He came down the back steps and stood beside her, looking up at the Moon. For a few moments neither of them said anything. “Remember when Nita went away,” Dairine said at last, “and we thought she might not come back again, because of the wizardry she was doing out in the ocean, with the whales?”
“And the shark,” her dad said. “Yes, I remember that.”
“This is like that,” Dairine said. “This is my shark.” She looked at her dad.
In the darkness it was hard to see expressions. Her dad laughed, and the laugh sounded strange and strained. “And here I was concerned about Nita because she might wind up being sent off somewhere else by the Powers That Be to do something dangerous,” he said. “Now it turns out the problem was going to be a little closer to home, right under my nose—”
“They didn’t send her,” Dairine said. “Not as such. But if when you’re away you find a mess, or a problem to fix, you don’t just walk away from it: You fix it. Now I have to go do the dangerous thing… and the stakes are bigger this time.”
“Are you sure you have to do this?” her dad said.
“It’s my star,” Dairine said. “I can’t just send my houseguests off to deal with it! I have to go with them. Especially—” She fell silent.
Dairine’s dad shook his head. “Not what I was trying to say. I meant, are you sure what you’re planning to do to the Sun really has to be done?”
“Oh.” Dairine gulped, dry-mouthed, and nodded. “It was sanctioned,” she said, “at a very high level. We’d never have gotten the sanction in the first place if the job didn’t really need doing.” She was finding it hard to speak. “I have to go pretty soon,” she said. “We have to. We’re the ones who get to do this job.”
Her dad was silent for a moment. “I don’t have to tell you not to do anything stupid,” he said then. “That’s the last thing you’ll do.”
Her insides clenched. “How can you be so sure?” Dairine said. “After the dumb thing I did that started all this—”
Her dad shook his head, plainly feeling around for the right words. “Maybe it wasn’t so dumb after all, what you did,” he said. “It brought these particular wizards here just in time to do a job that at least one of them is a specialist in. Prince Unlikely…”
Dairine nodded and said nothing. Her feelings about Prince Unlikely were far too complex for her to discuss. For the moment, she was scared to death, and upset, and didn’t dare say how she felt for fear that it should overwhelm her and make her useless for what had to be done in a very little while. All she could do was go to her dad and hug him.
“Dairine, you may be thoughtless sometimes,” her dad said, “but never stupid. If there’s anything you’ve got, it’s a brain… and I’d say your heart’s in the right shape, too. Go do what you have to do. And be careful.”
He didn’t let her go for a long time… then finally released her and went inside.
***
At 3:00 a.m., Filif, Sker’ret, and Roshaun joined Dairine out at the far end of the backyard. The circle of the wizardry lay glowing on the ground, ready to be implemented, the elaborate interlace of sigils and symbols pulsing gently in the night.
With Spot in her arms, Dairine was doing as the others were doing: moving slowly around the periphery of the wizardry, checking its terms, making sure that everything added up, that nothing was misspelled or misplaced, and—most important—that each of their names was correctly included, and that each name was tied into the wizardry correctly for the role that wizard would be playing.
The roles divided fairly neatly for this piece of work. Roshaun, as main designer of the work and the one most familiar with the theory behind it, would be watching the timing of the wizardry and directing the others on when each stage should implement. Sker’ret, the fixer, would be the one to actually “flip the switches,” speaking the words in the Speech that would take them in, help them locate where they needed to be, and manipulate the Sun’s mass once they got to the right spot. Filif would be the main power source for the wizardry, the one whose job it was to “get out and push,” leaving the others free to do fine adjustments and to react to situations as they developed. “Our people’s life comes from that of our star,” he’d said to Dairine while they were still in the design stages, “a little more directly than usual. This is a chance to give the power back. The universe appreciates such resonances… ”
And as for me, Dairine thought, I go along for the ride.
Roshaun glanced over at her and said nothing. Dairine paid no attention, being in the process of checking her name for the third time. Sker’ret finished his check and came along beside her, peering at her name.
She waved the darkness she was holding in her hand in front of Sker’ret’s various eyes. “You sure you can spare this?” she said.
He peered at it with a few eyes. “It’s not like I’m going to have much trouble getting home even if we blow this one up,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll just go through Grand Central.”
“You’ll love it,” Dairine said absently. “The food’s great there. Just please don’t eat the trains.”
She looked at her name one last time and sighed. It was no shorter than it had been when she first started her wizardry, but some of its terms had changed to shapes not strictly human, and a number of the characters were truncated, or indicated power levels much reduced. “You guys hardly even need me for this,” she said, “it’s so perfectly tied up.”
Filif rustled at her. “You’re here,” he said, “because this is your Sun. You’re its child, native to the space inside its heliopause. It knows you. It will listen to you where it might not listen to us.”
“Yeah,” Dairine said, allowing herself a breath of laughter. “Sure.” Filif was right about that. And as for anything else, Dairine knew that though she was no longer quite the power at wizardry that she had been, at least she was good enough to hold up her part of a group working and make sure that anyone else who needed help would get it in a hurry.
She glanced at her watch. “We’d better move,” she said. “The bubblestorm area’s going to be coming around toward the Sun’s limb soon.”
