Nita made an unhappy face. “Daddy, what time is it for you?”
“It’s twenty-five after six.”
“Did you have a bad time in the shop today?”
“Why?” Just as it had sounded like he was calming down a little, her dad sounded angry all over again.
Nita’s eyebrows went up. “Uh, you just sound… really on edge.”
She heard her dad take a long breath and let it out again. “Not that I wouldn’t have reason to be,” he said, “what with what’s going on with you, and the way everything else is here at the moment, but—” He paused. “Yes, you’d be right to say that I’ve been feeling the strain a little more than I usually would.”
Nita swallowed. “Us, too,” she said. “I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say, I guess. I’m sorry all this is happening this way.”
“It’s hardly your fault,” her dad said after a moment. “And I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’m sorry, too. But I’m really relieved to hear from you.”
Nita had to admit that the relief was mutual. Her dad’s matter-of-fact groundedness was one of the things she’d come to count on to help keep her on course when everything else in her life seemed to be going to pieces. “Look,” Nita said, “I’ll call as often as I can. But we may get to places where it won’t be safe to do that. When that happens…”
There was a silence at the other end. I wish I could see his face, Nita thought, feeling a little nervous. “I’ll try to give you advance warning,” she said. “But I may not be able to. When we get where we’re going, we may have to operate undercover for a while.” She swallowed. “And if wizardry starts acting up, too, the phone connection might just stop working until we fix what’s broken.” Until. Just keep thinking “until.”
“You’re telling me that I’m just going to have to tough this one out,” her dad said.
“We all are, Daddy.”
He sighed. “Well, if that’s all we can do, I guess we may as well get on with it,” her dad said. “Speaking of ‘all’: have you heard anything from Dairine? I haven’t heard from her, either.”
“Nothing so far,” Nita said.
“Okay. Well, if you do, tell her to get in touch.”
“I will.”
“I know that tone of voice,” her dad said, with a sigh. “You’ve got something to do. Go do it, sweetie.”
“Okay, Daddy. Love you.”
“Love you, too, kidlet. Go kick old What’s-Its-Face around the block for me.” There, at least, was a flash of her dad’s normal humor.
“First thing on the list, Dad. Talk to you later.”
“Bye-bye.”
Nita hit the hang-up button and stared at the phone. Finally she shoved it into one of the vest’s many pockets, then reached sideways into her otherspace pocket and pulled out her manual. “You need to be a lot smaller,” she said.
Obediently the manual reduced itself to the size of a pocket notebook, and Nita shoved it in another of the vest’s pockets. As she did, she glanced down at the lightning-bolt charm on her bracelet, the slight glow around it showing that it was still undischarged. As she did so, she got a sudden flash of that image of intertwining light.
“You stopped me the second time, didn’t you,” Nita said.
Yes, the peridexis said. It sounded almost abashed. You were in transit between states of consciousness, and possibly unready to decide whether to destroy another wizard.
Nita laughed. “‘Possibly’? No kidding. Thanks.” Then she glanced sidewise, though she wasn’t quite sure what she was glancing at. “You’re not going to make a habit of that, are you?”
I have no such ability when you’re fully volitional, the peridexis said. And in transitional states, only as a fail-safe.
“Okay,” Nita said. She touched the bubble-charm that was shorthand for her personal air-handling spell; it came alive around her, and she stepped out the door and pulled the tab that collapsed the entry to the pup tent.
She was left holding nothing but the tab, like the pull of a zipper; she tucked it into her pocket. Kit ambled over to her, tucking his manual out of the way, while Ponch ran around with the wizardly leash flapping along behind him. Sker’ret wandered after him in a casual way, pausing every now and then to pick up a rock, turn it over in his front “handling” mandibles, and eat it.
“Did you talk to your dad?” Kit asked.
Nita nodded. “He sounded really messed up,” she said.
Kit gave her a sympathetic look. “He’s not the only one,” he said. “You should have heard my mama.”
“She go ballistic?”
