Homunculus and the Cat: Chapter XI (nanowrimo day 1, 12-3am)

Chapter XI

The cat was perched lazily atop the bowsprit, her favorite part of a boat, and considered death. She had only died twice, but she was beginning to enjoy it. It felt good. She wondered how it would compare to sex.

She couldn’t ask anyone of course, as she didn’t know anyone who fit the criteria of being, or having recently been deceased. She considered finding a ghost, spirit or perhaps another one of her kind, an Eneddi. She wasn’t even sure why she compared it to sex, only it seemed that humans enjoyed it and she enjoyed dying. She had never tried the other. She was still just a kitten after all.

“Ankh’Si,” Tyro called her new name from across the deck.

The cat opened her eyes.

“Guess what’s for dinner?”

‘Maybe I’ll ask the homunculi if any of them have ever been destroyed.’ It probably wasn’t at all alike, but she’d have to now that she thought of it.

“Karl made sushi.”

“Hell yes!” Ankh’Si had no idea what the words meant, except that Tyro used the term often. It wasn’t Atlantean, or Egyptian. The cat didn’t even think it came from one of the other languages that the others spoke, and there were a lot of those.

The ship was full of refugees from across the globe. All of whom were just looking for a place to stay. Rare magical homeless bums, that’s what they were. They were sailing to Troy, with a commission to retrieve unknown cargo for some rich and coincidentally fat lord in Atlantis. Nobody trusted him but they were out of options.

“Mermaid’s garden snake,” Karl announced as they assortment of bodies made their way below deck. “Olympian tuna, and blue triton-tail.”

The cat salivated.

“What god gave you those?” Tyro asked.

“These gods!” Karl stuck his fists in the air above him, below him and all around his sides. The hekatonkheire clenched each of his hundred fists with pride.

“Easy to catch a fish with a hundred hands.”

“I guess.” Tyro conceded.

Conversation slowed as the sushi was passed around.

“How’s the weather?” Petra, a Satyr and head of the sanctuary, asked.

The question was non-conversational and directed at the designated seer. Redbeak. He was an imp and damn good at prognostication.

“Rain tomorrow.”

“Storm?”

“No, just big clouds and wet air.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll be arriving in Troy then anyway. If the storm does get out of hand-”

“It won’t.”

“How-”

“Galemakers.”

Petra scrunched her forehead. They didn’t have any real galemakers on board. Two or three of the homunculi had an affinity towards the craft but none had any real training. Sione, the resident wereboar was one actually, but he was still recovering from a nasty transformation and woldn’t be much help on his own. It usually took about three galemakers to abate a bad storm, six if you wanted them to last and still keep the ship on course.

“The Persians have better galemakers than Troy.”

“What?”

“The Persians have more too. The sea will be calm as long as the siege is on.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Tyro butt in, “What do you mean the siege?”

“Master Tyro, the city of Troy is under siege by the Persians, do you not divine these things for yourself?”

Tyro had nothing to say. Everyone believed him to be a proficient at divination despite what he told them. He was right of course. He was crap at that stuff. Seeing and foretelling were close to being the bane of his existence. But, he had a smartphone and the habit of using it on occasion in this world was something he couldn’t suppress. It was probably a good thing the internet didn’t work on it. But he had apps and for some weird reason functional gps. It made no sense but what was he going to do about it in Gaia, where magic existed in technology’s place?

“I,” he paused, “was unaware.”

“I suppose you were too pre-occupied with the other current events to notice another siege on troy.”

“Yes, between that and the sanctuary burning to the ground.”

“Indeed.”

“So how will this siege affect our contract?”

The imp looked at Petra with puzzlement “I had thought,” he reproved, “That this would have already been accounted for.”

The rest of the present crew had silenced themselves to listen. Petra wasn’t the ship’s captain but she was the ranking staff from the sanctuary. She was the director of the organization. She had some of the management and staff, including Tyro, aboard the ship with her, but she called the shots.

Tyro had only recently been promoted to a full-time position but the management was required to stay in Atlantis. He was unsure how he felt about the mantle placed upon him. He hadn’t stayed at one job for this long before, but he believed in the cause. He was almost as passionate about it as Petra was. Just because homunculi had no souls, it didn’t mean they shouldn’t be treated like animals or worse, in many cases.

