Pulling sa’Rraah’s whiskers in such a way was reckless business, and Rhiow waited for the scorned fury and the lightnings to break loose, revealing the true intention underneath. But it didn’t happen. There was merely a long pause, and then the darkness said, with an outwardly affronted air, Whether you’re a fool or no, that’s between you and the Queen. But I tell you that She Herself has no better plan. Ask, and see.
And everything went quiet as that unseen presence withdrew.
Rhiow sat there in the dark of dream for some time, waiting for an afterword, some rebuttal from other levels of reality. But nothing came. At last she said to the Whisperer, Well, your sister’s voluble today. And you have nothing to say on this subject? No advice?
The silence was deafening. Rhiow couldn’t recall having heard anything like it before. It was not the waiting quiet the Whisperer allowed you to hear when She expected you to figure something out for yourself. It was straightforward uncertainty. Whatever words the Lone One might have for Rhiow in this pass, the Queen had none. And as for sa’Rraah, there had been more than mere indignation behind her riposte. The Lone Power was afraid, and – again, absolutely in character for her – unwilling to show it: for among a People for whom pride was normally no sin, sa’Rraah carried enough of it around inside Her skin for an entire species. Not even now, not even with worlds at stake, would She admit either Her own impotence or Her fear of what was to come.
So, Rhiow thought. So it’s true.
And after this sank in, Rhiow laid her ears right back at the unfairness of it all. So once more I’m expected to carry a whole world out of trouble by the scruff, she said to both the Queen and the Lone One. More than just a world! – or so it seems, if I’m not actually being tricked into the worlds’ destruction.
The unbroken silence did not help her composure. She was fuming. If we survive this, she shouted into the Void, I want a sabbatical! Do you hear me??
Silence still; but Rhiow thought she was heard.
She curled up and lay down again. “Now if I can just get some sleep out of this sleep,” she said to the darkness, “I’ll see what can be done…”
Nerves woke her up early, as she’d half expected. It was early afternoon, and outside the sun was shining on the palm trees and the bougainvillea flowers as if the world wasn’t about to end.
Stop thinking like that… she thought. She got up, stretched fore and aft, and sat on the window for a moment, watching a hummingbird visit the flowers one after another with methodical and singleminded thoroughness.
Her mind went back to the last things under discussion before she’d slept. Urruah and his solutions…. Yet she hadn’t thought that his solution to moving the Penn gate would work, either: and it had. That seemed ‘so tommish’, too… Now she had even more evidence that Urruah was on the right track: sa’Rraah’s somewhat grudging description of the plan as “satisfactory.”
Assuming that I too am not being played…
But the Whisperer had been silent… and there came a point where you had to set paranoia aside and act. Rhiow jumped down from the windowsill, pulled the door open with one paw, and strolled down the hall.
The living room was a hive of wizardly activity, with spell circles laid out on the floor and Siffha’h, Urruah, Hwaith, and Aufwi working on various tasks: while Helen Walks Softly still sat on the floor looking the work over, and the Silent Man sat at his desk making hurried notes on something. At the edge of the circle Rhiow stood for a moment, looking at it unfocused to get a general idea of what was going on: then sat down and washed her face, acutely aware of the others watching her.
She let them wait, hunting for the right words. Then she lifted her head.
“All right,” Rhiow said at last. “Where’s a good place to make a last-ditch attempt to save the known and unknown universes?”
Her team looked at one another with satisfaction: and Hwaith caught her eye.
“Griffith Park?” he said. “There’s a great view from Mount Hollywood…”
“Fine,” Rhiow said. “We have a lot to do in a hurry besides our own setup. There are all the planet’s Regional-level and higher wizards to speak to; they’ll already know from the Powers and their manuals, in a general way, what the threat is and what’s being done about it. But we’ll need to let them know the specifics, now, and help them start preparing to preserve and protect their own pieces of the world.” She looked over at Hwaith. “And I need to talk to the Planetary,” she said. “If things on Earth get too damaged, the kindest thing may be for him or her to pull the plug.”
