by Lee Martindale.

The life of a Free Cat was not without its dangers. Even when one's territory was a long-abandoned inner-city freight depot where food skittered abundantly about, the most extreme weather conditions weren't all that extreme, and shelter options were both copious and reasonably comfortable, things could still take a turn for the fatal without much in the way of warning. Sometimes, a Free Cat's venerable age and rumored abilities created dangers in and of themselves.

"Oh, b.u.g.g.e.r," Myrrrthin Starfur muttered, looking up at what he'd wrought. Commending his soul to Bast, he bent his head, closed his eyes, and waited to be torn limb from ancient limb.

He'd warned Ambrose, the Warlord of Lower Greenville, even while being rather vigorously persuaded into his presence, that frivolous demonstrations were an unworthy use of his talents. He'd gone so far as to swallow his pride and mention that his control had been a trifle... well... uneven of late. But Ambrose insisted, using the compelling arguments of bared teeth and low growls. And so Myrrrthin closed his eyes, visualized the nonaqueous contents of the lobster tanks at Vincente's Seafood Restaurant, and called them to the loading dock platform that served as The Warlord's throne.

When Myrrrthin opened his eyes again, it was to the sight of the usually pristinely white big tom, his harem, his courtiers, and his lieutenants buried up to their whiskers in the noxious, soggy, reeking, inedible-by-carnivores contents of the dumpster behind Velma's Vegan Paradise. But it was the pink lace doily and florescent orange and chartreuse paisley party hat jauntily perched on Ambrose's head that convinced the old feline that his doom was truly sealed.

Silence lay like drenched dog fur over the scene. No one and nothing moved until a ball of rotting bean sprouts slid off the end of the dock and smacked wetly to the concrete beneath. It was followed shortly thereafter, not by an order for Myrrrthin's disembowelment, but by laughter. Loud, belly-deep, prolonged solo laughter. The Warlord of Lower Greenville was in the throes of a giggle-fit of profound quality and volume.

In due course, the top cat wound down enough to look at the aged feline in front of him. "That was funny, old one," he rumbled. "I do believe I like you. I will like you even more if you make this mess go..." he flicked one ear in a dismissive gesture, "somewhere else."

"Of course, my lord," Myrrrthin replied smoothly, adding a bow of his head. He made a show of settling into proper spellcasting posture and began an impressive-sounding chant of chitters, growls, and other vocalizations. His tail undulated, sinuously weaving intricate patterns in time to the chanting. Volume and degree of movement increased in slow crescendo until, finally, his tail lashed forward toward the mess, and his chanting ended on a single, sustained yowl.

For the s.p.a.ce of perhaps five heartbeats, nothing happened. Then the mess simply disappeared. All but the doily and the hat. Myrrrthin blinked, scowled, lashed his tail again, and uttered something that sounded almost like a bark. Hat and doily followed the garbage to wherever it had gone.

In the silence that followed, Myrrrthin began to shake like a cat just escaped, by the width of one claw, being reduced to bits of b.l.o.o.d.y fur by a marauding dog pack. Chitters of amazement, followed by applause, began to sound around him and, after getting control of himself, he acknowledged it as might a warrior victorious but exhausted from single combat. Those around him, especially the alpha tom watching him so closely, need not know that his was the exhaustion of terror, his shaking that of abject relief. No, indeed, they did not need to know that.

"Bravo!" Ambrose bellowed, applauding. "That was wonderful! Come, Starfur, sit here beside me. I have a proposition for you." As Myrrrthin made his way slowly up the stairs on one side of the dock, the tom turned to the female on his immediate left and convinced her, with a hiss and a cuff, to move.

"I've heard tales about you for as long as I can remember," Ambrose confided as Myrrrthin settled himself into the vacated spot. "I was half convinced you were a myth until I started getting reports from sentries who'd claimed to have marked your pa.s.sage. Just between the two of us, I think you started getting sloppy."

I think I started getting old, Myrrrthin replied in his head. He smiled in deprecating fashion toward his host. "Well, that could be, my lord. Or it could be that your sentries are an observant lot, keen in their senses."

"They're my get," Ambrose laughed. "Of course they're sense-sharp. But what I want to know is the real story. Which of the several myths about you is the true tale?"

