Wizards at War, New Millennium Edition (48 page)

There was no sign of struggle left in Carmela, none at all; Nita got just a glimpse of the blank look of her eyes as she stepped closer and closer to the King, as if sleepwalking, helpless. Kit threw himself again in the King’s direction, but the warriors held him fast. “No!” he shouted. “Do it to me if you want, not her!”

The King’s regard slid in Kit’s direction. “We will do it to you soon enough, I think,” It said. “But first we will let her bleed a little. Just a nip here… a nip there.” It lazily stretched out Its claws. “She will feel every moment of it, but not be able to move a muscle. It should be a learning experience for one so spirited.”

Carmela stepped closer, and closer. Another step or two would bring her within range of those cruel claws; they were stretching toward her, one of them would be close enough with the next step to brush her cheek—”NO!” Nita screamed, struggling in the grip of the claws that held her.

“But wait. What might this be that I perceive there?” said the King’s soft, oily voice. “A weapon of some kind? And how cunningly hidden under that body-covering. But though you might have been clever about hiding it, it makes no difference if the mind that hid it is helpless to hide its own thoughts. Bring it out.”

Carmela stopped, and slowly reached inside the light vest she was wearing, bringing out the curling iron. Very softly the King said, “Perhaps blood would be the wrong approach after all. What delicious irony if one who lives by such a weapon should die by it, and be unable even to—”

The terrible blast of fire in that dim place blinded everybody and knocked them staggering. The force of the explosion shoved Nita into the warrior that was holding her; she found her footing again just before it let go of her and went down, crashing to the floor with a horrible, thin, shrilling scream. An awful singed-hair stink of burning bug came billowing out from the dais through waves of greasy black smoke, and it was some seconds before this cleared enough for Nita to see that the King’s entire front half had been blown away. Its rear half was now a smoking, bubbling, sagging bag of grossness, the sight of which made Nita simply bend over double and retch, mutely grateful that the soda she’d drunk was now too far along in her system to come back up. When she straightened up again, she saw through the smoke that Carmela was standing in front of the King’s smoking remains with the curling iron in her hand.

“Oops,” Carmela said… and, very slowly, smiled.

Nita stared around them in utter astonishment. Around them, all the other warriors and even the Arch-votary were making that same terrible shrill cry, wavering, desperate, as they fell to the ground and went silent. From the depths of the City to its heights, faintly at first and then more loudly, Nita started to hear that shrilling spreading all through the vast place. Ronan instantly whirled and snatched the Spear of Light out of the claws of the collapsed warrior who’d held it.

Kit ran over to Carmela. When he got to her, he threw his arms around her and buried his face against her. “You dummy,” he said, “you incredible idiot, you stupid—”

“Hey, I love you, too,” Carmela said, hugging him back as Nita hurried over.

“‘Mela,” she said, “it was
controlling
you! How did you—”

“It wasn’t,” Carmela said. “It made me jerk a little that first time, but after that I was just playing along. Maybe it’s no good with our kind of brain or something?”

Nita didn’t think that was likely, but she looked about halfway back at the King, making a face. It was very dead, and the smell seemed to be getting worse rather than better. “Okay,” she said. “But what about Memeki?”

They turned toward her. Memeki was hunched on the floor, and her limbs, which had before been flailing as if in distress, were now unnervingly still. Nita went over to her, knelt down by her. “Memeki?”

No answer.

“It’s starting to happen to her, isn’t it,” Kit said.

Nita felt sure it was. She reached sideways, feeling around for her otherspace pocket, and still couldn’t feel it.

Huh?
she thought.
What’s the matter?
she said to the peridexis.
The King’s dead, the Lone One should be—

“Uh,” Dairine said, very quietly. “Neets—”

Nita looked up, looked around, unable to see what Dairine’s problem was. Then she looked back at the dais.

The charred remnants of the King still lay there, smoking. But within them, slowly drawing upward instead of drifting outward, was a deeper darkness, gathering together and shaping itself into a new form: humanoid enough, but taller than any human, and with a far deeper darkness in the eyes gazing down at them as the shape grew more ominously distinct. Solidifying, clothing itself in a long ebon tunic and booted breeches somewhat like Roshaun’s, the young and darkly handsome figure of the Lone Power glanced down and around It, and casually kicked Its way out of the ruin of the King’s body like someone kicking his way out of a pair of shucked-off jeans.

