Fiction
vr 3.00
2008-02-16
"Adventure In Cat's Lair" by Abraxas | 2000-04-22
The nervous Mutant stood before the steep and rugged cliff wall. He looked up, all the way up to the very thin line that marked the boundary between the stony face below and the cloudy sky above. About halfway down the summit was a large oval-shaped alcove carved into the rock that could have easily mistaken for nothing more than a natural formation -- anything other than what he knew it was.
Jackalman had his reservations. His hands trembled. His stomach churned with the nauseous urge to vomit. But he had come too far to quit and he could not now back out of his promise. Besides, Vultureman was a friend.
Sort of.
Well, at least they were not enemies.
“Vultureman!” he shouted, his hands around his lips, “I’m here!”
A high-pitched birdcall echoed from the distance along with words too muffled and indistinct to be understood. A rope stepladder was flung out of the rocky window. It unfurled and unraveled wildly in the air until the last two rungs fell and hit the ground before his feet. He was lucky and relieved that he had not been closer to the cliff or else he would have surely been hit.
Carefully and cautiously he ascended the vine and wooden structure that swayed and twisted in the wind in ways that heightened his misgivings. He stopped often sensing that the next step would surely give way to disaster and each time he did so he made the unfortunate mistake of looking down.
“What’s taking you so long?” the avian asked.
“Are you sure this ladder of yours is safe?” the scavenger asked, his voice quivering.
“Safer than falling.”
“That wasn’t funny.”
Jackalman darted his head into the oval alcove, into the dark chamber. Desperate, he reached out to the shadows to try to grab something, anything that was heavy or tightly secured to the flooring that he could use to prop himself up with but he found nothing. Instead he scaled a few more rungs of the rickety ladder and flopped his body to the side -- he lay there, frightened and panting, until he was certain that he was entirely within the safety of the cavern.
The room was dimly lit, only bright enough to let him discern the scarcest details through the obscurity. The walls and ceiling were unadorned. The floor was carpeted with loose straw and decayed vegetation. Droppings everywhere -- the stench of which nearly turned his already unstable stomach.
“Vultureman?” he asked in a funny voice for he pinched his nose with his fingers.
“I’m in the lab.”
Jackalman wandered across the chamber, feeling his way through the darkness, coming upon the one and only opening in the cavern. The orifice led directly to a hall whose walls were formed by a composite mixture of stone and hard-pressed dirt, dotted with shoots of knurled roots that broke from the surface, through the stucco, to hang lifelessly in the air. At the end of the passage was an orange torch, its light, though dull and weak, was still strong enough to let him eke out the faintest textures of the wooden doors that lined the corridor.
One of those doors was wide open and he boldly entered.
Vultureman had his back to him. The bird was seated at a table and tinkered with a box-like device that the canine could see only in fragments. On the floor next to the workbench was the lower half of a carcass that had been thoroughly chewed to the bone. Small vestiges of internal organs, still wet, still moist with blood, remained protected, wrapped by the shards of the body’s clothes.
The Mutant technician noticed him looking: “Leftovers, you’re welcome to try.”
Jackalman brushed off the flies that had congregated communally on what was left of the scavenged quarry. “You’ll make a vegetarian of me yet.”
The avian laughed.
* * * * * * * * * *
“I didn’t want anyone else to find out about this, that’s why I only called you here, Jackalman,” he said, turning his friend around and walking with him out of the laboratory. In his hands he held the unassuming device he had been working on. “I know exactly how to destroy the Thundercats once and for all time.”
“OK.”
“I knew you’d understand. Now, let me try to explain it in simple terms.” He stopped and paused to contemplate. He rubbed his fingers under his beak as though he had a chin. “I’ll show you.”
He led Jackalman down the passage to the spot where the single torch stood attached to the wall. Along the light fixture was a thin crack so artfully camouflaged by the stucco that it was almost imperceptible. The crevice was also nearly impossible to crawl through but it was a mere minor inconvenience for behind it, on its other side, it emptied into a parallel corridor that was not only wider but better lit, too.
“It was genius, absolute genius! I discovered how the Sword of Omens works and there’s nothing mystical about it.”
The jackal stopped and looked stunned at his fellow Mutant. “How can you be sure?”
“For the last few months I’ve been making my own Swords of Omens. All function about the same as the original but only recently have I been able to produce one that is entirely and completely like Liono’s.”
“How did you do it?” he asked, speaking slowly, too slowly. “I mean --”
The vulture opened a metal door and revealed an enormous workroom. Along the walls were books and papers that though stocked in shelves were still an assorted and haphazard mess. There was little organization or continuity. There was chaos only but at least there were no bad smells, no piles of straw. He showed his friend to a table where there were about ten objects arranged on its countertop. Ten Swords of Omens, each one represented a different stage of advancement, each one was a testament of his unequaled intellect.
He pointed to the first of the series, a wooden sword with an obnoxiously fake Eye of Thundera. “This is the original model. Of course, it can’t grow but it has sight-beyond-sight.”
