Диана Дуэйн - To Visit the Queen

"Not for long, I think."
"But, great Queen of us all, where did he spring from?" Fhrio said.
"From his clothes, I'd say not our time, that much is certain," Rhiow said. "And no time close to it. I'm no expert on ehhif styles, but this looks more like what tom-ehhif wear for formal wear in our time. It used to be everyday clothing once, though, so Urruah told me – "
The ehhif was mostly in black: long narrow trousers, a white shirt with a peculiar cloth wrapped around the neck and tucked into the shirt's collar: then a sort of short close coat that came down only to the waist, and over that a bigger coat, dark again. The ehhif himself was tall, and fair-furred, and had a lot more fur around the face than was popular these days: he might have been in middle age.
"He's stopped breathing – " Fhrio said suddenly.
Rhiow looked at him more closely. "It might just be a sigh," she said. "But just in case, we'd better spell-fence him. He's going to need support spelling anyway when he wakes up – "
She started walking the beginning of a wizard's circle around the ehhif and the gate together. Arhu had dropped the string he had pulled and was looking off down the old train runnel. "Now what in the Dam's name," said a voice from a little distance down the tunnel, and a second later Auhlae jumped up onto the platform, with Siffha'h in tow. Arhu looked at her, then turned and sat down hurriedly and began to wash.
"Auhlae," Fhrio said, "where's Huff?"
"He'll be along shortly," she said, walking along to the ehhif and peering at him. "Iau's name," Auhlae said, "it's another one."
"Yes," Fhrio said, and said nothing more for the moment: but Rhiow could hear trouble in his voice. She ignored it for the moment. "Has he started breathing again?"
Auhlae looked closely at him, and put her face down close to the ehhif s, feeling for breath. "None at the moment. Siffha'h," she said. "When Rhiow finishes, put some power into her circle, this poor ehhif is going to need it. I think he's in shock."
"Doesn't surprise me," Siffha'h said, coming over to look at the circle Rhiow was building as she paced and assembled the spell in her mind. "Pretty standard," she said. "Which part do you want me to fuel first?"
"The main strand and the life-support part," Rhiow said. "I want to feel if there's anything actually wrong with his body before we start interfering." She completed the circle, tying the "wizard's knot" in the air with a flirt of her tail: pale fire followed it briefly and died away – normally she would have preferred to see her guidelines in visible light, but the appearance of strange fires from nowhere was not likely to do this poor ehhif any good when he became conscious.
"Now then – " she said. The basic spell-circle lay traced in ghost lines on the concrete around the ehhif. Rhiow now made one more turn around it, her paws pressing into the circle the graphic forms of those words of the Speech which Rhiow was assembling in her mind, the words which would control the function of the spell. One by one they appeared in graceful ghost curves and arabesques interwoven around the main curve of the circle, like vines twining around a support, until the last few words rooted themselves into the wizard's knot and became one with it.
"Ready," she said. Siffha'h looked the circle over, found the power– supply access point and stood on it: the circle flared for just a second with power, then damped down again.
Rhiow, still standing on the control point of the circle at the wizard's knot, nearly jumped off it at the abrupt access of power into the spell, and secondarily, into her. It was partly the suddenness of its inrush, and partly the sheer volume of it, and the unusual taste of it when it came – mostly the taste of Siffha'h's mind: young and fierce and bold, surprisingly so for such a young queen, with a great sense of potential unused and potential still developing, and behind everything, driving it all, some huge and dimly-perceived desire. Rhiow shied away from any attempt to look more closely at that – it was none of her business – but was impressed by it all the same. This young queen was going to be quite something as she grew into more certainty about her work and her life.
"That enough to work with for the moment?" Siffha'h said.
"For several hours, if you ask me," Rhiow said, impressed: "Thanks, cousin!" She turned her attention to the spell. She had no proper name for the ehhif, and so had used one of the species-generic terms and an indicator for his gender: now her mind ran down through that connection to his, and felt about gingerly in the ehhif's mind. The part of his brain that ran breathing and blood pressure and other functions was undamaged: but the emotional shock had thrown his blood chemistry badly out of kilter, and left him in a "sigh" that was much more prolonged than the usual fifteen seconds. That chemistry was getting worse as she watched, but fortunately the problem was a simple one, already partially rectified. Rhiow cured it by increasing the acidity of his blood ever so slightly, a process already under way, and the automatic response to such an increase took over, so that the ehhif gasped, and then started to breathe normally again.
"Nothing too serious, then," Auhlae said, putting her ears forward in relief.
"No, just the kind of thing that causes hiccups, but a little more severe," Rhiow said, relieved, and shook herself a little to get rid of the peculiar cramped narrow feeling of an ehhif's mind. "It's his emotional state that I'm more worried about, when he becomes conscious again. He may need quieting. Let's see how he does … "
The ehhif was stirring a little already. "Hey, sorry I'm late," said another voice from down the tunnel, and Urruah leapt up onto the platform. "There were some things I had to take care – " He broke off, going wide-eyed as he took in the whole scene in a second. "Hey," he said then. "So wishing works after all."
"Whether it does or not, we'd better shut this gate down," Fhrio said. "The last thing we need at the moment is another access, especially one into a spell-circle when whoever might come through isn't named in the spell – "
Urruah stared at him. "Are you kidding? Lock it open!" "What?"
"If we don't lock it open I won't be able to get a reading on where the other end is anchored," Urruah said, "and that's information we badly need. Are you set up to do it? Then let me."
Fhrio bristled at that, but Auhlae bumped him from one side, distracting him. "He's right," she said. "Rhiow, you'll want to put his personal information into the spell so that he can step through. Just make sure you lock it in nonpatent configuration, Urruah. Come on, Fhrio, we have other things to attend to. Poor ehhif, look at him, he's in a state."
The ehhif's eyes were open now. He lay there staring around him at the darkness, and tried to sit up once: failed, and slumped back again.
"Where – " he said, and then trailed off at the sound of his own voice in the close darkness of the tunnel.
The wizards exchanged glances. "If this isn't errantry," Auhlae said, "what is?"
She padded over to the edge of the circle and sat down where the ehhif could see her. Once again he tried to sit up, and did a little better this time, managing at least to hitch himself up one elbow and look around. The light here was not good, even by feline standards: it was questionable how much he could see.
"Don't be afraid," Auhlae said to him in the Speech. "You've had a fall. Are you hurt?"
"No, I-I mean, I think not, but where – where is this?" He tried to sit up again. "Where are you?"
"Here in front of you," Auhlae said, with a look at Rhiow.
She was ready. The ehhif looked around him, and saw Auhlae … then looked past her. "Where?"
