Zelazny,Roger - Eye of Cat

Roger Zelazny. Eye of cat

Eye of cat

I have learned hate. I have been waiting for the

chance to escape, to track you as you once

tracked me, to destroy you.

I am sorry for the pain I have caused you. Now

that we know what you are, amends can be made.

The sun of my world has since gone nova. The

world and all others of my kind are no more.

How can you restore it to me?

I cannot.

Cat slammed against the field and sparks

outlined his entire figure. Billy did not move.

After a time, Cat drew back, shaking himself.

He seemed smaller now, and his body coiled

around and around upon itself, sinking into the

ground.

Finally, I will help you - for a price, Cat said.

And what is that price?

Your life.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

am the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any

resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is

entirely coincidental.

AVON BOOKS

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Roger Zelazny. Eye of cat

A division of

Th Hearst Corporation

105 Madison Avenue

New York, New York 10016

Cover art by Tim White

Published by arrangement with the author

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 90-93388

ISBN: 0-380-76002-9

portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S.

Copyright Law. For information address Kirby McCauley, Ltd., 432

Park Avenue South, Suite 1509, New York, New York 10016.

First Avon Books Printing: January l991

AVON TRADEMAAK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA

REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U.S.A.

Printed in the U.S.A.

ARC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I

FOR JOE LEAPHORN,

JIMMY CHEE

AND TONY HILLERMAN

PART 1

At the door to the House of Darkness

lies a pair of red coyotes with heads reversed.

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Nayenezgani parts them with his dark stag

and comes in search of me.

With lightning behind him,

with lightning before him,

he comes in search of me,

with a rock crystal and a talking ketahn.

Beyond, at the corners by the door

of the House of Darkness,

lie two red btuejays with heads reversed.

With lightning behind him,

with lightning before him,

he parts them with his dark staff

and comes in search of me.

Farther, at the fire-pit of the Dark House,

tie two red hoot-owls with heads reversed.

He parts these with his stag

and comes in search of me,

with rock crystal and talking ketahn.

At the center of the Darkness House

where two red screech-owls lie with heads reversed,

Nayenezgani casts them aside

coming in search of me,

lightning behind him,

lightning before him.

Bearing a rock crystal and a talking ketahn,

he comes for me.

From the center of the earth he comes.

Farther...

Evil-Chasing Prayer

NIGHT, NEAR THE EASTERN

edge of the walled, sloping grounds of the estate, within

these walls, perhaps a quarter-mile from the house itself, at

the small stand of trees, under a moonless sky, listening, he

stands, absolutely silent.

Beneath his boots, the ground is moist. A cold wind tells

him that winter yields but grudgingly to spring in upstate

New York. He reaches out and touches the dark line of a

slender branch to his right, gently. He feels the buds of the

fresh year's green, dreaming of summer beneath his wide,

dark hand.

He wears a blue velveteen shirt hanging out over his

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jeans, a wide concha belt securing it at his waist. A heavy

squash blossom necklace - a very old one - hangs down

upon his breast. High about his neck is a slender strand of

turquoise heiche. He has a silver bracelet on his left wrist,

studded with random chunks of turquoise and coral. The

buttons of his shirt are hammered dimes from the early

twentieth century. His long hair is bound with a strip of red

cloth.

Tall, out of place, out of time, he listens for that which

may or may not become audible: indication of the strange

struggle at the dark house. No matter how the encounter

goes, he, William Blackhorse Singer, will be the loser. But

this is his own thing to bear, from a force he set into motion

long ago, a chindi which has dogged his heels across the

years.

He hears a brief noise from the direction of the house,

followed immediately by a loud crashing. This does not end

it, however. The sounds continue. From somewhere out

over the walls, a coyote howls.

He almost laughs. A dog, certainly. Though it sounds

more like the other, to which he has again become accus-

tomed. None of them around here, of course.

William Blackhorse Singer. He has other names, but the

remembering machines know him by this one. It was by this

one that they summoned him.

