Andre Norton - The Gate of the Cat

That filled completely a valley of some size and triangular shape. They were in the narrow end of the triangle. Kelsie could guess that what had once been erected here was of great importance in its day—temple, palace, fortress, whatever it had been.

They passed from the steps directly onto a pavement in which the columns were rooted. It was not the universal gray of the pillars but a blue which was nearly green—so at a distance one might even believe that it was a stretch of turf. This in turn was patterned in a brighter blue with signs or symbols which formed intricate arabesques under their feet, though here and there wind-driven patches of soil had blown in to cover the lines. There were no marks in such dust, no sign that any had been here before them through long quiet years.

Again Kelsie found no trace of that Dark which chilled body and spirit. Nor in fact anything but the vague impression that something very deeply asleep was waking at their coming, and, had she had the power of controlling her own body, she would have raced back up those stairs and out through the passage to a world more normal than this.

If she had suspicions, Wittle did not share them. Instead the witch marched forward with a rapt expression of expectation on her face. Thus they paraded down one of the aisles between columns, Wittle in advance, Kelsie on her heels, Yonan bringing up the rear. He kept his sword unsheathed and ready—either because he had come to depend upon the Quan iron in the hilt or because he actually feared that they would meet active opposition sooner or later.

Between the columns they could see the walls of the valley gradually opening out wider and wider, the pillars arranged so that one could be sure that this erection had covered the whole of the valley floor at one time. Unlike the building in which the monster dwelled there was no vibration, no sense of any life save their own. Not until they were well away from the place where they had entered the forest of stone trees.

One of the drifts of soil which had entered here and there to carpet over the blue stone lay across their path. Wittle showed no intention of halting but Yonan pushed beside Kelsie and actually caught at the wide sleeve of the witch’s robe, bringing her to a sudden stop. With his sword the warrior pointed to that stretch of earth.

Pressed deeply into its surface were tracks. Kelsie was sure that the most clear, which overlaid others mingled before, were those of a bare foot that looked human. Wittle tried to free herself from Yonan’s hold with a sharp pull. Her mask of expectancy cracked and it was with fiery anger she looked to him.

“What do you?” Her harsh voice scaled up and awoke echoes as if behind a myriad of those columns stood other Wittles to add their demands to hers.

“Look!” Again he indicated the tracks. “These are fresh—see where the soil yet crumbles into the impression. We are not alone here, Lady. Would you march to a meeting and take no heed of what may await us ahead?”

She gestured to the aisle before her. “Do you see aught to dispute us here, warrior? I say again—try not to deal with what no man may understand!”

“Perhaps we understand more than you would allow us, Witch,” he said with a spark of anger in his reply. “Did you not agree that we may have been allowed to escape so that we might be traced to that which you revere so mightily—a source of the true power? If some trap has been laid ahead we shall be the better for suspecting it.”

She had cupped her stone in her two hands and now held it up to breathe upon it. Her lips moved but they could not hear what she said—a ritual, Kelsie suspected. The gem flared higher and then its radiance, which had been growing as they marched forward, disappeared. It looked to the girl as if instead of a jewel Wittle held a palm full of water and was brooding over it.

There was change in her own stone also and she hastened to examine it. Though the beam it had given off so far had been white with a tinge of blue now it became fully blue—as clear and welcome as a fair day in midsummer, cloudless and promising a fine day. Then a shadow crossed it and she saw as plainly as if she stood before them the form of the wildcat, her two kittens, and the snow cubling she had adopted. They lay in the warm sun on a rock, the cat nursing all three of her family, her eyes half closed in her own contentment. But, even as Kelsie watched those eyes opened and were raised, as if the animal saw her in this place and time. Then the picture shivered and was gone.

Cat? What had the wildcat to do with her here and now. She remembered that the stone she held had not been a direct gift from the dying witch but had come through the cat. And—she looked down at that footprinted reach of soil on the floor. Yes! Now that she looked carefully she could see those other tracks—the sign of one of the feline family crossing beneath the barefooted prints. Cat—she had never seen any in this valley save the one who had brought this whole adventure on her. Familiars—the old stories from her own world of how cats had consorted with those deemed witches in the past. What had cats to do with this place here and now?

Wittle looked up from her own jewel. “There is no trace of the Dark here!” she exclaimed.

“And of the Light?” Yonan persisted.

The witch hesitated as if she weighed truth against falsehood in order to gain her own ends. Then she admitted reluctantly:

“Nor of that either.”

“But of power?” he persisted. She gave him a look of true hatred.

“There is power—power can exist without Dark or Light.” Kelsie thought Wittle spoke as if to reassure herself. “Many were the adepts who drew upon neither but strove for pure knowledge alone. Our records speak of such. We may now be approaching a place where such neutral power can be tapped. If we reach there,” her eyes glistened and there was a small bubble of saliva at one corner of her thin-lipped mouth, “then we can claim it for the Light. If the Dark reaches it first then—”

“Then you would say all is lost? But have you any thought as to what has already sought it according to this trail?” For the second time he pointed his sword to the tracks.

She leaned over that stretch of soil and deliberately allowed her jewel to swing low, nearly touching the disturbed earth. There was no change in its color now, and it halted on the outward swing, still pointing to whatever lay ahead of them.

She favored Yonan with a malicious smile. “Do you mark this, warrior? There is no harm.”

He did not sheath his sword but met her eye to eye. “I do not question any power, Witch—yours or those of the Dark WL have left behind. But mark this, you may be intruding upon something which even all the learning in Lormt does not now hold. It is best to go wary—”

“Do you go wary!” she snapped. “What man can know unless he is shown—as you will be shown when the time comes!”

And she deliberately stepped on the barefooted track as she started on.

The rows of columns stopped abruptly. Though on the other side of the deep gap now facing them, Kelsie saw more continuing for stiff, endless miles. However, there was no bridge. Wittle, who had been so intent on their journey that she had watched her jewel far more than she had watched her footing, teetered on the brink of a drop until Yonan swept her back.

They stood together then looking down into another world, or was it the same they had known and they had soared above it? Were they now so mighty of body, so long of sight that they were giants who could cross a land with three or four crushing strides? For what they saw below was a miniature landscape, and a second later Yonan was on his knees hanging over the edge.