What my brother sees, I also see. They could all feel through the connection the scratching and rubbing together of saurian claws, Ith’s typical gesture when he was concerned about something. And today I see that I can be of help.
“Indeed you can,” Rhiow said. “Having seen what your brother was looking at – “
I will go to that place in our time and complete what has been begun. And I hear your concern, he said privately to Rhiow; indeed I share it. Forgive my brevity. I will go about this business now, and call you before you depart for your errand tonight.
“Ith,” Rhiow said, “you’re a star.”
She could feel that distant jaw drop in one of the gestures that felines and saurian shared. So it would seem, Ith said, and dropped out of the link.
Arhu came down out of the case and stood looking around him for a moment.“Rhi,” he said, “I’m sorry…”
“You have nothing to be sorry for!” she said. “You did brilliantly. Come on… let’s head out. We need to get back to the Silent Man’s and get some rest before this evening.”
“Though we might,” Hwaith said, “if you liked, stop and smell the roses…”
She chuckled, glanced at the others.“Please,” Urruah said. “I have to confess, the smog has been getting to me a little.”
They headed down the marble stairs and out through that high arched portico once more, wandering down the gravel walks and inhaling air strongly scented with something besides internal combustion. White roses, red ones, gold ones and pink ones, fat rosebushes and thin plants with showy single blossoms, heavy scents and sharp light ones, they were all there.
But there was all too little time to enjoy them. Rhiow was sitting by a white rosebush with huge lemony-smelling flowers when Ith spoke in her ear again: and the sound of alarm in his voice brought her up on her feet in a second. Rhiow, we have a problem.
What?
I have gone to the museum: to the very place I saw with the rest of you. And then to all other parts of it.
Oh, Ith, don’t tell me –
The tablets have not been here for many years. They’re gone…
The Big Meow: Chapter Ten
“Is there any trace – “ Rhiow said.
I can certainly feel their shadows here, Ith said. But after so much time, those are so faint as to be almost impossible to read. I can feel the tablets being wrapped and crated up, and then taken away. But to where…. Rhiow could feel his claws clicking together. Discovering that will take longer.
“This is all wrong,” Arhu muttered, sounding stricken. “Why can’t I See where they went?”
Rhiow licked her nose, intent on not letting her growing exasperation show.“Arhu, take a breath and try to let some of the tension go – “
“Why should I not be tense? We needed what was on that last tablet, it’s really important, I know it is!”
“You should try to stay calm because you’re not going to be able to See your own tail otherwise!” Rhiow said. “You should know by now that vision’s at its least effective when the seer is giving in to stress and trying to pressure the view into happening. Even visionaries with years and years of experience have trouble with — ”
“At this rate I’m not gonna have a chance to acquire years and years of experience,” Arhu hissed, “because we are all going to be dead real soon. In fact we’re going to die before any of us were even born, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find that really frustrating!!”
My brother, Ith said, that estimation seems premature, since both of us still exist: and as I would not be here if not for you–
“Oh no you don’t,” Arhu said. “Don’t start with the big cheerful take on the time paradox stuff, because I understand it as well as you do, and the principle of temporal linearity means that – “
Among other things, Ith said, sounding a little dry now, it means I must now become very busy finding the tablets by other means. And from here on in I dare not dip into your timestream too often for the sake of giving you progress reports. Doing so might denature the local timestream enough to make it impossible to reach you when I do discover something useful. Or it might so alert our old enemy to our business that even more attention is brought to bear on you. And there seems to have been enough of that as it is…
“Ith,” Rhiow said, “your caution’s commendable. But we need something more concrete to work with within a few hours than the hints and riddles we’ve got so far. Otherwise we won’t have time to prepare a response by the time Dagenham’s group meets this evening–“
I hear you, Ith said. I will contact you as soon as I have something worth breaking silence for. Dai–
His end of the connection went silent.
Rhiow was unable to restrain herself from letting out a hiss of frustration. Arhu, meanwhile, had begun swearing under his breath again.“ – don’t care, I’m going to get back in there and stare at that thing for as long as it takes until I See what we came here for! And if sa’Rraah Herself shows up and tries to give me grief, She can just –”
Oh, Queen Iau, no more of this right now! Rhiow thought, and stood up to turn around and clout him until he saw a little sense. But to her great surprise Hwaith slipped past her and the increasingly concerned-looking Aufwi, moved gently over to Arhu’s side, whipped one forepaw up and hooked its foreclaw right into the soft middle of Arhu’s ear.
Arhu broke off, his mouth hanging open as he stared at Hwaith in shock, but he wisely didn’t move otherwise: that claw was well set in place to go deep if he so much as twitched. “Listen, young tom,” Hwaith said. “You have to watch what you ask for in circumstances like this. Right now I’m more than happy to answer you on sa’Rraah’s behalf and tell you that this claw righthere is what she’s waiting to stick into every wizard who gets careless or foolish about how they work with others in the Art, especially when everyone’s under pressure. If your team leader is telling you to get a grip and be quiet, then that’s what you need to be doing.”
Arhu didn’t move a whisker even to narrow his eyes, as that would have meant moving his ears… an experiment he looked unwilling to try. All the same, when he spoke, his voice was just a whisker away from a yowl. “You think you know so much?” Arhu said. “You may think you’re a big deal gate tech in this day and age, but you’re not so hot that you didn’t have to come yelling to us uptime for help. And here or there, you are not the boss of me – “
“In the normal flow of events, actually I am,” Hwaith said, “since I’ve been a wizard a lot longer than you have, and the Powers expect you to defer to my judgment when there’s good reason, and to treat me with due respect. But since you’re not paying your team leader the respect she’s due either, then let’s move a tail’s width outside the normal management structure, shall we? Let’s see if you’re willing to move that pretty little not-yet-shredded ear of yours far enough to get loose and find out who’s really the boss of who.”
Arhu’s tail lashed furiously, but he didn’t move otherwise, and kept his mouth shut. “So then,” Hwaith said, and unhooked the claw –
Arhu lashed out at Hwaith fast with a forepaw. But this swept through air which Hwaith was simply no longer occupying, and from the formerly empty air behind Arhu both of Hwaith’s paws shot out and dealt him a one-two slap that left Arhu flat on the gravel of the garden path. He rolled and came right side up in a hurry, crouching down with his ears now well flattened back out of harm’s way, his tail wagging with fury like that of some demented houiff. Then he leapt atHwaith, every claw bared. But once again Hwaith was no longer occupying the same volume of space when Arhu arrived there. The youngster sailed straight through it, coming down hard on the path, and when he tried to turn and spring again, once more Hwaith silently appeared behind Arhu, reared up andknocked him flat.
Arhu rolled and came up crouching again, panting a little now— but this time he didn’t move, just glared. Hwaith sat down in front of him, quite casually, and cocked his head a little, waiting to see what Arhu would do.