The Gate of the Cat (Witch World: Estcarp Series) (6 page)

“Take it,” Kelsie urged. “I do not want it—”

“You have no right—” began the witch making no move to accept the stone.

“She has the right of death-gift,” Dahaun said. “Did not she who died give also of her name to Kel-Say. And with the name might have gone her power.”

“She also had no right!”

“Then call her up and ask her of—”

The flush was high on the angular face of the woman in gray. “That is foulness which you suggest! We have no dealings with such darkness.”

“If that is so, why question what your sister has done?” Dahaun asked. “One can pass the power willingly and she did—”

“To a cat!” sputtered the witch. “It was that beast who carried the seeing stone.”

“And in a time of need passed it again to one it judged would use it—”

Kelsie was tired of this wrangling over what she might have done or what she might be. She tossed the jewel from her, though she had to use all her willpower to achieve that. For it seemed that her body was a traitor to her mind and would not let it go. It arched through the air, struck upon one of the tall rocks and then slid down into the coarse grass clump at the foot of the stone.

“Take it!” Kelsie had never heard such a note in Dahaun's voice before. Thus in spite of all her defiance and desire to be free of their quarrels she found herself moving forward, her fingers reaching down to a loop of the chain caught about a stiff blade of grass. Once more she held the stone. It was still opaque, showing a muddy gray, and she began to believe that it had burned itself out of whatever mysterious “power” it had shown while confronting the rod. She swung it a little as one might swing a smoldering branch to brighten fire again, but there was no answer from that lump of crystal.

“Give her the covering,” now Dahaun had turned that demand upon the witch, her anger plain to read in every stiff gesture brought out that patch of cloth which could be drawn into a bag and smoothed it out on top of one of the stones.

Thankfully Kelsie loosed the chain and let the jewel fall onto that circle releasing her hold. The witch had drawn the drawstrings the minute she placed it so and stepped away, leaving the knobby bag on the rock's crown.

“Take it—” Dahaun ordered.

Kelsie dared to shake her head. “I do not want it—”

“Such things of power choose you, not you them. This has doubly come to you, from the hand of she who earned it and from your use of it. Take it up—its use may be over. But I think not.”

Yonan had used sword and knife points to dig a pit, and he pushed the twisted, blackened rod into the earth. But as he did so he uttered an exclamation. For on the stone against which that thing had burnt there was now a boldly black picture— There grinned up at them a face which was more closely human than the one Kelsie had noted on the rod, yet so foully evil that she could not believe any such thing could exist. During its destruction it had painted its likeness on the stone, into the stone, for when Yonan strove to pick away at it with the point of his sword he could not scratch a single fragment of the sooty black free.

Dahaun strode around the rock and came back in a moment her hands cupped, holding water which dripped down from her curled fingers. She bent her head and breathed on what she held, reciting words—perhaps names. Then she turned to the witch who, plainly against her will, yet moved by a belief strong in her, dabbed one finger in the fast disappearing water and muttered some incantation of her own.

Next it went to Kemoc who passed his hand above the clasped ones of the Valley dweller and spoke his own prayer or ritual. Thereafter Dahaun went to the black mask on the stone and allowed the water to cascade down upon the burnt picture of the demonic head. Kelsie was sure she saw the lips of that writhe as if it would call out. But the image blurred, thinned, and was gone.

With her foot Dahaun prodded that stone into the hole after the remnants of the rod, then from her belt pouch took some withered leaves and allowed them to flutter down on top of that defiled bit of rock. Yonan struck with his sword. A cascade of gravel poured down, to utterly hide the buried. But it took them all—except the witch who made no move to help—to loosen and push over that burial of evil the stone with the carvings. Dahaun was the last to withdraw her hand, rather smoothing with her fingers those long eroded signs and symbols carven thereon.

“What manner of weapon was that?” Kemoc asked when they were done.

Dahaun shrugged. “Its like I have not seen. But in the days when this land was rent, adept fighting adept and no safety to be found save here in this Valley, there were many weapons which have been long forgotten. Who animated this— We have had a measure of uneasy peace since we fought the battle of the cliffs. I think that that is now at an end—or nearly so. The very fact that this could be planted above, perhaps to open a road to the Dark, is a threat I never thought we would see. The Sarn and the gray ones are up and out. If they stir so must the Thas and all the rest of the Dark. We must be ready to see perhaps something more than what lies here.”

