Chris Willrich - [BCS261 S01] - Shadowdrop (html) Read online

  Shadowdrop

  By Chris Willrich

  The folk of the Infinite Forum swore in nine languages and ninety dialects as a cat’s black shape darted up Via Antiqua’s hot white stones. They hissed again as they spied the magic-twisted bloodhound bounding after it like a carnelian thundercloud. And cursed once more as their gazes flicked back to the cat.

  I didn’t blame them. I’d have been more afraid of me, too.

  However I, Shadowdrop, most magnificently tragic of black cats, had fears of a different litter that day. My chief worry wasn’t the hellsnout, for all that it pursued me past the hundred marble emperors glaring beneath pigeons’ feet. I didn’t trouble much about its spittle-flecked fangs chomping the air behind my tail as I cleared the iron fence of the Western Gravegarden. Nor was I overly concerned about its frantic howling as it summoned a half dozen friends for a chase up the Stairway of Ages, up the stone stretch, the bronze stretch, the iron and steel stretches shining near the hilltop. For, whatever strange fates separate us from our origins, hellsnouts remain dogs—and I, a cat.

  No, what preoccupied me that afternoon when I raced through the drought’s heat toward Underseers’ Tower was that, once again, I’d shed bad luck upon innocents.

  The Tower before me offered both safety and distraction from the screams. It pretended to lack a first story, its columns wreathed in a mass of pipes, scaffolding, gutters, and ladders. The infrastructure was all real, but its exposure was all symbolism. The wizards needed no stairs, but there were pathways just for magical servitors and cats, and I rose into a rhythm of leaps, spiraling around the building, my hunters baying below.

  As I reached the second story, where the tower looked more like a respectable fortress with crenelations and arrow-slits and all the architecture of killing, I peeked between gargoyles, surveying the damage.

  It was impressive, even for me.

  Overturned fruit carts spilled pink wondermelons and purple squirtbursts onto the stone emperors’ feet... A carriage sprawled within the Fountain of Shackled Seas, and silk-clad nobles fled the spray spurting from every gilded window... A crowd emerging from the Zodiac Coliseum tangled in the backwash and like angry bees swarmed between the partisans of Glorg Headsmasher and Snarl Biteblood.

  Mighty was my chagrin, and mightier still my power.

  “My congratulations, sister.”

  I twitched my tail in solemn acknowledgement. There were maybe a hundred black cats in the city, a feline village of sorts within the human metropolis... but even if there were a million, I would know Whiskerdoom.

  “I really am impressed, Shadowdrop,” he said from his perch upon a gargoyle, executing a negligent-seeming but thoroughly precise maneuver of paw-wetting and face-grooming. He looked upon Archaeopolis, and his eyes, in the manner of our family, resembled obsidian flecks mounted in jade and fringed by gold. “Why, break all my mirrors if I haven’t seen such spectacular luckbane all year. You were always the strongest.”

  He didn’t mean just in our litter, of course. I was a legend, of sorts, among black cats. It was one reason I avoided my kind.

  “Might has its drawbacks,” I said, regarding the ramshackle houses far over in Foottown. I remembered the day a year ago when I had encountered the girl who read books to me. “As in, people might have gotten hurt.”

  “Ah, but people are always getting hurt. Clumsy dumb things! If they’re not injuring themselves, they’re throttling each other. Except the wizards, naturally.” Whiskerdoom nodded a trifle uneasily toward a small steel panel crisscrossed with magic symbols. They glowed with silvery light, yet it was afternoon with no moon in the sky. “A shame you’ve never applied to be a familiar, sister. You’ve got the luck for it. In a way, that’s why I sent for you.”

  “Oh?” Despite myself I was curious.

  “I invite you to come through the cat door.”

  I eyed the magic symbols more warily. “I distinctly remember you saying...”

  “It was instant death? I may have exaggerated. A bit. Well, a lot. If you’re blocked you’ll receive a nasty shock, though no worse than a kick from a random cat-hater in the streets.”

  “Why, thank you.”

  “You’ll not trigger the ward, Shadowdrop, fear not. You are my kin. Recall the spat we had last month over, oh, I do not quite recall...”

