Shirley Murphy - The Catswold Portal

Melissa’s horse was shivering, his eyes were white-rimmed, his nostrils distended. Siddonie sat her horse smiling, waiting, licking her lips as the serpent slid swiftly toward them across the battlefield.

It lunged at them like a mountain unleashed. Horses wheeled away, foot soldiers fled. But a dozen mounted soldiers attacked the beast, their spears striking at it like pins hitting a mountain. It snatched them up and drooled their blood. Melissa spun her horse, charging beside her troops. She saw the Griffon appear out of the smoke of the Hell Pit.

He dove at the dragon but the beast flung him aside. The Catswold troops charged the beast, and only absently did Melissa realize she was wounded, or pay attention to the faintness that gripped her. She thought her dizziness was fear. But as she rode straight for the beast she heard Siddonie cry a changing spell.

The change hit her: she was suddenly cat, clinging to the saddle of the running horse, her knife gone, the black dragon coiled over her.

Her scream was a yowl. As she was lifted in the dragon’s flaming mouth, she saw that all the Catswold warriors had changed. Around her hundreds of cats were sucked up from the saddle, fighting, twisting, into the black maw of the dragon. His body was like dense smoke. Choking, she tried to change to human and could not. She tried to bring a spell against the dragon and was powerless. The beast’s shifting form revealed glints of stone sky that vanished again as around her cats screamed, falling against her. She thought she heard Braden shout her name and felt rage at the deception.

A louder shout made the beast pause. Now suddenly the suspended cats dropped twisting down as if scattered from a cloudburst. Cats dropped to the battlefield and fled, changing to human. She saw Siddonie near to her. The queen had gone dead white. She sat frozen in the saddle, staring off to the south.

The calico leaped to the back of a riderless horse and saw across the battlefield a group of riders approaching, running their scruffy ponies straight at the massed armies. She dug her claws into the saddle, unbelieving.

Fifty immense white banners, slung from poles, flapped above the running horses. Melissa heard from the massed armies a sigh of shock. Siddonie seemed unable to look away from the banners. Her hands trembled, and the reins dropped loose under her fingers as she faced their powerful magic.

Each banner was blazoned with Siddonie’s face. A huge, lifelike portrait. The queen’s face was repeated fifty times, and in the wind of the galloping horses the banners stirred and flapped and the faces seemed alive, twisting and grimacing.

The Affandar queen cringed in the saddle, diminished.

The serpent she had called from the pit grew thin in breadth and thinner in substance so the mountains showed plainly through its coils, and it began to blow like smoke back toward the pit.

The banners snapped. Siddonie’s fifty faces writhed. Siddonie herself seemed powerless. The four kings who had remained beside her wheeled their horses and fled as if the power that held them had snapped. Siddonie kicked her horse, trying to flee too, but now her reins were held by her own warriors. She screamed and hit at them, her face a parody of the banner images. Her curses raked the air. And it was then that Melissa saw the image maker.

Braden rode standing in the saddle. She wanted to ride galloping to him. She brought the spell, but could not change from cat. She was wounded, her shoulder drenched with blood. She kneaded her claws uselessly as Siddonie’s sword swept at her.

Braden saw the queen raise her sword. He spurred his horse, felt the unwieldy banner jerk in his hand. He hung on to it, riding hard for Siddonie as she lunged at the calico cat.

He swung the banner so hard Siddonie was knocked from the saddle. The calico’s horse bolted, the little cat clinging to the saddle. “For Christ sake, Melissa! Change!”

Silently crying the spell, she was suddenly sent reeling up tall. She was awkwardly astride a racing horse; she snatched up the reins and pulled him up. Her right hand was clutching the Amulet.

She saw the smoky coils of the serpent twisting across the sky above the Pit, growing thinner as it descended down into the flames. Then light struck the battlefield, glancing through the serpent’s coils. Light bathed both armies, and within the light shone a woman tall as the mountain. Her body was robed in gold. Her face was the face of cat—leonine, bold.

Sekhmet stood over the battlefield, her eyes burning with light. The serpent was gone, blown apart.

At Melissa’s breast, the Amulet burned with light. And then Braden was holding her, his lips against her forehead. Together they watched the golden lion-woman, her glow embracing the warriors, watched her until the goddess vanished. And when at last Melissa looked up into Braden’s eyes she saw that he was different. As if something lost long ago had been given back to him; as if the chasm between his own two worlds had been bridged.

Chapter 73

Siddonie stood captive, held by her own warriors. Melissa remembered a younger Siddonie bringing dolls to the house in San Francisco, remembered the frightening games Siddonie had tried to make her play. She watched the kings gather, King Bendini of Ferrathil, gray and grizzled; young, dark King Allmond of Shenndeth; King Terragren of Cressteane, sitting his horse straight as a rod; King Plaguell of Pearilleth, a great rock of a man. She watched each of the twelve kings accept a banner from a Catswold upperworlder—the bed sheet banners that Braden had painted to liberate the Netherworld rulers. The kings raised the images solemnly. Melissa listened to their prayers of thanks for Siddonie’s defeat, their voices carrying across the battlefield. Every head was bowed.

When the prayers were finished, King Plaguell said, “We will not execute the queen of Affandar here on the battlefield. There will be a formal court at the palace of Affandar. Our own transgressions will be recounted, as will hers, to become a part of Netherworld history. The events of this year will be documented, never in future to be forgotten.”

The twelve kings circled Siddonie, holding high their banners, her portraits turned toward the center of the circle where she must face them.

As the kings completed their circle around the cold-faced queen, Melissa saw Wylles sitting astride a shaggy pony among the upperworld Catswold. The prince’s arm was held securely by Terrel Black as the boy watched his mother’s defeat. Seeing this, Melissa turned away, pressing her face against Braden’s shoulder.

Chapter 74

It was midnight. Few lights burned in Affandar Palace, though smoke from many chimneys drifted toward the granite sky. In a large second-floor chamber Melissa undressed before the hearth’s bright flames. Firelight flickered and shifted against the pale walls. As she slipped into bed, the creamy silk sheets felt delicious against her bare skin. She slid against Braden’s nakedness, letting his warmth engulf her. They did not make love. They were silent, thinking about the dead queen.

Siddonie’s trial had ended at noon. She had been hanged two hours later in the palace courtyard, in a ceremony Melissa hadn’t watched.

It was stupid to feel sad for Siddonie. She had brought only misery and fear.

“What was she?” Braden said. “What kind of creature? A totally evil woman…”

“Daughter of Lillith. Slavemaker. A destroyer of the spirit, Mag said.”

“I like Mag,” Braden said. He laughed. “Mag and Olive hit it off, all right.”

“And the Harpy,” she said, smiling.

He kissed her forehead lightly, stroked her hair. “Three grand old girls. Best thing that ever happened to Olive.”