Wizards at War, New Millennium Edition (54 page)

And it gazed up at Ponch.

Above them all, the darkness grew and took shape as the Pullulus pressed inward. All around them, it beat against the orbit of the Moon as if against a seawall, and though for the moment it flowed no farther, Kit could feel that, at any moment, it might. Still, though, that pierced-through lane of normal space and starlight above them persisted … and suddenly Kit realized what he was seeing. The memory of voices back in the cavern on Rashah descended on him, so that he might almost have been lying in the pup tent again; and a voice said,
No power more will come to you, and no new life, until you once more see before you the path you refused, and set out to walk it alone.

This is my place,
Ponch said to the darkness.
Go away!

Make me,
the Darkness said.

I will,
Ponch said.
We said we would take care of them.

You can’t,
said the being that was now wearing the Pullulus, in the shape of something huge and wolfish, with fangs as dark and deadly as its eyes.
And they can’t save themselves, or you. You all get to die today.

I have driven our Enemy out of time for just a little while,
Memeki had said.

Kit swallowed.
I guess our time just ran out.

You’re just one more dog,
the Darkness said.
You have no power against me, and your threats mean nothing.

Ponch’s gigantic shape merely stood there, growling softly in his throat.

I will always be here, no matter what you do,
the Darkness said.
I will come for every one of your kind, sooner or later. That’s the way this universe is.

I think,
Ponch said,
that I have had enough of you telling me how things will be.

If you had, you’d be doing something about it. But you can’t. I own this place, whatever you may think. And as I will come for all your people in time … I will come for all of
his
kind as well. And for
him!

The growling stopped.

You came for Ronan,
Ponch said very softly.
You came for Memeki. You came for Roshaun. But if you think you’re coming for
him
today, think again. Today I choose a new way to go—
and it goes through you!

And Ponch threw himself at the throat of the Darkness beyond the Moon.

It was a “dogfight” in the same way that the meteor that killed the dinosaurs was an “impact.” The stars seemed to shake and the Moon rumbled and quaked with the tumult and the furor of it, and there was no telling how long it went on. The terrible growls and snarls of the Darkness were matched in their awfulness, and in a strange kind of splendor, by the righteous rage of the giant doglike shape with the starlight caught in its coat. Stunned, staggered, many of the watching wizards fell to their knees as the great battle slowly began to turn; others just stood gazing outward into that turbulent night, trying to assimilate what they were seeing. Kit, though, knew; for he’d heard the story beforehand. He watched as what had been foretold came to pass—the Hound taking His old enemy by the throat and throwing him down, yelping, against the floor of heaven.

The Wolf that ate the Moon slowly stood up from that downfall, still growling. There, in the darkness with which it had surrounded itself, It slunk a few steps away, head down, tail between Its legs, growling more softly … and then tried to dodge around and do Its Enemy one final harm. All at once, the Pullulus flowed past the Moon, heading for the Earth and past it, toward the Sun, trying to envelop them both—

The Hound opened His jaws and leaped at His enemy one last time.

The flare of power that had burst up from the group wizardry before was as nothing to this. All space went white as lightning in the flash of the terrible teeth. Kit closed his eyes and still could see nothing but that intolerable whiteness. In it, everything vanished. There was nothing to be felt or experienced but pure power and the eternity in which it was happening. In the face of that irresistible brilliance, the Pullulus burned away like so much ash.

In the white timelessness, Kit stood for some while, as blind as any other wizard on the Moon. But presently he was able to see something dark; and a wagging shape came wandering along to him, and put its head under his hand.

“I have to go,” Ponch said. “But I wanted to thank you first!”

Kit got down beside his dog. “Thank me? For what?”

“You showed me what to do,” Ponch said. “Now dogs have a new story, and a new way to be… thanks to you.”

Kit shook his head, burying his face briefly against the glossy black of Ponch’s coat. “I’m going to miss you,” he said. “You’re not coming back, are you?”

“Not like this,” Ponch said. “I have another job now, and I have to get started. My people have been waiting for me for a long, long time. But I won’t ever really go away.” He looked up at Kit, and his eyes were full of starlight now. “And dogs won’t really seem to change that much. Some old ways of being are good, while we work out what the new ones are.”