"Right here, in front of you," she said, and even in the rather dire circumstances, Rhiow could hear the sound of slight amusement in Auhlae's voice. "The cat," she added, and this time the amusement was genuine.
The ehhif looked at Auhlae, and then actually laughed out loud, though the laughter was shaky. "Oh surely not," he said. "Some kind of ventriloquism. I've seen illusionists' shows; I know what kind of tricks may be played on an unsuspecting audience – "
Auhlae sighed a little. "In front of an audience, a skilled stage magician can produce all kinds of illusions, I know," she said, "but this isn't that kind of thing. Rhiow, maybe you'd better let the light of the circle come up a little."
She waved her tail in agreement, meanwhile watching the ehhif closely for any signs that he was about to go shocky again.
"Mr.. – Illingworth," said Auhlae after a moment, as the light of the circle grew and the ehhif looked around him, "please don't believe this a trick. It is something out of your experience, though. Perhaps you would prefer to think of it as a dream. Do you mind if we ask you some questions?"
The ehhif looked around at the circle, and the cat inside it with him, its paws thrust into the glowing webwork which the circle surrounded, and the four other cats outside: and he blinked. "I suppose not, but where are you? And how do you know my name?"
"Please don't bother looking for any other humans, because you'll see none here," Auhlae said. "Just pretend, if you will, that the cats are speaking to you."
"But how do you know my name?" the ehhif demanded, more urgently now. "Is it – is this some kind of plot – "
Through the spell, Rhiow could feel the ehhif's blood pressure beginning to spike. She watched it carefully, and felt down the spell for indications of any sudden physical movement: there were too many ways he could damage himself, physically and nonphysically, if he tried to break out of the circle before it was correctly disassembled.
"It's no plot," Auhlae said, "though I wouldn't mind hearing why you would think it was one."
The ehhif looked around him, still trying to find the source of the voice which spoke to him: and now he started to look suspicious. "There are plots everywhere these days," he said, and his voice sounded unusually troubled. "Everything used to seem so safe once … but now nothing is what it seems – "
His blood pressure spiked again with his anxiety, and Rhiow could feel his muscles getting ready for a jump. Better not, she thought, and spoke briefly to his adrenal glands through the spell. They obligingly stopped the chemical process which was already producing adrenaline, and instead produced a quick jolt of endorphins that left Mr. Illingworth blinking in slightly buzzed bemusement, and much less prepared to get up and run anywhere. Rhiow was ready to lock his muscles immobile if she had to, but she preferred less invasive and energy-intensive measures to start with.
"How do you mean?" Auhlae said.
"The war," said Mr.. Illingworth, and now his voice started to sound mournful. "What use in being the mightiest nation on the globe when we must be bombed for the privilege? There was a time when no one dared lift a hand to us. But now our enemies have gathered together and grown bold, and London itself is prey … "
At that Auhlae looked sharply at Fhrio. Fhrio's eyes were wide. Bombed? he said silently, to her and the others. London hasn't been bombed for fifty years.
"When did this start?" Auhlae said, and for all her attempts to keep her voice soothing, her alarm came through.
"A year or so ago," said Mr.. Illingworth wearily. "There were troubles before then … but nothing like the crisis we face now." And much to Rhiow's surprise, the ehhif put his face down in his hands. "Not since the Queen died … "
The Queen? Urruah said then, pausing in his work with the gate. What's he talking about?
" 'The Queen'? Which queen?" Auhlae said.
The ehhiflooked up again, and looked around him with a much less fuzzy air: Rhiow felt his blood pressure start spiking again. "How can you not know about the great tragedy," Mr.. Illingworth said, "for which a whole nation mourns, and at which the whole world looked on amazed? Only spies would pretend not to know how the Queen-Empress was assassinated, treacherously killed by – " He started to struggle to his feet.
Rhiow clamped the spell down on him, shorting out the neurotransmitter chemistry servicing his voluntary musculature, but being careful to avoid his lungs. Still the ehhif gasped, though he couldn't struggle, and his fear began to grow. "Let me go!' he said loudly, and then started to shout, "Spies! Traitors! Let me go! Police!"
The sound of that cry could be kept from being heard, of course, but Rhiow had other concerns. Auhlae, she said silently, there's no point in this. It takes doing for an ehhif to frighten itself to death, but this one's pretty emotionally labile: he might be able to do it. And he's been under a lot of stress –­You're right, Auhlae said. Better put him to sleep.
Rhiow reached into the spell and spoke to the ehhif's brain chemistry. A moment later his eyes closed, and his head sagged slightly, though he did not move otherwise: she kept the hold on his muscles, just for safety's sake.
" 'Bombed'?" Urruah said then.
"One moment," Rhiow said. "Urruah, how's the gate?"
"Locked open but nonpatent, like Auhlae said." "Have you got a time fix on the opening?"
"Not yet. The congruency with our present timeframe is not one-to– one, Rhi. The spatiotemporal coordinate readings I'm getting at the moment are not meshing in direct line with our own." Rhiow twitched at the sound of that, for she thought she knew what he meant … and she didn't like it. "Additionally, I think something's been fretting at the gate from the other side while it's been doing these 'rogue' openings … unraveling it. The unraveling's been starting to manifest itself on this side now … " He put his whiskers back. "And I'm almost afraid to fix it. That might warn whoever's doing the unraveling, send them under cover … "
I'd wait and talk to Huff about it, Rhiow said silently to him. This is getting to be a jurisdictional matter, and I don't want to … She glanced in Fhrio's direction.
Understood, Urruah said. But if something sudden happens, we're going to have to intervene in the situation's best interest, no matter what local opinion might be …
Rhiow waved her tail in agreement, though the prospect made her nervous: Urruah went back to "reading" the gate, letting the information in the string configuration sing down through his claws and into his nerves and brain. "Auhlae," Rhiow said aloud, "you managed enough rapport with him to get a name: could you get in there and find out more?"
Auhlae shook herself. "Names are easy," she said, somewhat distressed. "They're so near the surface, in any sentient being. But abstract information is a lot harder to get at, out of species. You know how ehhif minds look and feel inside: the imagery's all wrong, the language is bizarre and the mindset is stranger still … I'm no expert in ehhif psychologies: I'll get lost in there as readily as anyone else. And anyway, I can't do anything useful while our Mr.. Illingworth's unconscious. If he was conscious, I could go in, all right, but I couldn't be sure I was getting the information absolutely correct. And if we're hearing from this ehhif what I think we're hearing – "
"If you think you're hearing evidence of an alternate timeline," Urruah said, "then I think you're right. Leaving aside all the other things he mentioned, most of which I don't understand, I do know that London hasn't been bombed recently … and it certainly was never bombed when ehhif wore clothes like that."
