The Wizard's Dilemma, New Millennium Edition (38 page)

The snarling only got louder.

Nita took a deep breath, flicked the charm bracelet around to bring the power-feed configuration she’d designed into place, then brought it together with the kernel.
I’m sorry!
she said, and pushed the power in…

And nothing happened.

Nita stared at the kernel, horrified. She tried feeding the necessary power into the kernel again, twisted that particular strand of power until it bit into her fingers—

But that spell is now invalid
, said a dark voice inside her.
It uses a version of your name that is no longer operational. Your name has changed;
you
have changed. When you were looking at your mother in the hospital last night, you made up your mind to pay my price. You willingly changed your own nature: changed your name. And therefore the spell cannot work.

Nita stood still in utter shock and terror. She wanted to shout
No!
but she couldn’t, because she was suddenly horribly certain that, just this once, the Lone Power was telling the truth. The fact that the spell hadn’t worked simply confirmed it.

And because I agreed, I’m going to lose my wizardry… and my mom will die.

Standing there with the kernel, realizing once and for all that she’d done everything she could and there was nothing else she knew that would make the slightest difference, Nita’s world simply started to come undone. She could do nothing to stop the tears of fear and grief and frustration that began to run down her face.

It
told
me it wouldn’t work. What made me think I might somehow be able to manage it anyway?

“Pralaya,” she said.

“This is beyond my competence,” Pralaya said. “I wish I could help you, but…”

Nita nodded once, and the grief started to give way to anger. “Just what I thought,” she said. “So much for any help from
you!
”

He looked shocked.

“But that would hardly be the Lone One’s preferred method,” she said. “No way
It’s
going to give me any help at all, if it can be avoided.”

Pralaya looked more stunned than before, if possible. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t know what’s living inside you,” Nita said. “Well, I bet you’re about to find out. Come on,” she said to the One she knew was listening. “This is the moment you’ve been waiting for, isn’t it?”

“Not with any possible doubt of the outcome,” said that huge dark satisfied voice.

The Lone Power was standing there looking at her; and for just the briefest second, Pralaya coexisted with Its newly chosen form. It looked human, like a young man—though an inhumanly handsome one—with shadows wrapped around It like an overcoat; shadows that reached out and now wrapped themselves around Pralaya, dragged him, struggling and horrified, into themselves, and hid him away.

“Now, you shouldn’t really have said that,” said the young man. “While he didn’t actually know what was happening, I could have let him live. But you had to come right out and tell him, at which point his usefulness to me vanished.”

Nita stood there horrified. “You just
killed
him!”

“No,” the Lone One said, “
you
did. Not a bad start, but then you were intent enough on killing
something.
” All around Nita, the snarling of the malignant cells was getting louder and louder. “Anyway, don’t be too concerned about Pralaya; I’ll find another of his people to replace him if there’s need. Now, though, matters stand as I told you they stood. All we need is your conscious answer to the question. Can we do business?”

Nita stood there, frozen.

And another voice spoke out of the darkness.

“Fairest and Fallen,” Kit said, “one more time… greeting and defiance.” Beside him, Ponch just bared his teeth and growled.

Nita stared in astonishment at Kit and Ponch. The Lone Power whirled, taking them in, then giving them an annoyed look.

“
You
again,” the Lone One said. “Well, I suppose it was to be expected. You’ll do anything to run her life for her, won’t you?”

Nita’s eyes widened in shock. “The chance that she might possibly pull something off without your assistance drives you crazy,” the Lone Power said conversationally. “Well, fortunately you’re not going to see anything like that
today.
She’s decided to turn to someone else for her last gasp at a partnership.” Its smile made it plain Who that was meant to be.

“We
know
better, so don’t try this stuff on us,” Kit said.

“You
think you know better,” It said. It looked at Nita. “Does he? Or are you perhaps a little tired of him pushing you around?”

Nita stood silent, trembling.

“Might you possibly, just this once, know better?” the Lone One said softly. “Know best? Actually make the sacrifice?”

