her back. "The Sidhe are not a...damnaigh, I forget the word."
"Hive-mind. No, they are not, but their mutual telepathic link will allow us to search the minds of the leaders through her."
"I cannot do that."
"I can. All we need you to do is summon Cridedub to our presence and hold her; we will do the rest."
She looked around the clearing, at the mob, the council members, the herald, and finally Cucath. In the light of the full moon, their eyes shined with eerie green or red glows, and she saw determination in their taut bodies and alert faces. She recognized that they were going to go through with it, with or without her help, and she realized that they stood a better chance with her cooperation.
She turned back to face the Queen. "Very well, I will do as you request." With her words, a deep, throbbing murmur filled the air as every cat began to purr. It sounded to her like a great sigh of relief.
However: "I cannot guarantee success. I have only a small chance of binding her, and I must first find her and force her to come through the gate I will open, which will be difficult. The best way to do so is to attract her attention; then I may be able seize her after she appears, but she will be forewarned, and thus forearmed."
"We understand. How long will it take you to prepare?"
"Only a few minutes, and I can open the gate as quickly, but I cannot predict when or even if Cridedub will come, and the longer I leave the gate open, the greater the chance something else will come through instead."
"We appreciate your concern; please proceed."
She looked around the clearing. "I would need to work in the center; could you have the mob form a circle around me?"
"So as it was spoken," Cucath announced, "so let it be done!"
The Herald stepped forward. "Form a circle!"
The mob dispersed, then surrounded the massive woman as she move into the center. Removing her foot-long, heavy-bladed, double-edged dirk from her black leather belt, she thrust it into the ground and stepped three paces from the center to draw a circle on the bare dirt with her cloth-yard-long, leaf-shaped sword. She retrieved her knife and stepped out of the circle to stand with her back to the marble pillars, so that the Council and the Queen could face the banshee. She drove the sword point-first into the earth and stuck the dirk back into her belt before stepping out of her shoes and pulling the hem of her smooth, long-sleeved, peplos-style dress up to mid-calf, stuffing the folds in her belt to hold it in place. She rubbed her hands together in an idle manner as she looked around to make sure the circle of cats was unbroken, before clasping her hands, closing her eyes, and commencing to take deep, rhythmic breaths.
She concentrated on a mental image of Cridedub, using it to focus her will. She began chanting under her breath, keeping the sound just above a whisper. She matched the rhythm of her speech with that of her breathing, and pushed her consciousness out into the circle as she sought the resonance of the Otherworld. She did not find it hard to locate; she was acquainted with its feel, having spent seven years there, a prisoner of the Sidhe. Once she had it, she focused her mind on it and matched it with the rhythm of her chant. Finally she unclasped her hands and spread her arm wide apart as she opened her eyes.
The air above the center shimmered, as if from heat rising out of the ground, as the fabric of space between the two universes stretched and grew thin. She felt her body pull energy out of the earth to meet the demands of piercing the dimensional barrier and she directed it into the center, using the circle of cats to contain and concentrate it. The sound of the chant began to come out of the very air itself, soft at first, but rapidly growing louder, and the shimmer intensified with it. Then without warning, with the crash of a huge wave breaking against the shore, it tore in half and spread open, to reveal a lush, twilit garden, which appeared bright against the backdrop of night in the council clearing.
The chanting stopped. "The gate is open." Her voice sounded strained to her, but she felt as if she held a great weight she dared not drop.
From "The Temple of Ubasti"
Eile ran for her life down the tunnel, leaping over rocks and dodging around stalagmites. Behind her, she could hear the cries of half a dozen guards closing in.
But it wasn't fear that motivated her.
"Godammit!" she muttered in a furious tone. "Of all the lamebrain, imbecile, half-baked stunts. 'Oh, come on, Eile, it'll be easy; a piece of cake. What could go wrong?' Stupid, space-case bimbo! When I get my hands on Sunny again, so help me I'll--"
She cut herself off as she bounced off a sharp turn and nearly lost her footing careening around the corner.
