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  A Wizard Abroad

  ( Young Wizards [= Nita & Kit] - 4 )

  Диана Дуэйн

  To give Nita a vacation from magic, her parents pack her off for a stay with her eccentric aunt in Ireland. But Nita soon finds herself with a host of Irish wizards battling creatures from a nightmare land.

  A Wizard Abroad

  by Diane Duane

  For Lt. Col. Shaun Johnny' O'Driscoll, USAF (ret.)

  Admonition to the Reader

  Geography in Ireland is an equivocal thing, and perhaps meant to be so. The more solid the borderline, the more dangerous the land's own response to it; the vaguer the boundary, the kindlier. This is best seen in the behavior of the borders between what we consider our own reality, and the other less familiar realities that shoulder up against it. Such boundaries are never very solid in Ireland, and never more dangerous than when one tries to define them, to cross over. Twilight is always safer there than full day, or full dark. This being the case, I have taken considerable liberties with locations and with 'established' boundaries, including those between counties and towns. County Wicklow is real enough, but there are a lot of things in the Wicklow in this book that are not presently located in the 'real' county — and my version of Bray is not meant to represent the real one… at the moment. The description of the townlands around Ballyvolan Farm and the neighborhood of Kilquade is more or less real, though the two are actually some miles apart. And Sugar loaf Mountain looks like parts of its description. occasionally. Most specifically, though, Castle Matrix exists — possibly more concretely than anything else in the book. But it has been moved from its present, 'actual' location. Or perhaps one can more rightly say that Matrix has stayed where it is, where it always is, but Ireland has shifted around it. Stranger things have happened. In any case, let the inquisitive reader beware. and leave the maps at home.

  — Diane Duane.

  1. An tSionainn / Shannon

  I am the Point of a Weapon (that poureth forth combat),

  I am the God who fashioneth Fire for a head… Who calleth the hosts from the House of Tethra? Who is the troop, who is the God who fashioneth edges?

  (Lebor Gabdla Erenn, tr. Macalister)

  Three signs of the Return: the stranger in the door: the friendless wizard: the unmitigated Sun. Three signs of the Monomachy: a smith without a forge: a saint without a cell: a day without a night.

  (Book of Night with Moon, triptychs 113, 598)

  The first that Nita found out about what was going to happen was when she came in after a long afternoon's wizardry with Kit. They had been working for three days to attempt to resolve a territorial dispute among several trees. It isn't easy to argue with a tree. It isn't easy to get one to stop strangling another one with its roots. But they were well along towards what appeared to be a negotiated settlement, and Nita was worn out.

  She came into the kitchen to find her mother cooking. Her mother cooked a great deal as a hobby, but she also cooked as therapy. Nita began to worry immediately when she noticed that her mother had embarked on some extremely complicated project that seemed to require three souffle dishes and the use of every appliance in the kitchen at once. She decided to get out as fast as she could, before she was asked to wash something. "Hi, Mum," she said, and edged hurriedly towards the door into the rest of the house.

  "What's the rush?" said her mother. "Don't you want to see what I'm doing?" "Sure," said Nita, who wanted to do no such thing. "What are you doing?" "I've been thinking," said her mother.

  Nita began to worry more than ever. Her mother was at her most dangerous when she was thinking, and it rarely meant anything but trouble for Nita. 'About what?"

  "Sit down, honey. Don't look as if you're going to go flying out the door any minute. I need to talk to you."

  Uh oh… here it comes! Nita sat down and began playing spin-the-spoon games with one of the wooden spoons that among many other utensils was littering the kitchen table. "Honey," her mother said,"this wizardry…"

  "It's going pretty well with the trees, Mum," Nita said, desperate to guide her mother on to some subject more positive. Her present tone didn't sound positive at all.

  "No, I don't mean that, honey. Talking to trees — that's all right, that doesn't bother me. The kind of things you've been doing lately… you and Kit…"

  Oh no.

