Andre Norton - The Gate Of The Cat

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The Gate of the Cat
by Andre Norton
Chapter One
The long evening twilight pulled pools of shadows from small bushes. Kelsie shivered though she was
warm enough in the quilted coat and the thick slacks above boots which seemed to sink a little more at
every step she took over the reach of peaty soil which lay between her and the rise of the mist-crowned
hills beyond. It was to her an unreal, even threatening landscape, yet she was far from turning back. She
set her teeth and tightened her grip on the small basket she carried. Maybe tonight she would succeed;
she refused to give up and accept all their stories.
At the present she saw nothing beautiful or imposing in the land about her, for all the gushing of the travel
brochures on which she had first built her ideas of what was to be found and seen in these far northern
Scottish highlands. Instead, she had the feeling of tramping over a deserted land in which some invisible
menace lay in wait. One could well believe in Black Dogs and Daft Ponies out of Hell, of the meddling of
otherworld things hereabout. Goodness knew there were stories enough—and she had listened to them
eagerly when they had been told about the fireside. Only this was not the safety of a room lit and
undercover.
She listened apprehensively to the noises of the night.
There was the bark of a vixen, a distant answering howl from some farm dog. In answer to that stark
loneliness, which those cries only accentuated, she hummed under her breath. It was the wordless up and
down of notes that she always used when she confronted injured or frightened animals. Injured— She felt
again the white hot stab of rage which had filled her two days ago when she had seen that torturous trap
and, caught in it, ragged, blood-stained toe pads—two pads of a cat's paw gnawed purposefully to give
the captured freedom.
Good for nothing they said—to be hunted down before the next lambing season if possible. That Neil
McAdams had been very sure of himself about that!
Only she had seen the predator. It was a female, close to kittening. This past day under better light she
had traced it up into the wilderness of the hillside. The grouse were thick and she had started up a whole
covey, which was doubtless against the strange laws of this place also—
Kelsie set her lips obstinately together as she remembered the parts of fireside talk which she had not
relished. The hunting down of a five point stag— Culling (as they called it—why not say what it really
was—murder of the innocent) of the deer herd last year. The hunting drives to send birds into the air to
be shot for sport—sport!
At least she knew in time she would never fit in here. She would put the house up for sale and—
Up ahead a tall shadow dislodged itself from a clump of brush and moved purposefully in the same
direction she was going. There was no mistaking either the nature of the elongated part of that
shadow—a man with a gun. And what he hunted here would be—
Kelsie began to run forward. This was still her land and certainly she would have the privilege to say
who would come on it, and a right to distrust the motives of any skulker.
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She saw ahead the standing stones—they called them that though all but three had been overthrown by
the church in the old days. As a lesson to those who clung to the old times and ways, a warning later for
those who might meddle in the forbidden. The three which still stood forming a rough arch, one mighty
stone of crudely hewn rock balanced on two of its fellows. It was toward that that the intruder was
walking.
She was nearly abreast of him now.
Of course it was Neil. Somehow she had known that from the first. The trap had failed so now he would
hunt down a wounded animal and use that gun— On her land, never!
There was a wailing sound from beyond. Pain in it as well as feral hatred and determination to be free.
The man raised his gun and Kelsie threw herself forward, but tripped. It was only her upflung arm which
jarred against his so that when he shot the charge went wild.
"What do you do!" There was hot anger in his voice but Kelsie's attention was beyond—the squat shape
drawn in upon itself, huddled in the very center of that archway. The wildcat—perhaps too injured to run,
facing them both with hatred and the determination to fight to the death.
"Stop it!" Kelsie was breathless as she regained her feet. "Leave the poor thing alone! Haven't you
tormented it enough by now?"
"Stop it, girl!" he snarled angrily back. "Yon beast is vermin. It will savage lambs in the spring—"
He was raising the rifle again just as the moon broke through one of the twilight clouds full upon the arch
and the cat crouched in it. This time Kelsie was more surely footed. She dropped her basket and
snatched for the gun with both hands. He fended her off and her foot turned on some stone deep buried
in the turf. As his fist cracked against the side of her face she spun out and around, voicing a cry of
protest and anger, and then fell into the arch from which the injured cat sprang but a second before. As
her head hit against the stone Kelsie rolled forward through the same opening into the place of the fallen
rocks.
