D. MacHale - Black Water

The cat grumbled and bared its teeth. Oh yeah, there were a couple of long fangs in there. It crept closer until its nose was nearly at my feet. I saw its big brown nose working, sniffing me. I thought maybe I should give it a quick kick in the head and take off, but figured that would only get it mad. Mad and hungry weren’t a good combination. At least now I had a faint hope that it would think I smelled foul, and leave me alone. I didn’t move. I stopped breathing again. The cat took a few more steps, stood still for a second, and opened its mouth. This was it. It was going to attack. I was actually beginning to hope one of these Eelong beasts would finally get me and put me out of my misery. If this kept up, chances are I’d die of a heart attack anyway.

The big cat kept its eyes on me, opened its mouth wider, and said, “Are you Pendragon?”

Huh? Let me write that again. Huh? I went into brain lock. As hairy as everything had been so far, at least it made sense. The hanging roots, the jungle, the band of sun, the big tree, the scary lizard and the quig-humans. All fantastic, but all within my brain’s ability to compute. This new development…wasn’t. I searched for an explanation. I figured maybe when the lizard scratched my leg it released some kind of hallucinatory venom into my system that made me think I was seeing a jungle cat who not only talked, but knew my name. Or maybe this was like the Cheshire Cat inAlice in Wonderland, which meant he’d smile and disappear and this would all turn out to be a dream. That would be cool, too.

“Can you talk?” the cat asked. “Or are you just a dumb gar?”

As you know, one of the bizarro perks of being a Traveler is that for some reason we’re able to understand the various languages spoken on different territories. But as far as I knew, it didn’t work with animals. If it did, there’d be a whole annoying Doctor Dolittle thing going on and we’d be able to understand conversations had by every crawling, swimming and flying creature we ran in to. But we couldn’t do that. No way. That meant this cat could really talk.

“I–I’m Pendragon,” I said softly.

“Then it’s true!” the cat exclaimed. “Unbelievable!”

I took one more step intoThe Twilight Zonewhen the big cat stood up on its back legs and walked like a human! It must have been around my size, just under six feet. I saw that it too wore some kind of crude clothing. It was a simple, brown tunic that fit snugly to his body, but his outfit was in much better shape than my rags. The garment had no buckles or snaps or buttons. It looked to have been form fitted to his body.

“Sorry for sneaking up on you like that,” the cat said. “But you can’t be too careful with gars. Especially the ones that hang around here. The quigs, I mean.”

I figured I had totally snapped. This talking cat knew about quigs! It held out its paw as if to help me up. Or maybe I should call it a hand. It looked to be a cross between a human hand and a big cat paw. It had a thumb like a human’s, but was covered with fur and had some vicious-looking claws.

“My name’s Boon,” he said. “Welcome to Eelong.”

His voice sounded as normal as mine. There was no hint that it was coming out of a nonhuman mouth. I looked up at his cat face and realized that maybe he wasn’t a typical cat after all. Sure, his face and head and ears were definitely catlike, but his snout wasn’t as pronounced as a regular cat’s. His mouth was a bit smaller too. But he was covered with fur, and his arms were too long for a human, and he had knees that bent at an odd angle. You know that dumb Broadway musical where everybody dressed in tights and cat makeup and ran around singing about how swell it was to be a cat? Well, forget that. This wasn’t anything like that. This was no costume. This guy was definitely a cat, but with some human traits…not the least of which was talking.

“It’s okay,” he assured me. “I won’t bite.”

I tentatively reached up and took his hand. Or his paw. Or whatever. It felt like I was grabbing on to somebody wearing a furry glove, with rough pads in the palm. He was strong, too. And the claws that grazed the back of my hand were sharp. Note to self: Don’t mess with the cat.

“I don’t mean to stare,” Boon said. “But I’m not used to talking with a gar. This is very strange.”

Strange? Tell me about it.

“What’s a gar?” I asked tentatively.

“You know. A gar. Like you. Two legs, no fur, no teeth, fairly useless. Seegen said you’d be a gar, but I didn’t believe it until, well, until I saw you. We have to do something about the smell, though.”

“Sorry,” I said. “These clothes reek.”

“Not the clothes, you!” Boon said sniffing. “Gars all have the same smell, like rotten fruit. No offense.”

“I’m losing my mind,” I muttered. Then I asked, “How can you talk? Did humans teach you? I mean, did the gars teach you?”

Boon laughed. He actually laughed. I’d never heard a cat laugh. It was raspy, and trailed off with a croaking growl.

“A gar teach a klee to talk? That’s funny. You’re a funny one. I heard that about you.”

My head was spinning. “Okay, I’m a gar, and you’re a klee. Who’s in charge here? I mean, are there other klees like you who can talk?”

Boon laughed again and patted me on the back like an old pal. It nearly knocked me over. He had a lot of energy and seemed like he was actually having fun. I had no idea how old he was, but it was beginning to feel like he was a young guy, around my age. At least I think he was a guy. I wasn’t about to ask him for a peek between his legs.

“I hate to tell you this, Pendragon.” He chuckled. “But things are a little different on Eelong. C’mon, I’ll show you.”

He walked to the far side of the tree room. I didn’t move. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that I was watching a six-foot-tall cat wearing clothes walk around on two legs. It was then that I noticed the one thing that kept Boon from truly looking like a regular old Second Earth mountain lion: He didn’t have a tail. I supposed it could have been curled up inside his tunic, but I didn’t think so. He glanced back to see I wasn’t following.

“You’re kind of stunned. I am too.” He looked around at the cavern, then continued, “We don’t normally come here to the gate. It’s the quigs. Nasty bunch of little gars. We can usually handle them with no problem, but if they gang up on you…ouch. That’s why I brought my buddy with me. He doesn’t know about them being quigs, though. He just likes hunting wild gars.”

I was getting nervous about this talking cat knowing so much about the Traveler biz, so I asked, “Are you a Traveler?”

“Me? Nah. Seegen is the Traveler from Eelong. I’m an acolyte. Actually, I’m not an acolyte yet, officially, but I will be someday. Seegen’s told me everything, though. You like the clothes I picked out?”

“They stink.”

“Right, you said that. Like I was saying, we don’t normally come here. It’s a long way from the city, but that’s a good thing. Don’t want anybody finding the flume, do we?”

The guy spoke fast, like he was excited. Or nervous. Whatever. “Seegen asked me to watch the flume in case the lead Traveler arrived. I couldn’t believe it when he told me you were a gar, too. Just like the other Traveler who showed up and-“

“Gunny!” I jumped in. “Are you talking about Gunny?”

“Yes, Seegen said his name was Gunny.”

“Yeah!” I exclaimed. “Where is he? Is he all right?”

“I don’t know,” Boon answered. “Seegen wouldn’t tell me. One thing is for sure, though; I’ve never seen him in Leeandra.”

“Leeandra? What’s a Leeandra?” I asked.