Rhiow made her way down to the street, sidled before she passed the iron door between her and the sidewalk, and then slipped under, heading west for Central Park.
* * *
She was surprised to meet Urruah halfway, making his way along East Sixty-eighth Street through the softly falling twilight, with a slightly dejected air. He slipped into the doorway of a brownstone and sat down, looking absently across the street at the open kitchen door of a Chinese restaurant. Clouds of fluorescent-lit steam and good smells were coming out of it, along with the sounds of a lot of shouting and the frantic stirring of woks.
"I would have thought you'd still be in the park," Rhiow said, sitting down beside him.
"The rehearsal's been put off until tomorrow," Urruah said. "One of the toms is off his song."
Rhiow made an oh-really expression. Urruah, like most toms, had a more or less constant fascination with song. She had originally been completely unable to understand why a tom should be interested in the mating noises that another species made: still less when the other species was not making these noises as part of mating, but because it was thinking about mating, in the abstract. But Urruah had gone on to explain that this particular kind of ehhif singing, called o'hra, was not simply about sex but was also some kind of storytelling. That had made Rhiow feel somewhat better about it all, for storytelling was another matter. Dams sang stories to their kits, grown People purred them to one another— gossip and myth, history and legend: no one simply spoke the past. It was rude. The thought that ehhif did the same in song made Rhiow feel oddly closer to them, and made her feel less like Urruah was doing something culturally, if not morally, perverse.
"So," Rhiow said, "what will they do now?"
"They'll keep building that big structure down at the end of the Great Lawn; that wasn't going to be finished until tonight anyway. Tomorrow they'll do the sound tests and the rest of the rehearsal. The other two toms are fine, so there shouldn't be any more delays."
Rhiow washed an ear briefly. "All right," she said. "We're going to have to take Arhu out and show him our beat… not that I particularly care to be doing that so soon, but he already knows how to sidle—"
"Whose good idea was that?" Urruah said, narrowing his eyes in annoyance.
"Mine," Rhiow said, "since you ask. Come on, Urruah! He would have had to learn eventually anyway… and it turns out he's a quick study. That may save his life, or, if he dies on Ordeal, who knows, it may make the difference between him getting his job done and not getting it done. Which is what counts, isn't it?"
"Humf," Urruah said, and looked across the street again at the restaurant. "Chicken…"
"Never mind the chicken. I want you on-site with him for this first evening at least, and as many of the next few evenings as possible. He needs a good male role model so that we can start getting him in shape for whatever's going to happen to him." She gave him an approving look. "I just want you to know that I think you're handling all this very well."
"I am a professional," Urruah said, "even if he does make my teeth itch…. But something else is on my mind, not just o'hra, as you doubtless believe. That oil spill intervention you mentioned? I heard that they got the authorization for the timeslide they wanted."
Rhiow blinked at that. "Really? Then why is the spill still on the news? That whole timeline should have 'healed over'… excised itself. We're well past the 'uncertainty period' for such small change."
"Something went wrong with it."
Rhiow put her whiskers back in concern. Timeslides were expensive wizardries, but also fairly simple and straightforward ones: hearing that something had "gone wrong" with a timeslide was like hearing that something had gone wrong with gravity. "Where did you hear about that?"
"Rahiw told me; he heard it from Ehef— he saw him this morning."
The source was certainly reliable. "Well, the situation's not a total loss anyway," Rhiow said. "That tropical storm sure 'changed course.' You could tell that was an intervention with your whiskers cut off."
"Well, of course. But not the intended one. And a failed timeslide…" Urruah's tail lashed. "Pretty weird, if you ask me."
"Probably some local problem," Rhiow said. "Sunspots, for all I know: we're near the eleven-year maximum. If I talk to Har'lh again this week, I'll ask him about it."
"Sunspots," Urruah said, as if not at all convinced. But he got up, stretched, and the two of them headed back down East Sixty-eighth together.
They wove their way along the sidewalk, taking care to avoid the hurrying pedestrians. As they paused at the corner of Sixty-eighth and Lex, Urruah said, "There he is."
