Slowly, farther down the corridors, other Yaldiv began to appear: workers mostly, heading toward the door of the Commorancy to make their way out into the world for the day’s work. Inside her mochteroof, Nita turned to Memeki and waited.
Memeki stood quiet. All of them were looking at her now, but she seemed oblivious to this. Nita waited. Come on, she thought, come on! Just say yes! That’s all it needs. Just say—
“I will not,” Memeki said.
They all stared at her.
She stood there with her claws together, in a position that was neither the Yaldah’s fearful “averting” gesture or the warrior’s threat. There was something strangely serene about it, and she looked over at Ponch and bowed. “I will not go in,” she said. “I am no longer of the City. I am the Hes—”
And from the dim silence of the grubbery, the warriors came boiling out.
Once again everything started to happen at once. Nita saw Dairine and Filif and Roshaun drop, inside their mochteroofs, come up with strange shapes furred with the power-glow of working wizardries, and start firing at the surrounding warriors. To her own astonishment, Nita was horrified. “No! Look out, you’ll hurt Memeki, if you—”
Then the firing stopped. That, too, horrified Nita, because it wasn’t due to anything she’d said. From around all of them, the mochteroofs abruptly vanished.
There they stood, suddenly unshelled—five humans, one humanoid king, one talking tree, one dog, one computer-being, and a Yaldiv—and harsh claws seized them from every side, snatching away everything they had been holding, including the suddenly revealed Spear of Light from the shocked and swearing Ronan. The breath went right out of Nita, not so much from the horror of two giant bugs each grabbing one of her arms, but because of something much more innately awful. Ever since Nita had begun to practice the Art, the rule had been, “A spell always works.” But suddenly it didn’t.
The warriors began to hustle them all away from the grubbery. There was a certain amount of noise. When Spot was pried out of her arms, Dairine had joined Ronan in struggling hard and yelling words that would have given their dad a heart attack if he’d heard them; and Roshaun was accompanying her in Wellakhit idiom that from the sound of it was nearly as bad. Carmela, to Nita’s surprise and relief, was angry, but not terrified; as they were dragged along, she flicked Nita a glance and waggled her eyebrows a couple of times, then glanced toward her curling iron’s holster, and shrugged. It was empty.
Damn, Nita thought. She glanced at Kit and Filif, who were being dragged along nearby. As Nita was pulled even with Kit, she met his eye, tried to pass a thought to him, but was astonished to find that even in this moment of crisis, she couldn’t hear him think. He just looked at her and shook his head.
As they passed various astonished-looking workers and handmaidens and were hauled downward into the heart of the City, in the back of Nita’s mind she could feel the peridexis struggling as desperately as a bird clutched in someone’s fist. What’s happened? she said to it, getting less scared and more angry. Why isn’t anything working?!
The Lone One’s now fully occupying Its avatar here, the peridexis said. And It’s locally damped down every secondary wizardly function. The peridexis’s tone was faint and terrified, like that of a creature watching itself begin to bleed to death.
Nita was astonished. But that would affect It, too—
No. The only powers fully functioning here right now are those that have possessed wizardry or the power behind it from their very beginnings.
“Oh no,” Nita breathed. Yet she still found it impossible to believe. In her mind she felt around for the memory of a self-defense spell she’d come across while reading the manual, had memorized, and had then sworn (as required) that she’d never use unless she thought she was in danger of her life. Nita opened her mouth, started to recite it…
…and couldn’t find the words. Or, rather, she knew what they were, but as she whispered the first one, it didn’t make sense. It was just a nonsense word. The universe didn’t get quiet to listen to it. She said the second word, and the third, and they were nonsense, no power to them, nothing magical at all…
Around her, Nita saw the others struggling as she had done, trying to get a grip on wizardly weapons or say words that would act as such, but the words all sounded made up and did nothing.
Nita started to despair—then found, to her surprise, that the feeling didn’t last. She’d been in a similar situation not so long ago, a place and time in which no solution seemed possible. While there, she’d learned that, sometimes, if you just kept doing whatever you could, something would change in your favor. And I’m not dead yet, she thought. Neither are the others. If I can’t think of something, one of them might.
Down and down the warriors carried them, deeper into the depths of the City. Nita knew in a general way where they were headed, from the précis she’d been looking at earlier; they were close to the King-Yaldiv’s great cavernous hall. But more to the point, she could feel that dull glow of evil power and scornful rage at the Commorancy’s heart getting stronger every moment as they got closer. The Lone One’s just about ready for us, she thought. So we’ve got only a few minutes to think of something.
I have no help for you, the peridexic effect said miserably.
Nita blinked. Wait a minute. If all the second-level uses of wizardry aren’t working for us now, then how am I still hearing you?
I still exist, the peridexic effect said. I am simply of no use.
I wouldn’t bet on it! Nita said as their Yaldiv escort hauled them around another long curve and pushed them into a wide spherical chamber. Its far door was guarded by another warrior, possibly the biggest one Nita had seen yet. For the moment, you’re keeping me sane. She gulped, because the memory of that horrible moment of disbelief in Tom and Carl’s backyard now rose up in front of her as something she definitely never wanted to experience again. You’re proof that wizardry’s been real, even if it’s not working right now. So just hang in there, because right now I need you!
The warriors turned the group loose inside the chamber and went to block the door behind them. The ten of them all clustered together in the center of the room, the humanoids rubbing their various bruises. Muttering under her breath, Dairine picked up Spot, who’d been unceremoniously dumped on the floor, and stood looking around her with a ferocious scowl. Ronan threw a furious look at the warrior holding the Spear, and eyed Dairine with a sort of disgruntled admiration. “What is it with these Callahan women?” he said to Kit as he tried to flex one strained shoulder back into working order.
Kit shook his head. “You okay?” he said to Dairine.
“Yeah. But Spot’s not. He’s gone mute, and his eyes and legs are gone.”