The Golden Cat: A Novel (del Rey Fantasy) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

A lifelong cat lover and critically acclaimed author of The Wild Road, Gabriel King has shared a home with every variety of feline, from stray to pedigree. He lives in London.

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The ancient prophecy speaks of a golden cat whose coming will heal the troubled world. But the Queen of Cats has three golden kittens -- and when two are stolen away, the distraught parents turn to Tag, the brave young cat who is the protector of the magical Wild Road.

The desperate search moves from the water-lit Oceanarium and sun-dappled Tintagel to the distant Louisiana bayous and the pyramids of Egypt. As Tag and his friends struggle on, so does a terrifying, unearthly force -- a preternatural vortex threatening the Wild Road, tearing at the very fabric of existence. But Tag is disastrously unprepared for the powerful darkness that threatens to consume everything in its wake . . .

Aus dem Klappentext

N CAT, Gabriel King continues the enchanting quest that began with The Wild Road--the novel the San Francisco Chronicle crowned "mythical," and Richard Adams, author of Watership Down, deemed "absolutely magical. . ."

The ancient prophecy speaks of a golden cat whose coming will heal the troubled world. But the Queen of Cats has three golden kittens--and when two are stolen away, the distraught parents turn to Tag, the brave young cat who is the protector of the magical Wild Road.

The desperate search moves from the water-lit Oceanarium and sun-dappled Tintagel to the distant Louisiana bayous and the pyramids of Egypt. As Tag and his friends struggle on, so does a terrifying, unearthly force--a preternatural vortex threatening the Wild Road, tearing at the very fabric of existence. But Tag is disastrously unprepared for the powerful darkness that threatens to consume everything in its wake . . .

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The dog fox known to his friends as Loves a Dustbin lay in the late-afternoon shade of some gorse bushes on top of a Cornish headland, waiting for his old friend Sealink to make up her mind.

Long-backed, reddish, and brindled, he was strikingly handsome, until  you saw that one of his flanks was completely gray, as if the fur there  had somehow lost the will to retain its foxy hue. In another life, humans  had shot him full of lead pellets; but for the support of his companions,  his soul might have trickled away with the color of his coat. Now two of  that gentle but determined company were no more, and the rest had begun to scatter. After such dangerous events, after a lifetime's service in another species's cause, it was strange for him to lie here in the sunshine and be an ordinary fox again, bathed in the warmth of the returning spring, the confectionary scent of the gorse. He rested his head  on his paws and settled down, prepared to wait as long as necessary.  Patience was a luxury his other life had not encouraged. He intended to  explore it to the full.

His mate, a vixen from the suburbs by the name of Francine, very good-looking and therefore uninclined to give and take, sighed boredly and  said, "Must we stay with her?"

"I promised Tag," he answered simply. "Anyway, she needs the company."

After a moment he admitted, "I know she's difficult to get on with."

At this, the vixen sniffed primly. Loves a Dustbin contemplated her  out of the corner of his eye. She really was quite fine. And the smell of her, along the cliff-top fields in the dusk or early morning! He would go anywhere for that smell.

"It's been a long, hard road for Sealink," he observed.

"Life's a long, hard road for all of us," said Francine, unaware  perhaps that life had been rather kind to her so far, "with one thing or  another all the way. Why should she make so much of it?" And, tawny eyes  narrowed against the sun, she stared hard at the sturdy figure of Sealink,  who was sitting perilously close to the edge of the cliff and looking  vaguely but steadfastly out to sea. Every so often she blinked or her ears  flexed as if calibrating the onshore breeze. Other than these small,  precise movements, she showed no signs of life. Every line in her body  spoke of deep preoccupation. This served to further irritate Francine, who  said, "I have never understood your fondness for felines. Foxes have  plenty to contend with in this world without having to bother themselves  with cats, too." Then she added so quietly that Loves a Dustbin thought he  might have misheard her, "These cats make such a meal of it all."

"Have a heart, Francine," he appealed. "She's sad, that's all."

And she was.




A wind-rinsed sky full of wheeling gulls, sunlight glittering far out  on the water, sea shooshing inexorably back and forth: the day itself  seemed to be urging Sealink to forget the things she had seen and done,  the things she blamed herself for and couldn't change.

Time had passed since the battle with the Alchemist had left the grass  of the cliff tops west of here scarred and scorched. More time, still,  since her mate, that old bruiser, Mousebreath, had lost his own fight for  life in some nameless part of the English countryside, borne down by a  score of alchemical cats. Most of them had been among the deluded  creatures who subsequently hurled themselves off the headland to fuel  their master's unnatural powers. But Sealink had felt no satisfaction in  that--not even when days later she had looked over the cliff and seen them  there, a sodden mass of fur lining the shore as the tides pressed them  gently but purposefully into the shingle. She had only been able to think,  Where was I when he needed my help? Somewhere out at sea, bobbing up and  down on a boat with Pengelly and Old Smoky the fisherman. Fulfilling some  damn ancient prophecy. Helping a foreign queen get to Tintagel Head and  give safe and timely birth to the very kittens who were the cause of all  t
his tragedy.

It had been difficult for her to mask her pain over these last weeks;  but most of the time none of her companions had been watching her, anyway. They were all bursting with relief and optimism. They had, after all, defeated the Alchemist. A few domestic cats and a dog fox had prevailed against appalling odds. They were still alive! They had new lives to make!  Tag and Cy, reunited, chased and bit each other like youngsters. Ragnar  Gustaffson, King of Cats, cornered whoever would listen and described in  considerable detail his adventures on the wild road. Francine the vixen  rubbed her head against Loves a Dustbin and promised him a life filled  with Chinese take-away and sunlit parkland.

And as for the foreign queen's kittens ...

One of them was the Golden Cat; one of them, when it grew up, would  heal the whole hurt world. But who knew which of the three it was? No  matter how hard she had stared at them, she hadn't been able to tell one  from another. Tiny and blind looking, they had pushed and suckled and  mewed and struggled. They had all looked the same. Like any kittens she'd  ever seen...


Like her own litter, in that other existence of hers, in another  country, another world. I'm still alive, she thought. Perhaps they are,  too. Her own kittens! In that moment, she knew that there was only one  journey she could make now. The world could never be whole again; but she  would damned well recover from it what she was owed. We make our lives,  she thought. There ain't no magic: just teeth-gritting, head-down, eye-watering determination. She stood up slowly, but with a new resolve, stretched her neck, her back, each leg in turn. She felt the warmth of the  sun penetrate her coat.

"Okay," she said quietly.

She turned to the two foxes.

"Let's move on, you guys," she said. "No use waitin' around here.  Places to go, things to do. I'm goin' home and find my kittens!"

They stared at her.




Some way down the coast, another cat sat drowsing on a warm rock while her brood played on a sunlit headland above the sea.

Her fur was a pale rosy color. Her eyes were as deep as Nile water.  Faint dapples and stripes made on her forehead a forgotten symbol. She was  the Mau--a name that, in a language no longer used, means not just "cat"  but "the Great Cat, or wellspring, that from which all else issues." Only months before, she had been the pivot around which the whole world moved. Even now, when she blinked out at sea, it was as if the world was somehow peculiarly hers. The Mau's blood was half as old as time, but she was newly a mother; and her husband, who was less in awe of her than he had been in those hectic days, called her Pertelot.

Pertelot's kittens were named Isis, Odin, and Leonora Whitstand Merril--"Leo" for short--and after some encouragement they had run a mouse  to earth in a patch of gorse that smelled like honey and cinnamon. The  mouse--which, she reflected, had so far shown more acumen than all her  children put together--had quietly...