Andre Norton - The Gate of the Cat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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