by Diane Duane
Saash gave Rhiow a glance as she passed her. Rhiow stood still for a moment, licking her nose nervously; the Whisperer was rarely so uncertain. But ignoring her advice is rarely wise.
Rhiow slipped through the doorway after Saash and followed her down into the darkness.
Chapter Eleven
The way led along more dark stairs and corridors, all winding downward. Deep narrow openings pierced some of the walls: they might have been windows, except that no face could ever be seen looking through any of them. Others resembled doors, but they led nowhere except into small rooms that held only more darkness. “Why isn’t anybody up here?” Urruah muttered, as they passed yet another of those deep windows and looked at it nervously. “There are enough of your people down that way.”
“This is not a place where we are allowed to go,” Ith said, and gave Urruah a look that to Rhiow seemed slightly peculiar.
“Oh, really?” Urruah said. “Then what were you doing up there?”
Ith paced along, his tail lashing, and made no answer.
Waiting for us, Saash said. A spy, probably.
“I was told to come,” Ith said then.
“Why aren’t you allowed to go up there?” Saash said.
A few more paces, toward the end of a colonnade, where Saash paused and looked through an empty doorway. “The upper levels are only for those on the Great One’s errands to the world above,” Ith said. “Others must stay in the depths until the time is right. It will not be long, we are told.”
Saash threw Rhiow a look on hearing that: Rhiow twitched her tail to one side, a feline shrug. She was noticing that there was always a pause between a question to Ith and its answer. Rhiow found herself wondering whether this was because the creature was having comprehension problems—unlikely, they were working in the Speech—or whether it was simply deciding how it would best tell them as little as possible before it led them to where others of its kind, in greater numbers, could deal with them.
The situation was uncomfortable enough as it was. Rhiow now knew that Saash was right; Ffairh’s map was useless in the present situation. The temptation to withdraw to safer territory above, and try to make another plan, with better intelligence, was very strong—but at the same time Rhiow was sure there was no time for this, that they would probably not make it back up, and even if they did, the only way to get better intelligence would be to keep on going downward, into the heart of this terror. Either Ffairh never got down quite this far, Rhiow thought, or else this whole delving was still completely sealed off from the tunnels and passages he was exploring. Which suggested another nasty possibility: that the saurians had been completely aware of where Ffairh had been doing his exploring, and had purposely avoided breaking through into any area where he might have discovered what was going on down here. Then, during some period when everything was running smoothly and there was no reason to expect an intrusion, the catenaries were relocated…
Wizardry again, Rhiow thought. There’s no other way to do it. Some other wizard, or wizards…
Her head was still going around and around regarding that problem. There were no saurian wizards. Which meant that either a renegade wizard of some other species was involved, maybe more man one; or (horrible concept) even one of the Powers That Be… with strong odds that Rhiow knew which one. The Lone Power did not often reveal Itself openly or work directly: that way It risked failure. But there had been exceptions to the rule, and doubtless would be again…
The idea of renegades itself was controversial enough. Accepted wisdom was that the Lone Power could not “take over” a wizard, or influence him or her directly. But It could certainly try to turn the wizard’s deeds dark in other ways: by trickery, propaganda… or sheer pain. And there were always whispers of wizards who had gone entropic, slowly but willingly going over to the broad, easy, downward path… Rhiow remembered Har’lh’s uneasy look as they discussed it. No one liked to think of the Oath abused—of that power, once given, turned against the Powers bestowing it.
The team walked on, passing down another long stair leading to yet another dimly lit doorway. The way they went, the way they had to go, unsidled, seemed all too exposed to Rhiow, but they had little other option now. At least they had remedied their oversight of scent. Rhiow was still cursing herself inwardly for missing this detail: it could have been fatal to them all.
Except it wasn’t, Saash said to her privately. Something has preserved us this far. You know what Ehef would say about it: this meeting was meant to happen this way…
Ehef’s not here, Rhiow said as they made their way down a long deserted stair. I wish to Iau he were.
Any scent or touch of Har’lh?
Nothing. I just hope this spell’s not interfering…
The spell that Urruah had quickly cobbled together to mask all their scents seemed to be working well enough. Saash had thought it might be worthwhile trying to smell like saurians rather than felines, and working a full shapechange to go with it, but Rhiow had disliked the idea. Besides the possibility of getting the saurian scent wrong and attracting attention that way, it seemed like too much expenditure of energy at a time when they were very likely to need it for something else much more important. So they went in their own shapes, as silently as they knew how, though there was some inward muttering. I can’t smell myself, Saash said, pausing to scratch. It’s like being sidled, but worse…
Please. We’ve got other problems. We’re running blind here: we have no real idea where our little friend is taking us.
I’m not sure we have any alternative but to keep working our way downward and seeing what we feel, Saash said. It’s almost impossible to sense the lesser catenary branches directly, with all this stone between us and them; you have to get close first. And even when you sense them, there’s no way to tell how to get at them. There’s no wall-walking down here, with the interference from the catenaries scattered all around; it’s so fierce you might not even be able to initiate the state, let alone finish a wall-walk once you’d started. One of them, though, I can sense with no trouble. Saash paused to scratch and wash again briefly, then indicated the point of light far down in the chasm. The “River of Fire” down there… that’s the trunk catenary, the main conduit.
