“And I think I know someone who might be able to help us,” Rhiow said. “Come on—let’s get on with our other business for the day. When we get back home, we can start making some inquiries.”
They all got up. Wallis rose as well. “This has been most extraordinary,” he said. “When can I expect to see you again?”
“I really don’t know,” Rhiow said. “We’re in the middle of a fairly complex business at the moment … but I think you may have helped us with it, for which we thank you very much. Ouhish, we don’t have a lot of time to linger: will you tell Hwallis about what we were discussing with you earlier?”
“Gladly. I hope we see you again soon,” Ouhish said, “for this problem has us both frightened …”
“We’ll be in touch as soon as we can,” Auhlae said. And she waved her tail, amused. “It’s been charming to speak with an ehhif who knows our language.”
Wallis bowed. “Dai stihó,” he said.
“Thank you,” Rhiow said. “I hope we may go well on this business of yours … and others.”
Ouhish saw them out, down to the great flight of stairs reaching down to the Great Russell Street entrance. The walk back to the street where the timeslide spell was sited went a little more swiftly than the walk to the Museum had, partly because of familiarity and partly because all of them were getting bolder in dealing with the traffic: though it hardly moved much faster than the fifteen miles an hour at which London motor traffic moved in their native time, the vehicles were a good deal less lethal. They found the street conveniently empty, and Urruah found his “tripwire” under the mud and activated the spell-circle. It rose up in an instantaneous, blazing hedge of fire around him, and hard behind him came Siffha’h, straight onto her power point, and the others all close behind.
“All right,” Urruah said. “Next coordinates. The Illingworth incursion. The slide’s in standby—”
“Ready. Now,” Siffha’h said, reared up a little, and came down with her front paws directly on the power point.
The blast of fire rose up around them, pressing in.
“Hello,” said a high clear voice, “what’s this?”
All the People’s heads jerked up. He could plainly see them, and had waded halfway into the circle already, waist-high in the “hedge’ of fire—a young ehhif, in shorts and a white shirt and a short dark coat, and he was looking at them, and the circle, in astonishment. What’s he doing in here, how can he be in here, get him out!! was Rhiow’s first thought. But there was no time. The spell was already blazing with Siffha’h’s blast of power, and they were all vanishing together, the People, the spell-circle, the ehhif boy—
There was no way to stop it, any more than an ehhif would have been able to get out of a moving vehicle at high speed. The pressure built. There was a cry from the boy, lost in a roar of sound which Rhiow couldn’t understand. Then everything began to shake—and that she understood too well. Unauthorized ingress into a timeslide or worldgating, she thought, the whole spell comes apart and flings everyone in it into not-time or not-space. Iau, not like this, why must it end like this—!
The pressure increased unbearably: Rhiow lost all sense of herself. So much for this life, was her last thought.
But it was not. What seemed a long time later, Rhiow found herself lying on the concrete floor of the unused platform beneath Tower Hill Underground station: and near her was the boundary of the timeslide spell, all the virtue drained out of it. The others lay about in the positions they had held in the spell—and sitting down by them, his knees drawn up against his chest, trembling, was the young ehhif, looking at his surroundings, and the People, in terror.
Rhiow got up, slowly, feeling as if one of the big draft horses of the 1874 streets had been jumping all over her. Next to her, Urruah was pushing himself up onto his feet, where he just managed to stand, wobbling, and look at the ehhif boy.
The boy wet his lips and croaked, “Kitty kitty?”
Urruah looked at Arhu, who was awake as well, and getting up. “Another problem,” Urruah said.
Rhiow was forced to agree…
SIX
The argument which life seemed lately to have been becoming, now broke out again with unusual vehemence in the next few minutes: and it would have gone on for much longer, Rhiow thought, had there not been a young ehhif gazing in astonishment at the sight of five cats all apparently staring silently at one another with their tails lashing.
Auhlae was not very pleased with Urruah. “You didn’t make the timeslide exclusive!”
“Why should I have made it exclusive?!” Urruah said, aggrieved. “No one was going to be able to see us, and the spell was told to sort for transit times which wouldn’t endanger any being which came along—”
“Vhai,” Rhiow said. “Urruah, the language was pretty vague. You know how literal spells are!”
“Rhi, what was the point when no one should have been able to see we were there, or the spell—” He hissed softly. “Sorry. Sorry. But Rhi—” He looked over at the young ehhif. “Ehhif can’t see wizardry, as a rule. What is he? Is he a wizard? If so, why does he look so panicked? Or is he someone who’s about to be called to the Art, but hasn’t been given the Oath yet? Are we supposed to induct him somehow?”
“The Powers forfend,” Rhiow muttered. “That’s hardly our job. We had enough trouble that way with Arhu.” But then she smiled slightly. “And a certain other party …”
“Was that who you were thinking of going to for help with the mummy problem?” Urruah said.
“The very same. It’ll have to wait a little longer now.”
“You may as well go take care of it,” Urruah said, “because whatever else we might have had planned for this timeslide, this business has ruined it.” He flirted his tail at the young ehhif. The slide’s half-deranged: it’s going to take another half-day at least to put it back the way it ought to be.”
“Well, all right. But meantime we can’t sit here ignoring him. And lend Auhlae a paw, for Iau’s sake: she looks terrible. And call Huff: he’d better know about this sooner rather than later.”
“Right.”
Rhiow walked over to the boy and sat down in front of him, tucking her tail in around her feet and trying to radiate calm instead of what she felt, which was complete confusion and terror. “Young human,” she said to him in the Speech, “please don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not,” he said. He had a narrow, intelligent face, and he was holding it very still, despite what was going on inside him, and how young he was. He could hardly be more than fifteen.
“Good. There’s no need to be, though you’re in a strange place, and something which must seem very odd has just happened to you. What’s your name?”
“Artie,” he said.
“Artie. I’m Rhiow. These others lying and sitting around here are friends of mine: we’ll get you introduced to them shortly. Would you tell me what you think just happened to you?”
“I saw a circle of light in the street,” he said. “A circle of fire. But it didn’t look like fire.”
“It wasn’t,” Rhiow said. “It was wizardry.”