(urth) The Cat

[Andrew Bollen]

There was some discussion of this story a while back, which I didn't follow 
as I've only just read it - so maybe this has been done to death, but FWIW, 
my interpretation ...

The doll-like figure is surely the Chateleine's soul, or some aspect of it. 
Her cat, existing in some border-land between the "other realm" and this, 
has grabbed it on its passage through and delivered it to its mistress (ie 
the Chateleine's body) in the same way that it had deposited the body of a 
sparrow at her feet many years before. We know it's her soul and not some 
random border-land denizen because Inire orders it to be buried with her.

Souls-as-dolls seems to be another of Wolfe's little tropes - carried over 
into the Long Sun series in the form of the soul-dolls which appear to 
Silkhorn & others in dreams.