She somehow wasn’t surprised to see that he wouldn’t quite look at her. “Possibly better than some of us.”
“Who?” She was conscious of Kit’s gaze in their direction—not hostile, not even trying to look like he was particularly interested. But she knew better.
“Not him,” Ronan said, annoyed.
“Oh. Your partner—”
Ronan nodded. “It’s okay,” he said. “He’s working to make sure our next move is covered. But this isn’t easy for him. He thought he’d have enough power accessible to make a difference when things started to get rough. And suddenly he doesn’t seem to have access to anything like enough.”
Nita shook her head. “What can we do?”
“Nothing,” Ronan said, sounding bleak.
Nita glanced up at him. “Except maybe hope the problem’s working both ways.”
Ronan stared at her in confusion. “I took a quick look just now at the manual to see what’s been happening since I left,” Nita said. “When you guys got hauled in front of the King-avatar, he seemed to be a few words short of a spell. Like the avatar was running on auto.”
“Don’t count on that lasting long enough to do us any good,” Ronan said.
“It may already have done all the good it needs to,” Nita said softly, glancing at Memeki. “But think about it. Why shouldn’t the Pullulus be having some effect on the Lone Power, too? Or at least Its presence in Its avatars?”
Ronan looked astounded. “But the Pullulus is the Lone Power’s own weapon. You’d think It’d make sure It couldn’t be affected.”
“But the Lone One’s power is still the same as the power behind wizardry, isn’t it?” Nita said. “Just perverted. It still has to obey wizardry’s rules while It’s physically present in the universe. And the rules say that the structure of space affects the way wizardry works … and vice versa.” She thought a moment. “What if It was willing to risk having less power for the moment, just so long as It got the other result It was playing for?” Nita glanced over at Memeki. “Distracting everybody from knowing that she was about to happen.”
Ronan was quiet for a moment. “Hope you’re right,” he said, “because that’s all the advantage we’ve got. As soon as It realizes that some of us haven’t been distracted … or that she has happened, which she hasn’t, entirely…”
Nita shook her head. “One thing at a time,” she said. “But you didn’t exactly answer my question.”
Ronan gave Nita one of those looks that was meant to frighten her off the subject. She frowned at him. “Don’t even bother,” she said.
The grim look briefly dissolved into one of those dark, wry smiles. “Never did much good with you, did it?” he said.
“Nope,” Nita said. She got up and stretched, almost too tired to bother getting as annoyed at him as she could have. “Look, Ronan, any chance you could stop being so defensive for a few seconds? Do you seriously think I’m asking how you are as a way of secretly suggesting you’re going to screw up in some weird way? I was asking about how you’re feeling. But since you can’t get that through your head, just work on getting ever so briefly conscious about your own abilities. Think about what you pulled off on your Ordeal! And then back in Ireland, on the Fields of Tethra—”
“That was then,” Ronan said, sounding uneasy. “This is now.”
“Spare me,” Nita said. “Anybody who can ‘take in the Sea’ on his first time out, and afterward cope with handling that thing—” She glanced at the Spear of Light. “—has no business wandering around looking morose and fishing for compliments.” Then she had to grin. “Which is probably why the Powers have now sent you the greatest challenge of your life.”
Ronan suddenly looked shocked, and glanced around him with a sudden guilty look of someone who’s just been found out. “What? What do you—”
Nita looked sidewise to where Carmela, having finished up with another session of fussing over Ponch, was heading toward them. “She’s all yours,” Nita said, and turned away.
Behind her, Ronan didn’t move for a moment or so. Then he collapsed the Spear back into its ballpoint pen disguise and tucked it away inside his jacket. A wee bit freaked, he said silently. More than a wee bit. Not at all cool, or calm, or able to deal, no matter how it looks from outside. Is that what you wanted to hear?
Nita looked over her shoulder just long enough to flash him a very small smile. No. But the truth’s worth hearing, anyway. Then she headed over to Memeki.
