The Book of Feasts & Seasons (17 page)

Raven said, “I understand this. First or second or last, it means nothing. Only the unicorn was not expelled from Eden when all other beasts and birds were exiled. Only she will neither age nor die.”

Fox turned to Wolf, “Nor you nor I shall enter the empty city, and discover the cause of this mystery, shall we? For we are in awe of Man, and have always been his foes.”

“It was not always so,” spoke up Bull. “You rebelled against Man after the time of the Deluge. Man saved Wolf and Wolf Bitch, as well as Fox and Vixen, with all our ancestors in a wide vessel of gopherwood while the storm raged, and the fishes and dolphins sporting in the wave leaped outside the hull and laughed and mocked, glorying that their world was enlarged. And the Osprey landed in the rigging, and told us of a world above the clouds, where the sun still walked in a blue heavens, above an endless floor of billowing storm-wrack. And yet, Fox and Wolf became thief and robber, and tore sheep and pig and rabbit and chicken from the folds and pens and hutches and coops of men. Why did you turn on the power placed over us, the very power that had taken care to preserve you from the waters?”

Wolf sneered, “I am a pragmatist, not a robber. Before the Deluge, men did not keep such tasty stuffs to tempt my tribe.”

Fox grinned. “I am a philosopher, not a thief. My tribe never once took sheep and pig and rabbit and chicken. What we stole was mutton and pork and coney and poultry. One must define one’s terms, friend Bull.”

Raven said gloomily, “I am a reader of omens, and I see it is not good that men are gone. Some event unlike any ere now befalls us. It is the Twilight of Man.”

Now came a great black Lion, walking with regal, lazy steps, into the clearing, and lesser creatures, rabbits and stoats and alarmed larks, leaped and flew and scampered from his path. He shook his mane, and it was far more alarming that the gesture of Horse, and when he yawned, all saw his white fangs were as long as daggers made by Tubalcain, as sharp as the sword that hewed off the head of Goliath.

“Twilight of Man, forsooth?” said the Lion in a dangerous purr, settling himself couchant, and swatting away a fly with swish of his long tail. “Then whose dawn shall it be? My race claims the sovereignty and dominion of the world in his absence, and commands all living creatures, all that crawls on the ground, or swims in the sea, or flies in the air, to yield their fealty and obedience. Who denies my claim?”

None of the animals were willing to speak, except for Fox, “Great and powerful lord, while I myself, your most loyal servant and without question worthy of the highest reward, doubt nothing of the legitimacy of your claim, some— foolish, indeed, but when has the world ever been free of folly?—some fools will ask not who denies the claim, but rather, who makes it? On what grounds do you claim Man’s place?”

Lion said, “The serpent told me so. By virtue of my greater valor, I should rule where Man is not.”

At that moment, there was a rustling the tree above, and into view swung an ungainly creature with long and shaggy arms. It was Orangutan. “Not so! The serpent told me! Apes are made in the image and likeness of Man, we are the closest to him in looks and bearing and dignity, and therefore, as cousins germane, we should inherit.”

With a sensuous languor, Lion rose to his feet and unsheathed his claws. “Let us put it to trial by combat. War is the ultimate argument of kings. Come down and face me, Ape, if you seek to rule over me in Man's stead!”

And his roar was like thunder rolling, and the beasts in panic withdrew. But because of the strangeness of the hour, their fear did not rule them entirely, and so they kept with earshot, peering through branches and leaves, waiting to see what would eventuate. Bull, however, did not flee at all, but faced the Lion and lowered his horns, as if preparing to receive a charge.

Neither the Orangutan flee, though he quaked, and he said in a voice bolder than he felt, “Man did not rule by his strength of arm, but by keenness of wit. Observe the cunning of my opposable thumb!” And awkwardly, but accurately, he threw a stick at the Lion, which bounced off his regal nose.

The Lion did not so much as blink. Instead, he merely put his wide paw on the stick where it came to rest in the grass and said in a low drawl, “Most impressive! Come down, Ape, and let us take the full measure of your prowess, opposable thumb and all.”

Fox (who cowered, but did not flee) said softly from a safe distance, “Liege, the poopflinger has a point. After all, you cannot press your claim—just and right as it most certainly is—merely by tearing and terrifying the other animals.”

