The Big Meow

Rhiow was aware of Hwaith looking at her: but he didn’t say anything. She sighed. “It won’t last,” Rhiow said after a few moments. “He’ll get some relief initially, and he’ll have some more energy to call on as a result. But he’s too much about being a raw nerve, aware of everything all the time, to let it stay this way.”

“He’ll dissolve it himself before you even go, maybe,” Hwaith said, sounding a little sad.

Rhiow flicked one ear “yes”. “In the meantime, we’ve done what we need to,” she said. “Let’s go.” She closed her eyes again.

*

When she reopened them, Rhiow was shocked by how bright everything seemed. But after a few moments’ blinking she realized that the room was in almost exactly the same shade of morning twilight as she’d left it. She had been inside the Silent Man’s other self for no more than twenty minutes.

Over by the door she spied a dark shadow against the room’s light colors: Hwaith. Listen, she said silently, so as not to awaken either the Silent Man or Sheba, how long have you been there?

Since a little after you started, I think.

On guard…

Yes. Until it was obvious I was could make myself more useful elsewhere.

Thank you.

Rhiow jumped down off the windowsill, but came down harder than she’d intended, feeling a little faint. The noise of her landing’s thump made the Silent Man stir a little.

She could have hissed at her own clumsiness, but that would have disturbed the Silent Man and Sheba too. Rhiow staggered a little, found her footing, headed toward the door.

Hwaith put himself halfway through the door and held it in part-immaterial state for her. Rhiow staggered through gladly, made her way back into the living room and sat down hard in the middle of the floor, uncaring who might be there to see her. She sagged, almost woozy, and crouched down on all fours before she fell down.

“Nasty,” Hwaith said after a moment.

“Yes,” Rhiow said. “Yes it was.” She shook her head: her ears were still buzzing with the ugly buzzing tumor-voices.

Then she glanced up. Hwaith had sat down by her and was looking at her with concern. “It’s all right,” she said. “Just the usual exertion. You pay more when you have to construct a wizardry on the fly.” Rhiow shook her head once more at the buzzing. “I just hope I didn’t burn out anything vital with that last flash –”

“I doubt you did,” Hwaith said.

Rhiow laughed helplessly. “The trouble is, it’d be hard to tell whether I destroyed something, he’s already so ripped up inside! Oh, Hwaith, it’s one thing to know that surgery isn’t so far along in this time, but with this poor ehhif, the doctors couldn’t do anything for him but literally go down his throat with a sharpened spoon and cut off the worst bits of the malignant tissue they found, and half the contents of his throat with it! All the rest of what’s killing him is still in there. The cancer’s spread everywhere in him. It’s seeded all through his lungs, it’s in his lymphatic system and getting into his liver and his bones…”

She fell silent. “You should drink something,” Hwaith said after a moment.

“Yes I should,” Rhiow said, and got to her feet. She felt a little better already. “Just the reaction…” she said, and headed over to the water bowl that was set out by the Neverending Buffet.

She put her face down in the water, and the scent of it suddenly made her aware that she was ragingly thirsty. Rhiow drank for almost a minute straight, and with every gulp after a few laps thought sadly of the Silent Man’s throat, of how it now felt like a great gaping bottomless hole to him, a ruined instrument that he had once played like a virtuoso but would now never use again as it had once been used. That’s why he keeps putting all that scalding hot coffee down him, she thought: for she’d noticed with some surprise over the past couple of days how hot the Silent Man drank it. It’s the only way he can feel anything there any more except pain. Or at least it’s a pain he controls. And that’s why he eats with such gusto. He’s convincing himself that this at least is still all right. And it’s not. His gut’s so ruined by the cancer that it’s a question how much good he gets out of his food at all any more. That’s why he’s so thin…

She shook water off her whiskers and sighed, then walked back to where Hwaith sat, feeling a little better. Rhiow sat down by him and washed her face a little. “How did you find me?” she said after a moment.

“Well, you weren’t here, or in the spare bedroom, or up on the windowsill where you usually go, so I –”

She gave him a look. “Hwaith.”

Hwaith flicked an ear at her. “Sorry…” He rubbed at one ear. “I heard you.”

“You heard me from out here? When I was in there??”

“I told you, I have the Ear, a little.”

“Not so little,” Rhiow said, “if you can find me inside an ehhif’s dream of his insides. Especially when they’re that complex…”