Tailchaser’s Song

"Ninebirds the usurper, punished by the Firstborn, was the first of the Big Ones. They have long served the Folk, making us shelter from the rain and feeding us when the hunt is bad. And if some of us now serve the disgraced M'an, that is another story, for another Meeting.

"We are the Folk, and tonight we speak in one voice of the deeds of all. We are the Folk."

His song finished, Bristlejaw leaped down from the Wall with a strength belying his many summers. All the assembled Folk respectfully bowed their heads down between their forepaws as he left.

The Hour of Final Dancing was drawing to a close, and the Meeting broke up into small groups-the cats saying their farewells, discussing the Song and gossiping. Tailchaser and Thinbone hung on for a while, discussing plans for the next evening with Fleetpaw and some of the other young hunters, then took their leave.

As they frisked back across the fields they stumbled on a mole stranded away from its burrow. After they chased it a bit, Thinbone broke its neck and they ate. Bellies full, they parted at Fritti's porch.

"Mri'fa-o, Tailchaser." said Thinbone. "If you need my help tomorrow I'll be in Edge Copse at Unfolding Dark."

"Good dreaming to you, also, Thinbone. You are a good friend."

Thinbone gave a flick of his tail and was gone. Fritti hopped into the box left for him by the Big Ones, and sank into the sleep-world.

CHAPTER 2

It is the Vague and Elusive.

Meet it and you will not see its head.

Follow it and you will not see its back.

–Lao-tzu

Fritti Tailchaser had been born the second youngest of a litter of five. When his mother, Indez Grassnestle, had first sniffed him, and licked the moisture from his newborn pelt, she sensed in him a difference-a subtle shading that she could not name. His blind infant eyes and questing mouth were somehow more insistent than those of his brothers and sisters. As she cleaned him she felt a tickle in her whiskers, an intimation of things unseen.

Perhaps he will be a great hunter, she thought.

His father, Brindleside, was certainly a handsome, healthy cat-there had even been a whiff of the Elder Days about him, especially when he had sung the Ritual with her on that winter night.

But Brindleside was gone now-following his nose toward some obscure desire-and she, of course, was left to raise his progeny alone.

As Fritti grew, she lost touch with her early perceptions. Familiarity and the hard day-to-day business of raising a litter blunted many of Grassnestle's subtler sensitivities.

Although Fritti was a bright and friendly kitten, cleer and quick-learning, he never fulfilled in size the promise of his hunter-father. By the time that the Eye had opened above him three times he was still no larger than his older sister Tirya, and considerably smaller than either of his two brothers. His short fur had darkened from the original cream to apricot-orange, except for white bands on his legs and tail, and a small, milky star shape on his forehead.

Not large, but swift and agile-conceding some kitten clumsiness-Fritti danced through his first season of life. He frolicked with his siblings, chased bugs and leaves and other small moving things, and mustered his green patience to learn the exacting lore of hunting that Indez Grassnestle taught to her children.

Although the family's nest was in a heap of wood and rubble behind one of the massive dwellings of the Big Ones, many days Fritti's mother would take the kittens out past the outskirts of the M'an-nests and into the open countryside-wood lore was quite as important as city lore to the children of the Folk. Their survival depended on their being smarter, faster and quieter, wherever they found themselves.

Forth from the nest Grassnestle would go, her young forming a straggling, cavorting scout party about her. With the patience passed down through countless generations, she taught her ragged crew the fundamentals of survival: the sudden freeze, the startling leap, true-smelling, clear-seeing, quick-killing-all the hunting lore she knew. She taught, and showed, and tested; then patiently re-taught time and again until the lesson stuck.

Certainly her patience was often stretched thin, and occasionally a botched lesson would be punished by a brisk pawsmack to the offender's nose. Even a mother of the Folk had limits to her restraint.

Of all Grassnestle's kittens, Fritti loved learning most. Inattention, however, sometimes gained him a smarting nose-especially when the family went out into the fields and woods. The tempting whistles and chirps of the fla-fa'az and the swarming, evocative scents of the countryside could set him daydreaming in a moment, singing to himself of treetops, and wind in his fur. These reveries were frequently interrupted by his mother's brisk paw on his snout. She had learned to recognize that faraway look.

The dividing line between waking and dreaming was a fine one among the Folk. Although they knew that dream-Squeakers did not satisfy waking hunger, and that- dream-fights left no wounds, still there was nourishment and release in dreams unavailable in the waking world. The Folk depended so much on the near-intangible-senses, hunches, feelings and impulses-and these contrasted so strongly with the rock-solid basics of survival needs that one supported the other in an inseparable whole.

All the Folk had exceedingly keen senses-they lived and died by them. Only a few, though, grew to become Oel-var'iz-Far-sensers-who developed their acuteness and sensitivity far beyond even the high median of the Folk.

Fritti was a great dreamer, and for a while his mother harbored the idea that perhaps he had this gift of Far-sensing. He showed occasional flashes of surprising depth: once he hissed his eldest brother down from a tall tree, and a moment later the branch on which his brother had stood broke loose and fell to the ground. There were other hints of this deeper Var, but as time went on, and he began to grow out of kittenhood, the incidents became fewer. He became more prone to distraction-more of a day-dreamer and less of a dream-reader. His mother decided that she had been mistaken, and as the time of Fritti's Naming grew closer she forgot it entirely. The life of the hunting mother did not permit brooding over abstractions.

At the first Meeting after their third Eye, young cats were brought to be Named. The Naming was a ceremonv of great importance.

It was sung among the Folk that all cats had three names: the heart name, the face name, and the tail name.

The heart name was given by the mother at the kitten's birth. It was a name of the ancient tongue of the cats, the Higher Singing. It was only to be shared with siblings, heart-friends and those who joined in the Ritual. Fritti was such a name.

The face name was given by the Elders at the young one's first Meeting, a name in the mutual language of all warmblooded creatures, the Common Singing. It could be used anywhere a name was useful.

As for the tail name, most of the Folk maintained that all cats were born with one; it was merely a matter of discovering it. Discovery was a very personal thing-once effected it was never discussed or shared with anyone.

It was certain, at least, that some Folk never discovered their tail name, and died knowing only the other two. Many said that a cat who had lived with the Big Ones-with M'an-lost all desire to find it, and grew fat in ignorance. So important, secret and rare were the Folk's tail names, and so hesitantly discussed, that nothing much about them was actually agreed upon. One either discovered this name or did not, said the Elders, and there was no way to force the matter.