That was obviously not something that could be permitted… though to Rhiow, it all seemed faraway and somewhat unimportant, next to the pain inside her. “We will, then, be doing another reconnaissance,” Rhiow said. “Much deeper, I would think. All the way down…”
Tom nodded.“We’ll be assembling a force to come down after you. But we must know exactly what the danger is and equip ourselves properly … because the odds of being able to send a second expeditionary force down, should the first one fail, seem nonexistent. Once you get word back to us how to intervenesuccessfully, we’ll follow immediately.”
“Very well,” Rhiow said. “We’ll advise you when we’re ready.”
She and her team left, Arhu bringing up the rear. Rhiow walked on up to the waiting room, which was quiet now: noehhifwalked among the bones, which stood as they had stood the day before, dry and seemingly dead.
Off in one corner, Rhiow sat down and looked at the skeletons. The others sat down with her, Arhu again a little off to one side, watching the older wizards.
“Now what?” Saash said.
“We wait till the gate’s ready. Then we go down again. How are you about that?” Rhiow said.
A long silence.“Scared,” Saash said simply. “You know why. But I don’t see what else we can do. I’m with you.”
Rhiow switched her tail“yes.” “ ’Ruah?”
“You know I’m ready to go where you lead.”
She gave him the slightest smile. He might be unduly hormonal and odd in the head aboutehhifsinging, but Urruah could always be relied upon.
“Arhu—”
He looked up at her.“I don’t know about this—” he said.
“You’re too damn uncertain about most things,” Urruah said. “Your particular talent, especially. I for one want you to start doing your share of the hunting in this pride—pushing this gift of yours a little more aggressively. If you’d been actively using it for what it’sfor—looking ahead to see what’s going to affect us in our work—you might have seen what happened to Rhiow’sehhif,and she might have been able to stop it—”
“Oh, yeah?” Arhu was bristling. “You’renot running this team. And what’re you going to do if Idon’troll right over and do what you say?”
Urruah leaned at him, reared up, shoulders high, beginning to fluff.“Some of mis, maybe,” he said, lifting a paw slowly, putting his ears down. “Come to think of it, maybe I should have done this a while ago—”
Arhu’s growl answered his: they began to scale up together.
“Stop it!” Rhiow said. “Urruah,cut it out.You can’t force vision.” But her anger wasn’t directed so much at him as at herself. It was embarrassing enough for Rhiow to hear Urruah say, out loud, somethingshehad been thinking … another of those loathsome selfish thoughts that made her so furious with herself. The thought of begging Tom for a scrap of congruent time, just a little of what had been used to patch Grand Central and the Sheep Meadow, to keep a cab from turning a particular corner at a particular moment …The Powers will never notice…She had actually caught herself thinking that. Leaving aside the thought that all patches were an iffy proposition at the moment—and what point was there in patching that bit of time, then having it come undone, so that Hhuha would have to dietwice—thoughts like that were a poor kind of memorial for herehhif,who had always had a short temper for other people’s selfishness.
How long have I been a wizard now, and not learned? Use your gifts for things for yourself… and they’ll shut down. They’re not designed for it.But Rhiowdidhave one thing that was lawful for her to use … her anger.Lone One, sa’Rrahh, Tearer and Destroyer, Devastatrix—we are going to have words, you and I.
“He sees what he has to,” Rhiow said. “That’s the nature of his gift. He’s already doing better at that than he has previously. He’ll learn to see more completely as time goes on.”
Arhu had been crouched down on the floor, ears flat, through all this. But now he looked up, and he was as angry at Rhiow, who thought she had been defending him, as at any of the others.“WhyshouldI?” he growled. “I didn’t ask for this gift, as you call it. And I hate it! It never shows me anything good! All I see is fighting in the past, and dying in the present, andinthe future—” He licked his nose, shook his head hard. “This seeing doesn’t do anything for me but hurt me, make me feel bad. If I ever run across one of these Powers That Be, I’m going to shove it down Their throats—”
He hunched himself up again.
“I’d give a meal on a hungry day to seethat,”Saash said mildly.“But right now we have other troubles.” She sat up, sighed, and started scratching. “We’re going to have to go down again, as soon as the other gate teams have finished work. I am going. Urruah is going. Rhiow—”
They looked at her.“I have to go,” Rhiow said. “I don’t feel like moving or speaking or doing anything but crawling into a hole… but I’ve blown one life of nine on the spelling dispensation we’re going to need: damned if I’m going to waste that. And I have a grudge against the Lone One. I intend to take it out on It any way I can. All of this is plainly sa’Rrahh’s work… and I’m going to take a few bloody strips out of her hide, and pull out a few pawfuls of fur, before all this is over.”
Saash, in particular, was staring at her, possibly unused to hearing such bitterness, such sheer hate. Rhiow didn’t care; the emotion was a tool, and she would use it while it lasted. It was better than the dullness that kept threatening to descend.
Arhu was staring, too. Finally, he said,“I have to go dohiouh,excuse me…” He got up and hurried out.
Rhiow breathed down her nose, scornfully amused at his discomfiture. Urruah looked at her, and said,“Not your usual line, Rhi.”
“But this hasn’t exactly been a usual week, ’Ruah. We are being pushed into something …some big change. The Powers That Be are on our cases, directly. And it’s all Arhu’s fault.”
“I’ll buy that,” Urruah said immediately. But he sounded less certain than usual and gave Rhiow an uneasy look.
“What kind of ‘something,’ Rhi?” Saash said.
“I don’t know. But it’s plain we are a weapon at the moment … and I can’t get rid of the idea that Arhu is meant to be the claw in the paw that strikes. We’re just his reinforcement, the bone to which the claw is attached: his bodyguards, as anehhifwould put it. I think he is going to be subjected to an Ordeal so extreme that he wouldn’t be likely to survive it… and so important that he mustn’t be allowed to fall. Which is why we’re being sent along.”
“Wonderful,” Urruah said, looking slit-eyed at the door through which Arhu had left. “I just love being expendable.”
“I don’t think we are,” Rhiow said slowly. “I think something severe is intended for us too. And the Lone Power is stepping up Its resistance.” She looked over at Saash. “Better keep an eye on yourehhif,”she said.“Though yours is probably safe: I don’t think you two were as … emotionally attached … as, as Hhuha…”
She had to stop. Just the mention of her name brought the whole complex of scents and sensations that had been associated with herehhif:the warmth, the silent purr…
The others watched Rhiow, silent, as she crouched there and did her best to master herself. It was hard. Finally she lifted her head again and said,“When will one of the gates be ready?”
“This evening. It’ll be our friend beside Thirty.”
“All right. Load yourselves up with every spell you think you can possibly use … I’ve bought us the right to over-carry.” She licked her nose, swallowed. “Ffairh went right down into the Roots, once upon a time. Not all the way down: there wasn’t need. But he knew at least part of the way and left me directions. At the time, I just thought he was being obsessional about cleaning his mind out before he died. Now I’m not so sure.” *