"Why would I do that?"

"To save your life."

"It's no use keeping your body alive if you kill your spirit to do it."

"I'm not asking you to lose yourself. I'm asking you to become yourself more fully than ever before. Lucifer's gift has always been a part of you. Haven't you ever wondered how it would feel to use it? Imagine the wonderful things you could do if you married that power to the magic you've already mastered."

For a moment, the prospect tempted him, or maybe it was simply the smell of her nether parts, still wafting on the air. He gave his head a shake. "I'm not interested."

"Why? Because you love the humans? Have you looked around at this horrible place they built? It was a house of misery and death long before I arrived."

"Maybe so, but for every one that hates us, there are ten who are our friends, and for every cruel deed, a hundred acts of kindness. I suppose I do love them. And even if I didn't, I love the Queen, and I've already pledged her my allegiance."

Barb sighed. "What a shame. We could have sinned such magnificent sins together." She glanced around at the cats arrayed behind her, no doubt to order them to attack.

With the enemy blocking the only way out of the room, Silent poised himself to fight as hard and die as well as possible, for die he almost certainly would. The conversation had given him a chance to catch his breath, and he had faith in his own powers, but they couldn't protect him from a dozen tainted blacks all giving him the Evil Eye at once.

Then inspiration struck. "Wait!" he cried.

Barb turned back around. "Changed your mind?"

"Partly. I won't just surrender myself. But I will bet myself." According to feline lore, demons loved to gamble.

Barb's green eyes narrowed. "What do you have in mind?"

"You and I will fight.

Just you and I. Your stooges will stay out of it. If you render me helpless, then I'll let you change me as you've changed these others. If I win, they revert to what they were."

"Ridiculous. They gave themselves of their own free will."

"That's not the way I see it. You boasted yourself that you tortured and tricked them into it, and that means they deserve another chance."

"Whether they do or not, you're proposing to wager one soul while I risk more than twenty. You value yourself too highly."

"Do I? Does the chance to turn an Adept of Bast come along every day? You want me, demon. Quite a bit. Maybe you shouldn't have let me know, but it's too late now."

Barb glared.

"What's the matter?" Silent asked. "You're a champion of h.e.l.l. Are you afraid of one lone cat? Don't you think you can beat me without a bunch of slaves backing you up? I hope the other demons don't find out. They'll laugh their tails off."

"All right," Barb spat, "it's a wager."

"Good. After I kill you, how do I change the other blacks back to normal?"

Barb turned her head. Following the motion, Silent saw a stack of parchments sitting on the floor. It hadn't been there a moment before.

"Covenants," the demonic cat said, "sealed with paw print and fang mark, blood and spit. If I die or yield, they'll catch fire instantly."

"All right," Silent said. "Shall we fight outside? There's more room."

"As you prefer, magus. Wherever we do it, the outcome will be the same."

She and her servants led him to an exit, doors opening of their own accord when she neared. Once he was clear of the building, he had to stifle a craven urge to bolt. He wasn't used to feeling so afraid, but he was certain Barb was the most formidable foe he'd ever fought, and he had no real idea of the extent of her abilities.

For his part, he could do a great many things with spells, but he couldn't cast them quickly enough to be of use in a duel. He'd have to depend on the Aspects, and accordingly decided to cloak himself in the power of Sister Leopard. She wasn't as big and strong as Brother Tiger, but she was quicker and more agile.

The procession wound up in a dark self-service parking lot. A couple of cars still sat in their s.p.a.ces, but most had departed at the end of the workday. Barb's minions positioned themselves around the perimeter of the s.p.a.ce. The gleam of the sickle moon caught in their eyes.

"Is the dueling ground acceptable?" asked Barb.

"It'll do," Silent said, widening the distance between them.

"You know, you can yield right now and avoid a lot of pain."

"Or you can give up right now and not get killed."

She charged, and as she did, she changed. She swelled big as a lynx, and her fangs and claws glowed like red-hot iron. The flesh around them charred, but it didn't appear to cause her any distress.

