“Good Twin, Evil Twin”
By RD Rivero
April 7, 2000
**final version**
Chapter One
What they saw of the river was a parallel strip with a
gentle ‘S’-curve at the exact center of the field of view. Its currents stretched from one end of the
horizon to the other -- and at its extremes faded into dense mists and cloudy
vapors that totally obscured their sights even on-high. Its waters were blue -- very clearly blue --
and calm with only the rarest wave here and there glimmering and shinning amid
the bright sunlight of the noon sky.
WileyKat and WileyKit steered their hover-boards lower and lower and
lower still until they skimmed the unsettled surface of the untamed river and
felt the cool spray of the foamy crests.
On either side of them the jungles of Third Earth spread out
in ever-growing entangled abundance. The
nearer layers of vegetation could be distinguished effortlessly, but of what
lay further beyond remained darkened, shadowy oblivion. The canopy was vague and unclear; the
treetops blended into one, complete mass of green that broke apart with the
random sway of animals, whose habitat it was, jumped and leapt branch to
branch. The great, wide earth everywhere
was fertile and decorated by luscious bundles of grassy flowers, velvety moss
and craggy underbrush.
Although the hover-boards produced a low murmur and the
river was itself quite noisy, the two could hear well the sounds that diffused
throughout the arboreal environs.
The greenery ended abruptly with the spread of a yellowed
plain of gray rock. Dead and brown-dried
plants hung off the sides of the stony edifices like delicate spider webs, like
fingers of death frail and thin. Cold
winds careened across the land strong enough to fan the eerie vines out in the
air but not strong enough to dislodge the crumpled networks from the pitted,
eroded faces of the monoliths to which the roots and leaves had adhered through
the ages. The flatland was also adorned
by numerous chimneys that vented vast subterranean caverns the Thunder Twins
often explored.
Off in the distance, all around and all over the northern
horizon, the bare, wintered peaks of the forbidden mountains loomed
unfathomably high into the gloomy, gray skies.
No longer the bright blue of morning, no longer the sunny sapphire of
noon, the heavens now amassed dense, wispy clouds that interlocked into bizarre
formations.
WileyKat was tired though his heart raced. He sat with his hover-board under the shade
of one of the taller monoliths. The
rock’s vines hung limp across the rim of an extended ledge as much as a weeping
willow envelopes the space beneath its branches. The brittle, yellow grass of the immediate
vicinity had been patted flat, firm and soft.
He saw his sister walk through the waist-high vegetation that trembled
violently in the wind. She had mischief
on her mind but his attention was elsewhere.
A dark shadow passed through the fields.
Beneath a large, loose boulder was a portal, an opening
leading into a cavern. He inserted his
hands -- his whole arms -- and felt about the passage’s interior. Along its interior he discovered the rough
suggestion of a rung ladder. For some
reason, for no reason, he stuck through his whole head and peered into tunnel’s
incredible length noticing at its very terminus the hint of a red aura, a warm,
red aura.
He lifted his head -- his hover-board was gone, his sister
was missing. The sky alternated with
momentary flashes of light and dark -- shadows formed across the landscape as
clouds passed before the sun. The wind
ruffling the scenery produced an eerie music and uplifted an aroma of unknown,
woodsy nature.
The mysterious, unknown specter moved away -- not closer but
further into the forest.
WileyKat studied the portal again and decided to explore
it. Silently, dispassionately, he
climbed in on his hands and knees. At
first his fingers and toes could find and fit neatly into the rungs of that
ancient, imbedded ladder but after a while -- after he was deep, so deep into
the passage he could not see its upper extreme -- he could not hold himself up
any longer. Suddenly he felt
imponderably heavy, his movements slow and sluggish. Suddenly, too, he was overwhelmed by a
familiar sensation in the pit of his stomach just before he actually slipped
and fell.
The vertical tunnel only appeared to be deeper than it
really was. After the briefest of
moments he landed on his back in a small chamber. Its jagged proportions were aglow with a
vivid red. It was lit not by fire, not
by fixture, but by an unseen source that was totally and completely -- almost,
indeed, deliberately -- inhuman. The
ghostly aura -- the chamber, too -- throbbed as if he were not inside a cavern
but instead inside the phosphoric abdomen of a demonic firefly.
The wind howled -- it echoed through the tunnel.
WileyKat looked around.
There was a way out, a side passage but he dared not -- no -- for behind
its misshapen, jagged outline was nothing but absolute blackness so intense he
had mistaken it for another wall of rock.
And then there were the sounds of a presence approaching: the breathing, the treading.
He stepped back over the rocky floor, back over the
chamber’s red aura, back -- until it appeared at last.
“What are you?” He
tried to hide his face under his hands.
He tried to cover his eyes -- to go blind if only, if just only never to
see that thing again.
The figure emerged from the murky currents of the
incomprehensible void.
He averted his eyes but was overpowered by the urge to see
-- to see if it vanished like the illusionary fragment of disturbed imagination
he wished it was all along. But it was
still there and worse; it was not one figure but two: two man-like beings, one front and one
behind, standing back-to-back and deformed as their bodies twisted and spiraled
about each other. It had four arms, four legs and walked in the slowest, most
peculiar manner. The face of the
man-thing he saw was green and hairless:
its brow buried by deep, folded wrinkles, its eyes obscured under saggy
masses of flesh, its nose a pair of tiny holes, its mouth a slit of two thin
lips and its chin abnormally pressed into its head.
“No! Stay back, stay
back, you’re horrid!” WileyKat shouted as he stumbled about the cavern. He crouched into an upright, fetal position
and sobbed: “What are you?”
“I am evil,” the man-figure whose visage he studied answered. The superficial lips barely parted, barely
moved as the guttural voice spoke. “I am
formless.”
He gazed across the chamber -- the thing’s shape changed: the men-like figures
transformed. The first was his duplicate
and the second was his sister’s copy.
The new images were not intertwined as the old ones were, yet they
continued to act in eerie unison.
“I am good,” the WileyKit-figure replied, too, as the
macabre pair circled to let him see.
While his mirror image was flawless, hers was not: the face bruised and battered, the eyes
shrunken and shriveled, the nose caked with blood and broken aside and the jaw
smashed and shattered sagged with rows of missing, broken teeth. The neck was split open with bloody, moist
internal structures visible through the wide tear. The left hand was missing the thumb.
“I’ve lost my mind.
I’ve lost my mind. I’ve lost my
mind.”
Chapter Two
WileyKit wailed, her voice muffled by sobs and tears: “WileyKat, wake up! Wake up!
Wake up, WileyKat! Oh, by Jagga,
wake up!”
“What? What is it?”
he asked, startled. “WileyKit?” He stood, wrapping his hands around his
head: his eyes and temples
throbbed. “What is it, Kit?”
She grasped his forearms tightly; he looked at her features
nervously: her bruised face, her blood-soaked
hands, her clothes, ripped and torn.
Confused, he shook his head and asked: “What happened? Did you have an accident?” Casually he looked at the flattened turf --
the hover-board he had slept next to, or that he thought he had slept next to,
was missing. “WileyKit.”
She tugged his forearms and by her motion smeared his fur
and uniform with the grimy, oily leethe.
She led him, his mind groggy and disoriented, across the weathered,
wilted overgrowth. She dragged him, his
sore, tired body, away from the monoliths, through the waist-high, yellow
grass, to the sheltered fringe between the dead plain and the living forestry.
The wreckage of the hover-board lay amid the silky foliage.
“I had an accident,” she confessed.
“But you’re not bleeding -- I mean -- that’s not your blood,
right?” he asked, desperately. “I mean
-- you’re OK?”
“Look.” She pointed
to a mysterious object below the largest section of the wreckage.
WileyKat removed the bulk of the metal shrapnel and
uncovered it -- horrified by what he saw he turned to the side and threw up.
“I couldn’t stop. It
-- I, I was coming down too fast. I
couldn’t stop. I crashed into him. I sliced him in half.”
WileyKit draped her arms about his shoulders and together
they rocked gently back and forth.
“How could I have been so reckless? How could I have been so foolish?”
“It’s not your fault, Kat, I did it.”
“No -- if the others ever know, if they ever suspect.” He inspected the scene below while the wind
blew and howled above. “We need to hide the
body.” She stared at him silently,
wild-eyed. “Help me drag it,” he
continued, indicating with frenzied gesticulations the smoky vents surrounding
the stony monoliths. “Dump it into one
of those holes. We’ll dump it and cover
it. And no one -- even Liono -- will
ever find out.”
The twins sunk the hover-board within the shallows of the
nearby riverbank letting the currents wipe the blood away. They dragged the body into the fields: she could not look at it so she took it by
the arms; he took it by the legs. The
mangled, butchered remains had not been cut as neatly in two as WileyKit
thought -- though its innards were exposed, its ribs and spine were
intact. WileyKat studied the features
that were too damaged by the impact to permit its identification beyond that it
was a male Amazonian.
He saw, too, that the left hand was missing the thumb but he
thought little of it.
The chimneys would not accommodate the body -- it simply
would not go through. Panicked but
determined, he clawed at the rim with his hands until the hole was just wide
enough that the upper torso fit. He
stood atop the corpse and jumped up and down, each bounce pushing it further
and further into the tubular passage.
A strange sound -- a tear, rip -- followed.
“What was that, Kat?” she asked as she stood against the
bleak stonework of the lifeless plain.
Her eyes welled; her lips snarled.
“The body must have broken apart,” he answered.
With one, last heave the body fell through entirely -- but
now there was a new problem. The hole
was too large to be plugged with the nearby stones. But he got an idea and with his sister’s help
they slid the monolith toward the chimney.
They did not have a good hold on the stonework and a slab slipped off
the side.
“WileyKit? Are you
OK?”
“I’m fine, fine.”
And it was odd for she had been standing in the slab’s
trajectory -- it should have hit her but by some force, by some magic, now she
was safe next to him.
