by Adam Kline
The pair came tumbling from a ventilation shaft, only to land atop a speeding locomotive, far beneath the streets of some metropolis. As the wind whistled between them, Millikin grinned.
“Our battle now ranges beyond the realm of shadow! And I, with my claws and my sure footing, am sure to prove the victor!”
“Yet a rabbit’s feet are lucky,” snarled Leek, swinging his sword, “and whichever world you seek in which to fight, it matters not! For you shall have your comeuppance!”
But before he could receive his due comeuppance, Millikin leaped from the train into a crack in the tunnel wall. Leek hopped after in hot pursuit, only to find himself popping from a portal back in the tower of the cats. Millikin was just twisting the ring on yet another hatch and stepping in. But Leek’s speed was that of light itself, and he swung at Millikin’s tail as he came, carving a tuft of black fur.
The pair rolled like a ball across an icy path piled high with snow, snarling and biting as they did. A passing team of huskies was caught quite unawares, as was their Inuit master, by the epic duel that appeared as if from the very ether before them. But even as the huskies gathered their wits and lunged forward with twelve great woofs, the pugilists rolled straight into a snowbank and passed back into Hat.
Millikin leaped into another hatch, Leek just inches behind, and dropped into a factory, where he swung around to face his foe. As the two paced and parried along a black conveyor belt, great blades and hammers descended from above. Millikin stepped to a side, dodging a ten-ton press, and lunged at Leek, who slipped and fell. But before the press could flatten him, Leek rolled to his left and dropped into a pail. Millikin leaped after, for the pail, too, was a portal.
Now it was Leek who turned an iron ring and hopped into the hole behind. As rain washed down in torrents, the pair emerged amid the rigging of a ship, which spun like a top at the whim of an angry sea.
“My father was a pirate!” screamed Millikin over the storm. “And today I do him honor!”
“I’ll trim your black beard with my blade!” squealed Leek, swinging from a rope and holding his sword with his teeth. But before Millikin could concoct some suitable retort, his foe had dropped into a dinghy, returning to the tower beyond.
Millikin shook the rain from his black mane as he tumbled back into Hat and, springing to his feet, chased Leek into yet another hatch. But there Leek dropped his sword and hoisted a stout staff instead. The black cat eyed the room’s thin walls made of fine white paper and grasped a pair of nunchucks, which he swung with grim abandon.
“I am the seven-hundred-and-seventy-seventh son of a seven-hundred-and-seventy-seventh son,” said Leek, bringing his staff to rest on Millikin’s head with a satisfying smack. “My family line has always sought to multiply, and I am their great product!”
“And yet today,” scowled Millikin, “I will teach a lesson in division when I cleave your body from its head.”
With that, the cat reclaimed his sword and slipped beneath a basket. Leek grasped his sword again and leaped after Millikin in hot pursuit.
An elderly woman had just removed her tea cozy from a pot of hot sassafras tea. She had tuned her small transistor to a particularly soothing station, which offered easy listening, and removed her inch-thick spectacles to simply pause and relax. But to her ears came not the subtle croons for which she’d hoped, but cries of great calamity, the clash of steel on steel. A blur of writhing fur streaked past her pink recliner, and rushing to replace her glasses on their perch, the woman sat bolt upright in alarm. But as quickly as it had come, the blur vanished, gone with a flash behind the davenport. At length, the woman dared to breathe again and, at last, to sip her tea. She had always maintained grave suspicions about that davenport, though primarily from an aesthetic perspective, and resolved to banish it promptly to the garage.
The next hatch offered little opportunity for battle. Black cat and dusty rabbit spilled forth into a street as a hundred men came rushing by wearing bright red kerchiefs around their necks. As Leek and Millikin turned to spy the cause of their great haste, the ground shook with a fury that nearly matched their own. A bovine stampede descended upon them, and the pair careened betwixt the hooves of snorting bulls, which ran amok in pursuit of those crimson scarves. Millikin and his foe leaped together to the safety of a barrel and passed silently back into Hat.
Millikin breathed heavy within the tower of the cats, and Leek leaned exhausted on his sword.
