“Yes,” she said.
She took one last long glance, one that was going to have to last her a lifetime: then turned and stepped through.
A second later she was surrounded by the sooty, metal-smelling dark of the track 33 platform-end, all full of locked empty postal parcel cages and little pallet-moving trucks. Rhiow had seen this spot a thousand times, and it now all looked inexpressibly alien to her — dirty and unfriendly and miserable. Around her, her team and Ith and Helen were looking up and down the platform, making sure of their own personal invisibility routines before stepping out into the public areas.
Helen Walks Softly smiled at them all. “My cousins, we’ll meet again on the journey, I know,” she said. “But I shouldn’t linger: I have a shift this evening.”
Urruah glanced across at the ehhif clock up against the wall to which the postal cages were chained. “If you pop over to 25,” he said, “the local to Croton will be out of there in about two minutes. The gate comes unshielded as soon as it pulls out.”
“Perfect. All of you – go well!”
“Wait for me,” Aufwi said. “I’ll come with you. Rhiow – Urruah – “
“You’re entirely welcome, cousin,” Rhiow said. “Soon again…”
He headed off after Helen; the two of them vanished into the dark at the end of the platform.
“So much for that,” Siffha’h said, and headed out into the Main Concourse. But Arhu and Ith lingered a moment longer, and Arhu – on top of Ith’s head as usual — went unfocused for a moment before looking down at his counterpart suddenly. “Pastrami?” he said.
“Indubitably,” said Ith.
They vanished.
Rhiow and Urruah were left looking at each other in the noisy dark. “Do you want me to walk home with you?” Urruah said.
“No,” Rhiow said, “it’s all right. I know, ‘Ruah. I’ll be ready to talk about it soon enough. But not just now.”
She sidled herself and headed out into the Concourse. Sif had already taken herself somewhere else, and for all she knew, Arhu and Ith were probably on the upper West Side by now. Out into the busy bustle and stir of ehhifkind Rhiow took herself, and it all sounded just like so much noise to her as she made her way out the station’s side entry and onto Lexington.
She made herself do the walk the long way to the upper East Side, hoping that it would ground her a little. But it was a long way, a hard way, harder than she ever remembered it having been, even right after Hhuha died. Everything seemed as colorless as when the One Outside had been sucking the life out of the landscape. But, This is temporary, Rhiow told herself. You have been through an extraordinary thing. The reaction is normal. This will pass.
She simply couldn’t believe it.
At last Rhiow came to the corner of the street where her ehhif’s apartment building lay, and walked down past the little skinny fenced-in trees, the brownstone doorsteps, the vans making deliveries, the queen-ehhif pushing strollers. None of it meant a thing to her. She came at last to the apartment gate where the garbage cans were locked up until collection day, spoke by rote the air-hardening spell she used every day, and walked up the air to where Iaehh’s apartment’s terrace stuck out. Weary to the bone, she headed toward it…
…and saw that there was someone in her litterbox.
Rhiow froze.
The dusty black shape had its back turned to her, and was scratching busily. Rhiow stood there on the air staring at him as inside her began to grow a joy so extreme that it was very like terror. She was unable to believe what she was seeing, unable to believe what had happened —
Surprise, said sa’Rraah in Rhiow’s ear.
Rhiow sat right down on the air in shock.
You did me a favor, sa’Rraah said. It was with your help that I drove out the one who would have destroyed my universe, and my plans… and Me. So I have done a little favor for you, and did not too quickly sweep across the border into Life a soul that, having come to the end of its current life some time back, very much wanted not to be born just yet. Or indeed for some while. Or at all, until somebody else arrived.
Rhiow held very still, hearing more in the silence that followed the Lone One’s words than she might possibly wish.
I will grant you, sa’Rraah said, sounding just a touch cranky, he was more than usually persistent about staying on the other side. But without My help, he could not have remained. You may now thank me.
Rhiow knew better than most what the next move in the dance usually was. Yet today… today everything was different. It was all about chances: the possibility to do something a different way… and not crush out even what might seem like just a tiny spark of light in the darkness. And what do I owe you for this favor? she said at last.
Nothing… just this once. Did you not help Me and My pride, defend what is ours from the interloper? Be warned: after today, all is as it was. But for today… I remember that you helped me keep what is Mine.
Rhiow was silent a moment. Litter-sister, she said then, …I do thank you. So now I go. And may you also go well.
Sa’Rraah made her no answer.
But now I want to talk to your mother!!