Roshaun nodded, and took his position near the part of the wizardry that held a précis of its blueprint and the coordinates they were heading for, along with the latest data that the manual had for them on the depth of the tachocline. There would be no more precise data until they got closer to the Sun and could correct for relativistic errors and other problems.
The others arranged themselves around the rim of the wizardry, and then each took one step into it, into the loci prepared for them—the areas that held optimum life support for each and that also contained a last-ditch “lifepod” wizardry intended to at least get them out with their lives if anything went wrong. But if anything goes that wrong, Dairine thought, we’re not likely to have time enough to implement the lifepods, anyway…
It was a thought she kept to herself as she looked past the circle and saw the tall shadow standing there in the dark, watching her, saying nothing. She raised a hand to him. He didn’t move for a few breaths… then raised his own.
“Ready?” Roshaun said.
“Ready,” each of the others said, and “Ready,” Dairine said, though she was starting to shake. This wasn’t like the wizardries she did by herself, where if anything went wrong, she was the one to blame, and the only one who would suffer.
“Then let’s speak,” Roshaun said, “and the Aethyrs be with us, because we really need Them tonight.”
The four wizards looked down at the wizardry that surrounded them. In unison, they started to speak its basic propositions in the Speech. The fire of it came up around them, blue-green to start with, rapidly tinged with the gold of the star on which they were about to operate. The silence of a listening universe leaned in around them as they spoke the words; the power built—
They vanished into a suburban silence only slightly troubled by the echo of the hiss of solar wind.
13: Flashpoin
ts
Nita and Kit left the Peliaens’ homestead early the next morning, partly with the intention of seeing no one. And they did see no one, which hurt Nita, but there was nothing she or Kit could do about it right now. They’ve got to feel we’ve violated their trust, she thought. Quelt, especially. And we so very much didn’t mean to, but— She let out a long breath of discomfort. Explanations would have to wait.
“You ready?” Kit said to her.
“Yeah.”
Doing a short transit to the Naos was the matter of a few moments; there, in the morning mist, Nita and Kit stood at the bottom of one of the flights of steps and looked around them uncertainly. “She’s late,” Kit said.
“I very much doubt that,” Nita said. “The big question on my mind right now is, where’s Ponch? I thought you said he would meet us here.”
“I thought he would,” Kit said. “After he’s been out all night, he usually meets us first thing in the morning.”
Nita sighed. “Where’s the leash?”
“That’s the problem. I left it on him last night.” Kit shrugged. “I do that sometimes. He usually comes back at night so that I can take it off him. Last night he didn’t come back.” Kit shrugged. “He’ll turn up.”
Nita sighed and sat down on the bottom step. “I feel so rotten,” she said.
“I know.”
“But I didn’t think she was going to react so badly. I mean, this isn’t as if it was something that was going to happen overnight. Or even terribly soon. Think about it! The stricture said that if the Alaalids wanted to reject it, and remake their Choice, they had to do that unanimously. They’re never going to—”
Kit shook his head. “Yes, they could. Or, specifically, not them. The wording Druvah used was, ‘Our descendants in power.’” Kit shook his head. “When you were reading the orientation pack, did you look up the Alaalid word for ‘wizard’?”
Nita shook her head.
“Tilidi’t, ” Kit said. “‘One who walks in power.’”
Nita gulped. “Oh no,” she said.
“And it’s easy for a decision among wizards to be unanimous,” Kit said, “when in a whole world there’s only one… ”
“Oh no,” Nita said again. Suddenly it all made sense. She could just see herself if someone offered her such a piece of information. Know what? Your whole species is in danger of never achieving its potential. But you can do something about it… you, all by yourself. And what happens to all of them hinges entirely and only on you…
Nita shivered. “Shouldn’t Ponch have turned up by now?” she said.
“Yeah… ”
But they waited, and waited, and he didn’t turn up. The one who did turn up was Esemeli, still impeccably clad in white and looking wearily amused. “So,” It said, “you’ve decided to trust me after all.”
Kit didn’t say anything. Nita said, “Let’s get on with it. Where are we headed?”
“Down,” the Lone One said. “Do you want to handle the transit yourself, or shall I do it?”
Kit made an ironic after-you gesture.
The three of them vanished.
***
“This is where it begins,” the Lone One said.
They were standing somewhere else, in the mist at the bottom of a huge cliff. The cliff was some dark stone, towering up into the mist, lost in it; and in the stone of its base was a huge vertical cleft that ran down from the cliff, across the ground, nearly to their feet.
Nita and Kit looked dubiously at the great opening in the Earth. Nita had started taking Latin in school, and the sight of the crevasse suddenly made her remember something she’d translated from the Aeneid last semester: It’s easy to enter the Underworld. The door’s open night and day. But retracing your steps, getting back up to the light— there’s the real work, the tough part—
She took a deep breath. It doesn’t matter, Nita thought. We’re as prepared as we can be. Except for one thing…
She glanced over at Kit and saw that Esemeli was regarding him with an expression of concern. “Where’s your doggy this morning?” It said.