The sounds cease abruptly, and after a short while begin

again. He estimates that it must be near midnight in this part

of the world. He looks to the skies, but Christ's blood does

not stream in the firmament. Only Ini, the bird of thunder

among the southwestern stars, ready with his lightning,

clouds and rain, extending his headplume to tickle the nose

of Sas, the bear, telling him it is time to bring new life to the

earth, there by the Milky Way.

Silence. Sudden, and stretching pulsebeat by pulsebeat to

fill his world. Is it over? Is it really over?

Again, short barks followed by the howling. Once he had

known many things to do, still knew some of them. All are

closed to him now, but for the waiting.

No. There is yet a thing with which to fill it.

Softly, but with growing force, he begins the song.

FIRST MAN WAS NOT EXACTLY

jumping with joy over the dark underworld in which he was

created. He shared it with eight other humans, and the ants

and the beetles and later the locusts whom they encountered

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as they explored, and Coyote - the First Angry One, He-

who-was-formed-in-the-water, Scrawny Wanderer. Every-

one multiplied; and the dragonflies, the wasps and the bat

people later joined them; and Spider Man and Spider

Woman. The place grew crowded and was full of bugs. Strife

ensued.

"Let's get out of here," a number of them suggested.

First Man, who was wise and powerful, fetched his trea-

sures of White Shell, Turquoise, Abalone, Jet and the Red-

White Stone.

He placed the White Shell in the east and breathed upon it.

Up from it rose a white tower of cloud. He placed the

Turquoise to the south and breathed upon it. From it there

rose a blue cloud tower. To the west he set the Abalone, and

when he had breathed upon it a yellow cloud tower rose up

in that place. To the north he set the Jet, and touched by his

breath it sent up a black tower of cloud. The white and the

yellow grew, met overhead and crossed, as did the blue and

the black. These became the Night and the Day.

Then he placed the Red-White Stone at the center and

breathed upon it. From it there rose a many-colored tower.

The tower to the east was called Folding Dawn; that to the

south was called Folding Blue Sky; to the west, Folding

Twilight; that to the north, Folding Darkness. One by one,

Coyote visited each of them, changing his color to match

their own. For this reason, he is known as Child of the

Dawn, as Child of the Blue Sky, Child of the Twilight and

Child of Darkness, along with all his other names. At each of

these places, his power was increased.

While the towers of the four cardinal points were holy,

giving birth to the prayer rites, the central one bore all pains,

evils and diseases. And it was this tower up which First Man

and Coyote led the People, bringing them into the second

world; and, of course, along with them, the evils.

There they explored and they met with others, and First

Man fought with many, defeating them all and taking their

songs of power.

But this also was a place of suffering, of misery, a thing

Coyote discovered as he went to and fro in the world and up

and down it. And so to First Man he took the pleas that they

depart.

First Man made a white smoke and blew it to the east,

then swallowed it again - and the same in every direction.

This removed all the evils from the world and brought them

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back to the People from whence they had come. Then he laid

Lightning, both jagged and straight, to the east, and Rain-

bow and Sunlight, but nothing occurred. He moved them to

the south, the west and the north. The world trembled but

brought forth no power to bear them upward. He made then

a wand of Jet, Turrquoise, Abalone and White Shell. Atop

this, he set the Red-White Stone. It rose and bore them

upward into the next world.

Here they met the many snakes, and Salt Man and Woman

and Fire God. Nor should Spider Ant be forgotten. And light

and darkness came up from the towers of the four colors, as

in the other worlds.

But then First Man set a streak of yellow and another of

red and yellow in the east, and these halted the movement of

the white light.

And the People were afraid. Salt Man counseled them to

explore in the east, but the streaks retreated as they ad-

vanced. Then they heard a voice summoning them to the

south. There they found the old man Dontso, called Messen-

ger Fly, who told them what First Man had done. The yellow

streak, he said, represented the emergence of the People; the

other, vegetation and pollen, with the red part indicating all

diseases.

