No question that they might fail in their task, she was as firm with her words as if she had been sending them to the storehouse to draw everyday supplies. But Makeease wanted to cry out that she was no rightful one for this sending—that she was weak in power and what she had was for the easing of hurts not for the taking of something which might be well guarded—by what she could not begin to guess. Only here in the Refuge itself there had been tales in plenty of things now wandering over mountain to plague the land. They must go by their vows into the very heart of the black unknown and take there what no one would rightfully and freely give—the very strength of power!
“It is done,” Sister Wittle spoke aloud but Sister Makeease could not even shape the words with her stiff lips.
No—
Kelsie was sitting up once more on her sleeping mat. She was not that one. Her outflung hand bore down to steady herself and there was something under it. She held so the very stone in its bag which she had hurled away earlier. But she was herself—not that other one—truly it was so. She shut her eyes and snatched her hand from its grip upon the shrouded jewel, concentrating upon her own memories. She had been working in the kennels with the puppy when the telegram had come.
Someone she had heard of only as a kind of tale—Old Jessie McBlair, the aunt of her long dead father, was gone—leaving her a house and what was left of a once large estate. She must claim it herself said the will the lawyer explained.
So she had gone to Scotland with high hopes of a home of her own at last—only to be faced by a ruin in which only one wing was barely habitable and that fast falling in upon itself into the bargain. There had been sullen and surly faces to front her and no liking for the place or the people had been born in her during the few days she had been there—before this had happened. She was no daughter of power—
She huddled together, her knees against her chest, her arms laced to hold them so. The hand which in her sleep had somehow summoned the jewel bag was tingling and she believed that she could see a faint bluish light about the pouch until she kicked an edge of the covering over it.
There was movement in the dusk of the small, curtain-walled cubicle and she smelled the musky scent of the wildcat. The yellow eyes viewed her from near floor level.
“Go home to your kittens!” Kelsie whispered. “Have you not made enough trouble for me when you brought that—that thing into the Valley?”
She did not expect any answer from the cat, certainly not this sudden thrust of compulsion—that she must be alert—that there was that which needed her attention. The girl fought it with all the willpower in her. Perhaps it was that other one she had seen in her dream—been in her dream—who took command now. For against her will Kelsie loosed that tight grip upon herself, took up the bag and put it into the front of her laced shirt where it lay warm and pulsating as if it held sentient life of its own. She had carried small animals so in past days and felt the same glow of life against her skin.
Still under the order she could not break, she arose and took up the hooded cloak they had given her, sat again to pull on the soft half boots, fastened tightly her belt. Swiftfoot was moving back and forth impatiently before her though she did not offer any cry. Now she stretched forth her blunt muzzle and caught, with sharp teeth, the corner of that cloak, giving a pull toward the direction of the door.
Kelsie obeyed—both that and the force which had settled on her own will muffling her fear and her stubborn need for freedom—moving silently into the night. There was a moon riding high but yet giving a full light to the small gathering of buildings. Still pulling at the cloak edge the cat steered her toward the cliffs. One foot before the other, fighting that drive all the way Kelsie covered much of the same way she had taken in the day.
Twice she passed sentries and both times it was as if they did not see her. There was no challenge, no notice of her going and her own voice would not answer her command to call out. Fear grew in her, blotting out a little of the order which had set her moving. She strove to turn but there was no such thing possible.
Already they had reached the rock which by Dahaun’s order had been moved to stand upon the place where the artifact of evil had been buried. There the cat paused and dropped its hold upon her cloak edge, snarled and pawed at a small stone sending it whirling against the large rock. But it was not to view this battlefield of sorts that Kelsie had been moved here. For the cat was going on, climbing another rock. And where Swiftfoot went Kelsie seemed bound to follow.
There was a narrow break in the wall of the heights and from it came a mewling sound. Swiftfoot sprang forward and the girl stumbled after. She had to duck to avoid the heavy rock overhead. There was a narrow passage and then, dark as it was, she felt space about her. From somewhere came a wind carrying with it a foul odor. She heard the cat snarl and then the sound of a struggle and she wavered back against the wall too blinded by the darkness to try to reach the scene of battle.
A body thrust against her in that dark and her skin was rasped by coarse hair or fur while something caught at her hand and tried to jerk her toward the sounds of the struggle. She used her other hand to catch at the bag and pull out of it the Witch Jewel.
The burst of light was eye dazzling to her but apparently painfully blinding to the thing which had attacked her. She saw a mound of what looked like tangled roots flatten itself as far as it could to the ground. While the wave of light swept on to encounter and hold another dire sight, Swiftfoot before the three kittens, the cubling being at least half her size, facing with bared teeth and claws two more of the evil smelling creatures of the dark.
Thas! Though Kelsie could not remember having more than heard the name in passing, now her mind instantly identified these lurkers in the dark. She swung out the jewel by its chain and there were guttural cries from the trio in the cave. The one at her feet was crawling as might a giant insect after the other two, still standing backed away, their crooked fingered hands over the matted stuff covering the upper parts of their faces, hiding their eyes.
Back they edged and now Kelsie came away from the wall against which she had taken shelter and continued to swing out the jewel its light growing ever brighter. She was aware of a draining down her arm, through her fingers and into the chain, as if she herself was the energy which had revitalized the thing and brought about this awakening.
The attackers fled while Swiftfoot licked her litter, still raising her head to snarl now and again. What the trio sought was a tumble of earth and stone at the back of this slit like cave, apparently the burrow through which they had made entrance here. The first of them reached that and threw itself forward as one might enter surf pounding on the shore of a sea. There was a frenzied scrabbling and an upward shower of earth and small stones. Taking heart at the very visible fear of the noisome invaders Kelsie resolutely drove the other two after the first. She faced now a hole through which she would have to creep in order to advance and she had no intention of doing that. However, she continued to stand and wave the jewel back and forth until her arm tired and fell heavily by her side, as weary as if she had been carrying some great weight.
Nor was it only her arm which was limp with fatigue, her whole body was suddenly struck by a feeling of great lassitude so that she sank to her knees before that evil smelling opening, the light of the jewel fading to a dim glow.