A Wizard Abroad yw[n&k-4 Read online

  Nita stepped up to him, wondering. TheAmadaun leaned over and whispered; and the hair stood up all over Nita. It was a word in the Speech, a name. but not the kind of name mortals had. There was too much power in it, and too much time. She glanced sideways in shock, and met his eyes, and found no relief there: the time was there too. "Should you need help," he said, "name that name."

  "Thank you," Nita said, trying to get some of her composure back. "I'll do that. Meanwhile, I hope you do well, and that things are quiet for you."

  "A mortal wishes what we wish," said the lady of the forth, smiling. "There's a change." "Thank you," said Aunt Annie.

  Nita rejoined her, and together they walked out the way they came. The sunlight looked thin and wan when they came out, when it should have looked golden; everything seemed a little unreal, a little fake, now.

  Nita looked at Aunt Annie and was a little surprised to find that she had sweat standing out on her forehead. "Are you OK?" she said. "You look pale."

  "I'm all right," said Aunt Annie. "It's just a strain talking to those people. They don't see time the way we do."

  "I kind of liked it in there," Nita said.

  Her aunt looked at her. "Yes, I thought you might. They prefer the young; the younger wizards have always bent a little more easily to their ways. I make them uneasy, too; I'm a little too close to mortality for their liking. But anyway," her aunt looked at Nita, "I can't believe it. You're a wizard!"

  "At times I find it hard to believe myself," Nita said. "Like last night. My wizardry was not working terribly well."

  "Yes, it's a problem we have around here," said her aunt. "The overlays. If I'd have known, I could have warned you."

  "How could you have known? How was I supposed to tell you?" She broke out laughing. "Whatdid they tell you when they sent me out here?"

  Her aunt shook her head. "They said you were getting too involved with your friend Kit. He's your partner, I take it."

  "Yeah. They're really nervous about it, Aunt Annie. I try to calm them down."

  "Listen, you're lucky. At least you were able to tell your parents. I was never able to tell your grandma and grandpa."

  "Listen, even when they know, it doesn't always run smoothly. But Aunt Annie, look, what are we going to do?"

  "We can't do anything just yet."

  Nita groaned. Her aunt looked at her with a sympathetic expression. "Look, honey, I know. But the tradition of wizardry is different in this part of the world. They've been doing it for thousands of years longer than there evenwere American wizards. And don't forget that at home you're working in a relatively clean environment; the magic of the Amerind wizards was of a much more naturalistic kind. There was practically no overlay, since it worked so completely in conjunction with nature and the environment. Over here we're dealing with the equivalent of wizardly toxic waste. the accumulation of thousands of years of buildup. No, we take our time. We need to get everyone together to talk." "When is this Lughnasad thing?" "It starts tomorrow, really. ." "Tomorrow?!"

  "It goes on for two weeks. don't panic. The first is the beginning of it: August the fifteenth is the end. It's the end that we have to worry about. things will be building up, forces will have to be released. It's going to be like a dam breaking. If we can dig a channel somehow, something for the power, the flow, to run off into. Otherwise. ." "Otherwise even the nonwizards are going to notice."

  Her aunt laughed. "Nita, nonwizards have been noticing foryears. Fortunately, Ireland just has a reputation for being a strange place. So when people hear these weird stories, they discount them. But we'll get the wizards together and talk to them. Meanwhile, try to restrain yourself. I know the urge to do wizardry all the time is very strong, especially at your age. But don't — you know — just don't."

  And that was the last that was said about it for a while. Aunt Annie went into the estate office and shut herself in, and started making phone calls. Nita took herself off to her caravan to do some more reading in the manual.

  As she turned the corner, she froze in surprise: the caravan shifted slightly as she looked at it. Someone was in there. She paused and tried to see through the window before coming any closer. Inside, someone bent forward into the light: a shadow moved. .

  She ran to the caravan door and threw it open. On the bed, Kit looked up in surprise, blinked at her. "Hi, Neets. What's the rush?"

  Nita stood there with her mouth working, and nothing coming out. "What are youdoing here?" she said finally.

