The Outlaw Varjak Paw

by S. F. Said

  When he looked down again, the little cluster of Free Cats was surrounded. Sally Bones’s gang swarmed round them like angry black dots on the snow. They were so much bigger and stronger than the Free Cats. But they couldn’t climb the steps, because in the middle of it all, Mrs Moggs wouldn’t yield to them. How long could she hold out? Varjak looked away. He kept climbing. Up. Just keep going up.

  ‘Varjak!’ shouted Jess, a moment later. ‘Varjak, look!’

  He didn’t want to. But he steadied himself against the wind, and looked down. A circle of space had opened around the fire escape. At its centre, he saw Sally Bones, shimmering with a terrible power. Beside her in the circle of space was Mrs Moggs.

  But Mrs Moggs wasn’t moving. And all about her, the snow was staining red.

  ‘No!’ screamed Jess. ‘NO! NO! NO!’

  The wind was howling like a wild animal. The fire escape was shaking like it would break in two. Varjak had to hold Jess back, because she was mad with grief and rage; or maybe he was holding himself back, because Mrs Moggs was in terrible trouble.

  But so was he. Sally Bones’s gang began to swarm up the fire escape. Mrs Moggs had held them off for a few precious moments, but no one stood in their way any more.

  ‘The rooftops!’ yelled Holly. ‘We have to make it to the top!’

  They hauled themselves up. The steps grew narrower and shakier the higher they went. Varjak glanced back as he reached the top. Sally Bones’s gang were climbing fast, closing in.

  He scrabbled onto the roof.

  It was so high up here. Exposed and precarious. The wind came in wild, sudden gusts. It was a flat roof with an open drop: no railings, nothing to hold onto. There was a huge chasm between it and the next roof, spanned only by electrical cables.

  The city was spread out below. On one side was a glowing network of amber lights, criss-crossing the city centre. On the other side was the river, cutting through the lights like a huge black snake, coiling through the night. Far beyond it, in the distance, stood those great glass towers: Sally Bones’s territory.

  Varjak felt dizzy. The wind roared in his ears. The night sky was like a blanket over the city, a starless blanket of darkness that covered everything and everyone, darkness without end.

  Rooftops lay ahead of him, to the left, and to the right – but they were all so far away. Much further than he could jump.

  ‘What now?’ said Omar.

  Holly scouted the edge of the roof. ‘Have a look at this,’ she said.

  They joined her at the edge. A thin red electrical line dangled between the rooftops, swaying in the wind.

  Tam drew back from it, eyes closed. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘No way. I’m not crossing that.’

  ‘It’s this or Sally Bones,’ urged Holly. ‘Come on: who’s first?’

  No one said a word. Varjak looked at Jess. She was shaking.

  ‘Can you do this?’ he asked her. She didn’t answer. She just looked up at him, eyes wet with helpless rage. ‘Will you do it if I go first?’ he said. She wiped her eyes, and nodded. ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘I will.’

  He took a deep breath, and strode up to the ledge. He glanced at the thin red line. He tried to picture it in his mind as a line painted on a road, safely down on the street; not a perilous thread, strung high above the city.

  It didn’t help. But Holly was right. It was this or Sally Bones. And anything – anything – was better than Sally Bones.

  Varjak placed a paw on the cable. It wobbled under his weight – but it held. Now he put another paw down, and another, and now all four paws were off the rooftop, and he was balanced finely in space, tail held out behind him. He could feel the wind, gusting through his fur, making him sway left and right. The cable wobbled.

  He didn’t look up or down: just straight ahead. This is what you have to do, he told himself. Just go, and keep going till you reach the other side.

  He inched forwards across the void, inch by inch, paw by paw. The cable swayed and rocked with every step. Snow whipped into his face. His stomach churned. Surely he was going to fall. He was going to die horribly, he was going to –

  Keep going. Just keep going. It’s all you can do.

  He kept going. Paw after paw, he kept going, kept going, kept going – and then, somehow, he didn’t know how, a paw touched down on solid ground.

  He’d made it to the other side.

  ‘YES!’ shouted Holly from the other side. ‘Now you, Jess! Next! Next! Next!’

