8. The palace (III)

He awoke slowly from a dreamless sleep, disoriented by the darkness in the room and by the fact that he could not at first remember where he was or how he had come to be there. As his eyes made out, in the gray light seeping under the door, the contours of the room where he lay, his memory began to retrieve scattered fragments of the events of the day before, but for some time the pieces refused to gather themselves into anything resembling a coherent whole. For the time being, owing no doubt to his residual grogginess and exhaustion, this failure did not bother him much. He might well have drifted off again, had it not been for the discomfort of a severely parched throat and mouth, which at last drove him to sit up and locate the carafe. When he had drained the contents he rose, made his way to the water-closet, returned to the bed to lace on his shoes, and opened the door into the hall.

Though there were no windows in the vicinity of the room it was evident that it was day; from somewhere far off a muffled echo of sunlight was penetrating the gallery. The lanterns had all gone out, or been extinguished, while he slept. With no one in sight and no sound other than the dull reverberation of his footfalls, he began to walk, reversing the course he had taken the night before, undoing turns until he came to the long gallery on the building's perimeter. Here the full glare of the day shone upon him through the great arrays of windows. He looked out and saw that he was much higher up than he had imagined. Far below him, neat rows of trees paralleled the building in either direction; further out there was a narrow canal, another plantation of trees, and then green cropland, perfectly level and broken only by a rigorous geometry of irrigation trenches which receded from his eye to a vanishing point unseen. The distant mountains, now largely obscured by haze, loomed well beyond it all. From the angle of the sun he judged that it was already midday.

He walked along beneath the windows, passing one deserted branching gallery after another, until he heard sounds coming from somewhere ahead, something like furniture being scraped along a floor, and doors being opened and shut. He veered to the right, following the sound, then to the left, and soon found himself at the entrance to a large room, in which some thirty or so men and women were seated around a long table made of dark, highly polished wood, chatting amongst themselves and sharing a plain but abundant spread of bread, fowl, and greens, washed down with the contents of unmarked glass bottles of wine. To the right, on a raised platform, was a smaller dais, placed perpendicularly to the rest of the room. A lone figure, elderly but still to all appearances hale, was seated behind it, surveying the room in silence and picking halfheartedly at his plate. On a perch behind him, unteathered and alert, was a tiny, immaculate white owl no bigger than a man's hand.

He saw no sign of Mira, but at his approach one of the men broke off his conversation, rose, greeted Oren briefly, and ushered him to a seat. A plate and cutlery were in place in front of him; Oren poured himself a glass of wine, heaped his plate with a little of whatever was in reach, and began to eat without hurry, looking around the room at the company that surrounded him. Aside from an occasional nod or glance in his direction they continued as before and paid no particular heed to his presence. Much of their banter he could make no sense of — it seemed to be in a tongue he didn't speak — and what he could understand was evidently concerned with trivialities, or at any rate he could find no great consequence in the mingled threads of conversation that reached his ears. All present, including the older man whom he took for his host, were dressed in like fashion, in unadorned but well-made clothing similar in style to the simple frock that Mira had worn the night before.

When all the diners had finished eating, a crew of children — boys and girls, ten or twelve years in age — swept in and cleared the table, efficiently and in silence, leaving only the wine, then just as swiftly vanished from the room. The conversation dimmed at first to whispers, then to an expectant hush, as all eyes now turned towards the end of the room furthest from the dais, the presiding host, and the diminutive bird of prey. All at once, unheralded, two young men entered the room, strode abruptly to the dais, and came to a halt before the old man, who regarded them impassively. As soon as they had both snapped to attention a third figure appeared through the same doorway, carrying with both hands a long lance fashioned from gleaming and lethal steel. As he crossed through the room Oren saw that the head of the lance was covered in what appeared to be fresh blood, and in fact as the young man passed in front of Oren a single drop fell from it and burst upon the marble floor.

When he reached the dais the bearer of the lance took his place between his fellows, directly in front of the old man, and held the weapon out before him in the upturned palms of his hands. The old man stared at him intently but gave no command. When this standoff had lasted for a minute or more the young man suddenly stepped forward sharply, laid the lance on the white tablecloth of the dais, then stepped back. Immediately all three young men turned to one side and strode away, exiting where they had entered. No one except Oren watched them go.

The silent interval that followed must have lasted, by Oren's reckoning, a good ten minutes. Save for the owl, which shifted restlessly on its perch, blinking and swiveling its head to regard first one side of the room and then the other, no one moved, and all eyes remained on the dais and the bloody lance. He was getting a bit tired of this when at last the old man rose stiffly from his chair and raised his hands in a gesture that might have been one of resignation or dismissal. The company evidently took it for the latter, for at once they rose and departed, alone or in twos and threes, ignoring Oren as they left. The old man had stepped into the crowd and Oren did not see him go out.

