The Catswold Portal

She stared at him, her heart pounding, trying to look enchanted by his tale, wondering what power they had made together, to allow him to see her world so clearly.

He fixed breakfast while she showered. The rain had stopped, the sky was clearing and the morning turning hot. He took their tray to the terrace and stood calling the little cat; he hadn’t seen her since the day before. “Tom can’t have hurt her? He tried to kill his own cat. I swear I’ll kill him if he touches her.”

“She would scratch him, Braden. She would run from him.”

“Go ahead and eat. I’m going to look for her. Maybe while we’re gone she would be safer in a kennel.”

Dismay made her choke.“Wouldn’t she be terrified? Has she ever been in such a place?” But he had already started up the garden. She saw him glance up at the white house, his hands tightening into fists.

She ate as he searched; she put his plate in the oven. She watched him tramp through the woods then go down toward the highway. She loved him for caring so much. When he returned she said,“I’d look for her, but she won’t come to me.”

“You’ll need to pack a few things.”

“Yes. I’ll go do that.”

“You won’t need much: a bathing suit, some shorts, and that smashing green-and-white dress for dinner. I’ll call Mathew Rhain about the safe deposit box. If he’s back, we’ll stop there on our way, after we drop off the paintings.”

She headed across the lane toward the village then doubled back through the wood where Braden wouldn’t see her. Within five minutes the calico came running down the garden. He scooped her up, hugging and rubbing her, unashamed of his pleasure. “Where the hell have you been? Dammit, you scared the hell out of me.” He held her away, looking into her eyes. “I hope to hell you’re sufficiently afraid of that—of Tom. Where do you go when you disappear?” He carried her to the kitchen. “You don’t give a damn that people worry about you.” He put her down and opened a can of chicken. She wolfed down the chicken, then wound around his legs as he assembled the painting rack, put it in the station wagon, and began to load paintings. Before he went up to talk with Morian about taking care of her, he shut her securely in the house.

Morian put her arm around him, scowling. She was enraged by the slashed painting, but, Braden thought, she didn’t seem surprised. She said, “Of course I’ll keep the calico. I’ll shut her in my bedroom when I’m gone, and fix the windows so no cat could open them. Olive should be back soon; she’ll watch the house when I’m not home.”

“What about the key? Doesn’t Anne have a key?”

“Not anymore. I got it back from her.”

He waited for her to explain but she didn’t. She said, “The calico will be fine, Brade. Sleep on my bed, eat caviar.”

He hugged her companionably.“She’s shut in the studio, I’ll bring her up before we leave.”

But when he returned to the house, the calico had disappeared. He had left the door locked. Melissa wasn’t back, no one had come in. The windows were closed. He searched the house, puzzled, then worried, then angry. And why was he so damned upset, worrying over a damned cat?

But he kept searching, behind the stacked canvases, under the bed, even in the cupboards. There was no way she could get out. He had given up at last and was taking out the last two paintings when she appeared from the bedroom and shot past him out the front door. He watched her race away up the garden to disappear behind Olive’s house, and he leaned the paintings against the station wagon and went after her.

He didn’t find her. He went back to the studio and called Morian. Hell, if the cat could evade him like that, she could sure as hell evade Tom.

In the village Melissa shopped for a small suitcase, a bathing suit, and tennis shoes. She returned to the garden to find Braden irritated because the cat had disappeared again, and Morian trying to soothe him, promising him she would search for the cat and care for her. Morian said there was nothing for Braden to worry about, she’d call him if there was a problem; and she gave Melissa a look that startled and alarmed her—as if Morian knew very well where the little calico would be.

But of course she was imagining that; there was no way Morian could know.

Chapter 55

She was afraid of taking the elevator by herself. She got out of the station wagon nervously as Braden paused in traffic. She entered the brick office building, pushed the elevator button, and steeled her nerve to slip inside. She was glad she was alone and not among strangers. She rode up feeling skittery, wanting to climb the wall. She tripped as she left the moving box and thought the door would close on her. Unnerved, she fled to find Mathew Rhain’s office.

A blond, tight-lipped secretary took her name. Melissa turned her back on the woman and stood looking at the watercolors of sailing ships that decorated the waiting room. When Mathew Rhain came out of the inner office she froze, so startled she found it hard to speak.

Rhain was a short, stocky man with hair the color of red clay. He had a broad, freckled face and broad, short-fingered hands. He was taller than an elven man, and he greeted her with the smooth manners of an upperworlder; but Mathew Rhain had elven blood.

Why would a Netherworlder be living and working in the upperworld?

But why shouldn’t he? McCabe had. Mag had, once. No one knew how many Netherworlders had escaped the tyrannies of enslaved nations to live in the free world above.

Rhain studied her with intense interest, as curious about her as she was about him. He took her hand, searching her face.“You are McCabe’s daughter. Even if West hadn’t told me, I would see it.” He drew her into his private office and closed the door. The room was furnished with colored leather chairs, an oriental rug, and more sailing ships, in paintings, and as models arranged along the tops of the bookshelves. On a table at one end of the room lay three black leather binders.

Rhain seated her at the table.“McCabe was my good friend. I wish he could know that you are well—that you are here.”

She squeezed his stubby, square hand.“Braden said you would want some proof of who I am, but I’m afraid I don’t have any proof.”

“I think I can arrange some proof. These are McCabe’s journals. I have kept them safe since he died.”

“Was there—anything besides the journals?”

He settled a quiet look on her. His eyes were rust colored, with little lights that softened them.“There was nothing else. John Kitchen has McCabe’s paintings, those that were left, and what few books survived the earthquake. Perhaps he has other things. Do the Kitchens know you’ve—returned?”

She supposed Braden had explained to him about her memory. She said,“Not yet. Braden says they are in Europe.”

“They’re expected back in a few weeks.”

She said,“Have you lived in the city long? Did you know my father long?”

“My grandfather and McCabe’s grandfather were friends, in the gold fields. I—have lived in many places.” He reached for the leatherbound books. “You may find the journals difficult to open.” He sat down opposite her, watching her. Reaching to open the first journal, she understood why she would need no identification. The journals were sealed. She glanced up at Rhain. If she wanted to open her father’s journals she must use Netherworld powers. She must put all her trust in this sandy-haired elven man if she were to find any clue to the Amulet.

She was afraid—of being discovered, of Braden learning about her.

But she must do this.

The books had dates on the front, written on a white label in a bold script. She chose the volume that would cover the year Timorell came up into the upperworld. Not looking at Rhain, she made a silent spell for opening.

The cover freed itself. She opened McCabe’s journal then looked up to meet Rhain’s eyes. Their secrets were shared, and she knew he must trust her now, as she was forced to trust him. He rose, and left her, shutting the door behind him.

She touched the velum page, admiring McCabe’s neat, square script. She meant to flip through until she found McCabe’s description of Timorell, but the journal fell open to that page as if McCabe had gone back often to this passage where he first saw Timorell.

Thursday, May 6:

Through her window I could see her asleep, the cover thrown back. She and her husband and the child have taken a rented apartment; it smelled of stale cooking and dust. I thought she should not be in such a place. She is like the sun, her hair is all shades of gold and red. She is tall, sleek, a silken woman. I wanted to wake her, to touch her, to whisper a spell and see her leap to the sill as golden cat. She stirred and sighed as if she sensed me there. I waited for her to wake, never patient, until I realized that someone watched me. Her husband’s sister watched me: an evil child. Darkly evil

Saturday, May 8:

I returned to her this morning before dawn: She stood at the window letting the sharp wind bathe her bare skin. I stayed out of sight. She seemed excited by the wind, by the smell of the bay and the city smells; the wind carried its scents to her like a feast, she kept scenting out, and perhaps she was aware of me, too. She seemed fascinated with the rooftops that spread below her. I could imagine the golden cat chasing across them. But when she looked up at the sky she seemed to go dizzy; as morning came brighter she could not avoid looking. She gripped the window frame, she looked up slowly, staring directly up. The distances seemed to make her faint; she leaned her head against the window frame as if to regain her balance. I think it unnatural to live all your life with a solid granite roof above you.

Tuesday, May 11:

I spent the morning inspecting the job up on Glasgow Street, then drove down the Peninsula to pick up the kitchen tile and the cabinets. I returned, unloaded them, and knocked off at noon thankful I have a good foreman, good men. I think of Grandfather mining gold in Coloma—and in deeper mines. This was the only thing we didn’t agree on: where best to work, above ground or below. I am restless and unable to settle. I have seen her twice more, walking the neighborhood near their apartment; I must confess I cruise near her apartment. When she goes walking she triesto look at everything at once, tries to take in every new detail, every scent and sound; but she is nervy, skittish.

I have talked with others who have come up, it took them weeks to get used to so much space and to the open sky and the sun. I cannot conceive of living all my life beneath that weight of earth. I think I would tear the stone apart to get out. I remember too well Grandfather’s tales of earth shifting and chasms collapsing—though folk seemed to take that as much for granted as we take earthquakes and/or hurricanes.

Friday, May 14:

The sharp wind sweeping in through the Golden Gate makes me wild. I can’t settle. I drove by the piers, stopped to watch a Norwegian ship offloading rubber, a Chilean ship discharging leather; but the ships didn’t hold me as they usually do. I can think only of her. She is seeing this world for the first time and I long to be with her. But she must make her discoveries on her own; and perhaps she is happy with her husband. I can’t bear to think that; he is not Catswold; how can he appreciate her?

Monday, May 17:

I have followed her. She is a delight to watch, everything is new and wonderful. I think this is a time of growing for her, and I feel that it is a time of pain. Her husband seems to share nothing with her. He seldom goes out with her. I am glad. I couldn’t bear it if she loved him. We will meet soon. My patience will not hold much longer.

Wednesday, May 19:

I have not written anything for a long time. We have met, we are together. I need not write of this.

Friday, May 21:

Her husband deals in stocks, bonds, land, small corporate trades. His young sister absorbs adult business affairs with a shocking hunger and rapidity, with the same commitment and trained memory that she absorbed spells and enchantments. A voracious child, singleminded as a young vulture. Tim fears her.

Saturday, May 22:

My love has moved in with me; she is all my happiness. She relishes everything about the city: the wind, the shops, the little restaurants, the wharves. We walk, we laugh, we eat and listen to music, and make love.

She is fascinated by the sleek cats of the city basking under stairs or on balconies. She will kneel to stroke them; she is aware of every cat—and they, of her. Cats wait for her behind curtained windows and in alleys, though she talks to them in a language that none of them understands.

Wednesday, May 26:

Tim doesn’t know what to make of my collection of paintings of cats—they fascinate her in an uneasy way. She has grown up to feel that images are evil. I try to tell her that these were made with love. There is one sketch she keeps returning to, of the young calico, a charcoal sketch Alice did. I told her it was done by the daughter of a friend, and I took her to meet the family. She and Alice were drawn to one another. Tim took the child’s hand in a strange, tender gesture, delighting Alice. They are already fast friends.

Saturday, May 29:

I have taken Tim to the Cat Museum. She was charmed; she wanted to know how I happened to do the designing. I told her Alice’s father suggested me, that the old doctor who commissioned it didn’t know half how interested I was. That amused her. And Tim has done a strange thing, she has commissioned a piece of sculpture for the museum. She wanted me to help her choose an artist. I have suggested Smith, a metal piece. He is already at work on it.

Melissa paused, feeling her pulse pound. Why would Timorell commission a sculpture in a museum strange to her, in a world strange to her?

Unless she had a special use for that sculpture. She tried to remember an iron or bronze cat with the artist’s name Smith.

In the succeeding pages, she found no further mention of the sculpture. Braden had come in; the two men sat at the other end of the office deep in conversation. She felt unnerved to see him talking comfortably with a Netherworlder: how strange that the two worlds kept pushing together, flowing together. She had thought of Braden as totally removed from the realms of the Netherworld, but now that separation seemed less severe.

Wednesday, January 12:

Tim’s husband saw her on the street yesterday. He could see that she was pregnant and he thought the child was his. She told him it is not, that she is not his wife anymore, not in her eyes. She was in a rage when she got back to the apartment; she did not like having such anger while she carried the child. She made spells to drive the anger away.

Thursday, February 16:

Our baby was born at one o’clock this morning in a small hospital in Marin County. We were concerned about Tim going into a hospital, but Rhain knew some people, a doctor we could trust. And I was in the room, whispering spells to keep her and the baby from changing. Tim’s labor was relatively easy. Our child is the most beautiful little girl, with lovely calico hair. A nurse said her hair would turn the right color soon, not to worry. We laughed about that. We named her Melissa. Melissa McCabe. Tim made a quick recovery; we were out of the hospital and back in the apartment the next afternoon. When Alice came to visit she was ecstatic with the baby. Melissa took to her, reaching for her with a little mewling cry that startled Tim, but it was only a human baby cry. Of course Alice doesn’t suspect.

Melissa turned forward to the last two entries.

Wednesday, August 9:

Something is happening—the common street cats sense it. All morning they have been out on the streets, acting strangely, searching restlessly for places to hide, then moving on. Dogs run the streets nervously. The earth is trembling, though so far only we and the animals can feel it. I am afraid for Tim and Melissa. Iwill not leave them.

Saturday, August 12:

The trembling was three days ago. My nerves are like hot wires, and not only with fear of the physical damage. I cannot help but equate the earth’s trembling with forces of evil, as my grandfather believed.

But this is not the Netherworld, and the trembling has settled now; I will work on the Marin house today only because Tim insists.

The empty pages that followed should have been filled with their lives together, with their love, with their baby growing up, learning to walk and talk, learning to live as McCabe and Timorell did, both as cat and as human.

She imagined too vividly her father falling from a rooftop, twisting, fighting himself, then hit by falling bricks. She tried not to see Timorell sprawled under the fallen bookcase in the wrecked apartment. She was trembling with pain for them, wanted to weep for them.

When Rhain rose, she said,“I must give the journals back.”

“It is only a formality. They have been safe here for a long time.”

She laid her hand over the volumes, closing them with a silent spell. She rose, handing them to him. Their eyes met, sharing their secret.

Chapter 56

The coast was ragged and wild. Waves crashed against the dark, wet cliffs. Occasional cypress trees thrust out of the stone, trees as gnarled and bent as if giant hands had twisted them. Seaspray leaped on the wind, beading Melissa’s blowing hair, dampening Braden’s shirt. They stood together looking straight down the rocks at the sea where the water heaved and fell. Dark kelp beds soughed up and down, and surface breakers crashed thundering against the pitted stone. The smell of salt and iodine made Melissa tip her tongue out to taste the sharp scent. Braden watched her, powerfully immersed in her animal pleasure at the wildness of sea and wind. She seemed as totally engrossed as if she had never seen the sea. Each time gulls wheeled over them her hands moved involuntarily, as if she wanted to fly with them—or snatch them from the wind and hold them.

Driving down from San Francisco they had stopped at Half Moon Bay for lunch, had sat at a window table facing the beach, eating clam chowder and French bread. Outside the glass, the deserted white sand stretched to an empty sea, and even that flat expanse had held her. She had seemed fascinated with the wheeling gulls; her mouth had curved up with pleasure when gulls screamed by their window. Now he watched her, charmed by her eagerness, wanting to show her everything, to share with her the village where he had grown up, its red-roofed cottages, its hilly, winding streets, its little restaurants and galleries. Wanting her to love the inn that had been his home, wanting her to be a part of it.

Within an hour he was showing her Carmel, the narrow, shop-lined alleys, the Monterey pines marching down the divided main street. The inn stood a block from the shore; he could see that she liked its white stucco walls and red tile roof, and its balconies bright with potted red geraniums. Mrs. Trask kept it just as neat and welcoming as it was the day she bought it from Gram. He parked and reached behind the seat for their bags and his painting things. Melissa swung out, took her bag and his and went ahead up the brick walk, looking.

The lobby pleased her; she entered slowly. Sunlight through tall windows played over the white walls and potted ferns. The large cool room was high ceilinged, its brown tile floors bare, its white wicker chairs cushioned in pale blue. Only the proprietress looked out of place, black as a raven in her long black dress and thick black stockings and flat black shoes. Mrs. Trask was a hard-looking old woman with gray, grizzled hair knotted behind her head. But when she saw Braden and cried out a greeting and hugged him, her face changed; she was all smiles and warmth.“I save your usual room. Is enough space for easel. Do you bring a cloth to cover my floor?”

Braden nodded and grinned, hugging her.

The woman looked at Melissa shyly, perhaps comparing her to Alice, but then she smiled and took Melissa’s hand in a warm, engulfing grip.

Their room was on the third floor. Its wide corner windows looked down over the village to the sand and sea. Its tile floors showed off white embroidered rugs, and the thick white spread was embroidered with flowers; crewel work, Braden said. He unfolded his drop cloth in a corner and set up his easel, then grabbed her in a hug.“I don’t know whether to take you to bed, or swimming. Either way, take your clothes off.”

It was much later that they swam. The sea frightened her and was ice cold. Behind them the beach was nearly deserted except for a few walkers; no one else was swimming. The waves hit her so hard she could hardly stand. Beyond the waves, Braden swam strongly, and she wouldn’t be outdone. She followed, thankful Mag had made her learn in the swift Sesut River. But they came out soon, freezing, and lay warming on the sand, holding hands, feeling the heat build, thinking of lovemaking until they rose and returned to the inn.

They entered the inn through the rear patio where they could hose off their feet. The bricks had just been washed. The round tables were pushed together and the chairs piled on top, and a man in coveralls was setting mouse traps behind the potted geraniums. Mrs. Trask sat at a table cutting up raw bacon for mouse-bait. Her face looked angry and sullen, as if she trusted no one, but again when she smiled the sun came out. Melissa wondered if she had had a very hard life.

