by Диана Дуэйн
"No problem," Fhrio said. He reached into the glowing hedge of the timeslide, and hooked out another line of light; the whole timeslide slipped sideways, with the people in it, but leaving the ehhif off by themselves at one side of the platform. "I've thrown a nonpermeable shield around them. No one will be able to see them, hear them, or get at them."
"Then let's go. One more time – !"
– and once more the pressure built and built, and Rhiow closed her eyes against it, sure it was going to push them straight back in through their sockets. She waited for the release of pressure that would let them all know that the slide had been successful; but it didn't come. It just built, and built, and got worse and worse –
– Can't, said Siffha'h. On the other side of the circle was a terrible feeling of strain, counterbalanced with the sense of some massive force planted in their way, not to be moved.
Don't bother, said someone's voice, Huff's voice, from inside the spell. Let it go, we'll try again later!
I – will not – let It – Siffha'h gasped. There may not be a chance later. We're wizards – what else are we for?
Not for killing ourselves! Rhiow cried. Siffha'h, let it go!
Silence, and that unbearable strain, getting worse every moment. It won't give, Siffha'h said, between straining breaths, almost in a grunt. It won't give. It won't –Let it go! Siffha'h, let it go! That was Fhrio, now. Don't try –Yes – it will –And silence for a moment … and then the cry.
Everything fell apart. Once again Rhiow caught that odd and terrible sound, like a roar of some frustrated beast at the very edge of things: then it was gone.
Everything was black. Rhiow lay in the blackness, content to let it be that way. I'm so tired … just let me rest a little …
She slowly became aware that Huff was standing over her. "Rhiow, are you all right? Rhiow!"
She tried to struggle to her feet, almost made it, fell down again. "No, lie still," Huff said, and started to wash her ear.
It was such a sweet gesture, and so completely useless at the moment, that Rhiow could have moaned out loud. But she held her peace. Just for a flash the thought went through her mind: How lucky Auhlae is. How wonderful it would be to have a tom like this to be with … not just in friendship, but that way as well …
But she put it aside. "That way" was no longer a possibility for her: and Huff was spoken for.
Rhiow was conscious of wanting to lie there and let the kindly washing continue, but at the same time it made her profoundly uncomfortable, and she could think of no way to get it to stop but to produce evidence that she was all right: so she pushed herself to her feet, no matter how wobbly she felt, and bumped Huff in the shoulder with her head in a friendly way. "Come on, cousin, it's not that bad," she said. "I'll do well enough. What about the others … ?"
The others were by and large in no worse shape, though Siffha'h could not get up yet no matter what she did, and had to be content to lie there on the concrete while the others sat around her. "Well," Huff said, "there's no question now that eighteen seventy-four is the right year. The Lone One is actively blocking that year, and not even bothering to hide what It's doing any more … "
"Which suggests that It's getting more certain that there's nothing we can do to keep the two universes from achieving congruency," Auhlae said.
Siffha'h was trying to sit up again: Auhlae pushed her down, forcefully, with one paw. "We have to try again," she said weakly.
"You will try nothing whatever," Auhlae said sternly. "You are going to your den and you are going to lie there and sleep until you've recovered yourself."
"But we can't just leave it like this," Siffha'h pleaded. "We can't wait. The Lone One is going to block the access even more thoroughly if we don't try again right away. We won't ever be able to get through. And then It will kill the Queen, and everything … everything will die … " She had to put her head down on the concrete again: she couldn't hold it up any longer.
"We have to wait," Fhrio said to her. "We don't have any chance of getting through at all, with you in your present state. You've got to rest. There's a chance … " He looked over at Urruah, unwillingly. "If you and Urruah tried it together, tomorrow morning: powering the slide … "
"That's going to be our best chance," Huff said, looking over at Urruah to see if he was willing: Urruah waved his tail "yes'. "It's not like we need to be idle in the meantime. Some of these ehhif don't come from the blocked year: we can concentrate on getting as many of them back to their proper times as we can. But as for eighteen seventy-four … we'll have to try again tomorrow." He looked over at Rhiow. "Do you concur?"