“How, Vultureman? How?”
The avian cleared his throat to prepare for the impromptu lecture: “The sword’s metal is a perfect crystal lattice, it grows because the spacing between its atoms changes on command. That much was obvious, the secrets of its other properties were a little more difficult to unlock. But with time and thought the answers came to me. Chief among those insights was my hypothesis that there’s a fourth dimension and that in it there’s a kind of collective ‘mind,’ a consciousness, you might even call it an ‘intelligence.’”
“Around us? Can we feel it?” he wondered aloud.
“I don’t know, maybe if a part of us were four dimensional we could. I do know that the fourth dimension is everywhere, only inches if not closer to us but we are unaware of it. Always, forever unaware of it. The Sword of Omens is a window into that world. Sight-beyond-sight is thus easily explained: that four dimensional ‘intelligence’ can see everything in our three-dimensional universe at once and through all conceivable directions, view points, our insides, our outsides. Everything. We can hide nothing from it.”
“Can it see right through our clothes?” he asked, placing his hands over what he wore as clothes.
“Pay attention! Liono ‘commands’ the sword and that ‘intelligence’ shows him what he wants to see.”
“How about the way it flies through the air?”
“Ah! The ‘intelligence’ moves it in the fourth dimension. The effects, no doubt, are overwhelming. The sword can appear, disappear and reappear elsewhere instantly.”
“Magic.”
Jackalman stepped up to Vultureman’s side. The avian placed the strange box down on the table and showed the scavenger to the central part of the laboratory.
“What about the blasts of energy?”
“I said it was a perfect crystal. It can conduct vast amounts of energy with little to no electromagnetic friction.”
The canine looked dumbfounded -- rather, more dumbfounded than usual.
The vulture rolled his eyes: “That means it doesn’t get hot. Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh.” He was bored and yawned. Needing something to divert his already fleeting attention he examined the box and asked: “What’s this for, anyway?”
“Careful with that! It’s part of how the fake Sword of Omens will communicate with that four dimensional ‘intelligence.’”
“So what do you want to do?”
“Tonight, when the Thundercats are all asleep in their beds, we’re going to break into Cat’s Lair and switch swords.”
“Well, gee, that’s easier said than done. Why shouldn’t the others be told, anyway?”
“Those fools! Forget about Monkian. Slythe, maybe, but he’s no Rataro. You’re the only one left who I can trust. When I get the Sword of Omens,” he continued --
“Yes, Vultureman?”
The Mutant bird was silent for a moment then remembered the box.
“Hand me the box, I need to install it.”
The vulture drew back a heavy linen blanket and uncovered a device so complex in its construction, so mind-boggling in its operation that even looking at it hurt the jackal’s eyes. To compound the eerie effect of its unearthly mechanism, it seemed to him that its various moving parts were disappearing and reappearing periodically but for no reason. He rubbed his eyes but the unnerving impression would not go away.
“The box, Jackalman.”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
He grabbed the item -- it was astonishingly heavier than what its appearance had led him to believe. He was disoriented and, lost in a mental stupor aggravated by the perplexity of the visual exuberance of the bird’s latest invention, the box slipped through his fingers. Conveniently, it landed on his big toe -- he gave a loud yell and dropped, too.
“Jackalman? What have you done?”
“It’s nothing, nothing. My foot’s OK,” he said while he skillfully held back the tears.
“I don’t care about your foot! Is the box all right?”
“I think so. It’s not making noises.”
Jackalman stumbled the few paces that remained between him and Vultureman, dragging the box over the floor all the way along.
“I told you to be careful. If that box fails --”
The birdman picked the heavy object up from the ground and shook it in his hands. He turned to his machine and set it in place on a red mold that through the after-effect of shimmering light had the appearance of being wet.
The scavenger looked up to the ceiling and the crystal-clear glass at its center beyond which slants of afternoon light broke through a fifty-foot tunnel of dirt. Surrounding the portal were dried-out rib cages, skulls, arms and legs that hung suspended from bronze hooks. “Trophies?” he asked aloud but the avian gave no answer outside of a harsh and forced laugh. “What will you do with the real Sword of Omens once we make the switch?”
“I’ll let you play with it if you’re a good Mutant.”
“I’m serious.”
He produced a remote control and a very authentic-looking reproduction of the sword. “When I press this red button the fake sword will gain all of the powers of the real sword. With the remote I can control both weapons but it’s only from here that the real damage can be done. Here I will slowly begin to lessen the powers of both swords until, at the end, until at last we kill all of the power and separate the Eye of Thundera from the four dimensional ‘intelligence’ forever.”
“Without the sword the Thundercats will be weak and defenseless.”
Vultureman put his hands around Jackalman’s shoulders. “Exactly! We’ll be able to pick them off, one by one, by one.”
