The nexus that had beaten Scamper before now appeared to have swallowed the entire alley. Its hectic growth had not abated, although Chief had dispatched his best reinforcements. Copper cats now attacked the mora.s.s in numbers, tearing off sc.r.a.ps with their teeth. For each bite they took, the whirlwind swelled faster. Now fed by its own spinning impetus, thoughts shadows boiled into existence faster than any trained corps could reduce them.

A fat yellow Persian named Sarge oversaw, perched on a trashcan lid to one side. When the Chief sauntered up, he summarized his frustration with a deep growl of annoyance.

Chief's emerald eye glinted. "Report!"

"The whole stinking list?" Fat Sarge yawned, his stiff silver whiskers raked back. "Petty as flea rash! First off, the human perp's female. Nagged the living hair off the head of her mate. The poor, mangled creature finally regained his sanity and got a divorce. Since then, the exwife harps on about his allegedly faithless betrayal. We've logged her whining complaints by the thousands: that he was a drunk who lounged on the sofa, too lazy to hang up the paper roll next to the toilet! Ten thoughts a minute, she insists how she's wronged: that the world's going to ruin; that the rent won't be paid; or that the fancy new shoes for her kid cost more than her child support." Sarge heaved a sigh. "You'd think, overhearing, that no patch of soil grows any flowers. Or that toddlers don't laugh in the park! Who cares a hoot for a label, by gosh? Can a brand-name sneaker matter so much if the kid's going to splash in the mud puddles?"

"Some folks would refuse to hear the birds sing, even if one perched smack on their noggin!" Chief scratched his jaw, worried. "No clue, yet, what abandoned fragment of happiness lies buried beneath the moil?"

"Not so far." Sarge paused, on the case as three coppers strolled up. Each one carried a shred of the darkness, torn off and pinned in clenched teeth.

"Good work!" The Chief accepted their offerings, nailed them under a claw, then smacked them with cat-magic to disgorge the misery of their content. Ears back, the cats listened: through strings of obscenities that maligned the weather, then more annoyed words on the dirt dropped by pigeons, and bills that some wretched bean counter had attached with a surcharge for overdue payment.

The Chief hissed, disgusted. "This depression's entrenched! Defensively held. We'll face a fight, guaranteed, to lay bare the seed of the problem."

"Then you'll storm the core?" Sarge ventured, his yellow eyes bright with concern.

"Yes, but not here." The Chief cast a keen glance at the pall that lapped toward the bins where they held hurried consultation. "The battle must be taken out of this world, and into the realm of true dreams."

Fat Sarge slashed his tail. "Whom can you send?" He and the other old timers still mourned the tragedy caused by the last sorry incident. Then, four copper cats dispatched into the breach had died in the line of duty. Their team leader had not been agile enough to salvage the wrecked dream before the harebrained case of human depression blew his brains out with a shotgun. "Who has the cleverness to slip through a wrack this aggressive?"

The Chief looked to Scamper. "You're the quickest paw we have in the corps. Have you the courage to venture the dream realm? From there, we must try to unravel the thread that's devouring this woman's hope. If we find the source, and if we can rip a hole in the cause, a cat who's quick has to slip through the gap and revive her abandoned enthusiasm."

As Scamper stepped up, Bouncer also shoved in, "If he goes, I stay with him!"

"What's the use?" snapped the Chief. "If I can't tear a large enough breach in the problem, the whole situation will go fur-b.a.l.l.s up!"

"Just stop me!" Nose to nose and fur bristling, Bouncer glared until the Chief blinked and backed down.

"I'll hold the rear guard from here," Fat Sarge soothed, in no mood himself to knock Bouncer's bulk back in line. He watched the three felines take up the fray, with the wily Chief in the lead.

The dark-doing had become no less voracious, despite the copper cats' diligence. Scamper was forced to twist this way and that, streaking after the Chiefs orange tail and with Bouncer a bounding gray blur beside him. The hideous blot would have defeated their rush, had their strategy aimed for avoidance. But this stand would not be made here and now, on the solid ground of the world. Chief did not pounce to wrestle but, instead, charged headlong at the mora.s.s with the brave intent to pa.s.s through.

