Light filled the room, blinding her, shattering across Siddonie’s face twisted with rage. The queen lunged at her, grabbing her, wrenching her away, jerking her off the bed, shaking and slapping her, her nails biting into Melissa’s shoulder. She hit back at Siddonie and broke free. She tried to run, but something unseen jerked her down; a power held her unmoving and helpless.
“On the taint of Catswold blood…” Siddonie hissed.
“No!” Efil shouted. “She bears my son! She bears the prince of Affandar!”
“To Catswold cleave…”
“The peasants already know,” Efil yelled. “The news has been spread—they will rise against you…”
Melissa struggled, twisting at Siddonie’s feet; above her Siddonie’s voice echoed, “To cat do I command you…”
Her body constricted. She couldn’t breathe.
“To cat I commit you. To cat you will cleave, to no other spirit yield.” Siddonie had grown so tall, so huge. Melissa stared up at her, then stared at her own shaking hands. And her hands were changing into paws.
The queen glared down at her, her eyes filled with loathing. “To cat you are returning. Cat you will remain and never more than cat. You will remember no more than cat…”
Her body hurt, her legs were twisted with pain. She saw the disgust on Efil’s face, saw him turn away. Siddonie’s shouts deafened her. “Bring the guards!” Running feet pounded down the hall, and the queen’s voice blurred, lost all meaning. The room was immense around her. She tried to rise, and fell panting. She stared in terror at her white paws scrabbling at the carpet as men pounded into the room, surrounding her. She spun around, facing one then another, torn with fear. “Get the creature out of here! Put it in a cage!”
The calico cat crouched, her eyes blazing, then leaped at the queen, clinging to Siddonie’s thigh, slashing so brutally the queen screamed and knocked her away into a tangle of booted legs. The room seemed filled with boots, soldiers towered, spraddle-legged, blocking her, grabbing at her. She faced them spitting, raking their reaching hands, then dashed through between their legs and fled into blackness under the bed.
Two soldiers crawled in after her. When she lashed out at them they hit her. One grabbed her front legs, guarding his face, another jerked her up by the tail. They dragged her out, hurting her, and thrust a leather coat over her. She fought the coat. They held it closed like a bag, lifting her. For an instant something of Melissa surfaced, wild with terror, fighting so fiercely that the queen repeated the spell. Then she was simply cat again, raking at the leather. A blow made her sprawl, panting. The noise of loud voices pained her too. She was carried. Her captors’ footsteps echoed down the corridors. A door banged open. She smelled fresh air. She heard leaves rustle under the marching feet.
Soon she smelled chicken coops. A latch clicked. The coat was tossed onto a hard surface and jerked open, and she was prodded out with sticks. She streaked out, ramming into the iron bars of a chicken cage.
Her back to the bars, she crouched facing the five soldiers. They slammed the door and locked it, and began poking her with sticks, shouting and laughing. She fought their thrusting jabs for a long time, until she was so weak she began to shiver and salivate.
“It’s going to have a fit.”
“Let’s get out of here. The queen said leave it alive.”
They left, smirking.
The cat lay panting and shivering.
The cage was strong enough to keep small dragons and bears from the chickens. The floor was mucky with chicken droppings. Around her in other cages chickens flapped and squawked with fear of her. When she had revived somewhat, she watched the chickens with rising interest, her tail twitching. But soon she began to lick herself; she hurt in so many places that she worked frantically back and forth from one painful, tender area to another.
She was kept in the cage for five days. Darkness followed light. She had little to eat, and only a small bowl of dirty water that she avoided until she could bear her thirst no longer. On the fourth morning an apple-faced old woman came to look in at her, reaching her fingers through the close-set bars. The calico cat came to her mewling, rubbing her orange-and-black cheek against the old woman’s hand.