There was a short pause. Arhu knew, Rhiow thought suddenly. He knew as soon as we got here, that’s where the sudden urge for pastrami came from —
But daughter, Queen Iau said quietly, surely you too might have known. After the part you played, at so central a level – and that Hwaith then played in order to be with you — surely you might have suspected that however well or ill-disposed She was toward you, sa’Rraah would discover that there would be no keeping you two from one another. For one lifetime – nine – ten – or however many…
The shock and relief were such that Rhiow could have lain right down and yowled. But this seemed the wrong moment. She pulled herself together and tried for some kind of composure. But what came out was, “After what we’ve just been through, I want a holiday!”
She was expecting an argument. What she wasn’t expecting was to hear the Queen of the Universe say, Done. How long?
That brought Rhiow up short. First and foremost, she was a wizard. For as long as the sabbatical lasted, she would be walking away from any chance of active assignment. And though there were times she hated admitting it, active assignment was fun.
Her tail lashed. “I’ll tell You when I’m ready to come back,” Rhiow said.
Well enough, said the Queen. Anything else?
“…I can’t think of anything right now,” Rhiow said. “But I may later.”
Let me know when you do, said Iau.
Rhiow’s ears went back and forth in a momentary flicker of suspicion. “Royal Dam and Queen,” she said, “You’re being unusually accommodating.”
There was a pause before the answer came back from the heart of Creation. Rhiow, she said, you’ve picked up a touch of roughness of manner from My Eldest daughter.
Rhiow declined to allow any embarrassment to show.
Yet that said, said the Queen, if I feel accommodating today, or have a notion to indulge an unusually productive member of My pride… then surely that’s My business. So, as I said: for a little while, when you think of something else — within reason… speak My name.
The sense of quiet approval was overwhelming. Rhiow bowed her head, doing her best to bear it: and silence fell.
Then she turned and ran down the air toward the terrace. “Hwaith!”
He looked up and saw her, and ran up the air to meet her. “Rhiow!!”
They were both sidled, which was just as well. The sight of two black cats leaping on each other in midair, and madly bumping heads and washing each other’s ears, and rolling and tumbling over and over one another as if they were on some kind of invisible floor twelve stories up, would have caused the local ehhif some concern.
“How did you – “
“I told you – “
“You were in my litterbox!”
“Well, I had to go, you wouldn’t want me to just do it there on the concrete – “
“No, I mean you were in it before!”
“Yes. I missed the time. I wanted to see you so very much, and I screwed it up by a few days, I miscalculated, and when I got there you didn’t know me yet – “
“And – wait, I saw you at the Opera! You were looking at me! And I didn’t know you then yet either – Oh, Hwaith, I’m so sorry – “
“What for, it wasn’t your fault!”
More ear-washing ensued. After a while, when the first frenzy of it had calmed a little, Rhiow said, almost nervous to hear the answer, “Hwaith. How many lives did you have to use – “
“Only one,” he said. “It’s hard to remember things from in between, you know how that is… but it seemed to me that when I felt I might have to cross over, something …interfered.”
“And you’ve been here a while – “
“Some years,” he said.
“Such a long time to wait…”
“It was all right,” Hwaith said. “I knew you were coming. I saw you sometimes, from a distance. That always made me feel better. And anyway, after today, it doesn’t feel like a long time at all.” He put his whiskers forward at her. “So can you use a spare gate technician? I’m told that though I’m out of practice, my proficiency rating’s still satisfactory.”
She bumped her head so hard into his that the sound echoed. “Idiot,” she said. “What I can use right now is a tom. My tom. We’ll discuss your other proficiencies later. Meantime, let’s go home!”
They headed down to the terrace and unsidled. Rhiow went through the cat flap in the sliding door first, to show Hwaith the way. Iaehh was home, as Rhiow had half thought he might be, and in the kitchen. He looked over at her without surprise and said, “Well, there you are! Hungry, plumptious one?”
But then the surprise jumped out all over his face as Hwaith came in through the door and paused there, looking around him uncertainly.
Rhiow looked from the ehhif to her new mate, and back to Iaehh again.
My Queen, she said. You did say if there was anything else —
Yes?
Then one last thing.
Yes?
Here, at the very last moment, for fear of being refused when it was so important, Rhiow found herself actually afraid to speak. But the Queen hears hearts as well as minds.
Seeing as how you’re on sabbatical, said Queen Iau, …just this once.
Rhiow’s whiskers went so far forward that her face felt pulled out of shape. Standing there beside Hwaith, her tail twined with his, Rhiow looked up at Iaehh.
“Iaehh,” she said aloud in the Speech, which even an ehhif could understand — and his eyes went very wide — “He followed me home. Can I keep him?”
