Читать книгу The Second Cat Megapack - George Zebrowski - Страница 10

THE MOUNTAIN CAGE, by Pamela Sargent

Mewleen had found a broken mirror along the road. The shards glittered as she swiped at one with her paw, gazing intently at the glass. She meowed and hunched forward.

Hrurr licked one pale paw, wondering if Mewleen would manage to shatter the barrier, though he doubted that she could crawl through even if she did; the mirror fragments were too small. He shook himself, then padded over to her side.

Another cat, thick-furred, stared out at him from a jagged piece of glass. Hrurr tilted his head; the other cat did the same. He meowed; the other cat opened his mouth, but the barrier blocked the sound. A second cat, black and white, appeared near the pale stranger as Mewleen moved closer to Hrurr.

“She looks like you,” Hrurr said to his companion. “She even has a white patch on her head.”

“Of course. She is the Mewleen of that world.”

Hrurr narrowed his eyes. He had seen such cats before, always behind barriers, always out of reach. They remained in their own world, while he was in this one; he wondered if theirs was better.

Mewleen sat on her haunches. “Do you know what I think, Hrurr? There are moments when we are all between worlds, when the sights before us vanish and we stand in the formless void of possibility: take one path, and a fat mouse might be yours. Take another, and a two-legs gives you milk and a dark place to sleep. Take a third, and you spend a cold and hungry night. At the moment before choosing, all these possibilities have the same reality, but when you take one path—”

“When you take one path, that’s that.” Hrurr stepped to one side, then pounced on his piece of glass, thinking that he might catch his other self unaware, but the cat behind the barrier leaped up at him at the same instant. “It means that you weren’t going to take the other paths at all, so they weren’t really possibilities.”

“But they were for that moment.” Mewleen’s tail curled. “I see a branching. I see other worlds in which all possibilities exist. I’ll go back home today, but that cat there may make another choice.”

Hrurr put a paw on the shard holding his twin. That cat might still have a home.

“Come with me,” Mewleen said as she rolled in the road, showing her white belly. “My two-legged ones will feed you, and when they see that I want you with me, they’ll honor you and let you stay. They must serve me, after all.”

His tail twitched. He had grown restless even before losing his own two-legged creatures, before that night when oth­ers of their kind had come for them, dragging them from his house and throwing them inside the gaping mouth of a large, square metal beast. He had stayed away after that, lingering on the outskirts of town, pondering what might happen in a world where two-legged ones turned on one another and for­got their obligations to cats. He had gone back to his house only once; a banner with a black swastika in its center had been hung from one of the upper windows. He had seen such symbols often, on the upper limbs of two-legged ones or flut­tering over the streets; the wind had twisted the banner on his house, turning the swastika first into a soaring bird, then a malformed claw. A strange two-legs had chased him away.

“I want to roam,” he replied as he gazed up the road, won­dering if it might lead him to the top of the mountain. “I want to see far places. It’s no use fighting it when I’m compelled to wander.”

Mewleen bounded toward him. “Don’t you know what this means?” She gestured at the broken mirror with her nose. “When a window to the other world is shattered, it’s a sign. This place is a nexus of possibilities, a place where you might move from one world to the next and never realize that you are lost to your own world.”

“Perhaps I’m meant to perform some task. That might be why I was drawn here.”

“Come with me. I offer you a refuge.”

“I can’t accept, Mewleen.” His ears twitched as he heard a distant purr, which rapidly grew into a roar.

Leaping from the road, Hrurr plunged into the grass; Mewleen bounded to the other side as a line of metal beasts passed them, creating a wind as they rolled by. Tiny flags bear­ing swastikas fluttered over the eyes of a few beasts; pale faces peered out from the shields covering the creatures’ entrails.

As the herd moved on up the road, he saw that Mewleen had disappeared among the trees.

* * * *

Hrurr followed the road, slinking up the slope until he caught sight of the metal beasts again. They had stopped in the middle of the road; a gate blocked their progress.

