James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"Aww, you must be sick," she said, compassion in her voice. "Don't you worry, little kitty, I'll take care of you."

He felt himself being carried, and then a door was opened. "Mother, look what I found in the garden," she said brightly.

"Janette!" came a shocked gasp. "You take that, that creature back outside this instant!"

"But she's sick, mother!" the child protested. "And she's lost, and all alone. She must be scared half to death."

"Is it even alive?" she asked suddenly.

"She's breathing," the girl told her mother confidently. "I think she just needs a warm place to sleep and some food, and she'll be alright."

"No!" the woman said adamantly. "I will not have that animal in my house."

There was a brief pause. "Then you take her," the little girl said with surprising firmness in one so young. "If you throw her out, she's going to die. And I won't do that."

It was a devastatingly effective tactic, it seemed, for Tarrin was shortly thereafter bathed and put on a soft pillow, with a small coverlet put over him to keep him warm. The little girl stayed right beside him, filling his nose with her scent, scratching his ears and petting him, crooning soft words to him. Her gentle, sing-song voice disrupted his attempts to return to the oblivion he so badly wanted, but he refused to open his eyes, or so much as move. To do so was to recognize life, abandon his will to end his life, and it was hard enough supressing the Cat's instincts, the foremost of which was the instinct of self-preservation. He would lay there until he died; the little girl was just dragging out his wishes.

The little girl proved to be a stubborn opponent. Long after most children would have lost interest, the little girl was still there. She refused a call to lunch, and then another call to dinner, staying by him, reading to him, petting him and trying to coax him into activity. She ignored the maids, the butler, and even her own mother's firm command to "leave that creature be and come eat your dinner". She stubbornly stayed by him, even when her father came into her room.

"Your mother said you found a cat, and you won't eat your dinner," he said in a firm voice.

"She needs somebody with her, father," she said maturely.

The coverlet was pulled from him. "But she's asleep, pumpkin," he argued. "You should let her sleep and come down and eat your supper."

"She may be asleep, but she's all alone in a scary place," the little girl told her father. "I don't want her to be sad. You don't get well when you're sad. You told me that yourself."

"Uhm, yes, well," he floundered, unable to counter her argument. "She's wearing a collar," he remarked. Tarrin felt a tug on the black metal collar around his neck, the transformed shaeram . "I'll ask around and see if anyone has lost a cat. If we can get her home, maybe she'll get well faster. And you can eat your dinner."

Dinner was brought up to the little girl, who managed to outlast her parents on that score. He could smell roasted beef just in front of his nose, but his desire to be no more was so strong that even the primal force of hunger could lift him from the pillow.

As Tarrin's will ebbed away, even his will to die, he retreated farther and farther into himself, fleeing from the pain, finding the oblivion he so desperately sought inside his own mind. He found an easier way, a simpler way, to find peace. He opened his mind to the Cat, and allowed its awareness to join with his seamlessly, completely. The Cat knew only of now, that moment. The past and the future were irrelevent, meaningless to it. It was the now that mattered, and in that eternal now, Tarrin could find peace, refuge from the pain, from the guilt, from the agonizing, nightmarish memories of what he had done.

Tarrin had feared his instincts, loathed them, tried to control them. He found peace by surrendering to them. And in that surrender, the sentient being that was Tarrin was suspended, pushed by the wayside, taking up that dark place in their mind where the instincts had once lurked. It was dark there, and there was only the impressions of senses, a vague awareness of reality…and there was no pain. Caught up in the eternal now that was the way of the thinking of the cat, there was no past, no pain from the past, no future, no fear of what it would bring. There was only now, and in that now, there was no pain.

In that instant, that eternal now, Tarrin was the observer, the lurker, and the Cat was the one in control.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

The room was a large, airy one, full of light and brightness and cheer. He was on a large bed, propped on a pillow. It was warm, and safe, and he felt secure in his surroundings. A plate of meat was sitting just away from his nose, but he was so weak that he could not fight off the coverlet to reach it. The Human in him knew the words that were the things he could see, could understand the sounds that the human made, and he used that knowledge. He was a pragmatic creature; though the Human seemed both alien and a part of him at the same time, he had no fear of it, and was not afraid to allow its greater understanding of things guide it.

The little human made a bevy of delighted sounds when she saw his open eyes, sitting down beside him and hand-feeding him the much needed meat. He felt safe in the presence of the little human, safe and protected, as safe as he would feel curled up against his mother's stomach.

That thought caused a pang of hurt through the Human in him, but he could not understand why.

He accepted the little mother's preening sedately. He was warm, and safe, and there was no hurt or hunger. He was content. He closed his eyes and purred his contentment.

However much he wanted unfeeling sleep, the reality of life would not allow Tarrin to slip away.

Tarrin's attempt to submerge himself into the Cat had worked, but only up to a point. He too shared the Cat's eternal now of existence. In mere hours, he lost his feelings against the memory of what happened, and that was what caused his rational mind to flow back up from the darkness. What was past was past, and it was of no moment.

That first night, as Janette slept contentedly with him laying at the foot of her bed, Tarrin's rational mind rejoined the Cat in the world of the outside. Unlike his attempts to quell or control the Cat, the Cat welcomed his awareness as a brother, and made room for him in the forefront so that they both may live the life that was theirs. It was a poignant lesson to his rational mind, about how badly he had misjudged the instincts that were inside him. They were not all evil and destructive. He still didn't trust himself, but he had come to the conclusion that, so long as he was not put in a position where he would be challenged, he would be content.

And living out his life as a little girl's pet seemed to him to be an excellent way to go about it.

The Cat didn't mind; all it was worried about was food, shelter, and protection, and those existed in this place.

It was perfect. It fulfilled all his physical needs while providing him a place to create a new life for himself, a life free of the pain and guilt that had nearly destroyed him. Janette's house was a good place to hide, and it was a place where he could find a simpler existence, free of the pressures and failures of his past.

The next morning, the matronly, gray-bunned maid opened the door and called to the girl, waking her up. She yawned and stretched, then looked right at Tarrin. "Good morning, little kitty," she called, reaching down and picking him up. Tarrin decided that he rather liked being held and cuddled, because the girl's touch was surprisingly gentle, and there was a selfless giving love in her touch that was impossible to ignore.

In her nightclothes, she trudged down the stairs to the small room where her parents were taking their breakfast. The mother flashed the daughter a stern look the minute she noticed her. "Do you have to carry that creature around?" she demanded.