The Big Meow

A sudden chorus of shocked yowling went up from outside, from some guest-People who were visiting the buffet. The Silent Man rolled his eyes. They’ve been doing that ever since the excitement started, he said. Everybody’s nerves are on edge. I’ll go see what the problem is now…

He went out the French doors. Rhiow, now that she had a moment to do so, gave Helen an amused look. “You might have mentioned that Helen Walks Softly wasn’t just a tribal name…!”

Helen smiled. “No name without a reason…”

“But this is why mass isn’t an issue for you,” Urruah said, “at least not in the wizardly sense. You’re a shapewalker; it’s a whole different level of matter management, and it comes to you naturally…”

Helen nodded. “There’s a question among the elders in my band,” she said. “Am I a were-puma, or a puma-woman?” She shrugged. “I’ll take it up with the Powers some day. Right now there’s too much going on…”

The Silent Man came back inside and stood by his desk for a moment, looking rattled: the first time Rhiow could remember seeing him wearing such an expression. I’m sorry, he said, rubbing his face. But there appears to be a dinosaur in the back yard. I assume he’s something to do with you?

Urruah and Hwaith and Aufwi and Helen and Rhiow all looked at each other. A moment later, a huge saurian face was looking in one of the French doors, and Arhu jumped down off his head and slipped inside, shouldering the door open so that Ith could get at least his head in.

“I found him on Hollywood Boulevard, asking directions,” Arhu said, “and got him out of there before too much damage was done.” He shrugged his tail. “He was right over by the Chinese. They’ll probably think he was some kind of promotion.”

Rhiow got up again and went over to the door, gazing up at Ith. “What on Earth brought you all the way back here?” she said.

“It was the tablets,” Ith said, sounding very somber.

“What about them? You could just have mind-spoken me, Ith, told me what you’ve found, you didn’t have to come all the way back here – “

“I did,” he said. “I did not dare even whisper what I’ve found: I didn’t dare take the chance that a word or two might leak out into the space between times and worlds. But whatever has been done tonight, Rhiow, it has not been enough. You are not finished. There is one thing yet to be done.”

“What??”

He pushed his head in the door and put it right down by Rhiow’s.

“Join forces with the Lone Power,” he whispered. “And end the world.”

The Big Meow: Chapter Twelve

Everyone looked at Ith in profound concern, not least the Silent Man.

You’re going to have to forgive me, he said, glancing over at Rhiow, but I thought things were pretty much handled.

“Well,” Rhiow said, unnerved. “We were about to start dealing with that issue. What we saw tonight suggests that there’s still considerable unfinished business. We stopped the initial incursion… or rather, it was stopped.” She looked over at Ith. “I think you may have had more to do with that than any of us expected. But the timings laid out in the tablets we saw suggested that the worst is yet to come. And what happened tonight – “

“Wasn’t quite bad enough?” Arhu said as he clambered up onto Ith’s back and walked up to sit on top of his head.

The Silent Man watched this performance with a slightly cockeyed look. You’ve got to forgive me, but I had the idea that cats and lizards didn’t usually like each other much.

“They’re twins,” Urruah said. “Separated at birth.”

The Silent Man blinked.

“He means that mostly in the spiritual sense,” Rhiow said. “Someone will explain it to you eventually, as far as we understand it, anyway. But what Arhu’s saying is that, despite everything we went through, we got off rather easily… which confirms that the worst is still to be dealt with. Ith, I take it after Aufwi told us where to look, you did find the remaining tablets – “

“I did,” Ith said. He had hunkered down, now, with his head and just the tops of his shoulders pushed into the room through the open French doors, and was more or less wearing the sprawled-out Arhu like a hat. “Some of them were in very bad state and had to be reconstructed, but they were willing enough to be reminded of what they had been once. Indeed, they were eager to become what they had been, even if only temporarily. They were full of urgency to be read. But when I read them…” He trailed off. “I did not know what to make of what I was seeing.” Even as Ith leaned on his elbows, those long slender claws of his were scissoring together, clenching, flexing, clenching again in great nervousness.

“Elder brother,” Rhiow said, “what is it? What did you find?”

Ith’s voice dropped again to a whisper, and despite the awful tension of the moment, Rhiow couldn’t help but be tempted toward laughter by a whisper that nonetheless filled the whole room. “The tablets said that darkness must fight darkness, that only the dark can save us: that wizards must turn to their oldest enemy, and only so will the worlds be saved…”