  They came one by one: a line of cats crossing this chasm between the buildings. Jess did it with her eyes closed. Tam next. Then Omar, right behind her. As Ozzie crossed, the cable bucked beneath his bulk – but he made it too; until it was just Holly left on the other side.

  ‘Come on, Holly!’ called Varjak, feeling light-headed. ‘Come on, it’s easy—’

  And then his heart lurched, and his head swam, and the words froze in his mouth. Because right behind Holly, one of Sally Bones’s cats was climbing onto the rooftop.

  ‘Holly!’ he yelled. ‘Behind you!’

  Holly turned, and saw. First one. Then two. Then three of the Bones gang stood on the rooftop with her.

  Holly sprang onto the cable. She moved rapidly, her spiky black-and-white fur rippling in the wind. She made it easily to the middle – but then she stopped and turned to face the Bones cats, poised above that void in space, snow swirling all around her.

  ‘Quick, Holly!’ urged Tam. ‘You can make it!’

  Holly shook her head. Her mustard eyes glinted, unafraid, as she stared at the gang cats. She looked calm and cool, deadly determined. She knew what she was doing – and with a sickening jolt, Varjak saw it too.

  ‘Holly!’ he shouted. ‘No! You can’t—’

  But the first of the Bones gang was already on the cable with her. He was a huge, hulking tomcat. Under their combined weight, the thin red line looked taut, tight, ready to snap. Every nerve in Varjak’s body screamed at him to get back onto that cable and help her – but it was almost at breaking point. It couldn’t take any more pressure.

  The Bones cat was nearly on top of Holly. She stood there, facing him, crouching low as he came.

  ‘Go, Varjak!’ she called – and as the Bones cat sprang at her, she took the cable in her mouth, sank her teeth in, and cut it clean down the middle.

  As Varjak watched in horror, it broke in two halves. Each half unravelled with a shower of sparks and swung back into the buildings on either side. The cable was gone. No one could cross now. Holly had destroyed it.

  She twisted about and sprang towards safety, and Varjak’s heart shivered with hope. But the Bones cat was quicker. His rough paws seized her back legs, held her, dragged her down into that horrendous gap between the buildings. They fell together, Holly and the Bones cat, whirling like snow and fighting as they fell, and fell, and fell away from view.

  Varjak’s heart ripped in half. No. No. This can’t be happening. Not to Holly, not Holly, anyone but –

  ‘Holly!’ he yelled. He clawed at the edge of the roof, shouting her name through the wind and snow.

  ‘HOLLY!’ he screamed. He couldn’t see her any more. She’d fallen into the void. She was gone.

  ‘Varjak,’ said Tam, behind him. ‘We have to get out of here.’ He hardly heard her. All he knew was that Holly was gone. He’d lost Holly, who he cared about more than anyone in the world; and without her, nothing made sense any more.

  ‘Come on,’ said Tam, dragging him back from the edge, through the blizzard of snow. ‘She – she knew what she was doing.’ He couldn’t answer. He had no strength left, no words. Just Holly’s name, echoing in his head, over and over and over again.

  Varjak let Tam lead him away from the edge, from the void, to safety. Each step away from Holly was like a claw in his heart. He couldn’t feel his paws any more; the pads were numb, as if they’d been ripped off or frozen by the ice. And was it just the wind and snow that stung his eyes, so he couldn’t see his way clear?
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  On the other roof, the Bones cats were climbing back down the fire escape. It was only a matter of time before they found another way up.

  Varjak’s friends moved on first. They made him run in spite of himself. They rushed like the wind across the city skyline. They sprang across gaps where they could. They climbed up and down fire escapes; they went over and under rooftops. They did what it took to get away.

  Sometimes they glimpsed Sally Bones’s gang in the distance, hunting them, tracking them down. But Holly had broken the trail. She’d made sure they would not be caught. Beneath them, amber street lamps glowed in curving rows, spelling out the shapes of highways and houses, alleys and roads. They followed the lights back home.

  The flight over the rooftops took till dawn. They reached the secret alleys as morning lifted the black blanket of the sky, and the first street lamps flickered off. Exhausted, drained, at the end of their strength, they clambered down the fire escapes to their one safe place at last. Cludge welcomed them in with a worried-sounding bark.

