“Let’s go to the capital,” I said.
Chapter 33
Alam bid us bye, and the three of us jumped through the portal. Alam had told us we would appear in a small room inside an inn, which is where we materialised. Alam was right, for my health fell by a good 95%. We knocked on the door of the room, for a while trying to attract the innkeeper. The room was filled with all kinds of old and broken things. It was fifteen minutes before a young cat in his teens opened the door of the room.
“I am really sorry to keep you waiting,” he apologised with a guilty look.
“It’s okay,” I said.
“Can we meet your father?” Riya asked.
“He’s a bit busy with the customers, but I shall call him,” the teen said and he hurried away.
Very soon the father appeared. He was a middle-aged cat with an earnest looking face. He went by the name of Mrida by what I saw from his stats when I focussed on him. He bowed low.
“Come let me show you to your room, you can take rest there,” he said.
He led us to another larger room after asking his son to attend to the customers. The room was neatly kept and had three beds. I reckoned this was where we would be staying.
“It’s a small place,” Mrida said humbly, “but I hope you like it.”
“You have been told right, who we are?” Riya asked Mrida.
Mrida nodded briskly.
“I am the only one in the inn that knows,” he said. “I am grateful that I have been given the task to host you, lord,” Mrida said with a bow at me. There were a few more portals in the capital city, that I had myself planted, but Mrida’s was the one that was the closest to the part of the capital city where only dogmen were allowed.
After Mrida left, Riya closed the door of the room.
“So what are the plans, Kitty?” she said in a hushed voice.
“We rest today,” I said, glancing at Junaki, “and tomorrow we deal with Meow. I thirst to know the reason why he got me killed. Junaki and I shall go tomorrow, Riya, you must stay here unfortunately, though I know you would have wanted to meet Meow too.”
Riya was ultimately an old lady. Even though she could replenish her mana, her stamina was permanently low due to her age. And I had a feeling we would require quite some stamina tomorrow, spells alone wouldn’t quite work. Riya understood this even without me directly telling it to her though she did look crestfallen.
The day passed in relative boredom, and impatience growing within me. I could see Meow’s face in my mind already, and felt my anger rise for him. Riya and Junaki bonded well. Riya didn’t seem to mind the fact that Junaki was the love of my second life in Arun. Riya was impressed when I told her that without Junaki I would have probably long given up on my quest to regain my memory.
Finally the next day dawned. Over the night, our mana had climbed back to 100%. The plan to visit Meow’s residence was simple. We would tell the guards at his home that we had an important meeting with him. If that didn’t work, we would have to use other less peaceful methods that involved swords and spells.
After a quick breakfast prepared by Mrida, Junaki and I gulped down the shape-changing potion. I felt queer immediately. A message appeared in my vision.
To what race without you want your physical features to become?
Dogman, I thought.
I observed myself in my mirror as my mouth elongated to become like that of a dog’s. The hair of my torso and legs disappeared. My height increased, and my tail became bigger. My clothes stretched and enlarged as well. When I turned at Junaki she had also become a female dogman.
You have used the Shape-changing potion to become a Dogman!
You will be charged one hundred mana an hour. If you engage in any other activity that also requires mana, then occasionally you might resume your true cat form. Also if your mana depletes you will permanently turn into a cat.
Those were quite a few restrictions, I thought.
Junaki and I made our way out of Mrida’s inn. I saw that there were quite a few dogman sitting at the bar. They were much more boisterous than the cat customers. In the street outside there were almost equal numbers of cat and dogmen pedestrians. I recalled that the last time I had been in the capital, a dogman walking around was a very rare sight. And those who did live in my capital were sworn to shift their allegiance to cats.
Junaki and I made our way to the wall that separated the city from its two parts. The guards didn’t bother us at all and we passed right in front of their noses. I reckoned dogmen didn’t think cats could come in possession of the shape-changing potion.
I knew well the part of the city where Meow lived. Heck, I had given him the mansion myself. Junaki and I took one of the horse-drawn coaches to his residence. Stepping down in front of Meow’s mansion was a surreal experience and I fell into some kind of a trance. Thankfully, Junaki squeezed my hand and I was back.
The mansion was being guarded by dogmen. We approached them. I felt a chill as anxiety grew in the back of my mind.
“What is your business here?” one of the guards asked strictly.
“We have an appointment with Mr. Meow,” I stuttered. Damn, why was I struggling to keep myself calm? The guard frowned.
“What appointment?” he asked. And he sounded even stricter, like he was getting suspicious. His eyes fixed at me, measuring and weighing my behaviour.
“Look,” Junaki said in a cold voice. “We have come a good distance to meet Mr. Meow, and he himself called us. Mr. Meow might have sworn his allegiance with us dogmen but he remains a cat. And it gives me a bad temper to be interrogated by you after we were summoned by a cat. And just to let you know, my husband and I had to come despite the fact that my husband is ill.”
She said all this very rapidly, and for a moment the guard simply observed us confusedly, as though trying to understand what she had just said. Finally he nodded and asked the other guard to open the gate. I could feel the guard’s gaze on my back as we entered the premises of the mansion and made our way to the big open door.
