Tad Williams - Tailchaser’s Song

"It's not for nothing," Fritti said. "I must do it. I want you to go. If you can get Pounce and yourself out I will feel better about everything. Now go, please." He made as if to turn back, but Roofshadow ran and placed herself between Fritti and the tunnel. In her grief she looked more wild than Tailchaser had ever seen her-wilder by far than when she had fought for her own life. She looked as though she had fallen out of step in the earth-dance, and could not find her part.

"Pouncequick!" she cried. "Tell him not to go. Don't let him just go off chasing death's tail this way!"

But Pouncequick only looked at her with his old affection, and said: "He has to go. Don't make it harder for us, please, 'Shadow." He turned back to Fritti. "May you find luck dancing, Tailchaser. Come back to us if you can."

Tailchaser had only a moment to marvel at the change in his young friend. The noises of hatred and conflict winding down the tunnels brought him to his purpose once more.

"Mri'fa-o, good, good friends," he said, and would have paused to sniff them both, but he could not meet Roofshadow's eye. He leaped past her and ran up the tunnel, back the way they had come.

The outer passages through which they had just passed in relative safety were again filling with the dark shapes of Claw and Tooth. The milling beasts seemed to be regaining cohesion, and in Fritti's mind, this boded badly for Quiverclaw, Fencewalker and the rest. From above his head-how far above he could not tell-came the scraping, dragging sound of some huge thing moving in the upper Catacombs. This boded far worse. He could easily guess what malign presence had escaped from the Cavern of the Pit, and was even now shambling through the upper tunnels. Tailchaser did not suppose that Eatbugs could have disappeared very far back along the route, but if he had… well, even Fritti's newly found resolve was not strong enough to take him willingly within reach or sight of the thing above.

Creeping down a cramped passageway-treading softly because of a group of Clawguard he had spotted, who stood at the forking of the tunnel not a score of jumps ahead-he was suddenly brought up short by an unexpected sound: a soft laugh from somewhere close bv. Looking down, he saw a crevice between stone floor and wall. It was from this that the noise came.

He squatted, keeping an eye on the Clawguard up by the corridor's splitting point. They were engaged- from what he could discern at this distance, and in the dim light-in an argument of some sort. Putting his keen ear down to the crack, Fritti listened closely.

It was not laughter that he had heard, but a strange whimpering. He pushed his head through into the fissure-his whiskers just fit-and peered around. A dark shape was huddled down in a small cave formed in the tunnel wall.

– "Eatbugs?" Fritti whispered quietly. If the creature heard him, it gave no sign. Tailchaser carefully levered himself down into the cavelet. The darkness inside was nearly complete, and the cave was so small that Fritti could find no room to stand; he was forced to crush himself up against the matted, bristly shape.

It must be Eatbugs, thought Fritti. No one else has fur so dirty.

He gave the sobbing shape a sharp nudge. "Eatbugs. It's me, Tailchaser. Come on now, I'll get you out of here."

Fritti prodded the mad cat again, and the whimpering sounds became a disjointed stream of words.

"Trapped, trapped and twitted… twitted like the twinkling… twinkling… oh, there is badness, os and f-f-further…"

Fritti was disgusted. He might have expected that Eatbugs would have lapsed into this gibbering state. "Come now," he said. "There's no time for this." His eyes had become better adjusted to the near-absolute blackness; he could just barely make out the tufted, wild-haired form beside him.

"… Don't you see, don't you see," moaned the voice, "they have suited us with a pelt of stone… they have taken the skulls of stones and made us altogether a cage out of it… the fitting is too tight. Nether depths, how it burns!" On this last word, the voice rose until it was nearly a howl. Tailchaser flinched. If this continued they would surely be heard.

His patience now beginning to smolder into fear, Tailchaser seized a mouthful of dirty fur in his teeth and pulled, hard. A paw, with a force like a great stone, pushed him over and pinned him down. His heart leaped. Had he been mistaken? Was this not Eatbugs after all?

That would be the final irony, he thought. To go following my tail name on a mission of selflessness and then crawl stupidly into a hole with a ravening beast.

Tailchaser tried to struggle out from beneath the firm grip, but he found he was clutched as securely as a newborn. His efforts caused the thing that held him to turn, and for a moment its face was spotted with faint light from the crevice's opening.

It was Eatbugs. The dim light showed his eyes, crazed as cracked ice.

"My blood has called the whirlwind!" Eatbugs shrieked. "The sucking, spinning thing… O, pity me. I am its center, it will never leave me… O, even the void would be sweet…!"

As the last echoes of the cry rolled out into the corridor beyond, Fritti heard the sound of running paws and sharp, questioning voices. They were discovered. He gave one last heave, but Eatbugs-with deranged strength-had caught him fast. He might as well have been pinioned beneath a fallen oak. Helpless. He closed his eyes, and waited for death.

Time seemed to slow, as it had before when the Clawguard came out of the night… such a long time ago. Drifting, he found something at the edge of his memory, and drew it in to examine. It was the prayer that Quiverclaw had taught him-or, rather, the start of it. As his mind lazily examined the fragment of song, part of him still heard the scuffling sounds outside the fissure, and the muffled lamentations of Eatbugs.

The bit of lore floated before his mind's eye… Tangaloor, fire-bright… yes, that was how it began. How curious, that he should remember it now.

"Tangaloor, fire-bright…" He said it aloud now, and listened to the sweet contrast it made: to the harsh breathing of the beast beside him, and the harsh cries of the beasts without. More of the prayer came unbidden to his voice, more song. "Flame-foot, farthest walker… your hunter calls…" What was the last? Oh yes: "… In need, but never in fear." That was it.

He sang it again, straight through, oblivious to the gasping of Eatbugs beside him. The Clawguard in the tunnel above were curiously still.

Tangaloor, fire-bright

Flame-foot, farthest walker,

Your hunter speaks

In need he walks

In need, but never in fear.

Even with his eyes closed, Fritti was aware of a change. Light was streaming in, shining crimson on the inside of his eyelids. The luminous earth must be aglow again. He opened his eyes… but the crevice-glow was as dim as before. Instead, a red brilliance was springing up within the cave itself.

In the darkness, Eatbugs' legs and paws had begun to glow as if they were afire.

Eatbugs began to roll and pitch strangely. The light spread, and the red-lit air itself began to shimmer as if from great heat, but the temperature did not change.

There was a great flash, and a voice like the singing of all the Folk beneath Meerclar's Eye cried out, triumphantly:

"I AM…!"

The sheer force of it flung Fritti back; he struck his head against the crevice wall. As he rolled grog-gily back over he saw that the great light had faded. Eatbugs crouched before him, his body black, nearly invisible-his legs red as fire, red as sunset. The marks of madness and disarray were gone, the fur thick and fine; Eatbugs' eyes stared back at Tailchaser with a wisdom and love and pride such as he had never seen before. There was a sadness, too, that hovered as close as a second pelt. Fritti knew that he was in the presence of all that was great in his race.