Norton, Andre - Anthology (19 page)

 
          
 
For just a moment they rolled into a spot
where the moonlight struck them full. In the light from the bedside lamp Miss
Hettie was astonished to distinguish the lithe, muscular form of a large black
panther mauling Leonard, who was trying vainly to fend the animal off.

 
          
 
All at once everything subsided. The two large
shadows separated and one of them, the panther, seemed to fade away while the
shadow that was Leonard lay still. His clothing was torn to shreds and blood
welled from multiple wounds, his throat and chest clawed and bitten to shreds.
His eyes were open and glazed.

 
          
 
He was dead! And he was an old man, with
withered features!

 
          
 
Almost certainly, he was dead. Blood was all
over that part of her nice clean floor. It served him right, she thought. Brett
or Leonard, he was a wicked, wicked man, to attack an old lady in her own home.

 
          
 
Anticlimactically, a small black form sailed
over the edge of the bed, alit as light as a feather and sat down, as blase as
you please. Harlan.

 
          
 
Harlan sat on the foot of the bed, casually
washing his face with his tongue and one paw. Two or three drops of blood clung
to the ends of his whiskers.

 
          
 
"Somehow Leonard remained young over the
years in this house, waiting to claim his final victim," said Miss Hettie,
still trembling from her fright. "Harlan, were you the cat who led me away
from the house when I was a little girl?"

 
          
 
"Miaow," said Harlan.

            
P.M. Griffin has been
writing since her early childhood. She is the author of the Star Commandos
series, Seakeep (appearing in Storms of Victory], Falcon Hope (featured in
Flight of Vengeance), Redline the Stars, and Firehand, plus short stories
appearing in Magic in Ithkar 3, Catfantastic, Catfantastic II, Catfantastic III
(winner of the Cat Writers' Association Muse Award for Short Fiction), Tales of
the Witch World,

Tales of the Witch World 3, and Women at War. She lives in
Brooklyn
,
New York
with her cats Cougar, Starlight, and Snowflake.

            
The sun will be set
before we get into the tree, or maybe you're thinking of making the climb like
that? I wouldn't recommend it myself but sometimes there's no accounting for
the decisions of humans.

            
Dory glared at the
black cat sitting on the edge of her bed. "No, I don't plan on scaling
anything in this costume, Master Trouble," she responded verbally,
although

she might as easily have answered his thoughts directly with her own
mind.

            
She lifted her gown over her head
and carefully laid it across the back of the chaise before dropping the several
petticoats which had imparted the fullness to the skirt.

 
          
 
Her frown deepened. "I suppose it doesn't
matter what or how I study anyway. Martin seems to have forgotten me
completely."

 
          
 
Dory flushed and bit her lip. Did she really
resent a poor, very sick little boy? "That was unworthy."

 
          
 
It was, Trouble agreed, and unnecessary. The
little kit needs Martin's help. You can concentrate on one area over another
for a few weeks without hurting either.

 
          
 
He looked at the human somberly. She had been
a kitten herself only last autumn, a skinny, begrimed twelve-year-old in flight
for her very life. She was a mature queen of her species now. The sorcerer
advanced her age eight years, so that she could remain here under his
instruction in the town where she was so well known in her old form, training
it was absolutely essential that she receive before some uncontrolled
outpouring of her rapidly budding mage talent caused some real disaster.

 
          
 
He purred. His heart had ached to see maturity
so suddenly thrust upon his kitten, but that sadness had passed quickly. His
Dory needed him no less, and her love for him had gained in depth and
understanding.

 
          
 
The tomcat had taken on a new appearance
himself, exchanging his magnificent black-and-white markings for a totally
ebony coat. He remained a singularly handsome cat, but he would be glad to
resume his own coloring when they changed residence, as those who do not age
must do every several years in order to avoid raising curiosity about the
absence of time's bite upon them.

 
          
 
"You're perfect just the way you are, and
you know it full well," Dory informed him. She kissed him on the top of
his head. Puberty- had brought the opening of her inner voice and ears. The
ability to converse directly with this small, good friend was one of the best
of the many things which had come to her these last strange months.

 
          
 
Naturally.

 
          
 
She made a disgusted face. "I just wish
everything else worked as well." Martin had been right when he had warned
her that she would miss the eight years she had advanced without living. Even
now, when everything was new and filled with wonder, she was aware of the great
void in her experience. A considerable amount of knowledge had accompanied the
alteration, enough that she was able to function in her new role and pick up
her studies at the appropriate stage. Dory's scowl deepened. Straight book
learning was always there when she needed it. Unfortunately, the same could not
be said of other, socially necessary abilities. Most of those worked best when
she did not consciously think about them. Let her just become aware of her
billowing skirts at the wrong moment . . .

 
          
 
You'd make an interesting sight. — The air's
nice outside, Trouble reminded her with a great show of tried patience. We
should be taking advantage of it.

 
          
 
"
Ill
be ready in a few minutes." Even as
she spoke, the woman drew on a white linen blouse. A pair of gray trousers
followed, Martin's castoffs, carefully altered to her fit, not by sorcery, but
by her own hard-plied needle. The brogs into which she thrust her feet were her
own. Her teacher had used his arts to repair them and resize them to
accommodate her newly acquired adult proportions.

