Feline Wizards - To Visit The Queen Part 3

The ehhif looked at Auhlae, and then actually laughed out loud, though the laughter was shaky. aOh surely not,a he said. aSome kind of ventriloquism. Iave seen illusionistsa shows; I know what kind of tricks may be played on an unsuspecting audiencea"a Auhlae sighed a little. aIn front of an audience, a skilled stage magician can produce all kinds of illusions, I know,a she said, abut this isnat that kind of thing. Rhiow, maybe youad better let the light of the circle come up a little.a She waved her tail in agreement, meanwhile watching the ehhif closely for any signs that he was about to go shocky again.

aMr..a"Illingworth,a said Auhlae after a moment, as the light of the circle grew and the ehhif looked around him, aplease donat believe this a trick. It is something out of your experience, though. Perhaps you would prefer to think of it as a dream. Do you mind if we ask you some questions?a The ehhif looked around at the circle, and the cat inside it with him, its paws thrust into the glowing webwork which the circle surrounded, and the four other cats outside: and he blinked. aI suppose not, but where are you? And how do you know my name?a aPlease donat bother looking for any other humans, because youall see none here,a Auhlae said. aJust pretend, if you will, that the cats are speaking to you.a aBut how do you know my name?a the ehhif demanded, more urgently now. aIs ita"is this some kind of plota"a Through the spell, Rhiow could feel the ehhifas blood pressure beginning to spike. She watched it carefully, and felt down the spell for indications of any sudden physical movement: there were too many ways he could damage himself, physically and nonphysically, if he tried to break out of the circle before it was correctly disa.s.sembled.

aItas no plot,a Auhlae said, athough I wouldnat mind hearing why you would think it was one.a The ehhif looked around him, still trying to find the source of the voice which spoke to him: and now he started to look suspicious. aThere are plots everywhere these days,a he said, and his voice sounded unusually troubled. aEverything used to seem so safe once ... but now nothing is what it seemsa"a His blood pressure spiked again with his anxiety, and Rhiow could feel his muscles getting ready for a jump. Better not, she thought, and spoke briefly to his adrenal glands through the spell. They obligingly stopped the chemical process which was already producing adrenaline, and instead produced a quick jolt of endorphins that left Mr. Illingworth blinking in slightly buzzed bemus.e.m.e.nt, and much less prepared to get up and run anywhere. Rhiow was ready to lock his muscles immobile if she had to, but she preferred less invasive and energy-intensive measures to start with.

aHow do you mean?a Auhlae said.

aThe war,a said Mr.. Illingworth, and now his voice started to sound mournful. aWhat use in being the mightiest nation on the globe when we must be bombed for the privilege? There was a time when no one dared lift a hand to us. But now our enemies have gathered together and grown bold, and London itself is prey ... a At that Auhlae looked sharply at Fhrio. Fhrioas eyes were wide. Bombed? he said silently, to her and the others. London hasnat been bombed for fifty years.

aWhen did this start?a Auhlae said, and for all her attempts to keep her voice soothing, her alarm came through.

aA year or so ago,a said Mr.. Illingworth wearily. aThere were troubles before then ... but nothing like the crisis we face now.a And much to Rhiowas surprise, the ehhif put his face down in his hands. aNot since the Queen died ... a The Queen? Urruah said then, pausing in his work with the gate. Whatas he talking about?

a aThe Queena? Which queen?a Auhlae said.

The ehhiflooked up again, and looked around him with a much less fuzzy air: Rhiow felt his blood pressure start spiking again. aHow can you not know about the great tragedy,a Mr.. Illingworth said, afor which a whole nation mourns, and at which the whole world looked on amazed? Only spies would pretend not to know how the Queen-Empress was a.s.sa.s.sinated, treacherously killed bya"a He started to struggle to his feet.

Rhiow clamped the spell down on him, shorting out the neurotransmitter chemistry servicing his voluntary musculature, but being careful to avoid his lungs. Still the ehhif gasped, though he couldnat struggle, and his fear began to grow. aLet me go!a he said loudly, and then started to shout, aSpies! Traitors! Let me go! Police!a The sound of that cry could be kept from being heard, of course, but Rhiow had other concerns. Auhlae, she said silently, thereas no point in this. It takes doing for an ehhif to frighten itself to death, but this oneas pretty emotionally labile: he might be able to do it. And heas been under a lot of stressa"

Youare right, Auhlae said. Better put him to sleep.

Rhiow reached into the spell and spoke to the ehhifas brain chemistry. A moment later his eyes closed, and his head sagged slightly, though he did not move otherwise: she kept the hold on his muscles, just for safetyas sake.

a aBombeda?a Urruah said then.

aOne moment,a Rhiow said. aUrruah, howas the gate?a aLocked open but nonpatent, like Auhlae said.a aHave you got a time fix on the opening?a aNot yet. The congruency with our present timeframe is not one-to-one, Rhi. The spatiotemporal coordinate readings Iam getting at the moment are not mes.h.i.+ng in direct line with our own.a Rhiow twitched at the sound of that, for she thought she knew what he meant ... and she didnat like it. aAdditionally, I think somethingas been fretting at the gate from the other side while itas been doing these aroguea openings ... unraveling it. The unravelingas been starting to manifest itself on this side now ... a He put his whiskers back. aAnd Iam almost afraid to fix it. That might warn whoeveras doing the unraveling, send them under cover ... a Iad wait and talk to Huff about it, Rhiow said silently to him. This is getting to be a jurisdictional matter, and I donat want to ... She glanced in Fhrioas direction.

Understood, Urruah said. But if something sudden happens, weare going to have to intervene in the situationas best interest, no matter what local opinion might be ...

