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

  "I'll try, Mum," she said. It was all she could guarantee. Then she looked at Kit. 'Dai," he said.

  "Dai stiho," she replied. It was the greeting and farewell of one wizard to another in the wizardly Speech: it meant as much 'Bye for forever' as 'Bye for now'. For Nita, at the moment, it felt rather more like the first.

  At that point she simply couldn't stand it any more. She waved, a weak gesture, and turned her back on them all, and slung her rucksack over her shoulder, and her warm jacket that her mother had insisted she bring, and she walked down the long, cold hall of the airport, towards the plane. It was a 747. Her sensitivity was running high — perhaps because of her own nervousness and distress at leaving — but the plane was alive in the way that mechanical things usually seemed to her as a result of working with Kit. That was his speciality — the ability to feel what a rock was saying, reading the secret thoughts of a lift or a freezer, the odd thing-thoughts that run in the currents of energy which occur naturally or are built into physical objects, manmade or not. She could hear the plane straining against the chocks behind its many wheels, and its engines thinking of eating cold, cold air at thirty degrees below, and pushing it out behind. There was a sense of purpose about it, of restraint, and of eagerness to get out of there, to be gone.

  It was a reassuring sort of feeling. She absently returned the smile of the stewardess at the plane's door, and patted the plane as she got in; let the lady help her find her seat, so as to feel that she was doing something useful. Nita sat herself down by the window, fastened her seat belt, and got out her manual.

  For a moment she just held it in her hand. Just a small beat-up book in a buckram library binding, with the apparent title, so YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD? the supposed author's name, Hearn, and the Dewey Decimal System number, all written on the spine in white ink. Nita shook her head and smiled at the book, a little conspiratorially, for it was a lot more than that. Was it only two years ago, no, two and a half now, that she had found it in the local library? Or it had found her; she still wasn't too sure, remembering the way something had seemed to grab her hand as she ran it along the shelf where the book had been sitting. Whether it was alive was a subject on which the manual itself threw no light. Certainly it changed, adding new spells and other information as needed, updating news of what other wizards in the world were doing. Using it, she had found Kit in the middle of a wizardry of his own, and helped him with it, so passing through their Ordeal together and starting their partnership. They had got into deep trouble together, several times: but together, they had always got out again.

  Nita sighed and started paging through the manual, very much missing the 'together' part of the arrangement. She had been resisting looking for the information on Ireland that Kit had mentioned until this point, hoping against hope that there would be a stay of execution. Even now she cherished the idea that her mother or father might come pushing down the narrow aisle between the seats, saying, "No, no, we've changed our minds!" But she knew it was futile. When her mother got an idea into her head, she was almost as stubborn as Nita was.

  So she sat there, and looked down at the manual. It had fallen open at the Wizard's Oath. In Life's name, and for Life's sake, I assert that I will employ the Art which is Its gift in Life's service alone, rejecting all other usages. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way; nor will I change any creature unless its growth and life, or that of the system of which it is part, are threatened, or threaten another. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will ever put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so — looking always toward the Heart of Time, where all our sundered times are one, and all our myriad worlds lie whole, in the One from Whom they proceeded.

  The whole plane wobbled as the little tug in front of it pushed it away from the gate. Nita peered out the window. Pressing her nose against the cool plastic and looking out, she could just barely make out her mother and father gazing through the window at her; her mother waving a little tentatively, her father gripping the railing in front of the window, not moving. And a little behind them, out of their range of vision, looking out the window too, Kit. Stay warm, he said in her head.

  Kit, it's not like I'm going away. We'll be hearing from each other all the time in our heads. It's not like I'm really going away… Is it?

  She was quiet for a moment. The tug pushing the plane began to turn it, so that her view of him was lost.

  Yes it is, he said.

  Yeah, well. She caught herself sighing again. Look, you're going to have the trees to deal with again, and you need time to plan what you're going to do. And I need time to calm myself down. Going to call me later? Yeah. What time?

  This thing won't be down until early tomorrow morning, their time, she said. Doesn't want to come down at all, from the feel of it, Kit said drily.

  Nita chuckled, caught an odd look from a passing stewardess, and made herself busy looking as if she had read something funny in her manual.Yeah. Call me about this time tomorrow. You got it. Have a good flight! For what it's worth, Nita said.

  The plane began to trundle purposefully out towards the runway. They didn't have to wait long; air traffic control gave them clearance right away — Nita, eavesdropping along the plane's nerves, heard the pilot acknowledging it. Half a minute later the plane screamed delight and leaped into the air. New York slid away behind them, replaced by the open sea. Seven hours later, they landed in Shannon.

  Nita had thought she would be completely unable to sleep, but when they turned out most of the lights in the plane after the meal service, she leaned her head against the window to see if she could relax enough to watch the film a little.