  Kit opened his mouth, too, and closed it, and then said, "I thought you'd be glad to see me." "You idiot, Iam glad to see you! But what are youdoing here? I thought. ." "Oh." Kit turned red, then started laughing, "Neets, uh, I feel like a fool." She withheld comment for the moment. "Oh?"

  "Well, I mean,you promised your parents that you wouldn't come back to see me. But I never said anything of the kind. No-oneasked me. So I said to my mum, "I have to go out for a while, I'll be back for dinner." And she said, "Fine, have a nice time. " "Dynamite! Come and see my aunt."

  She dragged him inside. Her aunt had taken a little while off from phone calls to feed the cats, and now stood there looking at Kit with a can of cat food in her hand, and a somewhat bemused expression. "Aunt Annie," Nita shouted,"this is Kit!" "Ah." Her aunt blinked. "Haifa second, then, and I'll feed him too."

  Nita snickered and sat him down at the table, and started making tea. Out of the tangle of mewing and hollering cats, one detached itself and strolled over to the kitchen table, jumped up on it, and regarded Kit with big eyes. It was Tualha. "And who is this?" she said.

  Nita had to laugh a little at Kit's bemused expression. "Kit, Tualha. She's a bard. Tualha, Kit Rodriguez. He's a wizard." "Dai stiho," said Kit.

  "Slan,"said the cat, looking him up and down. To Nita she said, "I see the Spanish have finally arrived."

  "What?"

  "Kit, don't get her started. She'll be reciting poetry at you in a minute." "I don't mind that."

  "So listen," Nita's aunt said then, coming over to the table and sitting down as she dried her hands on a dishcloth. "Kit, you're welcome here, but one question. Do your parents know you're a wizard?" "Oh, yeah."

  She shook her head. "It's getting easier these days than it used to be." She looked at Nita, and then at Kit, and at Nita again. "Listen," she said, "I want the straight word from you on this. You two aren't doing what your mum and dad were concerned you were doing — I mean, what theytold me they thought you were doing. Are you?"

  She had the grace to look embarrassed as she said it. Nita and Kit could do nothing but look at each other and then burst out laughing. "Why does everyone think that?" Kit said, sounding momentarily aggrieved. "Are we panting at each other or something?" Then he lost it and cracked up again.

  "No," Nita said to Aunt Annie. "We're not."

  "Well," said her aunt. "It's matters here that really concern me, and I've got enough on my plate at the moment. You know anything about it?"

  "There was a preqis in the manual of what's been going on here," Kit said. He sighed. "We've got problems."

  That 'we' was one of the nicest things Nita had heard in a long time. She had had enough of working by herself. "Yeah. Well, the Seniors here seem to have at least a handle on what to do. I just hope it works. Did you read about that?"

  "Yeah. It seems they've already made some progress. There's a stone, is it? That they had to wake up-"

  "It was half-awake already," Nita said. "It's the other three that are going to be a problem." "Yeah. They said that the second one was "dormant", the third one was "unusable" and the fourth one was "unaccounted for". That doesn't sound terrific." "Nope."

  "Listen," Aunt Annie said, I" ll leave you two to chat. I've got to get back on the phone." She smiled at them and headed out of the room. "Phone? What for?" "Other wizards," Nita said.

  Kit looked mystified. "To just talk to them? Why don't they. ."

  "NO, DON'T DO THAT!" she said, sitting bolt upright as she felt him
starting to casually line up the beam-me-up spell in his head. "You can't do that here!" "Why not?"

  "Feel around you for the overlays! They're all over the place! And you better watch how you go home, too."

  He paused a moment, and then looked surprised. "You're not kidding. How do you get around here?"

  "I walk. Or there's a bike to ride."

  "Well, let's go and do that, then. Sounds like I've got a lot of catching up to do."

  Nita slipped into the office, bent over Aunt Annie at her desk, scribbled a note on her pad: Going out bike riding, OK?

  Her aunt nodded and went right on with her conversation about spell structure.

