Andre Norton - The Gate of the Cat

She listened in a queer fashion which combined both mind and body. It was like testing the air for a strange scent—that loosing of thought waves to pick up the first alert against anything the shadows might hide. What she waited for tensely was the howling of the hounds that ran for and with the Black Hunter and his like.

There was life a-stir in the night rightly enough. She picked up rustling in the tall grain, once a screech which brought her scrambling to her feet until she realized it must be the voice of some aerial hunter. But there came no howl, none of that crawling of the skin which she associated with the hounds. How far they were from that copse in which they had been besieged she could not begin to assess. If Yonan knew—which she suspected he did not—he never said. Though his established sentry watches for the both of them certainly argued that he saw little safety in their present position.

Sleep pulled at her. She got to her feet once in that battle against drowsiness and walked over stones where there was no grass rustle to betray her to the outer wall of the roofless keep. There she stood trying to imagine what manner of intelligent creature had built this pile with such strength and yet had made no door to enter, no passage of inner walls to follow from one room to another. It was as silent and as much a pan of long hidden and forgotten history as that broken circle back on Ben Blair.

Ben Blair—with a sudden shiver of new fear Kelsie realized that Ben Blair was now so far from her life as to be a distant dream. She had questioned Simon Tregarth about return. He had been evasive but when she had insisted he had told her that to return through the gate one had come through was unknown. One could find other gates in this land and make use of them to go still farther into strange times and places, but to return to one’s own proper place—

Proper place. She remembered now that Simon had said that hesitantly, and at last had told her that most of those using the gates had done so for escape. Their “proper places” had come to be in this world, which many had deliberately sought.

Well, she had not! And she wanted—

Looking at the black bulk of the ruin only half displayed in the moonlight, she tried to think of a gate here. If she went through where would she find herself? With something better or something worse? She cupped the witch stone in one hand and felt its comforting warmth. Then her thoughts were swiftly served by an urgency and she held the stone away from her to stare into its heart where there was light flickering and growing stronger. She had taken one step back toward where she had left Yonan, aware that there had been a change. But not from in the land about.

The light emitted from the stone curdled about it until, though she could still feel the warming jewel in her hand, she could not see anything but a seething ball of light. Imprinted on that was a shadow which became darker and more distinct with every beat of her heart.

“Wittle!” She breathed that name aloud and at its saying the reflection steadied. Kelsie was looking straight into the witch’s eyes as if they stood face to face, and she felt the compulsion which had always been with her since she had taken up the stone become more than she could control.

In the light the witch’s mouth opened. But it was not words that reached Kelsie, rather a straight beam of sharp and compelling thought.

“Where?”

Kelsie answered with the truth. “I do not know.”

“Fool! Look about you! Lend me your eyes if you cannot answer straightly.”

The pressure of that order was such that Kelsie found herself pivoting slowly, facing first the ruin, and then the fields before, back once again to the ruin.

Now the mist face expressed exasperation and certain vindictiveness against which Kelsie stiffened.

“Is the man still with you?” The accent on the word “man” made an expletive out of it.

Kelsie pictured Yonan asleep as she had left him moments earlier.

“Go while he sleeps then! Follow the jewel’s note—it seeks the great power.”

Kelsie shook her head firmly. “I leave no one in this land asleep and open to attack.” From that stubborn inner part of her which had always resented Wittle she drew the strength to say that—say it or think it.

She saw the witch’s eyes in full light, trying to hold hers, to compel her. But instead she dropped the jewel out of her hand, let it swing back against her breast. The bubble which it had formed vanished. Wittle for all her knowledge had been vanquished—for now. Only Kelsie was left with the feeling that had they confronted each other in truth she would not have so easily come out the better of the two. The more she used the stone—was compelled to use it—the more that feeling of inner strength grew in her. But she had no wish to become a witch—one like Wittle. It would seem that she was in some way subservient to the stone but she was still herself, not of a sisterhood who had come to focus on their gems the whole of their lives.

She went swiftly back down from beside the ruin to their camp. There was no way of telling time but the shadows reached farther into the valley about and she was sure that she must awaken Yonan. He, at least, was not under Wittle’s influence and—She hesitated a moment—must she tell him of that meeting through the gem’s powers? He might from that gain good reason to distrust her and she was certain that only with Yonan beside her did she have a chance of survival. This far it had been largely his knowledge and training which had brought them through.

Kelsie need only touch Yonan’s shoulder and he was instantly awake. His face turned toward hers and she realized that she would not tell of Wittle—since she had no intention of carrying out the witch’s suggestion. Settling in his place on the mass of grass they had pulled for a bed she willed herself to sleep. But she had not willed herself to dream and she never knew whether it was the doing of the witch from Estcarp or her own imagination which straightway plunged her into one of the most realistic nightmares which had ever aroused her sleeping fears.

Kelsie was back in the room of the star into which they had entered so unceremoniously. But the walls were intact now and the star itself blazed on the floor as if drawn in lines of living fire. What crouched in the center of that field of protection was wholly alien. The thin gray-skinned body was hardly removed from a skeleton with skin and not flesh to cover the bones. Two leathery wings were half folded about that same body as a man or woman might pull a cloak.

However, it was the head and face of the creature which drew her full attention. The face was narrow, the nose more beak than just a nasal passageway and the chin retreated sharply. It was the eyes which dominated that sliver of countenance—huge and faceted as might be those of an insect, all seeing and—all knowing.

This was no servant of some adept who had pulled into this realm through his or her use of power. No, this was the adept! And that thing was aware of Kelsie for it swung swiftly around, the unreadable eyes turned on her.

In hands, which were more like the talons of some bird of prey than palms with fingers, it held a slender rod topped with a point of Quan iron burning as blue as did the helm of Yonan’s sword. This it also swung until it was leveled straight at her.

The small mouth under that beak of nose twisted, open and shut, as if the thing were chattering some speech, question, or bit of ritual. Yet Kelsie did not hear with either mind or ear. Then she traced a shadow of expression on the avianlike face. The spear-wand arose and gestured through the air, leaving trails of blue smoke after it. And that smoke outlined what could only be a face.