* * *
Kelsie was first aware of the warmth. Without opening her eyes she twisted a little so that her face felt
the full heat. That small movement sent pain shooting through her head and she cried out. There was
movement beside her shoulder, a rough surface rasped across her cheek. At last she opened her eyes
and then blinked rapidly as a full force of sun beamed down upon her.
She had a confused memory of falling and then darkness. But surely this was not night in the Scottish
foothills—this was day! Had she been hurt and just lain there? And Neil! She propped herself up on one
elbow and looked around.
This—how had she come here? Those stones, which had been age buried when she had fallen in among
them, were now set up guardian straight. A warmth radiated from the nearest against which she had lain.
The stand of grass within that circle was not the stubby, coarse growth she had known, but was even
closer to the earth and patched with what seemed to be moss. What did spring higher was spangled with
flowers of a cream white, cupped like tulips, except they were not like any tulips she had ever seen.
Among them fluttered insects with bright wings.
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"Rrrrrowww—" Again she turned her head, so suddenly that pain brought another cry from her. The
wildcat crouched there, licking its torn foot, but looking now and again to her as if it perfectly understood
that she could help it.
Her basket lay a foot or so away and she stretched out an arm to grasp it, each movement bringing that
sickening pain in her head. With one hand she gingerly explored her own skin and hair on that side. There
was the ooze of liquid and she brought away fingers painted the bright red of blood. She could only
explore by the lightest of touches but she believed that the cut was a small one, more of a rasping and
bruising of skin than the larger wound she had expected.
Fumbling with the contents of her basket she brought out the antibiotic salve and the cotton swabs she
had carried on her mission of mercy. These she shared equally with the cat who only growled warningly
as she handled its foot and smeared on the same protective jelly as she had used on her own left temple.
It was still difficult to move. Any sudden change in the position of her head not only brought a stab of
pain but a feeling of nausea. So, when she had done with her battlefield surgery for them both, she leaned
her back against one of those standing stones, which had so unbelievably raised itself from the ground, to
look about her with more intent interest. The cat crouched some distance away again, licking its torn paw
but showing no desire to withdraw further.
Now that she had time to observe—to think of more than her immediate plight, she studied what lay
before her with eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun. She had already shed her coat because of the
unnatural heat and now wished she could slip out of her heavy turtleneck sweater into the bargain.
Surely this was not even the brightest of summer days such as she had heretofore known on Ben Blair.
Nor were the flowers, rippling gently under the teasing fingers of a light breeze, any she had seen before.
And the stones—how had they come to be set upright?
Of course this might be all illusion and she still lay back in the night twilight with her battered head against
the stone which had so roughly met her fall. Yet—it seemed so real!
The wildcat stopped her licking and made a small sound deep in her throat. She limped over to the coat
Kelsie had abandoned and pawed at it intently as if searching the padded surface for something of her
own.
Kelsie did not try to fight the vast fatigue which had settled on her when she had finished the last of her
nurse-care. She closed her eyes and then opened them suddenly twice, as if she tried to catch the
landscape before her in the midst of some change. However, it remained always the same—the standing
bluish stones, the patches of (lowers, the unnatural heat. She began to feel thirsty.
Now if she were indeed on the slope of Ben Blair there should be a spring not many paces away from
the place of stones. The very thought of water curling out of the ground made her run her tongue over lips
suddenly even more dry. Water-She did not try to stand up, even creeping on her hands and knees made
her feel qualms of nausea. However, she forced herself across a quarter of the circle, out between the
stones, in the general direction where that spring must lie.
Only there was no spring, at least none where she sought. She slipped down again to lie full length in the
midst of a patch of the wild flowers, the perfume of which was so strong as to add to her illness.
Water—with every moment she craved a drink more. Vow it seemed she could actually hear it. Perhaps
she had not been headed in the right direction. Muzzily she somehow once more got to her hands and
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knees heading south. Moments later she was indeed looking at water— down into water, for here was a
steep falling away of the land above a pool which mothered a small rill trickling away among moss grown
rocks.
