To Visit the Queen (47 page)

He sounded positively cheerful, Rhiow thought. She found herself wondering, a little ironically, whether this was because of how well the mission had gone, or whether it was because soon Urruah and Arhu would be leaving.

An unworthy thought. Never mind. It's all worked out nicely. How good it's going to be to get home to Iaehh, and let life go back to normal: our own gates to take care of, no commuting.

And Rhiow smiled at herself then. Entropy was not about to stop running. Almost certainly something would go wrong with one of their own gates as soon as they got home, something finicky and pointless that would take weeks to put right.

To her horror, the thought was delightful.

They came down to the dark and quiet of the platform, and Urruah woke up the timeslide: its wizardry blazed up into the familiar "hedge" around them as everyone took their appointed places. Rhiow looked around her as Siffha'h stepped into the power point and Fhrio hooked one claw into the wizardry. "Ready?" he said. "Anybody forget anything? Now's your last chance."

Tails were flirted no all around. "All right, Siffha'h," he said. "On standby..."

"Now!" she said: reared up, and came down.

The pressure came. Rhiow surrendered herself to it for a change, familiar as it was. For home was on the other side.

They came out into darkness: darkness so black that not even a Person's eyes could make anything of it.

For a few moments there was nothing but silence. Then Urruah said, "What in the Queen's name—?"

The timeslide wizardry collapsed around them, as if something had stomped it flat. All of them looked around them in shock.

"What is it?" asked Arhu. "Where's the light? What's gone wrong down here?"

"Nothing," said a soft voice from away off in the darkness. "But something is finally about to go right."

"
Uh-
oh," Arhu said, and fell very abruptly silent.

"Auhlae?" Huff said. He stepped forward carefully out of the circle: Rhiow could feel him brush past her. "Are you all right? What's happened down here?"

"Nothing that hasn't been promised for a long time," came the soft voice. Rhiow strained to hear it better. It was Auhlae... but it wasn't.

"What's the matter?" Huff said. "Has something gone wrong with the gates?"

Laughter came out of the dark. "That's always your first question, isn't it? No, of course not. The gates are fine."

"Oh... good." Huff stopped, unable to see where he was going. "Then maybe you can help us find our way out of here. It's kind of dark."

"Yes," said Auhlae... or something using Auhlae's voice. "A refreshing change, isn't it? This is the way it should always have been from the beginning. No garish stars, no dirty little life-infested planets, nothing but the cold and the night." And indeed it was feeling rather cold down here; much more so than it should have even in London in September. "And shortly this is what it will be like on Earth as well. Perhaps not this dark. But no Sun, no heat. Peace and quiet on this worthless little mudball at last."

A faint spark of light came up from behind them: Arhu making a light. Before them, away off in the darkness, they could see two blue eyes looking at them, gleaming green in the light Arhu made. Those eyes were farther away than it should have been possible for them to be, in a direction that should have been solid wall. And the sound of the place had gone all wrong. The close, underground feeling of it was gone: or rather, pushed back a long way... much farther than should have been possible, as if someone had scooped out a great cavern here to replace the tunnels.

"Auhlae," Rhiow said, feeling the fur stand up all over her at the look in those eyes. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"You,"
said the voice. "That
you
should ask. How very glad I am that you made it back. We have business to settle."

"What are you talking about?"

There was bitter laughter in the darkness. "You think I haven't noticed you trying to steal him from me? Poor simple Huff. He never was able to tell when someone was making a play for him."

Arhu's light was still dim, though Rhiow could feel him trying, vainly, to make it brighter. She could not see Huff clearly, or the look in his eyes. "Auhlae," Rhiow said, "you're completely mistaken. No one has ever had a better mate than Huff is to you, or a more faithful one. And as for me, what possible good would he do me even if I did want him?
I'm spayed!
"

The laughter again. "As if that matters," Auhlae snarled. "Do you think I'm such a fool as to think someone's affections can't be stolen without a uterus? How coy you were about it. Oh so sweet and noble and intelligent, and then when that starts to work, then the weak little queen act, oh-dear-I've-fallen-and-I-can't-get-up... and all of a sudden Huff is washing your ears and whispering sweet nothings in them. There'll be precious little left of them to whisper in when
I'm
through."

Rhiow actually took a step backward in the blast of raw jealousy: it burned like a winter wind howling down Park Avenue.

You,
she thought. The Lone Power always hated love, in whatever form. It would try to destroy it whenever It could, as sa'Rráhh had rebelled against her divine Dam's love in the beginning of things. That love was still waiting: but sa'Rráhh, for the most part, was unconcerned.

"It was
you
then," Rhiow said. "You were the one who let the first few microgatings through. You saw them, and you didn't do anything to stop them."

"I
didn't
see them!" the enraged voice yowled. "What kind of obsessive would read gating logs so carefully? Do you think I'm the kind of sad case you and your team are: do you think I don't have a
life
? By the time I noticed them, there had already been three or four. And I didn't think much of it. All gates have these sporadic faults; they go away if you don't try to micromanage them. But then it started happening regularly. The problem went chronic. Even then it still wouldn't really have been a problem: I could have explained it, we could have cleared it up. But then the Ravens noticed— what business was it of theirs?—and they told the Powers, and the Powers called you in. As if it was any of your business either! And after that, how could I let Huff see the gate logs, or let him know I knew anything about what had been going on? He wouldn't have understood why I didn't do anything sooner. You have no idea the kind of fuss he would make. And I couldn't let him know that I'd seen the earlier ones."