A servant showed us the way to Meow’s chamber that was upstairs. Finally, I found myself knocking on the door to Meow’s chamber.
“Come in,” a voice said. Meow seemed to be having cold from how his voice sounded. We pushed the door open and entered. Meow’s back was turned to us, and he was checking some papers on a book shelf.
I closed the door behind me hard. I felt myself shaking, so great my emotions had become.
“Yes?” Meow said, without turning. He sounded quite official.
“Why did you do it?” I asked Meow.
“Do what?” Meow said, still busy with his papers.
“Why did you betray me?”
“Betray you?” Meow said, and he was quite irritated, though he didn’t turn. “What are you saying? Have you come here to waste my time?”
Waste his time, eh?
I strode over the room and kicked him on the back, so that he fell down with a groan. I grabbed his neck and pulled him up. Only then did I turn him to face me.
The face was… so unlike Meow’s. There was a striking resemblance, yes, the fur was of the same colour and the face of the cat had a similar structure… but this wasn’t meow. In my shock and surprise I let go of the cat whom I had thought to be Meow. Only now did I focus on him to get his stats. His name was Tid.
“What is it?” Junaki asked, seeing that I was surprised, her voice troubled.
“It’s not Meow!” I said.
Meanwhile, Tid, who had slumped to the floor, now struggled up and began inching towards a small bell on the desk. I had no doubts that the bell was to call the other dogmen.
I leapt to stop him. Too late. He had already rung the bell. The sound produced was unnaturally large. Tid laughed at us. I landed a kick on his face. But in a minute, there was a hurried rapping on the door.
Was this a trap? But the dogmen couldn’t have known that we’d come disguised as dogmen.
“What do we do?�
� Junaki asked.
I looked towards the window. We were in the first floor, if we jumped we would land hard on the ground. But hey, we did have the health vials.
“The window, quick!” I said.
Barely had I uttered those words that a huge force impacted the door from the outside and it shattered to pieces.
As Junaki and I sprang towards the window, the guards sprang for us. I had barely put my head out of the window, when I felt a sharp pull on my tail. I was dragged inside the room fast, and so was Junaki. I didn’t want to use any spell on the guards for it might give off our identity briefly. But if they already knew who we were, it didn’t matter.
One of the guards grabbed Junaki by her neck and pulled her up. Junaki uttered a word and the next moment the guard had been hit by an air arrow. He flinched, while the other guard grabbed my head and pulled me up. Junaki pulled out her sword. The other guard had recovered from the air arrow and now he pulled out his sword as well, meanwhile I struggled to shake off the guard holding me. I was in a dilemma as to what we should do.
Junaki made a quick flick with her hand, and the other guard paralysed. For a split second, Junaki’s form became that of a cat’s.
“Cats!” the guard holding me cried, as Junaki’s formed turned again to that of a female dogman.
I hit the guard on the neck with my elbow. As he reeled, Junaki threw her sword to me. Twice I stabbed the guard’s neck with the sword. He died quickly. Swift kill, I thought. The kill had still been gruesome, as blood spurted out of the neck of the guard.
I threw Junaki’s sword back to her and pulled out my own. I approached Tid.
“Where is Meow?” I demanded.
Suddenly, the cat lunged at me. He turned into a dogman, his jaws wide open and before I could move, he had bitten my leg. I cried out. I hit him on the head with the hilt of the sword and pushed him away.
“More guards are coming,” Junaki said. I strained my ears. Why, I could hear the dash of feet downstairs. I grabbed Tid by his ears. I put the tip of my sword next to his eye.
“Tell me where Meow is,” I said.
“I- I am just his replacement,” the dogman said. He was obviously scared of losing his eye. “He’s out…”
I resisted the urge to dig my sword into his eye. The sound of the moving feet got louder, and also the guard whom Junaki had paralysed was about to shake off the spell.
I stood up, and pulled Junaki towards the window.
“It’s going to be a hard landing,” I said to her, allowing her to be the first one to jump down. “But we have no choice.” She nodded. She had put half her body out of the window, when the other guards arrived at the door of the chamber. One of them was the one who had interrogated me at the gate. His eyes bulged. Junaki jumped down. With a yell the guards came for me. I heard Junaki’s cry from below.
“Come on, you killed hundreds of guards the other night,” a voice inside me said. And abruptly the demon inside me came into possession of my body. I kicked the guard on the chest who had come closest to me. As he fell some steps backwards, I sliced his stomach. Intestines fell out. The other guards seemed to be stricken by this, and the next guard that came at me barely put any strength at the blow that he threw at me. I evaded him easily. I kicked him on the stomach, and as he fell backwards I was able to slice his stomach like that of the other guard.
“Please don’t do that again,” Junaki’s voice said inside my head. Suddenly time seemed to freeze. While I did swing my sword towards the guard, at the very last moment before the blade of my sword made contact with his body, I pulled it back.
Just then, I turned to see the guard who had earlier interrogated me make a complicated motion at me with his palm, a glare fixed on his face.
A wave of intense power shot out of his palm and hit me. Such was the force that with me the entire wall of the room was affected by it. I found myself being thrown out and in mid-air, debris all around me. The next second, I impacted the ground hard.
