Seven Swords

Chapter 52

Felabba ambled by Irissa, favoring her with a swagger past her leg. 'Dogs are foolish, anyway. They only guard the obvious.'

'What do you guard?' Irissa asked. The children have committed to a venture into the unknown. I merely do what mothers have always done - wait and hope for the

best.'

'You don't fool me. You are taking soundings of your counterpart in the deep waters. Are you sorry you released it?'

'Yes.' Irissa crouched near the water as if to tempt the indweller surfaceward. 'I never guessed then that I would free myself. I had hoped that this pirated part of myself would find within it the need to protect these other parts of myself - my children. I forgot that it had a child of its own to guard.'

'You ascribe deep feeling to a shadow.' 'I don't know if shadows feel. Certainly, it clings to us - me. ..or Eeryon.'

'Loyal as a dog?" the cat suggested sardonically. Irissa rose and resumed her stroll that was more a pacing. 'Not like a dog. Like a . . . creature with a heart and soul.'

'But it is shadow."

'We all are shadow.' 'Were you always so

melancholy?' Irissa laughed shortly. No. Once I was younger.

Her walk had taken her abreast of the long wall on which the doorway to Rule beckoned. She stopped and stared at its blank, half-hidden surface, tempted herself. Where do these other doorways lead, do you think?' the

cat inquired.

'You seek to distract me,' Irissa accused, turning her

attention on the other portals, anyway. 'I am a cat. I seek only my own comfort, remember?" 'Or others' discomfort. Ah, let's see. This well-embellished door has a Torloc look to it. Do you suppose it leads to Edanvant? Shall I send you through to see?"

The cat darted away, ears down and tail up. 'Send me

nowhere. It's bad enough being birthed by a well. I shall

not now begin walking through walls.'

'These are doors, as you well know." Irissa's hand lifted as if to knock at the one she had called Torloc, then she stepped quickly down the line. The next facade hung on the air with a faint rainbow shimmer. Its door was shaped like a swan.

'Gateways,' Irissa recalled fondly. If I had to design a gate to Rengarth, it would be this. But no such thing exists. Thane and Javelle and I will be hard pressed to find a way back if they when they - return with the sword.'

Perhaps Rengarth will come to you,' the cat suggested.

Irissa snapped her face around again. 'Sly, teasing

creature. Be wary. I stand in a crux between worlds here my children venturing into danger in one direction ..Kendric dying in another. Do not try my patience. You may be the sacrificial key to any gate. If circumstances reverse far enough, I will not hesitate to turn any ally to my needs, as I will destroy any foe myself if need be.' even a sliver of

'Oh, there is iron in your Iridesium, seeress. I am most impressed.' The cat kept its distance, but winked one eye

slowly shut. 'Look upon your Rengarthian gate, then.' Its ears flicked forward. 'I hear a shadow breathing and a long-rusted hinge squeaking. I hear long bones

creaking...' Irissa turned back to the ghostly door, drawn by more than the cat's jibes. There was a creaking in the air, faint as distant bells.

Then the softly colored dust motes lengthened into glossy threads of light. A shining tapestry wove itself onto the air. The swan-shape swelled into a satin-soft expanse, became swangate in the palace in Solanandor Tierze - so real it puffed out ebony feathers. The long neck arched, part from pride, part from strain. The bird's likeness seemed on the brink of exploding into a snowstorm of feathery midnight down ...

Even the swan's face distorted, changing into a shorter, furrier visage ... becoming a white cat's triangular face. Irissa caught her breath and stood eye to eye with the cat faced swangate. The rest of the swan was stretching now, giving birth

to a form that struggled through its fabric being. A hand

broke through, clutching a sword hilt - no, clutching the

sword hilt!

Had Thane and Javelle returned by another route, another world? But what of the cat . . .? Irissa glanced to Felabba sitting placidly on the grass. The cat face newly affixed atop the swan's neck was not so calm. Its eyes squeezed shut in struggle, its ears had flattened to its shallow skull. It looked as if it were being drawn through a keyhole.

As for the hand bearing the sword - Irissa gasped and stepped back as an arm boldly thrust forth. And a knee! Then shoulder, legs, body.

She froze where she stood, no longer afraid, merely amazed. And then a familiar face broke through. Kendric was ripping through tattered tapestry, a white cat held high in one hand, the sword pushing hilt-first into the scene in the other.

Irissa lifted her hands to the Iridesium circlet, her

eyes absorbing the scene in all its meaning. Rainbow

skeins of airborne tapestry spun into tidy lines and looped

around her head. They finally fastened to the swirling

colors that played across the circlet's black base metal - and vanished. Kendric bowed to put the cat on the ground, then his big hand batted away the last enwebbing threads. Kendric! You're all right!" Irissa hurled herself toward

him, then held back at the last moment, fearing her delight

should overpower him. He winced in recognition of her restraint. "That is a matter of opinion. I am here, yes. And alive. But "all right"?" He shrugged painfully and grimaced. 'Can anyone who pushes from one place to another through mere fabric be completely well in one way or another?"

