by Joe Mahoney
Burning Eye’s second, third, and fourth blows were not so kind. The fifth sent Half Ear tumbling out of Sweep’s sight. Sweep closed her eyes at this fresh horror. All of her was numb now.
Rock grated on rock. I couldn’t hear the wind anymore. Burning Eyes let go. Sweep slumped to the ground, just enough muscle control left to gaze up at her abductor.
So this is Burning Eyes, she thought.
She spoke to him urgently, her speech impeded by partial paralysis.
Save Half Ear, she implored.
Burning Eyes didn’t respond.
She begged Burning Eyes to save all her people—still no answer.
Desperate, she promised Burning Eyes all the offerings he desired if only he would take up her cause, but Burning Eyes did not move. He remained so still that I began to wonder if he could move at all any more, or if he had somehow frozen in place.
All out of words, Sweep fell still herself.
When Burning Eyes did move it was a shock. Sweep flinched, then watched as he took a ring off a lean finger and tossed it high in the air. When it began transforming into the gate on the way down I was not at all surprised.
Wintry fingers gripped my soul. I felt myself yanked backward. There was no pain but it was uncomfortable, as if I were a particularly stubborn variety of thistle that somebody was trying to tear up by the roots.
One final tug, and I emerged into the light.
XI
Vegetation Abounded
It was awful—the light too bright and the sounds too loud. I cried out and curled up into a ball to protect myself.
“Wildebear! Can you hear me? What’s the matter with him?”
“He’s a little mixed up. It happens sometimes after a trip through the gate. Especially when you aren’t used to it.”
“What are you talking about? Will he be all right?”
“He should.”
“Should?”
“He might not.”
“Will he or won’t he?”
“That’s what you’re here for, Doctor. To see that he’s okay.”
“Hmph. What happened to him?”
“Not much. Plenty.”
“That’s an infuriating thing to say.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry—just don’t say anything like that ever again.”
“I can’t promise that I’ll—”
“Enough! Just—where was he, anyway?”
“Where he needed to be.”
“Oh, for crying out—Wildebear! Wildebear, it’s me, Humphrey.”
I peeked out from between my arms to see who was talking. My memories were all jumbled up. Humphrey—the name sounded familiar. He had a lot of meat on him, this Humphrey. He’d make a sumptuous meal. And I just happened to be starving. Although a part of me knew there was something terribly wrong with the idea, I unfurled myself in anticipation of a feast. Catching a glimpse of one of my front paws, I was shocked to discover that it was almost completely hairless. My God! Was I ill? I emitted a most un-T’Klee like whimper and curled back up.
“Physiologically he’s all over the map,” a voice said. “His pulse is racing and his serotonin levels are dangerously low.”
It had come from my front foreleg. Something shiny and silver was attached to me. I tried to lick it off.
The creature Humphrey leaned down to touch me. Instantly I whirled on it, but something was the matter with my reflexes. Before I could deliver the coup de grace the Humphrey creature grabbed hold of me and held fast. I found myself in the embarrassing position of having been captured by my own prey. I hoped none of my brothers were around to see.
Except… I had no brothers. It was Sweep’s brothers I was thinking of.
And I was not Sweep.
Was I?
“Damn it, Wildebear, what were you trying to do? Slit my throat?”
Humphrey. Humphrey! It was my old friend Doctor Peter Humphrey—and I had been about to eat him! What had I been thinking? Awfully confused, flitting back and forth between two identities, one human, the other a cat, I could not have said who or what I was just then.
“You should think about cutting your nails once in a while,” Humphrey muttered.
A thin red line had emerged on the side of Humphrey’s neck. My attempt to dispatch him had come altogether too close for comfort. I started to apologize, but couldn’t seem to get the words out—talking involved using whiskers I no longer possessed.
Humphrey let go and stepped back. I tried desperately to pull myself together. I had no fur, no whiskers. I was, therefore, not a cat. I was a human. And humans spoke with their—
“Humphrey! I—I’m so sorry. It’s—it’s good to see you alive!”
He touched a finger to his neck. The tip came away red. “Little thanks to you.”
I rose to my feet and took in my surroundings. We were in a place I hadn’t been before—a small room blanketed in luxurious sheets and pillows. Frills, tassels, reds and purples abounded. The furnishings would not have been out of place in a sultan’s tent.
Humphrey and I were not the only ones in the room. Iugurtha was there as well.
I began backing slowly away.
“You’re scaring him,” Humphrey told her.
“It’s not me he should be afraid of,” she said.
And with that, everything fell into place. Suddenly I knew precisely who I was, where I was, and what I had just been through. It seemed incredible, but I had just spent hours, if not days, living inside the mind of an alien cat. After an experience like that it was a wonder I was anything resembling sane.
“Wildebear.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“You’re licking the backs of your hands.”
“Ah.” I stopped and considered. “So I am.”
