Black Water

JOURNAL #16
(CONTINUED)
EELONG

Iwas pinned to the floor with this foul-smelling quig-human sitting on my chest. He leaned down, inches from my nose, and I got a good look into thedark, soulless depths of his yellow eyes.

“I…won’t hurt you,” I stammered out weakly.

Yeah right. I thought maybe I could use some reverse psychology and not let him know that I was totally at his mercy. His answer was a steady stream of drool that fell onto my cheek. My bluff didn’t work, no big surprise. I ignored the vile spittle and asked, “Do you understand me?”

The quig shrieked something that sounded like a monkey screaming in pain. I guessed that meant “no.” These quigs may have been human, but there was no sign of intelligent life lurking between those hairy ears. These were Saint Dane’s animals, and they only knew one thing: killing. My mind groped to come up with a way out. I thought maybe I would be okay, because I was a human too. But then a quick, unpleasant memory of the quigs on Denduron shot to mind. When one went down, the others ate it alive. Quigs were cannibals. That meant here on Eelong, being human didn’t even come close to getting me off the hook. It probably made things worse.

The other two quigs held down my arms. They sniffed at me like, well, like animals. I actually hoped they’d be grossed out by the smelly rags I had on. It was a totally idiotic thought, but hey, I was desperate. I kicked my legs and tried to pull away, but the quigs held me tight and laughed. At least I thought it was a laugh. It sounded somewhere between a hyena howl and a pig grunt. It made my skin crawl. The quig on my chest raised his head and let out a horrifying howl. When he looked back down at me, his eyes were sparked with an insane fury. He was firing up for the kill. I feared my strange life was going to end right then and there. In that horrifying moment, I did the only thing left to do: I closed my eyes.

I heard another shriek. It didn’t sound as if it came from the quigs, though. It sounded more like an animal roar. I opened my eyes in time to see the quig on my chest turn quickly to look behind himself. The other two quigs fled in fear. I was still flat on my back and didn’t dare look up because I was sure another horrifying beastie had decided to drop in on our party. The quig on my chest tried to stand up, but suddenly whipped back around to face me, as if he had been spun by a powerful force. The look on his face had gone from one of bloodlust to terror. I quickly saw why. Across his chest were four deep slashes. Something had just attacked him. The wounds didn’t kill him, though. The quig dove over my head and ran away. Whatever new monster had come into this hollow tree was capable of doing some serious damage, and these quigs knew it. But what was it? Was there an uber-quig dwelling in this giant tree? Or had one of those lizard thingies found a way to crawl inside?

Still on my back, I glanced up to see one of the quigs scramble up a vine as easily as if he were running across the floor. He made it up to an overhead ledge and disappeared into a tunnel. The quig was terrified, and no wonder. I saw what was chasing him.

Climbing the vine behind him, was a big jungle cat. It was a powerful thing, maybe six feet long from head to butt. Its fur was mottled red and black, kind of like a tiger. Because it was moving so fast, I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like most of its body was covered with some kind of cloth. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was wearing clothes. But that made no sense. The only kitty outfit I’d ever seen before was that cute pink sweater your mother, Mark, put on your cat, Dusty. But this beast wasn’t a cute kitty; it was a predator, hot after its prey. It climbed the curtain of vines and darted into the tunnel after the quig. I had no doubt that the quig wouldn’t be long for this territory.

Wow. I put my head back down on the floor and took my first breath in about a minute. I hadn’t been on Eelong for an hour and I’d already come across a man-eating lizard, a quig-human, and a jungle cat that had a taste for quig-humans. Bottom line was, everything on Eelong was capable of eating me. But who was in charge? Where were the people? I was about to sit up when I heard a low, guttural growl. Uh-oh. I wasn’t alone. Anothergrowlmade me realize the worst:

There was another cat in the room.

I slowly lifted my head and looked between my legs. Across the cavern I saw it, hunched low, stalking me. This one was a light brown color, like a mountain lion. It was big, too. Bigger than the one I saw chase the quig up the vines. Its large, brown cat eyes were fixed on me as it lurked closer. What did the Boy Scout Field Guide say to do in times like this? Should I stare at the beast? Should I play dead? Should I jump up and pretend to be really big and scare it? I sure remembered how to tie knots, but when it came to something useful like saving my butt from a monster, my Boy Scout training fell woefully short. While my mind clicked through these choices, the cat crept closer. Soon, it wouldn’t matter what my plan was. It would be all about the cat’s plan, and I didn’t think I was going to like it.