Silent waited until she'd nearly closed, then sprang to the side. He clawed and tore open her shoulder. Her blood burst into flame on contact with the air.

She wheeled and swiped at him. He jerked back, and barbed, smoldering claws missed him by a hair. He leaped, bore her down beneath him, and reached to bite her throat. He supposed her blood would burn his mouth but it couldn't be helped.

She writhed and blurred beneath him, and suddenly he didn't have a secure hold on her anymore. Clad in the form of a python, she whipped scaly lengths of herself around him and pulled the loops tight, and now he was the one being gripped. The pressure was painful and relentless.

Barb raised her wedge-shaped head to leer down at him. "Surrender," she hissed.

He couldn't reach her with his fangs or fore claws. He groped with his hind paws, found a part of her, and raked hard.

She jerked, and her hold loosened an iota. He heaved with all of Sister Leopard's might and broke free. Barb swirled around him, seeking to wrap him up again. He struck at her, bashing her head to the side, and sprang away from her sliding, twisting coils.

The jump obliged him to turn his back on her. Just for an instant, but when he spun back around, she was gone.

Had he killed her, and her body then disappeared? No, surely not, that last blow hadn't hit solidly enough to break her spine. He turned around and around, seeking her in vain. Did she have the power to become invisible? Or had she shrunk into something so tiny it was impossible to spot?

Whatever she'd done, he couldn't locate her, and his nerves crawled with the certainty that she was stealing closer. Then he noticed the att.i.tude of one of the other cats. It wasn't looking at him or anything else on the expanse of asphalt with its oil spots and painted lines. It was peering up at the sky. Silent followed its gaze to the winged shape plunging down at him.

He sprang out from underneath, just in time to keep the huge owl's talons from driving deep into the center of his body. But one claw still tore his hindquarters.

Hissing away the shock of the injury, he whirled, struck, and ripped the owl's wing. Barb snapped at him with her beak. He recoiled, and his right hind leg almost buckled beneath him.

For what it was worth, he'd hurt Barb, too. She flapped her wings but couldn't take flight. So she melted into the form of a gigantic, bone-white spider with a ring of lambent scarlet eyes. Silent noticed that the new form didn't appear wounded. Evidently, whenever she changed shape, the new creature joined the battle fresh and strong.

Silent wished he had some comparable advantage. As he and Barb circled one another, he hobbled, his gashed and b.l.o.o.d.y leg more painful by the moment.

Still, he managed one more spring, onto the spider's back. His claws and fangs scratched the thing's chitin armor, but couldn't penetrate to the soft parts beneath. Barb whirled, flung him off, and leaped after him. He only barely managed to roll and scramble clear.

Silent let his link to Sister Leopard dissolve. She couldn't help him prevail against a foe impervious to her natural weapons.

Barb let out a low hiss that somehow conveyed gloating satisfaction. She probably thought he'd let go of Sister Leopard because he was too weak to hold her any longer, and she wasn't far wrong at that. He was quickly reaching the limits of his strength and could only hope enough remained for one last trick.

He crouched. A mere lamed, gasping cat facing a horror. Barb scuttled at him, and he pretended to try to dodge. She raised a foreleg, whipped it down on top of him, and pinned him to the asphalt. The several h.o.r.n.y points on the bottom of the limb dug into his flesh.

"You fought well," said Barb. "Now give up."

"No," he said.

"So stubborn. But I can't say I mind." She spread her pincer-like serrated jaws wide and lowered her head. She still wanted to inflict agony and terror, not kill him outright, and so she poised herself to take the first nip with daintiness and deliberation.

It gave Silent time to invoke one final Aspect. If he could.

Calling up Grandfather Saber-tooth was a difficult feat at the best of times, because the great progenitor had departed the world so long ago, and because it was a strain for any vessel to contain his transcendent power. For a terrible moment, nothing happened, but then Silent felt a G.o.d-like strength and ferocity exalt him.

