Soulmaker

  Chapter 31

  The barricade almost completely blocked the light from the Great Destination. Where glimmers shone through, Panther insisted stones be ground to fit. The beasts had worked relentlessly dragging logs and branches, any building material they could find, from the streets of the Outer World, into the Timefold. It had knit together with all the intricacy of a bird’s nest until it finally reached the ceiling of the cavern.

  Anticipation made Panther’s whiskers twitch. He looked at the figure of Petsy from his dugout lair high in the wall. The sight of the bear reminded him of a distasteful memory and his tongue flickered in and out. The metal poles in the barricade became the bars that trapped him in the zoo all those long years ago.

  As a young cat caged and miserable, he had befriended a striking female wolf. She was lithe and brimming with energy, constantly testing the confines of the concrete box that was her home. Panther admired her from his cage opposite. He longed to converse with her, hoping to see a spark of spirit in her eyes so they could be equals. The season changed and the wolf weakened. Panther fretted over her dulling coat, her rasping bark. He lay with his chin on his paws and watched the veterinarian come and go and the zoo owner shake his head. The keeper’s daughter visited the wolf every day, patting and stroking her. Panther watched, waiting for the child to love the wolf enough to ignite a soul.

  The weeks passed with no change. Panther felt such aching sympathy for the sickening canine. If only she could have her eyes opened and think, reason, laugh. Then she would get better and they could be together. When the child arrived the next day there was a toy bear tucked under her arm. She squeezed it so hard it nearly burst. Panther watched as the child sat under the cage playing endlessly with the toy.

  Sicker and sicker the wolf became. More and more desperate the panther felt as his friend was ignored by the toy obsessed child. Eventually, the wolf breathed her last and as the child came to pat her final goodbye, Panther saw the light of life in the eyes of the toy bear. His love was dead for eternity because the child had granted a soul to a bag of stuffing over a living creature.

  The panther shook his head and licked his nose. The Tiquity Bear would soon pay. But how had he known his secret thoughts? He didn’t recall sharing them with any other beast. It was true, of course. With the replicas crushed and excluded from the Great Destination, Panther would move on to cleansing it from unworthy animals. Any beast who could remember their Maker had too close a bond with humans. Any beast still attached to a human could never give total allegiance to him. Death to them all! Especially that bear! And following that triumph, he would break through to another layer of the Timefold where there would be more souls to judge. And if human spirits passed through that level, so much the better. What a judge he would make of them.

  Panther’s followers gathered at the base of his podium. His skin flinched as even the thinnest beams of light escaping from the blockade etched char lines in his coat.

  “Bring them out,” he shouted.

  Zsa Zsa pranced at the head of a bedraggled procession with Jacub attached to his collar by a chain secured through the nose. Both of the bear’s eyes had been put out and two scars like stitches on a stuffed toy were clearly visible. Behind him dragged a string net of soulings that scuffed in the dirt as he lumbered into the ring. Petsy’s vest was ripped and he lay in the centre of the frightened soulings. Eskatoria was crumpled up beside him, bearing her own scars. Petsy reached out his paw to hers and squeezed. Eski’s eyes grew rounder. At her feet she could feel Edward Arthur’s paw and longed for the strength to hold it.

  At the panther’s signal, a chimpanzee came forward to open the net, scattering the soulings on the ground. With nimble fingers he attached tight leather collars around each neck.

  “So you want to be real animals?” Panther crooned. “Let us see if you are prepared to pay the price.”

  The chimp strung the soulings together on a lead which he tied to a well-coiffed poodle, who dragged them around and around the ring to the jeers and taunts of animals. Finally they were strung up to one of the posts jutting out from the barricade and hoisted off the ground where they hung above the pyre.

  “And how do you like your collars? Comfortable? All humans insist on collars and leads and harnesses.”

  “And whips and sticks and boots!” yapped Zsa Zsa to the approval of Panther.

  An Alsatian leaped up to set them swinging by snapping at Petsy, the last on the rope.

