“You mean,” Rhiow said, “that something is changing the way the Downside gating structures behave?”
Ehef shrugged his tail. “Possible.”
“Or else something’s changing the locks on the gates,” Saash said suddenly, with a peculiar and disturbed look on her face.
“That would probably be the lesser of the two evils,” Ehef said, “but neither one’s any good. Worldgating’s one of the things that keeps this planet running … not that the world at large notices, or ought to. If wizards in high-population areas like this have to start diverting energy from specialized wizardries just to handle ‘rapid transit,’ they’re not going to be able to do their jobs at peak effectiveness … and the results are going to start to show in a hurry. Someone’s going to have to find out what’s going wrong, and fast.” Ehef looked up at Rhiow. “And you found the problem … so you know what that means. You get to fix it.”
Rhiow hissed very softly. “Which means a trip Downside. Hiouh. Well, you can tell the Powers from me that they’re going to have to find someone else to mind the baby while we do what we’re doing. He’s on Ordeal, but he doesn’t understand the ramifications of the Oath as yet, and we’re not going to have time to teach him and do this at the same time. Nor can we take the chance that he might sabotage something we’re doing in a moment of high spirits—”
“Sony, Rhi,” Ehef said. “You’re stuck with him. The ‘you found the problem, you fix it’ rule applies to Arhu as well. Your team must have something to offer him that no other wizards now working have; otherwise he wouldn’t be here with you.”
“Maybe they do,” Rhiow said, starting to get angry, “but what about my team, then? How’re they supposed to cope, having to do their jobs—and particularly nasty ones, now— while playing milk-dam to a half-feral kitten? He’s an unknown quantity, Ehef: he sounds odd sometimes. And I have no idea what he’s going to do from one moment to the next, even when he’s not sounding odd. Why should my team be endangered, having to look out for him? They’re past their own Ordeals, trained, experienced, and necessary—who’s looking out for their needs?”
“The same Ones who look after them usually,” Ehef said. “No wizard is sent a problem that is inappropriate to him or to his needs. Problems sent to a team are always appropriate to the whole team … whether it looks that way, at this end of causality, or not. Right now, you can question that appropriateness … what wizard doesn’t, occasionally? But afterward, things always look different.”
“They’ll look a lot more different if we’re dead,” Urruah said softly.
“Yeah, well, we all take that chance, don’t we? But even crossing the street’s not safe around here, you know that. At least if you die on errantry, you know it was for a purpose. More assurance than most People get. Or most other sentient beings of whatever kind.” He glanced up at the stairway to the next level of the stacks, where scampering sounds could be heard again. “As for him, he’s almost certainly part of the solution to this problem. Look at him: almost too young to be doing this kind of thing … and all the more powerful for it. You know how it is with the youngest wizards: they don’t know what’s impossible, so they have less trouble doing it. And just as well. We learn our limits too soon as it is…”
“If we survive to find them,” Saash said, dry-voiced.
“Yeah, well. I didn’t hold out much hope for you when we first met,” Ehef said. “You’d jump at the sight of your own shadow.” Saash glanced away. “And look at you now. Nice work, that, yesterday: you kept cool. So keep cool now. That might be what this youngster’s been sent to you for. But there’s no way to tell which of you will make the difference for him.” He glanced at Urruah, somewhat ironically.
Urruah closed his eyes, a you-must-be-joking expression, and turned his head away.
Rhiow opened her mouth, then closed it again, seeing Ehef’s expression—annoyed, but also very concerned. “Rhiow,” he said, “you know the Powers don’t waste energy: that’s what all this is about If you found the problem, you’re meant to solve it. You’re going to have to go down there, and I’m glad it’s not me, that’s all I can say.”
Rhiow made a face not much different from Arhu’s earlier one. “I was hoping you could suggest something else.”
“Of course you were. If I were in your place, I would too! But it’s my job to advise you correctly, and you know as well as I do that that’s the correct advice. Prepare an intervention, and get your tails down there. Look around. See what’s the matter… then come home and report.”
Down below, the soft sound of squeaking began again. Ehef wrinkled his nose. “I wish they could do that more quietly,” he muttered.
“Oh?” Rhiow said, breathing out in annoyance. “Like toms do?”
“Heh. Rhi, I’ll help every way I can. But my going along wouldn’t be useful in an intervention like this. Adding someone else on wouldn’t help… might hurt.”
“And him?” Urruah flicked an ear at the stacks above them. “He sure got added on.”
“Not by me. By Them. You gonna argue with the hard-to-see type standing out there between those two big guys out front? Or with the Queen? I don’t mink so. She has Her reasons.”
“What possible good can he be?”
“What do I look like, Hrau’f the Silent? How would I know? Go down there and find out. But go prepared.”
They thought about that for a while. Then Ehef said to Urruah, “Toms. That reminds me. You going to that rehearsal tomorrow morning? I heard tonight’s was canceled.”
“Uh, yes, I’m going.”
“You know Rahiw?”
“Yeah, I saw him earlier.”
“Fine. You see him there, you tell him I have the answer to that problem he left with me. Tell him to get his tail back up here when it’s convenient.”
“All right. You’re not going, though?”
“Aah, that kind of thing, ehhif stuff, I know multicultural is good, but I got no taste for it, my time of life. You youngsters, you get out there, have a good time, listen to the music, maybe make a little of your own, huh?”
Urruah squeezed his eyes shut, a tolerant expression, eloquent of a tom dealing with someone who’d been ffeih for so long that he couldn’t remember the good things in life. Ehef grinned back and cuffed Urruah in front of one ear, a lazy gesture with the claws out, but not enough force or speed to do any harm. “You just lick that look out of your whiskers, sonny boy,” he said. “I knew you when you didn’t know where your balls were yet, let alone how many of them to expect. I’ve got other things to do with my spare time lately.” He threw an annoyed glance at the computer.