“I’ll get started on that,” Aufwi said, and vanished.
“You, naturally,” Rhiow said to Urruah, “won’t have been wasting time while I was off side…”
Urruah waved his tail at the spell structure he’d been working on since Rhiow had gone to sleep.
“You’ve been busy…” she said. The circle contained all the worldgate variables sourced from the attempted manifestation in the cavern, which the Whisperer’s more automated functions had thoughtfully stored for them.
He shrugged his tail in agreement. “I’ve got four redundant power containment structures built in here,” he said. “If one blows out, we’ve got room to fail.”
“Don’t say that word tonight,” Rhiow said, looking over the diagram. “Robust,” she agreed. “It’ll need to be. But why four? Three’s the normal arrangement.”
“’Three’s the charm,’” Helen said from one side, “that’s what they say in the West. But it’s my land, my cultural substrate, we’re anchoring this to. And in my people’s linguistic and cosmogonic traditions, the ‘fulfillment number’ is four. Four directions. Four winds.” She grinned. “Four feet.”
Rhiow flicked an ear in amusement, turned her attention back to the diagram. “There’s Sif’s spot,” Urruah said, indicating one sub-circle. “She’s already laid a lot of power into the basic structures, just in case something knocks her back and leaves her needing time to take a breath. Other than that – “ He waved a paw at the tightly inwritten analysis circles, completely full of a compact spiral of tiny Speech-characters. “Those have all the data about the structure of the black gating last night, both what the Whisperer got and what Aufwi and Hwaith derived from direct contact. We can match it up and scale it up to a thousand times more than last night’s power.” He turned a concerned look on her. “Which is the only thing that bothers me. Even Sif can only do so much. Power…”
“You leave that with me,” Rhiow said. “I have an alternate source. …And this – ” She indicated one circle that was dark and empty while everything else was glowing in test mode.
“That’s where the claudication will go,” he said. “Sif’s packing it now. ”
“With what?”
“A direct tap into the heart of a quasar,” said Siffha’h, who was off to one side, sitting in a small, densely interwritten circle of her own and gazing down at it thoughtfully as a power gauge display slowly crept toward half full. “The Whisperer said she had a spare one that she wasn’t using for anything.”
Rhiow gave Urruah a sideways look. “She’s being cooperative…”
“The safeties are off, Rhi,” Urruah said. “We’re being given whatever we ask for. It feels a little weird…”
“If not now,” Rhiow said, “then when? Since if the Powers aren’t nice to us right now, there might not be a universe tomorrow… Good work, anyway. With that much power and that much mass packed into the portable claudication, when we shove it into the gate to start the eversion, it should be like nothing even Iau’s ever imagined.”
“Let’s hope so…” Urruah said.
Rhiow wandered out into the back yard. There were People eating the buffet on the concrete by the house, and Rhiow greeted them casually in passing: but most of them were fluffed up, and looking repeatedly over their shoulders between bites. This was due to the presence of Ith, who was reclining in the middle of the back lawn amid a scatter of white cold-cut wra
ppers. Beside him, Arhu lay on his back with his paws in the air and his gut visibly bulging.
“How much pastrami?” Rhiow said, looking with some dismay at all the garbage lying around.
“Not too much,” Ith said. “Only four or five pounds. It would not have been polite to deprive everyone else of their sandwiches…”
“You should clean this up,” Rhiow said. “You’ll attract rats.”
Ith gave her a droll look that wordlessly suggested rats were the very least of their problems.
“And you,” Rhiow said to Arhu. “Isn’t there something you should be doing? Something Sight-related?”
“Nothing to See right now, Rhi,” Arhu said. “It’s either all light, or all dark… So I’m taking the afternoon off.”
Rhiow snorted. “Greed and sloth,” she said. “No doubt the other ehhif sins will be along shortly…”
She strolled over to sit down by Ith’s head. “You’re likely to be the key to all this,” she said.
“I thought it more likely you would be,” he said.
