THE BOOK OF NIGHT WITH MOON - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 2
Haath, though, was laughing. With one eye he was watching Arhu, keeping him at bay with those slashing claws; and he too circled, watching first Rhiow, then Urruah as they came.
"Don't you see that it won't matter?" Haath said softly, grinning. "You have killed me before, cat, and nothing has come of it except that now I shall kill you … and that will end it."
"It's not enough," Arhu yowled at Rhiow. "I know what I need to do this, but I can't get at it! Rhiow!"
She opened her mouth—Slash. Haath straightened up, and Arhu went down, thrown fifteen feet away, staggering another ten or so with the force of the throw, with his rear right leg hanging by a string, the big groin artery pumping bright blood onto the dark stone. Rhiow started to hurry to him as Arhu fell over and tried to get up again, squalling with pain."No," Arhu yelled at her, "the Whisperer's telling me what to do, I can hold the blood inside me for a while, I'm wizard enough for that. Don't waste time with me!""Waste some," he growled. "Haath, you and I are going to polka.""What is a polka?" Haath asked, mocking."You may be sorry you asked," Rhiow said softly, watching to see what Urruah had in mind.It was a slower stalk… less the scream-and-leap technique that Arhu had used, and all the while he stalked around Haath, Rhiow could feel Urruah weaving a spell, fastening words together in his head, one after another, in a chainlike pattern she couldn't make much of. Haath turned as Urruah circled him, his head moving slightly from one side to the other, as if somehow watching what Urruah was doing—"Rhiow," Arhu cried from where he lay, "none of this is going to be good enough! What are you waiting for? Use the spell! Use the spell!""I can't, it's not—" But it was. It was ready. It lay shining, complete and deadly in her mind, and Rhiow wondered that she had never perceived the sheer unbalanced dangerousness of it, even earlier when it had first started to come together. A spell is like an equation: on either side of the equal sign, both sides must balance. This one, though, was weighted almost all one way … toward output. The power and parity configurations, the strange output projections, they were all complete now … and all of them violated natural law.Except that the natural law Rhiow knew was not the one operating down here.I don't know how natural law operates down here! It could backfire! It could—Sometimes you can be too reasonable, Urruah had said: or something very like that. But sometimes, maybe reason wasn't enough.Sometimes you might need to be unreasonable. Then miracles could happen. It worked for the younger wizards, didn't it?But I haven't been young for a while, Rhiow thought desperately. She was a team leader. She had to be responsible, methodical, make sure she was right: others' lives depended upon it. And even now, all that method hadn't helped her team: they were all going to "die dead," and she felt old— old, failed, and useless.Don't listen to It, Rhiow! Arhu yelled into her mind, writhing, trying to get up. I've got enough young for all of us! But I can't do this for you. You have to do it. Let go, Rhiow, just do it, do the spell!It could destroy everything—Big deal, Saash was going to do that! And we all agreed she should! Now she can't! Do—Urruah leapt at Haath. turning loose whatever spell he had been working on. Haath slashed at him, and Rhiow felt that spell abruptly come to pieces as Urruah went down, kicking, then froze, held pinioned on the stone, spell-still. Rhiow launched her mind against the wizardry that held him, trying to feel what it was, to pry it off Urruah … but there was no time, she couldn't detect the structure—Haath leaned over him, lifted his claws, and slashed Urruah open as casually as an ehhif would slash open a garbage bag with a razor.Everything spilled out….Haath reached in one more time, hooked one long claw behind Urruah's heart, pulled. It came out, as if on a hook, still beating; beating out its blood, until none was left. Smiling, Haath released the spell. Urruahrolled over in Rhiow's direction, squirming; he cried out only once. His eyes started to glaze.Just let it go, he said. Just do the spell. Rhi—And then silence.Haath looked at her and grinned.Rhiow held very, very still, and the rage and horror grew in her…… for it was almost exactly what she had been saying to everyone else: Arhu and Ith in particular.Sometimes we do not hear the Whisperer even at her loudest because she speaks in our own voice, the one we most often discount.Rhiow took a long breath …… and started to use the spell.It was not the kind you could hold "ready-for-release" and then turn loose with a word: within minutes you would be staggering under the weight of its frustrated desire to be let go. It had weight, this spell. You had to shoulder into it, boost it up to get at the underside where the words of activation were. The weight of it pushed down your neck and shoulders, your eyes watered with the strain of seeing the symbols, and then you had to get the words out: big hefty polysyllabic things, heavy with meaning. Rhiow fought with the spell, pushed past and through its inertia and got out the first two words, three, five——when something seized her by the throat and struck her dumb.
She gagged, clawed at her face … but there was nothing there. Trickery, she thought, but her throat would still not work. The Lone One. And, Aha, she thought. It must be worth something after all—
She fled inward, into her workspace, where the spell lay on the floor of her mind, and hurriedly started to finish it there. Spells can be worked swiftly inside the practiced mind, even when working through the graphical construct of a spell diagram; Rhiow, terrified and intent, was too swift, this once, for even the Lone One to follow her in and stop her. Power flashed around the spell-circle. The whole thing flared up, bunding. Its status here inside her was as far along toward release as it had been when her outward voice was choked. Only a few words left to complete the activation: but here they were not words but thoughts, and took almost no tune at all. One word to make all complete, knotting the circle together, setting the power free—
Rhiow said the word.The spell went blasting out of her like a wind that swept her clean inside, threw her down on the stone, left her empty, mindless, half-dead.There Rhiow lay, waiting for something to happen.Silence… darkness.Nothing happened.It didn't work, Rhiow thought in complete shock, and started to stagger to her feet again. How can it nothave worked?A spell always works!But the nature of wizardry is changed, said that thick, slow, soft, satisfied voice in her mind. It only works if I want it to.Slowly, slowly, Rhiow sat down.Beaten.Beaten at last.She hung her head…… and then something said, No.Liar, it said.Liar! You've always lied!It lied the last time. It's lying now.She had trouble recognizing the voice.It's live! Activate it! Arhu?Call them! They have to come! Like in the park—She staggered, blinked, unable to think what on Earth he meant.Wait a minute. The park. The o'hra—the ehhif-queen in the song who demanded that the Powers That Be come to her aid, on her terms——and They did—
—but to require the Powers to descend, to demand Their presence: it was not something that was possible, They would laugh at you—
No, Rhiow thought. That was someone else's idea, some-thing else's idea. Yours! she said to the Old Serpent. Yours! As it was your idea what happened to my Hhuha. As it was your idea what happened to Arhu's littermates and almost happened to him. No more of your ideas! You have had only one, and I've had enough of it for today.
Reconfiguration, Rhiow thought. To change the Lone One's perception… it would take this kind ofpower. And others' perceptions could as easily be changed.
Rhiow staggered to her feet again, opened her mouth, looking for the right words … Let it come, she said, let it come to me: I will command!