  They were outlaws, on the run. Sally Bones was after them. They’d lost Holly, and who knew what had become of Mrs Moggs and the Free Cats?

  But they hadn’t been caught yet. Safe, for the moment, they slumped onto the cobbles, and crashed into sleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  VARJAK DREAMED. HE dreamed of the wild mint air and the bright, silent sunlight. He dreamed of a sky so clear and blue, he could see the stars, though it was daytime. He dreamed he was in Mesopotamia with Jalal.

  But even in his dreams, his heart was breaking.

  ‘She’s gone, Jalal,’ he said. ‘I’ve lost her.’

  His ancestor made no sign of hearing. He just kept walking, up and up the slope. Varjak walked with him, lost in his own thoughts. That mountain range hung there, huge and perfect as the sky.

  After a while, the ground levelled out, and they reached a plateau. Far above was a mountain peak. It towered over them like some jagged claw of rock. Varjak couldn’t see a way up. The rock face was sheer; impossible to climb.

  He turned. Rising from the plateau behind him was a series of steps carved into the mountainside. The steps led up to an open doorway, an entrance into the mountain itself. A trickle of water flowed out of it, into the silver stream below.

  Around this doorway were strange carvings. Images of people and cats; men with the heads of animals, and creatures with the faces of men. It looked like some kind of temple, but it was hard to see clearly, for it was obviously very ancient. The stone was crumbling, and mint grew wild all around. The scent was intoxicating. It filled Varjak’s mind.

  Jalal padded up the steps. Varjak followed. The steps were littered with debris: pieces of blue and amber stone that had come away from the carvings. Fragments that had once been part of a picture, but now just lay in ruins.

  Jalal walked through the entrance into a chamber so dark, Varjak couldn’t see the walls; only the glow of his ancestor’s eyes, leading him on silently. He followed.

  They walked through chambers and down corridors where the only sound was the trickle of water. At last, they came to a place so dark, Varjak couldn’t even see Jalal’s eyes any more. It was pitch black.

  Varjak closed his eyes, and it made no difference to the view.

  ‘Here we are,’ came Jalal’s voice. ‘Here you may see truly.’

  ‘Here?’ said Varjak. ‘But I can’t see a thing!’

  ‘Keep looking,’ said Jalal.

  Varjak kept looking. The view didn’t change; absolute dark was absolute dark. Yet he felt moisture beneath his paws, and thought he could hear a soft tinkling sound, like a musical note, just below the surface of the silence.

  ‘Can you see it yet?’ said Jalal.

  ‘No. But what’s that sound?’

  ‘Keep looking.’

  Varjak shuffled in the dust. What was the point of this? He was never going to see in here. And the dark was making him nervous, pressing in on him –

  ‘Can you see it now?’ said Jalal.

  ‘Of course I can’t!’ said Varjak. ‘You know I can’t, and you can’t either! This is a place with no light! It’s always going to be a place with no light! I’m never going to see anything in here!’

  ‘It is a place with no light,’ said Jalal, ‘at this moment. But what seems true at one moment may not be true the next.’

  And as he spoke, Varjak blinked, for he thought he saw something. A narrow window in the wall had begun to glow. It was no wider than a whisker, but yes, it was glowing, growing brighter now. Light was coming into the darkness, filling it.

  They were standing in a magnificent chamber, full of carvings. Varjak looked up. He saw the ceiling far above him; saw the walls around him; saw Jalal, right beside him. Jalal was gazing down at a pool of water, as blue as the Mesopotamian sky. That was where the tinkling sound came from.

  ‘Just because you cannot see something,’ said Jalal, ‘does not mean it is not there.’

  ‘But – how?’

  ‘Those mountains are so high, the sun usually passes behind them. Once a year only, for the briefest time, sunrise clears the mountains, and then a single ray of light comes streaming in through that window. At this time – and this time only – light falls upon this pool of water. It is the source of the river. It is completely pure and clear – so clear that we may even see through space and time here, to the truth.’

  And now it seemed to Varjak that the water in the pool was flickering, its surface blurring and growing thin. The tinkling sound was changing. It felt like it was calling out to him. He looked closer.

