Wizards At War

The wizards milling around the edges of the spell were now moving in closer to it. Kit knelt down and tucked his name into one of the open receptor sites; Nita did the same. Across the diagram, she saw small, trim Tuyet in his long jacket stepping into the diagram and carefully picking his way among the various statements and routines to stand in the farther of the two inner circles. Just in front of them, Nguyet was making for the other circle as Nita straightened up. “Nguyet,” she said, “aren’t there some other pairs of twins up here? You could increase the power feed to this even more—”

“Won’t work,” Nguyet said. “We’ve got three pairs of identical twins, but if identicals try to bounce a spell back and forth between them, it just cancels out. Only two-egg twins are far enough out of phase to keep the spell from canceling and close enough to make it augment. You ready?”

Nita nodded, and Nguyet headed off for her circle. Nita glanced down to her left along the outer arc, past Kit, and saw Dairine and Roshaun kneeling about a hundred yards down, with Spot crouching just outside the circle, between them. A movement behind her caught her attention, and Nita looked over her shoulder to see Carmela sitting down cross-legged a little ways behind them. “I’ll sit this one out,” she said, looking out across the spell diagram with an intrigued expression.

Kit glanced at Nita with a resigned look. Take my advice, Nita said silently. If any of us walk away from this… at your earliest convenience, get her another curling iron!

He smiled slightly. Yeah. And, Neets—if we don’t walk away from this—

Normally she would have said something reassuring right away. But she was desperately tired, and very nervous… and the darkness above them continued to grow. There’s always Timeheart, she said.

Yeah.

Kit turned to look at Ponch, who was now sitting beside him, looking out alertly over the spell. Big guy, he said silently, you need to promise me something.

Okay!

If something bad happens to us, you need to get Carmela out of here.

Sure. And you, too—

I don’t know about that, Kit said. But make sure you get Carmela out, hear me? Take her home, and then get Mama and Pop, and Nita’s dad, and take them away from Earth. Take them somewhere safe.

Ponch blinked. But why?

Look, explaining’s going to take too long. Just promise me!

Ponch started to look upset. Nita blinked hard at the distress in his face and in his thought. All right, but—

“Okay,” Nguyet said to all the wizards gathered around the circle. She didn’t need to raise her voice: anyone whose name was written into that spell could hear her as clearly as if she were standing next to them. “Let’s do this just like the last time, but let’s have this one work. Start with the knot, end with the knot… now!”

All the voices beginning to recite the spell—either from the manual in front of each wizard’s eyes or from the larger diagram in front of them—made a silence that swiftly drowned out all the lesser sounds associated with so big a group. All the many voices started to sound like one gigantic one, and the universe leaned in to listen, not once but a thousand times, three thousand times, and more. Nita read along with everybody else as far as she needed to, but her attention was on the line of light that ran from where she’d put her hands down on either side of her manual, out into the spell itself. Next to her, she could see the light of donated energy running into the spell from Kit. Responding to the growing silence, Nita could feel the peridexis moving at the back of her mind, growing, pouring energy out into her for her use, and ready to give as much as she asked of it. But remember, if you ask it for too much, it’ll give you too much, and you’ll burn yourself to a crisp…

Nita watched Nguyet over at her side of the circle, and Tuyet at the other. Both of them stood still as statues, their hands held out toward each other. There was no other physical sign of what was going on with them, but Nita could feel the power that she and all the other wizards were pouring into the spell as they spoke, and could feel each half of the twychild taking that power, sending it along to the other one, standing briefly empty to receive what the other sent; then sending it back again, and again.