It had been five hundred years since the burgesses of Ulthar had forbade the killing of cats. Five hundred years and Ulthar had grown from a hamlet to a metropolis that would rival any other. And yet it had grown in ways that only dreams can. It had spread its cobbled streets and low walls and reached sturdy towers into the sky. It had new wharves along the River Skai, but at the same time it had preserved those features that had made it most famous not only in Nir but in Hatheg and even in far Celephais, mainly that Ulthar had been, was and would forever be the city of cats.
It was not an easy thing to be a city of cats. It is one thing to pass a law forbidding the killing of a cat in a hamlet or village, it is quite another to enforce such a law in a city such as Ulthar had become. There were, by some counts, a cat for every man, woman and child who lived in Ulthar. Other accountings suggested that this was not true, that there were in fact two cats for every such resident. The true numbers did not matter, the simple fact was that they lounged about the city in such numbers that any wagons and carts driven through the city did so in a controlled and cautious manner so as to protect the feline inhabitants that wandered there. This was such a concern, that the great markets and the warehouses that were needed to supply such a city were kept at the very outskirts of its borders, where farmers, artisans, artificers, and merchant caravans could ply their trade without traversing the majority of its streets. There were still cats in these markets and stores, but the wheels that ground through the streets had less to fear here than in the depths of the urban landscape.
There were other concerns of course. The city was in one manner very clean, being free of rats, mice, lizards, snakes, and any other such vermin that might attract the attention of the felines that stalked its streets. In another manner, the city was quite filthy, being the depository for the daily droppings of a legion of animals most of which that could not be trained to use the plumbing. To solve this issue, the burgesses had ordered a proliferation of sand parks be strategically placed throughout the city, and a small corps of men that served to clean these parks on a daily basis.
The feeding of such a multitude of cats was in itself no small task, and a veritable fraternity had sprung up to shoulder it. The Maukin had begun as a kind of charitable organization, gathering up bits off scrap from the butcher, the fishmonger, and the dairyman. These varietals were then made into a kind of dried kibble, which made it both easy to store and transport for distribution about the city. Over the decades the society had evolved and taken up an almost priestly role, conflating the name of the city Ulthar, with that of the Elder God Uldar whose task it was to keep vigilance over the loathsome things that had filtered down from the outer void to drowse in the haunted and lonely places of the Earth, in the wastelands of the desert and ice, the pits and folds of the darkest caverns, and of course the depths of the abyssal ocean. Legend, or at least those promulgated by the Maukin, held that the God Ulthar was, in its way, possessed of certain feline traits, as were its offspring, the various feline monstrosities that had come to be seen in the waking world as either demons or gods, the most prominent being Bastet. Thus, the Maukin came to be not only the caretakers of the cats of Ulthar, but also the priesthood of a minor Elder God.
Despite its charitable and theological tenets, the Maukin Fraternity was undeniably a firm hand in the operation of the city itself, drawing from its coffers a significant sum. This was never done directly, but rather in the form of boons, grants and services. The temples of the society were maintained at city expense, and a holiday celebrating the good works of the Maukin and encouraging donations to their cause, was held annually. The festivities and décor for this merrymaking were paid for out of the city purse.
It was therefore inevitable that an ideology opposing both the Maukin, and their furry charges would arise, albeit in secret, amongst the shadows of the Ultharian alleyways. It was a particularly venomous organization, led by none other than Esnick, the banker who also served as treasurer for the city and had grown tired of being servile to men and creatures he thought of as less than himself, and therefore less deserving. In his view, the city of Ulthar could be so much more if it simply weren’t for those damned cats. He and his like-minded fellows set a task before them, one that seemed outrageous, perhaps even impossible, they would rid themselves of the vermin that infested their city and assume their rightful place in its streets.
For years they worked, meeting furtively in out of the way taverns outside the city, in glades near the Enchanted Wood, and even in caravans organized and hired for that very reason. A multitude of ideas had been proposed and evaluated to accomplish their goals. Poisoning the various foodstuffs was considered, but it was soon learned that the Maukin themselves partook of the mixture they fed to their charges, and therefore any such toxin would be revealed by their deaths long before the feed could be distributed. The use of zoogs, a natural foe of catkind, was considered, and a small number were taken from the Enchanted Wood. Unfortunately, at least for the conspirators, the violent tendencies of the zoogs could not be harnessed for the task at hand. The zoogs were quite adept at killing, but refused to focus on their feline adversaries, finding the killing of their trainers and caretakers equally as fulfilling.