“Wait, what about --” he started but stopped. He had forgotten what he had intended to ask. Odd, for it had bothered him from the moment he had heard the explanation of how the vulture had duplicated the sword’s powers, odd, because at the time and at the moment the point that had been on his mind he thought was quite important.
“What? What?”
It was ironic that he had forgotten his fleeting, fragmenting question because it was about something that even the avian himself had overlooked.
“Oh, snap out of it!” He handed the canine the fake sword. “Let’s get to it, we don’t have much time.”
* * * * * * * * * *
Jackalman’s climb down the unsteady rope ladder was less eventful, perhaps, than the climb up had been. Perhaps.
“I don’t see why you complain all of the time,” the avian cawed. He was standing on the ground looking at the other Mutant who was dangling on the vines. “You can jump that, you know. It’s only five feet.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?”
“No, the earth will open up and swallow you whole.”
“Too many rocks, Vultureman, I’m doomed to be pummeled.”
The birdman was impatient but held back on lecturing the canine about cowardice for time was wasting. “It’ll be sun down soon, Jackalman, we must get to Cat’s Lair before that happens.” He grabbed the scavenger’s arm and pulled him down before he had the time or opportunity to say something stupid. He led him several feet from the site of the rope ladder -- that, caught in the currents of the strong breezes, bounced against the rocky cliff wall -- to an area around the dense underbrush where he revealed yet another invention.
“A land cruiser?” Jackalman mused. “Genius.”
“What did you expect? I created it.”
The Mutants nodded.
Vultureman, because he was obviously more familiar with the vehicle, rode in the front, while the canine was strapped to the back. The speeder only had one seat -- so he had to half-stand, half-crouch with his arms around his friend’s waist.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked if this thing’s safe.”
“Don’t worry, I, trust you.”
“Oh? I haven’t tested it yet.”
“Now why -- you didn’t have to tell me that.”
“Let’s see what happens.”
The avian pressed the ‘start’ button and unseen engines responded, coming to life in torrents of low sputtering. The vehicle vibrated and the air filled with the sounds of its internal mechanisms.
“Well, it didn’t blow up.”
He gripped the extreme ends of the steering wheel and tugged the apparatus backward. The cruiser responded immediately, speeding along in that direction, moving too quickly for Jackalman. But the scavenger knew better than to yell -- it would accomplish nothing and he had come to realize that it encouraged Vultureman to frighten him further. So he tightened his hold around the avian's waist instead.
After a few yards of reverse motion, he angled his grip forward and the vehicle moved toward the intended course. The speed was now paced, due mostly to the jackal’s nonverbal cues. Yet even the engineer could not control the sudden rises and precipitous falls that had to be treaded across along the way.
The most frightening part of the journey came toward the end. Jackalman noticed it -- a hundred feet ahead the land was broken by a thin crack that arched from one end of the horizon to the other. The fissure was the telltale wound of a chasm that passed under Cat’s Lair, the back of which he could see clearly. He called out once to stop but Vultureman continued undaunted -- indeed, he accelerated.
The sun, large and orange, was merely inches above the jagged edge of the western heavens. Vast and elongated shadows snaked across the land. The sky was clear, devoid of even the slightest, rarefied texture of distant clouds. The air was cold and brushed its chill against the Mutants’ faces.
The land cruiser approached the canyon at break-neck speed. The jackal wrapped his arms so tightly around the bird’s waist that he was sure the Mutant could get no air in or out of his lungs. His fingers tingled as the fear of falling steadily grew unavoidable -- the numbness almost caused him to lose his grip entirely. He shut his eyes just as the image of the edge of the crack passed under the vehicle. He kept his mouth shut, too, despite every impulse in his body that impelled him to try to scream, to yell out. He fought the urge to flail his arms aghast in fear and terror for his strong instincts for self-preservation that guided what the others saw as his cowardice kept his ungainly reflexes in check.
“You can look now,” Vultureman said.
Jackalman was surprised he could hear him above the roaring of the engines. He complied slowly, slowly until he realized that it was true. The pair had made it down the hundred foot droop not only in seconds but unscathed as well.
His adrenaline rush subsided with pangs of hysterical giggles.
“How can you stand it?” he asked.
“Heights don’t bother me,” the birdman answered.
“Heights don’t bother me either, it’s the falling part that unnerves me.”
The vulture laughed, continuing to steer the land cruiser over the sparse trickle of water flowing through the darkened canyon. One sharp turn followed another but after what the scavenger had just experienced, somehow the sudden and jerky movements of his cruiser no longer bothered him.
A flat, low mound loomed in the distance far above them -- it was basked in the dying rays of the sun while everything else was cast in growing shadows of the night.
“We’re here,” Vultureman announced. He stopped the vehicle and stood, stretching.
Jackalman dismounted the speeder and sighed. He knelt at the edge of the river -- the wide and imposing current that the earlier and meager trickle of water had amassed -- to take a drink.
“So how do we get in?” he asked, his lips dripping wet.
