Ratha’s Challenge (The Fourth Book of The Named) (6 page)

“Do you think you can bring them outside of themselves, the way you did her?” Ratha asked Thakur.

“Perhaps, although I doubt it. The way they think must be right for them, as our way is for us. I don’t think my coaxing will make any of them become like the Named.”

Ratha’s eyes widened. “Then what do you plan?”

“I tried to speak to them once, but Khushi and I were chased away. I intend to try again. This time I’d like Thistle to come with me.”

Thistle’s belly began to flutter with anticipation, but she heard a silence as the other four exchanged glances with one another.

“I am afraid that you are venturing on trails where I have trouble following,” said Ratha at last. Khushi and Bira made sounds of agreement.

“I know. I’m not comfortable with such things either,” said Thakur, and another silence fell.

Thistle ended it. “This song thing. Ears don’t hear it?”

Thakur answered, “No. Mine can’t. Nor Khushi’s. Judging from the way the hunters spoke, they don’t listen with their ears. I think they hear it inside their heads. Thistle, you have said things to me that sound as though you can also hear things inside your head.”

Thistle felt awkward, though grateful that he had not spoken directly of the Dreambiter. She was not sure how much Khushi or Bira knew about the strange fits that fell on her.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Sometimes I do. Sometimes frightening things, sometimes good things. Not hearing them as much now as I used to. Talking... takes them away. When I change the way I think, sometimes they come back.”

“Can you still do that? Change the way you think?”

“Not easy. Speaking with you and others—that is easier thing now.”

“Would you be able to go back into your old ways if I asked?”

I risk the Dreambiter,
Thistle thought, but quickly forced the fear aside.

“Yes,” she said, looking straight at him. The look he gave her in return made her feel brave and proud, despite her fear.

Bira asked Thakur a question. “Are you thinking that Thistle can hear the same ‘song’ as the hunters can? That seems to be expecting a lot.”

“Maybe it is,” Thakur admitted.

Something made Thistle look at her mother, who was grimacing.

“I must be getting stupid,” Ratha growled. “I don’t understand any of this. Like trying to pick up water in your paw—it’s all running through.”

“None of us really understand it,” said Thakur. “We’re just feeling our way with our whiskers.”

And I am, too,
thought Thistle,
even if I can hear things inside my head.

Ratha got up and stretched. “I may not understand it, but I trust you, Thakur. When do you want to make the attempt?”

“This afternoon. The hunters made a kill this morning. I found it best to approach them after they’ve eaten and are lazing around.”

“All right. I’ll hide and watch. I want to see what happens. Both of you be careful,” she added as Thistle tried to evade her mother’s meaningful glance.

Will try to do what you want. Hard to do things, though. Especially when they are for you.

* * *

The Dreambiter was prowling. Thistle felt it as she followed Thakur. The herding teacher was taking her to the new clan-cats he had found—the ones he hoped would be enough like the Named to perhaps form an allied clan. Her mother hoped so, too, perhaps even more than Thakur. Thistle could almost feel the intensity of Ratha’s longing and the bleakness of a possible disappointment. Her mother didn’t want the Named to be all alone in their world.

The load of hopes was heavy—a hard burden to lay on the back of one who could barely carry her own hopes and griefs, Thistle thought.

Thakur had not asked her to put away her “I-ness,” her own sense of identity, but it had fled anyway, swept out by the white mist that now seemed to surround her, containing the small clear area that she walked in and the hard beating of her heart.

He seemed to know what state she was in, and guided her carefully. Down the knoll and into the marshy valley, then up toward the head of the valley, where the wind brought the smell of face-tails and the ones who hunted them.

But Thakur had to tell her all this because the mist was so thick that she could not see very far beyond herself. She could not look over the vast expanse of waving grass and the clear sky she knew was above.

She wondered if she had gone deep enough into the mist. But she knew she could go no deeper, for the Dreambiter was prowling, and if she went in farther, she would meet the terror and fall helplessly on her side.

Should I tell Thakur that the Dreambiter stalks?

No. She could not bear to disappoint him. Or Ratha either.

So she walked inside her own circle in the swirl of white until Thakur’s voice told her to stop—they were there.

“Thistle,” she heard him say, as if from a distance, “are you ready?”

Her tongue felt strange in her mouth and she had to twist the words from it. “Can’t see them, Thakur.”

“Over there,” he said softly, and his voice was closer, lifting the haze before her eyes. She felt him nudge her muzzle, pointing her head in the right direction. She fought for command of her tongue and voice, for it was that which made the mist thin. With the struggle, the white opacity faded slightly and she saw many cat forms, sitting, lying, or pacing across the open ground.

Thakur’s voice was in her ear again. “We will act as though you are one of theirs, lost. I am returning you.” He paused. “I may have to back off, since they may remember me. But don’t be afraid. I won’t leave you. And Bira and Ratha and Khushi are nearby.”

Nearby. With the Red Tongue to sear and punish these strangers should they not understand and try to hurt. Their hopes are on... me... to make the others understand.

Thakur moved forward. She followed. She did as he said and rolled where he told her to. Immersed in the smell of face-tail as well as the swirl of her own confusion, she walked with him to meet the hunters.

In the caverns the Dreambiter prowled.

The cat shapes rose up like shadows in the haze that hung around Thistle. Only the glare of the strangers’ eyes gave color to their forms. These were the hunters, the ones whose trail she was to try to follow.

White on gray; the flash of teeth, the red-pink of a tongue. Thakur alongside, his body against her, trying to control his trembling because the other clan knew him from before and he was frightened. She heard the gruffness of their voices, the resolute yet quavering sound of his in reply, giving the tale he had made up.

