So You Want to Be a Wizard, New Millennium Edition

by Diane Duane

  She opened her eyes, found her hands full of moonlight that trembled like bright water, its surface sheened with fading aurora glow. “All right,” she said after a moment. “All right.” She opened her hands to let the light run out. “Kit?” she said, saying his name in the Speech.

  He was looking down toward lower Manhattan, deep in thoughts of his own, gazing toward where the twin towers of the World Trade Center had once stood, and where the new Freedom Tower was just barely beginning to rise. In his hands she could just see the glittering ghost of a car’s antenna, dissolving, running through his fingers like sand, vanishing away. “Yeah,” he said, and turned toward Nita. “ I guess we pass the test. “

  They took their packs off and got out the materials necessary for the timeslide. When the lithium-cadmium battery and the calculator chip and the broken teacup handle were in place, Kit and Nita started the spell—and without warning were again caught up by the augmenting power of the bright Book and plunged more quickly than they expected into the wizardry. It was like being on a slide, though they were the ones who held still, and the events of the day as seen from the top of the MetLife Building rushed backward past them, a high-speed 3-D movie in reverse. Blinding white fire and the nova Moon grew slowly in the sky, flared, and were gone. The Moon, briefly out, came on again. Darkness flowed backward through the suddenly open worldgate, following its master on his huge dark mount, who also stepped backward and vanished through the gate. Kit and Nita saw themselves burst out of the roof door, blurred with speed; saw themselves run backward over the railing, a bright line of light pacing them as they plunged out into the dark air, dove backward through the gate, and vanished with it. The Sun came up in the west and fled back across the sky. Clouds streamed and boiled past, jets fell backward into La Guardia. The Sun stood high….

  The slide let them go, and Kit and Nita sat back gasping. “What time have you got?” Kit said when he had enough breath.

  Nita glanced at her watch. “Nine forty-five.”

  “Nine forty-five! But we were supposed to—”

  “It’s this Book, it makes everything work too well. At nine forty-five we were—”

  They heard voices in the stairwell, behind the closed door. Kit and Nita stared at each other. Then they began frantically picking up the items left from their spelling. Nita paused with the lithium-cadmium battery in her hand as she recognized one of those voices coming up the stairs. She reared back, took aim, and threw the heavy battery at the closed door, hard: CRACK!

  Kit looked at her, his eyes wide, and understood. “Quick, behind there,” he said. Nita ran to scoop up the battery, then ducked around after Kit and crouched down with him behind the back of the stairwell. There was a long, long pause before the door opened and footsteps could be heard on the gravel. Kit. and Nita edged around the side of the stairwell again to peer around the corner. Two small, nervous-looking figures were heading for the south-facing rail in the bright sunlight. A dark-haired girl, maybe thirteen, wearing jeans and a shirt and a down vest; a dark-haired boy, small for twelve, also in jeans and a hooded jacket. The boy held a broken-off piece of antenna, and the girl held a peeled white stick, and they were being paced by a brilliant white spark like a will-o’-the-wisp plugged into too much current and about to blow out.

  “‘There are no accidents,’“ Kit whispered sadly.

  The tears stung Nita’s, eyes again. “G’bye, Fred,” she said softly in English, for fear the Speech should attract his attention, or hers.

  Silently and unseen, Kit and Nita slipped through the door and went downstairs for the shuttle and the train home.

  Timeheart

  The walk home from the bus stop was weary and quiet. Three blocks from Nita’s house, they reached the corner where their ways usually parted. Kit paused there, waiting for the light to change, though no traffic was in sight. “Call me in the morning?” he said.

  What for? Nita felt like saying, for there were no more spells in the offing, and she was deadly tired. Still… “Tomorrow’s your turn,” she said.

  “Huh? Right.” The light changed, and Kit headed across the street to Nita’s left. In the middle of the street he turned, walking backward. “We should call Tom and Carl,” he shouted, sounding entirely exhausted.

  “Yeah.” The light changed again, in Nita’s favor; Kit jumped up onto the sidewalk on the other side and headed south toward his place. Nita crossed east, watching Kit as she went. Though the look on his face was tired and sad, all the rest of his body wore the posture of someone who’d been through so much fear that fear no longer frightened him. Why’s he so afraid of getting beat up? Nita thought. Nobody in their right mind would mess with him.

  In midstep she stopped, watching him walk away. How about that. How about that. He got what he asked for.

  After a second she started walking home again. The weight at her back suddenly reminded her of something. “Kit!” she called silently, knowing he could hear even though he was now out of sight. “What about the Book?”

  “Hang on to it,” he answered. “We’ll give it to the Advisories. Or they’ll know what to do with it.”

  “Right. Text me!”

  “Will do.”

  Nita was so tired that it took three or four minutes before the identity of the blond person walking up East Clinton toward her registered at all. By then Joanne was within yelling distance, but she didn’t yell at Nita at all, much to Nita’s surprise. This was such an odd development that Nita looked at Joanne carefully as they got closer, something she had never done before. There was something familiar about Joanne today, a look that Nita couldn’t quite pin down—and then she recognized the expression and let out a tired, unhappy breath.

  The look was much less marked, endlessly less violent and terrible than that of the pride-frozen misery of the dark rider, but there all the same. The angry fear was there too—the terror of what had been until now no threat but was now out of control; the look of the rider about to be cast out by a power he had thought himself completely safe from, the look of a bully whose victim suddenly wasn’t a victim anymore.