Myrrrthin looked thoughtful. "To answer that, my lord, I'd have to know what myths you've heard."

"I suppose you would," the younger cat mused. "Let me see. There's the one that, more generations ago than anyone can count, you were served by the creatures who built this place and that they left you behind when they abandoned it. Another claims this place was already long abandoned when you, yourself, were dumped here." The big tom fell silent as he rifled his memory. The female who'd been displaced from her position next to him crept cautiously close to a place near his back and began grooming him.

"In some myths, you're called The Great Protector and The Paw Of Bast. There are stories in which you single-handedly vanquish entire huge armies of wild dogs, calling lightning from the sky as an ally and weapon to achieve that feat. I've heard you called Magician and Mage and Wizard." For the moment, the alpha tom paused before adding, in a voice touched by sly teasing, "I've even heard your name invoked as the monster that s.n.a.t.c.hes up and devours kittens who wander too far away from the den without proper supervision."

"Oh..." the old cat blinked, "my."

"So which is it, ancient one? Which of the stories is the true one?" Ambrose narrowed his eyes a bit and c.o.c.ked his head to one side, his ears both pointed forward. "And what exactly are you?"

Myrrrthin glanced around, noting that every feline in sight was watching the dock with rapt attention. "Well, now, I'm not at all sure how to answer that. If my being used to keep kittens from going walkabout serves that purpose, then... I suppose I'm an imaginary monster, and a bit of a depressing thought that is. It would seem far better to think of me as a useful tool to their survival, don't you think? As for the other tales... my days have been long, and there have been encounters with dog packs and other more mindless dangers. I have, somehow, survived them, and it may well be that, in my doing so, others who happened to be in the vicinity have also survived. Have I called down lightning as a weapon? It seems fanciful, and yet... I almost recall it. It... could be." The last he said almost to himself before growing silent for a long while. Then he smiled engagingly.

"As to what I am, I would think it obvious. I am old unto ancient and venerable unto decrepit. In my prime, I was exceedingly handsome, and exceptionally long legged and lean. But time, as it so often does, has turned me gaunt and a trifle scraggly. My coat, which was at one time a dark wizard gray, is now more gray than dark, and the white markings from whence came my name are no longer quite as white or nearly as much like five-pointed stars as they were in my youth. My hips are stiff, my senses not as keen as they once were, and what prey I catch falls less to skill than to wiles and plain dumb luck these days." He chuckled, and Ambrose joined in. "But the question, my lord, is what I am-or might be-to you. You mentioned having a proposition for me?"

"I want you to join my household. Move from wherever it is you've been living to accommodations nearby and under my immediate protection. Entertain my mates, instruct my offspring, make me laugh, and provide counsel when I ask for it. You said yourself you're slowing down, and your chances of continuing to stay fed and ahead of snapping jaws get slimmer by the day. Join me here, and you need not worry about such matters ever again."

Myrrrthin half-closed his eyes, considering the notion. "I must say, my lord, that's an interesting offer. It seems quite self-serving on your part."

Ambrose blinked, and his lips curled back from his teeth. He blinked again and began to laugh. "Well, of course it's self-serving. I'm a cat, after all. An old, clearly inferior male moving freely through my territory, without regard for my authority, might give some of the young toms ideas that I'd rather they not entertain."

Myrrrthin chuckled. "Indeed. That could present a terrible inconvenience for you. So, if I agree to this bargain, you get the benefit of my service, wisdom, and experience, not to mention getting rid of what might appear to be defiance of your position as alpha. And I get...?

The younger cat's face went entirely still, his eyes holding level on Myrrrthin's. "... to live."

The old cat grinned. "Then how can I possibly refuse?"

Myrrrthin had to admit that there was much to be said for being part of a warlord's household. His belly hadn't been empty since taking up residence; food, fresh killed or barely breathing, appeared regularly and with pleasing frequency. Led by a long-forgotten memory into the bowels of the building behind Ambrose's loading dock, he'd claimed a cozy, secluded, and dimly familiar niche for his own, within the area over which sentries and guards kept constant watch. For the first time in more years than he cared to count, there was no need to sleep lightly with senses on guard, and for the first time in more years than he cared to count, he slept soundly.