Scamper and Bouncer jumped just behind. Their leap plunged them into the heart of the darkness and hurled them into forever. For the dream realm by its nature was boundless, wrought of the fantastical stuff that gave rise to perhaps, what if, and maybe-every rainbow color, and more, that the wakeful eye could not see. Here was brilliant light that could dazzle or burn. All shapes of foolhardy fancy and delight, and shadows too, veiled in the beauty of enchanted mystery, or ghastly with ugliness.

Dream-stuff, spun by humans who were alive, seethed with spontaneous intensity. But not here, where year upon year of suppression had hampered the impulse of playful exuberance. The woman's despair had eaten away both the bright and the dark. What remained was the clutter and waste of neglect, shrouded in dust and cobwebs. Scamper and his companions picked their way between piles of broken toys. Here they pa.s.sed a bicycle going to rust and there a rowboat with a hole in it. They rattled through sheets of crumpled paper, discarded ideas piled like fallen leaves. They pa.s.sed storybooks, abandoned in puddles of tears, soggy pages dissolved into pulp.

Scamper sniffed at the misted air. Its scentless cold numbed his nerve ends. Unlike on the streets, where thought-patterns were vibrant, he had no clue where to begin.

"Listen up!" the Chief urged, set on edge himself. "Somewhere under here there will be a force, an old memory that steals away happiness. We must seek out what's choking the life from this pattern before we can shoulder the fight."

Scamper p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, widened his pupils, and sharpened his feline senses. He peered into the future and saw only tangle: a dreary array of boring activity, obligation, and burdensome days. The detritus of pa.s.sionless memories closed in, sharp and relentless as traps. Scamper was slight enough to slip through, but Chief and Bouncer needed to squeeze to force themselves past the tight spots. The way grew more dangerous. Fog, and then drizzle, drenched the cats to the skin. More than once they shied back from the crash, as loose objects tumbled and threatened to crush them.

Though the cats were only a whisker apart, leaden silence wrapped them in isolation. They became wrung by pervasive loneliness until feline spirits pined for sunshine and wind, even a storm to shatter the dreadful oppression.

"We have to go deeper," insisted the Chief. "No matter how hard, there's no choice. Give in, and we'll never escape this."

Icy rain became a torrential downpour. Scamper shook the wet from his ears, more weary than he could remember. Through the barrage, he heard a voice, far off and terribly faint.

Bouncer heard, too, and the Chief turned that way, shoving into a murk, thick as slush, that hampered his mincing steps forward.

"Look at this!" Scamper sc.r.a.ped at the stuff with his claws, freeing a forgotten tatter of praise and encouragement. Even as the drowned figment emerged, a strident old woman's scolding arose, overpowering the wisp his cat's paw reawakened.

"Scrub your face! Don't touch, you'll break something! That's disgusting behavior. Don't do that, stupid, your hands are filthy! Stop tracking mud on the floor! Didn't your mother teach you any manners? That's a horrible way to treat your younger brother. Never mind if he hit you, be nice! No, you can't have a pet! They carry disease! Never play on the far side of the street, you could be killed by a car!"

"Come on!" The Chief hissed, his fur bristled. "That's the snarling knot we have to tear through. If we can't, the sad woman will let go of life, pushed past the edge by her early conditioning."

Scamper twitched his puffed tail, more than itching to pounce. "Make any kitten toss its kibbles and milk! Couldn't that witch take a breath without nattering?"

"Likely not." The Chief sighed, slinking along on his belly. "Who wouldn't fade, smothered in safety and peace, with the sparkle torn out of adventure?"

The cats crept up on the entrenched bit of thought-pattern. The vortex had formed as a spider's web, spun from repet.i.tive scolding. The center was gripped by an elderly person whose lips never smiled and who wore a starched dress, drab as the rags in a broom closet.

Bouncer growled, fur erect. "Puts the curl in my back! Shall we jump her?"

"She'll have allies," Chief warned. "Other voices, like hers, will arise to defend her over-protective tyranny. They'll reshape the snarl even as we attempt to rip it asunder. The force in that thought-stream won't give way for good. Not till the browbeaten human in charge finds on her own the wild urge to rebel and abandons each one of those moribund rules."

