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The Goddess nodded. “Then you are dealing with this fear, my daughter. Time will end your fear of the Chamber of the Ordeal, and your fear of love. Well, who knows what may happen to change your mind?”
“Nothing will change my mind,” Alanna said firmly.
“Perhaps.” The Goddess reached into the bed of the fire and drew out a single red-hot coal. “My time with you comes to an end. Take this from my hand.”
Alanna swallowed hard. This was asking a bit much, even for a goddess. She looked up and met the Mother’s eyes with her own. Slowly, trembling, she reached out and took the coal.
It was cold! Startled, she nearly dropped it. Looking at it, she saw that the ember seemed to burn within a crystal shell. There was even a tiny loop in the crystal, just big enough to permit a chain to pass through. The ember flickered in its shell, its hot red glare fading to a soft glow.
The Goddess rose. “The Chamber is only a room, though a magical one, and you will enter it when the time comes. Duke Roger is only a man, for all he wields sorcery. He can be met and defeated. But you, my daughter—learn to love. You have been given a hard road to walk. Love will ease it. Much depends on you, Alanna of Trebond. Do not fail me!”
Remembering her manners, Alanna jumped to her feet. “I won’t fail you,” she promised, her hand closing tight around the ember. “Or at least, I’ll try not to.”
“A goddess can ask no more.” The Mother looked down at the little black animal sitting now by Alanna’s feet. “Guard her well, Small One.”
The kitten mewed in reply as Alanna glanced at him. Was there more to her new pet than she had thought?
The Goddess held out her hand. “Wear my token, and be brave, But remember—I did not jest when I said there are strange tales about this tree. Do not stray beyond your fire!” She smiled. “Fare well, my daughter.”
Alanna kissed the immortal’s hand, feeling weird energy jolt through her body. She stepped away, shaking her head to clear it. “Fare well, my Mother.”
The Goddess walked over to Moonlight, caressing the mare for a moment and talking to her in a soft voice. Then she raised her hand to Alanna a last time, and she was gone.
Suddenly Alanna could barely keep her eyes open. It was a struggle to lay out her bedroll and to bank the fire, but she forced herself to perform the chores. Thinking about the strange conversation she had just had would have to wait. When she tumbled into her bedroll at last, the kitten was already inside.
“Don’t snore,” she ordered it sleepily. The kitten replied that he would not snore if she did not. Alanna nodded in agreement and went to sleep, tightly clutching the crystal ember.
It was a relief to get back to the palace the next day, back to familiar places and familiar friends. She still missed burly Coram, managing Trebond for her and Thom until she won her knight’s shield, but there was no help for that. With Lord Alan dead and Thom not caring about anything but his studies, this arrangement was for the best, at least until Alanna was ready to begin adventuring. Then she would want Coram with her.
On her first night back she was feeding her new kitten his evening meal when she heard voices in Jonathan’s room just before he knocked on her door.
“It’s your overlord, Squire,” Jonathan called. It was their private phrase that meant There are people with me. “Let me in!”
Alanna opened the connecting door, and Jonathan entered with their friends Gary and Raoul.
“We came to see if you wanted to go down to the Dancing Dove with us and visit George,” Gary told her. “How about it?”
Alanna’s face lit up. She hadn’t had a long visit with the King of the Thieves since just before her father died, nearly six weeks ago. She was pulling on her boots when Raoul exclaimed, “Great Mithros, a cat! What are you doing with one of those? It probably has fleas.”
Jonathan stopped to let the kitten sniff his fingers. “Can’t you tell a sorcerer’s familiar when you see one?” he joked. “And do familiars have fleas?” Picking the tiny animal up, he saw its face. His own sapphire-blue eyes widened. “Goddess!”
Raoul and Gary gathered around, staring at the kitten, whose eyes were the same color as their friend Alan’s. Finally Raoul gulped and asked, “What will you name him? Is it a him?” Alanna nodded.
“‘Pounce,’” Jon suggested.
“‘Blackie,’” was Raoul’s choice.
“How about ‘Raoul’?” Gary wanted to know.
The kitten reached one paw for Alanna, mewing. She took her new pet from Jonathan and set him beneath her left ear—it was her favorite spot. “I rather like ‘Faithful,’” she admitted.
Jonathan unsheathed his dagger. As if he were knighting the cat, he touched it on both shoulders, then on the head. “I dub thee ‘Faithful,”’ he said solemnly. “Serve honorably and well.”