The old woman looked them over.“You have goose bumps. No one swims in that water—water like ice. Foolish, Braden. People drown in that water.” She saw Melissa staring at the traps, and smiled.

“Mouse somewhere. It overruns us. I tell Arnol, either we must catch him or we have to have a cat. I never see mouse so bad.”

And there were mice; that night in the small hours when Braden slept, she heard scratching in the wall and lay trying to decide exactly where. The sound drew her, teased her; she was afraid of the way it made her feel. She rose at last and stood looking out toward the sea where the breakers rolled white in the moonlight, trying to hear only the pounding waves, trying to ignore the scratching in the walls behind her.

But soon she could smell the mouse, too, and her muscles tensed, and she felt the dropping feeling that heralded change. She resisted change, but all her senses were honed on the mouse. Its smell was too strong to bear. Its scratching teased and tormented.

Maybe she could change to the calico for just a moment. Braden slept so soundly. As she watched the wall where it was scratching, it suddenly darted out into the room and reared up in the moonlight, scenting out with a twitching nose.

She moved silently, stalking it.

Halfway across the room she stopped, clenched her fists, and turned away. She got back in bed and curled down close to Braden. He half woke and pulled her close, then slept again. She lay awake for the rest of the night, knowing that she must control this. Knowing that being with Braden constantly, never apart to turn into the calico and hunt, was going to cause problems. She had no way to work off her killing instincts. Quite suddenly, her love for him had pulled her into a gentle, passionate prison.

In the morning when she kept yawning, she said the moon had kept her awake. They had breakfast on the inn’s patio, then got to work. He drew her on the beach beside a wrecked boat with shattered glass in the windows, then before a shop with leaded windows that mirrored a red, flowering tree. That evening after dinner he chose his favorite from the day’s four drawings, stretched a canvas, and blocked in a painting. He had brought books for her—she read California history and some poetry, but the poetry made her uncomfortable. It was too much like reading spells.

They had the windows open because the smell of turpentine bothered her. When he came to bed they made love in the cool breeze; their passion echoed the pounding pulse of the sea, as if they partook of the spirit of the earth itself, elemental and primal. That night she more easily ignored the mouse, snuggling close to Braden, though again the nervy little beast came into the room with them as if irresistibly drawn to the contemplation of its own death.

And the next day, giddy with the excitement of wind and waves, as they walked on the rocks above the churning sea, she did something so stupid and foolish that she wallowed afterward in remorse.

Mrs. Trask had packed a lunch for them, and they drove down to Point Lobos, where gigantic stone slabs jutted into the sea. Among the wet, reflecting slabs of water-sculptured stone Braden posed her. The sea light, running and changing across the rocks, excited her, made her giddy. The sea made her wild—she wanted to run beside it, she wanted to chase the waves. She felt fidgety and impatient as they carried their lunch up a rock escarpment. Braden climbed slow and sure-footed, but Melissa, on the rocks above him, could not resist the razor-thin crest. She didn’t mean to run, but suddenly shewas running and leaping along the crest, laughing, giddy.

His shout stopped her.“For Christ sake! Get the hell down from there! What the hell are you doing!”

She stared down at him, deflated, ashamed, enraged at herself.

“What the hell were you doing? You could have fallen, killed yourself.” He held her too tight. “You scared the hell out of me.”

She was quiet while they ate. She knew she was being sullen, and she didn’t like sullenness in herself.

But she didn’t like being so constricted. She had been perfectly safe on the rocks; she hadn’t been in danger. She felt contrary, willful. She wanted to run; she was crazy to be free a moment, just to run in the wind. Being cooped up within herself, having no chance to work off her pent-up wildness made her irritable.

It was mid-afternoon when Braden left her to walk around a point looking for the next place to work. She snatched the moment of freedom and ran crazily along the top of the cliff; and suddenly a rock broke under her feet. She fell headlong, clutching.

She righted herself in mid-air and landed lightly at the bottom of the cliff, on the rocks where the waves were crashing. Her tennis shoes slipped on the wet surface and she almost went in. As she turned, starting back up the cliff, she saw Braden on the rocks above her staring down at her, his face twisted with disbelief.

She came on up the cliff, sick and afraid. Why had she done that? So stupid. So tragic and stupid. He said nothing. She couldn’t look at his face. She wanted to run away from him, but she couldn’t.

He shoved the sketch pad into the canvas bag, dropped the charcoal and pastels in without even putting them in the little wooden sketch box.“Let’s go.” She went silently ahead of him to the car, and got in without speaking.

He started the car then turned toward her. He grabbed her suddenly, pulling her across the seat, holding her so tightly she gasped.

“Do you want to tell me what you were doing back there? You could have killed yourself.” He held her away, and looked and looked at her. “Do you want to tell me how you did that? Like…Christ, like an acrobat—twisting like that—landing on your feet…”

“I don’t know how I did it. I—I was afraid. You were right, the rocks are dangerous. I was afraid. I just—tried to right myself. I don’t know how I did it.” She looked at him helplessly.

He held her closer, kissed her fiercely.“Christ, Melissa. I love you, for Christ sake. You can’t—you might have been killed. Why…?”

But he didn’t finish, he only looked at her, holding her. She clung to him, remorseful and lost.

Chapter 57

The Harpy’s mirror was red with flame. In the little glass, the fires of the Hell Pit writhed, and deep among the licking blaze a blackness stirred. Half-hidden by fire the black beast thrust up, shoving aside the manticore like a toy, flicking the lamia away. The creature was so huge its head was an island rising up from the fires. Its eyes were pools of fire that could drown a war horse and rider, its jaws dripped with the flesh of men who suffered eternal damnation in the Hell Pit. As it rose, above it on the edge of the precipice stood Siddonie of Affandar.

Siddonie smiled and called the black dragon to her, summoning its ancient power, summoning the one power that reached beyond all worlds. This beast, part of the primal dark, of the eternal malevolence, was carnal, depraved, absolute in its viciousness, and it was indestructible. If it were destroyed in one place, it would return in another; it was birthed in the black emptiness beyond all worlds.

When the worlds were formed and the common beasts appeared, it had torn apart generations of creatures and eaten them. When men came into the many worlds, it took the weakest to itself and filled those men with evil, and it lived in each of them. In the upperworld it was known as Grendel, as Hecate, as the Mara and Black Annis, and it took the name of modern slavemasters. In the Netherworld it made its nest in the Hell Pit. On every world it nested, yet never did it diminish. It was everywhere, its get were the lamia and the basilisk, the manticore, the daughters of Lillith. Often it ate them then bore them anew. And now, from above, the queen of Affandar spoke.

“I am daughter to Lillith. Lillith’s power is my power, and so I hold power over you.”

The beast smiled, its cavernous mouth filled with viscous flame.

Siddonie said,“I direct you and you must obey. I bid you lead all Netherworld men to me and make them my slaves. I bid you battle beside me and make me victorious in this war.”

The Harpy held her mirror in shaking white hands. When she looked up at Mag, her voice was subdued.“She has called the powers of the black dragon. She has called the embodiment of the primal dark. She is a fool. The beast will destroy her. And it will destroy us all.”

Mag’s hands were still, hovering over the scraps she was cutting up for the pigs. “You didn’t tell me this before.”

“I did not know before. The vision has come only now. Siddonie has called it. She is a fool if she thinks she can control that darkness.” The Harpy’s little yellow bird eyes were hot with anger and grief. “No one can say now what will happen. If the primal dark is loosed unchallenged acrossthe Netherworld, it could destroy everything. Just as,” the Harpy said, “worlds have exploded in the heavens. Just so, this land could know destruction. We could lose all magic, and all wizard light, and be steeped in blackness again for all eternity—a chasm without life.”

Mag scraped the pig food into a bowl.“And will nothing stop the power she has summoned?”

“The power of vigorous life can stop it,” the Harpy said.

“But that power is dying in the Netherworld. It is that vital strength that has, in every world, driven the beast back.”

Chapter 58

The restaurant rambled along the cliff high above the sea. It was a weathered gray building, old and casual. They had a window table facing an explosion of sunset. As they sipped their drinks they watched the colors change, watched the red sweep of sky slowly invaded by storm clouds. But Melissa could hardly keep her eyes on the sunset and away from the caged birds that flitted and chirped beside their table.

The cage was rectangular, some ten feet long with an arrangement of tree branches inside. The two dozen jewel-colored birds were as lovely as real jewels. They were vibrant, swift, enticing. They were every combination of colors: red and purple, orange and green, peach and turquoise, each as rich and spectacular as the jeweled birds of Circe’s Grotto. Their chirping voices were hypnotic, and she was drawn irresistibly by their constant darting flight. The fast hush of feathers made her stomach constrict and her hands clench. She could smell bird, almost taste bird. She tried to study her menu, but could not keep her eyes from them.

For nearly a week she had been docile, had stayed away from the cliff, had not darted her hands into the shallow sea to catch the little crabs that scurried there. And at night when she heard the mouse scratching she had pulled the pillow over her head and clenched her teeth and ignored the little morsel. But the mouse was bold; she found its droppings in front of the dresser and around her suitcase. And with the pressure of restraining herself she had grown irritable, and their lovemaking had suffered. And now Braden had, innocently, seated her next to the birds and she wanted to snatch at them, to rip the wire and grab them.

“What will you have? What looks good?”

Bird! I’ll have bird—raw please, with the feathers on! She pressed her knuckles to her lips.

“Melissa?”

“I—the lobster would be nice.”

“But you’ve been eating lobster all week. Well, I don’t care…”

“The—the crab, maybe?”

“That would be a nice change,” he said caustically, watching her, his eyes faintly narrowed. She lowered her gaze to the white tablecloth and laced her fingers together in her lap, hard, to keep them still, fighting the passions of the little cat.

But soon her gaze wandered to the birds again. The cat was nervy, demanding, like a bonfire inside her threatening to take over, take charge. When she could stand it no longer she excused herself and rushed to the ladies’ room.

She stood looking into the mirror at her haunted face; she could see the cat’s passion and hunger looking out. She tried to calm herself, tried to drive the little cat away and ended up crying, her thoughts out of control. And why did she keep wanting to curl down into dark places? Everywhere they went, she was drawn to the shadows behind chairs, to the dark caves under tables or beneath bushes. On the beach among the rocks she would stare into little crevices, wanting to crawl into them. In the lobby, it was the secluded darknesses behind the tall ceramic planters. The little cat had never been so drawn to darkness. What was happening to her?

She returned to the table feeling wrung out, weak, and still the birds flitted and darted. She got through dinner taut and uncomfortable, and it was that night, nervy and upset, that she began to save scraps for the mouse, tucking a bit of bread into her purse beside the roll of bills.

From then on, at each meal she tucked away a crumb, tiny morsels that she put down late at night after Braden slept. Each night she told herself she wouldn’t do this anymore, and each night she placed her bait closer to the bed.

Each night the guilt, the furtive slipping out of bed then back again to lie listening. She was being very stupid; he was going to find out. And the mouse became bold—it would run out, snatch her offering, then sit up holding the bread in its paws, eating right in front of her. And at last the night came when she could no longer lie still.

She could see the mouse across the room in the faint hint of moonlight. She rose, her fingers curling and straightening with the need to make claws, and she knew she dare not change. Half-naked in her panties, she slipped toward the mouse, light and quick. It was just behind Braden’s shoe. She could see it and smell it, could see its whiskers twitching. She crept close and crouched and snatched it in her cupped hands.

She drew her hands up, ecstatic with the feel of the mouse squirming against her palm. She stood up, gripping it tightly; she shook it and felt it wriggle with terror and she smiled and turned…

Braden was awake, watching her.

She backed away from him.“I—I heard it scratching. It was—it was so loud. Scratching at something. It woke me. I—I don’t know how I did this. What—what shall I do with it? Oh, it’s moving in my hand, it’s horrible.” Its movement excited her unbearably. She wanted to loose it and chase it, wanted to bat atit and play with it. She looked at Braden pleadingly. “What—what shall I do with it?”

He looked back at her, expressionless.

She went into the bathroom and dropped the mouse into the toilet. She pulled the handle. It fought as it was swept away from the sides in the churning water. It thrashed wildly as it was sucked out of sight. She stared after it regretfully. What a waste of a perfectly good mouse. She longed to have kept it, to have played with it then killed it. She washed her hands because Braden would expect it, and returned to the bedroom.“It’s gone. Horrible.”

He was still staring. She stood looking at him, her expression as surprised as she could manage. And she was filled with terror. He knew. He knew what she was. It was over. It was all over between them.

She picked up the heavy bedspread they had kicked to the floor, wrapped it around herself, and curled up in the upholstered chair, her face turned away from him. As soon as it was dawn she would leave. She should have gone before. She should never have come here with him. She closed her eyes, keeping her face hidden.

She heard him rise. She felt the chair give as he sat down on its upholstered arm. He drew her to him, held her against him.“Come to bed, Melissa.”

“You don’t want me there.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You were horrified by—by the mouse. You were looking at me as if…”

“As if what?”

“I don’t know what. As if you thought me disgusting because I happened to catch a mouse in the closet.”

“You have to admit, it isn’t something every girl does, catching mice in the middle of the night with her bare hands. Most girls won’t go into a room with a mouse, let alone catch it with—that way.”

“But I had a mouse when I was a child. I used to catch it like that when—when it got out of its cage. Tonight—it was so loud. And how else would I have caught it? I just—I didn’t think…”

He picked her up and carried her to the bed and put her down, pushing a pillow behind her.“Any other girl would have told me, let me deal with the mouse.”

“You were asleep. Are you disappointed? Did you want to catch it yourself?”

He looked startled, then scowled. He didn’t see anything funny.

“I just didn’t think,” she repeated contritely. “I used to catch my mouse that way, so I just…” She looked at him innocently.

He stared at her then began to laugh, a choke at first, then he doubled over laughing, fell across the bed laughing.“You caught a mouse—a mouse…flushed it down the john…” He shook with laughter until she was laughing too. “You slipped up on a mouse in the middle of the night…” He rolled over, consumed with helpless laughter.

When their laughter had died they lay limp, gasping. A giggle escaped her, then she sighed against him and curled down in his arms.

But the catharsis of laughter didn’t last. The next day they began to argue about nothing, tense and irritable with each other. She would catch him looking at her, puzzled, and she would lash out at him with something rude. The hot sun in her face made her feel sick and dizzy. Once she had to leave him, hurrying back to the hotel, barely reaching the bathroom before she threw up her breakfast.

She returned to Braden weak and cross.

“You’re awfully pale. I’m nearly finished with this drawing. Can you hang on a little while?”

“Yes,” she said. But all he wanted was the paintings, he didn’t care anything about her. And then she wondered what was wrong with her. It didn’t make sense to be so angry. She loved him—they were together, in this lovely village. She should be so happy; she should be warmed and replenished by their love, by Braden’s knowing lovemaking and by his caring. And the paintings were part of his lovemaking, his painting her brought them together in a way few lovers could know.

Yet the little cat was driving him away.

The stupid cat couldn’t be still, and her wildness and hungers were ruining everything. She did not feel at one with the calico at this moment; she felt led by her, used and intimidated by her.

That afternoon when Braden started another painting, he said it would be the last. That when this one was finished they would do nothing but play. He was working on the painting when Morian called. Melissa picked up the phone thinking it was the boy who brought room service because she had ordered some sandwiches.

Morian said a registered package had come from the History Museum, that it looked like drawings. Braden said,“Ask her to open it. And ask her about the cat.”

“Open it, Morian. And he—he wants to know if his little cat is all right,” Melissa said weakly.

Morian said,“She hasn’t come home, Melissa. Not since you left. I didn’t want to tell him but…Maybe I don’t need to tell him?” There was a long silence, then, “Maybe I needn’t worry about—the cat—just now?”

Melissa’s heart had nearly stopped.

“Melissa? I’m opening the package now.”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember that Olive left me a note when she brought the kitten here?”

“Yes.”

Braden glanced up, wondering what they were talking about.

Morian said,“It was pretty cryptic. I couldn’t figure it out.” Again a pause. Then, “Now I think I know what Olive was saying. Now I think I don’t have to worry about Braden’s cat. Now,” Morian said, “I see that you can take care of her.”

Melissa couldn’t speak.

“Shall we tell Braden that his little cat is here, and safe?”

“That—that’s right, Morian.” She felt so weak she had to sit down.

Braden scowled at the silence, put down his brush, came across the room, and took the phone from her.“What’s wrong, Mor? What’s happened?” He sat down on the bed beside Melissa, putting his arm around her. She pressed her face to his, listening to the low voice at the other end of the phone.

Morian said,“Nothing’s wrong, Brade. Everything’s fine. The calico’s doing just fine.”

Melissa’s heart thundered. Her hands were shaking, her mouth was dry. Morian said, “She’s safe and happy and cared for, Brade. Loved. Your calico cat is very loved.”

She felt sick. She couldn’t stop shaking.

“I have the package open, Brade. It’s two of Alice’s drawings of the garden door. There’s a letter.”

“Read it,” he said tensely, watching Melissa.

“Let’s see, they—they found the drawings while going through the archives. It’s from the director Alice saw that day. He says…he thought they had all been returned—tried to phone you, guess your phone is unlisted—sorry for the inconvenience. That’s all, nothing urgent, just returning the drawings.”

Melissa went into the bathroom, washed her face in cold water, and stayed there until she was calmer. When she came out he was painting again, eating a sandwich with a painty hand. The tray sat beside the bed; she poured herself some tea. He hardly looked up at her. She ate and drank her tea but couldn’t settle down. She went out at last to shop, and paced the village until dusk thinking about Morian, about what she knew, what Olive knew. Knowing that Braden would find out eventually, and when he found out, her life would be over. There would be nothing more for her.