In wicked desperation, Esnick had dispatched emissaries to meet with the men of Leng to broach the subject with their masters who dwelt on the far side of the moon. Of the three men sent, only one returned and he, without his tongue or fingers, had the most difficult of tasks reminding his employers that the moon-beasts and the saturnine cats had been allied for more years than Ulthar itself had been on the maps of the realms. With all their own ideas exhausted Esnick and his friends sent abroad a small cadre of agents to make discrete inquiries in pursuit of their diabolical pursuit.
Thus, it was that Chinthe came to Ulthar. She was a dark woman, from the Southern Isles, with her hair worn in braids festooned with ebonite beads carved from shells found only on the shores of the Lake of Yath. She had studied with the priesthood in Celephais, and with another in Serranian, and a third in Kadatheron. She had served as a priestess at the base of the mountain Hatheg-Kla and as a sibyl in a cave in the cliffs near Ilek-Vad. In all of these roles she had fulfilled her duties with an unmatched fervor, and in the process raised the ire of those others with which she ministered for the Gods of Earth and those who sought their favor. She was it seemed, too fervent in her devotions, and too curious for her own good. She delved too deep into parchments and other texts held in the various libraries and collections of these diverse ministries, learning from them a multitude of secrets, enigmas, mysteries and yes even heresies that made her quite dangerous and therefore quite despised. It is one thing to make an enemy of a man, it is quite another to make an enemy of a religion. And so Chinthe, the student, the priestess, the soothsayer became known as Chinthe the Heretic.
She walked into the city on the Day of the Fifth Whisker and took in the city, traversing its streets and taking the measure of the people who lived there. She let the aroma of the city envelope her, let its sounds fill her head, and made sure to sample the great varietals of foodstuffs that made themselves available. She wandered thoroughfares and across byways and bridges, and down alleyways and avenues and flowered cul de sacs. She did these things with a sense of wonder, and with a sense of respect, and in doing so learned secrets of the city that its own residents did not know, for how could they, they had been born and raised in those walls and roadways. They took what they saw for granted, and never suspected what the curved and meandering architecture truly meant.
Chinthe met that first night with Esnick and his counselors. Chinthe bore a letter that carried the seal of one of Esnick’s agents. The missive suggested that Chinthe might present a novel solution to the problem that plagued Ulthar. Esnick welcomed the woman with a bottle of wine from orchards that bordered the River Skai. When all had finished their portion, the corpulent baker finally raised the question about how she planned to solve their problem.
Chinthe smiled a vicious little smile that made some of the men in the room draw back in fear while others felt themselves tinged with a forbidden lust. “You seek to eliminate the pestilence that infects Ulthar, I seek to aid you in your task.”
“And how would you do such a thing?” Asked Esnick stroking his moustache.
“I would seek to do what you cannot bring yourself to do, usurp the role of the Maukin, and draw from them their powers both sacred and secular.”
“And how would you suppose we do that?”
Chinthe shook her head. “I am not a fool Sir. If I were to tell you my clever plans, and they are clever, how then would I be paid for my cleverness?”
“What do you seek in return for your cleverness?”
Chinthe paused for a moment to think and then took up the empty wine bottle and turned it over in her hand. “The vineyard that produces this vintage, you own it?” Esnick conceded that he did. “If I accomplish my task, I will take this vineyard as my payment.” From her robes Chinthe the Heretic brought forth a small scroll and handed it to Esnick’s own advisor. The two read it over and then conferred in hushed tones, then finally Esnick took up a quill and put his mark upon the bottom of the page.
“Now, tell us of your plan.”
Chinthe sat back in her chair and put her fingertips together in front of her face, her dark almond eyes glinting in the lamplight. “Our first task gentlemen, is to poison the Maukin Fraternity.”
