A Cat's Guide to Bonding with Dragons

by Chris Behrsin

  “Judgemental? I’m the most misunderstood fae of them all. Don’t you think I have a right to be judgemental sometimes?” The black cat stood up, slinked off the bench, and then she walked up to examine me.

  “So, tell me, Ben… How did you come to speak the human tongue, and why did you end up under the service of someone as foul as Astravar?”

  “He brought me here,” I said. “I was eating the best dinner of salmon trimmings I’d tasted in a long time, and I was just about to lap up some milk, when I got flung out of his portal right on to his hard stone floor.” I thought being a cat, Ta’ra might understand what a travesty it was to be suddenly separated from a good meal.

  She stared at me, blinking. I might have known she wouldn’t quite get it.

  “Why aren’t you in the cattery like the rest of the cats?” I asked. “Don’t you get along with them?”

  “Because I’m not a cat, I’m a fae,” she snapped back. “Once a fairy with a ‘y’, until I got banished from the kingdom because of my new form.”

  “A what?”

  She growled from deep inside her stomach. “Do you really know so little about the magical worlds?”

  “I didn’t even know magic existed until I met Astravar.”

  Ta’ra shook her head like a human would. “And I didn’t know that cats existed either until Astravar summoned me away from my wedding ceremony to Prince Ta’lon and decided that he would change my life completely. Gone were my wings, replaced by this furry body and my claws. It was horrible.”

  “So, you don’t enjoy being a cat?” Such a notion seemed utterly unfathomable to me.

  Ta’ra looked over at the bubbling solution. “Astravar gave me the ability to turn back into a fairy eight times. I’ve used up six of them, three because of my own stupidity. Aleam has been trying all this time to find a cure for my curse, but I fear that only the curser can reverse it. I can transform twice more, only for a day mind, then I’ll be stuck with this terrible form for life.”

  “Terrible?” I really couldn’t understand this lady. “Cats are the greatest creatures alive.”

  “No, you’re not,” Ta’ra said. “You just think you are. But you don’t have wings, you don’t have magic, and you can’t even look after yourselves. Cat-hood is the pinnacle of reliance, and none of you seem to understand how demeaning it is.” She examined her paw.

  I was starting to feel attacked. I arched my back and circled around Ta’ra, baring my teeth as I did so. She did the same, looking at me with those bright green eyes.

  “We can hunt,” I said.

  “Can you? I’ve heard of cats who tried to run away from Dragonsbond Academy. They didn’t last two days out there, before they came back to the kitchens mewling for food.”

  I felt the hackles rise on my back. “They’re merely useless moggies. But I’m different, I’m a Bengal, a descendent of the great Asian leopard cat. And I can hunt. In fact, I killed thousands of mice for Astravar.”

  “Ooh, big deal. You reached into a hole and scooped out defenceless mice with nowhere to go but their holes. There’s a difference to catching mice in a human dwelling and hunting in the wild. My instincts tell me you wouldn’t be very good at the latter.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “I’ll show you what a wild cat I am.”

  I lunged forward at Ta’ra, scratching with my claw. I hit her on her shoulder, and she responded with a loud shrieking sound as she batted back with her claws. Then, she grew in size until she was almost as big as a human child. I didn’t let that scare me, and I clawed at her leg, a primal part of me wanting to do much damage.

  How dare she imply I was a poor hunter. How dare she imply I was useless.

  Ta’ra continued to grow until she was towering above me, and then she pinned me underneath her massive paws. I tried to scratch her off me, but she kept me pinned, with a wicked grin on her face. “I’m a witch, you know. That’s what they call me, a witch!”

  Aleam had been so busy with his experiment, that he’d been completely oblivious to what was going on. But I guess the two of us screeching so loudly caused him to turn his attention towards us.

  “What, in the Seventh Dimension?” he said, and he quickly hobbled over on his staff. He used it to take a swipe at Ta’ra. She batted at it and then clutched onto it with one paw while she kept me pinned down with the other.

  “Ta’ra,” Aleam said. “Let go at once.”

