The Big Meow - Diana Dueyn

Another long silence. Rhiow looked away: Urruah, though, gazed steadily at the Silent Man, in quiet support of something Rhiow could tell was very much a tom-ish kind of pain. She took up with a younger guy, Runyon said. They’ve been living in Reno, where they met when Patrice was posted there for national service during the war. It’s been an open secret in town for a while now. Mostly the publicity people have kept quiet about it. The cool look broke: Runyon smiled bitterly. If you’ve still got enough clout in town to get them in trouble, enough friends at the studios who’d be angry on your behalf, the gossip columns and the two big name ladies with their radio shows know better than to foul their own nests by opening their yaps in public.

The smile faded. But when your star starts to fall, when you start losing that clout, all bets are off. And most people here have noticed that I don’t have any new projects going. Some have noticed that I’m closing the last few down. The real estate agent’s been fielding offers for the house, on the quiet. I’m only here for a little while, before going back to New York — He did not say “for the last time”: it was implicit in his tone. So now the gossip columns see that they’ve got a little while left to get some mileage out of me. Now they think I’m game. Well, I’ve got news for them. The game won’t run.

He reached out to his cup and took a long swig, finishing the cold coffee in it. And why should I? What they’re pulling doesn’t really hurt. Neither does what Patrice just pulled, said the Silent Man. He put the cup down again. Love’s a mug’s game anyway.

He leaned back again, stretching out his legs. To Rhiow there was nothing even slightly relaxing about the gesture: the tension underlying it was terrible. Romance is nothing to me any more. Nothing for anybody, most of the time, not really. But me, I gave it up way back when I realized which way the wind blew.

Rhiow glanced over at Hwaith: he glanced back, his eyes still half-closed but shadowed with pity and pain. Urruah, though, stood up, stretched, stepped down from the bookshelf, and lay down on the desk on the other side of the typewriter, in the pool of light from the single lamp.

He stretched out his own hind legs out thoughtfully, giving the Silent Man a dry look. “Staying right there in character,” Urruah said. “Just what you’d expect in one of your stories from some guy with a glass in front of him in the middle of the night.”

His tone was wry. The Silent Man looked at Urruah and let out a breath, a short one, as if considering and then holding back some other response. No glass for me, he said after a moment. I don’t drink. It always made me sick, even before my present – physical problems. Now I’ve got all these pills, too, and the doctors told me not to be tempted to mix them. I listen to my doctors…like I have a choice.

He turned his coffee cup around on the desk. …Not many choices left to me now, he said. I’m making my last few. Don’t need romance. Sex wouldn’t be high on the list, either: there’s too much to do before I go. But your priorities have to be different. He gave Urruah back a look at least as wry as Urruah’s had been. You’ve got the looks of a brisk young tom about town. Got all the necessary equipment. Urruah’s whiskers went forward, an appreciative response: Rhiow restrained herself from any comment, verbal or nonverbal. Your whole life’s in front of you. And you – He looked over at Rhiow. You’re his doll?

“This is getting a little personal, isn’t it?” Rhiow said.

The Silent Man grinned at her: the expression was a bit brittle, but genuine enough. You started it, Blackie, he said. So you’re not his dame, then. Got a boyfriend somewhere else.

Rhiow commanded herself not to bristle. The Silent Man’s eyes glinted a little. Enjoyment? But not of her discomfiture. There was something else going on. This was what he did, in his life: he looked into the fine detail of the lives of the beings around him, and exposed them to view. What he was doing was healthy, his way of fighting the Lone One, even in these depths of pain… though it still made Rhiow twitch.

“Not at present,” Rhiow said. “In your words, I’m missing some of the ‘necessary equipment.’ With us, you need one for the other. It’s – “ She shrugged her tail. “Just a physical thing.”

The Silent Man turned the coffee cup around a few more times, stared past it. So you don’t do love, then.

Rhiow was shocked into wide-eyed silence. Hwaith opened his eyes all the way and looked at the Silent Man with an expression of incomprehension. But Urruah simply flicked an ear and put his whiskers forward. “Of course we do,” he said. “What are we, animals or something?”

The Silent Man looked at him sharply. Then he bowed his head. Sorry, he said. He rubbed his face.

“Ehhif,” Urruah said, “hardly have a monopoly on the personal version of the force that drives the stars. Life’s about lots more than sex for us. We have our romances, our frustrations. Our tragic loves and our triumphant ones – “

“Sehau,” said Hwaith rather suddenly, “and Aefheh.”