Kelsie held the bag with the Witch Jewel. She felt battered and bruised inside. There had been too much too soon. She knew that this was no dream. She had to believe Simon Tregarth, that by some chance she had come into an entirely new world where other natural laws held sway. Yet it was only with difficulty that she could make herself accept that. If she went back to the circle of the gate with the jewel she now held—if she passed between those standing stones—could she not win back to a life which was real—

Oh, this was real enough but it was not her reality. Simon Tregarth seemed to have accepted it without question. But she—

“Keep you that—safe!” the harsh croak of the witch disturbed her thoughts then as the woman's angular form stepped close to Kelsie. One long pale finger stabbed the air in the direction of the packet she held.

“I am no witch,” Kelsie returned, her dislike for the woman overriding all her caution at that moment.

The other laughed but there was only sneering amusement in that guttural sound. “Well may you say that, girl. But it seems that this Escore can turn upside down truths we know in Estcarp. Men hold power—” she favored both Yonan and Kemoc with a savage frown, “and those of no training wield the weapons of Light. But that has obeyed you once—”

“I gave no order!” Kelsie was quick to answer.

“If you did not—whence came the names you called upon? Out of the air which holds us all? What were you in your own time and place, girl? You have some power or that would not work for you. And an unknown power—” she shook her head, “who knows how it may hold when the times comes to face the Dark?”

Dahaun's hand fell again on Kelsie's arm, drawing her away from the witch toward the light trail descending into the heart of the Valley. “We have seen its work this day. I would say that you—and it—wrought mightily,” she said to the girl. “Be not fearful—or only so much as to make you cautious. You bear now that which will be half protection, half weapon. Kaththea sent us word three tens of days ago that there was to come one who would be a balance for us in new struggles to come. It would seem that she was very right—”

“The babblings of a half witch—a traitor who fled from the place of learning before she was knit to the sisterhood,” the witch was not to be overborne by Dahaun. Her sour mouth dropped the words like acid.

“She chose her own road,” Dahaun said. “And now she is Lady to Hilaron. Do you set even the combined forces of Estcarp against him, Wise Woman?”

“An adept? Who knows? In the old days it was those of his kind who rent the land.”

“And in these days he helps to heal it!” countered Dahaun. “Enough, Wise Woman. You say you come to us for aid and yet you do nothing but question what is done. Perhaps Escore and Estcarp have grown too far apart in these days to be allies.”

Her tone was very cool as she drew Kelsie with her, and they passed the witch on their way down into the Valley.

Six

Kelsie lay on the narrow sleeping mat. She had pushed aside the covering of net and feathers. Now she put one hand slowly, against her will, to underneath the higher end of the mat which served as a pillow.

Yes, it was still there—the wad of bag which held the Witch Jewel. She had tried to give it to Dahaun and now she remembered what had happened then with a shiver which did not spring from the night air about her.

It had moved—like some sluggish turtle or other living creature—the bag and its contents had moved—not through any doing of her own nor, she felt sure, through the action of Dahaun. Returning to lie again within close touch of her own hand. Willing or not it had been made plain that it meant to stay with her. Though how could one accord conscious feelings to a piece of crystal, no matter how finely wrought?

She rubbed her aching head. The pain which had come from the blow she had suffered when she fell through the “gate” had vanished at least two days ago. This was something which had come into being since she had taken up the crystal. It was as if within her head something stirred, struck against walls, bulging out to occupy more and more space.

Without truly knowing why she did so, Kelsie raised one hand, and, with outstretched forefinger, she drew a sign in the dark as one might paint upon a stretch of canvas. And—

The stone flared into life—showing through the cloth blue and bright for just an instant. How and why—those had begun to mean more now than “where” in the great hoard of questions which she wanted to have answered. Only those she had already asked had either received a flat denial of information or, as she suspected, a devious sidestepping from a clear reply.

“Who am—No, I am Kelsie McBlair!” she whispered aloud. Once more her thought followed that firmly beaten path. She had reached forward to stop McAdams’ shot. He had struck her, sending her sprawling forward, and she had awakened in the circle of stones with the wildcat. Did the cat feel as strange as she? Or had Swiftfoot, now with her expected family, adjusted to this new territory without those raking questions which gave the girl so many sleepless hours in the night?

Gates—there were portals here and there in this ensorceled country which opened or shut, through which might come by design or chance castaways such as herself. Tregarth had told her there was no return. She forced herself to lie flat again, and, with her eyes squinted shut, she attempted by force of will to be again within the safe and well-known past.

Only that was difficult also. Why—Kelsie sat bolt upright again once more shivering.

Where had she been for those sharp instants out of time? Not back in the Scottish highlands. No! There had been a hall with many seats and at one end four chairs with tall backs and thronelike appearance set up on a dais before her. Not all the seats in that hall had been occupied—only two of the dais thrones. There had been a stirring about her—a feeling of expectancy and of the need for action—hurried action.

