Diana Dueyn - The Big Meow

“At this rate I’m not gonna have a chance to acquire years and years of experience,” Arhu hissed, “because we are all going to be dead real soon. In fact we’re going to die before any of us were even born, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find that really frustrating!!”

My brother, Ith said, that estimation seems premature, since both of us still exist: and as I would not be here if not for you –

“Oh no you don’t,” Arhu said. “Don’t start with the big cheerful take on the time paradox stuff, because I understand it as well as you do, and the principle of temporal linearity means that – “

Among other things, Ith said, sounding a little dry now, it means I must now become very busy finding the tablets by other means. And from here on in I dare not dip into your timestream too often for the sake of giving you progress reports. Doing so might denature the local timestream enough to make it impossible to reach you when I do discover something useful. Or it might so alert our old enemy to our business that even more attention is brought to bear on you. And there seems to have been enough of that as it is…

“Ith,” Rhiow said, “your caution’s commendable. But we need something more concrete to work with within a few hours than the hints and riddles we’ve got so far. Otherwise we won’t have time to prepare a response by the time Dagenham’s group meets this evening–“

I hear you, Ith said. I will contact you as soon as I have something worth breaking silence for. Dai –

His end of the connection went silent.

Rhiow was unable to restrain herself from letting out a hiss of frustration. Arhu, meanwhile, had begun swearing under his breath again. “ – don’t care, I’m going to get back in there and stare at that thing for as long as it takes until I See what we came here for! And if sa’Rraah Herself shows up and tries to give me grief, She can just –”

Oh, Queen Iau, no more of this right now! Rhiow thought, and stood up to turn around and clout him until he saw a little sense. But to her great surprise Hwaith slipped past her and the increasingly concerned-looking Aufwi, moved gently over to Arhu’s side, whipped one forepaw up and hooked its foreclaw right into the soft middle of Arhu’s ear.

Arhu broke off, his mouth hanging open as he stared at Hwaith in shock, but he wisely didn’t move otherwise: that claw was well set in place to go deep if he so much as twitched. “Listen, young tom,” Hwaith said. “You have to watch what you ask for in circumstances like this. Right now I’m more than happy to answer you on sa’Rraah’s behalf and tell you that this claw right here is what she’s waiting to stick into every wizard who gets careless or foolish about how they work with others in the Art, especially when everyone’s under pressure. If your team leader is telling you to get a grip and be quiet, then that’s what you need to be doing.”

Arhu didn’t move a whisker even to narrow his eyes, as that would have meant moving his ears… an experiment he looked unwilling to try. All the same, when he spoke, his voice was just a whisker away from a yowl. “You think you know so much?” Arhu said. “You may think you’re a big deal gate tech in this day and age, but you’re not so hot that you didn’t have to come yelling to us uptime for help. And here or there, you are not the boss of me – “

“In the normal flow of events, actually I am,” Hwaith said, “since I’ve been a wizard a lot longer than you have, and the Powers expect you to defer to my judgment when there’s good reason, and to treat me with due respect. But since you’re not paying your team leader the respect she’s due either, then let’s move a tail’s width outside the normal management structure, shall we? Let’s see if you’re willing to move that pretty little not-yet-shredded ear of yours far enough to get loose and find out who’s really the boss of who.”

Arhu’s tail lashed furiously, but he didn’t move otherwise, and kept his mouth shut. “So then,” Hwaith said, and unhooked the claw –

Arhu lashed out at Hwaith fast with a forepaw. But this swept through air which Hwaith was simply no longer occupying, and from the formerly empty air behind Arhu both of Hwaith’s paws shot out and dealt him a one-two slap that left Arhu flat on the gravel of the garden path. He rolled and came right side up in a hurry, crouching down with his ears now well flattened back out of harm’s way, his tail wagging with fury like that of some demented houiff. Then he leapt at Hwaith, every claw bared. But once again Hwaith was no longer occupying the same volume of space when Arhu arrived there. The youngster sailed straight through it, coming down hard on the path, and when he tried to turn and spring again, once more Hwaith silently appeared behind Arhu, reared up and knocked him flat.

Arhu rolled and came up crouching again, panting a little now — but this time he didn’t move, just glared. Hwaith sat down in front of him, quite casually, and cocked his head a little, waiting to see what Arhu would do.

Rhiow blinked, astounded by the suddenness of what had just happened. Nonplussed, she glanced at Aufwi, who looked as bemused as she felt, and then over at Urruah. Far from intervening, he was presently smelling a large downhanging red rose on a nearby bush and acting as if his thoughts were entirely elsewhere. Is this some tom-style intervention you two cooked up? Rhiow said to him privately.

Not at all, Urruah said, taking a last breath of the rose’s fragrance. Kind of wish I’d thought of it. But we’ve been so busy with work here that disciplinary issues kind of got shoved to the back of my mind. Now, though –

He strolled over to where Arhu was crouching, and leaned down to peer at the ear by which Hwaith had briefly held Arhu still. Just a drop of blood marked the spot. “That could’ve been interesting,” he said to Hwaith.

Hwaith gave him a casual sidewise look. “No point in half measures,” he said. “If you’re thinking about pulling someone’s ear off, make sure you’re in the right place to pull it all off…”

Urruah merely flirted his tail in agreement. Seeing this, Arhu’s eyes went a bit less outraged and furious, a little more scared.

Urruah bent lower. “Just because you’re useful,” Urruah said, “don’t get the idea that you’re so indispensable that you can be rude to those of us who outweigh you – in seniority, or otherwise.” The way he was looming over Arhu, in a more massive manner than the slighter Hwaith could manage, suggested that the always-loaded issues of relative weight and size were now on Urruah’s mind… or at least that he wanted Arhu to think they were. “Because if you let your hormones start talking for you, believe me, we’re going to talk back.”

“And as for Hwaith having come to us for help,” Rhiow said, coming up beside Urruah, “you of all People have no business complaining about where errantry’s needs might lead a cousin in the Art! Or, for that matter, anyone’s ability to handle a problem with or without assistance from others. You had plenty from us, as I recall.”

The three of them stood looking down at Arhu for a few moments more. He kept still, but Rhiow could see that some of the tension was going out of him, if only to be displaced for the moment by embarrassment. Not entirely a bad alternative under the circumstances, Rhiow thought.

“All right,” she said at last. “For the time being, it might be smart if you busied yourself with something concrete while we start setting up our plans for this evening. Go on back to the Silent Man’s, tell Sif to take a break, and go over the structure she’s setting up for us. I’ll want a report on its strengths and weaknesses from you when we get back.”