12

"Yes?" A handsome, male, spotted face looked out of the door and regarded his harried, tired looking guests, instantly taking in every feature of them as he was used to doing. He noticed the obvious: that the lynx was blind and had been injured. He saw the puma had torn her tunic and that her belt doubled as a weapon, as he had often seen. He noticed that the Snarf wore a belt of sorts, unlike most of his fellows. He also noticed that this Snarf looked agitated, not that it was unusual for a Snarf to be so.

They had decided that Lynx-O would do the talking. Though he had never formally trained, he did have somewhat of a sixth sense, inborn as his species sometimes tended to have mild psychic powers, and developed because of the loss of his sights. He immediately liked the cheetah, and though he could not see his face, in his mind, he knew what he looked like. "Hello," he said. "My friends and I have gotten into a rather dire situation, and we need some assistance. May we talk with you?"

The cheetah smile warmly, his calm demeanor hiding a force of power that even Cheetara had never dreamed her kind was capable of. "Yes, of course," he said in a soft-spoken voice. He opened the door wide into a comfortable looking living room colored in soothing earth tones. "Please come in."

"Thank you." Their guest's soft tones were deceptive. Lynx-O could feel that this man carried far more power than he showed. He also sensed that he was of good heart, which was lucky. A strong power of any sort in the hands or minds of evil was never a good thing.

"May I ask your names?"

Lynx-O had moved cautiously in the unfamiliar room, but turned and extended a hand. "My apologies for not introducing myself. We had had a very trying few days. my name is Lynx-O, this is Pumyra, and our young friend is Snarfer."

"Cheetaan." The man shook his hand. "Pleased to meet you. Please have a seat." He paused then added considerately, "There is a couch directly behind you, Lynx-O."

"Thank you." He sat, and heard his companions sit as well.

"I will return in a moment, my friends. Excuse me." Cheetaan smiled and left the room headed for his kitchen.

Lynx-O could not help but immediately like the man. Some people were like that, and unfortunately some were insincere or deceptive. Cheetaan was neither.

"Boooy, I sure hope he can help us. I'm not sure if he likes or not, snarfer, snarfer." He paused, then made a nervous purring sound. "Maybe he think we're some kind of criminals or tricksters! What if he sends us to prison, then we'll never get out!"

Even Pumyra had to smile at the poor little guy, and she shook her head, wondering where he got his sometimes paranoid ideas. "Calm down, Snarfer, I'm sure he's not going to send us to prison." Then she paused and added in a light hearted tease, "Don't tell me a seasoned ThunderCat like yourself can't handle a few authorities."

"Well...!" Snarfer wanted to argue, but when someone has just called you a seasoned ThunderCat, you really couldn't wimp out anymore. "I guess you're right." He sat down and put his hand on his chin and tried very hard to look unruffled.

Pumyra laughed aloud and gave him a companionable hug. "Easy, Snarfer. We'll be all right." For now she had forgotten her long thoughts and musings of the past three days. She was feeling all right now, away from the familiar scenes, and in less familiar territory.

Cheetan returned with a small tray of four drinks and a bowl of pretzels and set them down on the circular table and grinned mildly at his guests. "Please help yourselves," he said taking his drink. "Now what can I help you with?"

"It's all right," Lynx-O said softly to the others, feeling their hesitation. This man meant them no harm, and he knew it. "Well first of all, we have a slightly unusual situation. How much do you charge for your services?"

"As much as the client can afford. I do want to make enough for a living, but I don't like to be greedy. I try not to be; I don't like greed."

Lynx-O nodded. "Fair enough." They had no means with which to pay him, but he would try and find a way. He did not like leaving a debt unpaid. "All right. The first thing I must tell you is that I am a ThunderCat, as are Pumyra and Snarfer."

Lynx-O told the whole tale, Pumyra and Snarfer breaking in here and there with a correction, or a forgotten detail. Through the whole story the cheetah only sat quietly and listened, and did not interrupt.

When they were finished both Snarfer and Pumyra expected to see skepticism, disbelief, even scorn on the man's face, but they saw none of those things. He only said, "Lynx-O, may I have permission to scan your thoughts?" In this way he would glean if this was the truth or sham, although his base instincts told him as fantastic as it seemed, these visitors spoke the truth.

Lynx-O nodded his head, giving his quiet assent.

Pumyra started to say something in protest, then fell silent. Lynx-O only remained alert, not so much physically as mentally. This was a moment of trust, a dangerous thing to allow a psychic inside your head. Here it would be revealed if the lynx's own sense had been true once more.

Cheetaan closed his eyes and regulated his breathing, performing an action he often used for scanning the memories of traumatized children to find what happened, and how to help them overcome the ordeal.

After a moment he opened his eyes. "I see no sham, and I will not charge for helping the protectors of this Third Earth."

Pumyra let out a breath she did not know she had been holding, and Snarfer was more blatant in his relief, slouching back on the couch with a relieved sigh. Lynx-O only nodded. "Can you help us?"

Cheetaan looked at him earnestly. "To some extent. I am well trained and my sixth sense is greatly developed. But I am no Mage, and have so such powers. I can tell you the situation, and all that I can gather from what I have available, but it will ultimately be up to you to fix the situation."

Lynx-O nodded once more. "Yes, that is more than acceptable my friend."