The two Mutants looked up the side of the chasm. Above the once blue sky had transformed into the blackest of night complete with stars and the suggestion of an emerging moon. The drawbridge that connected Cat’s Lair to the surrounding countryside loomed fully extended five hundred feet overhead. Along the ragged cliff side were the faintest outlines of windows and ducts.
“We’ll get in through the ventilation ducts. Want to go up first?”
“Yes. Just point me where you want to go and I’ll climb up.”
“Good,” he said, pointing upward to a spot the jackal could not entirely make out.
“Here we go,” he said in agreement never the less.
Jackalman ascended quickly, almost too quickly. The rocks were sturdy and were capable of tolerating a good, strong grip. He did not take too much time or foresight to care about what path he followed to get to the assigned destination. Vultureman tried to warn him to keep a steady pace and watch his direction but that was easier said than done. It seemed to him that the canine was purposely disregarding his advice.
It was easier for the avian to climb for his feet were more evolved and accustomed to the task than the mammalian’s and unlike his canine friend he was lighter and not afraid of heights. While he ascended he took a moment to peer down but saw nothing more than a foggy, vaporous abyss, devoid of the most general detail. Had the jackal looked he was sure he would have lost it but all that he could think of was whether or not he had turned off the land cruiser’s engine.
After ten minutes the two had scaled about half the height of the canyon -- and then stopped.
“What’s the matter, Jackalman? Why did you stop?”
“I can’t find anywhere to go.”
“Can’t see any rocks to grab?”
“Not exactly.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Seconds later the Mutant bird was next to the scavenger. The harvest moon hovered above the horizon, over the tops of the trees of the nearby forests and lit the world below in its eerie, electric glow. “I see,” the avian squawked. “The cliff wall slopes inward a bit. That just means you have to be more careful.”
Jackalman panted, his muscles were tense and sore.
“Still there?” Vultureman asked,
“Still here.”
“You want to rest a while?”
He shook his head.
“Watch me, watch me closely.” The vulture clasped onto the rocks that lined the lower boundary of the v-shaped inlet. He lifted his right leg and jammed its foot into that jagged section of the chasm and with that leverage he maneuvered himself entirely within the open-air alcove. He extended an arm to the jackal: “Grab me.”
He held on and copied the bird’s motion. As clumsy and as pathetic as the canine’s climbing was it was a wonder that neither he nor his friend tumbled down to the oblivion of the hundred-foot drop. At the end, though, the two stood on the safety of the ledge, side by side.
“That could’ve been worse, I suppose.”
“Look,” Vultureman pointed up to the left.
Jetting out of the flat, vertical face of the canyon was a large, rectangular opening.
“Yes! And you said to be careful!”
“Not too loudly, we don’t know where that duct leads to.”
“There’s a cover over it.”
“Slide to it, slide under it.”
Jackalman was the first to reach the duct, Vultureman was second to his right. Together they scaled a few yards to get closer to the shaft. The canine reached up and held onto the netted inner grating. He jostled it about violently, forming a cacophony of loud, alarming sounds that would have certainly given their presence away to anyone who was listening. The bird tried to stop him but it was too late -- he drew back his arm in a swift jerk and behind it a metal grid fell off to the depths below.
“I’ll go in first,” the jackal said and without further hesitation he jumped and reached into the jetting pipe with both hands. For endless, breathless moments he dangled with nothing under him to protect him from a fall. His legs flailed until his feet hit the side of the cliff -- the rocks gave him a slight grip secure enough to help him ease further through the portal.
Silence followed and then he poked his head out and said softly: “The path is clear.”
“I’m going up,” the Mutant bird said.
Vultureman aped Jackalman’s actions to perfection. With one swift move he had his fingers wrapped around the edge of the opening. The jackal grabbed his upper arms lifted him an inch or so. The avian had the advantage of agility and lesser body weight but with the extra aid he was in the dark tunnel without batting an eyelid.
Sitting in the confined airway the two paused for a moment of low and dull laughter.
“So we’re up, but how’ll we get down?”
The bird got on his knees and crawled into the recess of the tunnel. Noticing that the canine had not budged he stopped and replied: “We’ll jump down.”
“Tell me you’re joking.”
“Hurry, we have to get to Liono. Do you still have the fake sword on you?”
“Still around my shoulder. Do you still have the remote control?”
“Still with me. Now, quickly and silently, remember. We’re in an air duct and if we’re too loud the Thundercats might hear us.”
* * * * * * * * * *
The tunnel got smaller and smaller until it had become very hard for them to squeeze through it. Along the segmented metallic walls they had found no other openings. When the passage terminated in a dead end the Mutants were afraid that all of their efforts had been in vain.
But Vultureman, quite by accident, noticed that the duct did not really end -- it simply turned from an easy-going horizontal pipe to an almost impossible to scale vertical shaft. He stood, up from the cramped, crouched position he had been at, and with the friction of his dry hands and feet ascended the interior of the newly discovered passage.
