by Diane Duane
Madam, Rhiow said, I’m frightened.
So are we all, in the face of That, the answer came. Or almost all of us are. My sister the Firstborn wasn’t. But that was always her style, to go into battle laughing, as if there were no possibility of defeat. Maybe she knows something the rest of us don’t. Or that may simply be in her nature as our Dam made it. For the mortal and the semimortal, at least change, the learning of courage, is an option. But for those of us whose natures were set at the beginning of things, we must, I fear, simply be afraid while we keep on doing our jobs. A god that forgets the virtues of specialization, trying to do things It was never designed for, soon becomes no god, but a tyrant.
Like your other sister, madam…
I don’t speak of her, the answer came. We see enough of her as it is. You will shortly see more.
I really don’t want to, Rhiow said.
Little enough attention the worlds pay to what any of us want, the answer came. As always, there was a slight edge of humor in the Whisperer’s voice, but it was more muted than usual. Desire, though… and intention… those are other powers to which even the Powers must answer. Go do your job, daughter. I’ll do mine. Perhaps both of them may yet come to something…
The silence became complete, though, still reassuring, the warmth remained. The dim glow of the spells faded, and Rhiow slept.
Chapter Six
Morning came up clear but not at all cool, and Rhiow was awakened early by Hhuha complaining as she got dressed. “Must be eighty out there already,” she was saying to Iaehh. “And the damn air conditioner at the office is on the bunk again. I swear, a company that makes profits every year that could be mistaken for the GNP of a small country, but they’ll let the staff sit there and swelter for two weeks in a row before they get someone in to fix the thing so it doesn’t produce heat in August…” “Sue, you should quit,” Iaehh said. Rhiow got up and stretched and went over to where Hhuha leaned against one of the counters in the kitchen. “Here he goes again,” she said under her breath, rubbing against Hhuha’s legs, and then went to the food bowl. This argument was one that happened about once a month, these days. Hhuha was a salaried consultant for one of the larger computer companies with offices in the city; but before this job, she had been “freelance”—nonaligned, Rhiow thought this meant—and had worked for whom she pleased. Iaehh— who was presently still wrapped in only his bathrobe and was leaning against the other counter, facing Hhuha— thought Hhuha should be freelance again, even though it meant less certainty about how much they would have to eat each week or (sometimes) whether they would eat at all.
“I wish. Damn contract,” Hhuha said, pouring milk in her coffee.
“Some of that down here, please?” Rhiow said loudly.
“So don’t sign it the next time.”
“Don’t tempt me…”
“I am tempting you. Don’t commit yourself to them again. Go independent and let them pay twice what they’re paying now if they want your services. Otherwise, let someone else pay twice what they’re paying.”
Hhuha put the milk away, sighing. “I don’t know … I’ve gotten kind of used to the steady paycheck…”
“I know you have.”
“Excuse me? Milk?” Rhiow said, standing up on her hind legs and patting the bottom of Hhuha’s skirt. “Oh, sweet Iau, but I wish just once I could say it so you would understand. Hello? Hhuha?!”
Hhuha looked at Rhiow, bent down and stroked her. “More cat food, honey? Sure. I don’t know, though, Mike… There’s so much competition out there … and so much uncertainty. In your job, too. You and I can starve. But someone else wouldn’t understand if the food ran out…”
She straightened up and started to open another can of cat food. “Don’t blame it on me,” Rhiow said. “You should do what makes you happy… Oh, gods, not the tuna again! —Look, Hhuha! Saucer! Empty! Milk!!”
“Wow, she really likes that stuff,” Iaehh said. “Better get some more.”
“I’ll stop by the store on the way home.”
“But, hon, you really should think about it. The hours there are wearing you out. You keep having to bring work home. They’re not giving you the support they promised. They can’t even keep the air conditioners working, as you say. You’re not happy there…”
Rhiow sighed, hating to look ungrateful, and went over to the ffrihh, stood up on her hind legs against it, and patted the handle, looking mournfully at Hhuha.
“What?” Hhuha said.
“You put the milk away without offering her any,” Iaehh said.
