Roshaun!
The cry was soundless. One moment he was standing there, a statue of burning gold. The next moment, the statue was a searing white, and the moment after that, there was no statue at all: just something falling through one-sixth gravity to bounce into the dust—a collar of yellow metal with a great colorless stone in it, as clear as glass.
The fire was all gone out of Dairine now. Spot’s eyes had vanished; he lay as flat against the ground as if he wished he could bury himself in it. Dairine slumped to her knees. “Where is he?” she was whispering as she looked all around her, desperate. “What happened to him? Where is he?”
And the Pullulus began crawling back into the space that had been carved free of it, once more flowing toward the Moon.
Beside Kit, Ponch let out a single cry that wasn’t so much a bark as a yelp of pain. He ran over to where Roshaun had been standing, and started frantically sniffing around the spot. He ran back to Kit, a horrified look in his eyes. Where did he go? Ponch barked. What happened to him?
Kit shook his head; his eyes were stinging. “I don’t know,” he said softly. The one thing he was sure of was that he couldn’t bear to look at Dairine right now, the moment after she had picked up the fallen collar.
He turned and exchanged a glance with Nita. Then he dropped to his knees beside Ponch.
“You know you’re the best, right?”
Yes, Ponch said, but he sounded dreadfully uncertain and frightened.
“Good,” Kit said. He roughed the dog’s ears up. “So now you have to go do what you promised.”
I’m not going anywhere without you!
“Yes, you are. You have to take Carmela, and—”
No!
“You promised,” Kit said fiercely. “Ponch, I’m a wizard. I promised I’d take care of the world, and that’s what I have to do now. You promised me that you’d take care of Mama and Pop and Carmela, and Nita’s dad—”
But I can’t! Ronan couldn’t, and then Tuyet couldn’t, and now Roshaun couldn’t, and if I go, you could— You’ll—
“Ponch!” Kit said. He felt close to tears, but he didn’t dare show it. “This is what we have to do! Now go on.”
He threw his arms around the dog. One last hug, he thought. They have to let dogs into Timeheart, they have to.
But what about you? What about Nita?! And what about Tom and Carl and—
“Ponch!” Kit cried. “Just go!”
Ponch stood and looked at Kit. He hung his head, and his tail drooped. Utterly dejected, he turned away. He started to vanish.
And then he stopped. Half there, half not, and wholly torn, Ponch sat down in the dust of the Moon and threw his head up and howled for sheer grief and pain.
The tears ran down Kit’s face. This is what it’s like when your heart breaks, he thought. Good thing I won’t have to feel it for long. He looked up and saw the Pullulus closing in tighter on the clean space that Roshaun had carved out. But then he heard something that distracted him.
It was still more howling.
At first it seemed a very long way away, but then the sound came to Kit more immediately. He realized that he was hearing it as Ponch did. Other dogs were howling. Kit stared all around, but there was no one there but all his fellow wizards, and the spell diagram—now burning low from lack of power—and Ponch, his howling briefly diminishing into a terrible whimpering moan of pain as he got up again, anguished, to do as Kit had told him. Desperately, Kit looked up into the sky and saw nothing but darkness, and a single pathway of seemingly lighter sky cutting through it—the dark of space with the stars still burning in it, while everywhere else, the Pullulus pressed in all around. Ponch looked up at that path and howled one last time, and it seemed to Kit as if somewhere beyond him, the voices of hundreds of dogs, thousands of dogs, hundreds of thousands, could be heard howling with him. Or through him? Kit thought. It was impossible to tell. The cacophony was unbearable: it drove all thought out of the mind that listened to it. All around them, kids were holding their ears, bending over double, trying to maintain some kind of control. The air, Kit thought. The life-support—the spell won’t hold for much longer; wizardry’s starting to fail—
Yet in this moment of utter terror, somehow the spell started to seem less important. For above them, the inward-pressing darkness of the Pullulus seemed to be taking form. Shivering, Kit blinked and rubbed his own eyes, certain they were fooling him. How could there be any blackness darker than what the Pullulus had already become? But there was such a blackness, and it took the form of eyes, burning in that darkness, embodying it. Kit started to think he heard something growling softly to itself in pleasure.
