The moonstruck landscape continued to roll him gently along, mountains rising black and jagged ahead and to his right, cricket calls shimmering through the grass beside him. The whole night ticked and pinged in Bobcat's head almost like catnip, and it wrapped itself so thickly about him that he didn't remember them ever stopping to rest. Everything was scents and sounds and sights and sighs, all bundled up around and inside him, and Bobcat floated along through it and beside it as the moon drifted up to the top of the sky.
After a timeless time, the black above began to grow gray, and Bobcat slowly came to realize that there were mountains around him, the road climbing and the ground all dirt and rocks. He followed Fisher and Skink around a bend in the road ahead, and the border crossing he saw there stretched across the road in the predawn coolness made him sure he was dreaming.
The searchlight blasting into his eyes and the bark of the sentry snapped him awake to its reality, though: "Halt! Who approaches the King's Crossing?!"
"The border?" he muttered. "In one night? But how--"
In front of him, Fisher was answering the sentry: "We have passed through Council Bluffs on our way to Kazirazif."
The sentry strode forward, his golden sash sparkling in the searchlight's beam. "We've had no messenger from the king. How do I know you're not smugglers?"
Another buffalo appeared, blocking the glare, his eyes wide. "Captain! Look at them! The...the Pads of Doom, sir, sent by the Shadow herself!" His voice narrowed to a tiny squeak and choked off.
The first buffalo jumped back. "The Pads of Doom!"
Bobcat almost jumped himself when Fisher gave a hiss. "Yes, filthy mortals! We have returned!" She stalked toward the sentry, her back arched, her fur bristling. "Now open this gate lest you wish to feel the tickle of the Strangler's claw at your throats!"
The second buffalo had already leaped onto a treadmill and was straining against it. It squeaked beneath his hoofs, and Bobcat saw the gate begin to rise.
"Go!" the first buffalo groaned, huddling against the wall. "Please!"
Fisher bowed and slipped under. Bobcat followed and found himself looking into a valley, the mountains high on either side, a series of switchbacks sliding along the slope below him. And there, down through a couple miles of air, the valley opened out onto a flatness that glowed slightly in the dim light.
Behind him, the gate crashed down, and Bobcat took a deep breath. "The desert..."
"Fisher," he heard Skink saying, "I am shocked. I cannot approve of employing such a ruse. Playing upon the credulity of simple folk who know only the half-true story passed on through the--"
"Yeah, yeah," came Fisher's voice. "If they're gonna keep saying that stuff, I say we oughtta use it when we need to." Bobcat turned, saw Fisher gesturing down the valley. "We'll camp for the day at the bottom of these switchbacks."
Memories poked at Bobcat's mind. "Down by the spring?"
"Yeah." She shook her head and gave a little grin. "We made good time, didn't we?"
Bobcat could only stare for a moment. "Fisher, it takes three days to get from the Bison King's palace to the western border here."
She shrugged. "So we had a little help."
"Indeed." Skink's head peered over her shoulder. "Had we needed any further proof of Curial intervention, I would say we have just received it."
Bobcat couldn't think of a thing to say. Fisher gave him another grin and set off down the switchbacks.
The ridge to their left kept the sunlight from them until they were about halfway down, but at last it came pouring over into the valley, its heat washing past them and away along the rift. Back and forth down the valley wall they went, stopping more than a few times to rest, and Bobcat was very glad there was a spring waiting for them at the bottom.
As they went, he munched on trail mix from his pack and blinked at the dust in his eyes. He had avoided the southern desert as much as possible in the days before he'd come to Ottersgate, preferring the routes along the Tundra Road, or the byways that twisted through the forests and swamps of the southeast, and the few times he had passed this way had only made him more determined to steer clear of it. It was too much like where he'd grown up.
They reached the bottom at about midmorning, found the spring, and made camp beside a grove of pinon pines. Bobcat had never felt so tired in his life, slumping back against his pack without even taking it off. The last thing he heard was Skink muttering, "Of course, Curial intervention has its price;" then he was out. When he finally came awake late that afternoon, he didn't remember having any dreams at all.
