Diana Dueyn - The Big Meow

He put his head up against hers. You should go, he said silently.

No I shouldn’t! Rhiow cried. …Except I must.

Aufwi glanced at them, no more; then away again. Quietly the air went prickly with the feel of a gate going active when it had a timeslide augmentation.

Hwaith pushed his face in front of hers so that she couldn’t avoid seeing it. Cousin and love, he said, …go well.

Cousin, Rhiow said. And love. Always go well.

With you wishing it so, Hwaith said, it has to be.

And he turned his face away.

Rhiow walked over to the gate more unwillingly than she had ever gone anywhere in her life. Helen, in LAPD uniform again, was stepping through as she came up: Arhu and Ith went through after her, and then Siffha’h. Urruah glanced over his shoulder and went through, followed by Aufwi. By the gate, knowing it would close after her, Rhiow paused as Hwaith came along behind her.

“Don’t forget to disengage the slide conduit before you close it down,” she said.

“Rhiow,” Hwaith said. “Am I a complete idiot? …Just go.”

“Yes,” she said.

She took one last long glance, one that was going to have to last her a lifetime: then turned and stepped through.

A second later she was surrounded by the sooty, metal-smelling dark of the track 33 platform-end, all full of locked empty postal parcel cages and little pallet-moving trucks. Rhiow had seen this spot a thousand times, and it now all looked inexpressibly alien to her — dirty and unfriendly and miserable. Around her, her team and Ith and Helen were looking up and down the platform, making sure of their own personal invisibility routines before stepping out into the public areas.

Helen Walks Softly smiled at them all. “My cousins, we’ll meet again on the journey, I know,” she said. “But I shouldn’t linger: I have a shift this evening.”

Urruah glanced across at the ehhif clock up against the wall to which the postal cages were chained. “If you pop over to 25,” he said, “the local to Croton will be out of there in about two minutes. The gate comes unshielded as soon as it pulls out.”

“Perfect. All of you – go well!”

“Wait for me,” Aufwi said. “I’ll come with you. Rhiow – Urruah – “

“You’re entirely welcome, cousin,” Rhiow said. “Soon again…”

He headed off after Helen; the two of them vanished into the dark at the end of the platform.

“So much for that,” Siffha’h said, and headed out into the Main Concourse. But Arhu and Ith lingered a moment longer, and Arhu – on top of Ith’s head as usual — went unfocused for a moment before looking down at his counterpart suddenly. “Pastrami?” he said.

“Indubitably,” said Ith.

They vanished.

Rhiow and Urruah were left looking at each other in the noisy dark. “Do you want me to walk home with you?” Urruah said.

“No,” Rhiow said, “it’s all right. I know, ‘Ruah. I’ll be ready to talk about it soon enough. But not just now.”

She sidled herself and headed out into the Concourse. Sif had already taken herself somewhere else, and for all she knew, Arhu and Ith were probably on the upper West Side by now. Out into the busy bustle and stir of ehhifkind Rhiow took herself, and it all sounded just like so much noise to her as she made her way out the station’s side entry and onto Lexington.

She made herself do the walk the long way to the upper East Side, hoping that it would ground her a little. But it was a long way, a hard way, harder than she ever remembered it having been, even right after Hhuha died. Everything seemed as colorless as when the One Outside had been sucking the life out of the landscape. But, This is temporary, Rhiow told herself. You have been through an extraordinary thing. The reaction is normal. This will pass.

She simply couldn’t believe it.

At last Rhiow came to the corner of the street where her ehhif’s apartment building lay, and walked down past the little skinny fenced-in trees, the brownstone doorsteps, the vans making deliveries, the queen-ehhif pushing strollers. None of it meant a thing to her. She came at last to the apartment gate where the garbage cans were locked up until collection day, spoke by rote the air-hardening spell she used every day, and walked up the air to where Iaehh’s apartment’s terrace stuck out. Weary to the bone, she headed toward it…

…and saw that there was someone in her litterbox.

Rhiow froze.

The dusty black shape had its back turned to her, and was scratching busily. Rhiow stood there on the air staring at him as inside her began to grow a joy so extreme that it was very like terror. She was unable to believe what she was seeing, unable to believe what had happened —

Surprise, said sa’Rraah in Rhiow’s ear.

Rhiow sat right down on the air in shock.

You did me a favor, sa’Rraah said. It was with your help that I drove out the one who would have destroyed my universe, and my plans… and Me. So I have done a little favor for you, and did not too quickly sweep across the border into Life a soul that, having come to the end of its current life some time back, very much wanted not to be born just yet. Or indeed for some while. Or at all, until somebody else arrived.

Rhiow held very still, hearing more in the silence that followed the Lone One’s words than she might possibly wish.

I will grant you, sa’Rraah said, sounding just a touch cranky, he was more than usually persistent about staying on the other side. But without My help, he could not have remained. You may now thank me.

Rhiow knew better than most what the next move in the dance usually was. Yet today… today everything was different. It was all about chances: the possibility to do something a different way… and not crush out even what might seem like just a tiny spark of light in the darkness. And what do I owe you for this favor? she said at last.

Nothing… just this once. Did you not help Me and My pride, defend what is ours from the interloper? Be warned: after today, all is as it was. But for today… I remember that you helped me keep what is Mine.

Rhiow was silent a moment. Litter-sister, she said then, …I do thank you. So now I go. And may you also go well.

Sa’Rraah made her no answer.

But now I want to talk to your mother!!

There was a short pause. Arhu knew, Rhiow thought suddenly. He knew as soon as we got here, that’s where the sudden urge for pastrami came from —

But daughter, Queen Iau said quietly, surely you too might have known. After the part you played, at so central a level – and that Hwaith then played in order to be with you — surely you might have suspected that however well or ill-disposed She was toward you, sa’Rraah would discover that there would be no keeping you two from one another. For one lifetime – nine – ten – or however many…

The shock and relief were such that Rhiow could have lain right down and yowled. But this seemed the wrong moment. She pulled herself together and tried for some kind of composure. But what came out was, “After what we’ve just been through, I want a holiday!”

She was expecting an argument. What she wasn’t expecting was to hear the Queen of the Universe say, Done. How long?

That brought Rhiow up short. First and foremost, she was a wizard. For as long as the sabbatical lasted, she would be walking away from any chance of active assignment. And though there were times she hated admitting it, active assignment was fun.

Her tail lashed. “I’ll tell You when I’m ready to come back,” Rhiow said.

Well enough, said the Queen. Anything else?

“…I can’t think of anything right now,” Rhiow said. “But I may later.”

Let me know when you do, said Iau.

Rhiow’s ears went back and forth in a momentary flicker of suspicion. “Royal Dam and Queen,” she said, “You’re being unusually accommodating.”