Wizards At War

I wouldn’t bet on it! Nita said as their Yaldiv escort hauled them around another long curve and pushed them into a wide spherical chamber. Its far door was guarded by another warrior, possibly the biggest one Nita had seen yet. For the moment, you’re keeping me sane. She gulped, because the memory of that horrible moment of disbelief in Tom and Carl’s backyard now rose up in front of her as something she definitely never wanted to experience again. You’re proof that wizardry’s been real, even if it’s not working right now. So just hang in there, because right now I need you!

The warriors turned the group loose inside the chamber and went to block the door behind them. The ten of them all clustered together in the center of the room, the humanoids rubbing their various bruises. Muttering under her breath, Dairine picked up Spot, who’d been unceremoniously dumped on the floor, and stood looking around her with a ferocious scowl. Ronan threw a furious look at the warrior holding the Spear, and eyed Dairine with a sort of disgruntled admiration. “What is it with these Callahan women?” he said to Kit as he tried to flex one strained shoulder back into working order.

Kit shook his head. “You okay?” he said to Dairine.

“Yeah. But Spot’s not. He’s gone mute, and his eyes and legs are gone.”

“Pop his screen,” Kit said. “See if you get any manual functions. Roshaun?”

Roshaun opened one cupped hand, the gesture he usually used to bring up the little matrix of light that was his implementation of the manual. But nothing happened. He shook his head at Kit.

“Fil?”

Filif rustled all his branches, No.

Nita swallowed. She reached for her otherspace pocket … and couldn’t find it. She pulled the rowan wand out of the belt of her jeans, and found it nothing but a peeled white stick. She lifted her charm bracelet, shook it—

But now it was just a bracelet, and the charms jingled harmlessly. A lightning bolt, a circle with the number 26, a little fish, a few other symbols.

Dairine had been tapping at Spot’s keyboard. Now she was scowling harder than ever. “No manual,” she said. “He’s still in there, he can communicate through the software, but that’s all. No access to the manual functions. And he can’t hear his homeworld, or any of his people.” She let out an unhappy breath, closed Spot up again, and went back to hugging him. “We’re cut off.”

Kit had also been feeling in the air for his pocket; he couldn’t find his, either. “Okay,” he said, “we’re supposed to become useless, now, because we think we’re marooned, completely isolated, and totally powerless. Forgive me if I don’t feel like cooperating. What can we do?” He looked around at them. No one volunteered any thoughts.

The warrior who had been blocking the door before them now moved away from it, and another figure came through.

It was the Arch-votary in its patterned shell. Slowly, it approached, those massive claws raised. Nita held her ground, and saw that the others were doing the same, though Ponch, sticking close to Kit’s side, growled softly, and the fur over his shoulders and down his back was bristling.

The Arch-votary stopped, looming up before them. “Evil ones,” it said, “enemies of the Great One, come and be judged.”

Roshaun lifted his head and gave the Arch-votary an inexpressibly haughty look. “Killed, perhaps,” he said. “But your dark Master has neither authority nor right to judge us. Therefore stand away, lackey, and keep silent in the presence of your betters.”

And Roshaun swept straight past the Arch-votary, right on through that doorway into the central cavern, leaving the angry and befuddled Yaldiv staring after him. Dairine went straight past it, too, throwing it a dirty and dismissive look, and followed Roshaun. Carmela and Ronan and Filif went after her. After a moment’s hesitation, Memeki followed Filif through the doorway, and Ponch, with a glance back at Kit, trotted after her, growling.

Kit and Nita threw each other a glance and headed after Ponch. “Roshaun really comes into his own in situations like this,” Kit said under his breath, glancing over his shoulder as the Arch-votary and the warriors followed them in.

“You’ve got a point,” Nita muttered back, “but if it’s all the same to you, I don’t want to be in any more situations like this.”

“If we don’t get real lucky in the next few minutes,” Kit said, “you can relax, because we won’t be.”

They passed through the door, their guards following.