“Suborbital at least.” Kit sighed. “But eventually she realized that it wasn’t just me being thoughtless … and there really wasn’t anything I could do.”
“Yeah.” Nita sighed. She glanced over at Filif, who stood off to one side with his branches lifted up, all the eye-berries looking up at the darkness. “We should get moving. The sooner we find what we’re looking for, the sooner we can get back home and sort out the parents. Where’d Ronan go?”
“He’s still there behind his hill,” Kit said.
“Okay,” Nita said. “You go collect Ponch and Sker’ret.” She went off in the direction of the little rise.
Filif was on her way. “You get some rooting done?” Nita said as she went by.
“A little,” he said, turning various berries toward her. “But it’s hard, without a star.”
“Tell me about it,” Nita said, grabbing a few of his fronds and tugging them affectionately. “Hang in there. We’ll get you out of here shortly.”
She went on around the rise. Ronan had just stood up and was stretching; he looked around and raised his eyebrows. “Are we ready?”
“Just about,” Nita said. “You feel okay?”
“Not a bother on me,” Ronan said.
“I’ll assume that’s Irish for ‘yes.’” Nita glanced down the rise, where Sker’ret was munching on a last few rocks while Kit caught up with Ponch. “Everything’s been happening so fast, I’ve hardly had a chance to talk to you.”
“Everybody’s been busy,” Ronan said, leaning the Spear against the front of him and shoving his hands into his pockets.
“How are things back home?”
“Pretty much as usual,” Ronan said. “With a few changes. Your friend Tualha? She gave up being a bard when they made her Queen of the Cats. Now she’s having kittens.”
“Wow,” Nita said. “But she was so little…”
“Cats grow up faster than we do,” Ronan said. “They’ve got a real short latency, which is why you don’t see any of their Seniors here. Anyway, not even an emergency like this is going to make the Powers That Be put an oracular in Tualha’s situation on active duty. The kittens come first.”
That made sense to Nita, but it also made her nervous. “If the cat Seniors aren’t on the job right now,” she said, “who’s handling the worldgates on Earth? That’s their specialty.”
“There are some very new feline wizards, just past Ordeal, who’re taking up the slack,” said Ronan, though it wasn’t quite Ronan. Something else shivered around the edges of his voice, a sense of more power, more age. “It’s as if they were born just in time for this.”
Nita sighed. “One less thing to worry about,” she said. “But I feel sorry for them, being pitched straight into the middle of all this trouble.”
Ronan shrugged. “Not much we can do,” he said, and turned away from the Spear to see what Kit was doing. Nita reflexively reached out to stop the Spear from falling over, and then saw that it just kept on leaning against nothing in exactly the same way it had been leaning against Ronan, the fire wreathing undisturbed about that bitterly sharp blade.
It has a mind of its own, said that other voice. Though maybe “mind” is the wrong word. The kind of consciousness a virtue has isn’t much like the human kind.
Kit had caught Ponch and was checking the leash-spell, the blue-fire glow of it stretching thin and bright b
etween his hands as he checked its wizardry to make sure that it was intact and working correctly. “Something on your mind?” Ronan said, turning back to Nita.
“I don’t know,” Nita said. “I guess…” She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to say what was on her mind, then shrugged as well. “You two are doing okay, aren’t you?”
Ronan’s smile got a bit sardonic. “Told you she’d ask,” he said.
His situation’s hardly unique, the Defender said. Various of the Powers have living avatars for one reason or another.
“Though the rest are all a lot older,” Ronan said. “Apparently it’s unusual for someone so young to be able to cope so well.” He made an ironic face.
Nita raised her eyebrows. Why didn’t I see this coming? If there’s anything Ronan was going to be good at, it’d be coping. “So you’re telling me there’s nothing for me to be worrying about,” Nita said, “for either of you.”
There was a pause. Ronan looked briefly flummoxed. You’re worried about me? said the Defender.
“It can’t be easy being, well, what you are, and having to live inside a human being too,” Nita said. “Especially now, when so many things aren’t working the way they should.”
