The Redemption of Althalus by David Eddings Page A

with one soft paw. “We’ll get to that later,” she assured him. “You might have a little trouble accepting it right at first. Now then, why don’t we get started?” She hopped down from the bed, crossed to the table, and without any seeming effort leaped up and sat on the polished surface. “Time to go to work, pet,” she said. “Come over here and sit down while I teach you how to read.”
    The “reading” involved the translation of stylized pictures, much as it had in Ghend’s book. The pictures represented words. That came rather easily with concrete words such as “tree,” or “rock,” or “pig.” The pictures that represented concepts such as “truth,” “beauty,” or “honesty,” were more difficult.
    Althalus was adaptable—a thief almost has to be—but the situation here took some getting used to. Food simply appeared on the table whenever he grew hungry. It startled him the first few times it happened, but after a while, he didn’t even pay attention to it anymore. Even miracles become commonplace if they happen often enough.
    Winter arrived at the Edge of the World, and as it settled in, the sun went away and perpetual night arrived. The cat patiently explained it, but Althalus only dimly understood her explanation. He could accept it intellectually, but it still seemed to him that the sun moved around the Earth instead of the other way around. With the coming of that endless night, he lost all track of days. When you get right down to it, he reasoned, there simply weren’t any days anymore. He stopped looking out the windows altogether. It was almost always snowing anyway, and snow depressed him.
    He was making some progress with his reading. After he’d come across one of the pictures often enough, he automatically recognized it. Words became the center of his attention.
    “You weren’t always a cat, were you?” he asked his companion once when the two of them were lying on the fur-covered bed after they’d eaten.
    “I thought I’d already told you that,” she said.
    “What were you before?”
    She gave him a long, steady look with her glowing green eyes. “You aren’t quite ready for that information yet, Althalus. You’re fairly well settled down now. I don’t want you to start bouncing off the walls the way you did when you first arrived.”
    “Did you have a name—before you became a cat, I mean?”
    “Yes. You probably wouldn’t be able to pronounce it, though. Why do you ask?”
    “It just doesn’t seem right for me to keep calling you ‘cat.’ That’s like saying ‘donkey’ or ‘chicken.’ Would it upset you if I gave you a name?”
    “Not if it’s a nice name. I’ve heard some of the words you use when you think I’m asleep. I wouldn’t like one of those.”
    “I sort of like ‘Emerald,’ because of your eyes.”
    “I could live with that, yes. I had a very nice emerald once—before I came here. I used to hold it up in the sunlight to watch it glow.”
    “Then you had arms before you became a cat, and hands as well,” he said shrewdly.
    “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Now would you like to make some guesses about how many and where they were attached to me?” She gave him an arch look. “Stop fishing, Althalus. Someday you’ll find out who I really am, and it might surprise you. But you don’t need to know that right now.”
    “Maybe I don’t,” he said slyly, “but every now and then, you make a slip, and I keep track of those slips. It won’t be too long before I know pretty much what you used to be.”
    “Not until I’m ready for you to know, you won’t,” she told him. “You need to concentrate right now, Althalus, and if I used my real form here in the House, you wouldn’t be able to do that.”
    “That bad?”
    She snuggled up against him and started to purr. “You’ll see, pet,” she said. “You’ll see.”
    Despite her rather superior attitude—which Althalus strongly suspected had been a part of her