Wizards At War

Ronan nodded. “From a long, long time back,” he said. “When the Lone One first revealed that new thing it had invented, entropy. This was one of the early side effects.”

“And the Champion stopped it?” Kit said, coming over with Ponch to join them.

Ronan shook his head. “No. It’s weird, but when the Pullulus first began to occur, it was the Lone Power Itself that stopped it.”

Nita found that bizarre. “Something too dangerous for even It to manage?”

Ronan shook his head. “I used to think I knew My brother’s mind,” said the Champion with Ronan’s voice, “but that issue was never clear to Me or any of the other Powers. Whatever, this perversion of dark matter hasn’t been seen since. To see it again now … I find that troubling.”

“Troubling” didn’t come close to describing Nita’s feelings. “I am really not wild about the idea of sleeping here,” Nita said. She looked down at Ponch. “Couldn’t you walk us a little way, just enough to get us out of here?”

I’m tired, Ponch said. And he lay down and put his head down on his paws, though Nita saw him watching the sky with an expression of concern.

Nita let out an annoyed breath. “Look, we’ve got our pup tents,” Kit said. “We’ll be comfortable enough for a few hours.”

Nita nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Right.” No point in making a scene about it. I’ll cope.

Sker’ret and Filif came over to them, getting out their pup-tent interfaces. Sker’ret reared up on his rearmost legs, hung the silvery rod of the spell interface on the empty air, and pulled on the little string of characters in the Speech that hung down from the rod. A subtle shimmer of wizardry a few feet wide followed it down, like a roller shade following its pull cord. Sker’ret “fastened” down the spell-surface that acted as gateway to the room-sized pocket of space, waggled a few eyes at Nita and Kit, and poured himself inside, vanishing. Past him, Filif was doing the same; he slid in through his own doorway and was gone.

Nita let out a long breath. “Ronan?” she said.

He shook his head. “I’m okay,” he said. “My partner’s got energy to spare. We’ll stand guard.”

Nita set up her own pup tent, then glanced at that awful unstarred sky again. For some time now she had been getting into the habit of trusting her hunches, and her hunch right now was to be worried. What’s going on back home? she thought. What’s going on with Daddy? And Tom and Carl? And Dairine, what’s she getting into? Is she under a sky like this someplace?

And is she as freaked out as I am?

Nita stepped into her pup tent and looked around, checking out the space that had become her home away from home while she and Kit had been away before. Everything was as it should be. There were a few pieces of spare furniture from home—a TV table and a spare desk chair, along with a beat-up old sofa that had been down in the basement until her dad had it recovered and suggested she move it into the pup tent; over the back of the sofa, a multicolored wool throw that her mom had crocheted a few years back; off to one side, some boxes of dry snacks and cereal, some six-packs of fruit drinks and mineral water. A pile of books to read at bedtime, some notebooks and assorted school supplies. It all should have been very comforting … except it wasn’t. She couldn’t get rid of the image of the darkness outside.

Then suddenly Nita got angry. I may be freaked, but I’m not going to just roll over and let the fear run the way I act! She turned around and put her head out through the interface again, staring defiantly up at that evil sky. Above her, the dark Pullulus seethed and heaved against itself, blocking away the stars. Looking at it a second time didn’t make it any easier. It probably isn’t ever going to be easy, Nita thought. And I don’t care.

She glanced to one side and saw Kit leaning out through his own pup-tent interface. Past him, Ronan stood leaning on the Spear, looking up at the darkness. He, too, turned his gaze away from it now, looking at Nita.

“You, too, huh?” Kit said.

Nita looked at him for a moment, then gave him a quick, angry smile, and vanished back into her own space… feeling, once again, not quite so alone.

7: High-Value Target