Beware the Kitten

It was a bloody morning, but that was to be expected. The clouds hung low in the sky, rumbling ominously with distant thunder. The sun was reluctantly crawling up into the lagoon blue, tainted by the smoke of countless fires attempting to fend off the winter’s nipping. The mockingbirds’ chatter was loud as cymbals till –
“Stop that thief!” The street rippled like water with the cry, and the morning market crowds parted, only speeding the escape of the small urchin that darted through them and turned, dashing into a dim alley. Two large men, burdened with metal studded jerkins and mostly-legal longswords, stormed into the narrow gap between the onlookers after the child. They had to go single-file into the alley, and for all their haste, they did pause to test each door they passed. Locked, all of them. At the end of the alley, the path split. Wordlessly, the men exchanged glances and each took a different path.
Kitten listened for a few more heartbeats, then slid down the door, away from the wooden bar she’d only just slammed into place. She sat and unrolled the scrap of paper in her hand.

"Dearest Lady Veronica,
Thank you so much for your last correspondence. I am happy to report that your advice is reliable, as always.
Concerning the guard, I’ve been a bit concerned of late…"

"I really have gotten a big one", she thought. Fearful of putting any more dirty fingerprints on her prize, Kitten pulled one of her knives from her cloth-bound sleeves and used the flat of it to fold the paper neatly, then she tucked it in the pouch near her neck. That accomplished, she took a moment to examine the house she’d invaded.
As she expected, any resident adults were already out working at this hour, but if there had been any children, she’d have been in trouble. They’d have wanted to be friends, and they wouldn’t have been quiet about it. “Silence can save you,” Boss often said. He also said, “Friends easily made are quick to betray.” Kitten nodded to herself. "Yes, it’s good there were no children here. My luck’s been with me today. That, or the Master."
She stood and lifted the oak bar softly back to its upright position, but spotted a bowl of apples on the counter. Their gleaming, mellow color instantly overwhelmed Kitten’s rumbling appetite, but she hesitated a moment. Boss always said, “Eat when and where you can. You don’t know what’ll be there tomorrow.” But didn’t the Master say something like, “don’t steal”? And didn’t even her uncles say that “being nice to the neighbors is good for the clans”? But, in the end, it was Boss who saved her life when she was a scrawny, scruffy waif fighting with the mushrooms to eat the last scrap from the waste pile behind the butcher shop.
Not that she wasn’t still a scrawny, scruffy waif. She was just a lot better at stealing now, and she had a clan backing her, so she was hard to punish. She patted the dusty rags she used as clothing, checking the long strips of linen that criss-crossed her arms, legs and torso to make sure nothing would fall off of her unexpectedly. Indeed, she was pretty much dust-colored from the top of her matted hair to each leather-wrapped boot. “That’s just one more advantage your enemies don’t have,” Boss would say, but Kitten thought that Boss' advantage of always looking cleaner, sharper, smarter and more powerful than his enemies was the greater advantage. "Maybe when I’m a bit bigger." She took just one apple, and left.
Back in the marketplace, she darted through the gaps between people and carts, then slipped down a different alley, narrower and stinkier than the last. This led to a slightly wider place behind and between the stone buildings. Only a few doors, and not a single window faced towards this place. Most of the entrances were alleys like the one Kitten had just left. Here, another market had unfolded, but one of a different sort.
“Come get your fine jewels, straight from the crypts of the dark forests. At great peril to myself…”
“Buy your vegetables at half-price! Half the price of the front market! All your vegetable needs.”
“You know what happens if you don’t pay the clan’s fees!”
“You won’t find finer products or a more trustworthy merchant anywhere!”
In such a noisy, shady place, Kitten was as normal as a shadow, and just as noticeable. She slipped down this street and into the next, a rustling leaf in a twilight forest. It was said that one could get from one side of the city to the other without ever leaving these backstreets, but the one time Kitten had tried it, even she hadn’t gotten more than halfway. The clans didn’t take kindly to ignoring the borders like that, and she had the scars to prove it.
Down one particularly dim backstreet surrounded by towering four and five story buildings, she approached a door and smashed her fist against it, just once.
There was an answering “thunk”, then a soft grunt.
“Kitten,” Kitten grunted back. The door opened.
Inside, there was more shroomsmoke than air, and the smell of fermentation and dissipation in equal measure. She moved through here swiftly, through the kitchen, to the tight spiral of stairs leading upwards. She felt, rather than saw, her way up to the second, then third level, gaining speed. By the time she’d reached the long hall with its seemingly endless row of doors, she was almost running. A small grin had begun to spread across her face like spilt ink on paper.
