The Familiars

by Adam Jay Epstein

  “Look at how kind and peaceful she appeared to be then,” said Skylar.

  “I don’t care how nice she looks, she gives me the willies,” said Gilbert.

  “Well, a picture of her isn’t going to hurt us,” replied Skylar. “In fact, this seems like a good place to spend the night. The roof sticks out far enough should it begin to rain, and we’ll be protected from the wind as well.”

  “Sleep here? Under her?” asked Gilbert. “Are you crazy? No way. I don’t care how warm and sheltered we are.”

  Aldwyn agreed. Although Gilbert’s fear was irrational, there was something unsettling about cozying up beneath Queen Loranella’s image when she had Jack in her grip.

  Looking around, he spied a pet-sized entrance cut into the wall beside the inn’s front door, big enough for a cat or a small dog to pass through. A leather flap covered the hole on the inside.

  “This looks welcoming,” said Aldwyn, gesturing to the animal entryway.

  He stepped up and pawed aside the flap for a look inside. Skylar and Gilbert peered in next to him. This wasn’t one of the finer lodgings, like those Aldwyn had scavenged through in Bridgetower. It was plain and simple. But sometimes plain and simple was all that was needed. An innkeeper sat behind the counter reviewing a ledger, while an elderly man, most likely her husband, sat in a large chair before a crackling fire. A set of stairs led up to the rooms.

  “Before we go in there, I think it’s important to remember that we’re being hunted by the queen,” said Skylar. “No one can know our true identities. We must pose as common animals, magicless and ordinary.”

  Skylar didn’t realize how absurd her suggestion sounded to Aldwyn. She was asking him to pretend to be the cat he really was.

  “Although it’s going to be difficult,” continued Skylar, “we need to portray ourselves as street vermin, both uneducated and foolish.” She gave a glance over to Gilbert and his bulging eyes. “Then again, maybe it won’t be so difficult for you.”

  “Very funny,” said Gilbert, none too amused by her teasing.

  As they prepared to push through the flap, Aldwyn noticed that Skylar was slouching, bending over awkwardly.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Poor posture,” she replied. “Makes me look more common.”

  Aldwyn had to keep himself from rolling his eyes.

  The familiars entered the inn’s lobby, where the elderly man was mid-conversation with the innkeeper. “The carpet trader staying in room three said his wagon got swallowed whole. Said if he hadn’t jumped off when he did, he would have been eaten, too. Thought it was a sandtaur.”

  “That’s the third border monster sighting this week,” replied the innkeeper.

  “Last time things from the Beyond were trespassing into Vastia, I was just a boy. That was right before the Dead Army Uprising.”

  “I’m sure the queen has everything under control,” said the innkeeper.

  “Meow,” purred Aldwyn, trying to get their attention. He put on his most sympathetic and wide-eyed face. “Meow.”

  The innkeeper peeked over her glasses and stared down at Aldwyn standing on the floor before her. “Oh my,” she said sweetly. “Aren’t you adorable!”

  Then she gave a sideways glance to Skylar and Gilbert. “And what strange company you’re keeping.” She turned to the stairs and called, “Tammy! You’ve got some playmates here.”

  After a moment, an orange and white plains cat came down the steps. She was slightly smaller than Aldwyn, with hazel eyes and a curvy tail. Aldwyn’s eyes went even wider.

  “Well, hello there,” said the cat with a friendly smile. “I’m Tammy. You sure are traveling late tonight. Where are you folks coming from?”

  Skylar and Gilbert just stood there; clearly neither was experienced in lying. Aldwyn came to the rescue.

  “Oh, we met up along the main road yesterday. Decided to join together, for there is safety in numbers. A small animal alone out there is putting himself in a lot of danger. Skylar here got separated from her flock, migrating toward the mountains. Gilbert is collecting flies to take back to his family in the swamps. And me, I’m just a regular alley cat from Bridgetower. I got chased out of town by a ruthless bounty hunter. I’ve been on the run ever since.”

  “Well, you’ll be comfortable here,” said Tammy, clearly taking a liking to Aldwyn. “Follow me out to the barn.”

