by Диана Дуэйн
Fifty-nine steps, and there is the change in the sound. Sixty. His toe bumps against the bottom step. Five stairs up to the landing: turn right: three steps. He puts his hand out, and feels the door.
Gently, gently he pulls it open. From up the winding stair comes a faint light: it seems astonishingly bright to him after the dead blackness. Softly he goes up the stairs, taking them near the outer side of the steps: the inner sides creak.
Something brushes against his leg. A gasp catches in his throat: he freezes in place. A minute, two minutes, he stands there.
Nothing. A cobweb. Even a place like this, with a hundred servants, can't keep all the stairwells free of the little toilers, the spinners of webs. Softly he goes on up again, one step at a time, at the edges, with care.
The remaining fifteen steps are steep, but he is careful. At the door at the top he halts and looks out of the crack in it where it has been left open. In the hallway onto which this stairway gives, next to a door with a gilded frame, is a chair under a single candle sconce with a dim electric bulb burning in it. There should be a footman in it, but there's no sign of him. The chair is tilted back against the wall, and down by the foot of the chair is a stoneware mug: empty. The footman has gone to relieve himself. And the door in the gilded frame is slightly open.
Perfect. Down the hallway, now, in utmost silence.
Swiftly now, but also silently. Reach up and undo the bulb from its socket. No one will think a thing of it: these newfangled things burn out without warning all the time. Wait a few seconds for night vision to return. Then, silently, push the door open and step in.
The outer room is where the lady-in-waiting has a bed. She is not in it. Now the footman's absence suddenly completely makes sense, and in the darkness, he smiles. The nightwalker makes his way toward what he cannot see yet in this more total darkness, the inner door. He feels for the handle: finds it.
Turns the handle. The door swings inward.
Darkness and silence. Not quite silence: a faint rustle of bedlinens, off to his left, and ahead. A little rasp of noise, soft. A snore? She will sleep more quietly in a moment …
Now, only now, the excitement strikes him, and his heart begins to pound. Ten steps, they told him. A rather wide bed. Her maids say she still favors the left side of it, leaving the right side open for someone who sleeps there no more.
Ten steps. He takes them. He listens for the sound of breathing … … then reaches for the left side.
One muffled cry of surprise, as the knives pierce his hand, and other knives catch him from behind, on the neck and the back of the head, a flurry of abrupt, terrible, slicing pain. He staggers back, his arms windmilling, the knife trying to find a target in the darkness. Only the training of many years, the usual number of accidents – broken glass, banged shins – keeps him quiet now as he stumbles back to find his balance again. For just a moment his hand is free of the pain, but now the front of his neck is pierced by furious jaws that bite him in the throat, claws that seize and kick. He fumbles at his throat to grab something furry and throw it away with all his might
– and suddenly he simply can't move: he's frozen, as if he were a stick of wood or one of the carved statues downstairs. Like a statue with its pedestal pulled out from under it, he topples, unable even to catch himself, or to turn so that he falls face down and not on his back.
Yet at the last minute he doesn't fall. Some force far stronger than he is stops him, holds him suspended in air. He can't breathe, can't move, can only lie here gripped by something he can't begin to understand, and by the terror that follows.
The pain, at least, drops away from the back of his head. But suddenly there is a pressure on his chest. His eyes, wide already in the dark, go as wide as they can with shock as a face, grinning, like the face of a demon, becomes just barely visible before him.
It is the face of a black-and-white cat. From the very end of its tail, held up behind it, comes the faintest glimmer of light, like a will-'o'-the-wisp. It looks at him with a face of unutterable evil, a devil come to claim him: and, impossibly, in a whisper, it speaks.
"Boy," it says, "have you ever picked the wrong bedroom."
It sits there on his chest while invisible hands lift him. A brief whirl of that ever-so-faint light surrounds him, going around the back of his field of vision, coming up to the front again, tying itself in a tidy bow-knot. For a second or so that light fills everything.
Then it is gone again, and he falls again, coming down on the floor with a thump. His head cracks down hard, and he almost swears, but restrains himself.
But there's no carpet on this floor. This is hard stone. Slowly, when he discovers that he can sit up again, he feels the floor around him. Marble, and old smooth tile – Hesitantly he gets to his feet, begins to feel his way around.
What he feels makes no sense. A stone figure, lying on its back, raised above the floor – Much other carving reveals itself under his hands, but nothing else. He would swear out loud, except that he may still be able to get out, and someone might hear him.
It is a long while before the tarnished, waning Moon rises enough for its light to stream through the stained-glass windows surrounding him with their illustrations of Biblical texts, and for him to realize whose the reclining figure is. There, entombed in marble, Prince Albert lies in the moonlight, hands folded, at rest, on his face a slight grave smile which, in this lighting, takes on an unbearably sinister aspect.