"Where?"
"The billboard."
Rhiow tucked herself well in from the corner, right against the wall of the dry cleaner's there, to look at the billboard on the building across the street. There was a picture on it— one of those flat representations that ehhif used— and some words. Rhiow looked at those first, deciphering them; though the Speech gave her understanding of the words, sometimes the letterings that ehhif used could slow you down. " 'The— three—' What's a 'tenor'?"
"It's a kind of voice. Fvais, we would say; a little on the high side, but not the highest."
Rhiow turned her attention to the picture and squinted at it for a good while; there was a trick to seeing these flat representations that ehhif used— you had to look at them just right. When she finally thought she had grasped the meaning of what she saw, she said to Urruah, "So after they sing, are they going to fight?" The word she used was sth'hruiss, suggesting the kind of physical altercation that often broke out when territory or multiple females were at issue.
"No, it's just hrui't: voices only, no claws. They do it everywhere they go."
That made Rhiow stare, and then shake her head till her ears rattled. "Are they a pride? A pride of males? What a weird idea."
Urruah shook his head. "I don't know if I understand it myself," he said. "I think ehhif manage that kind of thing differently… but don't ask me for details."
Rhiow was determined not to. "Which one's your fellow, then? The one who went off voice."
"The one in the middle."
"He's awfully big for an ehhif, isn't he?"
"Very," Urruah had said with satisfaction and (Rhiow thought) a touch of envy. "He must have won hundreds of fights. Probably a tremendous success with the shes."
Rhiow thought that it didn't look like the kind of "big" that won fights. She had seen pictures of the ehhif-toms who fought for audiences over at Madison Square Garden, and they seemed to carry a lot less weight than this ehhif. However, she supposed you couldn't always judge by sight. This one might be better with the claws and teeth than he looked.
"So all these ehhif are coming to listen to him in, what is it, three nights from now? Is he that good?"
"He is magnificently loud," said Urruah, his voice nearly reverent. "You can hear him for miles on a still night, even without artificial aids."
Rhiow put her whiskers forward, impressed almost against her will. "If I'm free tomorrow," she said, "maybe I'll go with you to have a look at this rehearsal."
"Oh, Rhiow, you'll love it!" They crossed the street and walked back toward the garage where Saash stayed, and Urruah started telling Rhiow all about ah'rias and ssoh'phraohs and endless other specialized terms and details, and Dam knew what all else, until Rhiow simply began saying "Yes," and "Isn't that interesting," and anything else she could think of, so as not to let on how wildly boring all this was. For me, anyway, she thought. Occasionally, thinking he'd been invited to, or that someone nearby was in the slightest bit interested, Urruah went off on one of these tangents. If you didn't want to hurt his feelings— and mostly his partners didn't, knowing how it felt to have a personal passion used as a scratching-post by the uncaring— there was nothing much you could do but nod and listen as politely as you could for as long as you could, then escape: the suddenly discovered need to do houih was usually a good excuse. Rhiow couldn't d
o that just now, but once more she found herself thinking that Urruah was a wonderful example of one of a wizard's most useful traits: the ability to carry around large amounts of potentially useless information for prolonged periods. That, she thought, he's got in abundance.
"Oh, I forgot," she said at last, almost grateful to have something else to talk about. "Did you talk to the canine Senior about that houff?"
"Yes," Urruah said. "Rraah's going to arrange some kind of accident for him— have him 'accidentally' cut loose from the building site, late one night. Apparently he's got a home waiting for him already."
"Good," Rhiow said. They turned the corner into Fifty-sixth, and down the street Rhiow saw Saash sitting outside the garage, a little to one side of the door, through which light poured out into the evening. She wasn't even sidled, and her fur looked somewhat ruffled, as if she was too annoyed to put it in order. Cars were going in and out at the usual rate, and Saash was ignoring them, which was unusual; she was normally very traffic-shy, but right now she just sat there and glared.
