A Wizard Abroad

8. Chearta na Chill Pheadair / Kilpedder Forge

There it lay in the middle of the kitchen table, along with old Lotto tickets and a tea-stained copy of the Bray People, on top of the placemats, next to a plastic biscuit tray with nothing but crumbs left in it, and the milk jar and sugar bowl; Fragarach the Answerer, shining under the light that hung down from the ceiling. They sat around it, nursing their tea, and looking at it. It was hard to look at anything else. The cats sat up on the kitchen worktop, the way they did when waiting to be fed, and stared at it too, big-eyed.

"And that was it," Kit said to Nita's aunt. "They said we would have to come up with the fourth one ourselves, somehow."

"Did they give you any hints?" Aunt Annie said.

Nita shook her head. "Unless you caught something that I didn't, Ronan. I can't always understand the way people talk around here."

Ronan shook his head. "I heard what you heard, more's the pity. I was hoping they might come up with the Spear, too."

"You and me both," said Aunt Annie. She stretched, and slumped in her chair. Nita noticed how tired she looked, and felt sorry for her.

"Did you do the warding you were going to do?" she said.

Her aunt nodded. "The back office is ready for the Cup," she said. "Johnny went to help Doris with it; apparently it's more alive than they had expected, and it was causing them trouble. They should be here in a while. Anyway, when you're in the back of the house, be careful of the office door. I had to draw the spell pattern partway up the inside of it to miss the rug in there, and if you open the door, it'll break the circuit. Just reach in through the door if you need something." They nodded. "Aunt Annie," Nita said, "I was going to ask you. Where does Biddy the farrier live?"

She tried to make it sound nonchalant, and had no idea whether she had succeeded. Her aunt looked at her a little curiously. "Just up the road in Kilpedder," she said. 'Next to the shop across the dual carriageway. She has her ordinary forge there. Why?"

Nita tried not to squirm. "I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask her," she said.

"About her forge," Kit said. "It's really great. I hadn't seen a portable one like that before."

"Oh. Well, it's getting close to teatime: you should be able to find her up there in a while — her work rarely keeps her out much later than this."

Nita became aware of a low buzzing, and looked around her. "Is that the oven-timer?" she said. Aunt Annie looked bemused. "No, the oven's not on."

They looked at each other as the buzzing got louder. Some of the spoons on the table began to vibrate gently, moving along the table a little. "Look at the Sword!" Kit said. "It's vibrating."

It was. The low humming sound that Nita had mistaken for the oven-timer was coming from it, and it was getting louder. "It sounds a little like feedback," she said.

A faint beep-beep sound came from outside. The Sword's hum got louder, and (Nita thought) more threatening. "Ohmigosh," her aunt said, "it's Doris and Johnny, and they've got the Cup!" "Neat!" Kit said, and got up. "Let's go and see!"

"Wait a minute!" Aunt Annie said, sounding panic-stricken. "We don't have the place prepared to have two of the Treasures here at once! Put two of these things together without adequate preparation, and you're going to get something that makes atomic critical mass look like a wet firework!" She looked around hurriedly. "Crikey, I can't leave now! Kit, quick, take it and get out of here!"

He picked it up, rather nervously. It jumped and jittered in his hands, and the hum started to scale up into a howl. "Where?!"

"Anywhere! Somewhere far! More than fifty miles. I'll cover you for the overlays, just go!"

He looked at Nita. "Copernicus," he said, and muttered three words, and vanished.

The air went whoomfinto where he had been: not the usual explosion. Nita smiled slightly, considering that Kit had been as impressed by Johnny's expertise as she had.

Outside, car doors slammed. "Here, let me get that for you, Doris," Johnny's voice said.

They all went to the door. Johnny was pulling the glass sliding door aside. Behind him came Doris Smyth, holding something wrapped in a pastel-striped pillowcase. The something shone through the pillowcase as if it were on fire: a still, cool, changeless fire that nonetheless rippled and wavered on everything it touched, like the sun looked at from underwater. "Back office, Anne?" said Doris's voice, sounding strained but cheerful.

"Right. Don't open the door, just walk through it."

"Certainly. Johnny, you handle that; I have my hands full."