The memory of the demon face comes back to him. He swallows, feels for his knife. It's gone. Dropped upstairs in the bedroom. There's nothing he can use on the locked, barred ornamental gate to get out. There's no way he can get rid of the silken rope. They will find it on him in the morning, when they call the police. There is a specific name for the charge of being found with tools which might be used for burglary: it's called "going forth equipped". It's good for about twenty years, these days, on a second offense.
This is his fifth.
He sits down on the green marble bench under the scriptural bas– reliefs with their thirty kinds of inlaid marble, and begins, very quietly, to weep.
Just outside the bars, the darkness smiles and walks away on little cat feet.
Out in the Home Park, a black brougham waits until two a.m. precisely: then, slowly, quietly, moves off into the night.
There was a tremendous fuss the next morning when the burglar was found downstairs. There was less certainty about his status as a burglar when the lady-in-waiting found, dropped next to the Queen's bed, a switchblade knife of terrible length and keenness. The police came, and the police commissioner with them: he questioned the Queen with the utmost respect. No, she had seen nothing, heard nothing. Her dear little kitties had been sleeping with her all night: she woke up and went to her toilette … and then all these horrible discoveries began to make themselves plain. The policemen took time to stroke the cats, which lay about on the white linen coverlet with the greatest possible ease and indolence, and a fairly smug look on their faces. The cat scratches present on the burglar's face and head made it fairly plain where he had been, and (probably) what he had been up to. As a result, all that morning, the cats were petted and fussed and made much of. Instead of running away, as anyone might have expected with such young creatures, they stood it with astonishing stolidity.
It was nearly ten in the morning before the Queen finally saw the final visitors out of her apartment, sent her lady-in-waiting away, and shut the door to have a few moments' peace. She slipped back into her bedroom, where the two young black-and-white cats had been asleep on the bed. One of them was lying on her back with her feet in the air, utterly indolent: the other had rolled over on his side and was watching her come with an air of tremendous intelligence.
"Ah, my dears," she said, and sat down on the bed beside them. "How I wish you could speak and tell me what it is that happened last night."
The slightly larger one, the male, gave her that unutterably wise look. The Queen turned her head to
look out at the bright summer morning, which she might not have lived to see. The other cat rolled off her back and blinked at her lazily.
"Madam," she said, "do you think this life is a rehearsal? It's not." The Queen's mouth dropped right open.
"She's right, Queen," Arhu said, getting up and sauntering toward her. "You're acting like you've got as many lives as we have … and you don't. Don't you think it's time you stopped hiding in here –time you got out there and started making some use of yourself? Honestly, I'm sorry you lost your big tom with all the fur on his face. He sounds like he was nicer than the usual run of ehhif. But as far as I know, he's with the One now, Who'll certainly know how to treat him right: and if what I hear is anything to go by, he wouldn't like you sitting here grieving for him while you have all this work to do."
"But – " the Queen finally managed to say. "But, oh, my dear little puss, how can you possibly know anything of the kind of pain I suffer when I think of – "
"I'll tell you what I know," Arhu said. "Sif, let's show her."
They showed her … the pain they knew all too well, and shared.
The Queen sank back into the chair beside the bed, a few seconds later, staggered. Tears began to roll down her face.
"Beat that, if you can," said Siffha'h at last.
The Queen hid her face in her hands.
"So don't think you have a corner on the suffering market," said Arhu. "Or on being lonely. Or that other people 'can't know'. When the sun comes up at last, we're all stuck in our own heads by ourselves. Everyone around you feels the pain of it, sooner or later – the Lone One's claw in their heart. Some feel it a lot worse than you, even if you are the dam to a pride of millions. So stop acting as if you're so special."
Even through the Queen's tears, her jaw dropped open again at that. "And stop shirking your work," said Siffha'h. "Bad things will happen to your pride if you don't come out and do the things you were reared to do. They've started happening already. If you act now, you can stop the process."
"Oh," Arhu added. "And by the way, lay off the nuclear weapons. I know Dizzy likes them … but this is what will happen if you don't."
He showed her.
The Queen went ashen at the sight of the Winter.
For several long minutes she was speechless: possibly a record. At the end of it, all she could whisper was, "You are little angels of God."
"Please, madam," Arhu said, "don't get confused. We're cats. If you mean we're messengers of the One, well, so is everybody: it's hardly an exclusive position. But this is the word. No nukes. You really ought to get rid of them, lest someone later be tempted to use them who isn't as morally upright as you are."
Flatterer.
She's susceptible. A good wizard uses the tools which are available. "And make sure you don't let them get out of control while you're having them destroyed," Siffha'h said. "Some people might be tempted to get light-fingered … try to sell a few to somebody else on the grounds that no one will notice since they're being destroyed anyway."
The Queen looked suddenly determined. "I have never liked them," she said softly. "I will begin work at once, if you say so."
"It would be a project," Arhu said, "which would probably be productive of some good."
The Queen looked around with some surprise, for suddenly the bedroom seemed to have a lot more cats in it, and she had no idea where they might have come from. A huge gray tabby: a small neat black cat with golden-green eyes: a massive gray-and-tan tabby with astonishing fluffy fur: a small tidy marmalade cat with a slightly sardonic expression. All of them looked at her with interest.
