‘It doesn’t seem to betrapped. Something weird must have happened to it in here. Maybeit’ll revert to its normal state outside the cave.’
When he had reeled itclose enough he reached down and picked it up. Immediately, hissight went black and he lost all feeling in his body. His firstthought was that the claw was a soul container and his spirit hadbeen sucked into it. He was still mindlinked to Alpha and Miranda,so he asked Alpha to send him an image of what it could see. He hadvision again. Alpha was sitting on the head of a giant black junglecat. It used a paw and knocked Alpha onto the ground and looked atit closely. Alpha’s brightness faded to a normal yellow lanternintensity.
Aquitain got a closelook at its face. It was huge, its shoulders were as tall as theheight of a newman, and its eyes glowed with green flames. Itdecided that Alpha was some type of light crystal, so left it lyingon the ground and padded off silently to the entrance to thecave.
‘Miranda there’s a hugecat in here. Turn into an eagle and fly away from hereimmediately.’
‘I won’t leave you,’she said. ‘I’ll fight it.’
‘No. Miranda. It’spossessed me. My body is now its body. I’m inside it. Fly away. Ithink that it knows you’re out there. It’s crouching by the caveentrance listening. It’s going out.’ Aquitain quenched the light onAlpha and directed it to discreetly follow the great cat.
Miranda stood nearlyinvisible about fifteen paces away from the entrance of the caveand saw the great beast emerge wearing an amulet shaped like alarge cat’s claw around its neck. The whole area for a hundredpaces around the entrance to the cave had filled with a cool,unnatural fog. She saw the green flame in its eyes as it looked ather. She cancelled the camouflage magic, changed to her newman formand went down on her knees.
‘Hail, mighty Jacintra,Mother of all Cats.’
‘What are you doinghere, servant of the Lady?’ asked Jacintra using mindspeak.
‘My friend and I werehere to burn the bodies of your followers and conduct the ritual ofthe dead so that they might find their way to their ancestors, CatMother.’
‘Why would you do this?You owe me no allegiance,’ Jacintra replied.
‘I do it out of duty inthe name of the Lady, for they have spread and nurtured her seedsacross the land. I do it out of respect, for they are alwaysrespectful to others. I do it out of love, for they have alwaysbeen kind and gracious to me. I would honour them in the name ofthe Lady, because there is none left here to help their passing.They did not deserve the foul deed done here, and it will be mypleasure to direct my colleagues to search for and deal out justiceto whomever committed this monstrous crime.’
‘What of your friend?He is not a servant of the Lady!’
‘His heart is pure. Hegave his effort freely on my request and asked no fee orfavour.’
‘How is it that aPreserver walks with an Agent of Chaos and calls him a friend?’
‘He is no Agent ofChaos. Cat Mother. He is but a weak and lowly wizard.’
‘Do you doubt my wordchild?’
‘No, Cat Mother! If heis as you say then he has disguised it well, as I have seen noevidence of chaos in his nature. I would plead for his life, as hehas done nought but to help in honouring your people.’
‘What is your friend’sname?’
‘He is called Aquitain,Cat Mother.’
‘Hmm ... that is a nameof power. There is some scheme at work here. I will consider yourrequest for his life after we have paid tribute to my people.’
‘I need to move anotherdozen bodies to the pile Cat Mother, before we burn it, but Icannot breathe the toxic air.’
Jacintra strolled intothe cave, and every dead body not on the pile flew through the aironto it, causing a great cloud of flies to explode out of thecave’s entrance. There was a spark-like crackle in the air and allthe flies fell dead.
‘Call your fire,’ saidJacintra. So Miranda gathered wood and started a small fire, thenbegan singing a strange but magically powerful song. Moments latertwo small red lizards covered in flame crawled out of the fire,grew to the size of a horse and stood several paces from her,waiting for her to speak.
She spoke in a languagethat Aquitain had never heard nor understood.
‘Welcome, firebrothers! In the name of the Lady I have a job for you. Burn thepile of bodies in the shrine so that we may collect their warmashes and send our friends on their final journey.’
The fire salamanderssaid nothing, but strode into the shrine while both Jacintra andMiranda retreated back twenty paces from the shrine entrance. Athick black stream of stinking acrid smoke swirled out of the mouthof the cave for some minutes, passing high up into the sky beforeit began to diminish and finally stopped. The two salamanders leftthe cave, paused, looked at her for several seconds, thenvanished.
**
Half a league away, inan underground cavern, a sergeant wearing civilian clothes reportedto his superior.
‘Your Holiness, ourscout on the surface has reported smoke from a fire near the catshrine in the gully to the south.’
‘Really! That soundslike someone may be there to investigate the disappearance of thoselarge rats.’
‘Wizard Fental, changeto an eagle and fly down and have a look, please. Don’t do anythingyourself, just look and report back here on what you see.’
‘Yes, YourHoliness.’
**
Miranda followedJacintra into the shrine, followed silently by Alpha. The room andthe air in it were warm, and the horrible smell of death muchdiminished. Jacintra looked at the still glowing heap of ashes anda small cloud of cold fog appeared, cooling them rapidly.
‘Mix the ashes,’ saidJacintra.
Miranda looked aroundthe room for something to scrape the ashes together with, and endedup using the square top off the box that Aquitain had stood on theprevious day. She swept all the ashes into a heap and stirred themaround with her hands until they were thoroughly mixed, then lookedback to the great cat that sat watching her.
‘Place the urn