  “You introduced me to your colleague as, and I quote, your ‘mangy brat of a sister but harmless in her own way.’”

  “Ah, yes. That was it. The fur flew, and I found myself with a bit of yours on my nose.”

  “And I with a bit of yours in my claws.”

  “The point is, the bit of you on my nose... that should have been enough to trigger the warding spell—like your pride, it’s on the sensitive side—but it didn’t. Now that is interesting. I want to see what happens when all of you goes through.”

  “And supposing I’m injured? Or attacked by wizards?”

  “I am here to look after you, little one.” Whiskerdoom had been first in the litter by perhaps a minute. “Or would you rather keep company with the hellsnouts?”

  We glanced down. The seven had dwindled to three, as the beasts lost interest and whined their way down the hill, disappearing into foliage, alleys, and sewer-holes. The ones remaining were not the largest but the fiercest. Chief among them was my first pursuer, whom I’d dubbed Hork. Like his cohorts, Hork had an alligator’s-worth of sharp teeth, rhinoceros-like hide, and claws worthy of a grizzly bear. But the greatest modifications lay within. Hork spat fiery phlegm upon the cobblestones and growled up at us.

  We licked our paws, making a show of being utterly oblivious. Nonetheless I said, “An indoor nap might be agreeable.”

  “After you.”

  Nerving myself for the unknown, I nosed through the cat door.

  For a moment my hair stood on end, as the enchantment scrutinized me and found me worthy.

  I entered a modest, high-ceilinged stone landing built for feline comfort. There was a metallic human-sized door covered in arcane symbols, beside which stood a shaggy, many-branched scratching post. Two cat-proportioned stairways, one up and one down, lay at either hand, but I disregarded these in favor of exercising my claws.

  There came to my ears a muffled voice, saying, “Eek. Ooo. Hee hee. Gah.”

  I backed away hissing. “What?” I managed to say.

  “Whoo. Heh,” said the scratching post, though it had no mouth that I could determine. It did quiver a bit.

  “You talk?”

  “Um, yes. Hm.” It sounded surprised. Possibly masculine. It said, “You’re asking a question? Say there, you’re new.”

  “My name’s Shadowdrop. Whiskerdoom’s my brother.”

  “Ah. That explains it. You are joining the familiars, then.”

  “No, just visiting. There’s a lack of cat-hating monsters in here. I approve.”

  “I’m surprised Mistress Wurm did.”

  “Well...”

  “Oh, I see. Well, I’ll not tell! Wurm thinks she knows everything. I’m happy to disprove her at every opportunity.”

  Whiskerdoom appeared. I decided not to hunt the subject of Mistress Wurm. “Thank you,” I said. “You’re very kind... er...”

  “You may call me Postgrad.”

  “Thank you, Postgrad. That is an unusual name. But then I wouldn’t know what one names a scratching post.”

  “I used to be human,” said the post, “a post-graduate scholar here, or as the jargon goes, apprentice. But I was overly free with my opinions. And perhaps my jokes. Have you heard the one about the prophecy, the curse, and the blessing who walk into a tavern? Never mind. Thos
e were the days. I can at least voice my discomfort when the familiars need to sharpen their claws. Ow.”

  “I’ll be just a moment,” Whiskerdoom said.

  “Take your time,” sighed Postgrad.

  “Brother!” I said. “How can you?”

  “Well, first you flex a little,” Whiskerdoom said, “and then you kind of keep the tension going...”

  “Do not worry,” Postgrad said, perhaps a little too quickly. “Really, at this point it mainly tickles, albeit a bit aggressively. And the cats aren’t truly cruel, they’re just... cats. No offense.”

  I said, “None taken. We are what we are, and proud of our claws. But I won’t sharpen mine on you.”

  “You are... different. Well, you have a friend in intermediate places, Shadowdrop. I—”

  Whiskerdoom eyed me and said, “If you’re done chitchatting with furniture, we’ve things to discuss. The experiment worked, sister. You can visit our fair tower after all. So, I have a little suggestion... I would find it nice to take a vacation, stretch my legs around town, just for a while. Chase banderflies. Lick axefish heads. Sniff the chimney-smoke where they’ve got the yak-yak birds turning on spits. Live like ordinary cats. Ordinary magical ones, I mean.”

