The Cat's Job Read online

  But she was moving at a dead run from across the room and he braced himself to absorb the shock of impact --

  He did not hear her scream his name, nor see her brake to a stop, eyes wide and disbelieving on the pellet gun that lay abandoned on the rich dark carpet.

  * * *

  There was a poof! of displaced air and an instant when the world seemed to slip slightly out of focus. Kinzel blinked at the sudden person before him.

  Who stared back, green eyes very bright, face wearing a look of wary outrage, body braced like a warrior about to engage.

  The magician became aware of his staff, which was purring quite loudly while its moist leaves swayed in an unfelt breeze.

  "Hello," said Kinzel to the man the staff had Summoned. "Are you the King of the Cats?"

  One straight brow slid upward. "Do I look like the King of the Cats?" he asked, his quiet voice carrying an undertone of power.

  "I don't know," said Kinzel truthfully. "I've never seen him. I'd hoped he existed -- There is so much trouble for the cats and I remembered a story and thought how useful the King of the Cats would be. I'll help, of course."

  "Will you, indeed? I am honored." Val Con stared at his unlikely captor, taking in the worn jerkin and the general air of disheveled pudginess, then moved his gaze to the woods at the man's back. Primal forest, the part of him that had been a Scout judged. He glanced back at the man and produced a preliminary judgement there, as well: Class Four Society, Sixth Sub-level: Pre-tech. He hesitated, then added a footnote: Apparent ability to activate and utilize interstellar transport.

  "What is your name, friend?" he asked with careful gentleness.

  "Oh! I beg your pardon." The other bowed as low as his plumpness would allow.

  "My name is Kinzel. I'm a wizard -- though not a very good one, I'm afraid. That's why the cats are in such trouble."

  "Ah, yes, the cats..." Val Con paused. "Friend Kinzel, that the cats are in need grieves me. I've a fondness for the creatures, troublesome though they are. But they must take charge of their own affairs. It is a weak people who look to their King to solve every small problem. Now, if you will have the goodness to -- return -- me to my wife's side. I feel my departure has distressed her."

  "Oh!" said Kinzel again. "I didn't mean to disturb you or your wife. Is she Queen of the Cats?"

  Val Con felt his lips twitch and raised both brows.

  "As much as I am King, she is Queen. Now, if you would return me --"

  "I..." Kinzel hesitated. His staff had stopped purring.

  "I think it might be better if you helped the cats first," he said slowly. "In fact, it may be required that you help them first. It is the staff that brought you, acting on my thought of how Right it would be --"

  "Were there a King of the Cats," the other finished. "I see. So it is this instrument here which effects the transfer?"

  He had moved, so quickly and so silently that Kinzel had not noticed until here he was, one slender hand reaching --

  The staff buzzed angrily, green sparks sparking. Kinzel drew it back, smiling in apology.

  #

  The King of the Cats stood very still. Kinzel thought his tail would certainly have twitched, had he possessed such an appendage.

  "Friend Kinzel," the soft voice began again; "my lady is distraught. If you will not return me, at least you must let me speak with her."

  Kinzel thought, and as he did the leaves about the old wooden staff once more became full, and swayed. The green eyes of the King of the Cats widened slightly.

  "Bring the image of your wife to mind," Kinzel said slowly. "Then touch my hand."

  His hand was immediately gripped in strong, slender fingers and the thought that passed through him on its way to the Power was a thing of searing brightness.

  Kinzel felt the thought snatched away; there was a vast silence, a feel of distance uncountable -- then, from the clearing before them, a voice:

  "Val Con!"

  "Here, cha'trez." The King's answer was clear and calm, though Kinzel fancied he felt a tremor in the hand that held his.

  "Where's -- oh." This as the image of a woman formed, ghostly, in the air before them. "So what's the gag?"

  "My friend here believes I am King of the Cats. It seems that the cats are in dire trouble, and require my aid. I will not be returned to you until they are rescued."

  "Right," said the woman. Her image had solidified; Kinzel could no longer see the trees on the other side of the clearing through her thin body, and her feet seemed to rest upon the ground.