"It seems the best plan," Rhiow said. "We'll head back to our home ground and make sure things are secure there … then be back in the morning."
And there was nothing much more they could do about it than that. Home Rhiow and her team went, not in the best of moods, despite the recovery of the ehhif pastlings. Rhiow was feeling emotionally and physically bruised, and still guilty and upset over what she had said to Fhrio … especially in view of how successful his strategy to pick up the time-stranded ehhif had proven. Urruah was silent as only a tom can be who secretly feels he's been upstaged, and is determined not to acknowledge it since the realization would be below him. Arhu looked abstracted and grim, his thoughts turned inward, possibly to thoughts of what he had Seen or might yet See … but Rhiow was more willing to bet that his attention was bent mostly on Siffha'h at the moment. And she seriously doubted that tomorrow would turn out any better.
More: when they parted company and she finally got home, Iaehh was nowhere to be found, though he had filled Rhiow's bowls for her again. It was unusual for him to be out late at night by himself. Though perhaps he's not by himself, Rhiow thought. And why would that be so terrible a thing? It's not like he doesn't need the company of other ehhif. Even, perhaps, one to be close to the way he was close to Hhuha …
Yet at the same time she shied away from the idea. They had been so very close. There was no question of Hhuha ever being replaced in Iaehh's affections. Rhiow thought he would always love her, even though she was gone. Though why should that mean that he should have no new mate to draw close to? It's not as if he had been spayed or anything, she thought: and for the first time, Rhiow actually found herself feeling slightly bitter about it. It's not as if there was an option which he might have had, which is now forever closed to him
She sat in the dark kitchen and stared at the food bowl and the water bowl. Listen to me, Rhiow thought. My blood sugar must be in a terrible state. Dutifully she went over to the food bowl and tried to eat: but she had no appetite, and the food tasted like mud.
She sighed and walked into the bedroom, and jumped on the bed: curled up on the pillow and got as comfortable as she could when there was no one else in the bed to snuggle up to. Sleep came quickly, but not quickly enough for Rhiow to escape the images of Siffha'h's fear and Arhu's pain, Fhrio's anger, Urruah's discomfort: and for the first time in a long while, she had no taste for the Meditations, but simply put her head down and waited for oblivion to descend, however briefly …
Come the morning, or the early afternoon, rather, she woke ravenous and lively again. Iaehh had been and gone, once more filling her bowls: though she was glad of the convenience, Rhiow wished that her schedule would stabilize enough to let her spend an evening with him. For the time being, though, work was going to have to take precedence … so that there would, hopefully, be evenings enough to spend after it all was over.
After "breakfast" at two in the afternoon, and her toilet, she made her way leisurely down to Grand Central and made the rounds of the gates. They seemed to be running normally: but Rhiow remembered Ith's remark about the main gate matrices misbehaving, and could only hope that things would remain stable for the time being – stable enough, at least, for the Perm gating team to handle any minor difficulties that might arise.
Meanwhile, she had one other piece of business to attend to, and she w
as fairly sure where she might find it. She went down to the train platforms and made her way over to Track Twenty-Four, where the third and most frequently used of the Grand Central gates was positioned, invisible as usual to all but the wizards who used it. Sidled, Rhiow sat up on her haunches and reached into the control weave, caught the appropriate hyperstrings in her claws, and wove them together: then let the configuration snap back into the weft. The transit oval of the gate responded immediately, showing her a view as if from the mouth of a cave: outside the cave's mouth, golden light streamed by in broad rays, through the branches of trees that could not be seen.
Rhiow braced herself, tensed, and leapt through the gate. She came down on stone on the far side, but "down" was not as far down as usual. She lifted one paw to look at it – an old habit. It was not her usual small trim paw, but nearly five inches across. Rhiow put her whiskers forward, glad as usual that her color at least remained the same when she visited here. The Old Downside was the place where a cat's body was the size of its soul, in confirmation of the ancient privilege of feline wizards, whose ancestors had once been leonine in body, and had given up that size and power for a different kind of power – one less physical but, to Rhiow's mind, much greater.