His duties were just as pleasant. A portion of each day was spent instructing the young in the mundane skills that had served him in eluding pursuit and evading capture or worse. That he included lessons in customs, history, lore and legend seemed to do no harm, nor did they elicit comment. A larger portion of his day, thanks to his age and the perception that calling him a tom was more a courtesy than anything else, involved keeping enjoyable company with the females in the community. Those actively adding to the number of Ambrose's subjects found his distractions and encouragements welcome additions to the birthing process. Those nursing the newest members of the colony-in truth, all the females-found his stories, songs, and small magicks (even those that didn't turn out quite as he planned) highly amusing. Similar entertainments provided for Ambrose and his court completed his daily duties. The whole left him delicious amounts of time for numerous naps, stretched out in well guarded patches of sunlight or cool, cozy shade.

It was, all in all, a comfortable existence, and a far better way to end his days than Myrrrthin had ever expected to see. He wanted for nothing except, perhaps, his pride.

There were times, when a bit of magick went slightly awry, when the result was something unexpected and ridiculous, when laughter saluted his efforts and continued survival dictated his adoption of the demeanor of a clown, that he chafed. Through an accident of birth and bloodline, or some odd mutation in his mother's womb, he'd been born with knowledge and power. It became evident, early on, that he possessed abilities unlike those of his siblings. The ability to wield power, to affect things around him had, indeed, been his, and had probably been the reason he'd been left to fend for himself in a deserted truck depot when barely past kittenhood.

And fend for himself he had, for many years and rather well. In his prime, he'd been a well favored, healthy tom whose speed and cunning served most of his needs. His extraordinary talents were rarely used, except in unusual circ.u.mstances affecting his own or others' safety. Although he kept to himself, he always stayed aware of the warlord in whose domain he resided. And, over the many years, he'd had occasion to influence the outcome of potentially harmful encounters between one or more members of the warlord's household and the dangers that periodically wandered, slunk, or coursed into his territory.

The story Ambrose had asked about that first day, of his having called lightning to his paw to deal with a ravening dogpack, had been a true one. Apparently, Ambrose did not recall, being hardly more than a toddler at the time, that one of the cats Myrrrthin had saved during that particular incident had been the future warlord himself. Not that the old cat intended to mention it, of course. He had a hunch that reminding Ambrose of a blood debt owed would result in blood better left flowing in Myrrrthin's veins.

So Myrrrthin occasionally chafed at his waning hold on his magick, and he wondered now and then if it might not be better to wander off into the jaws of a swift death. Mostly he spent his days resigned to playing the role into which circ.u.mstance had cast him and his nights reliving his youth and power in dreams.

One afternoon near the end of a particularly hot, particularly dry summer, Myrrrthin lounged on a shelf in the nursery, playing a fuzzy ball of conjured light across the floor and watching kittens bounce after it with great enthusiasm and adorable lack of grace. Females draped in relaxed postures around the room, either dozing or conversing in low tones that added to the drone of insects that would likely turn into the next kitty toy when the young ones tired of chasing the light ball.

The drone suddenly changed into warning hisses. Kittens scrambled in all directions, disappearing into hiding places with remarkable speed. Myrrrthin sat up and scanned the room, stopping at the doorway where Ambrose's second-in-command stood, in violation of all law and custom. Without a word, the young tom locked eyes with Myrrrthin. The summons was clear. The old cat took gallant, if hasty, leave of the females, and followed.

He found Ambrose sitting on the very edge of the loading dock, making not the slightest effort to hide either the tension in his body or the fact that every sense was cast to the edge of feline perception. "We may have a problem," he said without turning. "A pack of adolescent demons have come across the border, and reports have them circling through the outbuildings. It's not that uncommon, but this time the guards say their pa.s.sage is marked with a scent that raises their fur and makes them uneasy."

No sooner had he finished speaking when a young female approached at full speed and skidded to a halt directly below the loading dock. "The demons are close, my lord," she managed to get out between gasps, "and have gathered around one of their rolling monsters. They seem to be watching the section of the border directly in front of them, as if waiting for something, and they each are holding a long, strange-smelling stick."

