The City was already dark, but now it grew darker still. At first Nita was afraid that the Lone One was doing something. The darkness around them deepened, but that light at the center of everything swirled out, spiraling away from what had been its center. All that remained within the core of the light was a shell, glowing, transparent as the mochteroofs, and inside it a swarm of dark sparks of fire. They swirled and burned and then, all at once, burned fiercely bright, too bright to look at, like the myriad sparks of a fireworks display—
They went out. Around them, the glow of the shell that had been Memeki went out like a blown-out candle flame. Memeki was gone.
But the light itself was not. It fountained up into the heights of the central space of the City, and then down again, sheeting and splashing out, illuminating that whole place and flooding outward, striking the papery walls, pouring through them. At first Nita thought the walls were vanishing, but then she realized that they were simply becoming as transparent as glass under the influence of the power that now imbued them. All around, in every direction, hundreds and thousands of Yaldiv became visible in the deepest structures of the nest. Tens and hundreds more began to pour into the central chamber through its many doors. All the mirrory eyes looked up and inward at the blaze of light as it spun downward and outward from the heights, defining a new shape, a radiant and tremendous form shelled and sheened in light; and the beauty of it, even in the strange alien shape, was nearly unbearable. Nita wanted nothing more than to stand there staring at it, waiting to see what other, more momentous shape it would take when her human senses finally came to grips with it.
The chamber was full of Yaldiv now, thousands of them packed into this space. They and the thousands of others elsewhere in the now-crystalline structure of the City gazed inward or upward at the rainbow-streaming shape above them, all their myriad eyes swimming with a light that seemed to come in more colors than physical existence normally allowed—a spectrum as much of possibility as of mere radiance. The light no longer just lay on the surface of those eyes, but sank into them, dwelt in them. Some of the Yaldiv out there were handmaidens, some of them bearing eggs inside them as Memeki had done; and as Nita saw the brilliant sparks held within the huge shape of the Hesper flare up, so did the sparks within the handmaidens below, flaring into ferocious brilliance, burning clean, dying down again to swirls of rainbow glitter, dark no more—
Her heart went up in a blaze of triumph. But this is what had to happen. And now all the Yaldiv born and unborn will be her avatars, all the Hesper’s children and not the Lone One’s!
Nita looked over at Kit. Off to one side, beside him, Ponch had been standing very still, watching this like a dark and shining statue of a dog. But suddenly his tail started to wag, and then he started barking, and jumping up and down. The barking got louder and louder, a sound of sheer triumph.
The rainbow light shivered and trembled to the sound of Ponch’s barking. Burning, glinting, like mirrors in the sun, the eyes of the great shelled shape above them looked down at Ponch, and at the wizards who stood or crouched to look up at Her; and at the one wizard who lay still, even the blood pooled beside him reflecting rainbows now. I am here, It said: I am here at last.
The tremendous voice shivered in all their bones, as the Lone Power’s voice had. It was impossibly ancient, impossibly powerful… and it was Memeki’s.
For a few seconds, no one said anything. Then, “Elder sister,” Kit said, awestruck, “greeting and honor.”
To Nita’s astonishment, that great shape bowed to them.
My first work’s done, thanks to you, the Hesper said. I’ve driven the Lone Power away from here, possibly forever. And I have written a new history in the Yaldiv’s bodies: they will find ways to live that mean their lives need not begin in death as well as end in it. So this poor world that my other self maimed so badly will now be healed. And after it, in time, so will many other worlds, one by one.
“It’s going to take a long time,” Dairine said.
It will take forever, the Hesper said. But I have forever now. The past, and the future, the ability to be in time: you gave it to me.
Her regard dwelled on them all for a moment. I can only stay a little more of your time in this form, the Hesper said. So new a connection between the physical realms and eternity won’t hold for long in this ephemeral place. I must depart. But because you and your worlds have endured such danger for my sake, I’ve done what I can to repay the debt. For a very little while, I have driven our Enemy out of time. While Its brief exile lasts, It can do no new evil. But what It has already set in train, I can’t now halt. I must withdraw into timelessness now and recoup my strength, or risk being unable to embody again for a long while.
Roshaun bowed to her. “Crowned one,” he said, “you owe us no debts. In the paths of errantry, we’ll meet again.”
The Hesper was already fading. Ponch started barking again. Don’t go away! Don’t go—
Those rainbow-mirror eyes rested briefly on Ponch, and Nita thought she saw affection there. Make haste to your world, the Hesper said, looking from Ponch to Kit and Nita and Dairine. Make haste! They will need you there.
The light faded, slipped away, as if sunset was happening indoors. Finally they all stood or knelt in twilight, surrounded by many curious Yaldiv who peered down at them and held up their claws in a new gesture.
“Welcome,” they said. “Friends of the Daughter of the true Great One, friends of the Queen of Light; dai stihó, and well met on the journey!”
Nita and Kit stared at each other. “Too much strange,” Nita said, “just too much!” She rubbed her eyes. “Hi, guys, good to see you, too. Please bear with us for a moment.” She turned her attention back to Ronan. “Fil, quick, give us some light!”
All Filif’s berries blazed with wizard-light as Nita reached sideways into her otherspace pocket, found it where it belonged, pulled out her manual, and dumped it on the floor. Its pages riffled wildly as she pulled the rowan wand out of her belt and shook it down once like someone shaking a thermometer: white moonfire ran down it. She looked down at Ronan, put a hand on his chest next to the place where the Spear had gone in—then froze.
She looked up at Kit. “Is he breathing?” she whispered.
Kit looked at her, and very quietly said, “No.”
14: Catastrophic Success
Nita’s ears roared with her panic. All she could hear herself thinking was Oh no, oh no, not this, not now! And is it my fault?
The idea shook her. “The greatest challenge of your life,” she’d said to him. Why did I say that? Except somehow I knew it was true. All this while she’d been treating the peridexic effect as if it was something cute, rather than what it was, the manual suddenly inside her head, making what she said truer than usual. And now she could hear her voice saying to Carmela, “Enjoy him while you can. He won’t be here for long.” No, oh no, please don’t let it be that I made this happen—
Everything inside her started to go cold, and the coldness, a kind of distant, freezing calm, was exactly what was needed. Nita looked down at Ronan, lying there bleeding nothing but blood now, and he seemed as remote to her as something showing on TV while she was paying attention to something else in front of her. “Okay,” she said. “I know what to do—”