Kitten burst through the last door in the hall, pausing only briefly to note the occupants of the room. "Two men, one young enough to be reckless, one old enough to be slow. Both armed, both tense and jumpy now that I’ve surprised them. And yes, Boss' Voice, I checked the ceiling and closets too."
Doing her best to cool the grin on her face to something more professional, she marched across the room, casually ignoring the twitch of the short, scrappy fellow in red as she passed into striking range. She pulled the letter from the pouch at her neck and placed it neatly in the center of Boss' desk. Boss straightened his bearlike stature and stared impassively at Kitten’s face.
"He wants me to explain why I’m interrupting. But that letter is self-explanatory." Kitten decided to try waiting him out. She glanced down at the letter, then back at Boss' face and waited.
“You’ve got some nerve,” spat the man in red, “Marching in here like you o–” A wave of Boss' hand silenced him. With one eyebrow raised, Boss slowly picked up the letter and began to read it. He kept reading, even glancing back up and reading some parts again. The man beside Kitten held his breath. Kitten did too. It was the only thing that kept her from pumping a fist in the air. Step one was going quite well.
Not that she’d brought Boss good news. At last, he looked up from the letter, and his eyes were grave.
“‘I am happy to inform you that I already have all the forces necessary for such an endeavor posted at my various estates, and need only time to gather them here, and your hand of friendship, to begin…’” Boss quoted without glancing down at the letter again. He narrowed his eyes at Kitten.
“Do you understand what this means?”
Kitten nodded, finally corralling her expression to one of mild concern.
Boss’ eyes never left hers. “And how did you get this?” His question was mild and calm, but Kitten still rankled at it.
“Stole it.”
“From who?”
Kitten blinked. She didn’t know the man in fine clothes who’d made the mistake of accepting a letter from the scribes in broad daylight, and made no secret of which pocket he then deposited the letter into. She did know that he was not, in fact, the intended recipient, based on the contents, but did that help or hurt her case?
While Kitten pondered, Boss seemed to have reached an accurate assessment of her initial sentiments at least, because he nodded; interrogation over. His eyes flicked to the man in red.
“Steamer, read it.”
Steamer did so, at first grudgingly, as though anything touched by Kitten was liable to bite him, but then more intently as he began to absorb the letter’s contents. His eyes flicked to Kitten, full of suspicion. “You sure you didn’t write this yourself.”
Kitten sneered. “Care to wait and find out?”
Steamer’s face got as red as his clothes, and he was about to say something truly terrible, Kitten was sure, but another wave of Boss’ hand stopped him. “Suffice it to say, we can’t afford to ignore this, nor can we reasonably handle something like this by ourselves.
“Steamer, gather five of our best and tell them to pack for a stroll in the woods. Be careful of birds and rats.”
Kitten frowned. “But what about–”
Boss cut her off. “You will make 16 copies of this letter, including the mark of eclipse, and nail them to every door of every clan head in the city.”
Kitten was torn. This was a job she was particularly well suited for, and she could understand that, but it completely removed her from the equation at headquarters. She was Boss’ heir, right? Wasn’t she supposed to be helping prepare everyone for what was about to happen? Especially since she was the one who had brought them this news.
“But–”
“I can’t afford to act like this is certain, either.” Boss’ expression was dismissive as he stood to begin giving orders to the rest of the clan. The conversation was over.
Kitten’s vision got a little red around the edges. Her own thoughts became garbled and distant, and she certainly couldn’t hear whatever Steamer spat with a smirk. The only thing that was clear was Boss’ distrust. It wrapped around her like tangible chains. After what felt like hours, Kitten was able to see through the red mists that Boss was looking at her. Kitten shook her head, trying to clear it.
“What?”
Boss’ deep voice held a gentler note as he repeated himself. “Do you understand?”
It was a prompt, rather than an inquiry, and it kicked Kitten into autopilot. “Yes, Sir.” She forced herself to move, willing her limbs to act as they always did, smooth and controlled, but she was certain she was moving more like a drunk as she approached the desk and retrieved the letter. If Boss observed the difference, he did not comment.

As one of only four literate persons in the clan, it truly was an honor to be given the task of copying the letter, especially if those copies were headed for the other clan heads. Kitten kept telling herself this as she worked, hoping it would reduce the tremors periodically running through her body. Her vision had cleared and she could think again, but the rage still ran through her veins. Boss didn’t trust her? When the only reason she had this letter at all was because she was following his orders?