There was no room for them all, down that narrow hall. Nita and Ronan stood there and watched as the three older wizards walked down past the bookshelves and turned the corner, out of view. Except that they weren't entirely out of view at all; they were faintly visible in the reflected light from the Cup, even through the intervening walls. Nita shook her head. "Don't do things like this at home, do you?" Ronan said.

She grinned at him and headed back into the kitchen. "Neither do you, buster. Not as a rule, anyway."

She went to fill the kettle for the next inevitable round of tea. "Where's Copernicus?" Ronan said. "On the Moon. Southern hemisphere." "The Moon?!"

Nita shrugged. "She said more than fifty miles. That should be enough." Then she looked at Ronan's face as she plugged the kettle in. "Haven't you been there?" "To the Moon? No!"

"Why not? It's great." He opened his mouth, and Nita suddenly felt annoyed at herself. "The overlays, I guess. I'm sorry. Look, there have to be some places you can teleport from safely. If you can find one, and hop over and see us, we'll run the wizardry through for you, and show you around. It's no big deal."

"I'd like that," he said, and smiled slightly. It was a look Nita hadn't seen on him often; the chip off the shoulder for the moment, and just a touch of wistfulness. "It must be grand," he said, 'being where you don't have to be afraid to do all the wizardries you know can be done." She laughed a little, and leaned against the worktop, waiting for the kettle to boil. "It has its downside — you wouldn't believe the trouble you can get into. Remind me to tell you about the shark who almost ate me."

"Want a look?" Aunt Annie said, coming back into the kitchen, with Johnny and Doris behind her. "Yeah!" Nita said. She headed down the hall, with Ronan behind her.

There was no need to do anything special. Walls meant nothing to the light of the Chalice — or rather the light of what was inside it. It was sitting on its pillowcase, the bowl of it half a meter across, the gold inlay on the outside of the bowl, and in the spirals and curves that ran down its stem and massive foot, all burning as if molten and ready to flow off the Chalice at a moment's notice. The burning came from the blue-white light filling it, a light that was liquid and was still trembling slightly from having been moved. It shone through the metal as if it were glass, and through everything else it touched.

She looked at Ronan, and away again, shaking her head. Words seemed inadequate, and out of place. But at the same time she couldn't help noticing his expression, like that of someone struggling with a memory: and oddly, not trying to remember, but to forget. .

Maybe he felt her eyes on him: he turned his gaze away from the Cup, and looked at her with a troubled expression. "Let's get together some time soon," he said. "I need to talk." Nita suddenly found herself afraid to find out what he wanted to talk about. She nodded, and went away hurriedly, back down to the kitchen.

The three older wizards were sitting around the kitchen table, waiting for the teapot to finish brewing. "I have a message for you from the Queen," she said. Johnny looked at her questioningly, and Nita repeated the message.

He smiled very slightly, and it was a sad look. "She is asking," he said, "whether there is any hope that the world they have chosen to live in will ever come any closer to Timeheart. They love Ireland, make no mistake; but at the same time, they're of the Powers, and they long for Timeheart, where they were created. But the legends say they must stay in the world they have chosen until the One's Champion comes back with his Spear, and they lose the world of their desire." He shook his head. "A while yet, I think." "Do you want Kit back?" Nita said.

He passed a hand over his forehead, smoothing his hair back. "Where is he?" "The Moon."

"That's all right, then. Wait a few minutes before you bring him back here. I can add a limiter to the binding on the Cup that'll make it at least safe for the Sword to be here with it. But the Sword will need its own binding."

Doris poured the tea out. "That's one less problem," she said. "Now if we just knew what to do about the Spear, we'd be fairly ready."

There was silence around the table at that, and some hopeless looks. "You couldn't find anything that would work?" Nita said, as Ronan came in and sat down again.

"My dear," said Doris, "we have the original Stone and the original Sword awake again. The Cup is not the original, but has ensouled very emphatically indeed. We dare not try to conjoin an inferior or weak Spear to them. They would blast it out of existence. The resouled Spear must be at least as strong as they — preferably much stronger. But we have no proper envelope. It is not strictly a change that a physicist would understand, but matter is not quite the robust stuff it was at the beginning of the world, when Creation as an art was young, and the energies of it dwelt new and hot in the nucleus of every atom. As gravity and other forces have declined over many millions of years, so has the basic — "selfness" — of matter. You see how the resouled Treasures make everything around them look somewhat shabby and poor. The souls in them are reminding the matter they embody how matter was then. It was much closer to being alive." "But then the Spear's soul will remind the matter it's in. Won't it?"

