The Cat's Job (4 page)

"Yeah, well, if you wake up first,
order breakfast and call me when it gets here. Just don't -- Val
Con."

He glanced up. "Yes?"

"You're fading."

His dark brows pulled together.
"Fading, cha'trez?"

But she was moving at a dead run from
across the room and he braced himself to absorb the shock of impact
--

He did not hear her scream his name,
nor see her brake to a stop, eyes wide and disbelieving on the
pellet gun that lay abandoned on the rich dark carpet.

* * *

There was a
poof!
of displaced air and an instant when the world
seemed to slip slightly out of focus. Kinzel blinked at the sudden
person before him.

Who stared back, green eyes very
bright, face wearing a look of wary outrage, body braced like a
warrior about to engage.

The magician became aware of his
staff, which was purring quite loudly while its moist leaves swayed
in an unfelt breeze.

"Hello," said Kinzel to the man the
staff had Summoned. "Are you the King of the Cats?"

One straight brow slid upward. "Do I
look like the King of the Cats?" he asked, his quiet voice carrying
an undertone of power.

"I don't know," said Kinzel
truthfully. "I've never seen him. I'd hoped he existed -- There is
so much trouble for the cats and I remembered a story and thought
how useful the King of the Cats would be. I'll help, of
course."

"Will you, indeed? I am honored." Val Con stared at his
unlikely captor, taking in the worn jerkin and the general air of
disheveled pudginess, then moved his gaze to the woods at the man's
back.
Primal forest
, the part of him that had been a Scout judged. He
glanced back at the man and produced a preliminary judgement there,
as well:
Class Four Society, Sixth Sub-level: Pre-tech.
He hesitated, then
added a footnote:
Apparent ability to activate and utilize
interstellar transport.

"What is your name, friend?" he asked
with careful gentleness.

"Oh! I beg your pardon." The other
bowed as low as his plumpness would allow.

"My name is Kinzel. I'm a wizard --
though not a very good one, I'm afraid. That's why the cats are in
such trouble."

"Ah, yes, the cats..." Val Con paused.
"Friend Kinzel, that the cats are in need grieves me. I've a
fondness for the creatures, troublesome though they are. But they
must take charge of their own affairs. It is a weak people who look
to their King to solve every small problem. Now, if you will have
the goodness to -- return -- me to my wife's side. I feel my
departure has distressed her."

"Oh!" said Kinzel again. "I didn't
mean to disturb you or your wife. Is she Queen of the
Cats?"

Val Con felt his lips twitch and
raised both brows.

"As much as I am King, she is Queen.
Now, if you would return me --"

"I..." Kinzel hesitated. His staff had
stopped purring.

"I think it might be better if you
helped the cats first," he said slowly. "In fact, it may be
required that you help them first. It is the staff that brought
you, acting on my thought of how Right it would be --"

"Were there a King of the Cats," the
other finished. "I see. So it is this instrument here which effects
the transfer?"

He had moved, so quickly and so
silently that Kinzel had not noticed until here he was, one slender
hand reaching --

The staff buzzed angrily, green sparks
sparking. Kinzel drew it back, smiling in apology.

#

The King of the Cats stood very still.
Kinzel thought his tail would certainly have twitched, had he
possessed such an appendage.

"Friend Kinzel," the soft voice began
again; "my lady is distraught. If you will not return me, at least
you must let me speak with her."

Kinzel thought, and as he did the
leaves about the old wooden staff once more became full, and
swayed. The green eyes of the King of the Cats widened
slightly.

"Bring the image of your wife to
mind," Kinzel said slowly. "Then touch my hand."

His hand was immediately gripped in
strong, slender fingers and the thought that passed through him on
its way to the Power was a thing of searing brightness.

Kinzel felt the thought snatched away;
there was a vast silence, a feel of distance uncountable -- then,
from the clearing before them, a voice:

"Val Con!"

"Here, cha'trez." The King's answer
was clear and calm, though Kinzel fancied he felt a tremor in the
hand that held his.

"Where's -- oh." This as the image of
a woman formed, ghostly, in the air before them. "So what's the
gag?"

"My friend here believes I am King of
the Cats. It seems that the cats are in dire trouble, and require
my aid. I will not be returned to you until they are
rescued."

"Right," said the woman. Her image had
solidified; Kinzel could no longer see the trees on the other side
of the clearing through her thin body, and her feet seemed to rest
upon the ground.

"Cats are a raucous bunch," she
commented. "Always in scrapes."

"True," agreed their sovereign. "Miri,
I am anxious to come to you."

"And I'm anxious to have you," she
responded, extending her hands.

Kinzel cried out as the man leapt
toward the woman; watched in foreknowing sorrow as their hands met,
melded and slid each through the other's. The woman's image snapped
into nothing and she was gone, leaving behind the echoing
desolation of her cry.

"Miri!"

The word echoed desolation and with
wizard's eyes Kinzel saw a bright blade of will loosed from the man
kneeling on the clearing floor, hurtling naked and unprotected
toward the maelstrom of the Forces.

He brought the staff up, crying out in
a voice meant to command that which is not seen with outer
eyes.

"
Hold
!"

The blade of will hesitated before
reversing and dropping earthward. The kneeling King gasped, as
though his will did cut, returning, then he was on his feet, green
eyes blazing, slim body taut with purpose.

Cat, indeed
, thought Kinzel:
Tiger!
He moved the staff again, bringing it
upright between them.

