The "Flowing" in its na was not a description of a cat's gentleness. The weight it carried was more valuable than the word itself.
The entity worshipped by the heretics of Wigtown was Her, and most of the townsfolk were Her devoted followers.
"A goddess?"
Katerina whispered, gazing at the silhouette. She didn't feel strongly about cats one way or the other, but compared to the various gods of the Wastelands, a feline deity didn't inspire much fear.
Her gaze shifted suddenly to Lu Li, who rarely appeared so lost in thought and mory.
"What is it?"
"I just rembered sothing," Lu Li replied quietly, erging from his reverie.
"Do you know that black cat?"
The shopkeeper shot an unfriendly glare at Katerina for insulting his faith.
"Perhaps."
Lu Li stared at the silhouette, recalling the black cat he and Anna had brought back to Sea Gaze Cliff after ilin's death.
The siblings Jimmy and Remi, Amper, the statue, even the Mother of the Swamp—Lu Li had searched for traces of them all after erging from the underground, but every one of them had vanished, just like Anna.
He was surprised to think that a clue might be connected to that black cat.
Then again, Anna had always truly loved cats...
"Perhaps you've seen her sowhere else. Black cats aren't exactly rare," the shopkeeper said with a placid smile, choosing to ignore Katerina's disrespectful words.
"By the way, whatever you do, don't harm any of them in the mountains."
"The Hillerwig Cat?" Katerina clarified.
"Yes. It seems you know more than most."
Most visitors only know not to harm the cats; they don't know the story behind them.
However...
The shopkeeper discreetly sized up the group standing before his counter.
Travelers weren't usually this strange, nor did they ask for maps that were only useful for leaving town.
Lu Li unrolled the parchnt map, dust motes dancing in the lamplight of the old general store. He located Nis on the southwestern edge of the mountains and began calculating the distance.
Drawing on a hunter's instinct, Katerina struck up a casual conversation with the shopkeeper to conceal their true intentions.
"Is the train broken down?"
Through the window, past the sea of cats that now surrounded the shop, they could see the steam engine at the end of the street. It was inching along the tracks, having barely covered the length of a single carriage in all this ti.
"It's always like that. The engine heats the rails as it passes, and the cats love to curl up on the warm steel. The train has to keep nudging forward just to shoo them off."
The shopkeeper was long accustod to the sight.
"How much?"
Lu Li folded the parchnt map, its texture like coarse fabric.
"With this, it'll be ten shillings," the shopkeeper said, laying another, newer map of the Hillerwig Mountains on the counter.
"It's not worth that much," Katerina said.
"That one is," the shopkeeper replied, nodding toward the parchnt map in Lu Li's hand. "It might be the only one like it in town."
"I have a few more questions," Lu Li said.
"Of course. You're our guests." The shopkeeper wasn't like Gades or The rchant, who would charge a fee for information.
"Why was Nis abandoned?"
"Due to the widespread anomalies."
There was no great mystery to Nis's abandonnt. Like most towns in the age of anomalies, its location and size made it untenable, forcing a mass relocation. Its fate was kinder than most, however—the majority of its residents resettled happily elsewhere.
A few of the people who fled back then ended up here in Wigtown.
When asked if they could speak to any of Nis's forr residents, the shopkeeper provided a few nas, suggesting Lu Li could offer them a small token for their ti.
Next, Lu Li asked for the location of the church. The shopkeeper's expression imdiately grew wary.
"Why do you want to know?"
"I want to learn about the Flowing Cat," Lu Li answered.
After a mont's thought, the shopkeeper decided against telling the strangers what little he knew.
"You should go see Crippled Burn. He knows a great deal and might be willing to talk to you."
He was a devout follower of the Flowing Cat. Though not yet a formal mber of the church, he knew much about it and its deity.
"Want to use the back door?" the shopkeeper asked after they paid, gesturing to the throng of cats outside the front window.
"Getting through that crowd won't be easy."
"Thank you," Lu Li nodded slightly.
Out back, they saw only a single gray cat dozing lazily on the lid of a rubbish bin. But as Lu Li passed, it lifted its head as expected, drawn by his aura.
It hesitated for a mont, debating whether to follow, but by then, Lu Li and his companions had already disappeared around the corner.
With darkness not far off, they wouldn't have ti to make the nearly two-and-a-half-kiloter trek along the mountain road to the abandoned town of Nis. Besides, there was no need to go there just yet—
they now had nas to follow up on, and perhaps those people could provide the clues they needed.
"If you really want to find this Flowing Cat, I have an excellent idea," The Fallen offered, his every word dripping with unconcealed malice.
"What is it?"
"Kill a cat to lure her out."
Lu Li remained silent, but Katerina shot back sarcastically:
"And you're confident you can take on a goddess, are you?"
They decided to visit the forr residents of Nis first. They found one of them sitting on a bench by the street.
Despite the withered mountains, the view was still a rare pleasure.
They followed the old man into his ho just before another pack of feral cats could surround them.
"The connection between the Hillerwig Cat and the Flowing Cat?" The old man lowered himself slowly onto a hard wooden chair. His eyes fell on the shilling they'd placed on the table, and he grinned.
"Yes. They are all manifestations of Her."
Between the shilling and the natural tendency of the elderly to reminisce, the old man told them everything he knew.
The tale of the Hillerwig Cat was the sa one they'd heard from the passenger on the Snow Moon cruise liner, but this ti it was told from an eyewitness's perspective, making it clearer and more detailed.
After that incident, the Hillerwig Cat gradually beca known as the Flowing Cat. She remained in the Hillerwig Mountains, an object of worship, and to this day, she still makes an appearance from ti to ti.
Sotis she's seen surrounded by feral cats, other tis perched on a treetop or a roof, spotted by chance by so lucky soul.
"Is that the one you know?" Katerina asked Lu Li quietly as they left the old man's cottage.
"Perhaps."
"Why 'perhaps' again?"
"Because nothing is certain," Lu Li replied, his gaze dropping from the roofline.
Next, they went to find the devout follower, Crippled Burn.
Unfortunately, Crippled Burn only knew the legends of the Flowing Cat—the deified Hillerwig Cat. He spoke like a preacher, recounting tale after tale of how the Flowing Cat protected the townsfolk, but none of it was what Lu Li needed to hear.
Lu Li gazed quietly out the window. Darkness had fallen outside. The town had no streetlamps, so the only light ca from the glowing windows of the houses.
The Flowing Cat was quite possibly the sa black cat.
She followed Anna.
Anna would be able to sense his presence, to know he had arrived.
But she hadn't shown herself.
ow!
Suddenly, a ow echoed, seeming to emanate from the very depths of their souls.
Crippled Burn fell silent. He and the others turned to look out at the street.
Creak!
As if pushed by an unseen hand, the door slowly swung open.
In the middle of the road sat an elegant black cat.
"That's the one from the silhouette... it's the Flowing Cat," Prusius muttered in disbelief.
She was crouched there, as if waiting for Lu Li to step out of the house and into the dark fog that had shrouded the street.
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