Wizards At War

But the story that your people tell each other now says something different, Ponch said.

“It says there was never any war before the War of Now,” Memeki said. “The only King that has ever been is our own Great One. And when we win the War of Now against the evil City, then the world will be pure.”

Ponch was quiet. Then he spoke again.

Do you want another biscuit?

What? Kit thought. Very slowly and cautiously, so as not to make any noise, he put his hand out beside him. The dog biscuit box was gone. Why, that sneaky—

Vague crunching noises came from the cavern, much amplified in Kit’s inner hearing by the fact that he was inside the mind of one of the creatures doing the chewing. After a moment, Memeki said, “What happens in your story?” She crunched a little more. “Is there a great war? Do suns fall from the sky?”

No, Ponch said. There’s some singing, but mostly we eat.

Kit got a sudden glimpse of Memeki’s mirror-dark eyes looking down into Ponch’s. “Your people’s story… is about food?”

Later, Ponch said, yes. But it didn’t start that way. The crunching started up again.

I hadn’t thought about this for a long time, Ponch said after a moment. You tend not to think about it … there’s so much to keep you busy. Barking. Running. Eating. Doing what the One You’re With wants you to do. But that’s what we’ve done for a long time. We promised to take care of Them…

He trailed off. Kit asked me to tell him the story not long ago, Ponch said after some more crunching. It’s not the kind of thing you ever think of Them being concerned about: They’re even busier than we are. I was so surprised, I told him the puppy version, because I wasn’t sure how he would take the other one. We love Them, but humans can be strange sometimes.

Kit lay there, staring into the darkness, wondering what to make of this. The story seemed to be working its way out of Ponch with the same difficulty as it had worked its way out of Memeki.

It was a very long time ago, Ponch said, when our parents, the First Ones, realized who they were. They woke up and started singing to the Light in the Sky, and heard others singing back, so that they realized we were all singing the same song. Instead of staying alone, the First Ones started to run together in groups, hunting for food together. It was a hard time. The world was full of things to eat, but catching them was hard. Then many of the things we ate went away, or died, and many of us died, too. Our mothers bore more and more of us. They had to, because so many of us died young.

There was more crunching from Memeki. “That must have been terrible. What did you do?”

At first, we didn’t know what to do. There was a pause while Ponch put his nose into the dog biscuit box, knocked it over, and pawed another one out. Then some of the First Ones started to think, Maybe we should go away. Maybe there’ll be more food somewhere else. So we traveled. We journeyed a long way under the Light in the Sky, and came to a place where there was a little more food. But we found something else there, too. We found Them.