Kit could hear very little now that he’d turned the sound down inside the force field.
“What?”
The wings! They’re here—
The first of them roared overhead, trailing noise like a passing jetliner. Kit looked up and saw, dimly, through the blowing snow, what Ponch had been talking about. He was tempted to duck. The thing wasn’t big, maybe only six feet long or so, but it looked deadly. It was as if someone had taken the three-finned symmetry of a standard paper plane and brought it to life, but with wings that were clawed on the forward edges. The creature was a furry blue-white, just paler than the snow, and eyeless, though it had a long, nasty, many-fanged mouth that ran down the length of its body between two of the wings. And it brought the terrible noise with it as it shot overhead and past, dragging behind it still more of the torrent of voices and sounds that threatened to drown whatever lay in their wake. It tilted one wing, and started to circle Kit.
Basilisk! Kit thought, having seen the creatures’ images in the manual more than once, and having thought every time that he’d rather not see them in the flesh. They weren’t the heraldic beasts that went by the name, but a worse thing that the Lone Power had constructed from spare parts in Its spare time—a minion-creature that served as mindless messenger and doer of small dirty deeds. And it sees me. The stealth spell’s not working, either—
There were three kinds of basilisk: hot, cold, and starry. It was plain enough to Kit which kind he was dealing with here, and he knew the remedy for them if they got too close. Heat—
Kit flipped his manual open to its notes and storage area. Some time back during the summer, his pop had been having a lot of trouble keeping the barbecue lit, and Kit—unnerved by the overconfident way his pop sprayed the lighting fluid around in his attempts to relight it—had started working with some of the wizardries that temporarily “set” air solid and selectively reflective, so that it could be used to produce laser beams. When the barbecue season had come to an end, Kit had stored those wizardries in his manual for the next year. Now he hurriedly pulled one of them out, shook the long chain of characters out until it solidified into a rod, and twiddled its end to reset the air variable. Fortunately it didn’t take long: all he had to do was deduct the oxygen and add some hydrocarbons. Right. Here we go—
Kit stuffed his manual into his parka pocket, shouldered the bright-glowing rod of the laser, and waited for the basilisk to swoop at him … and then was disappointed when it didn’t bother, but just went screaming on past. Several others followed, all heading in the direction Darryl had gone. Kit stood there for a moment and let out a long breath that was as much frustration as relief. It was annoying to have something to shoot with, and something worth shooting at, and then not have an excuse to shoot at it.
He’s stopped running, Ponch said suddenly
“What?” Kit said. “They’ve caught him!”
I’m not sure, Ponch said.
“Come on!”
They ran the way Darryl had gone. As they ran, something occurred to Kit. I was right, I’m onto something. The way the stealth spell wouldn’t work, but this stuff does? Can’t be accidental. Darryl didn’t just build this scenario: he’s engineered it to work exactly the way it’s doing. And it may not even be an interior universe at all. This could be a genuine alternate universe, custom-made, the kind of places Nita had been working with to help her mother—the kind of thing Ponch had started creating on his own. Places where even the way wizardry works can be changed—
As Kit ran, he found his endurance wasn’t what it normally would have been. He was tiring. He couldn’t get rid of the sense that, whether real or inside Darryl’s mind, this universe was much farther away than the last one. There was something inherently wearying about this space itself, as if its structure sapped the energy of anyone unfortunate enough to stray into it. Or maybe it was just the noise—the wind, the roaring of the voices outside, getting louder again—
Kit stopped for a moment to readjust the force-field wizardry, then went on again at a dogtrot behind Ponch. “You doing okay?” Kit said.
So far, no problems.
“You feel all right?”
So far…
Ahead of them, dimly, through the blue-smoke swirling of the methane snow, Kit thought he could see the basilisks diving and swooping at something, fluttering at it. Kit couldn’t make out what it was.
Then, as he got a little closer, he could.