Kit looked at the Lone Power. “I can’t believe, somehow, that you don’t know.”
“I told you,” Esemeli said, “that my ability to perceive what’s going on is severely limited here. So I have no idea where your dog is. And, anyway, after what she made me promise”—and It glanced in annoyance at Nita— “if I knew, I would have to tell you if she asked.”
“Where’s Ponch?” Nita said immediately.
“I don’t know,” the Lone One said.
Kit stood still and closed his eyes for just one last try. Nita heard him calling Ponch silently. But there was no response. “You can wait, if you want,” the Lone One said.
“No,” Nita said. The state in which they had left Quelt was very much on her mind. “The sooner we get the proof we need for Quelt, the better. Let’s get going.”
They turned and entered the mouth of darkness, vanishing.
At first the path downward seemed nothing spectacular: a winding passage between stone walls, the walls growing closer together, the rough ceiling growing lower and lower as they went. Nita, looking around her, began to get nervous as they went downward and the walls began to close in. She had never been wild about tight, constricting spaces; and in this one, her general cast of mind was not helped by the strangely organic feeling to the stone. It had that same warm color, a muted gold with pink overtones, that was seen in many of the buildings on the continent.
As the path twisted and turned and descended, it was very hard to keep from thinking that they were descending not into the bowels of the planet but— Nita pushed that thought aside vigorously, and concentrated on keeping an eye on their guide. Esemeli walked casually and confidently ahead of them, seeming untroubled by the way they went. “How can you be sure Druvah came this way?” Kit said, pulling out his manual and producing a small light to bob along ahead of him.
“He’s left traces,” Esemeli said, “even after all this time. He was, after all, the greatest of the wizards who met to enforce the Alaalid Choice.” It chuckled a little. “There’s a joke there, actually; if he hadn’t been so scrupulous about bowing to the wishes of the majority, none of us would need to be here now. The Alaalids would’ve moved on to the next stage in evolution, oh, thousands of years ago… if he’d made them. But like so many wizards who are too wholeheartedly on the side of the Powers That Be, he insisted on making his work difficult for himself. And for the people he was supposed to be serving… ”
They made their way around a tightly curving corner in the stone, a place where all of them had to put their backs against the wider side of the curve and inch around it, little by little. Nita breathed in, trying to make herself as thin as possible, and kept herself moving; but she had to keep her eyes closed. The downward-pressing closeness of the stone was beginning to affect her.
Ahead of her, Esemeli moved slowly but with no sign of distress. Nita could hear Kit’s breathing becoming labored. He was no fonder of these tight quarters than she was. “We could just go through the stone,” he said at one point, when he was finding it difficult to follow the Lone Power.
“No,” Esemeli said, “we can’t. All this road into the heart of the Earth is permeated by Druvah’s power.” She smiled a secret, rather uncomfortable smile, which Nita could just make out by the faint gleam of Kit’s wizard-light. “He made sure that anybody who was going to follow him on this road would have to go through exactly what he did when he first found his way to the world’s kernel. Even if it was going to be the wizards who would repeal the Choice he oversaw— they would have no easier time of it. He wanted to give them plenty of time to have second thoughts.”
I’m having plenty of them right now, Nita heard Kit thinking.
Not just you, Nita thought. “How do you know where he hid the kernel?” she said.
“I watched him do it,” the Lone One said. “He was using the power that I gave him at the time. A
nd at the time, that made it impossible for him to hide his whereabouts from me.” She was smiling, amused again.
They came out of the tight, close tunnel into a slightly more open area. Kit had to stop and get his breath, and for a moment he stood bowed down with his hands on his knees, gasping. Nita wiped her forehead. It was definitely getting warmer. She tried to work out how far underground they might have come, but she wasn’t sure exactly how to tell. I could look in the manual, she thought. But at the same time, she found herself thinking that even that wasn’t likely to do her any good. There was a strange sense coming down over her as if this journey was not exactly a physical one, or not merely a physical one…
She looked up to find the Lone One gazing at her with that amused expression. “Yes,” It said, “you do feel it. I was wondering if you would.”
“We’re not exactly inside Time,” Nita said. “Or outside it. This is one of those ‘complex states.’”
“Yes,” Esemeli said. “I’m afraid that, as wizards go, Druvah was fairly expert.”
“Which has to be bad for you,” Kit said, straightening up, “and good for us… ”
The Lone One threw him an annoyed look. “Let’s get moving,” It said. “We’ve got a ways to go yet… ”
They moved on, downward again. Kit dropped back toward Nita a little. “Neets, this is weird,” Kit said under his breath. “It isn’t like the real inside of a planet… any planet. This is more like another dimension.”
“It could be a little of both,” Nita said. “There are ways to make a place’s mythical reality coincide with the physical one… or make one temporarily a lot more powerful than the other.” She shook her head. “But normally you need a kernel to mediate that kind of overlap or substitution.”
“That, at least, means we’re on the right track,” Kit said. “You’ve been doing a lot of reading. You thinking about changing specialties? Maybe turning into a research specialist, like Tom?”
“I don’t know,” Nita said. “Things are changing, all right… but into what, I’m not entirely sure.”