Rhiow stared at it. “It can’t be. It was erect, and so were the branches, according to Ffairh’s map! They would have run straight up through the Mountain. And as for it being the River of Fire, the real River—”
“I wouldn’t know about that… except for what Arhu was saying. He said we’d have to cross it… and that certainly looks like one, down there, doesn’t it? … even from way up here you can see the structure, it looks a little wavy…”
Rhiow lashed her tail. The true River of Fire, in the tales of the Fight between Iau and her litter and the Old Serpent, was formed by the Serpent’s poured-out blood: it was the border between life and death, or rather between life and life. The pains and unneeded memories of a cat’s last life were burned away in its crossing… “There’s no way that can be the River,” Rhiow said.
“Rhi, the ceiling of Grand Central—” Saash said.
“It’s backward,” Rhiow snapped, “thank you very much, I know all about it.”
“Is it?” Saash said. “Which direction are you coming at it from?”
Rhiow closed her mouth and thought about that.
Saash gave her a look. “If the ‘Song of the Passing Through the Fire’ does speak of the River, it doesn’t say anything about which angle you come at it from! In space or time! A legend can just as well be founded in the future as in the past.”
“It’s called a ‘prophecy,’ ” Urruah said, with a sideways glance at Arhu. “You may have heard of the concept.”
“I’m going to hit you so hard…” Rhiow said to Urruah. “But you’re in line behind sa’Rrahh, right now, and you’ll just have to wait your turn…”
But is this problem just with me? she thought. Is it just that I find offensive the idea that the La
st River is actually down at the bottom of a hole in the ground full of lizards?
She sighed at herself then. The Old Downside was a more central reality than her “home” one… and there was no reason, really, why the physical reality of the gates’ main catenary trunk could not itself be a mirror or reflection of the true River elsewhere. Though her own voice, speaking to Arhu, suddenly reminded her: Don’t start getting tangled up in arguments about which reality is more real than the next… And another thought occurred. Often enough, as you worked your way closer to the heart of things, other realities’ myths started to become real around you. This otherworld might be more central than even Ffairh had suspected.
In any case, Saash said, that’s the main catenary trunk: no doubt whatsoever.
With about a million lizards between it and us, Urruah said. Wonderful.
If we’re supposed to be down here to find out what’s the matter with the gates, Saash said, and what’s going wrong with wizardry, I’d say that’s as likely to be a good place to start as any. If we head straight down there and start tracing the branchings outward—sideways, wherever they’re going now—we can start troubleshooting.
Rhiow sighed. Saash had a single-minded practical streak about repair work that sometimes ignored larger issues, like a whole inverted city full of nasty saurians between her and her proposed work area. Or maybe it was just a way to keep from thinking about issues closer to home. Like being on your ninth life… How many of us put off thinking about it until it’s right on top of us? And how do you know if, when you walk through the River the last time, whether you’ve done enough good over the course of your lives to come out on the far bank at all?…
And Rhiow knew perfectly well that the crossing of the River was itself an idiom. She wondered—as Saash had to be wondering—was there time to bid farewell to one’s mortality, one’s felinity? Or did you simply find with your last death that you had drifted to the other side of the divide, and were now marooned in immortality forever, parted from the friends and the world you loved? The Tenth Life, always in the stories a thing yearned-for like the warm-milk-land of which queens sang to their kittens, suddenly now seemed less than desirable—high ground, yes, but barren and cold…
She sighed. “Ith,” she said, turning to him, “we need to get all the way down to the bottom… to where that great fire shines. Do you know a way?”
“Yes,” he said after a moment. But he looked at Arhu when he said it, not at Rhiow.
“Is it a safe way?” Saash said.
“Yes.”
“Is it safe for us?” Urruah said. “Or are your people going to come piling out at us from one of these doorways all of a sudden?”
“In that way,” Ith said, looking from one of them to another, “there are no safe ways into the depths. The deeper you go, the more of my people will begin to fill every hall and stair. There are ways that are less frequented… for a little distance farther.”
Every one of the team had his or her whiskers out, feeling for the sense of a lie; but it was harder to tell with a saurian than it would be with a Person. If not impossible… Rhiow thought, for the “feel” of a lizard’s mind was nothing like a Person’s. We could spellbind him to tell the truth… but it might not help: who knows how truth looks to a saurian? And who wants to waste the energy at the moment? If we fritter away what we’ve brought, and find there’s not enough to do the job we came to do…
She lashed her tail. “Lead on, then,” Rhiow said. She was about to add, “Arhu, watch him,” when she realized that for the past while this had been quite unnecessary. Arhu had been watching Ith very closely indeed, with an expression of which Rhiow could make nothing whatever.
Ith stepped out, with Arhu behind, and the others following: downward they went again, down through long dark galleries, and down still longer stairs.