“You moved out of the way so fast.”
But she did not respond -- her eyes had a strange, faraway
look, indeed, for the first time he realized she never ever really looked at him.
Chapter Three
WileyKat sulked at the edge between the land and the water,
the broken parts of his hover-board lay submerged by his feet. He wondered: why had she used his hover-board
when she had one of her own?
Suddenly he was distracted by the sounds of splashing and
giggling. She had stripped -- her
clothes clung onto the blunt ends of the tree stumps -- and had dipped into the
currents of the river. Her hair was wet
and sagged, conforming to the contour of her head. Her ears were visible as they poked through
the matted fur. Her eyes -- dead, so
utterly dead -- sparkled with unnatural moisture. Her face was painted by a devilish smile that
retained the faintest hint of childhood innocence.
WileyKit approached the shore and gradually the rest of her
body emerged into view.
He caught sight of her round, shapely breasts -- she had
sprouted them a long while ago but lately they had not enlarged. How
long before they were ripe and supple like Cheetara’s chest? he asked
quietly under his baited, panted breath.
He stared at her furry, flat stomach and chuckled at her tiny, inner
bellybutton -- and then at the last moment she turned and submerged,
disappearing into the river to rejoin the pantheon of tempting nymphs, no
doubt, he thought.
He wanted to go to her, but he feared she would not
understand, she would not take it the right way. He cursed at his body. Would
it always get in his way?
She resurfaced between his legs and fell upon his arms -- he
reclined into the sun-baked mud of the riverbank, hugging her shoulder and
kissing her cheek.
“It’ll be all right, Kit.”
“What do we do now?”
He looked into her eyes -- his hands, his fingers, exploring
her wet mane as she pressed their bodies yet closer, yet deeper into each
other.
“Get on your hover-board and go back to Cat’s Lair. Tell the others I was in an accident but that
I’m all right. Tell them my vehicle
broke but that I’m OK -- and that I’m coming home on foot. That will be the end of it. But if they ask what happened, I’ll say --
I’ll say -- I crashed into a tree.”
“My sweet brother, you are so good to me,” she said, biting
her lip.
“Don’t be sad,” he said, kissing the moist trail of a tear
that crossed her cheek. “Don’t be sad --
I love you.”
WileyKat lost it -- he was so, so very intimately close and
yet he lost it. Yet, too, he was
happy. WileyKit ran her hands across his
chest and stomach and he got it back -- and she knew it and he knew she knew
it. He was nervous but she laughed,
teased his fur and kissed his lips -- they parted one, last time.
Chapter Four
The sun set in a brilliant aura, like a swan fading into
music.
At Cat’s Lair, the adult Thundercats supped quietly,
feasting on a meal it had taken Snarf the better part of the day to
prepare. The round, conference table was
adorned by platters of meat bought from the local market, servings of
vegetables hand-picked from the fortress’ garden and desserts of candy-fruit
harvested from the Berbils. Throughout
the stately chamber -- the somber room, whose walls were framed by glassy views
of starry night, whose ceiling was aglow with hanging fixtures of verdant light
and whose air was cooled to combat the oppressive summer’s heat -- the sounds
of cutting, chewing and drinking echoed unison to the seductive, alluring odors
emitted from the kitchen.
Panthro spoke up, gruffly, forcefully: “Since I finished first, I’ll begin
first.” The others turned their eyes to
him while they ate their food. “The
repairs and upgrades to the Thunder Tank are nearing completion. I’m sorry -- it’s taken so long -- but I’ve
been inundated with complaints, even from Snarf, that things’ve slowed quite a
bit around here, that maintenance work takes longer and longer and, worse, that
I’ve lost my edge.” Everyone was silent
-- Liono put down his cup and nearly formed an audible gulp. “Well, if it seems I’m off my feet lately the
answer is simple: Tygra and I --“ at the
last moment he caught his temper -- “Tygra and I have finalized the plans for a
new defense system with multiple personal vehicles and weaponry. Ever since we discovered the old mines and
abandoned factories of First Earth, I’ve made one crucial and critical discovery
after the next. Trust me -- when I’m
through there won’t be another complaint lodged against me!”
Panthro was about ready to growl but Tygra reached out in
time -- the tiger restrained his friend with gentle strokes over his exposed
chest, his wounded heart open for all to see, for all to know. Neither man acted on the merits of their
conscious, restrained minds yet the sudden consolation worked: the panther merely slammed his cup on the
table. It was a violent act that could
have shattered the glass, spilt its contents, cut its holder badly, painfully
but which only produced its desired effect:
the rest of the Thundercats were stunned silent.
Without another word Panthro arose, looked to the left, to
the only empty chair in the room and stormed out, fading into the murky
oblivion of the lair’s interior.
Everyone looked at Tygra.
“Um, well, I,” the red and black tiger said, fidgeting,
shifting along his seat that only then seemed entirely, unbearably
uncomfortable. “I have studied the
technology of First Earth and I believe there is, um, much there that can be
valuable. I believe that understanding
it and using it, um, will, um, make us stronger than the, um, Mutants.” He loosened his collar and his shirt. He was hot -- beads of sweat profused the fur
of his mane and the rest of his body both covered and uncovered. “I have finished several building designs for
the, um, Wollows and the Berbils. And I
have spoken to, um, Willa, about the security system and the Amazonian
Kingdom.”
Liono, who had sat still and attentive all the while,
noticed that Tygra’s eyes kept returning, kept falling upon the empty chair
across the table and not at Panthro’s. “And you, Cheetara?” the red-maned lion
asked.
Cheetara looked up to the Lord of Thundercats abruptly as if
she had been caught in the course of guilty acts of deviance albeit committed
only in daydream. “I’m worried, Liono,
why don’t you try the Sword again?”
He complied, standing to unsheathe the mystical weapon,
sitting to inspect the sacred object.
“By the Eye of Thundera, I tell you the boy is all right,” he said at
last. “There is no danger.”
Cheetara sighed and shook her head: “WileyKat’s education is going through
another lull. He’s distracted, dazing
off into space when he should be working.
His listens, of course, but by his eyes I know his mind is
elsewhere. I’ve caught him talking to
himself and on more than one occasion I’ve seen him --“ she paused and cradled
her head in her hands. “Every year, at
about this time, it happens. Every year,
year after year, since --“ again she stopped and readjusted. “I suppose that’s only natural. He’s growing, he’s changing -- adolescence --
but instead of getting better he gets worse.
I sense something, something foul about hi
“Is there no therapy?
No, um, medication?” Tygra asked, relieved now that the focus of
attention was no longer on him.
“The remedy the victim must administer himself,” the
spotted-cat answered.
“That boy needs to learn a trade, if he’s to become a truly
useful member of this team. It’s his
last year of general education and it’s got to be fruitful, Cheetara,” Liono
said, turning to the cheetah. She nodded
a respectful ‘yes’ but her eyes were fixed upon that empty chair but then, just
then, she looked at her left hand.
“Tygra, I want you to take on that responsibility.”
“I, Liono?”
“Yes. I want him to
learn discipline and I think you, too, would benefit from caring for him that
way. No -- it would be good for the both
of you. You are tigers, somewhat and the
boy clearly needs someone like him to guide him, to look up to -- to admire.”
“I, um, would gladly do it but --“
“Excellent. Start off
easy -- get to know what he likes and school him around his interests.”
“But you know, um, what Panthro thinks of him --“
Fro
“You leave Panthro to me.”
Liono sternly rebuked Tygra: “And
stop placating him, you’ll only encourage that sort of behavior.”
“Hi, Kat,” Cheetara said as though to break the atmospheric
tension.
They boy walked toward the cheetah -- he held her hand and
leaned over to give her a kiss. He heard
a giggle, stopped and drew back. He
looked about the chamber but he could not see WileyKit.
She must
be somewhere, anywhere, he thought to himself and spoke: “Hi.”
“WileyKat,” Liono said, standing behind the boy and platting
his hands on his shoulders as he pulled him away from Cheetara. “You’re late.”
“I know -- but didn’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“I had an accident. I
crashed my hover-board into a tree and broke it.”
“Um, won’t Panthro be glad to hear that, too,” Tygra
muttered under his breath -- yet the adults discerned the clear and vivid
remark.
WileyKat also heard it but did not react to it like the
others. He kept his eyes firm on
Cheetara’s breasts, on her beauties -- sporadic giggles sprang up from the
awkward silence. He squirmed under
Liono’s grip -- he wanted to turn back, away from the adults.
“You won’t have your hover-board fixed for a while -- and I
think that’s a good thing. Instead of
wasting your time playing and frolicking all over Third Earth, you’ll be with
Tygra, studying.”
“What?”
“You heard me; you’ll be Tygra’s squire. He’ll be your master and mentor.”
“OK,” he said, bowing his head, facing his and Liono’s feet.
“Oh, come now, you should be happy; you’re growing up the
old-fashioned way.” Liono ran his
fingers down and across WileyKat’s bushy, unkempt mane until the boy started to
laugh. “That’s the spirit. Go to the kitchen, Snarf will make you
something to eat before you go to bed.
You should have a good night’s rest; you will have a big day
tomorrow. A big day. Your apprenticeship will commence promptly
after breakfast.”
Somewhere in the depths, in the garage, a furious panther’s
rages echoed loudly.
“I guess he found your hover-board.” Liono stifled a chuckle. “Go, go before he comes up to look for you.”
Chapter Five
“I don’t care -- it was no reason for him to be so angry at
you, Kat,” WileyKit spoke as she spooned gravy over mashed potatoes. “After all, it was an accident. We’re almost done with the icky
vegetables.” WileyKat was about to speak
but she cut him off: “No, no, don’t, let
me; let me take care of you. You need a
lot of that, you know.” She put the
spoon in his mouth and he ate of it -- holding it upright like an extended
finger, she continued to lecture: “And
just how many accidents have those machines of his caused? When he built the Thunder Tank, he almost
overran the Berbil village.” She ladled
a large fill of gravy over what remained of the vegetables. “Or when he and Tygra worked on that new
engine -- the one that nearly destroyed Cat’s Lair -- nobody ever yelled at
him, cursed at him or even blamed him.”
