Journeyman Cat

by Virginia Ripple

  Toby jumped back, then peered through the heat haze, trying to find the tom under the debris. The brown cat lay still. Toby took a step in his direction. The heat drove him back. He could leave him here. No one would care once the truth came to light. He backed up another step, still staring at the tabby’s prone form. Charred pieces of ceiling were falling around him. He knew he should leave, but he continued to stare a moment longer. He heard something faint coming from the cat’s direction. He stretched his neck forward, ears perked. He heard it again, a faint mewl from the tabby.

  He felt a whisper of fur against his mind as he hesitated. Growling, he darted forward, grabbed Father Hanif by his nape and tugged until his limp form came free. There was a door to the outside just a little ways down the hall. If he could make it that far, maybe the wretch would be grateful enough to answer some questions. If not, then there were others in the OKG who were better at interrogation. Either way, he was going to get some answers.

  Toby sunk his teeth deep into the brown tabby’s nape, struggling to drag the heavy tom away from the burning building. The melted snow ran in rivulets around them. The orange tom’s lungs burned from the smoke, his bright fur dulled by falling ash. He couldn’t pull the tom’s weight any further and hoped this was far enough from the crumbling inferno. He put his ear near the brown cat’s mouth, listening for breath. It rattle in and out, shallow, but there, though Toby had no idea how much longer that would be. He poked the limp tom with a hard paw.

  “Where is my father? What did you mean about Transformation Mountain?”

  Hanif’s eyes blinked open. His groan ended in a heaving cough.

  “The beast belongs to the Master. Through his death, the transformation will be complete and New Life shall begin.”

  “Where is he?” Toby growled.

  “He shall be reborn on the mountain top and all shall see the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

  Hanif coughed, viscous liquid spraying across Toby’s nose. The orange tom’s eyes narrowed. He leaned close to the brown tabby, ignoring the old cat’s rank breath.

  “Tell me who your master is. What does he have planned?”

  The old tom’s eyes closed as a shudder ran through his body. He sucked in a shallow breath, letting it out in a wheeze. When he opened his eyes, the young cat could see the light fading in them.

  “Today I will be in Paradise with Him,” Hanif gasped.

  Toby hissed and drew his lips away from his fangs.

  “Only those who are forgiven enter Paradise. You’re going to the deepest hell for what you’ve done.”

  The brown tabby’s whiskers splayed, his laugh dying in a choking gurgle. He lay in the slush, gasping until his breathing eased.

  “The Great Spider weaves New Life for us all. You only need to accept the Truth about this world for Him to save you.”

  “Who is the great spider?”

  The brown tom laid his head back into the puddle forming around him, his breath growing shallower with every passing moment.

  “He is New Life,” he whispered. He took one last rattling breath, then stilled.

  No. Toby’s fur rose in a spike down his spine. NO! He struck the lifeless tom over and over with an armored paw. The sound of pounding footsteps behind him merged with the blood pounding in his rage filled mind. Someone grabbed him by the nape of the neck and yanked him into the air. He yowled, twisting and screeching, trying to get at the hand that held him hostage.

  “Stop it! He’s dead!”

  With a great twist and scream, the orange tom managed to lash at the offending human hand. He felt his body go airborne, then slam into the frozen ground. He turned, glaring at the human. Lorn held his injured hand to his chest, his eyes scrunched in pain. Toby turned toward Father Hanif’s lifeless body, wanting to shred it. He’d pulled the worthless mange fur from the fire and for what? More riddles.

  He turned and glared at his partner. Lorn reached out his uninjured hand, kneeling in the ever widening puddle. The fire roared behind the human. The sound of walls inside the school crashing to the ground carried to his ears. Toby drew back from the offered hand, growling. Without a backward glance, the orange tom spun and ran into the night.

  Clarence hurried down the hall toward David’s office, dodging guardians and companions as they raced in the opposite direction. He needed to know what was going on. Yedidah told him that there was a massive fire at the New Life Temple and School and there were rumors of some terrorist plot gone wrong, but that was all she’d found out. It seemed the threat of a terrorist plot was true, given that every available guardian was racing toward the stables. What he needed to know was if Toby and Lorn were still alive. He spotted David trailing the dark-skinned female OKG captain, pounding his left fist into his right hand.

  “Sir, this is important,” the man said.

  “Let this go, Guardian. It’s done and right now we don’t have time to argue,” the woman in black and gold robes said as she turned toward him. Clarence edged closer, staring at the floor as if he wasn’t listening.

  “We have a situation to handle in the Outer Reaches, so, unless you have some impressive new evidence, shelve it or you’ll find yourself filing reports instead of working investigations.”

  Clarence watched them from the corner of his eye. He could see his friend’s jaw tightening as he continued to stare at the captain’s unyielding expression. The woman glanced his direction then back at David.

