The Big Meow - Diana Dueyn

From outside the group, Siff’hah said, “Rhiow – “

She was tempted to tell Siff’hah to throw all the power she had at one or another of the roots – for dividing her effort among them seemed unlikely to do much good at this point. But what if doing that unbalances the whole gateweave? It might tear loose and run out of control, like Aufwi’s did – Or else the gate might just tear apart, possibly even shred under the strain altogether. That didn’t bear thinking about, for worldgates, even a singleton gate like this one, had a tremendous amount of power wrapped up in them. Release all that energy at once, and local space and subspace were both at risk of becoming deranged – as was the matter they contained.

Either way, the tack they were taking at the moment apparently wasn’t getting them anywhere, and they were going to have to consider other possibilities. Sif, Rhiow said silently, start a mapping routine. We need to see in which exact spots those roots are sinking themselves, so we can go down there afterwards and understand the whys as well as the wheres. She was careful not to say After this doesn’t work: there was always the possibility something might yet give in their favor, that the gate would see sense and do as it was told —

Doing it now, Siff’hah said. Think we’re going to need it, too —

Rhiow said nothing. Her whole business at the moment was to hang onto her string and watch what Urruah did as he manipulated the strings held in teeth and claws. Her own words came back to her suddenly: I’m not going to do this job forever… She sank her teeth more tightly into her string, pulled harder. Now what made me say that to him right then? Maybe I was just tired. Yet one way or another, there was some truth to it. She might be a wizard until the day she kicked this life’s skin away behind her and moved on to the next one: but she wasn’t required to do the same kind of work all that while. Even specialties don’t have to be forever. And the Powers understand that sometimes you need a break from the routine —

That strange mind-stink from the hyperstring was beginning to bother her. Rhiow wanted mightily to sneeze, but that was the last thing she was going to allow herself to do at the moment, when it could upset someone else’s concentration. She wrinkled her nose, then her whole muzzle, in an attempt to disrupt the coming sneeze. It worked for a moment, but then the stink started to itch in her nostrils again. I will not, she thought, I will not, as Iau’s my witness, I will not –

“Anybody making any progress?” Urruah said, though from his tone of voice Rhiow thought he already knew the answer.

“Not moving!” Arhu said.

“The thing’s locked down,” Aufwi said. “Some kind of compulsion – “

Urruah glanced over at Hwaith. Hwaith, hanging on, simply lashed his tail angrily, tried to take one more step back, failed –

“Then ease up, all,” Urruah said. “Let’s stop and think – “

Everyone slowly started to give way to the backward pull of the gate-root he or she was holding. Rhiow could feel something peculiar down the string as she stopped exerting pressure against it: an odd sense of – not satisfaction, but relief. And not from the root, but from the gate itself: as if it knew perfectly well it was the object of contention between two different forces, and was glad to see the contention stop, because it was – frightened? Frightened, not of the other – but of us?

When Rhiow was close enough to the gate, she opened her jaws, and the root-string snapped back hard the instant she let it go. Urruah let go of the bundles of strings he was holding and dropped to his forefeet again, his ears back flat.

“Well,” Arhu said, “that was a whole lot of nothing! What’s the matter with the thing? Doesn’t it know we’re on its side, and it’s supposed to do what we ask it?”

“Good question,” Urruah said. He sat down, his tail lashing. “Something else for us to look into. Hwaith, has the gate been openly uncooperative this way with you before?”

“Never,” Hwaith said. He sounded mortified.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I don’t think we should waste any more time trying to disengage those roots from here,” Urruah said. “Our effort’s being attenuated by our distance from the actual spaces they’re affecting.”

Rhiow flicked an ear in agreement. “We’re going to have to go to the separate locations where they’ve sunk themselves in,” she said, “and pull them up from there, one at a time. And while we do that, someone’s going to have to stay up here and keep the gate from putting down new roots in response. And if it does, try to get a sense of what’s making it behave that way.”

“I know its structures pretty well,” Aufwi said. “Probably that’s me.” He looked over at Hwaith. “If you don’t mind – “

Hwaith swung his tail “no”. “I think I’m more likely to be needed as a ‘native guide,’” he said.

Siff’hah came strolling over then, with Helen Walks Softly close behind. “I have your root locations for you,” she said to Rhiow, and put one white paw out a little ahead of her, resting it on a bare patch on the dusty reddish ground. From her paw, delicate lines of light fled away in all directions, describing in miniature a duplicate of the faintly glittering street-structure below them. They all gazed down at it, and Helen hunkered down by it and gazed down at the four small pulsing golden lights that burned on the little map. A larger white one pulsed up in the darkest part of the wizardly map, amid the hills.

