![]() ![]() Elsewhere in the house, figures, human in form though not in stature, moved silently and quickly. ![]() In their bedrooms, men and women slept, and dreamt their ordinary dreams. The mice lived on, undisturbed, because they posed no threat to the new masters. The cats, who had been their hunters, died with them. Now they were gone, killed not by starvation, or poisons, or traps, but by a new, strange, subtle and deadly weapon, wielded by creatures who still did not know the nature or the extent of their powers but who were learning. They had survived the periods of man’s absence, too. For fifteen centuries, man had waged war on them, and the rats had survived. They had come to this place a millenium and a half ago, with the first men who settled here. ![]() In the house itself, mice came out from holes and wainscots and fed on crumbs, vaguely aware that things were easier, now the cats and the rats had gone. Small creatures moved in the lawns and gardens, fish cruised in the lake. The house lay at the heart of the wilderness. ![]()
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