The Lone One stepped down from the dais and surveyed the smoking remains of the King. Then It turned around and looked at them. “‘Oops’?” It said.

The voice was deep, urbane, and dry. It could almost have been pleasant had Nita not known perfectly well that the pleasantness was never more than a disguise or a trap. What worried her most at the moment was that all Its attention was bent on Carmela. It left the dais and stalked toward them. “
‘Oops’?
”

Carmela had sense enough to be unnerved. She took a hasty step backward, then another, as the Lone Power approached. “Sorry,” she said.

“I rather doubt it,” the Lone One said, “but that will change. Is it possible that you don’t know you’ve made things worse for yourself, not better? Then again, you’re new at this. Well, in the short time left to you, here’s one lesson for you to learn.”

It smiled, and Carmela shrank back. Then her eyes abruptly went wide. A little shriek burst out of her. She spun and, hastily, overhand, threw the curling iron away hard. A mere six feet or so away from her, in midair, it blew up.

Everyone jumped back. Nita gulped, and was briefly relieved that Carmela had spent so much of this school year on the pitcher’s mound for the school softball team.

“So much for science,” the Lone One said. “Though I must confess that why you weren’t more susceptible to control is an issue for curiosity.”

“Might be that someone here was able to keep you from noticing,” Ronan said. Leaning on the Spear of Light, he glowered at the Lone One from under those dark brows of his.

“That seems unlikely,” the Lone Power said. “He’s got precious little power left in him right now, and he can’t draw on the pitiful scrap of power
that’s
got left.” It glanced dismissively at the Spear, which now simply looked like a spear and nothing else; its flame was gone, and not even the twisting fires that normally lived in its blade were there anymore. “But even more unlikely is the possibility that
she
was able to keep the information to herself. So for the moment we’ll file the matter under ‘interesting but unimportant.’”

It turned around and looked briefly at the King’s remains. “What a shame,” the Lone One said. “I’d just gotten this one broken in. But I’ll soon grow another. Meantime, I have other business here.”

“What are you going to do with us?” Kit said.

“Probably nothing,” It said.

“Oh,
sure
!” Dairine said.

“No,” the Lone One said, “seriously. Why should I exert myself? Not a single one of you has enough power to turn lemons into lemonade. And
that’s
not going to change.” It strolled over toward the softly growling Ponch. “Not even
he
can get out of here; his abilities, not that I care to try to understand them, are derived from wizardry as well. You’re all completely stuck.”

It turned Its back on Ponch and wandered over to Memeki. “I admit,” It said, “normally just killing you would be my initial impulse. But I’m thinking it would be more fun just to let you all wander around on this planet for the rest of your natural lives, which probably wouldn’t be long: there’s not much to eat or drink here that your metabolisms are built to handle. But you’d live quite long enough to suffer from some of the things that are going to happen as a result of your failure.”

The Lone One came to a halt by Memeki’s side, gazing down at her. “And as for the attempted ‘Aeon of Light’ here,” It said, kicking Memeki idly with one booted toe, “the Unfallen One and all the rest of the fancy terminology—well, she’s a spent force. She waited a few seconds too long to make up her mind. When I sealed wizardry away, she lost access to the power that would have allowed her to enact her transformation. So, starting in a few minutes, when the grubs hatch and she begins to die, her embodiment will officially have failed … and after that, I won’t ever have to worry about the much-waited-for Hesper again, in this or any universe. You
did
know that if an emergent Power’s first embodiment fails, both the being inside time and the being outside in timelessness cease to exist?”

Nita glanced over at Kit and the others, miserable. “Oh, good, you knew,” the Lone One said, pleased. “That will make your failure hurt lots worse. If a Power hasn’t actually been on hand at the creation of a physical universe, the initial successful embodiment is the risk it has to take to insert itself into one. If the Hesper had been smart and stayed outside of so-called reality, in timelessness, I’d have left it completely alone. But once it decided to meddle in what’s going on inside physicality, it had to pass this test first, which always eventually attracts my attention, though this time it took a little more tracking down than usual. I’ve been expecting this move ever since my so-called redemption. The One didn’t wait nearly as long as I thought It would. Its mistake.”

