The Gate of the Cat (Witch World: Estcarp Series) (9 page)

It flamed and the heat of that flare made her let it slide from out her fingers to dangle again. There were no roots this time to come slithering out of the dark. Rather she saw the light of her jewel mirrored in a mass of pairs of red points on the floor—eyes—?

“Rasti,” Yonan broke the silence which had held between them.

Though there was a river of those eyes near the floor, it did not spread or try to engulf them as she had feared that it might. It would seem that these other dwellers in the dark were now as wary of them as the Thas had become. Yet, though they stopped their advance, they milled about, covering the rock between the two and what might be a door to the outer world. In experiment the girl swung out her jewel to the full length of its chain and noted that there was a wavering of the line in answer to that.

There sounded a shrill tittering call, rising sharply above the thumping of the bowl drums. The flood of the rasti parted, leaving a lane down which came something greater than the Thas, taller, stronger, and, Kelsie recognized by the instant repulsion in her, far more evil.

The yellowish light which had flowed from the stakes flared up once more spreading out from a rod that newcomer held. By its light the girl could see a figure as tall as Yonan, one which wore no armor, nor indeed any clothing at all, except patches of shaggy hair.

It pranced rather than strode, as if it were weaving a spell now by some unknown ritual. The crooked, hairy legs ended in hooves which were split for half their length. And those in turn kicked out at the rasti, striking home now and again against one of the animals to send it chittering and whirling off to thud against its fellows.

The rest of the figure was crooked of back as if it could not, because of its breadth and thickness of shoulder straighten to full height. Its belly protruded obscenely and altogether it was a daunting creature.

But above that crook-backed, flatulently-bellied body there was a head and that was as startling as if two separate creatures had been bound by some disgusting spell into a single form. For the head was perhaps neither male nor female, but it was that of great beauty with flawless features and masklike calm. While the hair which wreathed it was not the coarse stuff it grew elsewhere but a silken fall, brilliantly red in the light.

Strangest of all Kelsie discovered was the fact that it walked with closed eyes but not with the hesitation of something blinded, rather as if its body obeyed one set of rules which did not even reach behind the lowered eyelids.

She felt movement beside her. Then Yonan was facing the thing, with his shoulder before hers, as if to push her back and away from danger. The jewel was flaring up again and she could feel its drain on her own resources of spirit.

“Ah, Tolar that was—you have become over brave in these days. Or have you forgotten Varhum during your years of exile?” Those perfectly-formed lips moved extravagantly as the creature spoke and the lid-blinded eyes were clearly turned toward Kelsie's companion.

“Tolar is dead—long since,” Yonan answered sullenly. “I do not remember.”

“You mortals,” the head shook a fraction and the voice was almost humorous. “Why do you so fear what is offered you? You were Tolar and perhaps the better for it, when last we met. That you must wait to be born again is the whim of the Great Power. But to refuse to remember, ah, Tolar, that is foolish. Varhum's walls were breached by—”

“Plasper forces,” Yonan interrupted harshly. “And you are—”

“The eyes and mouth, and sometimes the weapon of one greater than you of the Light can even guess. Yet was I also once of your blood and kind.”

There was a moment of silence, even the chittering of the rasti had stopped. Kelsie was aware of a shudder through her companion's body so close did they stand now.

“At Vock—?” It sounded like a question rather than the naming of a place.

Now the perfect lips curled in a small cruel smile. “Excellent! You see when you put yourself to it you can remember! Try no tricks to hide memory, Tolar. You know who I am in truth— Call my name if you dare after speaking of Plasper.”

Again Kelsie felt Yonan's shudder. But what she could see of his face remained as unchangeably calm as did that other's.

“Lord Rhain.”

“Yes. And there were other names they called me that day, were there not? Traitor, Betrayer, Dark One! In your sight I was all those, was I not? But you see I have grown in wisdom—though that was the beginning of such wisdom—when I realized that we were swords for the wrong side—when Kalrinkar had the strength of the future with him. And so—” those crooked shoulders shrugged and again the small smile was shaped by the lips alone, “I lived—”

“In such a guise!” burst out Yonan.

“Do I properly afright you, once comrade? If I wish—“from the mouth came a curl of smoke which grew longer and denser, curling around that misshapen figure to hide it from sight, though Kelsie was very certain that it was still there. There was a small puff of yellow-red and the smoke was gone. In place of the hairy, bloated body which had confronted them was a straight limbed, nearly majestic man whose frame now fitted well his fine head and handsome features. Kelsie had the idea that this was certainly all illusion. Yet he was as real seeming now as he had been moments earlier in the half-bestial disguise.