WileyKit put the plate aside on the serving tray on the
makeshift table. The silent, lonely
bedroom was gloomy and dim except for the fluorescent lights of the bathroo
“We’ll teach him soon enough. I don’t want you to worry about that mean old
man.”
She put a candy fruit in his mouth, letting him chew on it.
“And what about Tygra?
Now you won’t be spending so much time leering at Cheetara while you sit
in class. What -- don’t you think I know
how you ogle at her? How you undress her
with your eyes? I bet you wish we were
back on Thundera, don’t you? So your
eyes and perhaps your hands, too, might wander and roam freely.” She took his free hand into hers and
whispered: “Feel me.” She pressed his
tentative fingers onto her exposed flesh.
“There, there. I think they’re
big enough for me right now, but I wonder when or if they’ll ever be like
hers. But you don’t need her -- she’s
Liono’s and old, too, real old. Way too
old for you. She’d never let anything
happen that way -- you’d have a
better chance of getting lucky with a Warrior Maiden. You see I know what goes on in that little
head of yours.” She smiled, drumming her
fingers below his belt, under his tunic.
“We came out of the same place, remember? Once, when we were intertwined, we shared everything
-- nothing is strange between you and me.
I know all about you, WileyKat, what you hope and wish for.”
With a napkin she wiped his lips and the sides of his cheeks
-- and again took his free hand into hers and kissed it.
“You have me, you don’t need anyone else. Go, go wash-up. I have to do something here.”
He arose from under her to a fit of giggles.
“Oh, you,” she said, playfully shoving him a little.
As he walked into the bathroom, he looked back to see his
sister reveal a strange, metal box -- with a slight, wry grin she undid its lid
and dropped an object of unknown nature within.
“Go -- and don’t close the door. I need the light.”
WileyKat was out of view but the conversation continued.
“Tygra makes me nervous.”
“I don’t like that I have to -- I mean, that I have to spend
all of that time with him. Things are
changing so fast it seems like I get to spend less and less time with you. I hate it when things change, Kit. I hated leaving Thundera, I hated when --“
“When what, Kat?” she asked -- he had been very, unduly
silent.
“When, when I -- when I had to start school. I was so uncomfortable with Cheetara. And Tygra.
I know he and Panthro talk about me behind my back. Now I have to call him ‘master’? That’s not fair, Kit, that’s just not
fair. I’d rather call Liono ‘master’.”
He left the bathroom stark naked; his clothes, muddy and
torn, lay lifeless at the base of the laundry chute. She approached him, embraced him as if to
cover his body with hers, completely, totally -- deliberately. She pressed firmly upon him, rubbing all the
way up and down his back -- she withdrew gently, tentatively, massaging across
his chest.
She giggled then at what she felt -- at what she alone
always saw but now actually felt and
without her hands.
“They shouldn’t treat someone so good so bad, Kat, but don’t
you worry about it.” Grasping his
shoulders, she kissed his lips. “Don’t
you worry about it.”
“You are so beautiful, Kit.
Have I ever told you?”
“All the time, you just don’t know it.”
He kissed her lips equally if not more passionately.
WileyKit slipped out of her clothes. WileyKat ambled into the bed, pushing the
blanket aside for his sister. They
guided each other toward one another and for a while, a long while, the Thunder Twins lay quiet and still, side-by-side,
face-to-face.
Chapter Six
“Snarf, snarf!” he muttered -- the passage resonated with
that brief, base utterance.
Down in the subbasements of Cat’s Lair -- strangely better
lit than the upper levels -- Snarf sped toward his bedroom. Running along the floor on four legs,
scarcely inches off the ground, he regretted he had left the floors unswept and
unvacuumed. Moldy dust combined with
stagnant humidity to form irritating coughs and powerful sniffles.
“What a miserable place this is.”
The tall ceiling was braced by wooden beams and spanned by
metal pipes. Ample fixtures filled the
wide gaps between the crisscrossed supports.
The walls were formed by thin, brown stones native to the site upon
which the fortress itself stood. The
floors, too, were made of the same rocks but smoothed and polished. The lithic tilework shimmered under the
curious glow of the overhead lamps.
“Why would WileyKat want to live down here? Snarf, snarf!
A boy his age should be up with the others, not --“
The door to WileyKat’s bedroom was slightly ajar -- and
through the open crack he saw a light on inside. His first thought, his first impulse was that
the boy should not be awake but asleep.
After all, starting tomorrow morning, his whole life would change forever. Nothing would be the same again. Again.
“That boy needs his sleep.”
Snarf reached for the doorknob but stopped just suddenly
aware of the disturbances originating within the chamber. Perching his ear up against the doorframe, he
listened attentively, stifling the coughs and sneezes that hat been muffling
the sounds. Now quite intolerably clear,
it seemed animals were loose in WileyKat’s room: unnatural grunts and snarls as if tapped from
another place, another time.
“Must be from the TV,” he mumbled, trying to reason with
himself. He recalled the food: “That’s right, he took his dinner down
here. Well, snarf, snarf, that’s my department,
isn’t it? I’ll just go in with the
excuse that I have to collect the serving tray -- yes -- and in the process
I’ll figure out what in Jagga’s name’s going on in there.”
He opened the door to the accompaniment of two roars: one masculine, one feminine.
“Kit! Kit!” a voice
yelled at the top of its lungs.
“Kit!” That last utterance
lingered on and on forever, beyond the capacity of the body to prolong the
duration of the spoken word.
“WileyKit?”
Snarf was confused.
He entered into the abysmal recess of WileyKat’s bedroom --
all the while the animalistic uproar quieted but did not cease. Deep, deep within the midnight chamber, he
became aware of subtle yet telltale sounds and just as quickly as he came in he
went out. He dared not even shut the
door for fear it would only alarm his overt, interloping presence.
Out in the hall Snarf was absolutely petrified.
“His own sister! Snarf, snarf!
His own sister!”
He would have to tell Liono, the others would have to know.
All was quiet again; the whole world was deadly quiet.
“Cheetara, I’ll have to tell Cheetara! Tomorrow!
Snarf, snarf.
She’ll know what to do about this.
I’ll have to tell her! Snarf, snarf!”
Ancient, reptilian senses alerted Snarf to the fact that he
was being watched and overheard from
inside WileyKat’s bedroom. Already
disturbed and distraught beyond understanding, he slithered down the corridor,
creeping silently over its stonework.
And when he was no more than a few feet away from the dreaded chamber,
the door shut against its inertial volition with a prolonged, deliberate snap.
Chapter Seven
Early that next morning, WileyKat was awoken by the sunlight
filtering through the bedroom windows.
Groggy and disoriented, he was surprised that his sister was not by
him. He was also surprised that he felt
so tired, so weak -- weary, achy, his legs were sore and acutely arthritic, his
hands were raw and unusually spent.
Slowly, carefully, he pulled aside the blankets and got off the
bed. Looking across the windows, he saw
the underside of the extended bridge and the walls of the rocky canyon, the
desolate ravine that separated Cat’s Lair from the surrounding countryside.
The chamber was just as he had left it that night -- even
the cups and plates remained on the serving tray on the desk.
“Why didn’t Snarf come for it?” he asked, just under his
breath.
WileyKat approached the table and saw, just by chance,
through the corner of his eyes, that there next to the bed, there on the floor,
was the box -- WileyKit’s box.
Aghast but intrigued, he knelt toward that mysterious object
but right as he was getting closer, nearer, his sister
emerged almost out of nowhere in one of her discontinuities. She shook the box, ensured that its lid was
tight and slid it under the bed.
“Sorry, I forgot to put it away after I came back.”
“Came back? Where did
you go?”
“I had to take care of something.”
WileyKat looked stunned.
“You’re tired, aren’t you?
Oh, there, there.” She cradled him, letting him nestle his face
onto her breasts. “You were so nice to
hold me last night, you’re such a gentleman.
I thought you’d just get off of me but you didn’t, you stayed in to the
end.”
“I don’t know, Kit, it feels like I ran a marathon. Are you sure nothing else happened last
night?”
She let go and drew back.
“Snarf -- he walked in on us.”
He turned half-white:
“But the serving tray -- wait, what did he see?”
“Everything.”
“Who did he tell?”
She shook her head:
“He won’t be telling anyone, Kat, because I fixed it. I handled it.
Just like you fixed my problem yesterday -- I returned the favor.”
"Kit?"
“You’re too good, too decent. Unlike Tygra, your, um, ‘master’. And, um, what did he do? Got addicted time and time
again to fruits, rocks and flowers.
No one ever yelled at him. No one
ever called him, um, weird. Talk about
hi
“What about Snarf?”
He kissed her lips while she held his vulnerability.
She drew her hands up and pressed her forefingers to his
lips to silence him: “He’s of no
consequence -- trust me -- but it’s almost time. You’ll be late for breakfast.” Kissing him again she added: “Wash up, I’ll wait for you.”
Chapter Eight
WileyKat entered the kitchen with the serving tray. An eerie, unsettled atmosphere greeted him
with silence, dark, shadowy silence. But
it was well past sunrise -- Snarf should have been there, he should have been
there ready to dole out breakfast. Yet,
when he turned on the lights, he found that the zone was empty.
He continued onward, inward, getting deeper and deeper into
the murky outer world of the kitchen.
His footsteps resonated through the dense, sturdy floor while all around
him echoed the symphony of the refrigerator humming, the faucet trickling --
for Panthro had not repaired the leak -- and the fluorescent lights flashing
and vibrating.