Darryl was standing there with his arms up over his eyes, twisting, turning from side to side … and then he let his arms drop and just stopped. Between one breath and another, he had become encased in what looked like a solid block of ice. The basilisks were scrabbling at it with the claws on their wings, screaming, and the thunder up in the sightless, coldly burning sky beat in the air like a heart, deafening.
Suddenly the basilisks flapped away up into that blue-white haze, as a shadow approached them out of the blowing snow. Kit gulped and put the laser away in his otherspace pocket as the form became distinct, gathering Its darknesses together out of the snowy air.
The Lone Power came striding up to that block of ice, looking as Kit had seen It a long time ago—like a young-looking human, red-haired, handsome, but with cruel, cold eyes and a smile you did not want to see. It was wearing the same dark suit Kit had seen It wear on his own Ordeal, but this time with a long, black winter coat over it, and a scarf wrapped around Its throat, dark blue as the shadows under the methane drifts would be at nightfall. The Lone One’s eyes were still angry and chill, but right now they also held an oddly weary and annoyed expression that intensified the closer It got to Darryl. A few feet away from the block of ice, It paused and put out Its hand, which was suddenly filled with the hilt of a long, black-bladed sword.
The Lone Power stood there in silence for a moment, gazing at Darryl’s silent form with narrowed eyes.
“So it comes to this,” the Lone One said. “For a while, at least, you tried to fight. I’ll give you credit for that. But now you’ve given up. What were you thinking of? That I’d be merciful now, that I’d let you off easy because of your ‘condition’? You should know better. When people give up around me, the poor fools pay the price.” It took a step forward, slow, menacing, savoring the moment. “Not that not giving up helps them, either, of course. Even for those who pass their Ordeals, there’s no escape; I get them later. All they ever manage to do is delay the inevitable.”
A chill that had nothing to do with the local weather went down Kit’s back as the Lone Power took another step forward, and another, hefting the sword, lifting it in slow preparation to strike. “In your case, though,” the Lone One said, amused, “there won’t be any further delay. You should never have accepted the power if you weren’t willing to use it. And you weren’t… so now you lose it.”
I can’t stand it, Kit said silently to Ponch.
But I thought Tom said—
I don’t care. I’m not going to just stand here!
Kit had already made sure the shield around him was secure. Now he was paging hurriedly through the manual to a section he looked at fairly often but had very rarely used, the offensive weaponry. It was the Lone One Itself he was going to be dealing with here, so Kit chose a quark-level dissociation tool—the wizardry equivalent of a directed low-yield tactical nuke—hooked his “canned” description of himself into it, told the wizardry to take as much of his power as it needed for one good shot, and then swallowed hard, because this was scary stuff. You ready to get us out of here in a hurry if you have to? he said to Ponch.
Say the word.
I may not have time—
I’ll be ready.
Kit took a deep breath—then dumped the stealth spell. He took a step forward, and another, and then walked right up to It, where It stood.
“Fairest and Fallen,” Kit said, trying hard to keep his voice even, “greeting and defiance.”
It didn’t even look up.
Kit stood there breat
hing hard. “I said, greeting and defiance—”
No answer. The Lone One was intent on Darryl. It lifted that black blade high. Darkness ran down it, sweeping after in a trail as It brought the sword swinging around. Kit swallowed one more time and spoke the first of three words that would activate the dissociator, as the sword struck the middle of that block of methane ice—
—and shattered.
Kit stared.
The Lone Power straightened up from the stroke—and It too stared, suddenly dumbfounded, at the broken stump of a sword in Its hand. The block of ice wasn’t marred, not even scratched.
If It was astonished, so was Kit. That power of his—! He’d only felt it brush past him with the glimpse of Darryl’s eyes and it had dumped him on his butt. Any wizardry that could simply break one of the Lone Power’s own weapons like a dry stick was a power to be reckoned with… especially considering that Kit hadn’t heard Darryl use the Speech or even invoke a physically constructed spell like one of Kit’s.