Instantly the huge power blasted into her, as the activated spell had blasted out, leaving room for her to work. She tottered with the influx of wild power, staggered like someone gone distempered, unable to see or hear or speak, unable to feel anything but the fire raging inside her, striving to get out, get up, do something. It did not know what it wanted to do, though. This is always the problem, said the Voice inside her. It must be disciplined, or it will ruin everything. Hold it still, keep it until the right words come.
But with that power in her, she knew the right words."what has become of MY children?" Rhiow cried. She knew the voice that shouted; it was her own—but Someone else's too: the sun burned inside her, and fire from beyond the sun readied itself to leap out. She could not believe the rage within her, the fury, but there was a core of massive calm to it, the knowledge that all could yet be well, and the two balanced one another as the sides of the spell had not. "Where is Aaurh the warrior, and sa'Rrahh the Tearer, wayward but dear to Me? And what has become of My Consort and the light of his eye, without which My own is dark?"The ground shook: the Tree shook: the Mountain trembled under her. "Old Serpent, turn You and face Us, for the fight is not done—!"She could not believe her own strength. It filled her, making the initial release of the spell from her seem about as worldshattering by comparison as a stomach-growl. And she could not believe that the Old Serpent, the Lone One Itself, now looked at her from the Tree with eyes suddenly full of fear. Rage, yes, and frustration … but fear first. Is that all it takes? she thought, astonished. One sentence—one word, one command? "Let there be light—"Here and now … the answer seemed to be "yes."It was "yes" before too, said Queen Iau. But the voice was Rhiow's own.The Serpent began, very slowly, to uncoil Itself from around the Tree. As it did, the huge gouge that It had bitten in the Tree's trunk began to bleed light afresh.Oh no You don't, Rhiow thought furiously, stepping forward. Where do you think You're going?She was immediately distracted by the way the ground shook under her when she moved. Rhiow would have been frightened by it except that inside her, acting with her—part of her, as if from a long time before —was One Who was not afraid of Her own power in the slightest.Rhiow was abashed beyond belief. Not in her wildest expectations had she anticipated the spell might have this kind of result: she would hardly have dated to think of herself and the One in the same sentence.Oh, my Queen, I'm sorry—I mean, I—Don't apologize, came the thought of Iau Hauhai'h, and it was humorous, if momentarily grim. Usually gods don't. Not in front of that One, anyway. Say what It needs to hear! We've got a lot of work to do.Rhiow stood there, feeling the majesty cohabiting with her… and then held her head up, thinking of that statue in the Met, poor cold copy that it was. "Am I not the One," She cried, "to make power against death strong, and power for life stronger still? Shall I allow the darkness to prevail against My own? Their life is in Me, and of Me: save that You destroy Me as well, never shall they be wholly gone; and Me Youcannot destroy, nor My power in Them. Rise up then, Aaurh My daughter, and be healed of Your dying; the dark dream is over, and awakening is comerOff to one side, where a shape lay dark and charred on the stone, there was movement—and then a flash of fire. If a form can burn backward, this one did. Flame leapt from nowhere to it, filled it, wrapped it round—not the cold white fire of the catenary, but flame with a hint of gold, the sun's light concentrated, made personal and intense. Substance came with the fire: the shape filled out, rolled to its feet, shook itself, and stood, looking proud, and angry, and amused. It was a lioness, but one in whose pelt every hair was a line of golden fire, and the Sun rode above her like a crown—though it was not as bright as her eyes, or as fierce. "I am here, my Dam and Queen," said the voice of Aaurh the Warrior, the Queen's Champion, the Mighty, the Destroyer-by-Fire; but it was Saash's voice as well, and Rhiow could have laughed out loud for joy at the sound of that voice, itself nearly shaking with laughter under the stern words.Oh Iau, Saash— I mean, oh— And Rhiow did laugh then: it was amazing how your vocabulary could be lessened by realizing you suddenly had the One inside you, and that it sounded surpassingly silly to be swearing at, or by, Yourself. Saash, are you all right?A snicker. Are you kidding? I'm dead. Or I was. But live by the fire, die by the fire. And she chuckled. It's an occupational hazard."Rise up then, sa'Rrahh My daughter, and be healed of Your sore wounding; stand with Us against the Old Serpent that would have worked Your bane!"The prone form that lay clutching painfully with its fore-claws at the stone now lifted its head and slowly began to glow both dark and bright, like its fur—night-and-moon-light, the pale fire and the dark one mingling, starfire and the darkness behind the stars: the essence of conflict and ambivalence. But neither fire burned less intensely for the other's presence; and as the tigerish shape rose up to stand with its Dam, the eyes that looked out of its mighty head were terrible with knowledge of past and future, decisions well made and ill made, and action and passivity held in dangerous balance. Those awful, thoughtful eyes looked down at the body they inhabited .. . and suddenly went wide."Lookat me! Just look at me! I'm a queen!"Iau Kindler of Stars let out a long sigh. "Son," She said, "shut up. It happens to the best of us."Rhiow put her radiant whiskers right forward in amusement It had not occurred to Rhiow that Arhu might manifest as sa'Rrahh, but the Tearer had always been as ambivalent about gender as anything else. "Oh all right," said the Dark One. "I am here, my Dam and Queen. Now let me at that ragged-eared— ""In a moment. Rise up then, My consort, Urrua Lightning-Claw; be risen up, thou Old Tom, O Great Cat, O Cat Who stood under the Tree on the night the enemies of Life were destroyed. Urrua, My beloved, My Consort, rise up now, and stand with Us, to slay the One Who slew You!"Off on the black stone, where blood lay pooled around a tom, silver-striped shape, darkness now pooled as well. It gathered together about that shape and began to weave brilliance into itself, the tabby coloration shading pale, to moondust grays and silvers and a brilliant white like the Moon at full, a light as pitiless in its way as the Moon looking down from a clear sky on those who would wish to hide, and can find no hiding place from what stalks them silently. That shape stood up, and was a panther's shape, heavy-jowled and white-fanged, with unsheathed claws that burned and left molten spots on any stone they touched. The mighty shape shook itself, shedding silver light about it, then padded over to join the others, looking at them with one eye that was dark and terrible, knowing secrets; and the other that burned almost too bright to look upon, for battle was in it, and the joy of battle. "I am here, My Dam and Queen, My Consort," he said, and then added, " 'My consort,'huh?""Don't get any ideas, you… the post is purely ceremonial. —Lone Power, Old Serpent, for these murders, now We pronounce your fate—""No, wait a minute, lam first," said sa'Rrahh suddenly.Slowly, very slowly, Haath had begun backing away as he first caught sight of his Lord and Master beginning to unwrap Itself from the Tree. By the time Queen Iau had begun to raise Her dead, Haath was already running away across that great dark expanse at the best speed a tyrannosaur could manage, which was considerable. Now, though, the Queen looked after him… and suddenly Haath appeared directly in front of them again, and fell on his face with the suddenness of his translocation."Haath, Child of the Serpent," said Rhiow and the Queen as he struggled to his feet, "you have brought your fate upon you: but still it lieth with you to save yourself, if you will. Renounce your false Master, and you may rejoin your kind, though your wizardry, not coming from the One, is confiscate. "Haath crouched, his head low, and looked from the blazing, terrible