"And I think I know someone who might be able to help us," Rhiow said. "Come on— let's get on with our other business for the day. When we get back home we can start making some inquiries."
They all got up. Wallis rose as well. "This has been most extraordinary," he said. "When can I expect to see you again?"
"I really don't know," Rhiow said. "We're in the middle of a fairly complex business at the moment, but I think you may have helped us with it, for which we thank you very much. Ouhish, we don't have a lot of time to linger: will you tell Hwallis about what we were discussing with you earlier?"
"Gladly. I hope we see you again soon," Ouhish said, "for this problem has us both frightened."
"We'll be in touch as soon as we can," Auhlae said. And she waved her tail, amused. "It's been charming to speak with an ehhif who knows our language."
Wallis bowed. "Dai stihó," he said.
"Thank you," Rhiow said. "I hope we may go well on this business of yours... and others."
Ouhish saw them out, down to the great flight of stairs reaching down to the Great Russell Street entrance. The walk back to the street where the timeslide spell was sited went a little more swiftly than the walk to the museum had, partly because of familiarity and partly because all of them were getting bolder in dealing with the traffic: though it hardly moved much faster than the fifteen miles an hour at which London motor traffic moved in their native time, the vehicles were a good deal less lethal. They found the street conveniently empty, and Urruah found his tripwire under the mud and activated the spell-circle. It rose up in an instantaneous, blazing hedge of fire around him, and hard behind him came Siffha'h, straight onto her power point, and the others all close behind.
"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 down 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 young ehhif, in shorts and a white shirt and a short dark coat, and he was looking at them, and at the circle, in astonishment. What's he doing in here; how can he 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, the ehhif boy....
There was no way to stop it, any more than an ehhif would 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 that 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 Gateway 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 young ehhif, 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 the ehhif boy.
The boy wet his lips and croaked, "Kitty kitty?"
Urruah looked at Arhu, who was awake as well, and getting up. "Another problem," Urruah said.
Rhiow was forced to agree.
Six
The argument that life seemed lately to have been becoming 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 young ehhif gazing 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 that wouldn't endanger any being that came along— "
"Vhai," Rhiow said. "Urruah, the language was pretty vague. You know how literal spells are!"
"Rhi, what was the point, when no 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 young ehhif— "ehhif can't see wizardry, as a rule. What is he? Is he 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, this business has ruined it." He flirted his tail at the young ehhif. "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 ignoring him. 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 that 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 that is just one of your people making it look like something has vanished. True magic: wizardry."
"Then it is real," he whispered. "My uncle said it might be."
"Your uncle's wise," Rhiow said, wondering 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, most ehhif, as 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 an ehhif felt 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, and 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.
Oh dear, Rhiow thought. This is going to bring them to blows sooner or later. "Artie," she said. "Will you be all right here for a little while? No other ehhif will come here: this is a secret place, for reasons I'll explain to you in a while. But right now there are some things I need to attend to."
"All right," Artie said. "What's your name, puss?"
"Rhiow."
"Reeoooowww," Artie said.
"Not too bad," she said. "It's a Scots accent, isn't it? We'll work on that. It's one of the better ones for Ailurin."
Rhiow walked off a little way, then sat down again and put her ears forward, listening. Whisperer...
She heard the purr that told her the Silent One was listening.
We need help of a specific kind. There's no time for me to visit the Old Downside just now. Will you tell the Serpent's Child that his "father's" friends need to talk to him? And will you guide him to us?
A purr of agreement, then silence.
Rhiow got up and headed over to Urruah, who was already walking toward her. " 'Ruah," she said, "do me a favor. Let me see the spell that Hwallis showed you."
He half closed his eyes. "Here."
Rhiow half closed hers as well, and let her whiskers brush close to Urruah's. A second or so later she could see what he saw, the Egyptian characters strung out in a line, but with gaps here and there where Hwallis had inferred that material was missing. Rhiow looked at the characters in her mind with a wizard's eye, letting them rearrange themselves into a long broken pattern in the graphical version of the Speech.
"It's a spell all right," she said, opening her eyes. "What an odd one, though. A lot of missing pieces. None of the power parameters are all that large, either... what there are of them."
"If there were meant to be thousands of these spells in the same place, all acting together," Urruah said, "they wouldn't have to be all that strong, individually."
"No," Rhiow said. "But still, if a lot of little spells are gathered together to be used for some purpose, there still does have to be a master spell, one that invokes the whole aggregate of power and nominates specifically what it's supposed to be used for. Otherwise all the little packets of power just fire off any old way, or seep away uncontrolled. No, I think Hwallis is right. We'll get busy on finding this, if there's any way it can be found here and now. Meanwhile, 'Ruah, do what you can about the timeslide: we've got to get at that contaminated timeline and get a date for the assassination that we can trust. Get Fhrio to help you if you can."
"I'd sooner be helped by a— "
"Urruah," Rhiow said. "He is not just a fellow wizard, but a gate technician of some skill. He might see something that you miss, under the pressure of speed. We can't afford to forgo his help... or alienate him by not asking for that help in an area where he's gifted. Just you handle it."
He glared at her, then waved his tail, reluctantly acknowledging the necessity, and walked off.
