Free Wraiths of Time by Andre Norton Page B

the desert, though she noted that the skin dye they had laid on her in the temple did not disappear in turn. When she had wrapped around her a loose, long square of soft cotton and gone back to the other room, she found Idia setting out a tray of dishes that contained a small roasted bird, some fruit which Tallahassee identified as slices of melon and small, reddish bananas, and bread which came in thin sheets spread with what could only be a conserve of dates.
    It was dark now and, with the coming of the darkness, there glowed two candle-shaped sticks of light, on which no flames danced. Instead, radiance was diffused from along their length. Idia left her alone, and Tallahassee had time to think as she ate. If she could accept this first premise of sidewise trips by an unorthodox theory of time travel, then all else did fall into place. But now the thoughts of taking on Ashake’s carefully preserved memories made her uneasy. It was true that to learn the language would be a vast help. And if she could play the part of princess better by being able to recognize the proper people and places, she would be safer than she was now. But it remained to be seen just how she took this crash course and how it would change her own mind.
    Dare she really risk any such meddling? She would demand from Jayta a complete summary of what such an action would entail when she saw the priestess again. Finishing the meal, Tallahassee moved slowly around the room, studying the fittings on the dressing table. Once she put out her hand to open one of the drawers and then refrained. She did not feel, for all her curiosity concerning the girl she was now supposed to be, that she had any right to pry in this way.
    There was a soft “puurtt” and under the edge of the outer door curtain padded first one and then the other of the kittens she had met in the garden. They seemed at home here, falling into a follow-the-leader game of leaping on the bed, prancing across it, then jumping from its end to the top of the dressing table where they landed with ease, threading in and out, with the air of long practice, among the bottles and jars there. At last they returned to the bed and curled up, one of them eyeing Tallahassee sleepily over the other’s rounded back as if asking why she did not join them.
    But she felt far from sleepy. The length of cloth she had found lying on a bench beside the bath was hardly attire to go venturing forth in. And she had no wish to assume again the wig which now sat on a stand before the mirror—the lifted cobra head of the diadem seeming to watch her knowingly with small, jeweled eyes. When Idia returned for the supper tray, she smiled at Tallahassee reassuringly and held out one hand to cup the candle lamp, though her flesh did not touch its radiant surface. As she drew her fingers downward along it, the light faded. Tallahassee understood the pantomimed instruction, smiled in return, and nodded.
    All at once she did begin to feel sleepy. It had been a long day—or maybe days. For the first time she wondered, as she slipped out of the cloth and into the bed, trying not to disturb the kittens, what had happened back in her own time and place. What excuse would they have for her being missing? Could they think she had taken both their mysterious find and the rod? Dr. Carey, for one, she believed would never credit what had happened. Perhaps it was better for her that she had come through and not been left to face him with the wild story she would have had to tell when the real Ashake did her disappearing act.
    One of the kittens shifted position and laid its head on her leg as if that were a pillow. This was real, here and now, she could never deny that any more. And so she drifted into sleep more quickly than she would have believed possible.
    Tallahassee awoke with a weight on her chest and opened her eyes a little dazedly to look upward into a kitten face. The small mouth shaped an impatient mew, and