Beasts of New York

Chapter 8 -The End of War

The Endless Empire

‘Where are we?’ White asked, wonder in her voice, after they had feasted on grubs and wildflowers, and drunk from the stream that flowed out of the underworld.

‘I don’t know. Not the Center Kingdom.’ Patch was sure of that much. The air tasted different here, and the trees were taller, and the human trail that led alongside the ruined building was dirt rather than concrete. It felt so good to be beneath the sky again. Even his tail and his many wounds felt better.

‘We’re north,’ Silver said, looking at the sun as it soared toward its apex, and the direction from which they had emerged. ‘Far north. We traveled a long time beneath. I think for days.’

Patch called to mind his recollection of how the world had looked when he had soared far above the Center Kingdom in Karmerruk’s claws. North, past the island of the Center Kingdom, rivers thrust their way into an expanse of land that continued all the way into the dim horizon. They must have emerged into one of the green patches in that memory landscape. Silver was right: it was a long, long way back home. They would have to cross a river and traverse uncountable miles of forbidding mountains.

The three squirrels drifted south along the human trail, avoiding the thick sky-road above for fear that other squirrels lived there and might view them as interlopers. They soon reached a place where the dirt had fallen away into a narrow gulch, revealing a curving brick slope beneath.

‘That’s it,’ Silver said softly. ‘That’s where we were.’

It was a dizzying thought, that they were now witnessing from the outside the same Croton Road that they had traveled within for days; that the Kingdom Beneath, which had felt like a different world, was in some places separated from daylight only by the thickness of a brick.

‘I smell squirrel,’ White said sharply.

Patch sniffed. She was right. And rustling sounds were coming from beside the path. The three squirrels turned, stopped dead with amazement, and stared. The two night-black squirrels that had been scampering through the undergrowth came to an equally non-plussed halt.

‘Who are you?’ the female black squirrel demanded.

‘What are you?’ asked the male.

‘We’re squirrels!’ Patch said, outraged.

The male black squirrel looked at him skeptically. ‘I’ve seen a lot of other squirrels, and none of them looked anything like you three.’

‘Don’t you have albinos here?’ White asked.

‘Albinos?’ the male asked, repeating the word without comprehension. ‘We don’t even know what that is.’

‘I heard once there are gray squirrels to the south, in the Archipelago,’ the female said thoughtfully. ‘Is that where you’re from?’

Patch wasn’t sure how to answer that question, so he decided to fall back on basics. ‘I am Patch son of Silver, of the Seeker clan, of the Treetops tribe. This is my mother Silver daughter of Strongtail, of the Watcher clan, and White daughter of Streak, of the Runner clan. We are all of the Center Kingdom.’

‘The Center Kingdom!’ the male exclaimed. ‘I’ve heard of that. You’re right, it’s in the Archipelago.’

‘I told you so,’ the female scolded him. ‘You never believe me.’

‘Pardon me,’ Silver said, ‘but with whom do we have the honor of speaking?’

‘Oh,’ the female said, embarrassed. ‘I am Dizzy daughter of Silent, and this is my mate Leafcutter son of Tallclimber, we’re both Gobbler clan.’