“You see,” even his voice had a different lilt, one far more human, lacking the subtle contempt the other had held, “I am truly Rhain—”

However, Yonan shook his head slowly. “You
were
Rhain. Now what are you to the eyes of those who stand by the Light?”

On impulse Kelsie, though again she could not have said why she did it, swung out the Witch Jewel by its chain. The bluish beam which had continued to emit now touched the tall, perfect body of he who confronted them. There was a fluttering in the air, almost as if some delicate glass had shattered and what she saw was the grotesque body come back into place while Yonan said loudly:

“Even our eyes you cannot bespell now, in spite of what you once were—”

But Rhain's attention had swung from the man he claimed as a former comrade to Kelsie and now there was as ugly a look on his face as to match his body.

“Witch!” he spat and a droplet of moisture hit the ground between them. “So you serve a female now, Tolar—you who were once your own man? Little do they repay those who march for them, being no true womenkind but only wills to rule. And you, witch, you shall find here that which you stake your life upon will have but little value. Long since Escore learned its secrets and powers which your kind may only have dreamed of dimly.”

Power—into her from the jewel there was a warm flow—the draining she had felt so before was reversed. She began to walk slowly forward, edging around Yonan, then conscious that he had fallen in step with her. She raised her hands heart high at the breast and between steadied the jewel awkwardly, then more skillfully, as she sensed that what she was doing was right and meant to be. She fastened her will on the gem and once more reversed the flow, giving back to it what it had given her.

She heard dimly and then shut firmly out of her mind the chittering of the rasti who had milled around their master's feet, beyond that came the muffled sound of drumming where the Thas must have still lingered. But what held her mind and body was concentration on the jewel, rejoicing in the flaring up of its brilliance, in spite of the weakness it was leaving within her.

He who named himself Rhain, for all his brave words, fell back before her each step of hers being equaled by one of his retreat. His handsome face twisted more and more into a scowling pattern and now he hunched his crooked shoulders and shuffled his hooved feet as he fell back.

He gave a cry and she was aware of surge of the rasti but she dared not drown the beam of the jewel. It was Yonan who swept forward with his sword, keeping clear the space before her. And Rhain cried out again, this time louder, more demanding.

Out of the dark came the living roots of the Thas—out to shrivel into nothingness as the gem light beat upon them.

“This is the best you can do, my lord?” Yonan's voice was both harsh and calm. “You who once commanded the Host? Your vermin are sadly less than that.”

Rhain flung back his head and from his throat there came a roar as might be given by some great tormented cat. In Kelsie's hand the gem trembled and for the first time the steady beam of its radiance blinked.

Nine

There was a whirling in the air itself, a thickening of shadows. Still something within Kelsie held her to that advance and she kept her eyes on the man-beast before her. It seemed that he tried again and again to meet the flaming of the jewel squarely but could not hold his gaze. His hands raised as if to shut off the beam from his face, yet never did his lidded eyes open. While from his twisted mouth spilled grating sounds, as ugly in their way as his body.

The whirling of the air condensed into shadowy forms, manlike, yet she could glimpse them only from the corners of her eyes, for her gaze held on Rhain. Even as he chanted so did Yonan begin to answer with one oft repeated phrase.

One of Rhain's arms was held a-high as if he would urge on liege men into battle. She heard above his chant the rising squeals of the rasti. A wave of small dark forms rolled on, yet where the shine of the jewel was they appeared to shrivel into small black patches as if eaten up by fire.

Once more Rhain flung up his head and shouted—this time no rush of ritual words but what Kelsie guessed was a name. He might have called upon aid as a last resort.

The whirling shadows thickened, stood on the flooring of the cavern. Men, armed, battle-ready, each with weapon in hand and moving in with no care for the rasti whose bodies they spurned or overtrod.

There was the sweep of a mighty blow by axe at her head. She did not have time to twist or duck. Only the blade sheered away before it crashed against her. And to her right she heard a clash of metal against metal as Yonan at last found something solid he could attack. Yet still, moved by the will of the stone (for it seemed to her that that gem strove to make of her a servant, not tried to serve her) Kelsie advanced and Rhain withdrew step by unwilling step.

Then—

He was gone like a blink of eye, a shatter of lightning. With him vanished the shadow warriors. Only the rasti remained and from the dark behind came still the beat of the Thas bowl drums. But Kelsie knew as if it had been shouted aloud, that the strength of the attack had departed from them and way to escape was open—for the present. That Rhain or those who might control him had finished with them—that she did not believe. More than anything she wanted the fresh air of the surface, to be out in the open where there would be honest light of day or of moon and no more of this burrows. For with Rhain gone she was suddenly drained and stumbled, keeping her feet with an effort. Then she was aware of a strong arm behind her shoulder, the support of Yonan even though he heeds must still swing sword to keep off the rasti.

