"All right," he said. "I'm ready. Whatever it is, I'll try to do my best."
The great eyes seemed to soften for a second, and then the voice rang out.
"So pity was the balance weight. It is seldom wrong to pity. I promise nothing, remember, but you may thank me yet. Now, there are things you must know if you are to act properly. When I have finished, the beasts will tell the rest so that you may do what must be done. Then comes the doing, and that is in your hands. Others may help before the end. Mowheen still lingers, the last of the three forest lords. If all comes to a right ending, perhaps we will speak again."
The voice took on a note of iron. "Look now upon your enemy, who threatens my Gate and must be defeated if the wood is to be saved."
The Face disappeared, and in its place in the swirling clouds, a circular shape began to form. It was like a round picture frame but with edges of living light. It grew larger and larger until it filled all the space before Alec's eyes.
A shape began to build in the center of the frame, a crouching, squat form. A naked, scaly tail was revealed and a narrow snout. Bright, black eyes stared directly at Alec as if he were clearly visible. The grayish-brown, dirty haunches tensed as the creature sat up and seemed to glare straight at the boy, malice and anger evident in its gaze.
It was an enormous rat.
Chapter Four
ALEC LOOKED at the rat and the rat looked at Alec, or at least appeared to be looking at him. He could see that it was sitting on what seemed to be dark earth, but around it there was nothing but pearl gray light, with no background or any other detail to be seen.
As he looked more closely he could see that the animal was obviously the veteran of many fights. Its pointed snout was scarred by old wounds; and other white weals, long since healed, showed on its grizzled flanks and legs. As he watched, the rat sat up and wrinkled its nose, displaying big, sharp, yellow teeth and making its long whiskers twitch from side to side. Its large round ears were dirty and the left one had a triangular hole bitten out of one edge.
A friend of Alec's had owned a white rat, bought in a pet store, which had pink eyes and an engaging manner. Alec had held his friend's pet in his hand and the little creature had frisked about and played with his fingers, as tame and confiding as anything could be. But this rat he was watching was no pet, no playmate. From its bright and venomous black eyes came a scheming hatred and a concentrated malevolence. The very attitude of the beast was not animal-like at all, which puzzled the boy. He tried to think of what the difference might be, and it suddenly came to him.
It was confidence! The rat acted utterly confident, as if it were the absolute ruler of its world. There was an air of arrogance and triumphant vanity mixed with the hatred, the malice, and the cruelty. This creature believed itself to be the master of everything around it.
Why, thought Alec, not realizing what a terrible condemnation he was giving to his own birthright, it acted as if it were human! The thing's entire dirty body seemed to radiate a feeling of grim competence and ferocious command. Whatever he was involved in, the boy realized, he had an enemy whom he instinctively loathed, without knowing why, but whom he also feared.
Then the vision blurred and faded. All was mist and haze for a brief moment and then there was nothing and his mind went blank.
Alec was awakened by a feeling of pressure on his left arm. He opened his eyes and moved the arm, to realize he was lying on the grass. Looking straight up, he saw above him the night sky, full of blazing stars with the moon now directly overhead. He sat up. He was still in the circle of flat stones, it was still night, and beside him sat Scratch the raccoon, who had awakened him by pulling his arm.
"Are you all right?" said the raccoon.
Alec rubbed his head. He felt stiff, but otherwise fine. He looked around for the horde of animals that had ringed the enclosure. Where was the sea of eyes and bodies that had packed the little arena in the wood to overflowing? All were gone. No wait not quite all. Besides Scratch, Stuffer the woodchuck was still there and a large skunk as well, who stared at Alec from a few feet away. Before he could get around to asking who the skunk was, a strange new voice said, "Good evening, young human. Look up if you want to see me." The voice felt hollow and echoing and soft, all at the same time.
Alec looked up and saw a large brown bird with a streaked breast, fluttering right over his head. As he stared, it came down, its wings beating soundlessly, and landed as lightly as one of its own feathers on the ground beside him. It was a big barred owl.
"My name's Soft Wing," he said to the boy. "We've watched you at night when you were asleep. Sometimes you snore."
"Never mind that," said Scratch impatiently. "We have to get him out of here and back to his house. Who cares if he snores?"
"Wait," said Alec. He reached out a hand and touched the owl's head, which felt as soft as down.
Obeying an urge to regain touch with the ordinary world again, he began to gently ruffle the feathers with the tip of one finger. The owl moved closer and his voice said, "That feels nice. Don't stop." His bird's mind voice was very different from the animals Alec had heard so far, being both quick and yet somehow floating or hovering as well as very gentle.
"Before we go anywhere," said the boy looking around at the others, "I have a lot of questions. And who is this?" he added, looking at the strange skunk.
"I'm Stamper," he began, but before he could say anything else, Scratch cut in again.
"We haven't got all night, Watcher," he said. "All of us here are the animals who are supposed to stay near you and help you. If some of us have to be away, then others of us can take over, so you'll always have a messenger or someone who can send word to the rest of us. Soft Wing can fly to your window at night and the rest of us can take turns being in the orchard or somewhere close by during the day. That's all there is to it."