Ith stopped at the bottom of one stairway, near where it gave out onto yet another balcony. He peered out into the light, then stepped forward boldly. “Nothing funny, now,” Urruah hissed, coming up behind him hurriedly, “or I’ll unzip you, snake.”
Ith looked cooly at Urruah. “What is ‘funny,’ ” he said, “about looking at the Fire? Little enough glimpse we get of it, little enough we feel of it.” He gazed down into the chasm.
“And little enough warmth you get out of it, either,” Saash muttered, putting her head just far enough above the parapet to look down into the dim, buzzing, hissing chasm. “Why is it so cold down here? It’s not normal. You usually get a steady rise in temperature as you head into the deeper crustal regions.”
“My guess?” Urruah said. “It’s being suppressed, somehow … to a purpose. You heard those guys before. If people are comfortable the way they are, you expect them to be good for much inflaming, much striving against another species?” He turned to Ith. “Am I right?”
A pause. “The near sight of the Fire is for the chosen of the Great One, of his Sixth Claw,” Ith said, “as a reward, and a promise of what is to come, when we all stride under the sun again. The cold is a test and makes us stronger to bear what our forefathers could not have borne, and died trying to.”
Arhu was leaning past Saash to gaze down into the teeming depths, toward the terraces and balconies far below them, where life went on, seemingly tiny, unendingly busy. “There’s so many of you,” he said. “What do you— What do you eat?”
Ith looked at him. “The flesh of the sacrificed,” he said, his voice quite flat. “Many are hatched, and caused to be hatched, more and more each year, as the time of the Climacteric draws near. The old words speak of the time when the Promised One shall come and lead us forth; but there can be no going until we first hatch out uncounted numbers to fall in the last battle that will bring us out free, under the sky. The best and the strongest, the Great One’s warriors in their hundreds of thousands, are fed well against that day that is soon to come. The rest of us live to serve them, to bring the day closer; and when our work is done … we find our rest within the warriors, who will carry our flesh to battle within their own, and our spirits with them. So the Great One says.”
Rhiow shuddered. An accelerated breeding program, half a species being raised as food for the other half… It was worse, in its way, than the poor creature she had seen once before, being devoured by its starving comrades. Getting a little extra ration, the same way she might beg Hhuha for some of that smoked salmon…
Hhuha. The pain of her loss hit Rhiow again, hard, so that she had to crouch down and just deal with it for a few seconds. When she felt well enough to stand up once more, she found the others staring at her, and Ith as well.
“What exactly do you want here?” Ith said at last.
Saash threw a look at Rhiow that suggested she didn’t think Rhiow needed to be quizzed by lizards at the moment “There are other worlds besides this one,” Saash said.
A pause. “That much we know,” Ith said. “The Great One has spoken of it And others,” he added, a little thoughtfully; there was not quite the dogmatic sound to the addition that there had been to other such statements.
Urruah opened his mouth. Rhiow quietly lifted one massive paw and put a razory claw right into that part of his tail that was twitching above the stone. Urruah turned, snarling, and Rhiow made a sorry-it-was-an-accident face at him, which was excuse enough for the moment and caused Urruah to subside for now.
“What others?” Saash said.
“You mean other worlds?” Urruah said.
“Yes, others,” said Ith, and Rhiow sighed, wishing she had put the claw in harder. “A hundred others, a thousand … all ours for the taking.”
“By the gates,” Saash said softly. “Using them not only for transit… but to change the nature of the species itself. Genetic manipulation … wizardry changes to the body and the spirit Permanent shapechange.”
Rhiow shuddered again. Such changes, from the wizardry point of view anyway, were both unethical and illegal; by and large, any given species had good reason to be
the way it was, and there was no telling what chaos and destruction could be wrought in it by permanently shifting its mind-body structure.
“We must become strong and hard, the Great One has told us,” Ith said. “We must not allow ourselves to succumb to the same forces that struck down our ancient mothers and fathers. When we are strong beyond any strength known by our kind before, when we no longer need air to breathe, or warmth to live, or even flesh to eat, then we will take everything that is for our own.”
“But I thought what you wanted was the warmth,” Arhu said then, sounding (correctly, Rhiow thought) confused. “And enough to eat…”
Ith stopped and blinked, as if coming up against this contradiction for the first time. Rhiow watched with covert satisfaction, for what she had heard Ith describing, without comprehension, was a favorite tactic of the Lone One— promise a species something better than what it had, then (after It has Its way) strip away whatever It had promised, leaving them with nothing at all. Finally Ith said, “That desire is only for this while: a remnant of the ancient way of life. Afterward … when we have come to our full strength, when we are no longer children, we will put aside the things of childhood and take our place as rulers of otherwhere— striding from reality to reality, making ours the misused territories of others, taking again what should have been ours from the start, had history gone as it should have. Warmer stars than this one will look down on us, strange skies and faraway nights; we will leave our people’s cradle and never find a grave. No cold will be cold enough to freeze the spirit in us again; no night will be dark enough. We will survive.”