Mag stood for a long time beside the cage, trying every spell she knew to open it. She was sick with despair for Melissa, wiping back tears. No spell she tried would work—Siddonie’s powers were too strong. She could not slip the cat out between the bars; they were only inches apart. She could barely reach through to stroke the scrawny cat.
She found an iron stake in a pile of rubbish and tried to pry the bars apart, but the stake flew away, deflected by the queen’s protective magic. And the cage was too small to turn the cat into Melissa, even if she could have breached the queen’s power. Anyway, what would the girl do cramped in a chicken cage?
She thought that Siddonie wouldn’t kill the little cat. She thought that not even the queen would go against the Primal Law.
She rubbed the little cat’s ears. Then, whispering, glancing around to be sure she was still alone, she repeated the most powerful strengthening spell she knew. If nothing else, she might give the child a measure of added endurance. The little cat pressed against the bars, staring up at her forlornly, but when the long, complicated spell was completed, something came into the calico cat’s eyes that cheered Mag. She read it as heightened courage. She had barely finished when three guards came around the corner, saw her, and shouted and grabbed her.
She fought them; with hurting spells she made one back off, another double up with pain; but the three together were too strong. They forced her into the palace and through the scullery and storeroom, and down two flights. There, in the dungeons, they locked her in the cell vacated by the Toad.
For a long time after Mag disappeared the little cat watched for her, warmed by her caring. But Mag did not return. On the morning of the sixth day the calico was hauled out by a gloved hand and shoved into a leather bag. The man who held the bag smelled of sour sweat. She knew his smell; she hissed and spit through the leather at him, and clawed the bag until he hit her.
Panting, hurt again, she was hoisted and carried. She smelled horse. The pinprick of green light she could see through the tie hole of the bag changed as they moved, and the horse’s movement jarred her. The light changed. The movement changed as the man got off the horse and began to walk.
Soon the green light disappeared, the hole in the bag went black. Then the tiny hole was pierced by a yellow light moving as the man moved. She could smell oil burning, and some part of her below the conscious level knew it was the smell of an oil lamp.
She could smell damp earth and stone, too, and could hear water rushing. She could feel the man climbing. The smell of water soon had her wild with thirst. But some sense told her it would be a long time before she drank.
Long after they entered the tunnel she had sensed a heightened awareness from deep inside herself. Frightened, she tried to back away from it. When she moved, shaking the bag, he hit her. And as they rose higher away from the Netherworld, the awareness seemed to diminish.
After many hours, the exhausted cat slept.
She woke when the smells changed again. The man had stopped climbing. He startled her by speaking; his voice made a guttural rhythm. Then came the soft, sucking sound of stone moving across stone, and something new stirred within the little cat. Some hidden part of her was trying desperately to wake. The sound of the moving wall brought a sense of promise. She crouched, tensed and listening. She could hear the wind. She could smell greenness. Weakly she lifted one paw, and her heartbeat quickened.
Chapter 23
Vrech left the portal and garden quickly, heading east along the busy two-lane road that led to Highway 101. The bag was heavy. When the cat tried to claw through the leather, he punched her. Each time after he hit her, he could hear her licking. He cursed having left the car with the damned mechanic in the city. He’d thought of going after it, then knew the delay would s
tir Siddonie’s rage. She wanted everything done now.
When he reached 101 he headed north, walking along the concrete shoulder beside the fast traffic, jerking his thumb at every passing car. No one stopped for him. The day was growing hot. His upperworld pants bound his crotch, and his pants and shirt were sticky with sweat. Upperworld clothes were too tight. He dodged a reefer truck careening close to the shoulder, and when he stumbled, the cat yowled. He wished the beast was dead, but he daren’t kill her. He didn’t think much about the Primal Law, but he wouldn’t go against Siddonie. The cat could die after he left her, but not while she was in his possession.