Kit looked at the Lone Power, still confused as to why it hadn’t reacted to him. Could it be that the Lone Power can’t see you when you’re in someone else’s Ordeal? he wondered. But Tom would’ve said something. Or is this something else Darryl is doing somehow? Because his control of this space is something else!
There was no way to tell, and Kit was thrown back on wondering in a scared way what was going through the Lone One’s mind at being stymied this way. It regarded the broken sword for a moment, then flung it furiously away. Where the hilt-shard came down in the blue snow, there was a brief and noisy explosion. But the Lone One ignored that. It put Its hands up against the front of the block of ice and spoke softly to the small shape entombed there.
“Are you really stupid or crazy enough to think I’m just going to walk away?” the Lone Power said, and the menace in Its voice made Kit’s hair stand up all over him. “I have centuries, aeons at my disposal. I can hound you from life to life if I choose, until for the sake of a moment’s peace you beg me to destroy your soul! Is this what your precious Powers gave you your wizardry for? To stand here inactive as a statue, refusing the inevitable? Well, it won’t help you. Coward! You can’t come out the other side of this until you confront me. And you won’t confront me! You’ll just stay in here like the pitiful reject that you are, while outside in reality your darling mother and father secretly grieve over you every day. You’re not being very considerate of them, are you? After everything they’ve gone through? Now you have a chance to stand up, to conquer me, to come out the other side of your power, and you won’t take it.”
Kit was having trouble believing what he was hearing. The Lone Power was frustrated. He saw the unbelievable—saw the Power that invented death start hammering with Its fists on the upright coffin of ice. “Come out!” the Lone One cried, and thunder cracked in response, high up in the wind-torn air. The snow blew around again, hiding nearly everything but that relentless, furious, stymied darkness. “Come out and let’s finish it! Come out!”
The thunder of Its voice started to drown out even the thunder up in the turbulent atmosphere. How long this went on Kit wasn’t sure, but finally It fell silent, looking once more at the small, unmoving shape in the ice.
“It doesn’t matter,” the Lone One said. “I can wait. I have all the time in all the worlds. Sooner or later, you’ll drop this ploy and try another that’s less effective. Sooner or later, in life or after, you’ll be forced to face me. And when you finally do, you’ll wish your soul had never been created. For that day, I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
It turned and walked away into the blue-white snow. Kit lost sight of It within seconds, and a few seconds after that, by a lightening of the spirit that was impossible to mistake, Kit knew that It had left this space. Next to him, Ponch was shivering with a combination of nervousness and amusement.
“Wow,” Kit said.
Yes. Let’s get him out of there! Ponch said.
“Absolutely.”
Kit dismantled the dissociator, and he and Ponch hurried over to the block of ice. But the closer Kit got to it, the stranger things started to seem. That weariness that Kit had been feeling, to a certain extent, since he got here, now got stronger with every step closer to Darryl.
He rubbed his eyes, staggered over to the block, put a hand on it. It was frozen methane, but the force field protected him from its touch. “Darryl,” Kit said. “Dai stihó, guy. I can’t believe you held It off like that. Nice going.”
But Darryl didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid. And as Kit bent over the block, trying to figure out how to get rid of it, or at least how to rouse Darryl, he found himself having more and more trouble believing in any of this. It started to seem as if none of it was real: not the cold, not the wind, not the single small, still, cold shape standing there rigid in the ice, expressionless, unmoving, unseeing. And as for the concept of the Lone Power banging on the block of ice, not only frustrated but powerless—that couldn’t have happened, either.
“Darryl,” Kit said. “Come on, buddy, this is no place for our kind of people.”
But the feeling began to grow in Kit that this wasn’t really Darryl, that he wasn’t here—which was something Ponch had said the last time. Now, though, Kit could feel for himself what Ponch had meant. Darryl’s presence here was illusory. None of this was real. What a relief, because this is all just too weird—
Kit straightened up, passed his hand over his eyes. He was incredibly tired, and there was nothing he could do here. Outside the force field, the noise was scaling up again. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter, though.