forms before him to the dark radiance still in the process of slowly, slowly slipping from around the Tree. "I…" he said. "My Master … perhaps I was deluded in thinking…"Allow Me to save you this crisis of conscience, said a huge, soft voice, by first renouncing you.Haath looked up in horror, already feeling the changes in his body. Rhiow knew, as Iau knew, that the Lone One had not told Haath the whole truth about his immortality: that even for the gods, death comes eventually, and mortals who try repeatedly to put it off may succeed for a while, but not forever. With his master's renunciation, all of Haath's deaths simply caught up with him at once. All that could be seen of the process was the look of shock and rage and betrayal on his face, those twelve claws lifted for one last wizardry .. . but there was no time for anything else, either action or reaction. Suddenly, he simply was not there; and if there was even a little dust left, the wind blowing through the darkness swept it unregarded into the River of Fire.The Serpent's cool eyes dwelt on this, unmoved. And then another voice spoke. "Great One," it said, "Lord !!The Four turned their attention to the source of the voice. It was Ith. He stood now, gazing at the Serpent with an odd intensity.Ah, my son, said the Old Serpent's voice. Now that the other is gone, we may speak freely, you and I. This should be fun, said Aaurh silently to the others.Pay no heed to the strange violence you have seen done here, said the Old Serpent softly. These creatures are our ancient enemies, and need have nothing further to do with our kind or our power. Our kind havedifferent needs, different desires."Lord," Ith said, "the Sun. The world above…"None of our kind can live in that light without My help, said the Old Serpent, slow, persuasive, reasonable. It is fair, but it kills. Nor would they, would you, be able to find food enough for all. You will die there unless you are ruled by one who is wise, who knows time and the worlds. Long I have ruled you, to your advantage. It shall be so again. And you shall be My Sixth Claw, this time. You have won the right. You have proven Haath flawed, and that flaw would sooner or later have done your people, My people, great harm. Now you shall rule in his stead, and order all things for Me.Ith swayed, looking up into the great, dark, wise, forgiving eyes. The others watched him.They will bow before you like a god, a true god… not like these upstarts. But you must in turn surrender yourself to Me, to be filled with the power. This you must see and do.A pause."… No."The Lone One's eyes suddenly went much darker. "But this I do see," Ith said, and paced slowly over to stand straight and still beside sa'Rrahh, or Arhu in her shape, now flowing with fire both dark and bright. "Our kinship with these others is greater than You claim. He came into my heart, the one You say is my enemy, and tried to save me. And I saw into his heart, and his mind. He had pain like mine, loneliness like mine, and anger. But he rose up again, through them, and tried. Death and hunger came to him, but he did not give in to them, did not cast himself in the fire. His clutchmates all died, but he lived, and kept living, though the pain pierced like a claw. And when we met, he felt pain for me, and did not run away, but bore it This is his Gift. To try again. We tried once and failed… and never tried again, for You told us that trying was no use. But gifts can be passed on to others who need them, even when the others are old enemies; and choices can be remade. They can be remade!"It was a roar, and slowly the Mountain began to shake with it, a huge sympathetic tremor, like fear in a heart finally decided."I choose!" Ith said. "7 choose for my people! We will walk with the light, in the sun, in the free sun that You cannot control; we will walk with these others who struck us down only when there was need, rather than for pleasure or for power. And if we die of the light, of our own hunger freely found, then that was still worthwhile. For we would have owned ourselves for that little time, and an hour's freedom in our own bodies, our own lives, under the sun, is worth a thousand years as slaves, even pampered slaves, in the dark under the ground, or killing other beings under strange stars!"The Old Serpent was hissing softly to Itself now, while still slowly unwrapping Itself from around the Tree. Fool, it said—again that soft voice, the anger never overt—-fool of a race offools: too true it is that you have overstayed your time in this world. You shall not overstay it much longer—"Too late for that, Old Serpent," said Rhiow, said Iau. "The Choice is made."And already things were shifting. The landscape looked less rocky; the catenary looked less like a restlessly bound energy flow, but more than ever like a river, and one in which fire flowed like water.Rhiow, within Iau, rejoiced at the sight of it, for now she saw that this was where the River of Fire belonged— at the roots of the Tree: at the scene of the battle, where the souls of all felinity would at one time or another pass through the place of Choice, of the Fight, the gaming-ground that was the mother of all bouts of hauissh. All would see it and remember, or be reminded between lives, of the incomplete Choice, of the business still to be attended to, not in the depths of time behind them, but in the depths of time yet to come. Except that time was not as deep as it had been, anymore…"The Change is upon them now," said Aaurh, moving slowly forward. "You might destroy this whole race, and still they would find possibilities they would never have known otherwise because of this their Son, their Father, Who Chose them a different path. They will go their own way now."They will die! the Old Serpent hissed."And whose fault is that? They will pass," said sa'Rrahh, "but to what, You will not know for aeons yet. And meantime You have a passage of Your own to deal with.""Old Serpent," cried Iau then, "stand You to battle; this is Your last day… until we fight again!"The Serpent reared away from the Tree, and Rhiow realized belatedly that Its withdrawal had been strategic only. Now It threw Itself at them, Its whole terrible mass coming down at them like a falling tree, lightnings flailing about it—What started to happen after that, Rhiow had a great deal of trouble grasping. All the Four threw themselves upon the Old Serpent; claws and fangs blazed, and blinding tracks of plasma burned and tore where Urrua's claws fell; fire spouted and gouted from Aaurh and sa'Rrahh, blasting at the Lone Power. As Haath had, It healed itself. The Four kept attacking, with energies that Rhiow was vaguely certain would have been sufficient to level whole continents, if not to devastate the surfaces of some small planets. Rhiow fought as she might have in her own body, clutching and biting, feeling fangs slash at her and find their mark: But the terrible pains she suffered still had triumph at the bottom of them, like blood welling up in a wound; and the violence she did, and sensed all around her, had a stately quality to it. They had done this many times before, and would do it again—though this time there had been minor changes in the ritual.But then came one change that was not so minor; it particularly attracted her notice. Suddenly there was a Fifth among them; and sa'Rrahh laughed for joy and plunged anew into the battle beside that Fifth one; and the others cried out in amazement. For it was another Serpent, a bright one, as great as the Old Serpent, and its scales glittering like diamond in the light of their own fires. It thrust its mighty head forward and sank fangs like splinters of star-core into the great barrel of the Old Serpent's body, just behind the head; and the bright Serpent wrapped its coils around the Old Serpent's coils, and they began to strive together—Rhiow suddenly thought of the twined serpents on the staff of the ehhif god above Grand Central. Haw didthey know, she thought, how did even the ehhif suspect, and we never——and in their battle, the bright Serpent began to get the better of the Old Serpent, and started to crush the life out of It, so that It writhed and thrashed and made the world shake. And the Tree began, ever so slightly, to lean.