The Silent Man looked up. “What?”

Urruah’s whiskers went forward again as he glanced at Hwaith, then back at the Silent Man. “Not what,” he said. “Who.” His tail twitched slowly. “If you walked up to a cat anywhere on this planet and said the words ‘true love’,” he said, “probably those two names are the first words you’d get back. A story from a long time ago, when the world was young. Two People who loved each other, and let nothing stop that: nothing at all.”

The Silent Man looks away. The world is full of things that stop it, he said.

“Full of things that’ll try,” Rhiow said, “and one in particular.” She looked from Urruah to Hwaith, her mood shifting toward amusement.

Hwaith flicked an ear. “Might want to give him the shorter version,” he said. “The middle sections might be tedious for an ehhif.”

“The short version,” Urruah said, “but not the simple one.” He glanced at Rhiow.

She settled herself down into what Iaehh still called “meatloaf” mode, all paws tucked under, and shot Urruah an amused look. It was not so long ago that she and Saash had been taking turns making sure Arhu knew this story, part of every educated Person’s knowledge, which circumstance and the lack of a dam’s tutelage had denied him as a kitten. Now, of course, Rhiow’s part in that education was done – as Arhu could hear what he needed from the Whisperer Herself – and Saash had since taken up the narrative in a way that none of them had quite expected. “No,” Rhiow said, “there’s nothing simple about it. Maybe Urruah’ll sing you one of the casual lyric versions sometime. But the best known spoken version’s formal, and a bit archaic: let it stay that way.”

She half-closed her eyes, not better to hear the Whisperer – for she didn’t need Her for this – but to summon up the memory of Saash’s old intonation, which to Rhiow’s mind had always been better, both more precise and more heartfelt than her own. Why do you always hold back on this? she could remember Saash saying one night down in her old home in the parking garage. Let it run loose and give it full value, for Iau’s sake; what’s it for but to shame the Lone One? Since it’s all about old Shadowpelt having the grace to be ashamed in the first place –

She put her whiskers forward. “There was a time,” Rhiow said, “when it was afternoon in Heaven, and the Queen’s light lay long and low across the Hearth. Then as evening drew in, the dark shadow of her daughter sa’Rraah fell across that light – “

The Silent Man reached over to the bookshelf and pulled out a spare pad and a pencil. If the Queen is God, he said, this is possibly the Devil?

“Close enough,” Urruah said. “But more conflicted.”

Runyon raised his eyebrows, nodded. Okay —

Rhiow shot a glance at Urruah. Conflicted, indeed, she said. “Well. When they saw that shadow, the Queen’s other children drew aside to make room for the Shadowed one, for it’s rare that She comes home to the Pride, and all hope that someday She’ll come to stay.

“For a while sa’Rraah lay in the warmth of the Hearth, and none spoke. And finally the Whisperer, impatient of knowledge as always, said, ‘Sister, where have you been?’ ‘Out and about in the Worlds,’ said sa’Rraah, ‘seeing how the light and shadow strive, and which comes best from the strife.’ Now this is always the Shadowed One’s way, seeking victory rather than justice, and endings rather than beginnings; so most of those who lay about the Hearth turned their eyes away at hearing she was yet walking her old path as always, and tails twitched. But the Queen lay quiet, and said, “And what have you found?”

“’Life, and Life again,’ said the Lone One; ‘but never so robust that it cannot be snuffed out, or its intentions made to fail. You were unwise, O Mother, to make it so weak a prey.’

“’Perhaps it is less weak than you think,’ said Iau the Queen, ‘since despite all your efforts over the vast expanse of Time, Life yet persists.’

“Now, sa’Rraah is no fool to taunt the Queen to Her face; yet like any Person, sometimes the desire to play overcomes her. And the Queen ever sees the kitten in the Person full-grown, and will look aside and let Her tail be chewed… within reason. So each knowing this of the Other, sa’Rraah then said to the Queen, ‘Are You so sure of that that You will let me put some corner of creation to that test?’

“Hearing that, Aaurh and the Whisperer growled low in their throats. But the Queen stretched and said, ‘Daughter of mine, if you think I will let you play this play with the fabric of reality, you think wrongly. If Life is the throatball you gag at, then Life will be what bears your enmity: some small corner of it, as you say. But do not be too sure the play will go your way.’

“’And You will not interfere?’ said sa’Rraah.

“’I am in Life and cannot be separated from it,’ said the Queen. ‘But I will of Myself not act… any more than usual.’