  “Do we have an understanding, Guardian?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” she said, then turned her attention to Clarence, “Congratulations on your retirement. I wish you the best.”

  The old mage blinked, wondering if he’d heard her correctly. Retirement? She cast her gaze between them again and took a step backward as she continued on her way to the stables with the other guardians.

  “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have a possible crime scene to investigate.”

  Without a backward glance, she trotted away. David clenched his fists at his side and turned toward the master mage. He motioned with a jerk of his head for the old man to follow him back into his office. When they were both behind the closed door, the younger man let loose with a string of uttered curses and dropped into the chair behind his desk. He turned to stare at the wall. Clarence turned his attention there, too, expecting to see more sheets of paper and a few miops with strings connecting them. The wall was blank. The mage turned a questioning look on his friend.

  “Our mysterious fiend pulled some more strings and it’s all been confiscated.”

  “What about the investigations, Adele’s and Master Natsumi’s murder?”

  “Ruled post-plague violence and closed.”

  “That’s nonsense. There hasn’t been any plague related violence for several years now.”

  “There’s been more than you know,” said David, reaching his hand out toward a bottle of amber liquid and two glasses. It floated toward him, landing gracefully on his desk. “The OKG has an entire department dedicated to recent cases of post-plague violence. They look into each murder that even remotely smells like PPV and decide if it’s something the terrorist specialist need to dig into deeper.”

  The younger man poured a swallow of the honey-colored liquid into the glasses and handed one to Clarence. The old mage raised his eyebrows as he stared at his frowning friend.

  “I had no idea.”

  “Few people know about it.”

  “Is that where your documents went?”

  David shrugged. “Maybe. All I know is that I came in here just before the emergency call came through and everything was gone. That’s what I was talking to the captain about. As you heard, she considers it all closed.”

  Clarence opened his mouth to protest, but the guardian held up his hand. “I’m not giving up. I’m
just going to have to keep my investigation low profile until I can come up with something solid.”

  The mage frowned and stared down into his glass. “Wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove,” he murmured.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a quote from Morial: “Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” It’s something Adele used to say whenever we were working on some way to keep rulings from becoming law.”

  “A wise feline,” David said, raising his glass in a toast. “She’ll be missed.”

  “Indeed,” said the master mage, raising his glass also. He drank a sip with his friend, the amber liquid burning its way down his throat in a satisfying way. David poured some more of the drink into his own glass, then reached to pour another swallow into his friend’s glass.

  “So, what brings you to my sorry little office?”

  “I heard there’s been a fire at the school we sent the boys to. I hoped you had some information on it.”

  David shook his head. “Unfortunately, you probably have as much information as I do. The call came in a few hours ago.”

  “Who put in the call?”

  “Some cat from the temple. A Brother Harold, I believe.”

  Clarence glanced at the empty wall, shielding his surprise from his friend. He couldn’t be sure, but that name sounded familiar, a name Adele had mentioned a long time ago when they were still students at the academy. He turned back to David, who was pouring himself another drink.

  “Any word on the boys?”

  “Just that the two guardians we sent in won’t be enough to subdue everyone there. I’m assuming Brother Harold meant Toby and Lorn.”

  A smile played on the old mage’s lips. “If I know them as well as I think, I’d say they’re fine and in the thick of things. What else do you know about what’s going on there?”

  “Just that the villagers will do all they can to keep the fire from spreading and that every able bodied guardian available is to high-tail it out there.”

  “What about you? Why are you still here?”

  “Gillespie and I are to hold down the fort here.”

  “I see, so our mysterious friend doesn’t want you in his way.”

  “That’s my estimation of it,” David said. “Now, what’s this about you retiring? I thought you’d never give up your seat on the council.”

  “Neither did I, but apparently I have.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t be sure, but it seems our fiend has decided I’m in his way and has found a means to remove me.”

  “You mean it wasn’t your idea to retire?”

  “Not at all. In fact, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

  “What do you plan to do about it?”

  Clarence stared at the empty wall for a moment, then turned back to the guardian, a smile spreading across his lips. David grinned and raised his glass again.

  “A toast, then, to our mysterious benefactor who has set you free to seek the meaning of all things unknown. May he never know what hit him.”

  Toby stood looking at the play of sunbeams on the burned out building. He saw humans with cats riding on shoulders edging around the perimeter. Sometimes he spotted partners through the trees. He knew they were looking for the tunnel entrances and wondered if Harold had shared his map with them. He wasn’t sure who had called in the OKG, most likely a villager, though Toby had his suspicions that it might have been the skinny old librarian. There was something about the old cat that made him wonder just how much the yellow feline knew.

