The Feline Wizard

CHAPTER 6

Delighted, the red dragon sheered off at the last second, forcing Stegoman to cup his wings and stall for fear of hitting Matt. However, that also brought him low enough to perch on a tooth of rock again, and the red dragon circled, then stooped on him, claws hooked to catch and tear.

Stegoman stared up, fascinated.

“Go!” Matt couldn't believe his friend was so careless in a fight.

“Not yet… not yet… now!” Stegoman dove off the peak, and the red dragon had to cup wings and stall for fear of hitting the pointed rocks. A roar of frustration torched them, and Matt dove for cover. He realized Stegoman's tactic now— stalling Red so that he had time to soar high again, without fear of Red pouncing on him before he was in full flight.

Red circled just below him, rising as Stegoman rose, opposite him as they circled higher and higher, each watching for an opening.

A dragon fight was a rare sight, and one Matt didn't particularly care for; his friend might be hurt, and so might Red, who, aside from being touchy and overly territorial, could very well be as good a dragon as Stegoman. Matt dredged up an almost forgotten verse and started adapting.

Red, with folded wings, plummeted twenty feet, then popped them open right under Stegoman. Flame roared up in a fountain. Stegoman hooted with pain as he sideslipped out of the path. Red panned fire-jet, but Stegoman shot upward and wheeled, and Red couldn't keep the fire focused on him. Then Stegoman dove head first, blasting a thirty-foot tongue of flame before him.

Red howled as fire washed burnt umber scales, then darted aside and hovered nose-to-nose with the great green dragon, crying, “You would, would you? Have at thee, worm!” Fire blasted.

So did Stegoman's, and fire fountained high where the two flames met, then winked out as the dragons realized they were wasting their breath. They circled one another, glaring into each other's eyes, fifty feet apart, slipping and sliding on currents of air.

Matt noticed that it had been exclusively a firefight, no claws tearing skin or teeth rending hide. There were those pounces, but even he had seen them coming a mile away. He wondered if this was more a ritual than a fight.

Either way, he didn't like it. Time for a breathing spell.

Then Matt remembered that taking a breath wasn't necessarily a sign of peace between dragons and hurried on to the next verse.

Red frowned. “What is that prattling your grub makes?” “He is no grub, but a mortal man,” Stegoman retorted, “and if I know him, he speaks of truce.”

“Perhaps he has some reason.” Red eyed Stegoman warily.

“Shall we perch and talk?”

“There is more profit in that than in wasting flame on hides that will not burn,” Stegoman allowed. He half folded his wings, then opened them with a boom as he landed on a split peak off to Mart's right. “My name is Stegoman.”

Red dropped down to land on the other half of the mountain-top. “I hight Dimetrolas.”

“Let there be peace between us, Dimetrolas. There need be naught else, for I shall be in your mountains only one night.”

“Oh, that is ever your way, is it not?” Dimetrolas spat. “To come and go, to pass but a single night, then waft away on the wind and never return?”

Stegoman's eyes flashed as nictating membranes slid over the eyeball, reflecting the setting sun, then withdrew—the dragon equivalent of a blink. “I am a wanderer, aye, and shall be so until I find a reason to stay and ward a mountain.”

“How is it you have never found such a reason? Have you too much love for the feel of the wind under your wings?”

Stegoman's jaw lolled open in a dragon grin. “Well I might, for I have had little enough of it.”

“Little enough?” Dimetrolas eyed him narrowly. “Yet you must be a hundred years old at least, come into your maturity.”

“I am no longer a hatchling,” Stegoman admitted—but since it hadn't been an insult, why was he so tense, crouching like a coiled spring?

“You must have wandered for half your life.” Dimetrolas too crouched taut, and Matt readied another spell in case the two leaped at one another again.

“I have spent many years among the human kind,” Stegoman said by way of explanation. “Their follies amuse me.”

“Amuse! Are you not yet old enough to put amusements behind you? Have you a hatchling's mind in a dragon's body, that the work of life holds no appeal for you? Are you not grown, that you have no wish to make a home?”

“Perhaps not,” Stegoman said quietly. “I am what I am, and pleased with it.”

But Matt caught an undertone of sadness to his friend's speech, an echo of bitterness, and knew the dragon well enough to doubt the truth of his words.

Dimetrolas, though, seemed to sense no such undercurrent.

