Bobcat couldn't look away, couldn't speak, didn't have a single clue as to what he was supposed to do now. The Blood Jaguar blinked slowly, and after a moment of silence, she cocked her head, a strangely sweet voice, rich as honeyed wine, rumbling out: "You enjoy sitting in creeks?"
"Uhh..." And that was all Bobcat could say, his throat clenching tight. His every hair felt like it was sticking straight out, trying to get away from him, biting like thousands of fleas all over his body.
"And another thing," she went on, tapping a black claw in the dirt. "I don't appreciate you making me wait like this. I've got a lot of work ahead of me the next few weeks, and all this nonsense just takes up too much time." She yawned again. "But you're here now, so let's get started, shall we?"
Again, all Bobcat could do was stand and stare. He didn't know what she was waiting for, why she didn't just leap on him and tear him to shreds. He couldn't move, couldn't look away from, couldn't even remember how to blink.
The Blood Jaguar raised her smoky eyebrows. "What? No big speech? No attempts to appeal to my better nature, to get me to see the error of my ways?"
Bobcat couldn't imagine what she was talking about. She watched him for another moment, then shrugged her massive shoulders. "Well, have it your way." And she rose to her paws, flowing like a wildfire up a hillside, took a step toward him. "Let's just get this over with, then."
And that did it, her movement unfreezing his paws: Bobcat scrambled backward out of the stream, bashed right into the canebrake, hard as stone and just as impenetrable, pressed himself against it, unable to think of anything but getting away from her.
Another step, and she rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on." She stopped, sat back down, and lifted her chin. "Here. I'll give you a free shot." She patted her neck with one huge paw. "If you're quick, you might just get my jugular."
At last, his confusion overcame his terror. "What?" he blurted out.
"Sure." She turned her head and leaned forward, the ash black rings in her fiery coat seeming to pulse in Bobcat's eyes. "I won't lay a claw on you; let you get the first hit in. Okay? Honest."
"What...what..." The thought of getting within five yards of her made his stomach cramp up, and she wanted him to hit her? "What are you talking about?"
This time she blinked, her whiskers shifting back. "I'm talking about you. You are here to fight, aren't you? To defeat me and my plans to destroy the world?"
"Fight?" Bobcat couldn't stop a laugh from bursting out. "You've gotta be crazy!" he said before he remembered who she was, and he winced back against the canebrake, expecting those black claws to come slashing down at him.
They didn't, though. The Blood Jaguar just sat there and stared, the fire in her eyes flickering slightly. "You are the right bobcat, aren't you?" she asked after a moment. "The one who's supposed to be here? You've heard all about my Plague Year and everything?"
"Yeah, that's, uhh, that's me." Bobcat swallowed. "But, I mean, nobody ever said anything about having to fight!"
"What?" The Blood Jaguar blinked. "Well, then, why are you here?"
"I don't know!" he announced, and with a rush he couldn't stop, everything he'd been feeling all week, the pent-up anger and resentment he'd been reserving in his mind for the Blood Jaguar, welled up through his fear like sudden heartburn. "I have no idea! I don't know what's going on, didn't know a thing about all this until you came along, kicked me into the Brackens, put your eyes in my head to push me along every step of the way! How should I know what I'm doing here? This is all your fault! I've got nothing to do with it!"
The Blood Jaguar sat with her brow wrinkled. "Excuse me?" she asked after another moment.
But the cork was out of the bottle. Bobcat let his ears fold down, pushed himself up onto his paws, and marched across the creek, his eyes never leaving hers. "I was just minding my own business, going along with my life! Sure, maybe it wasn't anything special, but, hey, I was nothing special, just another bobcat, nobody at all!
"And then you came along, turned everything I ever knew into a lie, booted me into a brier patch, and left your eyes inside me so I couldn't just roll over and forget about you! You forced me to come here, forced me every goddamned step of the way, almost got me killed at least twice, twisted me up inside, and all because I'm apparently supposed to do something that I can't even begin to figure out!" He stopped in front of her, her half-closed, fiery eyes making him shake all over. "So why am I here? I'm here because I want to know before you kill me why you ruined my life!" He swallowed again, sat still, and waited for her claws.
