Chapter 6: Role Reversal

x

To travel to the City of Dreams was no place usually accessible by regular means, at least not for the likes of mortals.

"One can, as the name implies," Natori told the Bureau, "dream one's way there, but it's said to be a sprawling, changing place, impossible to securely navigate while in a true dreaming state."

After discovering the name of the City of Dreams in the Cat Library, there had been little else in the way of accessing the world, and so the Bureau (with Haru at their side) had travelled to the Cat Kingdom in search of more practical information. Their request to King Lune and Queen Yuki had brought Natori out of retirement – with the previous Cat King in tow, and Haru received the general impression that this was to make sure he wasn't causing chaos in Natori's absence.

"One can?" Baron echoed. "Does that mean there are surer ways of passage?"

Natori nodded. "For those who maintain a higher level of cognitive thought while sleeping, it should simply a matter of follow the right paths. I believe Creations fall under this category?"

"We can, if we choose to."

"Then, under the right circumstances and with the right knowledge, you should be able to travel to the City of Dreams during sleep, and bring the rest of your team with you."

Haru's attention to the plot was waylaid by the ex-Cat King motioning to her to approach. Unsure whether this was a scripted moment or him passing by undetected by the Author, Haru stepped over to him.

"Hey, babe," he said, and Haru didn't take the endearment personally. ('Babe' had been written in his character so much that it was permanently hardwired into his lexicon for anyone of the female persuasion, despite several attempts to drop it.) "I hear you have our Author's ear."

Okay. So definitely not a scripted moment. Haru glanced to the exposition happening across from her, but it seemed the writing had stalled, for there was some definite small-talk springing up. "I've met her once," she said.

"I need you to ask her to do something for me."

Haru regarded the ex-king. He wasn't a bad sort, simply the required antagonist for The Cat Returns, and – when the plot wasn't in force – was mostly a good natured, if slightly over-enthusiastic and clueless cat. "What sort of thing?"

"I need her," he said, "to give me a name."

"A name?"

"Yes! Everyone else gets one, but I'm just the Cat King! And I'm not even that by the end of the book!"

It was, as requests went, fairly innocuous. "I'll do my best," Haru said. "But," she added quickly, before the ex-Cat King could start thanking her, "please don't go telling everyone that. Otherwise everyone and their aunt will be coming to me to fix every little grievance they have with the original book."

"Done!" the ex-Cat King promised, although there was an excited glimmer in his eyes that made Haru seriously doubt it was going to be one he was able to keep.

Baron appeared beside her. "Haru, I believe our Author is about to pick up the story again." He passed a curious look over the unusual gathering, before he and Haru returned to the rest of the Bureau. "What did he want?" he asked quietly.

"A name," Haru whispered back. "Apparently he's heard I'm the one to ask if people want the Author to change something."

"And are you?"

"I've met her once; I don't know if she'll actually change anything I ask." Haru shrugged. "How about you? Since it seems I'm taking requests, is there anything you want me to pass along, should I meet her again?" She recalled their conversation back in the Cat Library. "Any character concerns?"

"I will trust our Author for now," he said, although it sounded like he was picking his words with care, "but should it come to it, I will air my thoughts for future revisions."

"As you wish."

x

The dreamworld looked startlingly familiar to Haru. While Baron examined the lapis lazuli stone he cradled in his hands, she ran her gaze across the midnight-black tunnel, lit by a hundred glittering gemstones embedded in the walls.

"I hate to break it to ya," Muta said, "but this don't exactly match Louise's letter."

"We're not there yet," Baron replied. He rotated the gemstone around in his hands, passing gloved fingers over the engraved surface until it burst into light. "That's not my light show," he said, before the light swallowed him up entirely and he vanished.

The lapis lazuli dropped to the ground, dim and dead.

A beat passed.

"Was that… was that meant to happen?" Muta asked.

"Certainly not. Haru – don't touch it!"

Haru looked up from where she was knelt on the ground, fingers already curling around the stone. "We're going after him, right? So this is our best bet."

"We have no idea where it took him."

"And that's kind of the issue, isn't it?" Even so, as she turned it over in her hands, it didn't respond in the same way it had to Baron. "What exactly is this, anyway?"

"It's a wayfarer," Toto said. "It's used to navigate worlds like this, where the path may be obscured or hidden."

"And it shouldn't just spirit someone away like that?"

"Most definitely not. You should tell it where you wish to go, and it should show the way; that is all."

Haru nodded and raised the stone to the level of her face. It was a beautiful blue, with engravings across it which Haru had initially – when Natori had passed it to Baron – taken to be map markings. But at this proximity, it was more like runes, like a spell carved into its surface. "Take me to Baron," she whispered.

The lapis lazuli glittered, gently at first, and then a thread of light shot out from it. It led off into one of the branching tunnels, diminishing into a thin beam quickly swallowed up in the cavern's depths. She turned to what remained of the Cat Bureau. "Well?" she asked. "Are you coming?"

x

As they travelled, the swirling darkness of the tunnel began to weaken, natural sunlight slowly filtering through, until they stepped out onto a grassy verge with a sudden drop. Haru halted at the edge. Beyond and below the cliff lay a world of greenery overrunning a city. There was no defined style to the settlement below, for every part seemed to hail from another place or era, connected only by the foliage which called it home.

