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 was 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.