The animals fell silent—all but the frogs and crickets, who sang a melancholy song about the death of trust. As the final chirp died away, Tolti cried, “Mother, protect us from the humans!”
All the animals echoed her words, and the trees whispered supplications to their creator. Tomo slunk gracefully into the center of the circle.
“Druid called his story an old one, but it is no older than a few days ago, when humans nearly breached the sanctity of our home. This is not the worst of it. Tolti, tell the others your story.”
Druid would have preferred that the cougar consult with him about the best way to spill the bad news, but that was the problem with being a Keeper. He could protect, negotiate, and mediate, but with a crowd of independent animals, he could never dictate.
“Go ahead, Tolti,” he said.
The squirrel clutched Druid’s mane as she spoke what she’d heard of the human’s plans to take the swamp. “They said they would drain the swamp and knock down the trees and build houses. What are houses?”
“Their nests, I think,” Druid said.
“But, Druid, what happens to us?”
Snakes began to hiss, and alligators slapped the water with their tails.
Every animal looked at the dragon. Words never came quickly to him, and he could find no comforting ones now. “We must pray, as Tolti did a short while ago. We must ask Her to protect us and to tell us what we must do to protect ourselves.”
His words were as dry of hope as the swamp had recently been of water. The pattern was being rent, and he, alleged dragon of destiny, stood helpless before its unraveling.
He rose with a wet sigh. “I must go, my friends. It has been a long day.”
Tolti remained on his shoulder. “Keeper, your sorrow shudders through me and makes me want to weep.”
“Water dragons have that effect. One of our tasks is to arouse the deep and hidden emotions in all living things that they may be brought to the light.”
“You arouse love in mine, dear Druid. I don’t like to think of you being alone tonight. Let me be with you.”
Tears stung Druid’s eyes. “You’re kind, small one.”
“Oh, no,” Tolti said as she snuggled into the hollow of his neck. “It’s my honor.”
Tolti chattered as incessantly as other squirrels. “You can’t imagine how shocked I was to hear those humans speaking. Wasn’t it good of me to tell Tomo immediately? I was quite frightened to approach him, even though my tail was raised in truce. He ate my cousin only last week. It was all properly done. Her spirit was ready for departure, and the dance was correctly performed. Still, the sight of his teeth wasn’t a happy one, I can tell you that. It isn’t just the humans, is it?”
Druid, who had drifted beyond the squirrel’s chatter to his own gloomy thoughts, jerked his head up. “What?”
“It’s not just the humans, not even just the swamp. Remember how you taught us to hear and feel the earth’s rhythm? It’s disturbed now.”
Druid lifted the squirrel from his shoulder and held her in his paws so that she faced him. “Tell me what’s wrong with the rhythm.”
The squirrel’s nose quivered. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem to be coming from the ground. It’s a feeling from far away, the trembling of wounded animals, but none I’ve ever known, cries that shiver through me. It’s the sound of hearts that have forgotten how to feel.”
A young squirrel senses more than I have. Druid clasped Tolti to his heart.
The sky was clear now, and the new moon trailed stars across the sky. Reeds quivered with ghostly beauty, and moonbeams painted the charred tree stumps. Slender pine needles glistened as if they’d been dipped in the silver cauldron of the night.
Tonight the swamp was cloaked in grandeur, and its beauty was bitterness in the dragon’s heart as he listened to the reeds and saw grass singing in the faint breeze and heard the distant shriek of a small animal who had surrendered its life.
So the leaves die in autumn, he thought. So they release their hold on the trees who have nurtured them, and fall to the earth to return the gift of life to their hosts. So the seed is food for a rabbit, the rabbit food for the cougar, the cougar food for the seed. It is the way of things that nothing shall be lost or wasted, that we are all important and necessary. Thus the pattern is woven and re-woven.
“How beautiful the World is tonight,” Tolti said softly. “Surely the Mother won’t permit it to be destroyed.”
