To Visit the Queen (32 page)

"I don't know," he said. "Our collection of cat-mummies here is the biggest in the world."

"Not in a hundred years, it won't be," Urruah said.

Wallis looked perplexed. "I beg your pardon?"

"He means," Arhu said, "that we're from the future. And the collection of that British Museum is a lot bigger than
this
one."

"My God," the
ehhif
said. He fell silent for a moment, then said, "I can give you a description of what to look for, both in the written and the carved forms. Will that help?"

"Very much indeed," Rhiow said. " 'Ruah?"

"Show me what you have in mind," Urruah said. "No, I don't need a drawing: do it in your head. While we're both working in the Speech, I can see what you're thinking, a little. Don't rush, just make pictures...."

They spent a few minutes about it, until Urruah was satisfied. "That'll do," he said. "I should have no trouble passing it on."

"And I think I know someone who might be able to help us," Rhiow said. "Come on— let's get on with our other business for the day. When we get back home we can start making some inquiries."

They all got up. Wallis rose as well. "This has been most extraordinary," he said. "When can I expect to see you again?"

"I really don't know," Rhiow said. "We're in the middle of a fairly complex business at the moment, but I think you may have helped us with it, for which we thank you very much. Ouhish, we don't have a lot of time to linger: will you tell Hwallis about what we were discussing with you earlier?"

"Gladly. I hope we see you again soon," Ouhish said, "for this problem has us both frightened."

"We'll be in touch as soon as we can," Auhlae said. And she waved her tail, amused. "It's been charming to speak with an
ehhif
who knows our language."

Wallis bowed.
"Dai stihó,"
he said.

"Thank you," Rhiow said. "I hope we may go well on this business of yours... and others."

Ouhish saw them out, down to the great flight of stairs reaching down to the Great Russell Street entrance. The walk back to the street where the timeslide spell was sited went a little more swiftly than the walk to the museum had, partly because of familiarity and partly because all of them were getting bolder in dealing with the traffic: though it hardly moved much faster than the fifteen miles an hour at which London motor traffic moved in their native time, the vehicles were a good deal less lethal. They found the street conveniently empty, and Urruah found his tripwire under the mud and activated the spell-circle. It rose up in an instantaneous, blazing hedge of fire around him, and hard behind him came Siffha'h, straight onto her power point, and the others all close behind.

"All right," Urruah said. "Next coordinates. The Illingworth incursion. The slide's in standby...."

"Ready.
Now
," Siffha'h said, reared up a little, and came down with her front paws down on the power point.

The blast of fire rose up around them, pressing in.

"Hello," said a high, clear voice, "what's this?"

All the People's heads jerked up. He could plainly see them, and had waded halfway into the circle already, waist-high in the "hedge" of fire— a young
ehhif
, in shorts and a white shirt and a short dark coat, and he was looking at them, and at the circle, in astonishment.
What's he doing in here; how
can
he be in here— get him out!
was Rhiow's first thought. But there was no time. The spell was already blazing with Siffha'h's blast of power, and they were all vanishing together, the People, the spell-circle, the
ehhif
boy....

There was no way to stop it, any more than an
ehhif
would have been able to get out of a moving vehicle at high speed. The pressure built. There was a cry from the boy, lost in a roar of sound that Rhiow couldn't understand. Then everything began to shake— and that she understood too well.
Unauthorized ingress into a timeslide or worldgating
, she thought,
the whole spell comes apart and flings everyone in it into not-time or not-space. Iau, not like this, why must it end like this!

The pressure increased unbearably: Rhiow lost all sense of herself.
So much for this life,
was her last thought.

But it was not. What seemed a long time later, Rhiow found herself lying on the concrete floor of the unused platform beneath Tower Gateway Underground station: and near her was the boundary of the timeslide spell, all the virtue drained out of it. The others lay about in the positions they had held in the spell— and, sitting down by them, his knees drawn up against his chest, trembling, was the young
ehhif,
looking at his surroundings, and the People, in terror.

Rhiow got up, slowly, feeling as if one of the big draft horses of the 1874 streets had been jumping all over her. Next to her, Urruah was pushing himself up onto his feet, where he just managed to stand, wobbling, and look at the
ehhif
boy.

The boy wet his lips and croaked, "Kitty kitty?"

Urruah looked at Arhu, who was awake as well, and getting up. "
Another
problem," Urruah said.

Rhiow was forced to agree.

The argument that life seemed lately to have been becoming broke out again with unusual vehemence in the next few minutes: and it would have gone on for much longer, Rhiow thought, had there not been a young
ehhif
gazing in astonishment at the sight of five cats all apparently staring silently at one another with their tails lashing.

Auhlae was not very pleased with Urruah.
"You didn't make the timeslide exclusive!"

"Why should I have made it exclusive?" Urruah said, aggrieved. "No one was going to be able to see us, and the spell was told to sort for transit times that wouldn't endanger any being that came along— "

"Vhai,"
Rhiow said. "Urruah, the
language
was pretty vague. You know how literal spells are!"

