Eye of Cat Part 21

He halted and looked back.

There was no shining mountain. He retraced his steps a dozen paces and stooped to pick up a piece of stone contain- ing a cracked quartz crystal which lay on the ground. He held it up to his eyes. A rainbow danced within it. He dropped it into his pocket, feeling as if it held half of time and s.p.a.ce.

He ran for nearly an hour then, and ice crystals scratched like the claws of cats at rocks and tree limbs, at his face. The frozen earth made noises like crinkling cellophane beneath his feet. Streaks of snow lay like crooked fingers on the hillsides. A patch of sky lightened and thunder rumbled nearby. His way led into the mountains, and soon he began to climb.

When I call, they come to me out of Darkness Mountain.

Pipelines cross it, satellites pa.s.s above it, but I hold the land before me, and all things that hunt and are hunted within it.

I have followed the People across the eons, giving the proper hunter his prey in the proper time.

Those who hunt themselves, however, fall into a special category.

Certain sophistications were unknown in ancient times.

But you are never too old to learn, which is what makes this business interesting and keeps me black-winged. Na-ya!

Out of Darkness Mountain, then: Send an ending.

And climbing, Everything strange. He had lost track of

time and s.p.a.ce. Sometimes the countryside seemed to roll by him, other times it seemed that he had moved for ages to cover a small- distance. The trail took him among more mountains. He was no longer certain as to precisely where he was, though he was sure that he was still heading north.

The snow turned into rain. The rain came and went. The trail led upward once again and moved through rocky pa.s.sages.

In places, streamlets rushed by him, and he pa.s.sed through narrow necks with his back pressed against stone, fingertips and heels his only purchase. The clouds were occasionally delineated by a bright scribbling, to be wiped away by the grayness moments later.

He pa.s.sed through an opening so narrow that he had to strip off his pack and jacket and go sideways. It cut sharply to the left, and he knew that he could have missed it even in full diylight without the guiding trail that led him on. Glow- ing forms seemed to writhe in creva.s.ses he pa.s.sed before the way widened again, like the mating movements of the tall, spindly anklavars on the world called Bayou.

When he turned and stretched his cramped muscles, he halted. What was this place? There was a ruin built.into the cliff face to the right. Farther ahead there was another, to the left and higher, at a place where the canyon continued its widening. Stone and rotted adobe, they were ruins with which he was not familiar, though he had once thought that he was aware of almost all of them. He was tempted to pause for a quick investigation, but the drumbeat commenced again, slowly, and his trail ran on to greater heights.

The canyon turned to the right, its floor rising even farther, its walls spread wider. He climbed, and there were more ruins about. The name "Lukachukai" pa.s.sed through his mind as he remembered the story of a lost Anasazi ruin.

The wind grew still and the pulse of the drum quickened.

Shadowy shapes darted behind broken walls. He stared at the high, level place before him. He saw the end of his trail.

A chill pa.s.sed over his entire body, and he felt the hairs rise on the nape of his neck.

He took a step forward, then another. He moved cau- tiously, slowly, as if the ground might give way beneath him at any point; It was right, though, wasn't it? Of course. All trails end the same way. Why should this one be any different? If you tracked anything through its entire life, from its first faltering step until its final faltering step, the end was always the same.

Back beside a rock, beneath an overhang, his trail ended before the vacant gaze of an age-browned human skull.

Beyond that, he could not see the way.

The rhythm of the drumbeat changed. Mah-ih, the Trick- ster, Coyote, He-who-wanders-about, peered at him from beyond the corner of a nearby ruin. A white rainbow yei formed an arc from the top of one canyon wall to the other.

He heard the shaking of rattles now, accompanying the drumbeat. A green stem poked through the ground, rose upward, put forth leaves and then a red flower.

He walked on. As he advanced, the skull seemed to jerk slightly forward. A flickering occurred within it, and then a pale green light grew behind all of its apertures which faced him. Far off to the right, Coyote made a sudden, low, growling sound.

As he neared the end of the trail the skull tipped backward and turned slightly to the right, keeping the eyesockets fixed directly upon him.

A rasping voice emerged from the skull: "Behold your chindi."

Billy halted.

"I used to play soccer," he said, smiling and drawing back his foot. "Those two rocks up by the ruin can be the goal posts."

The ground erupted before him. The skull shot upward to a position perhaps a foot higher than his head. It rode upon the shoulders of a ma.s.sive, nude, male body which had grown up like the flower before him. The green light danced all around it.

"Shadow-thing!" Billy said, unslinging his weapon.

"Yes. Your shadow. Shoot if you will. It will not save you."

