“You mean my brother, cat. I am not gifted in the least.”
“I do not. I mean you, Cuthbert—the last holder of the sacred knowledge of animal speech.”
“’A corr do this,” he said.
The cat pointed at his bolt cutters.
“But you are doing it, saliq,” said Muezza, “and you must do it. The world of cats depends on it.”
A siren sounded in the distance. Behind the cat, fringing his golden fur, the strong yellow and blue lights from the edge of the zoo popped open like flowers hungry for night. It was clear to Cuthbert now that someone—police officers? the Watch?—outside the zoo had arrived. His time was running out.
britain’s true cats
“YET FOCUS ON YOUR INSIDES, NOT ON THE COMET infidels,” Muezza was saying. It was as if Cuthbert ought simply to ignore the perturbing lights. “You are the one who will save us, saliq. They are coming soon—be sure—the ‘Neuters,’ as they call themselves, one of the arrogant Luciferian species. But look to your Shayk for help. Forget the dangers of the night. The Shayk may feel like a knife on your neck, but he is truly the sweet finger of the Almighty within. It is good to feel him, brother. He will give you the strength you need. Feel it, saliq. Fear not. It is the end of Self.”
“All I feel right now,” said Cuthbert, “is torment. And impatience. And cravings for Flōt. I wish I did fear something.”
“Oh-ho, no, saliq. There is much to fear ahead tonight. When the white Altar of Lost Chances awakes,” the cat continued, “and when all its dead dreams come to slake the thirst of dead souls, and clouds of white seabirds swoop for cheap lures, when the Altar’s machinery of lies bursts open, like a fatal ghost flower, and it begins sucking in the souls of all—that is when he will come, as we always hear and as it is written, like ‘a thief in the night,’ and he will attack without mercy, and he will sort the good and the evil. And because he is a cat, he will rip away the veils on all hearts—and on your cat heart, especially.”
Muezza’s little chest, with its yellow-sapphire center, puffed out. He popped up to the balls of his paws, and all his hair stood up. After a minute of stiff, anxious silence, his tawny body deflated a bit, his hairs relaxed, and he intoned, with the greatest of gravity: “Thus, we shall have a decent look at the thing—the heart of hearts. It is the whole reason why all cats play with sharp claws. They are always reaching for a thing so very precious, something that must not be let go once it’s grasped—the heart, brother. Do not forget that. In the same way the platinum prongs of a ring need a ruby, the cat’s claws need a human heart.”
Cuthbert considered all that Muezza said. He felt impressed less by the cat’s lucidity than by his fey fervor. He nodded for a moment. He took a deep breath, and an answering flutter of arrhythmias tickled inside him. Dr. Bajwa had tried to teach him to get used to his early beats, but they ever vexed him.
He asked darkly, “The Altar of Lost Chances? That’s this bloody entire island, according to my gran.” He squinted at the animal. “But let me put this to you, Cat of Wonder, since you seem to know so much: do you know what the otterspaeke phrase ‘gagoga maga medu’ means?”
Muezza shook his head. “Oh my friend, my new friend, I am no expert in languages. You may actually have overestimated my extensive feline powers. But I am sure this ‘gaga-maga-baba-boo’ means something good and important, saliq. I am sure it is something to do with cats, and nothing to do with dogs.”
“You’re really on a line* about dogs, little cocker—and that wants no translation,” said Cuthbert. “Now what about that? S’that Islam proper? And it’s ‘gagoga . . . maga . . . medu.’ It ain’t to do with dogs or cats. It’s the words your otters, your London Zoo otters, send me.”
“Otters?” asked Muezza. “Most sacred creatures, saliq.”
The cat disappeared into the vegetation. Cuthbert could see the black-ringed tip of its tail sticking up from a carpet of ivy. It waved drowsily.
“Yes, brother. You have me. Perhaps I’m not a perfect scribe.* But I respect otters—and all living creatures. I don’t like dogs, it is true. And rats. You see my weakness. I want to destroy rats.”
There was a pause and the tail stopped cold and stood straight as a reed. “Oh, I smell them everywhere here!” Muezza emitted a short, pained growl. The strange sound was as diminutive and precise as his face. “Rats, brother. Can you hear them?”
“No, I do not,” said Cuthbert. “For some reason, I don’t hear rodents. And now I need to go.”