He remained in his chair until he was alone; then he got up and made to leave, but at the last moment he changed his mind, turned, and approached the dais. He could see that the blood from the lance had seeped onto the tablecloth, staining it a violent red. The owl looked blankly at him as if awaiting an inquiry, but Oren said nothing.

June 12, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Chris Kearin. All rights reserved.

7. The palace (II)

It took several moments for the apparition to resolve itself into the form of a young woman, dressed in white and bearing a lantern as she advanced quickly towards them. When at last she stood before him, he saw that she was quite pretty, but this impression did not contradict the simultaneous realization that she was also entirely ordinary, in fact that she might have been, in appearance, the most perfectly plain young woman he had ever seen. There was nothing remote or forbidding about her looks, and her loveliness, if loveliness she could be said to have, did not result from the presence of strikingly beautiful features, but from their complete absence, in a face that seemed as natural and effortless as a swallow in flight or the last hour of summer. She had straight, shoulder-length dark brown hair, and brown eyes, he thought, though it was hard to be sure in the poor light. In any case, her unforced smile and relaxed demeanor, as she paused a moment before speaking, conveyed her benign intentions.

“Good evening, Lucinda,” she said, looking, however, at him rather than her.

“Good evening, Miranda,” the cat replied, with what he thought might have been the barest detectable hint of mockery. “Miranda, this is Oren.“

“Yes,” was her only answer, and Oren could not decide from her tone whether in doing so she meant to indicate foreknowledge or simply her acceptance of Lucinda's information.

“Oren,” the cat continued, punctiliously, “this is Miranda.”

“Such formality, Lucinda. It's Mira,” she confided, addressing him, “that's what everyone calls me.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mira.” Though these were the first words he had spoken, he instantly felt at ease in her presence, as if a friendly alliance between them — and perhaps in some way against the cat — had already been cemented.

“There's a room ready. It's not far.”

Already she had done an about-face, and the three of them were continuing along the gallery, Lucinda and the young woman flanking him on either side. They passed another deserted corridor on the right in silence, but upon the appearance of another Mira gestured in that direction and they changed course. After another few minutes, and another bend to the right, they arrived at an unmarked wooden door in an otherwise featureless hallway. Mira grasped the knob, turned it, and ushered him in, though she herself remained on the outside, holding the lantern aloft so he could see.

The room was small, but didn't feel uncomfortably so, in part because there was so little in it. To one side was a simple pinewood bed with a single pillow, a blanket and sheet, both of which were neatly turned down, and a nightstand with an unlit lantern, a cut-glass carafe of water, a single glass cup, and — to his joy — a silver tray bearing a round loaf of dark bread, a wedge of cheese, a knife, and a bowl of grapes. In the far corner of the room, in an alcove that lay mostly in shadow, he could see a towel, a basin of water, and a water-closet. There were no windows.

He stood just inside the doorway, mute, until Mira stepped into the room, lit the dark lantern — he could not tell exactly how — and exited again. The lantern cast a faint but sufficient light, illuminating a pale, greenish wallpaper with an almost imperceptible geometric print.

“Do you need anything else?” she asked hospitably, seeing that he still hesitated. He shook his head, having to admit to himself that the room, as far as he could see, appeared to lack for nothing that mattered at that particular moment.

“Goodnight, then,” she said, brushed past him out into the hall, and stood by Lucinda, who had been peeking into the room but had not crossed its threshold.

“What about you? Where are you sleeping?”

“I won't be sleeping just yet. There are some matters that require my attention, but our paths will meet again soon, I promise. Perhaps not in the morning, but soon. Mira will look after you.”

The young woman's smile and nod of agreement only partly relieved the anxiety he felt as the pair of them began to walk away. He watched them until he could no longer make out their shadows or the swaying halo of their lantern, then he retreated inside and shut the door. For a moment he simply sat on the edge of the bed, too exhausted and overwhelmed to think or move, until hunger and thirst got the better of him; then he reached for the carafe, filled the cup, drank, and began, determinedly but without hurry, to devour every morsel of the food that had been left for him.

When he had finished he washed it all down with another long drink, then sank onto the bed, not bothering to undress or climb under the covers. He took a brief stab at making sense of the day's events, which, he was sure, ought to provide ample material for reflection, but he soon found that it was all drifting away, that his waning consciousness was only capable of holding one thought, namely how to extinguish the lantern that shone a few inches from his face. Just as he fell asleep he became dimly aware that it had flickered out on its own.

May 28, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Chris Kearin. All rights reserved.