"Not if the matter is simply unable to hold the soul long enough in one place for the change to take," Johnny said. "It'd be like trying to hold a burning coal in a Kleenex. The Spear's soul is the fiercest of them all. I had hoped I was wrong about this, but the research I've been doing over the past couple of days indicates that no spear on Earth would be strong enough now to contain the soul for long enough to do the trick: whether it had contained it before or not." "Off the Earth, then," Nita said.

Johnny cocked his head. "It's a thought that occurred to me. But the changes in matter that have happened here have happened everywhere else, too. And we keep coming back to the problem," and he smoothed his hair back again,"that we don't have much time." Ronan sighed and sat back. "It's a pity we can't just make a new one," he said.

Aunt Annie sighed too. "Even if we had uncontaminated matter from the beginning of time," she said, "we wouldn't have the expertise to do anything with it. I think we're just going to have to keep looking for some other kind of answer." She glanced over at Johnny and Doris. They nodded. Nita got up. "I'll go and get Kit," she said. "Fifteen or twenty minutes be long enough?" "Fine."

She looked at her aunt. She nodded. "The overlay buffer is still in place. Go ahead." Nita said the transport spell quickly in her head, considering how much air she would need, doubling it as usual, and arranging the spell intake so that it would take the air from outside the house rather than inside — the memory of the last time she had done such a spell in her own house, without stopping to consider that her father's desk was covered with paperwork, was still much with her. She vanished.

She found Kit sitting on his favorite rock — a pumice boulder on which he had been using a sharp piece of granite to whittle the boulder into the crude likeness of a human face, for the bemusement of future lunar photographic surveys. The Sword was laid across his lap.

She climbed up beside him. "Johnny said he should be ready for you to come back in a little while." "I don't want to go right back there," Kit said, turning the Sword over in his lap and looking at it. "Someone I want to have a talk with first." "Biddy," Nita said.

Kit nodded. "Remember what the fox said to you," he said.

"Listen," Nita said. "You remember how you told me that you felt her forge was alive?" He nodded. Nita started to tell him what Doris had said about the relative 'liveness' of matter at the beginning of time.

He stopped her. "It's OK, I heard it. I used your ears."

She punched him. "Illegal brain-tapping! You didn't even ask me! What if you had overheard something I was thinking?" "What, about Ronan?"

She blushed hot and punched him again, much harder, so that in the low gravity he fell sideways off the boulder and bounced a couple of times in the moondust. "Great," he said, as he got up and dusted himself off. "This stuff is all down my shirt. Now I'm going to itch all night." "Serves you right. Eavesdropper!"

"Still," he said, and looked thoughtful. "He's sharp, your boyfriend Ronan. Why shouldn't they make another one?"

"Because they don't know how. Whaddaya mean, 'my boyfriend'?" She started heading around the rock to punch him again, far gone in embarrassment.

"Hmm," Kit said. "Neets, forget it, I'll lay off."

"Promises, promises."

"Look, let's go and see Biddy."

"What are we going to say to her?!"

He shook his head. " "Come out with your hands up"? I don't know. But if one of Them is here, They need to be giving us a hand. Do you know where we're going?" "Yeah. I'll pass you the coordinates."

Nita pictured the place in her head — she had seen it often enough when riding past it on the farm's bike — and translated the image quickly into coordinates that could be plugged into a transport spell. "Got it," Kit said. "Just change that bit there. Got it? Go."

They made the jump. Air slid out and away from them, and they were standing not far from the far side of the dual carriageway, near the pub that stood there. It was getting dark.

"Over here," Nita said, and led the way over to the right, where a small group of whitewashed buildings stood near the Kilpedder shop. There was a low iron gate at the entrance to them, covered with ornate and graceful wrought-iron work; and a hanging sign on a nearby wall said B. o DALAIGH, I.F.A. Carefully and quietly Nita unlatched the gate and swung it inward. There were no lights showing in any of the buildings, though Biddy's truck was parked in front of one of them. "Maybe she's gone out," Nita said.