Fisher was tending a little bonfire in a stone ring off to one side of the spring, and a moment's search showed him Skink perched on a rock not far from Fisher's fire ring. Bobcat stood, padded over, and Skink snapped his head up. "Ahh, Bobcat. Did you sleep well?"
Bobcat stretched the kinks from his legs. "Yeah, thanks. All that walking must've tired me out more'n I thought."
"Yes, I suppose, though I was equally tired, and did not walk a step." Skink twitched his head closer to Bobcat's ear. "Our way is surely tended by Those Above."
"Yeah," came Fisher's voice. She slid over and stretched out in the shade of the pinon pines. "Anything to get somebody else to do their dirty work for them."
"Fisher!" Skink jerked back so hard he nearly knocked himself from his perch. "How can you say such things?"
Fisher laughed. "I've gotta get my little dig in ev'ry once in a while; the Lord Kit Fox expects it of me."
Bobcat cleared his throat. All this Curial stuff still made him feel like ants were crawling over him, and last night's impossible prairie crossing just made it worse. "So okay, we're ahead of schedule. Is that good or bad? I mean, it's only a couple days to Kazirazif. Then what?"
"What else?" Fisher was scratching an ear. "We get to the Basharah gate at dawn and find the Raj Tevirye, she takes us to the Ramon, and we start asking questions. Simple."
"Simple," Bobcat repeated. "And what sorta questions might we be asking?"
Skink twitched his head to one side. "Why, questions about the end of the story, Bobcat."
"Story? What story?"
A little rasping sigh puffed from Skink's nose. "Good heavens, Bobcat, the story that we're involved in, the story that my grandmother gave us the beginning to, the story that everyone along our way has been familiar with and has alluded to time and time again! We have yet to hear, however, what tranpires once we reach Kazirazif, so it is there that we must discover what our role is in the ending of the story and how we can, as Grandmother wished, change it."
Bobcat gave a sigh. "Oh, right. That story."
"Yeah," Fisher added, "and it's that changing the ending that we've gotta concentrate on. There's too much riding on all this for us to lose sight of that."
"So now wait," Bobcat said, holding up a paw. "All that stuff you were reading us about from that book, your grampa's book about the Plague Year--you think that's stuff's gonna happen again? I mean, all that stuff? For real?"
Fisher closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "As real as half the folks you know back in Ottersgate, 'cause they're the ones who're gonna be dead, simple as that." She turned a cold stare onto him. "You were talking yesterday about your friends back home. Well, line 'em up, take every other one out, and plant 'em in the fields up north of Donal's Lake. And there's your Plague Year."
Skink rustled to another perch on his rock. "Fisher, please, I find this all distressing enough without your commentary. I've been mulling over this point for some time, and while I have to admit that there are certain in my kiva to whom a slight touch of plague might not be too detrimental, I shudder with apprehension at the merest thought of that cold paw stroking the flanks of some of my comrades.
"For I have begun to view it thus: I am nearly of age to begin attending the courtship functions at the kiva, and there are several in my social group with whom I would happily dance the steps of matrimony." Skink shrugged. "I find that, by focusing my thoughts on the pe
rsonal possible tragedy of the Plague Year reaching certain young ladies of my acquaintance, I am able to muster the strength necessary to carry me on in our efforts to stop what is, in fact, an unimaginably large and terrifying possible tragedy for the entire world."
Fisher smiled. "Skink! You got a girlfriend?"
The lizard gave a clicking laugh. "Still potential girlfriends, Fisher, for some years. But you shall be the first to know of my eventual engagement." He cocked his head. "May I hope to be remembered at the time of your betrothal?"
"Mine?" Fisher rolled over in the shade of the pinon pines. "Sure. Just don't hold your breath; I've got enough troubles without throwing in kids and a husband as well. And anyway, from what I've seen of romance, I'd say I can take it or leave it, and leaving it has been a lot more convenient so far." Her eyes flicked to Bobcat. "How 'bout you, Bobcat? Anyone in your life we should know about?"
Bobcat felt his ears drop. His mind had been wandering while Fisher and Skink had talked, thoughts of Garson making up most of that wandering. "Well, I don't know. I mean, uhh, well, she's just...just a friend really, I guess..."
Fisher sat up, grinning. "Well, well, now. I didn't know there were any other bobcats around Ottersgate."