Saash looked at Rhiow and Urruah as they came up to her, and as the saying goes, if looks were claws, their ears would have been in rags. "What kept you?" she said.
"Where's the wonder child?" Urruah said.
"He's inside," Saash said, "playing hide-and-seek with the staff. Abha'h's going out of his mind; he can't understand why one minute he can see the new kitten and the next minute he can't. Fortunately he thinks it's funny, and he just assumes that Arhu is hiding under one car or another. However, he's also decided that the new kitten should have flea powder put on him, and needless to say, that's the moment Arhu chooses to disappear and not come visible again, which means I got the flea powder instead of him—"
Urruah began to laugh. Saash gave him a sour look and said, "Oh yes, it's just hilarious. You should have heard the little sswiass laughing. I hope I get to hear him laugh at you like that."
Rhiow suppressed her smile. "Who knows, you may get your chance. Did you get some sleep, finally?"
"Some. How about you?"
"I've slept better," Rhiow said. "I had odd dreams…."
"After having been in the real Downside," Saash said, relaxing enough to scratch, "that's hardly a surprise. Just think of the last time…"
"I know." Rhiow preferred not to. "But I'm not sure I noticed everything I should have there: I want to go talk to Ehef this evening."
"About the gate?"
"Not entirely." Rhiow twitched an ear back toward the depths of the garage. "The circumstances, our involvement with him… the situation isn't strictly unusual, but it's always good to get a second opinion."
Saash flicked her tail in somewhat sardonic agreement. "Should be interesting. Come on," she said, "let's go see if Abha'h's caught him yet."
They waited for a break in the traffic, then slipped in through the door and made their way down into the garage and among the racks of parked cars. They passed Abad, who was looking under some of the cars racked up front in a resigned sort of way; he was holding a can of flea powder. Saash gave it a dirty look as they passed.
They found Arhu crouching under a car near the back of the garage, snickering to himself as he watched Abad's feet going back and forth under the racks. He looked up as they came, with an expression that was much less alarmed than any Rhiow had seen on him yet, but the edge of hostility on his amusement was one that she didn't care for much. "Well, hunt's luck to you, Arhu," she said, politely enough, "though it looks like you're doing all right in that department… if you consider this a hunt and not mere mouseplay." She and the others hunkered down by him.
"Might as well be," Arhu said after a moment. He watched Abad go off. "They're real easy to fool, ehhif."
"If you couldn't sidle, you'd be singing another song," said Urruah.
"But I can. I'm a wizard!"
Rhiow smiled a slight, tart smile. "We are wizards," she said. "You are still only a probationer-wizard, on Ordeal."
"But I can do stuff already!" Arhu said. "I went through the doors last night! And I'm sidling!" He got up and did it while they watched, strolling to and fro under the metal ramp-framework, and weaving in and out among the strings: there one moment and gone the next, and then briefly occluded in stripes of visibility and nonvisibility, as if strutting behind a set of invisible, vertical venetian blinds. He looked ineffably smug, as only a new wizard can when he first feels the power sizzling under his skin.
"Not a bad start," Saash said.
Urruah snorted. "You kidding? That's one of the most basic wizardries there is. Even some cats who aren't wizards can do it. Don't flatter him, Saash. He'll think he really might amount to something." His slow smile began. "Then again, go ahead, let him think that. He'll just try some dumb stunt and get killed sooner. One less thing to worry about."
Rhiow turned and clouted Urruah on the top of his head, with her claws out, though not hard enough to really addle him. He crouched down a very little, eyeing her, his ears a bit flat. When I want your assessment of his talents, she said silently, I'll ask you for it, Mister Couldn't-keep-a-dog-from-eating-his-mouse-earlier. Aloud she said, "You know as well as I do that the Oath requires the protection of all life, including life that annoys you. So just stuff your tail in it."
Urruah glared at her, turned his head away. Rhiow looked back at Arhu. "Tell me something to start with. What do you know about wizards? I don't mean what Saash has been telling you, though it's plain she hasn't been able to get much through your thick little skull. I want to hear what you know from before we met you."