Kit.
“What?”
We have to go.
“Go where?”
Kit! We have to go home. The wizardry’s failing. Come on!
“What?”
Ponch turned, leaped at him, knocked him over. For a moment the two of them fell through darkness. Kit flailed for balance, found none, cried out—
And came down, wham, into something cold and wet. At first Kit panicked, because with a terrible suddenness his mind became clear again about two things: that the force field had failed, and that he was lying in the snow, which meant that in about another five seconds he would be dead. But then Kit realized that this snow was so much warmer and wetter than the snow where he’d just been that it might as well have been steaming; and the silence surrounding them was so complete, compared to where they had been, that Kit’s ears rang with it.
Ponch was lying on top of him, licking his face in apology and fear. Are you all right? Boss! I had to get us out of there. Are you all right? Kit!
“Oh, wow,” Kit whispered. “Okay, yeah, I’m okay.” He pushed himself up on his elbows with some difficulty, dislodging Ponch in the process. Kit was lying in his driveway, in approximately three inches of snow, and as he looked over at the corner streetlight, he saw that more snow was falling, in big flakes, through still and silent air.
He turned around to look at his house and saw that all the lights were off except for the one in his parents’ bedroom. “Oh, no,” he said. “What time is it?”
Kit looked at his watch. It was two-thirty in the morning.
“Oh, god, the time flow in there wasn’t what I was expecting. I’m going to get it now,” he muttered as he staggered to his feet. “I’m completely wrecked. And they’re going to kill me.”
Not if I can help it, Ponch said.
“Buddy,” Kit said, “I don’t think even the Powers That Be could prevent the massacre at this point. Let’s go in and get it over with.”
Together they made their way up the driveway.
Chapter 6: Elucidations
Nita looked up from her reading and glanced out the window into the darkness to see that snow was just beginning to fall. She sat still in the pool of light at her desk, for the first time in hours really paying attention to the silence that had been settling down outside—that particular muffling effect, possibly something to do with the low clouds, t
hat always seemed to accompany a heavy snowfall from the very first.
Nita sighed at the sight of the big flakes coming gently down. The first really decent snowfall of the winter, and her mother wasn’t here to see it. First snowfalls had always been an event for her mom. She would bundle herself up and go out and play in the snow like a crazy thing until she was worse soaked than either Nita or Dairine ever let themselves get. Over the past few years, Nita had heard her mom complain more than once to her dad that the greenhouse effect was screwing up the winter weather. “We just don’t get snow like we used to, Harry,” she would say. “We have to do something, or future generations won’t know what it’s like to get slush in their socks.”
Nita held still a moment longer, listening to the quiet of the house around her. Her dad and Dairine were both in bed, and outside the snow kept on falling. After a few moments, Nita sighed again and pushed her manual away. For hours now she had been up to her eyes in more research on the contextual variations of the Speech—in noun paradeclensions, and judicial imperatives, and the history and use of the Enactive Recension. It was all fascinating, and she had no idea how she was going to stomp all this information into her head soon enough to be of any use. At any rate, it was late, and she wasn’t going to get any more of it into her head tonight.
Nita got up… and her bedroom went away, fading around her into a darkness through which, bizarrely, snow continued to fall.
Standing there in jeans and one of her dad’s big sweatshirts, Nita looked all around her in shock, and then realized what had happened. Her hand went to her throat, where the “necklace” of the lucid-dreaming wizardry rested. I forgot about this. I turned it on, and then I fell asleep while I was reading, she thought. I’m dreaming already. Isn’t that wild?
Nita glanced around at the endless dark stretching away from her on all sides. Off in the distance she saw light coming from somewhere to fall on the dark surface on which she stood. The source of the light was itself invisible, but in its beam she could see more snow gently falling.