Diane Duane - The Book of Night with Moon

Ith turned his attention away from a passing barge and toward Rhiow and the team. “I am hearing more and more in my mind,” Ith said, “of what the Powers will ask of us by way of guardianship. The requirements are not extreme. And little explanation will be needed as to why their present life is more desirable for my people than their former one. Hunger is something they are used to: until we distribute ourselves more widely, we will help one another cope with it… by more wholesome means than formerly. Meantime,” and he glanced over at Rhiow, “I will need some help tailoring spells that will function on a large scale, with little maintenance, as sunblock.” He grinned. “We have been down in the dark a long time.”

They all looked out at the glowing water. “The dark…” Arhu said, looking down into water in which, for once, no trash bobbed. “I could never look at this before,” he said to Rhiow. “But I can now. I won’t mind seeing the river, even when it’s back to normal. I could never stand going near it before: I was stuck on the Rock. But I don’t think I have to be stuck here anymore.”

“Of course not,” Har’lh said. “Be plenty of demand for a hot young visionary-wizard all over the place. In other realities”—he glanced at Ith—“and offplanet as well. You’re going to be busy for a while.”

“I am,” Arhu said. “Getting used to being in a team…” He glanced over at Rhiow.

Rhiow looked over at him affectionately and put her whiskers forward, smiling. “You’re well met on the errand,” she said.

They fell silent for a while, looking out at the light. The sense of power and potential beating around them in the air was as tangible as a pulse; for this little while, in mis New York, anything was possible. Rhiow looked out into the glory of the transfigured morning—not quite that of Tune-heart, but close enough—and said softly, only a little sadly, I had to tell you. The tuna wasn’t all that bad…

She did not really expect an answer. But the walls between realities were thin this morning. From elsewhere came just the slightest hint of a purr… and somewhere, Hhuha smiled.

Rhiow blinked, then washed a little, for composure’s sake.

She would head home soon. She would have to start drawing close to Iaehh now. He would be needing her, for there was no way Rhiow could tell him about anything she had seen or experienced… except by being who she now was.

Whoever that is… And if in the doing Rhiow brought with her a little of the sense of Hhuha—not as she was, of course, but Hhuha moved on into something more—that would possibly be some help.

It was so nice to know mat ehhif had somewhere to go when they died.

For Rhiow’s own part, she had had enough dying for one day.

The talk went on for a while more. Only slowly did Rhiow notice that the interior light was seeping out of things, leaving New York looking entirely more normal: the horns began to hoot in the distance again, and a few hundred yards down FDR Drive, there was a tinkle of glass as a car changing lanes sideswiped another one and broke off one of its wing mirrors. Tires screeched, voices yelled.

“Normalcy,” Har’lh said, looking with amused irony at T’hom. “What we work for, I suppose. Speaking of work… I’m going to have to go make some phone calls. My boss is going to be annoyed that I took this time off without warning.”

“Wizard’s burden,” Urruah said. “I feel sorry for you poor ehhif. Wouldn’t it just be easier to tell him you were off adjusting somebody’s gas giant?”

Har’lh gave Urruah a look, then grinned. “Might make an interesting change. Come on—“He looked over at T’hom. “Let’s go catch a train.”

The team walked the Advisories and Ith back to Grand Central, as far as the entrance to the subway station: it was not a place Rhiow chose to plunge into during rush hour while sidled, as you were likely to become subway-station pizza in short order. “Go well,” she said to T’hom and Har’lh, as they went through the turnstiles.

We will, Har’lh said silently. You did…

Rhiow strolled back up to the main concourse level and put herself against a wall, where she could look out across the great expanse. Working properly again, she thought. With time, everything would. Someday, if things went right, the New York they had spent this long morning in would be the real one, and this one just a grubby, shabby memory. But meantime you make it work the best you can.

And meantime the scent in the air caught her attention.

Pizza…

The others came up out of the entrance to the subway, glanced across the concourse, and down at Rhiow. Ith in particular looked across at the Italian deli.

’Wow, about that pastrami…” he said to Arhu.

Arhu grinned. “Let me show you a trick somebody taught me,” he said, glancing over at Rhiow. “I had a feeling you’d be sorry you showed him that one,” Urruah said. “Ith, don’t let him talk you into trying it. You’ll make the papers.”

“Tapers’?”

Rhiow gave Urruah a look. “Come on, ’Ruah, let’s leave them to it, and go do the rounds.”

Rhiow and Urruah strolled off across their territory, weaving casually among the ehhif, up the cream marble of the Vanderbilt Avenue stairs, and out of the sight of wizards, and People, and anyone else who could see. No one noticed them, which was just as it should have been; and life in the city went on…

This occupation of the People, described only briefly in the literature by ehhif writers (the most reliable and perceptive is Pratchett [2] in The Unadulterated Cat (Gollancz, 1989) ) has occasionally been called a pastime— but such a characterization is similar to calling soccer, baseball, and American-style football “pastimes”—for which human beings have sometimes wagered and won or lost fortunes, ignored almost all the other important aspects of their lives, and occasionally died under circumstances both comic and tragic.

An exhaustive analysis of hauissh would be far beyond the scope of this work, but it seems useful to include at least a summary explanation.

Hauissh is of such antiquity that it almost certainly predates the time at which felinity became self-aware. Its most basic structure implies a conflict over hunting territory between two prides, and most authorities agree that it evolved from this strictly survival-oriented behavior to a more structured but still violent dominance game between individual members of a single pride or (later) extended pride-community, with the loser usually being run off the pride’s territory, or killed. (Even now the biggest predators tend to play hauissh in this mode, considering the refinements of later millennia to be oversophisticated or effete).

It would be as difficult to determine exactly when feline self-awareness arose as it would to fix a time at which hauissh began to develop beyond concerns of food, territory, and power into the more intellectual and entertainment-oriented version now played by cats the world over. All the families of the People seem to have at least some knowledge of the basic concepts of the game on an instinctive level. But the demands and challenges of the modern form of hauissh require a great deal more of the player than instinct alone will provide.

There is no mandated maximum number of players of hauissh, though games involving more than thirty or so players in one session are likely to be considered “inelegant.” Most play involves no more than ten or twelve players, though, since some level of personal relationship is considered desirable among a majority of those playing.