Andre Norton - The Gate of the Cat

Yonan stood even as Wittle faced outward. But she could see his features, not set as those of the witch, but his eyes striving to catch hers. His mouth open as if he shouted some war cry she could not hear.

On impulse she reached out with the hand dripping blood and set it to his mail-clad thigh which was nearest her. A shudder ran through his body and he turned his head fully to look at her. A moment later he had stooped to support her, draw her up to her feet leaning against him, the dead Thas kicked aside that he might come closer. If Wittle was still bound it was plain that he had been freed.

He reached out to take her bitten arm and then his fingers snapped back as if they had been beaten off. Whatever had kept chain and stone with her during that attack was still in force. Now Yonan brought his sword around, cautiously advancing the hilt so that it was in touching distance of that invincible chain.

The Quan iron slid easily through and over, caught at a loop of the chain, drawing that away from the wound which was bleeding steadily.

Kelsie felt her other arm and hand tingle as if recovering from some paralyzing force. She put out her finger and touched the chain. At her touch they loosened and she was able to take jewel and chain into her other hand.

She sat at last, the throbbing in her wrist not unlike that beat of the vibration around them, her injured wrist resting on her knee where Yonan had placed it after binding it with a strip of her own shirt and some of the dust of the illbane he had managed to shake out of his bag. Wittle had blinked and then turned her head to look at the two of them, as if just awaking from a dream. Yonan had booted the body of the Thas out of the star but, though he redrew it with sword point, he had not enough of the herbs left for its guarding points.

“You have not won—” Wittle broke the silence which had held them all from the moment of the Thas attack. “This was merely a feint to learn what powers we held.”

And it picked me, Kelsie thought, though she did not speak her guess aloud, as the weakest point in our defenses. Yonan might have guessed her belief for he said:

“They sent the Thas. They would not have used such force if they had believed they could take us by will and power alone. They—”

Kelsie slipped the chain of the jewel about her neck again and it rested on her breast just above where she cradled her bitten wrist against her body. “Who are they? As she had tried to learn earlier from Wittle so she asked him now.

“Old ones—perhaps even an adept tied somehow to this land. Only he caught, with his force, something which he can neither digest nor subdue.” Yonan was again at the star redrawing the lines. “In the heart of his own place he has… us!”

Wittle turned her head. Her face was expressionless but her eyes glittered. When she spoke it was directly to Kelsie, ignoring the warrior:

“What have you, outlander, which stands so against the Dark? What is the power that you control?”

Kelsie shook her head. “No power that I know of. They will be back?” Once she had stood up to the battle, a second one she was not sure she could face.

“As he said,” Wittle pointed with her chin to where Yonan stood, feet slightly apart as if about to engage in combat, all his attention now for the haze about the stream, “we are within territory where the lord here, whoever or whatever he may be, would destroy us—or have us forth. Warrior!” she raised her grating voice a fraction. “Look to your sword. We have yet to face the worst they can send. What does one do to a piece of grit within one’s boot—one shakes it out. It may well be that he or it—or she—cannot use full strength here lest the defenses of this place be damaged. Therefore—it will shake us forth—”

As if her words had been the recital of a spell there came a sudden change to that ribbon of fog about the river. It split and peeled away on either side revealing the narrow part of that shore, which Kelsie had earlier leaped to come here, and held so—clearly an invitation to leave.

Leave so that they could be easily hunted down in some one of the passageways which ran from this cavern? Kelsie’s wrist throbbed and her other hand cupped over the jewel could have held only dull stone for all its response to that invitation.

Slowly Yonan worked his way out to the place where the noisome thing from the stream had essayed its attack. He carefully skirted the shriveled mass on the sand and stood now at the very edge of the rivulet. Reaching forward he put out the hilt of his sword toward the nearest clump of the fungilike growth.

It moved, actually pulling away from the Quan iron. Wittle, as if not to be left behind, had swung out her jewel and the misty emanation from that, nebulous as it was, had the same effect on another of the bulbous plants. Under Kelsie’s hand her own stone moved and grew a little warmer.

“Can you foresee?” Yonan rounded on the witch. “Is that gem of yours a compass for our going?”

She shrugged. “Who knows. But if we remain here we shall never know, shall we?”

Kelsie bit her lip. To go out of this small haven of safety broken though it was now—she could not raise a voice to say yes. The pain in her wrist had spread up her arm, was slowly fighting a way into the rest of her body. She was not even sure she could get once more to her feet and go now. Yet the witch, as if to show the strength of her own charm and power, had passed Yonan, taking the lead and swinging the stone from side to side as she went until she kilted up the stained skirt of her robe and sprung across the stream. Yonan turned to Kelsie holding out his free hand and once more pulling her up beside him.

“She is right, “he said, “To remain here self chained and wait for what more they can send against us—that is folly.”

She allowed him to lead her to the stream bank, wanting to close her eyes lest some new horror arise from there to take them as they crossed. But cross they did and without any interference from what dwelt here. But to get out—that was a different matter and in her innermost mind Kelsie never believed they could or would make it. They would wander through the warren of passages until hunger and thirst weakened them to be easy for the taking, or some other servants of the Dark would run them down. She remembered very well the hounds of the Sam and those grim Riders themselves.

Wittle stalked ahead and was entering one of the passage openings before they had caught up with her. The pain which had earlier been like fire in her veins now left Kelsie’s wrist and arm limp and numb. She staggered now and then but Yonan’s hand was always ready to support her.

Back in the passage it was dark, only the scattered patches of growth gave them thin light and those grew further and further apart as they passed. Kelsie listened as she went, sure that she would hear soon sounds of pursuit, yet those did not come. Perhaps they were in some manner being herded toward a place where they would be easier to handle. Why Wittle moved so unceasingly, seeming to find choice between passages so easy to make, the witch did not explain.

Now there was light ahead—not a red glare, nor the sickly glimmers thrown off by a multitude of fungous vegetation—rather a gray gleam rounded a corner and was gone. Yonan led Kelsie after and they came out suddenly into an opening which drew a cry from Kelsie as she pulled backward two or three steps which might have ended in a ghastly fall.

The three of them were crowded on a space which could hardly support them. And they were high in the air above red stone. Kelsie held with her good hand to the edge of the door from which they had just emerged. But Yonan edged forward to look down into the space which surrounded them.