And not particularly suddenly, but quite definitely, Chantel was alone. She couldn’t see Lightning anymore either.
Owl’s bowels! Tucks in reality, indeed! And meanwhile who knew what was going on in the city? All that water . . . all those people . . . no matter what Chantel did now, there was no way to stop that deadly rush of water.
She looked up, and saw that there was after all a little snag in the upper corner of the green silence, like a folded-over edge of Now.
She reached for it with her mind, and tugged.
And now?
And now the girl approaches.
Oh?
So soon?
Did one of us help her?
I very much suspect that one of us
did.
Is there a problem with that?
There should be no help.
If there is no help, then what is our purpose?
Our purpose is simply to be.
I very much doubt that that is anybody’s purpose.
Never mind that. The girl, Chantel, approaches. What is our plan?
A plan. We ought to have had a plan.
We ought to have
discussed this.
It is too late.
She is here.
Chantel found herself walking through the catacombs, with skulls staring down at her.
There was a blast of cold air, and a smell like a flooded grave, and the fiend appeared before her, green and glowing. She didn’t back away. She didn’t expect it to attack, and it didn’t. It glided ahead of her, leading the way.
Soon they reached the round chamber in the caves beneath the city, the one with a painting on the wall. She knew the chamber was not actually in the catacombs, but then, she wasn’t sure she was, either. Was she in the space between this world and the next? The place where the restless dead roamed?
The fiend vanished.
The chamber was full of people. They filled the circle of benches. And Chantel was standing in the middle, with all of them staring at her. She turned around and around, looking them over.
“So,” said one of them. “This is the girl Chantel.”
“She wears the dragon robe already.” This was said with a sniff, by a hawk-nosed woman who, Chantel saw, was also wearing a dragon robe. About a third of the people were.
And most of them were elderly. Because, Chantel realized with a chill that went all the way down to her feet, all of them were dead. Queen Haywith had said so.
“Are you all mages of the dragon?” she asked.
“We ask the questions,” said a man with an enormous cloud of hair. He wore red robes.
“We have been watching you for some time,” said another man.
“You can’t be a mage,” said Chantel. “Men can’t do magic.”
“They could in the past.” It was a light-skinned girl who spoke, one not much older than Chantel. Chantel realized with a start that the girl’s purple robe was the one Chantel herself was wearing. There was a slight burn mark on the hem, and a hanging thread on the embroidered dragon’s right front claw. Chantel looked down at the exact same burn mark and thread on her own robe.
This was deeply weird.
“Things in your time have become very unbalanced. That’s why the men have lost their magic,” the girl said.
The man in the red robe frowned at her. “We don’t know that to be the case. It is merely a theory we have discussed.”
“This is beside the point,” the hawk-nosed woman interjected. “We have the girl before us. What do we think? Shall we evaluate her?” Without waiting for an answer, she went on. “She doubts what she is told. That is often wise, but just as often a waste of time.”
“She has courage. But she is afraid of making choices. And of being wrong.”
“I never said that!” said Chantel.
“She is loyal. But confused in her loyalties.”
“I am not!” said Chantel. “Confused.”
“She is often painfully polite, but she has learned to speak her mind. And like many young people, she does that rudely. My concern is whether she will grow in wisdom.”
“What difference does that make?” said Chantel. “My city is being attacked!”
The man with the big cloud of hair glanced at her. “It is all of our city.” He turned to the others. “Her power is Summoning. We have no one strong in that power. When she dies, she will bring that to our circle.”
“I’m not going to die!” said Chantel.
There was a soft murmur of laughter around the circle.
“Oh, yes,” said the hawk-nosed woman. “You are.”
“However, it may not happen for some time,” said a woman who had not spoken before.
Chantel looked at her in surprise. The woman was old. Her face had settled into kindly wrinkles. Her dragon robe was thrown on any old how, and not fastened in the front. She was wearing men’s clothes underneath, and useful-looking boots that Chantel could have sworn were caked with swamp muck.
“Queen Haywith?” said Chantel. “The Swamp Lady?”
“We have met before, haven’t we?” said the queen.
“About five minutes ago,” said Chantel.
“I’m sorry,” said the queen.
Chantel didn’t know what that meant, but the queen turned away and addressed the circle of mages.
“This dissection of Chantel’s character is pointless,” she said. “Nor is it necessary for us to evaluate her. She has already tested herself by summoning us.”
“She didn’t summon us.”
“We were here.”
“Then she summoned herself to us. The point is,” said Queen Haywith, “that her summoning skills are very strong. We know we must act. The threat to the city is real. The walls have been breached, and the enemy is entering the city.”
“They are?” said Chantel.
“What did you expect?” said the man in red.
“Bringing down the walls like that!”
“She didn’t bring down the walls, she only opened the gates as they were meant to be.”
“But there are no gates anymore. You fools filled them in, in your time.”
“There were never meant to be gates. There was never meant to be a wall.”
“There must be a wall. The wall keeps the city safe.”
“Someone else here was involved in bringing down the wall.” This was said with a fulminating glance at Queen Haywith.
“I have to get back right now!” said Chantel.
“You must be tested first,” said the hawk-nosed woman.
“Chantel doesn’t need to be tested,” said the queen. “She needs to do battle. She needs to save our city.”
“That is the test, then.”
“But we must help her,” said the queen. “And we know her greatest strength is—”
“Summoning,” several people murmured.
Queen Haywith nodded. “Therefore, I suggest we allow her to summon our power.”
“But she’s just a girl!”
“I was just a girl when I died defending Lightning Pass,” said the girl who was wearing Chantel’s robe. “And since then, Lightning’s never been able to manifest himself again. Until now.”
“Because no one would let the snake into their head,” Chantel told her distractedly. “They were too shamefast and biddable.”
“Silence!” said the hawk-nosed woman. “You can give us your opinion when you’re dead.”
“Well, I’m willing to give her my power.” The girl who had died defending the city turned to Chantel. “Summon it when you need it.”
“Thank you,” said Chantel.