Kit shook his head and went slowly to the truck, and put one hand up against the forge-box at the back. "Feel this," he said.

Nita laid her hand against it, and snatched it back with the shock. Life, for a wizard, is something that can be felt like the warmth from a radiator. This was not just a warmth, but a burning — and totally unlike the kind of low-level awareness that 'inanimate' objects normally manifested. "I can't believe you didn't feel it the first tune," Kit said.

"Different specialties, different sensitivities," said Nita. "Besides, I never touched it. But look at that."

She nodded at Fragarach. The dusk was falling all around them, but it had no power over the Sword; Fragarach shone as if it lay out in full sunlight, though the waning Moon was high and the bats were out.

"It knows," Kit said. " "Uncontaminated matter from the time of Creation", did they say?" He chuckled. "Let's see if we can find her."

He went off around one of the outbuildings. Nita leaned against the forge, and breathed out. "Looking for somebody?" Biddy said from the shadows.

Nita jumped, then laughed a little nervously. Get a grip on yourself, she thought. Now what was the wording? She didn't move; just watched Biddy head over towards her. "Elder sister," Nita said, "in the One's name, honour and greeting."

"Now what do you mean by. ." She stopped, as Kit came around the corner, with the Sword in his hand. It had been bright enough. Now, in her immediate presence, it blazed.

Biddy looked at it, and her face altered. Recognition, and affection, and surprise, all appeared in it.

"Now I thought that had been put away somewhere safe," she said in her soft drawl.

"It was," Nita said. "But nothing much is going to be safe any more, unless it gets used."

"It knows you," Kit said. "I can feel that. It just about shouts that it knows you." There was an odd exultation in his face; Nita felt inclined to keep her distance for the moment. "And it knows your forge, there. I think maybe you made this." He hefted the Sword, but there was something in the gesture that also looked as if the Sword had moved itself, a small leap of excitement. "Or someone using the metal that's been built into that forge made this. Probably both."

Biddy looked at them thoughtfully, and leaned against the wall, folding her arms.

"Cutlery isn't usually my stock in trade," Biddy said. "Pretty, though."

"Oh, come on," Kit said. And Nita added, "I wish you'd ditch the accent. It's really bad."

"What?" Biddy said.

Nita had to laugh. "I'm sorry. It's probably good enough to fool the people around here, but it wouldn't fool a real American for very long. The morning after I met you, I was wondering why you sounded so weird. Now I know." She laughed again. "You may be one of the Powers that Be, but you're no more perfect than we are. Especially not at sounding like you've lived somewhere you've never been!"

Biddy looked faintly shocked. Then she leaned back again, and she too laughed a little, and fell silent afterwards, looking at the Sword. "Well?" Kit said.

"Well," said Biddy. 'May I see it, then?"

Kit went to her and handed her the Sword, hilt-first. She took it, and held it up to examine it, laying it for a moment across the flat of her forearm. "Not much changed," she said. "Though it's more tired than I remember." "You can do something about that," Nita said.

Biddy glanced over at her with a humorous look. "You have a lot of confidence in my abilities," she said.

"You'd better believe we do," Kit said. "We've worked with the Powers before."

"Not all of us are of equal ability," Biddy said. "And spending time in a physical body tends to affect one's ability to do one's job."

"The last Power we worked with took on the Lone One after spending ten years in the shape of a macaw, sitting on a perch and eating sunflower seeds," Kit said dryly,"so I wouldn't sell yourself short, if I were you."

Biddy sighed and looked at the Sword. "How long have you been here?" Nita said.

"Since the beginning," Biddy said. She turned the Sword over again and looked at Fragarach's flat, as if searching for flaws. "I never left. Couldn't bear to."

Nita boosted herself up on to the fence rail.

"You were one of the ones who made Ireland, then."

Biddy nodded, turning Fragarach over again. "The first of the blow-ins," she said, and smiled slightly. "Here." She handed Fragarach back to Kit.

"The stories say that the Tuatha came bringing the Treasures from the Four Cities," Kit said. "Those are just parts of Timeheart, aren't they. And you were one of the ones who had made the Treasures in the first place."

