“An ego on legs,” Nita said, still laughing helplessly. “That spell had better be useful for something, because if I come down with the chronic cooties because of that—” She flapped the offended hand around in front of her. “Oh, God, Kit, I need antiseptic. What a waste of time!”
The two of them laughed a while more until they ran out of breath. “But not a waste of power, I guess,” Kit said. “Because here we are, on Their business. And we wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t for something useful.”
“Yeah . . . yeah.” Nita sighed and leaned against the exposed trunk of one of the rhododendrons. “While I was in the bathroom, I heard what you were saying.”
Kit flushed hot. “Okay,” he said, “but I had to, right? What kind of person would I be if I’d stood there and let him trash-talk you?”
“You shouldn’t feel like you have to protect me,” Nita said. “This is like being out in the playground again, except this playground’s full of wizards. Believe me, if I needed to tear Penn a new one, I would.”
“You almost did,” Kit said.
“Yeah,” Nita said, “and I would’ve had reason. Oh, God, Kit. ‘The birds and the bees’ . . . !”
They laughed again together for a moment. Kit felt some of that uneasy tightness go out of his chest. “But honestly, this guy exhausts me,” Kit said. “Everything he says is a brag, an insult, or an innuendo. What is his problem?”
“Trouble at home, maybe? There’s some evidence for that. Hormonal junk? Nerves?” And she rolled her eyes. “Or maybe he’s just an asshole.”
Kit laughed again. “Have we been living a sheltered existence, or something? Because this isn’t the kind of wizard we normally run into . . .”
“It’s true,” Nita said, in a musing sort of way. “We don’t know that many asshole wizards.”
“Ronan.”
“Oh, come on! Ronan is not an asshole.”
“All right, he’s just annoying. But he still gets the job done.”
“Problem is, I think Penn has a chance of doing that, too.”
“Being annoying?”
“Of course, but I meant getting the job done.”
Kit tilted his head back and blew out a thoughtful breath. “Assuming he can do what he spends most of his time claiming he can do . . . But now you’re standing up for him?”
“And why not?” Nita said. “We’re mentors; isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing? This guy has talent. I don’t think there’s any doubt of that. If there was, he wouldn’t be in this at all—the Powers would never have invited him! And he’s got something to contribute here: a good idea. So far, though, that’s pretty much all he’s got. Good spell execution is more than just the outlines.”
“Yeah. If he’s going to make it past the Cull, even, he’s gonna have to fill in a lot more of those holes.”
Nita nodded. “If today’s any indication, then what we’ve got to do is help him learn to navigate around his jerk tendencies. Keep him appropriate, keep him focused. Which is going to be a full-time job.” She shook her head. “But I wasn’t kidding. I’m trying to work out why the Powers even wanted me in on this. Seems like a waste of time.”
“What? Why do you think? Because we’re a team.”
“Well, for one thing, it’s more Dairine’s specialty. Why didn’t they hook him up with her?”
“Because he wouldn’t have survived kissing her hand?”
Nita laughed, but she also rolled her eyes. “If I find out that the Powers That Be have sent me along on this thing to cure somebody of their sexism, they and I may have words afterward. Because this is going to get on my nerves.”
“Well,” Kit said, more quietly, “you know the principle. ‘All is done for each . . . ’”
“Yeah, well,” Nita said. “It sounds good in theory. But when you find out that you’re the tool being used to do the ‘all,’ your perspective changes.” She frowned. “Penn needs serious education. At the very least, he needs to be socialized with other wizards so he doesn’t come off like an idiot! And I don’t know about you, but I was looking at the base schematic for his spell and it was all over the place. I don’t know who taught him to compose . . .”
“Well, we’ve both got the advantage of working with someone who specializes in spell composition. Tom’s been doing that . . . how long now? Decades. Since he wasn’t too much older than us, I think. If Penn is self-taught—working only with the manual and the general style guides in there—maybe it’s no surprise he’s sloppy around the edges.”
