The talking cat was the first one to break the silence, after a few seconds of poking at the embers with a stick.

None of us had decided to ask yet about the glowing number that hovered above his head: 2770.

“I have found myself rambling through Orphalese once or twice, whilst on whilom peregrinations.”

By this time we had grown accustomed to the cat’s strange, formal way of speaking (“His owner was a mute medieval archaeologist, and the cat learned to read those scrolls before he learned to talk,” the knight-boy explained to us privately). The cat yawned, baring his teeth fearsomely, before continuing.

“On one such journey, which was prorogued by the heavy rain of a nasty williwaw, I found myself taking shelter in an empty church. The people of Orphalese, as you may know, are entirely secular, and the churches lie empty. So I assumed that the crowd gathered with me in this church was likewise there to cache themselves from the squall. But most of the folks had filled empty pews. And in one of the pews, speaking loudly, was a man like the one you described. I couldn’t help but hearken when he enounced. I think the fact that he was on the same level as the rest of us, not standing at a podium, made me give ear to his orthoepy.

I noticed something strange when I took a seat in the pews myself. He asked for anyone to approach him. And I noticed that when he directed his words (some earlier variant of the words you told us, Romulus) to an individual, that a small number appeared over the listener’s Costard – the number zero.”

“What?” I said to Romulus, who shrugged.

“It means ‘head,”’ said the boy-knight. “A zero appeared over their heads.”

“Well, that’s a little rude,” said Romulus. “Telling someone they’re a zero. He wouldn’t do that. He had a soulful truth to his words.”

“Believe me,” said the cat, “The zero appeared. And when I approached him, the zero appeared over my head as well. But it’s not rudeness: it’s a death count. Now, there are two main schools of thought for those with the Death Count.

About half of them aim to keep the Death Count as low as possible. Those in this school of thought call themselves the Hidden. They believe that danger is temporary and will come to pass, if they remain safe long enough. Think of a rabbit freezing motionless and undetected, until the predator goes away. Their belief is twofold. One, that they will be Saved sometime in the next one thousand years. Second, is that for one to be Saved, he must have the lowest possible death count (the Hidden aim to live long lives and die only of natural causes).

The second half believe there will be no salvation, and refer to themselves as the Tides, because their approach is to crash into each new death again and again, like stormy waves hitting against cliffs.

Those are the two main sects, though there are others that remain independent, and pretend not to notice the Death Count. We call them Bluffers.

You can guess by my number which sect I pledge my own allegiance to.

There is one other thing I should mention: only animals can see human Death Counts, and only humans can see Animal Death counts. So often we form a kind of partnership,” said the cat, nodding at the boy-knight, who waved. “I cannot see my own Death Count, and he cannot see his, so we rely on one another to remain aware.”

“He has it too?”

“Both of us,” said the cat. “And it is obvious, Romulus, that you have spoken with the prophet as well, because I can see your death count too.”