"I was the Smith of Falias," said Biddy, "among others. I made Fragarach. yes." "And then the stories tell about Govan, the smith of the gods, who came to Lugh the Ildanach," Nita said, "and how they went away together and took the Spear of Victory, Luin, and forged it full of fire and a fierce spirit. ."

She looked at Nita and nodded slowly. "That was me as well." "You could do that again," Kit said.

Biddy frowned. "I doubt it," she said. "The worlds aren't what they used to be, and neither is matter."

"Your anvil is," Kit said.

"That can't be used as anything but an anvil," Biddy said. "Its nature is set, from time's beginning almost."

"But if you could get some more of that old "original" matter — you could do it. You could make another Spear!"

"What do you take me for?" Biddy said, laughing hopelessly. "You really didn't understand me. When you live in the physical world, you have to do it in a physical body. Those are the rules. And if you're going to spend as long in a mortal form as I have, you give up a lot of your power by necessity. It would burn the body out, otherwise, and the brain; physicality just isn't robust enough to bear our state of being for very long. The memories all ebb away after a while. And why shouldn't they? I did my work well — too well." She laughed, with some bitterness in the sound. "I fell in love with what I made, and couldn't leave it. You're quite right that we're not perfect, especially that way. Once I had finished my part in making this place, I didn't want anything more but to be here in peace, for ever. The One released me to do that — just to be here, and be useful in my small way, until I'm required to give my power back at the end of things. I do my forgework, and live in the place I love."

'Then make yourself useful," Kit said, sounding grim. "Otherwise 'this place you love' is going to be nothing but a big pile of cinders, after Balor gets through with it."

Biddy was shaking her head. "This is one use I can't be. I haven't the power to pull matter here from the heart of time, or its beginning either! And wizards or not, not even the Seniors have that kind of power!"

"I know someone who does," Nita said, "at the moment, anyway." Kit glanced at her, uncomprehending for a moment — then got it, and his eyes glittered. "Never mind that now. The memories may ebb — but you can't have forgotten how you made that." Biddy's eyes lingered on Fragarach. "No," she said. "That I remember very well." "And the Spear," Kit said.

"I remember some of the details," Biddy said softly. "But I had that other Power to help me, the one they called Lugh the All-Crafted."

"I can't get you someone who knows how to do everything," Nita said, grinning, "but I can sure get you someone who thinks she does. Second best, maybe. But take it or leave it."

Biddy stood there, her eyes downcast, irresolute. "Come on," Nita said. "We could require it of you, in the One's name. Once a Power, always a Power, regardless of how much or little of it you have left. Those are the rules, as you say. But. ." She broke off.

Nita and Kit stood quiet. Biddy stared at the ground.

She looked up, then. "It's better than doing nothing, I suppose. Tell me what you want of me." "Come and have some tea at my aunt's," Nita said. Kit groaned.

Some hours later almost all the free chairs in Aunt Annie's kitchen were full of wizards, all talking hard. Most of them there knew Biddy, and there had been some shock at Nita's announcement of who else she was besides the local farrier, but Fragarach's response to Biddy couldn't be explained in any other way. Shock had been quickly put aside in favour of plan-making. "It was Ronan's idea," Nita said, and Ronan blushed right out to his ears. "We can make another. We can!"

"I'll entertain explanations of how," Johnny said, sitting back and stroking his moustache. "Don't tell me you're thinking of pinching some ur-matter from Timeheart, either, because it won't work. That matter is structured differently from the way matter was at the beginning of Time in this universe."

"Timeslide, then," Kit said.

Johnny shook his head. "We would need a wizard with enough power to drive that kind of a slide back far enough. You're talking billions of years." Kit bent over to Nita and said, "Should I?"

"I think you'd better," Nita said, and sighed. It had been so quiet until now, relatively speaking. "It's after dinnertime. See if you can do it without raising the alarm, if you know what I mean." Kit nodded and went out. "It might help," Aunt Annie said to Johnny, 'if we understood a little more about exactly what kind of matter's needed."

"Well, you've got a bard around here somewhere, haven't you?" he said. "Let's hear the authorized version first, and then Biddy can give us what she remembers of the technicalities, so that we can work on the spelling proper."

"Hmm," Aunt Annie said. She went to the door. " Tualha! Kitty kitty kitty! Tuna!"