6. The palace (I)

At the approach of dusk the road entered a long plantation of aspens. The air was noticeably cooler now, and a bit of wind was rustling the leaves. On their left, burnished by the declining sun, a broad muddy stream was churning past, as if urging them to quicken their pace. They crossed over a little stone bridge, beneath which a narrow channel separated itself from the stream, heading off to the right and out of the grove, into what appeared, in the distance, to be ripening fields of wheat. He saw no sign of anyone working the fields or heading homewards after a day's labor; but a kingfisher, perched on a low outlying branch at streamside, regarded them — rather balefully he thought — as they came over the bridge.

Lucinda plodded on, a stride ahead of him. For the first time she looked weary; her head had sunk down to the level of her shoulders, and she took no interest in the terrain along the road. Though it was, he reflected, rather late in the game to begin asking where they were going, he was emboldened to inquire where they would spend the night.

“We're almost there,” was all she would let on.

In fact it was not long before he detected the outline of an immense form looming ahead of them in the last twilight. A few moments later they emerged out of the grove into a clearing, and stood at one corner of a vast structure, intricately but harmoniously wrought from stone and glass, whose full extent he could not at that hour determine. Surrounded by a wide, empty plaza, palisades of thick marble columns supported a high balcony that encircled the building, sheltering an open portico beneath. Above the balcony, great walls of stone, interrupted by tall and slender windows, rose another hundred feet or more into the air, until they came to an end at the lowest reach of the gently curving copper roof whose summit he could not see. At the corner, immediately before them, a series of wide steps, made from a lighter marble than the building walls, rose to an arched entranceway that was weakly lit by the orange glow of a pair of bell-shaped lamps on either side.

The cat rested quietly at his side as he stood open-mouthed for several minutes, looking down first one long wall and then the other, craning his neck to gaze up at the heights. Here and there, in a regular pattern, pale light seemed to be shining through some of the windows, though it provided scant illumination to the plaza beyond. Other than the whispering of the aspen leaves and the faint murmur of the encircling stream, there was no sound.

When the time came he did not need Lucinda's prompting to begin the ascent of the steps. She let him go first, but remained closely at his heels. Though his weariness from their two days' journey had largely dissipated as he stood in the cool of the plaza, he found the brief climb surprisingly strenuous. When he reached the top he turned and looked down at the dimly lit grove and the blackness beyond. She waited by his side until he was ready to go in. As he stepped through the doorway — there was no door — he glanced at the great glass lamps, and was perplexed to find that he could see no obvious source to explain their faint but steady glow.

Once inside, he peered in semi-darkness down a long, deserted gallery, intermittently lit by the receding halos of a series of smaller lamps, set in niches built into the walls, whose light was insufficient to permit him to see as far as the gallery's end. The arched ceiling, twenty feet above, was decorated in an intricate, apparently abstract pattern, the details of which he could not clearly make out. The slight chill he had felt on the plaza fell away, as the air inside the gallery was noticeably warmer than outside, and in fact seemed to be flowing in a slow current through the doorway behind them. The murmurs from the grove were entirely hushed, and except for his footfalls (the cat's made no sound in any case) there was utter silence.

They began to walk slowly. Lucinda, for the moment, allowing him to set their pace. After thirty steps or so, as they passed along the rows of windows on their left, a second corridor opened to their right, perpendicular to their own and indistinguishable from it in form; a further fifty paces brought another. The length of the building remained impossible to gauge, as darkness continued to obscure the distant depths of the gallery, but the astonishing regularity and harmony with which it was constructed were already evident. For all its incalculable size, there was nothing oppressive or ponderous about the architecture that enveloped them; every chamber, every window, was proportionate to the whole, but intimate and sufficient in its own space. Even the absolute blackness of night visible through the windowpanes seemed to form part of the composition.

“What is this place?” he asked the cheetah, at last.

“It is the palace of the King of Night, and we are his guests.”

She offered no more, and he decided it was enough of an answer for the moment. They continued for some time, without further conversation, until a slight increase in the surrounding illumination drew his attention to the approach of yet another passageway leading to their right. The intersecting gallery was wider and higher than the one they were walking along, and as he peered down it he saw that it almost immediately opened out into a large chamber of white marble. At a nod from the cat, he turned in this direction.

The chamber was deserted and utterly bare of any adornment or furnishing. The vaulted ceiling, luminous and austere above them, displayed no element of the elaborate motif that had, until that point, looked down on them during their passage through the palace. His footsteps muffled by the dome, Oren strode to the center.

In each of the four corners of the room a dozen steps curved to a landing, from which another stairway spiraled above into spaces unseen. Choosing the exit to the left, nearest to the point where they had come in, they climbed the steps, turned, then climbed again. The light in the stairwell was dim, as the only illumination came from a single small lamp at each level. As they rose from summit to summit, Oren and even Lucinda began to labor under the effort, and it seemed to him that the unaccustomed confinement within the narrow space was not much to her liking. He judged that they had ascended three stories, and perhaps a fourth, when they at last emerged into another vaulted room, distinguishable from the one below only by the downward direction of its outlets. They found the windowed gallery along the outside wall, shook off their fatigue as best they could, and resumed their original heading. The disappointment of having to traverse yet another apparently endless and empty corridor was just beginning to slow his steps, and to dull his senses, when he noticed a faint moving light coming towards them through the darkness ahead.

