The Cat Who Knew How to Cry

3. GUARDIAN OF THE CAT'S ESSENCE (part 2)

***

"Why did you ask how long ago I'd sensed you?" the Patriarch remembered, having shoved his ward's muzzle into the smoking carcass enough times to make the choice clear: either hunger or loathing of raw meat.

"I ran into a suspicious bunch not long ago, so I thought that you might have picked up on something interesting. If you had been watching me, that is."

"What was the bunch?" Selorn inquired.

Aniallu told him about the cat in the tree, and about the dark mages' secret lair that she had discovered as a result, neither of which the patriarch found particularly distressing. But as soon as his daughter mentioned the Question Candle and her misgivings concerning the stranger that had vanished into the portal, the Eale cocked his ears, turned to Aniallu and began probing her for details. Aniallu patiently retold the story, trying not to omit anything. The look of curiosity on Selorn's face gave way to bewilderment, and then to annoyance.

"I don't understand why you didn't get involved!" he eventually cracked. "Why didn't you get to the bottom of it? Were those old humans so powerful as to pose a threat for Alasais' Shadow?"

"No. Not a threat..." said Aniallu, wavering, choosing her words.

"What was the problem, then?"

"I don't know. Maybe I sensed that I may ruin something by exposing myself, or that focusing my attention on the humans would cause me to miss or fail to accomplish something more... significant."

"More significant?" Selorn was almost hissing. "And it doesn't bother you that someone may have turned one of the outsiders accepted into our clan, either with money or fear? Forcing the treacherous scum to steal those damned candles from our treasury?"

"They were stored here?" Aniallu arched her brows. "But why?"

"The council didn't allow me to destroy them," the patriarch grimaced, his tail lashing ones of his sides.

"Don't be angry," the sianae scratched at his shoulder gently, conciliatorily. "I'm just as worried about all this as you are. Let's not growl at each other, but brainstorm as to who that creature might have been. He was tall like an elf or even a dragon, so he couldn't have been Alae. Besides, his eyes weren't glowing... Wait! Didn't Matriarch Meori take a Darlaronean under her patronage recently? Enaor wouldn't stop whining for her to do it."

"It's not him" Selorn dismissed her with a wave. "Those two have been toiling over yet another invention since yesterday morning. After racking their brains for several months, they've finally moved on from theory to practice. And you know how Enaor's experiments usually end."

Aniallu pulled her head into her shoulders.

"I ordered him to put a magical barrier around his room to ensure nothing can get in or out. It's still active."

"Then let's keep thinking," Alu spread her arms.

"Certainly," Selorn nodded. "I've already dispatched Oddeye to check out that basement. Let's see what he finds out."

***

For a long while Selorn and Aniallu walked through the chambers of the Outer Castle, heading to its heart and the gigantic green glade of the Inner Courtyard.

Aniallu paused on the doorstep of one of the halls, as waves of another's sorrow came crashing over her. Before the sianae could trace their source, a door leaf creaked open in a dusk-covered wall section to her right, and some Eale slipped through the formed opening. He darted toward the stream flowing across the hall, scooped some water into a pitcher, and slipped out onto the street just as quickly and soundlessly. Selorn didn't seem to give the matter much thought, but Aniallu stopped and scanned the hall, wondering what might have been the reason for the "water carrier's" sudden disappearance. All seemed peaceful, aside from the water warbling and the tapestries decorating the walls fluttering ever so gently, as if from the breaths of Eale depicted on them.