MARK OF THE CAT, YEAR OF THE RAT
ANDRE NORTON
Mark of the Cat copyright © 1992, 2017 Year of the Rat copyright © 2002, 2017 Andre Norton and Karen Kuykendall
eBook edition published 2017 by Worldbuilders Press, a service of the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency
Cover art by Matt Forsyth
In Memory of
KAREN KUYKENDALL
1928—1998
Artist, Dollmaker, Costumer, Jeweler
and
Creator of the Outer Regions
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction to the Outer Regions
Mark of the Cat
Year of the Rat
Andre Norton Biographical Sketch
Karen Kuykendall Biographical Sketch
INTRODUCTION TO THE OUTER REGIONS
The “Outer Regions” were created by the artist Karen Kuykendall, whose book of paintings, The Cat People, and her justly famous Tarot cards immortalized these fantastic lands and peoples. There exists among Ms. Kuykendall’s records a complete “Travelers’ Report” upon which this book is based.
Each of the five queendoms—The Diamond, Vapala; The Sapphire, Kahulawe; The Ruby, Thnossis; The Topaz, Azhengir; The Emerald, Twahihic—varies greatly. Each is ruled by a Queen, but all pay full obedience to the Emperor. It is a carefully preserved custom that these rulers come into power not by inheritance, but through election, although in some queendoms candidates come from only one House. The Emperor is chosen from selected candidates, through a series of severe tests.
The territory of these queendoms is mostly arid desert, and the harshness of the environment has shaped both people and cultures. What appears a frightening and barren world to stray travelers from the hardly known inner regions is accepted as home, and a loved one, by the five nations, the inhabitants so attuned to the “essence” of the land that they are unhappy and adrift apart from their roots.
The principal food of four of the queendoms comes mainly from algae beds, for the whole region contains a vast shallow thermal of briny waters in which live many kinds of these plants. Only in Vapala, which is a mesa territory, is other vegetation to be found—true plants—though some of these are grown in the glass-bubble-protected oasis cities of Twahihic. Both people and animals, however, depend mainly on the algae for food and water.
Kahulawe is a land of slickrock isles which are pitted with caves and crevices, and crowned by weirdly carved sand spurs sheltering the algae pans. Between these (most of which are owned by the settlements of Houses and clans) lie stretches of barren sand. The weather is very clear and sunny, so much so that most traveling is done by night. There are periods of death-dealing storms which may last for days. The people raise herds of oxen-like yaksen, and the oryxen used as mounts. They produce fine leatherwork and jewelry and are a most prosperous and quiet folk. Their independent women are noted traders and often the leaders of the caravans.
Volcanic Thnossis is in direct contrast to this quiet neighbor. Quake prone, with rocky potholes and crevices which breathe out steam and gases, it trades in sulphur, pumice, iron, glass, and weaving. There are many noted smiths in Thnossis. This is the most unstable of queendoms, and its people are fiery of temper, moody, and fatalistic.
Most desolate of all is Azhengir, for it consists of wide salt flats and baked alkali lands. Its weather is very hot and clammy near the large salt pans, and as the other countries, it suffers from the sweep of violent sandstorms. Salt gathering is the main industry, though there is some manufacturing of limestone and gypsum products and glassware. The people accept their hard life fatalistically and find their main source of escape in music, singing, and playing on a wide variety of instruments.
Twahihic is known as the sand queendom. The terrain is undulating with great sand dunes. The glass-dome-protected settlements cover the oases. There is almost no rain. Smothering sandstorms and tornadic winds are always threatening. The inhabitants provide recreation for tourists from the other nations. Dune skiing and flying are very popular. Twahihic is also the center for fine glass and ceramics.
Vapala has the distinction of being the formal seat of the Empire. Situated on a huge mesa tableland, it has orchards, grasslands, and farms. There are two seasons, wet and dry. Farming, some herding, diamond mining, and the mechanics of solar energy provide work for the inhabitants. A profitable and stable country with the most advanced technology, its people are arrogant and inclined to consider those of the other four queendoms to be “barbarians.”
Animal life has an important part to play in all five queendoms. The heavy-coated yaksen are both beasts of burden and sources of wool and meat. Oryxen, much lighter, larger, antelope-like creatures, equipped with murderous horns, are kept for riding. It is usual to clip the horns, though some expert horsemen and women are proud of mastering the more wild, horned mount. One with clipped horns is known as a pa-oryxen.
Within almost all homes are kottis, small cats, independent of character. These choose the humans they wish to associate with and are highly esteemed. To deliberately kill a kotti is considered worse than murder and the offender is subjected to the death law.
The royal leopards have long been the symbol of imperial power. In fact, the Blue Leopard of Vapala is first guard to the Emperor and has a part in selecting those taking the tests for that position.
On the other hand, the larger Sand Cat is dreaded, as they dispute territories with human settlers. They are highly intelligent and have customs of their own. This species is distrusted and yet held in awe by the humans.