She lay awake that night long after Braden slept. Near midnight she rose and stood restlessly at the window, then pulled on shorts and a shirt, and went out.

The village was dark, the moon veiled behind clouds. She walked to the beach but didn’t go out on the sand. She followed beside it through tangled bushes and tall grass, compulsively moving toward the darkest shadows. Soon she knelt, crawled on hands and knees in among the bushes and she changed to cat. She had no choice but to change.

The calico paced and wound among the bushes feeling sick. Her coat felt matted, and she didn’t want to groom herself. She came out from the bushes once to stare away toward the sea, and when a sharp pain gripped her, she crouched. The pounding sea sounded like a giant heartbeat. When the pain was gone she moved back under the bushes and crept along through the tangle. She was all instinct now, searching for the darkest shelter, searching for the driest, softest bed. Another pain caught her, and she crouched, panting.

When the pain was gone she moved on again, seeking urgently. She pushed through the tall grass and wild holly, and another pain brought her down.

When the pain passed she remained hunched on her forelegs, breathing hard. Another pain pressed, and another. She rose, searching. She found no place better than the last. All the ground was damp. Pains forced her into another crouch, her claws dug into the earth; her thoughts sank into mindless pain and the need to lick, to push out; frightened and alone, she felt water break. Her pain and her cry tangled together. She felt the first kitten come. Turning her head she saw it, gauze covered, dropping down in the wetness.

She tore the damp, spider-web gauze away. She licked the tiny kitten frantically, wanting to clean it before the next one came. She licked its tiny closed eyes, its little face, its minute ears. Why was it so still? She licked harder, pushing at it, waiting for it to move, waiting for the next pain.

The gauze was gone from the kitten. She severed the cord. But still the kitten didn’t move.

She pushed at it, rasping along its skin with her rough tongue to wake it and make it breathe.

The kitten didn’t wake. It lay mute and still.

There were no more pains.

She lay quiet at last, her one dead kitten cuddled against her throat, her paws curved around its little, still body.

It was much later, as dawn touched the sea, that she licked herself clean and rose wearily to her four paws, looking down at her dead kitten.

She was unwilling to leave it alone.

Yet she knew she must leave it.

She dug a grave for it, first as cat, her claws tearing at the earth, then as Melissa, her hands scrabbling into the torn soil. She buried her kitten deep, and covered its grave with holly thorns and stones.

She backed out of the bushes and stood up. Her hands were caked with dirt, her nails filled with grit, her clothes dirty. Her legs were scratched from the bushes. Mourning deeply, she made her way back through the early dawn to the inn, to Braden. Wanting him to hold her, wanting to be held, to be safe and held.

Chapter 59

She returned slowly to the inn. The dawn sky was dark gray streaked with silver, pierced by the dark Monterey pines marching down the center of the empty, divided street. Her thoughts, all her being, were centered on her kitten. She could still see its tiny claws, its blind eyes. Too sharply she could see her little kit lying still and lifeless.

She had said spells over him, knowing that was useless but needing to say them, needing their comfort. She was terrified that when she told Efil she had miscarried, she had cursed her unborn Catswold kit. She passed Braden’s station wagon parked at the curb, then turned back because she had felt along her bare arm a wave of heat from it. When she touched the hood, it was hot. He had been out; he had been looking for her.

She met him on the stairs. He was wearing cutoffs and a sweat shirt. He followed her back to the room, stood waiting for an explanation.

“I went for a walk.”

“In the middle of the night? I woke at three o’clock and you were gone, Melissa. I’ve been driving around this damn town looking for you. I came back to see if you were here. I was about to go to the police.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Why the hell didn’t you wake me? I thought—Christ, I didn’t know what to think.” He grabbed her hands, then saw the caked dirt, the grime in her nails. “Where did you walk?”

“On the beach. I—collected some shells and rocks, but then I left them. And I picked some grasses and holly.”

“For a bouquet?”

“The grass wilted, the holly stuck me. I threw it all away.” Must he press her? Couldn’t he just gather her in and hold her? She went into the bathroom and shut the door. She washed her hands, and scrubbed her nails. Her face was dirty, her eyes red. She filled the basin with cold water and ducked her face in, letting the coolness pull away the grainy, hot feeling, scrubbing her face hard with the washcloth.

When she came out his anger had abated.“I’m sorry. I was so damned scared. I didn’t know where you went, I didn’t know what happened to you. I remembered how you came to the studio that evening with the wound on your head as if someone had beaten you. I thought…” He sat down on the bed, just looking at her.

She sat down beside him and leaned into his warmth.“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” She was so tired. She could still see her tiny lifeless kit, could still feel his delicate little body, his tiny paws and tiny, perfectly formed claws. Braden stroked her hair and rubbed the back of her neck. But she couldn’t bear to make love. She shook her head weakly; mourning her kit, and already mourning her inevitable parting from Braden. He held her, letting her doze.

It was much later that he held her away from him with a deeply searching, uneasy look.“When we go back, Melissa, will you move in with me? Will you live with me? I have this irrational feeling you’re going to disappear.” His dark eyes searched hers, loving her. “I don’t mean to press, to smother you. But I don’t want to lose you.” She snuggled closer, touching his cheek. He said, “Will you live with me? Will you think about getting married? We could think about that.”

“I…” She looked at him helplessly.

He waited.

“We—we could think about it.” But they could never marry. She must go back to the Netherworld; she did not belong in this world; she did not belong with him. And soon he would begin to put the strange occurrences together. He would figure out what she was—an impossible creature, half woman,half cat, and he would be sickened.

“Melissa? Will you marry me?”

“We—we need time to—think about it.”

The line at the corner of his mouth deepened. She hugged and kissed him, making herself go soft and relax against him, teasing him until at last he made love to her; his loving should have been healing, but their tender, passionate loving made her mourn him, drove her into deep depression for what she had already lost, so all she wanted to do was weep.

They showered together, and he washed her back. Turned away from him, she let her tears mingle with the hot water.

As he toweled her off, he said,“Shall I send down for some breakfast? You look so tired. Climb into bed. I’ll call the kitchen.” He tucked the towel around his middle and went in to straighten the bed for her. She climbed in gratefully, but then she saw his suitcase sitting by the door, his closed paint box, the folded easel, and remembered that this was the day to go back; they had no choice, the opening was tonight. She swallowed tears that threatened to swamp her, and turned her face into the pillow.

Braden watched her as he phoned in their breakfast order. She was crying silently, trying to hide her long, quivering shudders into the pillow. What the hell happened last night? It was almost impossible not to ask questions, not to demand answers, yet common sense said to leave her alone. He wondered if someone had followed her here. A husband or lover? He lay down beside her, gathering her close, holding her close in the circle of his arms. And after a while he said softly,“Were you with someone else?”

She turned over, looking at him blankly. Her face was red and sad, and her wet lashes beaded together.“Someone else?” Then her eyes widened. “A man? Oh, no.” She touched his face. “No! It wasn’t that!” She seemed truly shocked. “It wasn’t that. Just—sick. I feel better, truly I do.” She held his face, looking deep into his eyes. “There is no one else. I could love no one else but you.”

He got up and tucked the covers around her, wondering why he couldn’t believe her. It wasn’t even that he didn’t believe her; but he couldn’t escape the things left unexplained.

When the breakfast cart came she drank and ate dutifully, then curled up again, spent, and was soon asleep. He stood looking down at her, his breakfast untouched. Then he picked up his suitcase and painting box, the folded tarp and easel, and headed for the car.

They would have to leave when she woke, go directly to the gallery, frame these six paintings and hang them. Rye would be pacing, having anxiety attacks waiting for them. They had planned to change clothes at the gallery, have a leisurely dinner. The opening wasn’t until nine, and Rye liked his artists to arrive late, liked them to come in when there was already a good crowd.

He loaded five paintings into the station wagon, and Melissa was still asleep when he went back to the room for the last one. He had started to pick it up, making sure it was dry, when something about the painting made him stop. He set the canvas down and backed off to look at it.

The pale sand made a shocking contrast to the dark, cloud-riven sky, and to the reds in Melissa’s clothes, and the faded red of the derelict boat, where her face reflected in the broken window. She was looking down, the reflections of her cheek and hair woven through the reflections of five winging gulls. This was a strong painting; why should it bother him? He kept looking, felt he was missing something, an eerie and disruptive sense, like a strange premonition; a feeling as wildly unsettling as Melissa’s fall from the rocks, or as seeing her catch the mouse in the middle of the night, or as her nervousness in the restaurant beside the caged finches.

Fairy tales chittered at him like bats in a black windstorm, as if insanity had reached to wriggle probing fingers deep inside his drowning brain. And the message that was trying to get through to his conscious mind could not be tolerated. He shoved it back deep into the dark places where he couldn’t see it—a sick nightmare message, an aberration. He turned to watch her sleeping, and in sleep she was as pure and innocent as a wild creature. He loved the way she slept curled around the pillow, totally limp. He wanted to gather her in and love her and keep on loving her. He rejected the nagging fear that made him see shadows across her face.

He felt certain there was no one else. She wasn’t a tramp or a flirt; she hadn’t glanced at another man, though nearly every man stared at her. He didn’t think any deeper than that, didn’t dare to think deeper. He gave it up at last, looked at the painting again, saw nothing strange in it. He picked it up and carried it down to the station wagon.

She was still asleep when he got back, her lashes moving in a dream. Even watching her dream made him edgy. He kept wondering what she was dreaming about. And why the hell did every damned thing set him off into wild, impossible speculations? He went back downstairs, and in Mrs. Trask’s office he called Morian.

“We’ll be late getting back. We’ll go directly to the gallery—see you there. How’s the calico?”

“Happy, Brade. Loved and spoiled and luxuriously cared for. What’s wrong? There’s something.”

“Nothing. We’re just loading up to come home.” How did she always know? How did she sense that he had called her for comforting, for reassurance? “Everything’s great.”

“You two haven’t fought?”

“Of course not. Why would we fight?”

“I see. Well, whatever it is, Brade,” she said softly, “I think you’re very lucky to have Melissa. Don’t—don’t hurt her, Brade.”

She didn’t wake until nearly noon; the depression didn’t hit her until she was fully awake. Quite suddenly she remembered her dead kit, and the hurting hit her.

The room was hot, the sun slanting in; she was sweaty, tangled in the sheet. Braden was gone. She rolled over clutching the pillow, heavy with depression.

She wished they could stay here in this little village and never go back, that she could forget the Netherworld, that they could forget everything but each other and she could forget the feline part of herself.

Deliberately she made herself think about the gallery opening. She was terrified of the evening to come, terrified someone would see the cat images in Braden’s paintings.How very clever of you, Mr. West. Phantom cats. What a droll idea, so subtle. What, exactly, is their significance?

And at the opening she would have to face Morian: a woman who knew everything about her, who had told her clearly that she knew. She wanted to run away now, but he wanted her at the opening. She would hurt him if she went away now. He said the paintings were hers, that without her they would not have happened, that without her there would be no opening and he would still be sunk in gloom.

She knew she must go, and that she must smile and meet strangers and be nice to them. She would disappear afterward. She would go back to the portal alone, and down, and would never see him again.

She rose and dressed and packed her few things. Braden returned and they went downstairs to Mrs. Trask’s office to say good-bye. The office was as bright and cheerful as the rest of the inn, white wicker furniture and potted plants, and a collection of prints that covered three walls. Some were Alice’s: an etching of winging gulls, a lithograph of swimming seals, and one of horses wheeling at the edge of the sea. Behind the desk hung an etching of a cat sculpture, the cat leaping after a bird. Her pulse quickened. She recognized it from the Cat Museum. And Braden said, “Timorell commissioned the sculpture shortly before she was killed in the earthquake. Alice thought it had some specialmeaning for her, that was why she did the etching, several years after Timorell’s death.”

Now her heart was thundering.

In the museum, she had examined that cat sculpture. She had found no clue that it might contain the Amulet. Now, she burned to go back and look at it again. She moved behind the desk, to study it.

The bronze cat’s fur was roughly done. One could see the globs of clay from which the casting had been made. And within the rough clay patterns, across the cat’s flank, was an oval shape unlike the other texture. A little teardrop shape so subtly different one could easily overlook it, but a shape a bit too perfect. A teardrop the same shape as the Amulet. Excited, she turned away when Braden took her hand. She said good-bye to Mrs. Trask and hugged her. The old woman felt like a rock, draped in her black mourning, but her smile was full of joy.

Chapter 60

Twenty paintings hung on the white gallery walls, each with space around it, each well lighted from spotlights recessed into the ceiling. Hung all together, the rich, abstracted studies had such power they jolted Melissa.

She stood alone in the center of the gallery turning in a slow circle, drinking in the colors and shadows, the reflections, so overwhelmed she felt tears come. Glowing with Braden’s passionate vision, each painting seemed to her beyond what any human could bring forth. She had no experience, from the Netherworld, of the passion or skill that could create such beauty. Braden had brought this power out of himself, out of what he was; she stood alone in the gallery wiping away tears stirred by beauty, by his power; and tears of pain because they would soon be parted.

And she tried not to see the cat images shadowed within the canvases. She prayed no one would see them. Yet each painting whispered with the faint spirit of the cat, lithe and dreamlike, nearly hidden.

She had left Braden and Rye in the gallery office unloading and framing the six paintings from Carmel. The two office desks had been laid with white cloths and stacked with ice containers and liquor bottles, silver trays and boxes of canapes. A long table in the gallery itself held cocktail napkins, stacks of glasses, little plates, a cut glass punch bowl, enough for a huge crowd. And the thought of a crowd terrified her.

Through the fog-softened San Francisco night, they walked two blocks to an East Indian restaurant, leaving Rye to mix champagne punch and hang the last of the show. They sat in wicker chairs with deep cushions dining on lamb curry and a lovely rum drink. It was late when they returned to the gallery. Its street was lined with cars. She felt her heart thudding as they pushed in through the crowd. Braden greeted friends and introduced her. She didn’t like being pressed among so many people, nor did she like the noise of dozens of conversations all at once. Everyone wanted to meet Braden’s model, everyone wanted to compare her face with the work. She wondered why they couldn’t just look at the paintings, justsee the paintings. She wanted only to drift unnoticed, hearing their comments about the work, not about her. She smiled and answered questions, trying to be what Braden expected, and it was not until late in the evening that she began to notice something was wrong.

Braden had drifted away. A dark, intense man was suddenly beside her. When she turned to look at him, ice crawled down her spine.

He wasn’t tall. He was well knit, with short, dark hair. His yellow eyes were vivid in his thin, tanned face. His voice was soft and purring; brazenly intimate. “I like the work tremendously. So subtle.”

She wanted to run from him. He did not belong in this room. He did not belong in this world. He said,“You’re a marvelous model.”

She looked at him coolly.“The model is unimportant; only the painter is important.”

He smiled.“A painter must have—inspiration.”

She glanced around the room for Braden but couldn’t see him. The man moved closer to her. “I’m enchanted by the shadows in West’s work.”

“All paintings have shadows,” she said shortly, edging away from him. Distraught, she backed into the woman behind her, almost spilling the woman’s drink.

He said,“These are unique shadows.” He took her elbow, easing her away to a little space in the crowd. “Unusual shadows. Shadows that speak to me.”

She didn’t want this, she’d been so afraid of this. And suddenly other people were crowding around them: a portly man in a black suit, two women in cocktail dresses. They circled her, blocking her retreat, muttering compliments. They watched her through eyes not ordinary. Her discomfort turned to panicas four sets of feline eyes studied her. Then suddenly Morian was there, moving toward her.

Morian slipped between the two women. She was dressed in a short silver shift, and had silver clips in her hair. She took Melissa’s hand. “There’s a phone call for you in the office.” She patted the dark-haired man on the shoulder. “You can talk with her later, Terrel. She’s a popular lady tonight.” She turned away, guiding Melissa before her.

They went through the office, where two waiters were replenishing trays, into the deserted framing room. Melissa leaned against the work table, weak. She could not look at Morian, she could not look up into Morian’s knowing eyes.

Morian cleared a stack of papers from the couch and sat Melissa down as if she were arranging a small child. She brought her a glass of water from the sink at one end of the work bench.“That was Terrel Black. He’s harmless, but he’s pretty intense. He paints and teaches up at the school. You’re awfully pale. Can I get you something to eat, or an aspirin?”

“No, nothing. Not an aspirin, they don’t—I can’t take them.” Too late she saw the knowing look in Morian’s eyes.

“Thank you for getting me away. I just felt sick suddenly. Maybe the crowd, too many people.” She was trying not to prattle, and afraid to stop talking. She didn’t want Morian to say anything. She felt ice cold. She didn’t know what Morian would do.

Morian watched her, then rose. She found a man’s sweater and dropped it around her shoulders. “Stay here, rest a while. I’ll tell Braden where you are.”

“I…”

Morian turned back, her dark eyes questioning.

“Nothing,” Melissa said. “Thank you.”

Morian nodded, her face expressionless, hiding her own thoughts, then turned away and left her.

She sat shivering, sipping the water. There was a door at the far end of the framing room beyond the painting racks. It led to the alley—they had brought the paintings in that way. She could leave now, slip away down the alley, take a taxi to the Cat Museum, retrieve the Amulet…

Before she could decide Braden came in, preoccupied, frowning.“Mettleson is here. Are you too sick just to meet him? He saw the show this afternoon but he wanted to see the Carmel paintings even in this crowd. He wants to meet you. Could you just say hello, then come back and lie down?”

She followed him out. If she stayed with Braden she could avoid Terrel Black.