It was at the rear of the chamber that he stopped and placed
the serving tray into the deep basin of the sink. On the granite countertop, in the metal
wrack, was all of yesterday’s dinnerware, sparkling spotlessly clean. He explored the immediate vicinity: the unopened freezer, the unused stove and
the drawer. The
drawer. For reasons he could not
understand he was drawn to the drawer between the stove and the freezer and opened it: inside was a set of knives used to carve
meals for special occasions. It seemed
to be well-ordered, but a meat cleaver was missing and, what was more, he knew it would be missing.
WileyKat cracked his knuckles and then and there, under the
bright, hot lamps, he saw cuts and scratches along his fingers -- nothing
major, nothing overtly noticeable.
“Come on, Kat, come to the table.”
He turned to the side -- the heavy kitchen doors swung
forward, backward but his sister he could not see. By the time he reached the exit the
double-hinged doors were at rest and required more than the usual force to
open.
In the conference room, seated around the table, were
Cheetara, Liono’s empty chair, Tygra, Panthro, a wide arc without seats, his
own, unoccupied chair, and then, at last, at the end, his sister -- she sat on
Snarf’s seat.
WileyKat walked about the circumference of the table -- the
adults awkwardly silenced their conversation when they noticed he had entered
the hallowed chamber.
He nodded at WileyKit.
Passing Cheetara, she said:
“Good morning, Kat, you look tired.”
“I know.” WileyKat
smiled -- the cheetah’s nipples stood erect through the fabric of her uniform.
His sister laughed and pointed at him.
Passing Tygra, he said:
“Um, we have to talk later, OK?”
“I know.” WileyKat
noticed a large number of blue hairs scattered along the tiger’s crotch --
through which he caught the outline of --
Passing Panthro -- the ‘mean old man’ grunted and muttered
scant syllables under his breath as he rolled his eyes. His fur was superannuated, typical for the
summer when Thunderians shed.
“I know,” WileyKat said as if to answer.
“Oh, don’t we know,” his sister added.
“Stop it, you two, we’ve got more important things to do
right now,” Cheetara scolded and continued:
“We can’t find Snarf anywhere.”
WileyKat looked at her worriedly.
“Liono’s out trying to find him.”
“Sit down, WileyKat,” his sister said. “You’ll only --“
“Alright, alright,” he sighed and complied.
“That damned Snarf!
Complain, complain, complain: that’s all he’s good for! I hope he’s gotten stuck in his litter box.”
WileyKat’s solemn pose was perturbed by Tygra -- Panthro had
tried to stop his friend but it was too little, too late, the tiger had gotten
up and walked over to his would-be student.
The older, striped cat knelt to the boy’s eye-level and
whispered: “It seems breakfast is going
to be late. Why don’t we wait until
after lunch?”
WileyKat looked into Tygra’s eyes so closely, so deeply,
that he could see his own reflection in their glossy moisture.
“Cheetara’s got a few things she wants to do with you and I
need a bit more time to prepare myself.”
The boy gave no answer -- he did not have to for at that
very moment Liono stormed into the room violently.
“Did you find him?
Did the Sword of Omens show you where he was?” Cheetara asked then turned around with a loud
gasp. She saw that his hands were
covered in blood up to the elbows. The
fresh blood, the thick blood, dripped and trickled onto the floor in elongated
splatters. “Snarf!”
WileyKit smiled -- she put her hands over her mouth to
stifle the impulse to giggle.
A window at the back of the conference room smashed and shattered
to pieces -- Panthro, Tygra and WileyKat ran for cover. But it was not a stone or a bomb or any
ammunition tossed by disgruntled interlopers -- it was Snarf’s immolated body.
A frayed, seared noose hung about its limp neck.
Cheetara wailed.
Liono, his blood-stained hands within his red mane, babbled about water
to put out the flames. Panthro and Tygra
stared dumbfounded -- WileyKat stared, too, but afeard. Only WileyKit remained calm and levelheaded
-- but then she did nothing either way inclined.
At the end the sacrificial fire was extinguished by the
body’s latent moisture -- it was wet with the downpour of that mid-morning’s
sudden rainstorm. Indeed, the weather
outside worsened with violent thunder and vivid lightning.
Snarf’s stabbed and beaten body lay absolutely dead.
Chapter Nine
The rear stairwell of Cat’s Lair was a mixture of iron and
concrete, rough and featureless. The
Spartan architecture was lit by lead-framed skylights and slanted windows. The ambiance was aglow with filtered sunlight
that varied through the shades of gray fro
From the upper halls, where the evacuated conference room
was located, WileyKat descended one, then two, then three floors until he came
to the lower level of the garage -- he would have to pass that immense, intolerable
room on his way to meet Cheetara. Large,
thick chains dangled from pulleys secured high atop the tall ceiling, welded
into the framework of the skeletal supports.
The rafters were arranged in intricate, geometric patterns, giving the
roof the uncanny impression of a spider web unfurled, unwound. Indexed stacks of opened and unopened crates,
color-coded containers of spare parts and rare supplies were spread about the
floor. The empty spaces were filled by
vehicles -- broken, unfinished vehicles.
His hover-board and Panthro’s Thunder Tank both lay in scattered pieces
here and there.
And all the way at the back, beyond the scope of his vision,
was Tygra’s workbench. The tiger seemed
to struggle amidst scrolls of blue paper.
He gave his would-be master a quick but courteous wave though he was
unsure if he had been noticed.
Down ladders, across archways and through a wide hall with
fluorescent fixtures, WileyKat passed by countless, locked doors. Suddenly one opened with the sounds of a
toilet flush -- it was Panthro and he stood facing the boy, clutching the
doorknob. He had had an amiable look
upon his face until he saw the youngster -- it was incredible how many wrinkles
and contortions the panther’s brow morphed into.
Somehow, something about that fevered countenance appeared
dreadfully familiar to WileyKat. Panthro
did not speak but uttered slight, low grunts that climaxed with a violent hiss
as soon as he walked by. For the most
part, though, his heart raced in fear and panic but he was confidant nothing
would happen to him, nothing physical anyway.
He did not answer the panther but he did stare deeply and unflinchingly
into the older cat’s eyes.
Another door opened -- but that time it was a friendlier
face that greeted him.
“Kat,” his sister said.
She ran from the school room to his open arms.
“Kit.” He hugged her
and whispered: “I’m so happy to see
you. I’ve missed you.”
“We’ve only been apart a few hours.”
“It’s felt like an eternity, like forever.”
“You don’t have to hide it; I know you were afraid back
there. That mean old man needs to be
straightened out.”
“I just don’t understand why he hates me so much. It’s more than the hover-boards, it’s more, I
mean, it’s got to be more. Nothing I ever do makes him happy.”
“Panthro gets meaner and meaner every year.”
“I stopped caring about him, trying to be his friend a long,
long time ago, Kit, I’d just like to know what did I do
to deserve the way he condemns me to this tortured alienation.”
“Don’t give him that much, not even that much, Kat.”
The classroom door closed shut and for a moment, just for a
moment, WileyKat thought he saw Cheetara peering through the thinning crack of
the crevice but dismissed it.
“I guess I have to go.”
She kissed his lips and petted his mane before she, too, vanished through the corridor.
In the classroom Cheetara stood by window, looking out
across wide, sweeping forestry -- tall, ancient trees swaying to the furor of
the howling winds of the raging thunderstorm.
She held a crumpled tissue up to her face to wipe away the tears. She noticed he had entered by the tick of the
shutting doorway.
“Oh, WileyKat!”
Cheetara stumbled toward him and without warning gave him a
very warm and deep hug. Her hair fell
into his face -- very discretely he pushed it back with his hand and then
carefully, tentatively, let his fingers drop onto her sides. Feeling the soft, silky contours of her body,
he wanted the touch to linger, the hold to languish, veiled, as it was, by the
masked intentions of innocent closeness and exploit it, perhaps, to brush
against her breasts. But he stammered
back when he heard the giggling -- breaking away from the embrace, eyeballed
the chamber but could not find his sister anywhere.
“What will we do today, Cheetara?”
“I don’t know. I --
something terrible happened today.
Weren’t you frightened?”
“I was surprised -- I didn’t think something like that was
going to happen.”
She looked at him funny.
“What did you
think was going to happen?”
He shrugged: “I’m not
exactly sure.”
The cheetah sighed, arising off the floor upon which she
knelt. She gave the boy several sheets
of paper and a pen and said: “Why don’t
we try an exercise we’d often do in class back on Thundera. Write a letter to a friend about Snarf’s death
-- what happened and what you felt about it.”
“Does it have to be to a friend? Can it be to WileyKit?”
She glared as if her eyes were about ready to burst through
their sockets.
“Of course,” she answered, without emotion. She directed him to the seat. “Are you all right? Do you need anything?”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
Cheetara combed her fingers through WileyKat’s mane,
adjusting his tunic for it was disheveled and lopsided especially around his
legs. He resisted her motions at first
the usual way he did lately but he relented.
And with one, last playful rub of the head she walked out of the
classroom.
“Dear Kit,” he said, as he wrote, scribbling away
matter-of-factly on the blank sheet -- the empty sheet.
Out in the hall Cheetara shrugged and looked about utterly
distraught.
“Snarf,” she whispered, folding her hands atop her
lips. “Why Snarf, too,
after all of these years?”
Chapter Ten
The examination room.
The ceiling was ten feet high and framed by struts and pipes
of various sizes -- faint droplets of moisture leaked from the cast-iron tubes,
clung to their curved edifices. Small
pools of water formed along miniature basins and depressions -- the nearly
imperceptible defects that marred the flat surface of the shiny, tiled
floor. The walls were a light blue
concrete, pockmarked with a rough, glossy texture.
From thin, horizontal windows perched at the fringe between
the ceiling and the vast, northern wall, bursts of sunshine mixed with blots of
lightning filtered through to illuminate the sober interior. The telltale splatter of rain hitting the
glass echoed loudly, distinctly. There
was no hint of dampness; there was no trace of moisture wafting in the air --
there was, instead, the omnipresent stench of burnt flesh and hair.