Huff was still standing there silent and astonished at all this. "So you tampered with the logs," Urruah said. "Right down to the end. And I thought
I
was an expert." He put his whiskers forward, ironic. "My compliments."

"You think you're such a great one, you," Auhlae sneered. The voice in the darkness was getting softer, more venomous: but the eyes seemed larger, somehow. "Urruah, the conqueror of every heart. I didn't want you!"

"I didn't want
you,
" he said, rather mildly.

There was a breath's pause of sheer disbelief, and then a scream. "You did! You did! How could you not want me, when Huff did!"

"Auhlae," Rhiow said softly, "Huff didn't care whether other toms wanted you or not.
He
wanted you. That was more than enough for him. Don't you see that even now?"

"As if
you
know anything about him, or me," Auhlae hissed. "
I
know why you came. One failure and that's it, isn't it? And They were glad enough to give you an excuse to move in. No forgiveness from Their high and mighty quarter, oh no! They were all too glad for you to lever me out of my place with my team and take my spot. And take Huff. Well, it's not going to happen. I found help where I least expected it."

The eyes were larger.
He will never find out,
the voice said now, Auhlae's voice, but not quite so much anymore.
Everything will be the way it was again. When all of you are dead, or gone, or lost in backtime... everything will be fine here.

"For a while, Auhlae," said Rhiow desperately.
There may still be a chance to call her back, just a chance.
"Only for a while. All you can imagine is you and Huff, happy together... no matter what the price. But sa'Rráhh will brook no rivals. Her only love is destruction, like the one she's planning now. You can still oust her if you try: she cannot live in the unwilling heart, any more than wizardry can."

The laughter from away down in the darkness was deafening.

Rhiow stood up straight, though she was shaking. "Fairest and Fallen," she said, "greeting and defiance, now and always!" It was the language the protocol required: there was no need to be rude to the Lone One, no matter what might follow. "State your intentions: and then beware, for we are on the Queen's errantry, and you meddle with Her worlds at your peril!"

Suddenly Fhrio's voice came out of the darkness, sounding confused and angry. "Now wait just a moment. You can't talk to Auhlae as if she was— as if— "

"I told you it'd happen." Arhu growled. "You're in the dark, Fhrio... and you don't see what's happening right in front of you. You haven't seen for a long time. Now it's
your
turn to behave yourself. Shut up and let someone handle this who
can
see!"

Fhrio, uncertain, went silent. The laughter came again.
I meddle with the worlds as I please,
said the Lone Power, said sa'Rráhh, out of the middle of the darkness and Auhlae's surrendered body.
It is when
others
meddle that the peril begins. You have deprived Me of My darkness, long planned, and of the cold that would have fallen a hundred years ago. Very well: you have chosen. Instead that darkness shall fall
now.

It was not so much that the blackness around them began to break: it was more that advancing toward the gating teams, slowly and pleasurably, was something that made the darkness look horribly less dark by comparison. There was fire in it, but not the kind that gave any light: and many sorts of night that had at one time or another fallen over London, but not the kind with stars. The smoke of the Great Fire was there, and the blackness of the Plague: the fire-shot smoke of the destruction that had fallen from the sky in the Second World War, and the eye-smarting thick, gray smoke from the burning thatch of the most ancient settlement by the already oxbowed river. But most of all Rhiow was reminded of the billowing blackness in the uprising mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion... and it occurred to her that, even now, there were atomic weapons stationed in a few places within the ring of the M25 in London. They were supposed to be safe at defense establishments, but when the Lone Power Itself was walking, how safe could anything be?

Slowly the dark shape stalked toward them. It was feline: it was sa'Rráhh indeed, in the fullness of Her fury, the mistress of the Unmastered Fire, intent on their destruction. And they were totally unprepared.
Defiance indeed,
Rhiow thought.
What now?

The light from behind her was at least getting a little stronger. The Lone One's influence was damping down every other wizardly power but Its own as It advanced slowly on them, but Siffha'h's newfound strength had not yet settled into channels where even sa'Rráhh could easily muzzle them. She was feeding Arhu power, and Arhu was making light, if nothing else: and in that light, Rhiow looked over at Huff, and said,
It's now or never, cousin. Do what you can—

He looked at Rhiow, and stepped forward. "Auhlae," Huff cried, "I don't want her! Do you hear me? I never wanted her. You're all I want. This is all for nothing. Cast it out, or everything we've worked for all this time will be destroyed!"

Rhiow was desperately trying to assemble wizardry after wizardry in her mind, but it was no use: they were all being damped, every structure collapsing as she began to build it— and sa'Rráhh drew closer, the terrible feline shape towering over them in the darkness now, the size of a house, growing seemingly bigger by the second, filling the whole field of vision with that deadly dark burning.
"We've" worked for?
Laughter again.
It hasn't been worth anything anyway. When this is all over, the gates will be destroyed, and we won't have to do that kind of work anymore. We can settle down and just be wizards again.