The Big Meow

“In my time?” Hwaith said. “Never. That big a jump, I’d have noticed. In my predecessor’s time? I don’t think so – I’m sure he’d have mentioned. Before that? No idea. I’d have to check the gate’s logs.”

“Something you should do when we’re done here,” Rhiow said. She wandered around the room, looking to see where the strings were showing the most alteration. “It’s mostly over by this wall, isn’t it?” she said.

“Seems so to me,” Hwaith said.

“Arhu?”

“I had a look at the wall, too,” Arhu said. “I can’t see a thing.”

“Not even with me boosting him,” Siffha’h said.

“I’m no expert in the Eye,” Urruah said. “But I know someone who is…and she tells me that, with sufficient power and intent, it can be blocked.”

“Yes it can,” Rhiow said. “And she has some other concerns, too. At least one person here tonight is friendly with the ‘friend’ of the Lady in Black. That person, and I think some more such friendly types, are going to be meeting here, for a while at least, tomorrow night. We need to be ready for them, and ready to find out what they have to do with this.”

They all stared at her. “What did she tell you?” Urruah said.

The scream of utter terror from the upstairs level could be heard right through the ceiling. “Dear Queen around us!” Urruah said, and tore out through the open door.

Everyone was sidled before they’d gone more than a few yards down the hall. The crowd of ehhif plunging up those stairs in the next few moments were quite unaware of the invisible shapes running up the stairs with them, in Urruah’s case even jumping up onto the banister to be able to run unhindered by all the ehhif legs. At the top of the stairs they turned right, for the sound had come from further down, and ran on to where a door on the left-hand side of the hall stood open, and a tall blonde queen-ehhif in silks and diamonds was comforting another one who huddled against her and shuddered and wept.

It was a bathroom, ornate with golden faucets in the sink and bathtub, brocaded curtains hanging down, reeking with expensive ehhif fragrances. The wide, mirrored medicine cabinet over the sink stood open: there were bottles open on the counter, spilled-out pills scattered across it and onto the floor. And on the floor among them, a pale-gowned body with short dark hair lay sprawled on the thick soft rug, loose-limbed and inert as a puppet with its strings cut.

Like the ehhif all around them, the People stared. Then Rhiow looked over her shoulder at Hwaith.

“You were saying,” she said to him, “that the ehhif here do something besides kill each other? I’m beginning to wonder.”

The Big Meow: Chapter Seven

Rhiow slipped in past the ehhif and went to more closely examine the queen lying there on the floor. As soon as she got within touching distance of the queen, though, she realized that the situation was both less grim than she’d initially thought, and more complicated. The she-ehhif’s scent had none of the chill about it that to a Person would speak of death within seconds, while the body was still warm. Rhiow put her face down by the queen’s pale one, felt the slightest stirring of breath. But not normal breathing at all. And no way to tell whether it’s going to last much longer. She glanced up at the ehhif crowding the doorway, none of them coming close as yet. But how long will it take an ahhm’vhuwlanss to get here? And bringing what kind of care? In a city of this time, ehhif medicine wasn’t advanced all that far. Possibly not far enough to do this poor queen any good before her body failed —

All right… Rhiow thought. “’Ruah,” she said as he came in behind her, “she’s not dead yet, though I can see why this other poor queen started screaming: she looks the part. I’ve got to try to put her right. Or at least find out what’s happened here, if I can’t fix what’s wrong. Make sure no one kicks me or anything, will you?”

“No problem, I’ve got a forcefield ready….”

Rhiow hurriedly slipped behind the toilet, well away from any ehhif who might come to help the one on the floor. There she crouched down and closed her eyes. I hate having to do this at such short notice, but not much choice — Any gate tech working in the train stations in New York routinely found herself having to deal with sick or injured ehhif: hurt ones got down onto the tracks sometimes after a mugging or a chase, or else they tried to hide there in the dark for some reason and came to grief afterwards, usually by making contact with a third rail… or a train at speed. At least there’s no big external damage with this one, Rhiow thought, settling into the dark place in the back of her mind where she kept pre-assembled spells that worked on ehhif in a strictly physical mode. But as for what else might be going on –