The Book of Night With Moon (57 page)

Saash stood up and began slowly, silently, to walk toward where Arhu and Haath were fighting; very carefully she went, like an
ehhif
carrying a full cup or bucket, intent on not spilling any of the contents. Haath and Arhu were up on their hind legs now, boxing at one another; as Saash paused, Arhu threw himself at Haath again, hard, and took him down, going for the throat, missing. Behind them, very quickly, Saash moved forward in one smooth rush—

"
Saash, no!
" Arhu screamed. Haath rolled out from underneath Arhu, scrambled to his hind legs, and made a flinging motion at Saash with one claw.

The spell he threw hit her, and her shields collapsed.

"
Saash!
" Rhiow roared. The white-burning form writhed, leapt in the air, shrieked terribly once—

—and fell. The fire went out, except for small blue tongues of it that danced over what remained for a few seconds. What remained was no longer tortoiseshell, but black, thin, twisted, charred: legs and head burnt to stumps, the head—

Urruah ran to her. Haath straightened, smiled slowly at Rhiow, and then at Arhu. "Nothing," Haath said, "literally."

At the sight of what had become of Saash, Arhu roared, a roar that was almost a scream, and threw himself at the saurian again. He was big and strong in this form, and he had the advantage of knowing what his enemy was about to do before he did it. But every time Arhu tore Haash, the tear healed: every bite sealed over. The best Arhu could achieve was a stalemate, while trying to keep his enemy's teeth out of his own flesh. He was not always succeeding.

Nearby, Urruah bent over Saash's body, touched it with a paw, then left it and began circling toward Arhu and Haath. Half-crippled with rage and a new grief, with the memory of the last look in Saash's eyes, seen through the fire as she leapt up, Rhiow joined Urruah and started to circle in from the other side. The thought of wizardry was not much with her at the moment. Blood was what she wanted to taste: that foul thin pinkish stuff that saurians used. One of them might not be enough to take Haath down, but weren't they a pride?
Three may be enough—

Haath, though, was laughing. With one eye he was watching Arhu, keeping him at bay with those slashing claws; and he too circled, watching first Rhiow, then Urruah as they came.

"Don't you see that it won't matter?" Haath said softly, grinning. "You have killed me before, cat, and nothing has come of it except that now
I
shall kill
you
… and that will end it."

"It's not enough," Arhu yowled at Rhiow. "I know what I need to do this, but I can't get
at
it! Rhiow!"

She opened her mouth—

Slash.
Haath straightened up, and Arhu went down, thrown fifteen feet away, staggering another ten or so with the force of the throw, with his rear right leg hanging by a string, the big groin artery pumping bright blood onto the dark stone. Rhiow started to hurry to him as Arhu fell over and tried to get up again, squalling with pain.

"No," Arhu yelled at her, "the Whisperer's telling me what to do, I can hold the blood inside me for a while, I'm wizard enough for
that.
Don't waste time with me!"

"Waste some," he growled. "Haath, you and I are going to polka."

"
What
is a polka?" Haath asked, mocking.

"You may be sorry you asked," Rhiow said softly, watching to see what Urruah had in mind.

It was a slower stalk… less the scream-and-leap technique that Arhu had used, and all the while he stalked around Haath, Rhiow could feel Urruah weaving a spell, fastening words together in his head, one after another, in a chainlike pattern she couldn't make much of. Haath turned as Urruah circled him, his head moving slightly from one side to the other, as if somehow watching what Urruah was doing—

"Rhiow," Arhu cried from where he lay, "none of this is going to be good enough! What are you waiting for? Use the spell!
Use the spell!
"

"I can't, it's not—" But it
was.
It was ready. It lay shining, complete and deadly in her mind, and Rhiow wondered that she had never perceived the sheer unbalanced dangerousness of it, even earlier when it had first started to come together. A spell is like an equation: on either side of the equal sign, both sides must balance. This one, though, was weighted almost all one way… toward output. The power and parity configurations, the strange output projections, they were all complete now… and all of them violated natural law.

Except that the natural law Rhiow knew was
not
the one operating down here.

I don't know how natural law operates down here! It could backfire! It could—

Sometimes you can be too reasonable,
Urruah had said: or something very like that. But sometimes, maybe reason wasn't enough.

Sometimes you might need to be
un
reasonable. Then miracles could happen.

It worked for the younger wizards, didn't it?

But I haven't been young for a while,
Rhiow thought desperately. She was a team leader. She had to be responsible, methodical, make sure she was right: others' lives depended upon it. And even now, all that method hadn't helped her team: they were all going to "die dead," and she felt old— old, failed, and useless.

Don't listen to It, Rhiow!
Arhu yelled into her mind, writhing, trying to get up.
I've got enough young for all of us!
But I can't do this for you.
You have to do it. Let go, Rhiow, just do it,
do the spell!

It could destroy everything—

Big deal, Saash was going to do that! And we all
agreed
she should! Now she can't! Do—

Urruah leapt at Haath, turning loose whatever spell he had been working on. Haath slashed at him, and Rhiow felt that spell abruptly come to pieces as Urruah went down, kicking, then froze, held pinioned on the stone, spell-still. Rhiow launched her mind against the wizardry that held him, trying to feel what it was, to pry it off Urruah… but there was no time, she couldn't detect the structure—

Haath leaned over him, lifted his claws, and slashed Urruah open as casually as an
ehhif
would slash open a garbage bag with a razor.

Everything spilled out….

Haath reached in one more time, hooked one long claw behind Urruah's heart, pulled. It came out, as if on a hook, still beating; beating out its blood, until none was left. Smiling, Haath released the spell. Urruah rolled over in Rhiow's direction, squirming; he cried out only once. His eyes started to glaze.

