By RD Rivero

April 4, 2001
 

A storm raged over the decayed and decrepit world around the Black Pyramid. Chambers shook with each passing pang of Thunder, passages echoed in the wake of howling winds. In the deep, dark heart of Mumm-Ra's sanctuary - so far removed from the torrents above - the ageless quiet was broken only by stray droplets of water and flashes of lightning.

The mummy crept up to the reflecting pool, while the air around him swirled with evil. Upon the water's smooth, unrippled surface he saw the red glow of his eyes. As more and more of his face formed itself from the shadows he stepped back quickly, not daring to go any further. A thin, bandaged arm slanted out of the red cloak that had covered it and from the fist a sprinkle of shiny dust fell into the vast cauldron. The teeming stew at once began to bubble - thick, gray smoke evolved from the froth.

Images appeared on the violent surface.

"Games," he said through clenched teeth. Visions of Thundercats and Wollos shooting arrows passed over the wetness of his eyes. "Sports," a stray flash changed the scene to show Warrior Maidens winning a three-legged race. "Merriment." Liono's face appeared last - the lion stared off into the distance, as if he knew he was being watched.

"Enough of this, Ancient Ones!"

The waters cooled - and at once the lights that had come off it to envelope its shrouded master was extinguished.

Mumm-Ra turned back, wrapping himself in his shoal.

"For millennia I have been your loyal servant. I have done your bidding with complete and unquestioned obedience. For all that time we have ruled Third Earth in this unhallowed chamber - out dominion over the physical world here had been unmatched. But not so anymore - no - now he rules - he, that wretched cub, that MORTAL. He who dares to mock me, Mumm-Ra, the Ever-Living. Year after year we've fought him with bungled plans and incompetent accomplices. We have failed and, now forgotten, it is Blundercat victories that they celebrate!"

His mind reeled with the memories of Lunatac and Mutant failures, even his own. He looked up to the engraved statues of the Ancient Spirits of Evil.

"Even our great powers are not enough." The hideously-headed monstrosities turned slowly on their pedestals with dreadful groans. Their eyes sharp red, their mouths opening, dripping wet with saliva.

"We're not fighting them the right way. Battles and wars? Our tactics are all wrong. Evil triumphs in the little things it does. Little things too small for the vigilant to notice or care about. I'll measure our victories one corpse at a time, by whatever means necessary. And I shall start with him!"

He pointed with a shaking, gnarled finger, loose bandages dangling, drooping, to the trembling waters that hissed with popping bubbles that released more metallic fumes. Liono's face filled the void but that time he was not alone. Cheetara led him in her arms, leaning her head on his shoulder.
 

"Cheetara? What's wrong?" the youthful lion asked, gently stroking her spotted mane. "You seemed happier just a moment ago."

She sighed and let go her slight hold. "I don't know what it is, but I feel this, this cold."

The pair looked around them. In the open fields by the Wollo village, the gathered locals conversed and competed in a lively, upbeat manner. It was the fifth anniversary of the Thundercat's arrival on Third Earth and the celebratory festival held in their honor could not have fallen on a better day. Bright and sunny even in the late afternoon and without so much as a cloud in the sky.

The two looked at one another once more. Cheetara remained silent, her mind lost in the recesses of deep thought. Liono was about to speak when a gust of air ruffled a nearby tree. Brown, brittle leaves were sent past their feet by the cool, autumnal breeze. The air was then scented in an unusual mix of flowers and mist.

He kissed her hand - "If you're cold, I can warm you, you know."

She moaned a soft purr. "It's not that kind of cold. It's the freezing of my soul, Liono. It's the cold that is death and evil."

Unsure of what to say, he merely held her tightly. Pressing her upon the heat of his body it was as if he were saying that it was all right, that she was safe with him.

Smiling to herself she said at length: "I don't want the others to think I'm sad. I don't want to ruin their fun." She stroked him arm lovingly. "The falls here depresses me. I never grew up with this kind of changing weather and I guess my stay on this planet was too short for me to get used to it." She looked into his eyes, losing herself in them for a moment. "I can't bear to watch the leaves turn colors and the life shrivel."

At that moment Tygra came upon the two from behind. The tiger's stay on Third Earth had treated him differently. Far removed from the prying eyes of his kind, the sky recluse had begun to build in himself a new sort of reserved confidence. Much to his friend's surprise and delight, he was starting to open up and be more comfortable with his identity.