“Just give me a moment,” rasped the cat, “and I will give thee respite. For once I’ve caught my breath, I will bestow upon you slumber without end.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” said Leek, gasping for breath, “I await, with blade in paw. But before you strike again, black shadow, you must ask yourself one question—and think long before you answer.”
Millikin narrowed his eyes as Leek reached behind his ball of tail, turned an iron ring, and whispered.
“Do I feel lucky?”
Even as the hatch popped open, Millikin sprang, holding his sword before him. But as that mighty blow neared Leek, the rabbit stepped aside. Millikin flew past him, into the waiting maw of the hatch, and little Leek reached out, brushing the black fur with his paw—just as he had always brushed the hem of Cecil’s trousers.
As the tip of Millikin’s tail disappeared into the hole, Leek smiled and sealed the hatch behind it.
“Best of luck, old foe,” he said. “And may we never meet again.”
Millikin tumbled from a hang glider’s backpack, cursing and spitting and hissing with rage at his opponent’s loathsome trick. Trickery was his expertise, not Leek’s, and the black cat howled as he fell, desperate to return from whence he’d come. A thatched roof appeared all too soon below him, and Millikin clawed at the air to no avail, then tumbled through with a crash.
PLOP.
Millikin paused to collect himself and sniff the air. Fragrant embers smoldered nearby in a hearth, and the soothing scent brought sudden calm to Millikin’s wrath. His eyes drifted to a rough-hewn table piled high with rods and netting, and at length the black cat slowly turned, to find himself perched on a lap.
The old man, to whom the lap belonged, regarded the cat at length.
Millikin had stumbled into the remote and invitingly rustic abode of an elderly Canadian bachelor who, after some forty-odd years working a drill press, had resolved to spend his retirement strolling the Northern backcountry in pursuit of rainbow trout.
“Well, this is a bit of unexpected luck,” said the man, smiling. “I could use some company.”
The man slowly extended a hand, from which Millikin initially shrank. In all his years, he’d always avoided human detection and, above all, actual contact. But as the hand approached, Millikin felt somehow drawn—and raised himself to meet it, noting its every detail. Calloused from toil, but strong and clean, still laced with the slightest scent of the stream. And then, for the very first time in his life, Millikin found his ears gently scratched, from just behind, in just that spot.
Ecstasy.
As the old man scratched away, he thanked goodness for a newfound friend. As for Millikin, all thoughts of battle, of dark towers and bad luck, melted from his heart. And as that heart grew fast less black and filled with the rosy glow of simple satisfaction, even the memory of a boy named Cecil Bean soon faded and dissolved, forever. He had a new human now. And in that he was . . . happy.
“I suppose you’d like a bite of fresh trout.” The man grinned.
And as Millikin plodded softly to the bowl that would always be his, he sighed in deep thanksgiving. Now this was therapeutic.
Chapter Ten
Leek gazed up at the tower’s dizzying height, and at the infinite portals that lined its every inch. Behind one awaited his human as well as his hole near Cecil’s house. It might take years, or even the rest of his life, to plumb the depths of every hatch. But to this fate the rabbit was resigned.
Until he heard again the fearsome sound of battle.
As Leek perked up his ears, which fought against the thickness of the tower’s iron walls, he heard the clash of some small blade on metal, and with that, he remembered Morel.
Morel, who would give all for his sake, and the sake of Leek’s small boy. Morel, whose small pink nose oft wrinkled in such a winsome way. Morel, who even now faced death for the one she’d come to love.
I cannot go to Cecil, thought Leek, and look him in the eye. Not without Morel, now knowing that she loves me. For while my boy will always be my pride, my duty, and my very finest friend, Morel is something more. And any luck I might bestow on Cecil, however freely given, would be hollow without her at my side.
“No,” he said aloud. “I will not go to Cecil, or the world that has a sun, without Morel.”
The tower doors burst open then, with the force of a falling hulk. The Dimmer-Dammer spun once, wobbled woozily on its feet, and with one last mammoth fart of steam, collapsed with a crash that sent its pilot sprawling. Moonlight poured into the tower, cold and pale as ever, and with that, Leek strode out, to stand beneath its source.
