The Big Meow - Diana Dueyn

“Maybe,” Urruah said, “such people — the victims, anyway — are just looking for meaning in their lives.” He flicked a glance at Rhiow, not having to say aloud what she knew he was thinking; that it was hard on a species not have any clear sense of whether or not the One existed. To be sure, there were People who didn’t believe in Queen Iau, but not many; a far more common reaction for holders of the feline worldview was simply to have no time for Her. Independence ran deep in the feline psyche, sometimes enough so that a given Person might feel her or his essential felinity was best expressed by denying the authority of Deity — if necessary, to Her face. There were numerous stories among People of the Queen dealing kindly, even humorously, with such free thinkers…knowing them to be intent on being true to themselves and their nature. But such defiance was not an option that would’ve been open to Rhiow; it would have been an essential denial of a command structure that she had long accepted.

In a world full of death and pain, the Silent Man said, a world full of lies and corruption and theft and cruelty, where good people get cheated and bad people prosper, can you blame them?

“Hardly,” Hwaith said. “Nonetheless, despite how well they might mean, such innocents can still do great harm if they’re led into it. Or misled.”

“Which brings us to your Lady in Black,” Rhiow said. “Your friend had seen her often before. But no one tried to follow her before? No one had tried before to find where she’d come from?”

If they tried, the Silent Man said, my sources didn’t mention it.

“I think we should find out,” Hwaith said.

Rhiow lashed her tail. “I concur. The things she spoke of – “ She flicked an ear at Urruah. “There are some troubling implications.”

What, you mean besides the destruction of the ‘sheaf of sheaves of worlds?’

Urruah laughed under his breath at the ehhif’s dessicated humor. “You wrote that your companion said she’d been seen three months running – “

That’s right. Always a couple weeks after the full moon.

“In other words,” Hwaith said, “when the moon’s dark.” She gave Rhiow a thoughtful sidewise look.

Rhiow’s tail lashed. Moondark was not an unequivocally dangerous time; but when the Tom’s Eye was most tightly shut, there was a tendency for the darker influences to scurry about and make themselves noticed, like rats scratching and running inside the walls of the world. And for straightforwardly natural reasons, the new moon’s one of the nodes of the month that favor earthquakes…

“You said that she was yowling,” Urruah said.

The Silent Man nodded. Godawful noise, he said. Kind of like a cat. No offense.

“None taken,” Rhiow said. “And then no sooner had she delivered her message than she went around the corner and simply vanished.”

That’s the way it looked.

Rhiow flicked an ear backward, then forward, considering. “There’s a place we need to visit as well, then,” she said. “We may be able to throw some light on where she came from, or where she went.”

She sat up. “Perhaps we might make your home our base for a short time while we conduct our investigations?” Rhiow said. “Sheba’s told us the ground rules: we won’t seem different to your neighbors from any of the other People who visit you here. And we won’t overtax your hospitality.” Will we, ‘Ruah?

Urruah half-closed his eyes and let his glance wander sidewise. Officially this was “strategic aversion”, a gesture of agreement or conciliation to a more senior or dominant Person in a pride. But Rhiow noted in combined amusement and annoyance that the direction in which Urruah’s eyes slid included the food dishes out on the terrace…which turned the gesture into more what an ehhif would have thought of as an eyeroll.

The Silent Man naturally noticed nothing of this. You kidding? he said. I’d prefer you stayed. That way I can test whether you’re still so voluble when I’m off the pills. Hang around just as long as you like.

“One thing, though,” Hwaith said. “The writing you just did – Cousin, would it be intruding to ask what your interest in the story is?”

You mean, besides seeing it happen in front of me? The Silent Man stretched, leaned back in the chair again and folded his arms. This town is all about surfaces, he said. And light. The light of day, and what shows when the flashbulbs pop. When something pokes through a surface – or else only puts in an appearance at night, when the light’s poor, and the things come out that can’t stand daylight or publicity – then that attracts my attention. It’s been that way for me for a long time now, and maybe it’s a bad habit. But it’s a hard one to break, this late in the day.

Urruah stood up and stretched too, giving the Silent Man an approving look. “I think we have something in common there,” he said. “Night’s our time. Though we’re not beyond hunting in daylight when the circumstances call for it.”

“Which is a business we should be about,” Rhiow said. “If you have a map, and can show us the places from which the Lady in Black appeared and then disappeared, we’ll go have a look.”