The sound that issued from Myrrrthin's thin body was like nothing Ambrose had ever heard. It snapped his head around, and made his whiskers tremble. The old cat stood rigid and quivering, his eyes wide and unfocused. A sudden impression crossed Ambrose's mind: that the light was on, but Myrrrthin was nowhere near home.

At last the old cat spoke, his voice odd and distorted, as by distance and time. "Death rings us 'round. The appearance of safety is only that: appearance. Illusion."

"This is hardly the time for riddles, Starfur," Ambrose snarled impatiently. "What do you mean?"

Myrrrthin trembled harder, going deeper into whatever vision held him. It seemed to take him even farther away. "They hunt," he finally said in the same odd voice, "but not for food. They hunt for sport, for the pleasure of the kill. We are their prey, and they've set a closing trap meant to drive us along a path of their choosing if it doesn't consume us outright." Then, between one heartbeat and the next, every bone in the ancient body seemed to dissolve, and he melted into a fur-covered heap.

Ambrose, too, was trembling as he nudged and licked Myrrrthin's head. "I don't understand, old one. What kind of trap? How do I save my people?"

The old cat's eyes opened, glazed and still far away, but he pushed himself to a sitting position and shook his head as if to clear it. Before he could speak, something on the air, something acrid and irritating, caught his attention. He raised a twitching nose to sample it further. "The trap is sprung."

Ambrose, too, tested the air, and a look of near panic widened his eyes. "Smoke."

"The demons have laid fire all around us," Myrrrthin explained as he pushed himself onto shaky legs, "except for one path they want us to see as the way to safety. That's where they wait to deal us death with the sticks in their hands." As if in ill.u.s.tration, several sharp cracking sounds and a short yowl, abruptly cut off, reached their ears.

"We must move quickly, my lord," the old cat continued. "As dry as it's been, brush and wood will catch quickly and burn hot. We have little time." More sharp pops, all from one direction, were joined by small explosions and crackling from all around them. "We cannot go through, but we can go below. Call all your guards and hunters to you. Send everyone to the nursery."

Ambrose nodded to several young toms, who streaked away in all directions, then followed Myrrrthin inside. "What are you thinking?"

"There are more kittens than mothers to carry them in the short time we have before this place begins to burn. Each cat, male and female alike, will have to take a kitten to the hiding place."

"Males do not ferry kittens," Ambrose huffed.

"They do if you expect to have subjects when this is over," Myrrrthin snapped back.

"But carry them where? What hiding place?"

"That," Myrrrthin replied, "is what I'm going to find out."

"The females won't allow it," the younger cat yelled at Myrrrthin's retreating tail.

"You're the alpha. Convince them."

The memories he followed were dimmer than the dusty light through which he moved as swiftly as age-stiffened joints allowed. They came as if remembered from someone else's life lived in safety and love and years gone. But the farther Myrrrthin went, the stronger his memories became, the tighter his grasp on that other life, and he followed them until he found the door he sought.

He sent a thankful thought to Bast that the door hadn't been shut tight. It was unlatched, and a bare sliver of a crack separated door from jamb. He tore out claws on both front paws convincing long-rusted hinges to give him an opening large enough to get his head through, ripped holes in his fur and bruised his shoulders wrestling the opening wide enough that he could squeeze the rest of his body through.

Beyond lay darkness deeper than any night, and he sent a ball of conjured light bouncing down the stairs. Leaving b.l.o.o.d.y paw prints in the acc.u.mulated dust, he followed it down, calling up another light at the landing and sending it farther down. It came to rest at the foot of the stairs and, when he joined it, showed him what he sought.

The chamber was as featureless and bare as he remembered, unbroken by window or door. So, too, the floor, except for a medallion of heavy iron in the center of the inwardly sloping floor, two cats'-length in diameter and pierced by small holes. He'd remembered the room as being bigger, but that couldn't be helped. It was the best chance they had, and it would either serve or it wouldn't.

Protesting joints and tired muscles carried him back the way he'd come, every step up and out increasing the volume of frightening sound. The flames around the building no longer crackled, they roared. Even with his mind shielded, he could feel the fire as a living thing, a monster bent on devouring everything.