Several two-legged ones in gray skins stood by the gate; two of them walked over to the first metal beast and peered inside its openings, then stepped back, raising their right arms as others opened the gate and let the first beast pass. The two moved on to the next beast, looking in at the ones inside, then raised their arms again. The flapping arms reminded Hrurr of birds; he imagined the men lifting from the ground, arms flap­ping as they drifted up in lopsided flight.

He scurried away from the road. The gray pine needles, dappled by light, cushioned his feet; ahead of him, winding among the trees, he saw a barbed-wire fence. His whiskers twitched in amusement; such a barrier could hardly restrain him. He squeezed under the lowest wire, carefully avoiding the barbs.

The light shifted; patches of white appeared among the black and gray shadows. The trees overhead sighed as the wind sang. “Cat! Cat!” The birds above were calling out their warn­ings as Hrurr sidled along below. “Watch your nests! Guard your young! Cat! Cat!”

“Oh, be quiet,” he muttered.

A blackbird alighted on a limb, out of reach. Hrurr clawed at the tree trunk, longing to taste blood. “Foolish cat,” the bird cawed, “I’ve seen your kind in the cities, crawling through rubble, scratching for crumbs and cowering as the storms rage and buildings crumble. The two-legged ones gather, and the world grows darker as the shining eagles shriek and the metal turtles crawl over the land. You think you’ll escape, but you won’t. The soil is ready to receive the dead.”

Hrurr clung to the trunk as the bird fluttered up to a higher limb. He had heard such chatter from other birds, but had paid it no mind. “That doesn’t concern me,” he snarled. “There’s nothing like that here.” But he was thinking of the shattered mirror, and of what Mewleen had said.

“Foolish cat. Do you know where you are? The two-legged ones have scarred the mountain to build themselves a cage, and you are now inside it.”

“No cage can hold me,” Hrurr cried as the bird flew away. He jumped to the ground, clawing at the earth. I live, he thought, I live. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with piney air.

The light was beginning to fade; it would soon be night. He hunkered down in the shadows; he would have to prowl for some food. Below ground, burrowing creatures mumbled sluggishly to one another as they prepared for sleep.

* * * *

In the morning, a quick, darting movement caught Hrurr’s at­tention. A small, grayish bird carelessly landed in front of him and began to peck at the ground.

He readied himself, then lunged, trapping the bird under his paws. She stared back at him, eyes wide with terror. He bared his teeth.

“Cruel creature,” the bird said.

“Not cruel. I have to eat, you know.” He had injured her; she fluttered helplessly. He swatted her gently with a paw.

“At least be quick about it. My poor heart will burst with despair. Why must you toy with me?”

“I’m giving you a chance to prepare yourself for death.”

“Alas,” the bird sang mournfully. “My mate will see me no more, and the winds will not sing to me again or lift me to the clouds.”

“You will dwell in the realm of spirits,” Hrurr replied, “where there are no predators or prey. Prepare yourself.” He bit down; as the bird died, he thought he heard the flutter of ghostly wings. “I’m sorry” he whispered. “I have no choice in these matters. As I prey upon you, another will prey upon me. The world maintains its balance.” He could not hear her soul’s reply.

When he had eaten, he continued up the slope until he came to a clearing. Above him, a path wound up the mountainside, leading from a round, stone tower with a pointed roof to a distant chalet. The chalet sprawled; he imagined that the two-legs inside it was either a large crea­ture or one who needed a lot of space. Creeping up to the nearer stone structure, he turned and looked down the slope.

In the valley the homes of the two-legged ones were now no bigger than his paw; the river running down the mountainside was a ribbon. This, he thought, was how birds saw the world. To them, a two-legs was only a tiny creature rooted to the ground; a town was an anthill, and even the gray, misty mountains before him were only mounds. He suddenly felt as if he were gazing into an abyss, about to be separated from the world that surrounded him.

