The Catswold Portal (16 page)

She crossed the fields of a small farm, walked under its last fence and stood surveying the city street and the houses lining the opposite sidewalk. She was less afraid of houses now. Houses sometimes meant food, and she was ravenous.
Her swollen paw throbbed with pain, hurting so badly that even though she kept her foot lifted and walked on three paws, every movement sent jarring pain through her body.

Now at the edge of the town she crossed the street behind two slow-moving cars. On the other side she trotted, limping, across yards until she came to an alley. Because it was narrower than the street and more sheltered, she turned into it, walking on three legs.

She traveled the alley quickly, crossing each residential street, never faltering from her destination south. She passed houses and scattered stores, then more houses. She was halfway through the town, in a small cluster of stores, when she smelled fish and paused.

Warily she turned into a side alley and approached the back door of a bait shop.

She stared up at the screen door. The smell of fish was strong. Boldly she picked her way through scattered trash and up three dilapidated wooden steps.

Crouching to run, she stared in through the screen. Inside, a man was cutting up fish. When he turned and saw her, he banged his cleaver on the table and shouted. She fled, leaping down on all fours: the pain jarred like fire through her.

But the jolt broke the abscess. As she fled it began to drain, the pus oozing out.

She ran for two blocks before she crouched under a car, licking and licking her hurting, oozing paw.

Soon the pain grew less. When she left the shelter of the car she was walking on all fours.

By nightfall she was out of the town and in an open field dotted with oaks, and she had forgotten her wound. She caught and ate three field mice, then sheltered high in an oak tree, resting, coming down once more to hunt. Her hurt eye had begun to heal, and the itching annoyed her. Several hours after dark the full moon rose. Its pull made her giddy, she lay out along a branch watching it, letting its power tease her.

At last, filled to brimming with the moon's madness, she leaped down out of the tree and raced the meadow, running
up another tree and down, and up another. In each tree she paused to stare at the sky and out at the moon-whitened field. Then she raced on again. And if, as she ran madly, visions touched her, if she sensed underground spaces, and if mysterious voices whispered, these disembodied experiences seemed little different to her than the disembodied voices coming from radios and juke boxes.

She left the meadow that night, traveling south beside the highway. And now as she hurried on, feeling well again, she stopped sometimes to bathe thoroughly, sleeking and fluffing her fur. And she played more. She was drawing near the place coded in her feline spirit as home.

When on the tenth day she left Highway 101, a sense of rightness made her leap along through the marshy meadow that flanked the narrower road. With kittenish abandon she gamboled, jumping puddles. Her dodging play through the marsh grass made it dance and tremble. When she caught a mouse almost by accident, she ate it quickly then ran on swiftly toward home. Drawing near the portal, her green eyes shone. She smelled home. She stopped to stand on her hind legs, peering away over the grass toward the far hill. She smelled the garden. She galloped on, and soon she smelled a faint turpentine and oil scent caught on the breeze, speaking to her of a particular house. Wildly she fled along the edge of the highway, then crouched and sped across between cars, shaken by the cars' wind as they passed her. On the other side she slipped into the briar tangle at the base of the hill.

She climbed the hill beneath the briars, using a path worn by other cats and by rabbits. At the top, she came out behind the center house. Her whiskers twitched with interest at its scent, and she stood looking. But she did not approach the house. She went on past it, up through the garden, alert for the cats whose scent marked this territory as theirs. She could smell, ahead, the cup-of-gold vine and the ancient door, and she approached eagerly.

 

Olive Cleaver, standing at her window looking out at the garden, glimpsed a flash of calico and white move between
the bushes. Startled, she waited for the cat to emerge. Strange that a neighborhood cat would have the nerve to come into this garden, where the other cats were so possessive. Strange that it was a calico. She had never seen a calico cat near the garden or in the neighborhood. The cat soon appeared nearer her, higher up the hill. She watched it slip through a tangle of nasturtiums and disappear beneath the jasmine bush before the tool shed door. Olive put down her book, watching for it to come out.

When the calico cat did not appear after a long time, Olive thought it must be hunting under the bushes. Maybe it was a stray and really hungry. She thought of taking some food down to it. But gooseflesh touched her because it was a calico, and she changed her mind.

Annoyed with herself, she went into the kitchen to brew herself a cup of tea, thinking that she made too much of things, let her imagination run away with her.

Strange, though, that a stray calico cat would appear in the garden, going directly to the tool shed, as if it knew the place.

R
iding fast, Siddonie and her two companions galloped along the Mathe-Wexten border followed by the queen's small entourage and by two dozen warriors belonging to King Ridgen. The three monarchs had been in the saddle since dawn, inspecting caches of arms and food laid ready in spell-hidden caves. Siddonie watched King Ridgen proprietarily. She liked the way he rode, with an easy elegance. He was dark haired, sleek, with a knowing body and knowing
hands, whether handling a horse or a woman. By contrast, the older king, Moriethsten, was altogether sloppy. He rode like a bag of oats. His excess weight shifted with the gelding's movement, and his pale hair, bound in gold filigree, bounced unbecomingly in time to the horse's canter. His face was too soft featured, matching his soft, undisciplined thoughts.

