Filif was pouring power into the wizardry at a prodigious rate, but even so, the wizardry itself was suffering under these atrocious conditions. It would not hold forever. And it was being buffeted around like a Ping-Pong ball in the terrible, constantly shifting pressure.
Roshaun was trying to get a reading on the lowest levels of the tachocline, but Dairine saw that every second the readings changed more violently. The layer was like a blanket being wildly shaken up and down by people holding it at the edges. Until it calmed, there was no chance that they were going to be able to do what they needed to do. And it was not going to calm—
Come on, Roshaun said to the Sun in the Speech. He spoke silently to be heard over the roar. Come on, cousin! What are you waiting for? Why all this trouble? You know what you need to do. Otherwise, life on all your planets is going to be problematic. Give us some help, here. Let us help you sort yourself out!
The Sun raged around him; the tachocline bucked and heaved like a live thing, stung by the approaching magnetic anomalies swinging around from the far side of the Sun, the skin of the border layer twitching and shuddering. Dairine started to hear something she never would have imagined it was possible to hear: the Sun itself speaking, like a sentient thing. It was using the Speech, but she couldn’t understand the words. It wanted something; it was trying to tell her, but she couldn’t understand—
That’s impossible. I have to be able to understand; it’s the Speech. What’s the matter?
There’s something wrong here, she heard Sker’ret saying in her mind. Something’s interfering with the magnetic flow at this level.
The bubblestorm area? Dairine asked.
No. Something else. A darkness…
Sunspots? Dairine said.
No! Something else. But dark—
Under them, the tachocline heaved ever more violently. It won’t stay still! Dairine cried. How are you going to get the worldgate down in there long enough to bleed the mass off if it keeps heaving around like this?
There was a long silence from Roshaun. There are ways, he said
conversationally.
Something about the tone of that thought brought Dairine’s head up, made her look him in the eye. But he wouldn’t meet her eye.
Roshaun?
You know what I am, he said to the Sun, ignoring her.
A blast of reply.
Yes, Roshaun said. A Guarantor.
Another blast.
He could understand it and she couldn’t. It wasn’t fair—
Sker’ret, Roshaun said, detach the worldgate for me.
“What?” Dairine shouted.
If Roshaun heard the thought behind the shout, he didn’t betray it. At any rate, the way the roar of the Sun was coming through even the wizardry now, there was no point in using normal speech. Sker’ret said three words, very quickly, and the black shadow that was the worldgate, reduced to a thin scrap of grayish fog in this terrible light, leaped straight into Roshaun’s hands as if he’d called it.
What are you thinking of? Dairine demanded. Let me help you—
You need to stay here and let me do this, Roshaun said.
But if I can just—
You can’t, Roshaun said, looking at her with that infuriating, amused expression. But then that’s what “Guarantor” means. If the world can’t pay the price.. if the people around you can’t pay the price…you do.
The price? No! Dairine said. No! You don’t even like my little planet—you said so—
No, Roshaun said. Which is possibly the best of all possible reasons to do this.
He stepped out of the wizardry.
“No,” Dairine whispered. “No! Roshaun!”
Roshaun vanished in the fire.
****
Interim Destinations In the heart of Alaalu, Kit looked at Nita in complete horror. “You mean that’s it!”
She looked over at him, shivering, and nodded. “I think It’s right,” she said. “We’re stuck here…”
“You were so earnest,” the Lone One said. “And so careless. And so patronizing. You have deserved this so profoundly, I can barely express it. A failed fragment of the Lone Power, am I? Oh, very failed. But not so failed that this species will have any further chance to go on into whatever lovely bodiless stage of evolution might potentially await them. Their only wizard will remember her betrayal until the day she dies, and will warn all her successors never to be tempted to consider Repeal. Generation after generation of them will live out their happy little lives and die into the world. They’ll keep on doing that until their star goes cold and their
species oh-so-gracefully surrenders as a whole to what they will wrongly consider Fate. So much for their intended glory; the One is just going to have to do without them…And as for me, not only do I have all these poor frozen fools to amuse me the few idle aeons until Time’s end, but now I also have you two to laugh at for the rest of this universe’s eternity…your faces to entertain me as your souls writhe endlessly for the mistakes you made, the loved ones who’ll never see you again. Priceless,” Esemeli said, “priceless!”
Kit and Nita looked at each other helplessly as the Lone Power’s laughter once again drowned out the Whispering, echoing all through that place—
—and then Esemeli suddenly cried out, “Ow!!”—
—because something had dropped a stick of ironwood right onto the Lone Power’s head.
Everyone looked up in shock, most particularly Esemeli. Her face went in a second from an expression of pain to one of terrible fury. Standing there in the air above them all, looking down, was Ponch…and holding the other end of his wizardly leash, also looking down at that immeasurable assembly with an expression of relief and wonder, was Quelt.
They walked down the air together, and everyone looked at them, most specifically Esemeli. There was a curse in Its eyes, but It said nothing.
The two of them came down onto the mountaintop, and walked into the heart of that great gathering. She was wondering where you were, Ponch said to Nita and Kit. So was I. So we came looking.
And Kit started to smile. We’re not the only one who made some mistakes, he said privately to Nita. Aloud, he said to Esemeli, “You know, you’re to blame for this.”
It turned to glare at him. “If you hadn’t hurried us along and had waited for Ponch to catch up with me,” Kit said, “he’d be stuck in here with the rest of us. But, no, you had to get going and get us nice and trapped.” Kit glanced over at Nita. “That Binding Oath is really something,” he said, “if it makes the Lone Power help us even when It’s trying to screw us up.”
“Or else,” Nita said, looking over at the Lone One with an expression that was difficult to read, “someone’s found a really good way to do the right things without looking like they were.” And she smiled just the slightest smile. “Didn’t somebody say they were getting a lot more mileage out of ambivalence these days?”
The Lone One turned away. “This will only work this once,” It said. “Make the most of it. When she releases me, you may later come to regret all this. In fact, I guarantee that you will.”