Andre Norton - The Gate of the Cat

The red haze thickened. Yonan was hidden from her; even Wittle was only a shadow within the bloody fog. But that could not hide the flash of the jewels nor the fact that the shadows were in retreat from that light.

“Die then!”

The threat may only have touched her mind, spun out of the fog, but it was like a shout to awaken echoes from her very bones. In an instant the red beam loosened its struggle with the jewels, was shot straight to where she and Wittle carried on their part of this strange duel.

“Die!”

She was gasping for clean air, her lungs filled instead with thick flaming gas. Yet that was not true, another part of her proclaimed. This was the last weapon of the shadow—and where was her weapon—out there!

She held to her thought of the jewel, unable to see it now that the thick haze wrapped her round. Hold—only hold—

Past her will there worked another order which she could not contain and defeat. Fight! Aim the jewel not toward the land she had guarded but down the beam of the red curtain—strike so a blow of her own. The gem answered to that impulse. No longer did it spin and weave its own kind of protection above the world in miniature—instead it wavered on its axes and then settled into a sharp pattern of its own, speeding down the ray of red which formed a guide. It hurled its way as she might have thrown a stone lull force. From it came a whining note, rising ever higher and higher, until she could no longer hear it, only feel it throughout her body.

But Wittle’s jewel held in place though it threw off no more of the life inducing sparks and the shadows began to gather once again. On sped the star which was Kelsie’s borrowed stone. There was no sight of it by eye anymore; only in her mind could she follow its furious pace. Around her the fierce lash of the heat was beginning to fail—whoever had raised that was indrawing all strengths, preparing for a final battle. She felt no lack of confidence. Instead a fierce pride and exultation. As if by carrying battle to the enemy she had doomed her own cause.

“Ninatur!” Again came Yonan’s war cry out of the ruddy dusk, seeming farther away. Kelsie crouched, her whole sense of will and strength concentrated on the disappearing jewel.

She had a vision which dazzled even her open eyes, causing her to blink. There was a single figure on the other side of the basin. She could not see it clearly, but she had a mind picture of a gleaming white body twisting and turning as if in some strange formal dance. From each footfall on the stone there came a new puff of red to fit itself into the stream of the beam. But the jewel had reached there and come to hang over the dancer’s head.

Kelsie threw forth in that moment all her strength of will. The jewel steadied, began to spin as it had above the land in the basin. Now she could mind see it, now she could not as another blast of red fumes arose. But she sensed something else—that the dancer had not expected this, that it must take time to recall the strength of the beam in self-defense. That time must not be allowed. As she had struck sparks by will from the star in the basin, so Kelsie now tried to gain the same from the spin of the jewel in that place the Shadow’s servant believed safe. Round—so! Round again!

She felt as if the beam were searing her to her very bones yet there was that in her which would not recall the miniature sun which now fought her battle beyond the reach of eyesight. Turn—spark—spark! There!

A first speck of light broke from that encircling brilliance about the jewel. The flying feet of the dancer were fashioning a new pattern, one which must not be allowed to become a form. There—another spark and the dancer faltered for a single instant, less than a breath out of time. But faltered it had! Now!

With all the strength she could summon up Kelsie aimed her second blow. And perhaps her last. She was so wrapped up in the haze that she felt she was completely encased from the real world, entrapped in this torment. Perhaps the mind picture she held to was also an illusion and she was being tricked.

There was a tremor down the beam which closed her in so. And then a second one. She could breathe without those torturing rasps for throat and lungs. Her spirit arose. Yes! The dancer was not so sure of the pattern now—there were sparks—not as great as those which the jewel had flung into the basin world but enough to cut through the web the other wove, to loosen here and there some portion of the intended design. Now!

Kelsie threw herself to the left, rolled over the rock until her body thudded against that of Wittle. One hand lashed out and tightened about the witch’s bony shoulder.

“Give me power!” Kelsie may not have shouted that cry but it rang through her body. Perhaps the very suddenness of it made Wittle obey. Through her hand upon the other came a surge of strength and in the girl’s mind the jewel began a wider swing, following the dancer in and out, emitting a shower of sparks which struck downward.

Kelsie felt as if she were swelling through her own body—that what she gathered in from Wittle was too great to be held or she herself would be consumed—and she fought to channel it in her mind—aim it toward that other world weapon she could not see.

The red curtain enclosing the two of them began to diffuse; she could see the witch now—though Wittle had not turned her head nor made any gesture to suggest that she saw Kelsie. Wittle’s gaze strained instead out over the basin. There, very dim in the red of the slowly disrupting beam was her own jewel—still suspended in the air but no longer spinning so swiftly, rather wobbling as if what supported it was nearly gone.

But Kelsie had no mind for that—the battle moved across and they must defeat the dancer not the again growing shadows over the smaller world.

“Release—send!” demanded the girl. “Give strength—”

She could still feel the inflow from her hold upon the witch but it was lessening. Her mind picture of the dancer grew hazier and hazier until she could not be sure that that other existed at all, that she had not been drawn into a trap which had finished both the jewels and left the basin world open to the Dark.

There was dark, a fume filled, suffocating darkness and in that still moved the dancer though the lightsome patter of feet had become a desperate shuffle. Then—nothing—

Kelsie opened her eyes. She lay by the edge of the basin and near her was a heap of travel-stained gray which would only be Wittle. From far overhead came the faint crystalline music she had first heard when the jewels had been loosed over the miniature world. With an effort she turned her head, edged toward the verge of the basin. The red wave was gone and afar there twisted and turned a single jewel—Wittle’s, she thought. Her hand sought her own breast somehow hoping that she had not lost what had seemed to be a burden she had never asked to carry but which had become a part of her.

“Yonan?” she called in a voice which sounded cracked from the ordeal of the heat. There was no answer. She got to her knee then and started to search toward where she had had the single sight of him during the battle. There were bodies there—two of them—one in mail.

Somehow she got to her feet and lurched in that direction. There was an emptiness about her as if something had withdrawn or been banished from that world within a world. Not only her jewel, she thought.

Past those bodies she tottered, stooping to make sure that he in the mail was not the Valley warrior. But it was a dark, cruel face which met her gaze. She skirted well by the monster having no desire to see it the closer.

There were splashes of blood on the stones and she kept to that trail. Where her jewel had gone, that was where she must go also. Though she already knew that she had no talisman, no weapon she could now claim.