"Rhi, what was the point, when
no one should have been able to see we were there,
or the spell." He hissed softly. "Sorry. Sorry. But Rhi"—he looked over at the young
ehhif
— "
ehhif
can't see wizardry, as a rule. What
is
he?
Is
he a wizard? If so, why does he look so panicked? Or is he someone who's about to be called to the Art but hasn't been given the Oath yet? Are we supposed to induct him somehow?"

"The Powers forfend," Rhiow muttered. "That's hardly our job. We had enough trouble that way with Arhu." But then she smiled slightly. "And a certain other party..."

"Was that who you were thinking of going to for help with the mummy problem?" Urruah said.

"The very same. It'll have to wait a little longer now."

"You may as well go take care of it," Urruah said, "because whatever else we might have had planned for this timeslide,
this
business has ruined it." He flirted his tail at the young
ehhif.
"The slide's half deranged: it's going to take another half day at least to put it back the way it ought to be."

"Well, all right. But meantime we can't sit here ignoring
him.
And lend Auhlae a paw, for Iau's sake: she looks terrible. And call Huff— he'd better know about this sooner rather than later."

"Right."

Rhiow walked over to the boy and sat down in front of him, tucking her tail in around her feet and trying to radiate calm instead of what she felt, which was complete confusion and terror. "Young human," she said to him in the Speech, "please don't be afraid."

"I'm not," he said. He had a narrow, intelligent face and he was holding it very still, despite what was going on inside him, and how young he was. He could hardly be more than fifteen.

"Good. There's no need to be, though you're in a strange place, and something that must seem very odd has just happened to you. What's your name?"

"Artie," he said.

"Artie. I'm Rhiow. These others lying and sitting around here are friends of mine: we'll get you introduced to them shortly. Would you tell me what you think just happened to you?"

"I saw a circle of light in the street," he said. "A circle of fire. But it didn't look like fire."

"It wasn't," Rhiow said. "It was wizardry."

"You mean magic?" the boy said, his eyes widening.

"You could call it that. But not the kind of magic that is just one of your people making it look like something has vanished.
True
magic: wizardry."

"Then it is real," he whispered. "My uncle said it might be."

"Your uncle's wise," Rhiow said, wondering meantime if there was yet another wizard about to be involved in this business and, in a way, hoping not: there were already more than enough complications to this intervention. "But, Artie, you should understand that most humans, most
ehhif,
as we call them, can't see wizardry and don't know that it exists."

"I saw it, though...."

"Yes," Arhu said, coming up beside Rhiow and sitting down to look at the boy. "He's a key."

Rhiow glanced over at him. "To what?"

"I don't know. But They've sent him," Arhu said. "The Powers. I saw him, while Odin and I were flying."

"The Powers? What Powers?" Artie said.

"That's going to take some explaining," Rhiow said. "Meanwhile, Artie, we have to get you back where you belong as quickly as we can."

"I'm not going," he said. "I want to see where this is first!"

Rhiow and Arhu glanced at each other. "I don't think we're going to be able to help it," Arhu said. "And, Rhi, you can't just toss him back where he came from. Why would They send him if he wasn't going to be some use? We've got to keep him."

"Where?" Rhiow said, a little desperately. "Where will he sleep? What will he eat?" She wondered if this was how an
ehhif
felt when one of their young turned up on the doorstep with a kitten-Person in their arms.

"We'll work something out," Arhu said, with a confidence that Rhiow definitely didn't feel.

He looked over at where Urruah was trying to bump the groggy Auhlae up into something like a sitting position. As he did, Huff and Fhrio came rushing in.

"Auhlae, Auhlae," Huff cried. He ran to her and began to wash her ear. It was astonishing how fast Huff could move when he wanted to, and how tender and pitiful a sight he made despite his huge size. Rhiow turned away, and found herself looking at Fhrio, who was staring at Urruah as he backed away and let Huff take care of Auhlae. Fhrio was bristling.

Oh dear,
Rhiow thought.
This is going to bring them to blows sooner or later.
"Artie," she said. "Will you be all right here for a little while? No other
ehhif
will come here: this is a secret place, for reasons I'll explain to you in a while. But right now there are some things I need to attend to."

"All right," Artie said. "What's your name, puss?"

"Rhiow."

"Reeoooowww," Artie said.

"Not too bad," she said. "It's a Scots accent, isn't it? We'll work on that. It's one of the better ones for Ailurin."

Rhiow walked off a little way, then sat down again and put her ears forward, listening.
Whisperer...

She heard the purr that told her the Silent One was listening.

We need help of a specific kind. There's no time for me to visit the Old Downside just now. Will you tell the Serpent's Child that his "father's" friends need to talk to him? And will you guide him to us?

A purr of agreement, then silence.

Rhiow got up and headed over to Urruah, who was already walking toward her. " 'Ruah," she said, "do me a favor. Let me see the spell that Hwallis showed you."

He half closed his eyes. "Here."

Rhiow half closed hers as well, and let her whiskers brush close to Urruah's. A second or so later she could see what he saw, the Egyptian characters strung out in a line, but with gaps here and there where Hwallis had inferred that material was missing. Rhiow looked at the characters in her mind with a wizard's eye, letting them rearrange themselves into a long broken pattern in the graphical version of the Speech.