The advancing predator stopped, face
wary, and Kinzel spoke quickly, seeking to explain; to
comfort.

"She was not really here. It was only
-- only a thought of her -- her image, taking shape from your
thought. Your desire. But she heard you, because of staff and
Power, and knows that you are safe."

If there was an expression on the
golden face before him, Kinzel could not read it, and so he rushed
on.

"You can't touch a thought, you know.
And you can't send your spirit against all the Forces of Power --
not without protection, a staff, a charm, a Word! You are not a
mage! Best your will stays within your heart..." He blinked and
glanced down.

The awful purpose had left the other
man. He pushed the dark hair off his forehead, crossed his legs and
sat on the ground; looked up, green eyes glinting.

"That she is alive -- and well -- I know. That she is
worried, I know. But
where
is she? In former days I would have known this, if
she stood on one end of the galaxy and I on the other. Now, I ask
your indulgence."

Kinzel blinked. "Where? Where you left
her, I suppose..." He, too, sat on the ground, though he arrived
there with less grace and crossed his legs after he was
seated.

"I see," murmured the King of the
Cats. "And where might that be -- from here?"

"Well..." Kinzel screwed his eyes
shut, then opened them, pointing. "The other continent is in that
direction."

The other man shook his head. "Am I to
surmise from this that you do not know the name of the world from
which you -- borrowed -- me?"

"World?" Kinzel's face lit. "That's
wonderful! A person from another of the worlds! I've heard of such
things -- people crossing from one of the worlds to another. After
all, if the Clock governs all --"

"No." One slim hand rose, commanding
silence. "Kinzel, please. Indulge me further. How did you happen to
get me from where I was to where I am?"

"I told you."

"No doubt you did. Perhaps I was not
attending. Will you tell me again?"

Kinzel sighed. "I was thinking of
Fallan and how he was taking revenge on me by harming cats. I
remembered the story Siljan told about the King of the Cats -- how
wise and strong and clever he was. And I thought how I am none of
those things, yet the cats must be helped. Then I thought how --
how much I needed help -- from someone like the -- the King of the
Cats. I Called, and the staff purred, as it does, and then you were
here."

The Suzerain of Felines had closed his
eyes. Now he opened them and sighed.

"And thus it is that the staff will
not let me go back to my wife until I have aided you in this task?"
He did not wait for an answer but swept regally on.

"Friend Kinzel, I am a man, not a cat.
Might this be mentioned to your staff? It could make a
difference."

"It might," said Kinzel doubtfully;
"but -- the staff chose you, after all. The story never made clear
whether the King of the Cats was man or cat -- or a bit of both."
He frowned. "What do I call you? I've never met a King
before."

"Nor have you now. Val Con, you should
call me."

"Val Con," said Kinzel, finding he
liked the crisp sound of the name. "Well, Val Con, think: If the
staff chose you out of the countless numbers of people there must
be on all the worlds that Clock and Branch encompass, then
--"

"I'm stuck," said the other, and it
seemed that the red-haired woman's voice glittered through the
man's own in that phrase. He shifted then, touching wrist, ankle,
back of neck in quick succession, as if performing a ritual dance.
When the movement was done, the staff allowed Kinzel to feel the
sharpening of purpose about the man; almost tasting of
mage-power.

"Very well, friend Kinzel," the King
said softly. "Who is this Fallan and what is he doing that causes
you -- and the cats -- so much distress?"

* * *

"Dammit, Robertson, can't you hold
onto anything?"

Miri curled her hands into fists,
spinning slowly on her heel in the hyatt's parlor.

"Val Con?" she asked the
room.

There was no answer. She hadn't really
expected one.

Frowning, she reached within herself
to the pattern-place where glowed the warm and lovely thing that
was her knowledge of her husband's life.

Alive and well,
the pattern reported.

She brought her attention more closely
on the pattern; fought down a surge of panic and tried
again.

Val Con alive, Val Con well,
the pattern sang.

In all bloody directions at
once.

Generations of breeding by Liaden
psychics had produced the link between lifemates -- and it had
never failed her since the first time she'd seen it dancing in her
head.

Abruptly, she folded her legs and sat
on the floor; glared at the pellet gun reposing on the carpet and
closed her eyes.

King of the Cats? Obviously, the fat
man with the stick was a lunatic. Just as obviously, the lush glade
in which he and Val Con had been standing was not on the world of
Panore, where Miri was. Panore was a world of oceans -- or, more
exactly, ocean. The hyatt in which she sat was part of a vast city
built on titanium girders sunk deep into the ocean
floor.

No natural green glades
here.

Miri sighed and opened her eyes,
reaching up to unpin her copper-colored braid.

The galaxy was wide. Green worlds,
while not all that common, existed in sufficient plentitude that it
would take a lifetime as long as a Clutch Turtle's to search them
all.

She sighed again, and tried to look at
the other side of the problem.

How had the snatch been done?
Instantaneous transfer? Through vacuum? Miri shook her head. The
fading effect was similar to the effects she and Val Con had
experienced aboard a Clutch "rock-ship" years before. But where had
the fat man's power source been hidden?

"Instantaneous transfer within the
world I'll buy," she decided, shaking the kinks out of her long
hair. "Through space ain't gonna hack it. That'd be like Jumping
without a ship..."

Liaden and Terran math took
dimensional shifts into consideration -- that was how spaceships
got from here to there without going in-between. "Hyperspace": A
mumbo-jumbo word without any real meaning, purporting to explain
itself with its own name.