“And you decided,” Dairine’s dad said, “that it was better to take your chances with the wildfires.”
There was a rustle of branches, the sound Filif made when producing his people’s equivalent of a nod. Even though some of us said that we wouldn’t be what we are without the Fire, he said. That without it, all growth chokes together, and chokes out the Light. Dairine could just make out an uplift of branches toward the sky, all the berries going dim, from her angle, as they looked upward.
“Well, I think your people were smart,” Dairine’s dad said. “Light’s better, in the long run… even though you may not always like what it shows you.”
A few moments passed in silence. You were kind to me when I was frightened, Filif said.
“At a time like that, what else could I do?” Dairine’s dad said. “You’re my daughter’s colleagues. And her friends. I may not be a wizard, but I’ve been scared in my time: I know how it feels. Any time you’re feeling scared, you’re welcome here.”
Then I’m welcome now, Filif said, because although where we’re going is the source of the Light as well as the heart of the Fire, and it’d be all kinds of glory to die there, I’d really rather not.
“I’d rather none of you did,” Dairine’s dad said. “And you’re not going to. My daughter’s a pretty hot property as a wizard, and she’s not going to lose anybody on her watch.”
The absolute certainty in his voice was somehow worse than anything Dairine could have imagined, and it made her eyes sting. Hastily, she stepped back into the shadows and turned to make her way back where her attention belonged: to the spell.
I will make Dad right, she thought, if it kills me…
11: Subversive Factions
Nita stood on the beach, a few miles down from the house by the sea, and watched Alaalu’s sun come up. It always seemed to take a long time, and today it seemed to be taking even longer than usual.
Something’s missing, she thought.
When she’d first started to get this feeling, she’d discounted it. That’s how stressed out I’ve been, she’d thought at the time. They take me to an island paradise for a week, and already I’m dissatisfied with it, looking for some way to find fault. The problem’s probably in my own head. I should kick back and relax, let everything be all right for a change. I’ve just gotten out of the habit of trusting the world.
For a day or so, Nita had worked to do that, and had succeeded. But this morning she’d realized that she’d talked herself into believing, however temporarily, something that wasn’t true. She had mistakenly, but purposely, deactivated one of a wizard’s most useful tools: the hunch.
What her hunch had clearly told her—contradicting the whispering voices that spoke to her while she slept, the voices of the joyous but complacent—was that not everything was right here. That there was trouble in paradise. Not with the people. Not with the creatures living here. But something else, something much more basic.
Something’s missing.
And in at least one case, she thought she knew what it was—
Worlds had hearts. This was information Nita had started to work with when her mother got sick. People, planets, even universes—all the places inhabited by mind, either on the small scale or the grand—had “kernels”: hidden, bundled constructs of wizardry, compact packages of the normally fluid interface between science and magic, where matter and spirit and natural law got tangled together. The rules for a given universe were written in its kernel, and the matter in a universe or a world ran by those rules, the way a computer runs by its software. The rules could be altered, but usually it wasn’t smart to do so unless you really knew what you were doing.
Nita was still far too new at kernel studies to fall into this category. But she’d acquired a fairly good grasp of the basics after working hard at the subject over recent months, and she’d learned a lot of the places and ways in which a world’s kernel might routinely be hidden. When she’d first started to get the “something is missing” feeling, the state of Alaalu’s kernel was one of the first things to occur to her. A lot of planets’ kernels were hidden for good reasons—mostly so that they wouldn’t be altered by those who had no right to do so. But that didn’t normally keep a properly trained wizard from at least detecting that a kernel was indeed present. And Nita hadn’t been able to confirm that by casual sensing… which was unusual.
Now she pulled out her manual and sat down in the sand with her back against a dune, twitching a little—and not from sand getting into her clothes. She felt guilty about what she was doing. It wasn’t as if Quelt wasn’t taking really good care of her world, as far as Nita could tell. And normally you didn’t start investigating another wizard’s environment or practice of the Art unless you’d been asked to; “no intervention without a contract” was the usual order of business. But we’re here to see how this world works, among other things, Nita thought, and when I notice something as weird as this, what am I supposed to do? Ignore it? A world’s kernel shouldn’t he separated from it without good reason. There are too many things that could go wrong. Maybe even things that have gone wrong already—
Nita paged through the manual, bringing up the custom kernel-detection routines she’d started designing over the past few months. She’d come to be able to sense a kernel directly, if it was anywhere at all nearby—usually within some thousands of miles; and if she did a wizardry to augment her internal sensing abilities, her range increased greatly. To save time, Nita had started to file away the spells she used for this purpose, hooking them into a matrix that kept them ready to fuel and turn loose. Now all she had to do for routine kernel-finding was plug in the details about a planet’s or space’s physical characteristics, and activate the spell.
Nita came to the pages in her manual where she kept the routines stored, and once again she looked guiltily up and down the beach. But there was no sign of Quelt, nor did Nita really expect there to be—the whole family was extremely thoughtful about one another’s privacy, and their guests’. But if you’re so concerned that something’s wrong here, Nita’s uneasy conscience said to her, why don’t you just take the problem straight to Quelt?