  They were out for a long time. Part of it was Kit rubbernecking at the scenery while they talked. But part of it was the weather turning odd. The thunderstorms the weathermen had been predicting materialized, but they dropped hail rather than rain. They had to take shelter from several of these showers, and when they finally got down to the dual carriageway again, they found hailstones as big as marbles lying around on the road, steaming bizarrely in the bright sunshine. The sound of thunder rumbled miles away, sporadic but threatening, all through the ride. They had been taking turns riding, or sometimes Kit would ride and Nita would sit on the crossbar, or the other way around. At the moment Kit was walking the bike beside her, looking around appreciatively. "This is great," he said. "I guess if you had to be sent somewhere, this is as good a place as any."

  "Huh," Nita said. "I don't remember you being very excited about it at first."

  He coloured somewhat. "Yeah, well."

  Nita grinned. "Listen, how's Dairine getting on?"

  "OK, as far as I can tell. I think she may be on assignment; she doesn't seem to have been around your place much in the past few days. Busy."

  "I bet. Wizards all over the place are really busy about now." Nita shook her head. The oppressive, thunderstorm-about-to-happen feeling had not stopped. She was still prickling, but not so violently as she had been that morning.

  "Here it comes," Kit said, looking up at one thundercloud that they had watched drifting halfway between them and the sea as they turned down the Kilquade road. Almost immediately as he said it, Nita saw the bolt of lightning lance down and strike one of the hills behind the farm. Silently she started counting seconds, and had barely got to 'two' before the crack of thunder washed over them. "A little too close," said Kit. "Let's get inside."

  They headed down the drive in a hurry, and came out into the gravel yard in front of the house. Nita was heading for the front door when Kit looked around him with a sudden surprised expression. "Wait a minute. What's that?" he said.

  "That what?" Nita was feeling a little cross. She could feel the rain coming on in the air, and didn't want to stand around outside waiting for it, after all she'd been through that day. "That," Kit said, swinging around as if looking for something. "Can't you feel it? Inanimate. Strong."

  Nita shook her head, wondering what he was talking about. Kit was staring down towards the farmyard, between the buildings. "There's something going on down there," he said. "Something alive."

  "This place is full of horses and sheep and cows," Nita said. "Kit. ."

  "No," he said. "Not something that'susually alive. It's inanimate, it's athing, it's — come on!" He started down that way. There was another roll of thunder. Nita didn't see the lightning bolt this time. She went after him, muttering to herself. The problem was that Kit frequently sensed things she didn't, just as she sensed things he didn't. They had areas where their talents overlapped, certainly, but Nita's specialty was live things; Kit had always been more for inanimate objects. And if he really felt he was on the trail of something important. .

  "It's really weird," he said as she caught up with him. "It's nothing — I've never felt one that alive before." "One what?

  He looked into the farmyard and shook his head, and gestured. "That," he said.

  Nita looked. There was nothing in the farmyard but Biddy the farrier's pickup truck, with its forge on the back. "That?"

  "It's not the truck," Kit said. "Not the truck itself. That's a little more awake than usual, but nothing really strange. It's the thing in the back. That box. What is that?"

  "It's a forge, a portable forge," Nita said, mystified. "She's the lady who comes and puts the horses' shoes on."

  Right then, Biddy herself came out of the hay barn, in the act of shrugging into a waterproof jacket. She looked up at the sky, pausing for a moment; then headed towards the truck. "Uh oh," Kit said, looking up too, with a panicked expression. And a second later, the lightning came down.

  That was only the first thing that happened. As Kit said 'uh oh', Nita had felt the potential building in the air become suddenly unbearable, not just a prickling but a pain all over her. It was a matter of a second, even with her brains as tired as they were from spelling, to put a shield spell up around herself and Kit. She saw Biddy look up; she saw the lightning lance down at the truck. The breath went right out of Nita in horror, for there was no way, no way, she could extend her shield so far. . Biddy lifted her hand abruptly and the lightning simply went elsewhere. It didn't strike anything else, it didn't miss; it just stopped. And went away. There was not even a thunderclap. And Biddy stood there, looking up at the sky, and glanced around, as if looking to see whether anyone had been watching. Then she smiled very slightly, and got into the truck. "Now what was that?" Kit whispered.

  Nita pulled him behind the nearby smoking shed, out of sight of the truck as it turned, heading for the drive. He barely noticed; he was watching the truck. "Whois that?" he said. "I told you, that's the lady who puts the horseshoes on. Biddy." "She's a wizard!"

