Tailchaser’s Song

"Wait! Forgive me, lord, but I would like to ask you another thing."

"By my mother!" laughed the Firstborn. "You have grown passing bold, young Tailchaser. What would you know?"

"The mound. What happened there? Is Hearteater gone?"

The presence of Firefoot was suddenly all around him, comforting and tangible.

"His power is broken, little brother. There was nothing left of him but hatred, anyway. He had festered in darkness too long; he had no other purpose. Blind and immobile, he could never have come up from below the ground-the sun would have burned him awav."

"Do YOU mean there was no danger, then-to our fields?" Fritti asked, confused.

Firefoot's singing voice grew serious. "Not that at all, litde cat. There was great danger. His creations were all loo real. The Fikos itself was a creation of birthed to go where he could not-above CO stalk crookedly beneath the sun… Oh es. it was fell indeed, and would have made the da light fields a horror that Hearteater's children alone could have trod with impunity. And even if they themselves could not, what did my brother care-so long as no other of Meerclar's creatures could savor the sweet steps of the earthdance?"

The voice of Firefoot was growing faint now; Fritti had to prick forward his dream-ears to make it out: "Like all ancient, unreasoning hatreds, the Fikos was mindless, all-destroying… if I had not been brought back from the outer reaches, it would have been beyond the power of the bravest Folk to halt it."

"Lord Firefoot!" Fritti called after the vanishing dream. "Pouncequick said that your brother was free

"… and Viror suffered for eternities…," murmured the fast-dwindling spark of red. "Now, the balance has been set right… Look to the skies, little brother…

Fritti sat bolt upright. On either side his companions protested sleepily. Craning his neck, he gazed up into the sable sky of the Final Dancing. "Look to the skies," Firefoot had said. Fritti's spirit sang with the wonder of it all.

Above the U'ea-ward horizon, couched like a dew-drop on the petal of a black rose, gleamed a star that Tailchaser had never seen before. It burned and shone-a white fire against the belly of Meerclar.

Roofshadow was going back to Firsthome with Pounce-quick.

"I wish to see him safely there, at least," she told Fritti as they took a final walk together. "Also, if any of my clan escaped the destruction of Vastnir they will return to our lands in Northern Rootwood. I wish to see if any of them yet live."

Fencewalker's party was setting out for the Seat of Sunback at sun-next. The chill winds of winter had resumed; snow had begun to creep back over the cooling outskirts of the mound.

"If I did not know already of your desire to finish your quest," said Roofshadow, stopping to look into Fritti's eyes, "well, then I would ask you to come with me. But I know you ca

As she spoke, Tailchaser watched her proud, fine face. Her whiskers caught the morning brightness.

"I know that Pouncequick may be less needy of our attention than we suppose," said Fritti kindly. "I wish I could come with you. It seems strange that our adventures should end this way."

Roofshadow continued to hold Tailchaser's eye. He felt a deep love for this she-hunter who would not spare her own feelings.

"My name is Firsa Roofshadow," she said quietly. Surprised, Tailchaser felt his heart beat several times in the silence. She had told him her heart name!

"Mine… mine is Fritti Tailchaser," he said at last.

"Allmother keep you, Fritti. I will think of you often."

"I hope I can see you again one day… Firsa."

Her heart name! He did not even know Hushpad's!

All the long walk back, Tailchaser's thoughts swirled in confusion.

Prince Fencewalker, impatience treading close in his pawprints, walked back and forth calling out directions and suggestions.

"Come now! Enough grooming, lads! Finish that up and bend a leg, Pawgentle. Time to take to our traveling pads!" Many Folk milled about the Prince. The long march back to Rootwood was about to begin.

Fritti had already said his farewells to Fencewalker and the others. The Prince had given him an affectionate head-butt, saying: "Traipsing off again, are vou? Traipsingest little whisker-washer I ever knew! Well, be sure to come see me at the Court. We'll bend the ears of those sit-on-tails then!"

Quiverclaw, who was setting out for the Thane-meet that would name the successors of those fallen in the mound, had also stopped to say a fond good-journey.

Now Fritti sat with his two closest friends, and was suddenly tired of leave-taking. Sniffing Roofshadow's cheek, he rubbed his face against her warm, soft fur and said nothing.

"I will not say I hope to see you, because I know I will," said Pouncequick. With all his newfound insight, still the little cat looked forlorn. Tailchaser relented and nuzzled him for a moment.

"I'm sure I will see you both," he said calmly. "Nre'fa-o. I’ve two friends."

Fencewalker was bellowing final instructions to the assembled Folk: there was a great murmuring. Tailchaser turned away and walked back toward Ratleaf Forest and the resumption of his own journey. The cold breeze rattled the branches.

Beyond the fringes of the now-dwindling thaw, Ratleaf was still winter-deep in cold. A solitary figure in the endless whiteness of the forest, Tailchaser wondered about the transfiguration of his small friend Pounce-quick. His thoughts were accompanied only by the soft plishing of his pads denting the snow mantle.

Pouncequick had changed. Although he could still caper and play as a youngling was expected to, and although he certainly hadn't lost his kittenish appetite, still there was a quality of i

The lost tail did not seem to bother Pouncequick as much as it did Fritti. The idea of his small friend being mauled and torn by Scratchnail disturbed him greatly, and he worried the thought like a slow-healing wound.

"It's very strange, Tailchaser," Pounce had told him, "but it feels as though it's still there. I don't miss it. I can feel it right this moment curling behind me-I can even feel the wind on it!" Tailchaser had not known what to say, and the youngling continued: "In some ways, it's better now. What I mean is… well, since I can't see it, and nothing can happen to it, it's perfect: pure. And it always will be, too. Can you sense what I mean?"

Fritti had not been able to that day. But now, padding quietly through the great forest, he began to understand.

Days passed with the sameness of one tree to another as Fritti moved Vez'an-ward through Ratleaf. The words of the Firstborn led him on.

"Follow your nose to your heart's desire," Firefoot had told him in their last moment in the mound, "through the great forest with the sun-birth in your eyes. Your way will lead you out, finally, and across the Pawdab Marshes, to arrive at last on the shores of Qu'cef-the Bigwater. You will follow the shore until you see a strange hill that shines at night… it rises from the waters themselves. This is the place that the M'an calls Villa-on-Mar, and there you will find what you seek."

Now the cycles of day and night, traveling and sleeping, all the other hunt-marks of the world above-ground came back to Tailchaser. He had only himself to hunt for, and only himself to be responsible for. Like the silver pril fish that leaped and splashed upstream in the heights of the Caterwaul, so the suns of Fritti's journey bounded across the sky, one following closely upon the other. In this way he journeyed through Ratleaf.

The old forest was slowly coming back to life. The cave-sleeping Garrin came grumbling up from their rest. The graceful Tesri, bucks and does and a few stilting fawns, ran delicately on the drifts. Tailchaser felt his affinity for this world come flowing back; the horrors of the mound began to recede. He was one of the earth's children, and even the long season below the ground could not destroy his knowledge of the dance. He reveled in every sign of fading winter, and of the return of life to once-haunted Ratleaf.