  “You never do these things?”

  “I can escape briefly but my mistress may need me unexpectedly and she’s unpleasant when she has to wait. You see, sister, we black cats are valued as familiars not simply because luckbane enhances our minds. The luckbane itself is of use. Wizards can siphon off a portion of negative probability to enhance spells.”

  “That never backfires?”

  “It does, sometimes, but wizards are crafty. They’ve been needing more and more of our strength lately, in their tussles with the Things that rise from sewer and catacomb. That is the Underseers’ purpose after all, the magical defense of the city’s infrastructure, just as Overwatchers guard us from Horrors from the stars. But I need a rest.” He continued in a more conspiratorial way, his mews supplemented by many twitches and tail-flicks. “I propose a trade, sister.”

  I understood, in a way that made me want to sharpen my claws. “You want me to pose as you.”

  “Only for a time. We’re quite similar in appearance and aura; the cat door experiment proves it.”

  “Only until I talk!” For, alone among humankind, wizards understood cat conversation.

  “Mistress Wurm takes Moonsday off. Lately she isn’t around at all much that day. She might siphon luckbane on her way out, but otherwise she won’t even acknowledge your existence. What say we switch places tonight, and switch back again Bloodsday morning. Just one day. Who’ll know? You’ll get excellent food and shelter, and I’ll get to roam.”

  I was tempted by the chance to see Whiskerdoom’s world. But I remembered the human child who’d sometimes read to me and the way she’d looked the last time we’d met—thin as an abandoned housecat, stomach growling like a territorial tom. Things had been hard, with the drought.

  “I don’t think I can,” I said. “Perhaps next w—”

  “Fine, then!” Whiskerdoom snarled. “For once I thought you’d might be fun, Shadowdrop! But have it your way!” Whiskerdoom stalked up the cat-sized upper stairs. I was left alone with Postgrad.

  I arched my back, feeling that old tug between fight and flight, even though my brother was already gone. It was ever thus—one minute purrs, the next hisses.

  “He has a temper,” Postgrad observed.

  “Some cats are like that,” I said, striving for an appropriately feline nonchalance before an audience, even if it was a scratching post. “The next time I see him he’s as like to be cheerful again. At least he doesn’t hold grudges.”

  “That is true,” Postgrad said. “He’s one of the easier ones, when the storm passes.” Postgrad added, “You are different. Calmer...”

  “Having such an acute example of spitting anger to observe,” I said, “I saw the value of serenity. It’s said all siblings distinguish themselves.”

  “I didn’t mean different from Whiskerdoom. I mean different from other cats entirely... or from most humans, for that matter. You have a striking empathy, guarded by a shield of aloofness...”

  “Your conversation bores me now. I must be going.”

  Out the cat door I found two hellsnouts remaining below the tower, hopeful of a good rending. Hork at least had wandered off. I puzzled again as to who—or what—had made the beasts, and why they increasingly threatened our city. Archaeopolis was older than recorded history, and the underground coughed up ancient horrors the way other soil might reveal arrowheads or potshards. But of late, creatures stalked the open air that had no counterpart in story or scroll.

  Even a black cat might be mildly concerned.

  But in any event, what could one cat do? On that last innocent afternoon my answer was to nap in the shadow of a gargoyle, soaking up late afternoon heat, waiting for the sun to drop, and for long-suffering apprentices to finally chase away the hellsnouts with enchanted trowels, wedges glowing like fangs made of sunset. With all clear I scuttled down the drainpipes and scaffolding in the eased temperatures of early evening, off through dusty cobbled streets to Scatterwind Market.

  Tru, the little girl who read to me, had recited tales about our whole coastal country of the Eldshore being the sinuous body of the immense slumbering Elddrake, with Archaeopolis sited at the socket of its heavenward eye. The other draconic eye (she’d read) looked toward molten things in the depths of the Earthe, and should it ever blink the land would shake and weep fire and Archaepolis would gain a fresh layer of skeletons and relics...