  "She's not. She can't be," Nita said. It just didn't feel right. "That wasn't a wizardry. Wizards can hide. But the magic feels like magic, whatever."

  Kit shook his head. "Then how do you explain that? She swatted a lightning bolt away like a bug. And her truck, or that forge in her truck anyway, isalive. That I can feel." "I don't know," Nita said. "Things are getting weird around here."

  "Getting"!" Kit started to laugh, then sobered and looked thoughtful. "Are you going to tell your aunt about this?"

  "I don't know," Nita said. "I think. I think I want to talk to Biddy first."

  "Makes sense," Kit said. "Then what?"

  "Check with the Seniors. They seem to be running this show."

  "OK," Kit said. "You're on."

  They talked until nearly midnight. The last thin Kit said was, "You been meeting a lot of people around here? Kids, I mean?" "Some. They're OK." "Are they nice to you?"

  Nita thought of Ronan, and immediately flushed hot. How was she supposed to explain this to Kit Explain what? some part of her mind demanded. Heaven only knows what he thinks about you: if anything, he probably thinks you're too young for him. "They're fine," she said after a moment.

  "They're not geeky, the ones I've met."

  "Some of the kids back home," Kit said, "They're saying that I had got you in trouble."

  She burst out laughing. "No wonder you jumped in there when Aunt Annie questioned you. Kit, who cares what they think? Idiots." She punched him "Go on home, it's your dinnertime."

  "Oh, blast, I forgot!" He got up hurriedly an started riffling through his manual.

  "Don't forget the overlays!" Nita said. "You leave them out of your calculations, you'll wind up in th middle of the Atlantic."

  "So? We have friends there." He found the page he was looking for. "Kuuut!" Nita said, annoyed, until he looked 1 her. "Just be careful."

  He nodded, and started reading the transposition spell under his breath. At the very end of it, on th last word, he looked back up at her. "Don't be late tomorrow," Nita said quietly.

  He nodded, and grinned, and the air slammed int the space where he had been. Nita went to bed.

  6. Baile atha Cliath / Dublin

  The next morning, when Nita came into the kitchen, Aunt Annie was sitting at the kitchen table with a cordless p
hone and a cup of tea, going through the Yellow Pages. She looked up and said, "Want to go into town?"

  "Bray?"

  "No, Dublin. ."

  The phone rang again. It had been doing that all morning: Nita had been able to hear it even out in the caravan. Aunt Annie sighed and picked it up. Nita went off to get herself a cup of tea. After a while Aunt Annie hung up and looked over at Nita. "We'll be meeting at a pub in town tonight," she said, starting to dial another number. "This should be fun for you; you haven't been in a pub yet."

  Nita blinked at that. "Am I allowed?"

  "Oh, yes, it's not like bars in the States." She started dialing another number. "You can't drink, of course, but you can bein a pub all right, as long as you're over a certain age and it's earlyish." Aunt Annie chuckled, then, and said to the phone, "Doris? Anne. Johnny says tonight at nine, in the Long Hall. Will you call Shaun and Mairead? Right. Yes, we are. Right. Bye." "How are we going in?" Nita said. "Driving?" "No, we'll take the train in," Aunt Annie said.

  "Doris will give us a ride back, we're more or less on her way. Have your breakfast and we'll go. We can slouch around and do tourist things." Aunt Annie smiled at her. "I think I owe you that much, after the other night."

  Nita grinned back and went to get her jacket.

  It turned out that she didn't need it. It was another hot day, up in the eighties now. They drove into Greystones to catch the shuttle train to Bray the line was only electrified that far out, as yetand stood on the platform, looking out towards Greystones' south beach. Dogs ran and barked, and there were even a few people in the water — which astonished Nita, since it was some of the coldest water she had ever tried to swim in and bounced out of with her teeth chattering. Most of the people were out in the sun on the sand, turning very pink.

  Nita looked towards the big orange-and-black diesel train that was pulling in.

  "Take one of the right-hand seats," Aunt Annie said. "You'll get a better view of the water as we go in."