  Aldwyn, Skylar, and Gilbert all exchanged a quick glance before heading back out through the flap, right behind Tammy.

  “Very convincing,” Skylar complimented Aldwyn with a whisper. “Especially that part about you and the bounty hunter. Genius.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know where I come up with this stuff,” he replied.

  Tammy walked them around the back of the inn, past a pile of furnace soot and into a large stable, where two stallions, a pink-bellied pig, and a couple of chickens were already sleeping in the open stalls.

  “Make yourselves comfortable,” said Tammy. “The innkeeper always leaves scraps out by the back door.”

  “We really appreciate your help,” said Aldwyn.

  “There’s a nest up there for you,” said Tammy to Skylar, “and some haystacks and blankets over there if you like,” she added to Aldwyn and Gilbert. “Now, would any of you like a warm cup of milk before bed?”

  “Oh, no, dairy makes my puddle viewings foggy,” said Gilbert. Skylar glared at him, shooting daggers from her eyes, and he realized his mistake. “Not that I’m a magical, soothsaying frog or anything. No, not me. I can’t see the future—”

  A wing muffled any further words coming out of his mouth.

  “You’ll have to excuse him,” said Skylar. “He bumped his head when he was a tadpole.”

  Aldwyn turned to Tammy. “I’d love some milk,” he said in his most charming voice. She smiled at him and led him out of the barn.

  The two cats strolled back toward the inn, beneath the stars, passing windows with snoring guests sleeping inside.

  “I don’t think I got your name,” said Tammy.

  “Oh, it’s Aldwyn.”

  “Aldwyn, the alley cat,” she purred. “All the way from Bridgetower. So, what’s it like in the big city?”

  “It’s a pretty dangerous place. I didn’t lose this chunk of my ear chasing yarn.”

  “House cats like me don’t see too much trouble,” said Tammy, clearly thrilled by the whiff of danger. “What did you do to get run out of town?”

  “I got caught stealing,” said Aldwyn. “A fishmonger got wise to me, and he sent the meanest bounty hunter in all of Vastia after me.”

  How refreshing it was to be able to speak the truth for once. Looking into Tammy’s eyes, he could tell that she didn’t care that he couldn’t move objects with his mind or cast a spell.

  “Didn’t someone leave food out for you every day?” she asked.

  “I wish. I’ve been scrapping for meals for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was a baby kitten.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “I never knew them,” said Aldwyn sincerely, a hint of sadness in his voice. “The streets were probably hard enough on them without an extra mouth to feed.”

  “Stories like that just break my heart.”

  “It worked out okay for me. Taught me to rely on myself. In the end, that’s really the only thing you can count on.”

  Tammy moved closer to Aldwyn, her fur almost grazing his. They continued on in silence for a while.

  “Where are you headed from here?” Tammy asked, clearly wishing for an invitation.

  “We’re all taking the ferry out in the morning. Making our way to—” Aldwyn hesitated. He knew he couldn’t tell her about the Mountain Alchemist or the Sunken Palace. It would put all of them at risk, including Tammy. “Friendlier shores,” he said simply.

  “You’ve got a friend right here.”

  The two of them shared a smile, and Aldwyn’s stomach did a little somersault. Then Tammy stopped. They had
walked past the inn and reached the river’s edge. She looked around.

  “I completely forgot what we came out here for,” she said.

  “Milk.”

  “Right. We walked clear past it. Sorry about that.”

  Tammy bashfully turned her head and led them back toward the inn. But Aldwyn didn’t need an apology. The midnight heart-to-heart had been a welcome escape from pretending to be a familiar and worrying about Jack and the queen. In fact, he would have been happy to keep on walking.

  A splash of cold water landed on his fur. Then another. He was shivering. Wet. The sound of a kitten crying. Was it coming from him or someone else? He saw the blue, cloudless sky above him. Then he heard a voice, as if it were inside his head. Sweet and tender. “Good-bye, Aldwyn . . .”

  “Aldwyn, Aldwyn,” a female voice repeated as he was shaken out of his dream. Aldwyn’s eyes half opened, and he saw Tammy standing over him. “Aldwyn, wake up.”

