Free The Mountain Cage by Pamela Sargent Page A

one of the upper windows. He had seen such symbols often, on the upper limbs of two-legged ones or fluttering over the streets; the wind had twisted the banner on his house, turning the swastika first into a soaring bird, then a malformed claw. A strange two-legs had chased him away.
    “I want to roam,” he replied as he gazed up the road, wondering if it might lead him to the top of the mountain. “I want to see far places. It’s no use fighting it when I’m compelled to wander.”
    Mewleen bounded toward him. “Don’t you know what this means?” She gestured at the broken mirror with her nose. “When a window to the other world is shattered, it’s a sign. This place is a nexus of possibilities, a place where you might move from one world to the next and never realize that you are lost to your own world.”
    “Perhaps I’m meant to perform some task. That might be why I was drawn here.”
    “Come with me. I offer you a refuge.”
    “I can’t accept, Mewleen.” His ears twitched as he heard a distant purr, which rapidly grew into a roar.
    Leaping from the road, Hrurr plunged into the grass; Mewleen bounded to the other side as a line of metal beasts passed them, creating a wind as they rolled by. Tiny flags bearing swastikas fluttered over the eyes of a few beasts; pale faces peered out from the shields covering the creatures’ entrails.
    As the herd moved on up the road, he saw that Mewleen had disappeared among the trees.
     
     
    Hrurr followed the road, slinking up the slope until he caught sight of the metal beasts again. They had stopped in the middle of the road; a gate blocked their progress.
    Several two-legged ones in gray skins stood by the gate; two of them walked over to the first metal beast and peered inside its openings, then stepped back, raising their right arms as others opened the gate and let the first beast pass. The two moved on to the next beast, looking in at the ones inside, then raised their arms again. The flapping arms reminded Hrurr of birds; he imagined the men lifting from the ground, arms flapping as they drifted up in lopsided flight.
    He scurried away from the road. The gray pine needles, dappled by light, cushioned his feet; ahead of him, winding among the trees, he saw a barbed-wire fence. His whiskers twitched in amusement; such a barrier could hardly restrain him. He squeezed under the lowest wire, carefully avoiding the barbs.
    The light shifted; patches of white appeared among the black and gray shadows. The trees overhead sighed as the wind sang. “Cat! Cat!” The birds above were calling out their warnings as Hrurr sidled along below. “Watch your nests! Guard your young! Cat! Cat!”
    “Oh, be quiet,” he muttered.
    A blackbird alighted on a limb, out of reach. Hrurr clawed at the tree trunk, longing to taste blood. “Foolish cat,” the bird cawed, “I’ve seen your kind in the cities, crawling through rubble, scratching for crumbs and cowering as the storms rage and buildings crumble. The two-legged ones gather, and the world grows darker as the shining eagles shriek and the metal turtles crawl over the land. You think you’ll escape, but you won’t. The soil is ready to receive the dead.”
    Hrurr clung to the trunk as the bird fluttered up to a higher limb. He had heard such chatter from other birds, but had paid it no mind. “That doesn’t concern me,” he snarled. “There’s nothing like that here.” But he was thinking of the shattered mirror, and of what Mewleen had said.
    “Foolish cat. Do you know where you are? The two-legged ones have scarred the mountain to build themselves a cage, and you are now inside it.”
    “No cage can hold me,” Hrurr cried as the bird flew away. He jumped to the ground, clawing at the earth. I live, he thought, I live. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with piney air.
    The light was beginning to fade; it would soon be night. He hunkered down in the shadows; he would have to prowl for some food. Below