He crouched, resting his head on his paws. Two-legged ones had built the edifices on this mountain; such creatures were already apart from the world, unable even to hear what animals said to one another, incapable of a last, regretful com­munion with their prey, eating only what was stone dead. He had always believed that the two-legged ones were simply soul­less beings whose instincts drove them into strange, incom­prehensible behavior; they built, tore down, and built again, moving through the world as if in a dream. But now, as he gazed at the valley below, he began to wonder if the two-legged ones had deliberately separated themselves from the world by an act of will. Those so apart from others might come to think that they ruled the world, and their constructions, instead of being instinctive, might be a deliberate attempt to mold what was around them. They might view all the world as he viewed the tiny town below.

This thought was so disturbing that he bounded up, racing along the path and glorying in his speed until he drew closer to the chalet. His tail twitched nervously as he stared at the wide, glassy expanse on this side of the house. Above the wide win­dow was a veranda; from there, he would look no bigger than a mouse—if he could be seen at all. Farther up the slope, still other buildings were nestled among the trees.

His fur prickled; he longed for Mewleen. Her sharp hear­ing often provoked her to fancies, causing her to read omens in the simplest and most commonplace of sounds, but it also made her aware of approaching danger. He wanted her coun­sel; she might have been able to perceive something here to which he was deaf and blind.

Something moved in the grass. Hrurr stiffened. A small, gray cat was watching him. For an instant, he thought that his musings about Mewleen had caused the creature to ap­pear. In the next instant, he leaped at the cat, snarling as he raised his hair.

“Ha!” the smaller cat cried, nipping his ear. Hrurr swatted him, narrowly missing his eyes. They rolled on the ground, claws digging into each other’s fur. Hrurr meowed, longing for a fight.

The other cat suddenly released him, rolling out of reach, then hissing as he nursed his scratches. Hrurr licked his paw, hissing back. “You’re no match for me, Kitten,” He waited for a gesture of submission.

“You think not? I may be smaller, but you’re older.”

“True enough. You’re only a kitten.”

“Don’t call me a kitten. My name is Ylawl. Kindly address me properly.”

“You’re a kitten.”

The other cat raised his head haughtily. “What are you doing here?”

“I might ask the same question of you.”

“I go where I please.”

“So do I.”

The younger cat sidled toward him, but kept his distance. “Did a two-legs bring you here?” he asked at last.

“No,” Hrurr replied. “I came alone.”

Ylawl tilted his head; Hrurr thought he saw a gleam of respect in his eyes. “Then you are one like me.”

Ylawl was still. Hrurr, eyes unmoving for a moment, was trapped in timelessness; the world became a gray field, as it always did when he did not pay attention to it directly. Mewleen had said such visions came to all cats. He flicked his eyes from side to side, and the world returned.

“There is something of importance here,” he said to Ylawl. “A friend of mine has told me that this might be a place where one can cross from one world into another. He was about to tell the other cat of the vision that had come to him while he was gazing at the valley, but checked himself.

“It is a cage,” Ylawl responded, glancing up at the chalet. “Every day, the metal beasts crawl up there and disgorge the two-legged ones from their bellies, allowing them to gather around those inside, and then they crawl away, only to return. These two-legged ones are so prized that most of this moun­tain is their enclosure.”

Hrurr stretched. “I would not want to be so prized that I was imprisoned.”

“It’s different for a two-legs. They live as the ants do, or the bees. Only those not prized are free to roam.”

Hrurr thought of his two-legged creatures who had been taken from him; they might be roaming even now. He was suddenly irritated with Ylawl, who in spite of his youth was speaking as though he had acquired great wisdom. Hrurr raised his fur, trying to look fierce. “You are a foolish cat,” he said, crouching, ready to pounce. Ylawl’s tail thrust angrily from side to side.

