“He’ll dissolve it himself before you even go, maybe,” Hwaith said, sounding a little sad.
Rhiow flicked one ear“yes”. “In the meantime, we’ve done what we need to,” she said. “Let’s go.” She closed her eyes again.
*
When she reopened them, Rhiow was shocked by how bright everything seemed. But after a few moments’ blinking she realized that the room was in almost exactly the same shade of morning twilight as she’d left it. She had been inside the Silent Man’s other self for no more than twenty minutes.
Over by the door she spied a dark shadow against the room’s light colors: Hwaith. Listen, she said silently, so as not to awaken either the Silent Man or Sheba, how long have you been there?
Since a little after you started, I think.
On guard…
Yes. Until it was obvious I was could make myself more useful elsewhere.
Thank you.
Rhiow jumped down off the windowsill, but came down harder than she’d intended, feeling a little faint. The noise of her landing’s thump made the Silent Man stir a little.
She could have hissed at her own clumsiness, but that would have disturbed the Silent Man and Sheba too. Rhiow staggered a little, found her footing, headed toward the door.
Hwaith put himself halfway through the door and held it in part-immaterial state for her. Rhiow staggered through gladly, made her way back into the living room and sat down hard in the middle of the floor, uncaring who might be there to see her. She sagged, almost woozy, and crouched down on all fours before she fell down.
“Nasty,” Hwaith said after a moment.
“Yes,” Rhiow said. “Yes it was.” She shook her head: her ears were still buzzing with the ugly buzzing tumor-voices.
Then she glanced up. Hwaith had sat down by her and was looking at her with concern.“It’s all right,” she said. “Just the usual exertion. You pay more when you have to construct a wizardry on the fly.” Rhiow shook her head once more at the buzzing. “I just hope I didn’t burn out anything vital with that last flash –”
“I doubt you did,” Hwaith said.
Rhiow laughed helplessly.“The trouble is, it’d be hard to tell whether I destroyed something, he’s already so ripped up inside! Oh, Hwaith, it’s one thing to know that surgery isn’t so far along in this time, but with this poor ehhif, the doctors couldn’t do anything for him but literally go down his throat with a sharpened spoon and cut off the worst bits of the malignant tissue they found, and half the contents of his throat with it! All the rest of what’s killing him is still in there. The cancer’s spread everywhere in him. It’s seeded all through his lungs, it’s in his lymphatic system and getting into his liver and his bones…”
She fell silent.“You should drink something,” Hwaith said after a moment.
“Yes I should,” Rhiow said, and got to her feet. She felt a little better already. “Just the reaction…” she said, and headed over to the water bowl that was set out by the Neverending Buffet.
She put her face down in the water, and the scent of it suddenly made her aware that she was ragingly thirsty. Rhiow drank for almost a minute straight, and with every gulp after a few laps thought sadly of the Silent Man’s throat, of how it now felt like a great gaping bottomless hole to him, a ruined instrument that he had once played like a virtuoso but would now never use again as it had once been used. That’s why he keeps putting all that scalding hot coffee down him, she thought: for she’d noticed with some surprise over the past couple of days how hot the Silent Man drank it. It’s the only way he can feel anything there any more except pain. Or at least it’s a pain he controls. And that’s why he eats with such gusto. He’s convincing himself that this at least is still all right. And it’s not. His gut’s so ruined by the cancer that it’s a question how much good he gets out of his food at all any more. That’s why he’s so thin…
She shook water off her whiskers and sighed, then walked back to where Hwaith sat, feeling a little better. Rhiow sat down by him and washed her face a little.“How did you find me?” she said after a moment.
“Well, you weren’t here, or in the spare bedroom, or up on the windowsill where you usually go, so I –”
She gave him a look.“Hwaith.”
Hwaith flicked an ear at her.“Sorry…” He rubbed at one ear. “I heard you.”
“You heard me from out here? When I was in there??”
“I told you, I have the Ear, a little.”
“Not so little,” Rhiow said, “if you can find me inside an ehhif’s dream of his insides. Especially when they’re that complex…”
Hwaith looked away. There was something so self-effacing and somehow weary about the way he did it that Rhiow had a sudden impulse to go over to him and lick his head a little by way of apology. A second later, she blinked at the concept: sudden impulses of that sort weren’t normally in her repertoire. Especially with someone you’re just getting to know. I’m tired. We’re all tired. And it’s only going to get worse. But he didn’t have to come in after me…
“…You didn’t have to,” Rhiow said.
“Oh, I know. You would have handled them — ”
“Hwaith, I was going to say that it was a good thing you did come in after me,” Rhiow said. “Otherwise…”
He looked up at her again. Rhiow looked at him a little sideways.“I’d probably have gotten out,” she said, “but I wouldn’t be in the great shape I am now.” And she put her whiskers right forward.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. Hwaith’s jaw dropped in a slight smile.
“But thank you,” she said. “And for letting me dump on you, too.”
“Come on… you know you’re more than welcome.”
Rhiow sighed.“It’s just that the rest of my team… They’re in my head so much of the time, Hwaith: it can’t be helped, considering what we do, what we’ve done together. But I can’t let them bear that burden too. I have to handle at least my coping myself. Otherwise we’d never get our jobs done atall.”
Hwaith bumped her with his head: then stood up and turned away toward the buffet dishes, waving his tail.“Might be smart to have a few bites in peace before the crowd starts to arrive,” he said.
“What?”
He looked over his shoulder and flicked an ear at Rhiow again.
“Really,” she said. “Well, I suppose I could eat something…”
Rhiow followed him, thoughtful. And so it was that she’d eaten her fill, and was sitting in the middle of the empty living room washing again, before there was a bang that blew all the curtains in the room awry, and Urruah was standing there glancing around him. “Rhi! Hey, it’s a good thing you’re up. Listen, I –”
Bang! Aufwi was standing off to one side, looking around him.“Rhiow? Oh, you’re here too, Urruah? That’s handy, because –”
Bang! Siffha’h and Arhu were standing side by side and back to back in the middle of the room, Sif looking satisfied, Arhu looking unusually grim. “Rhi,” and “Rhiow,” they said more or less in unison. “Just wait till you hear what we found out, those ehhif are going to…”
They fell silent, seeing that Rhiow wasn’t looking at them, but at Hwaith, sitting next to her. He flicked one ear back and forth, gazed up at the ceiling: then looked back at Rhiow.
BANG! On the sofa by the window, Helen Walks Softly– with her hair down and wearing a very fetching long blue satin bathrobe — was sitting with her legs curled underneath her and a cup and saucer in her lap. She looked around at the assembled People and smiled the wan smile of an ehhif who hasn’t had a lot of sleep. “And here I thought I might be showing up too early,” she said.