Firestar’s Quest

Chapter 35

The three cats waited silently in the wash of moonlight. Wind swept over the surface of the Skyrock, pressing their fur close to their pelts. “Close your eyes,” Firestar whispered.

At first there was only darkness, and he was conscious of Leafdapple shifting restlessly by his side. Gradually she grew still; Firestar’s heartbeat quickened as he felt cold creeping over her, until she might have been a cat made of ice. The sound of the wind died away.

Firestar opened his eyes. The Skyrock had vanished; instead, bleak moorland stretched around him, fading into the mist on all sides. No stars could penetrate the cloud, but it shimmered with a pale glow, as if somewhere overhead the moon still shone.

On the other side of Leafdapple, Echosong blinked and raised her head, then rose and arched her back in a stretch.

Her gaze, full of wonder, met Firestar’s. “Where are we? It’s like the place I dreamed of the night I slept on the Skyrock.”

“This is the moor where I saw the fleeing SkyClan cats.”

Firestar stood up, working his claws into the tough grass.

Echosong turned to look down at Leafdapple, laying one 4 8 5

paw gently on her shoulder. The she-cat didn’t move.

“She feels so cold,” Echosong whispered. Bending down, she breathed softly into Leafdapple’s ear; it didn’t even twitch. “Firestar, she’s not dead, is she?”

“No,” Firestar reassured her. “Something like this happened to me. I think her old life is being stripped away so that she can receive her nine new ones.”

Echosong still looked worried. Firestar guessed that her paws were itching to help Leafdapple, but there was nothing she could do.

It might have been seasons or only heartbeats before Leafdapple sneezed and opened her eyes. Her jaws stretched wide in a huge yawn. Then she seemed to become aware of her strange surroundings; she sprang to her paws, staggering a little.

“Firestar, what’s happening?”

“It’s okay.” Firestar rested his tail tip on her shoulder. “This is where you will meet with StarClan.”

As if his words were a signal, the mists swirled in front of him, and the gray-and-white SkyClan ancestor stepped into view. Droplets of water glittered like stars on his fur.

“Greetings,” he meowed. “I know why you have come.”

“Greetings,” Echosong replied, her eyes brilliant as she stood face-to-face with a StarClan warrior for the first time.

Firestar padded forward to meet him. “I’m glad to see you again,” he meowed. “I’ve brought Leafdapple. She is the cat you wanted, isn’t she?”

“Yes.” The former SkyClan leader dipped his head.

“Thank you, Firestar. You have done all you can to rebuild and protect SkyClan once more. Now it’s up to the new SkyClan cats.”

Firestar took a deep breath. “But how can Leafdapple receive nine lives if you’re the only cat here?”

The gray-and-white cat raised his tail commandingly, and Firestar fell silent. He watched the SkyClan ancestor step lightly over the moorland grass to face Leafdapple.

“Do you believe in what is about to happen?” he asked her.

Leafdapple’s panic-stricken gaze flew to Firestar and back to the StarClan cat. “I… I think so,” she stammered. “At least, Firestar says you’re going to give me nine lives, and I believe him.”

A flicker of sadness passed across the pale warrior’s face.

“That will have to be enough,” he mewed. “Come, and I will give you your first life.”

Leafdapple took a step forward so that she stood right in front of the SkyClan ancestor. He bowed his head and touched his nose to hers. Leafdapple stiffened and flinched away, then deliberately moved back so that the SkyClan cat could touch her again.

“I give you a life for endurance,” he meowed. “Use it well to strengthen your Clan in times of trouble.”

As the SkyClan ancestor finished speaking, Firestar saw all Leafdapple’s limbs spasm, and her jaws gaped in a soundless wail of agony. His belly clenched in sympathy; he remembered the terrible pain he had felt when he received his own lives.

“Does it hurt?” Echosong whispered, her eyes wide with shock. “Can’t we help her?”

Firestar shook his head. “This is for Leafdapple to bear alone.”