A short, sharp sound broke the silence. Hrurr flattened his ears; Ylawl’s tail curled against his body. The bark rang out once more.

Ylawl scrambled up and darted toward a group of trees, concealing himself in the shadows; Hrurr followed him, crouching low when he reached the other cat’s side. “So there are dogs here,” he muttered. “And you must hide, along with me.”

“These dogs don’t scare me,” Ylawl said, but his fur was stiff and his ears were flat against his head.

A female two-legs was walking down the path, trailed by two others of her kind. A black terrier was connected to her by a leash; a second terrier was leashed to one of her compan­ions. Hrurr’s whiskers twitched with contempt at those badges of slavery.

As the group came nearer, one of the dogs yipped, “I smell a cat, I smell a cat.” He tugged at his leash as the female two-legs held on, crooning softly.

“So do I,” the second dog said as his female struggled to restrain him.

“Negus!” the two-legs in the lead cried out as she knelt, drawing the dog to her. She began to murmur to him, moving her lips in the manner such creatures used for speaking. “Is that dog loose again?”

“I am sure she isn’t,” one female replied.

“How she hates my darlings. I wish Bormann had never given her to Adolf.” The two-legged one’s mouth twisted.

“There’s a cat nearby,” the dog said. The two-legs, unable to hear his words, stood up again; she was taller than her com­panions, with fair head fur and a smiling face.

“He must listen to the generals today, Eva,” one of the other females said. Hrurr narrowed his eyes. He had never been able to grasp their talk entirely, mastering only the sounds his two-legged ones had used to address him or to call him inside for food.

“Why talk of that here?” the fair-furred one replied. “I have nothing to say about it. I have no influence, as you well know.”

Her terrier had wandered to the limit of his leash, farther down the path toward the hidden cats. Lifting a leg, he uri­nated on one of the wooden fence posts lining the walkway. “I know you’re there,” the dog said, sniffing.

“Ah, Negus,” Ylawl answered. “I see you and Stasi are still imprisoned. Don’t you ever want to be free?”

“Free to starve? Free to wander without a master’s gentle hand? I think not.” He sniffed again. “There is another with you, Ylawl.”

“Another free soul.”

Negus barked, straining at his leash, but his two-legs was already urging him back toward the chalet. Ylawl stretched out on his side. “Slavish beast.” The gray cat closed his eyes. “He has even forgotten his true name, and knows only the one that the two-legs calls him.” He yawned. “And the other one is even worse.”

“His companion there?”

“No, a much larger dog who also lives in that enclosure.” Ylawl rolled onto his stomach, looking up at the chalet. “That one is so besotted by her two-legs that she has begun to lose her ability to hear our speech.”

“Is such a thing possible?”

“The two-legged ones have lost it, or never had it to begin with,” Ylawl said. “They cannot even hear our true names, much as we shout them, and in their ignorance must call us by other sounds. Those who draw too close to such beings may lose such a skill as well.”

Hrurr dug his claws into the ground. He had never cared for dogs, clumsy creatures who would suffer almost any indig­nity, but the thought that a dog might lose powers of speech and hearing drew his pity. Mewleen was right, he thought. He had crossed into a world where such evil things could happen. A growl rose in his throat as he curled his tail.

“What’s the matter with you?” Ylawl asked.

“I cannot believe it. A dog who cannot speak.”

‘You can’t have seen much of the world, then. You’re lucky you didn’t run into a guard dog. Try to talk to one of them, and he’ll go for your throat without so much as a how-de-do. All you’ll hear are barks and grunts.”

The worldly young cat was beginning to annoy him. Hrurr swatted him with a paw, Ylawl struck back, and they were soon tussling under the trees, meowing fiercely. He tried to sink his teeth into Ylawl’s fur, only to be repulsed by a claw.

Hrurr withdrew. Ylawl glared at him with gleaming eyes. “Now I understand,” Hrurr said softly. “I know why I was drawn here.”