· · ·
It was two days later that the first act in Chinthe’s plan was put into motion. Several barrels of smoked eels were tainted with an extraction of venom from the purple spiders of Leng. Then in the dark of the night the barrels were left at the gate to the main chapter house of the fraternity where they were whisked inside and added to the larder. It was barely a day later that the entire order, even the smallest of chapters, fell ill. The chirugeons of the city fearful that some fever had taken root in the metropolis ordered the Maukin quarantined, and the distribution of kibble suspended.
This created a void in the ordered society of Ulthar, one that Chinthe recommended as a religious advisor to the burgess council chose to fill. With the Maukin’s unable to feed the cats of Ulthar the poor creatures were in danger of going hungry and in a city of so many, the thousands of mouths of even small predators might become dangerous. Under Chinthe’s orders the entire production of milk from the surrounding farms was requisitioned. To this a small amount of soporific was added, not much but enough. The tainted milk was set about the city in barrels that were split open and allowed to drain into the streets where the cats of the city were allowed to drink their fill, lapping it up gleefully. No cornerstone of the city was left untouched, and five tuns were taken up the spiraled tower at the center of the city and opened up and allowed to flow unbridled down the path that they had been hauled up. Citizens at the base of the spire waited for the inevitable flood that would envelope the lower portions of the area, but to their surprise it never came. Indeed, save for a few saucers full here and there the entirety of the milk that had been hauled up had inexplicably vanished. The spectators searched and searched but they could not find a grate or pipe by which the volume could have been sluiced away. The only one who seemed unsurprised by the whole matter was Chinthe the Heretic, who simply nodded as if the whole affair was entirely expected.
That night as the intoxicated cats slept, the city guard was roused to investigate a most strange occurrence. There was about the streets reports of strange noises, most curious and upsetting. Old women reported a rustling in the trees and through the bushes and gardens. In the quarter by the docks retired seaman recorded a sound that they swore was like a gale wind whipping through the sheets of their sails. Fearful, they drew the shudders of their windows tight, cinched up their curtains, and retired to their beds in hope that the noise would subside, and they would be passed by unharmed. Responding to such reports, the watch found nothing. Though this was not always to the preference of those that had summoned them. Yards that had once been full of furniture and furnishings were now empty. Streets once cluttered with the necessities of life were now bare, and alleyways that had been home to rubbish bins and unclaimed detritus were likewise scoured of their contents. The city woke the next morning the victim of an impossible act, somehow vast portions—entire quarters had been scoured clean, as if by the hand of some fastidious demon horde that took the valuable and the worthless just the same.
And still Chinthe the Heretic just nodded as if all of this was going to plan. Esnick and his compatriots voice concerns, but Chinthe dismissed them. No one had been harmed she reminded them, and the fact that strange things had happened only played into their hands. The plan would continue she told them and there would be no deviations.
The application of soporific milk continued the next day, and that evening the citizenry of Ulthar braced themselves for another night of unseen and inexplicable rustlings and thefts. The more thoughtful of residents gathered their belongings off of stoops, and porches, and balconies, and out of yards and alleys and secured them inside sheds and closets and entryways. Houses that had once been immaculate found themselves cluttered in the hope of deterring the theft.
But that night there was no rusting in the trees or any other vegetation, and there were no thefts or disappearances of property. There was instead a low and terrible humming that seemed to resonate from the very walls and roadways of Ulthar. It was a rhythmic thing that came in most curious cycles. The woodwrights of the city thought it akin to a rasp working out a plan with occasional pauses to assess progress, an assessment that the farriers wholeheartedly agreed with. It should be noted that although the sound was pervasive, it was not necessarily injurious. Indeed, many suggested that on that night their repose was perhaps one of the most restful of their entire lives.
On the third day the citizens of Ulthar went about the day with a kind of restful happiness in their hearts, and they greeted the tiny felines that shared the city with them in a most joyous manner, sharing with them their morning sausages and kippers and eggs. That is most of them, the likes of Esnick the Banker and his cohorts still scorned the four-legged beasts and soured at the joviality that had spread about their city.
That morning in the midst of all this cheerfulness, Chinthe the Heretic urgently called on Esnick and put the question to him one final time. This was the crux she informed the man who lounged about in his tub, from here on forward there was no turning back. Esnick just nodded and told her to get on with it. Chinthe seemed almost melancholy as she left the banker’s manse that sat at the top of the lane known as the Curl of the Tail.
