Andre Norton - The Gate of the Cat

“Good—” Her voice held a sigh. “So it is with the power when one uses it. It draws, ah, how it can draw,” there was remembered pain in her voice then, “but there is always the renewing. How is it with you now, Makeease—” then she hesitated, “No, for one there is one name, for another another. You have received no name in company—

“I am Kelsie!” Some of her old antagonism flared.

“Do you not understand,” she had never expected Wittle to show such patience, “to use your birthing name so boldly is to invite the ill to enter. It will offer a key to that which we must fear the more. The body can be ill used by the Dark Ones, yes. But it is the worse when the inner part is touched. Perhaps it is different with you and the naming of names is not a danger.”

“Sometimes perhaps,” Kelsie had a sudden memory of times which a name might bring a person into danger even in her own time and place—perhaps not the same kind of danger, but peril as her world knew it. “Yet we do not change them—” No, that was not so either. People did change their names, their very kinds of life—what of witnesses and spies? Still she was neither and her name was a part of herself she was not prepared to surrender, for by doing so she might well join herself even tighter to wild adventure.

The witch reached behind one of the rocks and drew forth a backpack, and then another which she slung over to fall at Kelsie’s feet. The girl edged back and away from it.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“We go,” Wittle returned calmly. “What we were sent to do lies still before us. If we wait upon the favor of these of the Valley we may never reach it. They war when attacked or when the Shadow draws too near, they do not invade its own places.”

“I won’t!” Kelsie watched Wittle draw her arms through the lashings of her own pack, settling it on her shoulders with a shrug.

“You cannot now do otherwise. You have used the jewel—it is yours and you are its.”

Kelsie would have fled away from this mad woman, taken the trail down back to the Valley. But once more her body rebelled against her will. With warmth from the stone flooding through her, she discovered she must also stoop, pick up that burden and prepare to carry it.

“Do not fight it, girl,” the witch’s voice held its old superior and contemptuous ring. “You are of the sisterhood whether or no and this is the geas laid upon you.”

Thus against all her desires she began to climb, following Wittle farther and farther up the steep slopes using toes and fingers, striving to compensate for the backward pull of her burden. They reached the top of that barrier which nature, or those who dealt so close to nature that they could summon her services on demand, had set about the Valley. Beyond was a country which seemed to draw more shadow than light from the moon, to be truly a place of peril. That Wittle was calmly descending into that, taking Kelsie with her, the girl could not retreat.

If there were sentries and watchers on duty in those heights (Kelsie was sure that there were) the witch had her own method of passing unseen and was able also to encompass Kelsie. For there arose no one to bid them halt or inquire what they would do.

There was a usable trail which zigzagged down the opposite side of the heights and they did not take it swiftly, Wittle making methodically sure of her footing while Kelsie followed close behind her.

Once a winged blot of darkness flew swiftly over them and the witch stood still, Kelsie freezing into a similar halt. But the thing did not return, and, after a time in which Kelsie drew short shallow breaths, Wittle once more started on. Again she froze into immobility, startling Kelsie so that she nearly ran into the pack the other wore when there sounded a single ear-grating howl from the lowlands toward which they were going. This time Wittle hissed an order to the girl:

“A gray one. Put your jewel into hiding! They have eyes which can comb the darkest shadow.” She was fumbling with her own jewel, holding open the neck opening of her own robe and dropping her glowing gem within the inner folds. Kelsie followed and nearly yelped aloud. For the heat that the stone now emitted was such as if she had slipped a live coal against the skin of her breast.

Wittle appeared to believe that this was the only precaution they need take, for she was striding on again. Kelsie, perforce, still drawn by that overriding other will, must follow.

They came to the stream which burrowed a way through the mountains to feed the Valley river and here the witch kilted up her long robe so that her thin white legs were bare to her knees, motioning for Kelsie to shuck her soft boots even as the witch abandoned her sandals.

Free of foot Wittle stepped into the shallows of the stream and marched confidently forward Kelsie again behind. Perhaps it was because she had a need for establishing her superiority again that the witch whispered:

“Running water is disaster to some of the Dark Ones. It is best to hold to it while one can.”

Trying to keep her own voice low Kelsie demanded with what small power she could summon:

“Where are we going?” That she was following one she did not trust was the stark truth, but if she could summon the strength of the jewel again perhaps she could break free of Wittle should the other release any of the control she had established. Meanwhile to humor her might be best.

“Where we are led,” was the very unsatisfactory answer she was given. “As you know—no,” the witch corrected herself. “You who are one of us and yet not one—perhaps the knowing was not given with the jewel. We seek the source of the ancient power—that which formed our sisterhood in the beginning and where we must stand again to gather to us that which will raise up anew all that we were once. That it lies to the east is all that we know. Sister Makeease was questing for it—

“And she died!” The cold of her own frightened self fought the warmth of the jewel she wore. “What promise have you that your purpose can be served—

“She went with guards—she rode openly though the warning was clear. But she would not listen to those of the Valley,” Wittle’s tone was once more cold and sharp. “This is not a search which can be done by a trampling force of clumsy men. She was wrong and so she paid for it. We shall search by night and this—” she cupped her hand over the wan glow shining through her robe, “shall be our guide. For we brought the jewels out of this land in the ancient days and they will be drawn to that which gave them their first life. This much we can be sure of. If we watch them carefully by their waxing and their waning shall we be guided.”

“What if,” Kelsie moistened her lower lip with her tongue tip before she continued, “this source you seek is now held by the Dark?”

“It may be besieged by the Dark well enough,” Wittle agreed, “but taken it has not been or our stones would die. The Light and the Dark cannot lie together.”

“Shadows and moonlight do,” Kelsie was finding apter words of protest than she had known existed in her mind.

The Moon is at full, as long as it remains so we can draw sustenance from it. When it begins to wane,” the witch hesitated, “then we tread even more carefully.”

It was clear that she had a vast confidence in herself and Kelsie, as wary as she was, was cowed by that as they went forward through the night, keeping to the stream as their roadway. When the first shafts of gray dawn appeared along the horizon the witch pointed ahead to where a sandbar projected well into the stream. On three sides it was surrounded by water, which flowed with a swifter current in midstream. The fourth was connected to the land by a narrow neck on which drift had caught in a tangle as if there had been some recent storm which had brought such debris out of the land before them.