Pralaya made a little sideways tilt of his sleek head, which Nita had started to recognize as the way his people nodded.
"And willpower may not be enough," Nita said softly. "Trying my best... still may not be enough." She swallowed hard. "Loving her...no matter how much... it doesn't matter. It still may not be enough."
There was a long silence. In a slightly remote-sounding voice, Pralaya said, "Running into that hard wall of impossibility is something we all do eventually."
"It hurts," Nita said softly. "Knowing there's wizardry... knowing that it can do so much...but not
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this. It would almost have been better not to know at all." "That can happen," Pralaya said to her.
She looked up, shocked, for his tone was not precisely cautionary.
"Wizardry doesn't live in the unwilling heart," Pralaya said, again with that slightly remote tone, "as you know. If it starts to hurt too much, you can always give it up."
Nita sat silent in the unchanging radiance. "If I do that," she said, "then what's been given to me's been wasted. The universe would die a little faster because I threw away what the Powers gave me to work with."
"Of course, you're the only one who can say whether it's worth it," Pralaya said. "And afterward, you wouldn't know. Forgetfulness would come soon enough. Your mother might still die, but at least you wouldn't feel guilty that you couldn't stop it."
Nita didn't answer. She was beginning to hear more clearly something in Pralaya's voice that she hadn't been able to identify, really, until now, when they were alone here, in the quiet.
"But also," Pralaya said, "you're acting as if your mother was doing something she wasn't going to do, anyway."
"What?"
"Die," Pralaya said.
Nita just looked at him. There's something about his eyes, she thought. At first she had dismissed it as just another part of his alienness. Now, though...
"We're all mortal," Pralaya said. "Even the longest
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lived of us. Sooner or later, the bodies give up, wear out, run down. Matter-energy systems have that problem, in the universes where living beings reside. I don't know of any solutions for that problem that are likely to do your species—or mine, for that matter—much good."
"But it wasn't supposed to happen now\" Nita cried. "I'm just a kid! My sister's even more of one! She's going to be..." She trailed off. It was indeed going to be worse for Dairine, as if Nita could even imagine, yet, how bad it was going to be for her. "She's going to be completely miserable," Nita said.
"'Wasn't supposed to happen'?" Pralaya said. "According to whom?" I Nita couldn't think of an answer to that.
"Twist and turn as we may," Pralaya said softly, "sooner or later we all come up against it. We do our service to the Powers That Be... but They do not always treat us in return as we feel we deserve to be treated. And then... then we look around us and begin .
to consider the alternatives." |
Nita looked at Pralaya, uneasy again. He looked at her with those great dark eyes, and Nita saw a change in expression, as if someone else was looking out at her.
And suddenly she knew, understood, and her mouth went dry.
"I know who you are," Nita said, not caring now whether she was wrong or would feel stupid about it afterward.
"I thought you'd work it out eventually," the Lone One said.
They sat there in the silence for a few moments. "So that's it?" the Lone One said after a long pause. "You're not going to go all hostile on me?"
Nita's mind was in a turmoil. She knew her enemy... and at the same time, she'd never seen It like this before. It has been changing, she thought. We gave It the chance to do that, right from the start. But there was more to her reaction than just that realization. She had to admit that even through her fear and unease she was curious.
"Not right this minute," Nita said. "Not until I understand some things. I was in Pralaya's mind, once or twice. He's a real wizard. He has a real life. He has a mate, and pups, and..." She shook her head. "How can you be you... and Pralaya, too?"
It looked at her with mild amusement in those big dark eyes. "The same way I do it with you," the Lone One said.
Nita gulped.
"You know the rule: 'Those who resist the Powers... yet do the will of the Powers. Those who serve the Powers... themselves become the Powers.' And if you serve Them... then, if you're not careful, you also sometimes may serve me. I'm still one of Them, no matter what They say."
Nita didn't move, didn't say anything. She was remembering some more of the stricture It had quoted: Beware the Choice! Beware refusing it! She hadn't been quite clear about what that had meant before. Now she was beginning to get an idea.
"Sooner or later," It said, "every wizard leaves me a
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loophole through which I can enter. Sooner or later every wizard just wants to make a deal, just one time. Sooner or later every wizard gets tired of always having it go the way the Powers That Be—the other Powers, I mean—insist it has to go. No room for flexibility in Their way of thinking. No room for compromise. So unreasonable of Them. But wizards have free will, and they don't always see things the Powers' way. When they come around to that line of thinking, I'm always here."
It stretched and scratched Itself. "For Pralaya, the loophole was curiosity. It still is; we've coexisted for some time. His people's minds are constructed differently from yours. They don't see an inexorable enemy when they see me, but part of the natural order of things. They've learned to accept death. Very civilized people."
Nita had her own ideas about that.
"He's useful," the Lone One said. "Pralaya is a very skilled, experienced wizard. He's had a long life; during it, various trouble* have avoided him. That's been my doing. In return, occasionally I can exploit his acceptance of me, to slip in when he lets his guard down, and handle some business of my own."
"Like dealing with me," Nita said.
She was controlling herself as tightly as she could, waiting for any sense that her mind was being overshadowed by the Lone One's power against her will. But she couldn't feel any such thing.
"Among other things," the Lone Power said. "And if there's going to be a deal, the structure of it is simple
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enough. One less wizard in the world is worth something to me. Your mother's life is worth something to you." Pralaya shrugged. "Over your short career, you've been something of an irritant to me. But not so much so that I'm not willing to do you a favor in order to get rid of you."
Nita stared at it. "You're telling me that if I give up my wizardry... you'll save my mother's life." "Yes."
Nita swallowed. "Why do I have a real hard time believing you?"
It gave her a whimsical look. "So I bend the truth sometimes. One of the minor uses of entropy. What do you expect of me? I use what tools I've been left... and the one I invented always works the best. It's working here and now, while we sit here talking. The cancer cells are spreading all through your mother's body right this minute, eating her alive." It smiled slightly. "Cute little machines that they are. Life thinks it can overcome every thing... but in some ways, it's too strong for its own good. This is one of them."
Nita's mouth was bone-dry with fear. "Why should you keep your word once you've given it?" It laughed. "Why shouldn't I? You think one ordinary mortal's life means that much to me? But a wizard ... that's another story. You people cause me no end of grief, even over your little lifetimes. I run around and try again and again to kill you, or just to keep you from undoing my best work. It takes up too much of my time. Now here's a thing that's easy for me to do. You come to terms with me, and I call off the viruses.
Because you've willingly, consciously come to terms with me, by the Oath you swore, you then lose your wizardry. One less problem for me in the universe, afterward. Maybe more than just one less."