“Aye, I doubt not you are pleased with yourself, scion of the wild wind! Well, go your way! Be blown where you will, but when your fifth century comes upon you, be mindful of what you have missed.” With that, the red dragon dove off the peak.

Matt almost called out in alarm, then caught himself, remembering that dragons were safer in the air than jets. Sure enough, Dimetrolas rose into sight again half a minute later, wings wide-spread, spiraling up to become only a slender curve gilded by sunset, coasting away to the south.

Stegoman watched with a fixed gaze, and the tension in his body seemed to increase, if anything.

Matt decided it was time for a distraction. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “Handled like a true diplomat!”

The dragon's head turned slowly, and his eyes appeared to burn. Matt almost backed up a step in fright, but summoned nerve and held himself steady. Then Stegoman relaxed a little, and the burning dimmed to a glow. “A diplomat? An intransigent transient, rather!”

“Okay, so you're a stubborn hobo! How about coming over here so I don't have to yell?”

Stegoman gazed at him a moment, then dove from the peak, his wings booming open. He circled twice and landed beside Matt, who said, “Thanks for sticking up for me.”

“Friends are priceless,” Stegoman replied. “I have few enough, after all.”

“And need all the friends you can get? Too bad Dimetrolas doesn't think that way.”

“That may not be the case.” Stegoman gazed south where the other dragon was a glowing dot in the sky.

Matt frowned at the cryptic comment, but asked, “What was that business about travel being 'ever your way'? Odd thing to say to someone you don't know.”

“It would be,” said Stegoman, “if that ‘your’ meant me myself.”

Matt frowned. “What other ‘your’ could it be?”

“Males,” Stegoman said, with a volume of meaning packed into the single word. His gaze was still fixed on the south, his body still tense with leashed energy.

Matt stared as a lot of things became clear, including the tenor of Dimetrolas' remarks, why she had pushed the issue to a fight, why that fight had seemed more a ritual than a battle, and most especially Stegoman's tension—he was highly stimulated, virtually bursting with adrenaline and hormones. “Oh,” Matt said. “Dimetrolas is female.”

“A fact of which I was instantly aware,” Stegoman said dryly.

“And, I take it, a rather pretty one?”

“Absolutely beautiful,” Stegoman hissed, eyes burning again.

In spite of himself, Matt backed away a step or two. “Well, then, why didn't you do something about it?” His eyes widened as he remembered the thrust of Dimetrolas' comments. “No. She was basically saying that you should forget it and suffer if you weren't willing to stay for life, wasn't she?”

“Indeed,” Stegoman rejoined, “and in all good conscience, I could not pretend that I might.”

Matt studied his friend closely. “You could come back, though. When we've found Balkis and retrieved her, you could come back and stay awhile.”

Stegoman shook out his wings in irritation. “Could I? What have I to offer a female? I, who have no home and no friends of my own kind, who have been outcast by my own clan and was so long in exile that I cannot stay long in the mountains where I was born for the feeling of strangeness there! What tribe, what house, what people could I give? I have nothing to offer but wandering and loneliness, and estrangement from my own kind!”

Matt gazed at his friend, feeling his heart twist with remembered pain of his own. At last he said, “You could offer a strong male dragon in his prime whose loyalty is proven to border on the fanatical.”

“Aye,” Stegoman said with a sardonic grimace, “one—and that is not enough for a female. Perhaps there are some such among your kind, Matthew, but female dragons wish to lay eggs and see them hatch, to nurture them and teach them and watch them grow and know them as friends in maturity. That takes other females for company, males to ward them while they lay and brood, a whole clan to ward the hatchlings and shield them from loneliness. No, Matthew, I have nothing to offer, and must not therefore speak with more than civility!” With that, he leaped into the air and dove over the sawtoothed rim of the little plateau. Matt heard the boom of his wings opening, then watched him rise and arrow off toward the north, seeking supper and solace for the wound in his soul that Dimetrolas had unwittingly reopened. He gazed after Stegoman until he saw the dragon, small in the distance, half fold his wings and plunge from the sky. Then Matt turned away to his own campfire to rack his brains for a way to help his friend.

Balkis woke at the sound of cows mooing below her and of a voice answering. She shrank farther into the hay, heart pounding with alarm. Her fur bristled and her claws sprang out. Then the fear lessened, for the voice was a resonant, friendly baritone, addressing the cows fondly. “There now, there's hay for you, Bossy, and for you, Dapple. Come now, Blossom, you'll not have apples again till fall, so you had better eat your fodder!”