"Quick," cried the bright Serpent, "the wound, it must be healed!""Once more the Serpent's blood must flow," said Urrua, and Rhiow in Iau looked, and saw him rearing up on his hind legs and holding, in his huge paw, the sword. At least an ehhif a long time ago, seeing it or hearing it described, might have taken it for a sword. It was a hyperstring construct, blindingly bright to look at, but a hundred times narrower than a hair. "Just hold It there, Ith," he said, "this won't take long. Yeah, right there—"The Old Serpent shrieked as Its head was chopped from Its body and rolled down the trunk of the Tree to lie bleeding over the roots. Its blood ran down into the River of Fire, and tinged its flames, as had happened many times before …… while above, from the thrashing, headless trunk, the blood ran flaming into the wound in the Tree. The whole Tree shuddered and moaned, and heaven and earth together seemed to cry out with it.Then the moaning stopped. Slowly, as they watched, the wound began to close. As slowly, the body of the Old Serpent began to fade into the darkness, the last of its blood running into the River of Fire. Soon nothing was left but a scatter of glittering scales among the stones; and the Tree stood whole—Silence fell, and the Five looked around at one another."Are we alone again?" Arhu said, looking around him with some bemusement, for his form had not changed back to his normal one, nor had those forms of the rest of the team.Rhiow listened to the back of her mind and heard only herself… she thought. "After that," she said, "I'm not sure we can ever, any of us, be sure we're alone … but it's quieter than it was."Saash smiled. "A lot. Ith, that was a nice job."The Bright Serpent blinked. A moment later, he was back in his true form, though there was an odd look to his eyes, a light that seemed not to want to go completely away."I'm told," he said, "that I have passed my Ordeal." His tail lashed. "I'm also told that it is not unusual to find the details … obscure."Rhiow chuckled at that. "What happened to us all," she said, "had something to do with mine, something I'd been putting off. Obscure? I'll be working on the details of this one for years. But I think we've got our job about done.""One thing left," said Saash. "Let's get back upstairs—"Rhiow blinked. They were back upstairs, near the "pool" created by the binding down of the main catenary trunk.Urruah looked around him with his "good" eye and swore softly. "I told you this place was malleable.""I may have done that," Ith said. "I do not yet understand the nature of space down here. This was where you wanted to be?""Just the spot," Saash said. She paused to look up at the balconies, which were much less crowded thanthey had been earlier. "I think I can keep this from jumping right out and destroying everything." She leaned down and got ready to put a paw down into the pool."Is that safe??" Arhu said.She smiled at him. "This time it is. Watch—"Saash reached down, dabbled in the cold bright flow of light—then stood up, stood back. Slowly the light in the "pool" reared up, bulging like a seedling pushing itself up out of the ground, then, more quickly, began to straighten, pulling branches and sub-branches of light up out of the depths of the stone beneath the bottom of the abyss. Still more quickly it started to reach upward, a tree of fire branching upward and branching again. Then all in one swift movement it straightened itself, shaking slightly as if a wind was in its branches. The separate branchings started to drift into their proper configurations again, the bemused saurians getting hurriedly out of the way of the slowly moving lines of energy as they passed through walls and carvings like so much cheesewire through cheese.The saurians stared down at them."Well," Arhu said, staring up at the reconstructed catenary tree, "that's handled. Now what?"Ith looked up at the balconies, at the many curious faces looking down. The feeling of hostility that had been there before now seemed, for the moment at least, to be gone. He looked over at Arhu then and smiled."Now," he said, "we bring my people home."Chapter FourteenThey started the walk upward through the tunnels and balconies wondering how much explaining they would need to do … and found that little was needed: for every saurian who saw Ith immediately seemed to recognize him and to be willing to listen to him, if not specifically to obey him."Well," Rhiow said, "he's their father. Why not?"Arhu, walking close behind Ith, found this funny, and after all the difficulties associated with getting down into the abyss, it amused him even more that the team was regarded with some suspicion, but no overt hostility. As far as the saurians were concerned, if Ith vouched for the felines, that was all right with them: and soon they were near the head of a huge parade of the creatures, all eagerly climbing upward into the heights where none but workers were normally permitted."They really will be able to live up there, won't they?" Arhu said to Rhiow, worried."Oh, of course. Much of what you were hearing down there was the Lone One's lies to them, to keep them enslaved. They'll spread out over the surface of this world and find plenty, once they're used to hunting in the open. The other carnivores may be a little annoyed at the competition, but they'll manage. There'll be plenty of prey for everybody.""And meantime …" Urruah said to Rhiow, from behind. "What about us?" "What about us?" "Well, we've been dead."Rhiow sighed, for that had been on her mind, and it had struck her that this cheerful walk up to the surface was likely to be their last. She looked over at Saash.She had done this several times and kept having to smile, for now she thought she knew why Saash's skin had always been giving her trouble. It was not until she saw her friend suddenly manifest after her death as Aaurh the Mighty, the One's Champion, that Rhiow realized that Saash's soul, after nine lives, had simply become too big for that body; and that her Tenth Life was not merely a possibility, but a given. It was an added source of amusement that someone who could so perfectly meld into the persona of the irresistible Huntress, the Destroyer-by-Fire, could nonetheless be so hopeless at catching something as simple as mice. But then maybe the body was just resisting the role it knew was coming."Not that I'm going to need to catch things to eat for much longer," Saash said, and sighed."That was really it, was it?" Rhiow said sadly."That was my ninth death, yes," Saash said. "And now … well, after I cross through the gate back home, we'll see what happens.""But the rest of us …" Rhiow looked at Urruah, who was chatting with Arhu at the moment. "He was as dead as you were.""He may be short a life when we get home. I'm not sure: he'll have to take it up with the Queen. I mean, Rhi," Saash said, "we've been gods, and some of us rose from the dead while we were gods. And if you're a god and you rise from the dead, I think you stay risen. For the time being, anyway …""But what about you?" Urruah said. "Look at you!""Look," Arhu said, "it's the upper caverns." He loped on ahead.The saurians were hurrying out after him at the first glimpse of some light that was not the cool, restrained light of the catenary tree. Rhiow and Saash and Urruah hurried to keep up with Arhu and Ith, partly to keep from being trampled by the eager crowd behind them. The light ahead, pale though it was, grew: spread——and there was the opening. Rhiow, though, wondered what had happened to the downhanging teeth of stone, and found out; many had fallen in the shaking of the Mountain. No surprise, she thought, many things almost fell today.