  "Cats are a raucous bunch," she commented. "Always in scrapes."

  "True," agreed their sovereign. "Miri, I am anxious to come to you."

  "And I'm anxious to have you," she responded, extending her hands.

  Kinzel cried out as the man leapt toward the woman; watched in foreknowing sorrow as their hands met, melded and slid each through the other's. The woman's image snapped into nothing and she was gone, leaving behind the echoing desolation of her cry.

  "Miri!"

  The word echoed desolation and with wizard's eyes Kinzel saw a bright blade of will loosed from the man kneeling on the clearing floor, hurtling naked and unprotected toward the maelstrom of the Forces.

  He brought the staff up, crying out in a voice meant to command that which is not seen with outer eyes.

  "Hold!"

  The blade of will hesitated before reversing and dropping earthward. The kneeling King gasped, as though his will did cut, returning, then he was on his feet, green eyes blazing, slim body taut with purpose.

  Cat, indeed, thought Kinzel: Tiger! He moved the staff again, bringing it upright between them.

  The advancing predator stopped, face wary, and Kinzel spoke quickly, seeking to explain; to comfort.

  "She was not really here. It was only -- only a thought of her -- her image, taking shape from your thought. Your desire. But she heard you, because of staff and Power, and knows that you are safe."

  If there was an expression on the golden face before him, Kinzel could not read it, and so he rushed on.

  "You can't touch a thought, you know. And you can't send your spirit against all the Forces of Power -- not without protection, a staff, a charm, a Word! You are not a mage! Best your will stays within your heart..." He blinked and glanced down.

  The awful purpose had left the other man. He pushed the dark hair off his forehead, crossed his legs and sat on the ground; looked up, green eyes glinting.

  "That she is alive -- and well -- I know. That she is worried, I know. But where is she? In former days I would have known this, if she stood on one end of the galaxy and I on the other. Now, I ask your indulgence."

  Kinzel blinked. "Where? Where you left her, I suppose..." He, too, sat on the ground, though he arrived there with less grace and crossed his legs after he was seated.

  "I see," murmured the King of the Cats. "And where might that be -- from here?"

  "Well..." Kinzel screwed his eyes shut, then opened them, pointing. "The other continent is in that direction."

  The other man shook his head. "Am I to surmise from this that you do not know the name of the world from which you -- borrowed -- me?"

  "World?" Kinzel's face lit. "That's wonderful! A person from another of the worlds! I've heard of such things -- people crossing from one of the worlds to another. After all, if the Clock governs all --"

  "No." One slim hand rose, commanding silence. "Kinzel, please. Indulge me further. How did you happen to get me from where I was to where I am?"

  "I told you."

  "No doubt you did. Perhaps I was not attending. Will you tell me again?"

  Kinzel sighed. "I was thinking of Fallan and how he was taking revenge on me by harming cats. I remembered the story Siljan told about the King of the Cats -- how wise and strong and clever he was. And I thought how I am none of those things, yet the cats must be helped. Then I thought how -- how much I needed help -- from someone like the -- the King of the Cats. I Calle
d, and the staff purred, as it does, and then you were here."

  The Suzerain of Felines had closed his eyes. Now he opened them and sighed.

  "And thus it is that the staff will not let me go back to my wife until I have aided you in this task?" He did not wait for an answer but swept regally on.

  "Friend Kinzel, I am a man, not a cat. Might this be mentioned to your staff? It could make a difference."

  "It might," said Kinzel doubtfully; "but -- the staff chose you, after all. The story never made clear whether the King of the Cats was man or cat -- or a bit of both." He frowned. "What do I call you? I've never met a King before."

  "Nor have you now. Val Con, you should call me."

  "Val Con," said Kinzel, finding he liked the crisp sound of the name. "Well, Val Con, think: If the staff chose you out of the countless numbers of people there must be on all the worlds that Clock and Branch encompass, then --"

  "I'm stuck," said the other, and it seemed that the red-haired woman's voice glittered through the man's own in that phrase. He shifted then, touching wrist, ankle, back of neck in quick succession, as if performing a ritual dance. When the movement was done, the staff allowed Kinzel to feel the sharpening of purpose about the man; almost tasting of mage-power.