Braden introduced her to Mettleson. He was a short, balding man with thick gray hair at the sides of his head running down into a beard. They exchanged polite, meaningless talk. He told her she was beautiful. He praised the paintings. But then Braden turned away to speak to someone, and the next minute there was a shift in the crowd, and she had been separated from Mettleson. Terrel Black took her arm. His friends crowded close, locking her in a circle. She did not see Braden, did not see Mettleson. And the pale blond girl looked deeply at her, her blue, feline eyes intent.“Do you think Mr. West would paint me? Do you think Braden West would paint my spirit as he has painted yours?”

Melissa wanted to claw her. Terrel moved casually between them.“It’s the finest work Braden’s done. I’m awed at his—perception. I didn’t know he—I’m amazed at how much he sees.”

She held her temper.“Braden sees only the color and form, and the reflections of light. He sees only the things he knows.”

Terrel smiled.“He has to see in order to paint. Are you telling us that he doesn’t know what he sees?”

“Surely you see something he does not?” she said coldly, and tried to shoulder past him out of the tight circle, but they closed more tightly around her. Their voices were low, caressing.

“Beautiful paintings…” the red-haired girl said.

“The lovely shadow of the spirit…” said the pale one.

“You know things we don’t,” the portly man said softly.

“Show us,” Terrel said. “Show us, Melissa…Show us how to change…”

She forced between them and ran. She dodged through the crowd knocking people aside, spilling drinks, shouldering and pushing through. She was out the door, running across the dark street between the moving lights of cars. Brakes squealed, a car swerved, lights blazed in her face.

She gained the curb ahead of a squealing car, but nearly fell when she caught her heel. She was panting. She righted herself and ran, trying to lose herself in the blackness between street lights.

But feet pounded behind her and Terrel shouted her name. When she glanced back, four sets of eyes reflected headlights. She ran as she had never run, but she heard them gaining, their feet pounding…

Terrel was too fast; he grabbed her, spinning her around. She scratched at him and kicked.

“We won’t hurt you, we only want…” He held her in a steel grip. “Tell us, Melissa. Tell us how to change.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She faced him shivering. And then in spite of herself, his pleading touched her.

They stood frozen staring at each other.“Please, will you tell us? That is all we want, only to know how to change.”

It was no good to pretend. It was too late to pretend. She said,“You don’t know. None of you know.”

“None of us. We…” Light flashed suddenly across Terrel’s eyes as Braden’s station wagon skidded to the curb. Braden jumped out reaching for her, but Terrel jerked her away. “Tell us, Melissa!” But Braden was on him, knocking him aside, pulling Melissa close. She pressed against him, hid her face against him.

“What do they want?” Braden said.

“I don’t know. Please, will you take me home?”

He tilted her chin so she had to look at him.“I think you do know.” The others stood poised. Braden looked from Terrel to the blond girl to Melissa. “I think you know, Melissa. I think you must do what they ask. I think you must help them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you must free them, Melissa. As you are free.”

She couldn’t take her eyes from his. The two worlds tilted and fell together and she was falling, destroyed.

“Free them, Melissa.”

He held her away, his hands tight on her shoulders.“Do you think I didn’t wonder? You caught a mouse in your bare hands. You were shaking it and smiling until you saw me watching you. You fell from the ledge, turned over in mid-air and landed on your feet. Do you think I didn’t wonder?”

His lips were a thin line.“Don’t you think I saw how the birds in the restaurant upset you—excited you? And the day you got so angry when we talked about people changing into…” He shook his head, his eyes pleading. “Don’t you think I wondered why the cat was never there when you were? Not once did I see you both at the same time.”

“But Morian said she was there.”

“Morian lied.”

“But…”

He drew a breath, silencing her.“Tonight for the first time I saw the shadow-cats in my paintings.” His face was like stone. “Images I did not consciously put there.” His hands were hot on her shoulders.

“And just now, Melissa, when you turned and saw my car, your eyes…” He swallowed. She could see the muscles working in his jaw. “Your eyes reflected the headlights—like mirrors. Like jewels. Like a cat’s eyes.”

She tried to pull out of his grasp.

“Tell them what they want to know. Tell them now.”

She looked at him a long time. It didn’t matter anymore, nothing mattered, she had lost him. She turned within his grip and faced the waiting Catswold. There were more now, ten—twelve—more coming out of the shadows.

And within the shadows someone said,“There is a world—other than this. There is a passage, my family told of it. Tell us about that land. Tell us where the passage opens.”

“There is war there,” she said. “The passage leads to war, to death for the Catswold. Please…” She didn’t believe this was happening. This couldn’t be happening. “I—I can only free you. I can only give you the spell. I won’t tell you how to go there. There is danger there.” She felt displaced, sick. But she must help them, give them the spell. It no longer mattered what Braden saw and heard, she had already destroyed his love.

She said the spell quickly and turned away, pulling Braden toward the car. She didn’t want him to see the changing. As she got in the car she heard the words repeated behind her, and repeated again. She got in. “Go quickly, please.” But he had turned and was watching them. He saw in the darkness the tall shadows vanish into small swift beasts, saw the cats running away intothe night.

Chapter 61

Outdoor lights brightened the fluted borders of the museum’s tile roofs, and the brick paths. Light slanted down through the gnarled limbs of the oak trees to cast their twisting shadows along the garden walls. Braden parked on the empty street and Melissa left him quickly.

She had remained silent as he drove up Telegraph and then up Russian Hill. She didn’t know what to say to him and she didn’t want to know what he thought; she couldn’t bear to know. She didn’t want to hear his accusations. She had lost him. She was filled with the pain of that loss and if he spoke to her she would weep.

She moved quickly away from the car through light then shadow, and in the darkness beyond a garden wall where Braden couldn’t see her, she changed to cat. She crouched uncertainly, then leaped up the wall and over.

She searched the gardens one by one for the sculpture of the rearing bronze cat which Timorell had commissioned. She was not alone within the gardens; other cats prowled, hunting mice and crickets or eating the cat food the museum put out for them. Some challenged her, but none attacked. They seemed more possessive at night, when the museum was exclusively theirs. She found the sculpture at last in a small circular garden planted with lavender. She changed to girl and stood against the sculpture stand touching the cool bronze. The cat was rearing up, the texture of its coat rough with the clay that had originally formed it, from which the cast had been made. She ran her hands along its rough flank, tracing the texture of the metal until her seeking fingers found one perfect oval.

She pressed it, fingered it, but it did nothing. Maybe this was simply the tear-shaped symbol of the Amulet. She could feel no cracks along the cat’s body where the sculpture might open. She tried to tilt the cat but it was bolted down. Discouraged, she whispered an opening spell.

The bronze cat fell apart in two halves.

Within lay the Amulet of Bast, gleaming green in the faint garden lights. When she lifted it, it was heavy and cold to her fingers. She touched the setting that circled it, could feel the two rearing bronze cats. She tried a spell-light, not believing one would come, but her bright light struck across the emerald and deep into it, glowing green.

She saw that the two golden cats circling it were not mirror images. One looked gentle, that was Bast. The other, Sekhmet, was fierce. And deep within the emerald, cut by some magic she didn’t know, shone the sun. Here was the trinity of the cat goddess: Bast the gentle; Sekhmet the warrior; and Ra the sun.

How many Catswold women had looked into this emerald and considered their dual natures? How many women, over how many centuries? She slipped the chain over her head and let the Amulet drop against her, heavy, powerful.

Now the commitment was made. Soon she must face Siddonie and try to destroy the dark queen—the Lillith woman. The power of the Amulet held and terrified her. She felt as if generations of Catswold women had come alive within her, as if their spirits had joined, waiting to see what she would do.

And when at last she faced Siddonie she would be facing not only the queen of Affandar, but the eternal evil. As Bast had killed the Serpent, so she again must kill it.

She returned to Braden, needing desperately to be with him for the few moments more they had left. In the car he sat looking at her, and reached for her, drawing her close.“Can you tell me what you did in there? Can you tell me any of this?”

She looked at him in the darkness, then brought a small spell-light so the emerald shone, hanging at her breast. His eyes widened. She let the light dim and she went into his arms again. He touched her face, stroked her hair, but he didn’t speak. She moved close within his arms, desolate.

With the finding of the Amulet, the Netherworld and the upperworld had warped together. But their own two worlds had shattered totally apart.

Chapter 62

Braden turned the station wagon into the lane, his headlights slewing across the flowered hill. Melissa kissed him and slid out of the car and ran. He jammed on the brakes and was out, too, running, grabbing her.“You’re not going down alone.” She had told him everything, had described the Netherworld for him, had built a picture of Siddonie’s evil, and of the rising war. “I’m going with you.” He held her wrists, so insistent she couldn’t break free.

“You can’t go, you have no protection, no magic. They—”

“I have other skills. I’m coming with you.”

His eyes burned her, his grip bruised. There was no use to argue with him. She said,“Then you must do as I say. There are things you must have—things I wouldn’t need alone.”

“Like what?”

“A lantern or oil lamp—not a flashlight. A knife strong enough for a good weapon. Some food.”

“Why doyou not need a weapon?”

“I can turn a weapon away. I told you, magic is a weapon there.”

He didn’t move, just held her prisoner.

“Please, Braden, there is little time.”

“I’m not leaving you alone.” Gripping her hand, he headed for the studio.

“I’ll wait for you, I promise. I must make slow, careful preparations. Please—hurry, get some food for us. And bring a blanket.”

He searched her face, holding her tightly.

“You’re wasting time, Braden! I promise I will wait! You must trust me!”

He released her at last and turned away, running for the studio. She saw the studio lights go on as she pushed in through the portal. She said the spell, she was through the wall when Braden burst into the tool room. She shouted the closing spell; the wall swung closed in his face.

“Christ! Melissa!” His voice was muffled.

“Are you hurt?” she screamed.

“No, for Christ sake. Open the damn wall!”

“I love you, Braden. I will love you forever. I will come back to you.”If I can, she thought, turning away and choking back her tears. She ran down into the blackness.

She was soon cold in the thin dress. And the upperworld sandals were not meant for rocky paths. She kept repeating over and over,Please, Braden, know that I love you. I must do this. There is no way I can avoid facing Siddonie.

But she had no plan. It was madness to think she could destroy Siddonie alone, even with the Amulet.

Never had a journey seemed so long. She was very cold, and grew despondent. On and on down the rocky path, longing to turn back and be in Braden’s arms. Longing to forget Siddonie and the war, and knowing she could not.

Even if she turned back, she would not be safe. Nothing would ever be safe.

When at last after long hours she saw the green light beyond the tunnel mouth she ran. She splashed through the stream into the full green glow of morning—and came face to face with a saddled gray gelding. He shied at her and snorted, backing away within his spell-tether. She stood in the mouth of the tunnel looking for his master.

This was not a horse she had seen in the stables or pastures of Affandar. And his saddle had not come from the palace—it was an elven saddle, square and plain. Seeing no one, she broke the spell, snatched up his reins, mounted, and headed for the palace. She didn’t care where he had come from. If Affandar was already at war there wouldn’t be a horse left anywhere.

In sight of the pale wall she pulled up the gelding to a walk. The pasture was empty. There was no sound from the palace, and no person visible. No smoke rose from the chimneys. She could see no movement at the windows, no one in the gardens. She tethered the gelding by the wall, not wanting him trapped in the courtyard, and she slipped through the side door into the scullery.

She found the scullery deserted, the cookstove cold. No food had been left on the counters. She searched the main floor chambers; the corridors echoed with her footsteps. Every room was empty. She went into the courtyard; and there, from a side door she saw Terlis and Briccha gathering vegetables in the garden. When Terlis looked up and saw her, the pale girl moved behind a row of bean vines and slipped away from Briccha. Soon a side gate flew open into the courtyard and Terlis was hugging Melissa. Melissa was surprised at how glad she was to see the child. She clung to Terlis almost desperately. How thin Terlis was, and how dark the shadows under her eyes.

“It’s been so long, Melissa. I knew you would come today, the Harpy said you would. I’ve watched all day for you.”

“Was it she who left the gray gelding?”

“Yes, he was the last decent horse and he wouldn’t have been here, except a deserter came home. The Harpy was here last night. She terrified me—I’ve never before seen a harpy.”

“Are we at war? Has the whole palace gone to war?”

“Yes. It’s strange for the palace to be so empty; most everyone rode out with the army.” Terlis shivered, and Melissa saw in her eyes the same fear of war she had seen in the faces of the rebel families: a fear of the loss of home and sustenance, loss of a way of life.

“The queen was so cruel and nervous before she rode out, worse than ever, pacing, shouting orders. She was still here when the dying prince recovered. When he ran away she had the whole palace upside down.”

“He recovered? Tell me.”

“He began to eat. I took his food up sometimes; he was actually hungry. His color came back almost overnight. Though he didn’t talk much. But then soon he was out of bed riding beside the queen. He was weak of course, clumsy in the saddle, but far from dying. Siddonie took him everywhere; soon all Affandar knew he’d recovered.

“But two weeks ago he disappeared. The queen was in a rage. She called the seneschals into her chambers, questioned everyone in the palace. She sent every seneschal and half the guard to search for him.”

“He just disappeared? What happened?”

Terlis’ eyes widened with delight. “A cat, Melissa. I saw a cat hiding in the gardens. The queen would have caged it if she knew. A fine big cat, all golden, and I know it was more than cat, too.” Terlis grinned. “After the prince vanished I didn’t see the cat anymore.” She looked at Melissa strangely, and touched her cheek.

“Then soon afterward the Harpy came. She’d been a long time gathering folk to join the rebels. There are none that can fly except her. Except the lizards, but they belong to the queen.”

“The Griffon can fly.”

“The Harpy was afraid to release him; she is afraid of him. She said he might do anything. You can hear him roaring in his cage. All the Hell Beasts are nervous and screaming.”

“The Griffon is not a Hell Beast.”

Terlis only looked at her.“Rumor is that the selkies have all disappeared from the rivers, that an elven man saw dozens of selkies fleeing toward the eastern mountains.”

Melissa gripped Terlis’ shoulders. “Tell me exactly where the fighting is. Tell me everything you know.”

“The Harpy left a long message. I helped her strip the beds, and she talked all the while. She made me repeat it to be sure I remembered.”

“She stripped the beds? In the palace? Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know. She took all the bed sheets, every sheet in the palace, clean or soiled.

“The queen has told her armies the rebels mean to enslave the Netherworld. She tells them the rebels plan to take all the land. She has made her troops afraid of being enslaved by the rebels so they will fight more fiercely. The Harpy says that at the front lines the rebel troops are caught by the queen’s spells, that they sicken with fever and are torn by thirst. Even where the streams run cold, they often cannot touch water. Her magic drives them back as if by a wall.”

Terlis shook her head.“Canteens containing water go dry, and the Harpy says Siddonie has laid rotting-spells to tear the rebels’ clothes from them. Naked, they are the more vulnerable to every blade, and they are cold and demoralized.”

“Has Siddonie spell-cast all our forces?”

“She puts her spells only on the ones that draw near the front lines of battle. The Harpy thinks she hasn’t enough power to hold spells upon all the attacking troops.”

“Is there anyone left in the villages?”

“Only a few old men and women, and the smallest children. The villages have little to eat—Siddonie has destroyed everything.”

“Where is the fighting?”

“In Ferrathil now, but moving toward Cressteane. Siddonie means to cause the Catswold troops from Zzadarray to fight beside her. The Harpy said to tell you that.”

“How did the Harpy know I would come? Of course, her mirror. But—”

“The Harpy said to tell you this: You are Timorell’s daughter. You have found what you needed to find. Now use it.” Terlis looked at her, shivering.

Melissa said,“You must go back to the gardens and keep Briccha occupied. The horse will still be here when I’m gone. You can put him in the pasture.”

At Terlis’ puzzled look she turned and headed for the dungeons.

Chapter 63

Braden tore at the wall with his hands, smashed his shoulder against it, threw all his weight against it. It refused to move. She had opened it; her words had opened it. He had seen the wall swing inward, had seen her go through. The solid stone wall had slammed in his face, had hit him in the face, scraping his jaw and arm, bruising his hands. For an instant he had seen into the tunnel, had smelled the damp, raw earth. In the light that Melissa had made he had seen the walls of the tunnel leading down deeper into the earth. Then the wall had shut her away.

He fought the wall, battering at it and swearing, then he grabbed the ladder and ran at it, rammed the ladder’s end against the stone with such force that he broke the heavy side bar and the first two rungs. He flung it down, knowing coldly that only by magic could the wall be moved though he did not believe in magic.

Hadn’t believed in it.

He shoved the ladder aside, grabbed the metal wheelbarrow and swung it, hitting the stone with all his weight and force. Chips of stone flew in his face, pale gouges bloomed in the dark stone. The wall didn’t move. She was gone, where he could no longer reach her. He found the shovel and dug into the mortar, trying to pry the stones apart. Then he dug into the earth beside the stone. He would dig into the damned tunnel that way.

But then digging, jamming his foot hard on the shovel to ram it into the earth, he felt a draft behind him, and a beam of light hit the dirt in front of him. He swung around.

Morian stood looking, taking in the toppled wheelbarrow, the broken ladder, the shovel in his hand, the broken earth where he had begun to dig.

“She’s gone,” she said softly.

“Yes, she’s gone! Through the damned wall! You knew!” He stared at her, totally enraged. “She went through the goddamn wall. She went into the goddamn hill—and you knew it.How did you know? Christ, you knew what she would do.”

“You saw her go through the wall?” She was so damned calm he wanted to hit her.

“Yes, I saw her. The damned wallopened. She slammed the stone wall in my face.”