Jackalman was reserved. His palms were wet, not dry. Not dry. He waited, wiping his hands on his fur, until the bird was well enough away before he attempted to climb. His initial efforts were unsuccessful displays of the pathetic: each time falling back, each time landing in different and more awkward positions. Enraged at his futile efforts, he spread his arms and legs diagonally from one corner of the shaft to the opposite corner. He scaled the height by alternating which of the corners his limbs were clung to. He knew better than to look down and he felt that if he did anything but keep his eyes pointed up that he would never be free of that horrible, claustrophobic enclosure.
“I’ve spotted an opening, but I’ll have to clear it before we can go through it.”
“Take your time, take your time,” the jackal answered, once again panting and out of breath. He continued to ascend until he was directly below the vulture’s feet. The bird punched free a thin wire mesh and darted into the even smaller, thinner tunnel. He followed his friend into the portal, finding that it was extremely hard to ease and maneuver himself through the opening.
“It’s like being born,” he commented, “in reverse.”
“Born?”
“That’s right, you were hatched, weren’t you? It’s like being put back into the egg.”
“I see.”
“This is crazy, Vultureman, are you sure we couldn’t have just come in through the front doors?”
“Stop complaining and look for another opening.”
“To what? If this pattern keeps up we’ll be crawling through a straw.”
“Don’t make me laugh. The next opening should lead us into a room.”
“Oh, Vultureman?”
“What?”
“There’s something I wanted to ask you, about the face --”
“Keep your voice down, fool!”
“I think I’ve found something here. A grid to an adjacent tunnel.”
“Can you see anything through it?”
“Looks like a room but dark.”
“Try it.”
Jackalman pried the covering loose from its secure position but, unfortunately, the lid slipped from his shaky hands and fell to the floor of that mysterious other chamber. The sound the drop made was quite pronounced and seemed to have caused a sudden stir in the room that was now open to him.
“Now you’ve done it,” Vultureman scowled.
“No, that sound didn’t come from the room exactly, it was too distant, it must have come from somewhere else. I’m going in.”
For the first time since that adventure had begun Jackalman did something that was not difficult. Not difficult at all. He slid out of the portal and dropped into the chamber he had uncovered, falling three feet to its cold, hard ground. Legs scratched and bruised, he got up, realizing that he was not in a room at all but in yet another tunnel, taller and wider than the others.
Vultureman appeared -- the canine covered his beak to shut him up. He pointed to the ceiling. The Mutant looked to see that the tunnel’s roof was really a grating of thick metal mesh through which poured strong slants of light.
“What was that, Panthro?” a male voice asked.
“Must be the rats.”
“I thought you have fixed that problem?”
“I can’t do everything. I’ll set more traps later, Tygra.”
“We have rats?” a thin female voice asked.
The remainder of the conversation was masked by murmurs until: “I’ll take a look. WileyKat, hand me that flash light.”
“Over there,” Jackalman whispered. The pair of Mutants hurried on tiptoe to the far end of the partially exposed passage where there was a sharp bend into a covered and decent tunnel. It was a retreat that they had carried through just at the right moment, too, for by the time they had hidden themselves within the duct Panthro stood over the metal grid and explored the depths with a powerful spotlight.
“A small grating came loose and fell,” he announced, “I’ll have it fixed tomorrow.”
“That was close,” the vulture cawed.
The two continued to wander through the tunnel until they came upon a heavy metal door. Jackalman turned to Vultureman -- both were stunned. The canine pressed his ear against the frame and, hearing nothing coming from behind it, he turned the knob until it clicked and the gate opened. Slowly, slowly -- for he feared its hinges might squeak -- he swung the door open and found that indeed there was no one and nothing on the other side.
When completely ajar the two discovered that they were in the vast basement of Cat’s Lair. The technician let the door close just as gradually as the scavenger had pried it open. Before them were columns of concrete and wooden boxes stacked and layered upon larger slabs of stone. The cargo served not only as scenery but as cover too. Hiding amidst the stowage they peeped about the chamber in relative safety, spotting a few yards in the distance a bare metal staircase that led up to an open doorway through which dull, yellow light flooded the immense room.
“Let’s get going.”
“Wait.” Vultureman held him back.
“WileyKit, come on, it’s almost bedtime!” the boy’s oddly feminine voice echoed through from beyond the space of the open door. His shadow approached the head of the stairs.
“Give me a moment, I’ve almost got the box, Kat.”
“Don’t take too long.”
“No, here it is.” His sister stepped out of the darkness of the basement. She hugged a large container in her arms. “Come, I need help.”
He flew down the steps and took one end of the wooden box and she carried the other.
“We should’ve never put these games down here,” she said as she and her brother climbed up the stairs.
“That was your idea, it was your idea to clean our room,” he replied.
Moments later the twins were clear out of view and the door at the top of the metal staircase was closed shut.
“That was even closer. I was ready to run out of here.”