For a moment Ronan’s face looked as if neither of the two beings living behind it knew how to respond. Finally, Ronan dropped his gaze. Of course my kind of power suffers from being wrapped up in flesh, the One’s Champion said. But it’s inside physicality that the great Game’s played. He looked up again, met Nita’s eyes, and for all the age and power in the voice that spoke, the eyes were strangely young, and there was an odd glint of excitement in them. It’s like chess, the Defender said. It doesn’t matter that you could stand up and turn the board over. That wouldn’t be winning. The only way that matters to win the game is from inside. So— He shrugged. We put up with the limitations, because there’s no other way to win. Not having access to our full power, yes, it’s frustrating. And if we break out before we’re scheduled to, we pay the price.
“But for the time being, you’re okay,” Nita said.
Yes, said the Defender. And I thank you very much for asking. It sounded bemused.
Nita nodded. She looked down from the rise and saw that all the pup-tent accesses were gone now, and Kit and Ponch were standing with Sker’ret and Filif. “Looks like we’re ready,” she said.
Ronan reached out and grasped the Spear. “Let’s go.”
They bounced down to where the others were waiting. Ponch was jumping around, the line of light between him and Kit stretching and shrinking to accommodate him. “Why should you be so nervous?” Sker’ret was saying. “It went just fine the last time.”
“Except that we lost four days getting here,” Kit said. “And that wasn’t nearly as long a jump as this one’s going to be.”
He glanced down at Ponch, whose bouncing went on uninterrupted. It’ll be all right, Ponch said. I know where we’re going. Come on, let’s go!
“Maybe I’m just feeling paranoid today,” Kit said, not quite glancing up at the Pullulus, “but I think we should be in physical contact when we go.” He reached his spare hand out to Filif, who wound a few fronds around it; Sker’ret took hold of some fronds as well from behind Filif, and held a rear handling-claw up.
Nita glanced at Ronan. He shook his head. “I think I’d sooner keep a hand free,” he said, lifting the Spear.
Oh great. I get to hold his hand. Nita swallowed, took Sker’ret’s claw with one of hers, and with the other, took Ronan’s free hand. It was sweating.
She smiled slightly. “All set,” she said to Kit.
Kit looked down at Ponch. “Okay,” he said.
Ponch took a step forward; they all followed, and the gray surface of Metemne vanished behind them.
***
Darkness. For a couple of breaths, that line of light between Ponch and Kit was the only thing Nita could see as they all moved forward together. When she glanced nervously over her shoulder, she couldn’t even see the Spear, though she could still feel Ronan’s hand in hers. There was a surface of some kind under their feet, but Nita couldn’t see it, couldn’t even feel it. The sensation was most peculiar.
“Is it usually like this?” Nita said to Kit—or tried to say. But when she spoke, there was no sound.
Sometimes it is, Kit said silently. Sorry, I should have warned you.
It’s as if there’s no air, Filif said.
I’m not sure there is, Kit said. What’s weird is that whether there is or not, you don’t feel like breathing.
How much longer? Sker’ret said. He sounded somewhat unnerved.
Ponch? Kit said.
Not long.
They kept walking. Nita found herself having to count paces by how her legs moved, since when she put her feet down, she couldn’t really feel anything. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. This is so weird! Fifteen. Sixteen.
The count went past twenty, and still there was nothing but that darkness. Past thirty, and nothing. Nita was having to resist the urge to start singing or whistling, partly because she knew she wouldn’t hear anything, which would just make her feel creepier. And it wouldn’t take much to start imagining the Pullulus infesting this darkness, pressing closer, pushing in—
Nita swallowed and went back to concentrating on counting paces. Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three…
She blinked, not sure whether she was really seeing a dim gleam of light far ahead, or whether she was hallucinating it. No, it’s there, all right, Nita thought. But what is that? The light seemed faintly greenish; as they walked, the green color seemed to get stronger. Fifty. Fifty-one. Fifty-two—
The source of the light quickly grew closer, as if they were moving far faster than a walk. The light began to distinguish itself into shades and patterns; tall dark pillar shapes rose up within it, casting long shadows across the greenness. And then the light swept around them and closed up behind, sealing the darkness outside….