"And I'm going to be with you all the time," said a small voice very near Alec's ear. Twisting his head, he saw Whisperfoot again balanced on his shoulder. She had run up his back without his even feeling it.
"There," she said in a satisfied tone. "Now someone with common sense, and not just a lot of silly quarrelsome males, can advise you."
"Will you really stay with me in the house?" said Alec. He was delighted that she was back, and he had a feeling that she would be very useful in helping him to deal with the others.
Alec was still not altogether in touch with reality. He had just undergone an immensely disturbing experience and his mind was unsettled. At the back of all his thoughts was one major one: would he be able to measure up, to really do his part in whatever followed?
The gentle night wind stirred his hair and he shivered a little. Overhead, the moon was slowly passing from the zenith and the hour was obviously far advanced. There was no sign of light in the east, but the night was drawing on just the same. He turned to the skunk, who had been sitting patiently, waiting to be recognized.
"Hello, Stamper," said Alec. "Why did you pick that name?"
"Because he stamps his front feet before he just before he well, does what he does," said Scratch. A skunk's terrible weapon, the cloud of awful choking gas which he can release on demand, always makes other animals a little nervous. It is rather like having a time bomb around, or a giant firecracker which needs no fuse. Very few animals can bear the brunt of a skunk's attack, and because the gas is invisible, they find it all the more terrifying.
"I never use it unless I have to," said Stamper. His voice was calm and serene, and almost a little absentminded. "We skunks don't bother anyone much unless we're attacked. But the rats are different. At least these rats are. They aren't part of the woods and they hate all of us. They don't belong here and they want to kill or drive everything out, so there's no one but them left. They make us all feel sick somehow, because the way they think is wrong. Twisted." He fell silent and Scratch took up the tale.
"We remembered something. Something about this place where we are now. The animals don't c
ome here much, only the deer and they only eat the grass down low, like it is now, and then go away.
"But we remembered, a few of us, anyway, that this was a place we could come and ask for things. The humans, the red-skinned people that used to live here, came. Some even talked to the animals now and then. Not many of us remembered about this place but a few did."
"Were you one of them one of the ones who remembered, I mean?" asked Alec.
"No," said the raccoon sadly. "I never heard about it; just that this was a good place to stay away from. Even the deer didn't really remember anything. They just felt they had to come and eat the grass here every so often."
"I remembered," said Stuffer unexpectedly. The big, fat woodchuck had been sitting quietly, not even nibbling the short grass of the circle. Alec had the feeling that the little clearing was indeed a special place if Stuffer could restrain his tremendous appetite for green things here.
The woodchuck continued. "Everyone thinks woodchucks sleep all winter. We sleep a lot, but we talk too. And we dream long, long dreams in the winter. My mother passed a dream on to me, seasons back when I was young. It was all about this place and what you could do here. You could talk here. Something here liked woodchucks and would help, if you needed it. I told Scratch about it."
"That's what I was going to ask next," said Alec. "Who did I talk to? He said he sent for me. What do you know about him anyway?"
He looked around, but there was no answer. The animals seemed embarrassed and confused. Only a blurred image of some need came from them to his mind, with the skunk seeming to be the one who felt it the most.
Finally Scratch spoke. "We don't know what you mean, Watcher," he said. "We were told to bring you here, but we didn't see anyone or anything. The place just told us, like when you know it's time to eat. It said, 'Go now and bring me a human. Do not be afraid. You can talk to some humans, you creatures who live near the Gate. Try a young one. They speak to us more clearly.' Then it said, 'Bring him here at night, all of you. Await my words.' We all, all the animals, felt it the same way we know it's time to hunt, only stronger."
Alec realized then that his friends had no actual idea of the strange presence to whom he had spoken, no true understanding of what had happened. Their own experience was on a very different level and they were quite unable to grasp what he was asking. Manibozo was an instinct to them, although a very powerful one, rather than a person.
"Listen," he said, thinking hard. "First I've got to know more about rats where they live, how they act and especially, how this all started. What's going on here, anyway? Is there a war, or what?"
The raccoon again answered for the others. "The war hasn't really begun, not with real fighting, it hasn't. But it's only a matter of time. The brown rats have lived in the town dump of that human village near here for years, stealing from humans, destroying stored food, but never coming very far out of town. We don't have anything to do with them as a rule. If one comes out here into the real country, and once in a while one will, he doesn't last long. They almost always come at night."
"Not if I see them, they don't," said Soft Wing with a click of his curved beak. "Or Death Grip, my big cousin with the ears." All the animals flinched a little at this, even Stamper. The great horned owl, Soft Wing's cousin, feared absolutely nothing, not even the fearful smell of the skunk, and he was so strong and terrible that he was dreaded by the entire forest.
"Don't worry," said Soft Wing, noticing and rather enjoying the fright he had caused. "He'll be with us when he's needed. He's been observing the truce just like the rest of us."
"Anyway," continued Scratch, "the owls, and us too, killed any lone rats we ever saw outside the human village. Lately though, they have been coming out scouting in big gangs at night. Sometimes fifty or more, all fighters. That's too many for even the biggest of us to tackle alone. They weigh as much as five pounds apiece, and they aren't afraid to fight. Almost every night for the last two moons, they've sent at least one mob this size out of town, first on one side and then on the other."