Rhiow suddenly became aware of Arhu looking over her shoulder, most intently, at Illingworth. "He's the unravelling," Arhu said softly. "Or a symptom of it: concrete rather than abstract. It's not a process that's finished yet. But if something's not done soon … "
"Hold that thought," Rhiow said. "Don't lose it, whatever you do."
"Oh, certainly," Fhrio said suddenly, sounding very annoyed. "Encourage him. He's been enough trouble already."
"Look," Arhu said, turning, "I tried to tell you – "
"No, you look." Fhrio leaned close to Arhu and stared at him straight on: leaned over him stiff-necked and tall, the classic posture of the
threatening tom. "You may think that you've done us a favor by
causing this incursion, but who knows if it's anything to do with the
problems we've been having? All I see is that you've made a sweet
mess of things. Don't you ever touch my gate again unless I
specifically tell you to. You hear me? You come in here thinking
you're so vhai'd smart, and you tamper with things that you don't –­к
Arhu was staring right back at Fhrio, and his ears were back: he hadn't given an inch, and his lips were beginning to wrinkle away from his teeth. Urruah was looking on dispassionately. Oh, dear Dam around us, Rhiow thought, please don't let Arhu –­"Now what in the worlds," said another voice down the tunnel. Heads turned. A moment later Huff jumped up onto the platform, and looked at the bizarre tableau before him: the half-sitting, frozen ehhif, Urruah once again up to his armpits in the hyperstrings of the gate, Siffha'h sitting on the power junction and washing nonchalantly, Auhlae and Rhiow looking on in bemusement and distress: and Fhrio and Arhu.
Fhrio turned and glared at Huff, his ears still back. "Well, about time you got back here! While you've been off having one of your little catnaps, your precious imported vhai'd 'senior gating team' has – "
"Fhrio," said Huff. Fhrio subsided, and sat down, though his ears stayed flat.
Huff sat down too. "For one thing, I was not having a catnap, much as I would have liked to be. I was off having a talk about this gate with Hni'hho." Rhiow immediately recognized this as the name of the present Senior Wizard for Western Europe, an ehhif living just across the water in one of the low countries near the sea. "And for another, I think you may owe Rhiow and her team an apology. They were brought here to produce the results. They are apparently producing them – " and he flicked a glance over at the wretched unconscious ehhif –­"whether you like them or not. We were specifically instructed to expect a 'somewhat unorthodox technique'. Or weren't you listening to Her?"
"Oh, I heard Her, it's just – "
"It isn't 'just'. If you're feeling obstructive, take it up with Herself … but you've got to resolve whatever conflicts you have about this work before you do anything further."
Fhrio turned away and began to wash. So did Arhu, with great intensity and at speed.
Rhiow breathed out in relief. "Somewhat unorthodox technique", she thought then, slightly amused. Well, Arhu's off the sharp end of the claw for the moment. But what if "unorthodox" means me and Urruah too … ?
Huff got up and walked to the edge of the circle, looking at the sleeping ehhif half-sitting there. "He's a long way from home," he said.
"I'd say he's from the middle of the century before last, as ehhif count time," said Urruah. "The location is nearly congruent with this one, at least: but the exact time is proving elusive. It's somewhere within the spread of the previous micro-openings, though. No
guarantee of whether it coincides with any of them."
"He spoke of bombings," Auhlae said, going over to stand by her mate.
"He was talking about the Queen, too," Arhu said, looking up from his own composure-washing and sounding a little bemused. "I wouldn't have thought ehhif knew about Iau – "
"With him wearing those clothes, I would say he probably meant the ehhif Queen who was ruling then," Huff said. "A different usage of the same word we use for Her, and for shes. Hffich'horia, this Queen's name was. A lot of the ehhif on this island count themselves as of the same pride, though they're not blood-related except distantly: and they have a kind of hwio-rrhi'theh, a 'pride of prides' who're supposed to care for all the other ehhif, help them find food and do justice among them and so forth … though as usual for ehhif, it's never quite that simple. This ehhif-Queen was a daughter of that chief-pride … which the ehhif then apparently found a little unusual: for a long time toms had run that chief– pride, not queens."
"Peculiar," Rhiow said. "Even among ehhif, queens still run things a lot of the time, no matter that the toms say otherwise … "
Huff grinned at that. "I've never understood that, myself. You'd think they'd be glad to have someone relieve them of the responsibility … " He threw an affectionate look at Auhlae: she half-closed her eyes in amusement. "Anyway, this ehhif-Queen is still famous for the things done by her pride and the great ones of the prides under her: today's ehhif call that whole time period after her."
"He said she was assassinated, though," Urruah said.
Huff twitched his tail back and forth. "Certainly other ehhif tried to kill her several times," he said, "but none of them ever succeeded. She died of age and illness … in our world. But in his — " Huff looked at the ehhif.
"We really need to know when he comes from," Siffha'h said, "if this is going to make any sense."
"Yes, but if you've already had to tranquilize him, I don't think he's going to be much more help," Huff said. "If we try to get more information out of him, we might damage him, which contravenes the Oath, no matter how much we think may ride on what he knows."
"I'd have to agree," Rhiow said. "He was getting very distressed indeed."
"Well, at least we have other ways to get this information … since now we have a positive lock on where this particular ehhif came from. We can put him back where he belongs, and we can compare the gate's present configuration to the older gate logs … then see if we can find out how or why they've been malfunctioning and giving us less than useful records of these transits. Any other thoughts on this? Hlae?"
Auhlae waved her tail in negation. "Let's do it." "Thrio? Siffha'h?"
Fhrio said, "I don't like this gate being locked open … and even less do I like it when the other end may be anchored in an alternative reality. One gate stuck in the open position can begin to affect all the others in odd ways … and our sheaf of gates is sensitive enough in that regard."
"I understand your concern," Huff said, "and you're right. But in this particular case, we're going to have to take the chance. As soon as we can put someone through to confirm the temporal coordinates at the other end, and get them home again, we can close it down again. Sif?"
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Siffha'h said. Huff turned to Rhiow. "Do you concur?" "Absolutely," she said.
"All right," Huff said. "Let's send this pastling home, then. Do you think you need to alter his memories, Rhiow?"
"It wouldn't be easy," she said, "for the same reason Auhlae wasn't willing to go after abstract information. I might mess something up, and leave him worse off than he would have been if I hadn't meddled. But from the way he was answering us, I think it's likely enough that he will dismiss all this as a dream."
"All right. Siffha'h, you like the big showy physical spells – "
"This isn't showy," Siffha'h said, and without twitching so much as a whisker, or making any alteration to the "physical" spell-circle she sat on, Mr. Illingworth levitated gently into the air and toward the gate.