“We can’t take any more chances like that, Jackalman, we must use our brains.” He looked at this friend: “Or maybe just my brain.”
“Funny, you’re a real funny guy.”
“We want to get in and out without being detected. We don’t want them to suspect that there’s anything wrong with the Sword of Omens -- until too late,” he said, permitting himself a smile and chuckle.
* * * * * * * * * *
The lights on the other side of the door were switched off and the basement was cast in the oblivion of absolute darkness. They waited until their eyes adjusted to the depraved conditions to make the next move. They approached the foot of the staircase and just as they ascended a couple of steps the door swung open with a loud crash.
The outline of a form could be seen even through that void of cloak and shadow.
“I hear voices,” the dense male voice said, “I keep hearing voices.”
The figure closed the door and walked away.
The Mutants breathed a heavy sigh of relief and continued their trek. Jackalman sped to the far side of the doorframe while Vultureman stood at the nearer end. He reached for the knob and turned it slowly until its lock just barely clicked. He prolonged the motion so that the sound would remain imperceptible but he knew that there was no way to completely mask the disturbance.
The two stepped forward with impunity. To the left were bright lights, muffled voices and loud mechanical chatter coming from what was obviously the garage. To the right was the rest of the hall evolving through the bowls of Cat’s Lair.
Vultureman shut the door behind them quietly to ensure that they would be undetected. His heart beat furiously fast and loudly to his ears. Jackalman took the initiative and led the way through the corridor. On the left he saw windows whose only views were of the night -- bright stars and traces of the galactic arm were spread and arched out snaking across the clear and infinite sky. On the right he found walls unadorned and featureless but for the regular pattern of the stone masonry.
At the far end of the hall they encountered a set of steps leading up. There did not seem to be an end to the stairwell, nowhere to hide in it in case someone had decided to use it, too, unexpectedly. So they had to be swift, careful. So they walked on tiptoe until they came to the head where he well emptied into a vast chamber.
It was the main lobby, dark but for the glow of blue light that shone through from small, rectangular slits lining the edge between the walls and the ceiling. Hanging overhead was an unilluminated chandelier. Along the farthest end of the room there were two large doors with a crown of stained glass above the frame. To the sides were passages and staircases.
“There’s no end to this labyrinth.”
“Up. We have to go up.”
The Mutants trekked into the main body of the chamber. Behind them they found a grand and wide stairwell. It was open with a tall ceiling and constructed with the smoothest, shiniest marble. No one had to say it, they knew, they knew what it meant. The two sprinted toward it across the tile expanse of that near-cavernous lobby. The place was cold and damp and a strange odor clung to the air. Vultureman seemed to be unaware of it but Jackalman was quick to recognize it -- it was the smell of cleanness.
The thought the jackal had had earlier returned to him but because of the nature of the fix that they were in at the moment he did not dare open his mouth to speak.
Up at the end of that grand staircase they discovered a set of double doors that led into a well-lit and cozy room. The floor was carpeted with a thick Persian rug. Plush leather chairs, carved wooden tables. On the walls hung pictures and various drawings -- antique from Third Earth’s remote past -- and were numerous doors, open passages and windings hallways. The ceiling was low and there was something about it that was uncommonly unusual.
A rectangular section of the roof appeared to be disconnected to the rest. A bronze metal chain dangled from one of its ends. Jackalman moved a table under it and stood over it. Even with the added height he was still unable to reach the cord. Vultureman got up next to him and lifted him onto his shoulders. It was still not enough but with a little effort the canine managed to grab the very tip of the chain with a couple of fingers. The avian let him go and with the force of his weight he pulled down that part of the ceiling.
It lowered as if attached to hinges but for a moment they were afraid they had done something foolish and scrambled from the area. It stopped at a forty-five degree angle and unfurled a wooden ladder. The jackal dashed over to grab it before it the floor and alerted the Thundercats of their covert operation. The stairs were so heavy and swung with such great momentum that he could barely hold on to it. But with the avian’s help the foot of that skeletal stairs-and-ladder contraption landed on the floor with only the slightest thud.
One would have had to be listening in rather attentively and on purpose to have heard or even suspected that something, anything, had happened.
“That must be Liono’s room up there,” Vultureman said. “Go up and do it, make the switch. I’ll stay down here and keep a look out.”
The steps were sturdy and firm and Jackalman found that he had no problems ascending the fifty-foot length of the angled ladder. The makeshift stairs terminated in a smallish room whose floor sloped downward very gradually. He scaled it, too, with the greatest of ease and boldly entered the bedchamber through its open entrance.
The room was basked in dull blue starlight. Liono was asleep in his bed, wrapped with a shiny, silvery sheet that clung closely to the very last contours of his body. He snored loudly amidst the throes of a dream though he slept peacefully.
On a stand next to his bed was the claw shield and before it was the unextended Sword of Omens. He held it in his hands. The Eye of Thundera growled and opened a little. He swapped it with the fake one and --
Liono sat up and shouted “NO!”