In spite of falling painfully once, Kelsie reached the edge of that pool and cupped her hands to drink
liquid as chill as if it had just been imprisoned by ice. Still the chill cleared her head a little and she
slapped more of it on her face, avoiding the edge of the cut. Until, for the first time since she had
awakened, she felt wholly herself again.
There was no such pool on Ben Blair, just as the standing stones had been lying once there. Where was
she? Still wandering in the depths of some hallucination produced by the blow on her head? She must not
panic, and panic came from just such thoughts and questions without answers. For the moment she
seemed to be herself even if the rest of the world had changed.
She pulled out the shirt she had worn under her sweater and soaked it in the cold water, wringing it as
dry as she could before tying it around her head. For the first time she became aware of a twittering and
flitting at the other side of the pool. There was a bush there bending under a burden of dark red berries
and birds were feasting, showing no interest in her at all.
Not grouse, nor any others she had seen before. There was one species with a golden breast and wings
of a muted rose color, another a vivid green-blue, such plumage as she had seen before only on the
throats of peacocks.
Berries—food—
Just as the need for water had risen in her so now came the need to appease a hunger. She edged
around the water. The birds fluttered a little away but did not rise on the wing as she had expected them
to do. She drew a hand down one dangling branch and harvested a full palm's load of the berries. They
were sweet, yet had a lingering tartness which somehow added to their flavor, and, having tasted, she
straightway set about gathering and cramming into her mouth all she could reach and snatch from the
same branches where some birds were still boldly feeding.
Two or three of those with the metallic blue feathers had withdrawn a little and were watching her—not
as if they feared any move or attack on her part, but rather as if she herself provided some kind of puzzle
they must solve. At length one of them took off, soaring up into the sky, the sun making a rich glory of its
wings.
The cat— Kelsie looked at the birds, some of whom were eating fearlessly only a hand's distance from
her. She wondered if the creature was worse injured than she had thought, and she turned to make her
way back to that inexplainable circle of stone pillars. The upward slope she took cautiously, now back
on her feet to feel the ground swaying under her. Then she reached the top of that rise and looked ahead.
There was the yellowish-black patch of her discarded coat and she stumbled her way back to it,
concentrating on the garment rather than what stood around it.
There came a tiny mewling cry as her shadow fell across the edge of the coat and an instant answering
growl. Then she saw the kittens—two of them, small, blind shapes which the cat had just finished
washing.
She knew better than to approach too closely, that growl had sunk to a low sound in the mother's throat
but that she would allow an interference with her family Kelsie doubted. She spoke softly, using the same
words that she had used many times over at Dr. Atless's when she had been the attendant in his
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veterinary hospital.
"Good girl, clever girl—" she squatted down, with her back to one of the stones, to survey the small
family. "You have pretty kittens—good girl—"
She was startled then by a cry which certainly had not come from the cat or her new family. It might
have been the howling of a tormented dog, only Kelsie's knowledge of dogs said no to that. Twice it
sounded. The cat's ears flattened to her skull, her eyes became warning slits. Kelsie shivered even under
the strong beams of that sun. She faced outward from the circle toward the heights which lay beyond.
For the third time that cry sounded and it was certainly nearer and sharper, as if a hunter were hot upon a
trail. The girl looked about her for a weapon, some hope of defense. At last she tugged at the coat on
which the cat had bedded down, loosing the belt and drawing it out. With no stick nor stone here that
was her only possible choice.
At the fourth howl the creature who had so given tongue came into sight—first only a black blot padding
out of a stand of brush. And then, as it came closer, Kelsie had difficulty in stifling a cry. A dog?
No, no hound that she had ever heard of or seen resembled this! It was almost skeleton thin, the ridges
of its ribs plainly visible beneath its shiny skin. A mouth which appeared to split two thirds of its skull
dropped open and a scarlet tongue lolled out, saliva and whitish foam dripping from it. The long legs
seemed only bones with skin stretched tightly over them as it padded forward, not with a rush but
steadily as if it had marked its prey and had no idea of losing it now.
Kelsie pulled herself up, one shoulder against the pillar, the buckle end of her belt dangling loose, the
other end wrapped tightly about her hand lest she lose her hold on it. She heard a growl and glanced for
a moment at the cat. The kittens were half hidden under her body where fur bristled up in challenge.