"Our colleagues," said Arhu. "We have been here on errantry on your behalf: the errand's over. They just wanted to look at you before we all left." Arhu smiled slightly. "It's in the job description."
"But, but my dear kitties," the Queen said, "you cannot go now, you must stay!" Perhaps she already read the answer in their eyes. "I command it!"
"Majesty," said the black cat, with a nod of what might have been respect, "our People have their own Queen, to whom we answer: a higher authority, I believe, than even yours. We cannot stay: we have other errands to perform for Her. But She wishes you well, by us. Do well by your people: and farewell."
And then they were all gone.
The Queen wept a little, as was her habit, and then started to put herself right after the events of the morning. She did not get around to reading The Times until almost bedtime. When she did, it took her a while to get to the parliamentary report, which she was about to skip, since for some days it had contained an interminable report about the Public Worship Regulation Bill. But suddenly, in the middle of the dry, dry text, she began to smile.
The right Honorable Gentleman was at this moment startled by a burst of laughter from the crowded house, caused by the appearance of a large gray tabby cat, which, after descending the Opposition gangway, proceeded leisurely to cross the floor. Being frightened by the noise, the cat made a sudden spring from the floor over the shoulder of the members sitting on the front Ministerial bench below the gangway, and, amid shouts of laughter, bounded over the heads of members on the back benches until it reached a side door, when it vanished. This sudden apparition, the cat's still more sudden disappearance, and the astonishment of the members who found it vaulting so close to their faces and beards, almost convulsed the House.
The Queen folded up the newspaper, put it aside, and went to sleep … determined to start making some changes the next day.
"The only thing about this that still bothers me," Urruah was saying, "is where that letter went. I can't imagine how he got it out of there so fast."
"But that's the problem," said Hwallis to the London and New York teams, earlier that afternoon. "A day for a letter to get to and from Edinburgh? A whole day? You must be joking."
The New York team looked at each other. "It's easy for us to forget," Huff said, "that once upon a time, when this country had a rail network it could be proud of, and before there were telephones, the mail could come seven times a day – in London, in some parts, as many as twelve times a day. And pickups were much more frequent than they are now."
"The Houses of Parliament have a pickup for members at midnight," Ouhish said. "That letter would have been on the train to Scotland half an hour later. It would have been in Edinburgh, and delivered, with the first post … some time after five in the morning. No later than seven, anyway. If a reply was passed directly back to the postman, that letter would also have gone on a train within an hour or so, and the reply would have been in London – Windsor, in this case – by the two o'clock post at the latest."
Rhiow shook her head. "And we think our ehhif have technology," she said softly. "Sometimes retrotech has its points."
They spent the afternoon at the Museum, and said their farewells to Ouhish and Hwallis around four: then went for one last meeting, in Green Park. Artie was out for one last afternoon in London: the next morning he was due to catch the train back to Edinburgh, and after that he would be heading off to a school on the Continent. He was sorrowful, but his basic good cheer would not let the affair be entirely a sad one.
"But will I never see you again," Artie said, "or Ith?"
"For out own part, it seems unlikely," Rhiow said. "Mostly wizards don't do time-work without permission from the Powers. There are too many things that can go wrong. But you will remember us for a long time."
Probably not forever … she thought, but didn't say. One of the factors which protected wizardry from revelation was the tendency of humans minds to censor themselves over time, forgetting the "impossible", recasting the improbable into more acceptable forms. Childhood memories, in particular, were liable to this kind of editing, as the adult mind decided retroactively what things could have happened in the "real world", and which were dreams. Yet Artie was a little unusual. There was something about him which suggested that he would not easily let go of a memory, and that no matter how impossible something was, if it wa
s true, he would cope with it … and hang on.
"But Ith is another story," Urruah said. "His time isn't precisely our time: the universe where he lives is closer to the heart of things … and so a little easier to get in and out of, for him. Also, he outranks us." Urruah smiled. "He's a Senior now … and Seniors have more latitude."
"No matter what else happens," Fhrio said, "remember that you helped save the Queen, and many millions of people you'll never know. You'll never be able to prove it to anybody. But without you, we would not have been guaranteed entry into this timeline … and we couldn't
have been sure to save the others. You did that. It might have been an accident at first … but afterwards, you did it willingly. We won't forget that, or you … and neither will the Powers."
Artie smiled at that. "I guess it's better than nothing."
"Immeasurably," Rhiow said.
They parted as sunset drew on, and made their way back to the Mark Lane Underground, where they had lodged the timeslide. As they went underground for the last time in this period, Rhiow looked up into the dirty sky. There was no Moon there, tarnished or otherwise. Depending on whether or not they managed to track back the "seed" event of this chain, it might always wear those terrible scars. But at least now there was a good chance that the world would not.
"So what's next?" she said to Huff, as they made their way down to the "derelict" platform.
"That book," he said. "Fhrio, think we'll be able to wring what we need out of the gate logs when we get back?"