Rhiow suddenly got the feeling that Ith knew about her conversation in the darkness with the Lone One. “We’ll have to see about that,” she said. “But your presence back here definitely changes things in our favor. Not even sa’Rraah anticipated the way you were going to come out of the Old Downside, or that you’d turn her Old Serpent avatar against her and drag it up with you into the Light. Now you’re not only the White Serpent, but also a living connection between the Old Downside and the other complex-state worlds ‘beneath’ the world, the foundations of Earth’s physical reality.”
Ith looked thoughtful, his claws twiddling together. “Yet this time I am not meant to be just a connection,” he said, “but an anchor. The Serpent wrapped around the roots of the Tree…”
Rhiow waved her tail gently in agreement as Urruah came out to join them. “The dimensional and physical dissociation that will accompany the incursion of Tepeyollotl’s master will rip the planet apart if it can’t be held stable,” she said. “That stability’s going to have to be sourced from the more central dimensions, the Old Downside being the most easily accessible. You’re a direct and powerful link to a more senior and more ancient Earth, and you’re going to take most of the strain when the Outside One breaks through.”
“When it breaks through,” Urruah said, sounding disturbed. Arhu had rolled over as Helen came wandering out as well.
Rhiow’s tail waved gently, a gesture of uneasy agreement. “It has to,” she said. “And It will anyway. There’s no way we can stop It. Not Queen Iau Herself could stop It. However – once It’s through, we have a weapon it won’t be expecting.”
“Ith,” Arhu said.
“In part. After all, he’s Tepeyollotl’s rightful enemy: his battle’s a matter of legend that runs deep in local spacetime.”
“Even though it has not happened yet…” Ith said, sounding a little dubious, though he wasn’t arguing the point.
Urruah stretched. “But that’s the way things go in the greater field of being, isn’t it,” he said. “Echoes from the great battles travel both forward and backward in the local timeflow. We know that you’re going to fight him because the legends say you did…”
“All we need to determine now,” Ith said, his jaw dropping in a grin, “is whether I won or lost.” He glanced over at Rhiow. “On that count the tablets were, if nothing else, equivocal…”
Rhiow looked up at Helen. “And your presence here is vital as well, because you’re of this place, in both the past and the future. You and your folk are profoundly connected to this land in ways we can’t be: rooted in ways that People aren’t and not even ehhif usually are. You’ll be our other link to the deep world, Earth’s inner realities. If you and Ith between you can’t keep Earth in one piece around here, I don’t know what can, for you’re a shaman as well as a wizard. There are powers answering to you that we don’t fully understand… but we know they’ll be on your side.”
Helen nodded. “I think I have an idea of what to do,” she said. “I’ll start getting ready when we’re done here.”
“One thing,” Hwaith said.
Rhiow hadn’t heard or felt him appear between Urruah and Ith, but that was par for the course. Surprised, for they hadn’t heard him either, everyone else looked at him. But Hwaith’s his eyes were on Rhiow. “You’re not saying much about what your part in this is going to be,” he said.
“Well,” she said, “to produce the result we’re after, sa’Rraah is going to have to act as opener of the way. And to do it most effectively, she’s going to need someone to channel through. That will be me.”
Her team stared at her. “Why you?!” Urruah said.
“Because I’ve been set up for it,” Rhiow said. “The last time we got caught in this kind of situation, I wound up playing that role for the Queen Herself, remember? Apparently this has rendered me unusually suitable to contain the Lone One this time.”
“Wait just a minute,” Arhu said. “Last time I did the Lone One! I have previous experience –“
“Not enough for this,” Rhiow said. “It’s settled, Arhu. And so’s the script for this little drama.” She cocked an eye at Urruah. “We root the gate in your chosen site and power it up. When the incursion starts, I take sa’Rraah into me, manifest Her here, and synch Her with the gate to let the arriving guest know that Its welcoming committee is on site. Then the Outside One comes through the gate to accept the gift She’s delivering It. And when It does, and It gets physical enough to affect, you shove the claudication into our gate and mesh it to the incursion – “ From Hwaith, who was looking suddenly stricken, Rhiow looked back to Urruah. “’Blooey.’”
