Wizards At War

Nita thought of Della in her dream: the claw pushing the hair back, the way Memeki groomed her palp, that nervous gesture. Come on, give me a hint: What am I supposed to be doing to make everything turn out all right? You’re supposed to know what They want, you’re the one who’s supposed to have all the answers.

Her mouth had gone as dry as any desert, but Nita managed to open it, and said, very softly, “I can’t tell you.”

“But you have to! You know!”

I know the right answer. At least, I know a right answer. And it would be so easy to tell her. But if I did… She couldn’t even swallow, she was so scared, for Nita was sure that giving Memeki any answer would completely screw everything up. It’s not what Tom or Carl would do. And if I’m being a Senior, it’s not what I should do either.

“Tell me!” Memeki pleaded.

“Memeki, if I tell you what to say,” Nita said, “it’s not your choice.”

Behind her, Nita could hear Ponch starting to growl. She forced herself to ignore him.

“And you have to choose,” Nita said. “If you don’t, we’ll have come here all this way for nothing. Except to die.”

“That is a hard saying!” Memeki said. She sounded hurt and indignant, like someone under unfair pressure.

“Unfortunately, it’s also a true one,” Nita said. “Wizards tell the truth. Sometimes it’s all we’ve got: one way or another, the words wind up doing the job.”

“I need time! Time to think, to decide—”

“There is no time,” Nita said. “And this kind of choice won’t need time. It’s done in a flash, in a breath. All you have to do is be willing to finally make it, instead of putting it off!”

Memeki turned away from her.

Nita broke out in a cold sweat. Oh, please don’t let me have messed up! she thought. If I’ve ruined this somehow, if the whole universe is going to go dark because I just said the wrong thing—

“Nita,” Ronan said. “Now. “

Her head came right around at the sound of sheer command in his voice—and the unexpected desperation.

“They’re coming,” he said, and this time it was just Ronan. “He can’t hide us anymore. His power’s going, and there’s another great lot of them coming. Five times as many as last time, maybe more. Something’s waking up in the City.”

Nita swallowed. His power’s going? How long is ours going to last? “Look,” she said, “maybe we can help Him. Pass Him some power, or operate His shield routine independently. Can you feed Spot the cloaking spell He was using? At least we can buy ourselves some time.”

Ronan frowned, a concentrating look. “I have it,” said Spot from across the room. “Working…”

“Everybody into the mochteroofs!” Filif said.

There was a wholesale scramble for them. “Ponch,” Kit said, “if You-Know-Who can feel our transits now, you’re going to have to walk us out of here: It doesn’t seem to be able to feel you. ‘Mela, here, get in—”

Nita stood for a moment more with her hand against Memeki’s carapace. Memeki swung herself around toward Nita, looked at her, and once again Nita was briefly dazzled by the reflections: mirror-shade eyes, dewdrops, and, suddenly, another eye looking out at her from one of the reflections—

Nita recoiled in terror as the myriad sparks of dark fire inside Memeki buzzed and jostled against one another with sudden rage. Nita jerked her hand away. “We’ll get you back to the grubbery,” she said, and turned and ran for her mochteroof.

“Ponch, where’s the leash?” Kit said.

I have it here.

“Great. Fil—”

“I thought we might wind up needing this kind of transit: I left an open receptor for the leash in all the mochteroof spells. Tell me the words for your end of the spell. I can chain them together.”

He thinks of everything, Nita thought as she got to her mochteroof and put her hands up against it. He’s a better Senior than any of us. Where’d we be without him? She melted straight through the virtual carapace, into the dim green insides of it. Light outside went monochrome, restating itself as heat and cool rather than light and darkness; the cavern around them blazed like day. Nita found the spell-handles inside that would let her wear the mochteroof in automatic mode, like a tight-fitting suit, and spoke the words in the Speech to activate each one. “Don’t worry about spoken conversation,” Filif said. “It’ll stay in-circuit; only wizards will be able to hear it.”