The Gate of the Cat (Witch World: Estcarp Series) Read online

  Kelsie shivered. There were tales enough told in the Scottish mountains—of people who had gone away and then returned—seemingly having been gone by their own measurement of time for but a night or so, but really for years!

  Tales—

  She got to her feet and walked toward that gate. There was nothing beyond but stretches of mossed rock, stands of the white bell flowers and the rise of stones which was a screen between them and the dead. If she tried could she go through?

  She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the tumble of stones she had seen for such a short time before she arrived here. They had been in the long summer twilight with the moon hardly giving any help. One had lain so—she remembered that, for the cat had leaped it even as she had struck up Neil's shotgun. And there had been—she held to a badly faded mind picture and took two steps more. She opened her eyes.

  Yes, she had ventured out of the shadow of the gate but she was still in the unknown. Behind her came a warning cry from the cat and she saw the snaky form of the lean hound among the rocks. Kelsie leaped backward into what she had come to consider the only safety in this place of many alarms and death.

  The cat snarled. Somehow she had managed to get her neck out of the chain of the jewelry. Now she stood once more before her kits one paw planted flat upon that fiery stone. Kelsie waited alertly for the appearance of a rider, since the first hound had come so attended.

  Instead there was a crawling man, striving on hands and knees to come toward her, wavering back and forth. Kelsie's first thought was to run to his aid. But she expected the hound to turn and rend him as he passed and the beast made no such move. It was that which held her in her place.

  “Ahhheeee—” surely that cry had come from the crawler. And it was followed by another. If he spoke words there were none that she knew. On impulse she went down on one knee by the cat and reached for the chain but now the cat snarled at her and struck out with its injured paw as if it would flay the skin from her fingers.

  “Aaaaahaaaa—” there was no mistaking now that the wounded man crawling toward the circle had thrown back his head and was screaming.

  The hound crossed over behind him and was apparently driving him toward the very shelter that he sought. Perhaps the creature had by this some way to force the barrier which had defeated its fellow accompanying the masked rider. If so Kelsie had no mind to see how it would work.

  She strode toward the gate with some vague idea of defense in her mind. Thrusting the sword point into the center of a bed of moss so that it stood up close to her hand she stood dangling the once tried and to her more effective measure of the weighted belt.

  Now the crawling man was mouthing sounds like frantic words—though they meant nothing to her. Once he crouched, leaning heavily on one arm as he held out his other hand beseechingly in her direction. And, she noted, the hound did nothing to harass him. The creature wanted him in and anything which would serve that one's purpose was to be avoided.

  Now he was lower to the ground, drawing himself painfully along by grasping the turf. Between his shoulders an arrow shaft nodded back and forth. Still the hound held off, even withdrew a pace or so.

  There came a keening call, Kelsie ducked as a shadow swept over her, looking up at a large black bird, its wing sweep stretched near as far as she was tall. She ducked, thinking that it was seeking her. But it shot up as quickly as it had swooped. Not before she saw that its overlarge eyes were, like those of the rider's mount, pits of swirling, greenish-yellow flame.

  Once more it planed down at her. She swung the belt wildly and snatched for the waiting sword, but it stayed just beyond her reach. She heard above the whimpering noise which was now coming from the crawling man, the yowling of the cat, crouched above its helpless kittens.

  Whether the purpose of the bird thing would ever have succeeded and driven her out of the circle Kelsie was never to know for there shot through the air a flash of blue light followed by the cracking sound of a whip.

  Kelsie, her back now firmly against the rock which helped to support the gate on one side, looked toward that slope down which she had gone to hunt water.

  There were two of them, riders. But not like the muffled black one who had tried to reach her before. Their mounts were not horses but shining coated red-cream beasts, each with a horn on its forehead. And the riders—Kelsie blinked and blinked again. Surely now her eyes were playing tricks on her.

  When they had first burst into view certainly they had been dark of hair, almost dusky of skin, but now that they were in the full sunlight they showed hair as gilt as true gold and cream skin which their vividly green clothing made all the more fair. There were no reins in their hands, they might have been allowing their striking mounts to range freely. But each bore what looked like a stock of a whip, and, even as she watched, Kelsie saw the woman draw back her arm and snap out what seemed a line of pure fire, not as visible as a real lash, at the flying thing above.

  It squawked raucously and soared well above that flash while the hound gave forth another of its coughing howls. But the crawling man lay supine and unmoving now. Around the circle of the stones pounded the newcomers. The woman leaned over and looked at the body bearing the arrow but she did not dismount nor strive to give any aid.

  Her companion wheeled on the hound and it was not as lucky as the flying creature in escape, for the flicking tip of the burning lash the rider wielded struck on its flank and there was a puff of oily smoke. To be followed an instant later by a bursting noise and then the hound was gone, leaving only an oily black deposit on the stones among which it had tried to hide.

  The woman's mount paused before the gate and she called aloud, her words unintelligible but clearly aimed at Kelsie, who made a helpless gesture with her free hand, still keeping grip upon her belt weapon.