Snacking from a bag of buttered popcorn he said: "RoberJack's opened his stand a few minutes ago."

"What's in his tent, Tygra?" Cheetara helped herself to a bit of the popcorn.

"Oh, such a deceivingly simple game. You get four balls and with them you have to knock down a tower of pins. If you can, you win a prize."

"Sounds novel," Liono added.

Cheetara returned to the bag for another kernel. "This food is sinful! Whatever happened to the fruits and vegetable and all that talk about healthy living?"

The stripped cat blushed unnoticeably. "I still do those things but since you guys left for New Thundera, Pumyra and I have been exploring more of the local customs."

"Hmmm, it must be so quiet here now that the Mutants and Lunatacs are gone."

Tygra nodded. "These earth foods are quite addictive," he said, noticing that Liono, too, was eating from his bag. "The stuff's almost lethal - but still so good!"

A slight chuckle was enjoyed by all. A muffled yell echoed from the distance. The three Thundercats looked down-slope of the short, flat hill upon which they stood into to the tents and picnic areas.

"That must have been WileyKat," Tygra reasoned. "He's been playing at RoberJack's since he opened his stand."

"Is he winning?"

"No."

"What are the prizes?" asked Cheetara.

"Stuffed animals, balloons."

Tygra shook his bag, jostling up to the crisp, buttery kernels. Looking up he saw that his friends walking, hand in hand, to the tents.
 

WileyKit was mildly annoyed with her brother. She tapped her foot, her hands on her waist, she pouted and said: "You don't have to do that, Kat," in a monotonic voice.

"I've almost got it this time," he answered as he aimed his round, black ball. It fit snugly between his fingers. "Just start picking out the toy you want."

She sighed, pose unchanged: "That's what you said five games ago."

"But this is the last one, I promise, this one's for real."

Again she sighed, again she did not move: "That's what you said last time, too."

The boy threw the round stone. For passing, fleeting seconds the world was silent, its eyes watching as the dark pellet tumbled, as it soared through the air in a well-defined arc. But it only managed to eke right between the gap of the middle two pins, hitting nothing but the floor behind the stand.

He stood there agape, pathetically.

"Nice try, Kat," Liono said with a playful smile.

"I just don't -"

"Come on, WileyKat," his sister dragged him by the arm, "there are plenty of other games you can win." She pushed him away from the stand but he kept his eyes transfixed on the stack of pins stubbornly wondering why, by Jagga, they were impossible to knock down.

Liono and Cheetara stood before the counter and blocked WileyKat's view - not that it would have mattered otherwise for he and his sister were well within the mesh of stands at the center of the carnival and coupled with the ever-lengthening shadows of evening, he could hardly see RoberJack's tent anymore.

But someone else, far further away, had a better view.

Mumm-Ra laughed in contempt: "A child's game - of course!"

"How much will it cost to play?" Liono asked.

"For you, Liono, nothing," Mumm-Ra said.

"For you, Liono, nothing," the robot bear answered.

"Well, gee, thanks," the lion said as he received his four balls. He took one of the stones in his throwing hand and eyed the cheetah. She was at once happy and sad.

She felt cold along with a new kind of dread - the ever-present death was closer, nearer.

Liono fired his first round and got the stone to do what WileyKat had achieved but no more. His second round was way off the mark having accidentally slipped his grasp. His third round landed somewhere outside of the stand. Neither exhausted nor put off by his failures, he readied himself for his last round. With a flick of the wrist he sent his missile into the air and, as it tumbled wildly, the ancient mummy moved but a finger.

To RoberJack's astonishment his carefully stacked pile of pins crumbled to the ground.

"A balloon for the maiden?" the four-foot tall robot offered.

Liono snuck another side view of Cheetara. Her face was particularly hidden under tufts of yellow strands - her spots were like small, black eyes, staring back at him.

"Sure. Why not?"

In the mummy's chamber his laughter echoed over and above the crashing of thunder.

Liono took the floating, yellow balloon by the string and walked to his melancholic mate.

Mumm-Ra spread a multicolored salt into the foam of the reflecting pool.