Then, because there really was no better way to relieve stress, I resumed licking in earnest.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” I told Iugurtha sternly, in between licks.
“Once should suffice,” she said. “What is your opinion, Doctor? Is he in good health?”
“Nothing a little bed rest and years of psychotherapy won’t fix,” Humphrey replied.
I must have been exhausted; I didn’t even remember falling asleep. The next thing I knew I was waking up to find Iugurtha pulling me up by the arm. The beautiful blonde woman who was in fact not a beautiful woman but a composite of at least two people and possibly an alien or two pulled me effortlessly to my feet with one hand.
I broke away from her, afraid she was going to throw me through the gate again. “You—get away from me!”
Looking around, I could see no sign of the doctor. “What have you done with Humphrey? Is he okay?”
“The doctor’s fine.” She marched out of the small chamber into the cavernous space beyond.
I trailed after her limping something awful—my bad leg had not improved a whit. I wanted nothing to do with this strange and dangerous creature, but I was brimming with questions—first and foremost, the whereabouts of my nephew Ridley—and to get answers I had no choice but to follow her. The mechanical spider, lurking just outside the door, sprung to life with a series of whirs and clicks and followed us. Outside the small chamber the lighting was dim but from the size of the place and the look of the ceiling I was pretty sure we weren’t far from where the spider had first brought me.
“Where’s Ridley?” I called after her.
She didn’t answer.
“Where are we going?” I tried again.
“To win a war.”
“Just you and me? Should I bring my machete?”
She did not reply to this either. I studied her from behind. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail. She was still wearing her violet army fatigues. A slim silver watch graced her right wrist. Lilac
ankle high boots and a plum leather utility belt completed the ensemble.
“Look,” I said, trying my best to keep up. “I just want to find my nephew. If you could—if you could just—”
But the distance between us grew too great and I trailed off. Looking behind me, I could see no sign of the chamber from which we had emerged, only the spider clacking after us. After several minutes we passed the roiling stream beside which I had first awoken. Iugurtha stopped between the stream and the wall. I caught up and glanced around. I could see no reason for her to have stopped there.
“Where’s my nephew?” I asked.
“With me.”
“You took him. Kidnapped him.”
“He volunteered.”
“That’s not how it looked to me.”
“Just the same.”
She was smaller than I was, this travesty of a woman. But I suspected she could kill me with a single blow if she wanted to.
“Give him back to me.”
“It’s not up to me, Mr. Wildebear. I’ve shown you what we’re up against. You should join us, and fight alongside your nephew for this noble cause.”
“What noble cause?”
“The destruction of my enemy.”
“Which enemy would that be?”
She frowned. “Did you not see? Were you not paying attention?”
“I saw Necronians attacking T’Klee. But I also saw Burning Eyes attacking Half Ear. You said you were Burning Eyes. So which one is your enemy? The Necronians or the T’Klee? Are they both your enemy? And what in the name of God does Ridley have to do with any of it?”
“The T’Klee are not my enemy.”
“If Half Ear isn’t your enemy, why did you attack him?”
“I was not myself.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that many years before Half Ear and Sweep found me I’d been in an accident. A rockslide that nearly killed me. I’d been forced to incorporate base animals into myself to repair the damage, which saved my life but almost obliterated my intelligence. As near as I can tell I spent decades like that, as little more than a savage. Until they found me. I would have preferred Half Ear, but I accidentally knocked him out of the way.”
“So you took Sweep instead.”
Iugurtha nodded. “She wanted me to help her but there was nothing I could do for her. I was not even capable of answering her. She tried to escape, but I didn’t let her go. Instead I did something terrible to her. Something that hurt her more than anything had ever hurt her in her entire life. And when I was done, she was no more. We had become one.”
Such an end for Sweep filled me with sorrow. Yet when I searched Iugurtha’s face for signs of Sweep, I saw none.
Iugurtha went on. “Afterward Sweep knew more than she had before. She knew that my real name was Iugurtha. She knew what I had done to her. She remembered being the Burning Eyes of her people’s lore. She knew as much about me as I did myself.”
“Because she was a part of you.”
“That’s right.”
I scrutinized her closely. “You don’t look anything like Sweep.”
“I don’t need to.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if I needed to look like Sweep, I would.”
“Show me.”
She nodded, and there before me in the space of ten seconds grew a marvellous set of cat whiskers. She did so with no more effort than blinking her eyes.
“Sweep,” I said, my voice suddenly choked with emotion. “What have you done to her?”
“What has she done to me?” Iugurtha responded cryptically.
“You shouldn’t have done that to her,” I said. “You’re a monster.”
“Sweep was an anomaly. I prefer to seek consent.”
“What about Half Ear? Did you take him too in the end?”
“No. I found him later at the bottom of the ravine, near death. Four dead Necronians lay near him. It took a while, but I nursed him back to health. He is with us now.”
