(Three printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.)
IT BEGAN WITH AN ALMOST automatic kindness, and led to an inevitable but gracious end.
Prosatio Silban was tidying up after a somewhat slow morning when he first heard the mewing. His galleywagon was parked in the marketplace at Rathlu, the centermost of the Thousand Villages of the Uulian Commonwell. He was standing at the sink; one by one the beefy cook selected plates, bowls and cutlery from a small pile of dirty dishes; passed them through a large, teak-mounted voonith-bone hoop; and stacked the now-clean ones on the adjacent counter. I almost feel guilty using magik instead of water, he thought, seeing how there are so few of these. Still, it’s a relaxing noonday ritual.
He cocked an ear at the open half-door. Rathlu was known for its robust feline population, and the cats he had seen that day were magnificent specimens of their secretive race: cats large and small, black, grey, striped, yellow, and white, all sleek with loving care and lavish feeding. His favorites were the tiger-stripeds, and when he opened the door’s lower half, a smile lit his face. Before him sat an ancient grey-and-brown tabby, looking up at him with one golden eye; the other was a filmed-over blue. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Sudden Feline”