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  “Uh, no.” Nita shook her head. “Just a weird moment—”

  Around them the music started to fade, and the crowd started glancing around expectantly. “Uh oh, here we go!” Nguyet said, and a second or so later Kit and Tuyet were looking over their shoulders at the heart of the crowd.

  It was pushing aside, people murmuring and melting back so as to leave a roughly circular space open inside it. A small blond woman stepped into the center of the group.

  A silence fell around her. No one called for it—nothing so crass. All that was happening was everyone responding to the sense of sudden power in their midst. The Planetary Wizard for Earth just stood there quietly, looking at the crowd surrounding her at a more-than-respectful distance.

  Nita was amused to see Irina Mladen for once not in the kind of floral housedress she’d seemed to favor the couple of times that their paths had last crossed, but in a very businesslike pantsuit, the type of thing you might wear to a job interview; navy blue, low heels, a white shirt. But Irina also had something at her neck, hard to see, that glinted sharply blue—exactly the shade of blue that Earth’s seas would look like from space. In a flower-patterned sling, her baby—must find out what his name is! Nita thought—hung at her side and gazed curiously around at the gathering. On her opposite shoulder perched the little yellow parakeet who seemed to go everywhere with her, peering around as alertly as the baby. It briefly stood on one leg to ruffle up the feathers behind its ear with one claw, made a quiet scratchy sound, and settled down against her neck again.

  “Colleagues and cousins,” Irina said, “associates who’ve come from great distances and from just up the road—you’re all very welcome. In the names of the Powers with whom and for whom we work in overseeing this planet, I want to thank you for making the time in your busy schedules to be a part of this proceeding, which is probably the biggest since that famous one in Babylon—the one back ten millennia or so, when Julian dates hadn’t yet been invented and we were still reckoning everything in fractions of a Simurgh year.”

  A soft laugh traveled around the room among some of the older attendees. “Your presence here,” Irina said, “is an indication of your commitment to help the rest of us do our work better—the most important work there is: serving Life in this world, and incidentally in others. But, like charity, the best work for others starts at home. Here, on your own ground, those of you who’re competing in the Invitational will have a chance to demonstrate to your peers, and to those working at more central levels, the best of what you’ve learned and engineered to make wizardry better.”

  She began to stroll casually around the space that had opened up around her. “Today and tonight we’ll have a chance to get to know one another better. You’ll have an opportunity to meet up for the first time with the wizards you’re going to be working with for the next few weeks, and to get a sense of what others in the community are doing—a sense that we’re hoping will be helpful to you whether you make it through into the later competition stages, or are obliged to step aside due to criterion-based outsorting.”

  And then Irina cracked a grin as she looked out into the crowd. “I spent nearly half a day looking for a slicker or at least kinder way to phrase ‘getting chucked out on your butt.’” She smiled. “Because that’s what it felt like to me when I was deselected from the Invitational in 1992. I went down in the eighth-finals, and at the time I didn’t think it was possible for anything worse to happen to me for the rest of my life. Of course, then I got made Planetary.” Another laugh went around the group, but there was a slightly uneasy edge to it. “So if you do get outsorted, please don’t assume that your life is over. A surprising number of our former competitors come back later as mentors . . . or are so busy with other things that happened to them secondary to the Invitational that they don’t have time to waste further angst on it.”

  She walked around some more, looking into the sea of faces as she did. “As usual,” Irina said, “you know that the honor the Powers That Be have bestowed on us as wizards is not entirely without its challenges. That old saying that the Powers will not send you any challenge for which you are not prepared—” She shook her head. “Unfortunately that saying was invented by someone who wasn’t a wizard. We know perfectly well that the universe has never worried about sending us challenges for which we are not prepared. But the Powers that manage this universe bloody well expect us to get prepared, if we’re capable. All of wizardry, if looked at one way, is a never-ending game of catch-up. The Invitational, and similar events in other worlds near and far, are all attempts to get ahead of the game.”