Even in the shade of the pines, Bobcat's fur was heating up. "Well, she's, uhh, she's not...not exactly a bobcat..."
For just a moment, the only sound was the bubbling of the spring. Bobcat looked up to see Fisher's grin spread wide through her whiskers. "Well, c'mon!" she said, rubbing her paws together. "Who? What's her name? Do I know her?"
Bobcat wasn't sure he wanted to go into the whole thing; it was none of Fisher's business, and he couldn't believe she was really interested. And besides, he'd never really talked to anyone about Garson before, had kept private whatever it was between them, something all his own that he could hold close on long, cold nights.
But he had been thinking about her almost constantly for the past few days, and he did love to tell the story to himself... "I don't know," he said after a minute. "You might not know her."
"The name, Bobcat," came Fisher's voice from in front of him. "Just tell us her name."
Bobcat cleared his throat. "Uhh, she's, uhh, she's Garson Rix."
"Garson Rix?" Fisher's grin had gotten even wider. "You mean the field supervisor over at Brackens Farms? That Garson Rix?"
Skink twitched his head back. "Brackens Farms? But that would mean that she...she is a--"
"Yes, she's a rabbit, okay?" Bobcat glared from one to the other. "That a problem for anyone here?"
Skink raised his claws. "No, not at all, Bobcat."
Fisher was rubbing her paws again. "There has got to be a story to this, Bobcat."
"Yeah, well..." Bobcat looked down at the pine nuts in the reddish dirt. "It's sort of embarrassing, really."
"Good." Fisher settled back. "Those're the only stories worth listening to."
Bobcat gave her a look but began anyway. "It was last year about this same time. I'd been sorta making it a habit to go over to the other side of the Brackens, finding rabbits out on their own and, well, chasing 'em around a little."
Skink's dry voice interrupted: "Chasing the rabbits? But whatever for?"
Bobcat could only shrug. "I dunno. It was fun, I guess, and I never really hurt 'em."
"Yeah, right," Fisher breathed.
"Well, I never meant to!" Bobcat ground his teeth. "I just, well, I got a little carried away sometimes, I guess, specially when I had a bad roll of catnip in me."
Fisher had turned to look at Skink. "Multiple fractures, contusions, lacerations--you know, the works."
"That's not true!" Bobcat burst in.
"But to our friend's credit, no one ever died, and most of his 'playmates' were treated for minor cuts and bruises, a certain amount of shock, and released." Fisher turned back to Bobcat. "I helped Leigh Thax treat some of 'em, y'see. Oh, I'm sorry, Bobcat; you were telling us how much fun it was."
Bobcat growled and set his ears back. "Now, look--"
"Please, Fisher, Bobcat, both of you!" Skink had scurried to the tip of the rock and thrust his head between them. "I am sure you will agree, Fisher, that none of us is above reproach for his or her past actions, but this is neither the time nor the place to bring such matters up. Bobcat is telling this story only because you asked him to, and it seems obvious to me that his embarrassment in telling it indicates a change of heart on his part. I feel that this story will be of great interest, so if there are no objections, I would like to ask Bobcat to please continue." The lizard's eyes stayed fixed on Fisher.
Fisher gave a snort and waved a paw in the air. "Oh, by all means."
Bobcat managed to bring his ears back up. "Okay," he began again, setting the story back in place, "see, that's what I used to do. But one day, I was sneaking along north of Brackens Farms, and I came across a rabbit all by herself, munching away on some carrot greens. I was downwind of her, and I was able to get right up between her and the Brackens without her even noticing."
"Oh, good," Fisher muttered. "To cut off her escape route."
"Well, that's how I was thinking then. So I squeezed in, settled down, and decided I was gonna play it all cool and clever this time. So I say, in as deep and rumbly a voice as I can, 'A lovely afternoon, isn't it?' And this rabbit, she shoots straight up into the air, spins around, and plops right back down onto her carrot greens. Her eyes snap up to mine, and I can almost hear her heart thumping, it's so loud. I put on my best innocent face and say, 'Oh, did I startle you, rabbit? I'm terribly sorry.'