“And why is that?” the young cat said, flicking his tail.

“I must speak to this dog you mentioned. If she realizes what is happening to her, she’ll want to escape. Not that I care for dogs, you understand, but there is more at stake here. The two-legged ones may draw more creatures into their ways, sepa­rating us one from another, and then the world will be for us as it is for them. Where there were voices, there will be only si­lence. The world will end for us.”

“It is already ending,” Ylawl said pensively, “I have heard the birds speak of burning cities and the broken bodies of two-legged ones amidst the stones. But it is ending for the two-legged ones, not for us. They’ll sweep themselves away and the world will be ours again, as it was long ago.”

“They will sweep us away with them,” Hrurr cried, recall­ing the blackbird’s words.

“Look around. Do you see anything to worry about here? There are the dogs, of course, but one can hardly avoid such animals no matter where one travels. Clearly the creatures who dwell here are valued and carefully caged. If we stay here, we ought to be safe enough.”

“I won’t live in a cage,” Hrurr responded. “Even a dog deserves better. I must speak to her. If she heeds me, she will escape and may be better able to rouse her fellows to freedom than I would be.”

Ylawl arched his back. “I see that you must do this thing before you discover how futile it is.” He lay down in the shadows again, shielding himself from the bright sum­mer sun.

Hrurr kept his eyes still, and the world vanished once more. Where did it go, he asked himself, and why did it fade away? When he moved his eyes, he found that Ylawl was still with him; the chalet remained on the hill. How many times had he crossed from one world to another without re­alizing he had done so? Was each world so like every other that no movement could lead him to a truly different place, or was he forever trapped in this one, able only to glimpse the others through windows of shiny glass?

“When will I see this dog?” he asked.

“Soon enough,” Ylawl said. “You must wait for her two-legs to lead her outside.”

* * * *

More metal beasts had come to the chalet, leaving their gray-clothed two-legged ones near the door, where the house had swallowed them. The last to arrive had been a man in black; he entered the chalet while two companions, also in black, lingered near his beast, ignoring the group of two-legged ones in gray who were pacing restlessly.

Hrurr, settling on the grass nearby, waited, grooming him­self with his tongue while Ylawl scampered about and in­spected the beasts. Occasionally, he could discern the shapes of men behind the wide window above.

At last the other two-legged ones came back out of the house, shaking their heads as they walked toward their metal beasts. The waiting men stiffened and flapped their right arms before opening the beasts’ bellies. One of the black-clothed creatures stared directly at Hrurr; the man reminded him of something, but the memory was just out of reach. He waited to hear a gentle croon or to receive a pat on the head, but the two-legs turned away, watching as the other beasts roared to­ward the road.

Someone had appeared on the veranda above the win­dow; Hrurr widened his eyes. Two men were perching on the stone barrier surrounding the balcony; one turned and gazed out over the land. Hrurr continued to stare. Suddenly a head appeared next to the two-legs; it had the long muzzle of a large Alsatian dog.

“There she is,” Ylawl said as he strutted over to Hrurr, tail held high. The two-legs had put his hand on the dog’s head and was stroking her affectionately; she opened her mouth, showing her tongue.

“I must speak to you,” Hrurr called out.

The dog rose, paws on the balustrade, and barked.

“I must speak to you,” Hrurr repeated. “Can’t you hear me?”

The Alsatian’s ears twitched as she barked again. Her two-legs rubbed her back as she gazed at him happily. Hrurr, turn­ing his attention to this creature, saw that his dark head fur hung over part of his forehead; a bit of dark fur over his lip marked his otherwise hairless lower face.

“What is she called?” Hrurr asked Ylawl.

“Blondi,” the younger cat answered, tripping a bit over the odd sound. “It is what her two-legs calls her. She, too, has forgotten her name.”