"Would you make it patent, and give me visual?" Siffha'h said. "I don't want to drop the guy … "
Urruah, looking over his shoulder at her, grinned a little and slipped one claw behind into the patency bundle, pulling gently.
A moment later they were looking into a dark vista which might have been a street: walls were visible not too far away, and a faint yellow wobbling light came off from one side.
"Gaslight … " Auhlae said softly, waving her tail in fascination. The ehhif drifted slowly through the gate, into the darkness on the other side: Urruah edged sideways a little to let him pass unhindered. "How far down is the ground?" Siffha'h said.
"About your body's length."
The ehhif dropped down below the boundary of the gate, out of Rhiow's sight: Urruah craned his neck to see. "All right," he said, "he's down. I'm going to turn this nonpatent again and leave it locked." He started pulling strings again. "If we can – "
The gate shimmered and rippled – and all the length of it heaved, a bizarre sight like some huge beast's skin shivering convulsively to get rid of a biting fly. Even the boundaries of the gate, which should have remained unaffected, twisted and warped. Urruah threw himself backwards, twisted and came down on his feet – just. Behind him, color drained from the warp and weft of the gate, and it steadied: after a moment it hung in the air in its default configuration again, nonpatent, in "standby" – though its colors looked very muted, almost drained.
"What in the Queen's name was that?" Huff said, staring.
No one had any answers. Fhrio padded up to the gate, looked at it … then looked angrily over at Urruah. "What did you do to it?!"
"Nothing that you didn't see," Urruah said, getting up and shaking himself. "I've seen catastrophic closures before, but they didn't look anything like that. I wonder, though, if that was some kind of reaction to Mr.. Illingworth being put back where he belonged all of a sudden … ?"
"You mean you don't think these gatings are accidental," Siffha'h said. "So it was like whatever engineered the opening, from way back then, didn't want him back … "
"Meaning that he was meant to increase whatever imbalance in our universe is already present," said Auhlae, "from the pastlings who've come through and not yet been found again … "
There's another nasty possibility," Rhiow said. "That transit might have been balanced for him alone … and when someone else either tried to accompany him through it, or follow him to source using the same "settings", they could have been damaged. Or possibly even killed."
"You're suggesting that it was a trap?" Huff said.
There would be no way to be sure of that with the data we have. But I am suggesting that Siffha'h's right. This was not a malfunction … or not a very likely one. There was someone at the other end managing it … or someone who programmed it and walked away."
"But how do you open a gate forward in time?" Siffha'h said, her eyes big.
Huff looked at her somberly. "Unless you've mastered contemporal existence," Huff said, "you don't. But the only ones who have done so, who simultaneously live in all times and none, are the Powers that Be."
"Including that one other Power," said Auhlae, "who gives us so much trouble … "
Glances were exchanged all around.
"Well, the circle's served its purpose," Rhiow said. She flirted her tail at the "wizard's knot": it unraveled, and the rest of the circle vanished with it. "Thanks, Siffha'h. That was nicely done."
She looked smug. "Any time."
Fhrio went over to the gate and put one paw into the control weave, hooking out first one string, then another. He hissed softly. "There's no telling what happened now," he said. "Those 'settings' wiped themselves from the logs when the gate collapsed … that doubtless being the 'operator's' intention. We're no further along than we were before."
Urruah, who had stepped away to sit down and have a brief wash while Fhrio was looking the gate over, now glanced up. "Well," he said, "it's not that bad. I wove them into the gate's 'hard' memory, stacked underneath your standard default routines, while I was locking the gate open. Just a precaution: I was afraid I might drop something vital when things got busy. But at least that way we could
be sure of finding the settings again if something went wrong."
Fhrio blinked. "How did you get into my hard routines that fast …
^ii 11
Urruah smiled one of those smug-tom smiles, and Rhiow said hurriedly, "Huff, I wouldn't mind taking a break for a little while, if it suits you."
"Certainly. Let's go up and get some fresh air … see if we can find some lunch. After that," and Huff looked grim, "we must plan. If the Lone Power is behind what we just saw … and I can't think what else could be … then we've a nasty job ahead of us. Food first: but then the council of war … "
The food took less time than Rhiow had thought, most of it provided by ehhif whom she found astonishingly willing. Huff had simply led them around to The Mint, the pub where he lived with his ehhif, the pub's manager. Rhiow was not sure what to expect from a pub, except for thinking that perhaps, like many other things she had glimpsed so far in London, it might be fairly old: but this one was as much like a New York uptown bar as anything else, all plate glass and polished brass and hanging plants. Huff made his way through the pub's "lounge" area, graciously accepting bits of sausage and burger and sandwich and other treats from the patrons and bringing this food back to the others, who stayed discreetly sidled in one out-of-the– way corner of the pub otherwise populated only by a group of mindlessly dinging and hooting small-stakes gambling machines.
"You're very popular here," Urruah said, after Huff came back with a rather large piece of fried fish.
"Oh yes," Huff said, watching with amusement as Arhu fell on the piece of fish and devoured it almost without stopping to breathe. "They're a nice enough bunch, by and large: and my ehhif doesn't mind. He describes it as "good will" … says it helps business. It's my pleasure, I'm sure." Huff looked around the place with a satisfied air. "Always nice to be part of a successful undertaking. I just have to watch myself, sometimes: it would be too easy to get fat … "
Rhiow, busy washing her face after finishing a greasy but delectable half of a sausage, was glad of the excuse not to be looking at Huff when he said that. He had already achieved at least "portly" status, but he was not genuinely overweight … yet.
And who am I to stare at him in this regard? If I had unlimited access to food like this, who knows what I'd look like in a few months … All the same, she wished she had the opportunity to find out.
Everyone was washing now but Fhrio: he had finished first and was hunkered down with his eyes half-closed, perhaps consulting with the Whisperer about the status of his gates … or perhaps, Rhiow thought, wondering how much face he's lost, and how to get it back … She sighed, and scrubbed her face harder.
Urruah was in comfort: after a chunk of burger, two fish sticks from someone's finicky child, and a big piece of gravy-soaked crust from someone's steak and kidney pie, he was lying on one side and putting his stomach fur in order. "So, Huff," he said, pausing and looking up, "let's consider options."
"I don't know that we have many," Huff said. He was taking his time about putting his broad snow-white bib in order: it had somehow gotten some ketchup on it after that last piece of hamburger, and Rhiow suspected that he would be pinkish there for a day or two. "We've got to try to trace back along the same path that Mr.. Illingworth came by. But the modality is going to be difficult, considering how our problem gate is behaving … " He sounded meditative.
"I think we're going to have to construct a timeslide," Urruah said. "To access what the ehhif wizards call a 'piece of time'."
