The Catswold Portal

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.