Scamper bared his teeth. "Then how many times must we rip the stuffing out of this fragment of memory?"

"For as long as it takes to breach through," Chief replied. "You'll know when we've triumphed, no question."

The cats pounced. They tore, teeth and savage claws, rending the howling memory limb from limb. When the carping effigy rose from the shreds, they scrimmaged and mangled its head, broke its neck, and raked it to quivering ribbons. Each time, the monster twitched and rea.s.sembled. They attacked, over and over again, until they were breathless and battered.

Bouncer was puffing. Chief seemed done in. The harder the cats fought, the more the rain fell. Their mouths burned with the salt-taste of childish tears, and their eyes stung, gritted with the ashes sown by wounding regrets.

Scamper grappled until he was numb. All but drowned by the endless rain, he kicked and raked at the gibbering fragments. No warning prepared him. Suddenly the thought-stuff he wrestled caved in. The firm ground melted under his feet. Then the dream realm around him dissolved and ran molten, hurling him toward oblivion.

"Let go!" yelled the Chief. "That's the hole for your entry!"

Soaked, beyond miserable, Scamper scrabbled at air. He could not control his plummeting fall. Twisting, he tumbled out of the dream realm, unable to salve his wrecked dignity.

The Chiefs cry of encouragement dimmed, lost in the maelstrom now rapidly disappearing behind. "Copper! You have to land on your feet! Keep your wits, Scamp! We'll keep holding the line in the dream realm. But the game that's afoot in the world is now left entirely up to you!"

Scamper landed on gravel with a spraddle-legged thump. Pelted by a downpour and shaken half out of his feline senses, he yowled with rage and soaked misery.

His caterwaul caused a woman to turn away from her teetering stance at the verge of the tenement roof. She was not old! Young and worn, with a tired slouch to her shoulders, she was as wretchedly soaked as the cat, her eyes red from incessant weeping.

"Meow!" Scamper wailed. No way could he make such a drenched creature laugh! The woman's dejection blackened the very clouds. No brilliant idea, amid this aching chill, could lift her dark nimbus of misery. Dense thoughts still poured from her presence like ink. Scamper was too distressed to do battle, far less conjure up the feline inspiration to wheedle her down off the roof.

Scamper squalled again, ears flat in frustration. This woman had learned as a child to hate cats! If he set her ranting, or gave her a scare, she might trip off the brink without jumping.

Worst of all, Chief and Bouncer stayed trapped in her dreamscape, fighting her relentless habit of melancholy, unless the drab cycle was broken.

Scamper shrank down. Huddled, dejected, he glanced left and right. But the flat rooftop provided no cranny for even a small cat to hide. He could do nothing but bawl as the human approached step by step and loomed over him.

"A cat? Oh! Poor thing!" Chilled hands reached down. They stroked his wet copper fur, which was repulsively grimy with dirt and machine oil. "You're shivering! Starving, too. I can feel every rib! Let's take you inside. Maybe towel you dry and see what I have to feed you..."

Three weeks later, Scamper crouched in Bouncer's company, companionably crunching on the promised fillets at the back of the Catfish Grill. Chief lounged nearby, licking his chops, when the Maine c.o.o.n posed the curious question. "How in feline daylights did you get that woman to revive her forgotten dream?"

Scamper flicked his tail, purring and pleased. "Wasn't so hard," he allowed with a wink. "I chased a rat burglar into the back closet where she'd stashed her art paper and paints. When I leaped on the shelf, I kicked over the tin. Went easy, from there. I just chased the dizzy rodent in circles till I'd scattered her brushes and pigments. Oh, she yelled, sure enough, when she found the mess. But cleaning the spilled colors out of her carpet, she had to remember the fun she once had making pictures. Then and there, she got up and called an old friend from school. Now they go out painting together. Could be the start of a romance."

Scamper spat out a fish fin and chuckled. "Nailed the rat, too."

"Tasty business," drawled Chief, who enjoyed a fresh kill.

Scamper laughed outright. "The tail end is the best! The dead rat brought the woman so much delight, she's now feeding me tuna fish out of the can."