Balkis found herself wondering if people called cows by the same names the world over, changing only the language.

A cow lowed with a note of urgency.

“Yes, I know, Sunshine, I know,” the voice crooned. “Your udder's so full it hurts, I know, and I shall milk you first, but you must have feed to munch while I do. There now, all, eat and be still while I milk.”

The cows quieted. So did Balkis; her fear shrank to wariness, and her claws hid themselves in her fur again. She heard the clatter of a stool and bucket being set while the voice said soothingly, “There now, I'll be gentle with the washing, so swollen is your udder! But you'll feel better quickly, be sure ofit.”

Then there came the hiss of milk shooting into the bucket. The warm, appetizing aroma drifted upward into Balkis' nostrils, making her mouth water even though she wasn't particularly hungry. She remembered the brownies' caution, though, and stayed hidden. However, cats and curiosity have a long relationship, so she did burrow down, hunt out a knothole, and peek.

She caught her breath.

Golden hair, regular features, large blue eyes, broad mouth and broader shoulders—it was a young man in his early twenties, easily the most handsome Balkis had ever seen, and a strange warmth began to spread within her. A cow lowed impatiently, and the young man turned to say, “Yes, I know, I know—as soon as you see Sunshine being milked, you become aware of your own need. Patience, sweet cow—I shall tend to you soon.”

Balkis found herself wishing that he would tend to her instead, and beneath her fur felt her face grow warm. He was so gentle, so cheerful! How could this be the rough, coarse boy against whom the wee folk had warned her?

“He is the best of them.”

Balkis looked up, startled to hear a voice resonating so closely with her thoughts. It was Lichi who knelt by her.

“He is the youngest,” the brownie explained. “The others are quick to put him in his place at every opportunity, and none too gently, either. Nonetheless, he manages to stay cheerful in spite of all temptation to anger and bitterness. They call him…”

The sound of the name was quite foreign, but Balkis recognized it as a version of “Anthony.” She crouched by the knothole, staring down in fascination as the young man went from one cow to another.

“Mark well the spots where the milk spills,” Lichi advised, “though I fear most of it will have soaked into the earth before you come.”

The milk was the farthest thing from Balkis' thoughts at the moment, though she had to admit that it smelled heavenly.

Anthony was just finishing the last cow when the barn door crashed open and a voice called, “What, sluggard! Are you not done yet? Cease babying those cattle and turn them out to pasture!”

“Yank their teats harder and faster and be done with itV another harsh voice snapped. “Come on, little fool, turn them out!”

Two young men stepped into sight, muscular under their heavy tunics, heavy-jawed and dark-browed. One had red hair, the other brown.

“Gently, brothers, gently.” Anthony's voice took on an ingratiating tone with the ease of long practice. “I am almost done with her, take the other three, if you wish.”

Balkis glared at the intruders with indignation. Why should Anthony toady to these swaggerers? Surely not merely because he was the youngest!

“If we wish!” A fourth brother shouldered his way between the other two, just as big, even heavier, dark-haired. “Be sure that we wish it! Be done with that cow now”

“You cannot hurry the milk, Baradur ” Anthony's voice stilt had the conciliatory note, but not the slightest trace of fear.

Baradur's face darkened with anger. “I can hurry it! One side, brat!” He shoved Anthony off the milking stool far harder than he needed and sat down to finish the milking himself. The cow let out a bellow of surprise and pain, but the milk hissed faster. Anthony picked himself up with a look of resignation, and the next brother gave him a shove as he passed. “Work, lazybones! Loose these other three and take them out!” He didn't wait for Anthony to comply with his order but started untying Blossom himself.

“As you say, Kemal,” Anthony sighed. He turned to untie Sunshine, but the third brother elbowed him out of the way. “Can you not loosen a rope, fumblefingers? Go muck out the stalls, as befits you!”

Indignation turned to anger, and Balkis found herself thinking, Stand up for yourself! Tell him to mind his tongue!

For a moment she thought she must have spoken aloud, for Anthony flushed as he turned away to take up a shovel— only he took up two and tossed the second to the redhead. “Shovel yourself, Philip, and let us see who clears his floor more quickly!”

Philip turned back in time to knock the shovel out of the way with a smile, eyes glinting. “Do you dare tell me what to do, mucksweeper? I shall remind you of your place!”