Everyone sat quiet for a moment. Then Urruah said with great enthusiasm, “I’m excited about this plan! I’m proud to be a part of this plan!”
Aufwi threw him a wry look, probably secondary to some tom joke. “…And then what?” said Siffha’h, who’d wandered out with Aufwi to see what was going on.
The question cheered Rhiow strangely, though at this point the cheer was irrational. “Then we clean up the mess,” Rhiow said. “What else? Probably the whole area will need major temporospatial patching. But for a team who once helped tidy up all of Central Park after an incursion by crazed dinosaurs – “ and she glanced at Ith with amusement – “none of us should even have sweaty pads afterwards.” She flirted her tail.
Her team and Helen looked at one another. “Water bowl full inside?” Rhiow said. “I could use a drink. Then we have a lot to do…”
She strolled back to the house, in the French doors, headed past the Silent Man’s empty chair into the kitchen, put her head down in the water bowl and drank and drank, for her mouth was very dry.
“Rhiow – “
She finished drinking before she looked up at Hwaith.
“I wish you wouldn’t do this,” he said.
“I truly don’t see that I have much of a choice.”
“Let me rephrase that,” Hwaith said after a moment. “I really, really wish you didn’t have to do this.”
So do I! she wanted to shout.
“Of course,” Hwaith said very quietly, “that’s not anything you’re going to say, especially in front of your team. But regardless, you should know that someone hears.”
“The way you did inside the Silent Man’s mind,” Rhiow said. And just now. “Hwaith… I don’t forget what you did there – “
Hwaith’s ears went back: then he shrugged his tail and turned away. “Please,” he said, “don’t thank me again. I’m just sorry – “ He stopped, started again. “It should have occurred to me that this would never work, that there was no way you could – “
He moved away. “I really am sorry,” he said, not looking back. “We’ve got work to do. I am a wizard, and you can count on me to do my part, regardless of other matters. Just so you know. But it’s a pity that things aren’t otherwise…”
“Hwaith,” Rhiow said after a moment.
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He stopped, his tail twitching, but didn’t turn.
“There’s no point in this,” Rhiow said. “We may win tonight. But even if we do win, it’s likely enough that I won’t survive. I’ve come away from containing a god once. But twice? And when the Power involved is sa’Rraah, and very likely to shatter the vessel out of spite once its job’s done?” She was trying to sound calm, and trying to be kind; but now, now that the time was getting so close, she couldn’t entirely keep the fear out of her voice. “Surely you understand that I can’t see the point in planning very far ahead.”
He did turn, then. His eyes, too, were filled with fear. But there was something else there: stubbornness. He simply was not going to give up. “Maybe you can’t, right now,” Hwaith said. “I can understand that. But there’s no harm in having a plan, Rhiow. The worst it can do is fail.”
She stared at him.
Hwaith gazed back for a moment, and then turned again to go out.
Rhiow watched him, and a curious feeling began to rise in her – a desire, in the face of the overshadowing darkness, to do something utterly nonsensical just this once. So much of being a team leader involved being careful, being sensible, not being distracted by your own wishful thinking, covering all the possibilities. Yet isn’t this a possibility? she thought. An insane one. And Iau only knows how it could ever come to fruition. But still. Still –
And especially when there was someone else who had such faith in her, regardless of everything that was happening — to deny that, to deny hope, to deny him, suddenly it just felt wrong –
“Hwaith,” Rhiow said.
He stopped, looked back one last time.
She put her whiskers forward. “Go on. Make that plan.”
Evening drew near.
In the Silent Man’s living room, Rhiow looked over everyone’s work one last time before they left, while the Man himself sat at his desk and kept a theoretically casual eye on the proceedings.
Siffha’h’s work concerned Rhiow most, for a temporospatial claudication with so much energy and mass packed down in it needed careful watching: if anything caused it to come unwrapped, the result would be spectacular damage. But Siffha’h had been extra careful about the safeties that held the claudication shut, to the point where it would practically take a nuke to undo it without the right keywords in the Speech.