  Irina paused in her walking. “More to the point, it’s about encouraging you and other wizards like you not only to use the manual, to use the knowledge that we share in many modalities, but to contribute to it as well. We’re all of us together in a business that can wear you down, wear you out, or kill you dead, without a little help from your friends. And though thousands of wizards worldwide do independent networking every day, giving each other help and advice on their own initiative, we’ve found it useful to hothouse the process every now and then. Wizards who work actively with other wizards in a primary role of spell design and implementation need to be accustomed to working fast in crisis conditions—and so, in that sense, the next three weeks, for some of you, are going to read like one long crisis.”

  Irina laughed softly. “Not that you can’t have fun at the same time, of course. What’s that famous line from the sports show on one continent? ‘The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat’—well, we hope the agony can be kept to a minimum. To assist you in that regard, we have acting as mentors some of the best and most effective younger wizards of recent years. They come here unified in the intention to help you produce results that will mean other wizards won’t have to go through the crap they did.”

  At that a much louder ripple of laughter spread through the group, and Irina joined it. “So if the next three weeks seem cutthroat to some of you, and if you feel your mentors and your fellow competitors are driving you hard, that’s exactly the way it should be. Our oldest competitor, the One who’ll be here and whom you will not see—that One, too, is cutthroat in Its habits. That’s the One whose actions and intentions we can never afford to turn our backs on. The next three weeks are designed to get right in Its face.”

  Irina looked around at the crowd, the smile on her face a touch feral now. “No matter what the final result at the end of this proceeding, for the competitors and their support teams, you need to know that our always-present invisible friend—and greeting and defiance to you,” she said, her gaze sweeping around the group—“will be constantly infuriated by what you do. If you choose to frame some of what will happen here as Its fault, well, you wouldn’t be wrong. Some of you will go home bruised. No one will blame you for taking your annoyance out on It later. Indeed, we encourage it.

  “But those of you who make it into any one of the finals stages may assume that Its attention will be on you in somewhat increased amounts from here on in. That’s one of the reasons the winner will be working with me for the following year. Anyone who displays such a level of accomplishment so publicly in a wizardly gathering of this kind is entitled to protection after the fact. And we, the Seniors and others involved in the assessment and oversight structures of the Invitational, want you to know that we’re not going to hang you out to dry after you win.”

  There was a soft murmur at that. “So,” Irina said. “The thing for you to do now is get to know each other. Some of each other anyway: there are so many of you here! Some of you will know members of the mentor group, having heard of their work. Some of you won’t have a clue and are here to make friends—and that’s fine too; friendship is a thing of incalculable power. There are times it’ll keep you going when you can’t find anything else in the manual that seems to do any good. I hope to greet as many of you as I can before other duties call me away. In the meantime, on behalf of the supervisory structure of the wi
zards of Sol III, known as Earth and by many other names among our own kind and others, I declare this event, the twelve hundred and forty-first Invitational, to be in progress. Enjoy yourselves, stir around, and I’ll see you all at the finals!”

  Irina received a patter of applause as she stepped out of the circle. It sounded somewhat subdued, but Nita strangely could understand that; applauding Earth’s Planetary seemed almost too obvious a gesture. And then, as she turned to Kit, Nita noticed with some surprise that nearly all the wizards in the center of the ice-cavern had little glowing lights hovering over their heads.

  Kit started to laugh, as did various other people in the room, possibly for the same reason. “Look,” he said under his breath, “we’re all in The Sims . . .”

  “And these lead us to whoever we’re supposed to be meeting?” Nita said, cocking an eye up at her own glowing light, which like Kit’s was faintly blue. It was wobbling rhythmically in the air with a little thataway, thataway, thataway kind of movement that seemed to be indicating a spot past the buffet tables.

  “Yeah, looks that way. Shall we?”