Still, he kept the record books well enough. Since daybreak they had examined twenty caves, checking over and counting barrels of crackers and dried meat and water, and blankets and weapons and upperworld medical supplies. Other caches waited farther on where Wexten spanned beneath upperworld waters. But now, though the stores must be inspected, her mind was only half on the preparations for war.

She was unable to dismiss her uneasiness about Melissa. She knew Vrech had set the cat adrift in the upperworld, and that should be the end of it. With luck, the cat was already conveniently dead, rotting in some field. A natural death, for which she could not by the Primal Law be blamed. Yet now when she remembered Melissa as a small child, a certain remorse touched her.

She wondered if Melissa had already been pregnant with Efil's child when she caught them in bed. Rage at Efil made her boot the stallion and jerk his reins. Efil had been far too bold to bed that girl. He had ruined a good many plans, and he would pay for it.

Melissa's death was particularly bad timing. She must be replaced now, quickly, and the chosen Catswold girl must be trained to lead a Catswold army. They would have to quickly find among the upperworld Catswold they had captured some likely half-breed girl. A girl who had inherited some latent talent for magic and could be trained to the task. The result would not be as satisfying as having Melissa, but at least an upperworld Catswold girl would be easier to handle than Melissa.

The upperworld Catswold, strays from San Francisco's streets, had not yet been allowed to take human form. They
must first be committed totally to the Catswold queen before they learned the changing spell and learned what they really were. They must be willing to fight for, and die for, that queen.

She moved her stallion up beside Ridgen as the trail widened. Soon, too, there would be the changeling boy to train, to teach how to behave like Prince Wylles. A boy to be turned into Prince Wylles, a healthy boy to insure her title to the throne.

The land around them was bare here, and craggy. It would grow nothing. There was no village, not one cottage. Even the most skilled growing spells would hardly bring a green spear. When she glanced at Ridgen, the dark king gave her a slow, promising smile. Beside him, Moriethsten noticed nothing; the man was as dull as a turnip. She was pleased that the pretty young queen of Chillings would not be joining them. She hadn't liked her, though she had thought her loyal until the girl was caught sending supplies to Zzadarray. Under the acts of war, the Primal Law against killing didn't hold. Likely the young queen's people were busy this day burying her. Siddonie considered the choices for a new ruler. Chillings should have a king—men were easier to handle.

Ahead, the stone sky rose abruptly, layered and ragged. Slivers of stone lay in their path where the sky had flaked and crumbled. She could see ahead, down the sloping, stony hills, the isolated inn: a dark, sprawling group of rock buildings forming the tri-border where Mathe, Wexten, and Saurthen joined. The horses began to fuss, sensing food and shelter ahead. As they came down the last expanse of stone, a dozen grooms ran out to take their reins.

Siddonie's soldiers dismounted and helped with the animals. They would join the grooms for ale in the inn's cellar, to glean whatever intelligence they could.

Soon Siddonie and the two kings were sipping spell-chilled ale in the small, intimate dining hall before the inn's fire. Ridgen and Moriethsten, discussing troop movements, quieted when the red-faced elven innkeeper returned with their meal of rare venison and roast quail. Siddonie watched the small, square innkeeper refill her stein, keeping the
pewter white-cold with a local elven charm. When the steins were full Ridgen toasted her, dark-eyed and ardent, Moriethsten joining him innocently.

But Moriethsten was skillful in other ways, and reliable as long as she kept close check on him. Their mutual cousins staffed his palace in key positions. She had put Moriethsten on the throne after the old king was unfortunately discovered selling Wexten children into Cathenn slavery and was driven from the palace by a mob of enraged peasants. Very nicely handled, in Vrech's usual style.

A metallic racket began. She watched, annoyed, as three musicians strolled out from a curtained alcove with half a dozen dancing girls around them—nearly naked girls dressed in upperworld spangles. Ridgen and Moriethsten ogled them until Siddonie caused Ridgen to choke, and caused both men to find the girls dreary. Both kings turned away with bored glances and returned to their discussion of war tactics.

When they had conquered Ferrathil and Cressteane, they would move south. Once the south was won, they would destroy the eastern nations. “I want the Catswold finished,” she said softly.

Moriethsten pushed back a strand of pale hair. “When we move east, our armies will be dangerously cut off from the beltland.”

“No,” Siddonie corrected him. “We will not go through the tunnel. We will draw the Catswold out to attack us.”

The nations of Zzadarray, Ebenth, Cathenn, and Marchell, Catswold dominated, were separated from the eleven belt nations by the Hell Pit and by dense masses of stone passable only through a long, tedious tunnel. It would be suicide to attack those nations on their own ground, the Catswold had turned those peoples totally intractable. Siddonie traveled there seldom. She did not like the slow smiles of the Catswold. She would not tolerate her horses being mysteriously set loose, and her soldiers' weapons suddenly dulled and broken.

It had taken her a long time to develop a suitable plan to defeat the Catswold.