The lapis lazuli light led unerringly to a floating island off in the distance.

Toto shuffled his wings. "And this is where I come in." He took to the skies, but no sooner was he in the air and making his approach, than he was veering abruptly to avoid crashing into a tower that had surely looked more far-off than that. He swerved and landed heavily back on the grassy patch. "No good. The perspective is all over the place here. I can't tell where anything is."

"Maybe yer just aren't as good a flier as yer think you are."

"Says the cat who walked into a wall yesterday."

"I was aiming for the door!"

Haru stared at the string of light leading, so sure of itself, to the island. "That which was close seemed small, and that which was far away seemed large," she repeated to herself. She inhaled, and backed up to the entrance of the cave. Too caught up in their bickering, neither Toto nor Muta registered her actions until she was running towards the sudden drop and leaping off.

The world spun around her, perspective shifting and lying as she flew through the air, and then she was landing on the far side of the floating island. She staggered back and steadied herself. There was shouting coming from behind her, and she turned to see both cat and crow seemingly halfway across the world. "Just jump!" she shouted. "It's much closer than it looks!"

Both scolded her as soon as they joined her.

"What were you thinking, Haru? You could have fallen!"

"Geez, Chicky; we didn't save you from the Cat Kingdom just so you could scare us like that!"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"That," Muta grumbled, "is not the point."

"The wayfarer is showing us the way," Haru said. She held up the stone, the light of which was directing them to another apparently distant island. "It can see where things lie, even though we can't."

"There are other ways to put that to the test, Haru."

"Yeah. How about next time you, I dunno, throw a rock instead of your whole self?"

Haru blinked. "I didn't think of that."

Muta rolled his eyes and muttered something which sounded suspiciously like she was being compared to Baron.

A cry rang through the dreamworld. Familiar in its voice, and yet utterly alien in its shock, Haru didn't wait to see if either Toto or Muta recognised it. She leapt to the next island marked by the wayfarer, and barely paused to regain her bearings before she was off onto the next step. She flew on, the Author's narration pushing her along and leading her with surety of step, until she finally came in sight of Baron.

He had evidently jumped and miscalculated, for he was scrabbling on the edge of a tower. His claws had shredded through his gloves in an effort to claim a grip on the mossy rooftop, but even that did not seem to be enough as gravity steadily dragged him back. One hand lost its hold and before he could return its hold, his second hand slipped.

He fell.

Hands grabbed his wrists and he jarred to a halt. Above him, framed in the otherworldly light of the dreamworld, was Haru. Her breath came out in gasps, as if she had run a great distance, and her hair was slipping out of its bun in dark strands.

"I guess it's my turn to leap into a strange new world and rescue you," she joked. She dug her elbows into the ground and started to heave Baron up onto the rooftop. Halfway there, the rest of the Bureau caught up with her and lent a paw/wing to the attempt.

"This is what comes," Muta said once the danger had passed, and with a pointed look at Haru, "of leaping before you look."

"Looking was not the problem," Baron said. "It's knowing whether to believe your eyes that's the question." He regarded his rescuers. "How did you find me?"

Haru raised the lapis lazuli, the light of which was pointed solidly at Baron. "This showed us the way." When Baron began to reach for it, she held it away. "And I think we can all remember what happened last time you had this. Let's not do that again."

Baron smiled. "A sensible precaution."

"So what happened back there?" Muta asked. "It ain't like you to miss a landing."

Toto snorted, but didn't add anything. Haru rather got the impression the falling from the Cat Kingdom might not have been the first time Toto had had to intervene in the fight against gravity.

"I thought I had figured out my bearings in this place," Baron answered. "Given how perspective is warped between locations, I believed that if I aimed for a building that seemed further afield, I might be afforded a safe landing." He paused. "It looks like perspective here isn't a consistent factor. I suspect it might be nigh on impossible to navigate this plane without a wayfarer."

"It is."

As one, the Bureau looked to the newcomer's voice. At the far side of the grassy rooftop stood a brown-furred feline, bearing some resemblance to Baron in the nature of his bow tie and gloves, but wore a navy-blue jacket and a cape. The cat tipped his bowler hat. "Pleasure to make you're acquaintances. It's been a long time since I've had visitors."

Baron stilled. "You."

The strange cat bobbed his head. "Me."

"You're the one who took Louise."

"Aye, that I did."

Baron closed the gap between them and, in a curt show of efficiency, latched the loop of his cane into the loop of the cat's bow tie and pushed, so that the latter was leaning precariously over the long drop. "Where is she?"

The bowler hat cat only curled a hand around the cane to steady himself, but otherwise didn't seem fazed by Baron's actions. "Gone."

A growl rose through Baron and the cane jutted further out.

The bowler hat cat's shoes scrabbled at the edge, and now there came something approaching urgency to his voice. "She left this place of her own free will!"