But the Blood Jaguar just sat, looking down at him. "You really don't know what's going on, do you?" she asked after a moment.
Bobcat made his head shake. He was doomed, but maybe she would tell him something before she diced him. He stared up at her...and saw a grin curl through her whiskers. The fires in her coat jittered, and before Bobcat's startled eyes, the Blood Jaguar threw back her head and laughed--real, humorous laughter, not the fiendish sort he would have expected, deep and ringing and making the grass waver all around. She clutched her sides, stomped a paw, and actually rolled over onto her back, her legs kicking at the air, tears falling from her eyes and sizzling when they hit the ground.
This went on for at least a minute, and after she finally got ahold of herself, wiping a paw over her fiery eyes and turning to face Bobcat again, it took another moment for her to get a word out. "Oh, gods," she said, still chuckling. "I haven't had a laugh this good in millennia."
Bobcat waited while she straightened up, blew out a breath, and focused on him. "Look, kitten, it's nothing personal. It's just, well, it's just the way things are. See, to do a Plague Year, the rules say I have to go out and get a certain skink's luckstone." She waved a paw. "Don't ask me why. The whole thing gets a little complicated, and I don't see these stones making skinks any luckier than anyone else.
"Anyway, every time I go out to get the stone, no matter how I do it, when I grab the thing and turn around, there you are." She shrugged. "I mean, not you, but some bobcat or other; this time it just happened to be you."
Bobcat couldn't move, wouldn't believe what he was hearing. The Blood Jaguar shrugged again. "This bobcat's been set up, y'see, his head pumped full of all this weird stuff, and with it, he finds out about my Plague Year. He decides he has to save the world, comes out here, challenges me, and I have to pound him into the ground before I can get on with things." She spread her paws. "I know it sounds kind of stupid, but, well, I don't make the rules."
"This is crazy," Bobcat heard himself muttering. "You don't make the rules? I thought...I mean, of course you make the rules!"
Her head drew back. "Who told you that?"
"Well, everybody!" Bobcat found he had leaped up. "The Ramon and Fisher and Skink and all the stories and everybody! You're Death! That's what you're in charge of!"
Her mouth went sideways under her whiskers, and she raised a paw. "Look around," she said, moving the paw from one side of the clearing to the other. "Does it look like I'm in charge of anything here?"
Bobcat looked, saw only the pampas grass, not even a breeze ruffling it. "Well, I mean, but what about the Shroud Islands? The Kingdom of the Dead?"
"Oh, gods." She closed her eyes, rubbed her forehead. "That story's still floating around? You can't tell me you really believe all that crap?"
"Uhh, well..." Bobcat swallowed. "I didn't even believe in you till about a week ago."
She laughed again, but it was a tired, breathy sound, not anything like her earlier laughter. "Well, let me set you straight, kitten. There are no Shroud Islands, no Kingdom of the Dead, no nothing like that. I mean, what would I do with it if I had it?"
Bobcat shook his head, tried to clear his thoughts. "I, well, I always heard that we all go there when we die. You come, and...and you take us there, and..."
Her eyes were dark, more smoke than fire. "You want to know?" she said, her voice a rumbling whisper. "I'll tell you what happens, what it is I
do, and then you can tell me where your Shroud Islands fit in.
"Because I bounce, kitten. That's all I do. Bounce from place to place all over this whole goddamned world. And for an instant, I'm standing above someone old or sick or broken. Their eyes go wide, and the stink of their fear, it just...I can't... It's like trying not to breathe. I have to tear it out, have to make it stop. I rip through their bodies and out comes this thing, all limp and wet and cloudy." She stared past him. "And it's them, it looks just like them, only not old or sick or broken, and for that instant, I'm holding them, there in my claws, dangling and helpless, as the life flickers out of what's left of their body.
"But then, in the next instant, this...spirit, it flickers, its eyes open, its limbs flex, and it drifts through my paw, drifts off without a backward look, without a nod, without any sign that it's noticed me at all. And then, whoosh, I'm bouncing again, coming to rest over another dying body, and it goes on and on and on and on, just bouncing and slashing, bouncing and slashing." Her paw flashed up, black claws spread. "Every living thing ever born I have held in this paw, every living thing for thousands of generations. And every one of them has drifted away, flittered off, and I've got no idea of where or why or anything."