He twisted and struck with the enormous teeth that were invisible to most eyes, yet as real as anything in the world. They punched through Barb's chitin and deep into the juncture of her head and body. He ripped them down through her thorax.

It was all he could manage before Grandfather Saber-tooth's majesty slipped from his grasp. He fell unconscious without knowing whether he'd succeeded in slaying Barb or not.

But when he woke, the heavy, bitter-smelling ma.s.s of her spider body sprawled leaking and motionless on top of him, so that was promising. His hind leg throbbing, he dragged himself out from under her and looked her over. She appeared about as dead as any carca.s.s he'd ever seen.

But even so, he couldn't quite bring himself to turn his back on her until the other black cats rushed over to him. Their show of grat.i.tude and concern made it plain that their cold malevolence had withered away, or at least dwindled back into nothing more than a seed.

"I'm all right," Silent panted. "I know a charm that will help my leg. The tricky part is going to be figuring out how to open all those cages back in the shelter before any other humans show up."

I AM KING!

by Edward Carmien.

He looked over his kingdom with a practiced eye. Black tar that stung his feet in the hot months stretched between the four edges of his world. Humming silver boxes squatted, all sides barred by empty air. Blocky shapes were distant and beyond his concern-he could not walk there. His kingdom, his, and he yowled that to the sky as he did each day: "I am king! I am king!"

Some days there were answers from below, beyond the edge. There were other kings there, false kings in some other kingdom he could not see. Other echoes he could not name, echoes that perked his ears and stirred his loins, occasionally a lament he didn't understand.

His belly was flat and empty, and so he prowled the four corners of his kingdom, one quiet step and a pause, another quiet step and a pause. Water puddled near one of the humming silver boxes. That one was good for shade in the hot months. One of the ledges with gla.s.s sides was often better shelter, though it was a climb and a leap with no ground below, down and back again. One quiet step and a pause. The next box was warm in all weather, and the evening-sun side was out of the wind, best for the cold months. One quiet step and a pause.

Tail, first languid and waving, went rigid. He heard the coo of a stinking bird. It was out of sight, so he trotted to the near corner of the silver box that sometimes clanked as well as hummed, then froze. In his mind's eye he saw the thing: dim, slow, fat, stinking of feathers that oiled his tongue and face when he fought through them to the meat and the blood.

In his mind he saw the coiled leap, foreclaws out, head low, chin thrust out, rear legs rising in antic.i.p.ation of the first strike, the clawed forepaw strike that captured, the clenched bite, the stinking bird's death an eyeblink away, hind paws raking out and down, grinding crunch of bone between his jaws, soft resistance to his belly-ripping hind paws, solid thump to the ground, flight arrested forever, guts soiling his lower legs and belly, salty warm blood washing away the taint of feathers.

Yes. He charged forward. But a shadow whisked the ground to his side.

He arrested his forward lunge, crouched belly-flat to the tar, launched himself sideways. Not enough. Fast as he was, the thing struck. Fire laced his flank, and he screamed with rage and pain, turned and lashed out-hit nothing. Solid whumps of air furrowed his eyes to slits. There before him was a stinking bird, but no prey. This bird had claws the size of his head, wings nearly the span of a silver box, and a very different stink. The smell of old meat made his lip curl.

"You hunt," whump, whump, the giant wings were straining, "my prey!" It had a voice like the wailing that came from below from time to time, a sing-song shriek that started faint, grew loud, then grew faint again.

"I am king!" he screamed back, settled onto his haunches to leap, but the thing was gone, risen in the air like any stinking bird escaping from his claws, his teeth, from death and scattered feathers. He gazed into the sky, limped into the shade of a silver box and licked his wound clean. By night he'd killed and fed despite his wound. There was no sign of the stinking bird with huge claws and a voice.

