Nine Lives and Fifteen Tales by Andre Norton

Author:Andre Norton [Norton, Andre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9780886773557
Amazon: 0886773555
Publisher: Daw Books
Published: 1989-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

Ede’s Earrings by Sasha Miller

The magician’s house was not a happy place these days. The air fairly quivered with misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and-not the least of it-downright stubbornness on the parts of both the magician and his cat.

“Don’t you clatter those things at me,” Ferdon said. “Not another time! You’re wrong, and there’s an end to it.”

Ede glared at him and shook her head, causing the jeweled rings in her ears to jangle even more defiantly. Then she stalked off, head high, tip of tail twitching in annoyance.

“I’m going to do it anyway,” Ferdon called after Ede. “There’s no reason not to! There’s no harm in it-” But he was talking to the air. With a last clinking of jewels, Ede had leapt to the window sill and vanished. “Right. Go outside and sulk, you ridiculous cat. Who needs your help, let alone your interference? Next time I’ll have a frog or an owl for a Companion, just you mark me well.”

But it was an empty threat, and Ferdon knew it even before the words were out of his mouth. Ede had come to him-as magicians’ Companions always did-of her own will, already versed in Companion lore and already wearing the jewels in her ears. At first, appalled at what he conceived to have been cruelty to the cat, he had tried to remove the earrings only to find that there was no way to take them off, short of destroying them, and that method of removal he was instinctively loath to try. Nor was there a discernible weld in the two thin gold rings. They would have fit loosely on his thumb, and were strung with gold, emerald, and sapphire beads that clinked softly with every movement, and simply were there, as much a part of Ede as her blue-green eyes. She had a most unusual ruddy brown coat, each hair banded and tipped with black; a dark stripe accentuated her back while her belly and the undersides of her legs were creamy in color. Bands of dark tipping circled her throat like necklaces and the capital letter “M” on her forehead-the mark of cats the world over-stood out vividly.

Ferdon was young, as magicians go, and Ede was his first Companion. Only when he had done some research in his extensive and as yet largely unread library had he discovered how lucky he was. He had bought the books complete with the house, from the elderly physician-mage whose practice he had taken over when the old man retired. Magister Grinden had accumulated a number of volumes over the years, and among them was a small book, bound in purple leather, a book he had not encountered at the Academy. The very finest Companions, according to the chapter he read in “Arkane Magick et Jewells et Cartes” were cats from Egypt. This Ede undeniably was, for there were many colored drawings in the book and one, entitled “Aegypttian Catte,” could have been a portrait of her. Furthermore, the best Companions always had rings in their ears.

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