Then Owl and Kit Fox and Wolf and Wildcat came, and

with them Horned Rattlesnake, who offered First Man the

shell he carried on his head - and promises of offerings of

White Shell, Turquoise, Abalone and Jet in the future. First

Man accepted the shell and its magic and removed the

streaks from the sky.

The People then realized that First Man was evil. Coyote

spied upon their counsels and reported to First Man that

they knew he had stopped the light in the east to gain a

treasure.

When later they confronted him with it, First Man replied,

"Yes. It is true, grandchildren. Very true. I am evil. Yet I

have employed my evil on your behalf. For these offerings

shall benefit all of us. And I do know when to withhold my

evil from those about me."

And he proceeded to prove this thing by building the first

medicine hogan, where he shared with them his knowledge

of things good and evil.

HE REMEMBERED THE PARTY

the night before he had found the coyote.

Garbed in the rented splendor of a shimmering synthetic-

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fibered foursquare and blackrib Pleat 4, Ruffle evegarb, he

had tripped through to the mansion in Arlington. Notables

past and present filled the sparkling, high-ceilinged rooms.

He was decidedly Past, but he had gone anyway, to see a

few old friends, to touch that other life again.

A middle-aged woman of professional charm greeted him,

approached him, embraced him and spoke with him for half

a minute in the enthusiastic voice of a newscaster, until a

fresh arrival at his back produced a reflex pressure from her

hand upon his arm, directing him to the side.

Grateful, he moved off; accepting a drink from a tray,

glancing at faces, nodding to some, pausing to exchange a

few words, working his way to a small room he recalled Gem

previous visits.

He sighed when he entered. He liked the wood and iron,

stone and rough plaster, books and quiet pictures, the single

window with its uninterrupted view of the river, the fireplace

burning softly.

"I knew you'd find me here," she said, from her chair near

the hearth.

He smiled.

"So did I - in the only room built during a lapse in

tastelessness."

He drew up a chair, seating himself near her but facing

slightly past her toward the fire. Her heavy, lined face, the

bright blue eyes beneath white hair, her short stocky figure,

had not changed recently. In some ways she was the older,

in others she was not. Time had played its favorite game -

irony - with them both. He thought of the century-old Fon-

tenelle and Mme. Grimaud, almost as old as he. Yet there

was a gulf here of a different sort.

"Will you go collecting again soon?" she asked him.

"They've all the beasties they need for a while. I'm

retired."

"Do you like it?"

"As well as anything."

Her brows tightened in a small wince.

"I can never tell whether it's native fatalism, world-

weariness or a pose with you."

"I can't either, anymore," he said.

"Perhaps you're suffering from leisure."

"That's about as exclusive as rain these days. I exist in a

private culture."

"Really. It can't be as bad as all that," she said.

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"Bad? Good and evil are always mixed up. It provides

order."

"Nothing else?"

"It is easy to love what is present and desire what is

absent."

She reached out and squeezed his hand.

"You crazy Indian. Do you exist when I'm not here?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "I was a privileged traveler.

Maybe I died and no one had the heart to tell me. How've

you been, Margaret?"

After a time, she said, "Still living in an age of timidity, I

suppose. And ideas."

He raised his drink and took a big swallow.

"... Stale, flat and unprofitable," she said.

He raised the glass higher, holding it to the light, staring

through it.

"Not that bad," he stated. "They got the vermouth right

this time."

She chuckled.

"Philosophy doesn't change people, does it?" she asked.

"I don't think so."

"What are you going to do now?"

"Go and talk with some of the others, I guess, have a few

more drinks. Maybe dance a little."

"I don't mean tonight."

"I know. Nothing special, I guess. I don't need to."

"A man like you should be doing something."

"What?"

"That's for you to say. When the gods are silent someone

must choose."

"The gods are silent," he said, finally looking into her

bright ancient eyes, "and my choices are all used up."

"That's not true."

He looked away again.

"Let it be," he said, "as you did before."

"Don't "

"I'm sorry."

She removed her hand from his. He finished his drink.