  “I do not understand you,” she called back. These riders did not bring with them the miasma of evil which had hung above the other creatures and the black rider. That they meant her no harm she was halfway satisfied. But they were clearly of this world which had changed so much and so—could they really be trusted?

  The woman stared at her for a space and now she was joined by the other rider. As his mount came to a halt beside hers Kelsie witnessed again that weird change in the two of them. Their hair changed to a red and there was a golden glint of freckles now across the woman's high-bridged nose. It was as if instead of two riders she faced a number, all contained in a single person. Now the woman no longer spoke, rather she stared straight into Kelsie's eyes, a look of concentration making hers intent and searching.

  “Who—” the word was faint and if anything more had been added to that mind touch Kelsie did not receive it. But it was plain that she had been questioned.

  “I am Kelsie McBlair,” she spoke slowly, sure that the rider could not understand. Then, with a great effort, she tried something else—pictures out of her memory—of the fallen stones, her struggle with Me Adams and her awaking here. She was aware of a yowl from behind her and knew that the wildcat was also answering in its own fashion.

  “—gate!” Again Kelsie was sure that she had missed all but one word of something which might be of importance to her.

  She nodded, taking the chance that the other meant somehow the archway in which she now stood. The woman rested the stock of her light whip across her mount and with both hands made a series of passes in the air. Where her fingers moved there were left traces of bluish light, not unlike that emitted by the whips, in a complicated design. Seeing that seemed to reassure the spinner of those symbols for she nodded and spoke to the man at her side.

  His mount moved back and then he was riding along the trail of blood which had been left by the creeper who lay so flat and silent now. In a moment he had disappeared beyond the rocks toward that scene of death which Kelsie had found earlier.

  However, the woman, whose hair had again darkened to near black as there swept a cloud across the sun, slipped from the saddleless back of h
er mount and approached the girl at the gate. Kelsie kept her tight hold on the belt. She found nothing terrifying about this newcomer but what did she know of anything in this strange and frightening place?

  Fur brushed against her leg. The wildcat had come out of the nest she had been so ready to defend. In her mouth gleamed the jewel she had taken from the dying woman, its chain dragging along the ground behind, catching here and there on the flower leaves as she came.

  She went forward, out of the stone circle, to drop what she carried at the feet of the woman, who went to one knee caressing the cat with fearless fingers before she caught at the chain and held up the jewel. She did not touch the stone, keeping instead her hold only on the chain. But there was wonderment and then a flicker of anxiety in her expression. Now she looked to Kelsie again.

  “Who—” stronger this time, that mind question, yet still but a single word.

  “Roylane—” she answered aloud, guessing again at what the full question might have been. And this time she saw the woman's eyes go wide, her mobile features picturing shock.

  “Who—?” the mind word came again and now the hand holding that chain swung it so that the gem gleamed in the sun.

  “Kelsie—” the girl repeated.

  “Kel-Say,” this time the woman shaped the word with her lips not her thought— “Kel-Say.”

  Three

  “——With——”

  Again the woman gestured, this time summoningly. Her mount moved up beside her and stood waiting. The eyes it fastened on Kelsie were not burning circles of evilly colored fire as she had seen in the hounds’ heads and in that of the skeletonlike steed of the black rider—rather a warm brown and—surely there was intelligence in them!

  Kelsie guessed once more at what they wished of her—to accompany them. The circle meant safety from what she had seen threatening in this land—that she knew. Dared she obey that invitation—or was it an order? She could not stand against the flame whips of these two were they to drive her.

  To gain time she pointed to the body on the ground.

  “What about him?” she asked, spacing her words carefully, trying to think her question at the same time.

  The answer came sharp and clear.

  “Dead!”

  She heard the cat mew and looked down. Already the mother's jaws had closed upon the nape of one of the squirming kittens. Lifting her child high the cat advanced toward the gate, plainly ready to go with this stranger even if Kelsie delayed. That made up the girl's mind for her. She went to gather up her coat, the other mewling infant in it, and returned, stooping, offering the bundle to the wildcat. The mother allowed her burden to drop in with its sibling, winding about Kelsie's legs as she went through the gate at last.

  Up the slope came the other rider. He carried before him the body of Roylane and passed them, taking his burden on into the circle. No opposition arose to keep him out, but, as he entered, the blue standing stones flared up like candles and a drifting haze spread from one to another of them. He dismounted and lifted down the body which in his hold seemed small and spare. Then he laid it on the ground, choosing, Kelsie was sure, not just by chance, a bed of the white flowers to receive it. From his belt he produced two brilliantly blue feathers, gleaming like those which formed the tails of those birds she had seen earlier. He pushed one into the ground at the head and the other at the feet of the dead woman, standing up and back at last to raise his two hands to his forehead in what appeared to be a salute, while from his companion there came a sing-songed flow of speech which might have been of farewell or invocation.