“Does he know what you did to Sweep?”
“He knows.”
“And how does he feel about that?”
“I think you know the answer to that question.”
She was right. He probably felt pretty much the same way I felt about it.
It was some time before I recovered sufficiently to speak.
Finally, I sniffed, wiped my eyes, and said, “Why tell me all this? Why bother to put all that information in my head and throw me through the gate? Is it because you want me to help you? Because I can’t. Look—I feel bad about what happened to the cats, but I have my own problems. I just want my nephew back.”
“You’ll help me whether you want to or not,” she said.
I backed up a step. “What do you mean by that? Are you going to try to absorb me too?”
“You have no special physical or psychological characteristics that I require. I simply mean that it’s all a part of the plan.”
Oh great. Another plan. “Plan C?”
“What?”
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Tell me this. Did Angelique Rainer and Joyce Humphrey have any of the characteristics you were looking for?”
“They did.”
My mouth was dry as I asked: “And Ridley?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes and exhaled noisily. “See that he never does. Now where is he?”
“Getting ready.”
“For war. Right. You do realize he’s just a boy, don’t you?”
“A boy who made a deal.”
“With the devil. Or a genie,” I said, recalling Ridley’s take on the creature before me. “Does he still think you’re a genie?”
“He’s grown up a little now.”
“Okay, listen. If you like deals, here’s one for you. Let’s call it a wish, like Ridley did. Give me Ridley’s freedom. His safety. Put him back on Earth where he belongs. In his place I’ll stay here and do whatever you want.”
Iugurtha tilted her head. “Those are three separate wishes. Which one would you like?”
Wishes in storybooks often go horribly wrong. I hadn’t had time to think this one through. I thought long and hard before speaking again.
“Put Ridley safely back on Earth where he belongs,” I said finally.
Iugurtha shook her head. “No.”
“No? Why not?”
“I need him here.”
“You don’t really expect me to believe that he wants to stay here on his own. You’ve done something to him.”
“I have altered him, it’s true.”
I remembered her chilling words from our first meeting: ‘I took in a little bit here, and let out a little bit there.’
“How?” I braced myself for the unpleasant details.
“Some I’ve already told you. Subtle changes to make him more attractive to the female of your species. Beyond that I enhanced a few natural aptitudes which have already proved of great use to me. Mr. Wildebear, your nephew is where he wants to be.”
I stared at her. “Why should I believe anything you tell me?”
“Because I am not your enemy.”
“As long as you keep Ridley from me, I beg to differ.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way. Now. How about another wish?”
“Forget the wishes. Just—let me talk to Ridley. See for myself that he wants to stay here.”
“If he does?”
“I won’t argue. He can stay. But he won’t. And when he doesn’t, you let him go.”
“And in return?”
“You can have me. I’ll do whatever you want. I promise.”
“What makes you think I’d rather have you than Ridley?”
“If you’re wrong you’ll have m
e, but if you’re right you’ll have both of us.” I spoke with the utmost confidence, but inside I was praying that I was doing the right thing. What if Ridley really did want to stay with Iugurtha?
“Done,” Iugurtha said.
She waved her hand, her eyes glowed briefly red, and the wall before us fell away like the best of some men’s intentions.
The wall crumbled into an evanescent barrier of dust. In less than a second no trace of the wall was left. Without having moved, I found myself standing on a ledge overlooking a new vista.
Iugurtha and her spider stepped forward. I followed them as far as I dared—there were no railings on the ledge. Vertigo gripped me. Iugurtha took hold of my shoulder to steady me but I shrugged her off. Feeling a breeze on my back, I turned to look. The wall had re-appeared a few paces behind me. I returned and placed a hand on it. It was completely solid and did not yield to my touch.
Seconds before all around me had been stale and lifeless. Now vegetation abounded. A roar filled my ears. Mist mingled with the tears I had shed for Sweep. Turning, I beheld a great waterfall, which fed a frothing river far below, just visible beneath a vast canopy of purple foliage. For a moment I thought Iugurtha must have transported us elsewhere, but she hadn’t. It was just that the wall had disappeared, revealing this place. We were still inside Iugurtha’s mountain. There was no sun or sky up above, only rock, and rock unlike any I had ever seen before—luminous, casting just the right amount of light to illuminate the cavern clearly.
I stepped as close to the edge of the balcony as I dared and peered down. There were hints of activity beneath the trees.
“Mr. Wildebear,” a voice said.
The voice startled me. I almost lost my balance, and might have tumbled off the balcony had Iugurtha not pulled me back.
“Sebastian! You scared me.” I had almost forgotten about the device on my wrist. Dimly, I remembered licking it the day before—it looked nice and clean now.
“Forgive me, Mr. Wildebear. I just thought you should know that I’ve established contact with the entity’s network.”
I glanced at Iugurtha, who betrayed no reaction.
“You have a network?” I asked.
“I have many things.”