The kitchen immediately began to fill with meowing cats. "Do you really think this will work, Shaun?" Doris said.

He stretched, then shrugged. "It's our best chance, I think, considering that no envelope presently extant seems to be suitable. It seems as if the Spear's soul burns out its containers the way — well." He looked at Biddy, then away.

The catflap clattered as Tualha scrambled in through it. She stood there, very small and black, with her small tail pointing straight up in the air, and said, "Mew."

Nita burst out laughing. "Oh, come on, Tualha. It's the Senior for Europe, and he wants your advice."

"Oh, well, that's different," Tualha said. She looked up at Aunt Annie and said, "First things first. What about that tuna?"

'There was a time," Johnny said, 'when bards performed first, and then the lord of the hall gave them largesse."

Tualha looked disdainfully at him. 'Tuna," she said to Nita's aunt. "And then cream, please." Aunt Annie raised her eyebrows, and went to get it. It was astounding how fast such a small kitten could eat, especially in contrast to all the other cats, who had to be fed too so that they wouldn't steal Tualha's food. Eventually she was lifted up on the table and given her saucer of cream there, and she lapped it with a thoughtful air, burping occasionally, while the human wizards sat around and nursed their tea. "Now then," Johnny said.

Tualha sat down and began washing her face. "What do you want to know?" she said. "Tell us if you would, oh bard, the forging of the Spear Luin."

Tualha began washing behind one ear. "The Spear of Victory itself came from the city Finias; Arias the poet-smith made it there. The song says that Arias took a star and hammered it on the anvil, and so made the blade of the spear. Then the Tuatha de Danaan brought it with them through the air and the high air when they came to Ireland. And with them it stayed, and gave light to any place it was in, for the burning that was in it."

Tualha stopped, yawned, and then started on the other ear. "Then came Balor, and made a tower of glass for himself and his creatures in the sea near Ireland. Balor's likeness was that of a human, but gross and misformed, and one eye squinted away almost to nothing for the hugeness and horribleness of the other. So great was it that it took four Fomori with forks of iron to pull the eyelid up when Balor wanted it so. And when it opened, what its glance fell on scorched and burned and was poisoned, and blasted off the world and out of it."

Glances were exchanged around the table. "It was foretold by other wizards," said Tualha,"that only fire and the spirit of fire would end Balor, and that one would come who had all skills, and was kin to Balor, and would make that end of him. So the Tuatha waited, looking for that one to come." "Another of the Powers," Aunt Annie said, "by the sound of it. And a fairly central one, if Balor is another version of the Lone Power."

Johnny nodded. Tualha had tucked herself down into meatloaf shape. "Nuada the King did not know who that one might be," she said,"so he gathered to him all the great Powers that were in Ireland in those days: Diancecht the physician, and Badb the lady of battles, and the Morrigan, the Great Queen; he gathered in Go van the Smith, and Luchtar the Builder, and Brigit whose name meant the Fiery Arrow, who was healer and smith and poet all together; and cupbearers and druid- wizards and craftsmen of all kinds. And one day they were feasting when a young man came to the door of their great rath and asked to come in. The doorman asked what skill he had. He said he was a warrior, and a harper, and a storyteller too, and a champion in the fight, and a smith, and a cupbearer and a doctor and a wizard and a poet. And when the Powers heard that, They said, 'This must be the All-Skilled, our deliverer. Let him in so that we can test his power." They did that, and the young man could do everything he said he could: and the Ildanach, the all-crafted, is what they nicknamed him. Then they started their plan to drive out Balor and the threat of his Eye, and his creatures the Fomori from Ireland forever."

Tualha looked thoughtfully at the saucer, then at Aunt Annie. Aunt Annie poured her some more cream. "Thirsty work," Tualha said, and had a brief drink. "Then," she said, licking some cream off her whiskers, "Lugh went off in private for a long time with Go van the Smith; they took counsel and made a plan, and Lugh had the Spear of Victory brought to him. In secret Lugh and Go van laboured for three years, or some say seven, forging the Spear anew. Unquenchable fire they forged into it, and a fierce spirit. ." Tualha yawned, and crouched down in meatloaf shape again. "Then, when they were done, Lugh returned to the great rath of the Tuatha with the Spear, just in time to meet a party of the Fomori that had been sent there by Balor to demand a tribute of slaves from the Tuatha. He unwrapped the Spear and called on the Tuatha to cover their eyes, and the Spear roared with rage and blasted the Fomori to ash on the instant — all but one that he sent back to Balor to tell what had happened, and bring the message of Lugh's defiance to him." Tualha rolled over on her side, and yawned again, blinking at them. "Then the war starts. Did you want anything else?"