“All right,” Helen said, pointing at the nearest of the golden lights south of them. “That one I know. That’s Hollywood Boulevard and – yeah, Highland Avenue, see the way it doglegs north of Franklin? There’s a lot of new building there now, but – “ and she waved a little further down the street-line to where that golden light burned – “that’s still where it belongs. Mann’s Chinese Theater.”

“You mean Grauman’s,” said Hwaith. “Who’s ‘Mann’?”

“Uh, long story,” Helen said.

“Au,” Urruah said, “Grauman’s — !” He went from wearing the ears-back expression of an annoyed gate technician to the whiskers-forward of some kind of excited arts fan, an expression Rhiow had seen a thousand times before. “You’re going to tell me that that they do opera there, I suppose,” she said.

Urruah turned one of those stricken, don’t-tell-me-you-have-no-idea-what-I’m-talking-about looks on her. “You’re kidding me,” he said, “surely! Even you have to have heard about the place – “

“Somehow the Whisperer neglected to bring me up to date,” Rhiow said, trying to sound severe.

“It’s a place where ffilhm was shown,” he said. “Maybe the greatest ffilhm showplace of this time. The ehhif stars would come here when their ffilhms were premiered, and walk down a red carpet, and put their handprints in cement – “

“And after all the trouble we went through to get them up off all fours,” Rhiow said, torn between annoyance and bemusement, “tell me why in Iau’s name they’re so eager to get down on them again? But, no, please, don’t tell me now, because I know it’s going to happen later no matter how I try to avoid it – “

“Hey, I had no idea you were a fan,” Hwaith said to Urruah, looking surprised. “When we get this gate settled, I’ll take you down there. I know some of the backstage toms. They keep asking me why don’t I– “

O Queen Iau, Rhiow thought, help me keep my claws sheathed and my temper in one piece! Is this why most of the really good gate techs are queens? Toms just can not focus for more than the time it takes to eat something or kill something – She opened her mouth.

Then Rhiow closed it again, as startled as everyone else by the sudden sound of Siff’hah hissing softly. Urruah and Hwaith both turned to stare at her. “I am not holding this imaging spell here for my health, you two!” Siff’hah said. “Hhel’hen, do you know what those other lights are, or are we going to have to stimulate these sheihss’s thought processes a little?”

Claws were now very visible jutting out from the paw that held the wizardry in place, and Sif’s eyes were pits of solid, furiously dilated darkness in the dim light. Helen leaned over the map, wearing what for an ehhif would have been only the smallest of smiles, as Urruah and Hwaith fell quite abruptly silent, and Arhu looked up into the darkness with an expression of complete innocence and uninvolvement. Rhiow kept her whiskers back for the moment, though she was amused.

“Well, up here close to us – “ Helen was tracing one curving, switchbacking road with a forefinger: the road went bright where her finger had been. “This isn’t my normal patrol area: I’m normally down in Wilshire and Central, and these roads are hard to keep straight…but not many of them go all the way across to the Valley. So that has to be either Laurel Canyon or Coldwater Canyon…”

“It’s Laurel,” Hwaith said. He peered at the light that shone just off to one side of it. “That cross street, the little one running up the side canyon…that should be Prospect Trail… No, Highland Trail. Either way, it’s interesting, because that was the epicenter of two of our earthquakes last week…”

“Was it now,” Rhiow said softly, looking over his shoulder.

“Not much built up yet, by the looks of things,” Helen said.

“No. There are a few old houses, and a new mansion: some ehhif involved with real estate in the Midwest built that before the Hurw’sshehhif.” It was the Ailurin term for what ehhif called their Second World War.

“That’s going to be worth looking at, perhaps,” Helen said. “And this, down here by the ocean – “

“The ehhif call that ‘Santa Monica’,” Hwaith said. “Lots of houses, some of the big ffihlm studios have lots near there…”

“Any quakes there?” Urruah said.

“Not recently,” said Hwaith. “But some months back we had one.”

Helen nodded. “And then there’s this.” She reached out to point at another spot, more westerly and closer to the hills. “Those two six-point intersections are kind of hard to miss. Sunset Boulevard, where Beverly and Crescent cross each other?”