"Your character is your fate," she said at last, "and you

are a creature of change."

"I live strategically."

"Maybe too much so."

"Let it be, lady. It's not on my worry-list. I've changed

enough and I'm tired."

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"Will even that last?"

"Sounds like a trick question to me. You had your chance.

If I've an appointment with folly I'll keep it. Don't try to

heal my wounds until you're sure they're there."

"I'm sure. You have to find something."

"I don't do requests."

"... And I hope it's soon."

"I've got to take a little walk," he said. "I'll be back."

She nodded and he left quickly. She would too, shortly.

Later that evening his eyes suddenly traced a red strand in

the rug and he followed it, to find himself near the trip-box.

"What the hell," he said.

He sought his hostess, thanked her and moved back to the

transport unit. He pushed the coordinates, and as he entered

he stumbled.

Freeze frame on man falling.

There was a time when the day light was night light.

Black-god rode upon my right shoulder.

Time spun moebius about me, as I sailed

up Darkness Mountain in the sky.

And the beasts, the beasts I hunted.

When l called them they would come to me,

out of Darkness Mountain.

IT HAD SNOWED THE PREVIOUS

night, dry and powdery, but the day had been unseasonably

warm and much of it had melted. The sky was still clear as

the sun retreated behind a dark rocky crest, and already the

cold was coming back into the world, riding the wind that

sighed among the pine trees. Silvery strings of sunlight

marked the higher sinews of a mesa far to the right, its foot

already aswirl with gray in the first tides of evening. At least

there would be no snow tonight, he knew, and he could

watch the stars before he closed his eyes.

As he made his camp, the coyote limped after him, its left

foreleg still bound. Tonight was the night to take care of that,

too.

He built his fire and prepared his meal, the pinon smoke

redolent in his nostrils. By the time that it was ready the day

was gone, and the mesa and the ridge were but lumps of

greater darkness against the night.

"Your last free meal," he said, tossing a portion of the

food to the beast at his feet.

As they ate, he remembered other nights and other camps,

a long trail of them stretching back over a century. Only this

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time there was nothing to hunt, and in a way this pleased

him.

Drinking his coffee, he thought of the hundred-seventy

years of his existence: how it had begun in this place, of the

fairylands and hells through which he had taken it and how

he had come - back. "Home," under the circumstances,

would be more than an irony. He sipped the scalding brew

from the metal cup, peopling the night with demons, most of

whom now resided in San Diego.

Later, with his hunting knife, he removed the dressing

from the animal's leg. It remained perfectly still as he did

this, watching. As he cut away at the stiff material, he

recalled the day some weeks before when he had come upon

it, leg broken, in a trap. There had been a time when he

would have acted differently. But he had released it, taken it

home with him, treated it. And even this, this long trek into

the Carrizos, was for the purpose of turning it free at a

sufficient distance from his home, with a full night ahead to

tempt it into wandering back to its own world, rather than

prolonging an unnatural association.

He slapped its flank.

"Go on. Run!"

It rose, its movements still stiff, leg still held at an awk-

ward angle. Only gradually did it lower the limb as it moved

about the campsite. After a time, it passed into and out of the

circle of firelight, remaining away for longer and longer

periods.

As he prepared his bedroll, he was startled by a buzzing

noise. Simultaneously, a red light began winking on the

small plastic case which hung from his belt. He switched o

the buzzer, but the light continued to blink. He shrugged and

put it aside, face down. It indicated an incoming call at his

distant home. He had gotten into the habit of wearing the

unit when he was near the place and had forgotten to remove

it. He never wore the more elaborate version, however, and

so was not equipped to answer the call from here. This did

not seem important. It had been several years since he had

received anything which might be considered an important

call.

Still, it troubled him as he lay regarding the stars. It had

been a long while since he had received any calls at all. He

wished now that he had either carried along the unit's other

component or had not brought anything. But he was retired,

his newsworthiness long vanished. It could not really be

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Zelazny, Roger - Eye of Cat

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