So they wavered together up to a place where there had been a fall of stone and earth and from a hole above there shone the beams of the sun. In her hands the jewel glow died and was gone and she slung the chain back around her throat as she began to scrabble for a hold in that earth slide, to be out of this place of strange meetings and crawling fear.

It was Yonan's aid which brought her up and out and then they clung to one another as if, should they loose that grip, they would fall prey to the weakness in them. The man started to waver forward, dragging her with him, steering her around two great fallen stones spotted with an ugly orange-yellow fungus.

Then they were free and before them was a stand of brush by the roots of which flowed a trickle of water so clear that one could see the clustered stones on the sand of the runnel which contained it. She sank away from him, unable now to move one step before the next, and plunged her face into that water thrice over to wash away the remnants of the stench and the dust of the underground. She saw that Yonan had knelt beside her one hand cupping water to his lips, his other still on the sword lying bare now between them, his eyes sentry wise on all which lay about them.

Refreshed and somewhat more in command of herself, Kelsie looked back. The entrance to the underground world was centered in a scatter of fallen stone. Again her memory leaped to that similar ruin on the Scottish hillside. Had they come through another gate?

“Where are we?” she asked in a half whisper which seemed to be all she could voice at that moment.

She saw a trace of frown beneath his helm where it crossed above his brows. He arose and turned slowly, pivoting where he stood. Then he raised his sword and pointed to a way on her right.

“That is Mount Holweg. And this is to the north. We may have come farther than the Valley patrols have ridden. The shadow lies always north and east.”

She sat where she was, considering him. Before this venture had begun he had been only one of the men who had been soldier sentries for the Valley. He was younger than Simon Tregarth and slighter. Yet she did not doubt that in his way he was as expert at this game of weapons and spells as the man she had first met—that other displaced from her own world. Only she wondered, now that she had time to think about his relationship to the monstrosity they had confronted in the tunnels below, about his past. At least he had been able to assure her of one thing—that they had not gone through another gate—back there among the fallen stones.

“He knew you—” she began abruptly, determined to make what sense she could of those words they had exchanged below.

To her surprise her companion shook his head.

“He knew Tolar.” There was a straight line to his mouth, a slight forward jut of his chin as if he were fronting an enemy once more. “I am not Tolar—”

“Then why—?”

For the first time he stopped his roving survey of the world around them and spoke directly to her:

“It seems that a man can be born again even if he has passed the last gate of all. I have some proof that perhaps I was once one Tolar who fought the Dark in the long ago—and lost. If that be so then perhaps this life is a chance to right the swing of the scales and be another man. For, I swear it by my name giving, I am Yonan, and not he who went down to defeat then—”

“But you remember—” Kelsie dared not deny that anything was possible in this world. “You called that . . . that thing by name!”

“I remember . . . upon occasion,” he agreed somberly, and then changed the subject with a swift question.

“Can you journey on, Lady? We are still too near to that!” He was reaching down one hand to pull her up to her feet, his bared sword still in his other so he used his chin to point to that unwholesome appearing tangle of fallen blocks through which they had come.

“Yes!” All at once she was remembering, too, not distant times but the rasti and the Thas. The one who named himself Rhain was gone with his shadow army, but surely the creatures he had left behind were just as deadly in their own way. However, could she go on? The gem had so drained strength out of her that she wondered if she could keep her feet to reach even the first tree of a small copse which lay in the direction they now faced.

She made it, accepting only now and then the grasp of his hand on her arm. Though the water of the stream had revived her in part she was aware now of a great hunger and her temples throbbed with the pain of a headache as if she had striven at some task which had been nearly at the limit of her strength.

“Where do we go?” she asked then. “I don't think I can go far.”

His still bared sword pointed to some small plants growing in between the trees toward which he had been urging her.

“That is illbane. Even a power hunter of the Left Hand Way would avoid such as that. We can lay up in their protection until—” his voice trailed away and she asked more sharply:

“Until what? Do we head back toward the Valley with your mountain as a guide?”

“Can you go?”

His return question startled her and then she remembered the compulsion which had sent her in the beginning on this trail across an unknown country thick with danger. Deliberately she turned to face the distant mountain. There were the beginning banners of sunset forming to the west but she had no thought of starting out to retreat in the dark.

Kelsie took one step and then another, instantly aware of the movement of the gem which had begun a swing from right to left across her breast. Rising in her was still that need for pressing on, not backward to such safety as there might be in this country, but rather on in the opposite direction.

Reaching up she strove to take the chain into her fingers, to tear it away, throw it behind her. But her hands shook and she could not get grip which would serve. That chain might have been well greased the way it slipped away from her attempted hold.