  Aldwyn could see the faint light shining in through the cracks of the barn. It was almost dawn, which meant that sunrise was near. He thought back on the dream he had just been pulled from. It had been different from the recurring one he had last had on the roof in Stone Runlet. That voice. The crying. New mysteries for him to ponder some other time.

  He got his bearings and looked up at Skylar, still sleeping in the nest, then over at Gilbert, also fast asleep, nuzzled up next to the pink-bellied pig. Tammy slid a piece of paper in front of Aldwyn.

  “This was left under the door for the innkeeper,” she said. “They’ve been posted everywhere.”

  Aldwyn looked down at the flyer and saw a rough but unmistakable sketch of Skylar, Gilbert, and himself with the word Wanted written above their pictures. The text written below read:

  Queen Loranella demands the capture of these three animals. Dead or alive. A handsome reward will be paid directly from the palace vault upon the delivery of their bodies.

  A sense of dread washed over him.

  “This is all over a piece of stolen fish?” asked Tammy.

  “It’s a little more complicated than that. Skylar, Gilbert, we have to go. Get up!” His call was so urgent Skylar immediately popped out of the nest. Gilbert awoke more slowly, then did a double take, finding himself being spooned by the pig.

  “Aldwyn, you can trust me,” said Tammy. “I just want to help.”

  “I know,” he replied, “but the less you know, the better. I don’t want to put you in any more danger than you’re already in.”

  “What’s going on?” asked Skylar before falling silent upon seeing the Wanted poster.

  Gilbert started complaining about not really being as fat as the picture made him look, but Tammy interrupted him. “What is this all about?”

  Aldwyn gave in. There really was no reason to keep the truth from her any longer, and they needed all the help they could get. He quickly recounted how they were familiars searching for their loyals, how the queen and her soldiers attacked them in Stone Runlet, and how they had less than two days to reach the Sunken Palace before it was too late. Her eyes grew bigger and bigger with every added detail.

  When he had finished, Tammy had a new look of determination in her hazel eyes. “Follow me,” she said, taking control of the situation.

  Tammy led them to the main road in front of the inn. It was already busy with merchants and tradesmen heading through town. More troubling was the fact that nailed to every door and horse post was the Wanted poster. With a rich bounty on their heads, Aldwyn knew that hundreds of eyes would soon be looking for them.

  Skylar was thinking along the same lines. “There’s no way we can make it to the ferry landing without being caught,” she said.

  Two rug merchants who had just finished reading one of the posters were walking right toward them, but before the animals could be spotted, Tammy led them under the inn’s porch and out of sight. She ducked down beside Aldwyn.

  “This is all rather exciting,” she said.

  “Is anybody else’s tongue sweating?” asked Gilbert. The others just looked back at him blankly. “Okay, I guess it’s just a frog thing.”

  Aldwyn took a breath. “Maybe we’re overreacting. I mean, these aren’t trained hunters. They’re just carpet traders.”

  The words had barely passed his whiskers when a pair of black leather boots stopped right before the porch. Bronze spikes tipped the toes. Aldwyn knew these boots. He peeked out to see an ominous figure standing not eight tail lengths away.

  It was Grimslade.

  The notorious Vastian bounty hunter held the Wanted poster in his hand, his crossbow at the ready. Aldwyn should have known that Grimslade would not be able to resist such a prize, such a challenge, but how could he have tracked them all the way here? And so quickly? Unless, of course, the Wanted posters were already in Bridgetower.

  Skylar and Gilbert had by now also taken a peek at the claw-scarred man cloaked in black.

  “He looks a lot meaner than the other merchants,” said Gilbert.

  “That’s because he’s no merchant,” said Skylar. “He’s a bounty hunter.”

  Aldwyn wondered how she knew. But he didn’t even have to ask for an explanation.

  “See that dangling from his waist,” she said to the others. “It’s an Olfax tracking snout.”

