The Gate of the Cat (Witch World: Estcarp Series) (5 page)

Kelsie gathered the bundled creature to her and then looked to Yonan.

“What is this?”

“Snow cat,” he repeated shortly. “The mother must have been hunted well out of the mountains to come so far afield. The gray ones are roaming afar when they fasten on such prey.”

The cub was nuzzling her fingers, sucking hungrily, halting now and then to whimper its need. Resolutely Kelsie turned her back on the gathering of houses and the tents of the people who were not Valley born and headed for the cliff side. As she went she began to call—not the “kitty-kitty” of her own time and place but with her mind. Before that moment she had not thought of trying to do that. It was easy enough to picture the wildcat and her kittens, to hold to that picture and keep on summoning, in a way she could not have put words to, that unsought companion in her adventure.

She was aware that Yonan followed her, but some distance behind as if he feared in some way to confuse her searching. They scrambled over several falls of rock and past one stream which bored through the hills to find its path to the river. Then Kelsie stopped short.

It was as if a new sense had been added to the five she had carried so far through life. This was not scent, sight, nor hearing, but it was touch of a different kind. As she concentrated upon it the wildcat came into sight around the side of a large boulder, one of those on which ancient carvings had been so weathered that only traces of their pattern could be sighted. Kelsie took a step toward her and Swiftfoot's lips drew back in a warning snarl. Though the girl had carried both the cat and her kittens on their journey to the Valley, Swiftfoot was announcing that this had been only a temporary measure and she would allow no more such liberties. What had they said back beyond the Gate, that no one could tame a true wildcat? It would seem that such warnings were right.

Kelsie went no farther. Instead she juggled the wrapped cub to one hip and braced herself against the ancient work to come to her knees at its foot. Then she settled the cloth on the ground before her and pulled away its folds so that the hungry and now continually wailing cub was wholly revealed.

She carefully kept her thoughts to herself. Even if she could think Swiftfoot into coming to examine this newcomer she would not dare to try. She knew too little about this new force she had tapped to try to use it further.

The cub continued to wail. Swiftfoot snarled and then her slitted eyes turned toward the youngling. Slowly, only an inch at a time as she might have advanced upon some prey, she came forward, belly low to the gravel, stopping now and again to eye Kelsie who held herself stiffly quiet, waiting.

Perhaps the cub scented something of its near kin for now its head swung toward the cat, though its eyes could not see, and its wail reached a higher pitch. The cat sprang and Kelsie flung out one arm fearing that death rather than life for the cub was the result of her experiment.

Swiftfoot crouched over the cub which was perhaps a fourth of her own size. Her tongue flicked forward and licked the blind head. Then she sought to grip the loose rolls of skin at its neck, to carry it as she might one of her own kittens. It was almost too great a task for her. The cub bumped along the ground, still wailing, as they disappeared from sight behind the rock. Kelsie turned and saw Yonan some distance from her watching intently.

“She will accept it, I think,” the girl said. “But whether it can survive—that no one can promise.”

For the first time she saw a shadow on his serious face—a shadow which might serve for a smile.

“It will be well,” he seemed very sure. “This is a place of life, not death.”

Kelsie thought of all she did not know about the Valley, about these people, of all which she must learn. Must learn? Again that thought thudded home. All Tregarth's talk of gates and how one passed by a single way through them, how much was true? Perhaps all the asking in the world would not tell her that. But what she could learn—that she would.

“You are not of the Valley people,” she stated that as a fact not a question. There were truly two humanoid peoples within the Valley—to say nothing of those who were winged, pawed, hoofed, or scaled.

“No,” he dropped down facing her, sitting cross-legged, the rumpled cloth in which he had carried the cub lying in a heap between them. “I am of Karston kin—also of the Sulcar—”

He must have seen from her expression that neither word meant anything to her for he launched into more speech than she had heard since Simon Tregarth had ridden out a day earlier.

“We are of the Old Blood—from the south—or my mother was. And when they drove us out because we were what we were we came into the mountain borderlands and took service against the Kolder and those who put our kinsmen to the death. Then when the witches turned the mountain—”

“Turned the mountains!” Kelsie broke in. Maybe she could accept some things but the turning of mountains was not among them.

“All those who ruled in Estcarp,” he continued, “they gathered their power so it was as if it were wielded by one alone, and that they threw against the earth itself, so that the mountains tumbled and arose anew, and no man could recognize the border thereafter.”

It was perfectly plain that he believed every word he was saying no matter how impossible the feat he described.

