A Wizard Abroad, New Millennium Edition (26 page)

Nita looked over at Kit, and said, “Any problems?”

“Nothing significant,” he said. “She’d had her lunch, so we have a few hours.”

“You brief her?”

“I know what you’re trying to do, more or less,” Dairine said, reaching out to take a cookie from the fresh packet their aunt had brought out. “Mmm.” She chewed for a few seconds, then said, “It’s all been updating itself in the manual précis in Spot for the past few days.” She nodded over at the laptop, which was still examining the cat food dish with interest.

“The language is interesting,” Johnny said, leaning back in his chair. “‘Took a star and hammered it on the anvil—’”

“When I was in Timeheart, I used meteoric iron,” Biddy said quietly. “There seemed to be a certain… appropriateness to it.”

“There’s plenty of that around,” Kit said. “Not all in museums, either.”

“But not
ur
-matter,” Doris said. “You would need meteoric iron from around the time of the birth of the Universe.”

Dairine shook her head. “It couldn’t be meteoric,” she said. “That early in the physical universe, there weren’t any planetary bodies to shatter and turn into meteors, yet; not even in the oldest galaxies.” She looked at Nita for confirmation: Nita nodded. “You’re going to have to get
real
starsteel.”

The older wizards looked at her.
“From the nucleus of a star?”
Johnny said.

Dairine looked at him with interest. “Plenty of iron inside stars, especially the type A’s and F’s.”

Biddy stared at Dairine. “You’re suggesting that someone should put one end of a timeslide into the center of a star light-years away and millions of years back in time, and fasten the other end here? And then do what?”

“Forge what comes out at this end,” Dairine said. “That’s
your
department, though. You did that—” She glanced over into the next room, where Fragarach lay on a sideboard, with several layers of spell-warding glowing around it to keep its power from combining disastrously with that of the Cup in the back office. “The techniques shouldn’t be so different.”

“You really think you can do this?” Doris said to Dairine.

“You mean, can I get you what you need?” Dairine said. She sat back in her chair and let her eyes drop closed a little, and then began to speak in the Speech. It was not exactly a spell, but the schematic for one, the outline, with certain key words and phrases left out so that nothing untoward would start to happen just yet.

Nita lost the thread of it after about a minute: she had never heard any spell so complex in her life, and several parts of it that she did understand, the power control parameters and the description of the matter that would be conducted down the timeslide, along with several Names to be invoked, all rattled her badly. Nita knew that her sister had, in some ways,partly
become
the manual since her own Ordeal; and by way of semi-parenthood, Dairine had the power of a whole race of sentient computer wizards to draw on. But Nita had not had those facts brought home to her quite so definitely as they were being brought home now. She shivered. It was a little like being big sister to a nuclear explosion that could pick its own time to go off, and was thinking of doing it soon.

Dairine stopped and opened her eyes again. “That’s the procedure,” she said. “It won’t be easy, but at least it’s not too complicated. When do you want to do it?”

Doris was shaking her head. “‘Forged fire into it,’” she said. “That spell would certainly produce that result. Shaun?”

Johnny was looking very thoughtful. “If the other end of the slide were to slip out of place in either location or time,” he said to Dairine, “it could annihilate the Earth. You realize that, of course.”

Dairine shrugged. “At the rate things are going, if this problem doesn’t get solved, people might be thankful for something like that shortly. So if I were you, I’d take the chance you’ve got. I can do this now, but whether I’ll have the power next week, or next month—” She shrugged again. “If the world still exists next week or next month. I’m running on borrowed time, they tell me, as far as my power levels go.”

There was a silence. “Well, Shaun?” Doris said. “You’re the Senior.”

Shaun sat and stared into his teacup, and then said, “I guess we haven’t any choice. Tomorrow night, then? At Matrix. Assuming the Planetary concurs.”

Doris nodded, and Ronan, and Nita’s aunt. “Will the Treasures be all right here tonight, Johnny?” Aunt Annie said.

“I should think so. Let’s meet at Matrix around eight-thirty: that’ll give us plenty of time to get ready. This ought to be done at about sunset, so that the Spear knows what it’s for.” Everyone nodded and pushed their chairs back.

Nita looked over at Dairine. “You came a long way for just this,” she said.

Dairine stretched and grinned. “Worth it to see the expression on your face when I outlined that spell. What a look! I thought you were gonna—”

“Never
mind,”
Nita said. Becoming a wizard had mostly changed her sister for the better, but it also seemed to have increased some of Dairine’s more annoying traits, like the bragging and teasing. “But I missed you too. How’re Mom and Dad?”

Dairine shrugged. “Mom keeps going on about ‘her baby.’ Dad looks depressed whenever he thinks she or I don’t see. So they’re fine.” Then she chuckled. “But they’ll definitely never try a stunt like this on you again.”

“Oh?”

“Uh huh. I heard them arguing about it the other day. Went on for about an hour, and finally Mom said, ‘If she wants to be a wizard, fine, let her. Better to have a daughter who’s a wizard, than not have a daughter.’”

“Aw
right,”
Nita said softly. “When can I—” She was about to say
go home,
except that it occurred to her that she didn’t
want
to go home right this minute.
Not until after the business with the Spear was settled, anyway. And besides, I’m on assignment....I’d have to see it through anyhow.
“Never mind,” she said again. “Did you tell them where you were going?”

“What, and get them all crazed again? No way. Mom hasn’t figured out a way to get any promises out of
me
yet, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. For the time being, anyhow. What time is it at home when it’s eight-thirty in the evening here?”

“Three-thirty in the afternoon.”

“Great,” Dairine said. “I don’t have to be home for dinner until seven our time. Yes, I know where we’re going: it’s in the Manual.” Nita opened her mouth. “And yes, I know about the overlays, one of my superpowers is in fact the ability to
read!
See you tomorrow. Bye, Kit. Spot, heel!”