Why waste time with maps? the Silent Man said, pushing back from his desk. I’ll show you myself.

Rhiow stood up as the ehhif did. Well, she said, a little concerned, we wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble —

Besides, might be smart to have some cover. You guys can’t just go parading around down there by yourselves, after all. There are people and dogs and traffic…

“Oh,” Urruah said, putting his whiskers forward in amusement, “dogs… I wouldn’t worry about the dogs. In fact, if I were them, I’d worry — ”

Could you cut out the tom stuff for a moment? Rhiow said silently “Actually,” she said aloud, “though your concern does you credit, you needn’t worry: no one’s going to see us unless we want them to.”

You mean you can vanish or something?

“Urruah?” Rhiow said.

Urruah, his whiskers forward, jumped down from the desk, turned around to face the Silent Man, and then took a step sideways, sidling as he did so. He took his time about it, and went so far to control the effect that his face, set in what an ehhif used for a grin, lingered slightly longer than the rest of him before it disappeared.

The Silent Man didn’t even blink. Now I know some people who’d find that talent a whole lot too handy, he said, as Urruah slipped back into visibility again. Probably better that the technique stays under wraps.

“So you see,” Hwaith said, “we’ll have no problem avoiding notice.”

Sure, the Silent Man said, but that has to take some effort.

“Well, it does,” Urruah said, “but – “

And why should you bother? Everybody around here knows Sheba. She goes out with me all the time. Why wouldn’t she bring some of her chums along for a stroll on the Boulevard? Nobody’d think twice. This is Hollywood, and you’re with me.

Urruah began to purr so loudly that Rhiow was surprised the windows didn’t rattle. “Cousin,” she said, “you’re kind to want to save us trouble.” She put her whiskers forward. “And I confess, it’d be fun…”

The Silent Man glanced at his watch. Come on, he said. We’ll go down there, have a look around at the first couple of your places, grab an early lunch.

“But you’ve been out all night,” Rhiow said.

Couldn’t sleep now if I tried, the Silent Man said. Besides, now you’ve got me wondering about some things I missed at first glance. Wouldn’t mind asking a few more questions myself. You can tell Sheba what we’re planning, I take it?

“Of course,” Rhiow said. “I think she’ll be delighted.”

“It’ll be something of a walk down to Hollywood and Highland – “ Hwaith said.

Walk? The Silent Man looked at Hwaith with a cockeyed expression. Are you from here? Who walks in LA?

And that was how they wound up being driven into the heart of Hollywood in the back seat of a sky-blue 1941 Lincoln Continental, by the Silent Man himself.

Iau only knows what the neighbors think of this, if they’re watching, Rhiow thought as she and Urruah and Hwaith wandered down the pathway to the street in Sheba’s wake.

And when we’re talking, said the Silent Man, as he opened the car door, no one’s going to be able to hear us?

“No one we don’t want to,” Urruah said. “You’ll want to make sure your mouth doesn’t move when you’re saying something, that’s all. We can hear you subvocalizing just fine.”

The Silent Man shook his head. All right, then, he said. We’ll go down to where I saw her, have a quick look around. Then you’ll let me know what else you need. Everybody in…

Sheba, long used to the drill, leapt up inside and curled herself down comfortably in the front seat, opposite the driver’s side. “It’s so much fun to do this and know what’s going to happen for a change!” Sheba said. “And it’s great to go down to town: everybody’s going to make a big fuss over us. Now I know that leather back there is slippery, but try not to sink your claws in any deeper than you need to on the curves. You won’t have to hang on very hard: he’s a careful driver…”

Rhiow jumped up into the broad back seat and looked around her with surprise. Rhiow’s experience of ehhif mechanical transport until now had been limited to the occasional New York cab, when her own ehhif had taken her to the vet for checkups and so forth. But this roomy solidity took her by surprise, and the luxury of the fittings: they were real leather, real wood. Rhiow was, however, also surprised by some of the omissions. No seat belts? she said silently to Urruah, as he and Hwaith jumped up behind her, and the Silent Man shut the door. Have they repealed the laws of physics on the highways here?

Urruah’s tail was waving from side to side as he sat down beside her. It took the ehhif a little while to wrap their brains around the concept of auto safety, Urruah said. Or that they would have to pay more for it. I’ll grant you, these cars aren’t as safe as the ones at our end of time. But they’re handsomer…

For her own part, Rhiow would happily enough have exchanged any amount of handsomeness for the knowledge that the occupants of the car she was riding in weren’t about to be thrown all over the place if something hit it. But as the Silent Man got into the driver’s seat, started the car up and pulled away from his house, she felt a little reassured: he seemed to be driving very slowly indeed.