Though she visibly leaned her weight mostly on her uninjured paw, it was plain she was prepared to do
battle.
The hound did not leap forward as Kelsie expected. Instead it stopped while still several feet away from
the pillared circle. Throwing back its narrow head the beast gave vent once more to its chilling bay as if
summoning some companion of the hunt. Though she and the cat were weak enough, Kelsie thought with
fiercely beating heart, to give but token defense.
There was an answer to that last bay, a cry which was not a similar howl but rather more like a call in
words she could not understand. Then out of the same knot of brush which had concealed the dog
creature came a horse and rider. The girl drew a startled, shaken breath.
The horse, or whatever that beast was, showed as much a walking rack of bones as the hound. In its
skull the eyes were pits of whirling greenish-yellow flame. While the rider was cloaked, so enveloped in a
muffling covering that could not say what manner of thing it might really be. But it was plain that this
newcomer had eyes for and interest in her. One begloved hand raised a rod and swung it in her direction
with the same calm assurance which McAdams had shown toward shooting the cat.
Kelsie did not even have time to put the stone between her and that crooked dash of flame which sprang
from the rod. Only it did not strike her. To her overwhelming surprise it was as if that meant-to-be flash
of fire struck an impenetrable wall a little before the stone—sprayed out in a red burst and was gone,
leaving a trail of oily smoke to rise in the clear sky.
The hound howled and began to run, not straight for the girl, but circling about the stones as if it sought
some door or opening which would let it at its would-be victims. For a moment or two the rider was
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motionless. Then he used reins and swung the head of his mount to the left joining the hound in that
circling of what might be a fortress the twain of them could not best.
Kelsie held tight with one hand to the stone beside her but also turned her head and then her body to
watch the encirclement. She had had no trouble leaving the circle nor returning to it, but these two
beyond now appeared totally walled away.
In her mind bewilderment fast became panic and fear. Where was she? She could not be anywhere but
in some hospital racked with wild hallucinations because of the blow on her head. But this was so real—!
The hound gave tongue continually, almost querulously, as if it could not understand what kept it away
from the two inside the circle.
However, the rider remained where he was, his mount now and then nervously pawing the earth but held
firmly in check. That rod was handled negligently, its tip pointed earthward. It would seem that they were
under siege, perhaps being held for the coming of some even greater menace. Yet when the next stroke
arrived it was not Kelsie who was aroused to front the danger but the snarling wildcat.
Within the circle of the rock a moss covered patch of earth heaved upward and burst into separate sods
as if from some explosion below. Out of the cascading earth pushed what looked like a bird's beak, a
sickly yellow-gray, and from beside Kelsie the wildcat sprang into action.
Her leap carried her farther on so that she was behind that questing beak and in spite of her injured foot
she used both forepaws to land them together on a thing struggling up from the burrow it had made.
There was a whirl of furred body and a slapping length of what looked mostly like a land-going lobster.
Then the cat's teeth met with a crunch just behind the end of the beak, and, though the many-legged thing
went on flopping, it was clearly out of the battle. The cat settled down over it, tearing loose clawed limbs
and worrying at the thing's underbelly until she passed its chitinous armor to the flesh beneath, which she
ate as if famished. However, Kelsie, so warned by its appearance from the earth made the rounds of the
circle, searching the ground intently for any other suspicious tumbling of the soil.
She came upon one such near across the circle from the still-feasting cat and made ready with her belt.
The narrow tip of that beak or nose which quested for the upper world thrust through a clump of the
flowers and she lashed her belt at it. More by luck than any skill the loop of the buckle did fall about that
tip and she gave a vicious jerk, putting into that all her power of arm.
As a fish that had swallowed a hook the thing came out of the ground flopping over on its back, sharply
clawed feet waving in the air. But the rising had also freed a long, jointed tail which ended in what could
only be a sting. That snapped back and forth evilly while the creature's head, flipping from side to side
freed it from the buckle, it arose again, seeming to turn in midair to land on its feet. For a moment only it
hesitated and then it leaped, springing at least three feet from the torn flowers to aim straight at Kelsie.