The stone shelf where she stood reared out from the side of the Mountain and gave a dazzling view across the plains of the Old Downside, tawny in the afternoon sunlight of a summer that never seemed to go away. Above her and behind her the Mountain's huge flanks were hidden by the forests of great and ancient trees which had been there since her People first realized what this place would mean to them down the ages: and at the top of the Mountain speared further upward yet the highest trunk and branches of the Tree whose top rose into heaven and whose roots went down to the center of things. Rhiow looked at it in awe, as she had before, wondering when she would finally have time to go up the Mountain to sit under those great branches and hear the whispers of those who sat in them, murmuring wisdom. Not today, she thought, a little sadly. Maybe later
Rhiow headed for the path that led down off the stone shelf, down toward the nearest patch of grassland: for already she had seen what she had suspected she would – creatures running on two legs rather than four, one of them quite small, and the others all six or eight feet tall. They appeared to be racing through the long grass, and one of them tumbled and got up to race again: faintly she caught the sound of ehhif laughter.
Rhiow put her whiskers forward and made her way down into the long grass of the plateau, actually just one of several stepped plateaus leading gradually down to where the River poured itself toward the half-seen reaches of what would someday be the Atlantic Ocean. Across the sea of grass she could see brown-golden shapes running, muscles working under shining scaled hide: and one of them, catching sight of what might have been mistaken for a jet-black lioness, turned and loped in a leisurely way toward her.
She trotted along to meet him. "Well, Ith," Rhiow said, "I thought you might be here at this point."
"Indeed yes," Ith said, and slowed to stand beside her: together they stared out across the grass, where a small white-shirted figure was tearing through the grass with several small saurians in friendly pursuit. "He began to weary, ten hours or so ago: so I left him here to sleep with a few of my people for guardians, and continued the work a while."
"But you stopped," Rhiow said.
"For the time being. I have found at least some of what you sent me for," Ith said. "Some, but not all, of the master spell against the Winter. Many a mummy of your People I unwound last night – " He
flexed his claws. "It is delicate work, even with wizardry to help: and they all had to be put back the way I found them. Artie," he said, looking after the boy, "is good at that. He has a sharp eye for detail, and a certain morbid fascination for dead bodies."
Rhiow snorted amusement. "It's a typical trait of young ehhif, I believe."
"Well, it has stood him in good stead. We have found something indeed. That spell is no mere injunction against the Winter, whether meteoric or nuclear. Even by the two missing fragments we have found, I can tell it is one of those spells which invoke the Powers that Be, not indirectly through their servants the elements or mortal beings, but directly and by Their names. Not a force to be toyed with … and likely to be dangerous enough even when used in a good cause."
Rhiow sat down, watching Artie run. "Is it too dangerous to use?"
"Perhaps," Ith said, "but I would not think we dare let that stop us. There is a word in the old Egyptian: ba-neter, the world-soul, the "god-soul of the world". That is what this spell invokes. One of the Powers that Be, certainly: and I think perhaps the one which anciently both created the substance of the Earth, under the One's direction, and later Itself became it. What the ehhif I think would call the 'tutelary angel' of the Earth, or of its power for life."
"Gaia," Rhiow murmured.
"Yes, that would be another of the ehhif names. I would be much concerned if, in working this spell, we indeed saved the Earth from the Winter … but if at the same time, we awakened that Power, the Earth Herself."
Rhiow's tail lashed: she licked her nose. "I see your point," she said. "What if we wake up the Earth … and she doesn't like what's living on her?"
Ith bowed in agreement. The grass not too far away from them began to hiss more loudly, and after a moment Artie came bursting out of it. "Come on, Ith," he said, "it's your turn to race!"
