“Memeki, no, don’t! He might—”
With a great effort, Ronan opened his eyes. “This,” he said. “This is your—” He took an incredibly deep breath. “—made for you. Now you can—”
His eyes closed again, his head fell to one side.
The ground began to shake. This cannot happen! said a terrible voice in all their bones, as the Lone Power started to rise again, the serpentine arms reaching out of that pool of darkness now getting more solid as It exerted every last ounce of force It had left to try to force Its way back into full physicality. I will not permit—
But Memeki ignored It. She looked down at Ronan, where he lay silent and bleeding. Then she looked around her at Nita, and Kit, and Roshaun, and Dairine, and Filif, and, finally, at Ponch.
“Yes,” she said to him. “My answer is your answer. My answer is yes.”
And she reached out and seized the Spear in her claws.
Nita braced herself. But instead of what she expected—a cataclysmic shaking, some great scream of rage or triumph—there fell around them instead a profound stillness, into which all sound swirled down and was swallowed away. In silence, the universe bent close to hear what was going to happen next. In silence, Memeki reared up and yanked the Spear out of Ronan’s body. In silence, its fire whipped out of it in a vortex of terrific force and swirled around her, burning, hiding her away.
The City was already dark, but now it grew darker still. At first Nita was afraid that the Lone One was doing something. The darkness around them deepened, but that light at the center of everything swirled out, spiraling away from what had been its center. All that remained within the core of the light was a shell, glowing, transparent as the mochteroofs, and inside it a swarm of dark sparks of fire. They swirled and burned and then, all at once, burned fiercely bright, too bright to look at, like the myriad sparks of a fireworks display—
They went out. Around them, the glow of the shell that had been Memeki went out like a blown-out candle flame. Memeki was gone.
But the light itself was not. It fountained up into the heights of the central space of the City, and then down again, sheeting and splashing out, illuminating that whole place and flooding outward, striking the papery walls, pouring through them. At first Nita thought the walls were vanishing, but then she realized that they were simply becoming as transparent as glass under the influence of the power that now imbued them. All around, in every direction, hundreds and thousands of Yaldiv became visible in the deepest structures of the nest. Tens and hundreds more began to pour into the central chamber through its many doors. All the mirrory eyes looked up and inward at the blaze of light as it spun downward and outward from the heights, defining a new shape, a radiant and tremendous form shelled and sheened in light; and the beauty of it, even in the strange alien shape, was nearly unbearable. Nita wanted nothing more than to stand there staring at it, waiting to see what other, more momentous shape it would take when her human senses finally came to grips with it.
The chamber was full of Yaldiv now, thousands of them packed into this space. They and the thousands of others elsewhere in the now-crystalline structure of the City gazed inward or upward at the rainbow-streaming shape above them, all their myriad eyes swimming with a light that seemed to come in more colors than physical existence normally allowed—a spectrum as much of possibility as of mere radiance. The light no longer just lay on the surface of those eyes, but sank into them, dwelt in them. Some of the Yaldiv out there were handmaidens, some of them bearing eggs inside them as Memeki had done; and as Nita saw the brilliant sparks held within the huge shape of the Hesper flare up, so did the sparks within the handmaidens below, flaring into ferocious brilliance, burning clean, dying down again to swirls of rainbow glitter, dark no more—
Her heart went up in a blaze of triumph. But this is what had to happen. And now all the Yaldiv born and unborn will be her avatars, all the Hesper’s children and not the Lone One’s!
Nita looked over at Kit. Off to one side, beside him, Ponch had been standing very still, watching this like a dark and shining statue of a dog. But suddenly his tail started to wag, and then he started barking, and jumping up and down. The barking got louder and louder, a sound of sheer triumph.
The rainbow light shivered and trembled to the sound of Ponch’s barking. Burning, glinting, like mirrors in the sun, the eyes of the great shelled shape above them looked down at Ponch, and at the wizards who stood or crouched to look up at Her; and at the one wizard who lay still, even the blood pooled beside him reflecting rainbows now. I am here, It said: I am here at last.