“Then,” he was continuing, “we sought land of our own and Kyllan Tregarth came to lead us into the older homeland, even this Escore. But there was ancient evil here and it awoke at the coming of the Tregarths for their sister Kaththea is a notable witch, though she wears no jewel, and, what she did in ignorance troubled the land. So once more we war and against a host of Darkness which is more than men such as we faced before. Strange indeed are some of our battles—” He glanced down at his own hand where it rested upon the hilt of his sword. She remembered then that these men who went mail clad were different from the changeable people and seemed often to have hand close to some weapon or another as if they expected nothing but war and alarms as a way of life.

“Who is Simon Tregarth—you speak of Kyllan—”

“Simon is one who came through a gate—even as you, Lady. He was great in the councils of Estcarp when they went against the Kolder and has but recently returned from another venture which took him beyond the accounting of men. He is wed to the Once-Witch Jaelith and sired Kyllan, Kemoc and Kaththea all at one birth. That was a marvel unknown before—the warrior, the warlock, and the witch—and all have done great things in this land.

“But there is still much to be accomplished here. Also there are many things which a man cannot understand—” he was frowning again and running his fingers around the hilt of his sword, even drawing it a fraction once and then slapping it back into the scabbard.

“And some such have happened to you,” Kelsie encouraged him when he fell silent, wishing to store away in her memory as much as she could of this place and all there was to do with it. That she was caught here at least for now she could no longer deny. So the more she knew the better it would be for her in days to come. Though what part she could play in such affairs she could not see, nor did she wish to speculate.

“Such happened to me,” Yonan agreed. “For a space we have believed that we have beaten back the shadow and that it sulks in its own fastnesses. But you have told us of a Sarn Rider who has dared to come this near to the Valley and deal death to one who should have been mightier than he—”

“Roylane?”

It seemed to Kelsie that he winced as she repeated that name.

“A witch has no name. To give one's name among them gives them power over another. Yet she said her name to you and her stone came with the cat. Thus another change—”

Now she looked at him squarely, catching his eyes and holding them in a way she had never tried with anyone before—as if she could compel him to answer even against his will.

“What do you think I am?”

It was a matter of four or five slow breaths before he answered and then he said:

“You were summoned—the Lady Dahaun had the foreseeing of that. And none can come so unless there is a geas laid upon them—”

“A geas?” she demanded.

“A fated journey or deed against which nothing nor no one can stand. Yes, we knew that one would come—and perhaps
they
did also or a Sarn Rider would not have dared the inner hills. What your geas is—that you will discover for yourself, Lady—”

“You are right about that,” she returned grimly, forced against her will into at least half belief.

Five

Kelsie arose abruptly, turning to the rock in which those weird spirals and indentations were plain as the sun moved.

“I know nothing of this . . . this geas—”

He shrugged. “Sometimes that is so and you will find that it leads you only after many days— But where it points, there you shall go.”

“You speak as if you know something of such things beside just idle tales.”

Yonan again looked at her with the shadow smile. “Now that is also the truth. It once fell upon me—this need for doing an action which I did not plan and—”

Whatever he might have added came to nothing, for one of the lizard folk flashed into sight among the rocks. Yonan was instantly on his feet, staring upward at that green-gold scaled body as it descended the Valley wall with a speed which made Kelsie gasp so near was it to a downward plunge. The girl saw that while using all four limbs for his quick drop the sentry carried in addition something in his mouth, an untidy bunch much the same as the cloth in which Yonan had brought the cub and she wondered if another was to be added to Swiftfoot's family.

Once the lizard reached relatively level ground where the two stood he spat forth what he carried and it slammed against the stone of the carving. There came a tingling sound and then a puff of black smoke accompanied by a foul odor. Yonan exclaimed, drew sword while the lizard man stood, panting to one side, his golden, black slitted eyes on the man.

The tip of the sword caught in the covering of that untidy package, flipped part of the covering up and back. The smoke had disappeared but the odor was stronger, seeming to poison the very air about them.

Under the flap of the material Yonan had lifted there lay a short rod, perhaps the length of one of the lizard man's long-fingered hands. It was a murky grayish color and there was a knob at either end. Plainly it was hollow and a smoky substance within appeared to swirl and billow as if it fought for freedom.

Moving with what appeared exaggerated care Yonan rolled it out of the cloth. By the expression on his face he was as puzzled as the girl as to what this might be. Though she knew from her instant reaction to it that she would not have laid her bare hand upon that artifact, even had she been offered free passage back through the gate. Her quick, nauseated reaction puzzled as well as alarmed her.

There was something like a far off fluttering of speech within her head and then the lizard was gone, running at top speed toward the houses closer to the river, leaving his find under the sword point of Yonan.

“Tsali goes for help—” the young man said. “He must have found this in the rocks above on the very rim of the Valley.”

“Look!” Kelsie may not have wanted to touch the stone but she clutched in her growing uneasiness at Yonan's arm.

For that thing on the ground was moving!

Not from any stirring of the sword point. In fact it looked as if it were somehow veering left to escape touch with the steel. As if it were a sentient creature with a will to escape—escape or attack?