"But why?" the boy asked. "Why don't they just stay in the dump?"
"We don't know," said Stamper. "It's one of the things we don't understand about them. But they want to move out and take over. We have too much evidence not to be sure what they plan to do. They talk to the other animals, brag a lot at times. It means just one thing: They plan to take over The Lot, the woods, everything!"
Stamper paused, then added, "They don't come from this land, you know. They're like the mice that already live in your house, coming from over the big water someplace. They've been here a while, but they won't ever belong here."
Alec looked at him with interest. The complete menace in the news about the rats hadn't really sunk in yet, but he felt this handsome new ally had a clear way of putting things, even things hard to understand.
"Were you the skunk I heard yesterday?" said Alec. "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you apart, at least not yet."
"No, that was my uncle," said Stamper. "He's pretty old and slow, and when he finally realized you had heard him, he was already far away in the woods. He didn't like the idea of your hearing him at all, but he came and told me anyway. He knew we were all looking for a human who could talk, but it made him so nervous he went back to his hole and lay down. Probably still there. He's a bit old-fashioned. 'Talking humans,' he said. 'What next, talking trees?' "
"Never mind your uncle," broke in Scratch rudely. "Listen, Watcher, did you learn anything while you were lying down, or did you just dream, or what? Can you really help us? We all like you, you know, but still, there it is we need help badly."
"I have to learn some more first, myself," said Alec. "How did you get to me, instead of someone else? What made you organize this truce? And I still don't see why a human is needed. All of you here, except Whisperfoot, could probably kill a lot of rats, all by yourselves."
"Yes, that's so," said Scratch. The big raccoon paused for a moment before speaking, as if trying to put his thoughts in order. "Look, we woods animals don't think the way the dump rats do. They all think together, move together, work together, and fight together. We just can't do that, not by ourselves. So we were told to try and get a human to help us. We have to have someone to keep us from arguing all the time, to make us be sensible and concentrate on the rats and not go off about our own private businesses. The truce in the wood is as far as we can go alone. Even at that, we have lots of trouble enforcing it. But we know we animals all have to stand together or the rats will smash us, because they stand together. Do you see?"
"I think so," said Alec. He saw indeed why the Spirit of the Wood needed another planner, a directing brain. The boy was still contemptuous of the rats, however, and felt the task a rather easy one. "Now look," he said, "I've got to get back home. When can I meet you all next, so we can talk?"
"Remember the bank of the stream where we gave you your talking lesson?" When Alec had said yes, Scratch went on. "Go upstream, to your left, and after a short walk you'll come to a clump of big fir trees, very close together. We'll be in the middle of that, waiting for you. When do you think you can come?"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," said Soft Wing. "That's my roost, my place there. Why there?"
"Why do you think I picked that place?" the raccoon said. "You can't fly in the daylight you're too blind; and this way you can meet with us and not have to move. Four other birds nest in that tree anyway. Who said you owned it?"
"That's fine," said Alec hastily, for Soft Wing was ruffling his feathers again and was obviously about to retort in a cutting manner. "I'll be there, I hope, by the middle of the afternoon, and I should have some good ideas by then. But now I have to get home."
Stuffer promptly got up and led the way out of the circle, into the clearing and up the path, with Scratch bringing up the rear. The skunk and the owl simply left. Animals do not usually say "Good-bye." Their lives are too uncertain and too subject to change to use the idea of leave-taking. If they are
going to see you again, they will try to be at whatever meeting place they have arranged. No one is ever blamed for lateness. Who knows what may have kept him? Perhaps he narrowly escaped death only seconds before.
The stars were still bright enough to give light for the boy to pick his way from tree to tree of the old orchard. He finally reached the house, eased open the French doors of the library and slid inside. At this point the pinch of tiny claws on his earlobe told him that the deermouse was no happier to be inside the house than she had been before.
"Don't worry," he said silently. "There's no one around. I'll look after you."
"There is so someone around," she said. "That stupid cat is asleep in a chair right over there. He may be half-witted but he still might try something if he saw me." Alec looked and saw that she was right. Worthless lay sprawled in an old spool chair near the fireplace, his eyes shut, his tail over his face. His even breathing was quite audible now that the outside door was shut.
Alec stole a look at the mantle clock. It said two minutes of three. He moved cautiously toward the door, one eye on the slumbering cat, and reaching the knob, slowly turned it. Only the tiniest scratching sound broke the silence of the big, dark room as the door slowly opened. Worthless lay immobile, all his feline faculties apparently useless. Alec slid through the narrow opening he had created and closed the door as silently as he had opened it.
Behind him in the library, two great yellow eyes stared at the door, blinked once, then opened again. A set of excellent claws, white and gleaming, were stretched from their owner's front paws, inspected and resheathed. The big cat wondered to himself if the young human had realized that the library door was not completely shut when he had gone out.
Worthless yawned smugly. This looked as if it would be an interesting summer after all.
The War for the Lot Page 6
