The Gate of the Cat (Witch World: Estcarp Series)

  Kelsie was motionless. That invisible web had her entirely in its power now, she could not even move a finger across the surface of her own jewel. She saw Wittle's arm fall to her side as if struck down by some heavy blow, Yonan's reversed sword play fail. They were all caught by what had won through the boundaries of the star. Then, against her will and by no action of her own, the hand which held the chain of her jewel began to quiver and shake. However, her fingers locked on the links did not move. Back and forth, more and more wildly shook her hand, the gem swung but it did not fall, nor did it part company with her flesh. She had a sudden mind picture of the jewel flying out to land in the red rivulet and being overwhelmed, that if she would save her life this is what must happen. Then over that slid another picture, the young witch who had died on the hillside, her lips shaping her own forbidden name as she gave that to Kelsie. With her was another head also, that of the wildcat, its lips drawn back in a full snarl, daring Me Adams, ready to spend its life for its kits and freedom.

  Around and around whirled her arm and the pain of those wild swings which pulled at her muscles grew more intense. There was also a twisting now, a pulling. And still the chain clung to her as if it were a part of her own flesh and nothing would take it from her unless the enemy, whoever or whatever that might be, would scrape that from her bones. Twice she cried out against sudden shocks of pain, in spite of her promise to herself that she could and would endure.

  She could see both Wittle and Yonan. They stood statue stiff and neither of them appeared under attack. Did what assailed them believe that she was the weakest of their company, the only most likely to give way? Somewhere under the fear which had held her since that creature had come out of the mist anger stirred. That emotion grew as the assault upon her doubled in its fury.

  Deliberately now she summoned up the picture of the young witch who had died. She could not call upon Wittle—perhaps she was held now against a similar attack—but she was trained, one with her stone as Kelsie did not feel herself to be. As the cat had faced Me Adams so did she snarl and stand trying to wrest from that other power the control over her own body.

  She had a sense of anger and frustration—not her own but coming from somewhere beyond. Then she was struck a sudden buffet between her shoulders, driving her to her knees, and was enveloped in that sharp stench which was the mark of the evil.

  Something cried out in a high squalling voice and now came a blow on the back of her head, sending her flat with a weight on her back. Gravel gritted against her cheek and her body rocked under blows. Her arm was seized and drawn backward at a painful angle. Once more her wrist snapped to and fro under vigorous shaking. The chain remained as much a part of her as the fingers curved about the links. She tried to throw off the weight upon her and managed to shift her face around to see one of those which bestrode her—shaggy, rootlike covering—Thas.

  The servant of the Sarns grabbed at her hand. She felt the sharp pain of teeth in her flesh and then there was a convulsive jerking to the body perched on hers and the Thas rolled off to lie beside her, its rootlike fingers, its thin arms, threading wildly in the air. She caught a glimpse of red eyes in the ill-fashioned face and then those eyes clouded. The limbs fell to the gravel limply and there was no more struggle out of it.

  Yonan—had he won to freedom and used his sword? Wittle she could see, still standing, still staring not at the struggle on the ground at her very feet, but at the haze which masked the rivulet as if she expected some further attack out of that.

  Kelsie tried to draw up one foot, get to her knees. The cold shell still held a part of her but the attack of the Thas appeared to have broken through it and now it was as if pieces of net tore and fell away.

  She dragged her arm around and saw the tooth marks on her wrist slowly welling with blood which striped both the chain and the stone it supported. Her body ached from the attack but slowly she won to her knees, her hurt wrist nursed against her body.

  Yonan stood even as Wittle faced outward. But she could see his features, not set as those of the witch, but his eyes striving to catch hers. His mouth open as if he shouted some war cry she could not hear.

  On impulse she reached out with the hand dripping blood and set it to his mail-clad thigh which was nearest her. A shudder ran through his body and he turned his head fully to look at her. A moment later he had stooped to support her, draw her up to her feet leaning against him, the dead Thas kicked aside that he might come closer. If Wittle was still bound it was plain that he had been freed.

  He reached out to take her bitten arm and then his fingers snapped back as if they had been beaten off. Whatever had kept chain and stone with her during that attack was still in force. Now Yonan brought his sword around, cautiously advancing the hilt so that it was in touching distance of that invincible chain.

  The Quan iron slid easily through and over, caught at a loop of the chain, drawing that away from the wound which was bleeding steadily.

  Kelsie felt her other arm and hand tingle as if recovering from some paralyzing force. She put out her finger and touched the chain. At her touch they loosened and she was able to take jewel and chain into her other hand.

  She sat at last, the throbbing in her wrist not unlike that beat of the vibration around them, her injured wrist resting on her knee where Yonan had placed it after binding it with a strip of her own shirt and some of the dust of the illbane he had managed to shake out of his bag. Wittle had blinked and then turned her head to look at the two of them, as if just awaking from a dream. Yonan had booted the body of the Thas out of the star but, though he redrew it with sword point, he had not enough of the herbs left for its guarding points.

  “You have not won—” Wittle broke the silence which had held them all from the moment of the Thas attack. “This was merely a feint to learn what powers we held.”