Morian laid her flashlight on the work table, leaving it burning. It cast a pool of viscous yellow onto the wall and left the rest of the room dark. She took the shovel from his hand. She pulled his hand into hers, holding it tightly. She picked up the flashlight again, its beam flashing across her silver cocktail dress.“Come on, Brade. Maybe I can help.”

He glared at her.

“I’ve been up in Olive’s empty house,” she said. “I left the gallery just after you did. I’ve been up there at Olive’s dining table reading her research.” She squeezed his hand tighter. “Before that, when I left the gallery, I followed you.”

He felt himself shiver.

“I saw Melissa, I saw her on the street. I saw the flash of her eyes in the headlights. I saw a crowd of people around her—around you both.

“And after you got in the car I saw people change into cats and run away into the darkness.”

She led him out of the tool room and up the dark garden. The only sound was their footsteps and the faint brushing of his pant legs against the tangled flowers. She said,“After you and Melissa drove away, and the cats ran away, I came home and let myself into Olive’s. I dug into her notebook.” She led him up the steps to Olive’s front door. Lights were on in the living room, the draperies closed. Inside, the room was cold and damp from being unoccupied. Morian sat him down at the dining table as if she were herding a small child, and she opened the notebook.

He didn’t want to read it; he pushed the book away. “I don’t need this, Mor. I know all this. She told me.”

She sat down at the table across from him.

“She went down there, Mor. Hell, it doesn’t help to know where she went. She shut me out. She shut me out of her life. I saw her go through a damn solid stone wall into another world, another life.”

He stared at Morian.“I have known Terrel Black for years. We have taught each other’s classes. Got drunk together, won awards in the same shows. Tonight I saw Terrel Black change into a black cat with one white foot.

“And I saw Melissa go through a solid stone wall into a world that can’t exist. And you knew about this. All the time, you knew.” He slammed the notebook shut.

“Not all the time, Brade. It took me a while to work it out. It took me a very long while to believe it.”

“She promised to wait for me in the tool room, but she didn’t wait. Christ, Mor, she’s going down there into the middle of a war. She told me that. She can’t—she can’t go back there alone.”

“Are you sure?”

“She went into the Cat Museum. She insisted I stay in the car. She came out wearing an emerald pendant. She said it had powers, I could—I could feel the powers.”

“She loves you, Brade.”

He stared past her toward the drapery-shrouded windows, realizing that for some time lights had been flashing and shifting against the pale cloth.

Morian turned to look, then rose and opened the draperies.“Sam’s is crowded, the lane is jammed with cars.”

He got up woodenly and went into the kitchen and began opening cupboards looking for a bottle.“Doesn’t Olive have a damned thing to drink in here?”

“The tool shed door is open, Brade. I know I closed it behind us. It—Brade…come here.”

He couldn’t find a bottle. Where Olive usually kept a fifth of brandy there was only a half pint of seltzer. He went back into the living room and stood beside Morian, who was looking out at the arcing lights swinging across the window as more cars pulled into the lane. He saw that the tool room door stood open. Beyond the door in the lane where cars were parked double, triple, the people getting out were not heading for Sam’s; they were heading for the portal. That was what it was called: the Catswold Portal. The damned door that had lured Alice.

There were cats in the lane, too; cats leaping out of open car doors and cats suddenly appearing in the lane as people vanished. Soon there were more cats than people; in the flash of headlights dozens of pairs of eyes flashed. Cats and humans moved together toward the Catswold Portal. Braden saw Terrel Black in human form. He watched Terrel push in through the portal and watched the dark, quick shapes of cats slip in past his ankles, cats only half-seen in the fragmented light.

“How the hell did Terrel know? Melissa didn’t tell him. How did he know to come here?”

“Terrel came back to the gallery. He wanted to know where Melissa lived; he wanted to know if she lived here with you. He remembered the door from the times he’s been to the studio. He talked about the cats carved on the door.”

More car lights were going dark like huge pairs of eyes winking closed. Soon most of the parked cars were dark. A few last figures hurried after the others up the garden and through the portal, pushing into the tool room which was, like the airlock in a submarine, the anteroom to another world.

Morian said,“Can they open the wall?”

“I don’t know. Back there on Farrel Street, she didn’t tell them how. Christ, I don’t know if they can open it.”

“What did she tell them, Brade? Exactly what?”

“She told them—how to change into cats. It was a rhyme. A spell. Christ, this isn’t happening—it can’t be happening.”

She moved away from him and picked up her keys from the dining table. She took his hand and led him out and down the steps and across the dim garden toward Anne’s darkened house. He watched the lane, the portal, trying to figure out what to do. He felt numb, incapable of thought.

Morian unlocked Anne’s front door and pulled him inside and across the dark living room toward Tom’s room. The room smelled closed and musty. She leaned over the bed and shook the boy awake. He came up fighting and crying out, and she clapped her hand over his mouth. “Shut up. You don’t want to wake Anne.” She pulled him out of the bed, holding his hands so he couldn’t fight her. “Get dressed. Hurry up.”

“Go to hell. Why should I get dressed? Leave me alone.”

She twisted his arm behind him.“If you don’t get dressed at once I’ll wake Anne. I’ll tell her the truth—all of it.”

The boy subsided and stooped to rummage on the floor for the pants and shirt he had dropped when he went to bed. He pulled them in angry jerks, glaring at them. When he was dressed and had tied his shoes, Morian propelled him out of the dark bedroom and out through the unlit house, down the steps and down through the garden. They entered the tool room and pushed through the crowd toward the stone wall, through the flickering light of an oil lamp. The boy stared at the crowd of people and cats as if he walked among snakes. Morian faced him toward the wall.“Open it.”

He stared at her white-faced.“What are you talking about?”

She twisted his arm until the boy dropped to his knees.“Open the wall.” When he didn’t move or speak she pulled him upright, shoved him against the wall, and slapped him. The crowd of Catswold folk watched her silently, intent and predatory. After seven slaps the boy began to whimper, soon he choked back a cry. Braden was growing alarmed for him when finally he whined, “I’ll open it. Stop hitting me and I’ll open it.”

Morian smiled. She seemed to have no pity for the child, as if the fact of his youth did nothing to deceive her perception of his true nature.“Hurry up and open the wall. What is your name?”

Braden said,“He is Wylles, prince of Affandar. Melissa told me that.”

Wylles’ eyes raked Braden. But he whispered the words, his voice furtive and nearly inaudible. The wall swung away, revealing the black tunnel beneath the hill.

Cats leaped past them. A man pushed through, then two women. The smell of damp earth breathed out cold from the hollow blackness. Terrel hurried through swinging a lantern, glancing shyly at Braden. Someone behind Braden in the tool room said,“There are more lamps,” and soon five lanterns had been lit. Braden found he was gripping Wylles’ arm hard. He grabbed the canvas bag he had dropped earlier, when Melissa had slammed the wall in his face, and dragged the boy into the tunnel behind Terrel and the cats. Already the crowd of Catswold had disappeared into the dropping blackness. Digging his fingers into Wylles’ shoulder, Braden paused to look back into the tool room, at Morian.

She stood beside the table, her dark eyes reflecting wonder and fear. She looked at him deeply for a long moment, then she turned away.

“Close the wall,” Braden said hoarsely.

Wylles’ spell swung the door closed with a hush of compressed air. They were in darkness. The faint light of the lanterns was fast disappearing ahead.

Chapter 64

The swinging light of the lanterns jabbed and shifted along the tunnel walls. The shadows of humans and cats tangled together hurrying down into earth. Voices interlaced in whispers, as if to speak too loudly might call forth from the earth things one would not want to summon. As the tunnel dropped, the glancing light picked out falling chasms, picked out stone slabs tilting over them. Spaces yawned, then suddenly the tunnel closed in, the walls soon pressed against Braden’s shoulders. Fear traveled with them, fear of being trapped beneath the earth. But his companions seemed unafraid. A powerful longing drew the Catswold on, a need Braden could only guess at as the Catswold hurried deeper down into the core of the earth. He felt above him the weight of tons of stone, and he began to sweat. He had never suffered from claustrophobia, but now a nearly uncontrollable fear gripped him; he fought the panic, fought a screaming need for space and air. If not for Melissa somewhere down there in that cavernous world he would have gone racing back to pound uselessly on the stone wall that separated him from the world of light and air, would have dug with his hands at the tunnel walls, trying to break through.

He still held Wylles’ shoulder, alternately pushing the boy along and then, when Wylles tried to bolt, jerking him back. Wylles was their only source of information, the only source of the spells which the Catswold folk must learn if they were to survive in the world they approached. And when after several hours they stopped to rest, Braden forced Wylles to say for the gathered Catswold the spell for changing, then the spell for light, then spells for turning away weapons. The Catswold tested each. In the hoary half-dark among lantern shadows the Catswold folk changed from human to cat, and from cat to human, a metamorphosis that made Braden’s skin crawl. Sharply now, he realized that without magic he would be severely crippled in the Netherworld.

Melissa had told him that.

Well, hell, he had fought in other wars. If this war was different he would compensate for his weakness. War couldn’t all be fought by magic, not all swords and spears would be deflected. To calm his fears he concentrated on the exotic glimpses of the inner earth given him by the lanterns, images like sudden scenes from a slide projector: waterfalls snaking down fissures, slabs of stone swinging out over black emptiness, echoing spaces dropping as if into hell itself. He imagined he could hear the whispers of dark gods, of Hecate, of Cerberus; he imagined the voices of the Hell Beasts Melissa had described too graphically. And now, no human figure shared the tunnel with him, except Prince Wylles. They all had turned to cats. He picked up the abandoned lanterns one by one, strewn down the tunnels. Alternately dragging Wylles then restraining him, burdened with lanterns he was unwilling to leave behind, Braden felt like some modern day, clumsy Diogenes.

He had no idea how long they had been in the tunnel moving ever downward. All ability to measure time had left him—the journey seemed outside of time. Several days might have passed; endless nights might have gone by stacked one on another as if someone had shuffled all the dark cards together.

The end of the world would be like this. Unrelieved blackness hiding whatever waited, so that neither size nor scale nor space could be clearly understood; mankind would be flung into dimensions of which they had no comprehension.

Suddenly ahead a figure appeared in his light: one of the cats had changed back to human. Then another. Another. Voices rose. Soon a crowd again filled the tunnel. But he did not see Terrel change, he saw the black cat with a white foot running on ahead, swift as wind. And far ahead a faint green light stained the blackness.

Around a bend they entered a green glow, then around another bend they saw the ragged hole, green lit, that marked the cave’s mouth. He pushed Wylles ahead faster.

The boy was too docile now, almost sleepy. Braden tightened his grip before the prince could jerk away and run. Together, captive and captor, they hurried toward the hole filled with green mist.

The stream they had followed flowed out into the light, and the few remaining cats leaped through the water and away into the Netherworld. On the far shore they shook their paws then sat licking them dry, looking around them at the green world, at the home they had never seen.

Melissa’s world. He imagined her in the ambient greenness reaching out for him, her green eyes loving him, and he was riven with longing for her. And with fear for her—and, perhaps, with fearof her.

The gathered Catswold were silent; the only sound was the bleating cry of a dove from the forest, a homey, familiar sound as he might hear on the brown grass hills of Marin. And in the silence the few remaining cats began to regain human form as if this world might be too unsafe to remain small.

But suddenly something exploded toward them out of the sky above the woods. A huge white shape flew straight at them, a creature far bigger than any bird, winging clumsily. It gave a human cry and its white-feathered breasts swung as it flapped down to an ungainly landing on its long bird legs.

The Harpy landed in a storm of beating wings and immediately embraced Braden, smothering him in dusty feathers. The feel of her feathered body against him was shocking. Like holding a bird—warm and too soft. He thought of Melissa’s description of the Harpy, but in real life the beast was quite beyond description.

Her voice was rasping and querulous.“Why did you bring Wylles? I didn’t see that in the mirror. We don’t need that burden.”

“I needed him to open the wall. And to teach the Catswold the spells.” He glanced at her mirror, dangling between her breasts. “If you could see us coming, you could see that we needed Wylles.”

The Harpy laughed.“I suppose we can deal with the boy. Tired,” she said, leaning against Braden. “I thought you’d never get here. Can your Catswold folk ride?” Then she saw their blank looks. “Have to teach them that, as well. Can anyone use a sword?”

“We can learn,” Terrel said.

“I suppose,” said the Harpy without enthusiasm. “There is precious little time.” She tucked Braden’s hand beneath her arm and led the little band toward the forest. Braden moved swiftly, but the Harpy kept hopping and flapping as if impatient with earthbound creatures. The woods were low,twisted, filled with black hollows beneath low growth and with tortured, oddly rounded shadows. Low branches like deformed arms reached out at them; everything in the forest seemed to be watching them.

Braden thought they had traveled for about an hour when he saw they were approaching a village. The thatched huts were made of mud and straw and were surrounded by an outer circle of animal pens and of lopsided storage sheds. Between the huts, inside the central compound a dozen old men and women and four small children were saddling a herd of tired-looking ponies. Beside the fence lay a stack of weapons, a sorry arsenal of axes and rusty swords.“Give Wylles to me,” said the Harpy.

Gladly Braden handed the boy over. He watched the Harpy lead him away and shut him into a hut, pulling a bolt across the door. When the ponies were saddled she made the Catswold mount up, and began to teach them to ride. She gave Braden the only decent horse—the gray gelding Melissa had left. “I suppose you can ride. I heard you tell Melissa you could.”

He looked the Harpy over.“What else did you hear me tell Melissa?”

The Harpy smiled in a way that made his face heat; he recalled Melissa’s description of how vividly the mirror reproduced its visions. The Harpy smiled and handed him a battered sword. “Go practice on the hay mow. That old man in the blue jerkin will show you what you need to know. Be quick, Braden West. I have a more important job for you to do.”

Chapter 65

Melissa descended the cellar stairs among the roars of the Hell Beasts. She cast a spell-light as she moved downward past bins of onions and hanging hams, then soon was dodging the reaching claws of the caged Hell Beasts. She had removed the blue-and-green dress and put on the hunting leathers that Terlis had fetched for her from Efil’s closet. She felt warm for the first time since she had left the tool room and garden. Thoughts of the garden stirred pain, but she must not think of Braden now.

The borrowed sword she had taken from the queen’s soldiers’ barracks hung at her side heavy and comforting as she approached the Griffon’s cage. She found the lioneagle sound asleep, his golden body forced against the bars, his golden wings jammed between the bars, a few bright feathers sticking out into the passage. He was very thin, hisribs curving beneath his yellow pelt. But still he seemed filled with power. She paused, remembering tales of the Griffon’s unpredictable nature. She removed her sword and laid it on the stone floor of the passage, to show her good faith. Then she said the spell that swung open his cage door, andshe stepped inside.

Within the cage she knelt before the Griffon. He slept deeply. She touched his smooth, thick beak that could crush her arm with one bite. His eagle head rested heavily upon his lion’s paws, his feathered neck emerged powerfully from his golden lion’s mane. As she stroked him, the tuft of his tail began to flick. For a moment she longed to run, to slam the cell door behind her and lock it. She thought of the Toad’s homily,Kiss of emerald blessed by Bast can please the steed of Nemesis, and, leaning over the Griffon, she touched his feathered cheek with the Amulet.

When he moved, her heart skipped. When he opened his eyes, she forgot to breathe. He stared at her muzzily then he woke fully and lunged at her, knocking her flat.

He stood over her roaring, his yellow eyes blazing, his broad beak open above her throat.

She shoved the Amulet into his face.

He drew back blinking.

She got up and stood facing him. He watched her intently, his golden eyes searching her face at first hungily and then with curiosity. When she didn’t back away, his look softened. Gently he lifted a broad lion’s paw and touched her face, a paw soft as velvet, and warm. He slid his paw down from her cheek over her chest to rest upon the Amulet. She daren’t move. He opened his beak in the grin of the hunting eagle as if he would rip her suddenly, and when he spoke in a coughing roar she was faint.

“What do you want, child of Bast? How come you to have the Amulet?”

She swallowed, trying to make her voice work.“I—I have a right to the Amulet, it was my mother’s. I—have no mount powerful enough to carry me into battle.”

He looked hard at her.“What battle?”

“The Netherworld is at war.” She looked into his broad, avian face. “Siddonie of Affandar has gone to war to conquer all the Netherworld.”

He looked hard at her.“You come here alone.”

“Yes.”

“You would go alone to fight her? And how would you stop her?”

“I would stop her with truth. She wins with lies, with deception, but the Amulet can destroy lies.”

“You have only the Amulet with which to defeat her?”

“And a sword. And—and your power, if you would carry me.”

“And what would I gain by doing that?”

“Siddonie caged you. She took you from your forests. If you help me defeat her, you will fly free again.”

The Griffon shifted his weight. When he tried to lift his cramped wings, she could see they were stiff. His gaze didn’t leave her. She stared back at him boldly. He stroked his beak across his paws, then turned his head and with his thick beak he groomed the golden fur over his thin ribs. He seemed to be listening to something far away, or to something within himself. She waited.

At last he looked full at her again.“There is more at stake in this battle, young woman, than you yet know.”

He said,“Old, dark powers are rising. The queen has waked the primal dark which is the sire of all evil.” He looked at her intently. “Do you not sense this? Does not the rising power of that deep and primary evil touch you, daughter of Bast?”

The Griffon nodded sagely.“The serpent rises, Catswold queen. The dark enemy of Bast again rises.” He poked his thick beak at her. “Show me the Amulet. Hold it up so I can look at it.”

She held the emerald before him and brought a spell-light to shine on it. Deep within, the emblem of Ra burned. The Griffon’s gaze grew intense. When he had looked a long time he snapped his gaze on her suddenly. “We are kin, daughter of Bast. You bear the blood of Sekhmet. You bear the lion’s blood.”