At the center of the chamber, atop the small, stumpy table
of granite, gray brick was a plate -- a deep, metal plate -- covered by a white
shoal that hugged closely, intimately, the contours of an unseen object. The blanket -- stained yellow here and there
-- was held in place by the weight of knives, scissors and other, heavy
implements of forensic medicine.
Three adult Thundercats encircled the draped, coffin-like
basin.
“Are you sure you, um, want to go through this, Liono?”
Tygra asked, looking at the red-maned lion whose eyes did not leave the sight
of that cloaked object.
“I have to, Tygra, I have to.”
“You might want to wear this,” Panthro added, handing his
lord a surgical mask. “It’ll help with
the fumes.”
“Um, we, um, must all, um, wear them.”
After the three were suitably prepared, Tygra pulled back
the white shoal: “I had to shave the
body. The fire, um, may have been
either, um, weak or, um, weakened by the rainstor
“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Panthro asked.
“Tygra, why does the body look so -- flat?” Liono held his
hands over his already-covered mouth -- he had to look away but at the same
time he could not move his head for fear he might gag.
“That’s part of the autopsy.
I had to remove the internal organs -- that leaves the body somewhat
hollow. But let’s -- let’s start at the
top.”
Panthro put an arm around Liono to help him up.
“Snarf, um, was hit over the head with a blunt object. See the indentations around the eyes? That’s, um, where the blows landed. I’m not exactly sure, um, what the object
could have been, but by the, um, way the skin bruised, I, um, made out the
imprint of knuckles.”
“He was hit over the head with a fist?”
“Yes. That’s, um,
what I’m guessing. It’s also the only
bruise -- the cuts and gashes that, um, mar the rest of the body, um, were
inflicted after dead, um, when he, um, was hung on a tree.”
“The rope, the noose around his neck,” Panthro added, “had
traces of pine needles -- pines surround the candy fruit bushes.”
“So far, that’s about all, um, we found --“
Liono lost track of what Panthro and Tygra were saying as
his eyes explored the corpse from head to toe and back again. Snarf’s eyes were open -- blackened, charred
by flames, rotted by death green and yellow and yet, oddly, eerily, they seemed
to be moist. The teeth were blindingly
white and clean. The mouth was slightly
ajar -- the tongue within gagged the back of the throat like a morbid, organic
plug.
The Lord of the Thundercats shuddered and broke free of the
panther’s hold.
The corpse was totally unrecognizable in that hairless state
-- and a part of him, a large part of him, could not believe it was true, it
was his beloved nanny. Dead -- dead and transfigured.
“Dead -- death -- so cruel and so violent,” he wailed,
unable to separate his inner and outer voices.
“But -- you said you found more?”
“The thumb of the left hand is, um, missing.” Tygra grasped Snarf’s stiff, dead hand and
peeled back the fingers to show Liono the jagged stump -- all that was left of
the missing appendage. “It, um, was torn
off rather crudely.”
“Was that it?”
“Um, well, Liono,” Tygra said, trying desperately hard to
delay the inevitable. “Um, we found a,
um, message in his anal cavity.”
Liono stepped aback utterly shocked. Under the white, facemask the other, two
Thundercats could see his mouth, his lips, moving to form words he dared not
speak aloud.
“What, what, what drove you to look in there?”
Panthro pressed his hands over his face -- over his mask
that hid the smile, the smirk forming along his lips. But it was another matter to stifle the oncoming
chuckles. He walked to the side. He ran out of the room into the hall, his
back to the men, his body shaking and convulsion with the spasms of
uncontrollable laughter.
Tygra kept his eyes low down to the floor -- he wanted to
choose the right words but rather stated the facts as simply as possible: “A candy fruit, um, was sticking out of his
rectum. Apparently, that’s how the, um,
message, um, was jammed into the cavity, the anal cavity.”
Liono gazed so intensely at the tiger that it seemed his
eyes could have popped out of his head.
He stepped back, until he was stopped by the recess wall of the
examination room. His mind raced, reeled
oblivious to Tygra -- who remained fixed and immoveable. He was completely, totally unaware of the
world, of reality, of existence.
“The, um, message, um, was, needless to say, badly
stained. Right now it’s in the lab,
Panthro and I are busy trying to, to, to fix it so, um, we can read it.”
“By when do you think that’ll be done?”
“If, um, we, um, were to, um, work on it throughout today
and, um, maybe tomorrow --“
“Do it, do nothing else but that, I want to know what, by
Jagga, is responsible for this.”
From an air duct hidden within the network of pipes,
WileyKat and WileyKit saw and heard the events the events as they proceeded
beneath them.
“WileyKat’s apprenticeship will have to wait -- this problem
is far, far more important.”
“I, um, will tell him as soon as possible.”
“What that boy has seen, what he has gone through -- and now
this? We must be careful with him,
Tygra. Perhaps I should take the
responsibility myself, at least until this whole mess is sorted out.”
“Yes, Liono.”
Chapter Eleven
“This isn’t good, Kat.”
WileyKat and his sister returned to the safety of the
bedroom. After he helped her through the
ventilation duct, he secured the wire grid over the long, thin opening. He looked up at her as he arose from the
floor. She stood by the windows, the
tempest-stirred winds ruffling her clothes, her hair.
“You did that to Snarf?”
“Be silent.”
He walked up to her -- she pressed her fingers over his
lips.
“I did what I had to do.
He knew too much, he saw too much and he was more than willing to tell
Liono and Cheetara and the rest about us -- he wanted to tell them. Did you want that to happen? Could you imagine what would happen
next? You and I, we would be
separated. Those, adults, would never
let us see or touch each other again.”
She reached down between his legs.
“Would you want that to happen?”
She stroked him, gently, deliberately -- and he responded.
“Don’t laugh at me when it
happens.” He gazed upon her breasts,
unaware of the smile that formed -- that angled -- across her face. His heart raced, his chest throbbed -- he
gasped trying to catch his breath. “Kit,
that’s incredible.”
“Let’s go all the way --“
“No, we can’t.” He
pulled away from her grasp. “Snarf’s
funeral is later today. I don’t think we
should be doing stuff like that for a while -- like that for --“
“You do forgive me, don’t you?”
He leaned into his sister, exploring her mane, kissing her
lips: “I could never be angry at
you.” Now it was his turn to be
sly: he let one hand press against her
chest while the other hand run between her legs, under
her dress.
“Oh, Kat,” she gasped, giggling. “Oh, you’re so naughty -- don’t stop, oh,
don’t stop!”
She turned white -- almost ghost white -- and stared into
the distance. Suddenly frigid, stiff,
she walked back to the wall, to the darkness of the shadows past the windows.
“What’s the matter, Kit?
Did I hurt you?” He ran to her
like a moth to a flame: “I didn’t hurt
you, did I?”
“No, no, that’s not it.
Kat.
We’ve got to get that message.”
“What message?”
“The message Panthro and Tygra found inside
Snarf. I don’t know what I
was thinking when I wrote it -- I was so upset, I was so angry at what
happened, at what I had to do -- and at the others. That Panthro, that Tygra -- how I want to
wring their necks! How I hate them!”
WileyKit cried loudly into WileyKat’s shoulder -- holding
her tight and close, he rocked her softly back and forth, left and right.
“It’ll be all right, Kit, it’ll be all right.” He lifted her chin, her face. “Tonight, when everyone’s asleep, we’ll crawl
into the lab and we’ll take care of that message.”
“It’s important, Kat, if any of them find it, if they read
it --“
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of
it. Kit?
Did you see how everything’s worked out well in the end?”
She laughed:
“Yes. At least Liono will be
better to you than Panthro’s ‘friend’.”
“Yeah, his ‘special’ friend.”
They laughed together.
“Liono was always nice to us, ever since we were cubs. I don’t know what’s gotten into his head that
now he’s the bedrock of leadership. I
bet it’s only an act, I bet that, when you and he are alone, that he goes back
to being his usual, fun self. Still, you
knew that this day would come, you knew that sooner or later you would have to
go through this ‘apprenticeship’.”
“This growing up. I don’t want to be an adult, Kit, I don’t want to have adult problems and adult responsibilities. You know what I would do if I had the
power? I’d take you to an island, far,
far away and we’d live together without a care in the world.”
“Oh?” she asked, coyly.
“Yeah -- and we’d be naked all of the time.”
“Not all of the time?”
“All of the time, Kit -- we’d know every part of our bodies
completely, totally, intimately.”
She blushed: “But
what if it gets cold?”
“Then I’ll keep you warm -- in my bed.”
“Tell me you love me again.”
Chapter Twelve
A smooth, level stretch of ankle-high grass bordered by
moss-covered trees -- WileyKat had forgotten about the Thundercats’ cemetery.
The rainstorm dispersed early that afternoon -- late that
afternoon, despite clear, unobstructed sunlight, the ground was still wet and
muddy. Panthro and Tygra -- but mostly
Panthro -- were thankful for moist, loose soil that was by far easier to dig
the crypt into than parched, intertwined earth.
The two labored while donning thick, canvas overalls that protected them
against the contamination of the living dirt yet baked them under the heat of
the summer day.
Juxtaposed against that humid, stagnant landscape was a
cool, dynamic breeze. Unexpected zephyrs
swayed treetops and ruffled branches, synthesizing sounds of disquiet
solemnity. Occasionally the gusts were
so strong, so violent that remnant dew strung along the green leaves of
towering arbors sprayed into the air and fell as a kind of phantom rain -- as
if Nature itself wept at Snarf’s funeral.
Droplets shoot into Liono’s eyes -- he rubbed them, leaving
them unusually red. Cheetara’s eyes were
red, too, but her lips were curled as if caught in mid-snarl, revolted. The cheetah and the lion clung onto each
other’s shoulders, wrapping their arms across their waists in a semi-embrace.