Kit put his arms around Ponch and held him for a long time. He had no idea how long they remained like that, or when the light began to fade. But gradually it paled, like dawn in reverse, and Kit found himself kneeling in moondust. He looked up and saw nothing above him but starry night, untroubled by any darkness except the one that properly lives between the stars.

Nita was crouching down by him, looking closely at Kit. “You all right?” she said.

Kit let out a long breath and looked around him. What he had been holding was gone. “Yeah,” he said. “I think so.”

Nita sighed, too, as she stood, looking over to where Carmela was standing with one arm around Dairine. “And as for
you!
” she said to the Pig, which was standing on the other side of Kit.

“Tell me you’re not going to ask me that question!” said the Pig.

“I was going to ask you,” Nita said, “whether all that was what I thought it was.”

“If you thought that dogs now finally have their own version of the One,” said the Transcendent Pig, “then the answer is yes.”

Kit was shaking his head. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “Are you trying to tell me that my dog—my
dog
was—”

“Was? No.
Is?
Yes, it’s the ‘spell-it-backward’ joke again,” the Pig said, with some resignation. “The One just loves those old jokes. The older, the better.” It raised its bristly eyebrows. “Making a big
BANG!
sound and running off to hide behind the nearest chunk of physical existence, like some kid ringing the doorbell at Halloween. And the puns. Don’t get It started on the puns… you’ll be there forever.” It smiled. “Literally. But what did you expect? Your dog started making universes out of nothing. This wasn’t a slight tip-off?”

“And not just making them,” Nita said. “Saving them.”

“Or saving one person,” Kit said.

“It’s the same thing, I’m told,” said the Pig; and it vanished.

Kit looked around at the thousands of astonished and exhausted wizards. Then he looked along the arc of the now-dimming spell diagram, and saw Dairine standing there, holding in her hands a collar with a stone that had gone as clear as water, and now was shading gently toward gold; and beyond her, off in the background, Ronan’s still form. “This is going to take a while to sort out,” he said, and wiped his eyes. “Let’s go home.”

It was, of course, not so simple. There was first of all the matter of Ronan.

His problem was easier to solve than Nita had feared. In the company of three thousand wizards, there were always going to be many who were expert at healing, and some far more so than Nita was. Within a very short time, Darryl had introduced Nita to a spiky-haired fifteen-year-old boy in floppy surfer shorts and a jeans jacket. As he hunkered down by where Ronan hovered, Nita found herself looking at the boy curiously, for he was familiar somehow.

“Missed the heart by about a centimeter,” he said in an Aussie accent, running his manual up and down over Ronan’s chest and looking at the visualization of the wound that appeared on the manual’s pages. “Went right past the right atrium into the lung, but below the major bronchi, and cauterized the tissue on the way in, so the lung didn’t bleed or collapse. Missed the vena cava, too!” He sat back on his heels. “Couldn’t have done it better with a scalpel, but that’d be the Spear for you. Whatever he might have had in mind,
it
didn’t care to kill him. Or need to, I’m thinking—the trauma and shock did the job of letting the Defender out, not to mention his own intentions. I don’t think he lost all that much blood.”

“
Now
I remember you,” Nita said. “We met in the Crossings!”

The boy blinked at her, then he grinned. “No accidents, are there?” he said. “Call me Matt, cousin. Get ready to pull this stasis off him, and we’ll have him right as rain in no time.”

It was a little longer than no time, and Matt looked a little pale by the time it was over. But fifteen minutes or so later, Ronan lay breathing quietly, and Matt was sitting in the moondust getting his breath back, his own wounds closing up. Like most healing wizardries, this one had needed blood.

“But he’s not conscious!” Nita said.

“He won’t be for a little,” Matt said. “His body’s still got to deal with the leftovers from the shock. Take him home, stick him in bed, let him have a few hours’ rest. He’s been through the wringer.” Matt gave Nita a look, and glanced at Kit, who’d come to join them. “But so have you.”