The tremendous voice shivered in all their bones, as the Lone Power’s voice had. It was impossibly ancient, impossibly powerful… and it was Memeki’s.
For a few seconds, no one said anything. Then, “Elder sister,” Kit said, awestruck, “greeting and honor.”
To Nita’s astonishment, that great shape bowed to them.
My first work’s done, thanks to you, the Hesper said. I’ve driven the Lone Power away from here, possibly forever. And I have written a new history in the Yaldiv’s bodies: they will find ways to live that mean their lives need not begin in death as well as end in it. So this poor world that my other self maimed so badly will now be healed. And after it, in time, so will many other worlds, one by one.
“It’s going to take a long time,” Dairine said.
It will take forever, the Hesper said. But I have forever now. The past, and the future, the ability to be in time: you gave it to me.
Her regard dwelled on them all for a moment. I can only stay a little more of your time in this form, the Hesper said. So new a connection between the physical realms and eternity won’t hold for long in this ephemeral place. I must depart. But because you and your worlds have endured such danger for my sake, I’ve done what I can to repay the debt. For a very little while, I have driven our Enemy out of time. While Its brief exile lasts, It can do no new evil. But what It has already set in train, I can’t now halt. I must withdraw into timelessness now and recoup my strength, or risk being unable to embody again for a long while.
Roshaun bowed to her. “Crowned one,” he said, “you owe us no debts. In the paths of errantry, we’ll meet again.”
The Hesper was already fading. Ponch started barking again. Don’t go away! Don’t go—
Those rainbow-mirror eyes rested briefly on Ponch, and Nita thought she saw affection there. Make haste to your world, the Hesper said, looking from Ponch to Kit and Nita and Dairine. Make haste! They will need you there.
The light faded, slipped away, as if sunset was happening indoors. Finally they all stood or knelt in twilight, surrounded by many curious Yaldiv who peered down at them and held up their claws in a new gesture.
“Welcome,” they said. “Friends of the Daughter of the true Great One, friends of the Queen of Light; dai stihó, and well met on the journey!”
Nita and Kit stared at each other. “Too much strange,” Nita said, “just too much!” She rubbed her eyes. “Hi, guys, good to see you, too. Please bear with us for a moment.” She turned her attention back to Ronan. “Fil, quick, give us some light!”
All Filif’s berries blazed with wizard-light as Nita reached sideways into her otherspace pocket, found it where it belonged, pulled out her manual, and dumped it on the floor. Its pages riffled wildly as she pulled the rowan wand out of her belt and shook it down once like someone shaking a thermometer: white moonfire ran down it. She looked down at Ronan, put a hand on his chest next to the place where the Spear had gone in—then froze.
She looked up at Kit. “Is he breathing?” she whispered.
Kit looked at her, and very quietly said, “No.”
14: Catastrophic Success
Nita’s ears roared with her panic. All she could hear herself thinking was Oh no, oh no, not this, not now! And is it my fault?
The idea shook her. “The greatest challenge of your life,” she’d said to him. Why did I say that? Except somehow I kne
w it was true. All this while she’d been treating the peridexic effect as if it was something cute, rather than what it was, the manual suddenly inside her head, making what she said truer than usual. And now she could hear her voice saying to Carmela, “Enjoy him while you can. He won’t be here for long.” No, oh no, please don’t let it be that I made this happen—
Everything inside her started to go cold, and the coldness, a kind of distant, freezing calm, was exactly what was needed. Nita looked down at Ronan, lying there bleeding nothing but blood now, and he seemed as remote to her as something showing on TV while she was paying attention to something else in front of her. “Okay,” she said. “I know what to do—”
Kit was looking at her with a shocked sort of expression: Nita assumed it had something to do with her voice, which even to her sounded like it belonged to somebody else. “What? A healing spell?”