Leafdapple trembled as the pain ebbed away, but she stayed on her paws. “Firestar”—she gasped—“do I have to do that eight more times?”

“It’s okay,” Firestar comforted her. “Not all the lives will feel the same.”

The she-cat had a dazed look in her eyes, and a touch of resentment in her voice as she mewed, “You never said it would be like this.” She shook her head in mingled astonishment and wonder. Firestar guessed that no cat could go through what she had just endured and still doubt that the experience was real. “I wish we could just get it over with.”

“It won’t be long,” Firestar promised.

“Look!” Echosong exclaimed, whirling around. “Leafdapple, can you see?”

“I-I think so,” the tabby she-cat mewed.

A row of cats was appearing faintly through the mist. They encircled the three living cats and the SkyClan ancestor, their outlines indistinct in the drifting clouds. Then one of them strode forward: Skywatcher. Not the scrawny elder who had died in the gorge, but as Firestar had last seen him in his dream, a strong and powerful warrior.

Leafdapple’s eyes stretched wide. “Skywatcher,” she whispered. “Is that you?”

Skywatcher touched noses with her. “Welcome, Leafdapple.

I give you a life for hope,” he meowed. “Use it well to guide your Clan through the darkest days.”

Once more Leafdapple tensed as the life surged through her. Firestar could see that the pain was not so great this time, or perhaps she knew what to expect and had braced herself against it. She recovered more quickly, dipping her head to Skywatcher. “Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for all you have done for my Clan.”

Skywatcher stepped back noiselessly to stand with the ranks of misty warriors.

Leafdapple gazed with expectation at the circle of cats whose shapes were gradually becoming more distinct. “I’m ready,” she mewed.

The third cat to appear was a tabby she-cat so like Leafdapple that Firestar could hardly tell them apart. She bounded forward and touched noses with Leafdapple: a gesture of pure affection, not the giving of a life.

“My mother!” Leafdapple exclaimed. “But you died… I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Nothing is lost forever, dear one,” her mother replied.

Once again she touched noses with her daughter. “With this life I give you love. Use it well for all the cats who look to you for protection.”

Leafdapple had stretched forward eagerly to receive this life, and Firestar could see she was unprepared for the piercing agony that came with it. Her limbs went rigid and she dug her claws into the ground, clenching her teeth on a screech of pain. He had experienced the same anguish when Brindleface had given him a life; he had not realized how fierce was a mother’s love for her kits, how willing a she-cat was to die to protect her children.

As Leafdapple’s pain ebbed, her mother covered her face and ears with loving licks.

“Don’t go,” Leafdapple whispered.

“Don’t be afraid, dear one,” her mother reassured her. “I will walk with you many times in dreams, I promise.”

As she stepped back, a fourth cat was already walking forward. Firestar caught his breath at a familiar scent, but one he had never expected to smell here. The shape of the cat’s head reminded him of the SkyClan ancestor. Then as she emerged fully from the mist he recognized the slender tortoiseshell.

“Spottedleaf!”

She bounded forward and touched noses with him.

“Thank you, Firestar,” she mewed. “I’m so proud of you! SkyClan owes everything to you. I never told you how much it means to me to see the Clan restored.”

Firestar breathed in her sweet scent. “I couldn’t have done it without you, Spottedleaf.”

The medicine cat dipped her head to him. “I have been given the privilege to walk these skies to give Leafdapple her fourth life.” Approaching the tabby she-cat, she went on. “I give you a life for healing wounds caused by words and rivalry.

Use it well for all cats troubled in spirit.”

This time Firestar could see that there was no pain as the life flowed into Leafdapple. The she-cat let out a blissful purr, her eyes narrowed; for a few heartbeats she looked like a kit in the nursery, safe inside the curve of her mother’s paws and belly.

“Thank you, Spottedleaf,” she mewed when it was over.

“Firestar has told me so much about you. I’m honored to meet you at last.”

The medicine cat brushed her tail softly along Leafdapple’s pelt, then withdrew once more to the edge of the circle.