“Blondi!” Hrurr cried. The dog barked again. “Are you so lost to others that you can’t even hear me?” Instead of replying, Blondi disappeared behind the balustrade. “She doesn’t hear.”

“I think she did,” Ylawl said. “Either she doesn’t want to talk to you, or she’s afraid to speak in front of her two-legs.”

“But he can’t hear what she would say.” Hrurr, disap­pointed, trotted down the hill toward the path leading away from the house. When he looked back, the two-legged crea­tures had vanished.

He groomed himself for a while, wondering what to do next when a band of two-legged ones rounded the corner of the house, marching toward the path. Blondi, unleashed, was among them. She lifted her nose, sniffing.

“Cats!” she cried as she began to bark. Ylawl was already running toward a tree. The dog raced after him, a blur of light and movement, still barking. Hrurr bounded after Ylawl, fol­lowing him up the tree trunk toward a limb.

The two cats, trapped, hissed as Blondi danced beneath them. She reared up, putting her paws on the trunk. “Go away” she said. “Leave master alone. Nothing here for you.”

Her words chilled Hrurr; they were slurred and ill-formed, the sounds of a creature who had hardly learned how to com­municate, yet she seemed unaware of that.

“Blondi,” Hrurr said, clinging to the limb, “can you under­stand what I am saying?”

The dog paused; her forelimbs dropped to the ground. “Too fast,” she replied. “More slow.”

His fur prickled. Ylawl, fur standing on end, showed his teeth, snarling. “You are losing your power of speech,” Hrurr said slowly. “Don’t you know what that means?”

The dog barked.

“You have lived among the two-legged ones for too long, and have given up part of your soul. You’ve drawn too close to them. Listen to me! You must save yourself before it’s too late.”

“I serve master.”

“No, he’s supposed to serve you. Let him feed you and keep you at his side if he must, but when you lose your power of speech, he asks too much. The world will become as silent for you as it is for him. Don’t you understand?”

“Blondi!” The moustached two-legs had stepped away from his group and was calling to her. She hesitated, clearly wanting to harass the cats, then bounded back to him, rolling in the grass as she groveled at his feet. He barked at her and she stood on her hind legs. Picking up a stick, he held it at arm’s length and barked again. The dog leaped over it, then sat on her haunches, tongue out as she panted.

Hrurr, sickened by the slavish display, could hardly bear to watch. Hope had risen in him when he saw the dog without a leash; now he knew that she did not need one, that her mas­ter enslaved her without it.

Blondi accepted a pat from her two-legs, then bounded ahead of the group as they began to descend the path, walk­ing in two rows. Blondi’s two-legs, walking next to the fair-furred female Hrurr had seen earlier, was in the lead. Be­hind him, the man in black offered his arm to another fe­male; the others trailed behind, reminding the cat of a flock of geese.

“Blondi!” Hrurr called out once more, but the dog kept near her two-legs, leaping up whenever he gestured to her.

Ylawl hunkered down on the tree limb. “You just had to speak to her. You wouldn’t listen to me. Now we’re trapped. I don’t know how we’re going to get down.”

Hrurr was already backing away toward the trunk. He clung to the bark with his claws, moving backward down the tree. His paws slipped. He tumbled, arching his body, and managed to land on his feet. “Come on down.”

“I can’t.”

“Don’t be such a kitten.”

“I can’t.” The younger cat began to meow piteously as Hrurr fidgeted below

They had drawn the attention of the two black-clothed creatures near the house, who were now approaching. Hrurr hissed as one of the strangers clucked at him, and retreated a bit, feeling threatened.

One two-legs held out his hands as he boosted his com­panion, who reached up, grabbed Ylawl by the scruff of the neck, then jumped down. The small cat suddenly dug his claws into his rescuer’s arm; the man dropped him, kicking at him with one leather-clad leg. Ylawl dodged him, then ran, disap­pearing around the side of the house.