"You started to tell me about that once," Arhu said suddenly to Urruah. "And then you yelled at him," he said, turning to Rhiow. "And me."
"With reason," Rhiow said. "It wasn't germane to the problem at hand: and messing around with time without a specific goal, and approval from the Powers, is like playing in traffic. Worse, actually. But temporal claudication theory's been a hobby of Urruah's for a long time."
Urruah shook himself, then sat up and licked a paw as meditatively as Huff started rubbing behind one ear, even though he had already washed there. "I started getting interested in it when I was still freelance," he said to Arhu. "Sometimes the Whisperer will talk about it, for whatever reasons. Can't be boredom, I wouldn't think: maybe it's her sneaky way of encouraging research … or just curiosity. She's sneaky that way."
"Temporal claudication … " Arhu said. "I thought it was supposed to be 'temporospatial'."
"It is," Urruah said. "Oh, there's no way you can ever completely lose the spatial coordinate-set on any temporospatial transit spell, no matter how still you try to hold it: not a planet-based one, anyway. But a timeslide's emphasis is always mainly on temporal change. You can either mount it "freestanding", by bending space locally and temporarily with spells and equipment tailored to that specific spot: or you can start a timeslide in 'parasitic' relationship to an existing worldgate, using the gate's power source to run the slide. There are more involved 'half and half' implementations for use when you want some of the gate's own functions to augment those of the timeslide: but that kind of implementation is kind of fiddly."
"A claudication is a squeezing, a constriction," Huff said to Arhu. "Squeeze space, and you enable things to pop from one side of the 'squeezed' area to another: that's worldgating at its simplest. Squeeze time as well – or squeeze the temporal component of the time/space pair harder than the spatial one – and you pop from one time to another. Present to past … and back again. That's a timeslide."
"You still have to control the spatial component very exactly," Urruah said, "or else you pop out at the right time, all right, but somewhere very different in the planet's orbit … not forgetting that the planet's primary has moved too, and taken its whole solar system with it, since the time you're aiming for. Hanging out there in the cold dark vacuum and feeling very silly … assuming you remembered to bring some air with you." Urruah put his whiskers forward, amused by the image. Arhu licked his nose, twice, very fast. "You must choose a spot at one 'end' of the timeslide," Urruah said, "ideally your 'present' end, as de facto anchor, and the other as the spot to which the anchor chain is fastened … and not lose control of either of them, despite their individual movements through space which continue through the duration of the slide. There has to be enough 'flex' in the connection to cope with unpredictable movements of the body … or 'bodies', since the temporal element means you have to treat this as a two-body problem. Then when you're done, you have to unhook both ends of the timeslide without causing temporal backlash at either insertion point. It's delicate work, my kit: you'll break a few claws on this one, if it's what we go for."
Arhu gave Urruah a look which suggested the usage of claws might be more imminent. "I can handle it," he said.
"We'll see," said Rhiow. "You're good with static worldgates, for a beginner. Whether you'll do as well with a timeslide is another question."
"In any case," Urruah said, "I think options one and three are closed to us."
Fhrio looked up from his ruminations at that. "Why?"
"Well," said Urruah, flicking his tail, "for one thing, how often are we going to have to do this? Does anyone want to give me odds that we'll find out what's causing the trouble – from solving the original gate malfunction, to finding out what in Iau's name Mr.. Illingworth was talking about – and fix it all, with just one trip?"
Everyone looked at each other. No one looked willing to suggest they were witless enough to believe that this might happen.
"Right." Urruah said. "So there's no sense in running around trying to acquire three or four or five sets of the specialized equipment we'd need to execute a freestanding timeslide repeatedly from the same spot. We'd only waste huge amounts of energy, which the Powers hate, and drive ourselves crazy, which we would hate. Type three, the 'half and half' timeslide implementations, are a nuisance to maintain, they get out of kilter at the drop of a whisker, and they fail without warning, which we do not need in these circumstances. This leaves us with type two … which has certain advantages in our case."
"A parasitic linkage has advantages?" Auhlae said, sounding dubious. "With a malfunctioning gate?"
"It does if you're trying to fix the malfunction," Urruah said. "It'll function as a diagnostic, for the power source, anyway. A clumsy one, but rugged. Nor will it be liable to the same kinds of failures that the malfunctioning gate is having."
"No … just different ones," Fhrio said.
Urruah shrugged his tail. "Who wants all mice to taste the same? Variety keeps you young. We parasitize the gate's power source and use it to power the slide. That at least we'll be able to control precisely. It's a simple structure to build and troubleshoot: anything goes wrong with it, we'll know about it in seconds, and be able to fix it in minutes. You try doing that with one of these gates. They're complex."
"Tell me about it," Huff said wearily. "The others have been failing sporadically because of the extra strain due to this troublesome one being taken offline. They're just not built for larger access numbers than they're carrying at the moment."
"We can get you some help for that," Rhiow said. "We have authorizations to get assistance from the other congener gates in this bundle. The teams at Chur and its daughter-complex at Samnaun will take some of the strain until we've resolved this: we can install a couple of direct access portals in the near neighborhood of the functioning gates."
"They may have to stay there a while," Huff said. "We have all these incursions to resolve as well … "
"The Whisperer says we'll have as much support time from the other gates as we need," Rhiow said. "It'll be all right."
"And meanwhile, at least we have one 'illicit' gate transit that we caught live and can use for its coordinates," Urruah said. "More than that: Mr.. Illingworth, whenever he is, will still be carrying some hint of wizardly 'transit residue' about him that we can isolate and track … and possibly get a better sense of who or what pushed him through that gate. Maybe even why, if we're lucky."
"The oldest lostlings' residue will have already worn off, though," Auhlae said. "Even after all the other problems are solved, we're still going to have to find them somehow. And when we do … are they native to the same universe Mr. Illingworth is?"
It was a problem which had been nagging at Rhiow. Theoretically, the number of potential alternate universes was almost infinite. Even postulating a completely cooperative ehhif, once found – and that itself was none too likely – the two teams would then have to identify correctly which universe was that ehhif's home. If they accidentally sent the ehhif "back" to the wrong world, their own home universe's problem would be solved, but the same problem of growing instability would be created for some other world …
"It's something we're going to have to sort out," Rhiow said, "but at the far end of this process, not the near end. I'd say what we must now do is construct Urruah's 'parasitic' timeslide, plug into it the coordinates he saved from Mr.. Illingworth's transit, and see where it takes us: then find out what we can about that universe … especially about this Queen of theirs, and what happened to her. You said there had been other attempts on her life," she said to Huff.
"At least three or four," Huff said. "We've got to discover whether this assassination is one of the attempts which, in our world, failed: or if it's a new one, never recorded … "
"Perhaps never recorded," Urruah said, "because in the past someone else has already stopped it … Us, perhaps?"
