That’ll be fine.
She reached out a hand, and the Silent Man took it.“See you then.” She glanced down at the People. “You’ll be all right here?” she said to Rhiow.
“Absolutely,” Rhiow said. “We’ll see you later, cousin. Dai stiho.”
Helen waved at them all and went swaying elegantly out through the front room. The Silent Man looked after her appreciatively, though the expression was tinged with curiosity. She’s right about the rumor-mongers, he said. They’ll be buzzing after tonight.
“That’s not going to make a problem for you, is it?” Urruah said.
The Silent Man folded his napkin and put it on the table. Not one that hasn’t been made before, he said, leaning a little sideways to catch the eye of one of the wait-staff in the main room and nod at him. And some of these problems I kind of enjoy.
The check arrived and was dealt with, and the People put themselves in order and headed out after their host as he made for the front door. All around, once again, ehhif stared at them and made amused comments. Rhiow did her best to ignore them, and hardly knew whether to be amused or appalled by Urruah, who stared right back at the ehhif as the group passed, giving them a Person’s mocking version of the human smile. “You’re like something out of one of those cartoons you keep trying to get me hooked on,” Rhiow said as they slipped out into the street, where the light was slanting golden toward later afternoon. “I think the cable in your dumpster is rotting your brains!”
“Just the pressure of celebrity,” Urruah said as they followed the Silent Man back around the corner to the car.
“Oh, please,” Rhiow said under her breath. But then she let the breath out. I’m getting cranky, she thought as they all climbed back into the car. Probably a good time to take my own advice and have a long nap… She sat back and watched the scenery start to go by again. I meant to tell you, though, she said privately to Urruah: you and the Silent Man, when he was having trouble getting to grips with what was going on — that was nicely handled, back there.
Urruah shrugged his tail. It’s got to be tough, being asked to believe so many impossible things in a day. He just needed someone to talk a little tough to him and get him over the hump.
Rhiow put her whiskers forward. And to do it in a tom’s voice, she thought. He might not have taken it so well from me.
The drive back was quiet. Arhu and Siffha’h were showing the inevitable aftereffects of a moderately strenuous wizardry followed by a big meal, and Urruah and Hwaith were both looking dozy; Sheba promptly fell asleep again on the Silent Man’s shoulder as they drove away from Hollywood Boulevard. When they pulled up in front of the Silent Man’s house, the People got out and trotted toward the door with weary pleasure.
Inside, as the Silent Man closed the door, Rhiow stood looking up at him for a few moments as the rest of her team wandered off into the house to find places to rest. Possibly he felt her regard, or just saw the thoughtful waving of her taiclass="underline" he looked down. Something I need to do? he said, taking off his hat and hanging it on a hook by the door.
“Rest,” she said. “You’re sure you’re all right, otherwise?”
The small thin smile manifested itself again, though edged with weariness, as he loosened his tie. You mean, has it been an unusually strange day, even for me? Yes. Am I hanging onto my sanity regardless? As far as I can tell, yes. Thanks. And he surprised her by getting down on one knee and scratching her behind the ears. Are you all right? I get a feeling some of this hasn’t exactly been a normal day’s work for you, either. Whatever your normal day’s work looks like.
She put her whiskers forward.“No,” she said, “no, it hasn’t. And it won’t be later, either, I’m sure. But I’ll manage. Sleep well, cousin.”
You too.
He headed off into one of the back rooms, with Sheba padding after him: Rhiow heard a door shut.
She yawned prodigiously, blinked, and then took a turn around the open downstairs rooms to see where everyone was. Arhu and Siffha’h had already curled up on the sofa in their normal thoughtlessly affectionate heap, and were snoring more or less in unison, with one of Siffha’h’s self-maintaining force fields cordoning off their area. Urruah had found himself a place up in the Silent Man’s bookcase and tucked himself up into a compact round furball, and was dozing. Hwaith had stretched himself out in front of the open back door and was lying on his back with his eyes closed and his paws folded across his chest.
Rhiow looked out at the afternoon lawn: all was peace, not even a bird singing. She turned and made her way back into the front room, letting her nose lead her to a windowsill spot where no other Person’s scent lingered. There Rhiow turned around a couple of times, lay down, and half-closed her eyes on the cool spare sleekness of the living space. It’s not a design feature, though, she thought. These rooms are so clean because no one’s here often enough to cause a clutter. Poor Silent Man. Iau, help us help him!
And keep the known universes from being destroyed, the Whisperer said.
Yes, Rhiow said, put her head down on her paws, and closed her eyes completely. Absolutely. That too…
Much, much later– or so it felt – Rhiow woke up, blinking, and turned her head to glance out the window. She was mildly disturbed to see by the light outside that the sun had just barely set. She felt around in the back of her mind for the part of the Whispering that kept a time-reckoning for her, comparing her personal time against the ehhif versions of it. Yes, it was still the same day: she hadn’t accidentally slept the Sun around.
Rhiow yawned. A known side effect of residence at the“wrong” end of a timeslide was a certain disorientation in the feel of your personal timeflow: your soul knew that it was in more places at once than it ought to be. It’ll pass…or we’ll finish work here and get back home, and it won’t be an issue any more. But I keep finding myself wondering how Iaehh’s doing Just the price you pay when you’re in a relationship with an ehhif…
Rhiow got up, stretched, and made her way through the living area to the doors onto the back patio. Except for her team, who were all asleep as she’d left them, no other People were in sight.
She walked through the door, which had been left open a crack. What a place, she thought, where the crime rate is so low that you can leave things open like this… The shadows were gone now, the colors of the backyard flowers and the lawn softening down into less-definite shades, drained of their vividity by the growing dusk.
Rhiow wandered off into the least-kempt part of the shrubbery at the corner of the yard furthest from the house, and once decently out of sight could tell immediately that she’d picked the right spot to take care of business: others had done so before. She went unfocused, and when the necessities were handled, slipped out of the shrubbery again to see a dark shape peering into the house through the open doors.
“Hwaith?”
The shadow turned, saw her, purred— though the purr had a rueful sound to it. “You couldn’t sleep either?”
Rhiow waved her tail“no”, a regretful gesture, as she made her way over to the house-wall and the cat food dishes. “My brain’s just too full of new information,” she said. “It only let me sleep long enough to recharge my muscles.” She sighed, stretched, and sat down, looking over the dishes. “Your day’s been even longer than ours, though. Did you get enough rest?”
“Enough for the time being. It was a good thing I was up, though: Aufwi wanted to talk to one of us.”
“What’s the matter? Is he all right?”
“He’s fine,” Hwaith said. “There wasn’t any point in disturbing you; you’d just gotten to sleep. But he wanted to let everybody know that the gate was trying to put down yet another root.”