  ‘In there, you will see truly,’ said Jalal, ‘though the truth may not be what you wish to see. Do you dare?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  VARJAK WOKE. MESOPOTAMIA was gone. He was back in the secret alleys. It was late afternoon, and a cold wind was blowing through his fur. It was shaking the fire escapes and drainpipes. Somewhere in the distance, a door was banging open and shut, open and shut in the wind.

  He could see Omar and Ozzie, Tam and Jess, huddled by those grilles in the ground, trying to get some warmth. He turned to look for Holly – but she was gone.

  Outside the secret alleys, a door slammed shut, and didn’t open again.

  Things had gone wrong before, but Holly had always been there, by his side. She was the one who knew what to do. And now she was gone.

  A deep shudder of grief ran through him. There was a hole the shape of her inside his heart. It hurt, more than any wound he’d ever known.

  Tam and Jess came over to him. They looked like they’d been crying.

  ‘You all right, Varjak?’ said Tam softly, placing a paw on his flank.

  He shook his head. He didn’t want to talk.

  ‘I know how you feel,’ said Tam. ‘I miss her too. More than anything.’

  ‘And I miss my grandma,’ said Jess.

  Varjak’s insides felt like snow. He could hardly meet their eyes. What could he tell them? I was the one you were counting on – and I let you all down.

  ‘What happened to you back there, Varjak?’ said Omar. ‘It was like you started shimmering – and then you just quit! You didn’t even try to fight Sally Bones!’

  Varjak shivered. He could still feel the cold in his whiskers, the bruising in his brain as she entered his mind. ‘I tried,’ he said. ‘But she – she was so strong.’

  ‘No one can fight her,’ mumbled Ozzie. ‘Not even Varjak.’

  The brothers looked beaten. ‘We’re finished,’ said Omar. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re not finished!’ said little Jess fiercely. ‘I still think Varjak can beat Sally Bones. She’s scared of him!’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Tam. ‘But something must have got to her, or we never would’ve escaped.’

  Varjak shivered. All he could remember was the ice-blue eye, burning into his brain, freezing him to his core.

  Outside the secret alleys, Cludge growled.

  Tam we
nt to the railings. ‘The Scratch Sisters are out there!’ she gulped. ‘Cludge is holding them off, but they look so fierce! What should we do, Varjak?’

  He joined her at the railings, and peered through to the alley outside. He saw Cludge backing away from the three Siamese cats: Elyza, Malisha and Pernisha Scratch. They were as lean and mean-looking as he remembered. Their claws glittered in the street light as they ghosted forwards through the rubble.

  ‘Where is Varjak Paw?’ demanded Elyza. ‘We know he’s here somewhere. Just tell us where, and we’ll leave you alone.’ She flashed her claws at Cludge, but he stood his ground bravely, and barked out another warning.

  ‘WOAH! WOAH!’

  ‘I hate those cats!’ hissed Omar, clenching his paws. ‘They think they’re so great, but we’re stronger than them, I know we are—’

  ‘Let’s fight them!’ said Ozzie. Far in the distance, a siren wailed.

  ‘No – you mustn’t!’ said Tam. ‘What do we do, Varjak? I’m scared!’

  Varjak’s head hurt. It sounded like the Scratch Sisters were after him, too. He’d better be ready to fight. He took a deep breath and counted: in–two–three–four. He reached for his power –

  – but there was ice in his belly.

  Out–two–three–four –

  Ice in his brain.

  Come on, he told himself. Slow-Time, Moving Circles – I know how to do this.

  In–two–three–four!

  But there was only fear in his heart.

  Out–two–three–four!

  Sally Bones’s ice-blue eye in his mind.

  It felt like his lungs were shrinking. He couldn’t breathe. He slumped to the ground, shaking, gasping for breath.

  The power wasn’t there any more.

  It was gone.

  Out in the alley, half a dozen cats crept up behind the Scratch Sisters. A patrol from Sally Bones’s gang. Street lights flickered in the freezing wind. Their shadows danced on the walls. Cludge edged away from them, crouching low in the rubble.

  ‘Well, look at this,’ said the patrol leader. ‘It’s the Scratch Sisters. What do you think you’re doing in the city centre?’