The cat grumbled and bared its teeth. Oh yeah, there were a couple of long fangs in there. It crept closer until its nose was nearly at my feet. I saw its big brown nose working, sniffing me. I thought maybe I should give it a quick kick in the head and take off, but figured that would only get it mad. Mad and hungry weren’t a good combination. At least now I had a faint hope that it would think I smelled foul, and leave me alone. I didn’t move. I stopped breathing again. The cat took a few more steps, stood still for a second, and opened its mouth. This was it. It was going to attack. I was actually beginning to hope one of these Eelong beasts would finally get me and put me out of my misery. If this kept up, chances are I’d die of a heart attack anyway.

The big cat kept its eyes on me, opened its mouth wider, and said, “Are you Pendragon?”

Huh? Let me write that again. Huh? I went into brain lock. As hairy as everything had been so far, at least it made sense. The hanging roots, the jungle, the band of sun, the big tree, the scary lizard and the quig-humans. All fantastic, but all within my brain’s ability to compute. This new development…wasn’t. I searched for an explanation. I figured maybe when the lizard scratched my leg it released some kind of hallucinatory venom into my system that made me think I was seeing a jungle cat who not only talked, but knew my name. Or maybe this was like the Cheshire Cat inAlice in Wonderland, which meant he’d smile and disappear and this would all turn out to be a dream. That would be cool, too.

“Can you talk?” the cat asked. “Or are you just a dumb gar?”

As you know, one of the bizarro perks of being a Traveler is that for some reason we’re able to understand the various languages spoken on different territories. But as far as I knew, it didn’t work with animals. If it did, there’d be a whole annoying Doctor Dolittle thing going on and we’d be able to understand conversations had by every crawling, swimming and flying creature we ran in to. But we couldn’t do that. No way. That meant this cat could really talk.

“I–I’m Pendragon,” I said softly.

“Then it’s true!” the cat exclaimed. “Unbelievable!”

I took one more step intoThe Twilight Zonewhen the big cat stood up on its back legs and walked like a human! It must have been around my size, just under six feet. I saw that it too wore some kind of crude clothing. It was a simple, brown tunic that fit snugly to his body, but his outfit was in much better shape than my rags. The garment had no buckles or snaps or buttons. It looked to have been form fitted to his body.

“Sorry for sneaking up on you like that,” the cat said. “But you can’t be too careful with gars. Especially the ones that hang around here. The quigs, I mean.”

I figured I had totally snapped. This talking cat knew about quigs! It held out its paw as if to help me up. Or maybe I should call it a hand. It looked to be a cross between a human hand and a big cat paw. It had a thumb like a human’s, but was covered with fur and had some vicious-looking claws.

“My name’s Boon,” he said. “Welcome to Eelong.”

His voice sounded as normal as mine. There was no hint that it was coming out of a nonhuman mouth. I looked up at his cat face and realized that maybe he wasn’t a typical cat after all. Sure, his face and head and ears were definitely catlike, but his snout wasn’t as pronounced as a regular cat’s. His mouth was a bit smaller too. But he was covered with fur, and his arms were too long for a human, and he had knees that bent at an odd angle. You know that dumb Broadway musical where everybody dressed in tights and cat makeup and ran around singing about how swell it was to be a cat? Well, forget that. This wasn’t anything like that. This was no costume. This guy was definitely a cat, but with some human traits…not the least of which was talking.

“It’s okay,” he assured me. “I won’t bite.”

I tentatively reached up and took his hand. Or his paw. Or whatever. It felt like I was grabbing on to somebody wearing a furry glove, with rough pads in the palm. He was strong, too. And the claws that grazed the back of my hand were sharp. Note to self: Don’t mess with the cat.

“I don’t mean to stare,” Boon said. “But I’m not used to talking with a gar. This is very strange.”

Strange? Tell me about it.

“What’s a gar?” I asked tentatively.

“You know. A gar. Like you. Two legs, no fur, no teeth, fairly useless. Seegen said you’d be a gar, but I didn’t believe it until, well, until I saw you. We have to do something about the smell, though.”

“Sorry,” I said. “These clothes reek.”

“Not the clothes, you!” Boon said sniffing. “Gars all have the same smell, like rotten fruit. No offense.”

“I’m losing my mind,” I muttered. Then I asked, “How can you talk? Did humans teach you? I mean, did the gars teach you?”

Boon laughed. He actually laughed. I’d never heard a cat laugh. It was raspy, and trailed off with a croaking growl.

“A gar teach a klee to talk? That’s funny. You’re a funny one. I heard that about you.”

My head was spinning. “Okay, I’m a gar, and you’re a klee. Who’s in charge here? I mean, are there other klees like you who can talk?”

Boon laughed again and patted me on the back like an old pal. It nearly knocked me over. He had a lot of energy and seemed like he was actually having fun. I had no idea how old he was, but it was beginning to feel like he was a young guy, around my age. At least I think he was a guy. I wasn’t about to ask him for a peek between his legs.

“I hate to tell you this, Pendragon.” He chuckled. “But things are a little different on Eelong. C’mon, I’ll show you.”