“Why can’t more toms have brains like yours?” Rhiow said, and went straight to him and rubbed his legs, too, while Hhuha opened the ffrihh and got the milk out again. “What a clever ehhif you are.”
“Won’t be any left for your coffee,” Hhuha said.
“Never mind, give it to her,” Iaehh said. “I’m running late as it is. I’ll have something at the office.”
“You wouldn’t be running late if you’d gotten up when the alarm clock rang.”
And they were off again about another favorite subject: the routine ignoring and silencing of the dreadful little bedside ra’hio that spouted news reports at them all hours of the day and night, but especially in the morning, when it began its recitation with a particularly foul and repetitive little buzzer. Rhiow was always glad when they turned it off… though this morning she had to admit she had been pleased enough, while it was still on, to hear it fail to mention anything terrible happening in Grand Central overnight. “Oh, thank you,” she said, and purred, as Hhuha bent down and poured the milk.
“Hey, don’t bump the hand that feeds you, my puss; the milk’s going to go all over the floor.”
“I’ll take care of that, don’t you worry,” Rhiow said, and drank.
Hhuha and Iaehh went back toward the bedroom, still arguing genially. It was barely argument, really: more like what People called fhia-sau, or “tussle,” where any blows struck were affectionate, the claws were carefully kept in, teeth did not break skin, and the disagreement, if it really was one, was replayed more as a pastime than anything else. They really are so like us, some ways, Rhiow thought, finishing the milk and sitting up to wash her face. I wonder if you could teach them Ailurin, given enough time? Repeating one word enough times, in the right context, until they got it…
“Bye, honey,” Hhuha said, and as she passed through the living room, “bye, puss, have a nice day…”
“From your mouth to the Queen’s ear,” Rhiow said as the front door closed behind her, and meaning it most fervently.
She was still washing when Iaehh came out of the bedroom in his “formal” sweats, with his office clothes and his briefcase over his shoulder in a backpack. “Byebye, plumptious one,” he said, heading for the door. “Don’t eat all that food at once, it’s got to last you…”
Rhiow threw a meaningful look at the bowl full of reeking tuna, but it was lost on Iaehh: he was halfway out the door already. It clicked shut, and one after another came more clicks as he locked the other locks.
“Plumptious” again. Is he trying to say I’m putting on weight? Hmm.
Rhiow sighed, finished her wash, and went out her own door, into the warm, ozony air, heading for the rooftops.
* * *
Half an hour later she caught up with Urruah at the Bear Gate to Central Park. There were actually two sets of statues there—one of three bears, one of three deer—but from the predator’s point of view, it was naturally the bears that mattered.
“ ’Luck,” Rhiow said, as they breathed one another’s breath. “Oh, Urruah, not more MhHonalh’s!”
He wrinkled his face a little, an annoyed expression. “I thought I got all the tartar sauce off that fish thing first.”
“All this fried food … it’s going to catch up with you one day.”
“You should talk. What kind of oil are they packing that tuna cat food in? Smells like it comes out of somebody’s crankcase.”
/> Rhiow thought privately that, for all she knew, he was right… They walked into the park, heading southward along the broad paved expanse of its roadway loop, staying well to one side to miss the ehhif on Rollerblades and the ehhif with strollers. “You sleep well last night?”
“Considering where we’re going today?” Urruah said. “What do you think? … I kept hearing Saash dreaming all night. Her nerves are in shreds.”
Rhiow sighed. “I missed that. Guess my little chat with the Whisperer tired me out.”
“Well, I had one, too.” Urruah sighed. “I’m well enough stocked with spells: right up against the limit, I’d say. My head feels twice its normal size.”
Rhiow waved her tail in agreement. “We’ll have to spend a little time coordinating before we head down … make sure none of us are carrying duplicates.”