Rhiow waved her tail in agreement, though the prospect made her nervous: Urruah went back to areadinga the gate, letting the information in the string configuration sing down through his claws and into his nerves and brain. aAuhlae,a Rhiow said aloud, ayou managed enough rapport with him to get a name: could you get in there and find out more?a Auhlae shook herself. aNames are easy,a she said, somewhat distressed. aTheyare so near the surface, in any sentient being. But abstract information is a lot harder to get at, out of species. You know how ehhif minds look and feel inside: the imageryas all wrong, the language is bizarre and the mindset is stranger still ... Iam no expert in ehhif psychologies: Iall get lost in there as readily as anyone else. And anyway, I canat do anything useful while our Mr.. Illingworthas unconscious. If he was conscious, I could go in, all right, but I couldnat be sure I was getting the information absolutely correct. And if weare hearing from this ehhif what I think weare hearinga"a aIf you think youare hearing evidence of an alternate timeline,a Urruah said, athen I think youare right. Leaving aside all the other things he mentioned, most of which I donat understand, I do know that London hasnat been bombed recently ... and it certainly was never bombed when ehhif wore clothes like that.a Rhiow suddenly became aware of Arhu looking over her shoulder, most intently, at Illingworth. aHeas the unravelling,a Arhu said softly. aOr a symptom of it: concrete rather than abstract. Itas not a process thatas finished yet. But if somethingas not done soon ... a aHold that thought,a Rhiow said. aDonat lose it, whatever you do.a aOh, certainly,a Fhrio said suddenly, sounding very annoyed. aEncourage him. Heas been enough trouble already.a aLook,a Arhu said, turning, aI tried to tell youa"a aNo, you look.a Fhrio leaned close to Arhu and stared at him straight on: leaned over him stiff-necked and tall, the cla.s.sic posture of the threatening tom. aYou may think that youave done us a favor by causing this incursion, but who knows if itas anything to do with the problems weave been having? All I see is that youave made a sweet mess of things. Donat you ever touch my gate again unless I specifically tell you to. You hear me? You come in here thinking youare so vhaiad smart, and you tamper with things that you donata"a Arhu was staring right back at Fhrio, and his ears were back: he hadnat given an inch, and his lips were beginning to wrinkle away from his teeth. Urruah was looking on dispa.s.sionately. Oh, dear Dam around us, Rhiow thought, please donat let Arhua"

aNow what in the worlds,a said another voice down the tunnel. Heads turned. A moment later Huff jumped up onto the platform, and looked at the bizarre tableau before him: the half-sitting, frozen ehhif, Urruah once again up to his armpits in the hyperstrings of the gate, Siffhaah sitting on the power junction and was.h.i.+ng nonchalantly, Auhlae and Rhiow looking on in bemus.e.m.e.nt and distress: and Fhrio and Arhu.

Fhrio turned and glared at Huff, his ears still back. aWell, about time you got back here! While youave been off having one of your little catnaps, your precious imported vhaiad asenior gating teama hasa"a aFhrio,a said Huff. Fhrio subsided, and sat down, though his ears stayed flat.

Huff sat down too. aFor one thing, I was not having a catnap, much as I would have liked to be. I was off having a talk about this gate with Hniahho.a Rhiow immediately recognized this as the name of the present Senior Wizard for Western Europe, an ehhif living just across the water in one of the low countries near the sea. aAnd for another, I think you may owe Rhiow and her team an apology. They were brought here to produce the results. They are apparently producing thema"a and he flicked a glance over at the wretched unconscious ehhifa"awhether you like them or not. We were specifically instructed to expect a asomewhat unorthodox techniquea. Or werenat you listening to Her?a aOh, I heard Her, itas justa"a aIt isnat ajusta. If youare feeling obstructive, take it up with Herself ... but youave got to resolve whatever conflicts you have about this work before you do anything further.a Fhrio turned away and began to wash. So did Arhu, with great intensity and at speed.

Rhiow breathed out in relief. aSomewhat unorthodox techniquea, she thought then, slightly amused. Well, Arhuas off the sharp end of the claw for the moment. But what if aunorthodoxa means me and Urruah too ... ?

Huff got up and walked to the edge of the circle, looking at the sleeping ehhif half-sitting there. aHeas a long way from home,a he said.

aIad say heas from the middle of the century before last, as ehhif count time,a said Urruah. aThe location is nearly congruent with this one, at least: but the exact time is proving elusive. Itas somewhere within the spread of the previous micro-openings, though. No guarantee of whether it coincides with any of them.a aHe spoke of bombings,a Auhlae said, going over to stand by her mate.

aHe was talking about the Queen, too,a Arhu said, looking up from his own composure-was.h.i.+ng and sounding a little bemused. aI wouldnat have thought ehhif knew about Iaua"a aWith him wearing those clothes, I would say he probably meant the ehhif Queen who was ruling then,a Huff said. aA different usage of the same word we use for Her, and for shes. Hffichahoria, this Queenas name was. A lot of the ehhif on this island count themselves as of the same pride, though theyare not blood-related except distantly: and they have a kind of hwio-rrhiatheh, a apride of pridesa wh.o.a.re supposed to care for all the other ehhif, help them find food and do justice among them and so forth ... though as usual for ehhif, itas never quite that simple. This ehhif-Queen was a daughter of that chief-pride ... which the ehhif then apparently found a little unusual: for a long time toms had run that chief-pride, not queens.a aPeculiar,a Rhiow said. aEven among ehhif, queens still run things a lot of the time, no matter that the toms say otherwise ... a Huff grinned at that. aIave never understood that, myself. Youad think theyad be glad to have someone relieve them of the responsibility ... a He threw an affectionate look at Auhlae: she half-closed her eyes in amus.e.m.e.nt. aAnyway, this ehhif-Queen is still famous for the things done by her pride and the great ones of the prides under her: todayas ehhif call that whole time period after her.a aHe said she was a.s.sa.s.sinated, though,a Urruah said.

Huff twitched his tail back and forth. aCertainly other ehhif tried to kill her several times,a he said, abut none of them ever succeeded. She died of age and illness ... in our world. But in hisa"a Huff looked at the ehhif.

aWe really need to know when he comes from,a Siffhaah said, aif this is going to make any sense.a aYes, but if youave already had to tranquilize him, I donat think heas going to be much more help,a Huff said. aIf we try to get more information out of him, we might damage him, which contravenes the Oath, no matter how much we think may ride on what he knows.a aIad have to agree,a Rhiow said. aHe was getting very distressed indeed.a aWell, at least we have other ways to get this information ... since now we have a positive lock on where this particular ehhif came from. We can put him back where he belongs, and we can compare the gateas present configuration to the older gate logs ... then see if we can find out how or why theyave been malfunctioning and giving us less than useful records of these transits. Any other thoughts on this? Hlae?a Auhlae waved her tail in negation. aLetas do it.a aThrio? Siffhaah?a Fhrio said, aI donat like this gate being locked open ... and even less do I like it when the other end may be anch.o.r.ed in an alternative reality. One gate stuck in the open position can begin to affect all the others in odd ways ... and our sheaf of gates is sensitive enough in that regard.a aI understand your concern,a Huff said, aand youare right. But in this particular case, weare going to have to take the chance. As soon as we can put someone through to confirm the temporal coordinates at the other end, and get them home again, we can close it down again. Sif?a aSounds like a good idea to me,a Siffhaah said.