Firestar could see that the mist was growing thinner. More of the moorland was opening up, and the moonlight grew stronger, though the moon itself remained hidden. More and more cats were revealed, stretching into the distance. A shiver ran through Firestar, as if his paws splashed into icy water.

As if she felt it too, Echosong pressed against him for a moment. “They’re coming home,” she whispered. “All the ancestors of SkyClan. I can hear them.”

Before Firestar could reply, the cats in the front rank parted to allow four new cats into the center of the circle. He gazed at them, puzzled. They looked vaguely familiar, yet they didn’t remind him of SkyClan. They looked nothing like any of the other cats who had given lives. They walked with head and tail high, with all the authority of leaders, yet he had never seen them before, and didn’t understand why they should come now to give a life to Leafdapple.

Instead of approaching the she-cat, the newcomers padded over to the SkyClan ancestor, who was staring at them with wide eyes. As the first cat, a muscular bracken-colored tom, drew closer, he gasped. “Redstar!”

To Firestar’s astonishment, the bracken-colored cat stood in front of the SkyClan ancestor with his head bowed. “I was wrong all those moons ago,” he meowed. “All of ThunderClan joins with me to tell you we’re sorry for what we did.”

Firestar stared: this cat must have been the ThunderClan leader when SkyClan was driven out of the forest.

The next cat, a brown tabby she-cat, crouched beside Redstar. She reminded Firestar of the RiverClan warrior Heavystep, and she had the look of Clovertail too.

“Birchstar?” The SkyClan ancestor’s voice was guarded.

“RiverClan says the same. We should never have driven you out. I felt compassion for you, but I did nothing—and that makes my actions worse. I am sorry.”

The third cat, an older tom with a gray-black pelt and a long, twitching tail, remained on his paws, but he bowed his head as he meowed, “I am Swiftstar of WindClan, and when I walked the forest I never told any cat I was sorry. But I say it to you now: what we did was wrong.”

The fourth cat’s creamy brown fur glimmered in the moonlight as she slipped up beside Swiftstar and fixed brilliant green eyes on the SkyClan leader. “ShadowClan is sorry too,” she mewed. “We had good reasons for what we did, but I regret that we caused so much suffering to you and your Clanmates.”

“Thank you, Dawnstar,” the SkyClan cat replied. “Thank you, all of you.”

“Nothing can make up for what we did,” Redstar went on.

“But we have each come here to give a life to the new leader of SkyClan, if we may.”

The gray-and-white cat dipped his head, giving his permission.

Redstar stepped forward to touch noses with Leafdapple.

“With this life I give you wisdom. Use it well when you have the hardest decisions of all to make.”

Leafdapple quivered as the fifth life flowed into her.

Firestar remembered how he had felt as the number of his lives mounted up: as though he were a hollowed-out rock, filling up with rainwater that soon would spill over the edges and be lost.

The next cat to approach Leafdapple was Birchstar, the RiverClan leader. “I give you a life for sympathy and understanding,” she murmured. “Use it well for the weakest in your Clan, and for all others who need your help and protection.”

Swiftstar hardly gave Leafdapple time to receive that life before he strode up and touched noses with her. “I give you a life for selflessness,” the former WindClan leader announced. “Use it well in the service of your Clan.”

Last of the four came Dawnstar; Firestar gazed at her, astonished that such a graceful she-cat should be leader of ShadowClan, who always seemed to be at the bottom of trouble in the forest. But then, perhaps the ShadowClan of those days had been different—and perhaps they could change again.

“I give you a life for determination,” she meowed, stretching her head forward to touch her nose delicately to Leafdapple’s. “Use it well to set your paws on the path of what you know to be right.”

Leafdapple’s legs shook as she received the eighth life. She was breathing hard and fast, as if she had been running.

Firestar could see that the effort had drained her strength until she was almost too exhausted to stand on her paws.

