Unexpected Magic (22 page)

“Don't let him go into a trance again,” I said. “Old Man will know.”

“But I
have
to!” Boy shouted. “I'm
sick
of this house!” Then he calmed down and thought. “I know,” he said to Good Thing. “Fetch the Princess here.”

Good Thing got into me and bleated that this wasn't wise now that Old Man was back. I said so, too. But Boy wouldn't listen. He had to have Princess. Or else he would go into a trance and see her that way. I understood then. Boy wanted kittens. Very little will stop boys or cats when they do.

So we gave in. When Old Man was asleep and snoring, Boy dressed himself in the middle of the night in the Man's finest clothes and looked fine as fine. He even washed in horrible cold water, in spite of all I said. Then Good Thing went to the mansion.

Instants later the Princess was lying asleep on the floor of the book room. “Oh,” Boy said sorrowfully, “what a shame to wake her!” But he woke her up all the same.

She rubbed her eyes and stared at him. “Who are you, sir?”

Boy said, “Oh, Princess—”

She said, “I think you've made a mistake, sir. I'm not a princess. Are you a prince?”

Boy explained who he was and all about himself, and she explained that her father was a rich magician. She was a disappointment to him, she said, because she could hardly do any magic and was not very clever. But Boy still called her Princess. She said she would call him Orange because of his hair. She may not have been clever, but she was nice. I sat on her knee and purred. She stroked me and talked to Boy for the whole night, until it began to get light. They did nothing but talk. I said to Good Thing that it was a funny way to have kittens. Good Thing was not happy. Princess did not understand about Good Thing. Boy gave up trying to explain. Good Thing drifted about, sulking.

When it was really light, Princess said she must go back. Boy agreed, but they put it off and kept talking. That was when I had my good idea. I went to the cupboard and fetched out my kittens, one by one, and I put them into Princess's lap.

“Oh!” she said. “What beauties!”

“Tell her she's to keep them and look after them,” I said to Boy.

He told her, and she said, “Brindle can't
mean
it! It seems such a sacrifice. Tell her it's sweet of her, but I
can't.
”

“Make her take them,” I said. “Tell her they're a present from you, if it makes her happier. Tell her they're a sign that she'll see you again. Tell her
anything
, but make her take them!”

So Boy told her, and Princess agreed. She gathered the tabby and the ginger and the mixed kitten into her hands, and Good Thing took her and the kittens away. We stood staring at the place where she had been, Boy and I. Things felt empty, but I was pleased. My kittens were safe from Old Man, and Princess had kittens now, which ought to have pleased Boy, even if they were mine and not his. I did not understand why he looked so sad.

Old Man was standing in the doorway behind us. We had not heard him getting up. He glared at the fine way Boy was dressed. “How did you come by those clothes?”

“I did a spell,” Boy said airily. Well, it was true in a way. Boy's mood changed when he realized how clever we had been. He said, “And Brindle got rid of the mice,” and laughed.

Old Man was always annoyed when Boy laughed. “Funny, is it?” he snarled. “For that, you can go down to the cellar, you and your finery, and stay there till I tell you to come out.” And he put one of his spells on Boy, so that Boy had to go. Old Man locked the cellar door on him. Then he turned back, rubbing his hands and laughing, too. “Last laugh's mine!” he said. “I
thought
he knew more than he let on, but there's no harm done. I've still got him!” He went and looked in almanacs and horoscopes and chuckled more. Boy was eighteen that day. Old Man began looking up spells, lots of them, from the bad black books that even he rarely touched.

“Brindle,” said Good Thing, “I am afraid. Do one thing for me.”

“Leave a cat in peace!” I said. “I need to sleep.”

Good Thing said, “Boy will soon be dead and I will be shut out forever unless you help.”

“But my kittens are safe,” I said, and I curled up in the cupboard.

“They will not be safe,” said Good Thing, “unless you do this for me.”

“Do what for you?” I said. I was scared again, but I stretched as if I didn't care. I do
not
like to be bullied. You should remember that.

“Go to the cellar in my invisible sack and tell Boy where the golden ball is,” Good Thing said. “Tell him to fetch it out of the floor and give it to you.”

I stretched again and strolled past Old Man. His face was scratched all over, I was glad to see, but he was collecting things to work spells with now. I strolled quite fast to the cellar door. There Good Thing scooped me up and went inside, in near dark. Boy was sitting against the wall.

“Nice of you to come,” he said. “Will Good Thing fetch Princess again tonight?” He did not think there was any danger. He was used to Old Man behaving like this. But I thought of my kittens. I showed him the place where the golden ball had got lost down the crack. I could see it shining down there. It took me ages to persuade Boy to dig it out, and even then he only worked at it idly, thinking of Princess. He could only get at it with one little finger, which made it almost too difficult for him to bother.

I heard Old Man coming downstairs. I am ashamed to say that I bit Boy, quite hard, on the thumb of the hand he was digging with. He went “
Ow
!” and jerked, and the ball flew rolling into a corner. I raced after it.

“Put it in your mouth. Hide it!” said Good Thing.

I did. It was hard not to swallow it. Then, when I didn't swallow, it was hard not to spit it out. Cats are made to do one or the other. I had to pretend it was a piece of meat I was taking to my kittens. I sat in the corner, in the dark, while Old Man came in and locked the door and lit the tripod lamp.

“If you need Brindle,” Boy said, sulkily sucking his hand, “
you
can look for her. She bit me.”

