Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

Behind each expectant pair were the soon-to-be grandsires and grandmares, knowing that this would be the time for them to fulfill Pact. Only Lleeala's parents glowed behind Tlalok. His had been slain by blank-ones, of course.

As the time neared and female cries grew louder, the pack pulsed in time to their rhythms and the rhythms of the mid-mates. The flower chamber was bright. There must be no shadow, yet. Lleeala cried loudly and dug her claws into Tlalok. Her sleek body shuddered. Tlalok held her tighter as the contractions grew, like those of all the females, rising to excruciating ecstasy and then falling. Many times the unified cycle of pain and brilliance filled the blossom.

And then there were new voices, vulnerable new cries in the light.

Lleeala's mid-mate beamed, holding Tlalok's legacy for the pack to see, as the other mid-mates held other miracles for the pack to see. Four tiny nursling, miniature Tlaloks and Lleealas, skin still blank, squalled in the cold world outside their mother. Four, the sacred number of Pact. Lleeala had done well.

Tlalok's heart, so long closed off, and even longer pried at by Lleeala, flooded open at that moment. He wanted to keep the nurslings safe and warm, to keep them from the cold that he, Tlalok, had felt.

Tlalok snipped the umbilicals with his teeth.

Lleeala was dim with fatigue. Her mother and father, full grandmates now, crowded near to share the moment. This was the time all pack member's lives lead to: the completion of Pact. Not all the grandmates were so lucky, some must wait for the next cycle. Lleeala's parents nuzzled the nurslings, and then Lleeala, radiating colors of farewell, but they were not sad. This was how Balance was maintained.

It was right.

They blessed daughter and bondmate (they had treated Tlalok as a son, never holding his past against him). Then, each taking two nurslings, they did as other grandmates around the interior of the flower and advanced to the Red Mouth, the center of the blossom, the heart of their island. Not all who advanced were grand-mates by blood, some were Pact whose daughters were dead by accident or blank-ones, who stood surrogate for females whose parents were dead by accident or blank-ones. All would be worked out. All would be Balanced in the end. Pact must endure.

Lleeala's sire and mare laid the nurslings at the flower's blatantly sexual stamen and pistils, which were symbolic of Pact, of the cycle binding Radiance and life to Shadow and death.

All Pact dimmed. Now was the time for shadow, when the old gave the secret of life to the young. On their flashbuds, grandmates performed accounts of their allotted years to the blank newborns, their successes, failures, loves, and perserverances. As the essences of the grandmates' lives crescendoed, they bent over the nurslings, ever so carefully nipping tender throat flesh with deadly teeth, and injecting their special essence of life, half into each nursling. The grandmates' drained their bodies of immune

venom, which they had received from their grandmates before them, and which they had mingled with that of their bondmates year after allotted year. That essence now passed to the new generation, who would pass it to the next in an unending, expanding cycle.

The nurslings began to sparkle as the Radiance of the grand-mates faded. The old generation slumped, falling in on the Red Mouth, cold as ash, the new generation glowing like embers. Mid-mates advanced, slitting swollen sacks between the grandmates' hind legs, and dipped claws into the writhing darkness within. This contagion they smeared into the nursling's mouths.

The die was cast. The pack flickered approval, for the transfer of immune venom, the essence of life, was not the greatest gift that night. Rather, it was the gift of death that blessed the newborns. While the blank-ones did not know the hour of their endings and spent their lives in constant fear of it, Pact knew their exact allotment of time and were comforted. One hundred and sixty seasons. Every Pact knew his passing appeased the Balance. Every death had meaning. The shadow? that which the blank-ones called Scourge? was now growing within the nurslings. It would nurture their lives. No sickness would afflict them; no plague would strike them down, no madness twist their hearts, until the preordained moment it took them.

This was the Pact. The bargain they all made.

Guaranteed life for guaranteed death. It was good. Barring accidental injury, or death at the hands of blank-ones, the nurslings would grow into adults, fight jealously for Balance, bond into pairs, make Pact, and continue the cycle until their time was up and it was their turn to pay a debt to the Balance with the husks of their bodies and the Radiance of their souls.

Three nights hence, the husks of the grandmates would be gone, dissolved by Scourge into the Red Mouth.

It had been Tlalok's greatest hope to end his days with just such meaning, but that was not to be.

Further years saw more tragedy than he had yet known. His nurslings were killed by blank-ones, Lleeala taken from him, and his world thrown into the chaos of the Burning Heart.

And so Tlalok was driven to an extreme act. As long as the no-pact existed, it reminded Tlalok of his loss. Tlalok would find no peace. He must do the forbidden thing.

Tlalok spoke up at the tree. No-pact, how are you called?

Tlalok's pack murmured displeasure.

What does the no-pact call itself? Tlalok repeated.

Name Arrou.

Tlalok squinted up at the tree. This Arrou was barely old enough to be considered a young adult, perhaps four and four, perhaps less. He must have been taken by blank-ones at a very early age, for he spoke only the pidgin no-pact words. Tlalok spoke simply so that the no-pact would understand.

Come down, Arrou.

More displeasure from the pack, but Tlalok darkened them with a crest of warning along his back. I am Tlalok, Radiance of this pack. Come down, Arrou. Face fate on four legs.

Come up, Arrou said, mouth blades clattering defiantly.

Such words from a no-pact. Tlalok admired the boldness, but it would not do in front of the others.

Tlalok bowed before the tree and said, No fear, Arrou.

Pack members fluttered iridescent disbelief. Tlalok offered Radiance to the no-pact! No, no, they protested. Balance will shift. Not the way. No-pact is not worthy!

Who forgets too soon! rumbled Tlalok, his words bathing himself in shame even as he spoke them.

Tlalok was once no-pact! Is then Tlalok not worthy?

The pack glowed submissively. Tlalok is worthy. Tlalok is Pact now. Arrou is no-pact.

Tlalok looked back at Arrou, alone in his tree. It was not the way, but it had been Lleeala's way, all those years ago when Tlalok was no-pact, grieving, suicidal over the loss of his fallen blank-one, as always happened when Bonds were broken, Pact or blank-one. Lleeala had succored Tlalok, given him a new reason to live. Arrou was Tlalok's past and his grief. Tlalok knew he must face that grief. He must cleanse this no-pact with it, so that he might cleanse himself.

He must be merciful and show the no-pact the error of his ways. Lleeala would have wished it that way and Tlalok would abide by her memory, because otherwise her life would truly have meant nothing.

This was the path of Balance.

Tlalok reddened out the dissenting flickers in his pack and then they bowed, too. Arrou descended warily. The others made a clearing around the tree and he dropped into it, distrusting and unspeaking.

No-pacts did not know the way, Tlalok remembered. They were taken young. Stolen from Radiance.

Orphaned by blank-one avarice. Fettered and stunted by blank-one oppression. Bonded by hideous obscenity to blank-ones. Enslaved and doomed to die without Pact, but made dependent on the very monsters who would kill them.