He walked to the far side of the tree room. I didn’t move. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that I was watching a six-foot-tall cat wearing clothes walk around on two legs. It was then that I noticed the one thing that kept Boon from truly looking like a regular old Second Earth mountain lion: He didn’t have a tail. I supposed it could have been curled up inside his tunic, but I didn’t think so. He glanced back to see I wasn’t following.

“You’re kind of stunned. I am too.” He looked around at the cavern, then continued, “We don’t normally come here to the gate. It’s the quigs. Nasty bunch of little gars. We can usually handle them with no problem, but if they gang up on you…ouch. That’s why I brought my buddy with me. He doesn’t know about them being quigs, though. He just likes hunting wild gars.”

I was getting nervous about this talking cat knowing so much about the Traveler biz, so I asked, “Are you a Traveler?”

“Me? Nah. Seegen is the Traveler from Eelong. I’m an acolyte. Actually, I’m not an acolyte yet, officially, but I will be someday. Seegen’s told me everything, though. You like the clothes I picked out?”

“They stink.”

“Right, you said that. Like I was saying, we don’t normally come here. It’s a long way from the city, but that’s a good thing. Don’t want anybody finding the flume, do we?”

The guy spoke fast, like he was excited. Or nervous. Whatever. “Seegen asked me to watch the flume in case the lead Traveler arrived. I couldn’t believe it when he told me you were a gar, too. Just like the other Traveler who showed up and-“

“Gunny!” I jumped in. “Are you talking about Gunny?”

“Yes, Seegen said his name was Gunny.”

“Yeah!” I exclaimed. “Where is he? Is he all right?”

“I don’t know,” Boon answered. “Seegen wouldn’t tell me. One thing is for sure, though; I’ve never seen him in Leeandra.”

“Leeandra? What’s a Leeandra?” I asked.

“It’s my home,” he answered. “Seegen lives there too. We should go see him now.”

“Absolutely,” I agreed.

“Good!” Boon exclaimed happily. “This is going to be a great adventure!”

One of us was having a good time. It wasn’t me.

“We’ve a long way to go,” he explained. “You’ll need another shoe.”

Right. I had lost my “shoe” to the lizard thingy. Boon walked to the side of the tree room to a pile of dead vines. He lifted them up to reveal another pile of rag clothing.

“I keep my gar clothes here,” he explained. “Going down there to the flume is kind of creepy.”

I knew what he meant. Piles of bones will do that. Boon dug through the clothes and found another raggy shoe. It was amazing how he had the physical dexterity of a human. He tossed the shoe to me, saying, “Is this what you wear on your home territory?”

It was my turn to laugh. “Not even close,” I chuckled. “So far there isn’t a whole lot here that is like Second Earth.”

Boon looked totally stunned. “Really?”

“Oh yeah,” I answered while tying on the shoe. “What you call klees, we call cats. Some are big and wild, but most are small and gars keep them as pets.”

I saw a frown cross Boon’s face. Uh-oh. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him that.

“You keep klees as pets?” he asked, incredulous.

“Not me, no,” I was quick to answer, trying to do damage control. “But some people. A couple people. Not many, really. It’s very rare.” Yikes.

Boon walked toward me, and I once again realized that he was a dangerous predator. I was about to say something like, “Whoa, remember, I’m the lead Traveler!” But I didn’t want to be lame. Instead I stood up and tried to act like the lead Traveler.

“Your ring,” he said.

I looked down at my Traveler ring. It was the one item that was allowed to be brought between territories. “What about it?” I asked.

“Hide it,” Boon said. “If somebody sees you wearing a ring, they’ll know something is wrong. Thebestthing they’ll do is take it from you.”

“Really?” I asked. “What’s theworstthing they’ll do?”

“Eat you” was his sober answer. Gulp. I quickly took off my ring. “Can I see it?” Boon asked.

I reluctantly handed it over to him. Boon took the ring and admired it like it was a priceless jewel.

“Incredible,” he said with awe. “Someday I’ll have one too.”

I took the ring back and tied it around my neck with one of the braided vines that I used to lash on my stinky clothing.

“You should take me to Seegen now,” I said with authority.

Boon looked at me with cold eyes. Had I pushed too far? Obviously, he wasn’t used to being told what to do by a gar. We held eye contact for a moment longer, then Boon broke out in a big smile.

“This is going to be fun!” he exclaimed, and hurried off.

Fun? I can think of a lot of words to describe my first few minutes on Eelong. “Fun” wasn’t one of them. But that didn’t matter. I was here to find Gunny…and stop Saint Dane. Fun wasn’t part of the equation. So I hitched up my shoes, hid my ring around my neck, and jogged after the walking, talking cat that was going to bring me to a place called Leeandra and the Traveler from Eelong.