His fists came up, and the other brothers turned from their work, grinning and stepping in.

Balkis' stomach sank as she realized the nature of the game, and a very nasty one it was—for the older brothers to goad Anthony into talking back, no matter how slightly, whereupon they felt they had the right to slap him down—and slap they did.

Philip struck first, his fist driving at Anthony's belly. Anthony blocked the blow but didn't return it. Even so, Kemal cried, “Oho! The child thinks to strike at his elders!” and stepped in with a roundhouse swing.

Anthony ducked under it, but Baradur caught his shoulder and spun him around, shoving him hard. Anthony staggered back; Philip caught him and held him while Baradur slammed a blow at his chin. Anthony jerked his head aside and the blow landed on Philip's shoulder. The redhead shouted in anger and shoved Anthony far enough away to swing at him with a short, vicious jab. It caught the youngest under the ribs as he was turning; he bent over, gasping. Kemal laughed and swung a blow at his head, but Anthony managed to straighten up, and the punch caught him in the chest. He stumbled back, and Baradur caught him, turned him around, and swung a blow at his chin. Somehow it landed on his shoulder, though. Anthony staggered back, tripped, and fell to the floor.

The barn resounded with the older brothers' laughter. They untied the cows and drove them out, calling, “Clean yourself off, Anthony!”

“You can join us when you've finished mucking out, Anthony.”

“Aye, but stand downwind when you come!”

Balkis' anger mounted as she realized the rules of the very unfair game—that Anthony was not allowed to fight back, but it was all right for him to avoid the blows if he could. Balkis felt certain he had faked some of those staggerings so his brothers would feel satisfied enough to leave him alone. As Lichi had said, they were rough and coarse, and Balkis suspected their father was very much like his sons—more, in fact, for they had probably learned their bullying ways by imitating him. At the very least, he had condoned it. All in all, a thoroughly unpleasant family.

With one exception.

Balkis stayed hidden for a week, gradually regaining her strength through spilled milk and the brownies' petting. By day the barn was all hers to hunt mice and, as she grew stronger, rats. At night the cows, sheep, goats, and pigs kept the barn warm. At sunrise and sunset, though, the brothers and their father drove the livestock in to feed and milk.

The father was the prototype of his sons, though not quite so tall—a redheaded, red-bearded block of muscle. He had grown heavier with age, putting on some fat, especially in the belly. His hair and beard were streaked with gray, and he bellowed his orders in a gravelly voice. If the older brothers joined in criticizing Anthony or bossing him about, their father was sure to support them; as far as he was concerned, there was a chain of command based on age, with himself at the top and Anthony at the bottom.

So when they had finished driving the cows home for the night, it was always Anthony who did the mucking out, apparently doomed to it for life by virtue of being born last. He did the milking, too—in spite of their endless directions about how to do it right, none of the brothers seemed to want such women's work. They preferred to spend their time bullying the animals and repairing the farmstead and fences. Anthony had his share of the chill outdoor work, too, of course.

At night, though, the cold clamped down around the farm. The animals stayed inside, and so, Balkis assumed, did the men. Assuming wasn't enough for her, of course—she was very curious, wanting to see how they fared inside the farmhouse.

That, though, would have to wait for greater energy, and a thaw. Still, by the end of the week she had recovered enough to risk making Anthony's acquaintance—and a risk it was. She was aware that the young man might be passive only because he had no chance of beating his brothers, but that with someone weaker, he might turn out to be as great a bully as any of them. So she waited until she had recovered enough to be sure she could outrun and outclimb him. Then, one evening when the brothers were done driving the livestock in for the night and feeding them, and had left Anthony to his milking with jeers and threats, she plucked up her courage.

As soon as the door closed behind them, a smile of contentment brightened Anthony's face. He began to sing a soft and lilting tune as he milked, and Balkis understood why he was willing to accept the chore—it gave him a few precious minutes alone, away from his brothers' badgering and tormenting.

Balkis almost hated to interrupt such serenity. Nonetheless, she took her chance, climbing down the back wall and threading her way between hooves and heaps of straw. Then, stepping out around a timber, she mewed plaintively.

Anthony looked up in surprise, and his face lit up. “A cat!”

Balkis braced herself for the grasping hand, the tormenting yank on the tail, tensed to rake with claws, to bite and twist and run.