For a moment she paused just out of reach of Memeki’s claws. The mirror-shade eyes looked at Nita thoughtfully.
“You do not have to be afraid of me,” Memeki said. “I am nothing to fear.”
Nita shook her head. “I had a little scare when we first got here,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault.” Then she put out a hand and laid it on that shining carapace. Memeki shivered a little under her touch. “And as for you being nothing to be afraid of—not for us, maybe. But someone else is scared.”
Nita had to hold herself very still as she said that, for the touch had told her something about the reasons for that fear. Inside Memeki, Nita clearly felt a growing power, a core of something like heat or light—like a heart quietly beating, getting stronger. But also inside Memeki were a myriad of tinier glittering points of power, and these were of a darker fire. They scorched the testing mind, cruel as sparks spun up from a fire intent on burning.
“I know now who’s afraid,” Memeki said. “It’s the creature that speaks through the King. It’s my enemy… and my other self.”
Nita swallowed as she felt the sudden surge of power inside the voice. “And it’s inside me,” Memeki said. “I never really knew that until now.”
Nita hesitated a moment, then nodded. “It’s inside all of us, a little.”
“But not in the same way,” Memeki said. “You understand. In you, it’s far less. Inside me—It has me outnumbered. And unless something happens very soon, It will put an end to me.”
“Not if you don’t let It,” Nita said.
Memeki combed that palp down again, that uncertain gesture. “There is no way to stop what’s coming!” she said, distressed. “You must know! You can feel them all.”
“The eggs,” Nita said. “Yes.”
“They won’t be eggs for long,” Memeki said. “Soon they’ll hatch, each one of them with its spark of the Great One, the Darkness. They’ll belong to It. And when they hatch, they will turn to their mother for food.”
Nita shivered, suddenly glimpsing a scene Memeki had seen again and again in the grubbery of the city-hive: the little closed-in cells where the handmaidens, the Favored, were kept and ministered to until their time came… until the eggs hatched inside them, and the grubs within turned outward and began to feast on the flesh that had sheltered them.
“It will happen very soon,” Memeki said. “A sunrise more, perhaps two, and I’ll be taken to the incubatory inside the grubbery, there to wait my time. When Ponch found me I was spending my last hours in freedom, walking, and working and walking again, fearing what was about to happen—and not knowing how to speak of it, not daring to. Knowing that everything was about to be lost, everything from the time the strange voice spoke to me…” She pulled her claws close to herself. “But you are the one who knows the way,” Memeki said then, looking up again. “You know how it will be. You had a mother…”
Nita held still in pure shock. After a moment she said, “We all had mothers. Well, maybe not Filif, and as for Spot, he—”
“But only your mother did what all our mothers do,” Memeki said. “Surely you understand! I can hear it in you when you touch me.”
Nita went abruptly blind with memory. The moments that followed were full of towering darkness and the sound of rushing waters, and a woman’s voice saying, in the face of the Lone Power Itself, “You can do what you like with me, but not with my daughter!”
Nita wasn’t sure how long she stood there in that remembered darkness. When she could see h
er surroundings again, she was leaning against Memeki’s shell with both hands, and her eyes were stinging. She blinked hard, working to get control of herself. Strangely, the feel of those swarming, furious little sparks of dark fire was helping her a lot. Not again, Nita thought. Not this time. And not this mom!
“She died,” Nita said, straightening up. “Yes. She died.”
“So you understand how it must be for us, for all the Yaldat. How it will be for me.” Memeki shivered again, and Nita noticed that those shivers were getting more frequent. “It’s the greatest honor that a Yaldah can achieve. I was called to the King. I became his vessel. Inside me, the eggs grew. Now they’re almost ready. The Great One’s children will come forth.”
“And kill you,” Nita whispered.
“Of course they will. This is the holy Sacrifice; this is Motherhood. What kind of mother would not die for her children?”