Billy continued the movement which brought the snub- gun forward, reversing it in his hands, driving its b.u.t.t hard upward against the skull. With a brief crunching noise the skull shattered, and its pieces fell to the ground. The trunk beneath dropped to one knee and the arms shot forward. A ma.s.sive hand caught hold of the weapon and tore it from Billy's grasp. It cast it backward over its shoulder, to fall with a clatter among rocks far up the canyon and to vanish there.

The left hand caught his right wrist and held it with a grip like a steel band. He chopped at the other's biceps with the edge of his left hand. It had no apparent effect, and so he

drew his hunting knife, cross-body, and plunged it into the headless one, in the soft area below the left shoulder joint.

Suddenly his wrist was free and the thing before him was falling backward, knees folding up toward the chest, arms clasping them.

Billy watched as the other rolled away, darkening, losing features, growing compact, making crunching noises in pa.s.s- ing over gravel and sand. It had become a big, round boulder, slowing now....

It came to a halt perhaps fifteen meters distant, and then, slowly, it began to unfold into a new form. It unwound limbs and shaped a head, a tail...

An eye.

Cat stood facing him across the canyon of the lost city.

We. shall continue where we left off before the interrup- tion, he said.

MERCY SPENDER WAS JERKED.

out of a deep, dreamless sleep. She began to scream, but the cry died within her. There was a twisted familiarity to what was happening. She drew herself into a fetal position and pulled the blankets up over her head.

Alex Mancin was spinning figures across his video console when it hit. When his vision wavered and dimmed, he thought that he was having a stroke. And then he realized what was happening and did not resist it, for his curiosity was stronger than his fear.

Elizabeth Brooke twisted from side to side. It was getting better every second. In just a few more moments... Her mind began to twist also, and she shrieked.

Fisher was in communication with Ironbear when the mental storm broke and they were sucked into another state of awareness.

What the h.e.l.l is it? he asked.

We're being pulled back together again, Ironbear replied.

Who's doing it?

Sands. Can't you feel him? Like a broken lodestone, rea.s.sembling itself - Nice image. But I still don't under - Ah!

Plosion ex. Im noisolp.

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HE STANDS, CROUCHING,.

blade in his left hand. He moves the weapon slowly, turning it, raising it, lowering it, hoping for a glint or two to catch the vision behind the eye. The beast takes a step forward. The green light is trapped within the facets of that eye. Whether the blade holds any fascination for it he cannot tell.

The beast takes another step.

A gentle rain is falling. He is uncertain when it com- menced again. It increases slightly in intensity.

Another step...

His right hand moves to his belt buckle and catches hold of it. He turns to extend his left shoulder, continuing the movements of the blade.

Another step...

The beast's tongue darts once, in and out. Something is not right. Size? Pattern of movement? The cold absence of projected feelings when it had communicated?

Another step.

Still a little too far to spring yet, he decides. He turns his body a little more. He releases the belt buckle and slides his hand farther to his left, the movement masked by the flap of his jacket, by the angle at which he now stands. Is it reading his mind at this moment? He begins the Blessingway chant again, mentally, to fill his thoughts. Something inside him seems to take it up. It runs effortlessly within his breast, the accompanying feelings flowing without exertion.

Another...

Soon. Soon the rush. His right hand comes upon the b.u.t.t of the tazer. His fingers wrap about it.

Almost...

Two more steps, he decides.

One...

Now is the time of the cutting of the throat...

Two.

He draws the weapon and fires it. It strikes home and the beast halts, stiffens.

He drops the tazer, s.n.a.t.c.hes the knife into his right hand and lunges forward.

He halts several paces before the creature, for it begins melting and turning to steam. In moments, the form has dissolved and the vapors have collected into a small cloud about three meters above the ground. Lowering the knife, he raises his eyes.

Smokelike, it now drifts, pa.s.sing to the left toward a huge pile of rubble from some ancient landslide. He follows, watching, waiting.

Neat trick, that.

I am not the beast you slew. I am that which you cannot destroy. I am all of your fears and failings. And I am stronger now because you fled me.

I did not flee you. I followed a trail.

What trail? I saw no trail save your own.

It is the reason I am in this place, and I presume I am the reason you are here.

The smoke ceases its movement, to hover above the rock heap.

Of course. I am the part of yourself which will destroy you. You have denied me for too long.

The smoke begins to contour itself into a new form.

I no longer deny you. I have faced the past and am at peace with it.

Too late. I have become autonomous under the conditions you created.

De-autonomize, then. Go back where you came from.

The form grows manlike.

I cannot, for you are at peace with the past. Like Cat, I have only one function now.

Cat is dead.

...And I lack a sense of humor.