“I’m not sure how either,” Urruah said, “but what else am I supposed to think at this point? The gate itself wasn’t connected to the power source, but we still had a failure in my timeslide, although it was a small one. Big enough, though, in terms of what we were trying to do.” He sighed. “I think the next time we try this, we should keep the timeslide off the gate’s power source and power it ourselves.”
“That’s going to be hard on you,” Rhiow said.
“Yeah, well, I don’t see that we have the option,” Urruah said.
“Excuse me,” someone said pointedly from behind them.
They both looked over their shoulders. Siffha’h was sitting there behind them.
“I couldn’t help overhearing,” she said. “But youdohave a power source. What about me?”
Urruah blinked.“Uh. I hadn’t—”
“—thought about it? Or maybe you just don’t trust me, because I’m young yet.” Her tone was very annoyed.
“Siffha’h,” Rhiow said, “give us the benefit of the doubt, please. We’re very aware that our being here at all imposes on your team somewhat. We’re unwilling to impose further when there’s any way that—”
“Look,” Siffha’h said, “our whole reality is going to be rubbed out if we can’t stop what’s happening, and you’re telling me you don’t want toimpose?Come on.”
Rhiow glanced at Urruah, rueful but still somewhat amused.“Well,” she said, “you’ve got a point there. Ruah?”
He looked at her with his tail twitching slowly.“You are unquestionably hot stuff,” he said, “and any time you want to power a timeslide of mine, you’re welcome.”
“You build it,” Siffha’h said, “and I’ll see that it takes you where you want to go. When’ll you be ready?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, I think.”
“Good. I’ll be here.”
She strolled off, tail in the air. Rhiow glanced over at Urruah.She really does remind me of Arhu sometimes.
Yeah,Urruah said.In the tact department as well.
Rhiow put her whiskers forward.You know how it is when you’re young,she said.Life seems short, and all the other lives a long way away … You want to be doing things.
So do I,Urruah said.Preferably things that’ll solve this problem.He looked rather glumly at the spell diagram for the timeslide.
“All right,” Rhiow said. “Anything else that needs to be handled?”
“He said he wanted you to see what he saw,” Urruah said, glancing over at Arhu, who was still crouched down in meditative mode. “I’m going to look at it later: right now this is more of a priority.”
“Right …”
Rhiow went softly over to Arhu: then, as he didn’t react, she sat down by him and began to wash—not only because she didn’t want to interrupt him in whatever he was doing, but because she felt she badly needed it. She was tired, and needed to do something to keep herself from falling asleep. Rhiow had just finished her face and was starting on one ear when she felt something thumping against her tail. It was Arhu’s taiclass="underline" he had come out of his study and had rolled over on his side to look up at her.
“You wash more than anybody I know,” he said. “Are you nervous or something?”
She looked at him, then laughed.“Nervous? I’m terrified. If you had a flea’s brain’s worth of sense, you would be too.”
“I’m scared enough for all of us,” he said. “Especially after what I saw today.”
“You went to see the ravens,” Rhiow said. “How was it?”
“Weird.” He put his ears back. “I’m not sure I understood most of it … but I put it all in the Whispering, the way you showed me.”
“Good,” Rhiow said. “I’ll have a listen, then.” She crouched down, tucking her paws under her in the position which Arhu had been using: comfortable enough to let go of the world around and concentrate on the inner one, not so comfortable that she would fall asleep.Well,she said silently to the Whisperer,what has he got for me?
This…
Normally the voice you heard whispering was Hers, the familiar, steady, quiet persona, ageless, deathless and serene. But material the source of which was a mortal being would come to you strongly flavored with the taste of its originator’s mind. Knowing Arhu as well as Rhiow did, this was a taste with which she was also familiar. But now, as the point of view changed to early afternoon on the riverbank, suddenly Rhiow found herself immersed in the full-strength version of it—a quick, excitable, excited turn of mind, by turns cheerful and annoyed at a moment’s notice, interested in everything and with a taste for mischief … though also with a very serious side that would come out without warning. Rhiow actually had to gasp for a moment to catch her breath as she bounded, with Arhu, down the walkway that led to the main gateway to the Tower: past theehhifwho were lined up at the gate, letting the security guards there check their bags and parcels: through the gateway, looking up at the old, old stones of the arch, and through into a cobbled“street” which Arhu’s memory identified as “Water Lane”.
This little street ran parallel to the river inside the main outer wall. To the left, as Arhu went, was another wall studded down its length with several broad circular towers: this ran on for about an eighth of a mile, to where the outer wall came to a corner and bent leftwards. The stones in the left-hand wall were mostly rounded, as if they had come out of a river, but some had been cut down roughly into squarish shape, and they looked and smelled ancient. From them, as Rhiow had from the bricks and stones of the Underground, Arhu caught a faint sense of much contact withehhif,but the flavor was strange, a compendium of old, faded triumph, and equally old abject fear. Arhu paused for a moment, feeling it on his fur, feeling it especially strongly from the right side where he passed a latticework gateway of metal that let out onto an archway leading down to the river.Traitor’s Gate,the Whispering said in his mind: and just briefly, as he did then, Rhiow saw, in a flicker, the way Arhu saw with the Eye.
A flicker, there and gone.Ehhifstanding up,ehhif lying down and being brought up to the gate in boats,ehhifdying and in fear of dying coming in,ehhifdead going out:queen-ehhifandtom-ehhif,proud, dejected, defiant, afraid, bitter, reluctant, confident, desperate: plots and schemes, offended innocence, furious determination, all rolled together in a moment of vision, all spread out over long years of history, circumstance, and confusion; the conflicting needs and desires, the long-planned machinations of the powerful and the requirements of the moment, terror-horror-resignation-life-death-brightness-sickness-cold-blood-release-darkness—
—gone. The Eye closed, and Arhu stood and shook his head, trying to clear it: and anehhif,not seeing him since he was sidled, tripped over Arhu, caught himself, and went on, looking behind him to try to see the cobblestone he thought he had stumbled on.
“Ow ow ow ow,”Arhu spat, and took himself over to the left-hand wall to recover himself a little. From inside the left-hand wall came a harsh cawing, a little likeehhiflaughter, as if someone thought it was funny.
While he stood there and panted, Rhiow shivered all over at the thought of the burden Arhu was bearing.Better him than me,she said, somewhat ungraciously, to the Whisperer. The vision Arhu had been trying to describe to her turned out to be more like half-vision, and all the more maddening for it. For Arhu was looking, just briefly, through the eyes of Someone Who saw everything in the world as whole and seamless: thoughts, actions, past causes and present effects, the concrete and the abstract all welded into a single staggering completion. Rhiow understood a little of Arhu’s confusion and anger now, for trying to extract one piece of information from the all-surrounding vastness of the Whisperer’s perception seemed impossible, like trying to fish one drop of water out of your water bowl with your claw. You would always get a little bit of something else along with it: or alotof something else. Rhiow thought with embarrassment of the facile way she had been telling him to concentrate, and grab hold of one part of it…