The Inquisitors
by Minna S. Lunney
When Wilykat awoke, it was nighttime.
A bleary glance at the window, and the murky, star-studded blackness beyond, served as proof. Disoriented by the unanticipated nap, he struggled to remember what day it was, what time it might be. Obviously not too late, he soon reasoned, turning onto his other side to discover Wilykit’s bed still made and unoccupied.
He was hungry, he realized. Very hungry. He suddenly remembered the reason for his curious exile, and began to feel the presence of
fresh tears. Was Panthro really so angry as to have let him go without dinner? Never before, despite the many troublesome things both he and his sister had done, had the elders denied them something to eat.
And I didn’t even do anything wrong this time!
He sat up, determined not to cry a second time that day, and took a deep breath. He was unusually attuned to his surroundings, perhaps in part because an eerie silence had fallen upon the normally bustling Cats Lair. Even in the dead of night, there was always a slight something to be heard, like the hum of a generator or the soft stumbling of an insomnia-stricken adult heading for the bathroom or the kitchen for a glass of water. That night, however, there was nothing. No sound at all.
Did the power go out?
Curious and yet more than a little apprehensive, he asked himself if he should just lie back down and try to sleep through the hunger until morning, but he knew it would be impossible to do so. He had to have something to eat, despite Panthro or a power outage. He remembered reading once about the unhealthy effects of fasting, how eventually the body would feast upon itself if it could get nutrition no other way. A sudden, vivid mental image of his already lean frame slowly rotting away from the inside spurred him to his feet at last.
He entered the inexplicably dark and cold hallway with impressive care, his boots hardly making a sound against the tile as he slunk
down the familiar path that would eventually lead to the kitchen, keeping close to the left wall. All the while his eyes and ears strained to detect the slightest indication that someone might be closing in on him, but this caution was in vain. Wilykat began to suspect that everyone was asleep after all; but if so, he wondered, where was his sister? Had she perhaps taken advantage of his punishment to sneak out on some nocturnal adventure? If she had, it wounded him that she had decided to go it alone.
Well, maybe she came to get me, and saw that I was asleep. Still...
He gradually let up his guard as he continued onward, becoming more and more convinced that no other ThunderCat was up and about in the Lair. He rubbed at his arms absent-mindedly, the skin having prickled in response to the chilly, musty air. Climate control must’ve gone out with the power, he reasoned.
Down a flight of stairs, around another corner, and he was there at last. He recalled the midnight raids he and his sister had once perpetrated in order to keep their secret candyfruit stash well stocked, and briefly his mind and senses returned to stealth mode. He approached the kitchen entrance with great care, flattening himself against the wall and peeping around the doorframe...
...then snapping backward, terrified. He checked a gasp rising in his throat.
Snarf was in there— at this hour? Had he been seen?
Taken aback as he was, his feet were rooted to the spot. He never even considered a retreat, instead remaining there, stupidly, waiting for the nursemaid to step outside and investigate.
His pause lasted several moments. The snarf did not come. In fact, it did not sound as though he had even taken a single step. His heart pounding, Wilykat slowly leaned forward to look into the kitchen once more. Perhaps out of the darkness he had imagined—
No. Snarf was within. He stood beside the table against the far wall, glancing slightly upward at the top corner of the chamber,
fingers clenched around a broom that he held starkly upright. The kitten observed him for several moments. Never once did the creature twitch a muscle or even blink an eye.
Perplexed, the boy slowly straightened, placing his back against the wall. He debated whether he should continue with his mission, or if perhaps running back up to bed would be the better course of action. One night
without food would not kill him, after all.
Things won’t be so strange in the morning, I bet.
But morning was a long way off, and having just slept many hours, he was not likely to doze off so easily again.
Snarf won’t care, I don’t think. He won’t tell...
He took a deep breath, steeled himself, then spun around and into the kitchen.
The smallish chamber was even more frigid than the rest of the Lair, the type of cold that seems evil in itself, that seeps deeply into one’s bones. Wilykat hugged his arms and took a few experimental steps forward, his eyes on the snarf, but the nursemaid was still quite unresponsive. He frowned. “Snarf?”
No reply, not even a nod of recognition. “Snarf,” he tried again worriedly, moving
forward with less timidity, “what’s the—”
He abruptly tripped on something and sprawled forward, inadvertently tackling the small housekeeper as his forearms and jaw made
contact with the icy floor. The boy immediately struggled to his feet, a task made difficult because of something lodged between them. He glanced backward. It was a wooden shaft of sorts; he could have sworn to Jaga that it had not been there before. He seized it as he stood, frowning down at it. One end was sanded off to a round tip, while the other was jagged and cracked.