After they had dispensed the day’s milk, Chinthe ordered the barrels carted out of the city and delivered to a small encampment to the north of the city, just beyond the hills but not yet within the boundaries of the Enchanted Wood. There, far from the prying eyes of the city Chinthe ordered the huntsmen into the wood and instructed the gathered woodwrights in her design. When all was understood and all were about their task, Chinthe took her leave and returned to the city of Ulthar a frown upon her face.
The wind blew cool that evening, and the citizenry of Ulthar took the opportunity to go out into their streets and yards and with a bottle of wine or port celebrate the passing of the day. All about them, the cats of Ulthar lay fat and torpid from the narcotic laced milk they had spent three days consuming. Again, their came that curious vibration, the one that seemed to come from the walls and roadbeds of the city itself. The one that neither the city elders nor city watch could explain. Again, there were those that thought it familiar, but the only people who could have identified it with any certainty were too ill to speak. Chinthe could have told them, for she knew, but nobody asked her, and it was too late anyway.
The next morning the residents of Ulthar, both human and feline, woke well rested and amiable. The sun seemed to take on a rather cheerful glow and more than one resident was caught whistling a happy tune as they went about their work. Indeed, even the cats seemed overzealous in their affections, rubbing against legs and demanding to be stroked and provided the comfortable lap to curl up in. It was not until late morning that the pursuit of affection turned into a more forceful demand for attention. Which was then quickly escalated into a frenzy of seemingly unprovoked scratches and the vicious bite. It was then, and only then that the men, women and children of Ulthar realized that the daily supply of milk had not been delivered.
Runners were dispatched and inquiries made at various municipal offices, but all of these were met with the same lack of information. No agency or ministry would admit responsibility for the delivery of the milk over the last few days, and furthermore none would act to undertake the task and organize an immediate delivery. The citizenry for the first time in memory was left to act for themselves and feed the now annoyed and hissing cats on their own. Larders were quickly investigated for whatever tasty and meaty morsels could be found. These were normally reserved for housecats, those furry companions that were quite different in temper than the outdoor cat, but these were desperate times and those called for desperate measures. Larders, butcheries and fish houses were ransacked, and the streets strewn with whatever could be found to distract the feline horde and assure that its belly was appeased.
That night the women of Ulthar listened to the howling and screeching that bellowed from the streets and made sure that their children were locked up behind strong doors and shuttered windows. In the meanwhile, the men of Ulthar armed themselves with whatever they could find that they thought would be helpful against the legion of moggy demons that seemed to prowl outside.
With the sunrise the fears of the men and women of the city were found to be justified. Four members of the night watch had been attacked, slashed multiple times by some edged weapon. None had been killed, but all had suffered grievous bodily harm, one had even lost an eye, while another would likely never walk again. While the doctors attended to the wounded the remaining members of the guard called for action. A delegation of senior officers marched to the great temple and demanded consultation with the High Priest Atal. But Atal, who served the Gods of Earth, and had done so for centuries had grown feeble in his senescence, and could barely move let alone speak, was of no use to the men who entreated him to act.
The delegation left dejected and clambering for aid. Chinthe the Heretic was there, waiting for them, and she offered a solution to their problem. It was a terrible thing that she offered, but they listened to her as she spoke of this and that and the other thing. She spoke, and they listened, and it didn’t take much to convince them to do as she said.
And so, five men mounted on zebras that were both stout and fleet of foot made their way out of the city and headed north along the road that led over the hills toward the Enchanted Wood. But it was not the wood toward which they were heading; it was to the glade where the hunters and woodwrights had finished their work.
It took hours for the guard to make their way back to Ulthar for they brought with them a huge tarpaulin covered wagon that took all four of their mounts to pull. It came plodding along down the road leaving behind it two thick ruts. Even from a distance it could be seen that the structure underneath the cloth had been built from empty barrels of milk that had been used to placate the cats of Ulthar, but they had been turned into something much, much larger. It was still barrel shaped, that much could be told from the look of it, but what was beneath was hidden from view. But the sounds, the cacophonous, chattering, whistling sounds that came from beneath hinted at what was beneath. As it passed through the main gates a great pall came over the city. Religious men made the sign of Koth and invoked the name of Lobon, fiercest of the Gods of Earth. Mothers grabbed their children from the streets and hurried on home. Shopkeepers closed their doors and barred them from the inside. And in the chapter houses of the Maukin Fraternity, the brothers stumbled from their beds and to their doors and windows and wailed in despair at what they knew was to come.
