Wizards At War

“No,” the Lone One said, “seriously. Why should I exert myself? Not a single one of you has enough power to turn lemons into lemonade. And that’s not going to change.” It strolled over toward the softly growling Ponch. “Not even he can get out of here; his abilities, not that I care to try to understand them, are derived from wizardry as well. You’re all completely stuck.”

It turned Its back on Ponch and wandered over to Memeki. “I admit,” It said, “normally just killing you would be my initial impulse. But I’m thinking it would be more fun just to let you all wander around on this planet for the rest of your natural lives, which probably wouldn’t be long: there’s not much to eat or drink here that your metabolisms are built to handle. But you’d live quite long enough to suffer from some of the things that are going to happen as a result of your failure.”

The Lone One came to a halt by Memeki’s side, gazing down at her. “And as for the attempted ‘Aeon of Light’ here,” It said, kicking Memeki idly with one booted toe, “the Unfallen One and all the rest of the fancy terminology—well, she’s a spent force. She waited a few seconds too long to make up her mind. When I sealed wizardry away, she lost access to the power that would have allowed her to enact her transformation. So, starting in a few minutes, when the grubs hatch and she begins to die, her embodiment will officially have failed … and after that, I won’t ever have to worry about the much-waited-for Hesper again, in this or any universe. You did know that if an emergent Power’s first embodiment fails, both the being inside time and the being outside in timelessness cease to exist?”

Nita glanced over at Kit and the others, miserable. “Oh, good, you knew,” the Lone One said, pleased. “That will make your failure hurt lots worse. If a Power hasn’t actually been on hand at the creation of a physical universe, the initial successful embodiment is the risk it has to take to insert itself into one. If the Hesper had been smart and stayed outside of so-called reality, in timelessness, I’d have left it completely alone. But once it decided to meddle in what’s going on inside physicality, it had to pass this test first, which always eventually attracts my attention, though this time it took a little more tracking down than usual. I’ve been expecting this move ever since my so-called redemption. The One didn’t wait nearly as long as I thought It would. Its mistake.”

The Lone One looked down at Memeki, amused, and turned away. “So, no more Hesper. She’s about to do what all good mothers on Rashah do—die.” It smiled at Nita and Dairine. “Her children will go on to start useful and productive careers as my slaves. And I’ll have at least a few aeons’ more peace and quiet until the Powers decide to try another stunt like this.”

“I doubt it will be anything like that long,” Filif said, giving the Lone One a look of massive disapproval out of every berry-eye.

“Oh, I think it will,” the Lone One said. “The Powers That Be used up a great deal of energy setting up this project, and They hate to waste. Now, of course, I used up a fair amount, too, because I needed to distract all you little wizardly busybodies from noticing what I suspected was happening somewhere or other. It didn’t entirely work—after all, here you are. But all the same, you’ve done me a favor. Without all of you bringing Rashah to my attention, who knows whether I’d have been alerted to this problem right under my nose in time to do something about it?” It smiled again. “So the other Powers have outsmarted Themselves … and it’ll be a long time before they feel like trying this again.” It gave Filif an amused look. “Life on your planet will be so much mulch by then. Actually, it’ll be mulch a lot sooner, because even though I don’t mind all of you living out your little antlike lives in misery on Rashah, your worlds are going to pay up front for your meddling. Certainly you didn’t expect otherwise!”

“So you’re just going to let the Pullulus destroy everything,” Ronan said bleakly.

“Don’t be silly,” the Lone One said, sitting down on the dais and crossing Its legs. “If I did that, what would be left to play with? There are billions of years’ worth of suffering left in your universe yet. Oh, I’m finished with the Pullulus now. When I withdraw my attention from it, it’ll run down in a hurry. While it didn’t completely do what I wanted it to, it did disrupt or even destroy a good number of civilizations in the populated galaxies. The other Powers will waste far more energy trying to save the maximum number of all those trillions of endangered lives than I ever spent destroying them. So I’ve won this round on two counts.”