She shivered.

The Griffon placed a heavy paw on her shoulder.“Dark stirs now across the Netherworld. The Serpent Apep stirs and wakes; the primal dark wakes.” The Griffon’s broad golden beak opened wide enough to swallow her face. His breath smelled like spoiled meat. “I must eat a proper meal before we start out. I am weak; they know nothing about feeding griffons.”

She led him up the stone stairs to the next level, and watched him cut down hams with a sharp snap of his beak and tear them apart and devour them. Up the next flight, in the scullery, he drank dry the water barrel. She could see through the scullery windows that Terlis and Briccha still worked in the garden, picking beans. As she led the Griffon out toward the courtyard he said,“What made you think you could wake me and not be eaten?”

She laughed.“I had to try.” She gave him a wink, as she had seen Morian wink, and a slow smile. “The Harpy warned me you were fierce.” They moved into the empty courtyard, and Melissa slid onto his warm back.

He looked around at her and spread his golden wings and he leaped skyward in a rush of wind, rising straight up above the palace. She stared down at Terlis, saw the white oval of the child’s face looking up, then they had left the palace behind, tilting so close to the granite sky she had to duck. He shouted, “Are you afraid?”

“Yes, I am afraid.” She stroked his neck as her heels dug comfortably into his sides. The Griffon twisted around again and gave her an appraising look. Under his old, wise gaze Melissa felt very young.

He said,“Remember, daughter of Bast—daughter of Sekhmet—one must ride into battle meaning to kill. Any other thought courts defeat.” He banked low over a forest. “If you die, you die. One cannot think of that; it saps the strength.” He sped above a deep valley, then above rising white cliffs. “The battle has centered at Cressteane. I sense it like a stench blowing. I sense her there: the dark queen.”

Chapter 66

On a narrow ridge east of Shenndeth, Siddonie sat on her horse watching a band of mountain elven driven screaming and fighting over the cliff. The pale little people grabbed at the soldiers’ horses and jabbed with their lances as her horse soldiers clubbed them. For three days her armies had been routing these small, hidden bands, working north from Lettlehem toward the main area of battle. Her troops had swept Lettlehem clean, as well as Pearilleth and now Shenndeth, leaving the villages stripped of life and food.

Below her a dozen winged lizards banked and dove at the bodies strewn along the cliff, lapping their blood. When a new lizard, a big male, heaved down out of the sky she held out her arm to it.

It wore a collar. It landed so heavily it nearly unseated her. Its eyes seemed still filled with the Hell fires from which it had just returned. Its long, slick body shone like ebony, its leathery wings glinted with black scales. It grunted a greeting, then spoke in a guttural hiss forced up through its long, narrow throat.

“Three rebel bands west of Cressteane,” it said, “hiding in the mountains.” It smiled a toothy grimace. “Fear touches them, the spirit of the dark beast has found them. It plays with their fear like dragons play with a lamb.” The lizard’s black tongue flicked with satisfaction.

Siddonie nodded.“And what else? What of the main rebel army? And what of the Catswold? What has the dark beast done to the Catswold?”

The lizard turned its face away, as if she would strike it.“The Catswold do not heed the dark beast. I flew all the way through that endless tunnel to Zzadarray. I saw the spirit of the beast lying like fog over Zzadarray darkening the streets and chambers, but the Catswold moved through it never seeing it, never aware of it.”

“That is not possible.I can see it, and so can they! I see it every night in dream.”

She did not speak of her fear at night as the dark beast came exploding into her dreams. She would not speak of that to a lizard. The dream filled her with rage.She had called the beast, it must obeyher. No creature, no being, dare have power over her. She said,“The beast should be driving terror into the Catswold. Why is it not?”

The lizard gazed at her intently.

“Go back. Go back there and find out!”

“But I can tell you why.”

“Why, then? Speak up!”

“The primal dark has risen at your call, but that does not mean it is your servant, Queen Siddonie. You have summoned the dark that lived before the earth was formed. You have challenged it, but it goes where it pleases and it destroys only as it pleases. That beast will never be ruled by you.”

Her hand circled its throat.“I am its heir!I am daughter of Lillith. Itmust obey me.”

The lizard opened its wet mouth in a mirthless smile, and wriggled as her hand tightened.“You have found the power to summon it. It is drawn to you as surely as I am drawn to blood, but that does not mean it will obey you.

“The primal dark is not your slave, Siddonie. You are its slave.” It choked suddenly, strangled by her throttling grip; she cast it away from her. It dropped, then righted itself and flew above her clumsily.

“Go back,” she shouted. “Go back and learn more about the Catswold. I want to know why they resist.”

From the stone sky, the beast glared at her, then plunged away flapping.

Chapter 67

Zzadarray’s towers were airy, open to the Netherworld breezes. The city was built of pale stone, the pillars and stone facades carved into leaf and flower designs. The upper chambers let onto balconies, and the lower chambers onto small private gardens scaled to a cat. In the main city, preparations for war were under way, conducted as smoothly and seemingly without effort as the stalking of small game through Zzadarray’s grassy meadows. The Catswold from Marchell and Cathenn and Ebenth had joined those of Zzadarray, and they were heavily armed.

All the Catswold women had taken human form. They wore their finest silks and their sacred jewelry, golden anklets, amber necklaces, ruby and emerald girdles. Lapis and emerald combs were fastened into piebald locks, religious treasures all, brought down to the Netherworld in ancient times from the Celtic lands and from Egypt. In the white stone temple as the women knelt, their jewelry was blessed by the five Catswold priests, and their weapons and the weapons of the Catswold men were blessed. As midnight approached the Catswold nation prepared with feasting and then with spells and with prayer. Tomorrow they would ride against the dark queen.

Their rituals spoke to the sun god Ra, though none of them had ever seen the sun. They prayed to Bast and to Sekhmet, speaking in the lost cadences of Cyprus and Crete, or in the tongue of Mycenae and Knossos. But in spite of the ritual spells a tenseness held the Catswold, a fear none could name, a sense of threat far greater than Siddonie. As dawn began to green Zzadarray’s towers, the rituals ended. The Catswold went silent; a wariness held them. And then they sensed a nearer threat. Something approached the city. Someone moved through the forest toward Zzadarray and it was not one of their own.

Weapons were sheathed, spells were repeated. And a dozen Catswold took feline form and moved into shadow among the trees, listening, watching.

Soon every Catswold heard the hushed footfall of a lone horse, and smelled the crushed leaves and grass. At the edge of the forest a branch moved and a rider emerged on a tall, fiery horse: not a horse of this world.

The rider was a woman, young and thin, hard muscled. Her black hair was streaked with orange, her face sharp-planed, and the shadow image of a darkly mottled cat clung about her. She was dressed in the golden robes of the Catswold queen, yet the Catswold did not lay down their weapons for her. They did not kneel. Why would a queen appear now, when no queen had appeared in Zzadarray in a generation?

When they saw that she was followed by a consort, an ermine-robed king who rode in the shadows behind her, whispers flared across the crowd and arrows were fitted to bow.

Her consort was Efil of Affandar. And from out of the forest behind him emerged an army of horse soldiers. The Catswold warriors mounted their steeds, and faced the advancing party quietly.

The approaching warriors were hard-looking men and women. They were Catswold but they were strange. And far more alarming than their looks was the fact that they rode upperworld horses and wielded oddly shaped swords and knives of unfamiliar design. Their clothes, though seeming at first to be Netherworld garments, were not of the Netherworld.

The approaching army paused in the forest shadow. Their eyes gleamed like jewels in the dimness, and then as they moved out of the forest the darkness of their tanned faces struck another foreign note.

The Catswold queen—if such she be—sat her mount haughtily, studying the gathered Catswold, studying each priest intently. The Catswold nation watched her.

Then she shook her dark, mottled hair, and fingered her golden robe open, revealing a thin, sheer gown which draped over her breasts. And between her breasts against the gold filament hung an emerald. It was huge and tear-shaped. It was held by two gold cats, their paws joined. It was the Amulet of Bast, or it pretended to be.

“I am Helsa. I am your queen. The wisdom of the Amulet has brought me to seek you.”

“For what purpose?” said a priest.

“Because you are my subjects,” she said, smiling gently.

“And also I come to free you—to lead you against Siddonie of Affandar. I mean to free you from her subjugation. I mean to free all Catswold and to strengthen the four eastern nations. I come,” said Helsa smoothly, “to free the Netherworld.” She smiled again, speaking softly. “Won’t you kneel to your queen?”

No one moved. No one knelt. Helsa’s eyes narrowed in thinly concealed anger. But she was Catswold; she knew better than to demand that they kneel. She said, “Within the hour I mean to ride to defeat Siddonie. I hope you will join me in setting our nations free. I pray, as Catswold queen, that you will see fit to arm and provision yourselves to ride against Siddonie.”

When still no one spoke or moved, Helsa’s color rose and her eyes blazed. But still her words were soft. “Would you see Siddonie of Affandar destroy us all and defeat Zzadarray?”

A priest said,“We are only shocked, my lady. The Netherworld Catswold have seen no queen in my lifetime. Indeed,” he said smoothly, “we will follow you to destroy Siddonie.”

Helsa nodded.“I mean to ride out in an hour, once my troops are rested. I pray you to sharpen your heaviest weapons. If Siddonie should win this war, all the Netherworld will be enslaved. And for nothing,” she continued. “Siddonie has no longer any right to the throne of Affandar.”

A puzzled hush held the gathered Catswold. The five priests glanced at one another.

Helsa said,“By Netherworld law, Siddonie has no valid claim, now, to the throne.” She gave Efil a bold look. “I am now queen of promise. I carry within me the future prince of Affandar. I carry King Efil’s child. The soothsayers have so confirmed.”

After a long silence, someone among the Catswold said,“The child of Efil and Siddonie is well again. All the Netherworld knows that.”

Efil sat his horse calmly. He looked very pale beside the sun-darkened Catswold woman. He said,“The boy who travels with Siddonie is not her son nor mine. The boy is a changeling. He was brought by Siddonie from the upperworld.” The Catswold folk shifted and glanced at one another but no one spoke. Efil said, “Soon I will produce Wylles. I will show you the two boys side by side. Meantime, hear your queen. She is not only Catswold queen but queen of promise of Affandar. Hear the plan we have structured.”

Helsa waited for their full attention. Her creamy voice carried as insidiously as a breeding cat’s rich mewl. “I have promised Queen Siddonie that I will lead you with my own band of upperworld Catswold to fight beside her. I have told her that together we will defeat the rebel bands.”

Her voice softened to a haunting murmur.“We join with Siddonie’s armies on the battlefield. And then,” Helsa said, her hands curving as if she made claws, “we will turn on them. We will destroy Siddonie’s troops and destroy Siddonie. We will kill her and free the Netherworld.”

There were nods among the Catswold. But again the priests glanced at one another. Helsa watched them and smiled, and raised her fist.“One hour.”

And as she turned away, one among the crowd said,“My name is Oeden the Black.” And another said, “I am Galvino Grayleg.” Helsa turned back and nodded, smiling at them because they had given her, by such greeting, admission of their belief and fealty.

When Helsa had gone to rest, the Catswold moved about their hasty chores, their eyes meeting slyly at the lies their men had been able to speak to this false queen. If, while wearing the Amulet, she could not detect lies, then she was not of queen’s blood and likely the amulet was as false as she.

Yet quickly they made their final preparations for war, readying supplies, inspecting horses and equipment. King Efil moved among them, greeting one then another. He spoke for a long while with the Catswold priests. He did not notice an occasional cat slip away between the robes of its companions; he had no notion that three dozen cats left the ranks of the preparing warriors.

Helsa was escorted to the most luxurious apartments to rest. She was led through the honeycomb of pale stone bowers and grottoes to a high tower, to a chamber walled in white marble and carpeted with embroidered cushions. She took off the outer, ceremonial robe of gold lam?, and in her transparent gold shift she stretched out on the damask covers of an ornate bed. She did not change to cat. Glancing above her at the high, small alcove lined with silk, she studied the true bed of the apartment’s occupant. The alcove looked deliciously comfortable, but she did not intend to abandon her human form. She lay relaxed, stretching, thinking with satisfaction of the web she and Siddonie had woven.

She had told the Catswold she would pretend to join Siddonie, then destroy her. Efil, too, believed this. The fool thought he would remain king. He thought he had charmed her, won her. Only Siddonie knew that Helsa would, in truth, lead the Catswold to be slaughtered. Plan and counterplan, lie and counter lie wove an intriguing tangle.

She smiled, warm with Siddonie’s promise. Her tough street loyalty had been securely won during Siddonie’s three visits to the upperworld ranch. She respected Siddonie; the queen was strong. Soon she would ride by Siddonie’s side as her disciple, and when Siddonie died she would be heir to the throne of Affandar and to all the thrones of the Netherworld, for surely in this war they would win every nation. When Siddonie died, she would be queen of the Netherworld.

She slept briefly and lightly, hearing every sound near the chamber. She woke and lay supine for a moment, then flipped up, drew on the gold robe, adjusted the hood, belted on her sword, and was prepared to ride.

Chapter 68

The army moved out of Zzadarray with Netherworld Catswold and upperworld Catswold riding side by side. The upperworld horses were several hands taller than those of Zzadarray, and the upperworld Catswold were edgy, predatory, and impatient. The mixed band moved quickly down the steep ridges heading for the valley and the mountains beyond, making directly for the valley of Cressteane.

But not all Helsa’s troops were with them. A cadre of mounted San Francisco street rabble waited unseen in the forest, and when only the old folk and children remained in Zzadarray these riders stormed the city with the violence born of Siddonie’s training. They ransacked the chambers for jewels, tore at the walls of the buildings, cudgeling and breaking the soft stone. They were primed to kill and torture, but they found no Catswold—the city was deserted. The old and the frail had turned to cats and vanished into the forest. Then suddenly out from the forest rode three dozen Zzadarray Catswold armed with bows and with heavy, spell-cast swords.

Soon on the streets of Zzadarray, Siddonie’s soldiers lay dead.

Helsa’s army moved slowly down the steep, corrugated ridges formed of sandstone and clumps of twisted trees growing stunted from the stone. Far below lay the plain hidden by mists of steam rising from hot underground springs. They must cross the plain then cross beneath the mountains on the other sideto reach the plains of Cressteane. The sky above them was low, and broken by streaks of white crystal. They rode silently. Helsa and King Efil, at the head of the army, were flanked by two Zzadarray priests. Helsa had dispersed the three other priests to ride at the head of three battalions, perhapsas leaders or perhaps to separate them. A Catswold priest was a military captain as well, a freely elected leader. The refinements of corruption which elect most officials had not touched Zzadarray. The Catswold folk were too stubbornly independent to tolerate corruption. Thus Helsa felt it best that these priests be separated.

The upperworld Catswold troops sat their horses eagerly looking across the plain toward the far mountains, primed and honed for battle. And the warriors of Zzadarray who rode beside them watched them closely, wondering at the fervor of upperworld folk to save a foreign land.

They did not reach the plain that night but camped on the escarpments, and finished their descent the next morning. By the evening of the second day they had crossed the plain and were at the foot of the mountains, nearing the deep passage that, two days hence, would bring them up into the heart of battle. They were dismounting to make camp at the foot of the mountains when a captain shouted, and men began to point up toward the peaks. Something was flying toward them above the mountain, its thin shadow shifting and gliding across the granite sky. In the falling green light its wings shone golden. It flew with great power, its broad wings describing long, slow sweeps.“A griffon,” whispered one of the priests, and the Zzadarray warriors smiled and sheathed their swords. But Helsa rode tense in the saddle and the swords of her troops were drawn.

The Griffon dropped toward them. At the last moment its golden wings snapped out to break its fall; it thundered earthward, driving the horses back so they reared and shied. Its rider’s sword was drawn, and as the Griffon came to rest and his rider faced the Catswold troops, a sigh escaped the Zzadarray warriors. She was Catswold and there was about her a presence that held them staring.

She was beautiful and slim. Her piebald hair was tangled from the wind of the Griffon’s wings, hair of red and gold and platinum and black, the hair of a true Catswold queen. She was dressed in fighting leathers, and she held her sword comfortably. Her eyes were as green as the emerald which hung between her breasts, drawing the gaze of every warrior—an emerald circled by two golden cats, twin of the pendant Helsa wore. The young Catswold woman ignored Helsa; she seemed to see only the faces of the warriors. Helsa stared at her, white and still, then lunged suddenly, spurring her horse to a leaping charge, her sword leveled at the woman’s throat.

Melissa felt the Griffon tense, and a dozen emotions swept her as the girl’s sword flashed and she parried with her own. The Griffon twisted, knocking the girl’s horse to its knees, and Melissa slashed her sword aside. She grabbed the horse’s bridle, snubbing him, and pressed her sword to the girl’s chest, knowing she could kill her with one thrust. She was shocked at how young the girl was, maybe fifteen. Though her green stare was far older, brazen with street cunning.

“Who are you? What is your name?”

“Helsa!” the girl spat. “I am Helsa.” She lunged and tried to snatch away the reins. Melissa slashed her arm, drawing blood, and Helsa’s face filled with hatred.

“Why do you wear the golden robes of a Catswold queen? And what is that stone you wear? Do you claimthat to be the Amulet of Bast?” She felt pity for the girl, and she feared her. “Answer me! What is that stone you wear?”

“The Am…It is the Am…”

The lie would not come; the girl could not lie within the true amulet’s presence. She stared at the true stone, trying to speak, her face white.

“Name that stone for me. Name the stone you wear.”

Silence.

“Name it! What is it?” Her sword pressed harder. “Where did you get it?”

Still Helsa was silent.

Melissa pulled the reins tighter, jerking Helsa’s horse close. “Name it.”