“Neets, don’t pay any attention to It,” Kit said. “You know why I came—”

“To keep her Oath from being contaminated,” said the Lone One. “Too late for that. The deal is done, and she’s made her choice at last. Without
you.
”

Nita saw Kit flinch at that, but he straightened up again. “I wouldn’t write me off as useless just yet,” Kit said. “And I wouldn’t bet that Neets is just going to dump me.”

“I would,” the Lone One said. “I hold the only betting token that matters at all in the present situation. Only with my help can she save her mother’s life.”

“It’s not true, Neets!” Kit shouted. “It tried pretty hard to keep Ponch and me from getting here. It must have a reason!”

“I can do without further interference,” said the Lone One. “That’s reason enough. Now, though, if I thought
you
might possibly accept a different version of the same bargain…” It stood musing. “Suppose Nita here keeps her wizardry—even despite the mistake she’s just made. I even save her mother, in the bargain—”

Kit shook his head, and Ponch growled again. “I serve Life, and the Powers that cast you out; and the One, the Power beyond Them. And so does Neets, whatever you’ve done to her. So just get used to it!”

The brief silence that followed was terrible. “I’ve been used to it for too long,” said the Lone Power. “Here and there, I stop mortals from incessantly reminding me.” The shadow wrapped around It, already huge, grew longer and darker; and inside it moved things that Nita emphatically did not want to see. It had been a long time since her bedroom shadows had been full of their little legs and their blind front ends, and their fangs, the little jaws that moved….

Kit, though, laughed. “Been there, seen them,” he said. “Millipedes? Is
that
all you’ve got? What a yawn.”

His tone was astonishing. It banished the shadows, all by itself. Nita remembered how she had dreaded those things when she was little, and now found herself thinking, to her amazement,
Can someone else really show you how to kill the fears? Is it that easy? I thought they always said you had to do it yourself.

But maybe there was more to it than that. Maybe others’ strengths weren’t their own property—

—if they
offered—

“Kit,” Nita said. “I know what you want to do, and after how stupid I’ve been with you, it’s great that you even tried, but you’ve got to get out of here!”

“And leave you alone with
That
? Not a chance.”

The Lone Power laughed. “Well, anyone can see where
this
is going. Unless you throw him out of here yourself, it looks like you’re going to let someone else die for you again. I wouldn’t have thought you were such a coward.”

The flush of fury and embarrassment and pain struck through Nita like fire. She opened her mouth to say,
You think I
wanted
it that way the last time? You think I’m not brave enough to do it now? Okay, here—

She didn’t get a chance, for another shape leaped through the shadows and hit Nita about chest high. She came crashing down hard beside one of the pools. “Don’t!” Ponch barked at her. “Don’t do it!”

Nita rolled over and tossed Ponch off to one side.
Oh, the good pooch; I love him, but I can’t let him stop me. There’s still time, I can still save her.
Nita pushed herself up on her hands and knees, and opened her mouth again. But as she did, the greater darkness that had hung about her since she came to this place—that leaning, inward-pressing obscurity—came wrapping down around her, squeezing the breath right out of her, and it spoke.

Don’t
I
get something to say about this?

That darkness leaned in ever closer around all of them, even the Lone One. It was a different kind of darkness than the Lone Power’s enwrapping shadows. Nita stared up into it, confused and frightened.

And then she realized she had no reason to be. Nita
knew
this darkness, from a long time ago… from the inside. Some memories, she realized, are recovered only under very special circumstances. This dark, immense presence, completely surrounding her, owning the world,
being
the world…

“
Mom?
” Nita whispered.

“I
do
get something to say about this,” said that voice, not just suspected now but actually heard.

“Nothing that matters,” said the Lone Power, though it sounded just slightly uncertain.

“The
only
thing that matters,” said her mother’s voice.

“It’s too late,” the Lone One said. “She’s made the bargain.”

