From alt.pub.dragons-inn Thu Feb 9 10:23:17 1995 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:8119 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!lamarck.sura.net!ra.nrl.navy.mil!news.pop.psu.edu!news.cac.psu.edu!news.tc.cornell.edu!caen!crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com!nntpd.lkg.dec.com!leggy.zk3.dec.com!orb!not-for-mail From: hutch@ibeam.jf.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [KAN] No Less Liquid Date: 7 Feb 1995 22:52:48 -0000 Organization: Duchy of Wabesylvan Obspauk Lines: 527 Sender: news@Orb.Nashua.NH.US Message-ID: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This story is copyrighted 1995 by Steve Hutchison. Permission is granted to distribute and archive by the usual Usenet/Altnet methods. All other rights, including repost, are reserved to the author. Cats, no less liquid than their shadows, Offer no angles to the wind. They slip, diminished, neat, through loopholes Less than themselves. A.J.Tessimond, "Cats", 1934 The island didn't look any different from the other islands. It had the same sparkling pink-gold sands, the same grove of palm trees, the same (well, similar) clump of bamboo and palm leaf thatched huts on stands inside the treeline. The waves were churned white arcs around the shores, but beyond the breakwater they were only swells in the deep bluegreen of the ocean. A box-kite rose up over the island's west shore, colorful at the end of its tether. It was followed by another on the same line, a larger one that would have been unable to achieve the sky without the pull it borrowed from its predecessor. A third, and then a fourth, rose into the azurite sky. The fourth one carried a passenger, a young Cat still in his first year of life. In one forepaw he held a winch-and- pulley, playing out line to allow him to rise farther into the sky. The other forepaw held an amber-lensed telescope, one of the leather and brass bound variety that any well equipped pirate chieftain would gladly use to scan the horizon for prey. It was a little complicated holding the piece to one eye and operating the winch mechanism, since he could pay out line easily but the spring-winding only took up so much before he had to help it out by winding the crank on the side, and that took both hands. He could hold the scope in his tail, but he needed that to balance him as the winds jostled the kite. Eventually he worked the kite up high enough to see the whole island below him. He looked down through the telescope at the kite- anchor on the ground far below. He looked down at the water, without the telescope, and wondered if he would be able to dive from this height, without getting hurt. Grandfather was drowsing in meditation on the beach down by the anchor, the bones from his last meal melting into the sand. Nobody else shared the island with them, at least, nobody but the two Gatherers, 'sil-storymaker, and The Palm. But they couldn't move around so they don't really count. There was a particularly blowy gust, and the kite swung around wildly. He laughed and held onto the frame, and in the sideways slew, he spotted something strange in the water. It took him a few minutes of winding on the winch, tugging and twisting and finally whispering promises to the wind so it would blow the right direction, but eventually he was able to make out what the thing in the water was. A long unnaturally-straight line of white, in or maybe just over the water, heading towards the far end of the island, like a contrail over the bluegreen ocean. He began to pull back down to the ground. On the far end of the island, the contrail ended, or more precisely began, at the keel of a long surfboard. The sail that had been attached was folding itself into a more compact space while the board's rider looked towards shore. A jingling ripple in the air presaged the start of the mid-day elemental fluctuation, and the rider stopped. He was tall and powerful of frame, but nothing else about him was visible outside the black bodysuit which he wore, with its full-face helmet and gloves and toed boots and its sheath that ran the length of his tail. He paused, riding up and down with the swelling wave, and waited for the changeling flare. The colors of the sun changed, drifting through the eight hues, and the world changed. The familiar balances of fire and water and air and earth were set aside, and for a warring moment there was nothing but chaos, then the world coalesced into a place of wind and cloud, air and cold silence. The board floated on the turbulent clouds for a moment, and its rider stretched his arms out to gather in a gust and release it. The silence began to sing and the moment of poise vanished again into chaos. Solidity returned with vengeful harshness and the world froze into dust and sand, crystalline pure translucence and stolid intractable impermeable opacity. The sand spread all around in dunes and the crystal filled the space above it, yielding and flowing around the movement of the rider. With a shriek the sky shattered, chaos bleeding through the world again, then it was gone and the world was a fluid place, the warm sour tang of acid and the flow of the liquid waves and the slick slide of lubricating oil and the dense stability of the cold sluggish waters below. And then the flash of chaos lit the world again and all that remained after it was the flare of heat and the flow of plasma and the surge of light and the flickering of the hot conglomerated mass that