When the life had entered into her she gazed at the four rival Clan leaders. “Thank you,” she meowed. “The new SkyClan will hold your Clans in honor. The fifth Clan has returned.”

The four leaders bowed their heads in reply. Then to Firestar’s amazement they turned away from Leafdapple and padded up to him.

“You righted the wrong we did,” Redstar meowed. “For that we thank you.”

“We thought we had to drive SkyClan away for the sake of our own Clans,” Dawnstar added. “But that was a mistake.”

Swiftstar twitched his ears. “We’ve paid for it. None of us could rest easily after SkyClan was gone. Guilt clawed us for the rest of our lives.”

“There should always have been five Clans in the forest,” Birchstar mewed.

Firestar struggled to find words to reply. When he had first learned of the pain and loss of the SkyClan ancestor, he had blamed the leaders of the other Clans for what they had done. But perhaps they were just leaders like himself, doing their best to make the right decisions for their Clan. “I will never forget you,” he murmured.

Redstar remained in front of Firestar as the other leaders turned away. “Your Clanmates are safe and waiting for you,” he meowed. “Your work here is over. You can go home now.”

The four Clan leaders stepped back to the edge of the circle to stand close to Skywatcher, Spottedleaf, and Leafdapple’s mother. The SkyClan ancestor joined them, and all eight starry cats seemed to grow tense and prick their ears, as if they were waiting. No other cat appeared through the mist.

Firestar’s belly clenched. Where was the ninth cat to give Leafdapple her last life?

A breeze had risen, tearing the mists into ragged strands.

The cats shone out more clearly, with glimmering eyes and pelts dusted with starshine. Beyond them Firestar caught glimpses of a vast expanse of moorland stretching into darkness. Above his head the moon shone fitfully, and stars glittered here and there before the mist drifted over them again.

Every hair on his pelt rose.

Beside him, Echosong murmured, “Oh, come—come quickly!”

Then Firestar saw the cats parting to leave a straight path leading far over the moor. At the end of it he could see a single point of light; at first he thought it was a star low on the horizon. It steadily drew closer, and now Firestar could see that it was a cat, racing along with its belly fur brushing the rough moorland grass. Stars streamed from its fur and sparkled at its paws, and its eyes were a blaze of starlight.

The SkyClan ancestor took a single pace forward, his eyes fixed on the approaching cat with a hunger that spoke of moons of starvation.

The shining cat reached the circle, and Firestar saw her clearly for the first time: a beautiful long-furred brown tabby with green eyes fixed intently on the SkyClan ancestor. She padded up to him and lightly touched her nose to his.

“Birdflight!” whispered the SkyClan leader.

“Cloudstar,” she purred, twining her tail with his. “I told you I would find you one day.”

“And I told you I would wait,” Cloudstar replied. He closed his eyes. “I can’t believe you’re here!”

“I will always be here,” Birdflight murmured. “We will walk the skies together forever.”

For a heartbeat that seemed to stretch into seasons the two cats stood close together, drinking in each other’s scent.

Then Birdflight drew back a pace and beckoned with her tail to two other cats who had approached unseen. They padded into the circle and dipped their heads to Cloudstar.

“These are your children,” Birdflight explained. “Though they were too small to make the journey with SkyClan, and grew up in ThunderClan instead, Spottedpelt and Gorseclaw have chosen to walk these skies with me in honor of their SkyClan ancestors.”

Firestar stared in astonishment. Spottedpelt was a slender tortoiseshell, as like Spottedleaf as if the two cats had been littermates. Gorseclaw was a broad-shouldered tabby tom with glowing amber eyes; Firestar’s belly churned at his like-ness to his old enemy, Tigerstar. Birdflight had said that the two cats had grown up in Firestar’s own Clan. Did that mean that SkyClan’s blood ran in ThunderClan? Were Spottedleaf and Tigerstar both descended from Cloudstar?

He caught Spottedleaf’s eye and saw her gazing delight-edly at the cats in the center of the circle. It must be true! No wonder he had been reminded of the SkyClan leader when she appeared. No wonder she had felt so involved in the destiny of the new Clan.