Once again the memory of darkness came down on Nita, the darkness inside her mother’s cancer-stricken body, and the worse one, much later, on the night Nita went up to her room after the funeral, shut the door, and sat in the dark, completely dead inside. But the shock a few moments ago had left Nita less susceptible to this second one… and she wasn’t going to let the pain distract her from the business at hand, especially when it was so plain that the whole Yaldiv species was being jerked around in a way that Nita found so personal. Suddenly everything seemed reflected in everything else—the mirror-eye looking back at her, and the koi’s words: Within every dewdrop, a world of struggle. And this was it, she realized. The struggles were the same; the answers were the same. This was the key.
“What kind of mother wouldn’t die for her kids? Lots of kinds!” Nita said. Her own anger surprised her, and at the sound of it, Memeki started back. “Would, sure. But have to? Most places it’s optional, not mandatory! Not for you, though. Someone’s picked out the kind of motherhood that’ll hurt the most, the kind you can never enjoy, and talked you into thinking it’s all you’ve got!”
Shock practically radiated from Memeki. “But this is—this is—”
“The way it’s always been done?” Nita said. “No, it’s not! There’s another story, isn’t there?” And as she said it, she knew it was true, the same way she’d known when to throw herself out of the line of fire back at the Crossings. But nothing about this business is usual, she thought, and felt the peridexic effect’s amusement in response.
Memeki’s shock became even more pronounced. She waved her claws in distress. “How do you know that?” she cried. “You were not—He didn’t—” She threw a glance toward Ponch.
She told him, Nita thought. And that’s how I know now. This was part of the information that was blocked in the manuals. But when she told Ponch herself, the peridexic effect got access to the information! “It doesn’t matter right now,” Nita said. “Listen to me, Memeki! Once upon a time, mothers here didn’t have to do that kind of thing, did they?”
“No! They—” Memeki quieted a little. “No,” she said.
“Because there weren’t so many eggs?”
Memeki hesitated. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“But these days there are so many,” Nita said. “Too many. And they have no other way to be born. They have to kill you.” She was getting angrier every moment. It was another of the Lone Power’s favorite gambits—perverting the way Life worked just to spite it. “There might be more to it than that. Never mind that right now. Once, things were different. But now you’re called to the King—” Nita thought about that for a moment. “‘Called.’ They make you go to him?”
Memeki put up her claws again in distress. “It is an honor—”
“Yeah, sure,” Nita said. “What if you don’t want the honor?”
“The warriors make meat of you,” Memeki whispered.
“So you have no choice,” Nita said.
Memeki was silent. Nita put a hand out to her and felt again the burning storm of angry life inside her, all the new little avatars of the Lone One waiting for their first act in life, which would be to murder someone. Away behind her, she could hear Ponch whimpering, and Kit was picking up on his distress.
Neets—
I know.
We’re just about ready.
Give us a minute. “Memeki,” Nita said, “the only reason you’re here with us now is because somehow you felt different from all the other Yaldiv, all the other Yaldat.”
“That’s true,” Memeki said.
“And you said you heard a voice speaking to you?”
“The voice that said I could be more,” Memeki said, “that all my people could be more.”
“Memeki,” Nita said, “did you give the voice an answer?”
And inside Memeki, Nita could feel all those little sparks of dark fire suddenly blaze up in shock. From the other core of power working inside her, the small, dim-beating one, there was not the slightest sign of reaction: like someone holding absolutely still lest some shy, trembling thing bolt away.
Memeki was silent.
Neets, we really need to get out of here. Ponch thinks he smells something starting to happen.
Just a minute more! “Memeki!” Nita said.
Memeki looked at Nita. “No,” she said. “I never knew what to say.”
Nita swallowed. “Memeki,” she said, “before, you never had a choice in anything. Now you have one, your very own choice. Give the voice an answer.”
Almost too softly to be heard, “But what answer?” Memeki said. “What do I do?”
