Andre Norton - The Gate of the Cat

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

Back they edged and now Kelsie came away from the wall against which she had taken shelter and continued to swing out the jewel its light growing ever brighter. She was aware of a draining down her arm, through her fingers and into the chain, as if she herself was the energy which had revitalized the thing and brought about this awakening.

The attackers fled while Swiftfoot licked her litter, still raising her head to snarl now and again. What the trio sought was a tumble of earth and stone at the back of this slit like cave, apparently the burrow through which they had made entrance here. The first of them reached that and threw itself forward as one might enter surf pounding on the shore of a sea. There was a frenzied scrabbling and an upward shower of earth and small stones. Taking heart at the very visible fear of the noisome invaders Kelsie resolutely drove the other two after the first. She faced now a hole through which she would have to creep in order to advance and she had no intention of doing that. However, she continued to stand and wave the jewel back and forth until her arm tired and fell heavily by her side, as weary as if she had been carrying some great weight.

Nor was it only her arm which was limp with fatigue, her whole body was suddenly struck by a feeling of great lassitude so that she sank to her knees before that evil smelling opening, the light of the jewel fading to a dim glow.

Thas—the underground workers of evil. The very name in her mind appeared to open a door of knowledge. How dared they come into the Valley? There were age old guardians here and those the People of Green Peace believed could not be broached. Yet had the Thas not chanced into the cave Swiftfoot had chosen as her den what might they have done?

“Much!” That answer to her thought was spoken aloud and she nearly sprawled on her face as she strove to swing around to confront the speaker.

Wittle stood there. The gray of her robe faded into the shadow so only her bone-white face and her hands, cupping her own jewel where it swung about her throat, could be clearly seen. For the first time since she had first met her Kelsie saw no animosity in the witch’s expression. Instead Wittle was studying Kelsie with an intensity which had something of astonishment in it.

“You are—” her voice was hardly above a whisper.

“Kelsie McBlair!” The girl flashed back. For all her dreaming this night she would hold to that with every bit of strength she could summon.

“She—she chose you then—it is the truth. She exercised the choice!”

“I am not Makeease—” Kelsie denied.

“You have that of her in you now whether you will it or not!”

Wittle’s hands dropped away from cupping about her own jewel and it broke into a clear blue light. The stink of the Thas seemed to disappear and Kelsie’s strength began to return so that she was able to stand without feeling that her legs were ready to give way under her.

“This must be closed,” Wittle was past her in two strides to face the hole. Swinging her jewel by its chain, even as Kelsie had earlier swung the one she carried, she began to recite a cadence of words, words which called upon the very earth itself to provide a stopper to evil. The air between her jewel and the opened earth was filled with ever changing symbols which curled in and out and at times seemed to catch upon one another and cling. Until there was formed a kind of net which floated on until it crashed between the pile of excavated earth and the wall behind it.

“Be it so!” The three words crackled like a flash of lightning across a storm rolled sky. Instantly stone and rock moved, were tossed, pounded, driven back into a firm wall once again. Still glowing therein were flecks of blue as if the net still held. The witch had already turned her back on what she had wrought and was again measuring Kelsie with narrow eyes.

“The Sisterhood grows smaller each year,” she said, as if she were reminding herself of something. “Perhaps it is to the gates we must look—and Makeease at her dying saw the truth. You are of us whether you won your jewel by lessoning or by gift—

“I am not!” Kelsie dared to deny that. Wittle had always been her enemy, why now was she changing, subtly calling upon Kelsie to join forces with her?

“I do—” Again it was as if the other read her thoughts. “We were sent and we have not yet obeyed that sending—

“I am not a witch.” Somewhat to the girl’s surprise the witch inclined her head in answer to that.

“By our laws you are not. Yet Makeease knew it. Though perhaps it was because she was on the edge of death that it was made clear to her. You cannot deny what lies in you now—”

“There is nothing in me!”

Kelsie backed away, even as she had during the night dark attack of the Thas, until her shoulders were against the rough, cold stone. Perhaps she would have run—But she could not! That same compulsion which had brought her here had swooped back, to seize upon her once again. She could have screamed in her rage and fear. That she was not master of her own body was the most frightening thing of all. Yet she could not take the single step which would carry her past the witch and on her way out of here.

The girl said in a voice she fought to keep from trembling. “Stop playing your tricks on me and let me go.”

Wittle swept both arms outward in a gesture which offered Kelsie full freedom. “I play no tricks. Look within yourself to see what lies there now.”

Look inward? Kelsie tried, not sure of what the witch might mean. She discovered that, without knowing it, she had set the chain of the jewel about her own neck and it, pulsating, rested on her breast even as Wittle wore hers.

She gasped a ragged breath.

“What would you have me do?” she asked in a small voice. The drain she experienced was not yet repaired, she felt as if, should she stand away from the wall, she might fall.

“Breathe so—” Wittle was drawing deep, slow breaths. “Think of your body, of the feet, the legs which support you—of the blood which runs through them nourishing, cleansing. Your body has served you well, think kindly of it, slow—ah, slow, sister. Think of having slept through the night sweetly with no dreams to disturb your rest. It is morning and you awaken renewed, filled, mistress of yourself, sister to your jewel which will serve you now even it you try to send it away. Come—

Without waiting to see if Kelsie obeyed her or not, Wittle bent her tall form and left the cave and indeed the girl discovered that she was drawn after. There was still silver moonlight among the rocks and the witch sought out a place where the beams were full. She stood there, her arms upraised and out, as if she desired to indeed draw the moon down into her hold. Hesitatingly Kelsie followed suit.

Her jewel was glowing again. Not with the forceful blue it had shone when it had stood against the Thas, but with a pure white light. It warmed and the warmth spread through her also, so that the last of that backaching fatigue was banished. She felt rather as if indeed she had awakened into a good day and had bathed cleanly at the pool in the Valley, that all was well within her and that she had already accomplished much that she had been set to do.

I low long they stood there Kelsie could not reckon, but at length Wittle lowered her arms as a shadow of stone crept to them and there appeared a cloud touching the moon shield overhead.