"Well, why the Hell didn’t he tell me the thing was that dangerous?" Wiz blazed. "We came within an ace of losing it to Craig and Mikey and losing the entire World with it."
She looked at him with amusement. "Would you have dared to use your Mousehole to construct it if you had known?"
"Then why… Oh! You can’t build one, can you? You can’t make a key on your own."
"Not so precisely as to be that powerful, no. Neither could the others. To attempt to make it by magic is to warp the very fabric of the World."
"So you used us," Wiz said dully. "Just like those others were using Craig and Mikey."
"You disapprove, Sparrow?" the elf said coldly. "You find the price high?" She tossed her head in the direction of the still form under the linen draping. "Consider the price he knew he would pay."
Wiz gaped. "He knew?"
Lisella cocked a raven eyebrow. "Why do you think he took such an interest in you?"
"But why? I mean if he knew it was going to kill him…"
"Because he knew there was a better chance of success with you and your alien magics than working only with the ways of his people. He chose a road of certain destruction because it gave a better chance-not a certainty, only a better chance-that the World would live."
She looked at Wiz oddly. "It must be a strange and wonderful thing to be so attached to a place you would willingly go down to non-existence for it."
Lisella raised her hand and made a gesture in the air. "Go in peace, mortal. Our business is at an end."
And suddenly they were back in the computer room.
????????????
For a long time neither of them said anything.
"Well," Wiz said at last, "the prophecy was true. The mightiest among us died and all of us lost."
"Craig lost his life. Danny and June lost the chance for more kids. Mick and Karin lost each other. Glandurg lost his quest. Judith lost months out of her life and we lost…" He stopped and swallowed hard, unable to go on.
Moira wiped her eyes. "Not everyone lost, I think. Mikey can be said to have gotten his heart’s desire. So the prophecy was truly fulfilled."
Wiz thought about that. "Yeah," he said flatly. "You’re right. He did get what he wanted."
Sunlight streamed through the mullioned windows of the Wizard’s Keep in golden shafts and painted warm bright patches on the floor. Dust motes danced in the beams.
Mikey looked at the dust, fascinated. He stretched out his hand and tried to catch the dancing specks in his fist. But they would not be caught and he had more important things to do.
Very deliberately he plumped down on the floor and returned to the job of arraying his army. With exaggerated care he added a new tin soldier to the end of the first line of men. Then he took brightly painted wooden blocks from the pile beside him and added a new building to the town behind his men. He rearranged the cutout trees next to the town and leaned back to survey his work.
Looking out at the kingdom of block villages and tiny metal soldiers spread over the floor of his playroom cum prison cell, Mikey the Great beamed and gurgled with joy.
At last he was truly the master of all he surveyed.