Wizards At War

Down at the far end of the crevasse, something went BANG!, the abnormally loud sound of a worldgating in an enclosed space where the air was more than usually well sealed in. Then came another loud report, and another, the sound of some kind of energy weapon. Kit’s heart froze as a Yaldiv fell over, and behind it, through the dust and smoke kicked up by the fighting, he could faintly see a human shape glance around her and swing the long, lean shape of a wizardly accelerator up to her shoulder. Kit swallowed hard. Of all the times Nita could have turned up, this was both the best and the worst. She started firing.

“Roshaun?” Kit shouted.

A moment more! the silent answer came back as Roshaun kept reciting the spell. “—from the heliospasm into the following coordinate sets—”

More weapons fire spat from the far end of the crevasse, some kind of plasma blast, every blast perfectly targeted and every one knocking another Yaldiv down. Kit stared over that way, distracted as he wondered whether Nita somehow had two weapons going at once. No, of course, it’s Sker’ret—and then the claws scrabbling at his shield suddenly seemed significantly closer, as the shield bowed in toward Kit a little. He gulped, and concentrated on pouring more power into it, while more Yaldiv warriors than ever came boiling up out of the crevasse, flinging themselves at Kit’s shield. Kit did everything he could to ignore what was going on outside the shield now, a task made easier by the fact that there was nothing to see but the bodies and claws and tearing mandibles of Yaldiv warriors. “Roshaun?!”

There was no answer—and then, between one breath and the next, it was as if a star had fallen into the crevasse. The blinding light struck like fiery arrows through every space around Kit that was not filled with Yaldiv. Their rattling, scratchy roaring was now replaced by a high keening whine as they dropped away from the shield, knocked or blasted off it and down into the light. In the depths of the crevasse, Kit could hear the rumbling and rattling of shattering stone suddenly dwindle to nothing, swallowed up by a sluggish, heavy boiling sound as a blast of heat blew up from below. Kit said the few words in the Speech to retune the shield for heat as well as physical impact, and put a hand out to the shaking Memeki.

Ponch got under that hand as well, nuzzling it. Did we win?

“Let you know in a minute,” Kit said. There were no more Yaldiv cries. Slowly, in the silence, the hot light vanished, replaced by a low golden-red glow that, in turn, faded to a sullen red, cooling along with the newly melted stone that now filled the former crevasse.

Kit turned his back on the magma. Its heat was still intense, but not so much so that the shield was needed anymore, so he dissolved it.

“Neets!” Dairine went tearing across the cavern. Beside Kit, Memeki lifted herself up a little to watch her go. Ponch leaped up and shook himself, headed after Dairine.

Across the cavern, Dairine tackled Nita in a hug that nearly knocked her over. Nita, grinning, hugged her back while struggling for balance. “Neets!” Kit shouted as he went after Ponch, doing his best to not look like he was ready to break into a run. “Finally! Where were you?” He paused. “Where’s Sker’ret? Who’s—”

That other figure, who had transited in with Nita and had been facing the other way, now turned around, waving a hand in front of her face to fan away some of the rock dust still floating in the air.

Kit’s mouth dropped open. “What are— Why are— Since when are you supposed to be here?”

His sister smiled her sunniest and most infuriating smile at him. “Since I got hold of the manual,” Carmela said.

Kit’s heart simply froze.

“But this is all just too much for you right now, isn’t it?” Carmela said. “Never mind, I’ll go talk to someone I’m much more interested in. Oh, Ronan…” And she headed away.

Not even if the Lone Power Itself had walked into the cavern right then could Kit have done anything whatever but stand there in shock. Oh no, Kit thought. No, no, no, this is worse than bad, so much worse. What did I do to deserve this?

He turned back to Nita. To his complete astonishment, she was still hugging Dairine. “I was so worried about you.”

“I was worrying, too. What about Dad?”

“He’s okay.”

“Uh, Neets,” Kit said.

She glanced over at him, smiling. “Oh, and your pop and mama,” Nita said, “they’re okay, too, my dad says.”

“That wasn’t what I was worried about.”

Nita gave him a look. “You weren’t?”

He looked over at Carmela. “Neets, what happened with her?”

Nita’s expression was both bemused and appreciative. “She showed up on Rirhath B and blew six kinds of crap out of a bunch of alien invaders,” Nita said. “We didn’t get too much further into the details: there wasn’t time.” She paused and looked at Memeki.