Do You listen? Druid asked the night. Will you answer this small one’s devotion? Perhaps You are more present than I imagine. Perhaps You hide behind the moon, to mock the fumbling creatures who attempt to survive in this world of Your creation, Your laughter as faint as the fading whisper of dragons’ wings.
Chapter 2
Orion stood on a ridge overlooking the city. As he swayed, exhausted and hungry, the threads of its winding, dirty streets seemed to tighten around his neck in a noose that limited both breath and freedom.
His sister, Sekhmet, nuzzled him with her black nose. “Lost in thought?”
“Wishing you’d waited a year or so to haul me away from the good life.”
“We thought we’d better get on the road before you wore out your equipment, Mr. Tomcat Stud.”
Orion’s other sister, Bast, trotted toward them, her white fur gleaming in starlight. “We’ve come to the right place. The pull is strong.”
“Praise the Many-taloned One,” Sekhmet said. “My paws are killing me.”
The lights of the city flickered in eye-burning imitation of the starry sky. “It’s not going to be easy,” Orion said. “The smell alone makes me gag. It’s not just the physical stench, but also the foul odor of self-righteousness and fear. And some of the fear is mine. I’ve never failed before.”
Sekhmet raised her ears. “It’s hard to fail when you mount a willing cat. I’m glad you realize you’re facing a far bigger challenge. It gives me hope that you’ve become something more than a swaggering young tom. She of the Rough Tongue is molding you into the cat you were always meant to be.”
“I don’t know about Her rough tongue, but I’ve never doubted yours.”
Bast growled softly. “Enough. Orion, you have to guide us now.”
Panic bristled his fur. “I don’t know; I can’t feel anything.”
Bast scraped her claws against a flat stone. “Then ask to feel. Have you forgotten you were chosen for more than shining fur and golden eyes?”
“And equipment,” Sekhmet said.
He turned his back on them and washed himself briskly to hide his shame. Any cat could find the guidance of the Long-whiskered One, but Orion’s ability to sink into a trance had separated him from the other males of his generation and guided his reluctant paws to this cold, windy, hilltop. How could he forget the first lesson all kittens learned? When you got lost, She would always nudge you home.
Orion closed his eyes and began to meditate on golden fur and eyes. The rasp of Her tongue shivered through him, massaging away the tension that had tightened his limbs, clearing away the resistance and fear that had hidden his path, and even temporarily blurring the memory of well-fed, sleek females.
The way became clear, but one final moment of doubt kept him in place. “Are humans worth our sacrifice?”
“Not yet, they aren’t,” Bast said, “but we’re weaving a dream.”
Orion loped down the hill, praying that the gathering strands wouldn’t knot into a noose.
* * *
Emerald rubbed against the rough wood of the grain warehouse floor, howling in agony.
“If you keep carrying on like that, every tom in the city is going to knock at the door,” Misha said.
“You talk as if it never happened to you, old lady. You know some magic to scratch the itch, tell me.”
“No magic, child. It’s a queen’s way to want kittens and a tom’s way to know when she wants them. Neither of them looks at the big picture. That’s why this city is filled with half-starved
cats too weak to run away from humans.”
Emerald shuddered. Her mother, Hester, had been one of the victims, taken away with Emerald’s littermates. “Could have been me.”
“Could have been. If you hadn’t been such a mischief-maker, climbing to the top sack of grain that terrible night, you wouldn’t be flicking your tail and shuffling your hind legs right now. You want your own kittens to be drowned or tortured? That why you want to bring them into this sorry slum? The world is cruel to a cat and her kittens, except in the Green.”
Fur and whiskers, Misha would pounce on any excuse to trot out that old catnip fantasy handed down from mother to daughter, but the soft hum that filled her voice soothed Emerald.
“Tell me about the Green, might take my mind off this awful itch, pass the time, anyway.”
Misha closed her eyes and slowly rocked back and forth. “Somewhere, maybe not far away, might be over the next hill if we could only climb it, is a world where everything’s green, bright and beautiful as your own eyes.”
Though Emerald tried to imagine that, she saw instead the pale, sickly stalks of grass that grew up through the cracks in the sidewalk and the pointed dark green leaves with yellow flowers that turned to white fur. Green everywhere? Not likely.
