by Diane Duane
“I can’t wash like this,” she said, “I just can’t. There’s no time, and—” She sighed, and said a few words under her breath in the Speech. The mud dried and went straight to powdery dust. She shook herself hard, and for a moment was in the center of a small chocolate-colored cloud. Then the dust settled, leaving her more or less the color she should have been.
“Now there’s a thought,” Rhiow said. “Auhlae, you’re a genius.”
A few moments later there were several chocolate-colored clouds, and somewhat cleaner People emerging from them. “Now I feel better,” Auhlae said, smoothing down the fur behind her ears. “I wouldn’t like to meet a Person of note looking like I just crawled out of a sewer …”
They walked in through the iron gates of the Museum, toward the noble main facade with its columns and Greek-style portico, all carved with what one might have taken at first for ehhif gods until a better look revealed them to be allegorical figures discreetly labeled DRAMA and POETRY and PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE. They walked up the stairs and waited for some ehhif to open the doors for them, a matter of a few seconds only: then they went through into the main entrance hall, and glanced up at the huge statue of an ehhif which leaned there, looking out thoughtfully at the world.
“Who’s that?” Arhu said. “Another fake god?”
“It’s a great taleteller, dear,” Auhlae said, “one who told his stories a couple of hundred sunrounds ago, from this time anyway. Hsshah’ spheare, his name was.”
“Whether he’s that great,” said someone off to one side in the great echoing hall, “when the best-known mention he makes of our People is to suggest turning one of them in a frying pan, is a question yet to be resolved. But never mind that at the moment.”
They all turned to see a big, big black-and-white cat come pacing along the marble floor toward them. With his white bib and white feet, he gave the general impression of wearing ehhif formal wear. “Welcome,” he said. “I’m glad to see you!”
“We’re on errantry, as you’ve guessed, having seen us sidled,” Rhiow said, “and we greet you very well: we’ve come some way to see you. Do I have the honor of addressing ‘Black Jack’?”
The big handsome Person put his whiskers forward. “That’s how the ehhif know me: I suppose the name has got about by now. But you might more properly call me Ouhish, though, if you will. And I’m very glad to see you so soon: I hadn’t thought you could possibly turn up with such speed.”
Rhiow looked at Urruah and the others, then back at Ouhish. “I’m sorry. You say you sent for some wizards?”
“Yes,” Ouhish said.
“Well,” Urruah said, “we’re confused, now. We thought we came on business of our own. But we’ll be glad to help you in any way we can.”
“You’re saying you weren’t sent?” Ouhish said.
Rhiow paused for a moment, then laughed. “Oh, no. Wizards are always sent … one way or another. It’s just that the Powers that Be don’t always tell us that They’re doing it. Tell us your trouble, and we’ll do our best to assist you.”
“Well,” Ouhish said, “let’s go somewhere quiet where we can make introductions and get things sorted out. Will you follow me?” And he led them in through the pillared vestibule, and into the depths of the Museum.
It was a splendid place by any calculation, ehhif or feline. Rhiow had to keep reminding herself that much of the wonderful statuary and carving here was regarded as stolen or looted, though an earlier period’s ehhif had thought of what they were doing as “collection”: and violent arguments were still going on, she knew, about the proper home for some of the more beautiful and ancient artwork like the Elgin Marbles. But in the meantime, the stuff was here, and Rhiow told herself that it seemed poor-spirited not to enjoy looking at it if she had the chance.
There was little enough statuary to start with, for Ouhish led them on through the Inner Vestibule and the Room of Inscriptions, its walls all covered with writings from the ehhif peoples of old Greece and Rome, and straight into the Reading Room. In Rhiow’s time the British Museum’s library functions had all been moved to another building, bigger and some said better suited for the huge size of the collection as the twenty-first century approached: but many lamented the loss of the noble old domed Reading Room, still preserved, but no longer used for the purpose for which it had been intended. They walked through, now, into this place where for once ehhif walked as quietly as cats, and Ouhish led them off to one of the corners of the room, what was called the “New Library”, a beautiful wood-paneled area stacked high with laddered bookcases and card catalogues.