Scents carried by the hazy, gray mists seemed to take
WileyKat back -- back to the green, open fields and blue, bright skies of long,
lost Thundera. A sigh, a yawn -- he
brooded about the adult Thundercats. He
gazed into the hole that deepened slowly, ever so slowly. “And to what depths will Snarf be buried?” he
asked in thought. “Or will he be
returned to hot hell?”
As he explored he discovered a tombstone -- a tombstone twin
to the plaque he and Liono carried to the hallowed grounds from Cat’s
Lair. But its words were dulled and weathered. And as he looked on, he remembered he had
been to the cemetery before, after they had arrived on Third Earth, when the
burial grounds were consecrated.
“Why did they burry Jagga?
After all, we never found the body.”
He drummed his fingers upon each other and slyly, coyly, espied the
world. “I suppose it could have been out
of respect -- if only I remembered.”
The faintest, murkiest visions of the past came back to him,
to his mind. He saw Liono fisting the
fresh grave, the mounded tomb. He saw
Cheetara weeping. Tygra flung the shovel
aside. Panthro approached him -- yes,
Panthro. The panther paid no attention
to his sister as he was locked in a deep, warm embrace -- it was as if they
were the only two in the whole universe.
He did not realize how much he missed that intimacy. Yet, what he did not understand was why
neither he nor his sister was moved by what was happening as the others were.
“I guess we just never knew Jagga that well,” he said. He saw WileyKit seated on a mound of dirt and
asked: “Where did you come from?”
“I was always right here, Kat, you were just too busy in
la-la-land to notice me. What about
Jagga?”
He shrugged -- he ran his hands through the strands of mane
that dropped by her eyes, pushing the hair back. “I don’t know -- it doesn’t matter.”
“Those two are
looking at us.”
WileyKat turned his head just slightly to see that his
sister was right: Liono and Cheetara
stared attentively at him. “Just
jealous, that’s all. Those two could
never have what we have, Kit. We are
one, you and I. We are one: two halves of one body; two forms of one
soul.”
“We better get back to the others -- Panthro and Tygra
finished digging up the grave.”
“Do you remember the last time we came to the cemetery?”
“I don’t think we’ve ever been here before, Kat -- or at
least I’ve never been here before.”
“I think I remember a few bits and pieces --”
“Don’t!” she said, uncharacteristically stern. “Don’t!
I’m sure there’s only sadness and pain.
Let’s not have any of that stuff today, OK?” She softened her tone -- he nodded his head
and just like that the matter dropped and died.
The twins walked, hand-in-hand, to the site of the excavated
tomb, to the pile of dirt -- red, black and muddy -- that Panthro and Tygra
unearthed. The shovels that had been
used in that macabre task stood upright planted in that grainy earth.
“The catapult was right in front of Cat’s Lair,” Liono
whispered to Cheetara. “Right in front of the bridge.”
“Tygra told me it was in flames,” Cheetara added, also in
whisper.
“It was of a very primitive design -- it would have been
easy to build from spare parts.”
“What about the Warrior Maidens? Could they have built it?” she asked.
Liono blinked suddenly caught off guard by the
possibility. “Did look like an Amazonian
catapult -- they could have built it, but I doubt they were the ones who did
this. Someone might have stolen the
catapult.”
“We also found a trail -- a mud trail -- that led into Cat’s
Lair, but it was so thin and the rains destroyed it,” Tygra said, arising from
the pit.
Liono and Cheetara took hold of the ends of a long, wooden
gurney upon which lay a tightly-wrapped object.
It was apparent to all present -- simply by the general form and outline
of the shoal -- that it was Snarf’s body.
The remains had been thoroughly shielded to protect -- rather, to
prevent -- the innocent Thundercats from seeing -- from knowing -- what the
murder and the autopsy had done to their much-beloved companion. The lion and the cheetah carefully maneuvered
themselves and the corpse into the pit, reaching the bottom one at a time. They were up to their shins in the earth --
worms, wet and slimy, crawled about their boots.
Snarf’s remains -- and gurney -- were interred in the
unfathomable, unspeakable darkness of the deep.
The pit was so steep Liono and Cheetara needed help to get
out. He was the first to ascend with the
aid of Panthro. She was the second to
climb free with the help of Tygra.
Afterward the four adults took the shovels and filled-in the grave.
The pile of dirt was reclaimed; the hole was plugged by a
mound. Vermin and snatches of grass
displaced by the dig poked through its fertile surface. The bulge was patted with the flat, working
ends of the shovels but the effort was futile so it was left to the elements to
correct the matter at its own, natural pace.
The plaque fit into place nicely, neatly -- almost perfectly
-- and uncannily parallel with respect to the other, older tombstone abandoned
as it was on the side. The engraved
letters had been lined with gold trim.
Tygra assured it would keep the words from fading, eroding -- at least
for a while.
Liono nodded -- the Thundercats gathered around Snarf’s
grave in a semicircle.
“I tried to think of something to say but none of what I
came up with would make much sense to you.
Snarf was the closest to me; closer, even, than my own father ever
was. I know you’re going to laugh or
think this is just a little too unusual but for a while -- no -- for a good,
long while there was a part of me that believed he was my father --“
WileyKat was shocked, stunned although it seemed the rest,
even Tygra, were too caught up with emotion, too engrossed with sadness to
notice. It was as if he alone was aware
that his sister laughed. She laughed,
doubled-over with pain -- her sides aching, her eyes watering, about ready to
cry blood-red tears. Yet it was hard,
very hard to tell just where her mirth ended and her grief began.
By that time WileyKit had let go of WileyKat’s hand -- free to
move, she walked from the outer edge of the semicircle to the inner core to be
closer to Liono and Cheetara. By that
time, too, the Lord of the Thundercats had finished his speech -- he looked
down at the boy, his sister’s laughter-sobs coming from the distance, the
faraway distance. The red-maned lion
reached up to pet the youth’s matted hair and comfort his low-cast shoulders.
“Thundercats,” he shouted, pulling the Sword of Omens free
of the Claw Shield.
“HO!” the others shouted.
“Thundercats --“
He stared into the Eye of Thundera -- the mystical insignia
responded unexpectedly.
“HO?”
The weapon growled.
“Thundercats.”
He looked at the boy, his face contorted in the strangest,
most frightening manner.
"HO!"
Silence.
Liono, his eyes transfixed to the muddy earth, turned away
from the others. Panthro and Tygra
followed their leader, carrying the shovels across their exposed
shoulders. Cheetara took WileyKat’s
hands into hers and rubbed them -- warmed them.
He was nervous not so much by the intimate contact but by the fear she
might see the cuts along his hands, his fingers wonder where he had gotten the
wounds. Instead she hugged him. He wrapped his arms about her neck; he
pressed his face above her breasts.
WileyKat kissed Cheetara’s cheek and then --
WileyKit had been quiet but now she pointed and laughed at
her brother. Jumping up and down, she
giggled almost innocently -- almost
innocently.
Then and only then, at that very moment, Cheetara realized
something was wrong. She broke his hold
and eased his body off of hers. At
eye-level and arm’s-distance, she studied the boy like she had never done
before. She scrutinized his actions, his
demeanor: he did more than look back at
her, he leered at her in ways men were wont to and on top of that his other,
involuntary reaction was clear and undeniable with its implication.
The cheetah stepped back from the youngster. Covering her welling eyes, she ran to the
other Thundercats who were well-within the forest trail back to Cat’s Lair.
His sister came to him and whispered: “See, I told you so. I said she’d never let anything happen
between you.”
“I didn’t know she’d react that way,” he said, about to
cry. “Do you think she still, likes, me,
Kit? I mean -- she won’t hate me the way
Panthro does?”
“I don’t know. I
really don’t know.”
“No -- it just --I don’t want that. I don’t want things to change.”
“Not everything has to change.” She hugged him, reaching under his tunic,
feeling, teasing, him. “Let's forget
about Snarf and Cheetara and all of them.
Over there, by the trees. Let’s finish what we started this
morning. Wouldn’t you like that? Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
She did not wait for his answer.
Chapter Thirteen
The lofty, thin windows of Tygra’s laboratory were covered
by thick, lead curtains -- odd, for there was little to blot out but the
blackness of night. Perhaps it was not
to block the daylight; perhaps it was to thwart the interlopers -- the Mutants
and their allies. The immense,
indifferent chamber was dark and shadowy, bathed here and there by the vivid,
smoky glow of table lamps cluttered above workbenches.
Tygra lay a sheet of parchment
within a clear, hollow cube. Calibrated
weights along its corners held it in place and pressed it flat. He shut the box and slid it into a device
whose shape, grossly distorted by the murky shadows, reminded the Thundercat of
Slythe’s reptilian profile. He flicked a
button and a burst of light exploded through the cracks of the machine.
“You’ve been working on that all day,” Panthro said.
The tiger looked up -- his friend stood by the machine, its
slivers of bright light danced across the blue fur of the panther’s naked body.
“Why don’t you come to bed?”
The dirty overalls they had used hours earlier were crumpled
upon the floor between them.
“I have to finish this, Panthro.”
The red-and-black cat covered the device with a protective
sheath and once again the chamber was plunged into an eerie, azure
incandescence.
“WileyKat?”
“I must be his mentor.
Liono doesn’t know --“
Panthro moved behind Tygra, grasping his shoulders.
“It’s the last round of treatment -- the message --“
“Can it be read?”
“Barely. No, no.
It can’t be read in its condition.
Too many stains, too much water damage.”
Spooning their bodies, they embraced -- Panthro’s front to
Tygra’s back. The panther’s lips met the
tiger’s ears -- he nibbled softly, affectionately as he whispered
unintelligible grunts and recognizable words.
Their hearts raced, their lungs panted.
The mechanic’s hands slipped down, down but the architect moved away.
“I don’t like how you treat, um, WileyKat,” he stammered.
“Not this again.”
Panthro turned and retreated toward one of the blocked-out windows.
“It’s, important, to me.”