"No, that'll do for now. Thank you."

Something went POW! out in the front yard. All heads turned at that, and there were some concerned expressions; but a moment later they heard the front door slide open, and Kit walked in. "Noisy, that," Johnny said. "You weren't so loud when you left." "Not my fault," Kit said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

Behind him, Nita's sister Dairine walked into the kitchen: ten years old, small, skinny and bright- eyed, with a shock of red hair, wearing shorts and trainers and a Batman T-shirt three sizes too large for her: one of Nita's, actually. Nita started to fume slightly — Dairine had started 'borrowing' her clothes lately, and returning them in less than pristine condition — but there were more important things to be concerned about at the moment; she kept her annoyance to herself. Dairine glanced around the kitchen with interest, then said, 'Hi, Neets. Hi, Aunt Annie!" And she put down the portable computer she was carrying, and went and gave her aunt a hug.

Johnny and Doris and Biddy and Ronan all watched this with some bemusement. "My sister," Nita said to Johnny. "Dairine."

Johnny blinked. "This is the Dairine Callahan who. ." He paused, then, and laughed at himself. "It would be, wouldn't it. The youngest ones are always the strongest, after all. They're just getting a lot younger these days."

Another chair was pulled in from the living-room while introductions were made. Nita had to smile as she watched the portable computer unlean itself from against the table leg, flop down flat on the floor, grow short spidery legs, and wander over to the cat food dish where Bronski was still eating. Bronski hissed at the computer, hit it hard with one paw, and when that didn't do anything, went out the catflap in a hurry.

Nita looked over at Kit and said, "Any problems?"

"Nothing significant," he said. "She'd had her dinner, so we have a few hours." "You've briefed her?"

"I know what you're trying to do, more or less," Dairine said, reaching out to take a biscuit from the fresh packet their aunt had brought out. "Mmm." She chewed for a few seconds, then said, "It's all been updating itself in the precis in my manual for the past few days." She nodded over at the computer, which was still examining the cat food dish with interest.

"The language is interesting," Johnny said, leaning back in his chair. " 'Took a star and hammered it on the anvil. .' "

"When I was in Timeheart, I used meteoric iron," Biddy said quietly. "There seemed to be a certain. appropriateness to it."

"There's plenty of that around," Kit said. "Not all in museums, either."

"But not ur-matter," Doris said. "You would need meteoric iron from around the time of the birth of the Universe."

Dairine shook her head. "It wouldn't be meteoric," she said. "That early in the physical universe, there weren't any planetary bodies to shatter and turn into meteors, yet; not even in the oldest galaxies." She looked at Nita for confirmation: Nita nodded. "You're going to have to get real starsteel."

The older wizards looked at her, beginning to understand. "From the nucleus of a star?" Johnny said.

Dairine looked at him with interest. "Plenty of iron inside stars, especially the type As and Fs." Biddy stared at Dairine. "You're suggesting that someone should put one end of a timeslide into the centre of a star light-years away and millions of years back in time, and fasten the other end here'? And then do what?"

"Forge what comes out at this end," Dairine said. "That's your department, though. You did that. ." She glanced over into the next room, where Fragarach lay on a sideboard, with several layers of spell-warding glowing around it to keep its power from combining disastrously with that of the Cup in the back office. "The techniques shouldn't be so different." "You really think you can do this?" Doris said to Dairine.

"You mean, can I get you what you need?" Dairine said. She sat back in her chair and let her eyes drop closed a little, and then began to speak in the Speech. It was not exactly a spell, but the schematic for one, the outline, with certain key words and phrases left out so that nothing untoward would start to happen just yet. Nita lost the thread of it after about a minute: she had never heard any spell so complex in her life, and several parts of it that she did understand, the power-control parameters and the description of the matter that would be conducted down the timeslide, along with several Names to be invoked, all rattled her badly. Nita knew that her sister had, in some ways, become the manual since her own Ordeal; and by way of semi-parenthood, Dairine had the power of a whole race of sentient computer wizards to draw on. But Nita had not had those facts brought home to her quite so definitely as they were being brought home now. She shivered; it was a little like being big sister to a nuclear explosion that could pick its own time to go off, and was thinking of doing it soon.

