***
I felt a light shake on my shoulder.
I opened my eyes and yawned. Fresh morning light was streaming through the window of the room, while Junaki and Ferrima were still deep in the lands of sleep and both were snoring lightly.
It was Tombur the wizard who had awoken me. He had bags under his eyes due to a lack of sleep. But his big grin more than made up for it, making his face appear much brighter.
“I hope you had a nice sleep,” Tombur said. “I have got good news for you… and a bad news as well. Which one would you like to hear first?”
The bad news first would be better, right? The good news then can act like some kind of a mental balm to soothe the bad news.
“The bad one,” I said, as I slowly pushed myself up to a sitting position.
“I couldn’t find anything that could regain your memory… directly,” Tombur said rather flatly.
Regaining my memory had been my only goal. If it wasn’t met then I couldn’t see any way how the other news would be a good one.
“Okay,” I said, trying to not let my heart sink and fought to keep my spirits high, “and what’s the good news?”
“There is a certain river,” Tombur said, as a smile slowly crept up his face. It was the same smile of someone who had found something that few people knew about and which could potentially bring them great riches or change lives in a big way, “but not a river of water.”
“Of blood?” I blurted. I didn’t know what made me say that. I reckoned killing the dogman the other night had somehow made my subconscious think too much of blood.
Tombur slapped his forehead in a disappointed manner. I thought the river would be of something much better than blood.
“Sorry,” I said, “but if it’s not a river of water than what kind of a river it is.”
“Of milk!” Tombur said.
“What?” I said. Had I overheard? I was quite sure I had.
“A river of milk, yes,” Tombur said.
“Really?” I said, as I let the fact set into my brain.
“And that river of milk just might be able to help you regain your memory, but not in a very direct way.”
“But how?”
“There is a myth that if someone dived into the waters of the river and asked for a wish then they would eventually receive their wish over time,” Tombur said.
“A myth?” Come on. That was not something that I sought. Wasn’t there a practical way for me to regain my memory? Besides, hadn’t even Goruk said something similar to me that if I just kept making decisions that were similar to those that I made in my past life then I would regain my memory over time?
“Think about it,” Tombur said, “it’s not a myth associated with a common river. We are talking about a river of milk here, which in itself would sound mythical to someone. But rest assured that the river exists. And the myth… well, it might not be a myth at all, but a fact! Just think!”
What Tombur was saying actually made sense. But still I found it hard to shake off my doubts.
“You are sure, right, that the river exists?” I said, with a raised brow.
“I can bet my life on that,” Tombur said. Then suddenly the cheer left his face and a shadow passed over it, “but be warned. It is not easy for one to go to the river. There is the land of the snakes that you need to cross if you want to reach the river. The river apparently springs from a mystic hole at the very top of a hill located in the land of the snakes.”
“I’ll need to think about this,” I said.
“I understand,” Tombur said with a nod, “but I would tell you to go to this river, even though the way is fraught with danger. Some of the snakes there are giants. But it is of course up to you.”
Tombur left me to my thoughts.
I looked at Junaki.
Would it be the right thing to take her along with me to the river of milk? That is considering if I actually went there. Would I have made a decision to go to the river in my past life?
I stood up and went to the branches over the house.
I exhaled deeply.
It was one tough decision.
I wouldn’t make it. I plucked a leaf from a branch. I mentally told myself that when I throw the leaf if it landed with the upper side facing up then that would mean that I should go.
My hands were shivering as I let the leaf fall. It landed on the roof of the tree house. The upper side was facing up.
Shit.
***
Chapter 14
We left Tombur’s unique house that day following breakfast. Before leaving, he gave me a roughly drawn map so that we could better navigate our way to the river of milk. Ferrima too left for her home which she said was about ten kilometres away. Tombur made us a grand parting breakfast, and I almost didn’t want to leave on account of his cooking skills.
As we made slow progress towards our ultimate destination, I realised that there was something rather wrong with Junaki. She was quieter than usual.
“Is anything up?” I told her.
She flashed her teeth and looked away. I raised a brow but didn’t ask anything. I had given her the chance to go to her uncle’s kingdom, but she had said that she would accompany me.
Two days went by pretty soon. Junaki had become so less talkative, that most of the time I let my thoughts give me company as I barely conversed with her. And after a while Junaki’s behaviour grew rather irritating to an extent. She still was the one who caught the rabbits and other animals for us to eat. Her stunning air arrows worked excellent on all small animals.
I kept checking the map regularly that Tombur had roughly drawn to show us the way to the milk river. And from my estimates, we were already in snake territory now. But my estimates were probably wrong because the last snake I had seen was just about a kilometre from Tombur’s home. And it had been small as a gecko. I had had a very catly urge to kill it then, but I had spared it, hoping that if we happened upon some giant snakes then they would spare us as well.
