Wizards At War

Nita nodded, her mouth feeling dry again. It got drier when she looked up. Out in space, in what should have been a vast expanse of bright, unblinking stars, there was a huge blot of darkness, as if someone had spilled ink. At the edges of that huge, irregular patch, the stars twinkled and went faint.

Nita shivered all over. She had seen this in dreams, fleetingly, even before they got back from their trip to Alaalu—this darkness gradually and inexorably drawing across the stars. I was hoping it was just a nightmare, she thought. I should have known better. “So there’s still nobody to deal with this but us,” she said. “Question is, who’s in charge?”

Kit shook his head. “Not sure it’s the right question to be asking,” he said. “Let’s get on down there and see.”

However, someone had seen them appear at the crater’s rim and was already heading up toward them. Nita looked down, spotting the tropical-print tunic and the miniskirt and leggings, and that long, long dark hair that she’d admired so much, and immediately knew it was Tran Hung Nguyet bouncing upslope.

“You guys!” Nguyet said, shaking her head in astonishment as she came up to them. “You dropped right out of the manuals for a long time. We thought we’d lost you.”

“Were you waiting for us?” Nita said.

Nguyet shook her head. “A little too busy, sorry,” she said. “But I felt the power pop out all of a sudden.” She glanced over at Dairine, who was putting Spot down so that he could put his legs out and make his own way. “Is it him? He feels a lot different from before. Which is good, because we need all the power we can get right now.” She looked up at Ronan, hanging there in stasis. “What happened to him?”

“The Spear of Light,” Kit said.

Nguyet looked stunned. “And he’s still here?”

“I think he got some kind of special dispensation,” Dairine said.

“Boy, he must have,” Nguyet said. “Come on, we need you. Almost all of us are back in-system now—the ones who were away hunting a solution for the Pullulus as a whole got word through the manuals that its power supply had been ‘withdrawn.’ Then all of a sudden that changed to ‘abrogated.’” She gave them a look that was peculiarly admiring. “You got lucky again, didn’t you?” Nguyet said.

“I don’t know if lucky’s the way to put it,” Nita muttered.

“Well, that’s how my brother keeps putting it,” said Nguyet. “You should take it up with him, because he keeps going on about how your part of the world is ruining everybody’s statistical averages. Though just what Mister Number Cruncher means by that, I have no idea. If we all live through this, maybe one of you can stay awake long enough for him to explain what he’s talking about.” She rolled her eyes. “Bring some caffeine or a stay-awake spell.”

Dairine looked bemused. “What statistical averages?”

Nguyet shook her head. “This would not be my department,” she said. “You want to know about skateboarding or weather wizardries, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Math is Tuyet’s problem. Meanwhile, let’s get down there.”

They all headed downslope together. “Where is Tuyet?” Nita said.

“Down there helping coordinate the group,” said Nguyet. “There are maybe three thousand of us.” She shook her head. “Not as many as I wish we had … mostly human, and a few of the heavy hitters from the Affiliate species. Anyone Senior who’s still functioning, and everybody else with any special skills, is down on Earth. They’re all busy keeping things from blowing up. Literally.”

It was surprising how grim such a delicately pretty face could look, and Nita felt increasingly uneasy as they made their way down to the fringes of the huge crowd. Wizards of every height and shape and color were there, and of every age between eight or nine and maybe sixteen. There were several dolphins and small whales hanging in force-field–confined water jackets, and a very few cats scattered about. Though it all looked disorganized, Nita could see a lot of the most central group standing around the huge spell diagram in the middle of the crater. Its characters and arcs were rippling with the subdued fire of a wizardry on “hold,” completely implemented except for the starting command and the attachment of power sources.

Dairine and Roshaun and Carmela took a moment to guide Ronan off to one side of the crowd and put him carefully down. Then they made their way back to where Nita and Kit and Nguyet were examining the spell. “Complicated,” Dairine said as they came up to the edge of the spell and everyone could get a good look at it. “A repulsor?”

“That’s right,” Nguyet said, as Tuyet came bouncing along to join them. “Seemed like the smartest thing to do was to concentrate on pushing the Pullulus as far out into space as we could. Increasing its distance minimizes its effects, and we may be able to buy ourselves enough time for it to lose power and die off, the way it’s doing a lot of other places.”