by Диана Дуэйн
Assuming the universe doesn't end later this month …
She sighed and lay back in Iaehh's lap. The end of the universe would have to take care of itself. Right now she was home with her ehhif, and had had a good dinner. Just this once, she would lie still, and let it all pass her by: and tomorrow evening, no matter what happened, she would be able to look the Powers in the face and say, I have been a Person: and after that, what matters?
Much later, in the darkness, Rhiow realized that she was having a vision. It shouldn't have surprised her, in retrospect, she thought: the ravens had already shown her that vision was transferable. It hadn't immediately occurred to her that others might learn that trick: but it seemed that at least one had.
You made me do it, he said. So you had to see what happened. It was your act … even though I enacted it.
In the vision he was walking down the bike path next to the East River. There had been a time when he had been unable to go anywhere near that body of water: the mere sound of it had been a horror to him. Now, though, he walked down the path and listened to the water chuckling underneath the walkway, listened to it slapping against the concrete piers, and didn't mind a bit. The voices in it were friendly now.
He was looking for someone, and waiting for something: and because this was his vision, he knew he would shortly find both.
Ith had given him the hint, as often happened these days. The same venom will not work twice – you will begin to develop an immunity.
At first he had rejected this idea. But Ith was wise, in his way. The more you looked at something that frightened you, or horrified you, the easier it got. This was probably how ehhif became conditioned to killing. In their case, it was a fatal flaw. But in this case, the function was different. Become used to your own death, to the point where it no longer hurts you – and your Enemy is suddenly without a weapon.
He had done it twice tonight already. He was becoming an expert at dying.
The third time would pay for all.
It was not that long until he saw the pale shape of the slender young Person walking nervously down the bike path. Indeed it shouldn't have been very long: you would be a poor kind of Seer if you couldn't tell when people were going to turn up for appointments, so you didn't have to stand around waiting. As she came, he stepped out and got in her way.
She spat at the sight of him. "You – ! Get out of my way."
"No," he said. "If you want me to move, you're going to have to fight."
"Then I'll fight. You think I'd have trouble with that? I hate you! You killed me!"
"No, I didn't. But you know Who did." "You're crazy. Get out of my way!"
"No," he said. "Not till you admit what you are."
"Oh?" She sneered. "And what am I?"
"A twin. Half of a pair."
"Not any more. You put an end to that."
"Nothing can put an end to it," he said. "Roles may change temporarily. But this time they haven't. I'm a Seer. But you –you're something else. Or you will be."
"No!"
"Yes. The other side of Seeing, the same way our colors are sort of reversed now. Doing … that's what you're for."
"No!"
"Yes. You're the power source, after all. Since when are queens power sources? Mostly queens think it's too boring."
"I'm not just some queen!"
"No. You're not. And you can prove it."
"How?"
"Look."
They looked up the river, in the predawn dimness.
The bag came floating toward them … if "floating" was the right word. Water was seeping into it rapidly, and it was beginning to submerge.
Siffha'h saw it and shrank back. "No!"
"What are you afraid of?" Arhu said. "It's all over." "Yes — but — " Still she shrank back.
"But," Arhu said. "There's still a sound you haven't let yourself hear."
"I don't want to hear it!"
"Neither did I. But once I did, everything changed. I couldn't hear until I heard that sound: I couldn't See until I Saw what was making it."
"No – !"
"You know what's happening in there," Arhu said.
"I don't want to think about it – !"
She tried to run, but Arhu got in front of her.
"If you don't think about it," he said, "that's all you'll think about for the rest of your life. You've already spent all your life thinking about it. All the things you do, all the spells you power, all the time you spend inside that big blast of force you like so much – it's all about being deaf and blind. You pour so much power into what you're doing, of course, that everyone around you is deaf and blind too, for the duration, and no one else notices that you can't see or hear most of the time."
"You're crazy, what are you talking about – ?!"
He could see her glance over his shoulder. The bag was floating nearer. "You don't dare be quiet," he said. "You don't dare be still. If you do, you'll hear what's happening in there."
She took a swipe at him, a good one. It hit him across the nose. He bled, but he wouldn't give back. "You owed me that," Arhu said. "My claws must have dug into you, while I was trying to keep my head above the water – "
"Shut up!"
She launched herself at him, every claw bared. Arhu went down, and together they tumbled across the sparse flat grass by the bike path, spitting and clawing. She got her claws into him, hard. He gave as good as he got. Fur flew.
"Why did you do it – " she panted. "You were my favorite, I loved you, I slept with you, I ate with you, why – "
"I wanted to live! I wanted to breathe! So did you! You stepped on my head a lot of times, you clawed me, I loved you too, I ate with you, I slept with my head on your tummy, I washed you, you washed me, but there came a time when the washing wouldn't help, the loving wouldn't help, we both wanted to live and we couldn't – "
The bag floated closer. There was a slight movement inside it, as of some tiny struggle. The smallest sound from inside: a tiny mewling
"It saw us coming," Arhu panted. "It saw the Seer, it saw the Doer, It knew that together we would be a danger to It, It tried to kill us both. Still, It couldn't kill both of us. Help was already coming: It knew one would survive. So It killed the one It thought was more of a threat, more of a power. It knew you would come back, but It counted on you being so tangled up with anger and so confused that you wouldn't know what to do with yourself, and wouldn't put your half back with the other half to make a whole again: you'd waste the power you had on things that weren't all that important, and finally die frustrated and incomplete and useless. And you can still do that. Or you can frustrate It – "
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't do. See. Just this once – "
And she opened her eyes, which were squeezed shut against Arhu's clawing, and looked at him: and Saw.