'What of the ... poison?' 'What do you think?' he answered in turn.

Lightly clasping his arm, Irissa surveyed Kendric. At first glimpse, she had been heartened to see him standing upright. Now she saw that his ruddy face and hale appear ance was an illusion. Poison still tattooed his skin with a universe of bruises and his hearty manner was a result of effort, not inner strength.

'Why?' she asked him. 'How?"

'For how, ask the cat." He pointed to the ground, to a sharp heap of bones insufficiently upholstered by white fur.

Fe-Felabba?' Irissa crouched beside it, trying to catch the focus of its faded eyes. 'Of course... Felabba,' it snapped so sharply that Irissa

darted back to avoid being bitten. 'Let me get my bearings. I have come through two tapestries in one turn of the hourglass. Interrogate your Wrathman; he has only made his way through one." Irissa turned her attention on Kendric again. 'Two

Felabbas?' He eyed the other white cat - twin to the one he had carried through the tapestry, except its fur was smooth and its eyes clear as a water-emerald.

"Perhaps I merely see double, Kendric admitted. "Yet you, too, see them both-?"

'Of course. There are two. Kendric, how do you fare? 'Well enough, once I'd persuaded Scyvilla to give me all of the Bloodstone powder.'

'All of it! But that powder was like sands in a glass, it trickled your time out to the finest grain. I don't know if I can keep you... well... once the effect has worn away." 'It is not always for you to keep me well, Irissa."

"But the strain of moving through worldgates will surely

hasten your your..."

'Collapse?'

She flinched and was silent, not wanting to name his malady or the fatal stages of it. 'My sword will uphold me awhile,' he said, leaning on

the upright blade. Javelle and Thane search for the original even now.'

'Where?'

"Through there, an adjoining amorphous gate. And

another has gone there before them."

'Who?'

'You mean "what." Geronfrey saved that unbreathing infant he tore from my shadow self's body.' "Geronfrey has an heir?"

'Geronfrey has a blasphemy, I've never seen him, but Thane and Javelle have. Even now they struggle to find the sword before he does, in his father's service.'

Kendric allowed his weight to seat him on the ground. "Tell me slowly, all of it again. It is more than I can comprehend standing up.'

Irissa sank groundward with him, like a consoling weepwater tree drooping to the water. They had much to relate to each other, and perhaps precious little time in which to do it. Still, it seemed an idyllic moment to share the privacy of their own company beside a still pond, to forget for a moment the wear of others and the worry outside concerns. of

Irissa bent her head to his. 'I am so glad to see you. I was afraid- She left the thought unspoken.

'Yes, so was I,' he answered. It was too much to have you all it worry drained my will to live. Stay now. 'I will, Irissa promised through the crystal veil of her tears. 'And Thane and Javelle will have the sword soon. You two shall be reunited, blade to blade, mind made sword to master sword, wielder to weapon. Such a powerful conjunction will counteract the venom. You will live, Kendric, and live as long as any Torloc, I swear it! I will see to it."

Just let me live long enough to see my children again - and' - he chuckled weakly 'those two white feline demons meeting face to face. His eyelids sagg I shut as his head hung forward to his chest. He appeared to sleep, but Irissa knew that Kendric kept so still only because he was hoarding the last shreds of his strength, his vitality, his very life force.

She turned on the old white cat. Why bring him through in such condition?"

Would you have preferred me to wait until he was dead?'

'No... but it is not that close a thing yet.'

'It is always that close a thing.' 'And how do you explain yourself, disgraceful old hidey

cat, when you are a living redundancy?" 'You mean . . . this. Felabba pushed herself up on her rickety legs and stalked stiffly over to her duplicate.

The two animals eyed each other askance, sniffing noses and interlocking whiskers. Old Felabba was the first to turn away.

Insignificant,' she pronounced, returning to Irissa. 'I have been long absent. Tell me what has happened. And speak up. My ears are not as sharp as they were.'

There is more that you could tell me,' Irissa objected. 'Later,' Felabba said. 'I am most concerned about the fate of the sword. Your children trifle with a balance not only between worlds and gates, but between the sift of Time itself, and between all the worlds we know Without itself. Alarmed, Irissa - even

found herself asking when

she had intended to tell. "They will not be harmed - our

children?"

'Assuredly, they will. Felabba sounded even more impatient than of old. "The only questions are when and how much and by whom? Life will harm them, seeress. All your magic cannot stop that. But as for their quest

here, it depends.' 'Riddles, Irissa spat out bitterly. 'Like Javelle, I find myself unable to live on a "perhaps.""