Nita thought of Della in her dream: the claw pushing the hair back, the way Memeki groomed her palp, that nervous gesture. Come on, give me a hint: What am I supposed to be doing to make everything turn out all right? You’re supposed to know what They want, you’re the one who’s supposed to have all the answers.
Her mouth had gone as dry as any desert, but Nita managed to open it, and said, very softly, “I can’t tell you.”
“But you have to! You know!”
I know the right answer. At least, I know a right answer. And it would be so easy to tell her. But if I did… She couldn’t even swallow, she was so scared, for Nita was sure that giving Memeki any answer would completely screw everything up. It’s not what Tom or Carl would do. And if I’m being a Senior, it’s not what I should do either.
“Tell me!” Memeki pleaded.
“Memeki, if I tell you what to say,” Nita said, “it’s not your choice.”
Behind her, Nita could hear Ponch starting to growl. She forced herself to ignore him.
“And you have to choose,” Nita said. “If you don’t, we’ll have come here all this way for nothing. Except to die.”
“That is a hard saying!” Memeki said. She sounded hurt and indignant, like someone under unfair pressure.
“Unfortunately, it’s also a true one,” Nita said. “Wizards tell the truth. Sometimes it’s all we’ve got: one way or another, the words wind up doing the job.”
“I need time! Time to think, to decide—”
“There is no time,” Nita said. “And this kind of choice won’t need time. It’s done in a flash, in a breath. All you have to do is be willing to finally make it, instead of putting it off!”
Memeki turned away from her.
Nita broke out in a cold sweat. Oh, please don’t let me have messed up! she thought. If I’ve ruined this somehow, if the whole universe is going to go dark because I just said the wrong thing—
“Nita,” Ronan said. “Now. “
Her head came right around at the sound of sheer command in his voice—and the unexpected desperation.
“They’re coming,” he said, and this time it was just Ronan. “He can’t hide us anymore. His power’s going, and there’s another great lot of them coming. Five times as many as last time, maybe more. Something’s waking up in the City.”
Nita swallowed. His power’s going? How long is ours going to last? “Look,” she said, “maybe we can help Him. Pass Him some power, or operat
e His shield routine independently. Can you feed Spot the cloaking spell He was using? At least we can buy ourselves some time.”
Ronan frowned, a concentrating look. “I have it,” said Spot from across the room. “Working…”
“Everybody into the mochteroofs!” Filif said.
There was a wholesale scramble for them. “Ponch,” Kit said, “if You-Know-Who can feel our transits now, you’re going to have to walk us out of here: It doesn’t seem to be able to feel you. ‘Mela, here, get in—”
Nita stood for a moment more with her hand against Memeki’s carapace. Memeki swung herself around toward Nita, looked at her, and once again Nita was briefly dazzled by the reflections: mirror-shade eyes, dewdrops, and, suddenly, another eye looking out at her from one of the reflections—
Nita recoiled in terror as the myriad sparks of dark fire inside Memeki buzzed and jostled against one another with sudden rage. Nita jerked her hand away. “We’ll get you back to the grubbery,” she said, and turned and ran for her mochteroof.
“Ponch, where’s the leash?” Kit said.
I have it here.
“Great. Fil—”
“I thought we might wind up needing this kind of transit: I left an open receptor for the leash in all the mochteroof spells. Tell me the words for your end of the spell. I can chain them together.”
He thinks of everything, Nita thought as she got to her mochteroof and put her hands up against it. He’s a better Senior than any of us. Where’d we be without him? She melted straight through the virtual carapace, into the dim green insides of it. Light outside went monochrome, restating itself as heat and cool rather than light and darkness; the cavern around them blazed like day. Nita found the spell-handles inside that would let her wear the mochteroof in automatic mode, like a tight-fitting suit, and spoke the words in the Speech to activate each one. “Don’t worry about spoken conversation,” Filif said. “It’ll stay in-circuit; only wizards will be able to hear it.”