Диана Дуэйн - A Wizard Of Mars

Kit wasn’t so sure about that, but for the time being the subject was better left alone. “Just so we don’t wind up repeating past events, you should probably dump the light now,” he said softly. “You know the spell for seeing by heat?”

That took Khretef by surprise. “I know the theory,” he said. “But it’s not something I’d have thought of. In our old bodies, in the cold of the First World, almost any heat would be blinding. Degrees of it didn’t seem to be much use—”

“How do you get your spells?” Kit said. “Our species has several methods, but a lot of us read ours from a book or a portable device—” He pulled out his manual, showed it to Khretef.

He peered at it. “How unusual. We call ours the Dark Speaking: we hear it in the silence—”

Kit found the spell, flagged it. “Here,” he said.

Khretef stood listening. “Ah,” he said. “Not too complex. Let’s see—”

Kit, meanwhile, very quietly spoke the Speech-words for the spell. A second later his vision had changed, and he could see Khretef as a Shamaska-shaped light in the darkness. All around him the cavern gallery glowed faintly— more brightly nearer the floor, more dimly up above where the stone was losing heat to the Martian night. “How’s that?” he said.

Khretef was looking around him, then down at his arms and the sword he held. “That works very well.”

“And the scorpions are metallic, mostly?” Kit said. “How are they powered?”

“Cold power cells,” Khretef said. “They would be far below your ambient temperature or mine.”

“We’ll be seeing dark blots as we come up with them, then,” Kit said. “Can they see in the heat wavelengths?”

“I wouldn’t be sure,” Khretef said. “I never had one of the substitutes: I much preferred the real creatures.”

They walked on cautiously together. “Yeah,” Kit said. “I saw your guy. I could see why you’d prefer the real thing—”

He stopped still as Khretef held out the hand with the sword, a gesture of alarm. Silence would probably be better than speech now, Khretef said. They’re in the next chamber. Though they’re expecting us to come in through another entrance, we’ll have little time to deal with them.

They can’t hear thought, though?

No. That only the original creatures could manage, and not always.

Good. Kit looked up ahead toward the glow of warmth that came from the archway before them. Warmer …Does the ground drop off in there?

There’s a deep pit. The Shard is down at the bottom of it, protected by the final spell-shield, the one proof against any Shamaska.

Kit thought. Okay, he said. Are these like the ones up on the surface? Do they learn from past experience?

They do. That’s what killed me. It was a development I hadn’t been expecting, and when I used the firesword the second time, it was ineffective. It should only have taken a second to bring up another spell, but in that second—

He went silent. Kit could feel him wincing from the memory. Right, Kit said. I think I’ve got something useful.

He reached out beside him, opened his otherspace pocket, and felt around in it, bringing out a device that Khretef looked at curiously: a smooth metal rod about a foot and a half long, with what looked like white ceramic striping down the side of it, a half-sheath of more ceramic down its length, and a thick handle with various controls. Kit touched one of the controls. At the butt end of the device, a tiny blue light came on.

What is it? Khretef said.

Something never used on this planet before, Kit said. Should take them by surprise. Come on.

Silently they made their way down the length of the gallery, toward the glow of heat. Tell me something, Kit said. When you got here from the First World, did you find any signs of any species having been here before you?

None, said Khretef. There was no evidence of any life more advanced than simple one-celled or multicelled organisms.

Kit sighed. Pity, he said.

As they drew near to the entrance to the next chamber, Khretef held up the sword in warning again, then waved Kit to one side of the narrow gallery and flattened himself against the other. Together they inched toward the entrance, peered through.

Beyond the archway, a crowd of green metal scorpions was moving about a near-circular cave, almost obscuring the floor except in one spot—the center, where the circular pit Khretef had mentioned fell sheerly away. Kit looked the situation over. Nasty, he said. Fight them and they take you down before you’re anywhere near the Shard. Try to avoid them by jumping into the pit, and they all just pile on top of you.

Khretef nodded. Fortunately there’s no need to take them all on. He pointed at the largest one, the scorpion that Kit had earlier heard roaring. It let out another uneasy roar even as they watched.

They’re all linked, he said. It handles their processing. Take out that largest one, and they’ll all go together.

Kit nodded. I did that by accident before, he said. Good to know. Got a self-defense shield? Good. Put it up—

He glanced around one last time, then spoke the words in the Speech that activated his own shield, thumbed the setting on Carmela’s portable dissociator up to “overkill,” and stepped out of the gallery.

Instantly the scorpions all raised their claws and turned toward him, and the biggest one crouched down. But Kit was already shouting the Mason’s Word, the version with the additional syllables for the Martian ecology, and was running up the hardened air. It was squishier than usual because of the thinness of the atmosphere, but he didn’t let that stop him. He just ran up the air high enough to get a clear shot at the biggest scorpion.

It tried to leap into the pit as its lesser associates rushed Kit’s skywalk: but it had no time. The dissociator field hit it and tore it into thousands of microscopic fragments, all of which promptly flashed into plasma and sizzled away to nothing, leaving behind only a blinding flare of heat. All the remaining scorpions promptly crashed to the stony floor in a metallic clamor of collapsing claws and joints.

Kit looked over his shoulder and saw Khretef emerging from the gallery. “You all right?” he said.

“Much more so than the last time,” Khretef said drily, but with a grin. “That was nicely done!”

“Yeah,” Kit said, shoving the dissociator back into his otherspace pocket. “I’m gonna get it from my sister when she finds out I borrowed this without asking, but I’ll make it up to her later…”

He said a few more words of the Speech under his breath, changed the angle of his skywalking steps so that they led down into the pit, and walked down into it. There at the bottom, the Shard shone as he’d seen it in his earlier vision. It looked like nothing but a little round, red sandstone pebble, but it burned with an intense blue-violet fire. Around it was a shell of paler, bluer brilliance, sparking with hot green lights. “Is that the anti-Shamaska wizardry?” Kit said.

Khretef nodded. “Since you’re not Shamaska, either,” he said, “it can do you no harm.”

Kit could already feel as much. He reached down, picked up the pebble, and jumped at the jolt of power that ran through him from it. “Wow. Aurilelde’s dad packed a whole lot of the kernel into that…” he said. He stood up, wobbling slightly.

“And more than just the kernel,” Khretef said. “One other thing as well. Me.”

Kit’s eyes widened. But it was too late. His consciousness whited out: and a moment later, when vision returned, there was only one of him standing there— Khretef.

He looked down at the little shining thing in his hand with a great rush of excitement… but also fear.