In the Beginning The door to the lab slammed open and Sonder entered, tossing a pack roughly to the large, surgical steel table in the center. Amharus spun around, eyes widening at the angered expression and blood on his pupil’s face.
Part II
"Sonder? What happened?" Amharus took a step closer, thin fingers already reaching to his belt for a pouch of healing herbs. The larger man waved him off and crossed to the sink, washing his hands and face and drying with a towel.
"It’s just a scratch. Here.. let me show you." He moved back to the table, where the bag had begun to twitch and emit soft cries. "I finally found my familiar."
Amharus moved closer as Sonder opened the bag -- from the size of the bag, it appeared his pupil had finally found something suitable, something small and tractable, to train as his familiar. But when Sonder held up a tiny black cub -- one that Amharus recognized easily as the rare, black offspring of the native species of leopard -- Amharus cursed under his breath and lifted his hands into the air.
"Sonder -- Sonder, what were you thinking? Do you know how big these cats get?"
Sonder moved closer, turning to the side to set the cub into one of the cages lining the east side of the underground lab. "Oh, I know -- and she’s going to get even bigger. But she’ll be more tractable," he added, mocking Amharus' repeated lectures, "than any monkey or domestic I might have found." Sonder hadn't been happy about relocating to the jungle, especially not this far beyond the luxuries he had grown accustomed to in his own lab; but he was also accustomed to searching far and wide for the knowledge he craved, and so accepted the move -- and Amharus' desire for secrecy -- as yet another side-effect of his voracious appetite for learning.
"Sonder, you’re crazy. These cats are not trainable! They’re too wild -- even the ones bred and raised in the Royal Zoos have been known to kill their keepers. What makes you think you can control one?" Sonder leaned across the table and grinned, one hand pressing the cub into the rear of the cage.
"I’m going to make her trainable, Amharus. You’re going to teach me your magic, and I’m going to teach you my science. And I’m going to make her -- remake her -- into everything I want her to be."
"You can’t just do that, Sonder -- you can’t just manipulate everything around you. That’s not what power is for, it’s not what magic is for! I..."
"Don’t argue with me, Amharus. We have an agreement."
"I won’t teach you. I want out." The lab went silent, Amharus’ heavy breathing interrupted only by the fitful buzz of a fluorescent light. Sonder turned and crossed the room, setting the cub in one of several stainless steel cages. When he returned to Amharus, his hands were folded behind his back and his face was furrowed in a look of contemplation.
"We had an agreement."
Amharus straightened slightly. "We never agreed to this. You’ve changed the terms, and I want out of the agreement."
"We had an agreement." Sonder’s voice grew quieter with each word.
"I want out!"
Sonder looked up and stepped quickly around the table to loom over Amharus. "Tough shit, old man! There is no out! There is no going back. You agreed to teach me, and you will!" He turned away from Amharus and paced around the table, his breath roaring through his nostrils. Turning to again face Anharus, Sonder rested the palms of both hands on the table and leaned closer.
"You walk out that door, you’re lost. Forever. And if you actually find your way out of this jungle, you’ll find that your home is gone. All of it. All of them." Sonder turned and walked away, back to the row of cages, and wiggled his fingers between the bars of the cub’s cage. She scuttled away from the front of the cage, pressing into the rear corner and hissing as mightily as she was able.
"Do we have a deal?" There was no lack of humor behind the question and Amharus clenched his fists. The silence stretched between them as he thought of his village, his chief, his dark-eyed wife, his house… and the plots adjoining her garden, those belonging to the wives of his grown sons. He lowered his head and spoke through clenched teeth.
"We have a deal."
[CONTINUE]
Or go back to:
[INCARNATIONS]
[TALES OF THE JUNGLE CAT]
[ARCHIVE]
