Diana Dueyn - The Big Meow

“Got some trouble here,” Urruah said then, and the steady way he said it brought the fur up all over Rhiow.

“What?” she said, getting up and trotting over.

“No,” Urruah said, “nothing you need to do anything about right this second. We’re going to need a few extra paws in a little bit, though.” He bent in close, seized a bundle of the glowing gate-strings in his teeth, and reached in with the freed-up paw to hook another tangle of them with his claws. “This thing hasn’t just put down one root. It’s got five now.”

Hwaith hissed, swearing in helpless anger. “It’s not going to do any good pulling them up one at a time,” he said. “It’ll just re-root one of them while we’re working on the next.”

“We can each take one,” Rhiow said. “’Ruah, are the roots sinking themselves nearby?”

It looked as if the knotted mass of hyperstrings was resisting him, trying to snap back into the gate. He lashed his tail “no”. “They’re spread out,” he said. “South, east, southeast, southwest of here. Take a look – “

Urruah bit deeper into the hyperstring bundle he was holding in his teeth. Sudden bright strings of light shot out from the base and edges of the gateweave, seeming to lance down into the dimly glittering cityscape like laser light, the only difference being that physical objects didn’t stop them. They resumed on the other side, in one case going straight through a hillcrest and down into the landscape below.

“One’s a little stronger than the others,” he said. “That one going through the hill. Maybe it’s been there a touch longer – hard to tell. But they’re all going to have to come up at once.”

Rhiow flicked her tail. “How are you for power at the moment?” she said to Hwaith. “Did we catch you at the end of your work day, or the beginning?”

He let out a breath. “I’m tired enough,” he said, “but I won’t drop what I grab hold of a moment before anyone else does. Let’s go.”

“’Ruah, I’ll take that older root,” Rhiow said, heading over toward it. “Hwaith, the one next to mine, running down the canyon. Aufwi, the one past that. Arhu, the last one. Sif, you stand by and lend power if you sense anyone slipping.”

Everyone headed to the string Rhiow had indicated for each of them, and bit down on it or hooked their claws around it. “Can I do anything to help?” Helen said.

“Lend Sif a paw if there’s need,” Rhiow said. She bit down on her own string, pulling back a little and testing it. With the pull she got a clearer sense of the structures into which it was trying to root – the stone of some other hillside, cracked, unstable-feeling – and something else that concerned her more: an odd sour stink or flavor, unpleasant. It reminded Rhiow of something, but she couldn’t think what. And now it’s going to make me crazy for days until I remember. Where’s that coming from, though? You don’t usually get taste associations on hyperstrings — “Let us know when you’re set,” she said.

“Just a moment more,” Urruah said. All along and across the web of the gate, hyperstrings flickered and vibrated as if someone was plucking them; beads and streaks of multicolored fire chased up and down the threads as Urruah made final adjustments in the master web of the gate, securing its structure before starting to pull any roots loose. “All right,” he said then. “Everybody – pull!”

Rhiow set her teeth hard, ignoring the sudden increase in that odd stink, and started backing away from the gate. The string she was biting resisted her more aggressively, but she kept on backing away – this being only the physical component of the actual stress Rhiow was bringing to bear on the hyperstring, the pressure of the mind and of the necessary words in the Speech, all bent toward persuading it to give up, let go, stop being so attached… But the resistance increased. This attachment suits me, the string told her, in the stubborn, silent manner of a construct refusing to answer to the desires of a wizard who hadn’t put it there. I was told to root here, and here I will stay.

I have rightful authority over you, Rhiow thought in the Speech: I am sent to you on errantry by the Powers that Be, and it’s proper that you obey my intent! But the root-string was having none of it. It sought to anchor itself deeper in that down-canyon ground, even as Rhiow pulled at it. The strange muddy stink in her nostrils got stronger as it did, and Rhiow could also feel something else through the far end of the string – a shiver, a tremor, rumbling, growing: the memory of a recent earthquake. And one trying not to be just a memory –

She shivered all over, but she kept her grip. Around her she could sense the others having a similar problem: Urruah’s temper wanting to flare, but being suppressed; Arhu annoyed at anything being able to resist his intention, still unusually powerful in a wizard so near his Ordeal; Aufwi alarmed at the string’s refusal to respond: Hwaith surprisingly cool and certain as he stepped back and back with his own string. Well, it’s his own gate, after all. But he doesn’t seem to be having any better luck than the rest of us. This doesn’t look good —

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.