X. The Cat

Do you remember Countess Griffin's directions?
Sikander could.

He took to the air and set off flying northwest, away from the ruined city where he had confronted the Snake, had slept for no-one-knew-how-long, had made friends with bees. As he flew away the land below grew flatter and drier under blazing sunlight. He crossed a great silent lake lying between bare rocky hills, then flat sandy-yellow grass-planes with patches of jungly woodland.

On and on, until at last he flew over broad white sandy beaches, empty, stretching away from one horizon to the other, marking the edge of the land, and on he flew out over the sea, without ever changing his bearings, nor stopping to rest.

It was the first time the Sandragon had ever seen the sea and much as he disliked water, it looked inviting. Surf breaking on the shore far far below seemed to hardly move, white, turquoise and pale blue. As the dragon headed out over the open ocean, it turned to a deeper and deeper navy blue. Sikander never stopped nor turned.

For two days and two nights he continued over the high sea and saw nothing but water below, sky above, clouds around, and occasionally birds. A great white lonely albatross, gliding for ever but moving its wings hardly ever, petrels so close to the waves that they seemed to slide across the surface, gulls scavenging for any food to be found on the water.

When at last Sikander drew nearer to land again, he was joined for a short while by two black frigate-birds with long slim crooked wings, rulers of the sea-skies. No other sea-bird can match the frigate for agility, speed, perfect use of the wind. But even they could not keep up with the Sandragon as he flew on north-west, never stopping.

Sikander knew that land was approaching long before he could see it. The far horizon was lined with banks of tall white clouds, and the air itself began to smell different, sea-salt and spray now threaded with the scent of fields, of tropical woods lying far off before him. It was dusk of Sikander's third day flying when he met land again. He felt completely worn out, hungry and thirsty.

Groves of palm trees lined the coast. As Sikander headed further inland, fields, paddies and vegetable patches – a patchwork in every shade of green - slipped by far below him. At last in the falling light he felt too tired to go any further at all.

Down and down he glided through the darkness and at last he landed in the spacious square courtyard of a large building, standing alone in the middle of a sea of fields. In the half-light Sikander could not make out if it was a farm-house or a country-palace, but it seemed empty. Candlelight shone in some of the windows but there was no movement, no sound other than the endless creaking of summernight crickets. If there was anyone there, they must be fast asleep, thought Sikander, and that seemed the best and most pleasant thing to be. He curled up in one corner of the courtyard, shaded from the moonlight under arches which formed a verandah along one wall of the court, layed his head down on his paws and was asleep in an instant.

An instant seemed to have passed when a small sound woke him again. He had slept deeply and had no sense of time, but the courtyard was now brightly lit by the moon in a new quarter of the sky. From this the Sandragon knew that he must have slept for several hours.

A cat was in the moonlit court, playing. It crouched, tensed, jumped to one side, flicked out its paw, crouched again, dabbed quickly with its other paw. At first Sikander thought the cat was alone, perhaps dancing some kind of music-less hunting dance. But then he realised that it was not alone, and that the match was not as it had at first seemed. There was another player, a little field-mouse, and that night seemed to have dealt the mouse a losing hand.

The cat pounced, lashed out its paw and batted the mouse gently on one side, without hurting the creature. It was clear that the cat could kill the mouse in an instant, whenever it wanted to. The mouse tried to scamper away but the cat was far too quick – it leapt across the mouse's escape route and hit the mouse again. The cat was playing alright, a cruel game, with the life of the mouse.

The Sandragon lifted his head, came fully awake and focussed on the situation. The cat had not seen him lying in the shadows, and continued with its deadly game. The mouse seemed to have given up hope – it trembled with fear and sometimes tried to escape, but it had no chance and its terrified attempts still looked half-hearted. It was waiting for the cat to tire and finish the game off. The scene had a terrible and vicious fascination.

Sikander watched for a few moments and pity welled up in his heart for the poor little mouse. In silence he moved out of the shadows into the moonlit courtyard and put one claw between the cat and its prey. The cat jumped out of the way in surprise, but the little mouse was so shocked and afraid that it could not even move to take advantage of the trump card which had suddenly turned up in the game of life and death. Sikander nudged the mouse with his claw. The little creature seemed to suddenly realise that it had been saved, shot away into the shadows and vanished. As the mouse escaped the cat tried to pounce again, but the Sandragon was just as much faster than the cat, as the cat had been faster than the mouse. Sikander caught it by the nape of the neck and held it still while the mouse skittered off into the darkness.

"Good-bye little mouse. Catch you later." snarled the cat. With this threatening farewell and with challenge in its green eyes the cat looked up at the Sandragon. Sikander felt indignant and angry at the cat's cruelty, at how unfair and savage its playing with the life of the helpless mouse had been.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, picking on a creature so much smaller and weaker."

The cat showed no sign of being ashamed at all, on the contrary, it looked straight into the Sandragon's eyes, with no fear at all and just arched its back and stretched its legs.

"Ashamed? Me? And what about you? Picking on a little cat not one hundredth part of your size, that's alright I suppose?"

Sikander's anger melted away and turned into a laugh, the cat had a point and he had to admit it. But after all the question was not quite as simple as that.

"Well, it may seem that way to you," observed Sikander, "but I am not playing with your life, although I could if I felt like it, and there is no excuse for the way you were enjoying yourself torturing that poor little mouse."

Now it was the cat's turn to adopt an indignant tone.

"Playing? Torturing? You clearly have no idea at all of what was going on."

"Indeed. Perhaps you would be so good as to explain."

The cat stretched out on the courtyard floor and looked at the dragon serenely.

"I was practicing.
No serious hunter can afford to do without practice.
The prize at stake in what you call a game is the mouse's death against my life.
If I don't hunt, I don't eat, and if I don't eat then I die, as sure as the mouse dies if I do.
If I don't keep my eyes and wits a sharp as my claws, then I catch no mice – they don't hang around waiting for me, you know.
Until you so delicately intruded, that mouse was already as good as dead and I was going to have my first meal in three days.
Believe me, delaying breakfast at the end of a long pursuit, needs some very good reason, and practice for the next pursuit is a vital reason."

Sikander curled up on the floor around the cat and looked at it carefully to see if it was having him on, but the cat did not move and stared right back at the Sandragon.

"And that's not all there is to it." mused the cat quietly. "There are thousands and thousands of those dear little mice. If we cats don't keep them away from the harvest stored in the Master's rooms then the mice will have it ruined and eaten in no time at all. So you see, if I don't kill mice, it's the end of me and my family, of the Master of this House and of his family too. Now tell me who is the killer and thief, who is the noble guardian, and which side of the battle you prefer to be on."

The cat's soft voice was lulling the Sandragon back to sleep again.

"Cat. Like you I've had no food for three days, and no sleep and nothing to drink either. I'm in no state to take sides in any battle at all. We'll talk about it again in the morning if you like."

And with that Sikander fell back into a deep sleep.