Huff turned to Rhiow. aDo you concur?a aAbsolutely,a she said.

aAll right,a Huff said. aLetas send this pastling home, then. Do you think you need to alter his memories, Rhiow?a aIt wouldnat be easy,a she said, afor the same reason Auhlae wasnat willing to go after abstract information. I might mess something up, and leave him worse off than he would have been if I hadnat meddled. But from the way he was answering us, I think itas likely enough that he will dismiss all this as a dream.a aAll right. Siffhaah, you like the big showy physical spellsa"a aThis isnat showy,a Siffhaah said, and without twitching so much as a whisker, or making any alteration to the aphysicala spell-circle she sat on, Mr. Illingworth levitated gently into the air and toward the gate.

aWould you make it patent, and give me visual?a Siffhaah said. aI donat want to drop the guy ... a Urruah, looking over his shoulder at her, grinned a little and slipped one claw behind into the patency bundle, pulling gently.

A moment later they were looking into a dark vista which might have been a street: walls were visible not too far away, and a faint yellow wobbling light came off from one side.

aGaslight ... a Auhlae said softly, waving her tail in fascination. The ehhif drifted slowly through the gate, into the darkness on the other side: Urruah edged sideways a little to let him pa.s.s unhindered. aHow far down is the ground?a Siffhaah said.

aAbout your bodyas length.a The ehhif dropped down below the boundary of the gate, out of Rhiowas sight: Urruah craned his neck to see. aAll right,a he said, aheas down. Iam going to turn this nonpatent again and leave it locked.a He started pulling strings again. aIf we cana"a The gate s.h.i.+mmered and rippleda"and all the length of it heaved, a bizarre sight like some huge beastas skin s.h.i.+vering convulsively to get rid of a biting fly. Even the boundaries of the gate, which should have remained unaffected, twisted and warped. Urruah threw himself backwards, twisted and came down on his feeta"just. Behind him, color drained from the warp and weft of the gate, and it steadied: after a moment it hung in the air in its default configuration again, nonpatent, in astandbyaa"though its colors looked very muted, almost drained.

aWhat in the Queenas name was that?a Huff said, staring.

No one had any answers. Fhrio padded up to the gate, looked at it ... then looked angrily over at Urruah. aWhat did you do to it?!a aNothing that you didnat see,a Urruah said, getting up and shaking himself. aIave seen catastrophic closures before, but they didnat look anything like that. I wonder, though, if that was some kind of reaction to Mr.. Illingworth being put back where he belonged all of a sudden ... ?a aYou mean you donat think these gatings are accidental,a Siffhaah said. aSo it was like whatever engineered the opening, from way back then, didnat want him back ... a aMeaning that he was meant to increase whatever imbalance in our universe is already present,a said Auhlae, afrom the pastlings whoave come through and not yet been found again ... a Thereas another nasty possibility,a Rhiow said. aThat transit might have been balanced for him alone ... and when someone else either tried to accompany him through it, or follow him to source using the same asettingsa, they could have been damaged. Or possibly even killed.a aYouare suggesting that it was a trap?a Huff said.

There would be no way to be sure of that with the data we have. But I am suggesting that Siffhaahas right. This was not a malfunction ... or not a very likely one. There was someone at the other end managing it ... or someone who programmed it and walked away.a aBut how do you open a gate forward in time?a Siffhaah said, her eyes big.

Huff looked at her somberly. aUnless youave mastered contemporal existence,a Huff said, ayou donat. But the only ones who have done so, who simultaneously live in all times and none, are the Powers that Be.a aIncluding that one other Power,a said Auhlae, awho gives us so much trouble ... a Glances were exchanged all around.

aWell, the circleas served its purpose,a Rhiow said. She flirted her tail at the awizardas knota: it unraveled, and the rest of the circle vanished with it. aThanks, Siffhaah. That was nicely done.a She looked smug. aAny time.a Fhrio went over to the gate and put one paw into the control weave, hooking out first one string, then another. He hissed softly. aThereas no telling what happened now,a he said. aThose asettingsa wiped themselves from the logs when the gate collapsed ... that doubtless being the aoperatorasa intention. Weare no further along than we were before.a Urruah, who had stepped away to sit down and have a brief wash while Fhrio was looking the gate over, now glanced up. aWell,a he said, aitas not that bad. I wove them into the gateas aharda memory, stacked underneath your standard default routines, while I was locking the gate open. Just a precaution: I was afraid I might drop something vital when things got busy. But at least that way we could be sure of finding the settings again if something went wrong.a Fhrio blinked. aHow did you get into my hard routines that fast ... ?a a Urruah smiled one of those smug-tom smiles, and Rhiow said hurriedly, aHuff, I wouldnat mind taking a break for a little while, if it suits you.a aCertainly. Letas go up and get some fresh air ... see if we can find some lunch. After that,a and Huff looked grim, awe must plan. If the Lone Power is behind what we just saw ... and I canat think what else could be ... then weave a nasty job ahead of us. Food first: but then the council of war ... a The food took less time than Rhiow had thought, most of it provided by ehhif whom she found astonis.h.i.+ngly willing. Huff had simply led them around to The Mint, the pub where he lived with his ehhif, the pubas manager. Rhiow was not sure what to expect from a pub, except for thinking that perhaps, like many other things she had glimpsed so far in London, it might be fairly old: but this one was as much like a New York uptown bar as anything else, all plate gla.s.s and polished bra.s.s and hanging plants. Huff made his way through the pubas aloungea area, graciously accepting bits of sausage and burger and sandwich and other treats from the patrons and bringing this food back to the others, who stayed discreetly sidled in one out-of-the-way corner of the pub otherwise populated only by a group of mindlessly dinging and hooting small-stakes gambling machines.

aYouare very popular here,a Urruah said, after Huff came back with a rather large piece of fried fish.

aOh yes,a Huff said, watching with amus.e.m.e.nt as Arhu fell on the piece of fish and devoured it almost without stopping to breathe. aTheyare a nice enough bunch, by and large: and my ehhif doesnat mind. He describes it as agood willa ... says it helps business. Itas my pleasure, Iam sure.a Huff looked around the place with a satisfied air. aAlways nice to be part of a successful undertaking. I just have to watch myself, sometimes: it would be too easy to get fat ... a Rhiow, busy was.h.i.+ng her face after finis.h.i.+ng a greasy but delectable half of a sausage, was glad of the excuse not to be looking at Huff when he said that. He had already achieved at least aportlya status, but he was not genuinely overweight ... yet.