He squirmed a little, scowling. "Wizards can do stuff."
"What stuff? How?"
"Good stuff, I guess. I never saw any. But People talk about them."
"And what do they say?" Urruah said.
Arhu glared back at him. "That they're stuck up, that they think they're important because they can do things."
Urruah started slowly to stand up. Rhiow glanced at him; he settled back again. "And probably," Rhiow said just a touch wearily to Arhu, "you've heard People say that wizards are using their power somehow to help ehhif control People. Or that they're just trying to make all the other People around be their servants somehow. And somebody has to have told you that it's not real wizardry at all, just some kind of trick used to get power or advantage, some kind of hauissh or power game."
Arhu looked at her. "Yeah," he said. "All that."
"Well." Rhiow sat down. " 'Just tricks'; do you think that? After you went through the doors?"
She watched him struggle a little, inwardly, before speaking. He desperately did not want to admit that he didn't understand something, or (on the other side) admit to feeling more than cool and blasé about anything… especially not in front of Urruah. Yet at the same time, he liked the feel of what he'd done the night before: Rhiow recognized the reaction immediately… knowing it very well herself. And she knew that the thought that there might be more of that was tantalizing him. It was the Queen's greatest recruitment tool, the one that was the most effective, and the most unfair, for any living being— but especially for cats: curiosity. You are unscrupulous, she said privately to the Powers That Be. But then You can't afford to be otherwise….
"That happened," Arhu said finally. He looked, not at Rhiow, but at Urruah, as if for confirmation: Urruah simply closed his eyes… assent, though low-key. "I felt it. It was real."
"Urruah's right, you know," Rhiow said. "Even nonwizardly cats can sometimes walk through things… though usually only in moments of crisis: if you're not a wizard, the act can't be performed at will. You'll be able to, though… if you live through what follows."
"Whatever it is, I can take it," Arhu said fiercely. "I'm a survivor."
Saash shook herself all over, then sat down and scratched. "That's nice," she said, very soft-voiced. "We get a lot of 'survivors' in wizardry. Mostly they die."
Rhiow tucked herself down in the compact position that Hhuha sometimes called "half-meatloaf," the be
tter to look eye-to-eye with the kit. "You said you heard a voice that said 'I dare you,' " she said. "We've all heard that voice. She speaks to every potential wizard, sooner or later, and offers each one the Ordeal. It's a test to see if you have what it takes. If you don't, you'll die. If you do, you'll be a wizard when the test is over."
"How long does it take?"
"Might be hours," Urruah said. "Might be months. You'll know when it's over. You'll either have a lot of power that you didn't have a moment before… or you'll find yourself with just enough time for a quick wash between lives."
"What's the power for, though?" Arhu said, eager. "Can you use it for anything you want?"
"Within limits," Saash said. "Walk in other elements and other worlds, talk to other creatures, even not-live things sometimes— go places no other People not wizards have ever been or seen—"
"Other creatures?" Arhu said. "Wow! Any other creatures?"
"Well, mostly"
"Even ehhif? Cool! Let's go talk to that cop and freak him out!" He started toward the garage door.
Rhiow grabbed him by the scruff and pushed him down with one paw. "No. You may not use the Speech to communicate with members of other species unless they're wizards, or unless you're on errantry and the job specifically requires it."
"But that's dumb!"
"Listen, kitling," Urruah said, leaning over Arhu with a thoughtful expression. "If you start routinely talking to ehhif so they can understand, there's a chance that eventually one of them's going to believe that you're talking. And before you know it they've thrown you in a scientific institute somewhere and started drilling holes in your skull, or else they're taking you apart in some other interesting way. More to the point, if you do that, they'll start doing it to other People too. A lot of them. I wouldn't want to cause something like that, not ever, because sooner or later you're going to find yourself between lives, and the explanations that would be demanded of you by the Powers That Be—" He shook his head slowly. "If I started seriously thinking that you might actually pull a stunt like that, I'd just grab you and kick your guts out right now, Ordeal or no Ordeal. So take notice."