"It's a trick," Nita said.
"Not at all," the Lone Power said. "You don't believe me? Fine. You go right on inside your mother as planned. Take Pralaya with you, even; he'll be glad to help. But I'm telling you, you're still going to find it too much for you. The viruses will win in the end." The Lone One shrugged again. "But I'm even willing to let you try to beat me fair and square, and fail, and I'll still do you that last favor afterward... if you agree to the price."
The price. The words echoed. Suddenly Nita found herself wondering whether this encounter itself was the price that the manual had so far failed to specify.
And she was becoming cold inside at the thought that perhaps just by sitting here this long and listening to the Lone One, she had already paid it.
"What if I refuse?" Nita said.
"I couldn't care less," the Lone Power said. "Stretch your power to the uttermost. It won't help. The operation will end, and the doctors will get that tumor out, all right. But even in the short run it won't matter, because the viruses in your mother's body won't have listened to anything you have to say, and the secondary tumors will already be forming in her bone marrow and her pancreas and her liver. You'll have maybe a few more weeks with her. Or maybe you'll overextend yourself in the wizardry and leave your mother having
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to deal with the reality of your death, while her own is creeping up on her. Nice going-away present, that."
If Nita had felt cold before, it was nothing to how she felt now. She could find nothing to say.
"Don't make up your mind right away," the Lone Power said. "Think about it. You've got plenty of time... until the morning after next, at least. And then you can slip inside your mother, find her kernel, the software of her soul, and do your best." "And you'll make sure I fail!"
"Far be it from me to be so unfair," the Lone Power said, and folded Pralaya's middle arms, leaning back in the lounger. "There's, oh, a chance in a million or two that you can save her... but your inexperience means that you'll have to do it by brute power, fueled by despair ... and you'll almost certainly die, either doing it or trying to."
Nita was silent.
"It'll be a lot easier my way," the Lone Power said. "You go in, you fail... and then you agree to my price and I call off my little friends. Spontaneous remission, the doctors will all say afterward. Miracle cure. Everybody will be happy... most especially your dad." Nita gulped again. "And as for you, you just don't do any more wizardry. Your mother doesn't even have to know about it. Or you can tell her that you had to use up all the wizardry in you for this one big job, while you still remember what you were, anyway. And you'll be amazed how soon she stops bringing up the subject at all."
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Pralaya scratched his tummy with his middle legs. "But then mortals always get so twitchy about magic, anyway. No matter what you've told your mother since she found out about it, she's never been entirely sure that you didn't get the wizardry somewhere... let's just say, somewhere unhealthy." It smiled at her, and the look was supremely ironic. "You'll be able to relieve her and your father of their concerns once and for all. And indirectly, their concerns about your little sister. I doubt even Dairine is going to rub their noses in her continued practice of wizardry when you've forgotten all about it. She'll go undercover and you'll all be just a normal happy family again."
Except for all the things that will never again be right ...no matter how normal we seem.
Nita sat there feeling numb. "Just how are the other Powers letting you get away with this kind of thing?" she asked at last.
"They can't stop me," It said. "Not without undoing all of creation. And They're not willing to do that. Oh, there are some pocket universes where They have one or another of my aspects bound. You've seen one of those—on your Ordeal." It shrugged. "But I can't be confined to such places. The power of creation was given into my hands, once, and the willing gifts of Gods cannot be taken back after they are given... so I am still part of everything created, one way or another. And will be, until it all ends. But that's a long way ahead of us." It stretched. "There are more immediate concerns. You'll let me know what you decide, sooner or later... and if you pay my price, your mother will live."
It got up and stretched again. "I'll take my host home," the Lone One said. "It doesn't do for me to overshadow him for too long at a time; he might get suspicious. You'll decide what to do. And when you head out to do your final intervention, you'll find Pralaya waiting for you, ready to help you out—one way or the other."
Pralaya's transit circle appeared at his feet. "But one way or another," the Lone Power said, "I suggest you make your peace with the other Powers That Be. Your relationship with them isn't likely to last in its present form for much longer."
And Pralaya stepped through his circle, and vanished.
Nita sat there alone in stunned silence for a long, long while, thinking. Finally she got up and prepared her own transit circle, wanting more than anything else just to go home, where things would seem normal again, where she could get a little rest and try to work out where the truth lay.
But the image of her mother lying pale and stricken in the hospital bed kept coming before her eyes, and Nita was afraid that she had already made up her mind.
It was late when she got back, and the sight of her darkened bedroom seemed to suck the energy out of heti Nita fell onto the bed and lay there in desperate weariness, while her mind raced. For what seemed like hours, though it was probably only a few minutes, she
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tried to find a way out of the bargain she was being offered ... any way out. She couldn't find one. / need another viewpoint, she thought. But it was too late to talk to Kit.
And I need Pralaya, she thought. That extra dose of ability, his talent at seeing and analyzing the alternate universes. He was good at it, there was no question of that. She was going to need all the help she could get.
But Kit is going to want to come, she thought. / can't stop him. And, oh, I do need his help.
But he was even less experienced at this business of manipulating kernels than she was. And if he does come along, when he sees Pralaya, what if he realizes who's hiding inside him?
The details of this bizarre relationship were still making her head go around in circles. Up until now the Lone Power usually had manifested itself in displays of brutal and destructive power. Nita knew perfectly well that It could be subtle when It pleased. But she hadn't pictured anything like this. And regardless of the mechanism by which It had subverted this wizard, if Kit recognized Its presence in Pralaya, he was going to be furious that Nita was still working with him. He's not going to understand what I'm up against here, she thought.
He will if you explain it to him, said the back of her mind.
But Nita was already beginning to try to frame that explanation in her head, and the more she tried, the more it sounded like something that would simply make Kit think she had sold out to the Lone Power.
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And what if he's right?
She turned over and stared at the ceiling, her mind noisy with tentative dialogue, and with anguish. To save her mother... and lose her wizardry.
Was it worth it? Once, when Nita's wizardry was new, maybe she would have said No! right away. The Oath seemed so clear-cut then, the lines between good and evil very thickly drawn.
But now...
Her mother.
She simply could not imagine a life without that serene, dancing presence sailing through it. Her mother was always there, behind everything, involved in everything. The idea of a life without her, of an emptiness where she had been: never again to hear her voice, joking, yelling, singing to herself, never again.