And who am I to stare at him in this regard? If I had unlimited access to food like this, who knows what Iad look like in a few months ... All the same, she wished she had the opportunity to find out.

Everyone was was.h.i.+ng now but Fhrio: he had finished first and was hunkered down with his eyes half-closed, perhaps consulting with the Whisperer about the status of his gates ... or perhaps, Rhiow thought, wondering how much face heas lost, and how to get it back ... She sighed, and scrubbed her face harder.

Urruah was in comfort: after a chunk of burger, two fish sticks from someoneas finicky child, and a big piece of gravy-soaked crust from someoneas steak and kidney pie, he was lying on one side and putting his stomach fur in order. aSo, Huff,a he said, pausing and looking up, aletas consider options.a aI donat know that we have many,a Huff said. He was taking his time about putting his broad snow-white bib in order: it had somehow gotten some ketchup on it after that last piece of hamburger, and Rhiow suspected that he would be pinkish there for a day or two. aWeave got to try to trace back along the same path that Mr.. Illingworth came by. But the modality is going to be difficult, considering how our problem gate is behaving ... a He sounded meditative.

aI think weare going to have to construct a timeslide,a Urruah said. aTo access what the ehhif wizards call a apiece of timea.a aYou started to tell me about that once,a Arhu said suddenly to Urruah. aAnd then you yelled at him,a he said, turning to Rhiow. aAnd me.a aWith reason,a Rhiow said. aIt wasnat germane to the problem at hand: and messing around with time without a specific goal, and approval from the Powers, is like playing in traffic. Worse, actually. But temporal claudication theoryas been a hobby of Urruahas for a long time.a Urruah shook himself, then sat up and licked a paw as meditatively as Huff started rubbing behind one ear, even though he had already washed there. aI started getting interested in it when I was still freelance,a he said to Arhu. aSometimes the Whisperer will talk about it, for whatever reasons. Canat be boredom, I wouldnat think: maybe itas her sneaky way of encouraging research ... or just curiosity. Sheas sneaky that way.a aTemporal claudication ... a Arhu said. aI thought it was supposed to be atemporospatiala.a aIt is,a Urruah said. aOh, thereas no way you can ever completely lose the spatial coordinate-set on any temporospatial transit spell, no matter how still you try to hold it: not a planet-based one, anyway. But a timeslideas emphasis is always mainly on temporal change. You can either mount it afreestandinga, by bending s.p.a.ce locally and temporarily with spells and equipment tailored to that specific spot: or you can start a timeslide in aparasitica relations.h.i.+p to an existing worldgate, using the gateas power source to run the slide. There are more involved ahalf and halfa implementations for use when you want some of the gateas own functions to augment those of the timeslide: but that kind of implementation is kind of fiddly.a aA claudication is a squeezing, a constriction,a Huff said to Arhu. aSqueeze s.p.a.ce, and you enable things to pop from one side of the asqueezeda area to another: thatas worldgating at its simplest. Squeeze time as wella"or squeeze the temporal component of the time/s.p.a.ce pair harder than the spatial onea"and you pop from one time to another. Present to past ... and back again. Thatas a timeslide.a aYou still have to control the spatial component very exactly,a Urruah said, aor else you pop out at the right time, all right, but somewhere very different in the planetas...o...b..t ... not forgetting that the planetas primary has moved too, and taken its whole solar system with it, since the time youare aiming for. Hanging out there in the cold dark vacuum and feeling very silly ... a.s.suming you remembered to bring some air with you.a Urruah put his whiskers forward, amused by the image. Arhu licked his nose, twice, very fast. aYou must choose a spot at one aenda of the timeslide,a Urruah said, aideally your apresenta end, as de facto anchor, and the other as the spot to which the anchor chain is fastened ... and not lose control of either of them, despite their individual movements through s.p.a.ce which continue through the duration of the slide. There has to be enough aflexa in the connection to cope with unpredictable movements of the body ... or abodiesa, since the temporal element means you have to treat this as a two-body problem. Then when youare done, you have to unhook both ends of the timeslide without causing temporal backlash at either insertion point. Itas delicate work, my kit: youall break a few claws on this one, if itas what we go for.a Arhu gave Urruah a look which suggested the usage of claws might be more imminent. aI can handle it,a he said.

aWeall see,a said Rhiow. aYouare good with static worldgates, for a beginner. Whether youall do as well with a timeslide is another question.a aIn any case,a Urruah said, aI think options one and three are closed to us.a Fhrio looked up from his ruminations at that. aWhy?a aWell,a said Urruah, flicking his tail, afor one thing, how often are we going to have to do this? Does anyone want to give me odds that weall find out whatas causing the troublea"from solving the original gate malfunction, to finding out what in Iauas name Mr.. Illingworth was talking abouta"and fix it all, with just one trip?a Everyone looked at each other. No one looked willing to suggest they were witless enough to believe that this might happen.

aRight.a Urruah said. aSo thereas no sense in running around trying to acquire three or four or five sets of the specialized equipment wead need to execute a freestanding timeslide repeatedly from the same spot. Wead only waste huge amounts of energy, which the Powers hate, and drive ourselves crazy, which we would hate. Type three, the ahalf and halfa timeslide implementations, are a nuisance to maintain, they get out of kilter at the drop of a whisker, and they fail without warning, which we do not need in these circ.u.mstances. This leaves us with type two ... which has certain advantages in our case.a aA parasitic linkage has advantages?a Auhlae said, sounding dubious. aWith a malfunctioning gate?a aIt does if youare trying to fix the malfunction,a Urruah said. aItall function as a diagnostic, for the power source, anyway. A clumsy one, but rugged. Nor will it be liable to the same kinds of failures that the malfunctioning gate is having.a aNo ... just different ones,a Fhrio said.