Cheetara grabbed the frilly string and at that moment a sharp breeze stirred the tent, flicking the torches and turning the balloon around. She screamed at what she saw: a simple face was drawn on one side of the globe. Two black circles for eyes and a curved line for a mouth, a smiling mouth. The breeze tapered, the balloon turned back, its face vanished.

"What is it, Cheetara? What's wrong?" Liono had taken the balloon back, snatching it just in time as its string passed her fingers, as it was floating up, up to the darkening sky of sunset.

"Take me back to the Lair," she whispered into his ear - she had collapsed onto him in exhaustion. "I'm not feeling well."
 

"Oh, deliciously evil!" Mumm-Ra rubbed his decrepit hands. "They'll never know, they'll never suspect! Even now, it's already to late. Mwahahahaahaha!"
 

The rest of the Thundercats were too busy enjoying themselves - with the exception of the dejected WileyKat who was still smarting after his humiliating defeat - and neither Cheetara nor Liono wanted to disturb their fun - or sulking. They said their polite good-byes to the festival's organizers and the crowds. The lion, who was still holding onto the yellow balloon, waved one last time. Even the cheetah had managed a slight smile. The onlookers cheered and went back to their business and without further ado the pair set off on their trek back to Cat's Lair on foot.

Without having to worry about invaders or raiders, Third Earth had begun to improve dramatically. New roads were being cut through the wilderness, replacing the awkward, winding paths of antiquity. The first major trail led from the coast all the way up the front doors of the Thundercat headquarters. It was upon that smooth, sand surface that the enamored pair traveled.

"Liono," she turned to him - as they walked the longer ends of thin branches whisked across their faces, "do you feel the presence of evil?"

"Evil?" He stopped her suddenly - "no. The Sword doesn't -"

"The Sword isn't psychic, it doesn't portend the evils that are yet to be, only the ones that are happening now."

"Cheetara, if there's something wrong, please tell me - you know I trust your instincts absolutely." He brought her chin up and kissed her quivering lips.

"I've had faulty moments before - no, it's not an instinct or maybe it is. It's just so subtle."

"You said you were sad, could it be that your mind is not clear?"

"Possibly."

"Then when we get back to the lair I want you to get a good night's sleep. I won't even disturb you, I promise."

"Oh, Liono, you're so understanding." She hugged him harder. "I feel better already."

"I can see that in your smiley face."

As their hold on one another Cheetara happened to look up at the balloon and, as it twirled about its red string, she saw the side profile of that same, simple face.

"You're so tense, what is it?"

She fluttered her eyes and the effect vanished.

"You're going to think it's ridiculous but just now I thought I saw a face on the balloon."

Liono arched his head up at it - the helium-filled orb floated about a foot and a half above his head.

"Did you see it clearly?"

"Just from the side - but back at RoberJack's I saw the whole face at once. But again only for a moment."

Liono thought back to what had happened back at the tent, remembering Cheetara's strange reaction when he handed her the balloon.

"It's just a balloon, Cheetara, what harm could come of it?"

"I suppose you're right, Liono."
 

"Yes, Cheetara, it's just a little balloon," the mummy bellowed. "What harm could old smiley-face do?"
 

"I-" her eyes rolled back white in fear and her scream echoed shrilly in the dark trees. He caught her just in time and with one hand. She had fainted when she saw the eeriest effect that night. But for a second she noticed long, pulsating coming form a gash his wrist and wrapping themselves up the frilly cord to the balloon.
 

The oddest thing was what he never stopped to think about. Even as he caught her, even as he carried her limp body over the trail into Cat's Lair and onto her bed, even as he himself prepared to sleep he had not once let go of the balloon, not once, not for a moment. It had not moved an inch, a millimeter, an angstrom in his tight grip. It was as if it had become a part of his body, like a leg or an arm that was just always there, taken for granted - its presence easily forgotten.

Liono was in his bathroom, nude before the mirror, when he noticed that the cord was still wrapped about his fingers.

"I took my clothes off holding this?" he rubbed his chin. "Where has my mind gone? If only Snarf were still here."

He thought back to that fateful day, no more than a year ago when his nanny - a tear suddenly came to his eye and he thought then that surely that must have been the sort of sadness that Cheetara was feeling. Autumn, that season of death, was as alien to him as it was to her.