But not that, she thought, as she came out of the cave, onto the wide ledge looking over the world, and turned.
The weather was cuttingly clear. It was just a little while before dawn; high up the brightest stars were still shining through the last indigo shadows of night, and to the east, the sky was peach-colored, burning more vividly orange every moment. Rhiow looked at the Mountain, which lay still in shadow: but far up, on the
highest peak, a spear of light was lifted to the sky, bunding—the topmost branches of the great Tree, catching the light of the Sun before it cleared the horizon for those lower down. The saurians piled out of the cave, as many of them as could, and stared… stared.
Some of them were looking westward and gaped open-mouthed in wonder at the round silver Eye gazing at them from the farthest western horizon: the full Moon setting as the Sun rose. Rhiow watched their wonder, and smiled. "Night with Moon" indeed, she thought: the ehhif Book was better named than maybe even the ehhif wizards knew. How many other hints had been scattered through Earth's mythologies, hinting at this eventual reconfiguration?
"Is that the Sun?" one of the saurians said.Rhiow laughed softly and looked eastward again, where the sky was swiftly brightening. "Turn around," she said, "and just wait…."They waited. The shifting and rustling of scales died to a profound silence. Only the wind breathed through the nearer trees, rising a little with the oncoming day. Rhiow looked up at the Tree again, wondering: Are there really eyes up there, the eyes of those gone before, who look down and watch what passes in the worlds? I wonder what they make of this, if they are there indeed?Someday I must sit under those branches, and listen, and find out….A great breath of sound went up, a hiss, a gasp—and the sunlight broke over the edge of the world and sheened off all the saurians' hides, and caught in all their eyes. Rhiow had to look away, near-blinded by the brilliance.She leaned over to Urruah. "Let's get out of here and leave them their world," Rhiow said. "They've suffered enough for it. Time for the joy …"- =O=- ***- =O=-The team made their way over to the gates, which were all in place, warp and weft sheening with power as usual: the reconfiguration below and the release of the catenary tree had completely restored them to their default settings. Through the central gate, Track 30's platform was now visible: they could see T'hom, looking back at them and seeming extremely relieved. He was sidled, which was just as well, for the place was full of ehhif going about their business, and he was doing the usual shuffle to keep from being knocked off the platform.Urruah looked at the gate with some concern and turned to Rhiow. "Well?" he said. She looked at him, shook her head, then rubbed cheeks with him. "Consort," he said. "I liked the sound of that.""You would," Rhiow said. "Sex maniac. Go on… and good luck. Get yourself sidled when you go through. But otherwise, if worst comes to worst, look us up again, next life. It wouldn't be the same without you."Urruah snorted, meaning to sound sardonic, but his eyes said otherwise. He leaped through the gate——came down on the other side, a silver tabby, back to normal size, quite alive; Rhiow could see the scars.
She put her whiskers forward, well pleased.Arhu, less worried, came over to the gate next. He looked up at Ith, who walked with him and peered through curiously. "Your world … Is it like this one?"Arhu cracked up laughing. "Oh, yes, exactly. Not a whisker's difference."Ith looked at him sidewise."Yeah, right. Look, Ith, come on through and have some pastrami," Arhu said.Ith bent down toward him, gave him the bird-eyeing-the-worm look, but it was absolutely cordial, the salute of one member of the great Kinship to another . .. even though there was still a glint of appetite there."I believe you would say, 'You're on,'" Ith said. "I will come shortly. Meanwhile, my brother, my father … go well."Arhu slipped through … and was small and black and white again.Rhiow and Saash looked at each other. Then Rhiow slowly leaned forward and rubbed cheeks with her friend: first one side, then the other."Stay in touch," she said, "if you can.""Hey," Saash said softly, "it's not like I'm going to be dead or anything. Just busy …"Rhiow took a long breath, gazed around her, then stepped through onto the platform on Track 30——and came down light on her paws. She lifted one to look at it. Small again: the central pad unusually large: normal for this world …
Rhiow turned and looked through the gate. Saash was standing there in her Old Downside guise, a tortoiseshell tigress momentarily glancing over her shoulder at the ancient world, the dawn coming up, its glitter and sheen on the hides of the saurians watching it for the first time. Then she turned, locked eyes with Rhiow, leapt through the gate—
The Downside body stripped away as she came, and Saash was surrounded and hidden in a swirl of—not light as such, but reconfiguration, self and soul shifting into some new shape. Not vanishing, please, Iau—
That swirling, shifting, faded. Saash stood there … but not in her old body, which seemed to have declined to continue any further. This new shape was one that no nonwizardly ehhif could have seen, and even an ehhif wizard might have had to work at it if the body's owner didn't wish to be seen. To Rhiow's eyes, she was still looking at Saash .,. but something subtle had happened to her; her physicality seemed to have been refined away, leaving her standing in the familiar delicate form, but now filled with forces that made Rhiow blink to look at them steadily. They were the forces with which Saash had always worked so well… and it was now obvious why, for they filled her the way light fills a window.
Saash shook herself, looked down at her flanks, and dulled down the glow by an effort of will. She turned then and smiled at Rhiow. Sorry, she said.