“Can’t be doing more than twenty-five miles an hour,” Urruah said under his breath. “Looks like we’re riding with someone who actually takes the local speed limit seriously….”

And it seemed that he was right. After a minute or so, as they turned a corner, Rhiow relaxed enough to stand up on her hind legs and put her forepaws up against the bottom of the rear window. The car slid down yet another street lined with broad sidewalks and houses set well back from the street behind well-watered green lawns, then turned yet another corner.

Even the house-lined streets they’d been in until now were fairly wide: now they had come out on a wide boulevard that looked at least as broad as a New York avenue. It was lined with low buildings, mostly shops and stores and the occasional hotel or bank or other office building.

“Oh, now look at this,” Urruah said, in the kind of voice one would normally reserve for suddenly seeing something of great beauty or wonder.. He had somehow managed to get the back window on his side open; and now he was sticking his head out of it, staring at something they were passing. Rhiow dropped to the seat again and looked over to the other side of the car, seeing what looked like a long red bus.

“It’s a hRhed Kharr!” Urruah said. “Oh, Iau, thank you for letting me see this!”

Rhiow was tempted to simply squeeze her eyes shut and stop watching: Urruah was so far beyond delight at the moment that she suspected he was on the point of letting his tongue flap in the air like a houff. All she could do was put her whiskers forward at the sight of the amused ehhif looking down at him from the “Red Car”, which it turned out was no bus, but some sort of trolley that slid demurely past them on rails. Rhiow sat down by Hwaith and said quietly, “Cousin, you’ve got to forgive him: he does believe so deeply in complete cultural immersion…”

Hwaith’s whiskers were forward too. “Rhiow, it’s not a problem,” he said. “Where would our tourist industry be without tourists?” The Red Car glided away in a splendor of sunlit crimson, and Urruah was already craning his neck to look at something else.

Hwaith, for his part, was looking thoughtfully at the back of the Silent Man’s head. About a hundred things you didn’t say to him just now, Hwaith said silently.

What…about the strictly spiritual side of things? Probably it’s wiser to keep our conversations with the Whisperer out of the ehhif public domain for the moment. He’s a hard-headed one, the Silent Man: but I wouldn’t stretch that hardness too far just yet.

And what about his “Lady in Black?” You have some suspicions about what she might be, I think. What are you going to tell him about her? Or should I say “it?”

Rhiow’s eyes widened, and her tail lashed. Hwaith had quickly reached one of her own conclusions, one she very much hoped was more pessimistic than the reality. I’ll bite that rat’s throat when we’ve caught it, she said. Especially since there are almost too many suspicions, at this point…and even the Whisperer didn’t sound as if She was eager to see the worst of them vindicated.

But will She, though? That’s the question.

The unnerved sound of Hwaith’s thought made Rhiow look at him with some concern. This part of the world, Hwaith said, has its own peculiarities. Plenty of wizards, to be sure. But there are old powers and influences here that can bubble up without warning…and when they do, it can take considerable intervention to quiet them down again. He looked out the window, blinking, as if the light suddenly bothered him. That’s how my predecessor on the gates went; old Fu’ahh. He stumbled into a sinkhole in the hills – a pool of old power that had gone live in response to something some ehhif had stirred up. Hwaith’s tail was lashing now, and his eyes had gone veiled over an expression of anger and pain. We never did find out what caused that flareup…

We might now, Rhiow said, if we keep our eyes open, and watch what we do.

Hwaith gave her such a look of naked gratitude that Rhiow hardly knew where to look, except away. There’s something I hadn’t known. How lonely has he been since he lost his mentor? Does he think it’s his fault somehow? This may complicate things…

The car slowed, stopped. Rhiow looked up and out the nearest window, and was glad to see a distraction: a strange iron shape rearing up behind one of the buildings on the south side of the boulevard, near the middle of the block. It made her think of the top level of the Empire State Building, marooned by itself on the ground and looking rather out of place. Urruah caught her glance. “A radio tower?” he said.

What? That monstrosity? Not a chance. Look at the size of it. That’s the hot new thing…or so they tell us. Television. The Silent Man shook his head.