Jackalman hit the ground. He remained silent and motionless. He kept his eyes open, wide open and stopped his breathing. He saw Liono patting his hand over his heart, palpitating, breathing loudly and heavily. It must have taken an eternity but the Thundercat did eventually fall back flat on the bed but even then the canine did not budge an inch for he knew the lion was still awake, still muttering to himself about, about -- about whatever nightmare he had just had that terrified him so.
Sure that Liono was out cold, the Mutant crawled on his stomach to a door further down from the bed and not to the opening from which he had entered. He remained low over the ground, hopeful that his presence would be adequately blocked from view by the Thundercat’s own bed. Panicked by the dysfunction of fear, he had left the real Sword of Omens behind on the floor under the stand with the claw shield and fake sword.
He stopped every so often to look back. He could see Liono’s bed and above it an oval window where more patches of starry night shone through the clear panes. Of the actual bed he could discern little past the covered form and outline of the Thundercat’s feet.
Confident that he was clear, he hurried his movements until he reached a wall. Though he made no noise that he was aware of, when he came to stop he heard a slight grunt come from Liono. The youth tossed and turned violently in his bed until he was face down on the mattress. He punched the pillow softly and turned it over such that his head could fit comfortably in place.
Jackalman waited a bit longer and after a few moments he raised his arm and grabbed the knob. He turned it but there was no click. He spun it the other way and still there was no click. His heart skipped a beat but he did not give up -- he tugged the door and it swung open effortlessly.
Flat on the stomach he crawled into the hall and let the door come just close enough to look shut to the untrained eye. Safe in the passage, he stood and ran the length of the corridor at whose end he discovered a set of stairs that led down to the large lobby. Still panicked, he darted back up the grand staircase into the posh and dormant room.
He stopped in his tracks when he realized that Vultureman was not there. He was about to scream when he heard the extended skeletal ladder groan -- someone was climbing down its length. He braced himself for he feared the worst -- but it was only the avian, the Sword of Omens clasped in his beak.
That was when he remembered he had left the sword back in Liono’s room.
“Sorry. I forgot about that.”
“Shhh! Come on, we don’t have a moment to loose!”
The Mutants duck down the grand stairs.
“What about the ladder that lead into Liono’s room? Should we just leave it open like that?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
A light clicked on somewhere in Cat’s Lair -- it was followed by voices. And as if that was not enough, from below, from the long stairs through which they had ascended, from the basement deep in the bowels of the fortress emerged the loud and booming voice of an approaching Panthro.
There was no place in the lobby to hide, no staircase to climb for cover. All that was left were the front doors. The vulture rammed the entrance with the full force of his body. The sound of the crashing was more than alarming. The jackal was beyond nervous at that point.
“What are you doing?”
“Come on!”
“Hey!” a stern voice spoke. “Who’s there?” The words were punctuated with frenzied running.
“Come with me before it’s too late!”
The Mutants dodged out of the brashly opened door. At the same time more and more lights turned on inside Cat’s Lair. Outside in the open air and to their collective horror they discovered that the bridge that had been extended had now been retracted, separating them from the other side of the chasm.
“Grab onto me and don’t look down. No matter what happens don’t look down. You understand?” Jackalman nodded. “No you don’t, but just don’t let go.”
Above them the eyes of the head of the fortress washed the area with its red beams. The vulture took the remote control and pressed the red button -- the sword reacted. The jackal was about to say something when the birdman pointed the extended weapon down into the dark abyss.
“I saw Liono do this once. There’s no reason it shouldn’t work for us, too, now that we control the Sword of Omens!”
Without prompt or further ado, Jackalman grabbed onto Vultureman from behind and wrapped his arms around his waist in a strong, tight bear hug. “I saw him do it too. What are you waiting for? Let’s go! Let’s go!”
The duo jumped off the side of the cliff and plummeted headlong into the shadows. The Mutant bird kept the blade pointed downward, kept pressing buttons on the remote but nothing seemed to be happening. Nothing at first -- until the hilt altered in shape and form and just like that the Eye of Thundera opened, too. Their swift fall slowed until at last they had come to a complete stop inches above the waters of the river at the base of the canyon.
With the press of yet another button the two fell into the swift current. They swam to the parallel shore where the speeder remained, unmolested. Vultureman reached it first, Jackalman on his tail. He gave the canine the sword to hole while he examined the vehicle.
“Yes, I did turn the engine off.”
“So let’s go.”
* * * * * * * * * *
No one, nothing had followed them on their trek from Cat's Lair to Vultureman’s nest. When the two arrived at the bushes around the cliff the Mutants found that the hanging, swinging stepladder was still there. Still there, unaltered.
The avian covered the vehicle in the dense underbrush while the canine ascended the wall of the cliff without needing the ladder. The bird scaled the height without using the ropes, too and quickly out paced him. He waited patiently in the alcove for the scavenger to arrive with the night’s fresh catch.