Urruah shrugged his tail. aWho wants all mice to taste the same? Variety keeps you young. We parasitize the gateas power source and use it to power the slide. That at least weall be able to control precisely. Itas a simple structure to build and troubleshoot: anything goes wrong with it, weall know about it in seconds, and be able to fix it in minutes. You try doing that with one of these gates. Theyare complex.a aTell me about it,a Huff said wearily. aThe others have been failing sporadically because of the extra strain due to this troublesome one being taken offline. Theyare just not built for larger access numbers than theyare carrying at the moment.a aWe can get you some help for that,a Rhiow said. aWe have authorizations to get a.s.sistance from the other congener gates in this bundle. The teams at Chur and its daughter-complex at Samnaun will take some of the strain until weave resolved this: we can install a couple of direct access portals in the near neighborhood of the functioning gates.a aThey may have to stay there a while,a Huff said. aWe have all these incursions to resolve as well ... a aThe Whisperer says weall have as much support time from the other gates as we need,a Rhiow said. aItall be all right.a aAnd meanwhile, at least we have one aillicita gate transit that we caught live and can use for its coordinates,a Urruah said. aMore than that: Mr.. Illingworth, whenever he is, will still be carrying some hint of wizardly atransit residuea about him that we can isolate and track ... and possibly get a better sense of who or what pushed him through that gate. Maybe even why, if weare lucky.a aThe oldest lostlingsa residue will have already worn off, though,a Auhlae said. aEven after all the other problems are solved, weare still going to have to find them somehow. And when we do ... are they native to the same universe Mr. Illingworth is?a It was a problem which had been nagging at Rhiow. Theoretically, the number of potential alternate universes was almost infinite. Even postulating a completely cooperative ehhif, once founda"and that itself was none too likelya"the two teams would then have to identify correctly which universe was that ehhifas home. If they accidentally sent the ehhif abacka to the wrong world, their own home universeas problem would be solved, but the same problem of growing instability would be created for some other world ...

aItas something weare going to have to sort out,a Rhiow said, abut at the far end of this process, not the near end. Iad say what we must now do is construct Urruahas aparasitica timeslide, plug into it the coordinates he saved from Mr.. Illingworthas transit, and see where it takes us: then find out what we can about that universe ... especially about this Queen of theirs, and what happened to her. You said there had been other attempts on her life,a she said to Huff.

aAt least three or four,a Huff said. aWeave got to discover whether this a.s.sa.s.sination is one of the attempts which, in our world, failed: or if itas a new one, never recorded ... a aPerhaps never recorded,a Urruah said, abecause in the past someone else has already stopped it ... Us, perhaps?a aThat would be rea.s.suring,a Auhlae said. aBut somehow I donat think we can count on it ... a There was quiet for a moment. Huff sat gazing thoughtfully at the floor, a weary reddish carpet which over much time had become an amalgam of stomped-in chewing gum, spilled beer, and other substances that Rhiowas nose flatly refused to identify, this far along in their evolution. aWell,a Huff said finally, aI concur. It only remains to decide exactly who makes the first incursion into the past.a aa.s.suming that none of you are particularly eager,a Urruah said, aI think it should be us.a The London team looked at him with expressions varying from Huffas thoughtful interest to Auhlaeas surprise to Siffhaahas faint confusion: Fhrio put his whiskers forward, positively (and to Rhiowas mind, oddly) amused.

aWhy?a Huff said. aThough I think probably none of us are all that eager ... a aI am!a Siffhaah said.

aHush,a Auhlae said. aYouare young for this kind of work yet, Siffhaah.a aI am not! Iave got all my teetha"a aNo.a aWhy not?!a aNot now.a aAs for the awhyaa"a Urruah said.

aWeare more expendable than you are,a Arhu said dryly.

aArhu!a Rhiow said.

aI wouldnat have put it quite that way,a Urruah said, putting his whiskers forward, abut in a way heas right. When it comes down to the feet and the tail of it, Huff, these are your gates, and you know them better than we do. If something goes wrong with a timeslide anch.o.r.ed to one of your gatesa power sources, you have a better chance to successfully troubleshoot the situation than we would. And another matter: the Powers sent us to intervene. Implicit in that, to my mind, is the suggestion that we may be best equipped, one way or another, to deal with whatever problems we uncover while working with you.a aOr it might just be ego,a Fhrio said, one ear forward and one ear back. It was a joke, Rhiow thought ... just.

aUrruah? Ego?a Rhiow said, and then stopped herself from saying aPerish the thoughta, since that could have implied that it wasnat ego. aWell, Fhrio, if you want to relieve him of the glory, Iam sure youare welcome to change places with him, and heall stay here and mind your gates for you.a Huff threw Rhiow a very covert and very amused look as Fhrio put his other ear forward. aOh, no indeed,a he said, aI wouldnat want to deprive him ... a aAll right, then,a Rhiow said to Huff. aI think weall need some hours to put together what spells we want to carry with us, and to make sure things back at home are all right before we set out. If you can keep the gate in inactive mode until we get back, thatall probably be best.a aNo problem with that,a Fhrio said. aIall just disconnect it from the power source entirely until you get backa"when? tomorrow? -- to set up the parasitic timeslide.a aTomorrow let it be,a Rhiow said, aabout this time, if that suits you all.a They all got up. aAnd meanwhile, thanks for the work youave done,a Huff said. aWeare further along than we were, though the problem looks worse than it did: at least thereas been a change in status, which you were begging for, Fhrio, as I remember. So you may owe Arhu one after all.a aThough, Fhrio, I must admit that he overstepped the bounds,a Rhiow said. aAnd my apologies to you for that.a Fhrio took a not entirely ceremonial swipe at Arhuas ear. aLet him behave himself after this, then.a aI will do so,a Arhu said with abrupt and brittle clarity, ainsofar as you so do as well, when we come into the dark and you cannot find the way: when others see the path that you do not, and you rebel ... a Rhiow blinked. It was not anything like Arhuas usual turn of phrase: she heard foretelling in it, and her fur stood up on her. She hoped Fhrioas was doing the same, for there was no mistaking the Whispereras Dam when She chose to speak out loud ... as she sometimes did, using Arhu as Her throat.

The resonances trembling around his words faded themselves out on the air, leaving the London team looking at one another. aIam sorry,a Rhiow said, abut itas another recent development. Arhu is a visionary, though the talent is still training. When it comes out so forcefully, though, weave learned to listen ... a Fhrio shrugged his tail. aWeall see what happens,a he said, sounding skeptical, but cheerfully so. aAre we all done? Then Iave got a gate to see to, and a pride to go home to. See you all tomorrow ... a He stalked out, leaving them all looking after him. Auhlae looked after him with some concern and said, aHe goes my way home, for a little distance: Iall go with him. Siffhaah, come with me?a aSure,a said the youngster. Auhlae rubbed faces quickly with Huff, saluted the others with a flirt of her tail, and headed off after Fhrio. Siffhaah trotted off after Auhlae, leaving Arhu gazing after her.