  "Very well, friend Kinzel," the King said softly. "Who is this Fallan and what is he doing that causes you -- and the cats -- so much distress?"

  * * *

  "Dammit, Robertson, can't you hold onto anything?"

  Miri curled her hands into fists, spinning slowly on her heel in the hyatt's parlor.

  "Val Con?" she asked the room.

  There was no answer. She hadn't really expected one.

  Frowning, she reached within herself to the pattern-place where glowed the warm and lovely thing that was her knowledge of her husband's life.

  Alive and well, the pattern reported.

  She brought her attention more closely on the pattern; fought down a surge of panic and tried again.

  Val Con alive, Val Con well, the pattern sang.

  In all bloody directions at once.

  Generations of breeding by Liaden psychics had produced the link between lifemates -- and it had never failed her since the first time she'd seen it dancing in her head.

  Abruptly, she folded her legs and sat on the floor; glared at the pellet gun reposing on the carpet and closed her eyes.

  King of the Cats? Obviously, the fat man with the stick was a lunatic. Just as obviously, the lush glade in which he and Val Con had been standing was not on the world of Panore, where Miri was. Panore was a world of oceans -- or, more exactly, ocean. The hyatt in which she sat was part of a vast city built on titanium girders sunk deep into the ocean floor.

  No natural green glades here.

  Miri sighed and opened her eyes, reaching up to unpin her copper-colored braid.

  The galaxy was wide. Green worlds, while not all that common, existed in sufficient plentitude that it would take a lifetime as long as a Clutch Turtle's to search them all.

  She sighed again, and tried to look at the other side of the problem.

  How had the snatch been done? Instantaneous transfer? Through vacuum? Miri shook her head. The fading effect was similar to the effects she and Val Con had experienced aboard a Clutch "rock-ship" years before. But where had the fat man's power source been hidden?

  "Instantaneous transfer within the world I'll buy," she decided, shaking the kinks out of her long hair. "Through space ain't gonna hack it. That'd be like Jumping without a ship..."

  Liaden and Terran math took dimensional shifts into consideration -- that was how spaceships got from here to there without going in-between. "Hyperspace": A mumbo-jumbo word without any real meaning, purporting to explain itself with its own name.

  Suppose the fat man had worked hyperspatial math within the world, Miri thought, then groaned as her imaginatiion conjured an image of Panore upon Panore, stretching away into unthought-of distance, one edge of each superimposed on the next.

  The may-be worlds of alternate chance would run smack into the problem of time: Each mainline of When would have its aurora of alternate Whats.

  "Sort of thing a lunatic would do."

  She rolled to her feet, tossing her hair behind her back.

  "Gods, I hate math," she grumped, moving across the room to the discreetly screened-off workstation.

  She sat on the edge of the soft chair, fingers already on the board, calling up equations -- Liaden math, not Terran. This was one of those things it was going to be easier to think about in Liaden, she just knew it.

  * * *

  The King of the Cats had closed his bright eyes, giving Kinzel the opportunity to study him more closely.

  The black leather leggings and vest marked him a fighting man, though he wore no sword. The wide belt with its built-on pouch was certainly capable of supporting a weapon. There was, in fact, a sense of edges about him: That he carried knives on his person Kinzel didn't doubt.

  His dark shirt was of fine, soft cloth -- surely the sort of garment a nobleman would wear next to his skin. It was loosely laced with black cord, leaving the slender throat bare. Kinzel looked more closely, eyes caught by something that shone there, suspended by a dusky velvet riband.

  "So, friend Kinzel," murmured the King. "You say you do not know what Fallan does with the cats, once they are captured, only that he threatens to leave nothing cat-like in the world."

  "Isn't that enough?" asked Kinzel. "Think of the upset to the Balance! There is a reason for cats to be as they are. Fallan is only thinking of vengeance, not of the harm done the whole world, if cats are no longer cats!"