When the moon rose, he heard the strange lament from far below, a faint echo in the quiet, windless night. The shouts of apes echoed also, and soon the lament fell silent. He slept and dreamed of apes he'd known, soft-handed, living in a room with a gla.s.s wall, a wall that opened onto a ledge just a leap and a scrambled climb away from his kingdom. He dreamed of the day he'd found the apes gone, the room empty and silent, gla.s.s wall shutting him away from their soft hands. He dreamed of the stinking bird's voice, heard the whump of its wings on the air, dreamed of his jaws finding the joint between neck and shoulder, biting, biting, biting.

He awoke in the midmorning, mouth sore, flank hot. Water. His legs were weak, and he lurched to the drip-fed puddle and drank his fill. Turning, he looked across his kingdom and with fierce pride yowled, "I am king! I am king!" To his shame, that exhausted him. He could not hunt that day, but he felt well enough the next dawn to prowl the circ.u.mference of his kingdom, alert for prey.

This time the shrieking bird struck without warning, slamming him to the side. Claws struck deep, but he rolled like a flash and lashed out, feeling satisfaction with a hind rake. He flipped to his feet only to discover there was nothing but air beneath him, falling, he was falling to the sound of stinking bird laughter, laughter that shrieked "My prey! Mine!"

His eyes couldn't focus on the bricks that blurred past him. He struck them, a stinging abrasion that raised a howl of pain. He scrambled to arrest his fall, but his claws tore uselessly. A shadow rose from below with inescapable speed. It slapped him into darkness.

"Wake up," he heard, and he felt an unfamiliar yet thrilling sensation: something was licking his fur. "Wake up." Pain crept upon him from many directions. The old wound in his flank throbbed, a lesser pain. Three sharp points of hurt poked his shoulder. And around all was a stiff soreness. He opened his eyes.

It was dim like twilight around him, though twilight it was not, only some hours from midday. Another like him was speaking. "Wake up," the other said.

"I wake," he replied, and was immediately astonished by the croak of his voice. "Water?"

"You are not dead!" said the other, who was a hunter like himself, smaller in size with dark striped fur, light eyes. As he gazed at the other, it twitched away for a moment before looking back at him.

"I am king," he said, feeling a bit stronger, and rose to his feet. The ground was black and slick beneath his paws, the color of tar but soft and cool. It was like a small hill made of rounded black shapes. He ignored his hurts and looked about.

"Better not let One-Eye hear you say that," said the other. "Good, your blood stopped flowing. What's your name?"

"Name?" he burred back, finding speech like this strange. It felt raw and rough in his throat. "I am king!"

"But One-Eye is king here," said the other hunter, and he smelled the other, and thought: her. She. Her scent made him think of the echoed lament he'd heard in his kingdom. Without knowing why, he looked up. The midday sky was nearly blocked by towering walls. Above was his kingdom. He would return there, somehow, he would find the shrieking bird, kill it, regain his place on the black tar amid the humming silver boxes. But for now, he was thirsty. "Water?"

"This way," she said, and led him down a stack of bulging slick black shapes. "It is good you awoke. Soon these will be gone and you with them."

"Where do they go?"

"I don't know. The apes take them, then bring them back, one at a time, until there is a mountain again. Finally, they take the mountain." She led him to a puddle not unlike the one he knew beside the silver box. The water had a bad taste, but he lapped it up until he was sated.

A great confusion of scents came upon him, and he sniffed up, down, left, right. There were several others. And a strange, dank smell undercut everything. "There are others here," he said, only half a question as he took stock of his grooming.

"Oh, yes!" she said. "I'm Flinch. One-Eye is king. Beckett, Rumble, Hurry also live here."

"Here?"

"The alley," and she sniffed each way up the narrow path between the walls.

"What's Flinch?" His coat was not so bad as it could be; she had cleaned the worst of his wounds by the time he'd awoken.

"Flinch is me," she said. "Who are you?"

"I am king," he said with a puzzled urrrr. He didn't like being puzzled, wasn't sure what a name was.

"Better watch that around One-Eye," she said again. "Don't you have a name?"

"There can be only one king," he said, sure in his seasons of experience that this was so.