MASTER OF CATS

Chapter 3

The Dubious Honor

Bessarias smiled affectionately at the large feline. The demon had been with him for nearly two centuries, always inhabiting the body of a grey cat with black markings. How he managed to find them on such a regular basis, Bessarias didn’t know and was not inclined to ask.

“He is too proud to admit it, but I suspect he gets rather lonely when I’m occupied with my studies.”

The cat snorted loudly.

“I wasn’t lonely. I was hungry because you hadn’t fed me for two days. And in answer to your question, yes, there was a battle yesterday, and the Red Prince’s knights crushed the wolf-breed. Ethaleas set his students to scrying it as an exercise, and I watched them. I imagine the wolves had never seen cavalry before, because the Savondese rode them down like unarmed peasants.”

“It is said they are of unnatural origin,” Kilios commented.

“The wolfbreed?” Bessarias scoffed. “I’ve heard the rumors, but I find them hard to credit. If no one in this tower has created a viable form of being in more than a millennia, who else could hope to succeed? Those pathetic bunglers in Savondir? They flatter us, to be sure, but they do not even dream of approaching our skills. If nothing else, their lives are too short.”

“I say it was the Witchkings,” hissed Mastema.

“Perhaps,” Bessarias admitted the possibility. “Who can know the bounds of their perversions? But again, they were human. Fifty or even sixty years is too short a span for proper mastery.”

“Of course,” Kilios agreed. “I myself am glad to hear of the Savondese triumph. They may envy us, even hate us at times, but they are civilized. To a degree, you understand.”

“To a degree, yes. Is there anything else of interest?”

“Not particularly. Mmm perhaps there is one thing. We have the dubious honor of hosting a human visitor, an Amorran, if you can believe it.”

“Really? How did that come to pass?”

The seer shrugged and glanced at Mastema, who appeared to have lost interest in the conversation and was carefully licking his left paw.

“I don’t know. I heard that he arrived two days ago under the aegis of the High King, but he doesn’t seem to be a messenger. Some sort of religious, I recall.”

“How very curious!”

Bessarias was intrigued. A human, an Amorran no less, hailing from the Court of Elebrion?Humans had a very different view of magic than his own people. They tended to view it mistrustfully at best, but those of the Empire were downright fanatics in their distaste for anything that smacked of the metaphysical. No, not anything, he corrected himself, for they were rigid monotheists who worshipped a slain god who was somehow not dead. Dead or not dead, though, this god had favored them, for their armies were strong and their rich empire now encompassed nearly a third of the land of Selenoth. It was an altogether curious thing.

He made an impromptu decision to seek out this strange human. If nothing else, the Amorran promised to be an interesting distraction from his recent failures. In a lifespan that was now approaching its fourth century, Bessarias had learned to appreciate the pleasure of the unexpected and to seek out the unusual. It refreshed the mind, which otherwise grew stagnant and eventually decayed. And this visit qualified on both counts, as the Amorran empire was less than a hundred years old, but in that time not one of its citizens had ever requested a single audience with the members of the Collegium, for any reason.

“Has anyone spoken with him yet?”

“Other than welcoming him for the ten-day, I can’t imagine anyone was interested.” Kilios raised his pale eyebrows. “You want to speak with him?”

“Yes, strangely enough, I do.”

Bessarias laughed suddenly.

“I think I’d sit down for a nice chat with a sun-stoned troll if I thought it might take my mind off those cursed giloi. Let me ask you, what do you do when the impossible happens before your very eyes?”

A faint smile flickered past the blind seer’s lips.

“I hold my silence and hope I was mistaken, until events prove otherwise. Which they inevitably do. Thus am I thought a poor visionary, but a sane one. It is better that way.”

“Ah, your mind is sharper than the proverbial razor of Ockham, old friend.” Bessarias clapped his colleague on the shoulder. “Now come, walk with me, and we shall go in search of our exotic guest. Mastema, will you join us?”

“To see a human?” The cat’s rasping voice was scornful. “Why would I want to do that?”