She lowered her paw, turned her fiery eyes toward Bobcat again. "And you tell me I'm supposed to be in charge?"
Bobcat felt himself cringing all over at the solid menace in her quiet voice. "But...but, wait," he got out after a moment. "I mean, you're all gods, aren't you? You and the other Curials? How can you--"
She burst like lightning before him, knocked him backward, her fiery face filling his eyes. "I am not a Curial!" she snarled, her paw heavy and cold against his chest, her claws pricking at his fur. "You call me that again, and I'll rip you apart right here! You understand me?"
Bobcat could hear his own breath rattling in and out of his throat, but that was the only way he knew he was still alive. "I'm sorry," he managed to squeak.
She had already risen, was pacing from one side of the clearing to the other, her tail lashing. "Those twelve idiots probably believe they're gods, but they're nothing, no more in charge of their little realms than I am! But they prance along, pretending not to notice how the earth spins just fine on its own, how the sun burns and the moon rises, how the plants grow and the weather changes, and all of it, all of it, would keep on if they never lifted a paw again! We're nothing but slaves to this damn whirling clockwork!"
The Blood Jaguar stopped in her tracks, looked back at Bobcat. "You thought we were gods? Well, let me tell you, kitten: if there are gods out there anywhere, I've never met them, and I've been out there, been there in a way you could never even remotely begin to understand."
She shuddered, the fire flickering over her pelt, then stretched her whole enormous body, settled down into the dirt of the clearing, rested her head on her paws. "I used to enjoy thinking, though," she said after a moment, her eyes not focused on anything, "thinking that maybe when I slashed their souls free, they drifted off to wherever the gods were, somewhere like in the old stories." She raised her head, gave Bobcat a look. "Somewhere like your Shroud Islands, I guess." She blew out a breath, laid her head back down. "I've come to kind of doubt it, though."
Bobcat felt a little surer by this time that his legs could hold him up, so he rolled over and got to his paws. He had to sit almost immediately, though, the memory of her paw against his chest making his shakes break out again. The Blood Jaguar stayed where she was, lying a few yards across the clearing, her eyes still unfocused, a flick at the very tip of her tail the only motion he could make out.
None of it made any sense. This was the monster that had kicked him into the Brackens, he was sure of that, but how could she be the Death Goddess of Shemka Harr's stories? She seemed so...so forlorn that he had to swallow against the lump in his throat. "I'm sorry," he said at last; he wasn't sure why. He just felt like he should say something.
"Oh, yeah, really." She didn't look up. "For yourself, I'll bet."
"No! I mean, I just..." He spread his paws. "It just doesn't sound like much of a life. For you, I mean."
"Life?" She raised her head, and her glance set Bobcat shaking again. "I've got nothing to do with life. Nothing at all."
"Oh. Yeah." Bobcat felt like his fur was shrinking. "I knew that." A phrase popped into his head, and he had to stifle a laugh.
She cocked her head. "What?"
He felt his ears go back. "Oh. Well. I was just thinking how stupid it would be for me to tell you you should try to look on the bright side of things." He couldn't stop from hiccuping a little giggle.
The Blood Jaguar blinked, and Bobcat froze, waiting for the flash of her claws. But a smile touched her whiskers, and she said, "Yes. Yes, that would be stupid."
"Well." Bobcat risked a glance at her, felt a grin on his snout. "Good thing I didn't say it, then."
She put a paw to her forehead, shook her head, and Bobcat heard her chuckle. "You are such an idiot," she said, slight laughter still in her voice.
"Yeah, well, I've heard that a lot recently."
The Blood Jaguar put her paw down and gave him a sideways look. "This is weird, just talking to someone." Her whiskers twitched. "I don't get a chance to do it very often, you understand." She tapped a claw on the ground, pulled at her upper lip with her teeth. "Look, I know you're not really into this whole thing, that you just got caught up in circumstances, so how 'bout this: when I come around to Ottersgate, I won't slash you and any ten folk whose names you give me. Heck, I'll even give you back your skink's luck. I won't need it once I get the plague started." Her paw flashed out, and she set a pebble on the ground in front of Bobcat.
