt comes in. He too is neat-footed-for a two-legs male. He lifts Merlin from the cage, and the Soulsinger yowls.
“Did that hurt, boy?” he asks. Why does he have to treat the Soulsinger, whose mind and spirit outshine him as catnip outshines sawdust, like a kitten? But Merlin lowers his head to rub against his hand. “Wish I knew what you had.” He is suddenly grave.
I run out. All that day, I dream in a chair, not even noticing when people draw close and pet me. “Puffs gotten friendly. Think he’s all right?” someone asks.
“He’s not friendly. He’s sleeping,” replies the female who carried Merlin to his human. “Aren’t you, Puff?”
I’m not. Instead, as often as I was drawn back to my lair, I send my spirit forth in dreams to hunt the strange trails of a two-leg’s-a human’s-mind. It is like setting weight on a leg too recently broken. It hurts, but I have to try it.