Rhiow lashed her tail once or twice, then said to Huff, aTruly, I am sorry if weave caused any troublea"a aIf the way he acts makes you think so,a Huff said, giving her an amused look out of those big green eyes, adonat. Fhrioas always like the one flea down in your ear that you canat get at. But for all that, heas good at his job. Come on ... a They all made their way out, slipping behind the bar and down a corridor behind it to a heavy metal door with a small cat-door installed in the bottom of it: then out into a small untidy yard stacked high with steel beer barrels and plastic soft-drink crates. At the back of the yard, a corrugated steel gateway in a high wall had a small improvised cat-door cut into the steel and hinged. aConvenient,a Urruah said.

aIt is, isnat it?a said Huff. aBut one thing. Urruah, thank you for volunteering.a Urruah looked at him in surprise. aWell, as I said, it seems appropriate. Doesnat it, Rhi?a aIt does. Accusations of ego aside.a Huff laughed at that. aDonat take him seriously, cousins: please donat. Heas got ego enough of his own and to spare. But I do thank you.a aYouare worried about Auhlae,a Arhu said suddenly.

Rhiow sighed, thinking that vision was not Arhuas only problem: he was perceptive as well, but not about how to use the perception. He needs a tact transplant, she thought, but she suspected that this was something not even wizardry could handle. She and Urruah were just going to have to beat it into him over time ... hopefully before he got so big that the corrective administration of educational whackings was no longer a viable option.

Huff looked for a long moment at Arhu before saying, aYes, I am. I donat think youare too young to understand the situation. Weave been together a while, and sheas dear to me: the thought of her in danger upsets me. If we needed to do something dangerous in the Powersa service, of course we would ... and doubtless will. But I donat like to think of her anywhere near trouble.a Rhiow understood completely, though at the same time it seemed to her that for partners who were wizards, and who might be in trouble at the drop of a whisker, such an att.i.tude was likely to cause one or both of them pain sooner or later.

aI know what you mean,a Arhu said, and suddenly looked very young, and painfully dignified, and profoundly troubled, all at once. Oh, dear, Rhiow said privately to Urruah, he has been bitten badly, hasnat he ...

The claw in the ear is the claw through the heart, Urruah said, quoting the old proverb. I just hope she doesnat rip him ragged before sheas through ...

aYes,a Huff said. aI thought you might. Thank you, anyway: thank you all for volunteering.a And he leaned over and rubbed cheeks with Rhiow.

She was oddly moved. aCousin, youare more than welcome. Itas our job, after all. Meanwhile, wead better get going to prepare what we need. Weall see you down by the gate, about this time tomorrow.a They made their way out through the little steel door, into the alley behind the pub, and headed for the gate, and home: and all the way home Rhiowas fur felt strange to her where Huffas cheek had brushed it ...

THREE.

They parted at Grand Centrala"Urruah to make his way off to his dumpster, Arhu to the garage. Rhiow went home by one of the ahigh roada routes, over roofs and atween-building walls, rather than by the surface streets. She was already thinking about the spells she would want to bring with her the next day, the preparations she would have to make, and she was in no mood to deal with the traffic at street level. Yet at the same time Huffas touch was on her mind: nor could she stop thinking about poor Arhuas adolescent suffering over Siffhaah. I wonder why she dislikes him, Rhiow thought, as she jumped up on a high dividing wall at the end of Seventieth Street and looked down through the maze of tiny cramped alleys which would finally lead to her own alleyway and the road up her own apartmentas wall. I hope they can sort something out. It would be nice if Arhu had another wizard more or less of his own age to be around, instead of just us old fossils ...

Iaehh hadnat seen Rhiow the night before: so when she came in the cat-door now, an hour or so after he would have returned from work, Iaehh swept her up and carried her around the apartment for about ten minutes, alternately scolding her for being missing, and hugging her for having come back. Rhiow put up with it, even though she didnat normally much care for being carried around. Finally she patted his face with her paw, which she knew he thought was very acutea: but she left her claws just the tiniest bit out, and he felt them, and laughed.

aYouare a good puss,a he said, and put her down by the cat-food dish. He had washed it again. aYouare learning,a she said, and purred approval as he fed her. When he finally sat down in his reading chair (having had his dinner some time ago: pizza, to judge by the smells), she jumped up into his lap and sat there was.h.i.+ng for a good while. Iaehh picked up the remote control and turned on the living-room TV, and for a good long time he sat quiet and watched the local news channel intone its litany of who had been robbed or shot in the City, what politicians were saying what cutting and possibly true things about other politicians, and what the weather was going to be like the next day.

When the weather report came around for the second time, Rhiow looked up at Iaehh and saw that he was dozing. She put her whiskers forward: why else would he have been sitting still so long? she thought. Even Iaehh sometimes ran out of that nervous energy that kept him running all day and made him sleep poorly at night. At least, sometimes thatas why he sleeps badly. Other times, when he wept himself asleep after lying awake a long time, Rhiow knew quite well that there were other reasons. At such times she sometimes wished she could speak to his neurochemistry, as she had done with Mr.. Illingworth, and spare him the pain: but Rhiow knew that that would not have been within the right use of her powers ... To ease pain, the Oath said, indeed: but when pain was what led to the growth that wizardry was also supposed to guard, one did not tamper. Her ehhifas pain was difficult for her to bear, but Rhiow was not such a youngster in the exercise of the Art as to mistake the comforting of her own hurt for the salving of Iaehhas.

Now, though, he sat with his mouth slightly open, snoring very softly, while on the TV the Mayor of New York complained about one of the City Commissioners: and Rhiow let her eyes half-close and let the sound wash over her like running water or wind or any other noise which might have content, but not any content that she needed to pay attention to at the moment. There were more important things on her mind than City politics.

Time travel bothered her, as it bothered many wizards whose work sometimes necessitated it. For one thing, it was rarely quite so simple or straightforward as agoing back in timea. Even the phrase aback in timea was deceptive: the directionality of time was a variable, though the relations.h.i.+p of the past to the present was nominally a constant. No matter how careful you were, the possibility of careless action setting up unwelcome paradoxes was all too obvious ... and unraveling such tangles was worse, inevitably involving more backtiming and the possibility of making things worse still.

