The Catswold Portal

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 stir 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