Rounding the corner into the hallway that led to the nursery, a new fear seized him. He had expected a cacophony of yowls, hissing, growls, feline voices raised in fear, anger, and endless combinations of the two, loud enough to drown out the sound of the flames. What he heard was nothing at all.

The fear lasted until he turned into the nursery s.p.a.ce and every head turned to face him. He hadn't realized there were so many. More than a hundred, he estimated, and somehow Ambrose had managed to get them organized while Myrrrthin had been gone. At the center of each small group was a female, her litter at her feet. Around her sat females, bred and unbred, and toms of every age from adolescent to mature.

Ambrose sat above the throng, on a shelf against the back wall. Myrrrthin caught his eye and nodded.

"All right!" the warlord shouted. "You each know your duty. Take up your charge and follow Myrrrthin. Single file, stay calm, and we'll get through this. Let's move!"

Ambrose was putting a confident face on things, and Myrrrthin could do nothing less. He waited for the first group to get hold of its kittens, then gestured to the mother cat, Ambrose's alpha female, to take her station immediately behind him. He moved off, tail proudly weaving in the air, leading the way toward sanctuary. Behind him, he could hear an ever-increasing number of soft pawfalls joining the parade, and the squealing protests of kittens being carried by those with no practice in the art.

So far, Myrrrthin thought to himself, so good.

Had he been alone as he made the turn into the long hallway, he would have frozen in his tracks. Solid sheets of flame, just outside the windows, lit the hallway in ways it had never been lit before, casting demonic shadows and a.s.saulting the ears with a roar that was almost a scream. Looking up, he saw sparkling among the rafters that could mean nothing other than the roof was beginning to burn. Hoping that the train of felines behind him could manage, he quickened his pace.

Reaching the stairway door, he turned and began a steady, confident mantra. "Single file, all the way down to the bottom. Kittens and their mothers into the corners and as close to the walls as possible. Everyone else, drop your kittens with their mothers and then fill in the center. Cozy in tight, and we'll get through this." Again and again he repeated it, one eye on the line squeezing steadily through the opening, the other on the bits of burning debris that had begun falling from the ceiling. After what seemed like an eternity, the last cat in line, Ambrose, slithered through the door, a kitten in his mouth and another clinging to his back. With a last look up at the now fully engaged rafters, Myrrrthin followed him down.

Pausing on the landing, the old cat surveyed the scene below him. The floor of the room appeared carpeted in gently-undulating, multicolored fur, so tightly woven that nothing of its surface showed through. Cats who wouldn't come within yards of each other without display of tooth and claw pressed tightly together without complaint, and toms who, in any other circ.u.mstance would take the opportunity to kill young ones not their own, stood over those same young ones, protecting them from being crushed by the greater press of bodies. Terror lay as thick as the bodies, palpable and close, but none of those below him gave it voice. Only the wide flash of eyes showed their fear.

Never in all his years had Myrrrthin seen the like, and he felt a moment of pride for his species.

That moment was cut short by a loud thudding crash above them that shook the room and sent dust raining down. Almost immediately, the temperature in the room began to rise to a near-painful level. Myrrrthin leaped to a spot two steps above the crowded floor and, without preamble or show, gesture or affectation, closed his eyes and began to chant.

From the firestorm above, he pulled great amounts of hot and mindless energy. He reached below and pulled more, the energy of life that danced cool and delicate. From the emotions that rose in waves, he latched onto some of each: fear, the trust they had in Ambrose to lead them through this, maternal concern and willingness to sacrifice for the little ones. From Ambrose he snagged a sense of duty and pride of position. And from himself, he pulled his own doubt, his fear that his grasp on power had faded with his youth, that he was nothing more than a buffoon, a pretender, that his skill, even with the need so great, would fail him. All of it he pulled together into a great, invisible ma.s.s, shaping it with mind and will, charging it with purpose and need. And then he flung it out into the air above.

One beat. Two. A third. And nothing happened.

The old cat screamed his frustration, a sound more at home in a cougar's throat than his own. The wrenching, b.l.o.o.d.y sound reverberated against the hard walls and collided with the ma.s.sed energies. They flared with the intensity of an explosion, then began dividing to the purposes he'd set. Some of them soaked into the ceiling, giving strength to heat-weakened concrete and iron. A part of them hardened into a protective dome just below the ceiling. The rest coalesced into a cool mist that coated the walls, soaked into fur, and quenched the heat in the air.

