Wizards At War

Her expression appeared shocked, but somehow not in a way Kit had expected. It was almost as if she was seeing something she’d half expected. She let go of Dairine at last, and pushed her hair back on one side as she looked at the Yaldiv.

“This is Memeki,” Kit said.

Nita and Memeki exchanged a glance. “Yes,” Nita said slowly, “she is.”

Okay, this is getting weird, Kit thought, but I should be used to that by now. “We can’t stay here long,” Kit said. “More of these guys are probably coming; we should find somewhere else to be.”

“Okay,” Nita said, “but before anything else happens, I really need something to drink. Has she stolen all my sodas yet?”

Dairine looked innocent. “She would have,” Kit said, “except I stole some first and stuck them in my pup tent.”

Nita punched him gratefully in the shoulder. “Knew I could count on you,” she said, and headed that way.

Kit watched her go, then turned and let out a long, frustrated breath as he saw Carmela prattling away to Ronan. This is going to take forever to sort out, he thought as Ponch came trotting back toward him. Not that we’ve got that much forever left. “You all right?” he said to Ponch.

I’m fine! It’s so great that Nita’s back!

“No argument,” Kit said.

And Carmela! I wondered when she’d get here. I missed her! And everybody else was here, so she needed to be here, too.

Kit rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.” He turned to Memeki. “Memeki, how are you feeling?”

Memeki appeared to be finding it hard to speak. Ponch nosed her. She was a little nervous at first, he said, but I knew you’d save us.

I wish I’d been that certain, Kit thought. Memeki was watching Filif lower the mochteroofs back into place, and Kit saw, to his satisfaction, that at least her trembling had stopped. “I was afraid,” she said. “But you protected me as you said you would.” She sounded troubled. “Yet why did the warriors try to kill me? Has my scent changed? I am one of the Favored; no warrior should dare to touch me!”

“I don’t know,” Kit said. He patted her carapace. “We’ll try to find out. Meanwhile, I think we’re going to have to get out of here pretty quick. Ponch, stay with her and take care of her, okay?”

I will.

He headed over to where Roshaun and Dairine were talking to Nita. “Roshaun,” Kit said, “that was a sweet one.”

Roshaun looked startled. “‘Sweet’?”

Kit laughed. “An idiom,” he said. “What you did, whatever that was, it was terrific!”

“I did a location-to-location matter transfer,” Roshaun said. “It was… surprisingly effective.” And he smiled.

“You find a volcano on this planet somewhere?”

“Oh, no. I borrowed some stellar metal from the system primary: iron, mostly.” Kit’s eyes went wide. “It’s a novel technique,” Roshaun said, and glanced over at Dairine.

Kit raised his eyebrows. The thought that Dairine had been not only practicing fast-deployment routines for pulling white-hot atmospheric iron out of stars, but also coaching someone else in it, freaked him out slightly. But then Roshaun’s good with stars. Maybe I shouldn’t worry.

In the meantime, there were two other things Kit was going to have to handle in a hurry, and it took him several moments to figure out which of them he disliked more. He sighed and went over to where Ronan was taking down his pup-tent interface. “Are you okay?” he said.

Ronan nodded, the usual curt gesture.

“Then do you mind telling me what just happened here?” Kit said. “I thought you said the Champion could cover for us!”

“I thought he could, too,” Ronan said. “But he’s on it again, reinforcing the safeguards that slipped.”

“And how long’s he going to be able to hold them in place this time?” Kit said. “If they slipped once, they’re likely to do it again. It’s the Pullulus, isn’t it? It’s affecting even him now.”

Ronan nodded. “Or his presence inside time, inside me. He didn’t feel it happening at first, and now he’s getting worried.”

“He’s getting worried!” Kit rubbed his face. “So when we get out of here, is he going to be any use to us?” Kit said. “And what about you? What—” The temptation to say What good are you without him? was considerable, but Kit restrained himself. “What’s it going to take to get him back into shape?”

“Getting rid of the Pullulus would do it,” Ronan said, grim. “And while there is one other way, it’d probably take another sixty or seventy years to finesse, so maybe we’d better concentrate on taking care of Memeki.”