Norton, Andre - Anthology (42 page)

 
          
 
"You are one sheltered pussycat," Mu
Mao told him. "As I mentioned before, the world ended, more or less, a few
years ago. What's left has in most places allowed the worst element to gain
control. Eventually, this may be a good thing and order may be reestablished,
then civilization will have a chance to build again. But in the meanwhile,
those who are not strong and ferocious are dominated by those who are. In this
case it seems to me your friend is part of a chain gang, rebuilding the road
that goes into this mountain." Mu Mao looked down, a model of detachment.
"You won't have long to wait, I'd say, before she joins you and then you
can see if she's eligible for Nirvana."

 
          
 
"It's not the same," Peaches said.
"And if you mean she's to die, I don't want her to die. I want us to be
together again."

 
          
 
"That's no place for cats. But if you
insist, we'll have to go back into the Bardo and wait for a portal near
here."

 
          
 
"Portal?"

 
          
 
"A womb into which you can be born. It
won't be easy to find, though with your spiritual status, you do have a certain
preference ..."

 
          
 
Peaches would have run ahead of Mu Mao had he
known where to go. Mu Mao presented several possibilities but none of them were
right. He needed something special, something absolutely right if he was to be
reunited with his friend and make his home with her again. As Mu Mao pointed
out, such people as the man with the gun had only one use for cats and it
wasn't to catch mice.

 
          
 
It was the unearthly, echoing cry that alerted
them to the possibility, and Mu Mao quickly said the words that guided Peaches
back into the Bardo, where, Mu Mao told him, he must grapple with the first
demon he encountered, for that would be the aspect of himself he must embrace
with this rebirth.

 
          
 
Mu Mao didn't mention, though Peaches knew,
that there would also be other souls to grapple with.

 
          
 
There were. For the first time he could
remember, Peaches felt no wish to hide under the couch. "I'm sorry, my
friends," he said resolutely to the two dogs, six salamanders, three
former soldiers, and one ex-President who were also thronging toward the
unusual new portal. "I have special need of this one. You'll have to wait
for the next one." What really surprised him was that he was fully
prepared to back it up with fang and claw.

 
          
 
The others knew this. They felt his
desperation and they backed off, not all the way, but a little way, in case
something went wrong and they could overpower him and gain the advantage.

 
          
 
Then the demon arose, blocking the greenish
light emitting from the opening in the haze. It had claws like butcher knives,
just one of which could rip a cat in half. It had slavering, slobbering fangs
dripping blood and the skulls of many past opponents strung around its powerful
neck. Its tail lashed and its jaws gnashed. Its ears were laid back and its
blood-red eyes glared down at Peaches.

 
          
 
Every orange hair on his incorporeal body was
standing up, every nerve was screaming to run away, but Peaches was mindful of
what he had seen and heard in the company of Mu Mao and at first slunk, then
walked, one paw at a time, then ran forward under the waving claws of the demon
to twine himself around its feet.

 
          
 
He even tried to purr, which was mad. Mad. The
thing was going to destroy him.

 
          
 
But then, he heard Mu Mao's voice saying in
the back of his mind, he was already dead. So what was to worry?

 
          
 
He twined some more while the demon loomed and
glared and waved its claws and ground its fangs.

 
          
 
Then suddenly the great clawed paws descended
upon him, scooping under his belly and lifted him high, toward the gaping maw
of the demon, through which the green light of the portal shone, strong and
bright.

 
          
 
Peaches remembered Mu Mao's counsel and leapt
from the demon's grasp, straight into its mouth and straight through it and ...

 
          
 
He sat up, blinking, smelling the fresh scent
of rain and earth all around him. His head hurt a little, and the broken branch
was under him, where he had dropped before, in that other life, the one that
had departed this body just before Peaches gained admittance.

 
          
 
He ignored the pain and lifted his nose,
sniffing. The man scent was near. Already many memories of the Bardo were
fading, memories of his former life, but his compulsion was so strong. He knew
he was looking for someone among the men.

 
          
 
He also knew it was sheerest idiocy to go
among those men. But, keeping to the cover of rocks and what was left of the
forest, he stalked through the brush as the rain began to fall and the fog
rose. The rain washed away much of the man scent. All but a single scent that
was like catnip to his nostrils.

 
          
 
He leaped onto a rock and looked below him and
saw the pitiful, crumpled form below, and all at once his purpose came back to
him. There she was. His friend. They had left her lying there as if she were
nothing but bird's feathers or mouse fur and they had already eaten the useful
bits.

 
          
 
The cat who had been Peaches jumped down and
padded over to the form, sniffing her, prodding her with his paw. Breath still
moved her torso, shallow and faint though it was, but her body was losing its
warmth. He knew somehow that her skin was too tender for him to take her neck
in his jaws, as he would a kitten's, but he grabbed a hunk of the false coat
humans called clothing and tugged.