  As he turned to leave, the trails of mist from the stones rolled out into the center of the circle, settling about that small broken body until only their one rippling substance could be seen.

  “——Go——”

  Again Kelsie was summoned, and since there was little other choice she went. She sat awkwardly on the back of the woman's mount, her arms full of the coat in which squirmed the kittens. The woman caught up the cat in turn and slipped her into the folds Kelsie held. Then, to the girl's surprise, she also put in the jewel. The cat pawed it beneath her own body as she settled with her family, looking up at Kelsie with a hint of a growl as if warning the girl to take care.

  They skirted the gully where the stream flowed and the animal under her fell into a swift pace, joined immediately by its companion. They headed southwest, as well as Kelsie could tell from the sun.

  As they went it became more and more certain to the girl that wherever she might be it was no country she had ever seen or heard of. Strange vegetation arose around them and there were things moving in the tall grass of open glades which had no relationship to any animal she knew.

  She noted as they went that the man kept behind and sometimes his mount dropped to a slower pace—he might have been a rear guard. Yet they heard no more of the yowling howls from the hounds, nor any other sounds save the calls of the bright winged birds which swung about them as they rode.

  Across open land they traveled. Now and then their mounts trotted by long overgrown fields guarded by the tumbled stones of what were once dividing walls. This had the look of a land long deserted.

  At last they came to a way which was marked by a scarring of hoof and footprints and undoubtedly was a road, if one might call such a dusty trail a road. The land began to rise on either side and Kelsie could see that they were entering the throat of a valley between two rises which, a little beyond, assumed the height of real mountains.

  On the rock walls they passed were carved a series of signs or what might even have been words of an unknown tongue. The woman with whom Kelsie shared this mount pointed with her flame whip as they passed each of these symbol-graven rocks.

  There was a scuttling around a large rock where, settled in a squatting position on the crown, was a shape as bizarre as that of the hound and the monstrous beast the black rider had bestridden.

  Shorter than a man, this sentinel, for so she would deem him with its spear held up in salute to the riders, was a giant lizard, green-gold of scaled skin. It had a domed head which was nearly human in shape, though the lipless mouth which stretched a third of the way back into the skull and the red tongue which quivered in the air (as if testing a breeze which was not at that moment blowing) were grotesque copies of human features. The woman responded to his salute with a raised hand.

  Kelsie was sure that they must have passed other guards during their journey, but that was the only one she had seen. Then at last they reached the mouth of a gully road at the border of a land which made her draw a deep breath.

  She had seen strangeness and horror since her first awaking here—wherever here might be. Now she looked upon true beauty. The land ahead was brilliantly green with lush growth starred here and there with flowers jewel-like in radiant color. She saw to one side a small herd of animals like the one she now bestrode grazing peacefully. There were also people before and beyond, though none of them appeared to show any interest in the emergence of their own small party.

  Down they went—the road now vanished and the hillside covered with velvety grass. Then, for the first time, Kelsie saw houses—the brightness of their roofs betraying them to the eye, for their walls were masses of flowering vine. Had the feathers been plucked from countless flocks of the birds such as escorted them and woven into a thatch it would look like that!

  For the first time the inhabitants of the valley looked up. Some gathered in a small group of welcome. A few of them shared the peculiarity of those two who had found her, their color of skin and hair changing as they moved. But the others were closer to the woman she had found dying. They were tall and slender and their hair remained very dark, their skin sun browned yet fair.

  Four of those who so waited were men, wearing coats of fine mail which, when they moved, appeared to be as supple as cloth. There were two women, one of whom wore green garments which were no different from those of the one whose beast Kelsie shared. But the other had a long strai
ght robe of gray which brushed the grass with its hem and had a circle of tarnished silver girding it. Her dark hair was drawn severely back and bound into a net also of silver, while her pallid face reminded Kelsie strongly of the woman who had died from the savaging of the hound.

  It was she who started forward as they drew up, but her attention was all for the gem half hidden by one of the cat's paws. Her lips moved, breaking the statue-like stillness of her face, and she stared first at the woman in green and then at Kelsie. It seemed to the latter that there was both suspicion and threat in that long moment of straight regard.

  She herself slipped from the back of the sleek mount, her coat with the kittens still held close. But the cat had leaped lightly to the earth the minute they had come to a halt and was now weaving a pattern brushing against the long gray skirt, the chain of the jewel gripped between its teeth.

  The woman stooped and drew her ringers across that bushy head and then looked again to Kelsie, speaking in that lilting language. Regretfully the girl shook her head.

  “I do not understand—”

  Several of those waiting looked startled and the woman in gray frowned. Then in her aching head Kelsie felt once more that troubling sensation:

  “—who/—what/—”

  For the second time she pictured the scene on the side of Ben Blair, trying to remember every small item. If these people could read minds surely they must be able to pick out an answer from what she spread before them. But the frown on the woman's face only grew sharper and there was a murmur of near whispers speeding from one listener to another.