We cats owe our nine lives to more than just our ability as escape artists. We have nine lives because when we dream, we are the guardians at the nine inter-dimensional gates. It has always been so. It is why the Egyptians, who were a highly evolved people, worshipped us. And that is why Pharaoh Siam gave me an infinite number of lives.
Allow me to introduce myself. I am Brumous Siam and as I told you last week, I am not a good cat. I am too fond of catnip and mollys. You will not find me curled up next to your fireplace or artfully arranged on your cushions. You will not feel me rub against your leg or hear me purr in your lap. But you will enjoy all these things with other cats because I make it possible.
Which is why I have been called to Harrisonburg. The bladed crystal suzerain of the fourth dimension is coming here. Lususnaturae of Selofaine, the colorless world, aches for the richness, the dazzling chroma of our world. And he will have it, unless I stop him.
To that end, I am gathering my crew from the fine clowder at the Cat's Cradle. Boris, the grey ghost, had a rough time of it as a lad, but he's still willing to risk one of his eight remaining lives on this adventure. I take it very seriously when it comes to that. Nine lives can go pretty fast, and no one knows it better than someone who has an infinite number. The lifespan for one is a pawprint for another.
Boris will head my first team and three charming mollys will lend a paw. Casseopeia is a gorgeous silvery-white cat with blue eyes. When she sits in the sun with her tail curled around her front paws and eyes closed, I think of Egypt. But it's her brains we'll be using, for she is a crackerjack linguist. It’s the Siamese in her. Sheena is a little manx minx with calico camo, perfect for undercover operations. Brie is a tortoise-and-Siamese mix graced with amazing tanzanite eyes. She has been tragically de-clawed, but it is her powers of observation that we need.
It was Brie who first saw the dimple hidden in the blue sky. It was only a pinpoint but as she watched, there were two nearly invisible pulses in the light around it and she knew: Lususnaturae was making another attempt to wormhole his way into our world. The light shifts were two of his scouts threading their way through the nanotube they have opened between our dimensions.
We have met before, the scouts and I. Hyaline is a polished operator, but completely degenerate. To listen to her is to skate with razor blades on a dangerously thin shell of deception. Hyaloid is a shape-shifter. His favorite disguise is to ice himself over an object or another living being, even a human eye. And if you were his victim, you would neither see nor feel him. Only the superior oculus of an experienced cat can catch the minute change he causes in the refraction of light.
The Hyal twins are here to make the wormhole large enough to accommodate the suzerain of Selofaine, a job that will take many months. But unlike Lususnaturae, the twins do not love our world. We are fortunate to have these days of constant rain and gray skies because the watery heavens remind them of Selofaine. Homesick Hyaline will be unable to resist swimming unseen in swollen creeks and rivulets, while wistful Hyaloid will play among you as a shower of raindrops or a puddle in the sidewalk. While they play, we will practice, and when the sun restores their visibility, we will be ready.
© Silver Cat Works
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