You have been hit!
You receive -300 health!
Darn it, I thought. I had landed on my shoulder, and I felt it go numb. Junaki was a few metres away and she was in a sword fight with two of the guards that had remained at the gate. Thankfully, the debris that had fallen from above with me hadn’t hit her. I clambered up to my feet somehow. My head felt like it was swimming in air.
I pointed my hand at one of the guards fighting Junaki and paralysed him. My mana dropped. For a brief moment, I became the cat that I truly was. The next moment however, I was a dogman again. Junaki killed the other guard.
She was limping as well, but the two of us somehow rushed out of the premises of the mansion. We didn’t care to take a look at the guards on our pursuit. We took a turn and the next moment, we collided with a person. All three of us fell to the ground. I staggered up quickly, despite all the pain coursing through my veins. The person that we had collided with had been wearing a hood, and now his hood had fallen backwards.
Chapter 34
It was not a dogman. It was a cat.
Meow.
Time slowed down as I registered him. He had barely changed since that last day.
He looked up at me with a puzzled expression, seeing my blood and the destruction we had caused at his mansion behind us.
“Meow?” I said.
I deactivated the shape changing spell for a second. It was Meow’s turn to look at me like he had seen a ghost.
“K- Kitty!” he said. He sprang to his feet the next minute. He quickly put back his hood on, glancing at the guards behind. He grabbed my arm and pulled. I grabbed Junaki’s arm. I activated the shape changing spell again.
The next minute, I was being dragged by Meow along the street. The guards were still in hot pursuit of us. But we took so many turns that we were making them confused. Thankfully, there were few dogmen in the streets, and those that watched us from their homes, could do little but stare at us confusedly.
Meow led us to the backyard an old home, where nobody seemed to reside. Moss grew on the roof tops, while roots of trees made cracks on the lower portions of the house.
I finally jerked my hand from Meow’s grasp.
Without dealing with him first, I took out two health vials from my bag. Junaki had gone very pale, My own vision was beginning to blur and I was seeing stars in broad daylight. I gave one vial to Junaki while I emptied the other in my own mouth. In moments all the cuts and bruises that had covered my body disappeared, although the blood smears remained. My shoulder that had apparently broken fixed, though a dumb ache remained there for a while.
Junaki stood up a little straight as well.
Now, I turned at Meow, his eyes still wide as though he didn’t believe that I was Kitty.
“You are Kitty?’ Meow asked.
“How dare you ask me that?” I lashed out. My hands turned to fists on their own and rained down on Meow. I kept hitting him again and again, pinning him against a wall. He didn’t resist at all.
Finally, after I had drained him of a good 400 health, I released him. I was going to kill him, yes, but before that I would like to ask him a few things. Meow fell to the ground the moment I released my hold over him.
He whimpered on the ground.
“I trusted you,” I said, “why did you betray me?”
“I loved Amina,” Meow said. “It was jealousy.”
A light breeze blew, moving the fur on my face. I struggled to digest the words. Wait a minute. Meow loved Amina? Heck, in my previous life he was the one who had kept telling me to hurry my marriage with her, although I never ended up marrying her due to my death. My mouth fell open. I didn’t understand this at all.
I bent down, clutched Meow’s face with my hands and looked into his eyes. He looked sideways.
“It was my worst sin,” Meow said.
“So why haven’t you married Amina already?”
Meow let out a sad laugh.
“When I went to her boasting about my power,
giving her every reason why I was perfect for her, she spat on my face.”
Well, what else could he have expected?
One question answered. Now, next question.
“Where is my master?” I asked.
“About a hundred miles from here to the North-east,” Meow answered almost mechanically, “stands the Lair of the Lord… for now. The Lair is magical though and it keeps changing its location every thirty days. It will be in the North-eastern region for at least twenty-five more days. If you follow the Deer constellation you should find it with relative ease. The Lair comprises six storeys and the Lord resides at the very top floor, and with him he keeps your master as well.”
“He hasn’t killed my master yet?” I asked. I had always wondered why the Lord hadn’t killed my master.
Meow shook his head.
“From what I have heard he needs your master for some purpose. I- I saw your master once. He looked pitiful.”
I stood up. I pulled out my sword and raised it. Meow had answered all my questions. Now he must die.
“Just know that the Lair has many levels. There are monster of the kind one cannot imagine. Only with the consent of the Lord has anyone ever succeeded to reach him.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks for the information. Good bye.”
I swung my sword down. My sword sliced thin air, passing mere inches away from Meow’s neck. I grunted. It was a mistake. I swung my sword at him again. I missed. Junaki came near me.
“You cannot kill him,” she told me.
“Why can’t I?” I glared at her for saying that.
I swung my sword at Meow again. Once again, the moment my sword was on the verge of making contact with his flesh, I would draw back. I gritted my teeth, my eyes swelled with tears at my inability to kill Meow. Junaki rubbed my back.
“You are the better person,” she told me.
Meow looked up at me. His eyes were red with tears. His lips shivered, like he wanted to tell me something. But no voice came out of his mouth. Just then, voices floated to our ears: the guards.
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