Ictanikë smiled, and there was a sly look to the expression, which Nita didn’t care for. “So adult beings conduct their affairs in the worlds beyond your world,” Ictanikë said. “Go the way I will show you, and you, too, will do your business among the worlds in such a way as to impress all with your wisdom and power. But you should also know that not all beings even in this world conduct their business in such a kindly way, giving freely and accepting freely. Even here there are places where the creatures of the world take what they please, and give little back, or nothing. You must know how to conduct yourselves in such places, and how to defend yourself from those who would take what is yours by force. I can teach you these things.”
“And how is it you know about that in the first place?” Seseil said. “You speak confidently of the worlds beyond our world. You speak of prices to be paid, as if our way of giving and accepting were a trap. Nor do any of us know you, or where you come from. I think any advice you might have to give should be looked at with care.”
Nita watched, and saw how most of the wizards drew together toward Seseil. But one or two of them still stood off to one side, regarding Ictanikë with curiosity if
not interest. And one of them, an Alaalid with long red hair hanging down below his shoulders, moved a little way toward Ictanikë and said to her, “What exactly would your price be?”
Nita froze…for the redheaded wizard was the small man, just her height, who had come to her in the dream of statues and said, “I’ve been waiting for you…”
Ictanikë’s smile grew somber. “It’s as you’ve said, entropy is indeed running. But with my price, you can buy yourselves…an exemption. Around you, you see what happens to the rest of the world. Even the mountains are worn away in time; all life ends. But for you, for the wise, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are ways to go on, to reject the fate of the material things around you. If I help you, you can have life…and then cheat death.”
The wizard with the long red hair looked thoughtfully at Ictanikë. “Who is that?” Kit whispered.
Quelt waved a hand, and all the figures froze in place again. “That’s Druvah,” Quelt said. “He was one of the oldest of the wizards. You can tell by his hair; ours doesn’t usually get that red color for a long time.”
“Uh-oh,” Nita said. “I think I see what’s coming…”
Quelt let the Display continue.
“You still haven’t said what your price will be,” Druvah said.
“It’s only a little thing,” said Ictanikë. “I know the One who brought entropy into being. For those who’re that One’s friends, there are privileges and rewards. One of them is to circumvent the waste and pain that come with age. A people who make this bargain have no need of watching the strength and joy of youth slip slowly away. It’s theirs forever. They have an eternity to grow from power to power…and if they so desire it, more than an eternity. They can go onward into the time beyond Times, in their own bodies, in the flesh. To do so, of course, they must take entropy’s inventor as their master, not some impersonal wind. The relationship is far more rewarding, more personal.”
“But is it more free?” said Seseil. “Those who speak in terms of prices, themselves will do nothing for nothing. The wind has spoken the name of one of the Powers that lives in the dead calm, in the sun that beats down and parches the dry isles and dries up everything that would grow. We want nothing to do with that Power, or Its gifts.”
And the wizards began to argue. Nita sighed, because she had heard various versions of this argument since she’d become a wizard, and it rarely turned out particularly well for the world in question. The Lone Power had had eons of practice at making Its case, and was extremely good at befuddling the innocent and putting one over on the clever. As she watched, Nita noticed Druvah walking off in an absent sort of way, and Ictanikë went after him.
Kit noticed that, too. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Neets is right. I know where this is going.” He glanced over at Quelt.
Quelt made a gesture with an upraised hand; Nita read this as a shrug. “It goes on for a while,” Quelt said.
Off to the side, Nita could see Druvah and Ictanikë talking animatedly. “I bet that one does, too,” Nita said.
“Oh, yes,” Quelt said. “Do you want to skip ahead?”
“Sure,” Kit said.
Quelt made another gesture with her hand, and all the figures blurred about briefly, then came to a stand again. Ictanikë and Druvah were walking back toward the main group now, and the others watched them come, Seseil watching most carefully. To Seseil, Druvah said, “Ictanikë has told me a great many things, and I’m convinced that we should give her suggestions a more careful hearing.”
Seseil’s face was calm, but in his eyes Nita thought she saw signs of the first anger she had yet seen in an Alaalid. “I feel no such need,” Seseil said, “nor I think does anyone else here. We want nothing of her ‘exemption.’ Through her voice the dead calm speaks, and there’s no good in that. We will cast her out. We will wall her out of our world. And, henceforth, we will take our chances with the winds.”
The other five wizards in the circle with Seseil held up their hands against Ictanikë in a gesture of rejection. She began to be battered back away from them as if the wind was actually blowing her from the circle, though in the grass around there was no sign of it and only the slightest breeze stirred the flowers. Nita held her breath, waiting for the storm to break. But to her surprise, nothing happened. Druvah stood there and watched Ictanikë forced away and away, and finally turned his back on the Lone Power; but, equally, he turned away from the other wizards and began to walk off through the flowers, a lonely figure.
“You will call me back, before the end of things,” Ictanikë said, and looked warningly around her at the circle of wizards. “You think you are acting in virtue, but you are acting in ignorance. And though you are swift in decision now, you will have long to repent it!”
“Never,” Seseil said. “We want nothing to do with you. Take yourself away, and do not bother us again.”
Ictanikë looked one last time at the other wizards with Seseil. Every one of them was of the same face and the same mind. Her frown became terrible; still in the act of being forced away, she raised her hands.
Nita winced. Here it comes, she thought. I bet now we find out why this planet has what looks like a really big impact crater…
But, again, nothing happened. Ictanikë let her hands fall, and turned, and walked away from the wizards. She went the way Druvah went, not hurrying. Slowly, she vanished into the dazzle of the day, and was gone from sight a long time before she came anywhere near that impossibly distant horizon.
Seseil and the other wizards lowered their hands, and closed up their circle again. Kit glanced over at Quelt. “That was it?” he said.
“That was it,” Quelt said. “Should there have been more?”
“Well,” Kit said, “not necessarily. But I’ve seen Choices that took a little longer.”
Nita looked around again at the scenario with some confusion. “This is kind of strange,” she said. “The way Druvah was acting—unless I’m misunderstanding it—it’s more like the kind of thing the Lone One would do. Are you sure he wasn’t—” She paused. It was a word no wizard liked to use about another one. “Overshadowed,” Nita said at last, when she realized that Quelt wasn’t going to say it.
“You mean actively being influenced by the Lone Power?” Quelt said. “No,
not as far as we can tell.”
“What happened to Druvah afterward?” Kit said.