They made good time down through the park, heading to a level about even with the streets in the upper Sixties. There, a huge stage had been erected at the southern end of the big green space that city People called somewhat ironically Eiuev, the Veldt, and which ehhif called the Sheep Meadow. It wasn’t sheep milling around in it now, though, but what looked like about five hundred ehhif dealing with the technical and logistical end of preparing for a meeting of many thousands: cables and conduits being laid and shielded, scaffolding secured, sound systems tested. The squawks and hisses and feedback-howls of mispositioned speakers and other equipment had been echoing for blocks from the park since fairly early in the morning, making it sound as if a herd of large, clumsy, and very broken-voiced beasts were staggering around the place and banging into things. “They’re doing sound checks now, though,” Urruah said.
“Sound,” Rhiow said, wincing slightly at yet another yowl, “wouldn’t seem to be a problem.”
“No, that was accidental. It’ll be voices they’re checking, soon. Come on.”
They slipped close, behind one of the larger trees that stood at the bottom border of the meadow, and which was behind the security cordons still being erected, a maze of orange nylon webbing stretched from tree to tree. There were plenty of small openings in it so that Rhiow and Urruah had no trouble stepping through and making their way close to the stage, under one of the big scaffolding towers.
A great crowd of ehhif, in T-shirts and shirtsleeves, were already sitting around tuning their instruments, making a scraping and hooting cacophony that made Rhiow shake her head once or twice. “It’s the Metropolitan Opera’s orchestra, without the first chairs,” Urruah said.
Rhiow blinked, since all the chairs seemed to be there. “Smart of them to start early,” she said. “They’ll miss the heat.”
Urruah sighed. “I wish I could,” he said. In hot weather, the thickness of his coat often bothered him.
“So do a little wizardry,” Rhiow said. “Cool some of this wind down: keep a pocket of it for yourself.”
“Naah,” Urruah said. “Why waste the energy?… Look, it’s starting—”
Rhiow craned her neck as the musicians quieted down a little. The ehhif who appeared was not the one in the poster, though, but a short, round, curly-haired tom, who came to stand in front of the orchestra with a small stick or wand in his hand. Rhiow peered at that. “He’s not one of us, is he?”
Urruah stared at him. “The conductor? Not that I know.” He cocked his head to one side, briefly listening to the Whisperer, and then said, “No, she says not. —Here he comes!”
On the stage above the musicians, a big burly figure appeared, also in a shortsleeved shirt and dark pants. Rhiow supposed that as ehhif went, he was handsome enough; he had a surprising amount of facial fur. He stepped up to the front of the stage, exchanged a few words with the small round ehhif: there was some subdued shuffling and tapping of bows on strings among the musicians.
The small round ehhif made a suggestion, and the larger ehhif nodded, stepped back to find his right position on the stage. For a few moments there was more howling and crackling of the sound system; then quiet The conductor-ehhif raised his wand.
Music started. It sounded strange to Rhiow, but then most ehhif music did. Urruah, though, had all his attention fixed on the big ehhif, who suddenly began to sing.
The volume was surprising, even without mechanical assistance: Urruah had been right about that, at least. Rhiow listened to about a minute’s worth of it, then said to Urruah, low, “So tell me: what’s he yowling about?”
“The song’s called ‘Nessun dorma.’ It means that no one’s going to sleep.”
“With that noise,” Rhiow said, “I could understand why not…”
“Oh, come on, Rhi,” said Urruah, “give it a chance. Listen to it.”
Rhiow sighed, and did. The harmonies were strange to feline ears and didn’t seem to want to resolve correctly; she suspected no amount of listening was likely to change that perception soon, for her anyway. But at least her knowledge of the Speech made meaning available to her, if nothing else, as the man stood and sang with passion approaching a tom’s of his hope and desire, alone here under the starlight…When the stars’ light faded and the dawn rose up, he sang, then he would conquer… though at the moment, who or what would be conquered wasn’t quite clear: the song itself hadn’t yet provided much context. Perhaps some other tom? There did seem to be a she-ehhif involved, to whom this tom sang—though there was no sign of her at the moment, she being out of sight in the story, or the reality, or both. That at least was tomlike enough: an empty place, the lonely silent night to fill with song, whether or not there was any chance of fulfillment. Or perhaps, Rhiow thought as he sang, it’s the she herself, the one he woos, that he’s intending to conquer. If there was more intended to the conquest than just sex, though, the thought made Rhiow smile a little. Toms who tried domination or other such maneuvers with their mates too soon after the act itself got nothing but ragged ears and aching heads for their trouble.