“Yours ... lost... found and brought back,” she heard him say, but he sounded very distant, as if someone had thrown him across the sky.

“That one,” came a voice, deep with growling suspicion. Thistle tried to quiet the alarm that went through her. They were speaking about Thakur, not to him. Another voice, its tones harsh, joined the first. “That one with ears that don’t work. True-of-voice does not know him.”

“A lost one is found,” she heard Thakur try again. “In the marshes. Take her back.”

The eyes, in all their colors, were turning to Thistle. “A lost one? There are no lost ones if the song is heard.”

The eyes were waiting. Thistle felt lost, for there was no song in her head. Nothing but the hollow whisper of a wind through caverns where the Dreambiter stood, no longer prowling, but waiting.

The words were wrapped on her tongue, struggling to come loose. The song is heard, she wanted to say, but the lie could not get free.

And then, deep inside, she heard the echo of something she had never heard before. Not a Named song, not like the sound clan members made, but a thread of something mystical, lyrical. It was without words, yet it had an eloquence that she knew would overwhelm her if she heard its full power.

This was what they called “the song.”

She went breathless with the distant beauty of it and longed to rush headlong into the deepest caverns where the source lay. She suddenly wanted, more than anything in the world, to hear the full voice, to bathe herself in it and let it soothe her spirit as the ocean did her body.

A touch on her nose brought her out of herself. It was a male, but not Thakur. The Other One’s whiskers brushed hers; his breath went into her mouth; his eyes shone, waiting.

“It is heard,” he said, his voice rich, deep, rolling like the swells of the sea.

“The song,” she said, knowing that what he meant was that distant, compelling whisper, so faint she feared she might lose it. “So soft, so hard to hear ...”

The eyes before her seemed puzzled. “Should not be hard to hear. Do what the song says.”

She was struggling so hard just to keep hold of the elusive thread that she could have cried aloud with the weight and unfairness of the demand. The song wasn’t telling her what to do, except to plunge to the depths of her own being in search of the source.

It was easy to make that headlong dash of the spirit, for something in her was as thirsty for the song as was her throat for fresh water. But another sound, beginning as a hiss and building up to a roar, sent her reeling back. To reach the welling spring of the song, she must meet the Dreambiter.

“No!” she cried, shuddering, dread overwhelming her. Her cry cut the fragile filament of the song, leaving only the wind and the Dreambiter hissing in the caverns.

The Other One knew she was not his kind. The eyes turned away and a growl rose from his throat. Thistle knew she had failed. Sudden agony made her turn and flee, away from the eyes, away from the song, the Dreambiter, and everything.

Chapter Five

Thakur had been watching as Thistle’s nose met the hunter’s muzzle. He had thought for an instant that the other male would attack him, for he clearly had been recognized as an outsider. But the other seemed to have forgotten about him.

He listened. Thistle was speaking, in the same disjointed phrases as the hunter. Her eyes had the same turned-inward look. Was it possible? Could she walk the same trails as these strange, entranced ones?

Thakur admitted he had no real reason to expect that she could. Just a feeling down in his belly. But somehow she was reaching across the boundary, going where he could not, hearing what he could not....

His thoughts were suddenly shattered by a scream from Thistle, a ragged sound that was barely a word.

“No!”

The cry slashed through his hopes, through the slender tie of restraint holding the other clan-cats back from him. Growls and roars exploded from behind him. Instantly he was streaking away beside Thistle, running for his life from the rage of the others who cried out that he was not known to True-of-voice.

Thakur knew that the only thing slowing the hunters was the weight of face-tail meat in their stomachs. Even so, he and Thistle ran far. He could see the strain on her leg, but if he faltered or slowed, they would be overtaken and slain before either Ratha, Khushi, or Bira could catch up and drive the attackers off.

Thistle was limping badly by the time Thakur lost the pursuers. He collapsed together with her in the high grass. The dread that had been making her shudder, even as she ran, now seized her entirely. She went rigid, her eyes blank and glassy.

The spasm tossed her about and then released her, letting her crumple into an exhausted heap of fur. He could not even ask her what had happened, much less tell Khushi, Ratha, and Bira when they galloped up.

“Did the others attack you?” Khushi asked. “I heard Thistle yowl.”

Before answering, Thakur nudged Ratha over to lie down by her daughter. When Thistle came out of the unconsciousness that followed her seizures, she needed warmth and comfort. Only when Ratha and Bira were curled about the sleeping Thistle did Thakur say anything about what had happened. Khushi sat to one side, his ears up, his eyes wide.

“It was her cry that started the attack. Before she screamed, I thought everything was going well,” Thakur said.

“Then why did she ... ?” Bira asked softly.

“Something happened ... inside, I think,” Thakur replied. “Bira, maybe what you said is true. I may be asking far too much of her.”

Ratha licked Thistle’s ruff. “That thing she dreams about. That’s what frightened her. But why did it happen just then?”

“I don’t know,” Thakur admitted.

“What will you do now?”

“Wait until she recovers and try again.”

Ratha fell silent. He watched the expression in her eyes as she stared down at her gifted, troubled daughter.

* * *

Thistle had dived very deep in the sea and now she felt herself drifting up. The water was opaque, as if mud had been stirred into it. High above shone a red-orange glow. Not the sun. Another source of illumination. She felt herself rising, turning slowly, moving closer toward the fierce light.

Then, with an odd, sideways motion, as if someone had stuffed her abruptly back into her body, she was in herself again, feeling the warmth of someone beside her, smelling the mingled scents of Thakur and Khushi, Ratha and Bira. Someone else had been lying beside her before she woke. She thought it might have been her mother, but now it was Thakur.