Suddenly weak, Myrrrthin swayed before melting across the step. He was drained and exhausted. He could feel his heart pounding painfully in his chest, breath rattling in his throat, every muscle burning from strain, every nerve electrified and screaming. When the agony began to fade, he was thankful. Then sight dimmed along with his hearing, and he decided that he must be dying, a thought that he discovered didn't particularly surprise him. As the last sensation began to fade, he hoped that his would be the only death this day.

Myrrrthin rose to consciousness with the thought that Bast had a rather nasty sense of humor. Wet and cold was not how one expected to arrive in the Lands of the Dead, and yet he was definitely wet and decidedly chilly. And tired beyond telling. Which made the repeated calling of his name several degrees past annoying. He'd earned his After-life, and he b.l.o.o.d.y well intended to enjoy it.

Again his name was called, and this time he growled. "Go away, you twit, and stop bothering me. Can't you see I'm dead?"

Laughter was the unexpected reply to his grousing, followed by a voice that sounded familiar. "You are many things, Myrrrthin Starfur," it said, "but dead is not one of them. No one is!"

Obviously, a witty, biting remark was called for. "Huh?"

"I don't know how you managed it," the voice continued, "but you saved the lot of us. A bit of singed fur on a couple of the outermost guards. And one's got part of his tail missing-he's already trying to impress the females with his battle scar. A good many cases of the shakes, and every cat indignant about getting wet, but..." the voice-Myrrrthin decided it was the warlord's-dropped in volume as emotion filled it, "you did it, Old One. All alive and accounted for, thanks to you." The voice dropped even lower in volume. "This is the second time you've saved my life, and both times in a spectacular manner."

Myrrrthin's eyes remained closed, but a subtle movement of muscle beneath fur told Ambrose he'd been heard. "Yes," the younger cat continued, "I do remember your calling the lightning. And for that time, and this one, I'm grateful."

Myrrrthin decided to cover his own emotion with gruff-ness. "Then go away," he grumbled, "and let me rest until things cool down enough to see what's left."

Ambrose laughed. "Already done, so long have you been lazing. We've found plenty of sound, safe places in the building next to this one. A new nursery is already occupied, and I've found a niche that you might find acceptable for your own den. Hunting may be a trifle lean for a little while, but we'll make do. Now open your eyes, and let's get you up and moving."

Sighing the sigh of a severely put-upon cat, Myrrrthin cracked one eye open. The other opened also, and he swiveled his head in the direction from where Ambrose's voice had come.

The Warlord of Lower Greenville looked like a drowned rat. Or rather, a nearly drowned cat. His fur had dried un-groomed, and it stuck out in spikes pointed in all unkempt directions. His whiskers drooped from the weight of ash and soot, and he was covered in black mess from tip of claw to tip of tail, from shoulders to hips.

But what caused Myrrrthin to wonder how he'd been allowed to wake up at all was what was perched, jauntily askew, on Ambrose's head: a soggy pink lace doily and limp florescent orange and chartreuse paisley party hat.

"Oh," the old cat whispered, "b.u.g.g.e.r."

KITTY AND THE CITY.

by Paul Genesse.

Ca.s.sie sat on the dark rooftop, hating to admit that she was one of those cats who always had bad luck in relationships. She thought she had met the perfect tom until he turned his golden eyes away from her and got up to leave. After weeks of dating, she knew their brief romance was over.

Ca.s.sie leaned her white face forward. "

Wait." She vocalized a soft meow for added urgency. Her gray and brown striped ears stood up straight and her sea-green eyes opened wide, giving him an unmistakable sign of her feelings for him.

But he turned away without reacting-cold and distant as usual-and slipped away, padding across the roof. Then he hesitated and faced her, his large body with perfect tuxedo markings almost cloaked in darkness. His white chest, feet, and face glowed faintly in the city's twinkling lights as he whispered, "I just can't settle down right now."

Ca.s.sie's tail sagged. His musky scent faded as if he'd already gone. "Why are you so scared to get close to me?"

"I might be leaving the city. Permanently."