One two-legs knelt, holding out a hand to Hrurr as his lips moved. The cat tensed, transfixed by the man’s pale eyes and the tiny, gleaming skull on his head covering. His memory stirred. Another man in such a head covering had towered over him as his black-clothed companions had dragged Hrurr’s two-legged creatures from their house. He shivered.

“Where are my people?” he asked, forgetting that they could not hear him. The kneeling man bared his teeth; the other be­gan to circle around the cat.

Hrurr leaped up and ran down the hill, the two creatures in pursuit. As he came to a tree, he turned and noticed that the pair had halted. One waved his arms. Giving up the chase, the two climbed back toward the chalet,

Hrurr settled himself under the tree. Had his people been taken to this place? If so, the black-clad men might only have wanted to return him to them. He licked his fur while ponder­ing that possibility. One of his female two-legged ones had screamed, nearly deafening Hrurr as the black-clothed ones dragged her outside; another of his people had been kicked as he lay on the ground. Wherever they were now, he was sure that they would not have wanted him with them; they had not even called out the name they used for him. They must have known that he would be better off on his own.

He should never have come to this place, this cage. He now knew what the broken mirror in the road had meant; his world was shattering, and the black-clad men would rule it along with other creatures who could not hear or speak. He was lost unless he could find his way out of this world.

* * * *

The two-legged ones were walking up the path, Blondi bound­ing ahead of them. Hrurr stretched. He had one last chance to speak. Summoning his courage, he sprang out into the dusky light and stood above the approaching people.

Blondi growled, about to leap up the slope toward the cat when her two-legs seized her by the collar, trying to restrain her. Hrurr struggled with himself, wanting, to flee.

“Foolish dog,” Hrurr said, raising his fur and arching his back. “Strike at me if you can. At least then I’ll be free of this world, and become one of the spirits who stalk the night.” The dog hesitated at his words.

“Free yourself,” Hrurr went on. “Leave your two-legs be­fore it’s too late. Go into the forest and restore yourself before you can no longer hear our words.”

“Free?” Blondi replied. “Free now.”

“You’re a prisoner, like the one who holds you. You are both imprisoned on this mountain.”

Blondi bounced on her front paws, then crouched. Her two-legs knelt next to her, still holding her while his compan­ions murmured and gestured at the cat. “Brave, isn’t it?” one man said. “What more could you ask of a German cat?”

The two-legs lifted his head, staring at Hrurr with pale eyes. The cat’s tail dropped, pressing against his side. He sud­denly felt as though the man had heard his words, could in­deed see into his soul and rob him of it, as he had robbed Blondi of hers. Hrurr’s ears flattened. The man’s gaze seemed to turn inward then, almost as if he contained the world inside himself.

“Blondi!” Hrurr’s heart thumped against his chest. “I see death. I see death in the pale face of your master. Save your­self. I see wild dreams in his eyes.”

“Have food,” the dog said. “Have shelter. No prisoner. Go where he goes, not stay here always. Black-clad ones and gray-clad ones serve him, as I do, as all do. I follow him all my life. Free. What is free?”

The two-legs reached inside his jacket, pulled out a leash, and attached it to Blondi’s collar. The dog licked his hand.

The procession continued toward the house. Hrurr leaped out of their way, then trailed them at a distance, hearing Blondi’s intermittent, senseless barks. Her two-legs turned around to glance down the mountain, waving a hand limply at the vista below.

“There is the mountain where Charlemagne is said to lie,” the two-legs said, indicating another peak. “It is said he will rise again when he is needed. It is no accident that I have my residence opposite it.”

“What does it mean?” Hrurr cried out, imagining that Blondi might know.

“That he rule everything,” Blondi replied, “and that I serve, wherever he goes.”

“We shall win this war,” the two-legs said. Behind him, two other creatures were shaking their heads. The fair-furred woman touched his arm.

“Let us go inside, my Führer,” one man said.