She swung the belt a second time, managing again to strike and so ward off attack. But, as she also
retreated, she came sharply back against one of the blue pillars and was caught up in something else, a
sharp tingling of her body such as one might receive from a minor electrical shock.
Her left hand clawed at the stone which was not cold, as she had expected, but rather held a warmth
which appeared to be growing. In doing so she rasped her fingers upon a protrusion of the rock which
broke away into her hand.
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There was one chance now. She could not even have told from whence came that saving idea but she
pulled in her belt and worked the stone into the buckle, wedging it so with all her might, her attention all
for the many-legged creature out of the earth and her fingers working by touch alone.
It was the cat who gave her the few precious seconds out of time to do that. Having finished with the
carcass of the first of their attackers it was now creeping up behind the other. Then Kelsie struck, this
time with careful aim and intent purpose.
The weighted buckle met the creature in midair for it had sprung again even as she had swung. There
was a flash of brilliant light and a puff of smoke, a nauseating odor which made her retch. The thing
struck the ground charred and black. It might have been tossed through a blazing fire. Kelsie was so
heartened by the success of her desperate hope that she turned to claw again at the pillar behind her,
striving to free more such useful bits of rock. But it would seem that luck or chance had loosened only
that one for her aid.
Snarling, the cat drew back from the charred curl of body and leaped now for Kelsie's coat where it
settled down, drawing close to its body, with a sweep of foreleg, the two squeaking kittens.
Neither the hound nor the rider had made any move during that odd battle and now they showed no
dismay that it had not succeeded—if the earth dwellers were allies of theirs after all. It appeared that they
were willing to wait— cither for their prey to be somehow shaken out as a nut is shaken out of a broken
shell, or for more efficient reinforcements.
Time, Kelsie thought, did not favor her or the cat. There would be another attack of sorts—or she
would wake from this dream which was so real that the fear of it nearly paralyzed her if she allowed
herself to consider it.
She continued to absently rub one hand along the rough surface of the stone, her attention going from
hound to rider and back again—waiting for what would happen next.
There came a clear trilling call out of the air overhead. The hound was on its feet, snarling, leaping now
and then. Kelsie saw winging back and forth over the animal was one of those blue birds which had
watched her eat by the berry bushes.
From her left there came a harsh grating sound which to her ears bore no resemblance to speech. The
rider had brought around his skeleton mount and now he lifted his rod and tried to aim at the darting
birds, but the shooting flames were ever far behind their swift turns, fast swoops, and soarings.
Chapter Two
The cat's head was up, it was staring south to another roll of hills. Now the rider, so hood muffled that
Kelsie had never seen his face, turned halfway in the saddle to face the same direction. The birds uttered
sharp high cries and began a flight pattern which encircled the stones. With a sharp jerk the rider pulled at
the reins and his mount plunged forward as if to bring it and its rider down upon Kelsie. But it did not
complete that charge. Instead the mount reared and the rider seemed for a moment to be fighting—his
will against his mount's. The hound crouched closer to the ground, near creeping on its belly back the
way it had come. Though Kelsie watched carefully there was nothing else in sight save the wheeling birds.
The rider no longer fought his horse (if such a creature could be termed a horse). He allowed it to swing
around to the direction from which they had come. Then, though he did not seem to be urging it, the
creature first broke into a trot and raised that to a gallop as it disappeared in a cut between two of the
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hills, the hound now running beside it.
Kelsie waited. The birds broke off their circling to fly east. She and the cat were alone in the circle of
pillars which had indeed proved a sanctuary.
The girl slipped to the ground, sitting cross-legged near her coat where the kittens now nursed—the cat
having relaxed enough to allow them to her.