  It had taken the guardians a couple days to round up all possible resources and send them to the Outer Reaches. It had been enough time for Toby to investigate the rest of the tunnels. He’d found nothing more of his father than what had been in the room he’d first searched.

  The sound of approaching hooves drew his attention and he turned to see who was about to interrupt his self-recriminations. Lorn sat astride a dappled gelding, the reins held loosely in a hand wrapped in bandages.

  “We had bets going as to when you’d turn up.”

  The tom turned back to the building in silence. The creak of leather announced that the human was dismounting.

  “Most of the kids survived. Surprisingly no one exploded.”

  Toby’s tail twitched, but he said nothing.

  “The OKG is working with several temples to find homes for them.”

  The cat continued to watch the partners move about the grounds. What did it matter? The damage was done. The orange tom gave Lorn a sidelong glance, seeing the human’s breath as he exhaled. Lorn shifted from foot to foot, clapping his hands against his arms.

  “They’re rounding up any felines they find in the area, trying to find out who was part of the temple scheme and who wasn’t. It’ll probably take some time before they catch them all.”

  The young cat turned and walked back the way his partner had ridden. “They won’t.”

  “Sure they will,” said Lorn, following him. “At least they’re trying.”

  His tail twitched again. “And they’ll fail, just like we did.”

  “Is that what you think? We failed?”

  Toby turned and glared at the human. “Didn’t we? Are we any closer to knowing what that monster is planning next or finding my father?”

  “No, but we don’t know what we’ll discover in those tunnels. Maybe there’ll be clues, something to help us find your father or catch this cat before he does any more damage. Agh!”

  Lorn’s hand flew to his head, pressing against his eye. Toby cocked his head to the side.

  “Another headache?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You should really have Master O’dorn take a look at you.”

  “It’s not that bad. The staff physician said it’s just a side-effect of the re-education techniques they used. It’ll wear off soon.”

  The man took several deep breaths through his nose, then exhaled slowly through his mouth. His hand inched away from his head and he smiled.

  “See? Gone already.”

  The orange tom shook his head and started walking away again. Lorn called after him, making him stop, though he didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to hear what his partner had to say.

  “We’ve solved riddles before. We can solve this one, too.”

  Toby whirled around, his fur spiking along his spine, his whiskers clamping shut.

  “You don’t get it, do you. This spider is weaving a trap for all of us and we’re just blindly jumping into the web. We won’t find anything in those tunnels just like we didn’t find any clues to this from Chivato or Gravin Arturo. The one cat who had any idea what this monster was up to died and all he left us with was another riddle.”

  “So what? You just going to give up? What about Master O’dorn? Are you just going to let him down like this?”

  The young cat turned away, stalking toward the temporary OKG headquarters. Lorn’s boots crunched on the snow behind him.

  “What about your mother or your father? Would they want you to quit?”

  The orange tom stopped and whirled around, rage burning through his mind. The man stood his ground, though the tom saw his hand moving through a warding gesture. He looked beyond the human toward the temple ruins, spotting Harold pacing toward them, a book floating behind him.

  “Excuse me for interrupting, Journeyman Lorn, but I need to speak with Journeyman Toby.”

  Lorn glanced at the orange tom, then nodded at the librarian.

  “I’ll catch you later, partner,” he said, leading the horse in the direction of the burned out building.

  The two cats watched him leave. Harold turned to the orange tom, his expression grim.

 
“I’ve seen that look before. You’re planning on cutting ties with the OKG as soon as this is all over.”

  Toby turned and started walking back down the temple lane, heading for temporary headquarters. The old tom kept pace beside him.

  “I’m not going to try talking you out of it. Sometimes a young cat has to do what feels right even when everybody tells him its wrong. I would, however, recommend taking the boy along.”

  “He’d only get hurt,” said the orange tom, shaking his head as they continued walking.

  “Always thinking of others first, I see. Your father was like that. That’s what made him a great loner.”

  The orange tom stopped, turning a bewildered look on the old cat. “You knew my father?”

  “And your mother, too. A great loss in both of them.”

  “How did you know them?”

  The old cat cocked his head to the side. “Let’s just say we all shared a special connection and leave it at that.”

  “But —”

  Harold shook his head.

  “Nope. I’m not going to say any more about that.”

  “Fine.” Toby turned to watch the partners weaving through the woods again. “Can you at least tell me who you really are and how you knew the reversal spell when Lorn tried to fry me?”

  The old tom shook his head. “Nope. All I can tell you is that you’re being watched closely by both sides of this war.”

  “What about the students?” Toby said with a growl. “No one exploded. Why?”

  “Not much to tell there, either. Could be that Hanif didn’t know how to set them off or could be that his handler didn’t want to waste the explosives. We won’t know any more until someone finds a way to determine who is a potential threat and who isn’t.”