The cat does not die in this story.
Not again. With only eight lives left, one small step toward prudence, the cat
decided not fly into the sky during a dragon fight. She did not try to steal
milk offerings from the various temples to the gods and goddesses around the
city. And she was especially wary of shadows and purple light.
After pouncing the shikome, the days,
mostly the afternoon and evening portions, were consumed securely lounging on
her new favorite apartment ledge. She frequently watched the human couple that
lived inside argue, always slamming doors and sleeping alone. They would have
to have sex sometime, every other couple in Alexandria did. Even most of the
singles in the city had guests over for no other apparent purpose.
The cat wasn’t exactly interested in
watching, she was just curious about the habits of other creatures. She was
still a very young cat and the world, her brand new, unsoiled litter box. She
wanted to know what was in the corners, and down at the bottom.
She was alone, and very much at home
in the bustle of one of the biggest cities on the Mediterranean. She had come
from the east, along the coast, up the Nile, and down from the floating pyramid
of Henen-nesut where she was born and given a name. She was a rare creature, a
winged cat, and the rest of her litter had all been poached. Her mother had run
off and left the kittens for dead. This was not uncommon and it left little to
no scar on the cats to whom this happened, even intelligent winged kittens.
A salty sea fog had ambled into the
city that evening and wafted around the buildings, even as high as the cat’s
perch. All she could think about was seafood, crayfish from the river and eel
from the shore. To hell with her mother. To hell with her home, floating pyramid or not, she
was a cat. She belonged wherever the hell she pleased. Right now she was
pleased by the silence of the couple on who’s patio she sat.
She wiggled her slender body and
flexed her feathers out, each apart from the other. Finally the humans had shut
up. The cat hadn’t been paying attention to their argument and noticed when it
stopped. She didn’t remember anything breaking or slamming and this puzzled
her.
The cat pondered diagnosing the
situation, but thought better of it. Her threshold for the unknown had been
diminished for the past few days. Since dying, she thought of death more and
more often. Worried about losing life number seven, she sank a little into
herself. That homunculus had warned her that the Japanese death gods, or
whatever they were, would be back, for her.
“And here they are!”
The cat hoped they couldn’t fly, as
she leapt, body totally stretched, off the towering balcony and away from the
scent of death, she had only just noticed. She doubted her luck. She at least
hoped that, in the world of the living, the magic of the dead would at least be
slow and weak. But was she one step out of the realm of the living having died
once? What about that homunculus, who wasn’t even a real human? Was he really
alive, or just animated?
Wings fought against the salty warm
oasis air. The cat flew over a temple. She considered petitioning the gods. Death was on the menu for everybody sooner or later,
asking an immortal to postpone one of hers didn’t seem fitting. She didn’t even know what god to ask
anyway, certainly not a death god, or the god over who’s temple she flew.
Serapis; patron of the Great Library. What good would he be? And she had no
idea what god in all the world was patron of flying cats. The information felt
suddenly important and silly to have never received. She felt flawed, and
self-conscious, able to die again.
The cat was a good flyer though, and
she thought perhaps she had gotten away. As the wind whirred in her ears and
she passed the old city walls, she looked behind her. Nothing. The skies were
littered with late night carpet-traffic, gryphons and sphinxes, and
Mediterranean dragon, but no shades or wisps or whatever the death gods were.
The cat landed for a drink from the
city canal. It wasn’t much farther to the lake. She thought she had heard
somewhere that the dead shunned water. Maybe she would be safe there.
Her lungs pumped like bellows in a
foundry as she landed on the bowsprit of some sturdy vessel in the lakeside
harbor. The harbor was relatively quiet. Foremen shouted obscenities and
commands at the other dockworkers. Her head was a mess. Uncertainty teased the
corners of her mind. The cat had been chased before, but not by anything that
could sense the pungency of each and every one of her seven lives. She must
have stunk to the gods of death. The fact that she was living exposed her, it
was a beacon to death.
She was exhausted emotionally. The
past week had been too much. Something about dying had taken all her strength.