For the first time since she had awakened, Kelsie had a chance to think clearly, to look more slowly
about her, to weigh one strange thing against its neighbor. She had been struggling with Neil McAdams in
the long summer twilight of the Scottish highlands. But it was plain that where she now was bore no
relation to that. She raised her fingertips to smooth the damp shirt she had tied over her head wound. It
was all so real—
Slowly she pulled herself once more to her feet and began to make a complete circuit of the circle,
looking outward for a point of reference which would assure her that she was still in the world she knew
or at least recognized a little. She was not even of highland blood—even if she bore the name and had
the heritage from Great-Aunt Ellen she had never been here before. She belonged back inEvart,Indiana ,
ready to start for the animal clinic, to dream her own private dream of somehow raising the money to get
a veterinarian's degree. That was the world of people and things she understood. This was not. She
swung the stone-weighted belt and tried to arrange her thoughts in a logical pattern. One minute she had
been struggling with Neil to keep him from shooting the already injured wildcat and then she had
awakened here—
She wanted to run, to scream out her denial, to awaken from this nightmare. It went on and on and it
was indeed so real. She could not remember ever having eaten and drunk in any dream before but the
stains of the berries still were on her hands and she could taste their sweetness when she ran her tongue
over her teeth. She looked to the cat who lay nursing the two kittens. The animal was believable. But the
hound, the rider, and all that had happened since she had been besieged here—those were out of some
fantasy.
None of the distant, mist veiled mountains looked familiar. Also who had raised the fallen pillars to make
this fortress to what it must once have been, a circle of protection?
The cat arose, shook off her two clinging offspring and came to stand before Kelsie, regarding her
straightly as somehow she had never seen an animal eye her before. It was as if an intelligence which was
equal, or at least close, to her own looked out of those eyes and that some desire for communication
moved the animal.
Kelsie knelt and held out one hand to the cat.
"Where are we, old girl?" she asked and then wished she had not, for her words sounded queerly here
as if they had been picked up by one stone and echoed to the next and the next, coming back to her, not
clearly, but in a hoarse whisper.
The cat extended a tongue tip and touched it to the girl's thumb. And she knew a glow of triumph. So a
wildcat could not be tamed—so much for all they had told her when she had spoken up for the animal
last night. Last night? She shook her head and then wished that she had not, for the pain which flashed
outward. She was suddenly tired. Better to lie down here on the moss and just rest a little. If she slept so
much the better, she might then awaken in her own place and time.
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Only there was to be no rest. The wildcat suddenly yowled and Kelsie wondered, even as she clapped
her hands over both of her ears, if the animal had sensed the same dislocation as she did now. This was a
different kind of pain than that which had driven her since her awaking here. It was like a cry for help so
intense and demanding that the girl was on her feet, stumbling back through that gate to answer it.
Back through the gate but not to her own place. The land about her remained the same. Her shuffle
became a run as she was drawn on. She was aware of the furry shape which followed in her shadow,
also pulled perhaps by that demanding cry which she knew now, but could not understand how, rang
within her head not outside through her ears.
Together cat and girl rounded a heap of moss-grown stones which might have been the remains of some
very ancient ruin not treated as well by time as the pillars behind. Kelsie skidded down the dale, the belt
swinging in her hand ready to use. What they came upon were the signs of tragedy. Three forms lay
there, a soaking of blood curling from between their shoulders where upstanding feathered shafts
proclaimed arrows. Arrows!
The girl's start lenient at that was gone in an instant when she saw the fourth member of the small party.
A woman, both her gray clothing, and her flesh beneath rent, and soaking flowing blood, lay half rested
against a stone. Before her crouched either the black hound which had not too long ago menaced them,
or else its twin. There were blood flecks in the foam about its jaws yet it did not spring as it was
crouched to do. The woman held in a shaking, near falling hand, something from which swung a chain
and was glistening with light. Yet for all her struggle she could not continue to hold that steady.
For the moment, forgetting her own horror of that beast, Kelsie stormed in swinging the belt. The stone
heavy buckle thudded neatly home on the hound's bony side. It sprang, not at the woman but back,
giving tongue in a fearsome cry. Kelsie swung again and this time the very edge of the rock contacted
with the side of one forepaw. Again that cry and now the beast turned and fled though it did not go out of
sight but ran back and forth as if awaiting reinforcements.
Kelsie backed away, toward the woman.
"Sister—"
The word rang in her head and she dared, for a moment, to look away from the hound to the bleeding
survivor of that stricken party. The woman's hand had fallen across her body, but her eyes were still open
and fixed on Kelsie with such appeal that the girl dropped down on one knee. As she did that the wildcat
moved in closer, ducked its head so that the woman's limp hand lay but a fraction away. To Kelsie's
amazement the mouth in that white, pain stricken face drew into the shadow of a smile.
