“You mean magic?” the boy said, his eyes widening.
“You could call it that. But not the kind of magic which is just one of your people making it look like something has vanished. True magic: wizardry.”
“Then it is real,” he whispered. “My uncle said it might be.”
“Your uncle’s wise,” Rhiow said, wondering in the meantime if there was yet another wizard about to be involved in this business, and in a way, hoping not: there were already more than enough complications to this intervention. “But, Artie, you should understand that most humans, most ehhif as we call them, can’t see wizardry and don’t know that it exists.”
“I saw it, though …”
“Yes,” Arhu said, coming up beside Rhiow and sitting down to look at the boy. “He’s a key …”
Rhiow glanced over at him. “To what?”
“I don’t know. But They’ve sent him,” Arhu said. The Powers. I saw him, while Odin and I were flying.”
“The Powers? What Powers?” Artie said.
“That’s going to take some explaining,” Rhiow said. “Meanwhile, Artie, we have to get you back where you belong as quickly as we can—”
“I’m not going,” he said. “I want to see where this is first!”
Rhiow and Arhu glanced at each other. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to help it,” Arhu said. “And, Rhi, you can’t just toss him back where he came from. Why would They send him if he wasn’t going to be some use? We’ve got to keep him.”
“Where?” Rhiow said, a little desperately. “Where will he sleep? What will he eat?” She wondered if this was how an ehhif felt when one of their young turned up on the doorstep with a kitten-Person in their arms.
“We’ll work something out,” Arhu said, with a confidence that Rhiow definitely didn’t feel.
He looked over at where Urruah was trying to bump the groggy Auhlae up into something like a sitting position. As he did, Huff and Fhrio came rushing in.
“Auhlae, Auhlae—” Huff cried. He ran to her and began to wash her ear. It was astonishing how fast Huff could move when he wanted to, or how tender and pitiful a sight he made despite his huge size. Rhiow turned away, and found herself looking at Fhrio, who was staring at Urruah as he backed away and let Huff take care of Auhlae. Fhrio was bristling.
Oh dear, Rhiow thought. This is going to bring them to blows sooner or later … “Artie,” she said. “Will you be all right here for a little while? No other ehhif will come here: this is a secret place, for reasons I’ll explain to you in a while. But right now there are some things I need to attend to.”
“All right,” Artie said. “What’s your name, puss?”
“Rhiow.”
“Reeoooowww,” Artie said.
“Not too bad,” she said. “It’s a Scots accent, isn’t it? We’ll work on that. It’s one of the better ones for Ailurin.”
Rhiow walked off a little way, then sat down again and put her ears forward, listening. Whisperer…
She heard the purr that told her the Silent One was listening.
We need help of a specific kind. There’s no time for me to visit the Old Downside just now. Will you tell the Serpent’s Child that his “father’s” friends need to talk to him? And will you guide him to us?
A purr of agreement: then silence.
Rhiow got up and headed over to Urruah, who was already walking toward her. “Ruah,” she said, “do me a favor. Let me see the spell that Hwallis showed you.”
He half-closed his eyes. “Here.”
Rhiow half-closed hers as well, and let her whiskers brush close to Urruah’s. A second or so later she could see what he saw, the Egyptian characters strung out in a line, but with gaps here and there where Hwallis had inferred that material was missing. Rhiow looked at the characters in her mind with a wizard’s eye, letting them rearrange themselves into a long broken pattern in the graphical version of the Speech.
“It’s a spell all right,” she said, opening her eyes. “What an odd one, though. A lot of missing pieces. None of the power parameters are all that large, either … what there are of them.”
“If there were meant to be thousands of these spells in the same place, all acting together,” Urruah said, “they wouldn’t have to be all that strong, individually.”
“No,” Rhiow said, “but still … If a lot of little spells are gathered together to be used for some purpose, there still does have to be a master spell, one which invokes the whole aggregate of power and nominates specifically what it’s supposed to be used for. Otherwise all the little “packets” of power just fire off any old way, or seep away uncontrolled. No, I think Hwallis is right. We’ll get busy on finding this, if there’s any way it can be found here and now. Meanwhile, Ruah, do what you can about the timeslide: we’ve got to get at that “contaminated” timeline and get a date for the assassination that we can trust. Get Fhrio to help you if you can.”
“I’d sooner be helped by a—”
“Urruah,” Rhiow said. “He is not just a fellow wizard, but a gate technician of some skill. He might see something that you miss, under the pressure of speed. We can’t afford to forego his help … or alienate him by not asking for that help in an area where he’s gifted. Just you handle it.”
He glared at her … then waved his tail, reluctantly acknowledging the necessity, and walked off.
Rhiow breathed out and watched him go. This kind of thing was difficult for him, but they had no choice right now. Fhrio was a problem as well, but one that Rhiow couldn’t settle. The kind of behavior he routinely exhibited toward his own team would have caused Rhiow to box one of her own team members’ ears to ribbons, if they had tried it. However, Huff’s management style was clearly a lot less assertive than Rhiow’s … and she had no right to try to impose her own style on his team. But oh, the inclination…
She sighed and just closed her eyes for a moment, wishing there were time to lie down and have a nap. When she opened her eyes again, Huff was heading over toward her. “She’s all right,” he said to Rhiow, very relieved.
“Of course I’m all right,” Auhlae said, sounding just slightly cross as she came up behind him. “The shock of the transit just hit me hard for a moment, that’s all. I’m not made of fluff.”
“No, I never said you were …” He head-bumped her, and Auhlae threw him an affectionate look, though the bump bade fair to knock her over again.
“Well,” Huff said, when he had straightened up again, “what’s the situation?”
“Our young ehhif is in fairly good shape,” Rhiow said, casting a glance over at where Artie still sat up against the platform wall, now with his legs stretched out in front of him, watching Urruah talking to Fhrio, and the two of them poking at various parts of the timeslide. “But we’re going to have to keep him with us for a while. Arhu says he’s required somehow for the solution of our problem.”
Auhlae blinked at that. “Is he sure?”
“Yes. Apparently he got a glimpse of him while he and Odin were off on their jaunt.”
“Now there’s a new one,” Huff said. “Well, we’ll have to work out somewhere to keep him.”
“Arhu is confident that that’ll be handled,” Rhiow said dryly. “So we’ll refer all inquiries to him. Meanwhile, have a closer look at this—”
She put one paw down on the floor and began pulling it along, so that a tracery of pale fire followed it, “writing out” the partial spell which Urruah had shown her. Huff and Auhlae bent their heads down, looking at it.