  Together they started in that direction. The whole crowd scene had turned from a jumble of bodies standing mostly still to a seething confusion through which kids were pushing every which way, everyone wearing that searching-for-a-face expression familiar at airports and train stations. Occasionally one of these people would come up against a red light that matched it in shape and size and the two parties would pause; hands would be shaken, or there would be bows or other styles of greeting, and both parties would look at each other with interest, though (it seemed to Nita) also, in a lot of cases, a certain wariness. Because who knows what they’re getting in one of these situations, at least right at the beginning?

  “Getting warmer,” Kit said, glancing up at Nita’s floating indicator: it was flashing faster now, “pointing” more emphatically.

  “Yeah,” Nita said, looking at Kit’s. “Is that—Wait, he must have moved. Left, I think.”

  “Yeah, over by the buffet again . . .”

  They made their way farther through the crowd. “Funny,” Nita murmured, “I think he stopped again.”

  “Yeah. Still, we’re close. See how bright these are getting now, he must be—”

  “Right there,” Nita said, pointing toward the end of one of the buffet tables, where a tall young man was standing.

  He really was tall, Nita thought: right up there with Ronan, despite being a couple of years younger. Pushing six feet, easy . . . and so lean. It was odd how the impact of both the height and the leanness was so much greater in person. She’d seen an image of him in the manual when going over his précis, and the usual height/weight hard data, but it hadn’t made anything like the same kind of impression on her as he was making at the moment. His dark hair was longish and shaggy, covering his ears; his carriage a little slumped, but at first glance it looked like an attitude thing rather than something chronically postural. Stress, Nita thought. Well, why not? All of us are twitching.

  He watched her and Kit approach with a much more overstated version of that wary look Nita had seen on some of the people here. She searched briefly in memory for what his stance and affect reminded her of, and then thought of the guys she’d seen on one of the websites she sometimes caught Dairine secretly drooling over, a site devoted to Asian boy bands. Photogenic, sullen, definitely trying to look hard to get. And then there are the clothes, Nita thought. Not that you expected him to be in some kind of traditional gear, why would he be, but—He was wearing designer jeans, a white V-neck T-shirt, a bright floral shirt over that, and a black leather jacket over that, cut high to let as much of the Hawaiian shirt show as possible. Big boots, something like patent-leather Doc Martens, and—Is that lace on the tops of his socks?

  It was lace. Neon orange lace, even more blindingly orange than some of the flowers on his Hawaiian shirt. Better keep Tuyet away from this one, she found herself thinking. Too much competition on the clothes side. Come to think of it, better keep Carmela away from this one, too. Because their mentee was definitely quite handsome, though not in the usual ways: his face was slightly longer than it looked like it should have been for its width, but the tilt of his eyes made it all work, and also the depth of their color, a dark, deep brown.

  But the looks aren’t all that’s going on. There was power here: considerable power. Bobo? Nita said silently.

  Five point six, said Wizardry itself in her ear, assessing. Plus or minus point six. And on a slow climb. Hormonal, long term. Final status when the hormones settle, somewhere around six point nine, maybe seven.

  Nita breathed out. And he’s what? Fifteen going on sixteen? Wow . . . So why’s he looking at us like he thinks Kit might bite him in the leg?

  The guy leaned there against the table and watched them come. As they got within chatting distance, their guide-lights went out—confirmation, if any was needed, that their little group’s members had found one another.

  He stuck out his hand to Kit. “Penn Shao-Feng,” he said. “Dai stihó—”

  “Dai,” Kit said. “Kit Rodriguez. My partner, Nita Callahan—”

  “Hello,” Penn said, glancing at her, then back at Kit. “Nice to meet you.”

  Not nice enough for me to be offered a handshake, was the first thing that went through Nita’s mind. Don’t I rate a dai?

  Or am I just being hypersensitive?

  “Want to grab a drink and sit down somewhere?” Kit said, gesturing toward the ice-cavern’s walls, where all kinds of force-shielded seating had been carved into the bodies of numerous niches and cavelets.

  “Uh, not right now, thanks though,” Penn said. “Listen, did you see where Irina went?”