  There, hanging by a gold chain, was a wolf’s nose that had been sliced clean off the face of its unfortunate owner. The nostrils were sniffing the air, as if following the scent of its game. No doubt this forbidden tool was another of Grimslade’s illegal purchases from the Sewer Markets, like the shadow hound before. A moment later, the bronze-tipped boots walked up the steps of the inn and entered the building, mistakenly following the snout onto the porch, not under it.

  “We should make a run for the ferry,” said Skylar.

  “We’ll never make it,” said Aldwyn. “Not with all these people out here looking for us.”

  Then Tammy spoke up: “I’ve got an idea. Let’s get back to the barn.”

  The four of them made a dash for the stable. Tammy had them stop by the pile of furnace soot and ordered Aldwyn to roll around in it. Aldwyn immediately caught on to her plan, and he smiled. “You’re a clever kitten!” He jumped right into the soot and did two rollovers. When he stood up, his fur was a light gray.

  Once inside the barn, Tammy turned her attention to Gilbert.

  “Your disguise is going to be a little uncomfortable,” she said.

  Before Gilbert could protest, Tammy grabbed a bucket from the pig’s trough and began covering Gilbert in a thin layer of cornmeal paste.

  “Skylar, gather up some stray chicken feathers from the coop,” she said. “And, Aldwyn, we could really use a carrot.”

  Gilbert stood there dripping in yellow sludge. He licked a little off his hand.

  “Not bad,” he said.

  Skylar came back and pressed feathers into the sticky cornmeal. After a few trips from the coop to Gilbert, she had succeeded. Gilbert looked like a short white chicken. Tammy placed the carrot stick Aldwyn had found on the frog’s nose for a beak.

  “Now Skylar, you’re roughly the same size as a cardinal, right?” said Tammy with a mischievous grin. “If we dunked you in tomato juice—”

  “Tempting, but I think I’ll fly across the river instead,” Skylar said quickly.

  As much as everybody would have liked her to join them in costume, she had a point. Besides, they had a ferry to catch! The now unrecognizable Aldwyn and Gilbert, along with Skylar and Tammy, crept out of the barn and darted from building to building before coming to a stop behind the tannery. Between them and the ferry landing, where just a few passengers remained on shore waiting to board, was a wide stretch of road, a busy crossing that was sure to test if their disguises would work.

  “We need to split up here,” said Aldwyn. “Skylar, fly ahead without us, and Gilbert and I will meet up with you where the ferry docks on the other side of the river.”

  She nodded.

  �
��I wish I could come with you,” said Tammy, stepping closer to Aldwyn, “but I don’t know what help I’d be. There’s probably not much use on a magical mission for a regular cat like me.”

  Little did she know how alike they really were! Aldwyn promised himself that one day he would tell her the whole truth.

  “Thank you. For everything,” he said.

  Tammy nuzzled his neck, getting a few specks of gray soot on her nose.

  “You should hurry,” Skylar said. “The last people are boarding the ferry.”

  “Good luck,” Tammy called as Aldwyn and Gilbert stepped out onto the road.

  The two moved swiftly along the path crowded with traders and their horses. Aldwyn led the way, while Gilbert tried to keep up behind him.

  “Quit hopping,” said Aldwyn.

  “Oops,” said the feathered frog, changing his bounce to a waddle. “I forgot.”

  Gilbert was hardly the most convincing chicken. Not only were his movements highly questionable, but the feathers on his body kept making him sneeze.

  To make matters worse, now a small gang of townsfolk was marching in their direction.

  “The cat, over there!” a voice called out, but then the mob moved right past them.

  “I saw it heading for the tavern,” continued the same voice as they turned the corner.

  Aldwyn relaxed. Their disguises, as makeshift as they were, seemed to be serving their purpose.

  But just as they had reached the ferry landing and pushed in between a crowd of driftfolk and miners, Grimslade appeared again, led by the wolf’s nose. Aldwyn looked over his shoulder and saw that it was homing in on them, the snout breathing excitedly and tugging at its chain. Gilbert glanced back and saw Grimslade getting closer.

  “It’s the bounty hunter,” he croaked nervously.

  Up ahead, dockhands were beginning to close the railing on the back of the ferry.

  “The rest of you will have to wait until the high sun crossing,” announced a dockhand to the remaining travelers.