She rubbed her eyes with both hands as if she could reach through them into her head and so rub out that scene and the feeling it left in her, as if she were only a part of a great whole—that there was a need to be—what?

Now she reached beneath the pillow mat to seize the wrapped jewel and heave it away from her, as far away as she could send it. She went on her knees to the curtains which enforced the privacy of this sleeping quarter and drawing those aside she hurled the witch thing out and away. Then with a sigh of relief she settled back to sleep—or else to think her way out of this land and all the pitfalls it held for the stranger.

She twisted and turned, trying to hold in mind McAdams’ angry face, the toppled stones behind him. That was what was true—the rest—

But it was the hall which closed about her. She was sitting in her proper seat, the one which had been assigned to her upon her taking the jewel oath, which would be hers through many, many years to come. To her left was an empty place—to her right, she was sure she heard the fluttering come and go of breath from Sister Wodelily. She could even smell clearly the scent of that flower which seemed to cling to the old woman's robes—it drowned out the spicy scent of the incense burning in braziers at either end of the dais.

They were supposed to be in meditation but her own thoughts skittered about. There was the lamb which had been found this morning beside its dead dam and which had been given to her to raise, there were the three gazia orphans she had found just a little while ago—surely the Second Lady would let her bring them into her own workroom to cherish. Were they not all oathbound to save life no matter how lowly on the scale? There was also the brewing of the tisane which so helped the pain of lower limbs in winter that they even bespoke commendation for her in the general assembly. She herself, Sister Makeease——Roylane——No! Never that name, even in her straying thoughts she must bury it so deeply that it could never be said again.

All thought of lambs, of herbs, or the quiet and gentle life she loved were driven from her by the words of the woman in the middle seat of the dais.

“Let the lots be drawn then.”

A little before her was a wide-topped jar of time-aged silver and to this she was pointing with a rod which had appeared from the folds of her wide-skirted robe.

Within the bowl there was a fluttering, a rise of small bits of white as if someone had dumped there scraps of paper. They arose, their swirl forming a cloud as high as the head of the seated woman who had so commanded them, and now they traveled, swifter than any cloud, from above the dais out over the seats, those which were empty, alas, and those which still had occupants. Over each of the latter they made a quick revolution and they journeyed on. Then—one bit fell from that swarming cloud, fluttered down into the lap of a woman who sat five rows away from Sister Makeease. It was the dour-faced Sister Wittle that it so chose.

Sister Wittle! She wondered at the decision of the choice. Surely that was not influenced in any way. She had seen it in operation too many times and often enough it had fallen on some one of the sisterhood who seemed the least likely to be the proper one to handle the problem involved and still the end result had been success. Yet Sister Wittle to be sent as an emissary of the depleted Council—that was one of the oddest chances she had seen in many a year.

The cloud having loosed its first surprising choice was flitting on. Over one row it sped and then another. Now it was coming toward her. There was a sudden small cold feeling within her breast—the cloud was fast nearing the last of the number of the sisterhood who were eligible for any choice.

Above her head at last—and that white mote shifting down to lie upon her tightly clasped hands. No! But there was no appeal. She must leave the warmth, the sisterhood—she must travel out into the world which she had left what now seemed so long ago. It was a wild land as yet bearing the scars of war, one in which the sisterhood was not still held in esteem. But there was no questioning the choice of the lots—the bit of white rested on her like a burden which grew heavier by the moment and from which there was no escape.

She arose and the bit of white melted from her as might a flake of snow. Sister Wittle was standing also and together they moved forward to the foot of the dais looking up into the face of All Mother, her features set in the mask of perfect composure with which she faced each and every change in the quiet passing of their days here.

“The lots have been cast and have chosen,” she said in a neutral voice. For a moment of forbidden questioning Makeease wondered if All Mother was not as surprised at those two choices as the rest—or most—had been. “The Lord Warden has promised an escort through the mountains. The third day by the scry-cup is the most fortunate one. You will find that which our far mothers knew, and draw from it what we must have.”

No question that they might fail in their task, she was as firm with her words as if she had been sending them to the storehouse to draw everyday supplies. But Makeease wanted to cry out that she was no rightful one for this sending—that she was weak in power and what she had was for the easing of hurts not for the taking of something which might be well guarded—by what she could not begin to guess. Only here in the Refuge itself there had been tales in plenty of things now wandering over mountain to plague the land. They must go by their vows into the very heart of the black unknown and take there what no one would rightfully and freely give—the very strength of power!