  “You know what humans do to animals, don’t you?” the panther asked with a malevolent flash in his eyes and his whiskers taut as wire. “They beat us, shoot us, enslave us. We are their machines, their sport, their entertainment. We give up our offspring to die for them so they can eat our flesh and drink our blood. Yes, they need us for everything and we have sacrificed everything for them. Are you ready to do the same? Because until you are there will never be any Great Destination for your kind!” He flicked his tail again and a beast approached to light the pyre.

  “Today, your sacrifice may make you worthy of your souls. You may make the Great Destination yet,” he sneered.

  Tearclaw stared up at the soulings, a whine issuing from her black lips. She compared the tales of abuse by humans with those she had experienced from the beasts themselves and wondered just how bad these humans could be. Her Soulmaker was innocent of any violence, she knew that much. Tearclaw glanced across at her father noticing how the darkness had hardened him till his coat was rigid and his eyes were hardened steel. She shook herself, reassured by a softness still in her coat.

  The panther saw her and shot her a scathing look. He flashed a claw and the Siamese cat scaled the barricade to a timber beam and pushed until it swung directly over the flaming pyre. The crowd murmured and a short, sharp bark repeated steadily like the slow clapping of an audience impatient for the show. Just as the barking reached a crescendo, streams of brown liquid jetted over their heads and onto the flames, dousing them to an ember. The animals swung as one to face the saboteurs. There stood two young men, one aiming a tranquilizer gun and the other wielding an enormous water pistol.

  Panther hunched for attack. “Kill them!” he roared loud enough to vibrate the barricade.

  Ash and Will turned and ran as the dark animals thundered towards them. The tunnel narrowed and turned, and as the beasts trampled the bottleneck, nets released from the ceiling falling heavily over them. They writhed, gnashing their teeth at the cords as fellow beasts charged over the top of them.

  The first four over the net found their legs snapped in metal snares. Still more beasts came with bloodthirsty howls. Ash and Will fired shots of acidic liquid which seared their noses. Thickly coated beasts suffered only mild hair loss and continued their charge. Several birds lost vital flying feathers and plummeted to the ground. Ash aimed the tranquilizers at the largest of the oncoming animals. He had only four chances to hit his target and, as a giant Rottweiler came within biting distance, he discharged twice before finding his mark. The thickset beast slowed then tripped over its paws and slumped into a motionless mound.

  Ashden finally took a deep breath. Only moments had passed and yet his lungs were bursting as if he’d been holding his breath for an hour. He tightened his fist. The battle was already turning against them. He sucked another sharp lungful of air before shouting to Will to fall back. Dark ones gave chase as Ash and Will lunged at the wall thumping out a rapid code. Ten trap doors opened and their animal friends leapt out, fully armed to take on the hoard. Will and Ash dived into one of the portholes, sealing it up behind them.

  In the tunnels the animals fought bravely with teeth and claw. Panther’s army fought with the hidden power of darkness in their coats fueling a hatred beyond natural reckoning. Scrufkin stared into the eyes of the pedigrees who had him cornered. His hackles were raised and his teeth bared but his heart sank against their size. In a burst of courage he leapt over the thinnest of the dogs, narrowly escaping the jaws of a Labrador. As the pack gave c
hase, one of Elanora’s injured cats gashed the Lab’s stomach as it jumped her, sending it shrieking to the ground. It gave Scrufkin just enough time to scoot sideways and disappear into a tiny doorway opened for him by one of the bears. The rest of the fighters were strewn limp and near lifeless in the cold passageways. The army were inflated by their triumph and held their heads high as they returned to the cavern anticipating praise and glory to rain upon them from their leader.

  “But where are the humans?” Panther shouted at them with teeth bared and spit spraying.

  “They ran away into the tunnels, Master,” said one.

  “Then why didn’t you hunt them down? Do you have a sense of smell for nothing!” ranted Panther. He dropped to the ground and paced the floor. The soulings continued to dangle overhead like a freakish mobile.

  “Gather your weapons, light the torches, kill them all!”