Wizards At War

“It is pleasant,” she said. She finished it up, then settled herself down again. Dairine sneaked another look at Spot’s readout. A lot better, she said to him. She’s calming down now.

That’s what happens when you have a name, Ponch said, and lay down near her, panting a little from all the bouncing and spinning around.

“This one supposes… if there is no harm… then there might be a name.” She still sounded very uncertain.

“Is there something the ones in the City say when they call this one to do something?” Kit said.

She glanced up. “They say it is unworthy of notice,” the Yaldiv said. “They say it is always the last one to be called.” Was that a touch of bitterness?

The last one, Dairine thought. She glanced down at Spot, who was still running analyses of words he had seen on the walls. He showed her a word, in both the Speech and the Yaldiv written language.

“Memeki,” Dairine said.

The dark eyes met hers again. “‘The last,’” she agreed. “It would not be a strange calling.”

“When one has a name,” Dairine said, “one’s not an it anymore. One is called you.”

She shivered again. “Another strangeness,” Memeki said. “This word also you has heard.”

“Sorry,” Dairine said. “Not enough explanation. When it speaks of itself, and has a name, it says, ‘I.’”

Memeki began to shake harder. Dairine swallowed and kept on going. “Like this. I see you.” She pointed first at herself, then at Memeki. “We—” She gestured at the others, then again at Memeki. “We see you.”

The trembling didn’t stop, but Memeki looked at them all, and then down at Ponch, who had rolled over on his back in front of her foreclaws, and now lay there exhibiting his not inconsiderable stomach. “And I—” She stopped. She lifted her claws, dropped them again.

“This one is afraid,” she said, so softly that they could barely hear it. “It knows this word. It never thought anyone else might.”

After a moment, Dairine said, “Tell how you know the word.”

Slowly Memeki made that palp-grooming gesture again, like pushing hair aside. “Often it wished when it was younger that it could achieve such merit as some of the Yaldat had,” she said. “But to serve the Great One personally is not an honor offered to many. And those Yaldat who had achieved such merit, they said it could never happen to this one; for this one was not fair enough to ever attract the King’s attention. This one came to believe them, and stopped hoping for more. It was content to serve in the grubbery, giving the young ones food in the less meritorious way. Such was honor enough.” She glanced down at Ponch, who was now lying there with his eyes closed.

“Yet there came a night when the City was closed as always,” she said. “And this one rested, as all rest when Sek is not in the sky. And in the time of rest, this one heard a voice.” She looked again at Ronan, and once again that tremor started to shake her limbs. “The voice was like the second voice that… you used to speak just now. It came from everywhere, and nowhere. It used the words you use, that this one had never heard before. It said, ‘You—’” Again she struggled to get the words out. “‘You can be far more than this. You can bring your people out of this place, this life, to something far greater. Will you do it?’”

The Yaldiv’s trembling was getting worse. “This one did not know what to answer. But the voice that whispered in the night said, ‘The ones who will show you the way will come. They will not be like you. When they come, listen to what they say. One will say the word you need to hear.’”

Memeki went quiet for a moment, looking at them. “The voice made this one frightened,” she said. “So many forbidden words… This one went through that next day in terror, thinking that those words might force their way out. For they were strong, and clamored to be spoken. They shouted night and day inside this one until it thought that Death was close to it! But nothing happened.”

Memeki still sounded frightened, but now a kind of wonder grew in her voice as well. “Then without warning came the day when what had until then seemed impossible nonetheless did happen. The Great One honored it. Everything was changed. And the rest of the Yaldat said, ‘See how merciful the Great One is! Even to such a one, whom all thought would be the last to be chosen, if it ever happened at all.’ This one became honored even among the workers and warriors. All of those said, ‘Here comes another of those who defend us from the evil Others; the mighty ones, the weapons in the Great One’s claw!’”