Nita shook her head. “No time for that now,” she said, glancing down at her manual; its pages stopped riffling. “We have to get back to Earth as fast as we can.”
“But the Pullulus! If it’s getting closer to Earth, wizardry might not be working right—”
“See if the manual tells you anything about that,” Nita said. The page she’d wanted in her manual, containing the spell she’d prepared days earlier, lay there waiting in front of her. “But we have to take the chance. You heard the Hesper! We need to head back now.”
“But if you don’t heal him—” Kit looked past Nita at her manual, peering down at the details of the spell.
She shook her head again, shoving the rowan wand back into her belt for the moment. “Stasis,” she said. “After the little chat we had with Darryl, I thought I’d better have one ready.”
“Send me a copy!” Kit said, flipping his manual open.
“Did that already,” Nita said. She glanced around them. “Dair, Roshaun, Fil, when this is finished we need to transit back to the Crossings and home from there. A straight-in gating might derange this spell, especially if something is wrong with wizardry back home.”
“I will contact Sker’ret,” Roshaun said, “and make sure they’re ready for us.”
“I will set up the transit spell,” Filif said. “Will you need further assistance with that one?”
“Shouldn’t,” Nita said. “Kit?”
He nodded, and together they started to recite in the Speech. The old reassuring fade-out of sound started to set in around them as the words of the Speech seized on the fabric of the universe and started to bend it into a new shape, one that would absolutely freeze time for Ronan. It was a particularly “hard” stasis, its emphasis on completely stopping all activity in a living being, right down to the motions of electrons around their atoms’ nuclei.
Okay, Nita thought to the peridexis. If you’ve got extra power for me, let’s have it.
Nita’s whole mind went up a flare of sheer power that rushed out through her and into the spell with tremendous force, scorching her as it passed. Now Nita started to understand why wizards were so rarely allowed to channel power of this intensity: the “power limit” was a safety valve. Do this too often and it would scar the conduits of mind and spirit through which it flowed, leaving the wizard too sensitive to bear wizardry’s flow. Even lesser wizardries, afterward, would feel as if your own blood was burning you. Not my problem right now, Nita thought. Right now there’s exactly one thing to concentrate on—
The first long passage of the spell was done. Nita paused, taking a long breath as she got ready for the second passage. Even the simplest and most temporary stasis spell wouldn’t operate until you correctly described the physical object it was meant to freeze, and this one was neither simple nor particularly temporary. The lockdown was always the worst part of the work. But if I can’t handle this now, I’ll never be able to.
She caught Kit’s eye: he nodded. Ronan’s name in the Speech was already laid into the spell. Nita looked across the burning pattern the spell made in her mind, expecting to see the reality of what was going on with Ronan, probably a swirl of pain and shock.
But there wasn’t any pain, and the emotional context she sensed was very far indeed from shock. It was utterly serene. And off in the distance, getting more distant by the moment, Nita caught sight of a growing glow of light.
Oh, no, you don’t! she shouted inwardly. Not that way! You don’t get to do that right now! Kit!
I can’t get at him! He won’t listen, he’s not—
Typical, Nita said, furious. Ronan!
She poured more power into the spell. Don’t let me down now, she said silently to the peridexis. Now’s when I need it! Come on, let me have whatever you’ve got.
The new access of power burst through her with terrific force, leaping away from her across the spell diagram and past her and Kit to the dwindling figure that stood silhouetted against the faraway light. Nita hung on, though the scorching at the back of her mind got worse and worse. No—you—don’t!
The form walking away from them began to slow … and second by second, moved more slowly still. Nita closed her eyes and concentrated on being simply something for the power to pour through into the wizardry. Her brain felt like it was shaking itself apart, but Nita hung on, hung on. Not—another—step! Not—another—
In the distance, between one step and the next, Ronan froze.