Did you hear that? he said silently to Nita.
There was no answer at first. Kit looked around for Nita and saw that she’d gone to Dairine, and was now kneeling down beside her, her arms around her little sister, while Dairine just knelt there looking dazed.
A little noisy, Nita said after a moment, wiping her eyes. But is it just me, or is all this looking sort of strange to you?
Kit glanced around him. There was more light here than there should have been, with the Sun completely blocked away from them, and the terrible potency of Roshaun’s sunbeam gone along with him. The Moon had begun to look a lot less moonlike, almost more like a stage; it was as if something invisible was illuminating it from above. The howling was beginning to die away. Even Ponch had stopped now, and was staring up into the darkness, up into those eyes.
Very quietly, he began to growl.
“Kit?”
It was Carmela’s voice, sounding thoroughly confused. He turned to see her looking at something off to one side. “What?” Kit said.
“Do you know any pigs?”
He stared at her. “What?”
“Over there,” Carmela said.
Kit looked where she was pointing. Only a few feet away from them both, apparently unnoticed by many of the upward-gazing wizards, stood a large white pig that looked back at Kit with an interested expression, flicking one large pink ear.
Kit made his way over to that silvery-bristled shape and looked down at it in something like outrage. “What are you doing here?” he said.
“You forgot to ask about the meaning of life,” said the Transcendent Pig. “That’s got to be a first.”
“Yeah, well, it can wait, because there’s other business,” Kit said. He looked away from the Pig, back toward Ponch.
But Ponch was not there.
In his place was a huge dog-shaped shadow that towered above them. It was looking up into that blank black darkness, its eyes trained on the darker eyes that stared down at them in fury from above. And it was growling, too.
Ponch? Kit thought.
The shadow-shape above him made no response. Stiff-legged, it took a step forward, its hackles bristling. That one step took it right past the edge of the Dimple. Its second step took it right over the edge of Daedalus, over that three-kilometer-high rim. The third step took it out into the roiling dark, and straight off the edge of the Moon.
The Transcendent Pig stood there beside Kit, regarding the two dark shapes that now stood in the depths of translunar space, eyeing each other through the endless night. “And why the surprise?” the Pig said. “You didn’t think I kept turning up before just to see you and Nita, did you? I mean, not that it wasn’t a pleasure. It’s always nice to meet new people. But, as you say, there’s other business.”
And it gazed up at Ponch.
Above them all, the darkness grew and took shape as the Pullulus pressed inward. All around them, it beat against the orbit of the Moon as if against a seawall, and though for the moment it flowed no farther, Kit could feel that, at any moment, it might. Still, though, that pierced-through lane of normal space and starlight above them persisted … and suddenly Kit realized what he was seeing. The memory of voices back in the cavern on Rashah descended on him, so that he might almost have been lying in the pup tent again; and a voice said, No power more w
ill come to you, and no new life, until you once more see before you the path you refused, and set out to walk it alone.
This is my place, Ponch said to the darkness. Go away!
Make me, the Darkness said.
I will, Ponch said. We said we would take care of them.
You can’t, said the being that was now wearing the Pullulus, in the shape of something huge and wolfish, with fangs as dark and deadly as its eyes. And they can’t save themselves, or you. You all get to die today.
I have driven our Enemy out of time for just a little while, Memeki had said.
Kit swallowed. I guess our time just ran out.
You’re just one more dog, the Darkness said. You have no power against me, and your threats mean nothing.
Ponch’s gigantic shape merely stood there, growling softly in his throat.
I will always be here, no matter what you do, the Darkness said. I will come for every one of your kind, sooner or later. That’s the way this universe is.
I think, Ponch said, that I have had enough of you telling me how things will be.