The complications had fascinated Arhu all the way home: he had delightedly plagued Urruah with questions about a subject which until now had been off limits, about everything from what you fastened a timeslide to, to that ancient imponderable, the agrandfather paradoxa. Urruah had mentioned it, and Arhu had actually had to stop walking while he figured it out, or tried to. aItas weird,a he said. aI canat see what would happen. Or, I mean, I can see two ways it would goa"a aWhat? You mean, if you went back in time and killed your grandfather?a Urruah had said. aWell, one way, if youare still there afterwards, it means youare a by-blow. A ab.a.s.t.a.r.da, as the ehhif would say. But then how else would you describe someone who would go back in time and kill their own grandfather? I ask you. And if you go the other way, and you succeed, then youare not there at all. And serves you right for being a b.a.s.t.a.r.d ... a At that, Arhu had become so confused that he actually became quiet: and shortly thereafter they were at Grand Central, and Arhu went off to his dinner, ending the dayas questioning. Rhiow had smiled somewhat wearily at that as she and Urruah parted, for the agrandfather paradoxa served well enough to illuminate how difficult it could be to alter history, especially if you viewed it linearly. But in this line of work you would eventually have to deal with the question of what happened when events in some original timestream had actually been altered. Then you would have alternate universes to deal with. By themselves, they were bad enough. But they also brought with them the possibility that, in dealing with them, you would find yourself going back in place ... which was more complex than merely backtiming, and potentially more dangerous.

Quite a few locations on Earth had a aback in placea as well as aback in timea. There were other downsides than the Old Downside, less central in the hierarchy of universes, perhaps, but no less important to the creatures who loved or hated the realities to which those places were related. History, or the realities of which history is a shadow, was in full flower in these less central adownsidesa, fully expressed there no matter how they might be repressed elsewherea"in fact, usually more vigorous in expression in direct proportion to how vigorously they had been repressed in the areal worlda.

And going back in place involved an entirely different set of dangers. You ran the risk of somehow altering the basic amythologicala or aarchetypala structure of a place, which could be immensely important in the minds of thousands or millions of sentient beings. Tampering with the mythological essence of a placea"a Rubicon or a Valley Forge, in the ehhif metaphor, a Camelot or a Runnymedea"could change not just history, but the perception of it as good, bad or indifferent ... a far more perilous business than changing the mere structure of time. Such s.h.i.+fts could create ripples and harmonics through the anoo-string structurea which would be capable of ripping whole worlds apart. The thought of going back in both time and place at once was dangerous enough to make Rhiow shudder.

But they might wind up doing just that, for London was definitely a Place, one of those hinges of ehhif history in this part of the world. Not that the history of place wasnat mostly an ehhif manifestation, anyway. Humans weighed hard on the world, and imprinted it with history and personality. But People stepped more lightly. Feline history tended to take place within individual cats, who, according to their nature, saw place as merely something they moved over or through: it was rare for one of the People to become attached to one field, one tree. Granted, your den for this seasona"or this week of this seasona"was something you would defend, for the sake of the kittens or the local hunting. But sooner or later time or loss or boredom seeped into every den like water, and you moved out, perhaps with mild regret, to escape the creeping damp and find yourself somewhere else more warm or dry. Memories of those dens you took with you, as the worthwhile part of the transaction: but the dens themselves held little interest unless your kill or your kittens were in them.

What kept People in one place, if anything, was the ehhif they companioned: sometimes much to the Personas embarra.s.smenta"and Rhiow glanced up in affectionate amus.e.m.e.nt at Iaehh, who sat there with his head slightly to one side and his eyes closed, his mouth open, and the tiny snore emitting from it at decorous intervals. The whole business of companionment was a tangled one. Some People felt that the only way the ehhif-People relations.h.i.+p could be viewed was as slavery: others, mostly those already in such a relations.h.i.+p, tended to see it otherwise, in a whole spectrum of aspects from pity (aSomeone has to try to teach them bettera) to simple affection (aMine are well enough behaved, and theyare nice to me, whatas the problem?a) to cheerful mercenary exploitation (aIf they want to feed us, why shouldnat we enjoy eating their food? Doesnat cost anything to purr afterwards, either.a).

The People who raved most about slavery and freedom found all these views despicable: starving in a gutter, they said, but starving free, was far superior to a full belly in the den of the oppressor. Rhiow, ehhif-companioned for a good while now, found such an att.i.tude simplistic at best. Yet there was no denying the existence of People who had no knowledge of themselves as such: taken from their dams too early, perhaps, too soon even to drink in with the first milk and their motheras tale-purring the truth of what they were or where in the worlds their own kind came froma"People who were barely self-aware, merely receptacles for food and excreters of it, dull-brained demanders of strokes and treats, apetsa in the true sense of the word: slaves to their most basic instincts, but in service to nothing any higher at all.

Rhiow shuddered a little. But itas not that simple, she thought. Even among People who are self-aware, People for that matter living wild and afreea, youall find those for whom the G.o.ds and the life of the world doesnat matter at all, or matters far less than their last rat or a warm place to sleep. Which is worse? A cat who doesnat know sheas a cata"just eats and sleeps and lives? Or one who does know, and doesnat care ... ?

A tangled issue, and not one which Rhiow would resolve. Meanwhile, there was still the problem of the upcoming intervention. She had spoken to the Whisperer on the way home and had sorted out the spells she felt most likely that she would need. In the morning, before they were ready to set out, she would crosscheck with Urruah to make sure that they werenat carrying duplicates. And beyond that, there was nothing much she could do, except worry about what the future held for them ... or, rather, the past. And what good would that do ... ?

Rhiow closed her eyes and reduced the world to near-darkness and Iaehhas tiny snore. When I wake, I will meet my old enemy uncertainty, she thought, and its partners, the shadows that lie at the back of my mind and others: those darknesses which go about hunting for some action of mine to which to fasten themselves. They will lie in my road and say Why bother? or It will never work: or they will lie out long and dark behind me, saying, What difference have you made? It is all for nothing. But I need pay them no mind. They are only the servants of the Lone Power, and against me and Those Whom I serve, they have no strength unless I allow them the same. My commission comes from Those Who Are, the Powers that were before time and will be after it: the Powers Who made time, and to Whom it answers. My paw, lifted to strike the shadows away from the feet of the Event enacted, holds hidden within it Their claw that strikes the Lone One to the heart, day by day. So it was done anciently: so I shall do tomorrow. And for tonight, I admit of no shadow but that of my closed eyes, and I give Their claw the resting time to sharpen itself in dream on the Tree: for at eyesa opening, together We go to battle again ...

And Iaehhas snore was the last thing she heard.

When she woke up, Iaehh had already gone off to work, and apparently had carefully moved her off his lap and onto the chair without waking her when he went to bed ... whenever that had been. The food bowls had been washed again, and were full.

Rhiow sighed with the sheer pleasure of having had a good nightas sleep: it was rare enough, in her business. She got up and ate, then washed at leisure, and went out to use the box: and finally she checked the security spell on the apartmentas door before heading downtown to Grand Central again.