* * * *

The chalet’s picture window was bright with light. Hrurr sat below, watching silhouetted shapes flutter across the panes. Earlier in the night, the fair-furred woman had appeared on the balcony above; she had kindly dropped a few bits of food, glancing around nervously as if afraid someone might see her.

“Well?”

Hrurr turned his head. Ylawl was slinking toward him, eyes gleaming in the dark. “I see that Blondi’s still there.” The dog, a shadow outlined by the light, was now gazing out the window.

“Her master still holds her,” Hrurr said. “I think she would even die for him.” He paused. “Come with me, Ylawl.”

“Where will you go?”

“Down to the valley, I suppose.” He thought of returning to Mewleen, wondering if he would ever find her again.

“It’s a long way.”

“I wish I could go to a place where there are no two-legged ones.”

“They are everywhere. You’ll never escape them. They’ll swallow the world, at least for a time. Best to take what they offer and ignore them otherwise.”

“They serve no one except themselves, Ylawl. They don’t even realize how blind and deaf they are.” Hrurr stretched. “I must leave.”

The smaller cat lingered for a moment, then slipped away. “Goodbye, then,” Ylawl whispered.

* * * *

Hrurr made his way down the slope, keeping away from the roads, feeling his way through the night with his whiskers. The mindless bark of a guard dog in the distance occasionally ech­oed through the wood; the creature did not even bother to sound warnings in the animals’ tongue. He thought of Blondi, who seemed to know her two-legs’s language better than her own.

By morning, he had come to the barbed-wire fence; slip­ping under it, he left the enclosure. The birds were singing, gossiping of the sights they had seen and the grubs they had caught and chirping warnings to intruders on their territory

“Birds!” Hrurr called out. “You’ve flown far. You must know where I would be safe. Where should I go?”

“Cat! Cat!” the birds replied mockingly. No one answered his question.

* * * *

He came to the road where he had left Mewleen and paced along it, seeking. At last he understood that the broken mirror was gone; the omen had vanished. He sat down, wondering what it meant.

Something purred in the distance. He started up as the procession of metal beasts passed him, moving in the direc­tion of the distant town. For a moment, he was sure he had seen Blondi inside one beast’s belly, her nose pressed against a transparent shield, death in her eyes.

When the herd had rolled past, he saw Mewleen gazing at him from across the road, bright eyes flickering. He ran to her, bounding over the road, legs stretching as he displayed his speed and grace. Rolling onto his back, he nipped at her fur as she held him with her paws; her purring and his became one sound.

“The fragments are gone,” he said.

“I know.”

“I’m in my own world again, and the dog has been taken from the cage.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Mewleen asked.

He rolled away. “It’s nothing,” he replied, scrambling to his feet. He could not tell Mewleen what he had seen; better not to burden her with his dark vision.

“Look at you,” she chided. “So ungroomed—I imagine you’re hungry as well.” She nuzzled at his fur. “Do you want to come home with me now? They may shoo you away at first, but when they understand that you have no place to go, they’ll let you stay.”

He thought of food and dark, warm places, of laps and soft voices. Reluctantly, he was beginning to understand how Blondi felt.

“For a while,” he said, clinging to his freedom, “Just for a while.” As they left the road, several birds flew overhead, screaming of the distant war.

AFTERWORD TO “THE MOUNTAIN CAGE”

Not long ago, a friend of mine mentioned a writer he knew who had begun researching a novel set during World War II about the Nazi high command. This writer soon gave up on this project, largely because having to live in that world imagi­natively over a long period of time was driving him crazy. There are those who argue that the Nazis, the Holocaust, and the events surrounding them may not be fit subjects for fiction, at least not until more time has passed and the last of the survi­vors have had their say. Others have claimed that to write fiction about such horrors risks trivializing them, since the evil reality so far exceeds anything imagination and artistic transformation might yield.

All of which may help to explain why I approached this subject warily and chose to glimpse it obliquely, through the eyes of cats.