Catland - a humorous fantasy

Chapter Twelve: New Friends

There was a silence then—a wild, baffling silence in which a thousand questions throbbed with sickening urgency.  Leopold stared at the tabby in front of him.  The tabby stared vaguely at his own feet.

"What is this madness?" Leopold demanded.  "You serve a king you have never seen?  Brothers, you mock me, surely.  This cannot be.  This is unthinkable."

"It's true enough," said the mottled brown cat, "though it is madness, and no mistake.  The palace claims it's a gesture of great and lofty symbolism—a way for the king to rule impersonally, as a force or an idea or some such faddle.  But there are dark rumors about.  For myself, I half believe them.  Many suppose that the new king is concealing some hideous deformity."

"Nay, it's worse than that!" declared the tabby forcefully.  "He's a poisonous traitor—perhaps a member of the true king's own family.  He hides his face to keep his unnatural treason secret.  If the truth were known, the whole city would rise in revolt."

"You're both fools," said a deep voice close by.  This was a massive orange cat who had not hitherto spoken.  "And it's worse than either of you have guessed."

All eyes turned now to the huge orange cat, who swelled up with the dark importance of what he was about to say.

"There's no one on that throne at all," proclaimed the orange cat.  "That's what I say, anyhow.  The whole thing is a ruse on the part of Glimmerind—a way to shore up his own power.  He doesn't dare rule on his own behalf, so he's invented a shadow-king to conceal himself behind."

Leopold's eyes were as wide as milk-saucers.  "Glimmerind?" he said softly.  "You don't mean the old king's most trusted advisor?"

"That's the one," declared the vast orange cat, "and a sleek little hypocrite he turned out to be.  That coup was all his doing, you know.  He doesn't even deny it.  He'll tell you he did it all on behalf of the mystery king behind the black curtain, but he doesn't fool me—not for a moment.  That vicious little craven did it all for himself."

Leopold was still reeling from this newest revelation.  In spite of everything he had seen and suffered, he had obviously never considered the possibility that Glimmerind was not to be trusted.  Greg felt a stab of pity for his proud feline friend.

"But tell me, beauteous lady," said the tabby in a new, softer tone, "what brings you to this humble tavern?  You are obviously a creature of some breeding.  What business have you among the likes of us?"

These words were addressed to Leopold, who seemed suddenly to remember that he was disguised as a dainty white lady cat, and not as a blustering firebrand who stirred up trouble in tavern rooms.  He licked a paw demurely, buying time.  With a sigh, Millicent stepped forward and saved him.

"These two are emissaries from the Kingdoms of the East," she declared.  "And I am their escort.  My name is Millicent Lamley."

The tabby's eyebrows shot upward.  "Millicent Lamley of the Outer Alleys?" he inquired.

"Aye, and what of it?" spat back Millicent.

The tabby bowed low.  "I am at your service.  My name is Jasper Warwick.  I knew your father well, in the days before the ... trouble that came upon your family."

Millicent bristled.  "He never mentioned you."

"No, I don't suppose he would," replied Jasper.  "He was a great man, your father, and I was hardly more than a kitten when our paths chanced to cross.  Still, I have never forgotten him, or the kindness he showed me.  He was a good man as well as great."

"He was at that," admitted Millicent, her face still sullen and wary.

Jasper turned to the brown cat, who had come up beside him.  "This is my young cousin, Tanner Bowland.  Tanner, you address a great lady.  Show respect."

Tanner Bowland gave a low bow, but his eager eyes never left Millicent's face.  He was clearly an impressionable young cat, and those words "great lady" had made their impression.  His face wore a Christmas-morning smile that made him look rather stupid.

"Introductions all round!" bellowed the big orange cat, surging to his feet.  "So be it.  I am Septimus Cordial, of the Herring Alley Cordials, and I am honored to make your acquaintance."  He gave a great sweeping bow that nearly knocked Tanner over.  His whiskers were crooked and untidy, and his breath reeked of fish.

There had been one or two other cats in the room during the catnip frenzy, but they had discreetly vanished at some point during the proceedings—perhaps to sleep off the drug's effects.

Septimus Cordial now turned to Leopold and gave another elephantine bow.  "Your excellency," he boomed gravely.  "It is an honor.  May one be so bold, beauteous lady, as to inquire your name?"

Leopold's ingenious emissaries-from-the-East cover story had not gotten quite so far as the invention of names.  His mouth dropped open as he racked his brain for something suitably Eastern and mysterious.  "Collabraxidol," he blurted.  This sounded to Greg like the name of some dubious pharmaceutical, but the big cat seemed satisfied.  "The Third," Leopold added impressively.  Leaving well enough alone was not one of his strong suits.  Greg didn't like to judge, but he was pretty certain he could have done better.

Septimus turned to Greg now, and Greg felt a lurch in his stomach as he realized that he was now going to be called upon to come up with a name for himself.  His mind, obligingly, went completely blank.  You could have driven a truck through Greg's brain at that moment without being obstructed by anything resembling a thought.  He had achieved a state of pure obliviousness that generations of Zen masters had spent long, dull lifetimes aspiring to.  His mind was innocent of all knowledge—scrubbed clean as if by a thousand toiling Cinderellas.  He tasted the bliss of utter ignorance.  Wordless echoes rang and sang in the emptiness of his head.

And then, out of that vast, resounding silence, from some unvisited depth of Greg's consciousness, a few syllables floated up, borne on a current of desperate invention, and Greg seized upon them like a drowning man.

"Thumbledramp," said Greg.  "Thumbledramp the Great."

The silence that followed was awful.

Greg could feel Leopold's eyes upon him, boring twin holes into his skull with the savage force of their mute judgment.  He could feel Millicent looking at him with sardonic pity, which was somehow worse than Leopold's blistering contempt.  And he could see, in front of him, the startled eyes of Septimus Cordial, who had expected something grand and exotic and bewitching, and had instead been treated to a name so mind-blowingly stupid that a child of three would have been embarrassed to suggest it for his blankie.  Greg felt shame, deep shame, and a desperate desire to turn back time and give himself some more dignified name.  A hundred better options now flooded his mind: Axagon, Hendiamynth, Borphorus, Coranthanane.  Those were names worthy of an Eastern emissary!  Those were names a man-cat could bear with pride!

But it was too late.  There was nothing to be done. 

The unfailingly polite Septimus Cordial bowed graciously, for all the world as if Greg had not just uttered the most moronic name in the history of nomenclature.  "I am at your service," he said.  And he turned back to the others.

"Brothers and sisters!" cried Septimus.  "It seems to me we are most fortunately met.  We have eaten well now, and—thanks to the beautiful Collabraxidol—we have nipped well too.  I propose a turn about the city, to work off this fine meal and cement the bonds of friendship.  It would be my honor to show those of you who are strangers the delights of this city I call home.  What say you to that?  Are you with me?"

They were with him.  Jasper was eager to spend more time with Millicent, and Leopold was delighted to find himself in the company of staunch Bannockburn loyalists.  Young Tanner was simply entranced by the whole situation, and although Millicent and Greg might have had their doubts about venturing out into the city at the side of so visible—and audible—a figure as the massive, booming Septimus, they had no grounds for a firm objection.  In a few minutes, the six of them tumbled out the front door of the inn and set off into the streets, and Greg got his first real taste of Catland—a place of a thousand wonders, and a thousand dangers, and a thousand reminders of just how far he was from the predictable peace and quiet of his staid suburban life.