gave off that-which-burns. The chaos seemed satisfied not to return for a moment, and the rider shifted, his board a complex and eyehurting mass of confusion and flame. He waited for the flow of plasma to resume the regular wave crashing on the mass and slid down the cresting flow, stepping forward and back to position himself on the edge of the flaming tunnel formed around the column of light carved by the collapse of the wave on itself. The edge of the tunnel moved towards the massed conglomeration, and eventually the wave washed itself up, the rider gliding in on the toiling edge of turbulence. He picked up the board and touched a stud set on the side of his helmet. The front part rolled backwards, a shield of some unlikely mix of conglomerant and light, and the rider took in the blaze of light gratefully. It glinted oddly off the rider's face and eyes, as if unsure whether to be reflected or changed. The light began to dim, and the hot mass began to cool, the heat retreated into the shapes of things around, and after seven heartbeats the world had returned to something more like that common mundane place, with waves of water on shores of sand, the sounds of its crashing audible through air that was not made out of light. <> the rider said, touching the shore affectionately. The shore answered the greeting with the story of a youth whose father gifted him with the flight of small creatures which was taken carelessly from their bodies, because it was beautiful but fragile, and the gift was admired and kept in a box on the wall because it was useless to the youth, who could never use the flight of small creatures to fly himself. <> the rider replied. <> The shore glinted in acknowledgement. The board-rider pulled the helmet off, and a long mane of gold shook out, falling to midway between his shoulders. A drift of sand fell away from a small purple shell and the rider picked it up. It posed a question, one he knew he would have to answer. <> The sands glowed and blew up around him, colorless, and came away colored gold and red and black. The shore passed the sand along its length, while the rider patiently stowed his helmet inside a locker on the board that was too shallow to hold it but did anyway. The sand drifted away from a small glass sphere, and the rider saw a rune glowing inside. <> He waited but there was no answer. He picked up the board and found the familiar path, where it had been nearly three centuries ago when he had lived on this island, just himself and his grandfather and The Palm Tree and sil-Storyteller. The plants had overgrown it a little, but the Mice and Rabbits still kept them back. He picked up a young Mouse, where it lay stuffed beside the path, and stroked it gently. It blinked at him without fear, and he ate it in one bite. It chirred in pleasure inside him before he absorbed it. <> whispered the Palm Tree beside the path. <> He stretched his arms overhead, gripping the trunk tightly, and stretched against it. The tree whispered its answer, a sound that could be mistaken for the wind in its large flat leaves overhead. <> The tree rustled concern. <> The rider picked up the board again and ran down the path towards a smallish grass-thatched hut. Dust was thick inside, but only in the entry room. He conjured a sprite of wind and tasked it with blowing the dust out to the plants who could eat it. The closed-off rooms were still relatively clean. He found the old varnished box his father had made for him next to a metal clad storage trunk. The trunk opened easily, the box had no hinge or lid, and he touched it and sought a memory long set aside. The lock answered the same simple Opening Puzzle that had delighted him when it was given to him many years past. It still made him blink from involuntary affection. Inside the box, he found what he had come for. He stripped off the somewhat stiff elastic material of the Voidsuit, and put it into its place in the board's carryall, next to the helmet. He looked down at his body and growled in frustration. The hand-length gold-metal fur that covered his body had not taken well to being kept inside the elastic weaving of the Suit. He thought about the traditional grooming and his tongue almost cramped in anticipation. <> he muttered. He dug in the bottom of the box and found an old stiff-bristled brush, and tested the set of the bristles. They were loose, so he whispered renewal into them and while they tightened into the handle, he looked through the clothing in the bag. Three old gi-style coats which would not have fit him when he left, and he was much larger now than he had been. One rather uncomfortable swim-thong that would satisfy the loosest rules of decency but which he had always hated. And a pair of great-great- and-so-forth-great-grandfather's old trousers. He had been the one to start the more civilized downsize, the family had gone from its basis in lion and tiger, the great hunting cats, to leopard and cheetah, to lynx and finally to the pocket sandcats of the desert and oceanside. The board-rider paused. He held the trousers against himself and noted, first, how horribly out of style they were, almost painfully tacky, and second, that they would fit him, if a bit snugly. They'd have to do, there wasn't time to change the other stuff. He extended one razor-sharp silver-metal claw and ran it along the trousers, cutting the material off short, while he purred the old weaver-chant that told the cloth to seal itself up into a hem and