They sat down under a quiet table in one corner, touched noses and breathed breaths, and introduced themselves. “Now tell us what your trouble is, and we’ll try to help you,” Rhiow said: but Ouhish would have none of it, and insisted that they tell their story first.
Urruah lifted his eyebrows. “This is going to be complicated,” he said, but he began to lay out their business for Ouhish as clearly as he could. There was no prohibition against telling other People, in the line of errantry, that you were time-traveling: but naturally you would work hard to keep from telling them anything inappropriate, anything that would hurt them in their own lives, or tempt them to hurt others. Urruah spoke for about ten minutes, choosing his details with care, and at the end of it, Ouhish tucked himself down and looked at them all with astonishment.
“More than a hundred years in the future,” he said. “The questions I could ask you …”
“It might take us a while to work out which ones we could safely answer,” Rhiow said. “But maybe you’d let us ask first, since then we’ll have more leisure to deal with your problem. Have there been any attempts on the life of the Queen of late?”
Ouhish looked surprised. “You mean the ehhif-Queen? Nothing recent. Someone tried a couple of years ago.”
“Did they try shooting her?” Arhu said.
“That’s right. She was out driving—a madman came out and took a shot at her with a pistol. He missed, thank Iau. It’s happened before, too, a few times: usually where there are crowds.”
“Do the ehhif here not like her, then?” Siffha’h said, sounding intrigued.
“Oh, she’s been greatly loved, in the past. But things change.” Ouhish looked a little uncomfortable. “You know that her mate died some while back? They were very much attached. She was miserable, poor thing, and she withdrew almost entirely from public life after her mate’s death. That’s not something a Queen of ehhif can do, you understand. She has duties she must perform. And the ehhif she rules saw that she wasn’t doing those duties, or only doing them marginally: and those ehhif who’ve been saying for a long time that there should be no Queens any more, but just the pride-toms to lead everything, and decide everything—their way of thinking has been gaining ground.” Ouhish looked embarrassed. “I wouldn’t like to give offense, cousin,” he said to Rhiow, “but I think I know your accent—and it’s a government like your ehhif’s at home that some of these people want, and the Queen got rid of as well. A lot of the ehhif seem to think that it will happen in the next ten years or so: or at least by the turn of the century. It’s no matter to them that the Queen has been showing signs of breaking out of her withdrawal, at last. It may be too late for her now.”
Rhiow’s tail twitched slowly while she thought that Ouhish’s turn of phrase was unfortunate.
“Well,” Rhiow said. “That’s all rather sad. There are other dangers lying in wait for her as well: perhaps another assassination attempt … we don’t know for sure. One of the things we came for was to try to find out a date on which the attempt might happen, so that we might prevent it.”
Ouhish looked shocked. “Do you have any clues at all?”
“We saw them burying her on the fourteenth of July,” said Arhu, “in a universe close to this one. We don’t know how long might have elapsed between her funeral and whatever happened to her …”
“I would doubt it would have been a
s far back as the first of the month, if they were burying her on the fourteenth,” Ouhish said. “But it could be almost any time between, say, the fifth and the eleventh. For surely they would let her lie in state for a little time—” His tail was lashing. “Cousins, this is terrible news!”
“If you can spread it where it will do some good,” Rhiow said, “you may be able to help prevent the attempt from succeeding. We may be able to help as well, but we also have other business to attend to, which, believe it or not, may be even more important. One thing I have to ask you: have there been any strange occurrences in London lately?”
“Strange occurrences?”
He looked confused, but Rhiow was unwilling to help him, and possibly lead him in a direction that wouldn’t be fruitful. Ouhish thought for a moment, then said, “You know … there have been a lot of madmen about.”
“Madmen?” Siffha’h said.
“Ehhif roaming the streets and raving,” Ouhish said. “I remember one of our ehhif here in the museum mentioning a story in one of the newspapers. One of the story-writers attributed it to the full of the Moon just being past …”
“I wonder if some of those might be ehhif who stumbled through our gate and into this time,” Urruah said softly. “That’s something that’s going to have to be looked into.”