 
          
 
Grabbing the carry bag containing her pad,
case of pencils, and mirror, she headed for the door. “Time to go, cat. You can
sleep your life away as easily up in a tree as in here. Unlike you, I have work
to do."

 
          
 
Sleep the day away! Impudent human! I've been
trying to get you moving . . .

 
          
 
He bounded out of the room after her and raced
her down the hall, outpacing her before she reached the stairs.

 
          
 
Dory only laughed. She skipped down after him,
delighting in her freedom from the confining petticoats.

 
          
 
She hurried out the rear door into the
high-walled courtyard, not stopping until she reached the large tree shading
the left rear corner.

 
          
 
Two chairs and a small table were set
invitingly in its shadow. A little, round gray cat was curled in the center of
the nearer seat. Dory smiled at the sleepy response to her mental greeting.
Jasmine was decidedly Martin's friend and preferred her own company and dreams
when separated from that beloved being. Not that sleeping was any chore for a
cat.

 
          
 
The woman scrambled onto the table. From
there, it was a simple matter to catch hold of the lowest branch and hoist
herself up. She chuckled to herself. She had not lost her old skills with the
acquisition of some new ones.

 
          
 
She ascended one more branch and set her back
against the trunk. Her perch was just wide enough that she was able to bring
both her legs up in front of her and raise her knees to support the sketching
pad she now took from her bag along with the mirror and pencils. Before her lay
Ambrose the scholar's courtyard. It was somewhat larger than Martin's, and it
was even more carefully manicured, a breathtaking melody of floral and foliage
color, texture, form, and variety.

 
          
 
Dory studied the lovely prospect for a few
minutes in sheer pleasure. It was difficult to believe that so much beauty was
potentially so deadly and even more difficult to realize that such peril could
be turned to benefit in experienced hands. She assumed that must indeed be true
of nearly everything down there even if she had found no mention of positive
applications for many of the plants she had thus far identified. After all, Martin's
books were general reference works whereas this was Ambrose's specialty.

 
          
 
She had gone to her teacher despite his
preoccupation with the ever-worsening illness of his friend's young son when
her studies had revealed that every specimen in their neighbor's gardens with
the exception of the grass in his patch of lawn was toxic to a greater or
lesser extent.

 
          
 
Martin had not been pleased by her suspicions
against the botanist scholar, but he had informed her that Ambrose supplemented
the income derived from his investments by supplying physicians and nature
healers with various medicinal preparations, a response she had received with
open relief. It was good to know they were not living next to a mass murderer
getting ready to go to work on the neighborhood .. .

 
          
 
Speaking of going to work, you won't identify
many plants by sitting here all afternoon gathering Stardust.

 
          
 
Trouble had finished paying his respects to
Jasmine and now joined his human on the branch.

 
          
 
"Just putting myself in the mood," she
replied, but the cat was correct. It was time to begin.

 
          
 
Dory concentrated on the silver-green patch of
vegetation abutting the specimens she had studied at the end of her previous
session. It was only a blur of color at this distance.

 
          
 
Slowly, the apprentice sorceress lowered her
eyes to the mirror resting against the pad. It was an exceptionally well-ground
circle twelve inches in diameter and uncommonly thick for such an object, so
that she seemed more to be peering into its depths than simply glancing at its
surface.

 
          
 
At first, it appeared perfectly blank although
she was bent directly over it, then the scene she had been studying slowly
formed there. Dory willed better, closer resolution. The image blurred, and
when it cleared again, she was looking, first at several plants, then at a
single one. This, she carefully sketched before demanding still more
concentrated views, one of a single leaf, others of the minute, massed flowers
and of their individual components.

 
          
 
The day was bright and mild, well suited to
her project, and the woman worked steadily for the next two hours.

 
          
 
Trouble alternated between napping and eyeing
the branches above and around for sight of birds or other interesting potential
game.

 
          
 
Suddenly, he stiffened, and his head snapped
toward Ambroses house. Had something moved on the outskirts of his vision?

 
          
 
There it was again, at that upper window. He
hissed sharply. Dory, we've been spotted!

 
          
 
The human quickly altered the direction of her
gaze and concentrated on the mirror once more.

 
          
 
The figure of a man materialized in its
depths, blurred by the lace curtain through which he was looking and by the
fact that he was standing well back in the shadow of the frame.

 
          
 
So.

 
          
 
Do we run? the cat demanded.

 
          
 
No, she answered with her mind. We're doing
nothing wrong.

 
          
 
Even as she spoke, she flipped to a fresh page
and willed a new picture to form. She could hardly explain how she could
produce detailed botanical drawings from this distance. Sorcery was still considered
a highly suspicious—and illegal—profession.

 
          
 
Do you think he'll come down to us? Trouble
asked.

 
          
 
Probably. I would. — Does he know we've seen
him?

 
          
 
Not likely. I'm not visible from there, and a
cat could scarcely have masked her reaction better than you did just now.

 
          
 
She inclined her head to acknowledge the
compliment, but her tone remained serious. That's good. Keep out of whatever
happens. I can defend myself somewhat if I muddle this, but you've got to stay
free to summon Martin if things start to get beyond me.

 
          
 
If things get beyond you, donkey tail, it'll
be too late to summon Martin or anyone else.