From around the corner of the house, along a walkway that probably ran to the front yard, came a Person. She was, as People reckoned such things, extremely beautiful in an exotic way: white-furred, fluffy, and a bit plump, with small, well-set ears and vividly green eyes. Nor was she one of those flat-faced, inbred People whom ehhif have inflicted on the worlds over time, but a long-nosed, gracious-looking Person, with a look of courtesy and intelligence about her to go with the beauty. Rhiow didn’t bother glancing back at Urruah to see his reaction: she could already hear him doting on this pretty new apparition.
“Hunt’s luck, Hwaith,” the newcomer said. “Long time no smell!” They breathed breaths briefly.
“Got some visitors in, Ssh’iivha,” Hwaith said. “They’re hunting news, and I knew just where to bring them.”
“News we’ve got,” Ssh’iivha said. “More of it than I know what to do with. Hunters, you’re welcome! Luck to you all. Come on in, get comfortable. Names or not as you like…”
“Names, of course,” Rhiow said, coming forward to breathe breaths with their hostess. “I’m Rhiow. And thanks for your welcome! We’ve come a long way on our business: we’re on errantry, and we greet you – “
“Oh, I knew that,” Ssh’iivha said; “anyone could see you’re wizards, just by looking at you. You’ve got Hwaith’s look.” Behind her, Rhiow could just hear Urruah’s comment on that: fortunately it was well submerged in the levels of private thoughtspeech to which another nonwizardly Person would not be privy. “Whatever brings you here, you’re welcome.”
“Is it all right for us to be here?” Rhiow said as Urruah went to greet Ssh’iivha. “It won’t make trouble for you with your ehhif?”
“Oh no!” Ssh’iivha said, and laughed. “He likes People: that’s why he’s left all this food around. Everyone comes here to visit the Buffet, and swap news. This is a regular clearing house for Our Kind’s gossip, all up and down these hills. Which is doubtless why you’re here.” She gave Hwaith an affectionate look, and at the sight of it Rhiow felt a strange pang she didn’t know how to classify. But then how many nonwizardly People am I close to at home? she thought. Just Yafv, really. And just to say hello to in the mornings, when I pass him on his stoop, fresh from his latest rat. It must be nice to be part of a mixed community…
“It’s an unusual ehhif you’ve got,” Rhiow said, “who’s willing to make so many of us welcome when they don’t actually live with him.”
“That’s true enough,” Ssh’iivha said. “But he’s something of a loner, and I think we’re company for him without needing to get into emotional involvement. You know how some ehhif are…afraid to get too close. Anyway, if you’re sure you’re not hungry, come on in…”
Ssh’iivha led them in through another People-door, this one built into the normal ehhif back door. “If I may ask,” Urruah said, glancing around him as they came through the big white-tiled kitchen full of huge, stocky, retro-looking appliances, “is ‘Ssh’iivha’ a real name or a nickname?”
Rhiow’s whiskers went forward a little: it was the kind of question a tom might ask of a queen he was getting interested in. “Well, actually it’s both,” Ssh’iivha said. “My ehhif uses it too, or a word that sounds a lot like it. Used it, I should say.”
They came out into the living room. It was handsome, airy, but spare. It was high-ceilinged, wooden-floored, white-walled, and sparse of furniture – suggesting that the ehhif who lived there was either in transit, didn’t consider furniture all that important, or took pleasure in taunting the ehhif around him with his own opinion that their surroundings were too cluttered. Here and there, on one or another of the low white sofas, some Person slept: here a brown tabby, there a white shorthair with his feet in the air. “If you want to take a while to relax,” Ssh’iivha said, “this is the place for you. The neighbors make no trouble: my ehhif makes everything right with them. So we try to keep things right with him. No mating in the back yard, no yelling, no fighting with the neighbors’ People; this is a no-heuwwaff zone.”
“Oh,” Urruah said, sounding slightly disappointed. Rhiow had to fight to keep her whiskers from going too far forward, as mating, yelling and fighting with other toms were probably Urruah’s three favorite things besides wizardry.
Ssh’iivha jumped up on a spare couch and stretched out: Hwaith went up after her, and Rhiow followed, while Urruah stalked around a little examining more of the room, particularly a massive desk over by one of the windows that looked out into the back yard, flanked on both sides with full bookshelves and a couple of occasional tables piled with more books. “You say,” Rhiow said, “that your ehhif ‘used’ your name. But he doesn’t use it now?”