He had served Siddonie long before she married the twelve-year-old prince. He had been seneschal to the old king of Affandar and had adeptly managed the affairs that resulted in the king’s death. For Siddonie, he would have killed the king with his own hands. Before she had any claim to the throne, when she was only visiting Affandar, she would meet him at night in the stables or in the woods beyond the palace. Her ways with him stirred passions no other woman was capable of; she knew his weaknesses; she knew how to touch him and when to cast a spell as she caressed and fondled and bit him, drawing from him the mind numbing, shuddering responses that no other woman could elicit. In turn, he had set the stage for the old king’s illness and had helped her to reach the small prince, arranging her seemingly chance meetings with him. By the time the king died, Siddonie had enslaved young Efil with charms to drive a boy mad. Vrech had stoically endured the knowledge that Siddonie lay with him. Thus she had bound and corrupted the child. Within a month of the old king’s death, Siddonie and Efil were wed, and she was crowned queen of Affandar. Once they were wed, he of course had returned to her bed, slipping into her chambers after young Efil slept.
The cat shifted position again, pawing at the bag. Along the highway the traffic was growing heavier, but the drivers looked at his lifted thumb and stepped on the gas. When at last a ride did stop, it was an ancient delivery truck, home-painted blue over the words, A-ACTION PLUMBING. He climbed into the hot, exhaust-smelling cab and dropped the bag on the floor next to the engine. “How far you going?”
“Portland.” The boy was dirty, with pimples down his neck.
“I won’t be going that far. Crescent City, maybe.”
“What you got in the bag? It’s moving.”
“Trained monkey. It sleeps during the day.” He nudged it with his toe. “Big dreamer—wiggles in its sleep.” The bag jerked, and the cat gagged and heaved.
“Ate too many marshmallows. Makes him sick. Kids love to feed him marshmallows.”
He parted with the van north of Crescent City. It was almost dark. Wind swept the tall grass in waves across the empty fields. He dropped the bag between the road and a clogged drainage ditch. If the cat was smart enough, it could get out. That should satisfy the Primal Law. He crossed the highway by running between cars, and in the diner he ordered a beer and a hamburger. Within half an hour he had eaten and caught a ride south again with a trucker.
As the eighteen-wheeler turned out of the diner’s parking lot and passed the spot where Vrech had dumped the cat, he thought briefly of the girl Melissa with a pang almost of remorse. She was a toothsome thing, young and untried or nearly so. But then he put the little chit out of his thoughts; she was of no use to him. He belched comfortably and settled back, chewing on a toothpick.
Chapter 24
Speeding trucks made the roadbed tremble. Their hot diesel wind sloughed through the tall, dry grass, shaking the bag, bringing the cat up stumbling with fear, falling against her leather prison so it writhed and rolled. At the onslaught of each truck, she fought the bag, trying to run from the thunder and shaking; then she would stop fighting and lie panting until another eighteen-wheeler sped past nearly on top of her, jerking her up again. At last, too exhausted to fight, retching and dizzy, she curled into a little ball and escaped into a trance-like sleep.
She was jerked up again when a semi careened off the pavement nearly on top of her. She exploded, throwing herself stumbling and fighting the bag. Flecks of saliva flew against the leather. Her tongue was thick from thirst and her body was sore in a dozen places from Vrech’s blows. She was very thin from her days locked in the chicken cage, all bones and fur, her calico coat cupping in ugly shadows along her thin back and flanks. During her week-and-a-half confinement in the cage, she had been fed only enough to keep her from dying. And on the journey up the tunnel then up the highway there had been no food or water. The shape of her skull showed clearly beneath her matted orange-and-black coat. Her left eye was swollen shut where Vrech had struck her. Weak and sick, the stink of diesel fuel sucking in through the hole where the bag was tied made her sicker.
But then through the hole came another smell, a healing smell, making her more alert. The wind sucked in, carrying the scent of earth and grass; and she could smell muddy water. She pawed at the leather and licked at it, and tried to push out through the tiny hole. She could get a paw out, but no more. She had dug at the hole for some time when another smell reached her as the wind changed, a smell that made her force her nose frantically into the tiny opening.