"Sister—in—fur—also—" The words were in her mind.
Kelsie shot a look at the snarling hound, but that had not advanced again.
"I—the—last—gate—" the words formed for her with pause between. Though she did not loose her
belt weapon she tried to reach to the body before her. That steady streaming of blood—shemust do
something. As if she had in her turn spoken aloud she saw the woman's head turn the slightest from side
to side.
"The—last—gate—" came the mind word which Kelsie had to accept sprang from that limp body. "The
jewel—" it was as if the woman had a last spurt of strength, "do— not—let them take it!" With infinite
effort she again raised her hand.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
It was the cat who darted head forward through the loop of the dangling chain. Straightway the woman
loosed her grip on what she held so that a sparkling ovid fell free to dangle against the cat's brindle fur.
"We must get help—" Kelsie for a moment looked wildly around as if she could produce by will alone
medical assistance which did not exist.
The smile had not faded.
"Sister—I—am Roylane—" There seemed to be some great significance in that. Then the lean body
shuddered and the smile faded. "The—gate—" She who was wounded looked beyond Kelsie at
something which the girl, quick to turn, could not see. Then the woman sighed and her head dropped
upon one shoulder. Though Kelsie had seldom seen death of her own kind before—just once and that
was long ago—she knew that this stranger who spoke without the need for words was gone.
She held the belt between her teeth and straightened out the slight body, shrinking in spite of herself from
the blood on her hands. Then she looked at the other bodies. Though the hound paced back and forth
before two of them, the third lay closer and one outthrust arm pointed straight toward her still clasping a
sword. With one eye ever for the hound Kelsie crossed quickly and freed that weapon from the flaccid
fingers, finding it so heavy compared to the fencing foils she had known that she nearly dropped it. But
clumsy as she might be with it she took courage from the very heft of that blade—a weapon much better
than her belt-and-stone defense.
There was a croaking from beyond. The hound took heart from that, throwing back its head to voice
another of the direful howls. At that sound the cat took off in great bounds and was gone back to the
safety of the stones. Kelsie hesitated by the body of the woman. But there was nothing she could do for
her now and apparently the reinforcements the hound expected were on the way. So she followed, but
partially backing so that the evil thing could not jump her, swinging the belt warningly, lifting the sword in
her other hand.
It made no move to lengthen its stride as it ran back and forth, nor to come at her. Only it howled and
that noise tore at her. Finally she broke and ran.
"The gate—" the dead woman had said. Had she and those others with her been heading for the only
gate Kelsie knew, that of the circle beyond? It might have been their gate of safety but somehow she
knew that the "last" gate was not made of coarse stones and stood waiting here. No, beyond that lay
what no living thing might guess.
She saw that gem the cat now carried so awkwardly about its throat give off glints which might be the
sparks of a real fire. Already the animal had joined its family on the coat. Kelsie put on a second burst of
speed to join it. Throwing herself down on the sod, the sword falling out of her hold, and gasping for
breath, she looked back the way she had come. So far no lean black hound, no rider on a skeleton
mount appeared.
Only that this was a land haunted with peril she was firmly convinced. She took up the heavy sword for
a second time and examined it. The blade tapered from hilt to point, but not with the thin grace of a
rapier. The hilt was plain, with a stiff wire wound around and around it to secure the grip. There was no
ornamentation on it at all. She got slowly to her feet and tried a thrust and parry, but this was not a point
weapon, she decided, rather one meant to be used with the edge of the blade for the blow and of that
kind of fighting she knew nothing at all. Fighting? What did she know of that?
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
摘要：

TheGateoftheCatbyAndreNortonChapterOneThelongeveningtwilightpulledpoolsofshadowsfromsmallbushes.Kelsieshiveredthoughshewaswarmenoughinthequiltedcoatandthethickslacksabovebootswhichseemedtosinkalittlemoreateverystepshetookoverthereachofpeatysoilwhichlaybetweenherandtheriseofthemist-crownedhillsbeyond...

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