  Ta’ra hissed at him, but Aleam glared back with his cold blue eyes. Ta’ra had the bottom of the staff in her grasp, and the top of it glowed bright yellow.

  “He started it,” Ta’ra said.

  Aleam turned to me, and a stern look stretched across his eyebrows. “Is this true, Ben?”

  I snarled at Ta’ra. “She provoked me,” I said.

  Aleam turned on Ta’ra. “What have I told you about your moods? You really have to work on this.”

  The angry green glow in Ta’ra’s eyes faded, and soon enough she let go of the staff and let off an apologetic meow. She lifted her paw from me, and I immediately wriggled free, hissing at the cat. But she looked at me, an abashed, guilty look in her wide eyes, as if she’d just stolen chicken off of a human’s dinner table.

  “I’m sorry, Ben,” she said. “It’s just… Astravar did this to me. Sometimes, my emotions… I just hate it!”

  “We will find a cure, eventually.” Aleam took hold of a cloth on the table, and he began to polish his crystal that had now stopped glowing. “We may not be able to turn you back to a normal fairy, but I think we’ll find a way to stop the episodes.”

  Ta’ra meowed again, and she then shrunk back down to normal cat size and slinked back over to the bench and leapt back onto it. She was soon yawning, and then she closed her eyes and was quickly fast asleep.

  I heard footsteps, and I smelled a human approaching the door. I darted under the table and hid behind the leg, remembering how that woman had treated me in the kitchen. But it wasn’t the chef who arrived there, but a spotty faced teenager, no older than sixteen, with a scroll in his hand. He had a short sword in a sheath hanging off his hip, and a staff with a blue crystal head fastened to the back.

  “Driar Aleam,” he said. “I’m sorry to disturb your work, but I’m looking for a moggie. Apparently one with unusual leopard like spots. Have you seen him anywhere?”

  “He’s right here,” Aleam pointed down to where I was crouched, trying to make myself as small as possible. “Ben, don’t be shy. Why don’t you come out and say hello to your dragon rider peer?”

  I mustered up a little courage, and I moved out from under the table. The dragon rider boy had blond hair, and a hard jaw behind his spots. When they eventually cleared away, humans would probably see him as handsome.

  The boy looked down at me, contempt evident in his eyes.

  “Well, Ben, this is Initiate Rine,” Aleam said.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but the boy scoffed and then turned on his heel. He glanced back at me over his shoulder. “Come on, you’ll be late. You really don’t want to keep the council waiting.”

  He marched off, leaving me no option but to follow on his heels. As he walked, I could swear I heard him mutter under his breath, that he couldn’t believe I was a ‘bleeding cat’.

  13

  The Council of Three

  The dragon rider boy led me to a courtyard, and he walked so fast, it was hard even for a cat to keep up. He had quite a stride about him, as if he regarded himself in a higher station than he actually was. Meanwhile, he didn’t turn his head to look at me even once.

  We walked past the kitchens, and I could smell bread baking in there. I was half tempted at one point to abandon this Initiate Rine character and instead give the woman who had attacked me earlier with a spoon – who I think Aleam had called Matron Canda – a piece of my mind. She would be surprised to have a cat talking to her, for sure. Maybe it would even scare her away for a while, leaving me alone to enjoy some food.

  But despi
te the hunger still rumbling in my tummy, I continued onwards. I hadn’t heard from Salanraja yet, and I wondered if she’d end up joining us in this special meeting.

  “What does this Council want with me?” I tried asking Initiate Rine. But my question didn’t seem to warrant an answer from him. Rather, he just sped up.

  He dashed through the corridors, and we passed a group of young adults making a racket and laughing as they moved forward in a crowd. I had to concentrate to stop myself getting trampled as I weaved my way between their legs. Really, half of them didn’t even seem to notice I was there.

  Soon, we found ourselves inside the bailey of the castle which was surrounded by tall crenelated castle walls. Those walls looked fun to climb, and I imagined myself running along them chasing birds and butterflies. But then all I saw flying around here were dragons and crows, and I didn’t fancy chasing either of those. We reached an archway in the wall that led into an inner courtyard.