The shifting wind brought the smell of frying meat, from the diner. She gulped at the greasy smell ravenously; it filled her senses, tantalizing and rich.
Each thundering truck made her try to run, tripping and fighting inside the bag. In between, when the highway was silent, she dug and pushed toward the smell of food that came to her from across the highway.
After more than two hours of fighting to get through the hole, she had chewed through the cord. She did not realize she was free. The puckered leather remained closed. She lay heaving and weak, retching from the road fumes, wild with thirst. Her raw nerves made her muscles jump at every faint, distant approach of a truck. She could feel their approach in the shaking ground. She panted fast and shallowly. She had no more strength to fight. Yet when the next diesel roared by, the sudden blast of its horn jerked her violently to life. Inside the bag she tried to run, plunging away.
She hit the puckered hole, and was out, scrabbling at earth and grass, running blindly through the tall grass.
She might have run until she dropped, but in the darkness and confusion she didn’t sense the ditch and she fell.
She landed six feet down in mud. She smelled the brackish water and crouched, licking frantically, swallowing mud.
When her thirst was slaked, she climbed out of the ditch sniffing the greasy, delicious smell from the diner. She approached the edge of the highway and crouched, watching the broad black expanse with her good eye. The macadam was warm under her paws. But the thunder began again, shaking the highway. She stared at the approaching lights growing larger, growing huge. The wind of the semi buffeted her; she leaped away into the grass and crouched and hissed.
When the highway was empty once more, the smell of food drew her back. Hunched and shivering, she crouched, tensed to dash across. There was thunder coming, but it was not very loud yet. She ran.
She was halfway across the first lane when the lights of a Greyhound bus exploded fast out of the distance; she froze; light bathed her small, still form and reflected from her eyes. Her white parts blazed bright. The driver didn’t swerve. She leaped back from the speeding wheels barely in time.
When the bus had passed she sped forward again, confused, directly into the path of the next racing light. This time, an air horn drove her back as a pair of racing trucks bore down, their lights picking her out. The passenger of the nearer truck stared down at her laughing, as if he would like to see a cat mashed on the highway.
Then there was a lull in traffic. The four-lane was empty, and silent. Only one set of lights was coming, very far away and with not so much noise. Eagerly she ran for the diner.
She misjudged. The car was quieter than trucks, but it was moving fast. The driver saw her and slammed on the brakes, skidding, screeching the tires. The cat was so terrified she didn’t know which way to run, she
crouched directly in the car’s path, full in its light; then at the last second she leaped into blackness. She felt its wind behind her.
She crouched on the white line in the center of the highway, dazed by the lights now coming from both directions. Again tires squealed, another car skidded, and she ran wildly as it slid sideways. Through its open window a woman screamed at her. She could taste the smell of burning rubber as she fled toward the gravel ditch beside the diner.
She scrambled and slid down the side of the ditch to safety.
Above on the highway the car straightened and went on, the driver cursing.
There was water in the ditch. It tasted faintly of dog urine. She drank, gulping, then rested, panting and pawing at her sore eye.
At last her heaving heart slowed. She roused herself and began to stalk the smell of food. She climbed out of the ditch and crept across the parking lot, taking shelter under a car ten feet from the steps of the diner. She stared out at the door where the smell was strongest. The noise of the juke box, of boots moving inside on the wood floor, and of raised voices and occasional shouts made her tremble. Suddenly the door was flung open, noise blared out, and she fled as three men swung out loudly arguing, clumping down the steps toward her. Panicked, she streaked through the darkness toward the rear of the diner.
There she paused, drawn by the smells from the four garbage cans.
She could smell dog, too. Warily she stalked the garbage cans, then jumped onto one. She pawed at the lid and when she could not get inside, she moved to the next can.
The Catswold Portal Page 15