Three more days went by, no snakes. We did hear the howls of wolves though. I didn’t wish to have an encounter with those beasts again. The terrain did get more and more hilly, such that the task of being on the move required more energy. We were always ascending and descending hills.
Then on the sixth day we saw something that shook us to the cores. It was a skeleton of a giant wolf. Just like one of the giant wolves that we had encountered earlier. But its bones were quite crushed and it took us some moments to realise that the skeleton was actually the poop of some much larger creature.
Fear climbed up our spines at the very moment of this realisation.
“Giant snake probably,” I said to Junaki. She looked alive for the first time in days. Her eyes were wide open, and she was looking directly into my eyes. So a snake poop was what was required to bring her old self back, eh?
I thought too soon.
Just as I was mentally celebrating that the old Junaki had returned, Junaki suddenly looked away from me, blushing. Damn. Why had she become so shy?
I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Hey,” I said, “what’s wrong with you? You have been behaving odd ever since we left Tombur’s place.”
Junaki blushed even more. And then she seemed to have a sudden fit that even frightened me.
“Arrgh!” she cried out in exasperation. “I can’t take this anymore. What’s happened to me?”
“Yes, that’s what I was asking,” I said. She began to pace around the snake poop in circles (the snake poop was probably days, even weeks old and hence wasn’t thankfully stinking). Finally she strode towards me, until the distance between me and her was not more than an inch. I felt a new emotion for her, an emotion that I recalled having felt in my earlier life… for a different female cat. No, Junaki was a princess; I was just a stupid regular cat.
“I think I have fallen in love with you,” Junaki said to me quickly. It took me some time for the words to sink in. But when it did, my heart sk
ipped a beat.
“There, I said it!” Junaki said. She made a small jump as if in victory and stretched her arms wide like she had won a great competition. “It’s out. Whether you think the same about me is none of my worries.”
Wow, I thought. First tell me that you love me and then say that my opinion doesn’t matter at all.
“It’s out and I feel like a great burden has been removed from my shoulders. I love you, there I say it again, ha!—”
Junaki had gone too close to the edge of the hill where we had been on. In her excitement she placed her foot on a small branch. The branch rolled and she fell. And she rolled down the hill.
I rushed after her like mad, even as she cried out, rolling down the slope uncontrollably.
And as if we didn’t have enough problems, I spotted snakes in the valley below. There were quite a few of them. And they were big.
Very big.
All of them had their attention turned to us. Junaki was finally able to somehow get to her feet even as she rolled down but due to her earlier inertia she couldn’t stop herself. The two of us landed in the centre of the group of snakes.
I sprung to my feet, observing that both my stamina and health had fallen by 25%. I helped Junaki get up as well, she was quite brown with the dust and soil from the roll.
The snakes were hissing at us. Their reptilian eyes watching our tiniest movements.
“Pull out your sword,” I whispered to Junaki, as I pulled out mine. I was sceptic we had any chances of survival, but we won’t go down without a fight.
I felt a sudden enormous grip on my waist, and the next moment I knew I was being lifted up by the tail of one of the snakes that had crept up to me despite me intently observing them.
“There is no need for those sharp things,” the snake who owned the tailed hissed in the voice of a female. She gave me such a great shake that I lost my grip on my sword and it fell from my hands to the ground. I saw to my dismay and horror that even Junaki had been taken captive by the tail of another snake and she too had been separated from her sword likewise.
The snake holding me took me near her mouth. Was she going to eat me? My hair stood up on their end.
“Don’t be so scared, little one,” the snake said observing my standing fur, her split tongue flicking in and out, “I think it’ll be wrong if I eat you now. You see, we are having a mating fight here. And I think it’ll be best if you are given to the winner of the fight. What do you say, ladies?” She said to the other snakes there. Ladies? Weren’t the males the ones that usually fought over females? I saw that there was another snake who was peacefully sitting much farther away from this group of snakes. Was that the male? And were these female snakes fighting for him? That was queer for sure.
The other snakes apparently thought that it was a good idea.
“I will have them at the end, aunt,” one of the snakes said. She was considerably smaller than the snakes that were holding me and Junaki. Apparently she was a fighter, while the snakes holding me and Junaki were some kind of moderators of the fight, being probably older in age than the fighters which explained why they were being addressed as ‘aunt.’
“Shut up, they will be mine!” another fighter snake said. She flared her hood at the other fighter and hissed threateningly.
“Enough,” the snake holding Junaki said. “Fight each other ones we signal you. Okay, you two will be the first since you are so intent on killing each other.”
The other snakes present at the spot slithered away some distance, while the two fighters remained.
“Start the damn thing!” the moderator holding me cried.
And the fight began. It was one of its kind to behold. The snakes coiled around each other, biting into each other’s bodies. The fight lasted for at least fifteen minutes and by the time it was over one of the fighters was dead, while her blood oozed onto the grasses and soil. And it wasn’t like the winner had escaped without any scratch. She had bite marks all over her body. But she seemed to have successfully battled the poison that her now dead opponent had injected into her.