ABOUT THE AUTHORS.

Donald J. Bingle has had a wide variety of short fiction published, primarily in DAW themed anthologies but also in tie-in anthologies for the Dragonlance and Transformers universes and in popular role-playing gaming materials. Recently, he has had stories published in The Dimensions Next Door, Fellowship Fantastic, Front Lines, Imaginary Friends, and Pandora's Closet. His first novel, Forced Conversion, is set in the near future, when anyone can have heaven, any heaven they want, but some people don't want to go. His most recent novel, Greensword, is a darkly comedic thriller about a group of environmentalists who decide to end global warming... immediately. Now they're about to save the world; they just don't want to get caught doing it. Don can be reached at , and his novels can be purchased through www.orphyte.com/donaldjbingle Richard Lee Byers is the author of over thirty fantasy and horror novels, including Unclean, Undead, The Enemy Within, and Dissolution. His current projects include Unholy (the concluding volume in the " Haunted Land " trilogy) and the screenplay for The Plague Knight, a major movie release. A resident of the Tampa Bay area, the setting for much of his horror fiction, he spends much of his leisure time fencing, playing poker, and shooting pool, and is a frequent guest at Florida science-fiction conventions.

Having lived catless for decades, Edward Carmien is now co-owned by two tabbies, one friendly, one skittish, brothers rescued by and adopted from the local pound. After averaging roughly a story a year for almost a dozen years, he is soundly beating that average, and his work can be found most recently in Black Gate 12 and other places one can discover by Googling his last name. Ed rides motorcycles (ABC #7573), teaches, canoes, avoids yardwork, shoots photos, tries to keep up with his kids, and does sundry other things in Princeton, New Jersey, where the elm tree didn't quite die out.

Elaine Cunningham spends most of her waking hours reacting to subliminal messages from her two Siamese. She moonlights as a New York Times bestselling author of twenty-one books and about three dozen short stories. Kirkus Review named Shadows in the Starlight, the second book in her Changeling Detective urban fantasy series, to their list of Top Ten SciFi Books of 2006. (Elaine suspects that the list's compilers have cats and further suspects that those cats communicate with her Siamese-probably through Mys.p.a.ce.) She is still busily writing fantasy novels and short stories but is also branching out into historical fiction. And her first editorial project, Lilith Undead-an anthology of tales based on the Lilith mythology-was recently published. A former music and history teacher, Elaine now focuses most of her musical energies on the Celtic harp, which is, oddly enough, the only instrument the cats actively enjoy.

Esther M. Friesner is the author of thirty-three novels and over one hundred fifty short stories and other works. She won the Nebula Award twice as well as the Skylark and the Romantic Times Award. Best known for creating and editing the wildly popular Chicks In Chainmail anthology series (Baen Books), her latest publications are the Young Adult novels Temping Fate, n.o.body's Princess, and n.o.body's Prize. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, is the mother of two grown children, and harbors cats.

Paul Genesse told his mother he was going to be a writer when he was four years old, and he has been creating fantasy stories ever since. He loved his English cla.s.ses in college but pursued his other pa.s.sion by earning a bachelor's degree in nursing science in 1996. He is a registered nurse on a cardiac unit in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he works the night shift keeping the forces of darkness away from his patients. Paul lives with his incredibly supportive wife Tammy and their collection of frogs. He spends endless hours in his bas.e.m.e.nt writing fantasy novels, short stories, and crafting maps of fantastical realms. His novel The Golden Cord: Book 1 of the Iron Dragon Trilogy, was released in 2008, but his current project is Medusa's Daughter, a fantasy set in ancient Greece. He encourages you to contact him online at www.PAULGENESSE.com.

Ed Greenwood has published over one hundred and eighty fantasy novels and Dungeons & Dragons game products and is the award-winning creator of the famous Forgotten Realms fantasy world. His novels include the bestselling Spellfire and Elminster: The Making of a Mage and their many sequels, the Band of Four saga, and the Knights of Myth Drannor trilogy, which begins with Swords of Eveningstar.

