That’s fine, Nick thought to himself. But that didn’t bring Horace back. Glumly, he followed after his father and Mr. McKenna as they began the journey back to the house.
The tireless spiddles came leaping along, too.
Chapter 17
WHEN they reached the place of slag and white rock, Nick’s father and Mr. McKenna halted. Nick and the spiddles halted, too. For a long time they gazed at Glimmung’s mark, the enormous cleft cut into the peak of the stark, rough hill. Each of them thought his private thoughts. No one spoke.
“He was here first, Glimmung was,” a spiddle said at last, for the benefit of Nick’s father and Mr. McKenna.
“I knew that already,” Mr. McKenna said. “Everyone who lives on this world knows that.” He had become grave and forbidding, as had Nick’s father.
“Is he here now?” Nick’s father asked the spiddles. “Did he come here again, after he was wounded?”
“Maybe,” the spiddles chirped. They did not seem alarmed. “If so, he won’t show himself.”
They started on.
A far-off cry came to Nick. The cry drilled in the bleak air; it wavered, became faint, then louder again.
“Horace,” Nick said. He could tell; he recognized the sound. At once he started from the path, stepping quickly over stones and the slab-like surfaces of once-molten slag. “I think it came from this direction.” Nick said; he stumbled, then hurried on, climbing up the slope of the hill, towards Glimmung’s mark.
His father shouted, “Nick! Stop! Don’t go any further!” Both his father and Mr. McKenna yelled together.
“I’ll be right back,” Nick said, over his shoulder. Again he heard the cry. Again he knew it was Horace. The cat, lost somewhere in these lifeless hills… Horace would not survive long here. Nothing survived in this place, any more. Not since Glimmung had come.
Panting for breath, he halted briefly.
Above him, near Glimmung’s mark, a black, small shape appeared. It paused there, uncertainly. It was Horace.
“Horace,” Nick said, and again began to climb. He continued on, laboring and gasping; rocks tumbled about his feet, and once a massive section of lava broke off and crashed past him, to disappear below. The air became thick and difficult to breathe; it made him choke. Strange air, he said to himself wonderingly. As if fragments of dust inhabited it. He coughed, paused to get his breath, looked up the slope, trying to make out Horace.
The cat could still be seen. Horace stood on an outcropping of rock, perched there unsteadily. Again he cried out, and then, all at once, he disappeared. He had hopped down from the rock; he had gone on. Nick, wheezing, followed.
He came at last to a flat place, a kind of table of rock. From here he could see down in every direction. There, far below, stood his father and Mr. McKenna. And the spiddles. None of them, not even the faithful spiddles, had followed him this far. He was completely alone. The wind, cold and sparse, billowed about him; as it tugged at his shirt Nick felt even more alone. What an isolated place, he said to himself. So silent. So without life of any kind.
Directly above him, on a boulder, Horace appeared. The cat made no cry, this time; he merely stared down at Nick with his green, round eyes, his sewed-on, glass-button eyes which bulged, as usual, in awe. The cat was dusty; his black coat had become grey with coarse particles. And he looked very tired.
“Stay there.” Nick said, and made his way carefully towards the rock. Reaching up, he tried to take hold of the cat. But Horace, for some obscure reason, moved backwards, away from Nick’s grasping hands. “Please,” Nick said. But the cat remained out of his reach. I’ll have to climb higher, Nick realized. He found a ledge for his feet; hoisting himself up he again reached for the cat.
Horace had jumped down behind the boulder.
Gasping and winded, Nick managed to lift himself to the top. Now he saw down beyond the boulder; a sheltered place, small, where the wind did not blow. There Horace sat, an expression of bewilderment on his face. “You fool,” Nick said pantingly. “All you have to do is walk towards me, just a few feet, and it will be over.” We can go home, then, he thought. And rest. “Please,” he said, reaching.
And then he saw the Nick-thing.
It stood just beyond Horace, not moving, not speaking. No wonder the cat did not know what to do. I and it, Nick said to himself. Identical. He felt terror. He gazed at the thing and it gazed back at him. A long time passed, or anyhow what seemed like a long time. And still the Nick-thing did not move. Yes, he thought; it’s a father-thing; the one of me. Which got away, back near the house. The one the nunk warned us about. The one which followed me. Here it is. Waiting. It waited for me to come up here.
Horace walked back to the Nick-thing, as if to rub against its legs.
“No,” Nick said sharply.
The cat hesitated. He started away from the Nick-thing, then stopped.
The Nick-thing bent down and said, “Horace.”
Quickly, the cat hurried over to it.
I’ve lost him, Nick said to himself. He watched the Nick-thing pick up Horace; he watched it stand erect, holding Horace in its arms and stroking him.
“Give me back my cat,” Nick said.
The Nick-thing continued to hold Horace.
“I want him back,” Nick said. “He belongs to me, not to you. Can I have him now?” He waited.
Lilting Horace, the Nick-thing held the cat out.
“Thanks,” Nick said. He reached down and took the cat from the Nick-thing’s arms. The Nick-thing smiled a little; a wistful, wan smile. Then it turned and walked away. Nick, holding Horace tightly, watched it go.
“Miaow,” Horace said plaintively.
Step by step, Nick climbed back down the rocky hill, back to the path where his father and Mr. McKenna and the spiddles waited. They had not seen the Nick-thing. Only he, himself, knew about it. And Horace, too; Horace had seen it. But the cat did not understand, so that did not count.
“Are you all right?” his father asked.
“Yes.” Nick nodded. “Fine.”
“Let’s get out of these hills,” his father said. “They worry me. I’ll feel better when we get home.” He started off; Nick and Mr. McKenna and the spiddles followed.
Horace, in Nick’s arms, rubbed and purred. “It’s good to have you back,” Nick said to him. The cat bumped his face against Nick’s chin, showing his pleasure at finding Nick again. “I’ll bet you really bit the two trobes who ran off with you,” Nick said. “Didn’t you?” The cat, as if agreeing, continued to rub. He seemed self-satisfied, as if he had done a noble thing. “Yes,” Nick said. “You did.”
Looking back, Nick tried to catch sight of the Nick-thing. It had not followed.
“Safety city,” one of the spiddles piped.
And so it was.
Nick and the Glimmung Page 9