  "Mum, we haven't got in trouble, not really. And we've been doing pretty well, for new wizards. When you're as young as we are. ."

  "Exactly," her mother said. "When you're as young as you are." She did something noisy with the blender for a moment and then said, "Hon, don't you think it would be a good idea if you just let all this — have a rest? Just for a month or so."

  Nita looked at her mother without understanding at all, and worrying. "What do you mean?" "Well, your dad and I have been talking — and you and Kit have been seeing anawful lot of each other in connection with this wizard business. We're thinking that it might be a good idea if you two sort of. didn't see each other for a little while." "Mum!"

  "No, hear me out. I understand you're good friends, I know there's nothing. physical going on between you, so put that out of your mind. We're very glad each of you has such a good friend. That's not a concern. Whatis a concern is that you two are spending a lot of time on this magic stuff, at the expense of everything else. That's all you do. You go out in the morning, you come back worn out, you barely have energy to speak to us sometimes. What about your childhood?" "What about it?" Nita said, in some slight annoyance. Her experience of most of her childhood so far had been that it varied between painful and boring. Wizardry might be painful occasionally, but it was never boring. 'Mum — you don't understand. This isn't something that you can just turn off. You take the Wizard's Oath for life."

  "Oh, honey!" her mother said in some distress, and dropped a spoon. She picked it up, wiping it off.

  'Why do you have to make this harder than it. Never mind. Look. Dad thinks it would be a good idea if you went to visit your Aunt Annie in Ireland for a month or so, until school starts again." "Ireland!"

  'Well, yes. She's been inviting us over there for a while now. We can't go with you, of course — we've had our holiday for this year, and Dad has to be at work. He can't take any more time off. But you could certainly go. School doesn't start until September the ninth. That would give you a good month and a half now."

  There was going to be nothing good about it, as far as Nita was concerned. The best part of the summer, the best weather, the leisure time that she had been looking forward to using working with Kit. .

  "Mum," Nita said, changing tack, "how are you going to afford this?"

  "Honey, you leave that to your dad and me to handle. Right now we're more concerned with doing the right thing for you. And for Kit."

  "Oh, you've been talking to his parents, have you?"

  "No, we haven't. I think they're going to have to sort things out with Kit in their own way: I wouldn't presume to dictate to them. But we want you to go to Ireland for six weeks or so and take a breather. And see something different: something in the real world." Oh dear, Nita thought.They think thisis the real world. Or all of it that really matters, anyway. "Mum," she said, "I don't know if you understand what you're doing here. A wizard doesn't stop doing wizardry just because they're not at home. If I go on call in Ireland, I go on call, and there's nothing that's going to stop it. Or can stop it. I've made my promises. If I have to go on call, wouldn't you rather have me here, where you and Dad can keep an eye on me and know exactly what's going on all the time?"

  Nita's mother frowned at that, and then looked at Nita with an expression compounded of equal parts of suspicion and amusement. "Sneaky," she said. "No; I'm
sorry. Your Aunt Annie will keep good close tabs on you — we've had a couple of talks with her about that. ."

  Nita's eyebrows went up at that — first in annoyance that it was going to be difficult to get away and do anything useful if there was need: then in alarm. "Oh, Mum, you didn't tell her that I'm. ." "No, we didn't tell her that you're a wizard! What are we supposed to do, honey? Say to your aunt, "Listen, Anne, you have to understand that our daughter might vanish suddenly. No, I don't mean run away — just disappear into thin air. And if she goes to the Moon, tell her to dress up warm." " Nita's mother gave her a wry look and reached out for the wooden spoon that Nita had been playing with. "No. You managed to hide it from us long enough, Heaven knows… you shouldn't have any trouble keeping things under cover with your aunt." She paused to start folding some beaten egg white into another mixture she had been working on. "Your dad is going to see about the plane tickets tomorrow. I think it's Saturday that you'll be leaving — the fare is cheaper then." "I could just, you know,go there," Nita said desperately. "It would save you the money, at least." "I think we'll do this the old-fashioned way," Nita's mother said calmly. "Evenyou would have some logistical problems with arriving at the airport and getting off the plane without anyone noticing that you hadn't been there before." Nita frowned and began to work on that one.

