Wizards At War

Ronan had stopped just the other side of the line and was standing there staring up at the vast starry darkness overhead. Rirhath’s neighborhood of space was full of variable stars that slowly but visibly shrank and swelled while you watched. “It’s like they’re breathing,” Ronan said.

Beside him, Kit nodded. “You haven’t been here before?” Kit said.

“Once,” Ronan said. “It wasn’t anything like this then.”

Kit smiled. “The daytime view’s interesting, though I always wonder what’d happen to all that levitating stained glass up at ceiling level if they had a power failure. This is a lot less tense.”

He looked after Ponch as Nita and Filif came over to them. “You know what he’s after,” Nita said, looking after Ponch.

Kit shrugged. “Give him a moment to run,” he said. “When he comes back we’ll get down to business.” Then he yawned.

“You and me both,” Nita said, rubbing her eyes. “It’s getting late back home. We ought to think about where we’ll stop for the night.”

“Wherever Ponch leads us,” Ronan said. “My passenger’ll stand guard while we’re sleeping. Everybody’s got their pup tents with them, so they’ll be comfortable enough.”

“And I’ve got my cellphone,” Nita said. “If my dad needs to get in touch, he won’t have any trouble: Tom enabled his for the manual network ages ago.” Or at least at the moment it seemed like ages. She sighed. “I still wish we could sleep at home… I’m getting nervous about what’s going on there.”

“Going back and forth wouldn’t be smart,” Ronan said. “For one thing, it’d make us a lot easier to track. Might as well just send the Lone One an invitation to follow us straight to wherever we’re going.”

“Yeah, I know.” Nita knew he was right; she just hated to admit it.

Sker’ret was reared up against the nearby kiosk, using numerous upper legs to work its controls. Nita went over to him and looked over a couple of his topmost shoulders. Below the kiosk’s translucent surface, in which Sker’ret’s topmost two pairs of legs were partially embedded, several layers of patches of light flowed with characters in the Speech. “Find what you’re looking for?” she said.

Sker’ret curved a couple of eyes backward to meet hers. “Not yet,” he said.

He’s never this terse. What’s going on? She rested a hand on that beautiful candy-glazed metallic-purple carapace, just behind the head segment. “Sker’, are you okay?”

He sagged a little. “Not entirely.” He turned some eyes up to gaze at the deep red charactery now running up and down the kiosk-pillar’s length.

“If you need help—”

“Not at the moment. But thank you.” Sker’ret curved back another couple of eyes toward her. “What about Ponch?”

Down the concourse Nita could see the shiny black shape wandering along toward them, still wagging his tail. “I’ll see if he’s ready to start work,” she said.

Kit was standing there with his arms folded, shaking his head, watching Ponch head toward them. You were trying to overhear what he was smelling, Nita said privately. Any luck?

Kit gave her a resigned look. Motor oil, he said. Cocoa.

Motor oil? Nita turned to look up the concourse at Ponch again; he had paused to sniff at another of the information kiosks. I guess for him those smells symbolize what Ronan and the Champion are after?

That’s my guess, Kit said. He thinks he’s on the right track. All we can do is let him get on with it.

Ponch came ambling over to Kit, looked up at him, and nosed his hand. I’m hungry!

Ronan came back to them and looked down at Ponch. “So when do you get started?”

Ponch gave Ronan a slightly scornful look. I’ve been working ever since we got here. But I’ll need a little more time to sort the scents out. For the time being, you just talk among yourselves.

What amused Nita was that he was looking only at Ronan while he said it. Ronan looked a little taken aback.

Ponch turned his back on him. And while I work on the scent-sorting, he said to Kit, wagging his tail, we might as well get something to eat!

“I don’t know,” Kit said. “Maybe it’s not good for some people to be full of food when they’re supposed to be really sharp and heading out on the trail.”

Ponch gave Kit a very cool look. Oh, I get it. Deprive me and I’ll function better? Let’s see how that works. He sat down. Hmm, I feel strangely weak… Ponch fell over on one side with his tongue hanging out one side of his mouth; one eye looked pitifully at Kit. Can’t… seem… to move…