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 …”
“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?”