Behind the bed-curtains someone breathed raw, unwilling breaths.
The tapestry on the wall shifted, and the cat slinked out from behind it. The clunk of a door shutting was muffled by the heavy fabric, and no one was listening for it in any case. The cat crept quietly up to the bed, his pink nose delicately sniffing out the scents of mastery, of lordship, of strength swiftly slipping.
The lord of the castle was dying.
“Interesting,” the cat whispered.
But it wasn’t a complete explanation for what he sensed, so he hastened on his way, slipping quietly from Earl Ferox’s sick chamber into the passage beyond. He moved through Gaheris as though he owned it, and neither servants nor members of the household questioned his right to be there. A lady in rich garments drew back her skirts a little at the sight of him but otherwise left him to his business.
He followed his nose, which was as good a guide as any, sniffing out anything atypical. In pursuit of one such scent he approached the door of what proved to be a library and glanced inside. He beheld the castle chronicler—a short fellow recognizable by his ink stains—sitting on a high stool drawn up beside the table, speaking guidance in a low voice to a pupil. A female pupil, the cat noted with some surprise.
He regarded the tableau a moment, his nose hard at work. He smelled anger on the Chronicler, which puzzled him a little. Still more puzzling was the other scent, a strong emotion closely akin to sorrow. Given time, it might very well overwhelm the anger. The cat smelled it, and he saw more in the Chronicler’s stance: The care with which he guided his pupil, care that was nearer to fear than affection.
Then the cat caught a glance (so swift none but a cat’s eyes would have seen it) the girl gave the Chronicler beside her. That glance told him all he needed to know about that little scene.
But none of this answered his question, so he moved on, leaving behind the library and continuing through the castle.
He stopped suddenly as a nasty funk, stronger even than the stink of mortality that pervaded the Near World, struck his senses. His hackles rose, and he growled in his throat, a sound that sent all rats and mice in the vicinity rushing for the safety of their holes. But the cat did not hunt them.
He turned and slipped quietly up a flight of stairs, led by a thin line of rankness in the air. It took him into a set of private chambers, and he crept quietly to the doorway of a young man’s room.
The young man sat pale at his window, wrapped in fleeces though the sun shone fully upon his face. His face was pleasant enough but scored with dark circles beneath the eyes, which gazed unseeing upon the landscape of Gaheris’s grounds.
He reeked of nightmares.
The cat padded into the room, his tail high and curled at the tip, though his nose urged flight from the stink. He rubbed against the young lord’s leg, startling him so that he gave a small gasp.
“Oh. Hullo, cat,” said Alistair, looking down and smiling wanly. “Is there a rat about? Find it if you can. I don’t want it gnawing my boots in the night.”
With that and a (the cat thought) condescending pat on the head, the young man rose and left the room, dropping his fleece on the floor as he went. The stink of nightmares dissipated.
“Well, that’s no help,” said the cat to himself. Gaheris was certainly ripe with enigma. But nothing yet confirmed a new gate opening from the Between.
The cat explored more rooms and passages. At last he moved on to the courtyard, pausing on the doorstep to look around. It was strangely quiet for the time of day. The only person in view was an old scrubber, who creaked on his hands and knees as he ran a damp, dirty rag over the marble doorstep of a magnificent mausoleum.
At sight of the mausoleum, the cat uttered a triumphant, “Ah yes!”
Stepping daintily down the steps, he hurried across the way and sat behind the scrubber, studying the closed doorway of the Gaheris family crypt. The scrubber, hitherto unaware of his presence, paused in his work and, frowning, looked around. He smiled then and dropped his rag to put out a hand, rubbing his fingers together in invitation. “Kitty kitty?”
The cat put his ears back, glaring at the scrubber. The scrubber’s eyes smiled through their wrinkles, and he made coaxing chirrups. But the cat turned up his nose and darted back across the yard, disappearing back into the castle.
The scrubber sat awhile looking after him, his face as inscrutable as a walnut shell. Then he returned to wiping down the stone. He muttered to himself, and any who might have overheard him would have recognized the words:
“Sometimes you have to run away
To win the final fight.”