Wizards At War

“Everyone gets together and completes the puzzle,” Dairine said. “And if one of us is betrayed somehow, the rest of the information has a chance of staying safe.” Nita’s recent run-in with a wizard who had been overshadowed by the Lone One had left Dairine badly shaken, for until then, the idea that wizards were absolutely to be trusted had seemed something that you could always depend on. But life wasn’t as simple as it had once seemed.

“What we’re doing here is safe as well,” Beanpole said. “The One’s Champion was here briefly in the direct mode during your Ordeal and our Choice. It’s still here, integrated into the Motherboard in a format like an avatar, but less covert. It has the same power to protect us from being overheard as Ronan’s version of the Defender does. We can pursue our search for the Instrumentality without fear.”

“Okay,” Dairine said. “How are you going to get what you need from Spot?”

“They’ve already got it,” Spot said. Dairine’s eyes widened a little at the sound of his voice. It sounded even more alive than when he’d last spoken.

“The two of you needed to be here physically to make the transfer safely,” Logo said. “Now we can finish our preparations. We have to lay your personal information into the finding spell we’ve been constructing; that data has changed significantly since you came here first, and there have been other alterations.” He glanced at Spot, who hunched down a little as if the attention somehow unnerved him. “Brother, come with us and we’ll get you up to full speed again. Mother—”

They all bowed to her. Dairine rolled her eyes. “Guys,” she said, “give me a break. We’re all just wizards together, here.”

“Of course,” said Gigo and Logo and Beanpole together. But they were humoring her. The three of them and Spot vanished into the crowd of mobiles, who now mostly settled down onto the surface and sat quietly.

The stillness was an illusion. Dairine felt the tempo of their communication with and through the Motherboard increasing by the moment. “You look concerned,” Roshaun said from behind her.

Dairine scowled over her shoulder at him. “The whole universe is in danger,” she said, “and we’re not sure how to save it, assuming it can be saved. One of the Powers That Be has stuffed secret messages into my brain without telling me. And a friend of mine who happens to be my wizard’s manual is being reprogrammed with software that even these guys haven’t had time to beta test! Wow, Roshaun, why would I need to be concerned?”

Roshaun glanced at the ground. Another chair grew up for him, a slight distance from Dairine’s. He lowered himself into it, stretching his legs out with a sigh. “Sarcasm,” he said. “Amusing, if ineffective.” He leaned back, looking up at the golden glow of the rising barred-spiral galaxy, reached under his baggy T-shirt, and came out with a lollipop.

“At least if the universe does end in the next month,” Dairine muttered, “your teeth won’t have had time to rot.”

Roshaun raised his eyebrows and produced another lollipop, which he held out to her.

“How many of those things do you have?” Dairine said.

“Not nearly enough,” Roshaun said.

Dairine sighed and took it. “Fine, we’ll rot together.”

She stuck the lollipop in her mouth and worked on it quietly for a few minutes, glad that it was one of the fudgy ones that she preferred. The neighboring galaxy rose slowly behind the spires of the mobiles’ city while the two of them watched, and the stately, silent immensity of its going started to settle and calm Dairine’s mind the way the rising of the Moon did at home. Before her eyes, something endlessly bigger and older than she was going about its ancient business as usual. The thought came to Dairine after some moments that no matter what the abnormal expansion might do to the universe, even though all life might be destroyed, somehow, someday, there would be another awakening. It might take uncountable years, but the Life that wizards served was just too permanent, too tenacious, too wily. It would outlast its enemy, no matter how long it took. And suddenly Dairine got a flicker-glimpse of a new morning somewhere, somewhen—dew on long grass, and low sunlight turning it all to diamonds; an overturned game board, the pieces scattered in the fresh wet green; and hands reaching down to pick the pieces up and put the game back in order again—

The image fled. Dairine shook her head, uncertain where it had come from.

“I have seen that, too,” Roshaun said after a moment.

Dairine looked at him sidewise. “You’ve been hearing me think?”

He tilted his head in the odd way that Wellakhit used for “yes.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

Roshaun just gazed up at the rising galaxy.

“It can mean,” Dairine said, unable to leave it alone, “that wizards are getting—”

“Too close?” He still didn’t look at her, but Dairine felt that he was still, somehow, considering her very closely. “How close is too close? Neither of us thinking of doing anything… inappropriate.”