“She’s made
nothing,”
said Nita’s mother’s voice, “because this is
my
universe, and
I
say what goes here, and
she does not have my permission.
”

And Nita’s mother was standing there, in the dark, between Nita and the Lone Power, in her T-shirt and her denim skirt, with her arms folded, and her red hair a spot of brightness even in this gloom. “This is
my
body,” said Nita’s mother. “If this is going to be a battleground,
I
make the rules.”

“For a mortal,” said the Lone One, “you’re unusually assured. With little reason. You believe everything some part-time psychologist tells you?”

“For an immortal,” said Nita’s mother, “you’re unusually dumb. The therapist, as it happens, was plainly more right than she knew.
There
they are, the nasty little things, just the way I imagined them.” She glanced at the shadowy pools, roiling full of cellular death. “In here somewhere, to match the darkness, there has to be light. And that’s my weapon, for the darkness comprehendeth it not. On that point, I have sources of reassurance other than my therapist—much older ones. They say that you cannot command a soul that’s firmly opposed to you.”

“But bodies are not souls.”

“At this level,” Kit said, “just how sure are you?”

There was a slightly unnerved silence at that.

Nita’s mother looked over her shoulder at Nita. “My daughter and I,” she said, “are fighting the same battle. Maybe I do it in more ordinary ways. But we’re on the same side. And you, if I recognize you correctly, are no friend of mine.
Get off my turf!
”

She talks a good fight,
Kit thought.
But it’s gonna take more than that!

Nita was almost breathless with tension, yet she suddenly realized that this was the first time in a good while that she’d overheard Kit think. In any case, she had to agree with him.
She’s tougher than she looks,
Nita thought.
But then she was a dancer. Dancers are tough. Maybe what we need to be doing is feeding
her
power—

“You have no power to order me around,” said the Lone One. “I’ve been part of ‘your turf’ since the beginning of things. I have my own rights here.”

“I’ve heard that line before,” Nita’s mother said. “I reject it. I choose who shares my body with me. As I chose my children, and my husband.
I
choose! You think you have any rights here that I don’t grant you? Maybe you can live inside people who don’t look at themselves closely. But those who fight with you every day and have an idea of what they’re wrestling with? Let’s just find out.”

She stood up tall. Nita gulped. She had seen her mother looking ethereal, in her tutu and swan feathers and dinky little crown, in the poster from a Denver Opera Ballet production—looking like something you could break in two. But looking over her shoulder one day and seeing Nita eyeing dubiously that old framed poster, her mother had said, “Honey, take my advice. Don’t mess around with swans. One of those pretty white wings could break your leg in three places.” And off she had gone with the laundry basket, sailing past, graceful and strong, with the danger showing only around the edges of the chuckle.

But just bravery isn’t going to be enough. Not here—

“And just what do you plan to fight me with?” the Lone One said. “You have no weapons to equal my power. Not even the diluted form of it that’s killing you now.”

“She may not have anything but guts and intention,” Kit said, “but that’s half of wizardry to start with. And
we’re
carrying.” He reached into his claudication and came up with a long string of symbols in the Speech.

Nita looked at it, uncomprehending. The Lone One laughed.

“That won’t work,” It said. “Certainly not for
her.
And not even for Nita anymore, as you’ve seen. You think that by plugging an older version of Nita’s name into this spell, she will no longer be mine? It won’t work. It takes more power than either of you have to reverse the kind of changes she’s been through. She knows me now. She’s willing to pay my price to keep her mother alive. And sorry, Mom, but permission or no permission, it’s Nita’s choice that finally counts.”

“Oh yeah?” Kit said. “Neets,” he said to her then, holding out his hand, looking at her urgently. “Quick—”

“Oh, of course, give him all your power, why don’t you.” The Lone One laughed. “So much for your doing anything useful by
yourself.”

Nita swallowed. In Its voice she heard too many thoughts of her own, roiling in its darkness the way the malignant cells were boiling around in the pools.
Can’t cope. No independence. Scared to make a move without her partner
.

Doesn’t have the nerve to strike out on her own—