So what if they were man-made? So what if all the best alchemists could transmute homunculi? That didn’t meant they should be slaves. Soul or no soul, being created intentionally by a mortal did not negate one freedom. People have children on purpose all the time and don’t get to force them into servitude or sell them as commodities. Of course even the worst case scenario is a reality somewhere, but in civilization, such things are illegal.

It didn’t seem right to Tyro that just because homunculi were made artificially that they deserved anything different than other sentient creatures. And they were sentient. Most homunculi could think and act of their own volition. Tyro had seen them during his previous apprenticeship in Japan. He had worked with the alchemists that were forced to produce “false-humans,” as they were called, for the Yakuza. When Herakles made a plan to escape Tyro resigned and joined them. It was perfect timing for him too. Any longer and he was sure to have been roped into more Yakuza affiliation.

“There’s no way were getting into Troy!” Someone said.

“We might as well turn around now!” Said another.

“Hesperides will never give us funding now!”

“We might as well take the ship and disappear.”

There was a chorus of agreement with a few mingling suggestions of new destinations and ideas of what to do when they got there.

“Listen!” Petra shouted. “We’re not going to become whalers in Greenland. And we’re not going to all end up in whatever underworld you- Look,” she said, “We are going to go to Troy. We are going to appeal to the Persians or wait out the siege. We’ll explain it to Hesperides when we get back and apologize for the delay. We’ll get our funding and re-build the sanctuary.”

“Hesperides,” one homunculs argued, “won’t give us funding, he hates us.”

The small cabin exploded in debate once again. Petra grabbed her plate and left. Tyro followed her and the cat followed him.

“Are we really going to appeal to the Persians?” Tyro asked as the three of them walked to the forecastle.

“It’s worth a shot.” Petra said. “They’re going to quarantine our ship anyway. There’s no way we can get close to Troy without the Persians knowing, not while a siege in going on.”

“What’s the deal with the siege anyway,” Tyro asked.

“It’s a demonstration.” The cat said. “The Persians are protesting Greek tariffs.”

“You knew about this?” Petra asked incredulously.

“Well,” the cat said, “I just overheard some stuff at an oracle parlor one night.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think about it until now.”

Petra sighed.

“So,” Tyro asked, “It’s not a war then?”

“No, the Greeks are just getting a little out of hand on taxing imported Celtic and Viking goods.”

“Good.” Petra sighed again. “A war’s the last thing we need.”

“But,” Tyro said, “If the siege is about imports and exports, they’ll be less likely to just let us in to Troy and pick up our cargo.”

“That is a problem isn’t it?”

“By the way, has Redbeak had any luck scrying what the cargo is?”

“No, none at all.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, that means it’s something big.”

“Big?” The cat asked.

“Expensive, or important or something, we’re not just going after a boatload of really nice pillows or anything.”

“Well duh!” Ankh’Si said. “Why do you think he sent us? It’s probably something illegal. Drugs or something.”

“Boy I sure hope not.” Petra added.

Silence followed. The three of them gazed in the direction they were headed. East. Toward Troy, the Persian fleet, and their unknown cargo. The salty air filled their lungs and the stars overhead shone comfortingly to them as they each wished according to their own traditions. Petra silently implored her goddess for help. Tyro adopted a weak hope in nothing in particular and Ankh’Si considered getting some more sushi.

“You know Hesperides,” Tyro said, “he’ll find a way to make us all his slabs, not just the homunculi. Even if he does give us our funding, there’ll be a catch.”

“What about your mother?” Petra almost pleaded with the cat. “I know you two aren’t on the best of terms but…”

‘Best of terms?’ Ankh’Si thought, ‘I slit her throat!’

“I don’t know, she said. I guess we are even now. I won’t say there isn't a chance.”

Petra turned and reached to the cat for a hug.

“It would mean to world to me, and the sanctuary if you could at least talk to her.”

The cat’s fur changed to a dark purple as she allowed herself to be hugged.

“I promise I’ll talk to her.”

I have one character who may or may not even be able to die in the traditional sense. And then i have another who can. Many, many times. 

I LOVE writing such lines as:
- "besides, she was only going to kill her the one time." 

- "The cat hadn’t died for weeks."

- "Life doesnt give you nine tries." "It does for me."


already nine chapters in to my second novel: Homunculus and The Cat!

Homunculus and The Cat pt. II

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.

Homunculus and The Cat

This story begins with the death of the cat. This particular feline perished, not peculiarly, by way of curiosity. It was a young cat, barely a year old, by any scale, with an above average intelligence. Specifically one that afforded a heightened awareness of danger as it knowingly pounced Japanese death right in her putrid, sinewy face.

