Wizards At War

Moondust flew up in a cloud as Ponch ran underneath S’reee to Kit. I’m here!

“Let’s go hunting.”

Oh boy!

“You going to be here later?” Kit said to Darryl.

“I’ll be one of the last ones out,” Darryl said. “Somebody has to clean up all the footprints when we’re done.”

Nita squeezed his shoulder. “Later,” she said, and went off to where Dairine and Roshaun were deep in conversation and, to judge by their expressions, having one more disagreement. As Nita bounced over, they looked up at her almost in relief.

“You heading out now?” she said.

“Yeah,” Dairine said. “Roshaun’s carrying his subsidized portal; we’ll use that. We’re going back to his place on Wellakh first.”

“All right,” Nita said. “Message me when you’re done there. But meantime, listen—”

“Yeah, I’ll be careful,” Dairine said. She turned away.

Nita took her sister gently by the arm, turned her back toward her. “Dair,” she said. “Giant bugs.”

“Huh?” Dairine turned to glance over at Sker’ret.

“Not cute bugs. Nasty ones,” Nita said. “Darryl says they’re bad news, and some of us are probably going to run into them. If you do, avoid them. Understand?”

Dairine gave her a dry look. “With all this extra power we’ve suddenly got, I think can handle it.”

Nita let out an annoyed breath and turned to Roshaun. “I’m not kidding,” she said. “Watch your backs, okay?”

“We will do nothing obviously foolhardy,” Roshaun said. “But under the circumstances, no situation any of us goes into is likely to lack its dangers.” He looked down at Nita from that regal height of his, an effect still somewhat altered by the big floppy T-shirt he hadn’t changed out of yet.

“Yeah,” Nita said. “I know.” She glanced at Dairine. “Take care of yourself.”

“You, too,” Dairine said. She hesitated, and then she came over and gave Nita a hug.

Nita hugged her back, then pushed her away, trying to make it look casual. S’reee was now talking to Filif and Sker’ret; Nita turned back to them. “What about you guys?”

“We’ll go with you and Kit and Ronan,” Sker’ret said.

“Great. Let’s move out…”

Kit stood just past the boundary of S’reee’s force field, having detached his own; inside it, beside him, Ponch was gazing upslope. At first Kit thought Ponch had seen someone coming, but then realized that it was the setting Earth that held his dog’s attention. Ponch was staring at the world the way he might watch a tree after he’d seen a squirrel go up it.

“What?” Kit said. “What’s the matter?”

It’s small, Ponch said. I never thought it was small before.

Kit nodded. “That’s the way the astronauts saw it,” he said. “Like a little thing. Fragile. I never thought the world was small until I saw it that way myself. It surprises everybody when they see their own world that way for the first time, all by itself in the dark.” Kit looked curiously at Ponch. “But you’ve been here before.”

I didn’t notice it then, Ponch said. Now I do.

He sounded concerned. “It’s okay,” Kit said. “It’s a point-of-view thing. You get used to it.”

I wonder if that’s wise…

Kit wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. He looked up and saw Ronan heading over to bump his own now-detached force field against Kit’s.

“You two ready?” Ronan said.

Kit nodded. Ronan stepped through the interface between their two force fields and went over to Ponch. “So, big fella,” Ronan said. “You ready for it?” He got down on one knee by Ponch. Kit hunkered down across from him.

Ponch sat down, his tail thumping. Show me what you want me to find.

Ronan and Ponch locked eyes.

Since the time that Ponch began to reveal his ability to find things—stepping between realities, even sometimes out of his own home universe to track them down—Kit had started trying to use the wizardly link between them to “overhear” what Ponch was seeing and hearing. It wasn’t always easy. Even a dog who had become much less doggy than usual—because of the frequent use of wizardry in his neighborhood—still sometimes had trouble explaining to Kit just what was going on with him. Now, as Ronan looked into Ponch’s eyes, Kit listened hard.