She felt no idle rage. They were all in serious trouble for once, and as far as she knew, she was the only one still free.
In her fury she couldn't help reliving the events of the past week. She and Sunny had been in Ulthar barely a day when Sunny had gotten excited over a story they had heard in a tavern about a lost temple in the Karthian Hills west of the Desert of Cuppar-Nombo. It was supposed to be filled with treasure, and naturally Sunny wanted to go search for it. She had managed to persuade her to wait until they could discuss it with Medb hErenn first. They found the massive woman in Madam Trotula's bathhouse, alone for once, and except for the fact that she insisted they join her in her hot tub, they spent a relaxing evening eating, drinking, and gossiping together.
Despite her impatience, Sunny managed to refrain from mentioning the temple as she waited for her partner to bring it up, which she did as they returned to the Laughing Cat hostel. Eile had hoped that Medb could talk Sunny out of it, but to her dismay the former queen became intrigued by the idea and offered to go with them. They left the next morning, with her companions and Shadow-stalker, and after four days of travel and searching, they found it. They also discovered the stories had not lied; the treasure chamber was filled to the ceiling with heaps of gold and silver coins, raw gems and precious stones, artifacts made of precious metals; in fact, all manner of valuables.
Sunny and Medb could not restrain themselves and they rushed in to begin looting. That was when the floor dropped out from under them. She had hung back, suspicious of how easy it had been to find the treasure, and she was able to jump clear at the last minute. Medb and Sunny, along with both cats and the Zoog, disappeared before any of them could react; the bird had dived down after them before the floor closed over them. But as she tried to find a way to rescue them, armed guards appeared in the vault and attacked. There were too many of them to fight alone, and she fled up the nearest tunnel hoping to elude them. So far, however, there had been no side tunnels to duck down or galleries to hide in, and she started to tire.
Without warning, she shot out of the tunnel onto a ledge that overhung a yawning abyss inside a cavern. She skidded to a halt right at the lip, the toes of her boots overhanging the gulf as she pin-wheeled her arms to keep her balance. She managed to stumble back from the edge, but in the process she whacked her left hand on a stone obelisk. The razor-sharp glass-like rock cut through the leather glove and gashed the back of her hand. Snatching it to her breast, she looked at it in shocked surprise. Strangely, it didn't hurt. The wound was shallow, but it was long and bled profusely, the blood trickling down her thumb to drip onto the ground at her feet.
"Dammit!" She pulled a handkerchief out from a pouch on her belt. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" She wrapped it around her hand, her speech muffled when she used her teeth to help tie the knot over her palm.
By the time she had finished, she had spent her surprise and some of her anger, and became calm enough to evaluate her situation. The cavern was not very big around, maybe about twenty yards in diameter, nor was it particularly tall, possibly ten yards to the ceiling, with stalactites hanging down about half way. The roof and stalactites were covered with masses of phosphorescent organisms that provided enough light to see by. But the cavern was deep; the floor disappeared into darkness beneath her. For all she knew, it was bottomless. Across from the ledge stood a basaltic column that stretched from th
e ceiling down into the chasm. The middle portion had been carved into the crude shape of a naked woman with the head of a cat. She noted with some wonderment that its eyes were closed.
The ledge itself was about five yards wide and three deep at its greatest extent. At that position, which sat directly across from the statue, two rough pillars of obsidian had been set up, framing a stage wide enough for her to lay her hands on each when her arms were outstretched. But it was also a dead-end. There was no way off that she could see, except the tunnel from which she had exited, and the pit beneath her.
The sound of the roaring guards coming up the tunnel alerted her that they had caught up with her. Turning her back on the cavern, she faced the tunnel mouth and pulled her double-edged short-bladed broadsword from the scabbard. She stepped far enough away from the pylons so that they would not impede her swings.
The guards poured out the tunnel, but they obviously knew where they were, because they slowed almost immediately and fanned out along the length of the ledge. They faced her, leering at her, licking their lips and fingering their curved-bladed weapons, as they laughed and taunted her.
"You assholes wanna piece of me?! Then
One-Percenter Vendetta Page 8
