She glanced over at Kit as Ronan made his way around to him, and banged a friendly fist against Kit’s. “You don’t look surprised,” Nita said.
Kit and Ronan looked at her, and then at each other, and Ronan raised his eyebrows. “Why would he be?” Ronan said.
“I asked him to come,” Kit said.
Nita’s mouth dropped open. She shut it.
“I was thinking of coming anyway,” Ronan said, “but this makes everything easier.” He glanced around at the other wizards. “And I’m glad to meet you folks, because it seems like you weren’t sent here by accident.”
“No,” Dairine said. “We kind of got that feeling…”
Without warning, Carmela came around the corner and pulled Nita away from behind Ronan, backward and out of sight of the dining room, where Kit had started to ask Ronan something.
“Who. Is. Your. Friend??” Carmela whispered, as Nita regained her balance. “Where did he come from?”
“Ireland. There’s this town on the east coast, it’s called Bray—”
“No, no, no,” Carmela said. “I meant it in a much more existential way. I was referring to his basic, you know, hotness.” Carmela put her head down by Nita’s. “Is he attached?” she whispered.
“In ways it would take me days to describe,” Nita said, “yes.”
Carmela’s face fell.
“But none of them are those kinds of ways,” Nita said.
A smile appeared slowly on Carmela’s face. “Oh, good.” Carmela then strolled back into the dining room in the most casual manner imaginable.
Nita shook her head. Did I think things were getting weird around her? We’re about to set a weirdness baseline the likes of which the planet’s never seen. She went after Carmela.
Ronan had just sat down at the table. The others got comfortable on the sofa or on chairs or on the floor, each according to his kind.
“As I just said to Nita, things are starting to happen already,” Ronan said. “The new ‘young Seniors’ are starting to meet on the Moon, right now. You’d have found out about the gathering shortly from your manuals, or whatever form of the Knowledge you use. But I needed to reach you before you left … because I’ve got access to information that’s too sensitive to be entrusted to the manuals.”
Nita’s eyes went wide.
“Whoa,” Kit said softly.
“Here’s the short version,” Ronan said. “The Powers have learned that hidden somewhere in this universe, there’s an Instrumentality, a weapon, that will stop the stretching of space-time—if we can find it and ‘arm’ it soon enough. They say if we start looking now, there’s a good chance we’ll find the Instrumentality before things get really bad.”
“What are the adult Seniors saying about this?” Sker’ret said.
“Nothing,” Ronan said. “They haven’t been told.”
Nita shot Kit an uncomfortable glance.
“I know how it sounds,” Ronan said. “But we can’t tell them. They’re already losing their power; that’s why the intervention last week failed. And that power loss also means they won’t be able to guard the secret from the one Power who’d benefit most from learning it and sabotaging what we’ve got to do.”
“Which is what?” Carmela said.
Ronan glanced sharply at her. “I’m not sure you should be here,” he said.
“I live here,” Carmela said in the Speech. “Get used to it.”
Ronan looked at her for a moment more, then shrugged. “Well. The One’s Champion has passed me a hint of what the solution to the problem might be. But the Powers can’t tell anybody straight out, not even me.” Ronan looked royally annoyed. “If the Powers speak plainly about this to anyone, or put it in the manuals, the Lone One will shortly know whatever it is They know. So we have to go looking for the weapon with nothing but hints to guide us.”
Nita was shaking her head. “I don’t get it. Why are you the one to get this news? Why didn’t the Powers say anything about this to Tom and Carl and the other Seniors who went out on the intervention last week?”
“Because they’re the ones the Lone Power would expect to be given that news,” Ronan said. “I’m sure It was listening to their every thought. But me? I’m a failure.”
He smiled one of those particularly grim smiles of his as he said it, and Nita winced a little. With Ronan it was often hard to tell whether he was being bitter because he meant it, or whether he was doing it for effect.
“I’ve had the One’s Champion in my head for a good while now,” Ronan said. “And I haven’t done much of anything.” He shrugged. “The usual wizardry: local interventions, small-time stuff. But nothing to suggest that I’ve come to any kind of long-term agreement with the Champion, or that I’m anything to be concerned about.”
And whose idea was that, I wonder? Nita thought. Ronan had at first fought the idea of the ancient warrior Power, which humans had occasionally called Thor, or Athena, or even Michael, winding up inside him. He’d hoped the presence of that Power would eventually just fade away and leave him in peace to be human.
“And if the Lone One eavesdrops on me and isn’t able to hear what’s going on in my head terribly well,” Ronan said, “It’s likely to jump to the conclusion that it’s my fault. Ambivalence … the thing that makes a wizard least effective.” His smile wasn’t quite so bitter this time. “So I guess the Powers fancy me as an undercover agent. It was ‘suggested’ to me that someone I knew would be able to get the search for the Instrumentality started. Right after the suggestion came, you got in touch with me”—he glanced over at Kit—”which kind of clinched it.”
“Great minds think alike,” Kit said.
Ronan’s grin acquired a sly and amused edge to its darkness. “There’ll be other suggestions as we go along,” he said. “And the Champion will keep us from being eavesdropped on. But for the moment, to get started, the Champion says we need a Finder. We need the best one there is.”
Ponch, lying on the floor, lifted his head. That would be me, he said, and yawned, and sat up. What are you looking for?
“All I have to go on is imagery,” Ronan said. “I don’t know where it comes from, and neither does the Champion. But if you really have the tracking gift, my lad, it won’t matter. You’ll be able to find it.”
Kit said, “Ponch is very good. He’s ‘made’ whole universes before, to find what he wanted.”
Ponch’s tail started to wag. Squirrels! he said, and started to jump up and down.
Kit groaned. “Ponch,” he said, “this is so not the moment! First you have to find what Ronan and his ‘friend’ need you to find.”
Then the squirrels? Hurray! At least that was how the thought translated from a deafening spate of mental barking.
Kit exchanged a wry glance with Ronan. “The Lone One has to know something about what Ponch can do.”
“Probably more than we’d like It to. All we can do is try to cover our tracks.”
“Then we should head for the Moon first,” Kit said. “If a lot of wizards are there, it’ll seem normal that we should be there, too. If after that we go out into space as just one more of however many teams, It may get thrown off our track long enough for us to find what we’re looking for.”
“Right you are,” Ronan said. “So we should get going now.”