I wonder if that’s wise…
Kit wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. He looked up and saw Ronan heading over to bump his own now-detached force field against Kit’s.
“You two ready?” Ronan said.
Kit nodded. Ronan stepped through the interface between their two force fields and went over to Ponch. “So, big fella,” Ronan said. “You ready for it?” He got down on one knee by Ponch. Kit hunkered down across from him.
Ponch sat down, his tail thumping. Show me what you want me to find.
Ronan and Ponch locked eyes.
Since the time that Ponch began to reveal his ability to find things—stepping between realities, even sometimes out of his own home universe to track them down—Kit had started trying to use the wizardly link between them to “overhear” what Ponch was seeing and hearing. It wasn’t always easy. Even a dog who had become much less doggy than usual—because of the frequent use of wizardry in his neighborhood—still sometimes had trouble explaining to Kit just what was going on with him. Now, as Ronan looked into Ponch’s eyes, Kit listened hard.
What flowed into Ponch’s mind—tentatively at first, and then with more assurance as the Winged Defender became clearer about how to communicate—affected Kit in two different ways at once. Half the message came through as a blinding, confusing series of images overlaying one another: light forms and dark ones, strange shapes that seemed to have too many sides, colors Kit couldn’t name. But the rest Kit experienced as Ponch was experiencing it—as scent. And this perception left Kit half dazzled, for Ponch’s sense of smell was endlessly more powerful and complex than any human’s, making Kit feel like a blind person who’s suddenly been given new eyes. The complex of scents was a strange mixture, and Kit could make nothing of it. Against a, unusually strong background of the unique dry gunpowder-smell of moondust, now Kit thought he smelled metal, flowers, strange green scents like those of growing things, a smell like dry cocoa and another one like old motor oil, those two aromas strongly overlaying many more.
Kit was aware that to Ponch, these scents weren’t evidence of concrete things but of conditions, thoughts, emotions. The acrid taste of fear, a distant smoky frustration and anger mingling with that fear, concealing itself within it. It’s not so much that he can smell emotions, Kit thought. From his point of view, emotions are scents. There was information of all kinds buried in the miasma of odors—particularly in one that got stronger by the moment. Kit was unnerved to realize that Ponch had classified this scent as being very like dried blood. But blood on the surface of an old wound. Something that’s not over with yet. Something that’s waiting… Whatever was waiting sizzled behind it all like electricity: powerful, dangerous, yet also suppressed, muzzled—
Kit blinked himself back to the here and now: the powdery gray soil underfoot, the Earth setting over the rim of Spring Lake crater. He looked down at Ponch. Ponch had his head cocked to one side; he was whuffling at the air. Ronan sat back on his heels. “Can you track that?”
Ponch glanced up once more at the Earth hanging low by the crater’s rim. I can find what you’re looking for, he said, craning his neck back to look at Kit and Ronan. But we have to go closer to where it comes from, and get away from where there are so many people.
“How come you can’t just ‘walk’ us there?” Kit said.
Ponch stood up and shook himself. Because it’s a real place with life in it, he said, looking across at Kit. Finding a place that’s already there is different from just making one up. And it’s inside the same universe with us. There are a lot of other places that smell sort of the same way: I have to make sure I find the right one. Once we’re away from here—Ponch looked around and down at the wizards —I can do a lot better.
“Okay,” Kit said. He thought for a moment; then said to Ronan, “I have an idea.”
“Yeah?”
Let’s hear it, said the other version of Ronan’s voice, the one both older and edgier.
Ronan, Kit said silently, you said your ‘partner’ was going to be able to protect us from being overheard. Are you both sure?
“Yes,” and Yes, they said.
Okay. A custom worldgating from here would be pretty easy for You-Know-Who to trace. Let’s lay a false trail and go out through the Crossings. Some of the wizards here’ll be going that way. And if Ponch’s problem is that all the life here and on Earth is drowning out the scent, then Rirhath B will be a good place for him to try again. Their population’s a lot smaller.
“Makes sense,” Ronan said. He looked down at Ponch. “That suit you?”
Ponch was already wagging his tail. Blue food!!
Ronan looked at Kit, confused. “Am I missing something?”
Kit had to laugh. “Uh, he thinks that when we hit the Crossings he’s going to get a treat.”
Ronan nodded and stood up. “All right. Well, let me know when you’re ready.” He disengaged his force-field bubble from theirs, and headed off toward the center of the crater.
Nita came up behind Kit and bumped her bubble into his. As she slipped into his bubble, she glanced the way Kit was looking. “Got a problem?”
“I don’t know. Does Ronan seem kind of abrupt to you sometimes?”
Nita laughed silently. “More like always. But more now than before. Probably something to do with his passenger.”
“I guess so.”
“Look, we should think about where we’re going, and how. Dairine and Roshaun are heading off by themselves, so it looks like our group is you, me, Ponch, Ronan, Sker’ret, and Filif.”
“Okay. Did S’reee mention if anybody around here has a gate to the Crossings running already?”
“No,” Nita said. She reached into her otherspace pocket for her manual. “Let’s do a scan…”
“In a minute. Did you ask anyone else to meet us here?”
Nita looked surprised. “No.”
“Then who’s that?” Kit looked toward the center of the crater. One force-field bubble was moving toward them. As the bubble got closer, Kit could see that the occupants were two kids of maybe twelve or thirteen, a boy and a girl. The girl was wearing a dark off-the-shoulder top splashed with a bright tropical pattern over a miniskirt and leggings and ballet shoes, and had very long, straight, dark hair worn loose; the boy’s hair was cropped very short, and he was wearing something that at first glance looked like a suit—though as they got closer, Kit saw that it was actually one of those dark Far Eastern collarless jackets, worn somewhat incongruously over boot-cut denim. Both of the kids looked lean and perhaps a little small for their ages. They were Asian, delicately featured, handsome, though there was something a little fierce about both their faces.
They bumped their common bubble up against Kit’s. “Can we come in?” the girl said.
“Sure.”
Their bubble merged with Kit’s. “You’re the ones who did the Song of the Twelve, right?” the girl said. “Dai stihó!”
“Dai,” Nita and Kit both said. And Kit laughed, and said, “Well, maybe you both know who we are—”
“I’m Tran Liem Tuyet,” said the boy.
“I’m Tran Hung Nguyet,” said the girl.
“We’re a twychild,” they said together.
Then they both burst out laughing. “Sorry, bad habit!”
“Twin wizards!” Kit said. “Yeah, I guess you would hear each other think most of the time.”
“Constantly,” they both said.