“I don’t think it was safe for you to do that, Jackalman,” he teased.
“I’ll decide what’s safe,” he replied. He stood in the shadowy darkness of the small cavern -- the sheltered inlet that had been eaten into the stone and rock through years of the unstoppable, unfettered reach of the powers of nature, her whether, rain and snow, sun and gloom. “So, now that we have the sword --”
“No thanks to you,” the avian scowled.
“What do you mean? ‘No thanks to you’?” He scoffed: “I went into Liono’s room, I switched the swords.”
He shook his head: “No you didn’t, you left the fake one on the floor.”
Jackalman’s eyes widened: “No, I switched them, I swear, I left the real Sword of Omens on the floor in a panic when Liono woke up suddenly. I had already made the swap, I just had to act fast to get out of there.”
Vultureman trembled, his beak wide open but trapped in a stunned sort of silence.
“Vultureman?” the jackal asked worriedly. “Vultureman, what did you do?”
“No! No! No!” He ran through his complex, from hall to hall, from room to room until at last he reached his laboratory and that odd, multidimensional machine. “No!” he kept yelling and flailing his arms, thrashing the sword.
Jackalman trailed him and stumbled into the workroom where he found him hunched over the box, examining the weapon with a magnifier.
“It’s true! It’s true! Gods of Plundarr! After all we did tonight, Jackalman, after all that and to think that it was I who messed up! Me?” He turned to face the Mutant. He adjusted himself in his seat and rubbed his forehead. “See,” he began to explain, “When you were taking too long I climbed up the ladder into Liono’s room. He was tossing and turning in bed but he was asleep. He was dreaming. He wasn’t awake, well, not really awake. I saw the sword on the floor and that the door to his room was open so I figured that you had failed. So I picked the weapon up from the ground and switched it with the one next to the claw shield.” He started laughing: “This is the fake! This is the fake Sword of Omens!” He flung the imposter into the air across the room where it landed with a loud clang against a tall rack of assorted electrical parts.
The machine Vultureman was leaned against groaned and fumed.
“Our fall down the canyon must’ve overloaded it. Will it explode?”
The device vibrated uncontrollably. Parts broke off and flew everywhere around the laboratory like bullets. The projectiles whizzing through the air with plumes of smoke marking their trajectories.
The Mutant technician scrambled to his feet and ran to a door in he back of the chamber. The gate was craftily hidden to appear to be nothing more than a simple, innocent bookcase. He swatted away the heavier objects on its shelf and motioned the canine to come at once.
“We don’t have much time!” he shouted as he swiveled the emergency exit open. “It’ll blow at any moment!”
Jackalman ran out first ahead of his friend. He and Vultureman were in a cavern that slanted upward toward the distance where the wide opening vented in the cold night air along with hints and fragments of magnificent nighttime views.
“It was the box, wasn’t it? The box I dropped on my toe.”
“Oh, what does it matter?” The birdman sprinted up next to the jackal. “You’re not exhausted yet?”
“When I get home, I’m going to sleep for two years.”
“If we survive this, when all of this is done and over with, I’m going to have to bunk with you until I find a new place to roost.”
The sounds of the explosion behind them were deafening. But if that was not enough cause to terrify them, if that was not enough of an incentive for them to get out of there, great blasts of infernal fires shot up from behind and licked and seared their exposed flesh. The flames roared and engulfed the cave in its bedazzling display of bright, yellow light.
Thinking back to the alcove, to the straw and droppings, he said: “Only if you plan to wear diapers.”
“And what was that supposed to mean, scavenger?” he growled at the Mutant.
“I mean I don’t appreciate --”
“I’ll strangle the life out of you!”
They reached the end of the cavern with their lives.
“That was close, Vultureman, too close.”
“It’s been like tat all day, hasn’t it?”
“It’s like someone wants up to come out of this alive or something.”
“I hear you.”
“I didn’t mean what I said,” Jackalman apologized.
“No, that’s all right, I understand, but I can’t control that, you know better.”
Sprawled before them was the open countryside, a vast wilderness of dense, unkept forestry. Life in all forms and shapes called to the distance, to the full moon. A small waterfall sprayed cold, refreshing mist in the air and its springs refreshed the roots in the ground.
Together they walked through the woods.
“That was quite an adventure we had, wasn’t it?” Vultureman nodded. “Oh, and I just remembered that question that’s bothered me --”
“What question?”
“The fake swords you made, could they signal the Thundercats? Like the way the real one can, with that red image in the sky and all?”
Vultureman stopped. He slapped his forehead with the flat palms of both is hands.
“I guess not.”
“I totally forgot about that! I completely forgot about the cat signal!”
“You know, for the smart one you weren’t exactly too bright, were you?”
The vulture shook his fists, almost ready to strike but he held back -- he restrained himself and continued on with the hike with his friend in somber and respectful silence.
END
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