"For what?" Rhiow said softly.Well… yeah. Oh, Rhi, there's a lot to do, I have to get going!"Go on, then. Go well, Tenth-lifer—and give the Powers our best when you see Them."Saash smiled, rubbed past Urruah, trailed her tail briefly over bis back, took a friendly swipe at Arhu with one shining paw as she passed; saluted T'hom and Har'lh with a flirt of her tail; and walked off down the platform, glowing more faintly as she passed on—a wizard still, but one now in possession of much enhanced equipment, now reassigned to some more central and senior catchment area. Only once she paused. Rhiow stared, wondering—Saash sat down on the platform and had one last good scratch. Then she washed the scratched-up fur down again, flirted her tail one last time, walked off into the darkness, and was gone….- =O=- ***- =O=-T'hom came over to them then and hunkered down to greet them: Har'lh was with him. As she trotted over to them, it occurred to Rhiow that there was something odd about the track area: it looked cleaner, brighter, than usual. However, for the moment she put that aside. "Har'lh!" she said, and rubbed against him: possibly unprofessional behavior toward one's Advisory, but she was extremely glad to see him. "Where in Iau's name have you been?""About half a million lightyears away," Har'lh said with annoyance, "freezing my butt off on a planet covered a thousand miles deep with liquid methane. Somebody wanted me way out of the way while something happened here, that was plain. Met some nice people, though: they needed help with some local problems… I did a little troubleshooting. No point in wasting the trip." He looked at them all. "Now what's been going on here??""That'll take some telling," Rhiow said."Let's walk, then," T'hom said.They headed out of the track areas, up into the main concourse. Arhu and Urruah looked up and around them as they went, and Urruah's tail was lashing in surprise. The Terminal looked satisfyingly solid and hard-edged again, much improved over the last time they had seen it, with multiple time-patches threatening to slide off the fabric of reality like a wet Band-Aid. Ehhif were going about their business as usual."Have they cleaned this place again in the last day or so?" Urruah said. "It looks so… bright, it's… no. It's not just the sun. I know this place always looks good in the morning, with the sun coming in the windows like that, but… "T'hom smiled a little as they walked up past the waiting room and toward the Forty-second Street doors. "It won't often look this good, I think," he said. 'This is how we knew you'd succeeded, down there, in some big way. All the manuals went crazy for a while, and all they would say was reconfiguration, reconfiguration, all over them. But then everything steadied down, and all the time-patching we'd been holding in place by force just hauled off and took, hard. Something of a relief."They stepped out into the street, and Rhiow saw in more detail what T'hom meant, for the brilliance in the streets was more than sunlight. This was a city in unusual splendor: skyscrapers all around seemed consciously clothed in the fire of day, their glass molten or jeweled in the early sun; and down at the end of the block, the silver spear of the Chrysler Building upheld itself in the dawn like an emblem of victory, blinding. Everything hummed with the usual city sounds—traffic noise, oddly content with its lot for once, very little horn-honking going on. There was a peculiar sense of ehhif all about them being abruptly, and rather bemusedly, at peace with one another … for a little while. "The city's risen," Rhiow said, "as some of us rose. But it won't last.""No. It's understandable that you would get some resonances from more central realities," Har'lh said, "some spillover… possibly even from Timeheart itself. You can't do that big a reconfiguration without some reflection in neighboring worlds: any of them directly connected by the catenary structure, anyway.""It'll fade back to normal after a while," Arhu said. "It can't stay like this for long: you can conquer entropy only temporarily, on a local scale, She says … It never lasts. But while it lasts, enjoy it."They walked down Forty-second Street, heading toward the river and the view of the Delacorte Fountain, a great silver plume of water rising up from the southernmost tip of Riker's Island in the morning sun. Rhiow started her debrief, knowing it was going to take a good while and might as well start now when everything was fresh in her mind. The only thing she knew she would have trouble explaining was how it had felt to have the One inside you. That knowledge, that power, had started to fade almost as soon as the experience proper was over. Just as well, I suppose, she thought. You can't pour the ocean into one water bowl….The team and the two Advisories finally came up against the railing that looked down at FDR Drive and the East River. There the People sat down, and the Seniors leaned on the railing, and they went on talking for what Rhiow normally thought might have been hours: the sun didn't seem to be moving at its usual rate today … morning just kept lasting, shining down on a river that, more than usually, ran with light. In the middle of a technical discussion about what Saash had done to the catenary, T'hom suddenly looked up and said, "Well, they couldn't keep you down on the farm long, could they?""What is a 'farm'?" Ith said innocently, and leaned on the railing beside them, folding his claws and staring out over the shining water."Ahem," Rhiow said. "Har'lh, have you met our new wizard? Ith, this is Har'lh, he's the other Advisory for this area.""I am on errantry, and I greet you," Ith said courteously, and bowed, sweeping his tail. Arhu ducked to let it go over his head.'This is an errand?" T'hom said, with humor. "This is a junket.""It is 'Research,'" Ith said cheerfully, glancing at Arhu with the conspiratorial expression of a youngster who's borrowed a friend's excuse. Arhu rolled his eyes, working to look innocent.Rhiow wanted to snicker. It was a delightful change in Ith from the morose and somber individual they had first met; she suspected Arhu had had a lot to do with it, and would have much more."At any rate," Rhiow said to the two Advisories, "the worldgates are all fully functional again, and I don't think we need to fear any further interference from the Lone Power in that department. The Tree and the gate-tree, the master catenary structures, now have guardians who will never let the Lone One near them again. Some of them may not yet be plain about what It had in mind for them, but Ith will soon set them straight."Ith turned his attention away from a passing barge and toward Rhiow and the team. "I am hearing more and more in my mind," Ith said, "of what the Powers will ask of us by way of guardianship. The requirements are not extreme. And little explanation will be needed as to why their present life is more desirable for my people than their former one. Hunger is something they are used to: until we distribute ourselves more widely, we will help one another cope with it… by more wholesome means than formerly. Meantime," and he glanced over at Rhiow, "I will need some help tailoring spells that will function on a large scale, with little maintenance, as sunblock." He grinned. "We have been down in the dark a long time."They all looked out at the glowing water. "The dark…" Arhu said, looking down into water in which, for once, no trash bobbed. "I could never look at this before," he said to Rhiow. "But I can now. I won't mind seeing the river, even when it's back to normal. I could never stand going near it before: I was stuck on the Rock. But I don't think I have to be stuck here anymore.""Of course not," Har'lh said. "Be plenty of demand for a hot young visionary-wizard all over the place. In other realities"—he glanced at Ith—"and offplanet as well. You're going to be busy for a while.""I am," Arhu said. "Getting used to being in a team…" He glanced over at Rhiow.Rhiow looked over at him affectionately and put her whiskers forward, smiling. "You're well met on the errand," she said.They fell silent for a while, looking out at the light. The sense of power and potential beating around them in the air was as tangible as a pulse; for this little while, in mis New York, anything was possible. Rhiow looked out into the glory of the transfigured morning—not quite that of Tune-heart, but close enough— and said softly, only a little sadly, I had to tell you. The tuna wasn't all that bad….She did not really expect an answer. But the walls between realities were thin this morning. From elsewhere came just the slightest hint of a purr… and somewhere, Hhuha smiled.Rhiow blinked, then washed a little, for composure's sake.She would head home soon. She would have to start drawing close to Iaehh now. He would be needing her, for there was no way Rhiow could tell him about anything she had seen or experienced… except by being who she now was.Whoever that is… And if in the doing Rhiow brought with her a little of the sense of Hhuha—not as she was, of course, but Hhuha moved on into something more—that would possibly be some help.It was so nice to know mat ehhif had somewhere to go when they died.For Rhiow's own part, she had had enough dying for one day.