Gasping, Nita opened her eyes again and looked at Kit across the spell diagram. He was still reading from his manual, finishing the last few phrases that would lock the stasis down. All around, the others were staring at her.
She looked around at them all. “What?”
Kit said the last couple of words of the spell, added the shorthand version of the words of the wizard’s knot, and then slapped his manual shut and dropped it in front of him, next to Ronan’s inert and unbreathing form. “You were kind of on fire there,” Kit said.
Nita rubbed her eyes. “Tell me about it,” she said. “I really need an aspirin.”
“No, I mean on fire on fire,” Kit said. “A lot of light…”
“I was?” She found it hard to care. At least the spell had worked.
“Yeah. And who else were you talking to?”
“Oh.” She laughed. “My invisible friend.”
Dairine looked horrified. “Oh, jeez, not Bobo!”
Nita laughed again. These days she couldn’t remember the invisible friend she’d blamed for everything that went wrong around her when she was five or six, but her mom and dad had told her endless stories about “Bobo’s” escapades. “Uh, no,” she said. “Just wizardry.”
Kit stared at her. “Wizardry talks?” he said. “Is this something new?”
Nita closed her manual and chucked it into her otherspace pocket. “Yeah,” she said. “It took me by surprise, too.” She looked down at Ronan. He wasn’t breathing, but now that was normal. If he suddenly started breathing again, that would be a real sign of trouble. “Come on,” she said, “we need to get back. This should hold for a few hours at least.”
“Question is,” Dairine said, “is that going to be enough?”
“Let’s go find out.”
Filif came gliding over to them with something held in his fronds. It was a drift of what looked like smoke, but it was shot through with glints of the dark green fire that characterized his wizardries. This is a version of the mobility routine I use to get around on hard surfaces, he said. It will make Ronan a little more manageable until he’s able to get around by himself.
“Great,” Nita said. Filif shook the cloud of smoke out like someone shaking a sheet out across a bed; the cloud thinned, drifted down over Ronan, and shrouded him like a see-through blanket. As soon as it had draped completely down over him, Ronan levitated gently up into the air to about Nita’s waist.
“Handy,” Kit said. He reached out and nudged Ronan’s shoulder a little with one hand: he moved weightlessly through the air. “Okay, let’s get him into the transit diagram.”
The Yaldiv crowding around them made a
little space for the wizards to pass over to where Roshaun had laid out their transit circle. As they made their way over to the diagram, one Yaldiv came up to them through the gathered crowd. To Nita’s slight surprise, it was the Arch-votary. She could just barely see the old patterns on its outer shell, which had burned themselves pale in the overflow from the Hesper’s transformation. “Friends of the Queen of Light,” it said, “will you return?”
“If we can,” Nita said. “There’s a lot going on at home right now.” It occurred to her then that there was something she wanted to do right away. She rooted around in her pockets until she found her cell phone. “But if we don’t come back ourselves, we’ll make sure somebody visits you when things quiet down.”
Kit floated Ronan into the diagram. “Can he go vertical?” he said to Filif. “He takes up a lot of room in here.”
“Certainly. I’ll help.”
While they were standing Ronan upright, Nita punched the “last dialed number” button on the phone, put it to her ear, and waited.
Nothing happened. She took the phone away from her ear and looked at it. Its dialing screen cleared and showed her a little message: DIALED PLANET UNAVAILABLE.
Nita’s blood instantly ran cold. “Planet unavailable?!” Nita said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She looked over at Kit, then at Dairine. Kit looked pale. Dairine’s eyes were worried. “If it means that wizardry’s failed completely back there—”
“I really, really hope that’s all it means,” Nita said.
“Unavailable?” Carmela mused, looking over Nita’s shoulder at the phone. “I think you need to change your service provider.”
“I want the old one back first so I can yell at it,” Nita muttered. She shoved the phone in her pocket, feeling herself starting to shake again. “You guys ready?”