Andre Norton - The Gate of the Cat

“I can search alone—

“Was that what your council asked of you?”

“You are a man—what do you know of power?”

“Enough to judge that you can use it for more than one thing, Lady. And I say—use it here—and now!”

Once more the cold—the aching numbness returned—she fell down the monster’s length—perhaps—but it was all darkness at the bottom.

Kelsie was walking, though it was no more than a weak stumble upheld by the strength of another. When she strove to focus her eyes what she saw just ahead was the swing of a gray robe. Or was it that? Fur? The upheld banner of a cat’s tail as that animal, grown to panther size, stalked ahead of her. Cat—there was a cat—and a gate—and after that a wild range of action which one part of her had never accepted as reality. She raised her hand in a gesture which demanded a mighty effort. There was no chain embedded in the flesh about its wrist—but there were scars there which certainly she had never borne before.

“Lady—” from some distance came that call. Kelsie tried to refuse to hear it. Just as she tried to command her legs to halt, to let her rest.

“Lady!”

More strident, demanding. Somehow she made the very great effort to turn her head and look to a face half masked by a war helm. The gray robe tail before her twitched and swirled as its wearer halted and turned to look at her.

“Girl!” there was no concern in that, only demand. “Look to the jewel!”

From somewhere, a third of the way down her weakened body, there came a glow. She dropped her head a little and saw that there was a spot of twirling light on her breast. She moved her scarred hand up to clasp it. Fire! Immediately she dropped her hand—there had been blasting fire before, she wanted none of that again.

“We are followed,” those words were spoken over her and meant nothing.

“Can you aid then? What of the jewel, will it not sustain one who wears it?”

“One who wears it rightfully, who does not come to it by the left hand as this one does—perhaps—” Was it the cat who answered? Kelsie really did not care. If they would only leave her alone!

“Let—me—go—” she got out those words with great effort.

She swayed back and forth in the hands of the one who had been leading her, while the cat stood and watched and would have nothing to do with the matter.

“Come—Lady—wake! They sniff behind us and we cannot let them catch up with us.”

Her hand batting blindly before her, closed now upon the jewel on her own breast. Then—

She stood in a place where there were many pillars though few of them still supported any remains of roof. The black marks of ancient fires sooted paths up the outer ones. But she had not come here to see the remaining disaster—she had come because she must. There was that which drove on her weakened body. Again in the very far distance she heard voices which had no real meaning:

“Where does she go?”

“Loose her, fool. The drawing of the stone is on her where she goes—that is our road.”

There were the pillars and she passed them, but, still, though the outer ones stood behind her there were ranks upon ranks of others reaching to the far distance so she could see no end to the way between them. Once her path tightened to a double line of the stone trees and she saw behind them great chairs of state. Each of those was occupied by a weaving and wreathing of smoke as if what sat there was or could not be wholly fixed in this world. If those shadows of shadows meant her ill they did not move to stop her, nor turn her from the way. On she passed with the burning jewel in her hand and there was nothing left for her but to seek what had been lost and must be found again.

How many miles did that pillar path run? She might have been walking an hour, or a day, and still there was no end. Now there crouched strange and grotesque beasts between the upright columns of stone but none laid paw nor tooth upon her as she slipped on. For she did not seem to be walking any longer, instead she was—

Awake! That waking was sharp, she might have been brought out of sleep by a blow. She knew who she was—who wore that gray robe and now marched to her left, who matched step with her to the right and upheld her body. It was night and the moon, just beginning to wane, brought sharp light and shadow to the ground around her.

They were no longer in a wood but on an open plain where they must be clearly visible to any who followed them and she turned her head to ask of him who so guided her what they did here—

Only she already knew. She must follow where the jewel led. Although she no longer held it cradled in her hand, rather it was stretched forward on its chain, away from her body, she could even feel the fret of the chain against her neck as if it would be free of all anchorage, free to seize its own road and speed to reach what called it so.

There was another bright glow. The other gem, the one worn by Wittle, was also alive but it did not pull against its chain and Kelsie believed its glow was not as great as the one she wore.

“Where are we?” she managed that question and her voice came out more strongly than she had felt it would.

Wittle answered almost breathlessly:

“This is the path you have chosen, yours the answer. Where are we? We have walked through a day and when we rested it was necessary to curb you like a restless horse. We have walked through much of the night. And those who hunt, hunt—yet they bring not their hunt to take us—not yet. You were never wedded to the stone, so how comes it that that jewel takes life as I have never seen before? What do you with it, outlander?”

“I do nothing. It is the stone—”

“They have always told us,” Wittle continued as if Kelsie had not spoken at all, “that when a witch dies, so does the power of her stone. Yet Makeease is dead and you who have no right to it are governed by it. This is a thing beyond the bounds of what must be.”

Kelsie longed to raise her hand and drag the thing from about her throat, hurl it out into the ocean of tall grass through which they now strode.

“It is no choice of mine—” she said dully.

“This is a thing which—

“Why keep you on that rack of speech?” Yonan broke in. “You have said it far too many times. It should not be but it is. Therefore accept it.”

The witch turned her head and the look which flashed past Kelsie to the warrior was one of pure and blazing anger.

“Be quiet, man. What do your kind know of the mysteries?”

Kelsie had a flash of memory but it was vague as if she watched it happen to another. Of the Quan iron hilt being pressed to the wound in her wrist and then lips sucking—then the cold of a jewel following upon that.

“He won me life,” she said out of that memory. “Of what good your spells were then, Wittle? And I think,” she was frowning a little, “that we come upon something which is stronger than a jewel.” Her head was being bent forward and now the jewel she wore was tugging as if to free itself entirely from her body. Yet she understood in part that were it to vanish along the path it had found for itself she would lose all trace of it. Even the witch’s own jewel grew brighter, lifted a little from the gray robe.

The sea of grass tall enough to switch about their knees had been broken by what lay ahead—some shadows which might be heights, save there was no range of mountains—only a soft rolling as for hills. They were headed directly for that shadowed land.

Twice birds swooped and soared over them—black and red feathers showing up plainly even in the dull light. And, while they made no move toward attack, Kelsie was certain that these were of the Dark, perhaps scouts for the Sam Riders or those like them. Yet the three of them made no effort toward concealment but headed straight for the hills across the open plain.