"That would be reassuring," Auhlae said. "But somehow I don't think we can count on it … "
There was quiet for a moment. Huff sat gazing thoughtfully at the floor, a weary reddish carpet which over much time had become an amalgam of stomped-in chewing gum, spilled beer, and other substances that Rhiow's nose flatly refused to identify, this far along in their evolution. "Well," Huff said finally, "I concur. It only remains to decide exactly who makes the first incursion into the past."
"Assuming that none of you are particularly eager," Urruah said, "I think it should be us."
The London team looked at him with expressions varying from Huff's thoughtful interest to Auhlae's surprise to Siffha'h's faint confusion: Fhrio put his whiskers forward, positively (and to Rhiow's mind, oddly) amused.
"Why?" Huff said. "Though I think probably none of us are all that eager … "
"I am!' Siffha'h said.
"Hush," Auhlae said. "You're young for this kind of work yet, Siffha'h."
"I am not! I've got all my teeth – " "No."
"Why not?!" "Not now."
"As for the 'why' – " Urruah said.
"We're more expendable than you are," Arhu said dryly. "Arhu!" Rhiow said.
"I wouldn't have put it quite that way," Urruah said, putting his whiskers forward, "but in a way he's right. When it comes down to the feet and the tail of it, Huff, these are your gates, and you know them better than we do. If something goes wrong with a timeslide anchored to one of your gates' power sources, you have a better chance to successfully troubleshoot the situation than we would. And another matter: the Powers sent us to intervene. Implicit in that, to my mind, is the suggestion that we may be best equipped, one way or another, to deal with whatever problems we uncover while working with you."
"Or it might just be ego," Fhrio said, one ear forward and one ear back. It was a joke, Rhiow thought … just.
"Urruah? Ego?" Rhiow said, and then stopped herself from saying "Perish the thought", since that could have implied that it wasn't ego. "Well, Fhrio, if you want to relieve him of the glory, I'm sure you're welcome to change places with him, and he'll stay here and mind your gates for you."
Huff threw Rhiow a very covert and very amused look as Fhrio put his other ear forward. "Oh, no indeed," he said, "I wouldn't want to deprive him … "
"All right, then," Rhiow said to Huff. "I think we'll need some hours to put together what spells we want to carry with us, and to make sure things back at home are all right before we set out. If you can keep the gate in inactive mode until we get back, that'll probably be best."
"No problem with that," Fhrio said. "I'll just disconnect it from the power source entirely until you get back – when? tomorrow? – to set up the parasitic timeslide."
"Tomorrow let it be," Rhiow said, "about this time, if that suits you all."
They all got up. "And meanwhile, thanks for the work you've done," Huff said. "We're further along than we were, though the problem looks worse than it did: at least there's been a change in status,
which you were begging for, Fhrio, as I remember. So you may owe Arhu one after all."
"Though, Fhrio, I must admit that he overstepped the bounds," Rhiow said. "And my apologies to you for that."
Fhrio took a not entirely ceremonial swipe at Arhu's ear. "Let him behave himself after this, then."
"I will do so," Arhu said with abrupt and brittle clarity, "insofar as you so do as well, when we come into the dark and you cannot find the way: when others see the path that you do not, and you rebel …
Rhiow blinked. It was not anything like Arhu's usual turn of phrase: she heard foretelling in it, and her fur stood up on her. She hoped Fhrio's was doing the same, for there was no mistaking the Whisperer's Dam when She chose to speak out loud … as she sometimes did, using Arhu as Her throat.
The resonances trembling around his words faded themselves out on the air, leaving the London team looking at one another. "I'm sorry," Rhiow said, "but it's another recent development. Arhu is a visionary, though the talent is still training. When it comes out so forcefully, though, we've learned to listen … "
Fhrio shrugged his tail. "We'll see what happens," he said, sounding skeptical, but cheerfully so. "Are we all done? Then I've got a gate to see to, and a pride to go home to. See you all tomorrow … "
He stalked out, leaving them all looking after him. Auhlae looked after him with some concern and said, "He goes my way home, for a little distance: I'll go with him. Siffha'h, come with me?"
"Sure," said the youngster. Auhlae rubbed faces quickly with Huff, saluted the others with a flirt of her tail, and headed off after Fhrio. Siffha'h trotted off after Auhlae, leaving Arhu gazing after her.
Rhiow lashed her tail once or twice, then said to Huff, "Truly, I am sorry if we've caused any trouble – "
"If the way he acts makes you think so," Huff said, giving her an amused look out of those big green eyes, "don't. Fhrio's always like the one flea down in your ear that you can't get at. But for all that, he's good at his job. Come on … "
They all made their way out, slipping behind the bar and down a corridor behind it to a heavy metal door with a small cat-door installed in the bottom of it: then out into a small untidy yard stacked high with steel beer barrels and plastic soft-drink crates. At the back of the yard, a corrugated steel gateway in a high wall had a small improvised cat-door cut into the steel and hinged. "Convenient," Urruah said.
"It is, isn't it?" said Huff. "But one thing. Urruah, thank you for volunteering."
Urruah looked at him in surprise. "Well, as I said, it seems appropriate. Doesn't it, Rhi?"
"It does. Accusations of ego aside."
Huff laughed at that. "Don't take him seriously, cousins: please don't. He's got ego enough of his own and to spare. But I do thank you."
"You're worried about Auhlae," Arhu said suddenly.
Rhiow sighed, thinking that vision was not Arhu's only problem: he was perceptive as well, but not about how to use the perception. He needs a tact transplant, she thought, but she suspected that this was something not even wizardry could handle. She and Urruah were just going to have to beat it into him over time … hopefully before he got so big that the corrective administration of educational whackings was no longer a viable option.
Huff looked for a long moment at Arhu before saying, "Yes, I am. I don't think you're too young to understand the situation. We've been together a while, and she's dear to me: the thought of her in danger upsets me. If we needed to do something dangerous in the Powers' service, of course we would … and doubtless will. But I don't like to think of her anywhere near trouble."
Rhiow understood completely, though at the same time it seemed to her that for partners who were wizards, and who might be in trouble at the drop of a whisker, such an attitude was likely to cause one or both of them pain sooner or later.
"I know what you mean," Arhu said, and suddenly looked very young, and painfully dignified, and profoundly troubled, all at once. Oh, dear, Rhiow said privately to Urruah, he has been bitten badly, hasn't he …
The claw in the ear is the claw through the heart, Urruah said, quoting the old proverb. I just hope she doesn't rip him ragged before she's through …
"Yes," Huff said. "I thought you might. Thank you, anyway: thank you all for volunteering." And he leaned over and rubbed cheeks with Rhiow.