  The sight of a gold Blazon in the red sunset, gleaming precariously on a sewer grate, returned me to the present. This would “buy” a nice pheasant for Tru’s family. I carefully reached out to bat the coin toward the cobblestones... and froze.

  In the shadows below the grate a trio of glowing red eyes, arrayed in a downward triangle, gazed upward.

  They were of human shape. Human eyes, however, do not come in threes. Nor are they crystalline. And they certainly don’t blaze like furnaces. I withdrew my paw, puffed up my hindquarters, and flattened my ears.

  The Thing in the darkness merely stared back. I had the sense of an oily presence, raspy breathing, the scent of dry dust, and a whiff of hot ash.

  “Why... I know this cat...”

  The voice had a serpentine sibilance to it, and an insectile trill, and a human mockery. Perhaps a touch of the feminine? I wasn’t certain. I was certain I’d never before heard such a sound.

  A smarter cat would have run. A braver cat would have hissed. But I was a cat with a keen interest in money.

  I spun as I swatted the coin free, wheeling around the grate. My moment of triumph was interrupted by a grey tentacle that shot between the bars. Searing my skin, it constricted around my right hind leg like a burning rope. I thumped to the cobblestones and it dragged me backward.

  I wasn’t sure how the Thing expected me to fit through the sewer grate. I’d the feeling such considerations were far more important to me than to it.

  I hissed, “Omens and outrages! Pain and pestilence! Your future is full of boils, bandits, and banana peels! Lice and lightning covet your flesh! All your prayers against toothache will be as naught! Your sinews are but thin reeds, and the rocks are falling!”

  The Thing released me, and I skittered backward.

  I was very lucky indeed. I had in no way crossed the Thing’s path. Only my reputation protected me. I wasted no time recovering the Blazon and carrying it like a kitten in my mouth.

  Hurrying toward Scatterwind Market, I limped a little from the tentacle. I couldn’t dwell upon such Things, however, for I had come upon people.

  Although night was beginning, the Eternal Esplanade that led from Hourglass Harbor to Scatterwind Market was crowded with early revelers for the Festival of Time’s Breaking the day after tomorrow. This aroused my curiosity. Soon a temporary wooden bridge would be assembled across the
Harbor, symbolically severing its hourglass shape. The bridge was even now being carted in pieces to either side of the waters, a flotilla of small boats crowded with eager hands to help it along. Starting tomorrow the humans would dance and frolic and generally pretend there was no high birth or low birth, no left or right, perhaps no masculine or feminine, no yesterday or tomorrow. The distinction between prim respectability and gyrating with a bottle in your fist would also be somewhat blurred. The festivities would reach a peak on Bloodsday, with another cooling-off day to follow.

  Even tonight there were hundreds of two-legged obstacles in my way. Most were light-brown of hue, but Archaeopolis attracted humans from all the known Earthe and possibly farther, and they came in as many colors, sizes, and shapes as my kind did, and every mode of costume or lack thereof. So I blinked three times and walked among them, ducking and shifting, weaving and leaping. In my second sight I beheld, like a potful of noodles made of moonbeams, the silver threads of human world-lines.

  Behind each man, woman, and child these cords were tightly bound and distinct, gradually trailing off into ghost-like transparency, then invisibility. Things were stranger out front. Ahead of each person the world-lines first jabbed like silver spears but soon blurred and expanded like twisted reflections of silver birch trees on a windy lake. Whiskerdoom claimed that the spear-like portion represented thirteen seconds’ progression into the future—the part of a human world-line we black cats could poison. I didn’t think the period was quite so precise, but it wasn’t worth arguing about. (Some day Whiskerdoom might declare the period was fourteen seconds and that he’d always believed it so, and that would not be worth arguing about either.)

  I could stay clear if I kept alert, taking advantage of alleys, corners, rooftops, shadows. It made progress slow, but it was best. For to come near one of those bright silver threads was to bend it like a cobweb in a breeze, snap it, make the remnant curl and blacken for a time. The person so afflicted might stumble, gag, be hit by a falling brick, or collapse in a seizure. My nose twisted at the thought.

  Once I fell into my rhythm, I peered more deeply.