Iaehh was crying bitterly now, one long tearing sob after another. Rhiow looked up at him, simply shocked numb, unable to accept the reality of what had happened … but the image was real, it had happened. Iaehh had now known the truth for too long to avoid accepting what had happened. It was too soon yet for Rhiow to feel that way … but that would soon change.
Very slowly she crept toward him again; silently, carefully, jumped up beside him on the chair; inched her way into his lap. “Ohh…” he moaned, and put his arms around Rhiow and hugged her close, and began crying into her fur. The image in his mind was pitifully plain, and the thought perfectly audible. All I have left of her. All I have left… Oh, Susan! Oh, Sue…!
Rhiow huddled down in his arms and didn’t move, though her fur was getting wetter by the second, and the pressure of his grip hurt her. Inside, she moaned, too.
Oh, if only I could tell you how sorry I am! If only I were allowed to speak to you, just this once! But not even now. Not even now…
Sinking into an abyss of dumb grief, Rhiow crouched in Iaehh’s arms, and wished to the Powers That Be that she too could cry…
Chapter Ten
Much later, very early in the morning, some of Iaehh’s friends showed up at the apartment, as red-eyed and upset as he was, and took him away to “see to the arrangements.” They made sure that Rhiow had plenty of food and water, and petted her, and spoke banalities about “look at her, she knows there’s something wrong . . .” She was as polite to them as she could bring herself to be; she said goodbye to Iaehh as best she could, though even looking at him was painful at the moment, and she felt guilty because of that. The inevitable thought had already come up several times: why her and not you?! — and when it did, Rhiow fairly turned around in her own skin with self-loathing.
When he was gone, the pain got worse, not better. The silence, the empty apartment . . . which would never again have Hhuha in it … it all lay on her like lead. The empty place inside Rhiow that would never again resonate to that other, internal purr … it echoed now.
She sat hunched up in the early-morning light and stared at the floor, as Iaehh had.
This is not an accident, she thought finally.
Impossible for it to be a coincidence. The Lone Power knew all too well when a blow was about to be struck against It. This time, It had struck the first blow: a preemptive strike, meant to make Rhiow useless for what now had to be done. And who would say a word? she thought. The great love of my life is gone, my ehhif’s dead. Of course they can’t expect me to perform under these circumstances. Saash is the real expert anyway. They’ll do fine without me. The Perm team will take up the slack.
The predictable excuses paraded themselves through her mind. She examined them, dispassionately, to see which one would be best suited to the job.
Ridiculous.
It was almost old Ffairh’s tone of voice, except that now it was hers. You trained me too well, you mangy old creature, Rhiow thought bitterly. I don’t even run my own mind anymore: I keep hearing you, chiding, growling, telling me what I ought to do.
The problem was … dead or alive, his advice, Rhiow’s thought, was right. She could not back away from her work, no matter how much she wanted to. And, thinking about it more, she didn’t want to. If she sat here and did nothing, all she would see in her mind would be the cold tile, the cold metal table, and Hhuha…
She flinched, moaned a little. Oh, Powers That Be, haven’t I served you well? Couldn’t you do me this one favor? Just make it that this didn’t happen, and I’ll do anything you like, forever… !
Rhiow—!
Saash, she said after a moment.
Rhi, where are you? Are you still at home? We need you down here—
Saash fell silent, catching something of the tone of Rhiow’s mind.
Rhi—what in the Powers’ names has happened to you?
My ehhif is dead, she said.
Saash was too stunned to reply for a few moments. Finally she said, Oh, Rhiow—how did this happen?
Yesterday evening, early. A traffic accident. A cab hit her when she was crossing a street.
Saash was silent again. Rhiow, I’m so sorry, she said.
Yes. I know.
A long silence. Very sorry. But, Rhi, we do need you. T’hom has been asking for you.
I’ll come, Rhiow said after a moment. . . though it seemed to take about an hour to force the words out. Give me a little time.
All right.
Saash’s presence withdrew from her mind, carefully, almost on tiptoe. Rhiow wanted to spit. This is what you have ahead of you, she thought to herself. Days and months when your friends will treat you like an open wound… assuming you don’t all die first.
Maybe dying would be better.
She winced at that thought too.
Rhiow got up, made herself stretch, made herself wash, even very briefly, then went over to the food bowl.
Iaehh had left her the tuna cat food that Hhuha had thought so highly of.
Rhiow turned and ran out her door.
They all met in Grand Central, upstairs at the coffee bar where Rhiow had watched Har’lh drink his cappuccino, about a hundred years ago, it seemed. Tom was there, with several of his more Senior wizards, two young queens and a tom a little older than they; all of them had coffee so that the staff wouldn’t bother them. All of them looked as if they had had far too much coffee over the past several hours. Rhiow and her team, sidled, sat up on the railing near them.
“The patches aren’t taking,” Tom was saying. “We’ve been able to hold them in place only by main force, by sheer weight of will, all night and all morning … and we cannot keep doing this. It’s as if the nature of wizardry is being changed, from underneath.”
“We had our first hint of this earlier in the week, didn’t we?” Urruah said. “That timeslide that didn’t take, out in the Pacific. That seemed weird enough. But now we’re seeing the failure of something as simple and straightforward as a patch with congruent time. If it does fail… then we’re going to have real trouble. This is going to become a New York where two or three thousand people were hurt or killed in the Sheep Meadow and Grand Central, and where Luciano Pavarotti has been eaten by a dinosaur!”
“We can’t have that,” Saash said, under her breath.
“Except it wasn’t a dinosaur,” said Arhu.
Everyone looked at him. “Oh, sure,” Urruah said, hearing the uncertain tone in Arhu’s voice. But Rhiow turned, the dullness broken for just that moment, and said, “No—let him explain. You were saying something about this yesterday. Something about all these big ones, these tyrannosaurs, being all the same one—”
“They are,” Arhu insisted. “Their heads feel exactly the same inside. These big ones aren’t the same as the saurians, who’re all different. These big ones are all someone else … who doesn’t mind getting killed. Getting killed doesn’t take for him.”