  He sighed suddenly, and continued in a much younger voice.

  "It is true that Fallan is a very learned wizard. He may be able to do what he threatens and not endanger Balance."

  "Or he may be lying to you," said the other briskly; "with no intention of harming further cats, or, indeed, the ones he now holds. If he holds any."

  "He does," said Kinzel with certainty. "And he doesn't make idle threats. He has a reputation for never threatening to do what he won't -- or can't -- perform."

  "Useful," murmured the King. He did not seem disposed to speak further and silence grew between them.

  It had stretched a time when Kinzel stirred and, typically, spoke what first popped into his head.

  "I was admiring your amulet. The work is very fine. Of silver, too, so it is Moon-potent. I'm sorry I hadn't noticed it before, for it's true that you might have hurled your will against the Forces to good purpose, possessing such a thing."

  "Might I have, indeed?" He touched the shining thing at his throat with a light fingertip. "But this is not a -- magical --thing, friend Kinzel. It is a gift from my lady, given with laughter and love, to commemorate a dragon I once slew."

  "A potent charm," said the pudgy wizard admiringly. Then, in awe: "Dragons are very rare -- at least on this continent. Unicorns, now... But did it really need to be slain, this dragon?"

  The King of the Cats smiled. "Alas, it was determined to eat my friend. I did attempt to -- dissuade -- it, but it would not be turned away."

  "In that case," said Kinzel, with a touch of sadness. "Still, it might have been better, had you been able to find another way to save your friend, and let the creature go with its life."

  Almost, the King laughed. "I agree with you. However, I was very young and very frightened, so that I clutched the first means to hand. Perhaps now things would go differently." He shrugged, in cat indifference. "But who can know?"

  Suddenly, he was not indifferent at all, his eyes were intent, lithe body tipped forward, one hand out -- perhaps in supplication.

  "Friend Kinzel, return me to my lady."

  Kinzel sighed, pity warring with -- was it envy?

  And why should I be envious, he wondered. Because he has seen a dragon? Becaues he loves his wife so well? Or because he wears a thing of dreadful Power and is wise enough to honor it for the love it was gi
ven with, rather than the Force it might command?

  He was jerked from these thoughts by the brightness of the gaze upon his face and shook his head sadly.

  "I am sorry, my friend. The cats are in danger. The staff chose you to aid them. After the Right has been served, then I am certain the staff will send you home."

  "So." The King came fluidly to his feet. "If I may not return until the task is done, then it is best we begin at once."

  Kinzel nodded and climbed awkwardly to his feet. Closing his eyes, he rubbed the old wood of the staff lightly, listening, feeling. Eventually, he opened his eyes and struck off in a northerly direction, the King of the Cats walking silent at his side.

  * * *

  The manager arrived with the carpenters.

  Miri ignored him while she pointed out the exact spot, elucidated the precise dimensions and the deadline. The job-boss nodded, barked orders in his turn and the crew set to work.

  "Stop!" yelled the manager.

  One of the carpenters hesitated. The boss snapped two words and she went back to work.

  Miri turned to the manager. "Get out. You're in the way. You're holding up construction. You're annoying me."

  "You," said the manager, "are in violation of the law. Guests are not allowed to construct things in the room. The owner --"

  "Shut up," said Miri, without raising her voice. He blinked, words dying. "I ain't interested in the law. Or in the owner. How much is this place worth? In cantra."

  "What!" The manager stared, feeling absurdly vulnerable without his desk-counter between them. The woman stared back, gray eyes as warm as fog off the ocean.

  "You will," she stated clearly, "tell me the purchase price of this building. If you don't know, get the company lawyer on the talkie. Or the owner. Or whoever else I gotta talk at to buy this hyatt. I intend to own it by local sundown." Then, with some snap to it, since he just stood there, staring: "Now!"

  The manager jumped a foot and left, nearly colliding with the candlemaker and the glassblower, who were arriving together.

  * * *

  Fallan's keep loomed like a ship of stone and steel, full Moon just visible beyond the tip of the eastern tower.

  The King of the Cats sighed.