  And it picked me, Kelsie thought, though she did not speak her guess aloud, as the weakest point in our defenses. Yonan might have guessed her belief for he said:

  “They sent the Thas. They would not have used such force if they had believed they could take us by will and power alone. They—”

  Kelsie slipped the chain of the jewel about her neck again and it rested on her breast just above where she cradled her bitten wrist against her body. “Who are they?” As she had tried to learn earlier from Wittle so she asked him now.

  “Old ones—perhaps even an adept tied somehow to this land. Only he caught, with his force, something which he can neither digest nor subdue.” Yonan was again at the star redrawing the lines. “In the heart of his own place he has . . . us!”

  Wittle turned her head. Her face was expressionless but her eyes glittered. When she spoke it was directly to Kelsie, ignoring the warrior:

  “What have you, outlander, which stands so against the Dark? What is the power that you control?”

  Kelsie shook her head. “No power that I know of. They will be back?” Once she had stood up to the battle, a second one she was not sure she could face.

  “As he said,” Wittle pointed with her chin to where Yonan stood, feet slightly apart as if about to engage in combat, all his attention now for the haze about the stream, “we are within territory where the lord here, whoever or whatever he may be, would destroy us—or have us forth. Warrior!” she raised her grating voice a fraction. “Look to your sword. We have yet to face the worst they can send. What does one do to a piece of grit within one's boot—one shakes it out. It may well be that he or it—or she—cannot use full strength here lest the defenses of this place be damaged. Therefore—it will shake us forth—”

  As if her words had been the recital of a spell there came a sudden change to that ribbon of fog about the river. It split and peeled away on either side revealing the narrow part of that shore, which Kelsie had earlier leaped to come here, and held so—clearly an invitation to leave.

  Leave so that they could be easily hunted down in some one of the passageways which ran from this cavern? Kelsie's
wrist throbbed and her other hand cupped over the jewel could have held only dull stone for all its response to that invitation.

  Slowly Yonan worked his way out to the place where the noisome thing from the stream had essayed its attack. He carefully skirted the shriveled mass on the sand and stood now at the very edge of the rivulet. Reaching forward he put out the hilt of his sword toward the nearest clump of the fungilike growth.

  It moved, actually pulling away from the Quan iron. Wittle, as if not to be left behind, had swung out her jewel and the misty emanation from that, nebulous as it was, had the same effect on another of the bulbous plants. Under Kelsie's hand her own stone moved and grew a little warmer.

  “Can you foresee?” Yonan rounded on the witch. “Is that gem of yours a compass for our going?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows. But if we remain here we shall never know, shall we?”

  Kelsie bit her lip. To go out of this small haven of safety broken though it was now—she could not raise a voice to say yes. The pain in her wrist had spread up her arm, was slowly fighting a way into the rest of her body. She was not even sure she could get once more to her feet and go now. Yet the witch, as if to show the strength of her own charm and power, had passed Yonan, taking the lead and swinging the stone from side to side as she went until she kilted up the stained skirt of her robe and sprung across the stream. Yonan turned to Kelsie holding out his free hand and once more pulling her up beside him.

  “She is right,” he said, “To remain here self chained and wait for what more they can send against us—that is folly.”

  She allowed him to lead her to the stream bank, wanting to close her eyes lest some new horror arise from there to take them as they crossed. But cross they did and without any interference from what dwelt here. But to get out—that was a different matter and in her innermost mind Kelsie never believed they could or would make it. They would wander through the warren of passages until hunger and thirst weakened them to be easy for the taking, or some other servants of the Dark would run them down. She remembered very well the hounds of the Sarn and those grim Riders themselves.

  Wittle stalked ahead and was entering one of the passage openings before they had caught up with her. The pain which had earlier been like fire in her veins now left Kelsie's wrist and arm limp and numb. She staggered now and then but Yonan's hand was always ready to support her.

  Back in the passage it was dark, only the scattered patches of growth gave them thin light and those grew further and further apart as they passed. Kelsie listened as she went, sure that she would hear soon sounds of pursuit, yet those did not come. Perhaps they were in some manner being herded toward a place where they would be easier to handle. Why Wittle moved so unceasingly, seeming to find choice between passages so easy to make, the witch did not explain.

  Now there was light ahead—not a red glare, nor the sickly glimmers thrown off by a multitude of fungous vegetation—rather a gray gleam rounded a corner and was gone. Yonan led Kelsie after and they came out suddenly into an opening which drew a cry from Kelsie as she pulled backward two or three steps which might have ended in a ghastly fall.

  The three of them were crowded on a space which could hardly support them. And they were high in the air above red stone. Kelsie held with her good hand to the edge of the door from which they had just emerged. But Yonan edged forward to look down into the space which surrounded them.

  In a moment he was back. Wittle had seemed to drop once more into one of her possessed times when nothing about her could matter.

  “We are on the monster's head,” the warrior reported. “We must climb down.”