Nita sighed. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. Let’s go. I want to wash my hand.”
Kit hesitated, hoping it wouldn’t show. Then he held his hand out to her. “Grand Central?” he said.
Nita looked thoughtfully at Kit’s hand: then took it, with the smallest smile. “Grand Central,” she said.
They vanished.
It was night, and Nita was standing all by herself in the middle of a big, dark field. She could smell grass; fresh-cut, so fresh that a lawnmower might have been by in the last few minutes.
So that’s interesting, Nita thought. But where the hell am I?
The silence around her, though, that got her attention. If I’m outside, she thought, if there’s a lawnmower, then why can’t I hear anything else? If it was nighttime, and there was a lawn to be mowed, then there would be insects. But she couldn’t hear anything of the kind.
Nita held still, and closed her eyes. All right, she thought, one thing at a time. This is a vision. Let’s see where it goes.
You think that’s going to help? said a voice nearby in the darkness. The real problem is that you’re trying to treat this rationally.
And since when is being rational a problem? Nita asked.
It’s not the rationality by itself, the voice said. It’s where it leads you.
Fine. Where should I be going, then?
The way you fear to go, the voice said.
The chill that ran down the back of Nita’s neck had nothing to do with the night, or the dew falling on the cut grass. “Bobo,” Nita said, looking around her, “is that you? Thought we had an agreement that you weren’t going to get into one of these. It gets too confusing.”
As she spoke, she suddenly became aware of a faint light out at the edge of things. She turned to try to get an idea of where it was coming from, and realized that she was completely surrounded by it. She couldn’t see any source, either—it was as if the light was downhill from her in all directions.
Bobo’s not here, said another voice. It wasn’t one that she was familiar with—which somehow the first voice had been. This one was low and sad, and sounded deeply troubled.
She could understand why it was troubled, because Bobo was always here. In fact the idea that Bobo wasn’t answering her began filling Nita with alarm. In the waking world there were times when she could go days without speaking to him, sometimes even without thinking about him; but when she called on him, he never failed to answer. And now that it felt as if he was needed here—
Well, Nita thought. This is weird. But she wasn’t going to start crying for him like a baby missing her toy. She’d coped without him before, and she would do it again.
“All right,” Nita said. “Is there something you want to tell me? I’m listening.”
A second later the light got brighter, distracting her. Nita looked around and realized that the faint radiance encircling her was just that; a circle, sharp and cleanly drawn. It lay faintly glowing on the grass, right out at the edge of her vision, but the circularity of it was plain to see—as if someone had walked around her with one of those chalking machines they use at football games. There were, however, no irregularities or bumps or wiggles in this circle. It was unnervingly perfect. And as she was continuing a slow turn in which she examined it, the blue-white glow of it, for any slightest wiggle or bend, another voice spoke up.
And this one was strange, strange. It was a hiss, almost, like someone speaking with breath bu
t no voice, the breath a soft roar oddly like the roar of flames up a fireplace chimney. But very low, afraid to be heard, almost unwilling to be heard. It’s late, the new voice said. Very late. Too late, maybe.
“What’s the matter?” Nita said. “Let me help!”
You can’t help, the fiery voice said. He’s the only one who can help, and he’s not here. Why isn’t he here? He was supposed to be here. How else can we be freed?
The hair rose on the back of Nita’s neck. This is bad, she thought, feeling the sense of fear and pain that the other voice was trying to hide, and failing. It was too young, that was the problem. It wasn’t supposed to be by itself. He was supposed to be here. Nita swallowed, unnerved. “Bobo?” she said, and then more loudly, not quite shouting it. “Bobo!”
“Where is he?” said another voice in the darkness, and this one she knew: it was Kit. “We need him now, Neets, can’t you get in here?”
A moment later, another voice chimed in. It was Carmela’s. “Not this time, Neets,” she said. “He can’t help. Kit can’t help. You’re the only one. And you have to help find where both of them are. If you don’t find them both, it won’t be any good, they’ll destroy each other if it’s not done right—!”