This was near to the same anger she had felt when the Witch Woman had turned against her. There was a will here, somehow clipped within, or acting from a distance without, upon that rod. It had turned enough now to be wholly clear of the cloth and she saw that the knob end coming around to face them was fashioned in the likeness of a head—a grotesque travesty of a human head in which eye slits boiled with the same evil yellow fire she had seen in pits of the hounds’ narrow skulls.

To her surprise Yonan reversed his sword in one swift movement and held toward that rolling thing the hilt instead of the point. There came a blaze of blue haze from the pommel of the weapon. It touched the rolling rod and—

That solid looking thing quivered as if it were indeed endowed with life. Also it would appear that Yonan's quick action baffled it though it raised the head end a fraction and wavered for an instant back and forth.

“What is it?” demanded Kelsie. “Is it alive?”

“I have never seen its like before,” returned her companion. “But it is of the Dark—the Deepest Shadow perhaps.”

Before the words were barely out of his mouth there came a yowl of rage. One she had certainly heard before. Around the rock padded the cat, dragging behind it something which flashed with fiery light. The chain of the witch's jewel dripped from between those cruel fangs and the gem itself boiled and throbbed as if it, too, had a new kind of life within. The cat made a wide circle about that which still quivered and fought for its freedom where Yonan held it in balk.

Padding straight to Kelsie, Swiftfoot dropped the chain of the jewel over the toe of her soft boot and, looking up into the girl's face, gave a second demanding yowl.

The girl bent and scrabbled for the chain which had fallen into the gravel and arose with the sparkling gem twirled only inches from her hand, nearly crying out from the heat the thing was generating.

Now the rod went into a frenzy, rolling back and forth, but Yonan was watchful and his sword hilt blocked any swing right or left which might take it even temporarily out of the ward that weapon kept upon it.

“Fool!”

It was the Witch Woman's biting voice which led Kelsie to glance back over her shoulder. Her skirt caught up with both hands, the woman out of Estcarp was actually running, outpacing in this instant Dahaun and behind her two others, one in the mail of the Old Race, the other, whipstock steady, a girl of the Valley. But before the three of them came Tsali with a whir of speed.

“Fool!” The witch was panting a little but she arrived first and had strength enough left to swipe outward at Kelsie's hand, as if she would wrest the jewel stone from her then and there. “Would you burn out the last of life—”

“Or the first,” Dahaun's voice was much more collected. “What mischief has Tsali discovered within our borders?” She came closer to that trembling, fighting rod, dropping down to view the thing the closer. They were all silent now waiting for her to judge. But at last she shook her head.

“Never has the Valley had its ancient safeguards broken. Yet Tsali found this rolling between rocks and about to fall into the spring, perhaps to let the water hide and bring it down. It is not of the Sarn, nor the gray ones, and certainly not of the Thas—or if so it is something they have never turned against us before. This is very old—and—”

“And,” for the first time the man in mail spoke. Kelsie thought at first he was Simon returned. But the face half seen below the helm's nose guard was that of a much younger man. “And, what does that argue, Lady? That those of the Dark have broached some place of ancient weaponry?” He held no sword, rather what seemed a flimsy stick peeled of its bark and with half of its length colored the green-blue of the bird feathers which roofed the Valley houses.

“Well enough,” he said to Yonan, “let us see what the Valley can raise against this.”

Obediently Yonan stepped away and withdrew his sword hilt from the weaving pattern before the strange thing.

The other man spoke. The single word he uttered held no meaning for Kelsie but once more, as she had shrunk from the powers the witch had called upon her, so again her head was instantly filled with a roaring sound as if the very air about them had been ruptured, letting in she knew not what.

The green half of the wand the man held burst into real flame and with an exclamation, he threw it from him at that rod. It fell into the tangle of cloth and smoldered, beginning a fire which seemed to excite the rod for it rolled deliberately toward that piece of scorching fabric and thrust the head end into the small flame. It might have been feeding greedily on the fast dying spark.

“Ha,” the Witch Woman flung back her head and actually uttered a bark of laughter. “See what you would do, Kemoc halfling? This is not for such as you no matter what knowledge you dabbled in in Lormt. Get you off before you make bad matters worse. See—it feeds upon that very thing you would use to quiet it!”

The swirling within the rod part of the lizard man's find did indeed appear to gather strength, and the murkiness was, Kelsie thought, taking on a glow. There was a sudden sharp pain in her hand and she looked to see that the gem was also awhirl at the end of its chain and the links of the chain were sawing at her flesh.

“By Reith and Nieve—” was that her own voice? Whence had come those names? From her lips right enough, but they had not been generated by any thought of hers!

The twirling stone was throwing off sparks, though none reached as far as the object on the ground. She discovered she could not stop the motion of her wrist which controlled that passage through the air.