to accept the styling he was putting into it. After a moment, he had a serviceable pair of short cutoffs. He took the brush and began with the end of his tail, combing the fur so that it lay in the same direction. In the distance he heard a familiar young voice, arguing with the Palm Tree. <> He pulled the cutoffs on, and began combing the fur out from under. <> he muttered, pulling his tail through the opening in back. The fur all bent the wrong way and fluffed out as if he was upset, which made him more upset. He put it back the right way with the brush, and heard a quiet footstep on the nightingale floor in the main room. The distant argument with the Palm Tree stopped suddenly. <> the voice said from the doorway. He looked up. A young cat with sungold fur and a silver stripe running from his nose across his left eye to the back of his neck, watched him curiously. <> The rider blinked slowly. <> <> the younger cat said, suspiciously. <> He narrowed his eyes and a pure tonal sound came from between his open jaws, coalescing into a haze of blue that glowed with Truth and Menace. The rider waited patiently for Stripe to finish building his magical construct. <> he said, <> Stripe nodded, slowly. <> <> The rider waited for some reaction from the young cat. There wasn't one, though. The youth just looked at him, unblinking, his eyes flickering through a changing rainbow of colors. The magical construct remained poised, but did not attack, and finally he dispelled it and nodded. <> <> Gild continued brushing his fur into place. Stripe went over and sat next to Gild, taking the brush from his hands and using it on the older cat's back where he couldn't easily reach. <> <> The young cat stroked the fur along his parent's muzzle. <> He touched the silver streak and smiled in the way that cats smile. <> Gild said. <> <> Stripe retorted. <> Gild laughed. <> <> <> The older cat rummaged around in the box and pulled out a small bag. <> He sniffed inside, and crinkled his nose, and put it back. <> Stripe sat in thought for a minute or two. <> <> <> Gild blinked indulgently. <> Gild reached into the metal- banded trunk and pulled out two long-necked bottles. He grinned. <> <> Stripe took one bottle, and Gild the other and they simultaneously popped the seals with a dewclaw in an identical motion. Gild grinned and took a swig. <> <> Stripe licked a bit of foam of his nose. <> Gild smiled a faint catly smile. <> Stripe grinned and lifted his bottle in salute, then drained half of it in one swig. <> Laughing, Gild returned the salute. <> Stripe blinked. <> <> <> Stripe hesitated, looked longingly at his sire, pain visible in the way he held his ears and tail. Gild shook his head, cutting off the comment. <> <> The younger cat looked at his now- empty bottle of Porter and his ears went flat with disappointment. <> Stripe stretched and looked around the room for something to drink. <> He rolled over backwards as Gild cuffed him lightly for his insolent manner. His eyes crossed and he focussed on the tip of Gild's tail, with the intriguing tuft of slightly longer fur. <> Gild blinked slowly, belying his fierce tone. <> Stripe said, pretending meekness. Since Gild was watching, he ignored the tempting tail for a moment. He licked the tip of his nose and looked into the trunk where the Catamount Porter had been. He found a bottle of something strange and blue. <> <> Gild dug around in the box and pulled out a long black rag. <> he muttered, and tied it around his head, holding the worst of his mane back from his face. Tiger- stripes began appearing along the black material, flickering color to match the momentary ascendancy of fire or water or air. <> Stripe cat-grinned at Gild. <> Gild pulled a mirror out of the box and looked in it. <> He ran his talons up the side and pulled loose enough mane along the top that it covered the band. <> <> Stripe answered. <> The young cat returned to his careful stalking of that intriguing tuft of tail fur. A new voice came from the entrance to the room. <> Gild hissed quietly, his fur standing on end and making him bulk menacingly in the room. <> The other cat walked into the room and sat next to Stripe. He looked the young cat over carefully, and then looked back at Gild. <> <> Gild touched the striped cloth band where it crossed his forehead. <> <> The older cat crouched next to Stripe and between him and Gild, in a posture that any cat would instantly mark as a mother protecting her kitten. He noticed Gild looking at him with an elaborately amused expression and flattened his ears, one tipping over more than the other. He stared, not blinking, until Gild stopped his smirk. <> Gild finally answered. <> <> <> Bent-Ear nodded, and took the bottle of blue stuff away from Stripe, who was rolling on his back on the floor with his eyes crossed. <> He took a swig himself, gasped, and when his whiskers stopped shaking, he choked out, <> Gild narrowed his eyes meditatively. <> <> Bent-Ear thought for a moment, then chuckled. <> Gild nodded, and closed the lid on his trunk. <> <> Gild touched his grandfather's face gently with one pawlike hand. <> He touched the stripe on the young cat's head, and an indefinable something happened, and the room twisted, falling for a moment into the incoherent blur that preceded an element cycle, but when it stopped everything looked the same as before. Bent-Ear stared at his grandsons. <> <> Gild answered. <> Gild blinked once and walked soundlessly out of the room.