Wizards At War

The cave in the outcropping on Rashah had become a busy place. The fifth of seven Yaldiv-shaped mochteroofs stood on the floor on its delicate walking-legs, at the center of a circle of bright floating wizard-lights. All the mochteroofs’ underlying spell structures were exposed, a wire-frame of wizardry. Filif was looking it over, checking all the fine details to make sure everything was in place. The other four mochteroofs stood complete—images of giant bugs all still and shining, each one waiting for a wizard to step into it and bring it to life. Off to one side of the circle of lights, Dairine and Kit and Roshaun and Ronan and Ponch sat or sprawled on blankets or pads from the pup tents, waiting for Filif to finish.

“Each one of these is going to have to be a little different,” Filif said, drifting around the mochteroof and poking the occasional frond into it here and there to test its disguise routines. “After all, if we all looked exactly identical, that could provoke as much attention as all of us just walking around in our own shapes.”

Dairine smiled. Filif was fussing, and typically for him, he seemed not to have noticed that no one was paying much attention. But Dairine didn’t think he minded. Also typically of him, he had understood about the Hesper more quickly than any of them, even Ronan. Ronan was having problems, and Dairine was getting increasingly tempted to kick him, except that it wouldn’t have helped.

Then again, maybe it’s not just Ronan, she thought. His invisible friend may have reason to feel odd about all this, too…

“Fil?” Dairine said. “How much longer, do you think?”

“Perhaps twenty minutes,” Filif said, poking another frond into the mochteroof. “Planet dusk is coming. When it does, we’ll be ready for it.”

“‘Enthusiasmic,’” Ronan said, shaking his head. “You sure it didn’t say ‘enthusiastic’?”

Dairine glanced over at Spot. Spot grew some legs and toddled over to where Ronan sat cross-legged with the Spear across his lap. The mobile flipped his screen open and showed Ronan the word that had appeared under the surface of the mobiles’ world.

“See,” Dairine said. “It’s got the root word for a spirit, not just a mortal soul but one that’s a lot more powerful. One that can confer immortality on its vessel, once it gets properly seated.” She shook her head. “And ‘incorporation,’ over there—it doesn’t have anything to do with industry. There’s the ‘ensoulment’ root, but with that procedural suffix. It’s not something that’s finished with; it’s an ongoing process.”

“One that could get derailed,” Kit said.

“We’d better hope not,” said Spot.

“But think of it,” Roshaun said. “A new Power, never seen before. Not just a redeemed version of the Isolate, but something truly new. A version of the Lone Power that never fell.”

He crumpled up the wrapper of the fifth or sixth of Dairine’s trail-mix bars, and tossed it away. Dairine smiled half a smile. He had been eating more or less constantly since they got here: first a lot of his own food, and then (without having asked permission) one after another of Dairine’s trail-mix bars. She was putting up with it because he seemed distracted, but also because she had used this opportunity to push off on him a lot of the bars that contained dried cranberries, which she hated.

“This moment has been a very long time coming,” said the Champion after a few moments. “If the embodiment survives long enough to come to Its full power, then the universe is truly changed.”

“If it does,” Kit said. “But no wonder the Pullulus is happening now. If It knows about this, the Lone Power must be completely freaked. A completely new Power is coming into the game. One that’s going to be the Lone One’s very own dedicated enemy…”

Ponch lifted his head, and his tail banged against the floor. I told you I smelled something brand-new! he said. That’s part of what I was following.

If It knows, the Champion said. Great efforts have been made to keep It from discovering all the details. Or any of the other Powers, for that matter. If, as seems to be the case, the efforts to keep the secret have been successful … then our job is to make sure that the ensoulment goes through without a hitch.

“All we have to do now is find out who’s going to be the Hesper,” Kit said. “Get to it, and find out what we have to do to help it.”