She had to stop and hide. And she wanted a nap. Maybe the ship would set sail
and she would wake up in the sun, en-route to Babylon or maybe even further. The
cat fell asleep on the bowsprit, her unease still gnawing on her mind, a
carving of a mermaid beneath her.
The cat woke up falling. A ship’s
length away, mast height, she watched as her perch zoomed away. She wasn’t
flying in her sleep, but had been thrown. Weightless in mid-air she righted
herself and dove ungracefully into the water. The impact was harsh on her sore
wings. She hadn’t just strained the muscles in them in her escape. They felt
broken. The bones were hollow and brittle, but they would help her float.
With minimal effort in survival, she
popped her head above the surface of the lake. Everything was muffled and
distant as if she was still underwater, but she wasn’t. She realized what force
had removed her from her sleep. Bits of the harbor floated in the lake, on
fire. It wasn’t the work of dragon either. Huge chunks of the wooden piers and
warehouses were missing altogether. Bucket brigades on their industrial-sized
flying carpets had already begun fighting the fire and rescuing the injured.
“Should have gone to Atlantis.”
The cat doggie-paddled her way to the
shore and slumped over a rock. Her instinct was to fall back asleep and she
would have if it weren’t for the boy who approached her.
“Hey,” he called, “you alright?”
The cat meowed.
“Sorry I blew you up. You didn’t lose
a life did you?”
“I don’t think so, who are you?”
“Good. Tyro.”
The cat understood Tyro to be his
name. Why he would be called the apprentice was anyone’s guess but he seemed
genuinely relieved that she hadn’t died.
She couldn’t quite place him. Capriis
maybe, or fusang? He was definitely half Asian of some kind, but whether the
other half was Atlantean, Viking or Mayan remained a mystery.
“Can I pick you up?” His voice was
young but a little scratchy. Maybe the blast had impaired her hearing.
“Not much I could do about it in my
condition is there? But I guess so.”
“It’s ok,” he assured her, “I’m trying
to help you.”
As soon as he had her in his arms he
ran, full sprint down the street, away from the harbor wreckage. She couldn’t help
but purr with the soft bounce of his arms.
“Good thing the water here is so
protected, or they’d already be out looking for us.”
“Did you-“
“Yep. Didn’t mean to though, I saw
some poachers, they wanted your feathers. Had to do something but it got out of
hand.”
“My feathers?” the cat was dumbstruck.
“You must be younger than you look.”
“Eight weeks.”
“And you’re already out on your own?”
“Mother disappeared, I fell off the
pyramid and hopped on a merchants cart. Next thing I knew I was in Alexandria.”
“It’s a miracle you haven’t been
caught already. People would kill for your wings.”
The cat stared up at him. He had
slowed down a bit to facilitate the conversation.
“Soon they’ll change. They won’t be
grey anymore. They’re magic. They will change colors anytime you want them to,
like a chameleon.”
“Chameleon sounds like something I would
eat.”
“You should know about this already. I
bet your mother was poached. It’s good that found you.”
“So you can steal my wings too?”
“I’m not going to steal your wings. In
fact I promise to protect them, and you.”
The cat was silent. This was new, and
she had no instinct for it.
“While we are on the subject, how many
lives have you lost?”
“Just one, last week.”
“Damn! I mean seven weeks is way too
early to lose your first, but in Alexandria all alone it’s a wonder you haven’t
lost more How did you lose it.”
It was a personal question and he shouldn’t
have asked but he had saved her from at least another so he ventured the
intrusion. The cat had no feelings about it and she had never been taught to
guard this information.
“I pounced a shikome.”
Tyro stopped dead. He changed
direction and ran up a side street.
“Where are you going?”
“Not to take you back to your pyramid. The shikome…”
He said with incredulity. “You can’t go back now. No, I’d better take
you with me to Atlantis.”
“That’s what the homunculus said, to
find him in Atlantis.”
To this Tyro said nothing, but the cat
could see his resolve and he began sprinting again.
The cat purred and fell asleep.