If you had, you’d be doing something about it. But you can’t. I own this place, whatever you may think. And as I will come for all your people in time … I will come for all of his kind as well. And for him!
The growling stopped.
You came for Ronan, Ponch said very softly. You came for Memeki. You came for Roshaun. But if you think you’re coming for him today, think again. Today I choose a new way to go—and it goes through you!
And Ponch threw himself at the throat of the Darkness beyond the Moon.
It was a “dogfight” in the same way that the meteor that killed the dinosaurs was an “impact.” The stars seemed to shake and the Moon rumbled and quaked with the tumult and the furor of it, and there was no telling how long it went on. The terrible growls and snarls of the Darkness were matched in their awfulness, and in a strange kind of splendor, by the righteous rage of the giant doglike shape with the starlight caught in its coat. Stunned, staggered, many of the watching wizards fell to their knees as the great battle slowly began to turn; others just stood gazing outward into that turbulent night, trying to assimilate what they were seeing. Kit, though, knew; for he’d heard the story beforehand. He watched as what had been foretold came to pass—the Hound taking His old enemy by the throat and throwing him down, yelping, against the floor of heaven.
The Wolf that ate the Moon slowly stood up from that downfall, still growling. There, in the darkness with which it had surrounded itself, It slunk a few steps away, head down, tail between Its legs, growling more softly … and then tried to dodge around and do Its Enemy one final harm. All at once, the Pullulus flowed past the Moon, heading for the Earth and past it, toward the Sun, trying to envelop them both—
The Hound opened His jaws and leaped at His enemy one last time.
The flare of power that had burst up from the group wizardry before was as nothing to this. All space went white as lightning in the flash of the terrible teeth. Kit closed his eyes and still could see nothing but that intolerable whiteness. In it, everything vanished. There was nothing to be felt or experienced but pure power and the eternity in which it was happening. In the face of that irresistible brilliance, the Pullulus burned away like so much ash.
In the white timelessness, Kit stood for some while, as blind as any other wizard on the Moon. But presently he was able to see something dark; and a wagging shape came wandering along to him, and put its head under his hand.
“I have to go,” Ponch said. “But I wanted to thank you first!”
Kit got down beside his dog. “Thank me? For what?”
“You showed me what to do,” Ponch said. “Now dogs have a new story, and a new way to be… thanks to you.”
Kit shook his head, burying his face briefly against the glossy black of Ponch’s coat. “I’m going to miss you,” he said. “You’re not coming back, are you?”
“Not like this,” Ponch said. “I have another job now, and I have to get started. My people have been waiting for me for a long, long time. But I won’t ever really go away.” He looked up at Kit, and his eyes were full of starlight now. “And dogs won’t really seem to change that much. Some old ways of being are good, while we work out what the new ones are.”
Kit put his arms around Ponch and held him for a long time. He had no idea how long they remained like that, or when the light began to fade. But gradually it paled, like dawn in reverse, and Kit found himself kneeling in moondust. He looked up and saw nothing above him but starry night, untroubled by any darkness except the one that properly lives between the stars.
Nita was crouching down by him, looking closely at Kit. “You all right?” she said.
Kit let out a long breath and looked around him. What he had been holding was gone. “Yeah,” he said. “I think so.”
Nita sighed, too, as she stood, looking over to where Carmela was standing with one arm around Dairine. “And as for you!” she said to the Pig, which was standing on the other side of Kit.
“Tell me you’re not going to ask me that question!” said the Pig.
“I was going to ask you,” Nita said, “whether all that was what I thought it was.”
“If you thought that dogs now finally have their own version of the One,” said the Transcendent Pig, “then the answer is yes.”
Kit was shaking his head. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “Are you trying to tell me that my dog—my dog was—”
“Was? No. Is? Yes, it’s the ‘spell-it-backward’ joke again,” the Pig said, with some resignation. “The One just loves those old jokes. The older, the better.” It raised its bristly eyebrows. “Making a big BANG! sound and running off to hide behind the nearest chunk of physical existence, like some kid ringing the doorbell at Halloween. And the puns. Don’t get It started on the puns… you’ll be there forever.” It smiled. “Literally. But what did you expect? Your dog started making universes out of nothing. This wasn’t a slight tip-off?”