  The next thing she knew, the sun was coming in the window, and there was land below them. Nita looked down into the early sun — six o'clock in the morning, it was — and saw the ragged black coastline and the curling water white where the water smashed into the rocks, where the Atlantic threw itself in fury against this first eastern barrier to its will. And then green — everywhere green, divided by little lines of hedge; a hundred shades of green, emerald, viridian, khaki, the pale green that has no right to be anywhere outside of spring — hedgerows winding between, white dots of sheep, tiny cars crawling along little toy roads: but always the green. The plane turned and she saw the beginning sprawl of houses, and Shannon town — a little city, barely the size of her own. The plane was turning to line up with the airport's active runway, and the sun caught her full in the eyes. She shivered, a feeling that had nothing to do with the warmth of the sudden light. That was warm enough, but the feeling was cold. Something about to happen, something about the lances of light, the fire. .Nita shook her head: the feeling was gone. Ididn't sleep very well, she thought.I'm susceptible to weird ideas. But then when wizards have weird ideas, they do well to pay attention to them. She forced herself to relive the feeling, to think again of the cold, and the fire, the sun like a spear. .

  Nothing came of it. She shrugged, and watched the plane finish its turn and drop towards the runway.

  It took them about fifteen minutes to get down, and for the plane to trundle up to the arrivals area. With her rucksack over her back, she said goodbye at passport control to the stewardess who was taking care of her. "No, I can manage myself, thanks."

  She went up to the first empty desk she found and laid her passport on it, and smiled at the man. He looked down at her and said, "Here's a wee dote of a thing to be traveling all alone. And how are you this morning?"

  "I didn't sleep very well on the plane," Nita said.

  "Sure I can't do that myself," the man said, riffling through her passport. "Keep hearing things all the time. Coming to see relatives, are you? Here's a nice clean passport then," the man said. "Where do you want the stamp, pet? First page? Or save that for something more interesting?" Nita thought of the first time she had cleared 'passport' formalities at the great Crossroads world- gating facility, six galax
ies over, and warmed to the man. "Let that be the first one, please," she said. The man stamped the passport with relish. He was a big kindly man with a large nose and little cheerful eyes. He handed the passport back to her and said, "You're very welcome in Ireland, pet. You ask for help if you need it, now. Chad milfallcha."

  At least, she had seen that spelled over the doorway past the arrivals hall: cead mile faille — 'a hundred thousand welcomes'. 'Thank you," she said, and walked on towards baggage claim and the big duty-free shop. She wandered around it with her mouth open for a little while, never having quite seen anything like it before. It was the size of a small department store, filled with crystal and linen and china and smoked salmon, and books.

  Soon she needed to go to the gate for the flight that would take her to Dublin.

  Another flight, another plane equally eager to be gone. It was about an hour's flight, over the green, the thousand shades — and all the bright rivers winding amongst the hills, blazing like fire when the sun caught them. Her ears had started popping from the plane's descent almost as soon as it reached altitude, and Nita looked down and found herself and the plane sinking gently towards a great green range of mountains, and three mountains notable even among the others. Nita's mother had told her about these three, and had shown her pictures. One of them wasn't a mountain, but a promontory: Bray Head, sticking out into the sea like a fist laid on a table with the knuckles sticking up. Then, a mile further inland, and westward, Little Sugarloaf, a hill half again as high as Bray Head. And then westward another mile, and higher than both the others, Great Sugarloaf, Slieve na Chulainn as the Irish had it: the mountain of Wicklow, its name said. It was certainly one of the most noticeable — a grey stony cone, pointed, its slopes green with heather — no tree grew there. The plane turned off leftward, making its way up to Dublin Airport. Another ten minutes and they were down.

  Nita got her bag back, got a trolley, looked around curiously at the automatic change machine that took your money and gave you Irish money back, and briefly regretted that she didn't have an excuse to use it. She sighed and pushed her trolley out through the customs area, out through the sliding doors and past the bored uniformed man at the desk who kept people from coming in the wrong way.

  "Nita!" And there was her Aunt Annie. Nita grinned. After spending your life with people you know, and then having to spend a whole day with people you didn't know, the sight of her was a pleasure. Nita's aunt hurried over to her and gave her a big hug.

  She was a big silver-haired lady, big about the shoulders, a little broad in the beam; a friendly face with pale grey-blue eyes. Her hair was tied back in a short ponytail behind. "How was your flight? Were you OK?"

  "I was fine, Aunt Annie. But I'm really tired. I wouldn't mind going home."

  "Sure, honey. You come right out here, the car's right outside." She pushed the trolley out into the little parking lot.

  The morning was holding fresh and fine. Little white clouds were flying past in a blue sky; Nita put her arms around herself and hugged herself in surprise at the cold. "Mum told me it might be chilly, and I didn't believe her. It's July!"

  "Listen, my dear," her aunt said,"this is one of the cooler days we've been having lately. The weather-people say it's going to get warm again tomorrow: up in the seventies." "Warm," Nita said, wondering. It had been in the nineties on the Island when she left. "We haven't had much rain, either," said her aunt. "It's been a dry summer, and they're talking about it turning into a drought if it doesn't rain this week or next." She laughed a little as she came up to a white Toyota and opened its boot. They drove around to the parking lots ticket booth, paid the fee, and went out. Nita spent a few interested moments adjusting to the fact that her aunt was driving on the left side of the road. "So tell me," Aunt Annie said, "how are your parents?" Nita started telling her, with only half her mind on the business; the rest of her was busy looking at the scenery as they came out on to the main road — or the 'dual carriageway', as all the signs called it — heading south towards Dublin, and past it to Wicklow. AN LAR, said one sign: and under that it said DUBLIN: 8. "What's"An Lar"?" Nita said. "That's Irish for "to the city centre"," said her aunt.