“And fat, tasty mice that eat fresh seeds and grains, and more kinds of birds than you could count, and never a hungry moment.”
“No humans?”
“Maybe some, but the Green is so big you can get away from them easy. And they got their own business to be going about. They got no time for idle viciousness.”
Emerald sighed, the itch beginning to subside. “Tell me more about what it looks like.”
“Flowers, not in some tiny window box or fenced-off piece of earth, but growing everywhere and smelling nice. The ground is soft on your paws, and a breeze always ruffles your fur and makes it clean. The Green has big, tall trees whose branches touch the sky. It’s quiet there: no cars and trucks and footsteps all the time day and night, just the wind blowing through the leaves to sing you to sleep.”
Emerald felt her tortured body begin to relax as waves of sleep rocked it. No way Green could come out of this hard, concrete world, but it was a comforting dream.
When she woke up, she caught a mouse and drank some water from the basin the humans used. She wished they’d drive their truck in to unload sacks of grain. Misha always saved a few mouse carcasses for their arrival, lining them up by the door. They would say, “Good kitties” and pour some milk into a bowl.
Emerald wanted the cool wetness of milk. The desire flickering inside her awakened the deeper urge, and she started to twitch and feel crazy again. As she dragged across the floor she heard a body thump onto the top layer of bags.
“Girl, you’re giving off a sweet perfume,” a deep voice purred, “and I’ve got what you need.”
“She doesn’t need anything but to be left alone,” Misha growled. “You hightail it out of here.”
“Are you the chaperone, Grandma? Better go hide behind the pile of bags before you see something that might make you remember better times—though you never had anycat as good as Senti.”
“Good? You got some delusions. Try being on the receiving end of all those barbs tearing a poor girl to shreds. Don’t be talking about a tom’s style, because they don’t have any. You listening to me, Emerald? You think you’re hurting now? You haven’t come to the beginning of pain.”
“Misha’s old and dried up,” Senti said, hopping down to the floor. “You listen to me, Emerald; I’m going to take you out of your misery.”
Misha leapt between them. “This girl is too young and too small to be having kittens. She could lose the litter and maybe her own life. You want to be responsible for that?”
Senti paused to consider. “Responsibility and tomcat are two words that hardly ever shake paws. Don’t try to talk decency to me when my hormones are jumping. Don’t try to stand in the way, either.”
* * *
“I don’t like the looks of this neighborhood,” Bast said, flicking gobs of mud off her white paws.
Sekhmet curled her lip. “Did you expect to find the Chosen’s mother in a nice, clean parlor, lapping daintily at a plate of gourmet food? The Prophecy said that though her heritage is royal, her circumstances would be lowly. In a place like this, you find cats with backbone.”
“And dirty paws.” Bast flicked again.
Orion sniffed. The scent grew stronger with every paw step—not just the delicious aroma of a female in heat, but, oddly, the fragrance of white-throated flowers and fat mice and earth bursting with life. He quickened his pace when he saw the warehouse.
“Go up those metal steps; they lead to an open window,” he said.
“We’ll let you introduce yourself first,” Sekhmet said.
Orion stood on the window ledge and watched an elderly cat hiss at a white tom.
“You’ll have to come past me, Senti. You want it bad enough to kill for it?”
Orion took advantage of the tom’s hesitation to vault through the window. He saw the thin alley cat crouched in the corner. The contrast between her scrawniness and the padded hips of the females whose shining fur he’d recently been rubbing depressed him. Royalty rarely masqueraded as a bag of bones.
He changed his mind when she looked up. “You here to join in the fun?” she spat. The green fire in her eyes flashed through Orion, awakening something deeper than lust. It aroused the all-pervasive glow that filled him when the Mother wrapped Her shining warmth around him. He longed for this skinny queen as he had never desired a female. His tongue burned with the urge to lick her dusty fur until it gleamed. He wanted to see her sides swell with his kittens, watch them tumble into life, and help them grow.