Dairine stopped and opened her eyes again. "That's the procedure," she said. "It won't be easy, but at least it's not too complicated. When do you want to do it?"

Doris was shaking her head. " 'Forged fire into it'," she said. "That spell would certainly produce that result. Shaun?"

Johnny was looking very thoughtful. "If the other end of the slide were to slip out of place in either location or time," he said to Dairine, "it could annihilate the Earth. You realize that, of course." Dairine shrugged. "At the rate things are going, people might be thankful for something like that shortly. If I were you, I'd take the chance you've got. I can do this now, but whether I'll have the power next week, or next month, is a good guess. If the world still exists next week or next month." There was a silence. "Well, Shaun?" Doris said. "You're the Senior."

He sat and stared into his teacup, and then said, "I guess we haven't any choice. Tomorrow night, then? At Matrix. Assuming the other Planetaries concur."

Doris nodded, and Ronan, and Nita's aunt. "Will the Treasures be all right here tonight, Johnny?"

Aunt Annie said.

"I should think so. Let's meet at Matrix around seven. This ought to be done at about sunset, so that the Spear knows what it's for."

Everyone nodded and pushed their chairs back. Nita looked over at Dairine. "You came a long way for just this," she said.

Dairine stretched and grinned. "Worth it to see the expression on your face when I outlined that spell. What a look! I thought you were going to. ."

"Never mind," Nita said. Becoming a wizard had mostly changed her sister for the better, but it also seemed to have increased some of Dairine's more annoying traits, like the bragging and teasing. "Listen, runt," she said, "I missed you too. How are Mum and Dad?"

Dairine shrugged. "Mum keeps going on about "her baby". Dad looks depressed all the time.

They're fine." Then she chuckled. "They'll never try a stunt like this on you again."

"Oh?"

"Uh huh. I heard them arguing about it the other day. Went on for about an hour, and finally Mum said, 'If she wants to be a wizard, fine, let her. Better to have a daughter who's a wizard, than not have a daughter.' "

"All right," Nita said softly. "When can I. ." She was about to say go home, except that it occurred to her that she didn't want to go home right this minute. Not until after the business with the Spear was settled, anyway. And besides, I'm on assignment… I'd have to see it through anyway. "Never mind," she said again. "Did you tell them where you were going?"

"What, and get them all upset again? No way. Mum hasn't worked out a way to get any promises out of me yet, and that's the way it's going to stay. For the time being, anyhow. What time is it at home when it's seven in the evening here?" "Two in the afternoon."

"That's fine," Dairine said. "I don't have to be home for dinner until seven our time. Yes, I know where we're going: it's in the manual. See you tomorrow. Bye, Kit. Spot, heel!"

The computer scuttled over to her; cats hissed and bristled at it as it went by. Dairine vanished, and not one of the various papers on the table moved.

"Hey, pretty slick," Kit said.

Nita laughed to herself for a second. "Look," she said, "you'd better get back too. Your parents are going to start wondering."

"Let 'em wonder," Kit said. But he started heading for the door. Nita followed and said, "Make sure you get your sleep."

Kit laughed too, a rueful noise. Excitement sometimes made it hard for him to sleep the night before a big wizardry, and Nita was used to teasing him about the circles under his eyes. "I'll try," he said. "Take it easy, huh?" "Yeah."

Kit vanished too; Johnny and Doris and Ronan headed out past Nita to Johnny's car, saying their goodnights as they went. As Ronan passed her, he said, "That was your sister?" "Uh huh."

"You poor thing," said Ronan.

Nita nodded in complete agreement. "She has her uses, though," she said. "Hang loose." Ronan chuckled and went out.

Nita went back into the kitchen, where she found her aunt staring moodily at a sink full of teacups. "They breed," she said, "I swear they do."

Nita laughed and reached up to the shelf that held the washing-up liquid.