Nita tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. As she struggled for words, she suddenly realized that the circle was closer around her, now; closer to her. It had been nearly out to the horizon before, or at least the light associated with it had been. Now it was maybe—what? Fifty yards away? And it was pulsing—buzzing, or humming, making an odd sizzling noise. It was brighter, too.
The cold down the back of her neck felt more like heat now, prickly heat. The darkness about the field where she was standing had somehow got darker. There were no stars in it, none. It was not like it had been when the Pullulus came through, when there were stars on one side of the sky and the darkness on the other side that was trying to eat them. Here there was simply darkness. Even the ugly un-sky of the Lone One’s alternate Manhattan had not been this desolate. This was an emptiness that was chillingly complete. It was not a place from which stars had been disbarred or eradicated; it was a place in which they had never existed at all.
“Bobo’s not here,” said one voice. And, “Bobo can’t help,” said another. Nita’s eyes widened. Was that Penn? What’s Penn doing here?
And then still another voice, much darker, much deeper, spoke. It said, “And you know what the joke is this time?”
At that, Nita went cold all over. She knew that voice entirely too well. “Oh, go on,” she shouted into the dark, in no mood to sound conciliatory. She’d had it up to here with the Lone Power’s jokes. “You know you want to tell me—”
“But I’m on your side this time,” it said, with a sort of sad, wounded sarcasm.
“Oh, tell me another one,” Nita muttered. But that was apparently the wrong thing to say. The circle that had been fifty yards or so away was now maybe five yards away, closer, brighter, buzzing more malevolently. Heard at closer range, the noise it was making had become more uncanny. It sounded peculiarly mechanical, as if tiny racecars were running a deadly serious race around and around it. What do they call those? Nita thought, trying to remember the name of the long, thin cars that go so fast around special tracks, or on big races through many cities. Formula—something. Racing wasn’t something Nita normally paid much attention to, but now she could hear the wasplike whine of miniature cars circling. Except the sound was higher now, fainter, more piercing.
“Not that it’s going to matter to you, or to her, or to him,” said the darkest voice. “Especially not to him. His attention will be elsewhere. So you should make the most of this brief pastorale, because he’s going to come to his senses, and it won’t last long.”
“Who?” Nita said. “Bobo? Kit? Penn? You know, sometimes you get too obscure for your own good.”
“But not this time,” said that very dark voice. And it was laughing at her—laughter that she’d heard before when things had not gone well. As it laughed again, the circle had drawn in even closer, was lying right around her feet, hemming her in. She couldn’t move out, couldn’t step away, couldn’t escape. The whining noise it made scaled up and up. Desperately she reached out for what hadn’t been there before, a hand to hold, and found nothing: just empty air.
“For a change,” the dark voice said, “obscurity is not on my list. My only limitation in communicating with you is your unwillingness to engage. Isn’t it delicious? The only thing that will keep you from saving them is you.”
“I’ll break through,” Nita said. “I will!”
“But will you do it in time?” the Lone Power said. “Not if you don’t become at least somewhat more flexible. But that’s always been your problem, hasn’t it? Stubborn Nita, always so sure of what she thinks, refusing to compromise. Compromise is going to be right at the heart of this one, and you will probably walk right past it because you’re so determined to have your own way.”
A long, thoughtful pause followed. “Because it’s not your style to let somebody else walk into the fire, is it? You’ve still got some guilt about that. But that’ll be a problem for another day. Right now, there’s something closer at hand. And it’s going to be so much fun watching you figure it out. If you can.”
“Well, if you’re going to be on my side, then maybe you should just tell me the answer!” After all, the thought came to Nita out of nowhere, if it works on the Transcendent Pig . . .