Bobcat looked at her, then at the pebble. Could it really be that easy? Just pick up the pebble, give her a few names, and head off through the pampas? Would that be it?
His paw moved toward the pebble, but a sea of faces burst into his mind: Raj Tevirye, Ramon Sooli, all those folks he'd passed in Kazirazif, bathed in fear and torchlight.
And what about back home? Sure, he could tell the Blood Jaguar to spare Garson and Fisher and Skink and Lorn and Rat, but what about all those mice, Kily and Pol and the little Nibblers, Mernin and Patil and Deece and the rest? And Trec Sinpatclin, Ewell and Forst and Lally, all the otters from the transport company he had drinks with every other week? And Crow, Doc Mallard, Ma and Pa Jaybird, everyone in Ottersgate, the folks he knew, but didn't really know....
His throat had gone terribly dry. He couldn't meet the Blood Jaguar's gaze, kept his eyes fixed on the pebble. "Uhh, thanks for the offer. Really. But, well, I guess I don't know ten folks...."
"No?" Her voice was quiet. "Well, I'll remember you, your fisher, and your skink at least." He heard her rise, a sound like beetles scuttling under fallen leaves. "I've enjoyed this, and I hadn't expected to at all. It's usually more annoying than anything else, going through this whole rigmarole. You can find your way out, can't you?" She stood still for a moment, he could tell without looking; then the shuffle of her turning reached his ears, the pad-pad-pad of her paws, the rustle as she reached the grass at the other end of the clearing....
"No," he said, still unable to look up. "I mean, no, I...I can't...can't just let you...do this...."
All sound ceased. "You what?" her voice rumbled.
"I can't." He felt like he'd swallowed a rock. "I mean, everyone keeps telling me that I'm the one, that I have to do something, that I have to...to stop you somehow, and I can't just...just walk away." He looked up. "Can I?"
She was standing at the very edge of the clearing, only her head turned back to look at him, and the way her whiskers twitched back from her teeth made Bobcat's stomach clench even further. "Well, I can't see why not. No one can blame you for bowing to reality." She pointed with her chin. "Look around; the dust of your predecessors' bones lies thick over this Savannah. For all their posturing, they weren't any more successful at stopping my Plague Year than you were."
The fire in her
eyes burned almost gently. "All their efforts got them was dead, but your efforts have saved two of your friends and yourself. You've done more than all the others put together, and I don't see what more you can do. Besides, what do you owe the rest of the world, anyway? Why should you be concerned about what a bunch of old lizards and meerkats say?"
"But that's not it!" Bobcat found he had leaped to his paws. "I don't care about the rest of the world! I just care about my little part of it! I mean, I couldn't stand there and watch all those folks die, knowing I was here and didn't do everything I could to stop it, could I? How could I live with myself?" He forced himself to swallow, took a breath, and sat back down. "No. It turns my knees to water to say it, but I can't...just...leave...."
The Blood Jaguar sighed and settled onto her haunches. "So. You do want to fight, then?"
"Um, well, uhh, isn't there... Isn't there some other option? Maybe, I don't know, some sort of deal we could make or something?"
She brushed at her whiskers. "I rather doubt it. You have to understand, kitten: a Plague Year is the only thing I can really do anymore, the only bit of control I can still exercise. I plan it, put it together, pull it off, make the choices of who dies and when and where, actually get to do something with all this garbage they've dumped into me instead of just bouncing around." The Blood Jaguar cocked her head. "I really can't see that you could make me much of an offer in exchange for that, I'm afraid."
Bobcat blinked at her. "Yeah, I...I guess so." She was right, of course. He didn't have anything anyway, nothing of any real value: a rotted-out tree stump, two threadbare blankets and a pillow, a mattress he'd found ten years ago at the city dump, a couple chipped plates and a cup, and besides, those were all back in Ottersgate.
He was still trying to think when the Blood Jaguar got to her paws again. "You've done a terrific job, kitten, tried everything you could think of, and I'm still not angry at you. Now, take your skink's luck and go on home." She turned for the canebrakes again.
"Yeah." Bobcat put a paw on the pebble, rolled it around under his pads. "I mean, even all this stuff in my backpack is Fisher's." He shook his head. "I guess the only thing I could really put up in any offer would be me."
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