Nita shook her head. "Unless you caught something that I didn't, Ronan. I can't always understand the way people talk around here."
Ronan shook his head. "I heard what you heard, more's the pity. I was hoping they might come up with the Spear, too."
"You and me both," said Aunt Annie. She stretched, and slumped in her chair. Nita noticed how tired she looked, and felt sorry for her.
"Did you do the warding you were going to do?" she said.
Her aunt nodded. "The back office is ready for the Cup," she said. "Johnny went to help Doris with it; apparently it's more alive than they had expected, and it was causing them trouble. They should be here in a while. Anyway, when you're in the back of the house, be careful of the office door. I had to draw the spell pattern partway up the inside of it to miss the rug in there, and if you open the door, it'll break the circuit. Just reach in through the door if you need something." They nodded. "Aunt Annie," Nita said, "I was going to ask you. Where does Biddy the farrier live?"
She tried to make it sound nonchalant, and had no idea whether she had succeeded. Her aunt looked at her a little curiously. "Just up the road in Kilpedder," she said. 'Next to the shop across the dual carriageway. She has her ordinary forge there. Why?"
Nita tried not to squirm. "I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask her," she said.
"About her forge," Kit said. "It's really great. I hadn't seen a portable one like that before."
"Oh. Well, it's getting close to teatime: you should be able to find her up there in a while — her work rarely keeps her out much later than this."
Nita became aware of a low buzzing, and looked around her. "Is that the oven-timer?" she said. Aunt Annie looked bemused. "No, the oven's not on."
They looked at each other as the buzzing got louder. Some of the spoons on the table began to vibrate gently, moving along the table a little. "Look at the Sword!" Kit said. "It's vibrating."
It was. The low humming sound that Nita had mistaken for the oven-timer was coming from it, and it was getting louder. "It sounds a little like feedback," she said.
A faint beep-beep sound came from outside. The Sword's hum got louder, and (Nita thought) more threatening. "Ohmigosh," her aunt said, "it's Doris and Johnny, and they've got the Cup!" "Neat!" Kit said, and got up. "Let's go and see!"
"Wait a minute!" Aunt Annie said, sounding panic-stricken. "We don't have the place prepared to have two of the Treasures here at once! Put two of these things together without adequate preparation, and you're going to get something that makes atomic critical mass look like a wet firework!" She looked around hurriedly. "Crikey, I can't leave now! Kit, quick, take it and get out of here!"
He picked it up, rather nervously. It jumped and jittered in his hands, and the hum started to scale up into a howl. "Where?!"
"Anywhere! Somewhere far! More than fifty miles. I'll cover you for the overlays, just go!"
He looked at Nita. "Copernicus," he said, and muttered three words, and vanished.
The air went whoomfinto where he had been: not the usual explosion. Nita smiled slightly, considering that Kit had been as impressed by Johnny's expertise as she had.
Outside, car doors slammed. "Here, let me get that for you, Doris," Johnny's voice said.
They all went to the door. Johnny was pulling the glass sliding door aside. Behind him came Doris Smyth, holding something wrapped in a pastel-striped pillowcase. The something shone through the pillowcase as if it were on fire: a still, cool, changeless fire that nonetheless rippled and wavered on everything it touched, like the sun looked at from underwater. "Back office, Anne?" said Doris's voice, sounding strained but cheerful.
"Right. Don't open the door, just walk through it."
"Certainly. Johnny, you handle that; I have my hands full."
There was no room for them all, down that narrow hall. Nita and Ronan stood there and watched as the three older wizards walked down past the bookshelves and turned the corner, out of view. Except that they weren't entirely out of view at all; they were faintly visible in the reflected light from the Cup, even through the intervening walls. Nita shook her head. "Don't do things like this at home, do you?" Ronan said.
She grinned at him and headed back into the kitchen. "Neither do you, buster. Not as a rule, anyway."
She went to fill the kettle for the next inevitable round of tea. "Where's Copernicus?" Ronan said. "On the Moon. Southern hemisphere." "The Moon?!"
Nita shrugged. "She said more than fifty miles. That should be enough." Then she looked at Ronan's face as she plugged the kettle in. "Haven't you been there?" "To the Moon? No!"
"Why not? It's great." He opened his mouth, and Nita suddenly felt annoyed at herself. "The overlays, I guess. I'm sorry. Look, there have to be some places you can teleport from safely. If you can find one, and hop over and see us, we'll run the wizardry through for you, and show you around. It's no big deal."
"I'd like that," he said, and smiled slightly. It was a look Nita hadn't seen on him often; the chip off the shoulder for the moment, and just a touch of wistfulness. "It must be grand," he said, 'being where you don't have to be afraid to do all the wizardries you know can be done." She laughed a little, and leaned against the worktop, waiting for the kettle to boil. "It has its downside — you wouldn't believe the trouble you can get into. Remind me to tell you about the shark who almost ate me."
"Want a look?" Aunt Annie said, coming back into the kitchen, with Johnny and Doris behind her. "Yeah!" Nita said. She headed down the hall, with Ronan behind her.
There was no need to do anything special. Walls meant nothing to the light of the Chalice — or rather the light of what was inside it. It was sitting on its pillowcase, the bowl of it half a meter across, the gold inlay on the outside of the bowl, and in the spirals and curves that ran down its stem and massive foot, all burning as if molten and ready to flow off the Chalice at a moment's notice. The burning came from the blue-white light filling it, a light that was liquid and was still trembling slightly from having been moved. It shone through the metal as if it were glass, and through everything else it touched.
She looked at Ronan, and away again, shaking her head. Words seemed inadequate, and out of place. But at the same time she couldn't help noticing his expression, like that of someone struggling with a memory: and oddly, not trying to remember, but to forget. .
Maybe he felt her eyes on him: he turned his gaze away from the Cup, and looked at her with a troubled expression. "Let's get together some time soon," he said. "I need to talk." Nita suddenly found herself afraid to find out what he wanted to talk about. She nodded, and went away hurriedly, back down to the kitchen.
The three older wizards were sitting around the kitchen table, waiting for the teapot to finish brewing. "I have a message for you from the Queen," she said. Johnny looked at her questioningly, and Nita repeated the message.
He smiled very slightly, and it was a sad look. "She is asking," he said, "whether there is any hope that the world they have chosen to live in will ever come any closer to Timeheart. They love Ireland, make no mistake; but at the same time, they're of the Powers, and they long for Timeheart, where they were created. But the legends say they must stay in the world they have chosen until the One's Champion comes back with his Spear, and they lose the world of their desire." He shook his head. "A while yet, I think." "Do you want Kit back?" Nita said.
He passed a hand over his forehead, smoothing his hair back. "Where is he?" "The Moon."
"That's all right, then. Wait a few minutes before you bring him back here. I can add a limiter to the binding on the Cup that'll make it at least safe for the Sword to be here with it. But the Sword will need its own binding."
Doris poured the tea out. "That's one less problem," she said. "Now if we just knew what to do about the Spear, we'd be fairly ready."