Saw what happened inside the bag.
Not from her point of view: from his.
The grief. Tired. The pain. They're all dead. The resignation. I don't want to live any more, they're all dead. The anguish. Sif, she had my same spots. She's dead. I don't want to live, let it end now. The water bubbling in …
And, abruptly, astonishingly, the rage built, and built, and burst up and out of her. To her amazement, it was not rage at what had happened to her: it was fury at what had happened to him. It had never been directed at anything outside her before, not really: not in all her short life. But now it leapt out … and found its target. Now she knew what it was that she had to do, what she had come back for, what business she had to finish.
Something that hung all about them in the air, something that laughed, that had been laughing forever, suddenly stopped laughing as force such as even It had not often experienced came blasting out at It. Not some unfocused curse at a generalized cruel fate, but a specific, narrow, furious line of righteous anger, a rage like a laser, aimed, directed, and tuned. The anger lanced out and found its mark.
WHAT DID YOU DO TO H
IM! YOU KILLED HIM! I'M GOING TO —
The air in the vision, the air outside it, shuddered with a soundless scream from something which had not been dealt so painful a blow in some time. That influence, for just a little while, fled …
… leaving Arhu crouching and squeezing his eyes shut against what his vision showed him, a shape like a Person made out of lightning, radiating fury and purpose and the ability to do anything, anything … for this little while.
The lightning looked at him.
"You were right," she said. "There's no spell I couldn't power, now. Nothing I couldn't do. Nowhere we can't go."
" … We," he said.
Very slowly, she put her whiskers forward.
"Come on," she said. "Let's go practice … " She passed, a long time – four breaths, five – then said it: " … brother. We're going to have a busy night."
And the vision faded … and in her sleep, Rhiow put her whiskers forward, and knew that a tide had turned.
EIGHT
It was the morning of 6 June 1874: sunny and hot, one more baking hot day in the middle of one of the most prolonged hot spells to manifest itself in the British Isles for nearly fifty years. Temperatures had been in the eighties every day for the past two weeks. The Times reported that a stationary high was in place over the Isles and showed no signs of moving in the immediate future.
A small stout woman on horseback came riding sedately up through Windsor Home Park at an easy canter. She wore a long black riding dress, and rode sidesaddle with some grace and ease. She rode around the path that skirted the East Terrace Garden, and came up to the George the Sixth Gateway, clattering through under the archway and into the wide, graveled space of the Upper Ward. Grooms ran forward to take her horse as she stopped near the little circular tower which marked the entrance to the State Apartments. One groom bent down to offer his back as a step to the woman dismounting: another took her by the hand and helped her down.
"He is breathing better this morning, Rackham," she said to one of the grooms. "Perhaps he will not need the mash any more this week."
"Yes, your Majesty."
She swept in through the entrance to the State Apartments and up the stairs, then bustled down along the hallway which ran down the length of the first floor, making for the day room attached to her own apartments there. Maids curtsied low and footmen bowed as she passed: one of them rose to open the door to the day room for her.
The Queen stepped into the room, and then stopped, very surprised. Tumbling about on the carpet were two small cats, one mostly white with black patches, one more black with white patches, wrestling with each other. As the Queen looked at them, they rolled over and gazed at her with big innocent golden eyes.
"Meow," said one of them.
The Queen's mouth dropped open, and she clapped her hands for delight. One of the maids appeared immediately. "Siddons," said Queen Victoria, "wherever did these darling kittens come from?"
"Please, your Majesty, I don't know," said Siddons, a beautifully dressed young woman who immediately began to wonder if she was going to get in trouble for this. "Maybe they came in from outside, your Majesty."
"Well, we must make inquiries and see if we can discover to whom they belong," said the Queen, "but they are certainly very welcome here."
She went over to them, knelt down on one knee and stroked one of them, the kitten with more black than white. They were really a little larger than kittens, but were not yet full grown cats. The one she was stroking caught her hand in soft paws and gave it a little lick, then looked up at her with big eyes again.
"Darling thing!" said the Queen, and picked the little cat up in her arms, holding it so that it lay on its back. The small cat patted her face gently with one paw and gazed up at her adoringly.
"What was that you said? 'Meow'?" said Siffha'h, still rolling and stretching on the floor. "Look at you, squirming around like you've still got your milk teeth. How shameless can you get?"
"Well, it says here that a cat may look at a King," Arhu said. "So I'm looking."