Panthro pushed aside a portion of the heavy covers.
“That boy --“
“That boy is important to me.” Tygra reached for a chair and sat. “Everyday I feel like a failure around him --
like he can see through me, size me, measure my worth as a man. Oh, I don’t expect you to understand what it
feels or means to me. But I tell you,
it’s like the sense that I didn’t do -- or couldn’t do -- something he
expected. I don’t know what, I just
don’t know what. I do know that’s why I
need to be his mentor -- because maybe then I’ll put to rest the demons that
claw and tear at my heart.”
He stared at the panther, observing him, devouring him with
his eyes that at last adjusted to the shadowy darkness of the laboratory.
“What was it, Panthro?
What could have happened between you two that could have soured you like
this? What could he, a lonely,
friendless boy, have done to you?”
The panther shrugged and shook his head.
“Tell me,” the tiger implored.
“He’s different,” he replied -- the words, the syllables
oozing through his lips.
“What kind of excuse is that? Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe your
attitude’s contributed -- and to no small degree -- to what he’s become after
all of these years? Cheetara tells me
he’s got the power to sense our feelings and that he’s more than aware of your
indifference -- and you don’t think, you really don’t think it’s got nothing to
do with his behavior? He’s
different. And aren’t we different,
too?”
“It’s not the same, Tygra, what we’ve got isn’t the same.”
“There’s no difference!” the tiger shouted, standing
abruptly. “Or you accept him without
question, love him as your fellow Thundercat, or --“
“Or?”
“Or to hell with the Code of Thundera. Why hide behind pretended morality? Loyalty? Friendship? Let’s just all become animals again and
separate back into the enclaves of beasts!”
“I don’t like what I get from him. There’s evil there, can’t you see it? That boy’s been nothing but trouble. He’s had a hand in all the ills we’ve
suffered ever since the accident with this sister and I wouldn’t be surprised
if he hadn’t had something to do with that, too.”
“Panthro!”
The panther stopped -- he caught himself only too late and
bit his tongue: “I’m sorry.”
Silence.
“I shouldn’t have said that.
I’m sorry, Tygra.”
“That you could think he --“
“I didn’t mean it --“
“By Jagga, you didn’t!”
“Please,” Panthro begged, running to his friend’s side. “Please.”
He held hi
“You don’t have to be so --“
“I can’t promise you much, but I’ll try --“
“That would make me so happy.” Tygra’s eyes welled. “It’s important that he trusts me, so he
bonds with me.”
Panthro wrapped him in his arms in a tight embrace. Playing with his mane he said: “I know, I know.”
From the background came the telltale sounds of metal
clamping on metal.
“What was that?” the panther asked.
“It’s nothing,” the tiger replied, adding: “It happens all the time.” He gazed upon the blue-gray Thundercat and
that time he let his own hands wander.
“If you promise to be nice,” he said, teasing the mechanic’s
nipples. “I’ll promise to --“ he whispered into his friend’s ear.
The panther laughed and smiled: “All right, then, I promise, I promise.”
“Why don’t we go take that bath --“
“Now?”
“It’s not too late.
You’ve finished upgrading the Thunder Tank and almost everything else --
I’ve got nothing better to do. Why
shouldn’t we indulge just a little bit?”
“OK.” He rubbed up
and down the tiger’s mane, ruffling the red and black fur. “I’ll protect you, so you won’t have to be
invisible -- so I can enjoy seeing every part of you, my tiger.”
WileyKat held onto the grid of the vent’s portal for dear
life. He had miscalculated the force
needed to loosen it off its hinges and had almost knocked it onto the floor --
possibly with a loud, jarring din.
“I thought those two would never leave!” his sister
said. “Careful, careful with that --
slip it gently.”
“I know, I know -- I’ve done this before.”
“What? Got caught
before, too?”
“Keep your voice down.”
The plate landed on the floor soundlessly and with that same
ease the Thunder Twins passed through the cramped passage.
The clatter of running water echoed from the bathroom. Strong, white light glimmered through the
doorway and as the two got closer and closer they saw gray steam filter and
swarm into the laboratory. The doorway
was only half-open -- WileyKit stared through its long, thin crevice. Tygra’s back was to him -- the tiger was
relaxing in the large, metal tub that slowly filled with hot water. Panthro spoke to the striped cat with low,
raspy tones -- the panther slipped into the tub facing forward, facing into
Tygra and the boy’s direction. WileyKat
watched transfixed as the adult Thundercats locked lips for a mere moment of
fleeting passion.
“Gross,” WileyKit said.
“Thank Jagga they don’t do that stuff in front of us.”
Panthro and Tygra stopped -- Tygra spun around, resting his
folded arms and chin atop the tub’s curved, iron lip
while Panthro stared blankly into space.
Suddenly the panther learned forward, hugging the tiger -- cradling his
face between the mane and shoulder of his red and black striped friend. Their eyes were shut oblivious to the world
surrounding the
Though he was terrified, though adrenaline pumped through
his system, WileyKat found it almost impossible to keep his eyes open. He would rub them, focus them, they seemed so
dry, so bitterly dry he could not defy the reflex to shut them. And when he did, it was very difficult to
open them again.
“What’s the matter, Kat?” his sister asked.
The twins were in the middle of the laboratory, between
wracks and workbenches.
“I don’t know what’s wrong but I just can’t keep my eyes open,
Kit.”
Panthro growled and Tygra laughed -- and in the faraway
distance up-thrust water splashed-down onto the cold, hard floor that
surrounded the tub. The spigots had been
cut off and through the intermittent calm the two could hear everything that
was happening quite well.
“It doesn’t matter -- quickly, this shouldn’t take us
long.” She turned to the doorway and to
WileyKat. “Find that message, it must be
here.”
“He said it needed treatment so I’ll take a glance at what
machines --“ he yawned -- “he’s got running.”
“Good,” she said, shaking him, “a good start. Check through the drawers first, just to make
sure he didn’t stash it away.” She
looked again at the doorway, the partly-open doorway. WileyKat was wobbly, he could not stand still
or upright and he kept yawning. Yawning. “Are you
sure you’ll be all right? I can help --“
“No, no. I can find
it. We’ll just stick to the original
play. You keep a look out for me.”
“OK.” She kissed his
lips but he broke away with another yawn.
“You’re all worn out.”
“That’s all right.
The sooner -- the sooner -- we can -- go -- to bed.” His speech was slurred, his words were
incoherent. He fell, slumping into his
sister’s awaiting arms and that was all he could remember.
Chapter Fourteen
WileyKat awoke suddenly and unexpectedly. Sprawled naked over the bed, his left-side
and his sister’s right-side were intimately intertwined. Confused and bewildered, he could not recount
that night’s events.
The morning sun was out in the blue sky and sparkled through
the windows although most of the bedroom was shadowed by the silhouette of the
extended drawbridge. Calm and still,
almost lifeless, a ghostly silence had fallen upon Cat’s Lair.
“My sweetness,” he whispered as he kissed her cheek -- but
WileyKit did not respond. “It must have
been quite a night.”
He crawled to the edge of the bed -- sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and noticed it.
WileyKat’s hands were bloody and scared by fresh, new
scratches. Panicked, he turned to his
sister but she was unharmed. The
blankets were unstained. Only his palms
and the fur between his legs were tainted with both fresh and encrusted blood.
He grabbed a towel and walked to the bathroom. But before, just before he stepped in the
doorway, he looked back at his sister. She
was still asleep. Her left-hand thumb
was missing. Pausing under the
antechamber’s fluorescent lights, he wondered why he had never paid attention.
It was already midmorning and the inactivity of the
Thundercat fortress persisted.
Under the cool, misty spray of the showerhead, WileyKat
cleansed his fur.
“Will all the oceans of Third Earth ever wipe this blood
clean?” he lamented, lathering yet another coat of shampoo upon his hide. “Where do these scratches come from?”
He noticed a lot of blood concentrated down about his --
Cheetara yelled -- stammering out words that the lair’s
innards muffled and distorted. And when
that frenzied hysteria simmered it was accompanied by the telltale thumbs of
running feet.
WileyKat’s heart pounded, throbbed attuned to the shock and
horror of the startling disturbance.
“What happened last night?”
He turned off the water and quickly dried off his matted
fur. He grabbed a fresh tunic -- newly
laundered, it was free of mud and blood stains.
No longer on the bed, no longer in the room, WileyKit was
gone. The mysterious box she kept hidden
was left out in the middle of the room, just under the table.
“Why can’t she pickup after herself?” he muttered. He had the urge to explore its contents --
deep and inscrutable -- but Cheetara screamed again. So he left the bedroom to investigate the
strange case of that morning’s commotion.
Tygra’s laboratory -- the vast chamber was unchanged,
unaltered as far as he remembered from that night. It was as quiet as a tomb and just as dark,
just as gloomy even though the curtains of one of the tall, thin windows had
been pushed aside to let the daylight through.
Past crowded workbenches and cluttered drawing boards, past bits
of metal and pieces of machines, past appliances of all manner and variety,
WileyKat walked unflinchingly to the doorway at the recess of the room where
lights and soft, spoken words were emitted.
“How?”
Cheetara asked, burying her face into Liono’s shoulder. The two embraced, standing over the gray,
metal tub. “How can
this be happening, Liono? Who’s
doing this? For Jagga’s sake, who’s
doing this to us?”
“I don’t know, Cheetara,” Liono replied with a sigh. “It’s not the Mutants; it’s not the Lunatacs
-- not even MummRa. The mutilation’s too
disturbing, too sick even for them. No,
it’s a different sort of evil --“
“Evil!
I can feel it! I can feel it --
it’s still here --“
The cheetah drew away from the lion to reveal --
“No! No! No!”
WileyKat screamed and ran back -- back from the doorway, back from the
laboratory, to the shadowy oblivion of the interior of Cat’s Lair.
