The Cat Who Knew How to Cry

9. SINGED CATS (part 2)

Alara's presence chamber spread out beore him. He saw her favorite vases on feline paws. He saw her bodyguards, the armor on their chests covered with such elaborate engravings that they resembled exotic adornments. He saw her servants, so thickly festooned with jewels they seemed clad in chainmail. The queen had always been fond of offsetting the elegance and simplicity of her visage with an extravagant background.

Suddenly the doors swung open. Amialis stood at the entrance. Eyes narrowed, chin thrust forward, she trembled with tension and rage.

"Anyone who moves will meet Alasais this very day! Alara, come out! Come out or I'm coming in!" she cried.

The queen went out. She seemed calm, confident, but Anar could sense his aunt was calling on all her restraint not to arch her back and hiss like a cornered animal. Not bothering to take on bipedal form, she jumped onto the semi-column opposite Amialis.

The two women stared at one another. They were mentally communicating, and Anar had no idea what his mother had said to his aunt, or his aunt to his mother. But the outcome was clear: the royally tranquil expression slipped off Alara's face, she jumped down to the floor, changed form and, teetering, grabbed onto the column and commanded, her voice breaking:

"I want Prince Anar here before me, this instant!"

With that Anar snapped back to reality. The chamber disappeared, dissolved into darkness. "Mother's in Rual then," he whispered and set his jaw resolutely. He would either break through to the entrance to the catacombs or die.

The secret passageway led him ever deeper underground. Finally reaching the level of the cellars, Anar opened the door to a room no bigger than a closet. A couple of skeletons were on the floor, their bones dull white. In the olden times, when the palace belonged to another master, one of its secret prison inmates had found a way to escape. The portal created by the fugitive led into the woods behind the palace and was crafted with such skill that even Anar, well versed in spatial magic, had found it quite by accident: he had kicked one of the fetters aside in repugnance, but instead of hitting the grooves in the wall with a clang, it just disappeared. Once he'd made sure this magical door only worked one way and that uninvited guests couldn't pay a visit through it, Anar had kept it and had painstakingly concealed it during the process of remaking the building.

Checking his mental shields (the last thing he needed was to be tracked down by some petty telepath!), Anar shapeshifted and stepped into the invisible field of the portal.

The air in the grove smelled of flowers and the incense burning in the neighboring temples. The Alae looked at his paw – covered with a special camouflage composition, it looked as cool as the soil beneath it. Anar belatedly envied Aniallu for being able to do the same with her bipedal body. The Rual analog to her masking potions, alas, was only fit for the cat's shell.

Anar slipped through the grove like a shadow and, taking the stream in a single leap, found himself in a dense untamed forest. Not one branch stirred as he moved. His steps weren't audible even to sensitive animal ears. From time to time he froze, tapping into the heartbeat of the night, and at those times the contours of his agile back, long snout and powerful paws instantly melted into the interplay of the wet foliage. Anar's coat, golden in the daylight, stopped flashing cheerful sparks, as if soaked through by the darkness that reigned all around. The proximity of danger stirred the Alae's animal instincts; he pressed the pads of his paws into the soil, disguising the smell of sweat glands, although he had never had any glands in his life, and gave off no scent. Now he was entirely a forest cat – a four-legged predator, the bane of critters large and small. The forest was his natural element; Anar felt safe here, and it was all the more unpleasant to realize that he couldn't go all the way to the Catacombs under the friendly cover of the thick branches.