The circle was gone from below. It was around her throat now, like a choker necklace, strangling her, stopping the words in her mouth and the breath in her body. Her hands went up to tear at it. But she couldn’t get so much as a fingertip underneath it, and she gasped and her vision started to go, while right under her ears the maddening whine and buzz of the tiny cars became the only sound in the world. “I’m telling you the answer all the time,” the Lone Power said. “But will you hear it?” She could almost hear It shrug. “Doesn’t matter, not really,” It continued. “Or rather, it’ll matter to another. Not to me. You’re stuck with me. If you won’t walk into the fire, he’ll be stuck with me, too.” Then a long, soft laugh. “And if you do get him to walk into it,” It said, “then you’ve just managed to get somebody else to die for you, haven’t you?”
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. The voice kept speaking to her, but she couldn’t hear it over the excruciating buzz of something going very very fast in circles. Wheezing for breath, Nita tore at her throat, choking, as everything went black—
And she woke up.
She was sitting bolt upright in bed, still panting for air. “Sweet Powers above, below, and sideways, what the hell was that?” she whispered as soon as she had breath enough to do so. “Bobo??”
You told me not to wake you during these, Bobo said calmly. I would’ve liked to, especially since you were calling for me, but you did specifically countermand that. Want to give some thought to rewriting the night-vision routine?
“God,” Nita said, “don’t tempt me.” She tried calming her breathing. It wasn’t easy.
I recorded it, Bobo said, but as usual there’s nothing but sound and imagery. You’re going to have to add subjective context.
“I honestly do not want to do that right now!”
White Queen memorandum . . . Bobo replied.
Instantly, inside Nita’s head, a picture of an engraving from the old version of Through the Looking Glass appeared, with the White King and the White Queen; the White King saying, “The horror of that moment I shall never, never forget!” and the White Queen, completely unconcerned by his distress, saying, “You will, though, if you don’t make a memorandum of it!”
Nita sighed. “Nobody likes a smartass, Bobo . . .”
Your note, not mine . . .
“Fine. Can I go pee first?”
Five minutes, Bobo said, and think about it while you’re there. I’ll take dictation on the context and under-dialogue while you’re brushing your teeth.
She rolled out of bed, groaning. “Wizardry is mean to me,” she muttered. “I’m gonna tell.”
At the back of her head, Wizardry snickered unsympathetically, and Nita muttered to herself and made for the bathroom.
6
Mumbai
IT WAS PECULIAR, Dairine thought, that as a wizard you could go thousands of light-years away from home, even millions, and not get all that nervous about it. But go halfway across your own planet and you started to twitch.
Her own nervousness annoyed her. I’ve traveled distances that some human beings can’t even conceive of, she thought. I’ve been out practically to the information event horizon, the place beyond which things can barely be said to exist. I have buddies out there. And now I’ve got someone I know in Bombay—no, Mumbai, she corrected herself—and I’m losing my grip. What’s the matter with me?
Dairine stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom, finishing up the business of getting dressed. The unusual thing for her was that she was doing it at midnight, and was already resisting the temptation to yawn.
“You ought to give us timeslides,” she’d said to Tom when she’d gone over to his place to discuss this visit with him.
He’d given her a look of incredulous amusement. “Let me get this straight. You want us to selectively derange the structure of local space-time and risk a cascade of possible temporal paradoxes so that you don’t have to have your personal sleep schedule messed up?”
“You gave Nita and Kit one for their Ordeal when they asked!”
“Actually, that was because they were on their Ordeal,” Tom replied. He was leaning against his dining room table with his arms folded and his legs crossed at the ankle, and his whole demeanor radiated a disinclination to take Dairine seriously. “And the suggestion came from us. Carl has latitude to offer such instrumentalities to probationary wizards if he thinks it’s appropriate, which he did—as the Powers gave him to understand that Nita and Kit’s ability to return from their trip at the same time they left would prove useful. And as it happens, it did. In your case, however, a timeslide would serve no such purpose. And seeing that you were the one who suggested that the two of you meet up at your mentee’s place—”