“That’s right,” Hwaith said, peering more closely at the map.

“That’s the Beverly Hills Hotel in your time?”

“Oh yes,” Hwaith said, “but it doesn’t look like the hotel’s the marked spot, does it – “ He put one of his own paws on the map: the streetscape enlarged, but the light stayed the same size, relocating itself as the map changed. “No, it’s one of those little streets behind it. Rochdale, I think. Now why under the Eye would the gate be wanting to put a root down there?”

Or why would it be told to? Rhiow thought. “But it doesn’t matter,” Hwaith said. “I know a Person very close to there who knows everything that goes on inside that place.”

“Perhaps you might introduce us,” Rhiow said.

“As soon as we’re done here, I’ll take you right down,” Hwaith said. “The time of day’s no issue: there are People in and out of her place by light or night. And whoever else is interested should come too…though I assume we’re going to be splitting up to check out the root locations separately.”

“It makes most sense, I’d guess,” Urruah said. He glanced up at Helen. “Maybe you want to choose the one where an ehhif wizard could come by the most information,” he said.

Helen looked at the map. “Hard to say where that might be,” she said. But as Rhiow watched her, Helen slipped a hand inside her shirtfront and touched something hidden there that hung from her throat. For a second she held very still.

Though no words of the Speech were spoken aloud, to Rhiow there was no mistaking the slight scent of some kind of ehhif wizardry on the air. Faintly Rhiow thought she heard something odd in the middle distance, like sticks cracking or snapping. No, she thought then, as she smelled smoke, and glanced around her quickly. Like fire in brush. But there wasn’t any fire —

Then Rhiow was jolted out of her analysis by the raucous noise of some kind of bird braying at them all from up in a nearby pine tree. It was an extraordinary noise, suggesting something mechanical rather than biological, and something that needed a session in the shop and a lube job, at that.

Hwaith laughed under his breath, a little audible trill. “Dawn’s coming,” he said. “The jays always know.”

“That was a bluejay?” Arhu said, looking up into the tree, and licking his chops.

“Not one of your little eastern ones,” Hwaith said. “This one’s a crow relative.”

“The melodious voice,” Rhiow said, “is a giveaway.” She sighed. “Well, we should get moving. Aufwi, Hwaith, is this gate likely to move if we leave it here?”

They both waved their tails “no”. “It seems like all its intent’s to stay right where it is,” Aufwi said. “For the moment, that seems just as well. Of course we’ll have to put up some kind of bounding spell to keep it hidden, and keep ehhif and everything else away from it.”

“We’ll take care of that,” Arhu said, as Siff’hah collapsed her map spell.

“Stay clear of its control structures when you ward it,” Urruah said. “You don’t want to jostle it into doing something while you’re setting up the spell.”

“Which brings us to the next question,” Rhiow said. “The roots… Can you keep it from putting any more down? We’ve got enough problems as it is.”

“I should be able to prevent it,” Aufwi said. “I’ll shout if there seem to be any problems.”

Rhiow was somehow sure that there would be. And one more thing to check yet, she thought. But a moment for that. She glanced up at Helen. “Well,” she said, “what did your ikheya say?”

Helen grinned at her. “Caught that, did you,” she said. “He says, Since you People have an ehhif with you, she might as well see what kind of news other ehhif can give her while you folks are discovering what you can from other People. I’ll take myself downhill to the Library and have a look at the papers…see what news the world throws in my way.”

“But not like that – !” Hwaith said, sounding rather distressed all of a sudden. “Queen-ehhif don’t dress that way these days – “

“Oh, no, not like that at all,” Helen said. “I thought I’d wear something like this – “

The change was so abrupt it made Rhiow blink. One moment Helen was standing there in her police clothes, and the next she was wearing a long, tan, belted coat with a patterned dress underneath it, and (what most surprised Rhiow) a hat that actually had a veil attached. Rhiow was no expert in the ins and outs of ehhif fashion, but she recognized the clothing as well out of date for her own time, if only because Helen was so much more covered than most of the ehhif she saw in New York.

Hwaith looked most surprised. “Nice illusion!” he said. “I can’t even see through it – “

Helen took off the hat, wiped a little sweat off her brow, and replaced the hat again. “Not an illusion,” she said. “It’s a full transform. It costs, yes, but sometimes it’s useful to be able to do one in a hurry.”

“I bet you have to do that a lot back up at our end of things,” Arhu said. “Human wizards have to hide what they’re doing all the time…”