Диана Дуэйн - High Wizardry

But it only hurts because you do want it back. Don't you?

The humiliation of being gloated over by this mere chit of a mortal, a thing with a life brief as a mayfly's.

Look, the voice said, full of pity and anger and a grieving love, how could anyone not want that, you dumb spud? Just admit it and get it over with!

There were tears in the voice.

The Powers are not physical, and the habits of physicality come hard to Them. But the Lone One, after long wandering about Its bitter business, had spent much time in bodies, and much in human ones. The feeling of another's tears for It-the tears of someone who now knew It more completely than any mortal, and yet shed the tears freely-after endless justified cursing by ten billion years' worth of tormented intelligence, the feeling ran down the pitiless light like the head of an irresistible spear, and pierced It to the heart.

It fell down, a great disastrous fall like a lightning-stricken tower's, and wept darkness with desire for the light.

Dairine bent over It, not sure what to do, and the mobiles gathered around her and wondered as well. It lay fading in the growing fire. She looked at Nita and Kit for help.

They came over to her, looked down at It, shook their heads. Dairine was mildly bemused by the sight of them; she was going to have to stop calling her sister plain, or dumb-looking, and as for Kit, the thought crossed Dairine's mind that it was a pity Nita had dibs on him.

It's the light, of course, she thought; it wouldn't last. But it was kind of a shame.

"It is too late," the Lone One said. "I cannot go back. That part of me I murdered, willingly. I cannot find the way into the heart of the light. And they would not have me if I could."

Dairine wiped her face. "What are we gonna do?" she said.

Nita shook her head. "You got me. The coordinates for Timeheart aren't listed. . "

Kit sighed. "I wish Peach were here, we could have asked her."

There was a brief silence. "Oh," said a voice, "I'm not that easy to get rid of."

She was in the midst of them. Not Picchu. Or-was it not? She might look human, though very tall, and she might not be winged. . but there was still a sense of swiftness about her, rather like the sense you got about Picchu when you realized she was going to make a grab at your sandwich and either get a piece of it, or a piece of you. Swiftness, and power, and extreme beauty, so that Dairine and Nita were abashed, and both they and Kit stared at her with all their eyes. All this in a person burning even brighter than the light around them, and about nine feet tall; a person wearing a sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up, and blue jeans and sneakers, a person with long dark hair, and a sword naked in her hand, and the sword burning; and the fire of the sword and the fire of the sky were the same.

"You're kidding," Dairine said.

The woman laughed. "Often. But not at the moment."

"You were Picchu?" Kit said.

"I've been a lot of people. You'd be surprised at the names." She looked down with concern at the Lone One, who lay like a shadow on the burning ground. "But rarely have those namings turned out so well."

This was a bit much for Nita. "You're one of the Powers, aren't you? We dragged You halfway across the Universe and busted our guts when You could have- Why didn't You do something sooner?"

"We have been, for billions of years," She said. "But We couldn't do anything really permanent until Dairine got here."

Dairine's jaw dropped.

"And now," She said, "if My brother here is amenable, We can start getting work done at last."

Kit stared at her. "Your brother?"

"I told you I've been called by a lot of names." She knelt down by the shadowy form that lay collapsed on the brightness. "Athene was one. And Thor. And Prometheus. And Michael."

"But you're a girl!"

Nita threw Kit a wry look. The Power grinned. "These things are relative," she said. "But even in your world it's a byword. Men will fight bravely and be heroes, but for last-ditch defense against any odds. . get a Mother." She smiled. "Ask Dairine."

Dairine grinned back.

"I was the winged defender," She said. "He was my twin brother, the beautiful one. Then. . the disagreement happened, and there was war in Heaven, and all the roles changed. I led the others in casting Him out." She shook her head sadly. "But I always wanted Him back… as did all the other Powers as well. So my role changed again. I became Prometheus, and many another. I was sent to you again and again, to put the Power in your hands. . wizardry, and other powers. I never had to steal it: it was given me. . from what Source, you well know. I had to help undo the evils my brother was doing, and again and again I intervened, in many worlds. But We nhad a plan: that one day, someone else would intervene, and He would stop doing them himself. All it took was the entropy He himself had invented…."

She looked at Dairine. "Billions of years, it took. All the redemptions there have ever been went toward this; from the greatest to the least. And finally in the fullness of time you came along, and took my role, of your own will, and woke up a race powerful enough to change the whole Universe, and gave them the fire." She glanced up at the mobiles and smiled. "How could he resist such a bait? He took the gamble: he always does. And losing, he won…"

"He killed you, though," Kit said.

"I struck him down once. I had to come where he could do the same to me, without my doing anything to stop him. Now the balance is even."

The Defender reached down and put a hand into the shadow. "And we are going where such matters are transcended. . where all his old pains will shift. Not forgotten, but transformed. Life in this universe will never have such a friend. And as for His inventions. . look closely at Death, and see what it can become."

The long, prone darkness began to burn, from inside, the way a mountain seems to do with sunset.

"Brother," the Defender said. "They're waiting."

The light began to shift. Nita looked up and around in wonder. The planet seemed to be going transparent around them. Or not specifically transparent: it was as if, one by one, other vistas were being added to it; seacoasts, forests, landscapes she couldn't understand, cities, empty spaces that were dark and yet burned; ten other worlds, twenty, a hundred, in an ever deepening overlay that enriched without confusing. Alternate universes? Nita thought, and then thought perhaps not: it was too simple an explanation. .

She looked at the Defender and found the same change and enriching in Her, and in the steadily brighter-burning form She bent over. Nita felt inclined to squeeze her eyes shut, not from pain but from a feeling of sheer insufficiency, of being involved in matters too high for her. "Never think it," said the Defender, beneficent lightnings flickering about Her as other forms and other names came and went in glory; "never think We were made to be less than equals in the One. Someday you will surpass Us, and still be Our equals, and both You and We will rejoice at it. Brother. . up, and see the way home. Let them see what they have triumphed over."

The Lone Power rose up, slowly, like one discovering walking after a life of lameness. And Kit and Nita and Dairine all gazed, and speech left them. Nita's eyes filled with tears as she wondered how darkness could be so bright. Lightbringer He was, and star of the morning; and like the morning star, He needed the darkness, and shone brighter in it, and made it blessed. .

"Home," He said, gazing upward; just the one word. All eyes followed His. Nita found herself looking into endless layered vistas that were not a mere radiant mirror, like Timeheart, not a repair, a consolation for the marred world, but something deeper, closer to the true heart of things, fiercer, more dangerous and more beautiful, something that had never gone wrong to begin with, that the Lone One had never had power to touch; a reality that burned like fire, but still was sweeter than water after thirst, and fed the thirst itself, and quenched it again in delight and more desire; a state so much more solid and real than mere physical being and thought that Nita held on to herself for delight and terror, afraid she would fade away in the face of it like a mist in full sun. Yet she wanted to see and feel more of it-for she knew that there was more. How many more realities like this, piled one on another in splendor, towered up into the burning depths of creation, each more concrete, more utterly real than the last? Even the Lone One and the Defender looked stilled and diminished in all Their strength and beauty as They gazed up into the light.