  "We're about fifteen miles south of Dublin. it'll take us about an hour to get through it and home, the way the traffic is. Do you want to stop in town for lunch? Are you hungry?" "Nnnnnno," Nita said, yawning. "I think I'd rather just go and fall over and get some sleep. I didn't get much on the plane."

  Her aunt nodded. "No problem with that. you get rid of your jetlag. The country won't be going anywhere while you get caught up on your sleep."

  And so they drove through the city. Nita was surprised to see how much it looked like suburban New York, except that — except. .Nita found that she kept saying 'except' about every thirty seconds. Things looked the same, and then she would see something completely weird that she didn't understand at all. The street signs, half in Irish and half in English, were a constant fascination. It was a very peculiar-looking language, with a lot of extra letters, and small letters in front of capital letters at the beginnings of words, something she had never seen before. And the pronunciations. . She tried pronouncing a few of the words, and her aunt howled with laughter and coached her. "No, no! If you try to pronounce Irish the way it looks, you'll go crazy. That one's pronounced 'bally aha-cleeah'."

  Nita nodded and went on with a brief version of how things were at home as they drove through the city, out past shops and department stores and parts of town that looked exactly like New York to Nita's eyes, though much cleaner; and then started to pass through areas where small modern housing developments mixed with old homes that had beautiful clear or stained-glass fanlights above their front doors, and elaborate molded plaster ceilings that could be glimpsed here and there through open curtains.

  Then these houses, too, gave way, starting to be replaced by housing developments again, older ones now. The dual carriageway, which had become just one lane on each side for a while, now reasserted itself. And then fields started to appear, and big vacant areas that to Nita's astonishment and delight had shaggy horses casually grazing on them, right by the side of the road. "Whose are they?" Nita said.

  "They're tinkers' ponies," her aunt said. "The traveling people leave them where they can get some grass, if the grass where their caravans are is grazed down already. Look over there." She pointed off to one side.

  Nita looked, expecting to see some kind of a barrel-shaped, brightly-coloured wagon. Instead there was just a caravan parked off to one side of the road, with no car hitched to it. There seemed to be clothes laid over the nearby hedge in the sun: laundry, Nita realized. As they passed, she got just a glimpse of a small fire burning near the caravan, and several small children sitting or crouching around it, feeding it sticks. Then they had swept by. "Are they gypsies?" Nita said.

  Her aunt shrugged. "Some of them say they are. Others are just people who don't like to live in houses, in one place. they'd rather move around and be free. We have a fair number of them down by us."

  Nita filed this with about twenty other things she was going to have to ask more about at her leisure. They passed more small housing developments — 'estates', her aunt called them — where houses sited by themselves seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. Rather, two houses were usually built squished together so that they shared one wall, and each one was a mirror image of the other.

  And then even the housing estates started to give out. There was a last gasp of them as they passed through a town called Shankill, where the road had narrowed down to a single lane each way again. Shortly after that it curved off to the right, away from what looked like an even larger town. "That's Bray," Aunt Annie said. "We do some of our shopping there. But this is officially County Wicklow, now: you're out of Dublin when you get near the Dargle."

  Nita hadn't noticed the river: it was hidden behind rows of little houses. "That's Little Bray," her aunt said. "And now, here's Kilcroney."

 
The road widened out abruptly into hill and forest, and two lanes on each side again. "Everything has names," Nita said.

  "Every acre of this place has names," her aunt said. "Every town has "townlands" around it, and every one of them has a different name. Almost every field, and every valley and hill." She smiled. "I rather like it."

  "I think I might too," Nita said. A wizard could best do spells when everything in them was completely named: and it was always easier to use existing names than to coin new ones — which you had to do if no-one had previously named a thing or place, or if it didn't know its own name already. And the name you coined had to be right, otherwise the wizardry would backfire. "There," her aunt said, maneuvering around a couple of curves in the road. "There's our mountain."

  Nita peered past her aunt, out towards the right. There was Great Sugarloaf. It looked very different from how it had looked from the air — sharper, more imposing, more dangerous. Heather did its best to grow up its sides, but the bare granite of the mountain's peak defeated it about two- thirds of the way up. Scree and boulders lay clear to see all about the mountain's bald head. The road ran past a service station where geese and a goat grazed behind a fence, watching the traffic; then through a shallow ravine that ran between two thickly-forested hills. Sunlight would fall down the middle of it at noon, Nita guessed, but at the moment the whole deep vale was in shadow. "Glen of the Downs," Aunt Annie said. "We're almost home. That's a nice place to hike to, down there, where the picnic benches are."

  After a couple more miles down the dual carriageway, Aunt Annie turned off down a little lane. To Nita's eyes this road looked barely wide enough for one car, let alone two, but to her shock several other cars passed them, and Aunt Annie never even slowed down, though she crunched so far over on the left side of the road that the hedges scraped the doors.