Arhu was there early again, sitting in front of the gate. It was patent, showing the view down toward the Thames from near the main entrance to the Tower, and shedding a cool blue light around him. aLuck, Arhu,a she said, jumping up onto the platform. aWhereas Urruah?a aHe went through already,a Arhu said, watching a barge full of ehhif tourists loading up at the dock near HMS Belfast for a tour down the river. aWanted to go over early to get the timeslide set up with Fhrio: and he wanted to make sure the two Samnaun-based transfer gates were in place and working without messing everything else up.a Rhiow waved her tail slowly in acknowledgment, looking at the serene vista. It was a sunny morning over there: she had seen few of those so far. aBefore we goa"a she said.

aIam not going to die of it,a Arhu said, aso donat worry.a Rhiow blinked. aDie of what?a aYou know. Siffhaah,a he said, though his voice was so mournful that Rhiow wondered if perhaps he wasnat all that sure of the outcome.

aThat wasnat what I was going to ask you,a she said, taking a swipe at his left ear, and missing entirely: Arhu ducked without even looking. aYou are getting good at that,a Rhiow added, unable to conceal slight admiration.

aI donat like pain,a Arhu said. aIt hurts.a Which is why itas such an effective teaching medium for kittens, Rhiow thought, not least among them you. aWhat I was going to ask you,a she said, awas whether you had had any further insights into what was going to happen on this run.a His tail lashed. aNothing that I can describe,a Arhu said. aI keep getting flashes ... but they slip away. Believe me, Rhiow, if I see anything that I can describea"then or afterwardsa"Iall tell you. But it doesnat always come that way. I keep getting stuff that just pops out without warning, and before I can get hold of it to see what it means, itas gone and taken all thea"the meanings, thea"a aContext?a aYeah, the contexta"it all just goes. While the contextas there, everything makes sensea"but when I lose that ... a He sighed. aItas really frustrating. It makes me want to hit things.a aDonat be tempted,a Rhiow said, thinking of Fhrio.

Arhu laughed out loud. aI wouldnat bother. For one thing, beating him up wouldnat be any big deal, and for another, itas not exactly polite, is it?a She blinked again. Rhiow couldnat think if she had ever before heard Arhu use the word. If this is the kind of effect that having a crush is going to have on him, she thought, Iam all for it, even if it makes him ache a little ...

aSo are you ready?a Arhu said.

aBy all means, letas go,a said Rhiow. They stepped through into the bright London day, and Arhu shut the worldgate behind them. There by the Tower entrance, the two of them sidled. They made their way among the unseeing tourists down into the Tower Hill Underground station, and down to the pa.s.sages leading to the platform where the London team had confined their unruly worldgate.

The spot was busy, though not so much with wizards as with equipment. The malfunctioning gate itself was disconnected from its power source, only visible to Rhiow as the thinnest ghost oval traced in the air, like a structure woven of smoke. The acatenarya, the insubstantial power conduit which was finally rooted in the Old Downside and which normally served this gate, lay coiling along the floor like some bright serpent: the end of it which would normally have terminated in the gate was now faired into a glowing new spell-circle which had been traced on the floor. If the last one had looked like vines twining amongst one another, this one looked more like a circular hedge. It was complex, for Rhiow could see that Urruah, rather than using specific physical objects to twist local s.p.a.ce into the shapes he required, was using the spell structure itself. The ahedgea blazed and flowed with multicolored fire, the radiance of it stuttering here and there as one spell subroutine or another came active, did its job, and deactivated itself. Urruah was pacing around the diagram, checking his spelling, while Fhrio crouched nearby and inspected the connection of the catenary to the diagram: off to one side, Auhlae was sitting with her tail neatly tucked about her forefeet, watching him work.

aGo check your name in that,a Rhiow said to Arhu. He went straight over to the spell to do it. There were few such important aspects of spelling as to make sure you were correctly named in a awrittena spell. Like all the other sciences, wizardry always works: a wizard whose awrittena name specified a different nature than the usual in a given spell would come out of that spell changed ... and not always in ways he or she would prefer.

Rhiow turned her attention briefly to the other gate which was hanging at one end of the platform, s.h.i.+mmering in the darkness. This was one of the atransfera gates which would be taking some of the pressure off the London complex while the malfunctioning gate structure was completely offline. A transiting wizard using one of the London gates would now find themselves briefly under the peak of Muottas Muragl, at the arestoreda prehistoric gating facility at Samnaun in the Alps, before finis.h.i.+ng at their intended destination. It would be a slight inconvenience: but Rhiow couldnat believe any wizard in her right mind would grudge the momentary view out of the great transverse creva.s.se and down the side of the mountain ... and the skiiers above would never notice.

aLuck, Fhrio,a Rhiow said, as she walked over to him. aEverything working satisfactorily?a aInsofar as anything can be asatisfactorya when itas all ripped up like this,a Fhrio said, ayes.a For once he sounded merely tired rather than actively quarrelsome.

aYou were up all night,a Rhiow said.

aYes I was,a said Fhrio, and gave her a glance as if looking to see whether she was mocking him.

All Rhiow could do, hoping he wouldnat misunderstand the gesture, was lower her head and b.u.mp his briefly. aI appreciate the effort,a she said: awe all do.a And she moved away before either of them would have a chance to be embarra.s.sed.

She went over to the timeslide spell to have a look at her own name, checking the arabesques and curls of it in the graphic form of the Speech as it and the apersonalitya stratum to which it was attached wove in and out among the power-management routines and the aentasisa structures which controlled how tightly s.p.a.cetime was bent back on itself. Everything looked all right, though she checked again just to be certain: she was not about to forget one spell some years ago, worked in haste by Urruah, which had been perfect in ninety-nine per cent of its detail, but in which he had changed the sign on one minor symbol. The spell would have worked all right, but Rhiow would have exited it pure white, blue-eyed, and possibly deaf. She had been teasing Urruah about that one for a long time, buta"judging by the intent look on his facea"today might not be the best time to do it.

Auhlae got up and came over to greet Rhiow: they breathed breaths for a moment. aOh, Auhlae,a Rhiow said, amore sausagesa"I donat know how you cope with all this rich food. Iad be the size of a houff by now.a Auhlae put her whiskers forward. aI control myself mostly,a she said, abut since things started to misbehave, my appet.i.teas been raging ... and I confess Iave been humoring it. I can always eat gra.s.s for a few days, later on ... a Arhu came over. aYou satisfied with the way your name looks?a Rhiow said.