Rhiow breathed out and watched him go. This kind of thing was difficult for him, but they had no choice right now. Fhrio was a problem as well, but one that Rhiow couldn't settle. The kind of behavior he routinely exhibited toward his own team would have caused Rhiow to box one of her own team members' ears to ribbons, if they had tried it. However, Huff's management style was clearly a lot less assertive than Rhiow's, and she had no right to try to impose her own style on his team. But oh, the inclination...
She sighed and just closed her eyes for a moment, wishing there were time to lie down and have a nap. When she opened her eyes again, Huff was heading over toward her. "She's all right," he said to Rhiow, very relieved.
"Of course I'm all right," Auhlae said, sounding just slightly cross as she came up behind him. "The shock of the transit just hit me hard for a moment, that's all. I'm not made of fluff."
"No, I never said you were." He head-bumped her, and Auhlae threw him an affectionate look, though the bump bade fair to knock her over again.
"Well," Huff said, when he had straightened up again, "what's the situation?"
"Our young ehhif is in fairly good shape," Rhiow said, casting a glance over at where Artie still sat up against the platform wall, now with his legs stretched out in front of him, watching Urruah talking to Fhrio, and the two of them poking at various parts of the timeslide. "But we're going to have to keep him with us for a while. Arhu says he's required somehow for the solution of our problem."
Auhlae blinked at that. "Is he sure?"
"Yes. Apparently he got a glimpse of him while he and Odin were off on their jaunt."
"Now there's a new one," Huff said. "Well, we'll have to work out somewhere to keep him."
"Arhu is confident that that'll be handled," Rhiow said dryly. "So we'll refer all inquiries to him. Meanwhile, have a closer look at this."
She put one paw down on the floor and began pulling it along, so that a tracery of pale fire followed it, "writing out" the partial spell that Urruah had shown her. Huff and Auhlae bent their heads down, looking at it.
"Look at this name that keeps popping up," Huff said after a moment. "In a few places. Different forms— but it's the same personality that's meant. The Bright Serpent."
"It's not the Old Serpent, though," Auhlae said, looking curiously down the length of the spell. "That would be written differently, wouldn't it."
"Yes," said Huff. "And here, the Great Shining Lizard. And another name still. Sebek."
"The one who binds together?" Auhlae said. "Would that be it?"
"I think so." Huff sat down to look at it a little more closely. "Well, it's interesting, but as spells go it's long on nouns and short on verbs. Or more specific routines like power-expenditure instructions."
"Power," Rhiow said, "yes..." She glanced back over toward the timeslide. Siffha'h had stood up just long enough to drag herself out of the pattern, while Urruah was starting work on it: then she had flopped down again, and was lying on her side. "Is she all right?"
"Oh, I think so." Auhlae looked over her shoulder.
"I'll check," Huff said, and got up to head over that way.
"I just... Don't think I'm trying to intrude, please, but I worry about her a little," Rhiow said. "She seems to push herself very hard."
"Yes," Auhlae said, "she does." She sighed. "She came to us very young. Just after her Ordeal, it was. She never said much about the details: well, as you know, that's not information one asks about— it's offered or not, the way you would treat the question of how many lives along someone is. Finally she decided she wanted to work with us, and she settled in. But she was always— " Auhlae broke off for a moment, thinking, her tail twitching. Then she said, "There was always a sense that there was something still unfinished, Ordeal or not. Something she was still looking for, and it drove her. It drives her still... and all this unfocused energy of hers jumps out and 'bites' people, sometimes. Or makes her bite them herself."
Rhiow sighed. "The 'unfin
ished business' theme turns up often enough," she said. "It happened to me, for example."
"And did you find what you were looking for?"
"I think so," Rhiow said, "though, Auhlae, to tell you the truth, sometimes even when you have what you were looking for, you can get confused because it doesn't look anything like the images you got yourself used to when you were still looking." She put her whiskers forward. "Well, that's another day's problem.... We have enough of our own at the moment."
"You're right there, cousin," Auhlae said, and sighed once more. "Let me go see if the child needs anything. She tends to give off her power in these big bursts, and then needs a lot of time to recuperate. I keep telling her she should pace herself, but does she listen?"
"I know the problem," Rhiow said.
Auhlae went off to tend to Siffha'h, and Rhiow stood up and had a good stretch and went to the young ehhif; Arhu came along behind her, and behind him, Urruah. "Are you all right, Artie?" Rhiow asked.
"I'm rather hungry," he said, very woefully. "I was on my way to get a bun for lunch when I saw you."
"Well, I'll get you something," Rhiow said.
"Where?" Arhu said. "You're going to have to steal."
"No. Well, not exactly." Rhiow sighed. "Artie, would you like a sandwich?"
"A what?"
"Never mind," Rhiow said. "Do you like cheese?"
"Yes."
"I'll get you a pizza."
"From where?" Arhu said.
"Hey, bring me one, too," Urruah said.
Rhiow gave him a look. "Get your own pizza. I have enough problems. Are you and Fhrio in agreement about the timeslide?"
"He's looking at it for the moment," Urruah said. "The idea of him catching something in the spelling that I missed seems to appeal to him."
She put her whiskers forward at him. "Now who says you're all good looks and no brain?" she said. "I'll be back in a little."
Rhiow trotted over to where Auhlae was lying by Siffha'h. "Auhlae, where's one of the gates that is functioning? I need to run an errand."
"Back up the stairs the way we came," Auhlae said, "down the hallway and turn left to the access for the northbound Circle Line train. It's down off the left-paw end of the platform."