May 23, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Chris Kearin. All rights reserved.

5. The road (III)

They travelled until the last remnant of twilight was extinguished and it was no longer possible for him, or even the dogs, to make out the cat's pale fur just a few yards ahead. Sensing that they were lagging behind, she halted and let them approach. She seemed lost in thought for a moment, but then made her decision:

“Well, we'll have to stop here.”

There was no shelter, and no question of a fire this time. They stepped off the causeway onto the softer grass bordering the lake and sat down, the dogs a little restlessly at first until exhaustion got the better of them and they stretched out, yawning and shifting about in search of the least uncomfortable position. Oren lay down on his back, knees raised, head turned to the waterside, where the occasional rising and rolling of unseen fish produced the only sound other than the dogs' gentle and regular respiration. As his lids began to close he felt Lucinda settle at his side.

“Tomorrow you'll sleep in a proper bed,” he heard, though he could not say if it was her voice speaking to him or his own thoughts as he fell into the embrace of sleep.

He awoke shivering in a foggy dawn, caressing the ear of Wawet, who was gazing up at him beatifically from where she lay nestled against him. The other two dogs were huddled around him as well; their mingled odors were not a bit pleasant but they were bearable at least in the open air. There was no sign of Lucinda, at first. It was only after Marta had risen from the pile, shaking herself off and attempting to set an example of canine aloofness, that the cheetah appeared out of the mist, walking towards them along the shore, a sizable carp gripped between her teeth. The dogs licked their chops in excitement but held back until she let her catch slide onto the ground at their feet; then they rushed at it greedily and ripped it apart in an instant, snarling as they fought for the tastiest morsels. Lucinda shook her head, but her disapproval quickly gave way to resignation.

“Their table manners are frightening,” she said, “but I suppose they can plead hunger. I can catch one for you as well, if you're interested.”

He might well have been, had it not been for the sight of Marta crunching up the bloody remains of the carp's forlorn head, slobbering and spraying bits of half-chewed fish as she bared her teeth at an encroaching Pharos. Lucinda drew the correct interpretation from his silence.

“No, well, I can't say I blame you. I daresay you'll survive; I have, and believe me I've gone many a day without a meal. We should get going, as soon as our friends are finished with their carnage.”

The dogs ignored her. They wolfed down every visible speck, bones and all, then avidly licked the bent-down grass where the carp had been butchered. Finally they pitched their bodies forward onto the spot, grunting and writhing on their backs. Lucinda was already walking away. Oren followed, glancing back to see the dogs at last rising heavily to their feet, intoxicated by their own gluttony. Marta snapped viciously at Wawet once more for the road, then cantered ahead to catch up.

The day's journey was without event. Though Oren glanced across now and then, no other travellers appeared on the far shore. They were approaching the end of the lake now, and the reeds had spread out into a great expanse on both sides of the causeway. A solitary white egret, standing motionless in the marsh, was the only witness to their passage. At midday Lucinda allowed them to rest and relieve their thirst. Marta took a long drink, then waded quietly out, froze, and lunged. She lowered her snout into the water and produced a wriggling brown crayfish. She brought it ashore, dropped it onto the causeway, held it down with one paw, and dispatched her prize in three noisy gulps, spitting out fragments of shell. At this Pharos and Wawet charged noisily into the water, hunting and thrashing frantically to no avail.

“Idiots,” Marta snapped at them, “you'll scare away everything that breathes. Get out.”

After the other dogs had sheepishly retreated to the causeway, Marta stepped into the marsh, cocked her head, leaned slowly to one side, and pounced again. She devoured her new prize with an icy glare of contempt towards the others, who were salivating a safe distance away, then returned for a third and a fourth after that. At last she let them back into the waters to try again. They had learned their lesson, and this time stalked the shallows patiently until they saw what they were looking for. Pharos struck, missed, then lunged desperately and hit the mark; he stepped cockily onto the causeway, let the crayfish drop, then yelped painfully as it nipped his paw. He seized it with fury, flung it hard on the ground, then scooped it up and crunched down hard, severing the creature in the middle and swallowing it with a grimace. He limped off a few yards to be by himself, trying to preserve the remaining shreds of his dignity.