“Snarf, I’m sor— Snarf?”
It was as though he had knocked over a statue. The snarf had not tried to stand, instead lying there in the same stock-still pose. Unblinking. Unmoving.
As he gaped, Wilykat’s grip on the wooden stick loosened. It dropped to the floor with an unusual clatter. His gaze darted downward. It had fallen against its other half, a cruelly shortened broomstick. He nearly tripped again over the crisscrossed sticks, now little better than kindling, as he slowly began to back out of the kitchen. Neither end had been there just a moment ago, he was certain of it.
“Tygra! Lion-O! Anybody!” he called over
his shoulder. “Snarf— something’s wrong with Snarf! Come quick!”
But the Lair remained just as hollow and dead as before.
“Can’t anybody hear me? Where are you?” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Confess...
Before he could pass through the doorway, some great and invisible force seemed to seize him by the collar and haul him back into the accursed chamber. He stumbled
heavily onto his knees. Frantic, he pulled himself up and ran full-tilt toward the doorway once more. “ANYBODY—”
It would have been little better had he ran straight into one of the kitchen walls. The doorway and corridor beyond had been rendered but a tantalizing mirage, so close and yet so far away. Wilykat collided painfully into nothingness, an imperceptible wall of force that had sprung up before his only venue of escape. He reeled, dazed, a trickle of blood flowing from his nose.
Are you prepared to confess?
“Who is that?” he murmured pitifully, clutching at his aching head. “Who’s saying
that?”
Whatever it was seemed to pass through him, as though to respond and inform him of its existence. The boy was seized by a numbing, horrible coldness unlike anything he had ever known; not even the frozen summit of Hook Mountain in the dead of winter could come close to it in comparison. It seemed to him, in that small stretch of time, that he was dead— his heart still, his lungs paralyzed— that he surely would have died, had this thing, whatever it was, stayed inside him any longer.
He gasped for breath, reeling, feeling dizzy and drained. “What have you done to Snarf?” he questioned in a small, trembling voice. “Where are the others? What have you done?”
Confess, it continued to hiss its strange, breathless mantra. Confess and be absolved.
It took him by the arm, and began to drag him toward the doorway. As the youth looked on, the corridor beyond the kitchen melted into a dark and unspeakably terrible
scene: blackness and blue flames and blood; loud screams for mercy; fields of daggers, skulls, gore; impaled, unspeakably mangled captives...
Wilykat screamed himself, screwing his eyes shut and resisting the inexorable pull with all his might. Even so, he lost ground slowly, his boots unable to offer the friction he so desperately needed. He felt as though he might lose his arm to the struggle, but by that point he hardly cared. If there had been a knife
nearby, he might have gladly lobbed it off himself. Anything to save himself from having to go in there—
His lead foot suddenly slipped against the remnants of the broken broomstick. He bent down and picked up the broomless half instinctively, but could not think of what to
do with it. Surely striking at the thing, at where he thought it might be, would be of little use; to be a creature of that gods-forsaken realm, it would have to be quite impervious to pain. He glanced around the comparatively mundane kitchen frantically.
Perhaps he could use the stick against something for leverage, or to anchor himself, but there was nothing nearby stable enough for either purpose. His eyes came to rest on the
stove, just a few feet behind. Or, perhaps...
It probably would not work, but it was his only chance.
Straining, he reached backward for the stove with the stick in hand. With the added
length, he was just barely able to graze the dials that operated the gas range. Gritting his teeth, he struggled to hold his ground and keep his arm steady for the delicate procedure. He brushed against a dial, but was unable to
push it in properly...
Prepare to confess...
With a determined cry, he thrust the stick forward and pulled to one side. The front right burner sparked to life in a halo of blue flame.
Wilykat thought he felt a flinch from his assailant, that creature of cold. He tossed the halved broomstick onto the burner, and watched it ignite.
The heat from the small fire overcame the invisible entity. It let out a terrible hiss as its spell was broken. The hellish gateway disappeared, and Wilykat was freed.
Weak with relief, the boy dropped to his knees and breathed deeply. However, he felt, he knew, that he was far from safe. Summoning what strength of will was left to him, he snatched up the other half of the broomstick, igniting the straw-filled end on the range. Clasping both hands about his makeshift torch, he sped out of the kitchen and tore down the corridors, fear spurring him on as he emerged from the Lair and into the dark, wild night.
Stop! I don’t want to see anymore! I know all this! The broomstick burned too fast, that— that thing caught up to me, now I’m here and— oh gods, where is here? What’s going on? Why did I have
to see all this? For Jaga’s sake, please—
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