"Now, I was thinking she'd make a dash for it. I mean, most rabbits woulda shot outta there like a flood was coming one way and a forest fire the other. But even though her eyes are bigger'n cabbages and her whiskers're jittering like they're ready to take off on their own, she answers in this clear, bright voice, 'Oh, not at all. You might want to announce yourself a little louder next time, though. Some rabbits are hard of hearing.'
"That confused me, I gotta admit, and this was the first time I'd heard a rabbit say anything except, 'Help!' But I figure I'll keep being clever, so I nod and say to her, 'You know what your trouble is, rabbit? You don't get enough exercise; I can tell just by looking at you.' I was just waiting for her to make her move, was watching for any little shift in her balance, any little dart of her eyes to tell me which way she was gonna go.
"Well, she just brought her hind legs back underneath her like she was settling in for a chat or something, and she looks up at me with this, I don't know, this fascination in her face almost. 'Is that what you do?' she asked me, her voice high and sweet as honey. 'I didn't know we had any traveling physical education coaches around Ottersgate. It must be terribly interesting work.'
"It was too weird; she had this wide-eyed innocent look to her, and I started thinking maybe she was feebleminded or something--I mean more feebleminded than most rabbits. But I just couldn't tell, and I decided I'd play along for a while. 'Oh, sure,' I said. 'It's wonderful work. I specialize in rabbits and other small rodents, and I find that I can, oh, let's say, motivate them strongly to pursue a personal phys ed program.'
"She batted her eyes. 'I'll bet you're very persuasive.'
"'Oh, yeah,' I replied. 'Awfully persuasive.' And I give her my big grin, the one with all the teeth in it.
"Her eyes dart around a little, and I figure she's about to make a move, but she just starts in again: 'I've often thought about starting an exercise program, but you know how things pile up, what with the planting and getting the rotation schedules worked out and all.' And then, all at once, she cocks her head to one side, and she gives me the cutest little smile. 'Of course, that doesn't mean I don't get any exercise. Ever since they dug that bounce pit out by my house, I've been spending a few hours up there when I can.'
"By now, I was beyond surprised--I don't know, intrigued, I guess. I was sure she was gonna try something, knew that she was planning to make some sort of a move, but her eyes were so bright and her smile
was so friendly, I didn't really know what to think. This had never happened before, and I gotta admit, I was hooked. So I kept it up. 'A bounce pit,' I said. 'I don't think I'm familiar with the term.'
"Well, her eyes just lit up. 'Oh, it's the latest thing in lepine aerobics. It's quite an exciting new technology. Would you like to see it? It's not that far from here....'
"Okay, I figured, if she wants to play, that's fine. I figured she's a rabbit, and what can a rabbit do to me? I figured I'd just play along and see what she was up to."
Fisher gave a little snicker. "Sucker."
Bobcat had to grin at that. "Yeah, I figured a lotta things. So I rubbed my chin and said, 'Not far, huh? Well, I should be keeping up with the newest things in my field. Okay, rabbit, lead the way.' And I leaned forward just a little. 'I'll be right behind you.'
"She bowed her ears toward me. 'Oh, I wouldn't have it any other way. Follow me, then.'
"This was where I was expecting her to make her break, to shoot off and try to loose me. But all she does is turn and start loping along southward, just slow hopping, I mean, like she was out for a stroll or something. So I fall in behind her, but I keep my nose right on her tail so I'll be ready when she tries anything.
"But she doesn't; she just trots along, and I trot right behind her. After a minute, I get an idea, and I lengthen my stride a little, just enough to graze her right flank with my front paw. She jumps, and I call out, 'Oh, I'm awful sorry, rabbit! I guess I'm just used to traveling a little faster!'
"She gives a quick look over her shoulder, and I can smell a touch of fear washing back from her coat. But she calls out in a light voice, 'Well, we could jog, if that would make you more comfortable!'
"I do the grin with the teeth again. 'Good idea,' I say, 'and it would be so much healthier.' I was having fun with all this, more fun than I'd had in a long time.
"So she faced front again, picked up her pace to about a normal rabbit scamper. I sped up, too, kept my nose right on her tail so she could feel my breath, and I was so into the game that I didn't even notice how quick my breath was coming.
The Blood Jaguar Page 10