Panthro and Tygra were submerged in the water, in the tub,
their heads leaning over the curled, lip-like rim -- dead. Their fur stood
on-end, their eyes were wide-open -- blood trickled from their noses. Rigor mortis froze their arms over the
surface of the water -- their left hands, mangled and torn, were
missing their thumbs.
A samophlange dangled within the tub, its electric cord was
still attached to the power outlet -- steam and smoke evolved like a fine mist
from the soapy water.
Cheetara sprang toward the boy: “WileyKat!
Wait!”
Liono grasped her, restrained her: “Don’t worry about him, he can take care of
himself.”
Cheetara trembled alone -- unutterably alone -- in the
abandoned conference room. The tabletop
glimmered -- fragments of glass, small but sharp, littered its surface. Although the sun loomed above the distant
treetops, shadows covered her face -- Panthro had blocked out the broken window
with a wooden board that night. The sky
was cloudless and blue, yet the air reeked with the smell of fire -- all over,
everywhere, was the aura of death.
Liono entered slowly, nervously. He held a white parchment in his hands.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asked.
“I’ve calmed a little,” she answered.
“I haven’t touched the bodies -- I can’t, I just can’t do it
-- but I know they can’t be kept there like that forever.”
“What have you done?”
“I removed the samophlange.
I drained the water. I tried to
get their arms down but --“
“Oh, Liono!” She ran to him, holding him in her arms.
“The eyes, I closed the eyes.”
The two Thundercats were very, very silent for a good long
while.
“The message?”
He unraveled the parchment -- the paper had been
meticulously cleaned yet, like the atmosphere, it retained a most peculiar and
unspeakable stench.
“I found it in a machine in Tygra’s laboratory. I think it’s as good as it gets, but I can’t
make any sense of it. The words are
random, unintelligible.”
Cheetara took the sheet -- skimmed it -- and looked back at
Liono: “And this is what was found
inside Snarf?”
“Yes -- yes, this is it.”
“But -- but doesn’t it look familiar? I mean, you’ve seen stuff like it before,
right?”
“No, I don’t follow you.”
“Come with me.”
In the classroom Cheetara scrambled through notebooks and
loose-leaf papers.
“Look at them,” she said.
“Look at them.”
Liono opened one of the notebooks and placed it side-by-side
with the curled, parched document.
“The handwriting! The handwriting, Cheetara!”
“It gets worse -- worse.”
She produced a sheet of paper and lay it next
to the parchment. “It was written
yesterday, after Snarf’s body crashed through the window.”
Page after page, sheet after sheet, it was the handwriting and it was identical, it was absolutely
identical.
“What did you think of it, when it was given to you?”
“Just that it was emotional.
The random words, they’re often the products of --“
“Of what? Of what?”
He stormed out of the room, letting the papers drop in his
rage -- the Lord of the Thundercats barged through the hall, down the stairs
into the bowels of Cat’s Lair.
“What a mess! It’s
like two animals live here,” Liono said.
Cheetara followed him into the bedroom. Clothes, clean and dirty, littered the
floor. Some tunics were merely stained
with blood, some were encrusted with it -- and yet others were marred by the
stains of another, unknown substance.
“The bathroom’s empty, but someone took a shower in it --
the mirrors are still foggy.”
“Liono,” she said, “I noticed something about the
words.” He turned to face her. “The words on the papers, they’re not all
random.”
He stumbled toward her, over the awkward calamity of the
bedroom. “So it is a message.”
“Here.” She pointed
to a set of phrases at the centers of both papers. “The words here are about the same size and
shape -- the rest of the document was written around them.”
“Yes, the effect does stand out from the rest, Cheetara.”
While he read the words, she, too, explored the room.
“No, it’s not here, Liono, the evil has been lifted from
this place.”
“Listen to this:
‘Gross, sister said, wouldn’t touch me, sister said, wouldn’t touch me,
angry, wouldn’t let me touch her, anymore, anymore, wrong, angry and wrong,
angry, I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t stop, what I did to her.”
The two were stunned silent.
“It’s a box; I found it on the floor next to the table. It’s full of something.”
She gave him the shiny, tin box -- it rattled in her
nervous, jittery hands. Its lid as well
as its sides bent slightly when pressed firmly.
Atop its lid, scribbled with black ink, was a childish
warning that Liono read aloud: “’he who
opens this box will die, Wiley --‘“
To be sure, there was a ‘k’ and a ‘t’
at the end of the name, but the character in the middle was indiscernible. It seemed to be both an ‘a’ and an ‘i’
superimposed one over the other as if the name was written in error and only
hastily corrected.
Liono opened the box and staggered back -- it slipped and
fell onto the floor -- Cheetara sprung off to the side. Yet, despite the horror, the terror, neither
she nor he could keep their eyes off what had spilt out of the box.
Thumbs. Thumbs. Thumbs.
Everywhere.
She looked at him, he looked at her. The two Thundercats knelt to sift through the
gory details. Liono identified
them. Cheetara moved them into a pile.
“Panthro, Tygra, Snarf.”
“What about these?” she asked, picking one
up. “It’s not old, it’s
recent.”
“It looks humanoid, but I can’t recognize it.”
“And this one. There’s nothing left but bone. Liono!
It’s small, it’s -- WileyKit’s!”
She choked and ran into the bathroom.
The thumbs had been cleaned; their bases, where they had
been cleaved, had been tied shut with the excess flesh. The nails had been decorated with a thick
line that ran from the edge of the tip to the start of the fingerprint. Along the top of the knuckle was another mark
-- another line that went across the thumb’s circumference.
He stood and unsheathed the mystical Sword of Omens.
“Sword of Omens! Give me sight beyond sight --“
Liono parked the Thunder Tank amidst the fields of yellowed
grass and vine-covered monoliths. The
air was calm and in the silence the only sounds came from the coursing
river. There was no movement in the
forest, in the underbrush that surrounded the tranquil yet ominous landscape.
The two Thundercats got off the vehicle and approached one
of the many stone pillars that dotted the flat clearing. In the grass, on the side, was WileyKat’s hover-board. Its engines had been repaired but its frame
remained badly mangled -- Panthro, it seemed, had not yet finished the job.
The rocky column had been moved haphazardly to reveal a hole
carved into the ground. Liono and
Cheetara looked in -- a red aura came from the chamber beneath, from the cavern
below.
“How do we get in?” she asked.
He pointed to the river bank and replied: “There’s a larger opening within the
marshes.”
“Panthro, Tygra; Panthro, Tygra,” a male voice said.
Liono and Cheetara crept through the dim interior of the
cave toward the only and only source of visible light. A chamber aglow by the
warm, red luminance of fungi. A chamber resonant with distinct timbre of two voices.
“I said they’d pay,” the female voice said. “I said so, Kat -- and now, look, they can’t
hurt you anymore.”
“But all we wanted was the letter.”
Liono held onto Cheetara’s hand as they reached the oblong
entrance into that macabre antechamber.
They squatted behind the safety of jagged rocks while they heard and
watched, overcome by pure and absolute horror.
“But all we wanted was the letter,” the male voice
persisted. “Liono was going to be my
mentor, not Tygra. Not Tygra. There was no reason to kill him -- or
Panthro.”
“My dear brother, you’re too noble, too forgiving. They had to die, don’t you see? They had to die so that we might live --
together, forever, eternally, eternally.”
“And what about this man? What did he do?”
“He -- while I scavenged through the
forest, he came upon me fro
“Kit. Kit, why didn’t
you tell me?”
“Kit?” Liono asked,
turning to Cheetara -- they could not believe what they were hearing.
The two walked silently into the mysterious chamber --
WileyKat’s back was to them.
“Don’t be mad at me, Kat.
Here, here -- let me do that. You
like it when I do that.”
“Kit, something’s got to be done about all of this.”
“But you killed Kit,” Liono shouted. “Just like you killed
Snarf, Panthro and Tygra. Just like you killed that man, over there, with your hover-board.”
It did not seem that WileyKat had heard anything the Lord of
the Thundercats had said.
“You took their thumbs; you stood on your sister’s
grave! You --“
“Oh, Kit!”
Cheetara gripped the boy’s shoulder and spun him
around. WileyKat stood before the adults
with his hands over, running over, rubbing over himself, swiftly,
violently. Liono tackled him to the
ground.
“You killed them! You
killed them all!”
“Liono, what are you doing here?” WileyKat asked totally
shocked. “No, no, no, he knows, he
knows,” the boy gasped in a female voice.
“He sounds exactly like her, Liono, exactly like WileyKit!”
“Get off of me! Get
off of me! Kat, help! Kat, help!”
“No one’s going to help you!”
“You’re going to die, Liono, you’re going to die. Kat doesn’t need you. He doesn’t need you -- he’s got me!”
“He’s turned into an animal, Liono.”
WileyKat snarled -- he growled and oozed wispy foam that
spread about his lips, his face. He
struggled to flail his arms as his legs moved wildly, uncontrollably. Screaming, he yelled incoherently with both
voices.
Suddenly he was calm -- suddenly he lay still on the ground.
Liono arose gradually.
The boy’s hands and feet were covered with blood and fresh, new
scars. Throughout the fight the lion’s
stomach had been slashed by the claws of WileyKat’s toes. The gashes were along parallel lines and were
not very deep though they bled and ached nevertheless.
He looked at the boy, he looked at the cheetah. He pressed his hands into his wounds to quell
the bleeding. She pressed her hands onto
his and helped him turn around. With
that the two Thundercats walked out of the antechamber, leaving WileyKat on the
floor utterly still though the quiver of his lips suggested that he conversed
with someone -- someone who was not there, not there at all.
The last thing they heard before they left that underground
cavern was: “I am evil,” but the voice
was not feminine, not masculine any longer -- it was a new and unheard amalgam,
a bone-chilling mixture. “I am
good. Kat, Kit, Kat, Kit. Ha, haha,
hahaha, haha, hahahahaha, mwahahahaha, ha, ha."
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