“Third,” Penn was saying. “Gives me a little extra time to get ready.”
“Yeah it does,” Kit said. “So get into your head, not too deeply now, start going through the outer inclusion circles of the spell—”
“And presenting fifth will be Susila Pertiwi with a planned-subterfuge microgravity acquisition program for release into the wild.” Applause for that.
“Can I now ask all but the first contestant to take their seats. Will the implementation support team please set up for the first presentation?”
A group of wizards in casual dress came in from one side and arranged themselves around the cleared central space. “I need to remind the spectators,” Irina said, “that the effects you’re about to see are physical-force virtual duplicates of real effects on Earth, manufactured here by wizardry with one-to-one correspondence in terms of mass, weight, and other physical qualities. They are reproduced here so that there’s no chance of endangering or alarming communities on Earth, and they will look and feel real. Even though these effects can be classified as an amazing reproduction, they are not immaterial . . . And since the human mind is a funny thing, in this next demonstration in particular, we urge you not to play with the lava.”
That produced some slightly unnerved laughter from the audience.
The unnerved noises got considerably louder when a smallish but terribly real, full-size volcano appeared in the middle of the cleared space and began to erupt. And then Rick Maxwell, in his polo shirt and jeans and loafers, walked over in front of the foot of the volcano, threw his arms wide, and began to chant in the Speech.
The lava slid directly down at him, and gasps went up all around; but Rick paid the lava no particular attention, just kept speaking the trigger phrases for his predesigned wizardry. The spell that began to spread out around him was a masterwork of structure, elegantly constructed to trap and hold stone in solid form by way of clever temperature changes and gas nullification routines. Kit watched it with admiration. Penn watched it too . . .
And then Kit was horrified to hear Penn mutter under his breath, “This was a horrible idea. I can’t compete with that.”
“Yes, you can,” Kit said. “It’s nice, Penn, but you’re in another league. You’re dealing with much bigger natural forces . . .”
“A very bad idea . . .” Penn was whispering. “I can’t do it.”
Kit looked at Nita with dismay.
She crossed over to them from where she’d been standing off to one side. “Penn . . .” she said.
“I can’t!”
Kit and Nita stared at each other.
Oh God, Kit said silently to Nita. He’s freezing up again. Now what??
“Look at that,” Mehrnaz was murmuring. “It’s fabulous.”
“It is,” Dairine said, watching with pleasure as the lava ran down, slowed, and was halted by wizardry and will. She laughed at the sight of it, reminded of the toy volcano she’d built for one of her school science fairs a long time ago. “But you know what? What you’ve got is hotter.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Mehrnaz said.
“Absolutely.”
“And when I make it work,” Mehrnaz continued, “my aunt is simply going to bust a blood vessel somewhere.”
“Ideally at the end of her nose,” Dairine said.
Mehrnaz snickered softly. “I’m done with her,” she said. “After this . . . we’re all finished.”
“Finished how?”
“I was thinking about moving out.”
“Kind of a big concept right away,” Dairine said. “Don’t worry about her right this minute. Or the family. Pay attention to what you came to deal with. The spell.”
“But that’s part of it,” Mehrnaz said. “My auntie always wanted to do this, Dairine. The other relatives all convinced her she never could, and she fell in line.”
“But not you,” Dairine said. “Trendsetter.” She grinned.
“This is my dream now,” Mehrnaz said, low and fierce. “She gave hers up. I found this one and I’m not going to let it go.”
“Right,” Dairine said. “Look now. He’s almost finished. He did a great job with that. But not like you’re gonna do. Two more people and it’s your turn . . .”
A roar of applause was going up all around them for the perfectly stalled volcano. Rick Maxwell was taking a bow. The threat management wizards came forward and spoke a pre-prepared spelclass="underline" the volcano promptly and obediently vanished.
“Next,” Irina said, “Joona Tiilikainen . . .”
Joona stepped forward into the newly cleared space, bowed his head, and waited.
Another group of threat management wizards came out, encircled the space: stood quietly for a moment, then started speaking.
And within seconds the whole space was a column of cold green seawater hundreds of feet across and at least a hundred feet high, with Joona buried under that terrible depth and weight of water, right at the bottom and standing there like a statue with only a thin force field protecting him.
Nita noted how the tagged hot and cold currents, lighter blue, darker green, were moving in the column. Joona, fighting the tremendous pressure slowly and with difficulty, held out his arms on both sides and began slowly forcing out the words of the spell he’d designed. Gradually, it flowed out from him, carpeting the bottom of that huge cylinder of water, then spreading upward into the water like a webwork or tangle of light, impelling the water into configurations that, once started, would self-manage and self-perpetuate. Cold water flowed under warmer current, warmer polluted water was sucked out where natural processes could decontaminate it . . .
This is fabulous, Nita thought. Her own work with water was mostly beginners’ stuff compared to this. He’s good, this guy. But Penn—
Penn was staring at what Joona was doing, and the look of upset on his face was getting worse by the second.
Nita leaned down to him. “Penn,” she said, urgently, “remember what happened to you in the semis. This is just that all over again.”
“But this is different,” he whispered. “Something’s coming. Something’s going to happen. I can’t do the spell—”
Nita’s mouth suddenly went dry, for she realizd that she could feel it, feel what he felt: that sense of impending danger. “I get it,” she said. “You saw it coming. You had a weird dream, didn’t you?”
Kit was looking at Nita with with growing concern. “You get what?”
She blinked, trying to stay anchored in the reality of the moment. “I can see why he freaked. I can feel why he freaked. He’s right, something’s coming—”
“But what?”
Out of nowhere there were too many answers. “Something awful,” Nita said. “But it’s not what he thinks.”
Then he’s just panicking again!
“Yeah, that’s part of it,” Nita said out loud.
And he’s expecting you to save him again, to give him the answer? He’s supposed to be doing this himself, but he knows you’ll drag him where he needs to be again—
And it was like a bolt of lightning jolting through her. The image from the dream of the Other who’d been wearing Roshaun’s body, saying No one looks at me across the board. And then the image of fire. Something burning, striving, trying to escape—
“Yes. Yes I have the answer, you’re absolutely right! Oh God, you are so perfect!” And she grabbed Kit and pulled him close to hug him. “How are you always right?!”