Cloudstar took a single pace toward his children, his legs stiff with shock. “When I left the forest,” he mewed hoarsely, “I vowed my Clan would never look to the stars again. Some of my warriors still followed the old ways, but as time went on and SkyClan was scattered, StarClan was forgotten, and our warrior ancestors were unable to walk these skies. Until now.” His brilliant gaze traveled from Birdflight and his children until it rested on Firestar and Leafdapple. “Until now.”

Birdflight paced across the circle to where Leafdapple still waited, her eyes filled with wonder, and touched noses with her.

“With this life I give you faithfulness,” she mewed. “Use it well to hold fast to Clan and kin.”

As the ninth life surged into Leafdapple, one more cat appeared from the starry ranks, a small tabby with a white front and paws. She padded across the circle until she stood face-to-face with Echosong.

“My name is Fawnstep,” she announced. “I was SkyClan’s medicine cat when they fled from the forest. You have my cave in the gorge, and you find herbs in the same places that I once did. Your warrior ancestors have chosen you to be SkyClan’s medicine cat from this moment on.”

“Thank you,” Echosong whispered. “I—”

Fawnstep silenced her by laying the tip of her tail gently over Echosong’s mouth. “Peace, dear friend. From now on I will walk in your dreams and watch over you until you have learned how to be a true medicine cat.” Her eyes sparkled.

“We shall travel far together, you and I.”

Echosong raised her head and looked deep into her fellow medicine cat’s eyes. “I’ll be ready for our next meeting,” she promised.

Leafdapple stood in the middle of the circle, a little unsteady on her legs, and looked around. “What happens now?” she asked Firestar in a hoarse whisper.

Firestar had no need to answer. While the new Clan leader was speaking, the last shreds of mist dissolved, revealing a sky where a full moon floated serenely. Stars blazed out as SkyClan’s warrior ancestors returned to watch over their descendants who had been lost for so long.

His pelt prickled with recognition as he spotted a strong gray warrior among them, with stars in his fur and the shimmer of starlight in his eyes. Rainfur’s gaze met his and he dipped his head.

His belly churning with grief and guilt, Firestar padded over to him. “I’m sorry, Rainfur,” he murmured. “If you hadn’t joined SkyClan, you would still be alive.”

“It was my decision.” Rainfur gazed at him with clear eyes.

“Now I’ll always be part of a Clan, and have a place among the stars. The warrior code is worth dying for.” He hesitated briefly and then added, “How are Petalnose and the kits?”

“They grieve for you,” Firestar replied. “But they’ll always have the support of their Clan.”

“I know. I trust SkyClan to look after them.” Rainfur dipped his head again, and Firestar felt as though he had been forgiven.

The ranks of cats rose to their paws and sprang up into the sky, setting each star to shine more brightly. Their voices mounted high and tingling to the glittering swathe of Silverpelt. “Leafstar! Leafstar!”

“Leafstar!” Firestar and Echosong joined in to welcome the new leader of SkyClan. “Leafstar!”

The light around him grew so dazzling that Firestar had to squeeze his eyes shut. The voices died away, and when he opened his eyes he was crouching on the surface of the Skyrock, with Leafstar and Echosong beside him. The half-moon still shone in a frosty sky.

Leafstar rose to her paws, staggered to find her balance, and let out a long breath. “Thank you, Firestar,” she meowed.

“I never imagined…” She blinked rapidly, while Echosong brushed her pelt against her flank and pressed her muzzle into the new leader’s shoulder.

“You know you mustn’t speak of this to any cat?” Firestar warned her.

Leafstar stared at him. “How could I? There are no words…” Shaking her head, she went on. “I understand now.

And I promise that I’ll be a strong and loyal leader to my Clan, until it’s my turn to walk among the stars with my ancestors.”

She paused for a moment, then gave her pelt a shake. “Let’s go down. My Clan will be waiting for me.”