- =O=- ***- =O=-The talk went on for a while more. Only slowly did Rhiow notice that the interior light was seeping out of things, leaving New York looking entirely more normal: the horns began to hoot in the distance again, and a few hundred yards down FDR Drive, there was a tinkle of glass as a car changing lanes sideswiped another one and broke off one of its wing mirrors. Tires screeched, voices yelled."Normalcy," Har'lh said, looking with amused irony at T'hom. "What we work for, I suppose. Speaking of work… I'm going to have to go make some phone calls. My boss is going to be annoyed that I took this time off without warning.""Wizard's burden," Urruah said. "I feel sorry for you poor ehhif. Wouldn't it just be easier to tell him you were off adjusting somebody's gas giant?"Har'lh gave Urruah a look, then grinned. "Might make an interesting change. Come on—"He looked over at T'hom. "Let's go catch a train."The team walked the Advisories and Ith back to Grand Central, as far as the entrance to the subway station: it was not a place Rhiow chose to plunge into during rush hour while sidled, as you were likely to become subway-station pizza in short order. "Go well," she said to T'hom and Har'lh, as they went through the turnstiles.We will, Har'lh said silently. You did….Rhiow strolled back up to the main concourse level and put herself against a wall, where she could look out across the great expanse. Working properly again, she thought. With time, everything would. Someday, if things went right, the New York they had spent this long morning in would be the real one, and this one just a grubby, shabby memory. But meantime you make it work the best you can.And meantime the scent in the air caught her attention.Pizza…The others came up out of the entrance to the subway, glanced across the concourse, and down at Rhiow. Ith in particular looked across at the Italian deli.'Wow, about that pastrami…" he said to Arhu.Arhu grinned. "Let me show you a trick somebody taught me," he said, glancing over at Rhiow. "I had a feeling you'd be sorry you showed him that one," Urruah said. "Ith, don't let him talk you into trying it. You'll make the papers.""Tapers'?"Rhiow gave Urruah a look. "Come on, 'Ruah, let's leave them to it, and go do the rounds."Rhiow and Urruah strolled off across their territory, weaving casually among the ehhif, up the cream marble of the Vanderbilt Avenue stairs, and out of the sight of wizards, and People, and anyone else who could see. No one noticed them, which was just as it should have been; and life in the city went on….Afterwordon hauisshThis occupation of the People, described only briefly in the literature by ehhif writers (the most reliable and perceptive is Pratchett*) has occasionally been called a pastime— but such a characterization is similar to calling soccer, baseball, and American-style football "pastimes"—for which human beings have sometimes wagered and won or lost fortunes, ignored almost all the other important aspects of their lives, and occasionally died under circumstances both comic and tragic.An exhaustive analysis of hauissh would be far beyond the scope of this work, but it seems useful to include at least a summary explanation.its originsHauissh is of such antiquity that it almost certainly predates the time at which felinity became self-aware. Its most basic structure implies a conflict over hunting territory between two prides, and most authorities agree that it evolved from this strictly survival-oriented behavior to a more structured but still violent dominance game between individual members of a single pride or (later) extended pride-community, with the loser usually being run off the pride's territory, or killed. (Even now the biggest predators tend to play hauissh in this mode, considering the refinements of later millennia to be oversophisticated or effete).*in The Unadulterated Cat (Gollancz, 1989)It would be as difficult to determine exactly when feline self-awareness arose as it would to fix a time at which hauissh began to develop beyond concerns of food, territory, and power into the more intellectual and entertainment-oriented version now played by cats the world over. All the families of the People seem to have at least some knowledge of the basic concepts of the game on an instinctive level. But the demands and challenges of the modern form of hauissh require a great deal more of the player than instinct alone will provide.the rulesThere is no mandated maximum number of players of hauissh, though games involving more than thirty or so players in one session are likely to be considered "inelegant." Most play involves no more than ten or twelve players, though, since some level of personal relationship is considered desirable among a majority of those playing.Hauissh started out as a rough-and-ready, territorial-control game among the big cats, with the loser usually being run off the territory or killed.Hauissh involves controlling a space—yard, sidewalk, field—with one's presence. This presence, called aahfaui, is not a constant, but is in turn affected by the space one is trying to control."Control" is defined by eius'hss, "being alone." The minute a player can see another cat, the control is diminished slightly, but not in such a way as to lower one's score. Control is diminished more if the other cat can in turn see the first player, and the first player's score suffers.A successful position is one in which a cat can see several others, without himself being seen. The beginner would immediately think that this could be easily achieved by being down a hole but able to see several other cats, but such concealment is not considered gameplay in the rules, and a cat retreating to such a position, having previously been in play, is then considered out of it until once again exposed.There are many other variables that affect play. Most important of these is eiu'heff a variable expressing a combination of the nature and size of the space being controlled. Nearly as important is hruiss'aessa, the location of the "center" of the game, the (usually invisible) spot around which the game revolves, representing (in more abstruse thought about hauissh) the Tree under which the Great Cat took his stance against the Serpent on the night of the Battle for the World, the battle by the River of Fire. The ultimate point of the game is not necessarily to reach or occupy this spot, but to dominate or master it, while also dominating as many of the other players as possible. Feline nature being what it is, individual People tend to resist domination, even for the best of reasons; so it can easily be seen that any given bout of the Game will be prolonged and fairly stressful. Most play in hauissh is individual, "team" play being considered too difficult to maintain for long periods, and likely to cause what People call, in Ailurin, laeu'rh-sseihhah, an unhealthy shift in one's nature toward a "foreign" style of being (cf. the German word uberfremdung, "overalienation")—"teamwork" being conceived as a distasteful land of "pack" behavior better left to other less advanced species, such as houiff.Play begins when a quorum of players are determined to have arrived and to be ready to start. It ends when one player is deemed to have successfully "dominated" the hruiss'aessa and a majority of other players. A single such sequence is a "passage," roughly equal to an inning in baseball. Passages are grouped together in larger groups called "sequences," but there are no fixed numbers of passages-per-sequence, or sequences-per-game. Consensus usually determines when another passage is required to fill out a sequence (and it almost always is).A detailed or exact description of how scoring is done is beyond the scope of this work. Scoring hauissh fairly and to all players' satisfaction is difficult work, filled with imponderables, and much more an art than a science. It is nowhere near as clearcut as scoring in any sport with which humans are familiar (and frankly, if it were, cats would probably lose interest in the game almost immediately). There are so many rules and variables