The carnage of war awaited. A thousand lifeless Dimmer-Dammers lay strewn haphazard in death, their iron corpses dull and charred, while ten thousand cats limped within their shadows, moaning and licking their wounds. And yet more came, fresh and furious with rage, thirsting for vengeance on the two small souls standing weary yet defiant before the tower door.
Hamlin bent his bow to fire his last arrow and cursed the quiver that could not bear another. At his side stood Morel, shield-maiden of the clan of Komatsuna, her eyes still bright with pride and shining fierce in glory. Her great spear notched and pitted in proof of her great deeds, Morel still stood her ground and beckoned the cats to come.
“Come forth, black legions! Come forth and taste my blade! For until its strength is broken, you will never have my Leek! He hastens even now unto another world, and there, beneath the sun, no war machine may follow!”
“And yet your Leek is here,” spoke the voice behind her, “to stand with his Morel.”
Morel turned slowly yet surely to gaze upon small Leek. And though in the past, her eyes had rolled when he sought to disobey, a tear rolled now instead and wet her longest whisker.
“We cannot stand much longer,” she said. “But we will stand together, this fellowship of three, till we can stand no more.”
“My name,” said the Great Imbrolio, “is the Great Imbrolio. And I am a famous magician.”
“Capital!” bellowed the crowd. “Hooray for magic and its mysteries!”
“And now,” hissed the Great Imbrolio, “on with the show!”
Of course, the show was anything but magical. On the contrary, it remained quite amateur and transparent. His deck of cards was still quite clearly stacked, and the length of colorful scarves he withdrew from his fist smelled ever so faintly of pee. Long before the Great Imbrolio had even gotten to his best material, the crowd began to protest.
“Fraud!”
“Charlatan!”
“Swindler!”
“Cheat!”
“Pee-pants!”
But the Great Imbrolio had heard it all before, and he knew what would quiet the crowd. He’d give the fools their precious magic.
“Silence!”
Something in the man’s voice was so absolutely chilling, even the most important of businessmen decided they’d better just relax and save their rude remarks for the ambivalent hipsters who’d collectively annexed their coffee shops.
“For my final trick, I will require a volunteer from the audience.”
Before anyone could even think to raise a hand, Cecil Bean strode forward and leaped upon the stage. Though the Great Imbrolio thought the boy seemed vaguely familiar, he could not place his face. So he paused and grinned, in hope of dramatic effect, and handed him his hat.
“Well, now, my overzealous friend! I have a question to pose. Would you say, boy, that this hat is an absolutely normal hat? Would you say that you have never inspected a more normal hat in all your life?”
“No,” said Cecil Bean. “And I am not your friend.”
“No?” demanded the Great Imbrolio. “No? Then I suppose you’d also dare to say that THIS is not a normal rabbit!”
With that, the man brought forth the rabbit from beneath his tattered cloak, holding it by the ears. The rabbit did not know quite what to expect. This was all highly irregular, as far as it was concerned.
“I must make my own luck now,” whispered Cecil to himself. And as he peered down into the hat and beheld its bright red lining, he pondered the second riddle—and the matter of rabbit extraction.
“The answers to even the greatest of secrets are often right before us, if we only choose to look.” That’s what the mysterious gentleman had said. So Cecil looked right before him as instructed, and the boy did notice something he hadn’t quite noticed before.
It was a label, pressed deep in the hat’s red lining by some old-fashioned sort of stamp (the sort employed by only the finest of hatters). In brilliant scripted letters of pure and glittering gold, it read as such:
McHattie
MAGIC HATS
OF SCOTLAND
Cecil stared at the letters. Imbrolio stared at Cecil. The crowd stared at them both, waiting for something to happen.
Then Cecil cried out, in a voice that rose clear and true above the passing motorcars, and echoed in Imbrolio’s ears forever.
“McHATTIE!”
Leek lowered his sword, and his jaw dropped shortly after. Hamlin’s eyes grew wide, and Morel cried out in wonder. Even the Dimmer-Dammers paused in their assault as the black army raised its green eyes to the sky.