These alien thoughts told him that, whether or not he killed his rival in a mating battle, his careless youth would die, and that would only be the beginning of the changes. His mission would demand far more from him than he’d ever given to anything. He was tempted to back out of the warehouse and run back to freedom, but Bast and Sekhmet were behind him, hissing for him to get on with it.
Long-tailed One, guide me, he prayed.
This is the easy part. Wait until you really need to ask Me for guidance. Now you’re on your own.
Orion narrowed his eyes and surveyed the scene, considering the obstacles. He leapt on top of the piled bags and growled at the tom. “Get away from her.”
Senti hissed. “Don’t know who you are, but this isn’t your turf. Go find your own mate.”
Orion hopped down lightly to the floor. “The elder appealed to your sense of common decency. That didn’t work.”
“Damn right, because you know as well as I do that a tomcat has no morality. You’re not going to jump her bones if you get the chance?”
That, of course, was exactly what Orion planned to do, and he wanted to get rid of the other tom with a minimum of violence. He tried to give him an easy out. “I would prefer not to cause you harm, and I must warn you that I’ve never been defeated in a mating battle.”
“There’s a first time for everything, big-talking foreigner.” The white cat began to puff up, hissing slowly.
Orion bared his teeth, and his inflated tail twitched back and forth. Senti was readying himself for a pounce when Orion leapt at his throat.
Senti, more agile than Orion would have suspected, twisted out of range and countercharged. Orion slashed at the other cat and leapt again. This time, using a zigzag pattern he’d perfected, he changed directions in mid-air and landed beyond Senti. Before the other cat could whirl around, Orion, in a parody of the mating position, gripped the nape of his neck, and pressed him against the floor.
The young female gasped. “Don’t kill him.”
Bast and Sekhmet appeared at the top of the bags. “It would be better if the Chosen’s journey doesn’t begin in a pool of blood,” Bast said.
“It certainly won’t be as messy,” Sehkmet said. “Beat it,” she told Senti. “Yo
u’ve gotten off easy.”
Orion released the white cat, who looked at him with dignity. “Nice leap. I’ll have to practice it.” He darted up to the open window and left.
Sekhmet turned her attention to the young queen. “Are you sure she’s the one? She’s awfully skinny.”
The cat arched her back and hissed. “So would you be if you lived on the thin pickings here. Who are you, to be coming in here with this attitude?”
Bast nodded. “Well spoken. Sekhmet, you’ve got to admit she has a proud bearing and plenty of spirit. You said this place would breed cats with backbone.”
“That doesn’t mean I want to see a cat whose backbone is practically sticking out of her skin. She needs to have more flesh if she’s going to have healthy kittens.”
The young female spat at them, her eyes fiery green. “Since when does a tom bring a selection committee with him?”
As the adrenaline of battle mode drained from Orion, fierce desire reappeared. Why didn’t all these hissing females go off and hunt for mice? His plan had been sex first, explanations afterwards.
The old female bared worn teeth. “Answer Emerald’s question. Who are you?”
“Emerald, is it?” Sekhmet said. “Lovely name and quite fitting, but if you want healthy kittens, like any queen, you’re in the wrong place. The Chosen could have a better start than this place.”
Her glance took in the grain and mouse droppings spilled on the floor, the black mold on one wall from a leak, the dust, the grime, and the dim red flash of rats’ eyes.
Misha snarled. “Don’t you dare slink in here like you own the world and trash the place where I’ve been living for years. Got a roof, doesn’t it? Plenty of mice, too. Do you have anything better where you come from? Don’t have to tell me you’re foreigners, although you’re the first fancy-assed cats who ever tried to bullshit me with stories about the Chosen. What’s your scam? Are you passing yourselves off as the messengers of the Prophecy?”
Orion and his sisters looked at each other. Familiarity with the Prophecy virtually guaranteed that these alley cats, despite their unlikely appearance, had royal blood.
“No pretense involved,” he said. “That’s who we are.”
Misha yawned. “Right, and I’m the High Priestess of the Alley.”