“Can you go back?” Yonan had stopped at the edge of the copse to which he had guided her. He was behind her but no more than a sword length so. For that was all the space she had won.

“No!” Once again she tried to free herself from the chain, the gem of which was growing hotter so that she could feel its warmth through her clothing. A punishing warmth which would allow her no mercy.

“I can't. It won't let me!” Kelsie felt a rise of anger in her hot against the stone, against Yonan, against all this world which had so entrapped her.

“Then let us to such shelter as there may be,” he sounded impatient and she turned again ready to burst forth with bitter words. He was already showing his back to her, intent upon advancing along the line of those plants he had named a most powerful weapon against the Dark which they knew. She had seen dried stalks of illbane, crushed leaves, kept carefully in the Valley—the greatest resource a healer could harvest.

It was Yonan who was harvesting the plants now. He had taken off his plain helm, shedding with it the under cap of mail with its swinging strips to be pulled across the face before battle. His hair, curled down upon his forehead, was dark with sweat, though he was much lighter of countenance than the other men she had seen. Now he grasped a handful of leaves, crushing them between palm and fingers and then raising the mass to smear across his forehead leaving traces of thick green behind its passing.

Not knowing what he was doing but that it might just relieve some of the pain of her aching head, the weariness of her body, Kelsie followed his example. The sharp clean scent of the bruised leaves did clear her head from the last remaining memory of the stench of the underworld and she felt more alert, firmer of purpose than she had when she had come out into the open.

Yonan carefully plucked two larger leaves from another plant and wrapped the wad of herb within those, putting it in the pouch at his belt. And Kelsie again followed his example.

The trees of the copse were not too close together as to refuse them a way, though they needs must twist and turn for opening wide enough that they might get through. But they broke out at last into a circle of open land around which the copse appeared to form a wall. Yonan had sheathed his sword and Kelsie wished for their packs which lay behind somewhere in the Thas burrows. Her hunger had grown and she could see not even any berries which would take the edge off that growing pain.

“What do we eat?” she asked Yonan. After all he was far more used to tramping the countryside. He took out not his sword but a long knife and went to the nearest of the walling trees on the trunk of which there was a growth of green-brown stuff as big as his hand. Carefully he hacked the parasite loose from its support and then divided it into halves, holding one out to her. She hesitated and heard him say:

“It is fogmot—and can be eaten. Men have lived on worse in these lands.” As if to encourage her by deed as well as speech, he raised the half of the mass he held to his mouth and bit into it.

Kelsie was too hungry by now to deny his assertion. The thing had a hard rind, but once that was broken the inside was as crisp as a full-fleshed apple. It was tasteless, as if she chewed and swallowed a soft chunk of wood. But a very little, just the portion he had given her, appeared to satisfy her hunger. She wanted no more of it.

Yonan had finished his part of the supply first and was now prowling around the edge of the clearing into which they had come. He had resumed his helm and there was an air of a sentry about him. Kelsie licked the last fragment of the food stuff from her lip and asked:

“Do we camp here?”

She noted his actions more carefully and saw that he had advanced his sword a few inches out of its sheath and was pointing that toward the wood. She studied her gem. The faint glow showed that the power within it was still alive but it had not awakened as it did when there was some menace awaiting them.

“It is safe,” he said as he took the last steps which had made the circuit of the tree wall complete. “In fact—” He strode to the center of that circle and swung his sword hilt around, arm's length above the grass of the turf. There was an answering gleam in the Quan inlay, and, as he thrust the sword point into the ground at that point, the blue flashed even higher. “This is a sanctuary,” he said. “Try it with your jewel.”

This time the chain did not resist her touch or slip through her fingers. She came close to where he stood and held the gem between her fingers. There was a noticeable gleam of life which came in answer.

“There are such places,” he said more as if he were reassuring himself than explaining something to her. “And many exist near points of danger—though which came first—the blessed place or that of the Dark we do not know.”

He dropped down to sit on his heels his sword once more in sheath. She confronted him settling cross-legged on the ground.

“So we are in a blessed place,” she said challengingly. “But we cannot carry it with us and—”

What she would have added to that complaint was lost in a howl which arose to blanket hearing of anything but that long wavering cry. Kelsie clutched the stone to her and felt the heat of its full awakening. There was a second howl from a different quarter, answering the first eagerly.

She had heard their like before. That hound which had been set upon the gate place by the rider. Were they to be under siege again and this time so far from any help from the Valley as to be easily taken?

Yonan was plainly listening. It was near twilight now and shadows which had gathered under the trees were creeping out into the open where they were. A third howl and that from yet another direction! A pack of the creatures ringing around.