It was a little odd, actually, to hear such power and passion come from someone standing still on a bare stage, holding, not a she, but only a piece of cloth in one hand, which he kept using to wipe his face. He paused a moment, and behind him the recorded voices of some other ehhif sang sweetly but mournfully that he and they might all very well be dead in the morning if he didn’t conquer… Yet the tom-ehhif sang on with assurance and power, answering them fearlessly; his last note, amplified rather beyond need, made Rhiow put her ears down flat for the loudness of it rather than the tone, which was blindingly true, and went on for longer than seemed possible with even such a big chest’s breath. Rhiow was almost unwillingly held still by the long, cried note at the end of the conquer-word, vinceeeeeeeerrro! as if by teeth in her scruff; alien as the sound was, any cat-tom who had a voice of such power would rightly have had his choice of shes.
The ehhif let the note go. The last chords of accompaniment crashed to an end, and the technical staff responded, some of them, with a chorus of good-natured hoots and applause. After that torrent and slam of sound, the hoots of boms and the city’s rush seemed a little muted.
The ehhif spoke a few words to the short round curly-haired ehhif conducting the musicians, then waved the cloth casually at the technical people and retreated to the back of the stage to have a long drink from a bottle of water. The ehhif conducting the musicians turned to talk to them now, and Rhiow looked a little sidewise at Urruah, a feline gesture of reluctant agreement. “It reminds me a little,” she said, “of the part in the Argument when the Old Tom sings. Innocent, though he’s all scars: and hopeful, though he knows whose teeth will be in his throat shortly.”
Urruah nodded. “That’s one connection I’ve thought of, yes…”
“I can see why they’ll need all these fences,” Rhiow said as they got up and strolled away. “The she-ehhif would be all over him afterward, I’d think. Probably wear him out for any more singing.”
“They don’t, though. It’s not meant personally.”
“That’s the strangest part of it, for me,” Rhiow said. “I d
on’t understand how he can sing like that and have it not be personal. That was real fighting stuff, that last note. He should have had his claws in someone’s guts, or his teeth in someone else’s scruff, afterward.”
Urruah shook his own head as well. “They’re not us. But later on in the story, there’s a fight.”
“Another tom?”
“No, in the story this tom fights with the queen. She has this problem, see…”
Rhiow half-closed her eyes in good-natured exasperation, for he was off and running again. Like most toms, Urruah had trouble grasping how, for queens, the fascination with song in any of its forms was strictly seasonal. When you were in heat, a tom’s voice was, admittedly, riveting, and the song it sang spoke directly to your most immediate need. Out of heat, though, the tendency was to try to get away from the noise before you burst out laughing at the desperate, impassioned cacophony of it—a reaction not at all appreciated by the toms near a queen in heat, all deep in the throes of competitive artistic and erotic self-expression.
Most of Urruah’s explanation now went over Rhiow’s head, as they walked back uptown, but at least he had something to keep his mind off what the rest of the day’s work was going to involve. He finished with the tale of the tom fighting with the queen—after which the queen apparently surrendered herself to the tom (What a crazy fantasy, Rhiow thought)—and started in on some other story, many times more complicated, that seemed to involve a river, and a piece of some kind of metal. “And when you take this piece of metal and make it into a hring, it makes you master of the universe…”
Rhiow had to laugh at that. “Ehhif? Run the universe? Let alone the world… What a dream! They can’t even run the parts of it they think they do run. Or at least none of them who aren’t wizards seem able to. Look at them! Half of the ehhif on the planet go to bed with empty stomachs: the other half of them die of eating themselves sick…” She gave Urruah a cockeyed look. “And what about your great ehhif-tom there? No way he’s that size naturally. What does he mean by smothering a wonderful voice like that with ten fur coats’ worth of fat? Whichever ehhif-god is in charge of mistreating one’s gifts should have a word with him. Probably will, too, if he doesn’t get off his great tail and do something about it pretty soon.”