  "Wo," Nita's mother said. "Forget it. We'll send enough pocket money for you to get along with; you'll have plenty of kids to play with. ." Play with, Nita thought, and groaned inwardly.

  "Come on, Neets, cheer up a little! It should be interesting, going to a foreign country for the first time."

  I've been to foreign galaxies, Nita thought.But thisI'm not so sure about. However, further argument wasn'tgoing to help her. No matter: there were ways around this problem, if she would just keep her mouth shut. "OK," she said." I'll go — but I won't like it."

  Her mother gazed at her thoughtfully. "I thought you were the one who told me that wizardry was about doing what you had to, whether you liked it or not?"

  "It's true," Nita said, and got up to go out.

  "And Nita," her mother said.

  "What, Mum?"

  "I want your promise that you will not be popping back here on the sly to visit Kit. That little "beam-me-up-Scotty" spell that he's so fond of, and that I see you two using when you want to save your train fare for ice cream."

  Nita went white, then flushed hot. That was the one option she had been counting on to make this whole thing tolerable. "Mum! But Mum, it's easy, I can just. ."

  "You cannot just. We want you to take a break from each other for a while. Now I want you to promise me."

  Nita let out a long breath. Her mother had her, and knew she did; for a wizard's promise had to be kept. When you spend your life working with words that describe and explain, and even change, the way the Universeis, you can't play around with those words, and you can't lie. at least not without major and unpleasant consequences. "I promise," Nita said, hating it. "But this is going to be miserable."

  "We'll see about that," Nita's mother said. "You go ahead now, and do what you have to do." "Oh, no!" Kit said. "This is dire."

  They were sitting on the Moon, on a peak of the Carpathian Mountains, about twenty miles south of the crater Copernicus. The view of Earth from there this time of month was good; she was waxing towards the full, while on the Moon there was nothing but a sun very low on the horizon. Long, long shadows stretched across the breadth of the Carpathians, so that the illuminated crests of the jagged peaks stood up from great pools of darkness, like rough-hewn pyramids floating on nothing. It was cold there; the wizardly force-field that surrounded them snowed flakes of frozen air gently on to the powdery white rock around them when they moved and changed the field's inner volume. But cold as it was, it was private.

  "We were just getting somewhere with the trees," Nita muttered. "I can't believe this." "Do they really think it's going to make a difference?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Who knows what they think, half the time? And the worst of it is, they won't let me come back." Nita picked up a small piece of pumice and chucked it away, watching as it sailed about a hundred meters away in the light gravity and bounced a couple of meters high when it first hit the ground again. It continued bouncing down the mountain, and she watched it idly. "We had three other projects waiting to be started. They're all shot now: there won't be any time to do anything about them before I have to go."

  Kit stretched and looked unhappy. "We can still talk mind to mind; you can coach me at a distance when I need help. Or I can help you. ."

  "It's not the same." She had often enough tried explaining to her parents the 'high' you got from working closely with another wizard: the feeling that magic made in your mind while working with another, the texture, was utterly unlike that of a wizardry worked alone — more dangerous, more difficult, ultimately more satisfying.

  Nita sighed. "There must be some way we can work around this. How are your parents handling things lately?"

  At that Kit sighed too. "Variable. My dad doesn't mind it so much. He says, "Big deal, my son's a brujo." My mother. she has this idea that we are somehow meddling with Dark Forces." Kit made a fake theremin noise, like that heard in a bad horror movie when the monster is lurking around a corner, about to jump on someone. Nita laughed. Kit shook his head. "When are they making you leave?"