The winner flared her hood at the other two fighters remaining. I glanced at the male in the shade in the distance. He didn’t seem much worried that females were dying for him just to be his mate. This was one strange ritual, and I was glad at that moment, despite being sure that once the last fight was done I would end up in the stomach of the winner, that we cats had no such strange mating rituals even though we occasionally did fight.
The corpse of the dead fighter was carried away by one of the moderators by coiling her tail around that of the dead fighter.
“All right,” the snake holding me cried. “Time for the second fight. Syzin and Zinik come and fight.”
The second fight as well resulted in a lot of blood. Zinik won. But Syzin was wiser, or perhaps she didn’t have enough determination. She gave up mid-way of the fight and surrendered. Many of the moderators booed at her. And Syzin had to go away from the group into the woods, her head held low.
Finally, the last fight came. Both the fighters were already covered in wounds, and bite marks. I wondered if they would be capable of any movement even. But surprisingly their fight was the longest. Both the fighters were determined and had fire in their eyes. I meanwhile was finding it harder and harder to breathe, as the snake holding me was tightening her hold on me, so excited she was in seeing the fight. My health levels kept falling.
Finally, the fight ended. Zinik was a mess of blood and torn flesh and skin, her listless eyes staring at the male in the distance over whom she had fought with her ruthless opponent.
“And so that is it!” the snake holding me cried. “Zinik is gone but she fought well, unlike Syzin. Now, the rewards must be given.”
Both Junaki and I were held out by the snakes with their tails. Junaki looked just as drained of energy as myself. As the winner took us with their tails and applied pressure to kill us, Junaki spoke with the last breath still remaining in her.
“At least I expressed my love to you,” she smiled as her face convulsed with pain, and even my vision started to blur as the pressure got higher.
And then the voice came. It would have been a musical and melodious voice, but it sounded rather pained.
“Hold it! Hold it!”
Distracted, the winner loosened her grip and I found my vision sharpening again, and I could breathe. My temples throbbed bad though.
The person to who the voice belonged was a cat.
A plump cat. One that wore quite a few diamonds. A diamond chains, diamond bracelets, earrings…
“Mazo,” one of the moderators said. “How is it that someone like you should come to such as lowly thing as a mating fight?”
I couldn’t believe it, but the moderator was speaking with respect. Junaki glanced at me, puzzled.
“How could I not come?” Mazo said. “Especially when I see fellow cats about to be crushed and consumed!”
Instantly the winner female who was holding us loosened her grip so much that we fell to the ground. Both Junaki and I were so drained of energy that the moment we tried to stand up, we fell down instantly.
“I-I am sorry,” the winner said to Mazo, looking for help at the senior moderators.
“Please forgive her,” one moderators said, and she sounded like she was picking her words as carefully as possible. “But we didn’t realised that they were your fellow cats… they do not possess the glittering beauties that have become part of you. If we had known that they were cats we would have never dared touch them!”
“Enough of that,” Mozo said with anger and I could almost sense the fear in the snakes. They were so much bigger than him, yet they feared him like he could eat them although they were the ones who could swallow him with one gulp. “They shall come with me. And they shall also free me of my distress.”
“I am sorry to hear that your distress hasn’t left, Mozo,” the moderator said, trying to sound as sorrowful as possible.
Mozo
ignored her. He approached me and Junaki, the both of us still struggling to get up.
“Oh, what a pity!” he cried, “You are almost dead!”
“I am sorry,” the winner said in a tiny hiss that sounded like a rat’s squeak.
Mozo extended an arm to both of us.
“Here, catch me and stand up,” he said, he turned at the moderators with a glare, “it has hurt my heart to see my fellow cats being treated as such by snakes even after all that I have done for Snake kind.” The moderators as well as the winner hung their heads in guilt. Junaki and I caught Mozo’s hands and somehow stood up, although the ground still seemed to move on its own as we struggled to maintain our balance and to keep our heads from spinning.
It took a while for the world around to be still.
“Would you like to come to my home?” Mozo said to us, “I have got refreshments that would help you replenish your energy and feel better after the brutal torture that you have received.”
I exchanged glances with Junaki. The snakes obviously held Mozo in high regard. It was a good idea to follow him to his home. Who knew, the snakes might show their evil side again if we went off alone without Mozo. Junaki nodded.
“That will be helpful,” I said to Mozo. He smiled, though there was much pain in his smile.
“Come follow me,” he told us. “You’d be able to walk, right?”
My body was aching all over and I reckoned that Junaki was feeling the same thing. But we could walk.
“Yes.”
Mozo made an angry sound at the snakes and scowled at them, looking at them as though they were traitors.
“The next time a cat comes along this way and you treat them like you have treated my friends today,” he said to them with a note of warning in his voice, “then you will face the consequences. And you will regret your actions.”
Catheroes Page 8