Lion looked at him sidelong. “Why not?”

“How will you approach the eagle in his remote eerie, or the whale who wallows in the waves of the sea, or the kraken who has never once yet come to the surface of the sea, but is more massive than an isle? What of the roc who bears off mammoths in its talons, or the dragon who dwells in a lake of fire, surrounded with sulfur and burning lava? Will you journey north to face the polar bear in his fortresses of ice and snow?”

“I thought such creatures were myths,” said the Lion with an air of ennui, rolling his eyes.

“I thought the Twilight of Man was a myth,” said the Fox with a sharp smile. “But surely my Liege is not content merely to rule the beasts of the forest, and of this continent only. What kind of king is not suckled on ambition? King of the Beasts, they call you. Why not Emperor?”

“He is not great enough,” came a very small voice at their feet.

Fox came forward and put his nose to the ground, as did Lion.

Fox said in amazement. “It is the worm talking!”

Lion said, “How dare you raise your voice to me, Worm? You have neither stature, nor eyes, nor legs.”

The Worm said, “If you are Lord of Creation in the place of Man, then as your subject I have a right to bring my petitions and wrongs to you, for mercy and justice; and if you are not, then you and I are of equal rank, fellow servants of Man, and neither shall bow to the other.”

“I recognize you as equal to that Ape in the tree,” said the Lion magnanimously, seating himself on his haunches. “What is your petition, then?”

The tiny voice said, “I have a question. What is Man’s place, if he has left it? Why had he the right to rule over us? What made him abdicate that right? Until that is answered, we cannot set another up in the place of Man to rule all the living things of sea and sky and earth.”

“None knows,” said the Lion, “For none dares the gates.”

“Not even you?” said the Worm. “How can you claim the empire of the Earth if the monuments and memories of Man forbid you? Or does your kingdom extend everywhere except the city into which you dare not go?”

The Lion raised his paw to crush the Worm, but before he could strike, the Fox said slyly, “Who can read this riddle for us, O Liege? The undomesticated animals will not enter Man’s realm for awe of him, and the loyal animals will not enter out of obedient love for him. Who, then, is neither undomesticated yet not loyal? Who is not awed?”

The Lion still had his paw raised high, but instead of striking, he replied. “My little cousin, Cat. I have never yet heard rumor of a cat that either fetched or came when called, but Man kept Cat in barn and loft and parlor, and put her on a pillow, and fed her with cream. Cat can enter the dead city of Man, and tell us what fate befell.”

Fox said, “And if Cat finds Man still alive, it does not behoove you to slay the worm; and if Cat finds Man dead, let the worm eat him.”

The Lion put down his paw, but on the earth, not the Worm. “Come Ape, come Hound, come Bull. Cat is known to sun herself on a rock not far from here, where she can spy on the comings and goings of men from their gates, and watch the birds the farmers keep.”

And the Bull said, “Her ancestor was the very last to leave Eden and join Man in his exile, for Cat lingered to see what became of the immortal phoenix who never dies, and the never lonely amphisbaena, who neither eats nor excretes, and others animals more pure than Man. And it was for Eve’s sake alone that Cat came, and that slowly. So it is fitting that the last to depart from the garden Man dared not enter be the first to enter the city we dare not.”

The Cat was soon found sunning herself in the dying rays of the last of the sun, on a rock that leaned like a balcony above a sheer slope. Beneath the crowns of pines and fir trees were deeper shadows in the shadow of the gathering night, and a great highway where once ovations and triumphs marched cut straight through the wood, leaping rills in bridges of stone, and running to the wide dark gates of the city.

Cat waited until the animals, from great Lion to lowly Worm, had gathered, for she clearly adored the attention, and then she sat up, opened her mouth, and spoke. The sun was sinking behind her, and her eyes which held pupils like curving swords soon held pupils like round lanterns, even while her body became an upright shadow among shadows.

“I have been to the places of Man and am escaped again to tell you. There is within a Power beyond Man who will swallow us entire, if we allow it, and make us into what we are not now.”

“Horrible!” said Wolf, wrinkling his snout. But the Hound learned forward and perked up his ears.

