Catopolis

Some days there were answers from below, beyond the edge. There were other kings there, false kings in some other kingdom he could not see. Other echoes he could not name, echoes that perked his ears and stirred his loins, occasionally a lament he didn’t understand.

His belly was flat and empty, and so he prowled the four corners of his kingdom, one quiet step and a pause, another quiet step and a pause. Water puddled near one of the humming silver boxes. That one was good for shade in the hot months. One of the ledges with glass sides was often better shelter, though it was a climb and a leap with no ground below, down and back again. One quiet step and a pause. The next box was warm in all weather, and the evening-sun side was out of the wind, best for the cold months. One quiet step and a pause.

Tail, first languid and waving, went rigid. He heard the coo of a stinking bird. It was out of sight, so he trotted to the near corner of the silver box that sometimes clanked as well as hummed, then froze. In his mind’s eye he saw the thing: dim, slow, fat, stinking of feathers that oiled his tongue and face when he fought through them to the meat and the blood.

In his mind he saw the coiled leap, foreclaws out, head low, chin thrust out, rear legs rising in anticipation of the first strike, the clawed forepaw strike that captured, the clenched bite, the stinking bird’s death an eyeblink away, hind paws raking out and down, grinding crunch of bone between his jaws, soft resistance to his belly-ripping hind paws, solid thump to the ground, flight arrested forever, guts soiling his lower legs and belly, salty warm blood washing away the taint of feathers.

Yes. He charged forward. But a shadow whisked the ground to his side.

He arrested his forward lunge, crouched belly-flat to the tar, launched himself sideways. Not enough. Fast as he was, the thing struck. Fire laced his flank, and he screamed with rage and pain, turned and lashed out-hit nothing. Solid whumps of air furrowed his eyes to slits. There before him was a stinking bird, but no prey. This bird had claws the size of his head, wings nearly the span of a silver box, and a very different stink. The smell of old meat made his lip curl.

“You hunt,” whump, whump, the giant wings were straining, “my prey!” It had a voice like the wailing that came from below from time to time, a sing-song shriek that started faint, grew loud, then grew faint again.

“I am king!” he screamed back, settled onto his haunches to leap, but the thing was gone, risen in the air like any stinking bird escaping from his claws, his teeth, from death and scattered feathers. He gazed into the sky, limped into the shade of a silver box and licked his wound clean. By night he’d killed and fed despite his wound. There was no sign of the stinking bird with huge claws and a voice.

When the moon rose, he heard the strange lament from far below, a faint echo in the quiet, windless night. The shouts of apes echoed also, and soon the lament fell silent. He slept and dreamed of apes he’d known, soft-handed, living in a room with a glass wall, a wall that opened onto a ledge just a leap and a scrambled climb away from his kingdom. He dreamed of the day he’d found the apes gone, the room empty and silent, glass wall shutting him away from their soft hands. He dreamed of the stinking bird’s voice, heard the whump of its wings on the air, dreamed of his jaws finding the joint between neck and shoulder, biting, biting, biting.

He awoke in the midmorning, mouth sore, flank hot. Water. His legs were weak, and he lurched to the drip-fed puddle and drank his fill. Turning, he looked across his kingdom and with fierce pride yowled, “I am king! I am king!” To his shame, that exhausted him. He could not hunt that day, but he felt well enough the next dawn to prowl the circumference of his kingdom, alert for prey.

This time the shrieking bird struck without warning, slamming him to the side. Claws struck deep, but he rolled like a flash and lashed out, feeling satisfaction with a hind rake. He flipped to his feet only to discover there was nothing but air beneath him, falling, he was falling to the sound of stinking bird laughter, laughter that shrieked “My prey! Mine!”

His eyes couldn’t focus on the bricks that blurred past him. He struck them, a stinging abrasion that raised a howl of pain. He scrambled to arrest his fall, but his claws tore uselessly. A shadow rose from below with inescapable speed. It slapped him into darkness.

“Wake up,” he heard, and he felt an unfamiliar yet thrilling sensation: something was licking his fur. “Wake up.” Pain crept upon him from many directions. The old wound in his flank throbbed, a lesser pain. Three sharp points of hurt poked his shoulder. And around all was a stiff soreness. He opened his eyes.

It was dim like twilight around him, though twilight it was not, only some hours from midday. Another like him was speaking. “Wake up,” the other said.

“I wake,” he replied, and was immediately astonished by the croak of his voice. “Water?”

“You are not dead!” said the other, who was a hunter like himself, smaller in size with dark striped fur, light eyes. As he gazed at the other, it twitched away for a moment before looking back at him.

“I am king,” he said, feeling a bit stronger, and rose to his feet. The ground was black and slick beneath his paws, the color of tar but soft and cool. It was like a small hill made of rounded black shapes. He ignored his hurts and looked about.

“Better not let One-Eye hear you say that,” said the other. “Good, your blood stopped flowing. What’s your name?”

“Name?” he burred back, finding speech like this strange. It felt raw and rough in his throat. “I am king!”

“But One-Eye is king here,” said the other hunter, and he smelled the other, and thought: her. She. Her scent made him think of the echoed lament he’d heard in his kingdom. Without knowing why, he looked up. The midday sky was nearly blocked by towering walls. Above was his kingdom. He would return there, somehow, he would find the shrieking bird, kill it, regain his place on the black tar amid the humming silver boxes. But for now, he was thirsty. “Water?”

“This way,” she said, and led him down a stack of bulging slick black shapes. “It is good you awoke. Soon these will be gone and you with them.”

“Where do they go?”

“I don’t know. The apes take them, then bring them back, one at a time, until there is a mountain again. Finally, they take the mountain.” She led him to a puddle not unlike the one he knew beside the silver box. The water had a bad taste, but he lapped it up until he was sated.

A great confusion of scents came upon him, and he sniffed up, down, left, right. There were several others. And a strange, dank smell undercut everything. “There are others here,” he said, only half a question as he took stock of his grooming.

“Oh, yes!” she said. “I’m Flinch. One-Eye is king. Beckett, Rumble, Hurry also live here.”

“Here?”

“The alley,” and she sniffed each way up the narrow path between the walls.

“What’s Flinch?” His coat was not so bad as it could be; she had cleaned the worst of his wounds by the time he’d awoken.

“Flinch is me,” she said. “Who are you?”

“I am king,” he said with a puzzled urrrr. He didn’t like being puzzled, wasn’t sure what a name was.

“Better watch that around One-Eye,” she said again. “Don’t you have a name?”

“There can be only one king,” he said, sure in his seasons of experience that this was so.

“That’s right,” said a new voice, low and husky. He whirled about, came face to face with a pug-faced orange and white animal. One eye was a ruined mass of scar, and his ears were notched and cut. “That’s right,” said One-Eye, “and that king is me.”

He didn’t hesitate, but hissed and leaped. Flinch’s voice came from somewhere far away, “No, no!” One-Eye didn’t leap, merely stood up on his rear legs and met his charge with a solid chest. He felt as if he’d hit a wall and fell back, rear legs scrabbling to claw, but One-Eye bore him down to the ground, the strongest thing he’d ever gripped. Shameful panic overwhelmed him, and he mewled for escape. This was worse than the shrieking bird: He was beaten by his own kind, with tooth and claw.