"Well, this is a Queen. And it doesn't say anything about being truly sickeningly sweet to the point where Iau Herself will come down from broad Heaven and tell you you're overdoing it. You're going to do bad things to my blood sugar."
"You're a wizard: adjust it. Meanwhile, at least she smells nice. Some of the ehhif around here could use a scrub."
"Tell me about it."
"Well, come on, don't just lie there. We've got to get ourselves well settled in. Find something to be cute with."
Siffha'h got up and headed for a thick velvet bell-pull with tassels. "All right, but I'm not sure this isn't going to stunt my growth." She started to play with the tassels.
The Queen burst out laughing and put Arhu down. "Oh, my dear little kitties," said the Queen, "would you like something to eat?" She turned to look over her shoulder, toward the butler standing in the doorway. "Fownes, bring some milk. And some cold chicken from the buffet."
"Yes, your Majesty."
"Now for once Urruah was right about something," Arhu said. "Milk and cold chicken. I don't suppose they've invented pastrami yet … "
Siffha'h inclined her head slightly to listen to the Whispering. "You're on the wrong side of the Atlantic. They do have it in New York … "
"Dear Mr. Disraeli is coming to see me before lunch," she said to the cats. "You must be kind to him and not scratch his legs. Mr. Disraeli is not a cat person."
"Uh oh," Arhu said.
"I wish she hadn't said that," Siffha'h said. "I won't be able to resist, now … "
"Don't do it," Arhu said. "He might nuke something."
"Please," Siffha'h said. However pleasant the surroundings, none of them had been able to stop looking up at the sky for that quiet reminder of which Power seemed to be busiest in this universe at the moment.
"Have you been in the bedroom yet?" Arhu said. "No."
"Better take a look, then." "OK."
"Hey! Don't walk – scamper."
Siffha'h scampered, producing another trill of laughter from the Queen. Arhu went after her the same way. A door opened out of the day room into the anteroom, and from the anteroom, to the right, into the royal bedroom. The bed was quite large, and beautifully covered all in white linen.
Siffha'h looked it over critically, walking around it. "It's a good size," she said to Arhu. "But not so big that we can't put a forcefield over it that would stop a raging elephant, not to mention a guy with a knife."
"We'll have to be careful how we trigger it, though. If she gets up for something in the middle of the night, she'll bang herself on it and get upset."
"Wouldn't want that," Siffha'h said. She walked around to look at the elaborately carved headboard. "Hey, look at the nibble marks. She's had mice in here."
"Yeah, well, we need to make sure she doesn't have another one," Arhu said. "With much bigger teeth."
"Your Majesty," said a servant who appeared at the day-room door and bowed, "the Prime Minister has arrived."
"Very good. Bring his usual tea. Where is the cats' chicken?" "Coming, your Majesty."
"Here, kitties," the Queen called, "come and have some milk!"
They glanced at each other. "I am not used to this kind of thing," said Siffha'h. "Let her wait a few minutes."
"Why? You're hungry."
"If we come when she calls us, she's going to get the idea that we'll do that all the time. We're People, for Iau's sake."
"Well, she's a Queen, and she's used to people coming when she calls. All kinds of people. Come on, Sif, humor her a little."
"Oh, all right." They trotted into the day room together. The Queen was holding a bowl of milk, which she put down for them.
They drank. "Oh, sweet Iau, where are they getting this stuff?" Arhu muttered, and practically submerged his face in the bowl.
"Real cows," said Siffha'h. "Not pasteurized. Full fat. They may know what cholesterol is here, but it doesn't bother them … "
"I wouldn't shed on him if I were you," Arhu said softly. "I think you might pull back a bloody stump."
"Mr. Disraeli," said the Queen, "have you seen my two lovely young guests? I am hoping they will stay with me and enliven my sad days a little."
"Ma'am, anything which brings joy to your days is a joy to your humble servant," said Disraeli, and bowed.
Siffha'h gave him an amused look. "Pull the other three," she said, "they've got bells on."
"He can't help it," Arhu said. "He has to say things like that to her all the time now, or she wonders what's wrong with him." He put his whiskers forward.
"Sit, please," said the Queen, and Disraeli did so and started chatting with her informally about the state of affairs in the Empire, particularly in India. Here, as in their own universe, he was trying to convince her to accept the title of Queen-Empress, and she was presently in the stage of coyly refusing it.
"But, ma'am, the nations over which our benevolent influence is extended wish only to have you assume this title as a token of their esteem … "
"If esteem is to be discussed," said the Queen, reaching for a piece of chicken, "then I would sooner discuss the sort which France is expressing at the moment."
"Ah, Majesty, their inflammatory republican comments are intended for their own people and their own politicians" ears. They have no import here."
"They do when the French suggest that the British monarchy is superannuated and without merit," the Queen said mildly, while this time giving Siffha'h the piece of chicken she was holding, and reaching for another one for Arhu. "No, don't grab, my darling, there is plenty for you both. And when they threaten my cousins on the various thrones of Germany. I have no desire to seem as if we wish to expand our Empire – which is broad enough at the moment – at the expense of others."