Nita sat thinking about that for some moments, and finally shook her head. Because I really think something’s wrong here. Because I’m not sure she’ll see it the same way I do…or maybe even see it at all. Because—
Just because. I don’t really know why. But I have to look into this. It was, finally, just a hunch. Tom and Carl had told her often enough to trust them…
She laid the manual open next to her on the golden sand and started to read. The wizardry wasn’t a showy one, and wouldn’t manifest its results outside of her manual. But it was complex, taking several minutes to read straight through. It seemed to take forever for the listening silence to give way to the normal sounds of day with the spell’s completion, and when it finally did, Nita had to slump back against the dune and just gasp for breath for some minutes more. The wizardry was not a cheap one to enact.
It was maybe fifteen or twenty minutes more before she felt up to start using the running spell to look for Alaalu’s kernel. After that she lost track of time… something she found herself doing with great ease here where the day was thirty percent longer than at home. When she finally closed the spell down and shut the manual, it had to be at least a few hours later, to judge by the sun’s position.
Nita sat there a while more just listening to the water slide in and out, to the occasional songbird twitter of the bat-creatures that soared and swooped over the sea. It looks like the kernel’s just nowhere here, she thought. Nowhere in the ground or in the sea, not even anywhere inside the planet’s orbit. Not even for a hundred million miles outside.
Where have they put it? And why isn’t it closer? What’s going on?
Above her Nita heard the faint scratching sound of someone coming down the dune toward her. She looked up over her shoulder and saw the twin silhouettes of Kit and Ponch sliding down the dune,
cutouts against the bright sky.
“I was looking for you back at the house,” Kit said. “Demair was there, but she said no one had seen you all day.”
“I skipped breakfast,” Nita said.
“Did you sleep okay last night?” Kit said to her.
Nita shook her head. “No.”
“Dreams again?”
“Partly. But I was thinking,” she said.
Kit sat down beside her with his back against the dune, and Nita told him what she’d been thinking about. At the end of it all, she looked at him and said, “Does that make any sense to you?”
Kit nodded. “More than you’d think. I was doing some exploring this morning… ”
He told her where he’d been. Nita’s eyes widened as Kit told her about the conversation he’d overheard, with Ponch’s help, between Druvah and the Lone Power. When he finished, Nita looked down at the sand and started digging in it idly with one hand.
“What I don’t like,” Nita said, “is that what for us is the most interesting part of the Choice, and the weirdest part, almost didn’t seem to matter to Quelt at all. She just skipped past it… ”
“And we took her at her word that it was just a boring part.”
“A cultural blind spot maybe?” Nita said.
Kit shook his head. “I don’t know. But I think that now we’re going to have to go see the Relegate’s Naos.”
Kit stood up. As he did, Ponch came running up the dune behind him. Are we going somewhere?
Kit reached down and roughed up Ponch’s ears a little. “Yeah,” he said. “To see the Lone Power. Come on… ”
***
Getting there took no time. But after they arrived, Kit and Nita stood there on the edge of the valley gazing down into it for quite a while.
The valley itself was huge. Looking across it, Nita wondered if this spot had indeed been one of the impact craters she’d been expecting to see, for it was like a gigantic bowl. It had its own mini-horizon inside the greater one, where the snowy mountains of the Tamins range could be seen off to the north and east. Away down in the middle of the great round valley, Nita could just see something small and pale: a little building.
There was nothing else visible for what looked like miles and miles except flowery meadows, some scattered patches of woodland, and occasional flocks of ceiff, ambling from place to place or taking flight without warning. “That’s it?” Kit said.
Nita nodded. “It’s probably a lot bigger than it looks from here,” she said. “The distances keep fooling me.”
“We can do a quick transit spell over to it,” Kit said. Nita nodded, and Kit constructed the spell and spoke it. The hush of the universe listening to the words leaned in around them; they vanished, and the soft bang! of the air rushing away from them as they reappeared reached them before the more distant bang! of their disappearance.
The Naos turned out to be a simple structure done mostly in the peach-colored sandstone that the Alaalids favored. Nine tall columns upheld a round dome that glittered in the sunlight as if polished slick. Inside the dome was another, smaller structure, constructed of screens of the same stone, intricately carved and pierced. Pointing toward each of the directions of the Alaalid compass were six broad sets of steps, running down to the surrounding greensward from the main pedestal-level on which the columns stood. The whole structure gave an impression of elegant and airy lightness, at least as far as architecture was concerned. To Nita, it suggested an extremely beautiful trap.
They walked slowly toward one of the flights of steps and paused there. Ponch looked at it, wandered over to the side of the steps, lifted one hind leg, and made a liquid comment.
Are you ready for this? Kit said silently.
Nita nodded. She had ready a set of wizardries that had been effective enough against the Lone Power in other times, and she had some newer defenses, not yet tried, that might work even better if it turned out she needed them. Let’s go, she said.
