Dairine lay still, waiting for the lightning to strike.
And another voice spoke.
"Wanna bet?" it said.
It didn't feel us arrive right when we did, Nita thought. How distracted It is! What's she been doing to It?
She and Kit actually had a second to collect themselves when they appeared, and Nita looked around her in a hurry. Another barren world, a great flaming barred-spiral galaxy flung across its night, an old tired star high in the sky, type N or S from the look of it, and a crowd of robots, crowded around Dairine and looking at her-and them- and the Lone One.
As with any other of the Powers, though there will be general similarities of vision among the like-minded, no two people ever see the Lone One in exactly the same way. Nita saw the good-looking young red-haired man she had seen in a skyscraper in the alternate otherworld the Lone One called his own. He was not wearing the three-piece suit he had affected there. Now he was dark-clad and dark-cloaked, unarmed and needing no armor: a feeling of cold and power flowed from him and ran impossibly along the ground, as if carried on a chill air. As the sight sank in, Nita shook like a leaf. What Kit might see, what Dairine and the robots might be seeing, Nita wondered briefly, then put the thought aside. She had other business.
It turned and looked at them. Nita stood as straight as she could under the circumstances, her manual in one hand, the other hand clutched on the gimbal in her pocket; beside her Kit stood almost the same way, except that Picchu sat on his wrist, making him look like a king's falconer. "Fairest and fallen," Nita said, "greeting and defiance." It was the oldest courtesy of wizards, and the most dangerous, that line: one might be intending to cripple or destroy that Power, but there was no need to be rude about it.
"You two," said the Lone One. "And a pet for company. Adorable. . and well met. You are off your own ground and well away from help at last. It took me long enough to set up this trap, but it was worth it."
Kit glanced at Nita and opened his mouth, but Picchu beat him to it. "And that's all you're going to get out of it," Peach said, "since the real prize you hoped to catch in that trap has obviously slipped out of it."
Peach began to laugh. "You never learn, do you? You're not the only one who can structure the future. The other Powers will sometimes scruple to do it. Not often. . but They took a special interest in this case. The first time you've completely lost a Choice, from the beginning."
"And the last," said the Lone One. It made an angry sweeping gesture at them. But Nita had been waiting for something of the kind. She clenched her hand on the gimbal and thought the last syllable of the spell she had been holding ready.
The bolt that hit their shields was like lightning, but more vehement, and dark. It was meant to smash the shield like a rock thrown at an egg, leaving them naked to the quick horrid death of explosive decompression. But it bounced. No shock was transmitted to them directly: but Nita, fueling the spell directly, felt the jolt go through her as if that thrown rock had hit her right in the head. She staggered. Kit steadied her.
The Lone One looked at them in cold astonishment. "Hate won't be enough this time," Nita said. "Care to try a nuke?"
It didn't move, but that cold fierce force struck the shield again, harder. Dust and fragments of the surface flew all around them, and the ground shook. When the dust settled, it was plain that the shieldspell produced a spherical effect, because through the bottom of the sphere they could see the molten stuff underneath them pressing against it. They were standing in a small crater that seethed and smoked.
Nita sagged against Kit: this time he had to hold her up for a moment. "Why are we alive?" he said in her ear. "The gimbal's not enough to be holding that off! What are you fueling that shield with?"
"A year of my life per shot," she said, giddy.
Kit stared at her. "Are you out of your mind? Suppose you were scheduled to be hit by a truck in three years or something?"
She shrugged. "I better watch where I cross the street, that's all. Kit, heads up, there's more important stuff to think about!"
"Yes indeed," Picchu said to the Lone One. "The last time you lose a Choice. Let your own words ordain the truth… as usual."
Its face got so cold that Nita for a moment wondered whether the shield was leaking. Impossible. But enough of that, and enough sitting around and waiting for It to do stuff! "I'm warning you now," she said, "I don't know what you've been up to here, but I bet you're the reason my sister's lying there on the ground. I don't want to hurt you, particularly; you hurt enough as it is. But I'm giving you just one chance to get out of here."
She thought she had seen rage before. . but evidently the Lone Power did not care for being pitied.
"Or you will do what?"
"This," Nita said, and dropped the gimbal on the ground, knowing what would happen to it, and let loose the other spell she had been preparing, the other one Kit would not have liked to hear about. The one word she spoke to turn it loose struck her down to her knees as it went out of her.
The figure of the Lone One writhed and twisted as something odd happened to the light and space around it. Then it was gone. And the gimbal fell to powder, which sifted into a little pile on the ground.
Kit shook Picchu off and reached down frantically to grab Nita. "What did you do?"
She panted for breath.
"Sent it home," she said. "We know the coordinates for its dimension. It's a worldgate, like the one Dairine did for Mars-"
"That's two years of your life, maybe five," Kit said, furious, dragging her to her feet. "Why don't you tell me this crap when you're planning it?"
"You'd get mad. You're mad now!"
"We could have shared the time, you stupid- Never mind! It's gone, let's get Dairine and haul out of here before It-"
Whatever hit them, hit them from behind. The shield broke. They went sprawling. And the cold exploded in. Nita shut her eyes in terror: that was all that saved them from freezing over on the spot. She recited the spell carefully in her mind, and didn't breathe, didn't move, though her ears roared and she could feel the prickle in her skin caused by capillaries popping. Four more words, two more, one. .
Air again, but little warmth. Nita took a breath: it stabbed her nose and mouth like knives. She opened her eyes and tried to see: her vision was blurred, shock perhaps-she didn't think her corneas had had time to freeze. Beside her she faintly heard Kit move among the shattered bits of the poor molten, refrozen, broken surface. "I changed my mind," he muttered. "Instead of being dead, can I just throw up some more?"
"Oh, no," said the Lone One from somewhere nearby, "no indeed. You have laid hands upon my person. No one does that and lives to boast of it. Though you'll live a while yet, indeed you shall. I shan't let you go quickly. . unlike your mouthy friend."
Nita blinked and looked around her-then saw. An explosion of scarlet and blue feathers lying among the broken rubble; red wetness already frozen solid, frosted over.
Her insides seized. I was always counting on someone to come and get us out of this. Peach or somebody. We've been lucky that way before. But not this time. She got to her hands and knees, the tears running down her face with the pain of bruises and the worse pain of fear inside. Not this time. I guess the luck couldn't hold.
There were hands on her. It's not fair! she thought. When you give everything you've got, it's supposed to turn out okay in the end! The hands pulled at her. Her eyes went back to the poor pile of feathers sticking up in the rocks. She didn't even have a chance to do anything brave before she went. It's not fair-
"Neets. Come on."