Wizards At War

Nita nodded. “It’s in novice mode; all you have to do is walk,” she heard Kit saying to Carmela, who was inside one of the mochteroofs now. “Walk the way you usually do … Uh, maybe not that way, but just—”

“Thank you so much,” Carmela said sweetly, “but it’s not like this is the entertainment system and I need a little kid to program it for me or anything.”

Nita could just hear Kit gritting his teeth. “Ponch,” he said. “You ready?”

Always.

“Let’s go!”

They all stepped forward, vanishing—

—and came out together in some anonymous City tunnel, strung out along it: Kit and Ponch first, with Nita, Carmela, Ronan, and Memeki close behind them, and Roshaun and Filif and Dairine, with Spot, bringing up the rear. Inside the City, everything was terribly quiet—a heavy, hot, unechoing silence like being in a closed room.

Nita stood still with the others for a moment, listening, and looking around at the strange papery walls with their endless messages: The Commorancy is all, the Outside is the Enemy, the different is the dangerous. But clearer than any of the writings was the message that she felt all around her, thousands of point-sources of darkness, inert for the moment but ready to awaken: the avatar-presence of the Lone Power in every single Yaldiv, owning every soul in the City, each one ready and eager to do Its will. They’re bad news, she could just hear Darryl saying. Deadly. And I think if you hang around where they are, somebody’s going to get killed.

Nita was trembling with nerves and sheer weariness. Stronger far now than the individual Yaldiv avatars in its pressure against her mind was the sense of one presence that was no longer running on automatic. Nita could sense it right through the walls, a core of burning darkness which was definitely the parent of the sparks of dark fire inside Memeki. It’s not going to wait for matters to take their course, Nita thought.

She glanced behind her. Through the shell of Filif’s mochteroof, she could see the dark green light of a locator spell. It’s as Ponch thought, Filif said, his eye-berries glowing faintly through the mochteroof‘s illusion-field as he looked at the others. Our cavern is full of warriors again; they’ve broken in through a new tunnel. Easily a hundred of them.

“At least we’re not there,” Kit said. “And they may waste a little more time thinking we are, and looking for us.” He glanced back at Memeki. “So, to the grubbery?”

Nita turned to Memeki. The Yaldah rubbed her foreclaws together, shivering.

“Yes,” she said. “If I’m not there when the others wake, they will raise the alarm.”

It’s raised already! Nita wanted to say, but she restrained herself. Give her the time to realize the truth. Until it’s plain there’s no more time left. “Ponch, you know the way?” Nita said.

Of course. He sounded faintly offended. We’re not very close; if they were waiting for us, I wanted a chance to know about it and go somewhere else. But we’re not very far, either.

“Let’s go,” Kit said.

Ponch led them down through that tunnel and paused at the end of it; the passage they were in grew broader, and two narrower ones led off left and right. He chose the right-hand one, and Kit followed him.

One after another, cautious, they went after. Nita was listening with all of her for the sound of other claws on the floor of the tunnel but heard nothing. Next to her, Carmela—who had been watching Ronan as she walked—staggered into the right-hand wall and rebounded. Ronan rolled his eyes and looked away.

“‘Mela,” Nita said under her breath, “you need to stop concentrating on someone else’s hottitude and get serious, okay? We are not in a safe place here.”

“Yeah, okay,” Carmela muttered. But she shot Nita a sly look. “See that? Hung up on my little brother as you unfortunately are, I got you to admit it. He is utterly hot.”

“I am not—” Nita exhaled in exasperation. “Forget it. As for Ronan—yeah, he has his moments.”

“Without a doubt,” Carmela said. “And how many of his moments have you had?”

Nita gave Carmela an evil look as they turned a corner. “It’s possible to be too nosy,” she said, “even around people as perfect as Kit and me.”

Carmela looked thoughtful. “‘Perfect,’” she said experimentally. “‘Kit.’” Then she shook her head. “Sorry, Neets, one of those words is in the wrong sentence…”