“One more problem,” Arhu muttered.
“Yes,” Rhiow said.
Ouhish’s tail was lashing. “It’s all hard to believe,” he said. “But you are wizards … But still, what could be more important than the Queen dying?”
“What might follow it,” Arhu said, “in another universe. A war, fought with weapons you can’t imagine … one which would cause a terrible winter to fall over the whole world. A winter that might never end …”
Ouhish’s head snapped up: he stared at Arhu. “You were sent,” he said. “You are the wizards I sent for!”
“We are?” Arhu said. “Why?”
“Come on,” Ouhish said, and jumped up. “Come on, quickly. It’s not me you need to be talking to: it’s Hwallis.”
“Hwallis?” Rhiow said, now completely bemused.
“That’s right. He’s an ehhif. Come on, I’ll take you upstairs and introduce you. He won’t have gone off for his midday feed yet. Not that it’s ever easy to get him to go. He hates leaving this place—”
Ouhish practically ran out of the New Library: they all had to trot to keep up with him. Hurriedly Ouhish led them back out the way they had come into the Vestibule, then off to the right and up the main staircase to the second floor. They came out into a splendid great space roofed over with glass and with a high gallery or balcony around it, all filled with ancient bas-reliefs of winged ehhif with high crowns, beautifully carved lions, and big-shouldered bulls.
“Down this way,” Ouhish said, and led them down a long wide hallway to the right, skylit by more glass roofing above. Both sides of this hall were lined with statues and sarcophagi of the first ehhif who had really conversed easily with People, the Egyptians: artwork and carving and papyrus were everywhere, in astonishing profusion, so that even Urruah, who wasn’t much of a fan of the plastic arts, stopped to stare at some of the jewelry, gems and gold glinting, in that subdued light, like a Person’s eyes in the dark.
Despite her curiosity to find out what Ouhish was carrying on about, Rhiow herself had to stop and admire what was simply a most splendid statuary group of Queen Iau and her daughters, only slightly marred by the tendency of ehhif of the period to put human bodies under the feline faces, as a symbol for human-like intelligence but feline nature. Aaurh the Mighty stood there, the Destroyer by Flame, the Queen’s champion, wearing the horned sun, the terrible fire with which she warred on the Queen’s enemies: and Hrau’f the Silent beside her, the Whisperer, with a roll of papyrus to show that she kept the records of the universe, and passed them on to those who needed them. By them was her brother, the Queen’s lover, the Old Tom, Urrau-who-Scars, Urrau Lightning-Claw: and a little separate from the others, her body turned from them but her face toward them, ambivalent as always, sa’Rrahh, mistress of the Unmastered Fire, lioness-headed lady of the stillbirth and the birth that kills the queen in labor, but also mistress of the Tenth Life: the Lone Power in Its feline recension, deadly, but never to be scorned, for some day she would be forgiven and rejoin the Pride. Paramount among them all stood Queen Iau, a Person’s head set rather incongruously on the human shoulders, but wearing a look of indomitable wisdom, power and compassion: and Rhiow put her whiskers forward. “Ehhif the artist might have been,” she said, “but whoever made this, he or she knew Them. Blessings on him or her, wherever that one might be in the worlds …”
Ouhish had stopped to let them catch up: he put his whiskers forward at Rhiow. “Interesting,” he said, “but Hwallis says something very like that. Come on: I want you to meet.”
He hurried down the hallway nearly to its end: then turned left suddenly and showed them a wood-panelled side door, which was open a crack. Ouhish put his paw into it and pulled it open. “In here,” he said.
He led them into what turned out to be a warren of little offices and storage spaces behind the exhibition halls. It was a strangely homely place after the grandeur and silence of the outer halls. Other statues were here, pushed carefully up against the walls, some being repaired for cracks or broken noses: near one doorway a bucket and some mops and brooms stood handy: another small room had a sink and some cleaning rags and solvents, and buckets of different kinds of grout for polishing stone. Other rooms were stacked and piled high with books: one was filled with crates that held piles of papyrus rolls and books.