She was oddly moved. "Cousin, you're more than welcome. It's our job, after all. Meanwhile, we'd better get going to prepare what we need. We'll see you down by the gate, about this time tomorrow."
They made their way out through the little steel door, into the alley behind the pub, and headed for the gate, and home: and all the way home Rhiow's fur felt strange to her where Huff's cheek had brushed it …
THREE
They parted at Grand Central – Urruah to make his way off to his dumpster, Arhu to the garage. Rhiow went home by one of the "high road" routes, over roofs and 'tween-building walls, rather than by the surface streets. She was already thinking about the spells she would want to bring with her the next day, the preparations she would have to make, and she was in no mood to deal with the traffic at street level. Yet at the same time Huff's touch was on her mind: nor could she stop thinking about poor Arhu's adolescent suffering over Siffha'h. I wonder why she dislikes him, Rhiow thought, as she jumped up on a high dividing wall at the end of Seventieth Street and looked down through the maze of tiny cramped alleys which would finally lead to her own alleyway and the road up her own apartment's wall. I hope they can sort something out. It would be nice if Arhu had another wizard more or less of his own age to be around, instead of just us old fossils …
Iaehh hadn't seen Rhiow the night before: so when she came in the cat-door now, an hour or so after he would have returned from work, Iaehh swept her up and carried her around the apartment for about ten minutes, alternately scolding her for being missing, and hugging her for having come back. Rhiow put up with it, even though she didn't normally much care for being carried around. Finally she patted his face with her paw, which she knew he thought was very "cute": but she left her claws just the tiniest bit out, and he felt them, and laughed.
"You're a good puss," he said, and put her down by the cat-food dish. He had washed it again. "You're learning," she said, and purred approval as he fed her. When he finally sat down in his reading chair (having had his dinner some time ago: pizza, to judge by the smells), she jumped up into his lap and sat there washing for a good while. Iaehh picked up the remote control and turned on the living-room TV, and for a good long time he sat quiet and watched the local news channel intone its litany of who had been robbed or shot in the City, what politicians were saying what cutting and possibly true things about other politicians, and what the weather was going to be like the next day.
When the weather report came around for the second time, Rhiow looked up at Iaehh and saw that he was dozing. She put her whiskers forward: why else would he have been sitting still so long? she thought. Even Iaehh sometimes ran out of that nervous energy that kept him running all day and made him sleep poorly at night. At least, sometimes that's why he sleeps badly. Other times, when he wept himself asleep after lying awake a long time, Rhiow knew quite well that there were other reasons. At such times she sometimes wished she could speak to his neurochemistry, as she had done with Mr.. Illingworth, and spare him the pain: but Rhiow knew that that would not have been within the right use of her powers … To ease pain, the Oath said, indeed: but when pain was what led to the growth that wizardry was also supposed to guard, one did not tamper. Her ehhif's pain was difficult for her to bear, but Rhiow was not such a youngster in the exercise of the Art as to mistake the comforting of her own hurt for the salving of Iaehh's.
Now, though, he sat with his mouth slightly open, snoring very softly, while on the TV the Mayor of New York complained about one of the City Commissioners: and Rhiow let her eyes half-close and let the sound wash over her like running water or wind or any other noise which might have content, but not any content that she needed to pay attention to at the moment. There were more important things on her mind than City politics.
Time travel bothered her, as it bothered many wizards whose work sometimes necessitated it. For one thing, it was rarely quite so simple or straightforward as "going back in time". Even the phrase "back in time" was deceptive: the directionality of time was a variable, though the relationship of the past to the present was nominally a constant. No matter how careful you were, the possibility of careless action setting up unwelcome paradoxes was all too obvious … and unraveling such tangles was worse, inevitably involving more backtiming and the possibility of making things worse still.
The complications had fascinated Arhu all the way home: he had delightedly plagued Urruah with questions about a subject which until now had been off limits, about everything from what you fastened a timeslide to, to that ancient imponderable, the "grandfather paradox'. Urruah had mentioned it, and Arhu had actually had to stop walking while he figured it out, or tried to. "It's weird," he said.
"I can't see what would happen. Or, I mean, I can see two ways it would go – "
"What? You mean, if you went back in time and killed your grandfather?" Urruah had said. "Well, one way, if you're still there afterwards, it means you're a by-blow. A 'bastard', as the ehhif would say. But then how else would you describe someone who would go back in time and kill their own grandfather? I ask you. And if you go the other way, and you succeed, then you're not there at all. And serves you right for being a bastard … "
At that, Arhu had become so confused that he actually became quiet: and shortly thereafter they were at Grand Central, and Arhu went off to his dinner, ending the day's questioning. Rhiow had smiled somewhat wearily at that as she and Urruah parted, for the "grandfather paradox" served well enough to illuminate how difficult it could be to alter history, especially if you viewed it linearly. But in this line of work you would eventually have to deal with the question of what happened when events in some original timestream had actually been altered. Then you would have alternate universes to deal with. By themselves, they were bad enough. But they also brought with them the possibility that, in dealing with them, you would find yourself going back in place … which was more complex than merely backtiming, and potentially more dangerous.
Quite a few locations on Earth had a "back in place" as well as "back in time". There were other downsides than the Old Downside, less central in the hierarchy of universes, perhaps, but no less important to the creatures who loved or hated the realities to which those places were related. History, or the realities of which history is a shadow, was in full flower in these less central "downsides", fully expressed there no matter how they might be repressed elsewhere – in fact, usually more vigorous in expression in direct proportion to how vigorously they had been repressed in the "real world".
And going back in place involved an entirely different set of dangers. You ran the risk of somehow altering the basic "mythological" or "archetypal" structure of a place, which could be immensely important in the minds of thousands or millions of sentient beings. Tampering with the mythological essence of a place – a Rubicon or a Valley Forge, in the ehhif metaphor, a Camelot or a Runnymede – could change not just history, but the perception of it as good, bad or indifferent … a far more perilous business than changing the mere structure of time. Such shifts could create ripples and harmonics through the "noo-string structure" which would be capable of ripping whole worlds apart. The thought of going back in both time and place at once was dangerous enough to make Rhiow shudder.
But they might wind up doing just that, for London was definitely a Place, one of those hinges of ehhif history in this part of the world. Not that the history of place wasn't mostly an ehhif manifestation, anyway. Humans weighed hard on the world, and imprinted it with history and personality. But People stepped more lightly. Feline history tended to take place within individual cats, who, according to their nature, saw place as merely something they moved over or through: it was rare for one of the People to become attached to one field, one tree. Granted, your den for this season –­or this week of this season – was something you would defend, for the sake of the kittens or the local hunting. But sooner or later time or loss or boredom seeped into every den like water, and you moved out, perhaps with mild regret, to escape the creeping damp and find yourself somewhere else more warm or dry. Memories of those dens you took with you, as the worthwhile part of the transaction: but the dens themselves held little interest unless your kill or your kittens were in them.
