Andre Norton - The Gate of the Cat

“Child’s play!” Wittle said. “And who is Ninutra? Some Old One long since gone?”

“If she has gone,” he replied, “then she has left certain strengths behind her. I serve a Lady who is her chosen voice in the here and now. And—”

“Look!” Kelsie interrupted him.

From out of the river where the stone had fallen there arose something which chilled and sickened her. Perhaps once it had had life—it must have had—but this was the worst of death’s decay incarnate. Half-skeleton, half-boiled and seared flesh, it was tossed ashore as if the river itself had so sent one of its slaves to dispute with them. Was it a man—or had it been a man? Kelsie wanted to close her eyes, to refuse to look upon it but she could not.

Slowly, clumsily it got to its feet and for the first time turned the blob of its head in their direction. Kelsie cried out. Those swollen, bloated features were ones she knew—Yonan’s!

She heard him whisper from beside her. “Urik—NO!” While Wittle seized upon her jewel and cried out “Make-ease!”

The half-eaten away features of the thing writhed and changed—now the girl saw Dahaun wasted and blasted, and alter her Simon Tregarth. While from her companions, she heard other names given to that nightmare.

It tottered on legs which were bare bone, heading for the star. Kelsie gripped the jewel and in her mind refused any belief—this could not be true. It was not true! Even as the thing became Yonan once more she cried out:

“No—it is not true!”

Yonan—that was no longer Yonan, nor Dahaun, nor the eldest of the Tregarths. It was her own blasted face which crowned the shambling figure.

It wavered to and fro on its bony feet as it continued to advance and Kelsie cowered back, though Wittle’s hand shot out and caught at her before she stepped outside the star.

“Illusion!” croaked the witch, though Kelsie saw her straight mouth twitch as if she barely stifled some cry of her own. “They play with illusion!” She held out her hand, pointing her gem toward the thing from the rivulet.

There was no bright sword thrust of power as there had been on other occasions, only a small diffusion of a bluish haze clinging around the stone itself. And still the horror came ahead. Yonan raised his sword to ready. But the thing had reached the edge of the star and shifted from one foot to another as if it were faced by an impassable barrier.

“Ah—” the sound came from Wittle like a long drawn out sigh of relief. “By so much the old knowledge holds—by so much!”

The shambling figure turned first right and then left as if trying for a free path to reach its prey. It seemed to Kelsie that it grew more solid and real every moment. It was still her own face that it half wore, though she believed now that it showed another countenance to each of the two with her. There was a wavering, the thing swayed back and forth and then plunged forward as if some giant hand aimed at its back had sent it so to confront them. It fell across one of the points of the star and there was a blast of light which left Kelsie blinded, then with blurred sight.

Where the figure had fallen there was a stinking mass of stuff which still moved feebly as if the force which had given it pseudo life still urged it on. Then it crumpled away to black ash. But it had been the key to unlock the ton Yonan had erected and Kelsie felt the chill of the utter dark through which she had once passed sweep in over that break point. Though she could see nothing, that cold clung to her, Crapping her in and she felt a viscid stuff netting her prisoner. Wittle’s arm with the hand which held her jewel heat at the air and Yonan slammed out with his sword hilt, the blade gripped with his fingers. All to no purpose.

Kelsie was motionless. That invisible web had her entirely in its power now, she could not even move a finger across the surface of her own jewel. She saw Wittle’s arm tall to her side as if struck down by some heavy blow, Yonan’s reversed sword play fail. They were all caught by what had won through the boundaries of the star. Then, against her will and by no action of her own, the hand which held the chain of her jewel began to quiver and shake. However, her fingers locked on the links did not move. Hack and forth, more and more wildly shook her hand, the gem swung but it did not fall, nor did it part company with her flesh. She had a sudden mind picture of the jewel flying out to land in the red rivulet and being overwhelmed, that if she would save her life this is what must happen. Then over that slid another picture, the young witch who had died on the hillside, her lips shaping her own forbidden name as she gave that to Kelsie. With her was another head also, that of the wildcat, its lips drawn back in a full snarl, daring McAdams, ready to spend its life for its kits and freedom.

Around and around whirled her arm and the pain of those wild swings which pulled at her muscles grew more intense. There was also a twisting now, a pulling. And still the chain clung to her as if it were a part of her own flesh and nothing would take it from her unless the enemy, whoever or whatever that might be, would scrape that from her bones. Twice she cried out against sudden shocks of pain, in spite of her promise to herself that she could and would endure.

She could see both Wittle and Yonan. They stood statue stiff and neither of them appeared under attack. Did what assailed them believe that she was the weakest of their company, the only most likely to give way? Somewhere under the fear which had held her since that creature had come out of the mist anger stirred. That emotion grew as the assault upon her doubled in its fury.

Deliberately now she summoned up the picture of the young witch who had died. She could not call upon Wittle—perhaps she was held now against a similar attack—but she was trained, one with her stone as Kelsie did not feel herself to be. As the cat had faced McAdams so did she snarl and stand trying to wrest from that other power the control over her own body.

She had a sense of anger and frustration—not her own but coming from somewhere beyond. Then she was struck a sudden buffet between her shoulders, driving her to her knees, and was enveloped in that sharp stench which was the mark of the evil.

Something cried out in a high squalling voice and now came a blow on the back of her head, sending her flat with a weight on her back. Gravel gritted against her cheek and her body rocked under blows. Her arm was seized and drawn backward at a painful angle. Once more her wrist snapped to and fro under vigorous shaking. The chain remained as much a part of her as the fingers curved about the links. She tried to throw off the weight upon her and managed to shift her face around to see one of those which bestrode her—shaggy, rootlike covering—Thas.

The servant of the Sarns grabbed at her hand. She felt the sharp pain of teeth in her flesh and then there was a convulsive jerking to the body perched on hers and the Thas rolled off to lie beside her, its rootlike fingers, its thin arms, threading wildly in the air. She caught a glimpse of red eyes in the ill-fashioned face and then those eyes clouded. The limbs fell to the gravel limply and there was no more struggle out of it.

Yonan—had he won to freedom and used his sword? Wittle she could see, still standing, still staring not at the struggle on the ground at her very feet, but at the haze which masked the rivulet as if she expected some further attack out of that.

Kelsie tried to draw up one foot, get to her knees. The cold shell still held a part of her but the attack of the Thas appeared to have broken through it and now it was as if pieces of net tore and fell away.

She dragged her arm around and saw the tooth marks on her wrist slowly welling with blood which striped both the chain and the stone it supported. Her body ached from the attack but slowly she won to her knees, her hurt wrist nursed against her body.