The computer scuttled over to her; cats hissed and bristled at it as it went by. Dairine vanished, and not one of the various papers on the table moved.

“Hey, pretty slick,” Kit said.

Nita laughed to herself for a second. “Look,” she said, “you’d better get back too. Your folks are going to start wondering.”

“Let ‘em wonder,” Kit said. But he started heading for the door. Nita followed and said, “Make sure you get your sleep.”

Kit laughed too, a rueful noise. Excitement sometimes made it hard for him to sleep the night before a big wizardry, and Nita was used to teasing him about the circles under his eyes. “I’ll try,” he said. “Take it easy, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Kit vanished too; Johnny and Doris and Ronan headed out past Nita to Johnny’s car, saying their goodnights as they went. As Ronan passed her, he said, “That was your sister?”

“Uh huh.”

“You poor thing,” said Ronan.

Nita nodded in complete agreement. “Your sympathy is appreciated,” she said. “But she’s got her uses. Take it easy—”

Ronan chuckled and went out.

Nita went back into the kitchen, where she found her aunt staring moodily at a sink full of teacups. “They breed,” she said, “I swear they do.”

Nita laughed, joined her at the sink and reached over for the dishwashing liquid.

Sleep refused to come easily to Nita that night. Finally she got up about midnight and struggled back into her clothes, thinking that she’d go and see whether there was anything worth looking at on satellite.

She never made it past the back yard. It was a clear night, where the last few had been misty: and the Milky Way hung there overhead, nothing subtle about it for once, the Galaxy seen edge-on and for once looking it, ridiculously bright. Nita climbed up on the fence between the yard and the riding ring, and just sat there and stared at it for a long time. Only a month or so ago now she had been out that way, among thousands of alien creatures: and she still felt stranger here than she had there…

The crunch of gravel down the drive got her attention. Nita held very still and listened, waiting, suddenly finding herself getting very tense. Who knew what kind of people went sneaking around farms when everyone was in bed—

She
knew, though. And when she recognized who was approaching, the tension got worse...not to say that it was entirely unpleasant.

By the time the dark shape turned the corner of the house and paused, looking around it, Nita’s sight was so night-acclimated that he might as well have been spotlit. And there were other indications, to another wizard anyway. Very quietly she said,
“Dai.”

He said nothing for the moment, just came over to where she sat on the fence. His head was on a level with hers; very faintly, the starlight caught in Ronan’s eyes.
“Dai stiho,”
he said. It came out as more of a growl.

She laughed at him, very softly so as not to attract any attention in the house. “You sound angry all the time,” she said, “you know that? Doesn’t it run you down?”

He turned away from her a moment, leaning against the fence next to her and looking up at the sky. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

Nita grunted softly and looked up herself. “And you walked all the way up here from Bray? I’m glad I didn’t bother with the TV. There must
really
be nothing on.”

This time she actually felt Ronan getting angry, sensed it rising off him like steam off a hard-ridden horse. “Look,” she whispered as he opened his mouth and get himself started, “just spare me, okay? Nine times out of ten when somebody says something to you, you find a reason to get pissed off about it. It’s a wonder anyone even talks to you any more. Except you’re so—” Words jostled in her head: she shut up before any of them had a chance to get out. Hot.
Sensitive. Helpless—

Ronan opened his mouth again, shut it, and then opened it again and started to laugh, almost soundlessly. “I guess— Yeah. I’ve always been this way. What’s the point in even trying to deny it? But lately it’s been getting worse. Like whatever causes it is getting closer.”

And Ronan looked at her sidewise—a sort of wry expression, clearly visible even in this dimness. “Funny. I thought you were so different when I met you first—”

“And now you think I’m so ordinary?” Nita said. “Thanks loads.”

“No!” Ronan said, sounding annoyed. “I think you’re way different from anybody around here. Especially the girls I’ve been hanging with.” And not only did some of the annoyance fall out of his voice, but he now started sounding a little bemused. “A lot of them talk tough all the time. I think they have this idea they need to keep up with the guys somehow. But when you push them, right away they give. You, though, you don’t talk tough—mostly. But when you do, jeez, you’re scary.” He shrugged. “And as for pushing—you just fall all over whoever tries it, like a brick wall.”

Nita flushed hot, not sure what to make of this. “Well, you’re sure different from everyone else
I
know,” she said. Then she shut her mouth again lest the confusion inside her should start finding its way out and make her look like a complete idiot.

But Ronan just laughed. “You think loud, too,” he said.

The last blush was nothing to this one, but Nita fought it down, starting to get annoyed herself. That broke off, though, when she saw the way he was looking at her. There really was no anger about it, for once; and the odd openness of it made her start to shake a little. Then it occurred to Nita that there was nothing bizarre about it, for it wasn’t her own own physical excitement she was feeling. She knew perfectly well what
that
felt like—

She gulped, for there was nothing in the manual about this.
Or is there?
Nita thought.
Have I ever even looked? It’s not as if the subject’s ever come up, working with Kit—

—and abruptly she knew, or started to know, rather more about it.

Nita sat there in the starlight and gulped again, getting her first strange taste of what it was like for a native wizard to experience “the Knowledge,” the direct input from the wizardly “database” that was the way Irish wizards experienced the information.
Would it keep getting this way for me if I stayed here longer?
she wondered. But that was hardly important just now: there was other information to consider. …Of course wizards got physical with each other sometimes, just the same as other human beings did. But they experienced it differently. The disparity had to do with the Speech, which had physical components as well as verbal and mental ones. And when two people expert in the Speech were attracted, they were likely to overhear one another’s bodies as well as their minds—