What kept People in one place, if anything, was the ehhif they companioned: sometimes much to the Person's embarrassment – and Rhiow glanced up in affectionate amusement at Iaehh, who sat there with his head slightly to one side and his eyes closed, his mouth open, and the tiny snore emitting from it at decorous intervals. The whole business of companionment was a tangled one. Some People felt that the only way the ehhif-People relationship could be viewed was as slavery: others, mostly those already in such a relationship, tended to see it otherwise, in a whole spectrum of aspects from pity ("Someone has to try to teach them better") to simple affection ("Mine are well enough behaved, and they're nice to me, what's the problem?") to cheerful mercenary exploitation ("If they want to feed us, why shouldn't we enjoy eating their food? Doesn't cost anything to purr afterwards, either.").
The People who raved most about slavery and freedom found all these views despicable: starving in a gutter, they said, but starving free, was far superior to a full belly in the den of the oppressor. Rhiow, ehhif-companioned for a good while now, found such an attitude simplistic at best. Yet there was no denying the existence of People who had no knowledge of themselves as such: taken from their dams too early, perhaps, too soon even to drink in with the first milk and their mother's tale-purring the truth of what they were or where in the worlds their own kind came from – People who were barely self– aware, merely receptacles for food and excreters of it, dull-brained demanders of strokes and treats, "pets" in the true sense of the word: slaves to their most basic instincts, but in service to nothing any higher at all.
Rhiow shuddered a little. But it's not that simple, she thought. Even among People who are self-aware, People for that matter living wild and "free", you'll find those for whom the gods and the life of the world doesn't matter at all, or matters far less than their last rat or a warm place to sleep. Which is worse? A cat who doesn't know she's a cat – just eats and sleeps and lives? Or one who does know, and doesn't care … ?
A tangled issue, and not one which Rhiow would resolve. Meanwhile, there was still the problem of the upcoming intervention. She had spoken to the Whisperer on the way home and had sorted out the spells she felt most likely that she would need. In the morning, before they were ready to set out, she would crosscheck with Urruah to make sure that they weren't carrying duplicates. And beyond that, there was nothing much she could do, except worry about what the future held for them … or, rather, the past. And what good would that do … ?
Rhiow closed her eyes and reduced the world to near-darkness and Iaehh's tiny snore. When I wake, I will meet my old enemy uncertainty, she thought, and its partners, the shadows that lie at the back of my mind and others: those darknesses which go about hunting for some action of mine to which to fasten themselves. They will lie in my road and say Why bother? or It will never work: or they will lie out long and dark behind me, saying, What difference have you made? It is all for nothing. But I need pay them no mind. They are only the servants of the Lone Power, and against me and Those Whom I serve, they have no strength unless I allow them the same. My commission comes from Those Who Are, the Powers that were before time and will be after it: the Powers Who made time, and to Whom it answers. My paw, lifted to strike the shadows away from the feet of the Event enacted, holds hidden within it Their claw that strikes the Lone One to the heart, day by day. So it was done
anciently: so I shall do tomorrow. And for tonight, I admit of no shadow but that of my closed eyes, and I give Their claw the resting time to sharpen itself in dream on the Tree: for at eyes' opening, together We go to battle again …
And Iaehh's snore was the last thing she heard.
When she woke up, Iaehh had already gone off to work, and apparently had carefully moved her off his lap and onto the chair without waking her when he went to bed … whenever that had been. The food bowls had been washed again, and were full.
Rhiow sighed with the sheer pleasure of having had a good night's sleep: it was rare enough, in her business. She got up and ate, then washed at leisure, and went out to use the box: and finally she checked the security spell on the apartment's door before heading downtown to Grand Central again.
Arhu was there early again, sitting in front of the gate. It was patent, showing the view down toward the Thames from near the main entrance to the Tower, and shedding a cool blue light around him. "Luck, Arhu," she said, jumping up onto the platform. "Where's Urruah?"
"He went through already," Arhu said, watching a barge full of ehhif tourists loading up at the dock near HMS Belfast for a tour down the river. "Wanted to go over early to get the timeslide set up with Fhrio: and he wanted to make sure the two Samnaun-based transfer gates were in place and working without messing everything else up."
Rhiow waved her tail slowly in acknowledgment, looking at the serene vista. It was a sunny morning over there: she had seen few of those so far. "Before we go – ' she said.
"I'm not going to die of it," Arhu said, "so don't worry." Rhiow blinked. "Die of what?"
"You know. Siffha'h," he said, though his voice was so mournful that Rhiow wondered if perhaps he wasn't all that sure of the outcome.
"That wasn't what I was going to ask you," she said, taking a swipe at his left ear, and missing entirely: Arhu ducked without even looking. "You are getting good at that," Rhiow added, unable to conceal slight admiration.
"I don't like pain," Arhu said. "It hurts."
Which is why it's such an effective teaching medium for kittens, Rhiow thought, not least among them you. "What I was going to ask you," she said, "was whether you had had any further insights into what was going to happen on this run."
His tail lashed. "Nothing that I can describe," Arhu said. "I keep getting flashes … but they slip away. Believe me, Rhiow, if I see anything that I can describe – then or afterwards – I'll tell you. But it doesn't always come that way. I keep getting stuff that just pops out without warning, and before I can get hold of it to see what it means, it's gone and taken all the – the meanings, the – "
"Context?"
"Yeah, the context – it all just goes. While the context's there, everything makes sense – but when I lose that … " He sighed. "It's
really frustrating. It makes me want to hit things."
"Don't be tempted," Rhiow said, thinking of Fhrio.
Arhu laughed out loud. "I wouldn't bother. For one thing, beating him up wouldn't be any big deal, and for another, it's not exactly polite, is it?"
She blinked again. Rhiow couldn't think if she had ever before heard Arhu use the word. If this is the kind of effect that having a crush is going to have on him, she thought, I'm all for it, even if it makes him ache a little …
"So are you ready?" Arhu said.
"By all means, let's go," said Rhiow. They stepped through into the bright London day, and Arhu shut the worldgate behind them. There by the Tower entrance, the two of them sidled. They made their way among the unseeing tourists down into the Tower Hill Underground station, and down to the passages leading to the platform where the London team had confined their unruly worldgate.
The spot was busy, though not so much with wizards as with equipment. The malfunctioning gate itself was disconnected from its power source, only visible to Rhiow as