Wawet, in the meantime, had emerged, wet and miserable and smelling even worse than usual. His efforts had only managed to muddy the water thoroughly, precluding further hunting for the present. He shook himself off, nosed up a broken fragment of carapace that Marta had discarded, licked out the scent with his pink tongue, then sat down alone, awkward and morose. Oren took pity on him, walked over, and laid a consoling hand on the dog's head; Wawet looked up gratefully and wagged his tail.

They walked on, mostly in silence, until late afternoon, when Oren looked behind him and saw that the dogs had stopped a few yards behind, Marta and Wawet resting on their haunches, Pharos standing alone a little off to one side. As Lucinda showed no sign of slowing, he caught up to her and asked what was wrong.

“It's as far as they go,” was her only explanation. As she did not break stride Oren walked alongside her for a few seconds, then jogged back.

“You're not coming?” he asked.

Wawet and Pharos avoided his glance, but Marta stared back at him and shook her head.

He stood there for a moment, reluctant to leave them, until the cat called his name. He caressed the brow of each dog in turn, and said “thank you,” though he couldn't have said for what.

When he had rejoined Lucinda again he looked back. The dogs remained in the same position, watching him, until they were swallowed by the horizon.

May 14, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Chris Kearin. All rights reserved.

4. The road (II)

The cheetah absented herself for a bit, he supposed to do her business, and when she returned let it be known that it was time to move on. She made no objection when the dogs, without waiting to be invited, shook off the dust and followed close behind. They gamboled about between Oren's strides, first one then another taking the lead, though Marta would now and then lunge and snap at her companions testily to make it clear who was boss. They had set out in the direction of the near shore of the lake, an opaque muddy green expanse in the morning sun. In daylight, as they descended from the knoll, he could see now that this body of water was much longer than it was across, and that a wide plain in fact separated it from the peaks that had appeared, in twilight, to descend right to its far edge. As they came onto level ground the lake disappeared from view for a time; in the otherwise featureless terrain he could tell, from the angle of their approach to the summits beyond, that they were continuing on the same course, though he didn't know whether the cat was taking her bearing by the same method or from other signs in the landscape that were unrecognizable to him.

After a half-hour's walk there was a subtle change in vegetation, the dry and brittle grass mixing with a low, loose tangle of waxy green vines that his feet shredded as they swung through. There was a new sound as well, the hoarse rasping and creaking of a numberless host of grasshoppers that flew up at the approach of the travellers and then settled again, a few yards away, to resume their song. The dogs slowed, peering intently into the weeds, and the cheetah, looking behind, cut her pace as well. First Pharos, then Marta, then finally Wawet pounced, then pounced again, until each had seized a struggling insect in their teeth. With a few quick crunches and grimaces they devoured their prey, then immediately began to stalk another.

Lucinda sat, watching the dogs, but made no move to share their repast. Oren stood, amused by the comical disproportion between the dogs' ferocious leaps and the size of their catch, until Pharos paused a moment in his hunting and suggested he join them.

“They say they're not bad, actually,” Lucinda chimed in. “You might as well. There'll be no other food today, in any case.”

His reservations overcome by hunger, he took up the chase, clumsily to begin with, until he seized hold of his first prize. He held the wriggling body up to his face, regarding it for a moment creature to creature, then closed his eyes as he popped the grasshopper between his teeth, crunching rapidly to suppress its furious motions. To his surprise, the taste was not nearly as repellant as he expected. The extremities were unpleasantly scratchy and dry, but he soon perfected a technique of nabbing an insect, severing its head with a quick bite, then removing the unpalatable wings and legs with his fingers at leisure before consuming the rest.

They slowly made headway as they hunted, the dogs and Oren joking and laughing as they crashed through the weeds and filled their bellies, until the cat began to draw ahead of them and they hastened to catch up. The lake was not far off now. The near shallows were lined, in both directions as far as he could see, with slender reeds whose tips were nodding in a halfhearted breeze. There a few small islands far out, a hundred yards long at most, and beyond them, near the opposite shore, a few waterfowl were floating on the waves. As they reached the water's edge, the dogs barrelled joyfully through the reeds, sending up great sheets of water, then paddled out and swam parallel to the shore for several minutes before emerging, exhausted, satisfied, and shaking water off their backs, to recline in the grass and dry in the sun. Lucinda took no part in their play, but did step down to the water for a long drink. He joined her, removing his shoes and wading in the soft mud nearby.

It was soon midday. Even along the water the sun was becoming intense and oppressive, but Lucinda did not let them rest for long. They skirted the reeds, heading north along what he was surprised to discover was a broad straight causeway that paralleled the shore. Here and there he saw wheeltracks in the dirt, but they were not new and already tiny spikes of grass were rising from the ruts where the earth had been scraped bare. The dogs were quieter now; they had fallen back a few yards and were travelling with heads lowered, panting in the heat. Now and then they would break off, cool themselves in the lake for a moment, then trot ahead until they had caught up again. The cheetah didn't bother, and kept to an even pace that Oren found he could manage as well, as long as he kept his mind focused on their journey and not on the heat.