Several years ago she had purchased, with some manipulation, the hundred acres of cattle land in the upperworld, where there was an unused portal which led down through three miles of old gold mines and tunnels into Zzadarray. It was that portal through which, generations ago, many Catswold had emigrated to the upperworld. Now, very soon, Havermeyer would complete purchase of the old Victor mine, then the portal would be on her own land, a direct route into the Catswold nation of Zzadarray.

The Catswold didn't use the tunnel much now; their fascination with the upperworld seemed to have palled.

She regretted that upperworld weapons wouldn't operate in the Netherworld. If they would, she could wipe out Zzadarray in minutes, win the entire Netherworld in a matter of hours. She had, when she was quite young, sent pack animals down into the Netherworld laden with gunpowder and modern arms. But the old laws had held. Once in the Netherworld nothing would function; the gunpowder was as useless as sand. The Primal Spells, like the wizards who had laid them, were of incredible power.

The spell of light was needed, of course. But the spell that discouraged killing in the Netherworld except for official war was tedious, unwieldy, and outdated; the spell that would let no upperworld machine or mechanical device function was an abomination.

The dancing girls and musicians had gone. The fire had been built up and their mugs had been refilled. Siddonie raised a toast to their success, and saw Ridgen's color deepen. Under the table he stroked her hand as he lifted his glass in toast. But in spite of his touch, she was still thinking of Melissa.

If the cat accidentally survived, there was always the possibility that she could break the spell and free herself.

Though if she did, what matter? What damage could one Catswold do without training? Likely Melissa did not even know her powers. And likely she had no knowledge of the Amulet, or its considerable power.

And surely that gem was lost, inaccessible.

It was nineteen years ago that Siddonie had climbed the dark tunnel out of Xendenton beside Ithilel and his Catswold wife—Melissa's mother. She had thought then that Timorell had the Amulet, but later, searching Timorell's upperworld room and her possessions, she had found nothing.

After the earthquake she had searched the bodies of Timorell and McCabe, and had gone through the wreckage of McCabe's apartment. She had even searched the baby's clothes and its crib.

She had hated taking care of the baby; she didn't like babies. And what a difficult baby Melissa had been—mewling and spitting up. When she took her to the welfare people, she had meant to get her back when the child was old enough to be trained properly in magic. Even after Alice Kitchen's family took her, she had thought she could get the child any time.

She had tried, during those years, to establish some closeness with Melissa. Every trip she made to the city, she visited the child. She had done all she could to shape her thoughts and create some rapport with her. The child had been difficult even when she was small, so typically Catswold—stubborn, willful, and flighty, bursting into tears of terror for no reason. Then the problem had arisen with the Catswold Portal, and that was a situation that had seemed far more than coincidence.

That portal had been forgotten for generations. Havermeyer discovered it when he followed Alice Kitchen and the child. It had seemed a fortuitous find, entering down directly into Affandar as it did. She had, at that time, just begun to court eleven-year-old Efil of Affandar. She had been twenty-four.

Once Havermeyer found the Catswold Portal, they had used it regularly. But then Havermeyer, approaching it one afternoon, had stumbled upon Alice Kitchen making a drawing of it. He had pretended to admire her work, and Alice had told him, in the typically candid way of upperworlders, that she thought the door was ancient and that she meant to trace its history.

Siddonie sipped her ale, frowning. She had gone up through the tunnel herself the next day, to get Melissa out of there before Alice Kitchen learned too much about the portal, and perhaps began to suspect things about the child. It had been time to bring the girl down anyway. She was twelve years old and should begin training.

She remembered that day sharply. When she came out of the tunnel into the tool cave, the child was playing just outside the open door, in the garden. Siddonie had spell-bound her easily, had picked her up, and had carried her back through the wall when someone cast a spell over her. She went dizzy and felt the child pulled out of her arms.

She had remained trapped for hours in a spell as confining as stone, slumped at the end of the tunnel, unconscious, knowing nothing. When she regained her senses, she was certain the child had been taken down to the Netherworld. Then as she followed the tunnel down, she found behind a boulder some bread crusts where someone had eaten—smooth, commercially baked upperworld crusts. And beside these, a dark spot of earth had smelled sweet, as if some child's drink such as Grape Kool-Aid had been spilled.

Once in the Netherworld again, she had launched a thorough search for Melissa, but the child could not be found.

And in the upperworld Alice Kitchen began a search, too. It was later that she—Alice West by then—began to investigate the portal.

Vrech had taken care of Alice smoothly enough, crossing the Primal Laws only in a small way: a fear-spell that touched the truck driver, causing a swerve. That had been a long shot that had paid off.

Siddonie started as Ridgen squeezed her hand. She had been a long way off. Ridgen warmed her with a deep look. She winked back at him, and he smiled.

“The fire is dying. The chambers have been aired and warmed,” he said.

As they watched Moriethsten, Ridgen's eyes narrowed, weaving a sleep-spell over the Wexten king—a simple
enough charm when handling one person, though near impossible when dealing with a mob. Moriethsten yawned and began to nod.

Siddonie rose, taking Ridgen's arm. The two of them moved toward the stair, amused by Moriethsten asleep with his head on the table.