“It…” She choked, stared at Melissa with rage, and spoke at last as if she could not help but speak, as if she had been forced to do so. “It is—it is a common emerald.”

“Has it power?” Melissa glanced past the girl to the listening troops.

No answer.

“Has it power?”

“It has…It has no power.” The girl sat up straighter in the saddle, her face sharp with hatred.

“Where do you come from?”

“From—from the upperworld.”

“Tell me why you wear a false amulet.”

Helsa stared into the brilliance of the true amulet, clenching her lips, refusing to speak. Melissa prodded her hard with the tip of her sword.“Do you wear it to deceive the Catswold warriors?”

Reluctantly she nodded.

“Why do you deceive them?”

The choice of silence seemed no longer to remain to her.“I—I deceive them to defeat them. I—mean to defeat the Zzadarray armies.”

“Throw away the false stone, into the dirt.”

Helsa didn’t move. Melissa prodded her again, drawing a deep wound. The girl glared but did not cry out; now her eyes showed fear. Melissa prodded again, cutting down her arm, sickened at doing this and knowing she must. At last Helsa removed the false emerald and dropped it in the dust.

“Take off the robe.”

She removed the golden robe and lay it over her saddle, her eyes filled with ruined dreams. Melissa took up the robe with the tip of her sword, and pulled it on over her leathers as two Zzadarray soldiers took the reins of Helsa’s mount. The girl, nearly naked in her thin shift, seemed frail and vulnerable. Melissa touched the Amulet at her throat. “Tell the Catswold warriors your true mission. Tell them what they would have found if they had followed you.”

“Their death,” Helsa said tightly. “My mission was to lead them into Siddonie’s trap.”

“This was your real promise to Siddonie,” Melissa said,

“that you would bring the Catswold to her to die.”

“Yes.”

One of the five Zzadarray priests rode up close to Helsa, spurring his shaggy horse, his white robes open to reveal his fighting leathers. He faced Helsa angrily, showing no pity for her frailty and youth.“You are a Catswold woman. By what perversion would you destroy your own people?”

“By this perversion, priest,” Helsa said boldly. “I am to rule Zzadarray! I am to be Siddonie’s only heir. She has promised I will rule all the Netherworld after her death.” And suddenly Helsa turned, knocking Melissa’s sword aside, snatching up her reins and spurring her startled mount. Melissa caught the girl’s arm as the priest swung his blade. He struck Helsa from the saddle, cutting her throat in one blow.

Melissa stared down, shocked at the girl sprawled in the dust, and Helsa, as life bled from her, slowly changed to cat. Soon a thin, darkly mottled cat lay bleeding in the dust at the feet of the circling horses. Melissa turned away, shaken.

The priests of Zzadarray buried Helsa deep in the earth of a world she had never known. And Melissa saw, in the eyes of the upperworld Catswold who had come here with Helsa, the beginning of uncertainty.

She mounted Helsa’s horse and pulled the golden hood up to hide her hair. The horse was a tall, distinctly marked pinto that she suspected Siddonie had chosen so Helsa would be easy to see during battle. She turned to look at the Catswold troops gathered behind her, then led them out toward the tunnel that would bring them into Cressteane.

Earlier she had seen from the sky the lines of battle, the plains of Cressteane crowded with the armies of eight nations, their tents filling the dry plain some distance from the Hell Pit. And in the Hell Pit she had seen the leaping flames stirring wildly, licking up at the sky as if they would leap from the pit to run unchecked across the desert, consuming warriors and horses. She had seen deep down within the fires a darkness writhing, growing denser. She had watched a huge black beast take form among the flames, and watched it fight to leave the Hell Pit rearing, falling back to rear again. The Griffon had dived down close above the beast, looking, and she had felt its evil engulf her, more malevolent than any Hell Beast. She had never seen the beast before, but a deep race knowledge filled her, a memory that washed her with panic. This was the primal dark—this was the seed of evil. Nothing anywhere, in any world, could match its evil. This beastwas the core, the primal corruption. The black beast had lunged up reaching for the Griffon as if they were toys flung in the air.

Now she looked at her troops for a long moment, then looked up at the sky where the Griffon glided. And, filled with fear of war, and with terror of what waited in the pit, she pressed on quickly, leading her armies toward Cressteane.

Chapter 69

It was midnight, the battle was stilled by darkness. Siddonie made her way alone from her tent across the sleeping battlefield toward the red glow of the pit. Around her, exhausted soldiers slept. She could hear the occasional snort of a horse and the moans of the wounded. She approached the pit, lusting to touch the dark beast.

“Apep,” she said softly. “Eblis. Apollyon.” Powerfully she willed the dark beast to her. Willed it to invade the minds of her enemies. She stepped nearer the edge where flames licked and exploded, and suddenly she wanted to climb down the sheer sides and leap into the fires. She longed to embrace the black dragon.

But suddenly that desire struck terror through her; she drew away shaking and sweating.She was daughter of Lillith. The dark beast had no right to control her.She had the right to use it.She—Siddonie—she alone was heir to the primal dark.

Chapter 70

The ponies jogged along steadily behind Braden’s gray gelding. The Catswold folk from the upperworld, dressed in borrowed Netherworld leathers, were hardly distinguishable from Netherworld peasants. Except, on closer inspection, they had better styled haircuts, and the women had pierced ears and painted nails. They handled their horses passably; they had learned more quickly than Braden had thought possible. Likely it was their feline balance. The sturdy ponies had made good time across Affandar.

By now, the women had wiped off their lipstick and tied their hair back or slicked it under caps, and their manicured hands were dirty and blistered, and they carried sharpened shovels and axes and crudely made bows. Above them the Harpy circled impatiently.

For Braden, the upperworld had faded, the Netherworld was all that was real. The earth beneath him was solid. The hard stones under the gelding’s hooves struck sparks. The smell of pine and juniper filled his nostrils. The cold rush of the river where they had stopped to water the horses had left his boots wet. The stone sky above him seemed totally normal, so that if he were again to face the emptiness of the upperworld sky he would feel too exposed.

He rode with one thought in mind, one goal. Melissa.

He turned once to urge on the pack pony he led. Each rider led a pack animal, heavily burdened with a long, cumbersome bundle.

And when suddenly the Harpy did a wingover and dove at the horses, he responded at once, moving his mount on fast.“Kick those ponies,” he shouted, “get them moving!”

“The pit is beyond that mountain,” shouted the Harpy.

“We will camp at the crest. On the other side, the valley is thick with Affandar warriors.”

Chapter 71

Melissa, riding the upperworld stallion meant for Helsa, wearing the golden robe Helsa had worn, led the Catswold warriors into the dark tunnel. The green of the Netherworld night disappeared behind them. As they pushed into total blackness they brought spell-lights. The Griffon walked among them, his wings folded in the tight space; he was cross and nervous confined thus, and the Catswold warriors kept their distance from him. Melissa was surprised he had stayed with them.

The journey took all night. They stopped once, at the tunnel’s deep springs, to water and rest the horses and feed them from the bags of grain they carried. It was well past midnight when they came up out of the black tunnel and turned south. The Griffon had burst out ahead of them, lifted away, and was gone.

Soon the stone sky grew red, reflecting the fires of the Hell Pit. Beyond the flaming pit burned hundreds of small fires in the camps of the two armies as the enemies waited, facing each other across an expanse of empty plain in the enforced truce of darkness. The air was filled with smoke.

Fear made Melissa’s hands sweat on the reins, and with her uncertainty the stallion began to fuss and shiver. She could hear, ahead, occasional low voices and the muffled cries of the wounded. They pushed on to the lip of the Hell Pit then drew back startled. The pit was broad here, and it seethed with liquid fire in rolling waves. But deep within the fire a blackness writhed—a dragon, its thick coils stretching away in both directions—humping, sliding, disappearing as the fires shifted. Melissa backed her trembling horse away.

Watching the dragon, they dismounted and led their balking mounts fast up the steep cliffs beside the pit. They entered a narrow overhead pass tunneling through the granite sky above the Hell Pit. The terrified horses went slowly, sweating and shivering. Melissa alternately fought her stallion and talked to him, drawing him on.

They came out of the tunnel and onto the battlefield in the first green light of approaching dawn, greeted by the crash of metal and by soldiers boiling out of the two camps. Hooves thundered as rebel troops swept in waves toward Siddonie’s armies. Melissa’s horse lunged and pawed, wanting to join battle. Already the fighting stretched for more than a mile, and the clashing and screams filled the valley. But suddenly an enchantment of terror hit the battlefield. The spell weakened Melissa as if water ran in her veins. Rebel horses bolted, their riders frozen with fear in the saddle to fall under the blades of Siddonie’s army. All across the plain the rebel lines fell back. Fleeing horses stumbled over their fallen riders. Could this be Siddonie’s magic? Did the dark queen, alone, have such power?

Fighting her fear she led the Catswold warriors straight into battle, though many upperworld Catswold drew back. Ahead, Siddonie loomed suddenly among her fighting men, the black stallion rearing and charging. Melissa gave the sign and leaned low in the saddle, and they charged the queen at a dead run. She saw Siddonie’s warriors separate to surround the Catswold. This was Siddonie’s plan. She would expect Helsa to draw back and be captured. She signaled again and her troops separated, swerving away in two arms circling the Affandar troops. She saw Siddonie’s movement of surprise, saw her jerk her horse, saw her shout orders but couldn’t hear the words.

Siddonie’s soldiers wheeled to form a wider pincer. The Catswold warriors wheeled and cut them off. They had lost more of the upperworld Catswold; Melissa could see them, galloping away to safety. She could see also, behind Siddonie’s troops, the rebel bands closing in. And suddenly a roar came from above and the Griffon dropped over her, sweeping low, knocking Affandar soldiers from the saddle. At the same moment Melissa charged, her soldiers with her. Beneath the Griffon’s diving attacks they began to drive Siddonie’s troops back. They cut the Affandar soldiers down and forced them into theswords of the pursuing rebels. Again and again the Griffon dove and they attacked, and with each sweep a wave of the queen’s troops fell. Men lay dying. Loose horses pounded away. Melissa thought Siddonie was shouting a spell. But the queen, surrounded by enemies, shouted suddenly, “Truce! I want truce!”

The Catswold warriors paused, looking to Melissa.

“Truce,” Melissa breathed warily. Her hood was tight around her face, and in the confusion of battle surely Siddonie still thought she was Helsa. Was this the moment the two had planned, when Helsa would turn on her own troops and help kill them?

Siddonie rode forward alone to face the gold-hooded Catswold queen. But then she half-turned, aware of something behind her. And Melissa saw within the flames of the pit the black dragon rising up. Its thick body looked like a gigantic, endless tree rising. Its head touched the granite sky snaking, seeking. And now suddenly Siddonie recognized her, her face was transfixed with rage. Suddenly she dropped low over the saddle, her sword drawn, and charged Melissa. Melissa could see her lips moving in a spell, could feel the cold power weaken her, enervating and lulling her…

No!

She roused herself, grasping the Amulet shouting a spell against Siddonie, as their swords met.

Melissa felt Siddonie’s blow like fire in her arm. She saw the Griffon dive to distract Siddonie, and she struck the queen, nearly unseating her. “Now, Griffon! Again!” He dove and she struck again. The queen twisted. Her mount stumbled under the Griffon’s driving weight, and the Griffon grabbed the queen’s arm in his powerful beak, as Melissa struck the sword from her hand.

Facing Siddonie, Melissa shook back her hood, and opened her cloak to reveal the Amulet.

Siddonie went white, but then she laughed at her.“That is not the true Amulet! A useless toy. A common emerald.”

“Is it?” Melissa said softly. Then, “Speak to your armies, Siddonie. Tell your soldiers that you fight to free the Netherworld.”

Siddonie smiled and turned to face her armies. Her captains pressed their horses nearer. But when the queen tried to speak, she could not. She opened her mouth but her voice would not come.

Melissa said,“You cannot lie before the Amulet.” She watched Siddonie’s rising uncertainty and anger. “Tell your soldiers, Siddonie, that you fight to free the Netherworld.”

The kings who had ridden with Siddonie were close around her now, her brother King Ithilel, King Moriethsten of Wexten, King Craysche and others. But as the gathered armies waited for the queen to speak, and as they realized the queen could not speak, Melissa saw one king then another draw back.

King Bedini of Ferrathil left Siddonie’s side, then Hevveth of Chillings. Soon other kings turned away, and only four monarchs remained beside the queen of Affandar.

Melissa said,“Can’t you speak to your armies, Siddonie? Can’t you tell them they fight for freedom against the slave-making rebels?”

When Siddonie remained mute and the silence had stretched taut, some of Siddonie’s own officers turned their horses away.

But other soldiers drew closer to her, watching their queen. And suddenly with no warning a dozen Affandar soldiers attacked Siddonie, grabbing her horse, trying to pull her from the saddle. Her stallion plunged. Siddonie screamed a spell that sent the men reeling, and sitting her fighting horse, she laughed. But Melissa rode at her hard, grabbing the stallion’s bridle.“Tell them!” she shouted, jerking the horse to her, her sword poised at Siddonie’s throat. “Tell them what they fight for.”

When Siddonie tried to shout her lies her voice strictured and broke as if hands circled her throat.

“Tell them!” Melissa thrust her blade, blooding the queen’s cheek.

“I’ll tell them,” the queen shouted suddenly. She stood up in the saddle looking out at her armies. Her face was flushed, her eyes blazed, and she was laughing, a cold, brittle cry of sound. “You fought to become my slaves!

“You fought to enslave the Netherworld. To enslave yourselves.” Again she laughed, harsh and challenging. Standing tall in the stirrups, laughing in the faces of the kings who had followed her and in the faces of her soldiers, she shouted, “That is my power over you! Total power! You fought to become slaves to me. You have killed your brothers for me and have thanked me for the privilege of killing them!”

Her laughter broke as she shouted a spell toward the pit. At the same moment Melissa saw the Griffon dive directly for the pit, and as Siddonie’s spell spilled across the battlefield, Melissa’s blade was knocked from her hand and the queen lunged at her, her knife flashing as she pulled Melissa into the blade.

Chapter 72

Pain shot through Melissa’s shoulder. She unsheathed her knife as the two horses lunged and spun. The queen struck her a glancing blow that nearly jolted her out of the saddle. But suddenly Siddonie hesitated, and Melissa was aware of silence around them. No soldier moved, all were staring beyond Siddonie.

Behind Siddonie the black dragon had risen up out of the pit, its coils humping above the flames. As the black beast towered against the stone sky it became a dozen serpents reaching and striking, then became one again. It lunged at them, its head scraping the sky, its eyes blazing with the Hell fires. Deep within its gaping mouth Melissa saw the Hell fires burning. Its roar rang with the tortured screams of the damned souls that were a part of it.

Melissa’s horse was shivering, his eyes were white-rimmed, his nostrils distended. Siddonie sat her horse smiling, waiting, licking her lips as the serpent slid swiftly toward them across the battlefield.

It lunged at them like a mountain unleashed. Horses wheeled away, foot soldiers fled. But a dozen mounted soldiers attacked the beast, their spears striking at it like pins hitting a mountain. It snatched them up and drooled their blood. Melissa spun her horse, charging beside her troops. She saw the Griffon appear out of the smoke of the Hell Pit.

He dove at the dragon but the beast flung him aside. The Catswold troops charged the beast, and only absently did Melissa realize she was wounded, or pay attention to the faintness that gripped her. She thought her dizziness was fear. But as she rode straight for the beast she heard Siddonie cry a changing spell.

The change hit her: she was suddenly cat, clinging to the saddle of the running horse, her knife gone, the black dragon coiled over her.

Her scream was a yowl. As she was lifted in the dragon’s flaming mouth, she saw that all the Catswold warriors had changed. Around her hundreds of cats were sucked up from the saddle, fighting, twisting, into the black maw of the dragon. His body was like dense smoke. Choking, she tried to change to human and could not. She tried to bring a spell against the dragon and was powerless. The beast’s shifting form revealed glints of stone sky that vanished again as around her cats screamed, falling against her. She thought she heard Braden shout her name and felt rage at the deception.

A louder shout made the beast pause. Now suddenly the suspended cats dropped twisting down as if scattered from a cloudburst. Cats dropped to the battlefield and fled, changing to human. She saw Siddonie near to her. The queen had gone dead white. She sat frozen in the saddle, staring off to the south.

The calico leaped to the back of a riderless horse and saw across the battlefield a group of riders approaching, running their scruffy ponies straight at the massed armies. She dug her claws into the saddle, unbelieving.

Fifty immense white banners, slung from poles, flapped above the running horses. Melissa heard from the massed armies a sigh of shock. Siddonie seemed unable to look away from the banners. Her hands trembled, and the reins dropped loose under her fingers as she faced their powerful magic.

Each banner was blazoned with Siddonie’s face. A huge, lifelike portrait. The queen’s face was repeated fifty times, and in the wind of the galloping horses the banners stirred and flapped and the faces seemed alive, twisting and grimacing.

The Affandar queen cringed in the saddle, diminished.

The serpent she had called from the pit grew thin in breadth and thinner in substance so the mountains showed plainly through its coils, and it began to blow like smoke back toward the pit.

The banners snapped. Siddonie’s fifty faces writhed. Siddonie herself seemed powerless. The four kings who had remained beside her wheeled their horses and fled as if the power that held them had snapped. Siddonie kicked her horse, trying to flee too, but now her reins were held by her own warriors. She screamed and hit at them, her face a parody of the banner images. Her curses raked the air. And it was then that Melissa saw the image maker.

Braden rode standing in the saddle. She wanted to ride galloping to him. She brought the spell, but could not change from cat. She was wounded, her shoulder drenched with blood. She kneaded her claws uselessly as Siddonie’s sword swept at her.