“It is done,” Sister Wittle spoke aloud but Sister Makeease could not even shape the words with her stiff lips.

No—

Kelsie was sitting up once more on her sleeping mat. She was
not
that one. Her outflung hand bore down to steady herself and there was something under it. She held so the very stone in its bag which she had hurled away earlier. But she was herself—not that other one—truly it was so. She shut her eyes and snatched her hand from its grip upon the shrouded jewel, concentrating upon her own memories. She had been working in the kennels with the puppy when the telegram had come.

Someone she had heard of only as a kind of tale—Old Jessie McBlair, the aunt of her long dead father, was gone—leaving her a house and what was left of a once large estate. She must claim it herself said the will the lawyer explained.

So she had gone to Scotland with high hopes of a home of her own at last—only to be faced by a ruin in which only one wing was barely habitable and that fast falling in upon itself into the bargain. There had been sullen and surly faces to front her and no liking for the place or the people had been born in her during the few days she had been there—before this had happened. She was no daughter of power—

She huddled together, her knees against her chest, her arms laced to hold them so. The hand which in her sleep had somehow summoned the jewel bag was tingling and she believed that she could see a faint bluish light about the pouch until she kicked an edge of the covering over it.

There was movement in the dusk of the small, curtain-walled cubicle and she smelled the musky scent of the wildcat. The yellow eyes viewed her from near floor level.

“Go home to your kittens!” Kelsie whispered. “Have you not made enough trouble for me when you brought that—that thing into the Valley?”

She did not expect any answer from the cat, certainly not this sudden thrust of compulsion—that she must be alert—mat there was that which needed her attention. The girl fought it with all the willpower in her. Perhaps it was that other one she had seen in her dream—been in her dream—who took command now. For against her will Kelsie loosed that tight grip upon herself, took up the bag and put it into the front of her laced shirt where it lay warm and pulsating as if it held sentient life of its own. She had carried small animals so in past days and felt the same glow of life against her skin.

Still under the order she could not break, she arose and took up the hooded cloak they had given her, sat again to pull on the soft half boots, fastened tightly her belt. Swiftfoot was moving back and forth impatiently before her though she did not offer any cry. Now she stretched forth her blunt muzzle and caught, with sharp teeth, the corner of that cloak, giving a pull toward the direction of the door.

Kelsie obeyed—both that and the force which had settled on her own will muffling her fear and her stubborn need for freedom—moving silently into the night. There was a moon riding high but yet giving a full light to the small gathering of buildings. Still pulling at the cloak edge the cat steered her toward the cliffs. One foot before the other, fighting that drive all the way Kelsie covered much of the same way she had taken in the day.

Twice she passed sentries and both times it was as if they did not see her. There was no challenge, no notice of her going and her own voice would not answer her command to call out. Fear grew in her, blotting out a little of the order which had set her moving. She strove to turn but there was no such thing possible.

Already they had reached the rock which by Dahaun's order had been moved to stand upon the place where the artifact of evil had been buried. There the cat paused and dropped its hold upon her cloak edge, snarled and pawed at a small stone sending it whirling against the large rock. But it was not to view this battlefield of sorts that Kelsie had been moved here. For the cat was going on, climbing another rock. And where Swiftfoot went Kelsie seemed bound to follow.

There was a narrow break in the wall of the heights and from it came a mewling sound. Swiftfoot sprang forward and the girl stumbled after. She had to duck to avoid the heavy rock overhead. There was a narrow passage and then, dark as it was, she felt space about her. From somewhere came a wind carrying with it a foul odor. She heard the cat snarl and then the sound of a struggle and she wavered back against the wall too blinded by the darkness to try to reach the scene of battle.

A body thrust against her in that dark and her skin was rasped by coarse hair or fur while something caught at her hand and tried to jerk her toward the sounds of the struggle. She used her other hand to catch at the bag and pull out of it the Witch Jewel.

The burst of light was eye dazzling to her but apparently painfully blinding to the thing which had attacked her. She saw a mound of what looked like tangled roots flatten itself as far as it could to the ground. While the wave of light swept on to encounter and hold another dire sight, Swiftfoot before the three kittens, the cubling being at least half her size, facing with bared teeth and claws two more of the evil smelling creatures of the dark.

Thas! Though Kelsie could not remember having more than heard the name in passing, now her mind instantly identified these lurkers in the dark. She swung out the jewel by its chain and there were guttural cries from the trio in the cave. The one at her feet was crawling as might a giant insect after the other two, still standing backed away, their crooked fingered hands over the matted stuff covering the upper parts of their faces, hiding their eyes.