"I'll race with you again later," Ith said, "but in the meantime, Rhiow has stopped by to find out how we did last night."
Artie looked at her in astonishment. "You're much bigger!" he said.
"Yes," she said, "I am, here. But it won't last: I must get back to work. Are you having a good time here?"
"Oh, yes! It's wonderful … it's like a little lost world."
"So it is … though not so much lost as hidden. It's more like a lost one that we have to try to get into today: the Earth of eighteen seventy-four again. Not the one you come from, but the dark one … "
"Ith told me about it," Artie said. "Rhiow, please let me come too! I want to see the world where the Moon's blown up!"
Rhiow shuddered. "I can't say that I recommend it," she said. "We're going to be moving very fast today … there won't be time for sightseeing."
"Oh, Rhiow!" "Now don't plague her," Ith said. "She has had a hard time of it. She will take you worldgating when things are a little less busy."
That's right," Rhiow said, putting her whiskers forward at the way Ith was acquiring the sound of a Father. "Ith, I'll be in touch with you later to let you know how we're doing. Meanwhile, keep at the work with the mummies. We need that spell … "
"I will see to it. Go well — "
Unable to resist, Artie put out a hand, stroked Rhiow's head. She purred and bumped against him, and then headed back toward the path that would lead up to the shelf, and the worldgate back to Grand Central, and onward to London …
Her own team met her on the platform on the Underground, both looking somewhat better than they had before: and the London team, too, looked much improved for a night's sleep. The exception was Fhrio, who hadn't had any sleep, but didn't seem to care. He had spent the evening analyzing the ehhif pastlings, with freestanding wizardries and evidence from the gate logs, and had been returning them to their proper times.
"We got every one of them back where they belong," Fhrio said, and he looked positively jolly, even though he had been up since they'd seen him last. "Every single one! At least now we know that when we get the Queen's problem handled, the gates won't be misbehaving any more
к
"When", Rhiow thought. From your mouth to Her ear … "It's good news," Rhiow said, and sat down to have a wash: having been a "big cat" always left her feeling oddly unkempt for a few hours –something to do with the coarser texture of the fur. "Is the timeslide ready to try the eighteen seventy-four run again?"
"Yes it is. We're just waiting for Siffha'h now: she felt she needed a nap after h
er last "pastling" transit, to make sure she was sharp for this big one."
Right on cue, Siffha'h turned up, carefully greeting everyone but Arhu, who turned his back as soon as she came in, and didn't give her the chance to reject him first. Rhiow sighed at this, but said nothing about it, and only glanced sympathy at Arhu. He said nothing either, simply waiting for the action to begin.
It didn't take long, for Siffha'h was eager to get started, and so was Fhrio. They leaped into their places inside the timeslide, and Huff and Auhlae followed: hard behind them came Urruah and Arhu, and Rhiow last of all.
"Ready?" Siffha'h said, rearing up on her haunches and shaking her shoulders a little as she prepared herself.
Fhrio hooked a claw into the timeslide wizardry. "Now – "
Siffha'h came down on the power-feed point, and the world whited out. The pressure came back. Rhiow had hoped that it might possibly be a little more bearable this time: the hope was in vain. If possible, it was worse. The sense of the power which Siffha'h was pouring into the transit was staggering … but so was the resistance. It was as if she slammed them all, repeatedly, into a wall of stone. She's stubborn, you have to give her that. Rhiow thought: but whatever was ranged against them was immune to stubbornness.
Siffha'h kept hammering, fruitlessly. The pressure bore and bore on Rhiow until she wanted to moan out loud … and suddenly it simply broke, lifted all at once, a relief so great that she felt like fainting.
She was still standing, but only just. She looked around at the others, all swaying on their feet, and at Siffha'h, who was lying prostrate, panting.
"Blocked," she gasped. "Blocked … "
"It's no use," Fhrio said. "We're not going to be able to get it, the information we need. We were so close … but we're locked out … "
"You could try using the key the Powers sent us," Arhu said, very pointedly.