Bruce A. Heard has written many role-playing books and articles, including the Alternity Player's Handbook and Gamemaster Guide, and many articles for Dragon magazine. Currently he lives and writes in Lake Villa, Illinois.

Lee Martindale's work has appeared in such anthologies as Turn The Other Chick, Lowport, A Time To... Outside The Box, three volumes of the Sword & Sorceress series, three of the Bubbas Of The Apocalypse series, and three chapbook collections from Yard Dog Press. She also edited the ground-breaking Such A Pretty Face. When not slinging fiction, Lee is a Named Bard, Lifetime Active Member of SFWA, a fencing member of the SFWA Musketeers, and a member of the SCA. She and her husband, George, share a Plano, Texas, home with two feline G.o.ddesses-Mistletoe and Eggnog-and fond memories of Pixel and Chiya, to whom "Old Age And Sorcery" is dedicated.

Jana Paniccia lives in Toronto, although she tries to get out of the city as much as possible, preferably to visit more places she's never been before. Her short stories have appeared in a number of anthologies, most recently, Children of Magic, Fantasy Gone Wrong, and Ages of Wonder. She also coedited the Prix Aurora Award winning DAW anthology Under Cover of Darkness, with Julie E. Czerneda, released in 2007.

Jean Rabe is the author of two dozen books and four dozen short stories. She edits anthologies from time to time, and she loves to tug fiercely on old socks with her dogs. She lives in southeastern Wisconsin, in a pleasant subdivision br.i.m.m.i.n.g with dogs and kids. Her hobbies include playing board games, war games, and role-playing games, twirling her toes in her goldfish pond, finding places to hide her growing collection of books, and visiting all manner of museums.

Matthew Stover is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Traitor and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, as well as The Blade of Tyshalle, Heroes Die, Iron Dawn, and Jericho Moon. He is a student of the Degerberg Blend, a jeet kune do concept that is a mixture of approximately twenty-five different fighting arts from around the world. He lives outside Chicago with artist and writer Robyn Drake.

Marc Ta.s.sin was enthralled by books from a very early age. He marveled that a collection of letters on a page could sweep a person away to another world, change the course of a life, or evoke powerful emotional and intellectual responses. The magic of this literary alchemy is what inspired him to try his hand at writing. In the years since, Marc has written short stories, games, and articles that explore the far reaches of fantasy and science fiction. From the b.l.o.o.d.y decks of pirate ships to the secret lives of gerbils, he's taken his readers to strange and wonderful places. Marc lives in a small town just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his wife, Tanya, and their two children.

Christopher Welch is a happily married freelance writer, reporter, and book reviewer originally from Akron, Ohio. He currently lives in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, where he works for the local newspaper and news radio station. His poetry, fiction, and nonfiction have appeared in various small press and professional publications. He is a staff reviewer for Dark Wisdom magazine and a long-time member of the HWA. He earned a B.A. (with a minor in creative writing) and an M.A. in English from the University of Akron. Despite his severe allergies to them, he still thinks cats are really cool.

Robert E. Vardeman has written several dozen short stories and more than seventy science fiction, fantasy, and mystery novels. He currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his teenaged son, Chris, and a cat. Two out of three of them enjoy the high-tech hobby of geocaching.

Elizabeth A. Vaughan is the author of Warprize, Warsworn, and Warlord, the three books that make up Chronicle of the Warlands. She believes that the only good movies are the ones with gratuitous magic, swords, or lasers. Not to mention dragons. At the present, she is owned by three incredibly spoiled cats and lives in the Northwest Territory, on the outskirts of the Black Swamp, along Mad Anthony's Trail on the banks of the Maumee River.

Janny Wurts has pursued her love of imaginative invention in both story and visual form. She has auth.o.r.ed eighteen. books, a collection of short fiction, and over thirty contributions to fantasy and science fiction anthologies, with most books bearing her own jacket and interior art. She has received the Cauldron Award from Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine for her writing. Her paintings have been showcased in exhibitions at the Hayden Planetarium, NASA's 25th Anniversary Exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and as part of the Delaware Art Museum 's permanent collection. Her artwork has received two Chesley Awards and three Best of Show Awards at the World Fantasy Convention.

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