“No!” Again the Witch Woman gave tongue and she aimed a blow straight at Kelsie's arm. Only Yonan's left hand intercepted that and she was forced a little backward by his abrupt rebuttal to the stroke she tried to deliver.

“She is no witch!” The voice reached a screech. “She dare not use the power. Would you have that which waits fall upon us all? Stop her!” The Witch Woman looked to Dahaun who had made no move either at the destruction of the wand or at the witch's foiled attack on Kelsie. But now she spoke.

“We do not give names—those are given to us. She was given a name and perhaps more by one of your own kin—”

“Who is dead!” That sounded as if the witch thought such an ending might have been well deserved.

“Who is dead,” Dahaun agreed. “But in dying she may have passed—”

“There is no likelihood of that,” cried the witch. “She has no right—she could not have done so. This one comes from where? She is not of the blood, she has no training, she is nothing except a danger to all of us. Give me the jewel!” Her demand was aimed at Kelsie who had just made a discovery of her own.

Just as she could not stop the twirling of her wrist which kept the gem in motion, so she could not now loose her grip upon it. Instead she was pulled forward as if someone tugged at her with greater strength than she could sustain. The witch gem swung faster, though its circle was wider until it seemed to rest upon the air itself a distance beyond the circumference of that rod.

All the while the rod flapped up and down, strove to roll and could not, as if it did indeed hold life within it. The whir of the jewel grew faster until Kelsie's wrist seemed to be the center of a brilliant disc and the sparks it flung off now shot at the thing on the half-burned cloth.

Again Kelsie's lips shaped words she did not understand: “Reith—Reith—by the Fire of Reitli—by the will of Nieve may this be rendered harmless!”

Wider and more accurate became the rain of sparks. Now they centered straight upon the rod. Then there was a burst of glaring light, first an angry threatening crimson, then blue above and nothing below save a twisted piece of what looked like half-melted metal.

Kelsie's arm fell to her side without her willing it. It was numb as if she had lifted some great weight and held it out for a time past her own strength. The glitter from the jewel had vanished—it was an ashy gray, like a piece from the fire which had burned itself out.

Dahaun broke the silence first. “It is gone—the evil of it.”

“Back to the sender,” the witch's harsh voice sounded no relief. “And what message will it carry so? That we have come seeking and are ready to stand with you—”

“Seeking you did come,” Kemoc reminded her. “But it was not to cast your lot and power with us—you thought to take, not to share.”

“Be silent, halfling who should never have been born,” her harshness close to hoarseness as if she would scream at him but did not have the power.

“Halfling I may be,” he told her, “but that half blood has wrought well for Escore. And before that for Estcarp—”

“Man!” she spat at him. “It is against all nature that a man has the power. Because your sire brought that with him through the gate—what has happened?”

“Yes, what has happened,” he returned. “The Kolders are no more, the way to Escore lies open—”

“Which is no blessing,” she interrupted. “Things from the foul Dark roam the mountains now and venture down upon the land. You and those two who share birthday with you have stirred into being a mighty stew of war, disaster and death. And now—” she pointed straight to Kelsie who was trying to rub life back into her numb arm, “there comes this one who took from one of the sisters—stole—what she does not know how to handle and so—”

“And so,” Dahaun's voice cut clear and cold through that tirade, “and so this thing whose like we have not seen before has been rendered harmless.” She spoke to Kemoc and the girl of her own people. “Let it be buried where it lies and then do you,” she motioned to the stone in which the ancient carvings were still to be half seen, “set this upon it. Reith and Nieve,” she went to Kelsie and laid her hand protectively on that numbed arm. From her touch came a surge of warmth and the girl discovered she could flex her fingers. “Long and very long has it been since those names were called upon—though they were mighty weapons in their day. Do you still have a touch with them?” she asked the witch.

The latter looked around at the rest of them with both anger and contempt in her face, stronger yet in her voice as she answered:

“Such things are not for talking on—they are secrets—”

Dahaun shook her head. “The time for secrets is long past. When the Dark arises, then the Light must stand united and all knowledge be shared from one to another.”

The witch answered her with what sounded like an exclamation of contempt. However, if she would have denied Dahaun's suggestion she did not do so more openly. Instead she gestured toward the now dead looking stone which still dangled from the chain wound about Kelsie's fingers.

“That is of our magic not of yours. It should have been left to rest with her who first gained it. Not given to one who has none of the proper training. How do we know what she is, in truth?”

There was no mistaking the anger which still bubbled in her whenever she glanced at Kelsie. The girl was swift to reply. With the fingers of her left hand she plucked at the chain until it did unwrap from that tight hold and she offered to give it to the witch, only too glad to be free of it, but the woman in gray made a gesture repulsing it, seeming almost to shrink as it came near her.