Braden saw the queen raise her sword. He spurred his horse, felt the unwieldy banner jerk in his hand. He hung on to it, riding hard for Siddonie as she lunged at the calico cat.

He swung the banner so hard Siddonie was knocked from the saddle. The calico’s horse bolted, the little cat clinging to the saddle. “For Christ sake, Melissa! Change!”

Silently crying the spell, she was suddenly sent reeling up tall. She was awkwardly astride a racing horse; she snatched up the reins and pulled him up. Her right hand was clutching the Amulet.

She saw the smoky coils of the serpent twisting across the sky above the Pit, growing thinner as it descended down into the flames. Then light struck the battlefield, glancing through the serpent’s coils. Light bathed both armies, and within the light shone a woman tall as the mountain. Her body was robed in gold. Her face was the face of cat—leonine, bold.

Sekhmet stood over the battlefield, her eyes burning with light. The serpent was gone, blown apart.

At Melissa’s breast, the Amulet burned with light. And then Braden was holding her, his lips against her forehead. Together they watched the golden lion-woman, her glow embracing the warriors, watched her until the goddess vanished. And when at last Melissa looked up into Braden’s eyes she saw that he was different. As if something lost long ago had been given back to him; as if the chasm between his own two worlds had been bridged.

Chapter 73

Siddonie stood captive, held by her own warriors. Melissa remembered a younger Siddonie bringing dolls to the house in San Francisco, remembered the frightening games Siddonie had tried to make her play. She watched the kings gather, King Bendini of Ferrathil, gray and grizzled; young, dark King Allmond of Shenndeth; King Terragren of Cressteane, sitting his horse straight as a rod; King Plaguell of Pearilleth, a great rock of a man. She watched each of the twelve kings accept a banner from a Catswold upperworlder—the bed sheet banners that Braden had painted to liberate the Netherworld rulers. The kings raised the images solemnly. Melissa listened to their prayers of thanks for Siddonie’s defeat, their voices carrying across the battlefield. Every head was bowed.

When the prayers were finished, King Plaguell said,“We will not execute the queen of Affandar here on the battlefield. There will be a formal court at the palace of Affandar. Our own transgressions will be recounted, as will hers, to become a part of Netherworld history. The events of this year will be documented, never in future to be forgotten.”

The twelve kings circled Siddonie, holding high their banners, her portraits turned toward the center of the circle where she must face them.

As the kings completed their circle around the cold-faced queen, Melissa saw Wylles sitting astride a shaggy pony among the upperworld Catswold. The prince’s arm was held securely by Terrel Black as the boy watched his mother’s defeat. Seeing this, Melissa turned away, pressing her face against Braden’s shoulder.

Chapter 74

It was midnight. Few lights burned in Affandar Palace, though smoke from many chimneys drifted toward the granite sky. In a large second-floor chamber Melissa undressed before the hearth’s bright flames. Firelight flickered and shifted against the pale walls. As she slipped into bed, the creamy silk sheets felt delicious against her bare skin. She slid against Braden’s nakedness, letting his warmth engulf her. They did not make love. They were silent, thinking about the dead queen.

Siddonie’s trial had ended at noon. She had been hanged two hours later in the palace courtyard, in a ceremony Melissa hadn’t watched.

It was stupid to feel sad for Siddonie. She had brought only misery and fear.

“What was she?” Braden said. “What kind of creature? A totally evil woman…”

“Daughter of Lillith. Slavemaker. A destroyer of the spirit, Mag said.”

“I like Mag,” Braden said. He laughed. “Mag and Olive hit it off, all right.”

“And the Harpy,” she said, smiling.

He kissed her forehead lightly, stroked her hair.“Three grand old girls. Best thing that ever happened to Olive.”

They had watched the two old women and the Harpy wander off together as the gathering in the main hall finished and folk, yawning, headed for the chambers that Briccha and Terlis had prepared. They had watched Tom and Wylles, too, as the two boys made the first tentative advances in a wary, uncomfortable relationship.

Wylles and Tom had ridden together side by side as the Affandar troops returned to their homeland. The two boys, prince and changeling, were visual proof of Siddonie’s deception. To the peasants they passed in the villages, the living signs of the queen’s betrayal had been as impressive as word of her defeat.

Melissa didn’t know where Efil had gone, or care. Anyway, Affandar had no more royalty. King and queen had been replaced by a council. Soon all the Netherworld would be ruled by elected councils.

Only Tom had spoken well of Efil. King Efil had shown him how to resist Siddonie, and had caused him to be awake when Pippin came to the window of the palace.“When I saw my yellow tomcat looking in from the balcony,” Tom had said, “that was pretty great. I didn’t believe it at first, but then suddenly Pippin wasn’t a cat anymore.” He had grinned broadly. “A warrior was there. But,” Tom said, “the warrior had Pippin’s eyes.”

Melissa turned, watching Braden.“I’ll miss Pippin.”

“And so will Tom. I think Pippin has become a true Netherworlder.”

“Maybe he’ll come back sometime,” she said wistfully.

“Maybe he’ll come up with Olive when she’s ready to leave.”

“If she’s ever ready. She’s as at home as if she belongs here.”

“Olive longed for years to know about this world.” Melissa slid closer against him. “So many things to sort out, so much for the new councils to do. And at home—all the legal things about Siddonie’s enterprises. So complicated.”

“Did you say, at home?”

“I guess I did,” she said, grinning.

“You would leave the magic?”

“There’s magic there,” she said.

“And what about the legal complications? Do you want to stay here, forget them?” He stroked her cheek.

“I want to be where you are.”

“No one said we can’t live in both worlds.”

“No one said that…” She sighed. “We can live where we want to live, as long as we’re together.”

He kissed her and drew her to him, kissing her throat, her breasts. She returned his kisses at first lazily then with a hot, magical passion more powerful than any spell. He put his hands under her, lifted her to him. The fire’s shadows played across them, cloaking their slow, sensuous lovemaking. He saw the room for an instant as a painting, then he was lost to her; saw the chamber cloaked in breast-shaped shadows forming a rich, dark world, with two pale lovers at its center; and the shadows trembled in the firelight.

Near to dawn she woke with the sudden need to become cat. She whispered the spell and, as the calico, she snuggled on Braden’s chest; he was deliciously warm, hard muscled, safe. She kept her claws in, but let her pleasure rumble deep in her throat. And of course her purring woke him; he raised his head, surprised, then lay stroking her, laughing at her.

She rolled over on her back and lashed her tail, biting at his hand. She felt giddy, wild. As cat she was small and vulnerable, but she was safe with him. He stroked her until she bit his hand too hard, then he swore at her. She leaped off the bed, raced to the dressing room, changed to girl, and pulled on her leathers and boots.

Within half an hour they rode out through the palace gates, heading northeast. When Melissa looked back at the palace windows, their departing reflections were sharply defined: two lovers riding out with a picnic basket tied behind his saddle.

By mid-morning they were skirting the Affandar River. They had passed through half a dozen villages teeming with returned warriors already plowing and planting crops. They had passed children who had yesterday gone to war as grooms and pages, now gathering wild roots and mushrooms and small wild fruits, and hunting the game birds that yesterday had been forbidden to them. Melissa had shown Braden the dry underground river with its water-carved caves, and they had crossed the high ridges above the sheep meadows. Where the Affandar River ran deepest, foaming over boulders, they tied the horses and spread out their blanket. And on the banks of the deep Affandar River they made slow, easy love, then dozed.

They woke ravenous, and attacked the picnic. She had packed cold roast dove and fresh bread, peaches and berries and grapes. They had not finished eating when the river began to change.

Within the foaming rush, the center of the river grew still. A glassy pool formed, reflecting the low stone sky. At its center, deep down, something dark stirred. Braden sat up, watching.

The dark shadow moved again. Then the pool’s glassy surface broke into ripples, circling outward. And suddenly, a hump broke the water. Another. Another, until seven humps made a line across the river like the back of a huge water beast. Braden had eased his knife from its sheath, but Melissa stayed his hand. And then the farthest hump pushed up out of the pool, and they saw it was a horselike head, its nostrils distended, its mane streaming water. Then another surfaced. Another. She laughed out loud at his surprise when he realized he was looking at seven horses swimming.

The horses heaved up out of the water onto the opposite bank. They were wild-looking, stocky beasts with wide nostrils, wide eyes, and tangled, sodden manes. The water ran from their manes and tails. They stared at Braden. Their eyes were dark, mysterious. And suddenly the horses were gone and in their places stood seven stocky men with wide, dark eyes, their beards streaming water. They spoke as one.

“Welcome, image maker.”

Braden looked amazed, then grinned. He lifted his hand in greeting to the selkies. The seven old selkie men looked at Melissa.“Welcome, sister—shape shifter. Welcome, Catswold queen. Your work has been well done. The whelp of Lillith is dead.” They turned, expecting no answer, and moved away upriver walking single file. Only far upriver did they turn into stocky ponies again. They switched their tails, cocked their ears, and leaped straight down into the fast water.

She said,“Few have seen the selkies. It is a sign of peace that they have returned.”

“I would say wonder was more descriptive. How long do you suppose they were there?”

“Not long,” she said, coloring.

He laughed.“Gram would have loved seeing them.”

“I think your Gram would have been at home in the Netherworld.”

He nodded.“She would have.”

“Maybe she was, once,” Melissa said.

“Maybe,” he said, laughing. “Anything’s possible.” He reached for her and held her by the shoulders, looking at her seriously. “I want to paint this world.” He searched her face. “But I never can. It would reveal too much.”

She touched his face.“It would reveal too much only if the paintings were seen in the upperworld.”

“But no one—there are no—”

“There is no one here to feel the power of your paintings? Are you so sure?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“No galleries. No critics,” she said. “No one learned enough to praise you.”

His eyes blazed. Then he laughed.

“They know power when they see it,” she said. “They know magic when they see it. And they know love. They don’t need a degree for that.

“You could,” she said softly, “be the first image maker this world has known. You could bring to the Netherworld a new kind of magic.”

Chapter 75

Sun flooded through the windows of Mathew Rhain’s reception room. Melissa stood within the warm light looking down at the city. Five stories below her lay neat squares of clipped grass and beds of flowers. The streets bordering Union Square were solid cars, moving in a tangle of noon traffic.

They had arrived early; Rhain was still with a client. Braden sat on the leather couch facing the window, reading a newspaper clipping that the blond secretary had given him when they arrived. It was Mettleson’s review of the show. He looked up at Melissa and grinned. “‘…Symphonic mystery…West’s best work to date.’” He handed her the clipping. “You’ll like the ‘beautiful and elusive young woman’ part.”

“Is he always so right?”

“Not always,” he said, laughing.

Rhain came out with an elderly woman dressed in a stiff navy suit. He ushered her out, then led them into his office. They sat at the conference table, and he pushed a thick file across to them.

“These are the financial particulars of Lillith Corporation. This is a preliminary report only, a collection of letters, cables, bank statements, summonses, court documents, legal research. You can take it, go over it at your leisure.” Rhain paused, looking them over. “What you have in mind will not be easy.”

“But it can be done?” Melissa asked, watching him.

“I think we might do it. We won’t be sure until we get deeper into it, but I think we can do it.” He smiled. “I know the Kitchens will be pleased. Of course you know you could start from scratch more easily.”

She said,“We want to do it this way.”

Rhain nodded.“The Alice Kitchen West Foundation. Yes, the Kitchens will be pleased.”

Braden said,“Thanks for the review of the show.”

Rhain smiled.“I liked the show. There was a second news release, too. But not about the show.”

As he leaned back, his red hair caught the light.“I have a friend at the Museum of History. He showed me a release he prepared last week, a bit of publicity meant for a feature article. I—persuaded—him this wasn’t worthwhile publicity, that perhaps the whole project was not worthwhile. I told him that perhaps the museum would fare better by accepting, say, some donated antiques?

“He let me keep the article. There is no other copy.” Rhain picked up a plain file and withdrew a single sheet.

September 28, 1957:

A medieval carving valued at possibly half a million dollars drew the attention of museum experts this week. The oak door, carved with the faces of cats, stands in a Marin County garden. It came to the attention of Field West Museum Director Suel Jenkins while he was searching the museum archives. Jenkins found nine photostats of drawings of the door done by Bay Area artist Alice Kitchen shortly before she died in 1955. She was the wife of painter Braden West. Mrs. West had asked the previous director to investigate the authenticity of the door, but after her death the project was shelved.

Dr. Jenkins said the door is a fine example of tenth century Celtic art. It has long stood in the weather, enclosing a hillside cave where garden tools are stored. He had no idea why such a valuable door would be left outdoors, in the elements. He said the wood and the carvings are in remarkably good condition. Notations by the previous director, Dr. Lewis Langleno, indicate that the owner of the door and of the property on which it stands is retired Marin librarian and local author Olive Cleaver.

The museum is now in the process of making an offer on the door. They have photographed it, and with Miss Cleaver’s permission they will exhibit the photographs along with copies of Mrs. West’s drawings in a small exhibition early next year.

Braden handed the release back to Rhain. He did not comment. There was no way the museum could do anything without Olive, and Olive, when she returned, would not sell the door. Nor would she agree to such an exhibit.

Melissa said,“There are some lovely antiques I know of—small desks, early medieval chairs—that the museum might like. It might take a little while to get them—here.”

Rhain looked at her a long time.“I think the museum would be very pleased to have them.” He nodded, grinned at them, and tore the article into small pieces.

Then he leaned back, studying them.“I have some other interesting connections besides the young man at the museum, folk from whom I get occasional bits of news. May I say that I am, ah, very impressed with your recent adventure?” He smiled and leaned back, closing the file.

They rose, a satisfied smile linking the three of them. And as they parted, Melissa hugged Rhain. He hugged her back warmly. She felt a hot rush of gratitude and kinship; as if she had not left those she loved so very far away after all.

Crossing the street, Braden gave her his arm.“We’ll walk to lunch, it isn’t far. I like Rhain—he’s a nice mix of cultures.”

“Yes, I like him, too. And he makes me feel—closer to McCabe. Where are we having lunch?”

“It’s a French restaurant where Alice and I used to go. They collect local paintings and prints—there’s a drawing I want you to see.”

“Alice’s drawing?”

He nodded.“An early one.”

She stopped on the sidewalk, holding his hand.“Done when she was a child?”

“Yes, it was.”

“A drawing of a cat?”

“Yes,” he said.

“I think I remember it. I think I remember the restaurant. Alice—Alice had a birthday party there. It’s a small place—small rooms all connected, with skylights?”

He nodded. They moved on again along the sunwashed street, but she was shivering. He said,“Would you rather not go there?”

“I want to go. I want to see it.” But she moved close to him. Remembering the drawing too sharply. He glanced at her, holding her hand tightly.

She knew she could not avoid this kind of encounter. She knew she must learn to make such things a part of herself. But fear filled her.

The cat in Alice’s drawing in the restaurant, the same cat as in Alice’s diary, the same cat that had been buried years ago in the front yard of the Russian Hill house—the cat that died before she, Melissa, was born.

She knew that that cat, when she faced its picture in the restaurant, would look exactly like her own cat self. Its colors and markings would mirror exactly her calico patterns. Its face would be her face, the exact same white markings, the same green eyes. She glanced up at Braden, upset that he would take her there. But yet she knew that he must take her, that the last piece of the puzzle must be touched, and perhaps understood. She knew she could not have gone there without him, that she would not have had the strength without him. She smiled at him, striding beside him along the sun-warmed street, hardly aware of the cars that sped past them, cars that, a few weeks earlier, would have made her cringe with terror. And above them the unending sky rolled away, wind tossed. And everything was all right. With Braden beside her, it was all right.

Epilogue

San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, 1957.

The female figure is a time-honored theme in painting. The female figure reflected in shop windows, and those reflections woven through with abstract city scapes, produces a richness of subject unerringly right for Braden West. This is West’s best work to date, a difficult feat for one who has long been admired for the richness of his palette.

West’s show, which opened last night at the Chapman to a jostling crowd, was a smashing success. By the close of the evening, nearly all the work had been sold. The richness of this work is overwhelming. West’s entire Reflection series is of the same elusive young woman, yet not one painting is repetitive, except in the mysterious, symphonic mystery that graces them all. This fascinating show will remain at the Chapman through October 31. It will open in New York at Swarthmann’s in December in a group show with the work of Garcheff, Lake, and Debenheldt. The foursome will move on to the Metropolitan early next year.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 20, 1957.

A strange disappearance of San Francisco’s cats has led to complaints over the last week to police and to the Humane Society. Most of the disappearances seem to have occurred last Sunday night. Cat owners reported their pets acting unusually nervous, pacing and yowling. The cats that were let out were not seen again.

The same night, Marin County residents reported seeing groups of cats running into a garden near Sam’s Bar, a wellknown jazz cafe. Cats were seen by the dozens in the headlights of heavy traffic, and there were more than the usual number of complaints about barking dogs. About three A.M. the barking stopped. No more sightings were reported.

San Francisco Chronicle, August 8, 1959.

Business News:

Meyer and Finley appointed their first woman broker today. Anne Hollingsworth, brokers’ assistant with the firm for twelve years, was appointed head of the San Francisco office. And in another surprise move, nine previously terminated brokers and key personnel were re-hired, after their mass firing two years ago.

The firm has been completely restructured, though it will remain in its Union Square offices. It had been virtually bought out by the Lillith Corporation in early 1957, but that corporation has since filed for bankruptcy. Lillith’s extensive charitable branch has been sold to the new philanthropicAlice West Cat Rescue Foundation, named for the late and wellknown animal artist, Alice Kitchen West.