“This doesn't need a cat,” Old Man said. Boy and I were both astonished. “It just needs
you,
” he told Boy. “This is the life transfer spell I was trying on the black cat. This time I know how to get it right.”

“But you said you couldn't do it without a special powder!” Boy said.

Old Man giggled. “What do you think I've been away looking for all this year?” he asked. “I've got a whole jar of it! With it, I shall put myself into your body and you into my body, and then I shall kill this old body off. I won't need it or you after that. I shall be young and handsome, and I shall live for years. Stand up. Get into the pentangle.”

“Blowed if I shall!” said Boy.

But Old Man did spells and made him. It took a long time because Boy resisted even harder than I usually did and shouted spells back. In the end Old Man cast a spell that made Boy stand still and drew the five-pointed star around him, not in the usual place.

“I shall kill my old body with you inside it rather slowly for that,” he said to Boy. Then he drew another star, a short way off. “This is for my bride,” he said, giggling again. “I took her into my power ten years ago, and by now she'll be a lovely young woman.” Then he drew a third star, overlapping Boy's, for himself, and stood in it chuckling. “Let it start!” he cried out, and threw the strong, smelly black powder on the tripod. Everything went green-dark. When the green went, Princess was standing in the empty star.

“Oh, it's
you
!” she and Boy both said.

“Aha!” said Old Man. “Hee-hee! So you and she
know
each other, do you? How you did it, boy, I won't inquire, but it makes things much easier for me.” He began on his chanting.

“Give the golden ball to Princess,” Good Thing said to me. “Hurry. Make Boy tell her to swallow it.”

I ran across to Princess and spit the golden ball into her star. She pulled her skirt back from it.

“Brindle wants you to swallow it,” Boy said. “I think it's important.”

People are peculiar. Princess must have known it was very important, but she said faintly, “I can't! Not something that's been in a cat's
mouth
!”

Old Man saw the golden ball. He glared, still chanting, and raised his stick. The ball floated up and came toward him. Princess gave a last despairing snatch and caught it, just in time. She put it in her mouth.

“Ah! Back again!” said Good Thing.

Princess swallowed. She changed. She had been nice before but sort of stupid. Now she was nice and as clever as Boy. “You toad!” she said to Old Man. “That was part of my soul! You took it, didn't you?”

Old Man raised his stick again. Princess held up both hands. Magic raged, strong enough to make my fur stand up, and Old Man did not seem to be able to do much at first. It was interesting. Princess had magic, too, only I think it had all gone into Good Thing. But not quite enough. She started to lose. “Help me!” she said to Boy.

Boy started to say a spell, but at that moment the door of the cellar burst open, and half the wall fell in with it. The Man rushed in with a crowd of others.

“Father!” said Princess. “Thank goodness!”

“Are you all right?” said the Man. “We traced you through those kittens. What are you trying to do here, Old Man? The life transfer, is it? Well, that's enough of
that
!” The Man made signs that stood my coat up on end again.

Old Man screamed. I could tell he was dying. The spell had somehow turned back on him. He was withering and shrinking and getting older and older. Boy jumped out of his star and ran to Princess. They both looked very happy. Old Man snarled at them, but he could do nothing but round on me. Everyone does that. They all kick the cat when they can't kick a person. “So you had
kittens
!” he screamed. “This is all your fault, cat! For that, you shall have kittens to drown for the next thousand years!”

“I soften that curse!” the Man shouted.

Then everything went away, and I was not in the town I knew anymore. I have been wandering about, all these years, ever since. Old Man's curse means that I am good at having kittens. It is not a bad curse because the Man has softened it. Old Man meant my kittens to be drowned every time. But instead, if I can find an understanding person—like you—who will listen to my story, then my kittens will have good homes, and so will I for a time. You won't mind. They'll be beautiful kittens. They always are. You'll see very soon now. After supper.

T
he heroes were gathering for the Quest in the inn yard. It was chaos. Since this was my first Quest as recording Cleric, I was racing around among them trying to get each hero's name and run down my checklist with them. They tell me more experienced Clerics don't even try. Half of them were barbarians who didn't speak any language I knew, large greasy fellows in the minimum of leather armor, with a lot of hairy flesh showing. Most of them were busy waxing and honing at a variety of weapons: gigantic swords, whose name they insisted on telling me instead of their own, monstrous cudgels, ten-foot spears and the like. Every one of them was also shouting for provisions and equipment and running about for last-minute extras. There was a constant tooth-splitting din from the grindstone, where a squat person with a long gray beard was carefully putting a surgical edge on an axe blade as wide as his own shoulders.

“Rono?” I screamed over the din at a tower of muscle in a leather loincloth. “Is that your name or your sword's name?”

He was in a bad mood. He had been waiting half an hour for his turn at the grindstone. He glowered and fingered what looked like a shrunken human head dangling from his loincloth. “No. Name secret!” he snarled.

I wrote ?Rono? on my tablets and went on to my checklist. “And are you aware of the nature of the Quest? We travel in search of the Green Stone of Katta Rhyne—”

“Yah, yah. We go now,” he snarled.

“Not quite now,” I bawled. “We wait until the King comes to give us his personal blessing.” In view of the screaming chaos in that yard, I was rather glad the King hadn't arrived yet. “And you are properly aware of the difficulties and dangers? The Green Stone is in the hands of a powerful wizard and can transform fatally anyone who touches it—”