They stepped out into the street, and Rhiow saw in more detail what T’hom meant, for the brilliance in the streets was more than sunlight. This was a city in unusual splendor: skyscrapers all around seemed consciously clothed in the fire of day, their glass molten or jeweled in the early sun; and down at the end of the block, the silver spear of the Chrysler Building upheld itself in the dawn like an emblem of victory, blinding. Everything hummed with the usual city sounds—traffic noise, oddly content with its lot for once, very little horn-honking going on. There was a peculiar sense of ehhif all about them being abruptly, and rather bemusedly, at peace with one another … for a little while. “The city’s risen,” Rhiow said, “as some of us rose. But it won’t last.”
“No. It’s understandable that you would get some resonances from more central realities,” Har’lh said, “some spillover… possibly even from Timeheart itself. You can’t do that big a reconfiguration without some reflection in neighboring worlds: any of them directly connected by the catenary structure, anyway.”
“It’ll fade back to normal after a while,” Arhu said. “It can’t stay like this for long: you can conquer entropy only temporarily, on a local scale, She says … It never lasts. But while it lasts, enjoy it.”
They walked down Forty-second Street, heading toward the river and the view of the Delacorte Fountain, a great silver plume of water rising up from the southernmost tip of Riker’s Island in the morning sun. Rhiow started her debrief, knowing it was going to take a good while and might as well start now when everything was fresh in her mind. The only thing she knew she would have trouble explaining was how it had felt to have the One inside you. That knowledge, that power, had started to fade almost as soon as the experience proper was over. Just as well, I suppose, she thought. You can’t pour the ocean into one water bowl…
The team and the two Advisories finally came up against the railing that looked down at FDR Drive and the East River. There the People sat down, and the Seniors leaned on the railing, and they went on talking for what Rhiow normally thought might have been hours: the sun didn’t seem to be moving at its usual rate today … morning just kept lasting, shining down on a river that, more than usually, ran with light. In the middle of a technical discussion about what Saash had done to the catenary, T’hom suddenly looked up and said, “Well, they couldn’t keep you down on the farm long, could they?”
“What is a ‘farm’?” Ith said innocently, and leaned on the railing beside them, folding his claws and staring out over the shining water.
“Ahem,” Rhiow said. “Har’lh, have you met our new wizard? Ith, this is Har’lh, he’s the other Advisory for this area.”
“I am on errantry, and I greet you,” Ith said courteously, and bowed, sweeping his tail. Arhu ducked to let it go over his head.
’This is an errand?” T’hom said, with humor. “This is a junket.”
“It is ‘Research,’ ” Ith said cheerfully, glancing at Arhu with the conspiratorial expression of a youngster who’s borrowed a friend’s excuse. Arhu rolled his eyes, working to look innocent.
Rhiow wanted to snicker. It was a delightful change in Ith from the morose and somber individual they had first met; she suspected Arhu had had a lot to do with it, and would have much more.
“At any rate,” Rhiow said to the two Advisories, “the worldgates are all fully functional again, and I don’t think we need to fear any further interference from the Lone Power in that department. The Tree and the gate-tree, the master catenary structures, now have guardians who will never let the Lone One near them again. Some of them may not yet be plain about what It had in mind for them, but Ith will soon set them straight.”
Ith turned his attention away from a passing barge and toward Rhiow and the team. “I am hearing more and more in my mind,” Ith said, “of what the Powers will ask of us by way of guardianship. The requirements are not extreme. And little explanation will be needed as to why their present life is more desirable for my people than their former one. Hunger is something they are used to: until we distribute ourselves more widely, we will help one another cope with it… by more wholesome means than formerly. Meantime,” and he glanced over at Rhiow, “I will need some help tailoring spells that will function on a large scale, with little maintenance, as sunblock.” He grinned. “We have been down in the dark a long time.”
They all looked out at the glowing water. “The dark…” Arhu said, looking down into water in which, for once, no trash bobbed. “I could never look at this before,” he said to Rhiow. “But I can now. I won’t mind seeing the river, even when it’s back to normal. I could never stand going near it before: I was stuck on the Rock. But I don’t think I have to be stuck here anymore.”
“Of course not,” Har’lh said. “Be plenty of demand for a hot young visionary-wizard all over the place. In other realities”—he glanced at Ith—“and offplanet as well. You’re going to be busy for a while.”
“I am,” Arhu said. “Getting used to being in a team…” He glanced over at Rhiow.
Rhiow looked over at him affectionately and put her whiskers forward, smiling. “You’re well met on the errand,” she said.
They fell silent for a while, looking out at the light. The sense of power and potential beating around them in the air was as tangible as a pulse; for this little while, in mis New York, anything was possible. Rhiow looked out into the glory of the transfigured morning—not quite that of Tune-heart, but close enough—and said softly, only a little sadly, I had to tell you. The tuna wasn’t all that bad…
She did not really expect an answer. But the walls between realities were thin this morning. From elsewhere came just the slightest hint of a purr… and somewhere, Hhuha smiled.
Rhiow blinked, then washed a little, for composure’s sake.
She would head home soon. She would have to start drawing close to Iaehh now. He would be needing her, for there was no way Rhiow could tell him about anything she had seen or experienced… except by being who she now was.
Whoever that is… And if in the doing Rhiow brought with her a little of the sense of Hhuha—not as she was, of course, but Hhuha moved on into something more—that would possibly be some help.
It was so nice to know mat ehhif had somewhere to go when they died.
For Rhiow’s own part, she had had enough dying for one day.
The talk went on for a while more. Only slowly did Rhiow notice that the interior light was seeping out of things, leaving New York looking entirely more normaclass="underline" the horns began to hoot in the distance again, and a few hundred yards down FDR Drive, there was a tinkle of glass as a car changing lanes sideswiped another one and broke off one of its wing mirrors. Tires screeched, voices yelled.
“Normalcy,” Har’lh said, looking with amused irony at T’hom. “What we work for, I suppose. Speaking of work… I’m going to have to go make some phone calls. My boss is going to be annoyed that I took this time off without warning.”
“Wizard’s burden,” Urruah said. “I feel sorry for you poor ehhif. Wouldn’t it just be easier to tell him you were off adjusting somebody’s gas giant?”
Har’lh gave Urruah a look, then grinned. “Might make an interesting change. Come on—“He looked over at T’hom. “Let’s go catch a train.”
The team walked the Advisories and Ith back to Grand Central, as far as the entrance to the subway station: it was not a place Rhiow chose to plunge into during rush hour while sidled, as you were likely to become subway-station pizza in short order. “Go well,” she said to T’hom and Har’lh, as they went through the turnstiles.