Alexandria. Egypt. A block or so away from the, Great Bibliothek, the cat basked in the nighttime heat. Sulking lazily on a shelf of some brand new apartment building like an aristocratic stray, the cat licked her paws. She disposed of the hairball in the usual way. Fairy was only her second favorite food; the wings always tickled on the way back up. But she had eaten sushi for a week straight and needed a change.

The cat yawned and squinted patronizingly at the human couple inside the apartment arguing over something neither of them could remember. Her coat was solid steel grey and its shine, graphite. A door slammed inside the flat and then another. There was nothing left to see, no dinner and a show combo for her tonight.

She stretched a pair of slightly lighter grey wings and closed her green eyes. The cat yawned again. She didn’t particularly feel like flying. This building was pretty posh and besides, there was always a chance the couple would get over themselves and each come crashing back into the room for some make-up sex.

“They’re probably not the type,” the cat with wings judged. “Neither of them looked very kinky anyway.”

She scanned the sandstone skyline for something else to do. It was a half-hearted and vain attempt. Maybe she’d just have another bloody nap. All the tourists were in bed for the night or else at some nightclub where she couldn’t harass them.

The cat was in the middle of a curse directed at the jackal-bouncers of the Lighthouse, one of Alexandria’s top establishments, if you don’t like dancing with locals, when a shadow seemed to move beneath her.

She loved new things and the smell that drifted from the flat below was a new thing. However unpleasant it was poignant to know about it. Also new was the way her hairs began to stand on end.

“I must investigate,” she whispered spiritedly.

The apartment below had all of its lights put out but something inside was moving. The cat located an open window and watched. It was hard to see in the dark even for her, but there was suspicion growing that had not trouble with it at all. In fact, the more she thought about it the more the darkness seemed somehow artificial, or at least false in some way. It was made or forced upon the room, light and shadows in all, covered with an added layer of tangibility. She’d better make a move or the stagnation of the cloud, as she thought it must be, would get the better of her.

Crouching and calculating she found the opportunity she was looking for. She pounced. All at once her victim screamed, over a dozen glass lamps burst from their repression, and she caught sight of what she had ambushed.

Presently she was ripped from its face of polluted flesh that rotted away and exposed bone and loosened several maggots. She landed on the floor and though made of hardwood it felt soft as a cloud. She retched. Not another hairball this time. Uncontrollable disgust seethed out from her bowels as the last of the wet-mummy’s shadow struggled to cling to her. But an unknown light was prevailing, vanquishing the stench of the unknown. The zombic fiend recoiled from some newly lit lamp and leapt out of the window. A second one followed.

Under an eerie purple haze that grew from the lamp, the cat’s vision blurred and she lost her footing.

“You saved my life!”

The cat could barely see, but whatever was speaking to her didn’t sound right. It sounded distant and as if it was missing something. It was short, humanoid and wheezed a bit like a summoning gone wrong.

The cat couldn’t help close her eyes.

When she opened them again dawn had struck like a hammer on the anvil of the night. The small man was sitting beside her stroking her soft fur and scratching under her wings.

“That was your first life wasn’t it?”

The cat blinked her green eyes.

“eight left.”

‘Great,’ she thought, ‘now I’ve got a pet human.’

“I want you to know I’m forever in your debt,” the midget said to the cats disgust.

“Look,” she started to say, “I didn’t mean-”

“If you ever need anything,” He cut her off. And he wasn’t a midget, or even a man for that matter. She realized now what he was. He was artificial. Manmade. False-human. An alchemist’s atrophy.  He was a homunculus. “look me up, I’ll be in Atlantis, at the homunculus sanctuary.”

The cat just stared at him, like she were an oracle gazing into his soul, except he didn’t have one, he was a homunculus.

“Also in case you are unaware,” would he not shut up? “those things that attacked me were shikome, minions of Japanese afterlife. And they’ll be back. Stick around here and they will find you.”

As the homunculus stood up he handed her the purple lamp that had warded off the Shinto demons.

“Ask for Gregor.”

The cat blinked in acknowledgement.

The door closed on its own behind Gregor, one of the many small luxurious features of the posh apartments the cat had just invaded.

After a moment of silence and pondering the cat decided to find some more sushi.

“Shikome,” she said aloud, “eight lives left, what are the odds?”