The covered wagon was marched through the city in the most systematic of ways, spiraling as it were, sunwise from the outer walls to the very center of the labyrinth that was the streets of Ulthar. It made its way, and as it did the cats who are the most curious of creatures took notice and fell in behind forming what could only be described as a great retinue of the feline persuasion. And all the while that terrible chattering from underneath the tarpaulin continued, now joined by the incessant meowing from those that followed.
Once the center of the old quarter had been reached the drivers paused and several attendants then loosened the ties and the canvas cover fell away revealing the source of the terrible cacophony. The barrel staves had been repurposed to build an immense wooden cage the full length of the oversized cart and half as tall again. Inside were dozens upon dozens of screeching lemurian zoogs, their eyes wide with fear, the tendrils about their mouths whipping about in rage. With the unveiling of their natural enemy the cats of Ulthar developed an immense rancor and arched up their backs in the curious way that cats do and begin hissing and spitting in the most venomous of ways. The closer ones tried to leap onto the cart, but between the driver and the designer of the cage a foothold could not be gained, and the unorganized feline masses had to content themselves with chasing the monstrous construct through the streets and out the gates into the fields and beyond.
It was only when the last cluster of the cats had followed out of that the gates were closed and locked. This left only a handful of the species, those too old or too young to follow the captive zoogs, inside the city walls. The majority of the cats paid no notice to the slamming of the door behind them, and continued to follow the cart as it crested the high hill to the west, where the setting sun illuminated the scene and the thousands of cats that swarmed the landscape.
It was at this time that the Maukin Fraternity appeared at the gates, they came laden with bags and chests, whatever valuables they could carry, and demanded that they be allowed to depart. At first the guard refused, noting that that if they wanted, they could leave in a day or two, once the horde of felines had dispersed. If the Maukin wished to join their charges they could do so then. But there came a curious rumbling, and the great tower that had stood for as long as any could remember, swayed and then came crashing down, scattering dust and debris over the old quarter. To the west one of the great walls bowed up and seemed to tumble over, then to the east the same thing occurred. Panicked, the guards opened up the gates and the Maukin fled through them. They were only the first.
Great upheavals wracked the city, toppling fortifications and buildings as if they were the children’s playthings. In moments the Maukin were not the only residents of Ulthar that had fled to the surrounding countryside. In time, as structure after structure fell, the whole of the city was evacuated and marched southwest down the road that ran along the River Skai, a despondent mob clutching to the meager things that they had fled with. Even Esnick had escaped, though now bereft of his vaults and hirelings, he walked slow and defeated like everyone else.
It was only as the last of them crossed the great hill of Alamondar that a saddened few cast a backward glance and witnessed the most curious of occurrences. There, in the fullness of the moonlight they saw the barrel shaped cart still yoked to the quartet of zebras, as it darted desperately about on the plain, as if it were attempting to escape some unseen predator. At first, they thought it was merely an attempt to flee from the ravenous horde of cats, but then a sudden movement caught their eyes. Whatever calamity had befallen the city of Ulthar, the maelstrom of dust had long since dispersed, either settled or blown away by the winds that blew down from the north. But where the city had once been the observers could see nothing, no ruins, no debris, and no devastated structures. There was nothing to see, because there was nothing there.
But still there was something down there on the plain, something moving, pursuing the oblong cart full of screeching and terrified zoogs. It was titanic in size and had about it a darkness akin to the void, and it moved in a sleek manner. It was, despite its size, a terribly silent thing, terribly silent as it moved across that plain, at least until its one appendage made contact with the cart and a horrific caterwauling filled the landscape. Another appendage came down and crushed the pinned cart, the draft animals that pulled it, and presumably all the zoogs that were trapped inside.
From the back of her mother, one small child who bore witness dared to speak. “Look momma,” she said, “a kitty.”
And not far away, Chinthe the Heretic laughed as Ulthar the cat city played with the toy she had used to rouse it from centuries of slumber.