True to his name, Faithful followed Alanna everywhere. In the practice yards he claimed a convenient post where he could sit and watch her practice her fighting skills with the other squires and pages. It took him longer to sneak into most classrooms. Myles let the kitten watch from the start, saying cats had the right to learn history as well as anyone. But Alanna’s other teachers—most of them Mithran priests—tried to keep her pet out for days, but by the end of each class he had appeared inside. Finally the masters stopped trying. They even petted the cat absently as they taught.
There was one class Alanna refused to let Faithful come to: Duke Roger’s class for those Gifted in magic (Alanna and Jonathan, among others). She didn’t know what the sorcerer would think of her pet, and she didn’t want to find out.
For the rest of the time, Faithful stuck to Alanna like a small black bur. Gareth, Duke of Naxen, Gary’s father, let Faithful follow Alanna freely when he saw that the kitten took no one’s attention away from learning. The sight of Alan with his pet under his left ear soon became a familiar one at the palace. While Faithful clearly liked Myles, Jon, and most of Alanna’s other friends (including George) and would stay with them when Alanna was busy, only she was given the privilege of carrying him on a shoulder.
“Maybe he’s afraid of heights,” Gary suggested one rainy May afternoon, shortly after Alanna’s fifteenth birthday. It was a rare, quiet time for the young knights and Alanna. Gary and Raoul, with the afternoon off, had given their squires Sacherell and Douglass free time as well. Raoul and Jonathan played backgammon, while Alex—the fifth member of their circle and the only one not secretly friends with George—watched. Gary sprawled in a window seat, thinking of a way to escape a visit to Naxen that summer. Alanna curled up in another window seat, listening to Faithful purr into her left ear and thinking about nothing at all.
“Hm?” Alanna asked sleepily, realizing Gary was talking to her.
“Faithful. Maybe he won’t sit on our shoulders because he’s afraid of heights.”
“Maybe he’s right.” Jonathan grinned. “Even Alex is half a head taller than our Alan.”
“Thanks,” Alex said dryly.
The door opened, and Duke Roger came in. The family resemblance between him and Jonathan was unmistakable, although the Duke’s eyes were a darker blue than his cousin’s and his hair brown-black to Jon’s coal-black. Both had the fair skin, straight-cut noses and stubborn chins that ran in the Conté line.
“There you are, Alex,” the older man was saying. “I hate to ask you this, but a truly important package has arrived for me at Port Caynn. You are the only one other than myself I trust to go. Will you?”
Alex grinned and stood. “It’s my pleasure, Your—”
“Let go of me, you blasted cat!” Alanna yelped as Faithful’s claws dug into her shoulder. His fur bristled; his back was arched; and he was growling deep in his throat as he stared at the Duke. Alanna tried to pry her pet loose as she said through gritted teeth, “Stop making a scene.” The sorcerer was watching them!
His attention caught, the big man came forward. “A new pet, Alan?”
“He was, until he started this.” Al
anna worked Faithful loose and held him up. The kitten twisted to keep his eyes on Roger, growling. “What is the matter with you?” Alanna demanded, trying to make him look at her before Roger saw his eyes. “Behave yourself! Sir, he’s never done this before—”
Roger drew a little closer, and Faithful slashed at him with unsheathed claws. “I think I’m being warned away,” the sorcerer remarked, stopping where he was. He looked Faithful over as Alanna tried to work a large lump out of her throat. “Unusual eyes,” he commented at last, and Faithful yowled. “I have just come from the kennels—perhaps he smells the dogs on me. Or perhaps he knows I have never been a fancier of—” He paused, and Alanna felt her skin turn to ice. “Of cats,” he finished.
Alanna cradled her still-rumbling pet against her chest. Roger either knew or guessed where her pet came from, but he wasn’t saying. That was fine with her. “It’s probably the dogs, sir,” she agreed. “He likes people and horses, but dogs don’t suit him.” The others looked at her, knowing as well as she did that Faithful left dogs alone, while dogs avoided Faithful. It wasn’t quite a lie, and the Duke seemed to accept it. He nodded to Alex, and they left together.
When they were gone, Alanna picked the kitten up and read him an impressive lecture on manners. By the time she finished, Faithful was purring, her friends were laughing, and the whole thing had been forgotten—she hoped.
Nevertheless, that night she wrote her brother Thom in the City of the Gods, sending the letter secretly by way of George. Thom was the sorcerer—not she. He should know about Faithful—and about the cat’s reaction to Duke Roger.