Haru's hand appeared on Baron's arm, and she slowly manoeuvred herself into his line of sight. "We knew Louise was trying to escape. What we don't know is how, and we're not going to learn anything if we lose our one source of information." Her hand tightened its grip. "Are we?"

Baron's gaze flickered to Haru's, and once it made contact, it stayed. She watched clarity return to his eyes, and the tension loosen. "Right as always, Haru." He snapped his cane back, sending the cat reeling – but reeling towards the safety of the rooftop. "You – explain yourself."

The cat took his time steadying himself, even going so far as to right the tie Baron had malformed with his cane. "My name is Duke," he said, "and I was made in the very same workshop you were."

"My artisan only made myself and Louise," Baron said.

"You were made by an apprentice toymaker," said Duke. "Apprentices have masters."

Baron's silence was begrudging, but not entirely disbelieving. "So what does that mean in this tale?" he asked. "Why take Louise?"

"I was helping."

Baron's cane twitched, and the Duke decided to elaborate.

"Even in your early days, the human world was no longer a safe place for the likes of us. Science had replaced magic and belief in the old ways, and I knew there would be no home for Creations."

"So you stole Louise to… protect her," Baron said, but the tone of his voice gave shallow understanding.

"I had walked the human realm for decades before you were created!" the Duke snapped. "I have seen what they are capable of, the cruelty they inflict on each other, let alone on anything different, and I wanted to spare you from that! Even by the time I found Louise, the two of you had already gone through so much, separated by humanity and their wars. How long, then, until their foolishness destroyed what little magic was left? Until they destroyed the magic created by my artisan and his student?"

Baron's eyes glittered like gemstones, but there was nothing comforting in them. "So what did you do with Louise?"

"I brought her here. This place is beautiful and full of magic – and safe. I was going to bring you also here, but then…"

"Then what?"

"Louise didn't appreciate what I had done, and made plans to escape. You're right – the only way to navigate through this place is with the aid of a wayfarer, so I laid a curse across this land. Any Creation who tried to use a wayfarer would be transported across the world, leaving the wayfarer behind. I thought that would curb Louise's attempts to flee."

"But it didn't," Haru said. "You said she was gone."

"Yes. She…" The Duke faltered. "She gave up her Creation form and became a mortal soul."

Baron lunged for the Duke, but Muta was quicker, and he held his friend back.

"What does that mean?" Haru demanded. She shot looks between both Cat Creations. "What happened to her?"

"It means she's taken on a mortal form," Baron growled. He had slowed in his efforts to pull free from Muta, but his form still shook. "In her efforts to escape from here, from you," and he spat the last word out, "she gave up her immortal lifespan, her body, her memories, and reincarnated in a mortal form."

"That's why she never found you again," Toto breathed. "She forgot you."

"How long ago was this?" Haru asked. "If she reincarnated, perhaps we can find her again, remind her of who she was–"

"I can't be sure," the Duke replied. "There is scant little way of telling time here, but it was somewhere between thirty and forty years."

Muta glanced significantly to Haru. She did the maths a moment later. "No. No way. It's not possible."

"It's not," Baron said. His breathing had slowed and Muta cautiously released him. Baron looked to Haru, and she saw him make visible effort to soften his words and his gaze. "She would have been drawn to a form close to her original body. Almost certainly feline, not human."

"One thing I don't understand–"

"Only one?" Muta deadpanned.

"–is why you're still here if Louise has gone," Toto finished.

"He can't leave," Baron said. "His own curse has seen to that."

The Duke nodded. "Without a wayfarer, I'm trapped, and no Creation can wield one here."

"But I can," Haru said. She hesitated, before adding, "I can lead us out of here – all of us – and back to the real world."

"And let him go, after everything he's done, Chicky?"

"I…" Haru faltered. She wanted to argue that the Duke had already served a sentence of sorts, trapped alone for nearly fourty years, but she was all too aware that it was she who he had grieved. "Baron, it's your call."

The Duke shook his head. "I'll save you the hassle – I'm staying here."

"But–"

"The human world out there is no place for Creations and magic anymore. So here I will stay, safe." He glanced to the other Creations. "Either of you are welcome to also stay, if you so wish."

"I'm good, thanks," said Toto.

Baron approached the Duke once more. The ire had faded, but in its place had solidified something else, an anger that no longer blazed, but simmered. The Duke grinned. "Are you still thirsty for revenge, Baron? If you wanted to take it, I will not stop you." He glanced back to the sheer drop behind him. "I don't know how far the ground is from here, or even if there is a ground eventually. Perhaps there isn't, and I'll just fall for eternity. A fitting punishment, no?"

That same terrible stillness fell over Baron. "You have locked yourself away in a prison of your own making, trapped by the very same curse you used to trap Louise, all for fear of the outside world – of change." He stepped back. "There's no punishment more fitting I could devise for you."

Baron turned to Haru, and the smile, although it might have been weak, was no less genuine for it. "Miss Haru, I think it's time you brought us home. We have a reincarnated soul to find."