“He can be in my room,” Dairine said from behind them. “I have some things to take care of.”

Nita looked at Dairine with some concern. Her sister was holding Spot, which was normal enough, but so calm and flat a tone of voice was alien to her. Behind her, Carmela glanced at Dairine, then at Nita, and raised her eyebrows.

Nita nodded, and got up. “Sounds good. Matt, thanks!”

“No problem. Have him get in touch with me in a couple of days. I’ll want to do a follow-up,” Matt said as he stood up. “I’m in the book.” He sketched them a small salute, and vanished.

They looked around them, watching the crater start to empty out. Nita looked up at that dark sky, full of stars again, and breathed out in relief. “Come on,” she said.

They all vanished too.

***

Her backyard looked so utterly ordinary that Nita could barely believe it, the late-afternoon shadows of spring lying over it absolutely as usual. She sighed. “We’ve got to go back and touch base with Sker’,” she said. “See if he’s found his ancestor yet.”

Dairine nodded and went ahead of them, very quietly, unlocking the back door and vanishing into the house. Carmela glanced at Kit, then started after her.

Nita put out a hand. “Let her go,” she said. “‘Mela, maybe this is a job for you. Want to go check on Sker’ret?”

Carmela nodded, and roughed up the top of Kit’s hair before he was able to do anything about it. “I’ll go tell Mama and Pop that we’re home,” she said. “And that you’re a hero.”

“Spare me!” Kit said, but Carmela was already trotting down the driveway.

Nita and Kit headed for the back door. Just briefly, as they opened the back gate, Nita paused to look up at the Moon. There it hung, just past first quarter and looking utterly innocent, as if nothing of any importance had been happening.

“It’s hard to believe,” she said to Kit.

“I still can’t believe it,” Kit said. He was standing by the gate as if waiting for someone to run past him.

“Come on,” she said softly. She checked to make sure that the wizardly screening field around their property was still in place, so that the neighbors wouldn’t freak when they saw a body being levitated in through the back door.

They had gotten no farther than into the kitchen when Nita heard the sound of someone dropping newspapers by the easy chair. A moment later, her dad came around through the dining room and into the kitchen. Nita ran to him and hugged him hard. “Are you okay?”

“I feel fine,” he said. “How about you?”

There were too many possible answers to that question, some of them contradictory. “It’s going to take a while to tell you everything that happened,” Nita said. “But are things okay here?”

Her dad sighed. “It looks that way,” he said. “The political situation looked pretty bad late last night and early this morning, but now the news channels say that all the people who were threatening each other with nukes have begun to see sense and back down.” His expression got wry. “One of the commentators said, ‘Often you wait for one party or the other in a crisis to blink. But this time they all blinked at once.’”

Nita managed a very slight smile. “That would have been about the time,” her dad said, “that every dog in town started to howl.”

She put her eyebrows up at that. “Oh, yes,” her dad said. “And it wasn’t just here, either. Dogs all over the state, possibly all over the country. There are as many theories as there are news channels that are bothering to carry the story. The main theory seems to be that the government was testing some new kind of sound weapon. Or early warning system.”

Nita shook her head. “Ponch,” she said.

Her dad had been looking at Kit, who was looking at Ronan. “I thought maybe it was something like that,” he said. “Because all the other governments on the planet seem to have been testing the same weapon. —Tell me later. What about Ronan there?”

“He needs somewhere to rest awhile before he goes home,” Nita said. “Dairine said we should put him in her room.”

Her dad nodded. “Fine. Neets … how is she?”

Nita shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Her dad sighed. “Okay,” he said. “By the way, school called.”

“Oh no.”

“You all have to be back tomorrow,” he said.

Nita was tempted to say
No, please, I need one more day!
But then she nodded, for it struck her that the utter terrible normalcy of school might actually be something of a rest, after all this. “Okay,” she said. She turned to Kit. “Let’s get him upstairs so he doesn’t have to be floating around down here.”

It took a few minutes to maneuver Ronan up the stairs and into Dairine’s bed. When Nita got up to her room, Dairine was standing and looking into the closet with a very strange expression. As they came in, she turned hastily.