Just let it go,
he said.
Just do the spell. Rhi—

And then silence.

Haath looked at her and grinned.

Rhiow held very, very still, and the rage and horror grew in her…

…for it was almost exactly what she had been saying to everyone else: Arhu and Ith in particular.

Sometimes we do not hear the Whisperer even at her loudest because she speaks in our own voice, the one we most often discount.

Rhiow took a long breath…

…and started to use the spell.

It was not the kind you could hold "ready-for-release" and then turn loose with a word: within minutes you would be staggering under the weight of its frustrated desire to be let go. It had weight, this spell. You had to shoulder into it, boost it up to get at the underside where the words of activation were. The weight of it pushed down your neck and shoulders, your eyes watered with the strain of seeing the symbols, and then you had to get the words out: big hefty polysyllabic things, heavy with meaning. Rhiow fought with the spell, pushed past and through its inertia and got out the first two words, three, five—

—when something seized her by the throat and struck her dumb.

She gagged, clawed at her face… but there was nothing there.
Trickery,
she thought, but her throat would still not work.
The Lone One.
And,
Aha,
she thought.
It must be worth something after all—

She fled inward, into her workspace, where the spell lay on the floor of her mind, and hurriedly started to finish it there. Spells can be worked swiftly inside the practiced mind, even when working through the graphical construct of a spell diagram; Rhiow, terrified and intent, was too swift, this once, for even the Lone One to follow her in and stop her. Power flashed around the spell-circle. The whole thing flared up, blinding. Its status here inside her was as far along toward release as it had been when her outward voice was choked. Only a few words left to complete the activation: but here they were not words but thoughts, and took almost no time at all. One word to make all complete, knotting the circle together, setting the power free—

Rhiow said the word.

The spell went blasting out of her like a wind that swept her clean inside, threw her down on the stone, left her empty, mindless, half-dead.

There Rhiow lay, waiting for something to happen.

Silence… darkness.

Nothing happened.

It didn't work,
Rhiow thought in complete shock, and started to stagger to her feet again.
How can it not have worked?

A spell
always
works!

But the nature of wizardry is changed,
said that thick, slow, soft, satisfied voice in her mind.
It only works if
I
want it to.

Slowly, slowly, Rhiow sat down.

Beaten.

Beaten at last.

She hung her head…

…and then something said,
No.

Liar,
it said.

Liar! You've
always
lied!

It lied the last time. It's lying now.

She had trouble recognizing the voice.

It's live! Activate it!

Arhu?

Call them! They
have
to come! Like in the park—

She staggered, blinked, unable to think what on Earth he meant.

Wait a minute.
The park. The
o'hra
— the
ehhif
-queen in the song who demanded that the Powers That Be come to her aid, on her terms—

—and They
did
—

—but to
require
the Powers to descend, to demand Their presence: it was not something that was possible, They would laugh at you—

No,
Rhiow thought. That was someone else's idea,
something
else's idea.
Yours!
she said to the Old Serpent.
Yours! As it was your idea what happened to my Hhuha. As it was your idea what happened to Arhu's littermates and almost happened to him. No more of your ideas! You have had only one, and I've had enough of it for today.

Reconfiguration,
Rhiow thought.
To change the Lone One's perception… it would take this kind of power.
And others' perceptions could as easily be changed.

Rhiow staggered to her feet again, opened her mouth, looking for the right words…
Let it come,
she said,
let it come to me: I will command!

Instantly the huge power blasted into her, as the activated spell had blasted out, leaving room for her to work. She tottered with the influx of wild power, staggered like someone gone distempered, unable to see or hear or speak, unable to feel anything but the fire raging inside her, striving to get out, get up,
do
something. It did not know what it wanted to do, though.
This is always the problem,
said the Voice inside her.
It must be disciplined, or it will ruin everything. Hold it still, keep it until the right words come.

But with that power in her, she
knew
the right words.

"WHAT HAS BECOME OF MY CHILDREN?"
Rhiow cried. She knew the voice that shouted; it was her own— but Someone else's too: the sun burned inside her, and fire from beyond the sun readied itself to leap out. She could not believe the rage within her, the fury, but there was a core of massive calm to it, the knowledge that all could yet be well, and the two balanced one another as the sides of the spell had not.
"Where is Aaurh the warrior, and sa'Rráhh the Tearer, wayward but dear to Me? And what has become of My Consort and the light of his eye, without which My own is dark?"

The ground shook: the Tree shook: the Mountain trembled under her.
"Old Serpent, turn You and face Us, for the fight is not done—!"

She could not believe her own strength. It filled her, making the initial release of the spell from her seem about as world-shattering by comparison as a stomach-growl. And she could not believe that the Old Serpent, the Lone One Itself, now looked at her from the Tree with eyes suddenly full of fear. Rage, yes, and frustration… but fear first.
Is that
all
it takes?
she thought, astonished.
One sentence— one word, one command? "Let there be light—"

Here and now… the answer seemed to be "yes."

It was "yes" before too,
said Queen Iau. But the voice was Rhiow's own.

The Serpent began, very slowly, to uncoil Itself from around the Tree. As it did, the huge gouge that It had bitten in the Tree's trunk began to bleed light afresh.

Oh
no You don't,
Rhiow thought furiously, stepping forward.
Where do you think
You're
going?

She was immediately distracted by the way the ground shook under her when she moved. Rhiow would have been frightened by it except that inside her, acting with her— part of her, as if from a long time before— was One Who was not afraid of Her own power in the slightest.

Rhiow was abashed beyond belief. Not in her wildest expectations had she anticipated the spell might have this kind of result: she would hardly have dared to think of herself and the One in the same sentence.
Oh, my Queen, I'm sorry— I mean, I—