Wizards at War, New Millennium Edition Read Online Free Page A

that concealed the actual locomotion.
    When they were all inside, Nita slipped past them and into the dining room to rearrange the chairs. As Tom and Carl came in, Sker’ret and Roshaun rose to greet them, the respectful gesture of a less senior wizard to a more senior one—though Nita noticed with some annoyance that Roshaun looked slightly skeptical.
    “Sker’ret,” Tom said, while Nita sorted out the seating, “I was talking to your honorable ancestor this morning. He sends his best.”
    “Does he?” Sker’ret said, politely enough, but Nita thought she caught some edge behind the words. Roshaun was standing there off to one side, with Dairine, looking slightly superior as usual. Carl turned to him. “Roshaun ke Nelaid am Seriv am Teliuyve am Meseph am Veliz am Teriaunst am det Nuiiliat,” Carl said, “ eniwe’ sa pheir —”And then he continued, not in the Speech, but in a beautiful flow of language that sounded more like running water than like words. Nonetheless, the meaning was plain, for those who speak the Speech can listen in it as well, comprehending any language. “A sorrow for your new burden, Sunborn. Bear it as befits you, and lay it down in its proper time, mere cast-off shadow as it is of the greater radiance beyond.”
    Roshaun looked utterly stunned. He bowed to Tom and Carl as if they were as royal as he thought he was, or more so. “May it be so,” he said, “here and henceforward.”
    They nodded to him, and moved around the table to get settled.
    “Now those are Seniors, ” Roshaun said under his breath as he sat down beside Nita. “I was wondering if your people had any worthy of the name.”
    “You have no idea,” Nita said softly. She wondered yet again exactly what was involved in becoming a Senior. It’s not like they’re so old. It’s not like they’re just grown up, either. Lots of grown-ups are wizards, and they never make Senior level, or even Advisory. What is it? What do you have to do? How do they know so much stuff, and make it look so easy?
    At last everyone was seated. “Normally we’d spend a lot more time being social,” Tom said, “but today’s not the day for it, so please forgive us if we get right down to business.”
    He let out a long breath, looking them all over. “Some of you,” he said, “will have noticed that the world has been getting… well, a lot more complicated of late. And, seemingly, a lot worse.”
    “Yeah,” Nita said, thinking ruefully (among other things) of one significant change in the Manhattan skyline in the last decade, and what had come after.
    “By ‘of late,’” Tom said, just a little sharply, “I mean, over the past couple thousand years.”
    “Oh,” Nita said, and shut her mouth.
    “It’s not local,” Tom said. “Matters have been worsening gradually all over the worlds; and wizards who study macrotrends have been concerned about it for some time. The Powers That Be haven’t had much to say except that this worsening is a sign of a huge change coming… something that’s not been seen before in the worlds. And now we know the change is upon us… because the expansion of the universe is speeding up.”
    Kit looked a little confused. “But hasn’t it always been expanding? What’s the problem?”
    “Bear with me,” Tom said. He looked at Nita. “What do you know about ‘dark matter’?”
    “Mostly that it’s been missing,” Nita said. “Astronomers have been looking for it for a long time, maybe a hundred years or so. Now they’ve started to find it.”
    “And so have scientists on a lot of other worlds,” Carl said. “Know what’s strange about that?”
    “That it took us so long?” Kit said.
    Carl shook his head. “That all the species who were looking for dark matter started finding it at around the same time.”
    Nita sat there and wondered what to make of that.
    “The discovery or location of dark matter and the increase in the speed of the universe’s expansion are somehow