He saw a longing emptiness in everything, in the flight of birds and the fall of withered leaves, the ever-encroaching graying of the world and the cold. The intense, bitter cold.

Liono staggered back in terror only to let out a deep sigh of relief. He had seen dark lines on the side of the yellow ord. Dark, curved lines but it was only the shadows and nothing more. In shock he had let go of the string and the magical balloon rose steadily up to the ceiling where it bounced once or twice on the tiles. A light sprinkling of dust came down to the floor with a slight, muffled sound.

He stared up at it. Yes, it was just a balloon, a meaningless child's toy. It had no power. It just floated in the air, happy, carefree.

He grabbed the string instinctively and stepped out of the bathroom. The lights were off and the vents had just finished circulating the warm air. The lair was quiet and still - in its own way the place was dead and lifeless. Odd how quickly decay spread but like many things that, too, escaped Liono's perception. The others would return soon and perhaps once again the lair would seem to be lived in.

He tied the string to the post and quickly wrapped himself in the sheets of his bed to sleep.
 

"Sleep tight, Liono," the ancient mummy scorned, "don't let the lice and ticks bite!" He turned to the four imposing statues - pleased with his diabolical intentions, they had returned to their normal positions. "My plat is working perfectly - now, for the cat woman!" The image on the pool changed in the waving of its rippled, effervescent surface.
 

The cheetah tossed and turned in her bed, undoing the careful tucking her mate had given the contours of her body in violent strokes. She moaned, she hissed, she called out Liono's name, her legs thrashing all the while.
 

"Liono? Liono? Where are you?" she shouted at the top of her lungs. "LIONO?" Only a faint whisper came from her lips to her ears.

She looked about the scene around her. She was in her bedroom, under the doorway. Her window was open and a bright, slant of light poured in from it out onto the floor. Her bed was unmade, the pillows and blankets were half on, half off the mattress. The floor, walls and ceiling were blackened by darkness and shadow.

She ran up to the window desperately. She stuck her head out and saw for the first time the vast panorama outside. "Liono!" she shouted again. To the right and left were the plastered walls of tall, buildings, fused together into a single patchwork. Their sloped, tiled roofs were red and capped by the blue sky. Between the rows of houses was a long pool of water whose sides were lined with small boats, spanned by thin bridges.

"Liono. No, wait, this isn't right." She shook her head, looking back to the doorway under which she had stood. "I remember this place, I lived here in my youth. Why -" a noise reverberated from the doorway and the hall beyond. Another disturbance followed. Yet a third shook the furniture.

"Who's there? What is this? This is wrong, all wrong! I should be back at the lair - Liono's in trouble!"

Cheetara did not know where that last statement came from other than pure instinct. She ran to the door and stepped into the passage. The loud charging continued but each new pang seemed to echo from further and further away - as though its source was leaving.

The hall was even more familiar but it was not until she started to sprint through its winding darkness that she realized why. She was in the lair - or at least the memory of the lair, distorted either by time or by the whim of her troubled mind.

She passed WileyKat's room, his door was open and inside she saw the same basic arrangement. A window with the bright view of a place from her childhood. The young teen was on the floor, his back was to her. He was playing a game - rolling dice that hit loudly but dully on a wooden board and the sounds of a metal token advancing one space at a time in tandem with his arm moving announced the coming and going of his turn. He and his companion, who was still unseen in the chamber, chuckled and passed a few words that were lost to faint, muffled whispers.

WileyKat turned around. Cheetara screamed and bolted down the hall at top speed. She had seen his face and it was not his face at all but that horrid, yellow image of a circle - with red eyes - and an 'o' for a mouth.

"Liono! Is this just a dream or is there more, more that I'm not seeing?"

The hall had a definite curve to the right and wound on and on forever, eternally. Thinking she was safely away from the horrid site she had just encountered, she stopped and angled herself into a crevice. At once the corridor came to life in a flood of lights. Around each door, as far as the eye could see, were colored lights framing endless arrays of locked doors.

She crawled deeper into the crevice, realizing only too late that she was surrounded by flashing yellow lights. She had stumbled into a door, or what passed for a door for it had no knob and felt warm, wet with sweat. She began to dig into the flesh and ligament, pulsating and throbbing tissues that blocked her retreat. With her claws she tore in the living tissue, bringing forth a sea of blood and vile, noxious liquids.