 
          
 
The going was so slow. She was floppy, and he
didn't want to break any of her parts or damage her further, and yet he knew
neither of them must be there by dawn, when the men with the guns would return.
He pulled first one piece, then another, nudging the stray parts back toward
her body so they didn't twist out of shape while he pulled. He was at the mouth
of the mountain, the sun just sending a warning hint of blue into the blackness
of the night, when he heard a voice behind him.

 
          
 
''Well., well, kittycat. I didn't think you
had it in you."

 
          
 
The cat who had been Peaches growled, a sound
so ferocious it startled even him. The small fluffball taunting him was asking to
be eaten.

 
          
 
"Calm down, kittycat," it said.
"It's me, Mu Mao the Magnificent. I'm here to help you. I didn't point out
this cave by accident, you know. There's an entrance to the Shambala tunnel
here. Follow me, bring your friend and you'll both be safe inside while I
reincarnate and go for help."

 
          
 
The cat who had been Peaches looked down at
his friend. Dragging her all night had not improved her health or appearance.
He licked her face with his great tongue and made a noise that sounded
something like the mew he would have made as Peaches.

 
          
 
"Don't worry. Once inside the cave, she
will not deteriorate further. We haven't got all day, you know. Move your
tail."

 
          
 
The cat who had been Peaches dragged and
nudged and hauled and nudged some more, following after the taunting plumey
tail of Mu Mao until the small cat suddenly walked into what had appeared a
solid wall. Since it was not, the cat who had been Peaches went through it,
too, bringing his friend and nudging her here and there until at last, as her
foot joined the rest of her, the wall that it had held ajar closed as if it had
never existed.

 
          
 
Mu Mao had gone by then, a flickering light in
the darkness of the tunnel, and the cat who had been Peaches lay panting beside
his unconscious friend. Outside the tunnel, he could hear the voices of men and
the heavy implements striking the ground. His friend's skin was very cold; he
wrapped as much of him around her as he could to warm her and tried to remember
how he purred when he was small.

 
          
 
He was used to his new form now, and his own
memories returned to him, and he was very sad, thinking of all his friend had
lost, all that was now lost to him as well. He thought it would be a very long
time before Mu Mao returned, for Shambala was on the other side of the world.

 
          
 
He forgot that Mu Mao had told him that the
tunnels contained bends in time and that vast spaces, even those with oceans in
them, could be traveled very quickly. In the meantime he nursed his friend,
licking and rubbing against her, keeping her warm, singing to her softly, and
also, knowing his strength would be needed, he slept.

 
          
 
In a shorter time than he would have believed
possible, he awoke to behold a white object suspended in the darkness,
approaching through the tunnel. At first he thought it was Mu Mao, but then it
grew larger and larger and he saw that it walked upright, like a man, but was
covered with white fur. He didn't know what it was, and he growled at its
approach.

 
          
 
From behind its head peeked a silver face, and
a familiar, impertinent voice said, "Ooh, down, kittycat. Not so fierce.
This is a friend of mine. He's a yeti. He can carry your friend the rest of the
way to Shambala. You may follow."

 
          
 
After rubbing his face all over his friend's
head and body to mark her firmly as his own, he allowed the yeti to lift her in
its massive arms and trot away with her. He followed as best he could, tired
from the injury his present body had endured and from his labors of the night.

 
          
 
The tunnel was more disconcerting than the
Bardo, for the sensations of missing a step, of unreality, were happening to
him while within a physical body whose skin and fur rebelled at the
unnaturalness of the phenomena, but at long last he followed the distant hairy
form of the yeti and the mocking plumed tail of Mu Mao up out of the tunnel and
into an underground house.

 
          
 
Food smells were all around, mingling with the
scent of flowers and snow, sweating people and new babies.

 
          
 
There were sounds of laughter and chimes and
happy conversation.

 
          
 
The yeti laid his friend down just inside the
door of the underground dwelling and then ran away. Mu Mao scampered out
through a flap left in the door, returning with several people.

 
          
 
"My word, what kind of animal is
that?" a woman's voice asked.

 
          
 
"One of the other species of big cat. A
mountain lion perhaps," her companion answered.

 
          
 
"Mu Mao, please tell this beast we need
to move the woman to assist her."

 
          
 
But the cat who had been Peaches understood
perfectly well and with a final lick and rub to his friend, stepped back two
paces and sat down to wash up while they lifted her.

 
          
 
He followed where they carried her, however,
and lay beside the mat they gave her on the floor. He watched all that they
did, though he never lifted a paw to stop them. Her breathing grew more normal
as the doctors palpated her and rubbed smelly things into her skin and even
poked little needles into her.

 
          
 
And finally she did start to move, and whimper
and cry out in her sleep. The cat who had been Peaches gave her a reassuring
lick when she cried and wrapped himself close when she shivered.