However, both Sand Cat and man have a common enemy in the packs of huge rats which prey upon all living things, befoul the algae pans, harry the herds, and are a source of death wherever they strike. Their hunger is never eased and they turn upon their own kind if no other prey is near. They breed continually and the litters are very large.
As to the customs of the queendoms: There are no formal marriages. Women only accept mates when they come into heat and not all of them ever do. Children are greatly desired but the birthrate is low. In Kahulawe, Vapala, and Thnossis a mating partnership is for life. In Twahihic and Azhengir polygamy is practiced and in those queendoms women who fail to come into heat are treated as servants and laborers. Children, being relatively few, are cherished and families are close-knit for the most part. However, unfit children and adults are put to death, since the community at large cannot support the unproductive. In Kahulawe and Vapala, where the normal deaths are fewer, the population of both people and animals is carefully monitored by a Minister of Balance and surplus of either humans or animals can be condemned. It is the quality of life rather than the quantity which is desired.
Belief is in the Cosmic Order and the Essence of the lands. Human sacrifice has been known in times of great drought. Often a ruler or person of importance volunteers as victim. Organized religion does not exist.
Only Azhengir practices slavery. In other countries servants have a firm social standing and dignity of person.
The solo—a rite of passage—is practiced in Kahulawe, Azhengir, and Twahihic. To be successful in this severe test, a young person must prove his or her ability to be accepted as a full adult.
In Kahulawe, Vapala, and Thnossis the Queens are elected by a council of representatives. The Queen has absolute power for life. In Azhengir and Twahihic the monarchy is hereditary; a Queen who does not bear children can be replaced.
Warfare used to be known between the isles of Kahulawe and in struggles between Houses of Vapala and mining towns of Thnossis. However, there has now been a long period of peace. Warriors still follow the traditional training, but their only duties are the protection of
caravans against the periodic raids of outlaws and the search for travelers lost in the harsh country. However, there is constant intrigue between the Great Houses of Vapala, with assassination and quiet murder often ridding some lordship of an enemy.
This then is the land and people as they are in the here and now, but there are hints that all is not well and the future may be clouded as we come to the end of the reign of the Emperor Haban-ji. The waves of history are known for their rise and fall.
MARK OF THE CAT
1
The night sky of Kahulawe arched over me. I had seated myself some distance away so that I could no longer see the lamps and torches about my father’s house. But I could not close my ears to the songs and the drumbeat which inspired the lingering dancers.
There was no small furry body curled beside me, no gentle nudge of head against my arm, no low, crooning purr to assure me that whatever I might be to my family I did not lack at least one to whom I came first. There would never be that again.
The raw heat of anger gripped me as it never had before in my life. That I was a disappointment to my father, an object of disgrace to be bullied by my brother, a servant for my sisters—I had accepted, fought to accept. Many, many times I had come to this perch on the roof of my own hut with hurt, even some despair, inside me. Then that which is the very essence of my birth place had rearmed me, encased me, as a mother might welcome a hurt child to her arms.
I was Klaverel-va-Hynkkel, son to Klaverel-va-Meguiel, the last full commander of the Queen’s forces before the proud regiments of the past shrank to the guards who now patrol the land against those who would prey along the caravan routes, or seek those gone astray from those same routes. I was his son and in his eyes I was a nothing. That I had learned to bear—or thought that I had. When I was younger I dreamed of accomplishing some act which would make my father turn eyes of approbation on me. But what deed could it be when I was not a bearer of weapons, one of those youths now strutting down around the house I refused to look at?
My brother Klaverel-va-Kalikku—now he—My nails scratched against the rock blocks fitted together beneath me as I drew two deep breaths, fighting once more the rising rage which burned me as greatly as would the sun at full height—My brother was all in my father’s reckoning that a son should be. It was he who skillfully rode the most vicious and hardly tamed oryxen, he who had hours earlier sent arrow and short spear to the heart of the test target, he who roared out the old war songs and danced the Advance of the Five Heroes.
I had accepted that to my father, this is what a man is. And what am I? A servant, a caretaker of stock, a trader who goes to town when necessary, one responsible for things which no warrior considers needful—not unless all would suddenly cease to be done.
Once more I strove to put aside the unhappiness of others’ judgment of me and think of what I had which was my own. Whereas any oryxen would shy and lower horns to my brother, I could lay hand to its skin and fear no lash-out of horn or hoof. All our yaksen came to my whistle and made grateful noises deep in their throats when I groomed them, for none of my father’s herd wandered matted of hair or needful of salve for hoof.
I was able to know with a single glance when those algae beds which supplied the major part of the food for ourselves and our herds needed to be double trimmed, and usually I was the one who harvested the major portion of the crop. Though at times my sisters would come with carry trays, to select for drying those bits which had special properties.
It was I who went to the market to trade yaksen hair to the weavers and select those needs which we could not supply for ourselves. The market—I shivered and leaned forward, resting my head on the arms I had folded across my knees.
No longer could I put off facing—and conquering in myself—what I must conquer. Let me then begin at the beginning, which lies with my sisters.