In late afternoon, as the glare of the day began to cede to a hazy sunset, he caught sight of something moving towards them along the opposite shore, heading south. It was some time before he could make out what it was, or what it appeared to be: a great beast of burden, of a kind he had never before encountered, bearing a half dozen or so shrouded human figures on its back. The animal belonged to no order of quadruped known to him. Entirely coated in long, dark fur, it was several times the length of a horse, but of no greater girth. It moved with a ponderous, halting gait, though on account of the great length of its spindly legs it nevertheless covered ground quickly. The most peculiar thing about it was its long, whiskered head, which seemed equal parts rodent, canine, and bird, and bore an expression — as far as he could judge from the distance — of both fathomless sorrow and utter stupidity.

He tried to hail the riders, but it was impossible; no sound could travel across the lake's breadth, and they showed no sign of spying him and his companions. The dogs regarded the strange party with evident interest, but did not break stride. Lucinda, on the other hand, never gave them so much as a glance, and before long beast and riders had disappeared into the distance and the onrushing dark.

May 12, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Chris Kearin. All rights reserved.

3. The road (I)

A small runnel, no more than a few inches across, drained out of the pool. It quickly disappeared beneath the accumulated rubble on the canyon floor, but re-emerged, wider now, a hundred yards on. The cheetah stepped carefully around it, more fastidious than he about wetting her feet. For him the sensation of his shoes slapping on wet sand was a welcome relief after the hard miles of bruising stone. The first saplings appeared, anchored in cavities in the canyon walls where sudden flood waters could never reach, and little colonies of liverworts and moss hung on just above the waterline. A few gnats spiraled in the air, interrupting their frenzied dance as the man and the cat passed through, then resuming it again as soon as they were gone.

It took them most of what daylight hours remained to reach the bottom of the canyon. They were now walking on a broad grassy path, descending gently along a quick and shallow stream a yard across. The air was pleasantly cool and the walking easy enough, though he was worn down from the journey and lack of sustenance. Lucinda had slackened her pace measurably, keeping barely a stride ahead. She had not spoken again, nor had he, not even when they had rested, briefly, to take up water again. At length they were on level ground. The stream soon bent away from them and vanished through the late afternoon shadows into a copse of aspen, catkins bobbing on its surface. When they emerged from the woods, just at dusk, they came to a halt at the edge of a great uninterrupted grassland. Far in the distance ahead of them the sun was setting over dark high mountains. Judging from the reflection there seemed to be a body of water in their shadow, but it was impossible to tell its extent. Not a single tree or rooftop broke the plains; the prospect was terrible but also immensely beautiful.

The cat sat for some time sniffing the air and listening, one alert ear and then the other twitching lightly. A cool breeze was coming up, whistling softly through the blades of grass, and unseen insects were beginning their evening descants. Finally she stood, gestured to the right with her head, and said “this way,” moving on without further explanation. They hiked over featureless terrain for an hour or so, until they came to the slightest knoll in the plain. As they approached he caught an acrid whiff of ash, and when they were settled on the summit he saw that there were the remains of a fire there, in a broad bare ring, still hot to the touch. Patiently, he poked dry straws into the embers until the first wisps of smoke emerged. Covering the spot with his hand he fed in handfuls of dry grass. The fire began to glow and catch, then eagerly awoke, devouring fuel as fast as he could scrabble it up. With his feet and fingers he ripped up hunks of sod, which nourished but also slowed the fire. A few minutes of this and the flame was stable. He continued at his labors, heaping a reserve of thatch and sod in a pile to be ready when he needed it, then sat down, feeling the flickering warmth as it slowly began to dispel the evening chill.

Lucinda watched these maneuvers — with approval it seemed to him — and neither interfered nor assisted. She would not come as close as he to the fire, though she gave no sign of fearing it. He suspected she preferred to separate herself a bit from its roar, the better to listen for noises in the night. The smoke and embers drifted up into a moonless, cloudless sky; he looked above him at an immense canopy of stars such as he had never seen, unbearably high above him, incalculably ancient and remote.

When he awoke the fire was nearly extinguished, glowing but giving scant protection from the frigid dawn air. He rolled over and gazed at the last low wavering flames a yard or so in front of him. Feeling an unexpected warmth and weight at his back, he realized that the cheetah had been sleeping at his side, her body heaving gently and evenly with each breath she took. The soreness and strain he felt in every inch of his body told him how fatigued he had been from the previous day's journey, and also how hard had been the ground that he had slept on. He made no move to rise, and began to drift off again, until all at once he felt the cat tense behind him. She lifted her head, sniffing intently, listened, sniffed again, stood, and strode a few yards off, cocking her head to one side. He sat up, looked around in vain for a stone or anything he could use as a cudgel. Hearing nothing himself but the faint crackling of the fire, he watched for her reactions.