  "Saturday." Nita rested her chin on one hand, picked up another rock and chucked it away. "All of a sudden there's all this stuff I have to pack, and all these things we have to do. Go to the passport office and wave the tickets at them so they'll give me one fast. Go to the bank and get foreign money. Buy new clothes. Wash the old ones." She rolled her eyes and fell silent. Nita hated that kind of rushed busy-ness, and she was up to her neck in it now. "How's your sister holding up?"

  Nita laughed. "Dairine likes me, but she's hardly heartbroken. Besides, she's busy managing her wizardry these days. spends most of her time working with her computer. You wouldn't believe some of the conversations I've heard over its voice-link recently." She fell into an imitation of Dairine's high-pitched voice, made even more squeaky by annoyance. "No, I willnot move your galaxy. what do you want to move it for? It's fine right where it is!"

  "Sheesh," Kit said. Dairine, as a very new wizard, was presently at the height of her power; as a very young wizard, she was also more powerful at the moment than both of them put together. The only thing they had on her at the moment was experience.

  "Yeah. We don't fight nearly as much as we used to. she's gone really quiet. I'm not sure it's normal."

  "Oh," Kit said, and laughed out loud. "You mean, like we're normal. We're beginning to sound like our parents."

  Nita had to laugh at that too. "You may have something there." But then the amusement went out of her. "Oh, Kit," she said, " I'm going to miss you. I miss you already, and I haven't left." "Hey, c'mon," he said, and punched her in the shoulder. "You'll get over it. You'll meet some guy over there and. ."

  "Don't joke," Nita said, irritable. "I don't care about meeting "some guy over there". They're probably all geeks. I don't even know if they speak the same language."

  "Your aunt does."

  "My aunt is American," Nita said.

  "Yeah, they speak English over there," Kit said. "It's not all just Irish." He looked at Nita with a concerned expression. "Come on, Neets. If life hands you lemons, make lemonade. You can see a new place, you can probably meet some of their wizards. They'll be in the directory. Neets. give it a chance," he said, glancing around them. He picked up a rock too, turning it over and over in his hands. "Where are you going to be? Dublin? Or somewhere else?"

  "That's all there is," Nita said grimly. "Dublin, and the country. All potato fields and cow pastures."

  "Saw that in the manual, did you?"

  Nita rolled her eyes. Kit could be incredibly pedantic sometimes. "No."

  Kit sighed and looked at her. "I'm going to miss you too," he said. "Imiss you already."
/>   She looked at him, and saw it was true: and the bad mood fell off her, or mostly off, replaced by a feeling of unhappy resignation. "It's only six weeks," she said then.

  Kit's face matched her feeling. "We'll do it standing on our heads," he said.

  Nita smiled at him unhappily. Since wizards did not lie outright, when one tried to stretch the truth, it showed woefully. "Come on," she said, "we're running out of air. Let's get on with it." Saturday came.

  Kit came with them on the ride to the airport. It was a grim, silent sort of ride, broken only by the kind of strained conversation people make when they desperately need to say something, anything, to keep the silence from getting too thick. At least, it seemed silent. She and Kit would pass the occasional comment mind-to-mind. It wasn't all that easy; they didn't do it much… they'd got in the habit of just talking to each other, since telepathy often got itself tangled up with a lot of other information you didn't need, or want, the other person to have. But now, habits or not, they were going to have to get a lot better at mindtouch if they were going to talk at all frequently. They reached the airport, did the formalities with the ticket, checked in Nita's bag — a medium-sized one, not too difficult for her to handle herself, though she was privately determined to make it weightless if she had to carry it anywhere alone. And then the announcement system called her flight, and there was nothing to do but go on.

  She hugged her mum, and her dad. "Have a good time now," her father said.

  She sighed and said, "I'll try, Daddy. Mummy. ." And she was surprised at herself; she didn't usually call her mother 'Mummy'. They hugged again, hard.

  "Be good, now," her mother said. "Don't. ." She trailed off. The "don't" was a huge one, and Nita could hear in it all the things parents always say: don't get in trouble, don't forget to wash — but most specifically,don't get into anything dangerous, like the last time. Or the time before that. Or the time before that. .