The cheetah stood and closed his eyes. Lynx-O, Pumyra, and Snarf all became very quiet, as they did when Cheetara went into one of her own trances. They expected some unseen psychic force to start spinning the cheetah's body as sometimes happened with Cheetara when she was summoning a difficult vision, but it did not happen. Nothing visible occurred, other than the cheetah's body tensing, as if performing a feat of strength that no one but him could see, but there was something that they all nevertheless felt. The mood seemed to darken, and it was as if an unseen chilling draft had seeped under the door to make them shiver. They could feel the force of the young cheetah's power, and could feel his very will as he summoned the things he sought.

After perhaps twenty minutes of this, Cheetaan sat down hard on the chair, visibly exhausted, but not to the point Cheetara was after a lesser vision. Cheetaan's powers were much more developed and controlled. He brought his striking, deep gold eyes to meet those of his guests. Lynx-O's sightless face nevertheless showed his concern and anticipation, by his furrowed brow and his leaned forward posture, and the intense expression. "What did you see, Cheetaan?" he asked in an eager whisper.

After taking a moment to collect himself, Cheetaan replied, "Your suspicious were right, Lynx-O, this is the work of the one called Mumm-Ra." There was a growl from Pumyra and a gasp from Snarfer. Cheetaan continued in his intense, low tone. "Bengali, Cheetara, and Snarf have also fallen victim to this spell, but the others, young Lion-O and the others..." he shook his head, having "seen" Lion-O as a man and Lord of the ThunderCats. "They have closed the remaining portals. Luckily no one stumbled on them." He paused to take a drink. "Bengali is in a bad situation, although there is not immediate danger of him being harmed, he is in a landless world, and he must be rescued within the next couple of days, or he will perish from lack of food."

At this grim news, Pumyra bit her lip and began once again began to think of everything she had pondered since discovering where she was.

"Cheetara and your uncle, Snarfer, have landed in a more perilous place, they have ended up on Plundaar, far into the future, beyond our generations. They have been caught by the authorities there and put into prison, in a small city there known as hakint."

Lynx-O bowed his head and thought of this information, processing it all in his mind. If only he had the Braille board with him! It could help them all sort the situation out.

"The only other thing I could 'see' is what may help you the most." The fatigued cheetah took another sip and said, "This demon priest used an ancient spell from the first ages of Earth, one that was based on a phenomenon that happens once every ten or so generations; it is an alignment of stars, resulting in a thinning of the dimensional barrier. I know nothing of other dimensions, but I hope that you can use this information to save your friends."

Lynx-O stood, and heard their host stand as well, even though it was obvious he was drained. The elderly lynx grasped his arm, and shook his hand warmly. "Thank you, my friend. If there is any way we can repay you, please tell us."

Cheetaan chuckled a little bit. "No, I would not accept payment for this. I only hope it was some help."

"It was," Lynx-O said. "When we figure out how to use it. Again thank you."

"You're welcome."

As they made their way through the small town where Cheetaan lived, Lynx-O pondered the situation. "Pumyra, we must go to the library. I have a vague idea, but physics was never the strong point of my studies. I want to look a few things up."

"Sure, Lynx-O," Pumyra said distractedly. Lynx-O was too caught up in the dilemma to notice.

Sitting on a cold metal chair in the library, Lynx-O had found several physics books in Braille, and he read silently, running his sensitive fingertips over the raised bumps almost quicker than a sighted human could read with his eyes. They were in Basic, all except a Thunderian one, which was all right, as Lynx-O remembered the Thunderian language well.

"Lynx-O?" Pumyra asked as he read. Snarfer had wandered off to find something to occupy himself with while Lynx-O did his research. "Do you know how Thundera was-"

"Shhh!" Lynx-O's unusually sharp voice startled her a bit, but she got the message and lowered her own voice.

"How was it destroyed? Do you know?"

Lynx-O sighed and closed the book. "Yes," he said finally. "I believe I do."

Not really having expected an answer for that, Pumyra blinked. "You do?"

Lynx-O nodded. "I can not be sure, and I have not even told Lion-O this, and if I tell you you must promise to keep it to yourself, but I am a historian, and many's the time I have sat at my Braille board and gone over records and newsclips, and written journals by some of the ThunderCats. Once there was a Mutant army leader named Ratilla..."

Lynx-O told as much of the story as he could remember, bringing up the Sword of Plundaar, a weapon so terrible that not even the deepest, most fiery pit of proud Thundera could destroy it.

Pumyra sat, thunderstruck. "Then...then Jaga did it?" she asked in a horrified whisper.

Lynx-O nodded grimly. "Yes, this is what I believe. This day when he cast the Sword of Plundaar into the pit was almost ten years before Thundera's destruction, and it was only a month later-"

"-that they felt the first planet-wide tremor," Pumyra answered, her voice shaking. She remembered the news reports, the cold chill she had felt when they reported it was a planet wide event that had no explanation. She remembered panic and riots when the rumors started to fly in the couple of years before the cataclysm.

"Yes. That is why I think this."

Pumyra thought as Lynx-O bowed his head for a moment then returned to his work. How did one deal with the intense guilt that he must feel once he has realized that he was responsible for the destruction of his home world, and the deaths of thousands of his countrymen? "I-I'm going to get some air, Lynx-O."

He nodded, this time it being his turn to be distracted, and Pumyra ran to the door. She had to get some air.

Cheetaan, answering the door
Cheetaan

Part 11

Part 13

Table of Contents
ThunderCat Stories Page
Main Page