The Gate of the Cat

9

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 I has 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 needs 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 mat 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.

“Will… will they come here?”

“I think not,” Yonan returned. “This is a blessed place, remember. Curses and blessings grow thin through the years but that which was set here answered to us. That we may be able to go forth again—that is another matter.” His expression was set and grim and Kelsie shivered. To be pent in this place, no matter how safe it might be at its core was no way to stay. She watched Yonan, on his feet once more, sword out digging point into the tough rooted turf.

Soil and clods of grass flew. Was he trying to dig his way out? Kelsie shrank back and away, having no thought of landing below ground once again. Then she heard the sword point grate on a surface below and Yonan’s efforts to clear what lay there speeded up. He was so intent that Kelsie thought he would not even hear her if she asked what he was doing.

He hacked and dug and then dropped on his knees, putting aside his sword and using his knife and his hands to continue. What he uncovered so was a star of white stone, large enough for a person to stand upon. Now Yonan was working more cautiously, shifting the soil away by handfuls, using knife point to dig out some stubborn clay which clung to depressions and cracks in the artifact.

“What is it?” Kelsie could contain her curiosity no longer. Why her companion thought it necessary to do this while the forces of the Dark gathered beyond the trees, and already evening shadows grew thicker and thicker, she did not understand.

There was a hole in the center of the star which he was clearing with care. Now he picked up his sword and dropped its point into that aperture. It was as if he had whirled a smoldering torch into life. From the Quan in the hilt streamed light which filled half the clearing with the brightness of day.

From overhead came a rasping sound and the rush of wings through the air. But nothing she could see cut the light of the sword. If the enemy had forces aloft they were not tempted to strike now.

“What was that?” Kelsie’s question was now a demand.

Yonan looked at her across the flare of light. It seemed to her that his eyes blazed as had the hounds’ when she had taken refuge in that other place of power—yet the sight did not revolt her as it had before.

“I have seen one other like this,” he answered somewhat obliquely. “It is a gathering place for power. If we had the old knowledge we could take that,” he waved toward the now blazing sword where up and down the blade ran runnels of light, “and win through any force which has been set against us here. But,” he pounded his fist against his knee in open bafflement, “we know so little!”

It had brought his sword to life, what would it do for the Witch Jewel? On impulse the girl pulled the chain from about her neck and dangled the gem over the star. There was an explosion of light. Into her fingers, her arm, her shoulder, her whole body shot a flash of strength so powerful that she was hurled backward on the turf, thus involuntarily jerking the jewel out of line of the star. That inflow of energy stopped but the gem still blazed. Could this be the place Wittle had been seeking, where the old power could be summoned to enhance witch weapons?

Yonan’s hand closed about her wrist, pulling back and down the hand which held the gem chain.

“Do not summon that!” his voice held the snap of an order. “You do not know what you may control or what may be beyond your knowledge of use.”

He was right, of course, but she resented his interference. She had not spoken against his use of the sword.

“A key,” it was as if he could read her mind. “The sword is the key. Now,” he had not released his hold upon her but tightened it, setting his strength of body against hers before she could understand what he would do and resist having a part in it.

So did he draw her to her feet and forward also in a single movement so that she was treading upon the star stone itself. Quivers of energy vibrated in his body. She would have thrown herself back and away but not only Yonan held her there, this was part of the power they had aroused and it kept her motionless. Yonan reached out, his other hand gripped the sword firmly, and he called aloud in a shout which reached above the baying of the hounds.

“Ninutra!”

There was a hush as the echoes of his shout died away.

The hounds howled no longer. Kelsie quivered with expectancy. What now had he summoned?

“Ninutra! Hilarion!” Now he had added a second name to the first.

There was a haze rising from the points of the star as if lamps or candles were sending forth a smoke which was of light not of dark. Each of those streams inclined inward and now they veiled the very center of the copse beyond the star. Yonan’s grip on her had not loosened, instead it had tightened to a bruising ring of fingers leaving nail marks on her flesh. Under the shadow of his helm his eyes were closed, there was a strain on his features as if he dared now some deed beyond which he dared not even look.

“Ninutra!”

The sword blazed high, flames wrapped about his hand and arm but he did not loose his hold. The whirl of the mist tongues about them made Kelsie feel faint and ill. She closed her eyes. Then came a blast of cold, a feeling of such terror that she could not even voice a scream of protest. They were lost in some place where her kind was never meant to travel. Yet there was a power that whirled them on—and on—and on. She clung to that, fearing to be left alone in this place above all.

Then—dark—complete and terrible darkness—and still the power held them—

It was gone—they were lost in this—this—

“Kelsay! Kelsay!”

She was blind, she was sick, she was lost—

“Kelsay?”

She was so overcome by weariness and weakness that it required a major effort to raise her eyelids and see now that the dark was not complete. Yonan’s face with the moon streaking across it was close to hers. She was in his arm still though she lay upon stone, his hold, rock steady, bringing her up against his chest.

“Kelsay—we are out!”

The words meant nothing for a long moment of time. Part of her seemed still caught and held by that nothingness which had been. Then behind his head she saw what was certainly not the tree wall of the grove but instead what could only be a wall of stone, dappled by the moonlight shifting through holes.

She drew a deep breath and then another. On her breast was a warm pulsing and she did not need to feel for it to know that it was the gem.

“Where—where are we?” Her voice was a weak whisper.

He drew her up higher against him so she could see more. Beside him lay the sword no longer a-ripple with power but still a small beacon of light. Kelsie could see now more walls and overhead the night of moon and stars. It was plain that wherever they were it was not the copse in which they had been besieged.

“Where are we?” He echoed her question. “I do not know—save that we are away from those who nosed so closely on our trail. This was once a mighty keep, I think.” He was looking about, too, as if trying to see what had once stood complete and formidable.

“But how did we get here?” she asked quickly. It would he a long time before she would forget that passage through the Other Place where her kind went at great peril as she was now aware.

“We had a key; we used it—” His hand went out again to the hilt of his sword. “A year agone Urik found such a path when the gray ones had him at their mercy, or so they thought. The old ones had their own ways of travel which are not ours except when the choice may be certain death behind.”