They walked up the stairs slowly, in step, in the hot sunlight—she and Kit, with Ponch between them. Nita felt a little grim amusement, for the only thing missing from the present scenario was the jingling of spurs, and someone whistling menacingly off in the distance. At the top of the stairs they stopped, looking through the columns toward the curved, pierced stonework shell inside. That was the naos proper, the center of the structure. It wasn’t precisely dark in there, but by comparison with the bright day outside, it seemed shadowy enough. Right in front of them, the stonework was interrupted by a wide doorway that led into the interior.
Kit and Nita glanced at each other, walked toward that opening. Inside, it wasn’t as dark as it had seemed on first glance. For one thing, the dome that topped off the building wasn’t solid stone, or if it was, it wasn’t any thicker than half an inch or so—like the thickness of an eggshell compared to its size. Sunlight filtered through it in a soft, vague shimmer of pink, gold, cream, and white, all mingled together. That light fell on something inside, a structure all by itself in the center of the naos, which was circular like the pedestal and columns that contained it. It was another pedestal, of only three great, broad, shallow, concentric steps, with six long, curved, stone benches arranged around it. On the pedestal sat a huge blocky chair, exceedingly simple, made of blocks of squared-off and polished creamy stone—a back slab, two side slabs, and a horizontal slab between them. It’s kind of like the one in the Lincoln Memorial, Nita thought. Except—
—except that sitting with her legs curled up under her in that great chair, and leaning on one arm of it, with her chin in her hand, looking at them with an expression of ineffable boredom, was an Alaalid woman of staggering beauty. Mahogany-skinned, she wore a loose white sleeveless tunic over a long, loose white skirt. She had a long and perfect face, striking red-and-gold-streaked hair that tumbled down around her on all sides, and eyes that shone like orange amber with the sun behind it.
Kit and Nita came to a standstill and simply looked at her for a moment. Ponch, between them, regarded the woman sitting in the chair, and let out one long, low growl. Then, rather to Nita’s surprise, he fell silent and sat down.
Nita looked at Ponch hurriedly to see what was the matter… if the Lone One was doing anything to him. But Ponch was simply looking at It, with his head tilted slightly to one side and a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Fairest and Fallen… ” Kit said.
“Yes, yes, greeting and defiance, thank you very much. I really wish you people would come up with something else to say,” the Lone Power said. Her voice was as beautiful as her face, but it had an edge to it.
Nita stood there, wondering what in the world to say next. “So nice of you to drop by,” the Lone One said. “You’re a nice change from the school groups and the mothers with bored toddlers. But don’t just stand there glaring at me,” Esemeli said, and she waved a languid hand at the bench nearest to where they were standing. “Go on, sit down. That’s what they’re there for. I’m a tourist attraction.”
Nita glanced at Kit and then sat down. “Do a lot of people come and visit you here?” Kit said, sitting down beside Nita.
“Not that many,” the Lone Power said, leaning on one elbow. “Of those who do, most think I’m some kind of live entertainment meant to follow that little multimedia show they’ve got in the valley. A few of them… a very few… realize what I really am, and have the sense to be scared. But most of them never make it past vague interest. It’s been too long since they’ve had any real trouble in this world.”
“I can see how that would bother you,” Kit said.
The Lone Power’s smile was slow and grim. Nita had to shiver at it, for she had never seen a look of such malice on any Alaalid face. “Well, I do try to keep my sense of proportion about me,” It said. “Earth, for example; there’ve been some changes there.”
“Tell us about it,” Kit said. “But I wouldn’t call them changes for the better.”
“There speaks a typical, shortsighte
d human being,” the Lone Power said. “Things always get a lot worse before they get better. You’d know that if you took the long view of the worlds. But you can’t help yourselves; you’re stuck in time. Those of us who just visit Time but live in Eternity see things a lot differently.” It sighed and sat back in Its chair. “Look, can we put that aside for the moment?”
“Sure,” Nita said, “as long as it’s to tell us exactly what you’re doing here.”
“I’m doing what I don’t have any choice but to do!” It said. “Which is to sit around in the Relegate’s Naos. I’m the Relegate! I’ve been relegated! Left over, dumped, thrown out of the running. Into this.” It waved a hand around at the beautiful warm stone, the polished floor, the exquisite, shell-like dome.
Nita looked over at Kit. Ponch yawned and lay down on the floor. The Lone One gave him an exquisitely dirty look. “See that?” It said. “That’s the kind of respect I command these days. Nine-tenths of the people here don’t even begin to understand the import of the events that left me sitting here. They’ve even given me a sweet little nickname: Esemeli, the Daughter of the Daughter of Light.” She made a face.
“Well, you were, once,” Nita said.
“Don’t you dare patronize me. I was the Star of the Morning!” the Lone Power shouted. “I was foremost of Powers among the Powers! I was what quasars are a watered-down version of; the light of me denatured space when I had cause to turn it loose!” Her voice dropped to a furious, mellifluous growl. ‘Daughter of the daughter of… ’”
She trailed off, making an annoyed gesture with one hand, then letting it flop in her lap. “And now it comes to this,” Esemeli said after a moment, “that you two come along and I have to ask you to—” She rubbed her face.