Firebrand

“Whiskers!” Merdigen materialized between Alton and the cat. “Bad kitty. You are to reduce size immediately.”

“Meep.” It was a strange little mew from such a large cat.

“There will be no treats for you unless you obey.”

“Prrrt.” And the cat shrank to the size of a normal house cat.

Just an illusion. Alton wiped sweat off his brow with a trembling hand.

“He’s a little more impressive when he is big,” Merdigen said, “but I did not mean for him to startle you. I told him not to, but, well, he is a cat and has a mind of his own.”

Merdigen and his illusions. If they made him feel like he was alive, fine, but it was annoying, Alton reflected, when they were inflicted on him.

He tried to push it aside, threw a stick of wood on the glowing embers in the big hearth, and set to righting the table and picking up the books that had gone over with it. Merdigen’s cat zigzagged across the floor chasing a spider. When Alton picked up the last book, it occurred to him to wonder how the cat, if it were an illusion, had toppled the table with its tail. He shook his head. No, it can only be some fluke of magic.

He dropped into the nearest chair and gazed at Merdigen. “What do you know of something called an aureas slee?”

Merdigen’s eyes widened, and he conjured a chair of his own. “That is Eltish for an ice elemental. How in the world do you know it?”

Alton explained about the attack on the castle. Merdigen listened avidly.

“Such excitement!” the tower mage exclaimed when Alton finished. “And of course I can’t be there to witness it.” He shook his head. “Ah, well. Good that there were so few casualties. Of course, the aureas slee could have been distracted enough by the queen in her gravid condition to limit its path of destruction. With the twins she carries, and if she is indeed as beautiful as I’ve heard, the aureas slee would have found her irresistible.”

“So you believe it came for Queen Estora?”

“Doubtful. For an elemental to directly attack a fortified castle like that, it was most likely called by a very skilled user of magic.”

Grandmother. Alton supposed Mornhavon the Black could have awakened and done it, but the forest had been quiet ever since Karigan had wounded him. He rubbed his nose. It was itchy. “So what are these elementals?”

Merdigen conjured a moth for his cat to chase. The cat leaped and flipped trying to reach it. “Elementals are embodiments of nature. Mostly they remain at rest in their own realms, unless driven by significant need, or if they are called by strong magic. They can use powers related to their aspect of nature, like the ice creatures of the aureas slee. I imagine over the span of time, many elemental beings have simply slumbered into nonexistence after the backlash against magic and its use that followed the Long War. With no magic users left to call them and the etherea at low ebb, it would be difficult for them.”

“Do you think the queen is still in danger?”

“Unless the aureas slee was badly injured, it won’t be able to forget her.”

That was not good. Alton sneezed.

“Allergic to Mister Whiskers, are you, boy?” Merdigen asked.

“Allergic to an illusion? Not very likely.”

The cat leaped onto the table and sat before Alton and gazed at him with feline regard. His tail thumped on the tabletop.

“You should scratch him beneath his chin,” Merdigen said. “He’d like that.”

“Illusion,” Alton reminded him.

“He is no illusion, I assure you.”

Alton searched Merdigen’s face for any indication he was making a joke, but saw none. That was not necessarily a sure sign. With skepticism and a good amount of caution, he held his hand out to the cat. Mister Whiskers rubbed his cheek against his knuckles, purring loudly. His sleek fur certainly felt real. Alton jerked his hand away and stared at Merdigen.

“This is a cat!”

“I know,” Merdigen replied.

“But—when? How?”

“He has been here with me since my internment in the tower. I found him, a stray wandering about, and I knew that should the magic haters find him, he’d be slain.”

“You are telling me this living, breathing cat has been with you for a thousand years?”

“Just about. As far as I know, he is the last of his kind.”

“There were more?”

“My boy,” Merdigen said, “there were many creatures and beings that once walked these lands, like your aureas slee, and Whiskers, here, or even the p’ehdrose. They are more legend now for they were intelligent enough to avoid human beings.”

A magical cat. Alton gazed at Mister Whiskers with new respect. “Why haven’t I seen him before?”

“He, like I, slept while you people were off fighting wars and neglecting the wall for two hundred years, and after my own revival, it was difficult to coax him to stay awake for very long. Like most cats, he likes to nap. And I must admit, I didn’t try very hard, for I feared how he’d be received by the outside world, to which you belong, but I’ve learned to trust you. Whiskers, why don’t you show the boy how you sleep.”

The cat twitched his ears, and before Alton’s eyes, he transformed into stone in the shape of a gryphon of myth, with a long raptor’s beak and eagle wings, and a catamount’s body. As a stone gryphon, he was much larger, his claws far more prominent. The sturdy table bowed under the weight of him.