“All right,” Urruah said. “Next coordinates. The Illingworth incursion. The slide’s in standby—”
“Ready.Now,” Siffha’h said, reared up a little, and came down with her front paws directly on the power point.
The blast of fire rose up around them, pressing in.
“Hello,” said a high clear voice, “what’s this?”
All the People’s heads jerked up. He could plainly see them, and had waded halfway into the circle already, waist-high in the “hedge’ of fire—a youngehhif,in shorts and a white shirt and a short dark coat, and he was looking at them, and the circle, in astonishment.What’s he doing in here, howcanhe be in here, get him out!!was Rhiow’s first thought. But there was no time. The spell was already blazing with Siffha’h’s blast of power, and they were all vanishing together, the People, the spell-circle, theehhif boy—
There was no way to stop it, any more than anehhifwould have been able to get out of a moving vehicle at high speed. The pressure built. There was a cry from the boy, lost in a roar of sound which Rhiow couldn’t understand. Then everything began to shake—and that she understood too well.Unauthorized ingress into a timeslide or worldgating,she thought,the whole spell comes apart and flings everyone in it into not-time or not-space. Iau, not like this, why must it end like this—!
The pressure increased unbearably: Rhiow lost all sense of herself.So much for this life,was her last thought.
But it was not. What seemed a long time later, Rhiow found herself lying on the concrete floor of the unused platform beneath Tower Hill Underground station: and near her was the boundary of the timeslide spell, all the virtue drained out of it. The others lay about in the positions they had held in the spell—and sitting down by them, his knees drawn up against his chest, trembling, was the youngehhif,looking at his surroundings, and the People, in terror.
Rhiow got up, slowly, feeling as if one of the big draft horses of the 1874 streets had been jumping all over her. Next to her, Urruah was pushing himself up onto his feet, where he just managed to stand, wobbling, and look at theehhif boy.
The boy wet his lips and croaked,“Kitty kitty?”
Urruah looked at Arhu, who was awake as well, and getting up.“Anotherproblem,” Urruah said.
Rhiow was forced to agree…
SIX
The argument which life seemed lately to have been becoming, now broke out again with unusual vehemence in the next few minutes: and it would have gone on for much longer, Rhiow thought, had there not been a youngehhifgazing in astonishment at the sight of five cats all apparently staring silently at one another with their tails lashing.
Auhlae was not very pleased with Urruah.“You didn’t make the timeslide exclusive!”
“Why should I have made it exclusive?!” Urruah said, aggrieved. “No one was going to be able to see us, and the spell was told to sort for transit times which wouldn’t endanger any being which came along—”
“Vhai,”Rhiow said.“Urruah, thelanguagewas pretty vague. You know how literal spells are!”
“Rhi, what was the point whenno one should have been able to see we were there,or the spell—” He hissed softly. “Sorry. Sorry. But Rhi—” He looked over at the youngehhif.“Ehhifcan’t see wizardry, as a rule. Whatishe?Ishe a wizard? If so, why does he look so panicked? Or is he someone who’s about to be called to the Art, but hasn’t been given the Oath yet? Are we supposed to induct him somehow?”
“The Powers forfend,” Rhiow muttered. “That’s hardly our job. We had enough trouble that way with Arhu.” But then she smiled slightly. “And a certain other party …”
“Was that who you were thinking of going to for help with the mummy problem?” Urruah said.
“The very same. It’ll have to wait a little longer now.”
“You may as well go take care of it,” Urruah said, “because whatever else we might have had planned for this timeslide,thisbusiness has ruined it.” He flirted his tail at the youngehhif.The slide’s half-deranged: it’s going to take another half-day at least to put it back the way it ought to be.”
“Well, all right. But meantime we can’t sit here ignoringhim.And lend Auhlae a paw, for Iau’s sake: she looks terrible. And call Huff: he’d better know about this sooner rather than later.”
“Right.”
Rhiow walked over to the boy and sat down in front of him, tucking her tail in around her feet and trying to radiate calm instead of what she felt, which was complete confusion and terror.“Young human,” she said to him in the Speech, “please don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not,” he said. He had a narrow, intelligent face, and he was holding it very still, despite what was going on inside him, and how young he was. He could hardly be more than fifteen.
“Good. There’s no need to be, though you’re in a strange place, and something which must seem very odd has just happened to you. What’s your name?”
“Artie,” he said.
“Artie. I’m Rhiow. These others lying and sitting around here are friends of mine: we’ll get you introduced to them shortly. Would you tell me what you think just happened to you?”
“I saw a circle of light in the street,” he said. “A circle of fire. But it didn’t look like fire.”
“It wasn’t,” Rhiow said. “It was wizardry.”
“You mean magic?” the boy said, his eyes widening.
“You could call it that. But not the kind of magic which is just one of your people making it look like something has vanished.Truemagic: wizardry.”
“Then it is real,” he whispered. “My uncle said it might be.”
“Your uncle’s wise,” Rhiow said, wondering in the meantime if there was yet another wizard about to be involved in this business, and in a way, hoping not: there were already more than enough complications to this intervention. “But, Artie, you should understand that most humans, mostehhifas we call them, can’t see wizardry and don’t know that it exists.”
“I saw it, though …”
“Yes,” Arhu said, coming up beside Rhiow and sitting down to look at the boy. “He’s a key …”
Rhiow glanced over at him.“To what?”
“I don’t know. But They’ve sent him,” Arhu said. The Powers. I saw him, while Odin and I were flying.”
“The Powers? What Powers?” Artie said.
“That’s going to take some explaining,” Rhiow said. “Meanwhile, Artie, we have to get you back where you belong as quickly as we can—”
“I’m not going,” he said. “I want to see where this is first!”
Rhiow and Arhu glanced at each other.“I don’t think we’re going to be able to help it,” Arhu said. “And, Rhi, you can’t just toss him back where he came from. Why would They send him if he wasn’t going to be some use? We’ve got to keep him.”
“Where?” Rhiow said, a little desperately. “Where will he sleep? What will he eat?” She wondered if this was how anehhiffelt when one of their young turned up on the doorstep with a kitten-Person in their arms.
“We’ll work something out,” Arhu said, with a confidence that Rhiow definitely didn’t feel.
He looked over at where Urruah was trying to bump the groggy Auhlae up into something like a sitting position. As he did, Huff and Fhrio came rushing in.
“Auhlae, Auhlae—” Huff cried. He ran to her and began to wash her ear. It was astonishing how fast Huff could move when he wanted to, or how tender and pitiful a sight he made despite his huge size. Rhiow turned away, and found herself looking at Fhrio, who was staring at Urruah as he backed away and let Huff take care of Auhlae. Fhrio was bristling.