Melora-Kura—Her mind and her hands were truly filled with the essence of our land. I brought back for her such turquoise, agates, and other stones of color-life as she could use. She would sit and stare at such a piece for sometimes near a day and then her hands appeared to move of themselves, for many times she still looked only at the stone, to draw upon a sheet of cured skin that which she was moved to make. Jewelry from designs of Kura was greatly esteemed, so greatly indeed that outer traders from beyond our own marketplace would bring her commissions. She had never come into heat and I do not think that she regretted this, for she gave life with her mind and her hands and not her body. Not for her the wide-known feasting of a choosing such as occupied my younger sister Siggura-Meu this day and night.
Was Siggura satisfied now that she was engaged in something which Kura did not experience? That she had envied Kura I knew well. Too many times had I transported lopsided and strangely shaped pots of her manufacturing—such as she affirmed loudly were indeed works of art of a new kind—to market, where they were ignored or treated as a matter for laughter. No longer need she try to be as Kura: no, she would make her choice of those showing their prowess (if she had not already done so) and ride off to start a household of her own.
The market—No matter how my mind skittered away from the path of memory I would force upon it, I grimly returned to recall that. There I had always found a manner of acceptance. There was Ravinga, the far-traveling doll- and image-maker from Vapala.
And there was Mieu—My hand reached out to nothingness and there was a filling in my eyes, a tightness in my throat, which were as painful as would be my father’s ’epron whip laid across my shoulders.
The kottis are our friends, our companions, our luck. They are much smaller than the wild Sand Cats which all men with reason fear, but they have that proud look about them, that independence of spirit which is shared by even the Emperor’s great Blue Leopard, the very sign of imperial power.
Mieu had chosen me in the market of Meloa. She had but lately left whatever birthing place her dam had chosen, but there was already showing in her all the pride and intelligence of her kind. She came to me like a queen, her gleaming white, longish body fur jewel-patched by the black of onyx, the orange of fine agate. She was a treasure beyond all price and she made me hers.
From that moment we were as blood kin such as the bards sing of—comrades between whom there are no barriers. She took her place proudly beside what I had to offer in trade, even as she shared my sleeping mat and my food at home. It had been she—
I raised my head. For the first time I was realizing something I had forgotten, and I held to the scene in my mind. Yes, it was certain that Mieu had called me with her particular small urgent summons to Ravinga, running before me to where the dollmaker had her stand.
Ravinga was not in attendance at her sales place. That was occupied by a girl whom I had seen with her twice. She was very slender and her hair was the white flow of all Vapalans, though her skin was darker than Ravinga’s as if she had spent more time in our hotter land.
Ravinga to one side was running her hands over the head of her great pack yaksen. The beast was lowing and shaking its head. Ravinga saw me at once and signaled with upheld hand, stepping aside, for it was no strange thing that I tend a sickening beast.
It would seem that something plagued this one and I thought perhaps a salsucker had managed to embed itself in that thick covering of long hair. Such were sometimes to be found around the algae beds where the yaksen browse, and they tortured an animal which could not rid itself from them, jaws gnawing into the skin.
I took my curry comb from my pouch and hunted, parting and lifting the hair. However, what I found was no dark green slug of a parasite—rather what looked like a tiny bag deliberately knotted into several strands. I changed my comb for a knife and sawed the thing loose. Once separated from the hairs it opened in my hand and I found myself looking down at a tooth.
The desert rats are the curse of our people and slain wherever they are found. I had killed many from my childhood on to keep clean the algae beds which they befouled and poisoned. Thus
I was well aware what I saw now was one of the fore fangs of such a creature. It had been scored in several places and those markings filled with red paint, but the lines so formed held no pattern I had ever seen.
I heard a hiss from the girl. But Ravinga struck my hand, knocking the bit of leather and its uncanny contents to the ground. Then she seized upon two rocks—flat pieces of yellowish stone which appeared so quickly in her hands that I do not know whence they came. These she clapped sharply on either side of that fang and ground them around as one would grind for paint powder. There had arisen a furl of what seemed smoke and a puff of noxious odor. When she pulled the rocks apart there was only a dead-white dust which she set her foot upon, to tread it into the sand.
Having done so she stood looking straight at me. It seemed that there was a question in her eyes. I had questions also—in plenty. Yet it appeared I could not voice them. Now her hand went to her belt and she brought out something which gleamed.
“No!” The girl put out a hand. She was frowning and she certainly regarded me with no liking.
“Yes!” Ravinga denied her. She took two steps forward and I now saw that she held a round pendant swinging from a chain. At her gesture I bowed my head, then the chain was in place about my throat, and I looked down to see resting on my breast the finely wrought mask head of a Sand Cat, fashioned from that ancient red gold which we seldom see in these times. I was well aware through Kura of good workmanship and had heretofore believed that no one could surpass my sister. Yet there was something in this which I had never seen before. The inset yellow gems forming the eyes almost appeared to have life.
“To you,” Ravinga said. Then she repeated some words I could not understand. Once more breaking into the common tongue she added:
“This is for you alone and it shall be a key to that which is meant. Do not let it go from you.”