A tempest was upon them.
Stretching vast and tall, taller than even the tower, came the storm, which screamed and spun like a dervish. But as it came ever closer, it carved no swath of destruction, as tempests usually do. No, as it came, it left no trail of waste. It consumed no root or rock. Yet as Leek stood transfixed and gazed into its eye, he could swear he saw small shapes tossed about within.
Only when the storm crept over the fortress wall, and snatched up the companions, did Leek learn what the shapes were.
They were rabbits. And precisely six seconds later . . .
The rabbits came spouting from the hat like a geyser. First one, then another, and then the full five hundred of Komatsuna’s clan came bursting forth into the air, to bask in the warmth of the world that has a sun. And when the last of the rabbits had finally trickled out, it was followed, rather anticlimactically, by one small mouse, bearing a flute.
The crowd didn’t quite know what to make of that.
As Imbrolio stared at Cecil, and at the horde of rabbit warriors assembling at his back, he promptly recalled his dream. He immediately dropped the rabbit from his hand, in a state of shock and awe. Two particularly menacing rabbits stepped forward to stand at Cecil’s side. One brandished a gruesome spear. And the Great Imbrolio, charlatan and fraud, immediately wet his pants, for the second soggy time in one single week.
“And now for my final trick,” said Cecil Bean, staring hard at Imbrolio with a penetrating gaze. “Disappear.”
Imbrolio needed no encouragement. And he ran as he had never run before, to hide from the awful warriors and the conjurer who had summoned them. Imbrolio ran across three counties until he reached the sea. There he ran straight up a gangplank and onto a freighter, which promptly sailed for Patagonia, where Imbrolio still lives, in fear of rabbits and of magic. But thanks to Cecil Bean, he did discover his true calling and now owns a small but successful diaper-cleaning service, which happens to be environmentally friendly. So you see, even peeing one’s pants can be a lucky thing from time to time. In Imbrolio’s case, it was the only real job experience he had.
Cecil turned to the crowd, which stared aghast. Now that was a magic trick. And from far back within their masses, a single set of hands began to clap.
“Bravo,” said the mysterious gentlema
n who once had owned the hat. As he clapped, he strode forward through the crowd, which now cheered in abject rapture, to shake the boy’s small hand.
“Finest magic I’ve seen in many years,” he said to Cecil. “You’re a quick study, young man, and will no doubt make a very fine magician. I daresay you’ll look quite dapper in my hat.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Cecil, blushing slightly.
“Now tell me, please,” said the mysterious gentleman, “whatever will a boy like you do next?”
“That, sir,” said Cecil Bean, “is a secret.”
“Quite right,” said the mysterious gentleman. “You’re learning.”
And with that, the gentleman disappeared in a burst of purple smoke.
Cecil then turned to find one particular rabbit, which leaped into his arms and wept in perfect joy. Leek had found his boy at last, and he rubbed his paws all over him, for all the time he’d lost. But as the pair embraced, he paused at Cecil’s whisper.
“You’d be so proud of me. I made my own luck, all by myself, from scratch.”
Leek leaned back in Cecil’s arms, and dread crept through him as he stared up at the boy. If his human could make his own luck, he’d have little use for Leek.
“But I think we’ll be better as a team.” Cecil smiled. “You watch my back, and I’ll watch yours—forever.”
Leek considered such a prospect. He had never had a lucky human before.
It didn’t sound half bad.
The tribe of King Kadogo rustled and bustled about, preparing a warm bed of coals. On state occasions, you see, truffles like to toast themselves a bit prior to being eaten. This was precisely such a time. For the chief had ordered that a great feast be held in Gordon’s honor and that it take place on the beach, on the shores of the Great Ink.
The potbellies had all lit torches, and the truffles scampered about in the absolute highest of spirits. Soon enough, Gordon lumbered out of the jungle, his crown of little fireflies shining with golden glee. A thousand toasted truffles ran scampering in his direction and leaped promptly into his jaws. The truffles considered it a wonderful thing to be eaten by Gordon, as his bowels produced a very potent brand of fertilizer, which was certified organic. Gordon, for his part, was delighted to oblige.