Though blood seeped from the guardian's scalp, he returned Oji's glare, along with a lucid, supercilious grin. Having been a cat all his life, and human only a few days at a time, it was natural for Oji to narrow his eyes and flatten his ears, but the round, human ears would not accomodate him—though like ghost pains he felt them flatten—and persisted in sticking out. As he grew angry with the buzzard guardian, his weak human cheek crinkled where whiskers should have wagged. The nuances of his rightful feline face stripped away, his power of expressions was so blank, so human, that he felt see-through.
With an effort, Oji pulled himself together. Not without error and thoughtlessness on his part, Chiyo had become dreadfully injured, while the others were dragged here from their safe, secluded lives without knowing what drove them to their unearthly destination, where they now knelt in a circle around their friend, whose gore oozed from a swath ripped from Akachi's sleeve.
"Why attack her, Kuto?"
"She is on the wrong side, your highness. In more than one way. She is a stranger, a spy, and an Alsantian." When the deadly creature fawned, he writhed, and despite being in a pool of his own blood on the brightly cluttered mosaic, that menacing shudder made them inch away, as if the skulking malingerer still had the strength to swoop.
Though a good king would pity a broken traitor, Oji felt only contempt for a broken bird. Moreover, the boy's reptilian humility scraped as it slithered, as if he was more toad or snake than vulture. The two-faced vulture boy so set Oji's teeth on edge, that though the boy showed the respect due a prince, he felt very much on his guard.
"Not only are you all those things," said Oji, "but you attacked one under my protection. Should I show no mercy?"
"Forgive my simple mind, your highness," simpered Kuto. "I believed this large force could mean you little good."
"They are children!"
"A boy may become king in more than one way," smirked Kuto. "And some children do evil to cats, birds, and each other. Just as you, the stronger, chew on the thought of doing me evil."
Oji was livid. He dearly wanted to prove Kuto right. "Get up."
"I fear I am too weak, your highness. Your wound has nearly unmade me."
"You are not allowed to die," said Oji. "I forbid it. Activate the galonedi unilohisdi, then die if you must."
"Blood was spilled," said Kuto. "The first duty of the guardian. Before you pass over, it must be remade."
"Why would that be hard? We have plenty of red, and I know where we can get a lot more." Oji looked down haughtily on Kuto.
Kuto's wet eyes—black pupils set not in whites, but stony grays—shifted to a vulture's thirsty gaze, then his face shriveled; when he scratched around the sticky wound, drying blood flaked off, and his sickening hack not only cleared his throat, it cleared a few feet around him as the others made room. "I can help, your highness," His pale, parched face looked to one side. "Only bring me water, or I may faint."
If Oji was a boy more than a few days at a time, he may have foreseen what would happen, but though he was a sentient, talking cat, he was still a cat at heart, and while cats are patient hunters, they have not the timeless patience of vultures. Once prey becomes food, a cat has no more reason to scheme, and having defeated his enemy, Oji took Kuto at face value, and enjoyed lording it over the wounded bird. But vultures scheme from the birth to the grave, having become so familiar with the grave that they dip their beaks in it to dine on the departed, and thus have little fear of death, but much respect of it, much more than Kuto had for this prince. Because vultures feed on beggars and kings, animals and humans, on the recently departed and on the putrifying, he looked at Oji like you might look at a softening cheese.
When Oji scowled and reached for the bag, Kuto sprang to his feet, tripped Oji with a sweep of his leg, then grabbed the hood of Akachi's vestment and held a kilikku to her neck.
Based on the intricate etching of the stone machete, which resembled a locust at rest, Oji had misjudged not only Kuto's rank, but his calling.
"You are Vashna's creature." Oji's hands had half-changed in his fall, so that when he pointed to underscore his accusation, a claw jutted out.
"What if I am? We have waited for our rightful prince far too long. So long that some started dreading your return and worked their own will on Alsantia. Stand aside, young prince."
"She is not my subject," said Oji. "She is a pawn from this world."
"You think me a fool!" sneered Kuto. "I smell Alsantian blood. And if they are not all Alsantian, they are steeped in Alsantia. Just look at their absurd garb." The Animalyte vestments were in a style copied from ancient murals on the inner walls of Eldengard—the livery of Druard, the Shining Scion, first king of Alsantia.
As Kuto backed toward the hoodoos, Oji advanced, though he let his steps fall out of sync so as not to tempt the other boy to use his kilikku. Kuto swayed in his faltering retreat; the back of his head and neck were wet with blood, and his black eyes wavered holding Oji's gaze.
"It's not too late for me. And if you believe in me, it's not too late for you."
"Too late, too soon, it matters not—you will never be king in Alsantia."
When a white fox scurried from the gap between the hoodoos, and a larger, silvery fox scampered after, Oji's eyes flickered by reflex to track their dash toward the mosaic. Though he tried to shift his attention back to Kuto imperceptibly, so as not to give away their position,
Kuto leered, erupted with a mocking laugh, and said, "you think to distract me with such a simple ruse, my prince?"
"There was no ruse," said Oji. "I have grown weary, perhaps—you need rest as well."
"Vashna will provide."
"The pattern is broken, and this is not Alsantia."
"To all things, there is a balance." Kuto stopped on the outside arm of the spiral opposite where he and Chiyo were wounded. "Blood for blood," he said," drawing the kilikku across Akachi's palm with a swift slash, "and an eye for an eye." When he turned the kilikku toward his own eye, Oji leaned forward and outstretched his hand, but the twist of the sharp blade was too quick, and the eyeball dropped to the galonedi unilohisdi.
When the pattern brightened, the sand, stones, shells, bottle caps, blood drops, and even the chalk lines seemed to lift from the mesa, and when they shook, it closed the eye of the world.