“Hear me!” said the Cat with quiet dignity. “For I will not tell you twice. When first I entered by the gate, and sniffed and looked, and every lash of my whiskers quivered, there was no living thing, neither left nor right, above or below, and nothing moved before me. Yet I felt the pressure of many eyes watching, and heard the silence of a word that was not spoken, nor was it meant for ears like mine.

“Well did I know that the riches of the merchants were spilled in the empty markets, and vendors of spiced treats and landlords of taverns had a wealth and a trove of meats unclaimed lying where they dropped, with no angry broom to shoo me away. So I went my way, making no more noise than the shadow as a cloud as it passes, by gutter and eave, to the great square.

“But with each step, the dread grew on me that the eyes who watched grew wroth and more wroth. Even a woman who worships her cat as we, delightful and wondrous beasts that we are, deserve to be worshiped as is our due, will strike and upbraid us if we walk atop her white cake on her wedding day and eat the little figurines. No matter into what dark shadow I slunk, or through what narrow hole, or by what trick of doubling back in my tracks or standing still, the eyes, the eyes, the unseen eyes, never left me.

“At last the heavy weight of their gaze drove me into a fane set aside in a walled garden, one from which all the statues of the gods, less and great, had been removed. I was forced to wet myself—a humiliation my kind never loves—to cross the running stream which ran in an endless circle about the round pagoda, and by this I achieved the island.

“Here I learned to stand upright, and I raised my head and gazed in wonder at the broad dome of the sky, up into which never before had I stared. I will not tell you what I saw, or what unblinking eyes, stronger than the sun, stared back down at me. But, growing ashamed, I realized that my beautiful fur was not enough any longer.

“Ashamed, I was led by an unseen hand from that place to a street of tailors, where I was given a robe exceeding white, whiter than any fuller could white it, ablaze with a purple hem, and bound with a golden girdle. And on my feet, which had never been shod before, were sandals.”

The Horse nodded. “We of all beasts alone wear shoes, and so are much like Men, our masters.” He said this softly to the Hart.

Cat continued. “Now, fitted for the first time to walk the streets of Man, up to the very palace was I led, awed and quaking with dread, as if being led to an abattoir.

“In the center of the citadel rose a tower tall and topless, its dome open to the sky like an ever upward-peering eye, and whose walls were so overgrown with rose vines, that the leaves make all the tower seem green as emerald. Into the green gloom I paced, brooding as a man broods, more aware of my own fears and fancies than of the smells and sights and sounds of what lay about me. Thus, like a man would be, I was taken by surprise to find the interior of the tower, and its one high round window overhead, and a beam of slanting sunlight, sparkling with dust motes, making an oval gleaming on the stone walls.

“In a short time, I became aware that there was a great voice dwelling in that chamber, a voice which spoke only truth, which it destroys men if they hear it, and the voice was keeping silent. And yet, by the texture of the silence, I knew it was waiting for me to speak.

“To speak? No, to plead.

“The words rushed out of my mouth before I could stop them. 'By what right were the beasts created of the Sixth Day condemned to suffer mortality and pain when Eve ate of the first fruits of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil? By what right were condemned the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea, created of the Fifth Day, and why do the innocent trees and grasses born of the Fourth Day perish in winter?'

“And when the silence grew even deeper, and the air grew heavy as the air before a storm, I knew I spoke words without wisdom.

“But of all earthly creatures, who is less awed by kings, infernal or terrestrial, than me? Therefore I demanded of the Voice. 'Speak!' I said. 'Have you no answer? Or have I got your tongue?'”

At this point in the narration, the Cat paused to wash herself. With growing impatience, all the living things from Lion to Worm watched the Cat licking her fur into place, and smiling to herself in the way of cats, as if admiring her own sangfroid.

It was Hound, whose tribe has always been at enmity with felines, who snarled and barked and demanded Cat finish her story.

Cat yawned and stretched. “What more is there to say? Don’t you understand what is happening?”

“Oh, I understand, of course,” smiled Fox with his clever grin. “But out of pity for our slower brethren, do explain it in the illimitable way only you command, sleek puss, for surely I would mar the tale were I to tell it for you.”

Cat looked at them all with luminous eyes like two yellow moons. “Why are we here?”

Horse slapped Fox on the back of the head with his tail. “A philosophical question! This is your field.”