  “Uh,” Nita said, startled by complete confusion into politeness. “I’m sure she’s still around somewhere. They said she was going to hang out for a while after the introduction.”

  “They said? You don’t know?”

  Nita stood there trying to make sense of the odd, slightly mocking expression Penn was leveling at her. “If I could read a Planetary’s mind,” she said, recovering, “I don’t know that I’d advertise the fact, because there might be some pushback about spreading that around. So no, I don’t know. But then we’re only two of about a thousand other people who’d love to drag her off somewhere and monopolize her attention. Think you’ve got a shot?”

  Kit threw a Did you just say that? look at her. Nita ignored it, waiting to see what Penn would say.

  Instead he ran a bored-looking hand through his hair and turned away from Nita toward Kit, as if what she’d said wasn’t even worth engaging with. “Look, why don’t I get in touch with you tomorrow and we can set up a meeting,” he said. “You can come out and see me in San Fran; I’ll put the coordinates in your manuals. I’ve got a nice place, you’ll like it, it’s quiet, and we can take an hour and you can have a look at what I’m doing. Yeah? Kind of busy tonight.”

  Doing what else besides meeting with the people who’re supposed to be helping you win this? Nita thought. She opened her mouth—

  “Sure,” Kit said, and Nita had the brief satisfaction of noticing that his voice sounded tight around the edges. “Fine. Tomorrow, then. Dai . . .” And though Nita thought he’d been about to turn and walk away, Kit stood still with a casual sort of look bent on Penn, and waited.

  “Yeah, dai,” Penn said after a moment, then turned himself around and stalked off.

  Nita and Kit stood there for a moment more, then looked at each other.

  “Is it just me,” Kit said, “or were we just not only blown off but totally disrespected by someone wearing that shirt?”

  Nita shook her head. “Fashion statement,” she said.

  Kit made a sarcastic sound at the back of his throat. “A statement that he thinks fashion beats style.”

  “Ooh. A little judgmental, there? Maybe he’s not the blazer type.” She gazed after Penn. “I could be wrong, but I think he’s been through one of those fa
shion streets in Japan, you know? Where they’re big into mixing and matching everything on the planet.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Kit said. “That’s more ’Mela’s department. But wear a Hawaiian shirt to something like this? When you’re not Hawaiian? I don’t know that I feel that sure of my dress sense. And I’m not sure I ever will . . .”

  “You need more coaching from Carmela, maybe.”

  “Please, as if she needs to know that. Life with her is bizarre enough already.”

  Nita stood there watching Penn push farther into the crowd; his height wouldn’t allow him to vanish completely at close range. Well, maybe it’s nerves . . .

  “Come on,” Nita said, “let’s go look for Dairine and see if she drew a better hand than we did.”

  Kit gave her a brief look. “Kind of a snap judgment from you . . .”

  “Sounds like I’m not the only one, either. But who knows, we might even find someone more mature. Or less self-absorbed.”

  Very quietly, Kit started snickering. “He has no idea what he’s in for, does he.”

  “What?”

  “I know that tone of voice. Like you’re absolutely intending to be kind to somebody, but it’ll be the sort of kindness that’s gonna kill them.”

  It was embarrassing to have to admit that killing was somewhat on Nita’s mind. “Seriously,” she said under her breath, “who comes to an event like this and acts like that?”

  “Someone who’s sure he’s the hottest thing on the street,” Kit said. “Or thinks he is. And doesn’t mind who gets annoyed by the shade he’s throwing.” He gave Penn a sidelong look, and watched him head off through the crowd.

  Nita snorted. “Or else he’s trying to make a strong first impression. Well, he has.”

  “Maybe he’s stressed,” Kit said. “Or freaked at meeting us.”

  “Us!”

  “Yeah, well.” Kit shrugged. “Looked at your précis in the manual lately? The version of it that someone sees when they don’t have the right association levels set? Who knows . . . it could be intimidating.”