The Lone One looked down at Memeki, amused, and turned away. “So, no more Hesper. She’s about to do what all good mothers on Rashah do—die.” It smiled at Nita and Dairine. “Her children will go on to start useful and productive careers as my slaves. And I’ll have at least a few aeons’ more peace and quiet until the Powers decide to try another stunt like this.”

“I doubt it will be anything like that long,” Filif said, giving the Lone One a look of massive disapproval out of every berry-eye.

“Oh, I think it will,” the Lone One said. “The Powers That Be used up a great deal of energy setting up this project, and They hate to waste. Now, of course, I used up a fair amount, too, because I needed to distract all you little wizardly busybodies from noticing what I suspected was happening somewhere or other. It didn’t entirely work—after all, here you are. But all the same, you’ve done me a favor. Without all of you bringing Rashah to my attention, who knows whether I’d have been alerted to this problem right under my nose in time to do something about it?” It smiled again. “So the other Powers have outsmarted Themselves … and it’ll be a long time before they feel like trying this again.” It gave Filif an amused look. “Life on
your
planet will be so much mulch by then. Actually, it’ll be mulch a lot sooner, because even though I don’t mind all of you living out your little antlike lives in misery on Rashah, your worlds are going to pay up front for your meddling. Certainly you didn’t expect otherwise!”

“So you’re just going to let the Pullulus destroy everything,” Ronan said bleakly.

“Don’t be silly,” the Lone One said, sitting down on the dais and crossing Its legs. “If I did that, what would be left to play with? There are billions of years’ worth of suffering left in your universe yet. Oh, I’m finished with the Pullulus now. When I withdraw my attention from it, it’ll run down in a hurry. While it didn’t
completely
do what I wanted it to, it did disrupt or even destroy a good number of civilizations in the populated galaxies. The other Powers will waste far more energy trying to save the maximum number of all those trillions of endangered lives than I ever spent destroying them. So I’ve won this round on two counts.”

Its smile got nastier. “And while They’re trying to pick up the pieces elsewhere in the universe, I can amuse myself with raising another King for the Commorancy, and watching all of you run around trying to survive on Rashah. It really is a nice little world. Hundreds of thousands of Yaldiv, every one of them devoted to my service, and every one convinced that all other life is their enemy, and that only I can offer them salvation. I haven’t had such a promising species to work with for a long time. Possibly not even since yours.” It gave Nita and the other three Earth-humans a look of ironic appreciation. “Once I’ve got enough of them, and I’ve given them the right technology, they should be able to overrun a significant portion of this universe. But present pleasures first.” It glanced at Roshaun. “One early order of business will be to push the Pullulus in tightly enough around your solar system to flare up Wellakh’s star. Your people always do react more hysterically to fire than to ice.”

Nita saw Roshaun go pale, but he kept his face stern. He plainly wasn’t going to give the Lone One the satisfaction of seeing him express his fear.

“And I can use the same technique on your people, I suppose,” It said, looking back at Filif. “‘Kindler of Wildfires,’ they call me? They won’t have seen anything like this. The sunside of your planet will be one big charcoal briquette when I’m done.
Your
little friends,” and It frowned at Dairine, “have unfortunately made themselves energy-independent … but we’ll see how much good that does them when one or two rogue planets collide with theirs from either side. It’ll be just like dropping an egg on concrete. All that tinkly shattering silicon.” It glanced over at Kit and Nita and Ronan. “And then, of course, Earth. The Pullulus is doing such a lovely job there already, I won’t have to do a single thing but watch. It’s closing in on your heliopause already, and people’s tempers are getting frayed. Every government on the planet with any weapons worth noticing is already at DEFCON Two, and it’s only a matter of hours before the big show begins. A fallen skyscraper or two will be
nothing
compared to what’s coming up. And you’ll know, for the rest of your short lives, that it was all your fault.”