Bristlejaw was an Oel-cir‘va: a Master Old-singer, one of the keepers of the Lore of the Folk. All the history of the Folk was in their songs—passed on in the Higher Singing of the Elder Days from one generation to another as a sacred trust. Bristlejaw was the only Old-singer within some distance of the Meeting Wall, and his stories were as important to his Folk as water, or the freedom to run and jump as they pleased.
From his position atop the Wall he surveyed the cats below for a long time. The expectant murmurings quieted to soft purring. Some of the young cats—tremendously excited and unable to sit still—began frantically grooming themselves. Bristlejaw flicked his tail three times, and there was silence.
“We thank our Elders, who watch over us.” he began. “We praise Meerclar, whose Eye lights our hunting. We salute our quarry for making the chase sweet.”
“Thanks. Praise. Salutations.”
“We are the Folk, and tonight we speak in one voice of the deeds of all. We are the Folk.”
Caught up in the ancient ritual, the cats swayed gently from side to side. Bristlejaw began his story.
“In the days of the earth’s youth—when some of the First were still seen in these fields—Queen Satinear, granddaughter of Fela Skydancer, ruled in the Court of Harar.
“And she was a good queen. Her paw was as just in aid of her Folk as her claw was swift to harm for her enemies.
“Her son and coregent was Prince Ninebirds. He was a huge cat, mighty in battle, swift to anger, and swollen in pride for all his youthful years. At his Naming the story had been told of how, as a kitten, he had slain a branchful of starlings with one blow of his claws. So Ninebirds he was Named, and the fame of his strength and his deeds stretched far.
“It had been many, many summers since the death of Whitewind, and none living in the Court at this time had ever seen any of the First. Firefoot had been wandering in the wild for generations, and many thought him dead, or gone to join his father and grandmother in the sky.
“As stories of Ninebirds’ strength and bravery began to run from mouth to ear among the Folk, and as Ninebirds began to listen to those ignoble ones who always cling to the great Folk, he began to see in himself the greatness of the Firstborn.
“One day it was told throughout the World-Forest that Ninebirds was no longer content to be Prince Regent at his mother’s side. A Meeting was declared to which all the Folk were to come from far and wide for feasting, hunting, and games, and at this meeting he would assume the Mantle of Harar—which Tangaloor Firefoot had declared sacrosanct but for the Firstborn—and Ninebirds would declare himself King of Cats.
“And so came the day, and all the Folk gathered at the Court. While all cavorted and danced and sang, Ninebirds sunned his great body and looked on. Then he stood, and spoke: ‘I, Ninebirds, by right of blood and claw, stand before you today to assume the Mantle of Kingship, which has gone long unfilled. If no cat has any reason why I should not take upon myself this Ancient Burden . . .’
“At that moment there was a noise in the crowd, and a very old cat stood up. His fur was shot all over with gray—especially about his legs and paws—and his muzzle was snow-white.
“ ‘You assume the Mantle by right of blood and claw, Prince Ninebirds?’ questioned the old cat. ‘I do,’ answered the great Prince. ‘By what right of blood do you claim the Kingship?’ queried the old white-whisker. ‘By the blood of Fela Skydancer that runs in me, you toothless old Squeaker-friend!’ rejoined Ninebirds hotly, and rose from where he lay. All the gathered Folk whispered excitedly as Ninebirds walked to the Vaka‘az’-me, the tree-root seat sacred to the Firstborn. Before all the assembled Folk Ninebirds lifted his long tail and sprayed the Vaka‘- az’me with his hunt-mark. There was more excited whispering, and the old cat tottered forward.
“ ‘O Prince, who would be King of Cats,’ said the ancient one, ‘perhaps by blood you have some claim, but what of claw? Will you fight in single combat for the Mantle?’ ‘Of course,’ said Ninebirds, laughing, ‘and who will oppose me?’ The crowd goggled, looking about for some mighty challenger who would fight with the massive Prince.
“ ‘I will,’ said the old one simply. All the folk hissed in surprise and arched their backs, but Ninebirds only laughed again. ‘Go home, old fellow, and wrestle with beetles,’ said he. ‘I will not fight with you.’
