The Last Thing He Said

I knew he’d seen me when those strange light eyes met mine. The night was as they say dark as Queen Beruthiel’s cats, but he’d seen me anyway. Strange human. Stranger saying since everyone knows not all of my ancestors were black. Undeterred by the stranger’s boldness and determinedly curious, I decided to follow him and see where he went. It was odd for a man to walk alone at night inside the city, especially since the stones started falling and smoke billowed over the great walls. They’d always rattled and thumped past in groups with enough noise that I was well out of the way when they passed. Yet here was one alone, covered, dark and passing through shadows as delicately as I would, seeming unaware of anything but the path beneath his paws… and me.

During the worst of the falling stones and smoke I’d huddled near the Blood House where nothing stirred. It felt safe by comparison, though it usually felt dire and smelled of sickness. Then the dying smell came, followed by groaning men in metal on carrying poles. I waited in a quiet garden behind the Blood House trying to ignore the screams from the building beside me, like the final cries of a mouse or bird between my claws, unpleasant but necessary. Finally I could stand it no more and went down through the city, skirting the houses where women usually threw shoes or water, just in case. Just as I settled myself in a doorway where I could see the lower gates, the strange man saw me; or rather we saw each other. He went in the direction of the Blood House and I slipped around one side of him, slinking through shadows to see without being seen again, and still I nearly lost him. He was very quiet for a two-legger. That also piqued my interest. He made no noise even with his paws covered. How did he do it?

The screams and moans and chatter sounds that meant a human was purring to another didn’t stop when he went into the Blood House, but a strange smell and a stranger feeling gradually filled the air from a window over my head. Two banisters up: an easy climb. That was the first time I saw the yellow girl and the yellow man beside her. The light-eyed man was there too and I peered around the window edge just as the girl opened her eyes, blinking at the yellow man as if dazed. Why the two-leggers need to hit each other over the heads and knock down stones I still don’t understand, but it seemed this little female had been badly injured. Her paw was tied to her chest and her face was very white, reminding me of the breast feathers of a dove. She looked soft. I decided then to return in the light to investigate her more, but for the time being my curiosity about the man wasn’t sated. I had to know how this human saw through my best tricks. It simply didn’t seem right and creeping again, I waited at the door of the Blood House until he left it, making a bit more noise now than he had before though I seemed to be the only one who noticed him. I froze, ears aimed forward, when he spoke.

“Come then watcher. Escort me down again.”

He didn’t look at me this time but I could tell his ears were perked toward me. How did he know? Mystified, I crept forward, making sure to grow out of the shadow as though a part of it, my best trick. A smile crossed his face and he started off, going back down the way we’d come. Invited, or perhaps just indulged, I followed him openly, letting him see where I hid and how I crept silently through broken stone and old straw, hoping that he would in turn show me how he was so stealthy at his great size. He only walked, murring to himself. Singing they call it, a soothing sound. Lower and lower he went, the wings of his garment flapping now and again as he turned a corner or skirted a pile of stone other men wouldn’t have seen. I followed though I had never ventured so near the lower gates before, but the man went on and seemed intent to go through them and into the field, that broad, burned expanse of grass that now reeked of things I neither knew nor wished to know. Surely he didn’t mean to go out there when there were plenty of men warm and awake within the walls? Any of my friends or siblings who ventured beyond those gates never came back. It was a place of death.

Before I understood what I did or how I came to do it, I called to him and left my safe, still shadow for the temporary one caused by man and moon. I risked going near his paws for he did not seem the type to swat them at me, and I saw he had no claws. I sought his face, the dark whiskers, the light eyes, the crippled ears of all men that never moved, and asked softly why.

“This is not yet my place.”

But this is your place, I told him and pressed against his leg. This is the place of men. Out there are dark things. But while he might sneak and glide like one of my kind, he seemed not to know the tongue and the last thing he said came in the sounds of men.

“Soon enough little watcher. Soon enough.”