influencing score—for example, weather, local conditions such as traffic or the passage of ehhif or other species through play, physical condition of the players, and total time of play compared against time actually spent making moves, to name just a very few—and so many of the variables and requirements are mutually contradictory that scoring a bout at the end of a round or "passage" closely resembles a discussion among Talmudic scholars than an umpire yelling "Yer out!"To speak of how one "wins" at hauissh is probably a misnomer born of looking at the pastime through the human mindset: it is nearly as erroneous as speaking of "winning" at cricket—the human game that comes closest to hauissh in its (unspoken) expression of the idea that gameplay for its own sake is much more important than a result, of whatever kind. Like cricket, a bout of hauissh can go on for days or weeks, can be called on account of bad light (i.e., atmospheric conditions so bad that not even cats can see each other: rare), will often stop (repeatedly) for meals, and can run up extravagant scores that sound really impressive when you talk about them afterward, but which are actually indicative of neither group reallybeing able to get the better of the other, no matter how long the process continues. The record duration for a single bout of hauissh was set in 1716 (the actual date being either in January or February, but uncertainty involved with the Gregorian calendar shift and its coordination with the People's timekeeping makes a definite date unavailable). Six cats located in the town of Albstadt-Ebingen, then in the ducky of Wurttemberg and now in southern Germany, began a bout that lasted until 1738, and was completed by five of their great-grandchildren. The bout was forced to end in a draw because of a local outbreak of the plague, which killed what was judged a "threshold" number of the competitors.The game (to People interested in it) naturally has profound philosophical and even mystical meaning. One saying is that "Rhoua plays best," the indication being that the Queen, in Her aspect of "Winking" Rhoua, can by definition see all People without being seen Herself, and that the Game is therefore a metaphor for life … which is (come to think of it) exactly what ehhif say about baseball, and soccer, and nearly every other sport down to tiddledywinks.on other mattersThe nonwizardly aspects of the New York Public Library's CATNYP online cataloguing system can be found on the World Wide Web at http://catnyp.nypl.org/Please do not query the librarians about the Online "MoonBook" Project, as all but a few of the staff have no knowledge that it exists, and those staff who do know are required to deny its existence.Readers interested in more information about wizardry might like to look at the following books by the same author:So You Want to Be a Wizard Deep Wizardry High Wizardry A Wizard AbroadAnd for more information about new developments in the "Wizards'" universe, as well as for pictures of cats who looks suspiciously like some of the principals in this book, curious readers with Web access may wish to visit the following site: http://www.ibmpcug.co.uk/~owls/homeward.htmlA Very Partial Ailurin GlossaryAaahfaui (n) the "presence" quality in hauisshAaurh (pr n) another of the feline pantheon: the "Michael" power, the Warrior; female aavhy (adj) used; also a proper name when upper caseahou'ffrvw (n) the Canine Word; key, or "activating," word for spells intended for use on dogs and other canidsAuhw-t (n) "the Hearth": the Ailurin/wizardly term for what humans refer to as "Timeheart"—the most senior/central reality, of which all others are mirrors or variationsAuo (pr n) Iauuh (n) stray (perjorative)auw (n) energy (as a generic term); appears in many compounds having to do with wizardry and cats' affinity for fire, warmth, and energy flowsauwsshui'f (n) the "lower electromagnetic" spectrum, involving quantum particles, faster-than-light particles and wavicles, subatomics, fission, fusion, and "submatter" relationships such as string and hyperstring function DD does not appear by itself as a consonant in Ailurin, only as a diphthong, dh. Eefviauw (n) the electromagnetic spectrum as perceived by cats ehhif (n) human being, (adj) humaneiuev (n) veldt: a large open space. As a proper noun, Eiuev, "the Veldt" means the Sheep Meadow in Central Parkeius'hss (n) the "control" quality in hauissh Fffrihh (n) refrigerator (cat slang: approximation)fouarhweh (n) a position in hauissh, described as "classic" by commentators fvais a medium-high voice among cats; equates with "tenor" fwau (ex) heck, hell, crap HHauhai (n) the Speechhauissh (n) the Gamehe'ihh (n) composure-groominghhau'fih (n) group relationships in generalhhouehhu (v) desire/wantHhu'au (pr n) The Lion-"God" of Today; nickname for ehhif "Patience," one of the carved stone lionsoutside the New York Public Library main branch hihhhh (excl) damn, bloody (stronger than vhai) hiouh (n) excreta (including both urine and feces) hlah'feihre (adj) tortoiseshell (fur) houff (s n) dog houiff (pl n) dogsHrau'f (pr n) daughter of Iau, the member of the feline pantheon most concerned with creation and ordering it; known as "the Silent"hruiss (n) fight, in compounds with words for "tom-fight," etc. hu (n) dayhu-rhiw (id) "day-and-night"; idiom for a black-and-white cat hwaa (n) drinkhwiojviauw (adj) the "upper electromagnetic," meaning plasma functions, gravitic force, etc.; "upward" IiAh'hah (n) New York: possibly an approximation of the English name Iau (pr n) the One; the most senior member of the feline pantheon; female Irh (pr n) one of the feline pantheon; male (Urruah refers to his balls) Oo'hra (n) opera (approximation) Rra'hio "radio"; A feline neologismReh-t (n, abstract) the future; also, the name for the Lion-Power guarding it, the Invisible One of the Three guarding the steps to the New York Public Library main branchrhiw (n) night. Many compounds are derived from this favorite word, including the name Rhiow (the actual orthography would be rhiw'aow, "nightdark," but the spelling has been simplified for the purposes of this narrative).rich (n) horse (but in the countryside, also ox, or any other animal that works for humans by carrying or pulling things; "beast of burden"). A cat with a sense of humor might use this word as readily for a taxicab, shopping cart, or wheelbarrow. rrai'fih (n) pride relationship implying possible blood ties ruah (adj) flatSsa'Rrahh (pr n) the ambivalent feline Power, analogous (roughly) to the Lone PowerSef (pr n) the Lion-"God" of Yesterday; nickname for "Fortitude," one of the lions outside the New York Public Library main branchsh'heih (n) "queen," unspayed femalesiss (n) urine; a "baby word" similar to ehhif English "pee pee," and other similar formations sshai-sau (adj) crazysswiass a pejorative: "sonofabitch," bastard, brat, etc. sth'heih (n) "tom," unneutered male Uuae (n) milk ur (n) noseUrrua (pr n) the Great Tom, son and lover of Iau the Queen (from the older word urra, "scarred") urruah (id) "flat nose" (compound: from ur'ruah) Vvefessh (n) water, also (adj) the term cats use to indicate the fur color humans call "blue" vhai (adj) damn, bloodyABOUT THE AUTHORDlANE DUANE was born in Manhattan in 1952, a Year of the Dragon, and she was raised on Long Island, NY. She has been writing for her own entertainment ever since she could read and her first novel, The Door Into Fire, was published by Dell Books in 1979. Since then she has published twenty-seven novels, numerous short stories, and various comics and computer games here and there, garnering the occasional award.Diane lives with her husband, (and frequent collaborator) Peter Morwood, near the Irish town of Baltinglass, along with four cats and several seriously overworked computers, in a hundred-year-old renovated cottage—an odd but congenial environment for the staging of space battles and the leisurely pursuit of total galactic domination.Other Books by Diane DuaneThe "Middle Kingdoms" Quartet:The Door into Fire The Door into Shadow The Door into Sunset The Door into Starlight* The "Young Wizards" Series: So You Want to Be a Wizard Deep Wizardry High Wizardry A Wizard AbroadNovels Set in the Star Trek™ Universe:The Wounded Sky My Enemy, My Ally The Romulan Way** Spock's World Doctor's Orders Dark Mirror IntellivoreNovels Set in the Marvel Comics™ Universe:Spider-Man: The Venom Factor Spider-Man: The Lizard Sanction Spider-Man: The Octopus Agenda X-Men: Empire's End* Other Novels: Keeper of the City** X-Com/UFO Defense Seaquest DSV**Space Cops: Mindblast**Space Cops: Kill Station**Space Cops: High Moon**Raetian Tales: A Wind from the South*FORTHCOMING**With Peter Morwood