“We have visitors,” she concluded at last. “But it's all right, I believe I know them.”

These words were hardly out of her mouth when he heard an explosion of snarling and squabbling. He rose to his feet. The sounds were coming from a little hollow not far off, where the grass was being bent violently this way and that under the effects of some unseen commotion. After several minutes of this there was a single painful yelp, and then complete silence. A moment later the grass began to stir again, but more evenly; he could see patches of reddish-brown fur advancing up the side of the knoll, and now and then a triangular ear emerged above the stalks.

The newcomers were wild curs, the size of jackals, three of the most ragged and forlorn creatures he had ever set eyes on. Their motley coats, where not broken by bare patches and half-healed sores, were matted with burs and clumps of earth. The one in front, whom he immediately took for the leader, looked reasonably well-nourished at least, though she was slobbering in an alarming fashion through a mouth filled with broken and discolored teeth. The other two, including one who was moping sheepishly behind with a nasty, fresh-looking wound to one ear, were fairly well emaciated and showing their ribs. Too ridiculous to be frightening, but far too disreputable for their sudden appearance to be altogether welcome, they bore no sign of belonging to, or having been descended from, any discernible breed that he was familiar with, though he supposed that their miserable ancestors must have survived in the surrounding wastes for centuries beyond counting.

“Look, boys,” said the leader, lowering her head and peering at Lucinda, but remaining carefully out of the range of her formidable claws, “una lonza leggera e presta molto, che di pel macolato è coverta.” At this, the other two burst into sniggers and pounced on each other, snapping their jaws in an absurd pantomime of ferociousness and spilling each other onto the ground.

The cat seemed unimpressed by their antics. “Very funny, Marta. But a cheetah is not a lonza.”

“A cheetah?” said the one with the bloodied ear. “I hear you all mate with your first cousins.“

This prompted another outburst of highjinks, this time taking in the leader as well. The three dogs circled and tussled until Marta's jaws seized firm hold of the face of the one who had spoken, holding him frozen until he looked up at her submissively from one brown eye. She released him with an admonitory growl.

“It is true that our numbers are of late somewhat reduced and that our opportunities in some regards are narrower than they were in times past. We have been forced to make concessions to difficult times. But I still could crush your throats and make a meal of you were I so inclined,” Lucinda said pointedly, “not that I am likely to be, as long as there is more salubrious game afoot and you don't make yourself even more of a nuisance than you have already.”

This silenced the dogs for the moment, and they fell back to a respectful distance. Settling on their haunches, they occupied themselves with gnawing at their coats, whether in search of vermin or out of nervous habit he could not tell. The cat turned towards him.”

“This, as you have heard, is Marta. Her companions are Pharos” — she nodded in his direction — “and that sorry sight with the indentations of Marta's teeth on his snout is Wawet.”

He mumbled a greeting, which they barely acknowledged with nearly inaudible courtesies. The cat seemed content to leave it at that, but after a moment Marta spoke up:

”Lucinda, aren't you going to introduce us to your friend?” she said, with a peculiar emphasis on the last word that he found a trifle unsettling.

”Of course. My apologies,” she said, with as much amusement as condescension. “This is — ” She hesitated, but he interrupted her before she could resume.

“Oren,” he said decisively, surprising even himself. “My name is Oren.”

The cat looked at him rather quizzically, but held her tongue.

“Pleased to meet you, Oren,” Marta responded politely, and her two companions grudgingly echoed her. “Yeah, okay, Oren, nice to meet you.”

May 5, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Chris Kearin. All rights reserved.

2. The desert (II)

The defile through the ravine proved hard going. There was no trail to speak of. Sometime in the past — it might have been a month ago or a thousand years, he couldn't say — a sudden flood, rushing down from the hills in the distance, must have scoured through the sand and rock, leaving a ragged channel of deep pits, exposed boulders, and debris, and stranding here and there the crumbling, half-petrified remains of great dark columns of timber that had been carried from some hidden grove. The cat, on all fours, was more sure-footed and agile than he, and could easily leap over all but the highest obstacles, but even she picked her way slowly. Within an hour he had bruised one knee, twisted an ankle painfully, and scraped the skin from both of his palms. Sweating under the full sun, he was dehydrated and weak from lack of nourishment, but he stumbled and climbed and crawled on in silence, squinting ahead to make sure the cat had not abandoned him. When he slipped and his foot dislodged a stone, exposing an exquisite, tiny blue scorpion nestled beneath, he gave an involuntary shout, but she neither turned nor slowed her pace. He scrambled to his feet and hustled a few steps down the channel. When he looked back he saw that the scorpion had wheeled around to face him, its tail arched high, but it held its ground and made no move to follow.