The loud pounding returned, growing louder and louder. She looked to her side - down the hall a faint shadow moved in unison to the on-coming disturbances. She clawed deeper in response until at last she reached a point where there was no more flesh but an open space of hot, humid air.

She had carved a hole into the hide that served as door for that yellow-framed doorway. She peered in and saw a faint, white glow - another one of those windows with probably the same view of the outside world as she had seen back at her bedroom. Examining the hole she feared that ti was too small for her to get through.

"Pull yourself together, Cheetara, this is just a dream and you're a Thundercat."

The pounding came closer. The shadow was more distinct, more definite.

"But why am I so afraid? - because this isn't about me! LIONO!"

She dragged herself into the hole, scratching herself in the process. She fell onto a floor bloodied, her clothes torn. She was in another bedroom that was similar in shape and construction to all the others she had seen before - just as she had suspected. Except that time that chamber was covered in networks of veins, arteries and wet, heaving tissues. A heavy breathing accompanied the audible throbs in a rough, uneven symphony.

The pounding from the passage stopped. A long, quivering mass then began to form itself from the rent Cheetara had formed. She did not scream. She crawled over to the bed where a heavy blanked covered the contours of a familiar form - a body whose every feature she knew intimately.

She pulled back the sheet and looked down to Liono's face but it was that dreaded circle and line drawing set on yellow. Although the eyes remained fixed and unmoved, the mouth was changing before her very eyes. It changed its shape from a flat line, to a circle, to an oval. The rest of the body had changed, too. Arms and legs seamlessly morphed from flesh to a network of veins and arteries. The skin was clear and she could see the heart beating, the blood flowing.

Suddenly and unexpectedly a large artery burst and thick, red blood gushed out in gallons.
 

"Liono!" Cheetara awoke, jumping out of bed in a cold sweat, alone in her room in Cat's Lair. The yellow balloon, that dreaded orb, was fresh in her mind.

Storming through the door she entered Liono's room only to find him soundly asleep. He was naked and uncovered and although on any other night she would have used that to her advantage, something more important had to be done. The floating horror hovered above the headboard where the cord had been wrapped around a knob. It had its tell-take face - that time it did not vanish. It was different in other, more chilling ways. Something moved under its yellow surface and it seemed to her that a thick, dark liquid was sloshing within.

"Liono, Liono, wake up," she shook him but he did not respond. "It's you!" she growled at the balloon - deafening the roar of Eye of Thundera. She tore its string and ran out of the room, down the stairs and into the night.

She stood before the front steps of the lair. The moon, high above her, the breeze flapping her hair. From the distance came the roar of the Thunder Tank - the others were about to arrive back home.

She let go of the balloon and watched it, smiling as it got higher and higher.

"Cheetara? What have you done?" Liono asked. He caught her by surprise from behind. When she had taken the balloon an instinctual drive - an urge to be reunited with it - impelled him to seek it. "My balloon!"

"No - it was evil, Liono."

"Hey, guys, what's going on?" Panthro asked.

"You weren't waiting for us, were you?" Tygra added. The kittens were the last out of the vehicle and the first into the lair - Cheetara noticed that WileyKat carried a folded game board under his arm.

"Nothing, Tygra, everything's going to be OK, now." She looked up at the balloon. It was nearing the blackness of space and, oddly, it seemed to have grown larger.

"Ahhh!" Liono gasped at the moment the yellow orb popped. The heavens rumbled with the sounds of muffled, distant laughter. The Thundercats turned to see their lord on his knees with his hands over his chest. "Cheetara," he gasped, blood coming from his quivering lips. He fell back.

Tygra rushed to his side and felt the body - his eyes widened in shock and horror.

"He's dead, Cheetara."

Before she even had a chance to react she was distracted by the kittens. The twins came rushing out of the Lair, smiling, giggling.

"What were these doing here?" WileyKat asked the cheetah.

"Did RoberJack feel guilty about his scam?" WileyKit added. "'Cause there's one yellow balloon for all of us."

Rising from her fingers was a total of five balloons. She turned to her brother and gave him one, she walked up to the adults and handed one to them all. Cheetara was the last to get one - it was a yellow balloon and upon its side she saw that same, simple yet abhorrent design: two circles for eyes and the slightest arch of a peevish smile for a mouth.