  Kelsie nursed her numb hand and arm and remembered only too well how the monstrous carving or building had towered above the skull road they had followed. She had no hope of daring to descend the outer surface of that. No wonder they had passed so unchallenged through the last ways. She did not doubt that the enemy knew exactly where they were and had a good method of handling them in this exposed position. Why, an eruption of Thas from the mouth where she now rested could send them out into space. To say nothing of what the Sarn Riders could do with their fiery bolts.

  “There is no way down,” she said dully.

  He was standing over her again and now he pulled her to her feet with less gentleness than he had used before.

  “There is a way!” His voice was an imperative as if he had shouted in her ear.

  “Look!” he pointed out a moment later.

  There was an overhang beneath where they stood and the flare-out of a rounded ledge. All was pitted by time's erosion with holes for fingers and feet. Were it not for her wrist pulsating with dull pain she conceded she might be able to climb down. But one handed she could not begin to try. However, it seemed that Yonan had taken that also into consideration.

  He was working at the clasp of his sword belt and had that free before she could protest. Now he reached for her again.

  “Your belt!” he demanded. One handedly she tried to obey, only to have him push aside her hand and open the clasp himself. Then he buckled two ends together, testing them over his bent knee. He set together the end of her own belt in a sling which he motioned her to put over her good shoulder and drew her to the lip of the drop.

  “Down!”

  Because she inwardly shrank from that action she set her teeth and made herself crawl over, dangling in a sickening fashion out into space, refusing to look at anything but the pitted stone before her until her boots did thud home on the bubble of the cheek of that hideous visage and she looked perforce into one of the eye holes. She flinched away and pulled herself as far from that as she could get. For in its depth either memory played her false or she had seen the reflection of the flames which had danced in the bowl of that chamber of death she had spied upon.

  Yonan had said nothing to Wittle but apparently the witch had decided on her own that escape was possible and she came down from one handhold to the next. However, Yonan won there before her and then busied with Kelsie lowering her farther—to the thing's puffy shoulder.

  She was wet with sweat when a last swing brought her to the ground after a time she had no desire to remember. Twice she had knocked the elbow of her wounded hand and the pain of that nearly made her sick so that it had been hard to even think what she was about until she made a last descent from the monster's folded knee and felt dry earth under her weak and shaking legs. Then Yonan was beside her and she saw through eyes dimmed with tears of pain the back of the witch who was striding away from them as if she no longer chose to be one of their company.

  Yonan got Kelsie to her own feet and steered her in the direction of the witch, keeping a close hand on the belt which still hung from her shoulder. Every moment when she could think at all beyond the pain of her arm Kelsie expected to hear from behind the hoarse bellowing of a hound, perhaps the shout of a Sarn Rider urging on a hunt. But there was nothing.

  She turned to the warrior who was half supporting her. “They will not let us go—” she got out that protest.

  “Have they in truth?” he returned. “They seek what that one,” he nodded to the witch now well ahead of them, “came here to find. Why not give her an illusion of freedom and let her lead them to what they would have also. Do you think that they have put aside all interest in why we roam where those of the Light have not ventured much before?”

  “Then—you believe that it was all play with us?” she faltered. Three mice and a sleepy-eyed cat that let its prey run a little and then brought down a paw to end the game.

  “Some of it was testing, I think. But I also believe that had they not wished it we would never have come alive out of that place.”

  She tried to push aside his grim reply but the logic of it was too sound. They were mice, allowed to run. And there were those or THAT which would watch them well from now on.

  However, if Yonan believed in what he said he acted as if their escape had been a true one, keeping a good pace and helping Kelsie to equ
al it. She purposely did not look back, for, in her mind, was a picture of the squatting monster rising leisurely and setting out in their wake ready to bring stamping foot or clutching hand upon them when and if it wished.

  They had come to a tangle of growth—not the fleshy fungi of the inner ways but rather rank stuff with good-sized thorns, and it seemed to be so matted and grown together there was no way to get through it.

  Only Wittle still in advance swung out her jewel which flashed as it never had in the inner ways and sparks from it fell into the mass from which arose small twists of smoke and a backaway shriveling of the growing stuff.

  If the witch believed also that they were allowed to run free just to bring their search to an end, she showed no sign of that, nor did she do anything to cover her trail. But the brush flaked swiftly into ash and parted before her and the other two followed where she led. Kelsie wondered how much longer she could keep her feet to stumble on. The pain had risen to her shoulder and was now moving over across her breast so that she could hardly draw a full breath. She wanted nothing so much as to lie down, close her eyes, and fall into a black nothingness.

  Nor was she aware when the brush about them ceased to be an entwined matting of thorns and became fresh and well growing bushes, some with flowers enough to give forth scent. Save that she was free at last of the stench of the burrows. Kelsie was indifferent to everything but the claims of her own hurt body and she roused only when Yonan's grip, which had grown more and more compelling, lightened and she was lowered to the ground.

  From somewhere came the sound of running water—water or fire? She strove to struggle up again to make sure she was not back in the cavern. Wittle, bending over her, pushed her back and the other's touch on her body brought with it such a thrust of pain that she dropped back into darkness at last.