Nita let go of Ronan’s hand, wiping the sweat off against her vest, and stood there gazing up and around her. The dark shapes were huge trees, hundreds of feet high, as broad in the trunk as sequoias, but with broad leaves rather than needles. They towered above the little group, vast branches overhanging the green grass at their feet, and moving shadows from sunlight far above patterned the grass as a slight wind stirred the branches. At the head of the group, Ponch was bouncing up and down excitedly. Kit, looking chagrined, let go of the wizardly leash. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “Go on…”
Nita saw Filif and Sker’ret and Ronan looking around them in confusion. Ponch ran barking off across the green lawn under the trees…
…and from high up in the branches, thousands upon thousands of gray shapes came boiling down the tree trunks.
Ronan stepped hurriedly past Nita with the Spear of Light. Thin tongues of white fire coiled and curled around the Spear’s head, and the starsteel of the head itself burned silver-white as if the spearhead had just come out of the forge again, while Ronan hefted it in one hand, ready to throw.
But the squirrels paid no attention whatsoever. Their attention was all on Ponch. The ones behind Ponch ran after him, and the ones in front of him ran away from him and up the trees again as he started to chase them.
Ronan lowered the Spear. “Uh,” he said. “I don’t think this is where we’re headed…”
“Absolutely not. Sorry about this,” Kit said, sounding exasperated. “And welcome to dog heaven. This is one of the first places Ponch made; he seems to need to use this as a first stop…”
Let him get it out of his system, the Defender said.
“Not that it looks like we have any choice,” Ronan said. He shouldered the Spear again, which began to calm down, the uneasy flame about the blade pulling itself in and going quieter.
Nita walked up across the perfect, manicured lawn to join Sker’ret and Filif. Sker’ret’s eyes were looking in all directions at once, as usual. Filif was standing there with all his ey
e-berries glowing blue, gazing up into the pale blue sky beyond the branches.
“Kit told me about this,” Sker’ret said, “but he understated the strangeness somewhat.”
“More than somewhat,” Nita said. “It’s like a movie set. All perfect. If you’re a dog…”
Ponch was running back toward them now, surrounded by waves of squirrels. He and the squirrels dodged off to the left, past several of the really large trees, and briefly went out of sight.
Kit and Ronan came over to join them. Ponch ran out from behind the trees and back to Kit, the squirrels hanging back a little. As he came, Filif leaned away from Ponch a little, pulling his branches in. “You’re not going to try to water me again, are you?”
It was a joke, Ponch said, sounding somewhat pained.
“Good,” Filif said, with some force.
“And I think we’ve had about enough of the joke stuff for the time being,” Kit said, sounding unusually severe. “I thought we agreed earlier that we’d come here afterward?”
There was something here I needed, Ponch said. I can’t find the way by myself.
Nita blinked at that. “But you said you knew where we were going.”
I do. This is how. Ponch looked up.
Everyone else looked up, too, rather confused. Nita craned her neck back to follow Ponch’s glance, and was surprised when, all by itself, down the largest of the trees a single squirrel came running. It was white.
The squirrel ran down the bole of the tree onto the ground, and there sat up in the middle of the perfect green grass and looked at all of them. Ronan suddenly started to laugh.
Now I understand, said the Defender through him. It’s an embodiment, a way to perceive the trail as an active entity rather than as something passive. Very sophisticated.
And fun. Hurry up and put the leash on! Ponch said, while the white squirrel sat there completely still, its little dark eyes moving across them, one by one. Nita met its eyes and was briefly transfixed, perceiving the white squirrel somewhat as Ponch might have. It was shorthand for a twisting trail made up of a complex of many virtual scents, all braiding and corkscrewing through a peculiar skewed landscape that might have meant time and space as a dog saw them… or as Ponch did, as he wasn’t just any dog anymore.