Диана Дуэйн - Wizard's Holiday

“Tell us about it,” Kit said. “But I wouldn’t call them changes for the better.”

“There speaks a typical, shortsighted human being,” the Lone Power said. “Things always get a lot worse before they get better. You’d know that if you took the long view of the worlds. But you can’t help yourselves; you’re stuck in time. Those of us who just visit Time but live in Eternity see things a lot differently.” It sighed and sat back in Its chair. “Look, can we put that aside for the moment?”

“Sure,” Nita said, “as long as it’s to tell us exactly what you’re doing here.”

“I’m doing what I don’t have any choice but to do!” It said. “Which is to sit around in the Relegate’s Naos. I’m the Relegate! I’ve been relegated. Left over, dumped, thrown out of the running. Into this.” It waved a hand around at the beautiful warm stone, the polished floor, the exquisite, shell-like dome.

Nita looked over at Kit. Ponch yawned and lay down on the floor.

The Lone One gave him an exquisitely dirty look. “See that?” It said. “That’s the kind of respect I command these days. Nine-tenths of the people here don’t even begin to understand the import of the events that left me sitting here. They’ve even given me a sweet little name: Esemeli, the Daughter of the Daughter of Light.” She made a face.

“Well, you were, once,” Nita said.

“Don’t patronize me. I was the Star of the Morning!” the Lone Power shouted. “I was a Power among Powers. I was what quasars are a watered-down version of; the light of me denatured space when I had cause to turn it loose! ‘Daughter of the daughter of…’” She made an annoyed gesture and muttered off into silence.

“And now it comes to this,” Esemeli said after a moment, “that you two come along and I have to ask you to—” She rubbed her face with one hand.

Nita and Kit waited, but nothing further seemed to be forthcoming. Finally, Nita said, “You have to ask us to what?”

“You know what’s wrong here,” It said. “Something’s missing. They made it impossible for themselves to achieve it. But they’re not a whole species without it…not really.” She smiled. “And the funny thing is, I even warned them of what they were doing. But none of them believed me. Well, maybe one.” Esemeli’s expression darkened. Then the look passed. “But they froze their species’ nature in place when they made their Choice; they walled it away from any possible assault. Either from me or from other sources.”

Meaning good ones, Nita thought.

“And you can’t do anything to them, either.”

“I couldn’t do anything to them a hundred thousand years ago,” It said, just barely annoyed. “You saw it! They made their Choice and rejected me in about fifteen minutes. It happens…but I don’t often get invited to stick around afterward. I saw what they did to themselves…or failed to do. Afterward, I couldn’t do anything but sit here and wait for help to arrive. And you’re finally here. You took long enough, by the way. Can we get on with this?”

They looked at each other. “Before we ask you what we should get on with,” Kit said, “tell us why we should believe anything you say! After everything we’ve been through with you—”

“Atomic explosions,” Nita said. “Stars going nova or snuffed out. Being chased all over two different Manhattans by you and your homemade monsters!”

“Nearly being eaten by sharks,” Kit said. “Losing Nita’s mom.”

The Lone Power actually looked bored, and waved one hand in a Spare-me gesture. “You’ve been through all that,” It said. “I admit it. But not with me. Listen.” It sounded more annoyed as It saw the glance Kit threw Nita. “Why are you going to give me trouble about this? It’s not just in your world that there have been changes. I’ve had my share of them. Huge ones…which you were deeply involved in, you and your sister. How is she, by the way?”

“Grounded,” Nita said. “You should count yourself lucky. Otherwise, she’d be here instead of us, and she’d have fried you to a crisp already, just on general principles.”

“No, I doubt that,” the Lone One said. “For one thing, she’s well off her peak power by now, and dealing with all kinds of trouble secondary to that. For another thing, she wouldn’t have been sent here. She wouldn’t have been the beginning of the answer to the Alaalids’ problem. Whereas you two are… unfortunately for me. They would send me someone with whom I have so much history.” It looked disgusted. “Just common pettiness, that’s all it is with Them…”

Nita threw Kit a glance.

The Lone One sat there for a moment, drumming Its fingers on the arm of Its severely plain throne. “You know how the shift in me happened, a while ago,” the Lone One said. “You two and Dairine were simply party to a change of nature that the Powers That Be and just about all of creation had been pushing on me for aeons…slowly wearing me down until the last big push came. You just happened to be part of the breakthrough, part of the point of the spear. Because you live in Time, it looks to you like that was a thing that happened then and was over with, whereas outside of Time, the event both happened aeons ago and is still happening.”

It gave them a look, seeing their expressions. “Sorry, even the Speech doesn’t have some of the syntax needed to talk about this kind of thing. Or it does, but since you’re still stuck inside Time, you can’t parse it…Anyway, I did tell you at the time that there would be shadows of me around for a long, long while, doing what they’ve always done. That’s part of the nature of time in physical universes; it helps things persist.” The Lone One looked resigned. “We shadows all partake of the nature of the Power that casts us, but in different degrees, according to the local ‘lighting.’ Some are ‘darker,’ more aggressive than others…fighting the final realization of the shift, trying to make it take as long as possible.” It smiled slightly. “The one that went after your mother, for example: That one was pretty proactive, or maybe I should say abreactive. Others have been less effective.”

“Like the one of you who came after our buddy Darryl a few months ago,” Kit said.

The Lone One waved Its hand again, looking annoyed this time. “When it comes right down to it, there’s not a lot you can do to someone like that, a creature the One’s using as a direct power conduit,” It said. “They tend to be too contaminated with innocence, anyway. Assaulting them is like beating your head against the wall. I’d have thought that fragment of myself would have been smarter to cut its losses and go after an easier target.” It laughed a little breath of laughter. “Small loss. That’s not my problem.”

“No,” Kit said. “Your problem is that you’re stuck here.”

The Lone One looked more annoyed than before. “Yes,” It said, “you would notice that. And doubtless it’s going to amuse you all out of proportion that I’m going to ask for your help in getting out of here.”

Nita’s eyes widened. “Oh, sure,” she said, “we turn you loose and you go manifest on some other planet and make their lives miserable…”

Esemeli gave Nita a look that suggested she needed her brain augmented. “I’m already everywhere,” the Lone One said. “I don’t have to ‘go’ anyplace. What you need to get through your heads is that this particular manifestation has had its turn to do its job, and has failed. I offered the Alaalids their Choice, and they turned me down. And that was that.”

There’s a little more to it than that, Neets! Kit said silently.

I believe you. But don’t interrupt It! It’s on a roll; It might drop something useful…