To his surprise, around midday the air began to feel perceptibly cooler, though still uncomfortably warm given his exertions. They were now in a narrow canyon, partly sheltered from the sun by sandstone cliffs on either side. Here and there his fingers touched patches of darker sand, sheltered beneath an overhanging shelf or tucked behind a boulder, that felt slightly damp to his touch. A few yellow patches of lichen, unexpectedly garish in their colorless surroundings, clung to the rock walls.

When the cat stopped, panting lightly, and turned to await him at the foot of a steep and ragged slope of jagged and broken stone, he did not at first see the tiny pool. In diameter it was no larger than the kind of ornamental fountain one might find in the garden of a modest country cottage; the water, trailing down from the heights in a thin trickle, was no more than a few inches deep. In spite of the great relief this sight provided him, he did not immediately advance to drink. He eyed the cat for a moment, and only after she inclined her head and took in a long draught did he kneel down on the opposite side and attempt to do the same. At first he simply lowered his lips directly onto the water and stuck out his tongue, unconsciously mimicking the cheetah's technique. He immediately realized that this not only made him look ridiculous but that it was also uncomfortable and hopelessly inefficient. He turned his head to the side, lowering one cheek into the pool, but this was hardly better. Finally, blushing a bit in view of what he felt sure was a look of exasperation on the cat's face, he sat back, cupped both hands through the surface of the water, raised them to his lips, and began to slake his thirst. The water was slightly warm and mineraly, but after a few handfuls he began to feel markedly better, and sat back against the damp wall to rest.

“There are easier trails than this one, by the way,” the cat said, “but there is no water on them, and since you have made no provision for desert travel there was no choice but to come this way. You may rest here for a little while, but then we must continue if we are to reach safe camp by nightfall.”

Having said this, and before he had time to answer, she leaped away from him further down the canyon and quickly vanished from sight beyond a turn in the rock. He felt a sudden terror and confusion at being thus abandoned, but he was too exhausted to ponder the question of whether the cheetah's sudden disappearance rightly ought to disturb him or not. There being nothing he could do in any case to ensure her return, he had little choice but to trust that she would. He drank another few handfuls of water, nestled himself as best he could in the shade at the bottom of the cliff, and almost immediately fell asleep.

He awoke to the sound of footprints on sand. He wasn't sure how long he had dozed, but the shadows down the canyon had crossed over to the other wall, and he was now sweating in the sun's full glare. Lucinda stood over him; when he glanced up at her he was startled to find that her muzzle was streaked with blood. He sat up in alarm, but when he put his hand down for support he felt something small and soft beside him that had not been there before. It was a tiny gazelle, a yearling perhaps, no bigger than a lamb. Its neck had been broken by the cat's teeth, no doubt with a single, efficient bite; its head was splayed back awkwardly in a position that in life would have been impossible. Its back legs were gone, and the flesh on its lower back was exposed and caked with blood and sand.

“I've already eaten. The rest is yours. Eat what you want quickly, for we'll need to make up some ground.”

He stared dumbly at the delicate body, then touched one foreleg. It was still warm, though barely, and not a bit stiff; he could have bent and moved the joints as easily as if the gazelle were still cantering across the savannah. The idea of actually consuming what remained of it seemed, at first, inconceivable, but then he reflected on the emptiness in his belly and on what an opportunity, perhaps an irreplaceable one, was now at hand to relieve his hunger. One obstacle remained, however; he had no way of starting a fire, nor any timber to sustain one. His meal would be the raw carrion at his fingertips or there would be no meal at all.

Lucinda stood a few yards off and waited, wordlessly, her long tail flicking now and then. He could not disjoint the carcass with his hands, and so he knelt alongside it, raised what remained of its hindquarters in the air with both hands, and lowered his mouth to the exposed flesh. He hesitated, then realized that the only way to do what had to be done was to attack it ferociously, all at once, and gnaw off a piece before he had time to think about what he was doing. With a sudden movement he closed his eyes and snapped his jaws shut, but even as he did so the sensation and flavor of the raw flesh overwhelmed him with horror and disgust. He spat out the meager scraps his teeth had torn loose, heaved violently, and lunged to the water, trying vainly to wash away the taste, rubbing his teeth frantically with his fingers to scour away every trace that remained.

The cat watched him sidelong, then exhaled and turned her back on him, preparing to continue the day's march. He stood up, still feeling receding ripples of nausea, and prepared to follow, then hesitated and looked down at the remains of the gazelle.

“Leave it,” she said, barely looking back. “You'll go hungry, is all. It's of no use to me.”

April 30, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Chris Kearin. All rights reserved.