Tailchaser’s Song

"As they approached the far side of the Qu'cef, the fish demanded to know where the cove of the swimming cats was.

" 'Just a little farther, I am sure,' Firefoot said; so on they went, until they were very close to the shore. Again the fish demanded to know the place.

'"Just a little closer in,' said Lord Tangaloor. They came closer still to the shore, until-of a sudden- the water became so shallow that the giant fish found he was unable to move farther forward. Then he discovered he was too far aground to move backward, either, and could only roar in anger as Fire-foot leaped off his back and waded to the sand.

" 'Thank you for the ride, Master Fish!' he said. 'As a matter of fact, I'm afraid we do very little swimming where I come from, but we do like to eat! I am going to find a few other of my Folk, and then we are going to return and dine on you the way you would have on us!'

"And they did. This is why, from that time forward, no cat has willingly entered the water… and we eat only those fish we can catch without getting wet."

The prisoners laughed as Earnotch finished his story-song. For a moment it was as though all the rocks and earth between those Folk and the sky had melted away, and they were singing together beneath Meer-clar's Eye.

The mound never slept. Like a hive of maddened insects, the labyrinth of tu

The mound had not been long in the eye of the sun. Scarcely half a dozen seasons had swept by above since the blistered earth of the valley floor had first begun to rise, swelling like a tree limb seeded with wasp's eggs. Like the wound it resembled, the mound covered on the surface the deeper and more profound disturbance below: leagues and leagues of tu

At the center of the web, beneath the blunt dome of Vastnir, the cruel, incomprehensible spider tested the strands, his body gross and immovable, his mind questing out to the limits of his spreading dominion. Grizraz Hearteater-born of Goldeneye and Sky-dancer, corrupted beneath the earth since the world was young-felt his time approaching. He was a. force, and in a world scaled down by the passing and lessening of the Firstborn, he was a force to which no other could now compare. In the heart of his mound he lay, and his creatures multiplied around him, spreading outward. The tu

His inexorable, cold intelligence weighed these arguments and found them solid-but still he was not free of a smallest, most insignificant mote of unease. Hearteater threw his mind outward again: searching, searching…

Since sunrise, Roofshadow had been pacing intently back and forth along the tree-sparse edge of Ratleaf Forest. To her west, across the broad expanse of valley, lay the slumbering presence of the mound.

Back and forth, soft gray paws laid delicately down one after another, Roofshadow walked a careful circuit. Her head was hung low, as if her pacing indicated deep thought or momentous decisions to be made, but in actuality she had already made her choice.

The sun, sparking the cold air and striking diamond gleams from the snowy ground, had passed the meridian and was begi

Once through the powdery shell, she lowered her weight onto her back legs and began to dig in earnest. The soil was near-frozen and her paws stung, but she continued her rapid movements, sending flurries of mud and rock up from beneath her tail.

The Hour passed, and Roofshadow began to fear she had sensed incorrectly. The ground was hard-packed and firm; most of her small, slender form was below the hole's rim when, without warning, a spading paw thrust through the bottom of the pit into emptiness beyond.

Warm, fetid air rushed up through the aperture, and she reared back in surprise. This was what she had sought, though. She grimly resumed digging. A short span of scrabbling and she was able to pass her head and whiskers through the opening. When she pulled her front paws through she felt a surge of panic as. for a moment, she was suspended over nothingness, dangling helplessly. The unknown darkness below her became a bottomless abyss. Her weight pulled her back legs past the crumbling rim of the hole. She fell onh a moment, then touched lightly down on the loam on a tu

She turned her eses briefly back to the hole above her, which glowed with the light of the setting sun. It seemed a very small hole now, although it was not very far away. It was not far away, but it was behind her.

Head down, green eyes wide to gather what little light there was in this dark, unfriendly world, Roofshadow padded silently down into the earth.

CHAPTER 23

Fear death?-to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face.

–Robert Browning

Limping through one of the immense, stone-arched chambers, the ragged group of cats shuffled slowly toward the digging tu

"Hullo, Tailchaser!" Pawgrip said, a faint echo of his former sprightliness. "You look a little stronger. How does that shoulder feel?"

"Better, I suppose," said Fritti, "but I doubt it will ever truly heal." He raised and shook his front paw experimentally.

"Well," said Pawgrip in a conspiratorial tone, "I got a message to that fellow in the upper Catacombs. He sent back to say that he hadn't seen your friends, but he'd keep his eyes open." Pawgrip gave a weak smile that was meant to be encouraging. They were passing beneath one of the huge i

"Thank vou for trying, Pawgrip," said Fritti. "How is Jumptall feeling this morning?" The Meeting Hall delegate had refused to rise for work the last two times, and as a consequence had also not eaten. Badly, I'm afraid. Just lies there, and says if he rises he'll lose his tail name."

They walked silently for a moment in the midst of the emaciated, staring-eyed cats. Hulking Clawguard nalked the perimeter of the disheartened procession, occasionally moving forward to threaten or prod.