“And not just making them,” Nita said. “Saving them.”
“Or saving one person,” Kit said.
“It’s the same thing, I’m told,” said the Pig; and it vanished.
Kit looked around at the thousands of astonished and exhausted wizards. Then he looked along the arc of the now-dimming spell diagram, and saw Dairine standing there, holding in her hands a collar with a stone that had gone as clear as water, and now was shading gently toward gold; and beyond her, off in the background, Ronan’s still form. “This is going to take a while to sort out,” he said, and wiped his eyes. “Let’s go home.”
15: Armistice
It was, of course, not so simple. There was first of all the matter of Ronan.
His problem was easier to solve than Nita had feared. In the company of three thousand wizards, there were always going to be many who were expert at healing, and some far more so than Nita was. Within a very short time, Darryl had introduced Nita to a spiky-haired fifteen-year-old boy in floppy surfer shorts and a jeans jacket. As he hunkered down by where Ronan hovered, Nita found herself looking at the boy curiously, for he was familiar somehow.
“Missed the heart by about a centimeter,” he said in an Aussie accent, running his manual up and down over Ronan’s chest and looking at the visualization of the wound that appeared on the manual’s pages. “Went right past the right atrium into the lung, but below the major bronchi, and cauterized the tissue on the way in, so the lung didn’t bleed or collapse. Missed the vena cava, too!” He sat back on his heels. “Couldn’t have done it better with a scalpel, but that’d be the Spear for you. Whatever he might have had in mind, it didn’t care to kill him. Or need to, I’m thinking—the trauma and shock did the job of letting the Defender out, not to mention his own intentions. I don’t think he lost all that much blood.”
“Now I remember you,” Nita said. “We met in the Crossings!”
The boy blinked at her, then he grinned. “No accidents,
are there?” he said. “Call me Matt, cousin. Get ready to pull this stasis off him, and we’ll have him right as rain in no time.”
It was a little longer than no time, and Matt looked a little pale by the time it was over. But fifteen minutes or so later, Ronan lay breathing quietly, and Matt was sitting in the moondust getting his breath back, his own wounds closing up. Like most healing wizardries, this one had needed blood.
“But he’s not conscious!” Nita said.
“He won’t be for a little,” Matt said. “His body’s still got to deal with the leftovers from the shock. Take him home, stick him in bed, let him have a few hours’ rest. He’s been through the wringer.” Matt gave Nita a look, and glanced at Kit, who’d come to join them. “But so have you.”
“He can be in my room,” Dairine said from behind them. “I have some things to take care of.”
Nita looked at Dairine with some concern. Her sister was holding Spot, which was normal enough, but so calm and flat a tone of voice was alien to her. Behind her, Carmela glanced at Dairine, then at Nita, and raised her eyebrows.
Nita nodded, and got up. “Sounds good. Matt, thanks!”
“No problem. Have him get in touch with me in a couple of days. I’ll want to do a follow-up,” Matt said as he stood up. “I’m in the book.” He sketched them a small salute, and vanished.
They looked around them, watching the crater start to empty out. Nita looked up at that dark sky, full of stars again, and breathed out in relief. “Come on,” she said.
They all vanished too.
***
Her backyard looked so utterly ordinary that Nita could barely believe it, the late-afternoon shadows of spring lying over it absolutely as usual. She sighed. “We’ve got to go back and touch base with Sker’,” she said. “See if he’s found his ancestor yet.”
Dairine nodded and went ahead of them, very quietly, unlocking the back door and vanishing into the house. Carmela glanced at Kit, then started after her.
Nita put out a hand. “Let her go,” she said. “‘Mela, maybe this is a job for you. Want to go check on Sker’ret?”