And in one room which they came to, there was an ehhif bent over a long table. The table was covered with something that might have been dust, and he was working, slowly and carefully, to unwrap something that lay in the midst of the dust. As they came in behind him, he sneezed.
“Hwallis,” said Ouhish in Ailurin, very loudly so that the ehhif would be able to hear him, “there are guests here.”
The ehhif turned. He was young: maybe no more than eighteen, Rhiow thought—a tall, dark-haired, long-faced young man, dressed in a shirt with its sleeves rolled up, and long dark pants with suspenders. He looked at the doorway, and at Ouhish: and he said, in Ailurin, “Where?”
The People glanced at each other, surprised. “It’s all right,” Ouhish said, “you can unsidle.”
They did. The young ehhif looked at them with some surprise, and said to Ouhish, with very passable intonation, “Are these the People you asked to come?”
Rhiow was very impressed. She said, in the Speech rather than in Ailurin, “Young sir, since you plainly know that our kind exists, then I tell you that we’re wizards on errantry, and we greet you. I’m Rhiow: here are my colleagues Urruah, Auhlae, Arhu, and Siffha’h. Ouhish says he sent for us, and though we came on other business originally, he thinks you have need of our services. So tell us what your problem is, and we’ll help if we can. But speak your own language, if you like: we’ll understand you well enough, and we can help Ouhish to do so too if there’s need. We have complicated matters to discuss, I think, and there’s no need for any of us to guess at what we mean. Even if you do have a good accent.”
The young ehhif opened and closed his mouth, and then said, “Good heavens. Well, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Edward Wallis Budge.”
The others waved their tails at him in greeting. Urruah sat down, looking around him. “What exactly do you do here?” he said.
Wallis smiled slightly. “I have the honor to hold the position of Honorary Assistant to the Keeper of the Mummied Cats.”
Urruah put his whiskers forward. “Boy,” he said, “they don’t make job titles like that any more.” He peered up at the table. “I suppose that if the museum needs a keeper for mummied cats, there must be a lot of them.”
“Hundreds of thousands,” Wallis said.
“Sweet Iau in a basket,” Auhlae murmured, “what would anyone want hundr
eds of thousands of mummied cats for?”
“Please make yourself comfortable, and I’ll explain,” said Wallis, and he pulled out a creaky-looking ladderback chair and sat down in it. The People sat or sprawled as they pleased, and Wallis indicated the shelves and racks all around the room, all full of boxes with numbers and letters scrawled on the ends of them. “I expect you know something about the civilization of ancient Egypt,” he said.
Rhiow put her whiskers forward. “They knew something about our civilization,” she said, “which is why so many of their carvings feature our ‘gods’.”
“The neter-teh,” Wallis said, and nodded, “the Powers that Be. Yes. Well, you’ll understand that the Egyptians were very partial to cats, considering them at least partially divine, since they looked like the gods which the cats had described to my people, the ehhif.”
And suddenly he burst out laughing.
“I’m sorry,” Rhiow said, “have we missed a joke?”
“No, no …” The young ehhif wiped his eyes, still trying to get control of his laughter. “It’s just this situation. You here, and me explaining this, and … oh my.” He wiped his eyes again. “I’m sorry. Anyway, the Egyptian ehhif back then loved their cats very much, even before someone got the idea that the cats’ semi-divine status might mean they would make good intercessors for humans. To the gods, the Great Gods, I mean: to the One, and the Powers. So when their cats would die, the Egyptians would have their bodies mummified, with amulets and words of power wrapped in among the bandages, the intention being to give the cats power in the Next World.” He turned to the table, and lifted from it one of the strips of bandage that he had been removing from the cat-mummy he had been working on. Faintly, on the linen, in a brownish ink, were written the pictogram-letters of the “hieratic” writing of old Egypt. “Then they would send the mummies to the great cat-burial ground at the city of the Queen-Cat, Bubastis.”
“Some of this we knew,” Auhlae said, “though I was always a little vague about the whys and wherefores.”