  “In here,” Initiate Rine said, and he gestured with his short sword. “I shall wait outside.”

  Alone, I entered a cloistered section of the castle, surrounded by an outside corridor raised up by columns. Doors led into the castle, but most of these were closed. A neatly mown patch of lawn covered the centre of the courtyard, cut off by a raised semi-circular platform built from a chequered pattern of rough red and white stones.

  Four pillars led up from this platform, supporting a domed roof. Underneath this stood two women and a man behind three wooden lecterns. Each had short swords sheathed on their hips, staffs hanging from their backs, and mustard coloured shoulder pads, with golden thread woven through them in an ornate floral pattern. They were all old, and I could see that without even needing to be close to them. The gems in their staffs were red, blue, and green respectively.

  I approached them slowly at first, wondering which of them posed the greatest threat. I’d seen the dragon riders use their staffs from their dragons, and right now I didn’t doubt that one of them might have wanted to scorch me alive. They all wore these white robes, secured with cords that hung down above the floor. Something about the way they frowned at me told me they weren’t really on my side.

  The first of the women, the one on my left, had the red staff and her grey hair was swept back and tied in a bun. She also had wrinkles at the corners of her eyes so deep, they looked like fruit flies could use them for flight training. She was as thin as a scarecrow, with long arms and legs that almost looked as if they didn’t fit her body.

  “I am Driar Yila,” she called out to me. “Approach, cat.”

  As I got even closer, the second woman opened her mouth to speak. “We are the Council of Three,” she said. “And I am Driar Lonamm.” She was a little plumper than the first – meaning she probably liked food and that we had something in common. Though her face also displayed many wrinkles, her fiery wavy red hair made her look a little younger.

  The third elder was a good two feet taller than the women, a giant by any measure. He had a bald head, a pockmarked face, and thick corded hands that made me think his bulk was largely muscle.

  “My name is Driar Brigel,” he said. “And it is time to test your worth.”

  Once I got close enough, I noticed a white crystal hanging from rafters on the underside of the dome. The three elders lifted their staffs off of their backs and pointed them at the crystal. Beams of their respective colours shot out of the staffs, and they soon merged to infuse the crystal with a powerful light.

  It glowed brightly, bathing the courtyard with a blinding light. Whiskers, it seemed almost as bright as the sun. But soon, the light faded a little to display an image. It showed a view of my own crystal, with my dreams once again running through it – me on Salanraja’s back with a staff clasped firmly in my jaw, as I shot fireballs out of it into those massive bat-like creatures.

  But that wasn’t all the crystal showed. It also showed the inside of Salanraja’s chamber, with the dragon sleeping on the polished stone floor, her massive eyelids clasped so tightly shut that it didn’t look like she’d be waking soon. Her nostrils flared as her lips vibrated, as if letting out huge snores. Plumes of smoke rose out of her nose, and drifted over towards my crystal, almost as if it was sucking them in.

  “There she is, sleeping during important affairs,” the thin elder, Driar Yila said.

  “Typical Salanraja,” the male, Driar Brigel said. “When is she going to learn?”

  “I thought she’d soon let us make her saddleable,” Driar Lonamm said with a slow shake of the head. “Then she pulls this stunt.”

  Driar Yila turned a hard stare on to me. “And now here is the specimen she chose as a rider. Not a human, or a dwarf, or even a lowly troll. No, he’s your run-of-the-mill cat!”

  When I heard them speak about me this way, I couldn’t help but arch up my back and hiss at Driar Yila. But she didn’t even blink, her stare seeming to bore right into my soul. The other two elders, whose gazes had drifted up towards the crystal, also turned their heads back towards me and met my gaze with equally probing stares.

  “I’m not just a cat,” I said. “I’m a Bengal, a descendant of the Asian leopard cat.”

  A smile crept across Driar Brigel’s lips. “Ah, so the rumour is true. You can speak our language. But we still don’t understand why the dragon chose you.”

  “Driar Brigel,” Driar Yila said without taking her eyes off me, “we shouldn’t be having this conversation without the dragon. Wake her up, cat. I presume you can at least do that.”

