An attitude of disbelief was easy enough to encourage in this age, when men of letters were few and libraries sparse. Faeries were by and large dismissed as imaginative fancies brought on by deeply instilled superstition and possibly a bit of distilled spirits. And the cat was just as happy to encourage this sort of dismissal. On the whole, a healthy disbelief in Faerie and all the folk who lived there made his life easier.
He padded confidently, tail high and ears perked, down a certain Path in the Wood Between, which grew in the strange, predominantly timeless stretch of existence separating the Far World from the Near. Indeed, the more the cat trod the various byways beneath the trees’ long shadows, the more he suspected the Wood was not really a wood at all, but itself a living consciousness, or possibly many consciousnesses all bundled into one. Some of those were pleasant enough sorts. More were cheeky devils, and the rest downright wicked.
The Wood would turn a person round and flip him inside out if given half a chance. This the cat knew for certain.
But as long as one walked a Path—a known, safe Path belonging to a known, safe master—there was little the Wood could do to interfere.
So the cat remained firmly upon his particular Path, scarcely looking to the right or to the left. The Wood was always shifting around him in any case, and he did not expect to see familiar landmarks, or at least not in familiar places. That boulder shaped like a rabbit’s head, for instance, had been a good mile or two back up the way when he’d been here last. And that tree, which last time had been split right down the middle as though by a bolt of lightning, was mostly mended now, the trunk knitting itself back together with threads of green ivy and pins of stout branches.
Landmarks were of little use to the cat. He was interested only in the gates.
He approached one of these now. To any mortal eye, it would look like nothing more than a thick cluster of bamboo standing in the middle of a fir grove. The firs were newcomers; the bamboo, however, remained ever in place.
The cat sniffed at it, his pink nose twitching delicately. Then he put out a paw and touched one of the slender green stalks. It swayed under that slight pressure but sprang firmly back into place when the cat removed his paw.
“Good,” said the cat. “Still locked.”
Just as he’d expected it to be.
He continued on his way.
There were several hundred such gates to be checked on this patrol through the Wood Between; soft places, so to speak, in the fabric of reality. Places where those of the Far World could all too easily slip into the Near, wreaking havoc on mortal disbelief in Faerie tales and magic. Thus they must be locked, and those locks must be carefully guarded. So the cat followed the Path of his liege lord.
Sometimes it still surprised him.
For one thing, he’d never much cared for mortals and their problems. Immortal himself, he had spent countless ages of cheerful existence never once considering those who lived beyond the Between in the time-bound realm.
And yet here he was. A knight. A defender of the weak, as it were. A minister of truth, advocate of justice, and who knew what other nonsense no self-respecting cat ever wanted to be!
The cat shook his whiskers as he continued his trek. The Path opened up before him with each step, and the trees and ferns and underbrush drew back to make way. He tested another gate and another after that. All locked. All safe.
The fact was he could no longer claim to be entirely indifferent to mortals.
“Dragons blast it,” he muttered. “I warned you, didn’t I, Eanrin? Get involved, and you’ll find yourself caring. Then there’s no end to the mischief!” He flattened his ears at this thought. He could blame no one but himself for his present circumstances. He had chosen this lot. Or he thought he had. Often he felt a little unclear on that score.
Often he felt that knighthood had been chosen for him against all his best efforts.
A certain smell tugged at the cat’s nose. Or rather, not a smell but an unknown sensation whispering to an unknown sense, earnest and quiet and dangerous.
At first the cat ignored it. But within a few more paces, it had strengthened until his nose twitched and his tail flicked and his whole cattish being could no longer deny what he was sensing. He could only hope he was mistaken.
“But when has that ever happened?” he asked himself with typical feline shortness of memory.
He turned and, stepping carefully, pursued a small Path that opened off his regular track. Very soon he found what he’d expected.
“Light of Lumé,” he growled, then sighed heavily. “Not another one.”
Before him lay a circle of white stones that shone out brightly against a bed of dark moss. Even a mortal might have recognized it for a Faerie Circle.
The cat recognized a new gate beginning to open.
From this position, he could not tell exactly where in the Near World it opened to. It could be anywhere. It wasn’t completely formed yet, he knew that much for certain. And if precautions were taken, it might never fully form.