“With this the Shadowed One had to be satisfied. Yet she growled and licked her chops. ‘And what Life shall I test?’ said sa’Rraah. ‘There is no joy in the wager unless You run some risk.’

“Risk there shall be, for you shall test People who are dearest to me,’ said the Queen. ‘And in this time that will be Sehau and Aifheh, whose time it is to be born now, and for whom I have waited long.’ And She purred so that all Heaven heard it. ‘I have wrought and intended them for each other since the deeps of time: they will express love as it will ever be best expressed among my People, and as it ought to have been before the ways were darkened and love’s time became brief.’ And just for that moment Iau opened one Eye, and its terrible light rested on sa’Rraah.

“All the Queen’s other children held utterly still, and even sa’Rraah crouched down, all dismayed: for her own work it had been that the ways of the worlds were darkened by her invention, death. Yet after a moment the Shadowed one looked up again, emboldened to spite by Iau’s forbearance. ’Queen and Mother,’ said sa’Rraah, ‘there is nothing You can make that I cannot mar.’

“The Queen merely closed her Eye again, and said, ‘That the event shall prove. Go your ways, my daughter, and do your devoir.’

“So sa’Rraah rose and stretched and padded away from the Hearth of Heaven. And in the outer circles of reality, in the world where the People dwell, Sehau was born outside a city of ehhif; and far from him, in a wild place into which her dam had been cast, Aifheh was littered.”

The Silent Man glanced up from the pad on which he’d been scribbling. What city? he said.

Rhiow looked at Hwaith, for this was a part of the story that she’d never given the slightest thought to. Hwaith shrugged his tail.

“Pittsburgh,” Urruah said.

Hwaith stared at him. Rhiow rolled her eyes. Urruah immediately tucked himself up into a more compact shape, suitable for running away suddenly if he had to: but the look in his eyes was still full of mischief.

Rhiow let out a breath. “Anyway! Sehau was a tom: Aifheh was a queen – “

But not God, said the Silent Man.

“Not God,” Rhiow said, realizing that no matter what she did, with this audience there was no hope that the telling would go smoothly. “Sehau was a brindle kitten, and Aifheh white with a black-patched pelt. Each one grew quickly, and when their kittening days were done, each did as many People do: began to roam the world, departing territories that were too full of their own kin to search for places where they could become part of new prides, and their own kits would prosper when the time came. And it was in woodland between the city and the wild that they met for the first time. Each was hungry, for they were very young, and neither was expert in the hunt as yet. Sehau had found a place in the woods where inside a little bank he could hear the fieldmice moving and speaking to each other. He meant to wait till night to catch them, when he would have the advantage: and from a hidden place in the brush he watched them go in and out of their den. But the longer he watched the less his stomach could bear it any more, nor could he wait till night. When the next fieldmouse came rustling out, he jumped on it. And from the brush behind the little bank, where Sehau could not see, Aifheh jumped on it at the same moment.

“In their shock and surprise, they fought over the mouse, and it got away. They were angry with each other: but they were so young that they soon forgot their anger, and looked at each other curiously, and exchanged names. They met again in the days that passed, and shortly they began to hunt together, because they had each been alone for so long and each missed the sound and smell and touch of other People. Soon they were friends. And before much longer Aifheh came into heat, and Sehau was ready for her; and then they were not just friends, but lovers.

“Now the Shadowed One had been watching for this; for if the loves of these two were what the Queen Herself had been awaiting them, then surely they were worth thwarting. Aifheh kindled from that first joining, and grew great with her litter: but sa’Rraah so twisted the kindling of the new life in her that the kittens all died in her womb, and their death poisoned her, so that she too was soon to die.

“Sehau was wild with fear and grief, and cried and licked Aifheh and prayed to the Queen for her life. But Aifheh said, ‘My love, this body is only the first. We are People, and there are lives to come. I will be born again, and I will await you. Make no unnatural haste to meet me, for that Queen Iau forbids. But be born again, and I will cross the world to find you, and we will have our love again: this I swear.’

“Crying with his pain, but seeing her hope, and that it was the only way, Sehau swore by the Queen that it should be so. And Aifheh died.

“Sa’Rraah laughed at her death, and if Sehau had any fears of a long life, they were vain: for the Shadowed One saw to it that while crossing ice on a frozen river that winter, the ice broke under Sehau and the water’s flow under the surface trapped him under the ice, and there he drowned. At this sa’Rraah laughed again and went off into the shadows of the world, pleased with her frustration of the Queen’s great desire, and waiting to see whether there would be any need for another move in the game.