  “What? You want me to just run over there and stamp on her head? She won’t be happy.”

  Driar Yila raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were bonded?”

  “We are, but—”

  “Then you should be able to wake her from here.”

  “I…”

  Driar Yila opened her mouth to say something more, but Driar Lonamm raised a hand to stop her. “We can’t just expect a cat to know what humans do. He’s not had the same education as us, and he has a much smaller brain. Cat—”

  “I have a name,” I cut in.

  Lonamm froze and she gave me a stern look. She twisted her staff, and I waited for her to throw some magic at me. But after a moment she said, “so tell me that name.”

  “Ben,” I said.

  She smirked. “Very well, Ben. Talk to your dragon loud enough, and she’ll wake.”

  “Are you crazy? She’ll break my bones first, and then she’ll eat you alive.”

  “She won’t,” Driar Yila snapped back. “Now do it!”

  “As you wish,” I said. “It’s your funeral.” Just as I’d imagined myself whispering before, now I imagined myself screeching as if I’d just landed in the same garden as an unfamiliar dog. To put some extra flare into it, I arched my back and let the hackles shoot up. Then, I felt Salanraja wake, and she wasn’t happy.

  A loud roar resounded out from one of the towers behind me. In the crystal above, I saw her rise on her two hind legs, charge out into the sky, and then she screamed in my mind.

  14

  A Mission

  “I warned you not to wake me, or you’d find yourself in a chimera’s lair,” Salanraja said. She was certainly angry.

  “I had no choice,” I replied.

  “What do you mean you had no choice?”

  “The Council of Three,” I said. “A spotty faced boy came to look for me, and then he told me to go and see them. These people, they’re so rude. They think they’re the greatest things that ever lived.”

  I felt Salanraja calm down a little. It was as if the same dragonfire burning within her also burned within my chest. “Humans. They will always be arrogant. But they are in charge here.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh, at least inside my mind. I didn’t want to end up fried by the magic that these elders were spewing out of their staffs. “I thought you said dragons were the most powerful creatures to have ever lived, and yet you are subject to humans.”

  “They don’t cont
rol us,” Salanraja said. A shadow passed overhead and a moment later, Salanraja thudded onto the ground, shaking the earth a little.

  I looked at her, unimpressed, and yawned. “If they don’t control you, why are they waking you up?”

  Salanraja lowered her neck to me and examined me with those massive yellow eyes. “They are bonded to their dragons, remember? All Dragon riders are. Their dragons are part of the Council too, and right now the humans will be communicating with their dragons to work out what to do next. So, I’m not answering to them, but their dragons.”

  “So why aren’t the dragons here too?”

  “The Council deemed it would be less intimidating to have massive dragons looming over potential Initiates.”

  “I see. Also, what’s a Driar?” I asked. I had so many questions.

  Salanraja examined one of her claws, extending it slightly. “A Driar is a dragon rider who has graduated from Dragonsbond Academy. Either they work at King Garmin’s castle, or they are stationed here as teachers or lookouts.”

  She then turned to the council, and I felt the rage flare in her chest again. She opened her jaws wide, displaying those tremendously long teeth, and she let out a loud roar. I could swear that she was about to breathe fire on the elders and roast them there and then. Well, they couldn’t say I didn’t warn them.

  The three elders examined her for a moment. They raised their staffs, and the crystal above us flashed bright white.

  “Calm yourself, Salanraja,” Driar Yila shouted. “That is a command.”

  Salanraja continued to rage. She gnashed and clawed at nothing in particular. Really, she looked as if she’d caught rabies, and I half expected her to start foaming at the mouth.

  As she raged, the elders in front raised their staffs ever closer to the crystal above their heads, feeding it with more and more energy. The intensity inside brightened so much that I thought it might explode.

  Yila said something out loud. It was in a language I couldn’t understand at first, very similar in cadence to what I’d heard Aleam speaking before in his study. I would have thought that I could understand all languages because of the crystal’s gift. But then, I guessed they were speaking in the language of the crystals, and crystals weren’t technically creatures.