“You were always the brave one.”
“No. I just hate being taken advantage of… and I’ve been starting to get that feeling…”
Another small silence. “Want to be taken advantage of now?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
They went into the bedroom, chuckling. Rhiow lifted her head to watch them go, then put her whiskers forward and went out her little door, softly, so that they would not think they had scared the cat.
On the rooftop, she lay comfortably sprawled in the still warmth. Air conditioners thundered around her, a basso rumble and rattle through the night, the fans of the cooling towers showing as gleaming disks in the light of the nearly full Moon that was sliding, golden, up the eastern sky.
Rhiow looked up at it thoughtfully. Rhoua’s Eye, its glory hidden behind the world, glanced past it (as legend had it) into the Great Tom’s eye, which reflected its light; growing from slit to eye half-open to eye round and staring, and then shrinking down to slitted eye and full-dark invisibility again, as the month went round. There were People who believed, in the face of ubiquitous evidence to the contrary, that the feline eye mirrored the Moon’s phase. Rhiow had been amazed, and very amused, to find that some ehhif had the same story.
There were wizardry connections as well. Apparently the ehhif version of The Gaze of Rhoua’s Eye, the defining document that contained descriptions of all beings and all wizardry in this particular part of the universe, originally took the form of an actual book that could be read only by moonlight: hence its ehhif name, The Book of Night with Moon. Supposedly the Book had to be read from, at intervals, to keep all existence in place, and everything correctly defined. I wouldn’t care to be the one who does the reading, Rhiow thought, looking out over the city as the Moon went quietly up the sky. Too much exposure to such power, such knowledge, and you could lose yourself as surely as you might lose yourself Downside if you stayed too long…
But mat was the danger all over wizardry: there were so many different kinds of existence, alien and fascinating, to lose your nature in… Though was this perhaps some kind of obscure bint from the Powers, Rhiow wondered, that you might be expected to lose your nature eventually? … A hint of the way things would be, someday, when the world was finally set right, and all the kinds of existence were united in timelessness, perfected and made whole, as the Oath intimated they would be?
…Maybe. But she wasn’t ready.
The question of the danger was always there, though, for a practicing wizard. When you were on the universe’s business all the time, with a wizard’s multifarious worries on your mind, were you likely to start losing your felinity? I wonder, she thought, if the ehhif wizards have this problem … if they fear losing their “humanity” as a result of having to cope with the larger worldview, the bigger maid-set, in which no language or way of life is superior to any other, and each must be valued on its own terms? I can understand why it must look crazy to Arhu that I spend so much time worrying about houiff and ehhif and whatnot.…
But then, she thought, I have ehhif of my own to think about, after all. The habit’s hard to break…
All the same… the worry niggled at her, occasionally, and was doing so again. It was something she had occasionally felt she should talk to Ehef about. But then she would get busy with some assignment…
Maybe that’s not good, Rhiow thought after a while. How many years have I been at this, now? And when did I last have a vacation from the Art? A real one, when I wouldn’t be on call, and could stay home, and eat that terrible cat food, and lie in the sun, and purr at Hhuha… and just be People…
The problem was, of course, that she knew perfectly well how much tune and energy the Powers That Be had invested in her. Go on vacation… and that invested energy would be lost, even for that little while: as in hauissh, any move which is not an attack means lost ground. The heat death of the universe doesn’t speed up… but it doesn’t slow down as much as it might have. Lie basking in the sun… and know that the power that runs the sun is running out at its usual speed, trickling away like blood from a wound… and you’re not doing anything to make sure the world keeps going that little bit longer to enjoy that warmth and light.
She sighed. I will know doubt, she thought, slipping into the Meditation, and fear: I will suspect myself of folly and impracticality in this seemingly hard-edged world, where things clouded or obscure are so often discounted as unimportant, and mystery is derided, and uncertainty is seen as a sign of an inability to cope. But my commission comes from Those Who move in the shadows, indistinct and unseen for Their own purpose: Those Whom we never see face to face except in the faces of those we meet from day to day. In Them is my trust, until I am relieved of Their trust in me. I will learn to live with uncertainty, for it is the earnest of Their promise that all things may yet be well; and when, in the shadows, the doubts arise, I will close my eyes and say, This is no shade to Them; for my part, I will bide here and wait for the dawn…
She closed her eyes and dozed.
Rhi, Saash’s voice came suddenly.
Rhiow opened her eyes, surprised. The Moon was much farther across the sky, westering now. “What is it?” she said. “Are you all right?”
I’m fine. But Rhiow, have you heard anything from Har’lh?
“He said he was going to talk to you after he came back from Downside,” Rhiow said.
Well, he hasn’t.
“Maybe something else came up,” Rhiow said. “He’s a Senior, for Iau’s sake. It’s not like he hasn’t got ten million people to keep an eye on.”
Rhi, you’re not listening. He hasn’t come back from Downside. The gate logs show his access… but not his egress.
Rhiow sat up, shaking her head. “He could have come back by another gate. And he did say he might take a look at the catenary if he had to—”
He’s not there. I called him. There’s no answer and no trace of any other gating. Rhi, he’s gone!
Chapter Nine
She headed for Grand Central at her best speed, which (this time of night) meant skywalking; but her concerns over this were fewer than usual. There were not that many people likely to spot a black cat in the dim predawn air, fifty stories up, and all the birds of prey were asleep.
Rhiow came down to ground level again at Forty-second and Lexington, and got herself sidled. She trotted past the Grand Hyatt, past a few drunks sitting against the walls, waiting for the station (or the nearby liquor store) to open; passed through the locked front doors, and hurried up past the waiting room…
…and stopped, looking around her suspiciously. There was something different…
The lights in the display area were mostly out, of course, with the station in closed-down mode.
No… that’s not it.
Rhiow walked past the biggest of the mounted skeletons, strolling toward the back of the room. No one hiding here… That had been the first impression: something concealing itself, hugging the shadows, waiting … Nothing. You’re nervous. Let’s get on with business.