“ ‘The King of Cats can be no coward,’ said the old cat. At that Ninebirds cried in anger and leaped forward, swinging his huge paw at the old gray-muzzle. But with surprising speed the old one leaped aside and dealt a buffet to the Prince’s head that addled his wits for a moment. They began to fight in earnest, and the multitude could scarcely credit the speed and courage of the old cat, who opposed such a great and fierce fighter.
“After a long while they closed and wrestled together, and although the Prince bit at his neck, the old one brought up his hind claws and scratched, and Ninebirds’ fur was scattered in the air. When they broke apart, Ninebirds was full of surprise that this lean elder could do him such harm.
“ ‘You have lost much of your pelt, O Prince,’ said the old one. ‘Will you renounce your claim?’ Angered, the Prince charged, and they fell again to fighting. The old one caught the Prince’s tail between his teeth, and when the Prince tried to turn and rend his face, the elder pulled his tail from his body. The Folk hissed with astonishment and fear as Ninebirds wheeled bloodily around and faced the old cat once more, who was himself wounded and panting.
“ ‘You have lost your fur and tail, O Prince. Will you not also yield your claim?’ Maddened by pain, Ninebirds flung himself on the ancient one, and they wrestled—spitting and swiping, blood and tears glistening in the sun. At last the challenger wedged Prince Ninebirds’ hindquarters beneath a root of the Vaka‘az’me.
“As the dirt settled, an excited shock ran through those watching—in the last battling, quantities of white dust had been knocked free from the coat of the challenger. His muzzle was no longer gray, and his paws and legs shone the color of flame. ‘You see me revealed, Ninebirds,’ he said. ‘I am Lord Tangaloor Firefoot, son of Harar, and it is by my command that there is no King of Cats.’
“ ‘You are a brave cat, O Prince,’ he continued, ‘but your insolence may not go unpunished.’ With that, Firefoot caught the scruff of the Prince’s neck and pulled, stretching his body and legs until they were thrice as long as a cat’s are meant to be. He then pulled the Prince loose from the tree root and said: ‘Tailless and hairless, long and ungainly have I made you. Go now, and come never more to the Court of Harar, you who would have usurped his power. But this doom I lay on you: that you shall serve any member of the Folk who commands you, and so shall all of your descendants, until I release your line from this bane.’
“And with that Lord Tangaloor went away. The Folk drove the misformed Ninebirds from their midst, calling him M‘an—meaning ’out of the sunshine‘—and he and all of his descendants went ever after on their hind legs, and do today, for M’an’s forelegs have been stretched too far away to touch the ground.
“Ninebirds the usurper, punished by the Firstborn, was the first of the Big Ones. They have long served the Folk, making us shelter from the rain and feeding us when the hunt is bad. And if some of us now serve the disgraced M‘an, that is another story, for another Meeting.
“We are the Folk, and tonight we speak in one voice of the deeds of all. We are the Folk.”
His song finished, Bristlejaw leaped down from the Wall with a strength belying his many summers. All the assembled Folk respectfully bowed their heads down between their forepaws as he left.
The Hour of Final Dancing was drawing to a close, and the Meeting broke up into small groups—the cats saying their farewells, discussing the Song and gossiping. Tailchaser and Thinbone hung on for a while, discussing plans for the next evening with Fleetpaw and some of the other young hunters, then took their leave.
As they frisked back across the fields they stumbled on a mole stranded away from its burrow. After they chased it a bit, Thinbone broke its neck and they ate. Bellies full, they parted at Fritti’s porch.
“Mri‘fa-o, Tailchaser.” said Thinbone. “If you need my help tomorrow I’ll be in Edge Copse at Unfolding Dark.”
“Good dreaming to you, also, Thinbone. You are a good friend.”
Thinbone gave a flick of his tail and was gone. Fritti hopped into the box left for him by the Big Ones, and sank into the sleep-world.
2
CHAPTER
It is the Vague and Elusive.
Meet it and you will not see its head.
Follow it and you will not see its back.
—Lao-tzu
Fritti Tailchaser had been born the second youngest of a litter of five. When his mother, Indez Grassnestle, had first sniffed him, and licked the moisture from his newborn pelt, she sensed in him a difference—a subtle shading that she could not name. His blind infant eyes and questing mouth were somehow more insistent than those of his brothers and sisters. As she cleaned him she felt a tickle in her whiskers, an intimation of things unseen.