She poured the anger into her brush. The letters formed with bold, ridged lines. It wasn’t quite accurate to the original, but Kitten didn’t worry about it. She was making copies, not forgeries. Anyway, this way they might get a greater sense of urgency. Kitten knelt on the floor in a dim space at some distance from Boss’ door, where she could watch the comings and goings on the stairs without being observed herself. The copies lay spread out around her, the pot of ink and the candle vying for space near her right hand. She deftly added a black circle with a black dot in the center to each copy, in the blank space above where she’d more carefully imitated the signature of the original sender. No clan leader or member could miss that message.
Even so, Kitten doubted many would come. The clans didn’t normally work together, preferring to stay within their borders and ignore the other clan’s problems. That is, unless the problem was in their territory, or could be used to expand. Besides which, most were set in their ways. They glorified “As it was, so it shall be”, and were more likely to willfully disregard the letter than acknowledge that change might be in the air. This was the other reason she was perfect for this job, even if it felt like a gut punch.
She threw fine sand and dust on all the copies and rolled them up, storing the lot in a bag she’d borrowed from Boss for this purpose. Rather than trying to make it through the backstreets into every territory, Kitten chose the easy way. Near the edge of her clan’s border, she turned suddenly into a doorway, dashed soundlessly through the store’s warehouse, front house, and out onto the front market.
By now, the morning market crowds had thinned, and some of the farmers had already started packing up their stalls and checking their weapons for the trip back to their farms. People gave Kitten a wide berth, now that they could, and it took very little time for her to get into the next clan’s territory. One back door of a certain bakery later, and she was slipping through enemy streets, back to being normal as a shadow, no one even stopped to wonder when she paused in front of a door just a few paces down the alley behind the bakery. This door was painted a lurking black, and people generally avoided looking at it. Kitten pulled the first copy out of her bag, sticking a nail through the top of it. In one smooth motion, she pressed the nail against the door and smashed it into the wood with the handle of her largest knife.
Immediately, the door swung open, and angry voices arose, both from within the dark doorway and from behind Kitten. Other doorways started opening. In moments, a whole pack of backstreeters were chasing Kitten, real bloodlust in their eyes.
Kitten fled; down an alley, up a drain pipe, through a window, out onto a roof, then the next one. A few of the more athletic pursuers managed to get up the drain pipe or found other hand holds, but most struggled to fit through the window. There was one smaller lad who got through the window, the house, and then braved the jump onto the neighboring roof. He was so absorbed in the task that when Kitten popped out from behind a chimney and punched him, he didn’t even have time to register surprise before he was knocked out. Kitten bound onto the next roof, crouched low behind a brick wall, and waited a few beats to see if any other pursuers would come, but it became eerily quiet. After a few more shuddering heartbeats, she made her way off the roof and back into the front.
Having safely made it out of Black’s (that is, the worst clan’s) territory, the others went faster. Fin clan, Six clan, Fist clan, Beaver clan. Sneak in, post the letter, escape, back to the front. Torneth was a city of labyrinthine stone walls, aging wood and flourishing mushrooms. Twisting rows of buildings split and scattered the two sides of the city into myriad tiny communities and countless secret places. Wrapped around all of it were the great outer walls. Yet, all the city was dwarfed beneath the stark, white, and vaguely pine-shaped Tower which rose up from its center, which stood in still and stoic watch over all. And no one knew the place better than Kitten. After successfully delivering five letters, she gained confidence. "I might be done before the afternoon shadow has reached the walls." Without much more than passing caution, Kitten took the alley into Carp’s territory.
In this particular area, the backstreets were dank and smelled of fish and feces. But, people still had to make a living. This back market had stands on long legs and no tarps to get as much sunlight and as little mud as possible on their wares. Mushrooms in a small panoply of colors and shapes were the finest decorations here; broad yellow ones like dishes hung from the walls, tiny, pale blue ones grew in long lines up cracks in the walls, and red ones like open maws lurked in the places with the deepest shadows. These provided only ironic comfort in such a place.
Here, unlike in the other territories, Kitten spotted a few familiar faces in the crowd. Among them, a tall, lanky man with salt and pepper hair lounged against a stall where a young woman was selling shirts and tunics of various conditions. He watched the crowd carefully, but still jumped when Kitten sidled up to him.
“What’d’ja do?” Kitten asked blandly. She squatted down by the man’s knees to gnaw on her apple as slowly as her will would enable her.
“Sometimes, we’re just short-staffed! You ever think of that?!”
Kitten paused, her teeth deep in the fruity flesh. She swallowed without chewing, then craned her neck up and stared with narrowed eyes at the man. He kept watching the crowd for a moment, then scratched his hair in agitation.
“Rocks, I get grayer every time I see you.”