Perhaps he will be a great hunter,
she thought.
His father, Brindleside, was certainly a handsome, healthy cat—there had even been a whiff of the Elder Days about him, especially when he had sung the Ritual with her on that winter night.
But Brindleside was gone now—following his nose toward some obscure desire—and she, of course, was left to raise his progeny alone.
As Fritti grew, she lost touch with her early perceptions. Familiarity and the hard day-to-day business of raising a litter blunted many of Grassnestle’s subtler sensitivities.
Although Fritti was a bright and friendly kitten, clever and quick-learning, he never fulfilled in size the promise of his hunter-father. By the time that the Eye had opened above him three times he was still no larger than his older sister Tirya, and considerably smaller than either of his two brothers. His short fur had darkened from the original cream to apricot-orange, except for white bands on his legs and tail, and a small, milky star shape on his forehead.
Not large, but swift and agile—conceding some kitten clumsiness—Fritti danced through his first season of life. He frolicked with his siblings, chased bugs and leaves and other small moving things, and mustered his green patience to learn the exacting lore of hunting that Indez Grassnestle taught to her children.
Although the family’s nest was in a heap of wood and rubble behind one of the massive dwellings of the Big Ones, many days Fritti’s mother would take the kittens out past the outskirts of the M‘an-nests and into the open countryside—wood lore was quite as important as city lore to the children of the Folk. Their survival depended on their being smarter, faster and quieter, wherever they found themselves.
Forth from the nest Grassnestle would go, her young forming a straggling, cavorting scout party about her. With the patience passed down through countless generations, she taught her ragged crew the fundamentals of survival: the sudden freeze, the startling leap, true-smelling, clear-seeing, quick-killing—all the hunting lore she knew. She taught, and showed, and tested; then patiently re-taught time and again until the lesson stuck.
Certainly her patience was often stretched thin, and occasionally a botched lesson would be punished by a brisk pawsmack to the offender’s nose. Even a mother of the Folk had limits to her restraint.
Of all Grassnestle’s kittens, Fritti loved learning most. Inattention, however, sometimes gained him a smarting nose—especially when the family went out into the fields and woods. The tempting whistles and chirps of the fla-fa‘az and the swarming, evocative scents of the countryside could set him daydream ing in a moment, singing to himself of treetops, and wind in his fur. These reveries were frequently interrupted by his mother’s brisk paw on his snout. She had learned to recognize that faraway look.
The dividing line between waking and dreaming was a fine one among the Folk. Although they knew that dream-Squeakers did not satisfy waking hunger, and that dream-fights left no wounds, still there was nourishment and release in dreams unavailable in the waking world. The Folk depended so much on the near-intangible—senses, hunches, feelings and impulses—and these contrasted so strongly with the rock-solid basics of survival needs that one supported the other in an inseparable whole.
All the Folk had exceedingly keen senses—they lived and died by them. Only a few, though, grew to become Oel-var‘iz—Far-sensors—who developed their acuteness and sensitivity far beyond even the high median of the Folk.
Fritti was a great dreamer, and for a while his mother harbored the idea that perhaps he had this gift of Far-sensing. He showed occasional flashes of surprising depth: once he hissed his eldest brother down from a tall tree, and a moment later the branch on which his brother had stood broke loose and fell to the ground. There were other hints of this deeper Var, but as time went on, and he began to grow out of kittenhood, the incidents became fewer. He became more prone to distraction—more of a day-dreamer and less of a dream-reader. His mother decided that she had been mistaken, and as the time of Fritti’s Naming grew closer she forgot it entirely. The life of the hunting mother did not permit brooding over abstractions.
At the first Meeting after their third Eye, young cats were brought to be Named. The Naming was a ceremony of great importance.
It was sung among the Folk that all cats had three names: the heart name, the face name, and the tail name.
The heart name was given by the mother at the kitten’s birth. It was a name of the ancient tongue of the cats, the Higher Singing. It was only to be shared with siblings, heart-friends and those who joined in the Ritual. Fritti was such a name.