  Nita slowed down and stopped where she was, in the middle of the sidewalk, watching Joanne. Even he can be different now, she thought, her heart beating fast, for her own old fear wasn’t entirely gone. But that was partly because we gave him the chance.

  She stood there, watching Joanne slow down warily as she got closer to Nita. Nita sweated. Doing something that would be laughed about behind her back was almost as bad as being beaten up. But she stood still until Joanne came to a stop four or five feet away from her. “Well?” Joanne said, her voice full of anger and uncertainty.

  I don’t know what to say to her, we have absolutely nothing in common, Nita thought frantically. But it has to start somewhere. She swallowed and did her best to look Joanne in the eye, calmly and not in threat. “Come on over to my place after supper sometime, when it’s dark,” she said, “and you can check out the digital interface I got for my telescope last Christmas. You can see Jupiter’s moons live on the computer. Or Mars.”

  Joanne made that old familiar haughty face and brushed past Nita and away. “So lame,” she said. “Geek stuff again. Why would I ever want to go to your place? You don’t even have HD.”

  Nita stood still, listening to Joanne’s footsteps hurrying away, a little faster every second—and slowly began to realize that she’d gotten what she asked for too—the ability to break the cycle of anger and loneliness, not necessarily for others, but at least for herself. And the joke was that it didn’t matter whether Joanne ever got over herself or not. The change wouldn’t even take the Speech; plain words would do it, and the much-discounted magic of reaching out. It would probably take a lot of time with some people, way longer than something simple like breaking the walls between the worlds. It would cost more effort than even the reading of the Book of Night with Moon.

  But it would be worth it—and eventually it would work. A spell always works.

&
nbsp; Nita went home.

  *

  That night after supper she slipped outside to sit in Liused’s shadow and watch the sky. The tree caught her mood and, after greeting her, was quiet—until about ten o’clock, when it and every other growing thing in sight suddenly trembled violently as if stricken at the root. They had felt the Sun go out.

  “It’s all right,” she said silently, though for someone whose tears were starting again, it was an odd thing to say. She waited the eight minutes with them, saw the Moon blink out, and leaned back against the rowan trunk, sheltering from the wind that rose in the darkness. Branches tossed as if in a hurricane, leaves hissed in anguish—and then the sudden new star in the heavens etched every leaf’s shadow sharp against the ground and set the Moon on fire.

  Nita squinted up at the pinpoint of brilliance, unwilling to look away though her eyes leaked tears of pain. She’d thought, that afternoon, that living through the loss a second time would be easier. She was wrong. The tears kept falling long after the star went out, and the Moon found its light again, and the wind died to a whisper.

  She got over it again after a while, and finally went inside to go to bed, unsure she wouldn’t have more of it to do when everything was dark and quiet. But But she was wrong about that too. Exhaustion beat down grief so fast that Nita was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow under which she had hidden the Book of Night with Moon….

  *

  The place where the two of them stood was impossible, for there’s no place in Manhattan where the water level in the East River comes right up to the railed path that runs alongside it. There they stood, though, leaning with their backs against the railing, gazing up at the bright city that reared against the silver sky, while behind them the river whispered and chuckled and slapped its banks. The sound of laughter came down the morning wind from the apartments and the brownstones and the towers of steel and crystal; the seabirds wheeled and cried over the white piers and jetties of the Manhattan shoreline, and from somewhere down the riverside came the faint sound of music—quiet rock, a deep steady backbeat woven about with guitars and voices in close harmony. A jogger went by on the running path, puffing, followed by a large black-and-white dog galloping to catch up with its master.

  Are we early, or are they late? Kit asked, leaning back farther still to watch an overflying Learjet do barrel-roll after barrel-roll for sheer joy of being alive.

  Who cares? Nita said, leaning back too and enjoying the way the music and the city sounds and the Learjet’s delighted scream all blended. Anyway, this is Timeheart. There’s nothing here but Now…

  They turned their backs on the towers and the traffic and the laughter, and looked out across the shining water toward Brooklyn and Long Island. Neither was there just then—probably someone else in Timeheart was using them, and Kit and Nita didn’t need them at the moment. The silver expanse of the Atlantic shifted and glittered from their feet to the radiant horizon, endless. Far off to their right, south and west of the Battery and past the Twin Towers, the Statue of Liberty held up her torch and her tablet and looked calmly out toward the sunrise as they did, waiting. Nita was the first to see the dark bulge out on the water. She nudged Kit and pointed. Look, a shark!

  He glanced at her, amused. Even here I don’t think sharks have wheels…

  The Lotus came fast, hydroplaning. Water spat up from its wheels as it skidded up to the railing and fishtailed sideways, grinning, spraying them both. On its wildly waving antenna rode a spark of light. Nita smiled at her friend, who danced off the antenna to rest momentarily on one of her fingers like a hundred-watt firefly. Well, Nita said, is it confusing being dead?

  Fred chuckled a rainbow, up the spectrum and down again. Not very. Beside him, the Lotus stood up on its hind wheels, putting its front ones on the railing so that Kit could scratch it behind the headlights.

  We brought it, Kit said.

  Good, said the Lotus, as Nita got the bright Book out of her backpack and handed it to Kit. The Powers want to put it away safe. Though the precaution may not really be necessary, after what you did.

  It worked? He’s changed? Nita said.

  Fred made a spatter of light, a gesture that felt like the shake of a head. Not changed. Just made otherwise, as if he’d been that way from the beginning. He has back the option he’d decided was lost—to put aside his anger, to build instead of damn…

  Then if he uses that option—you mean every place could be like this some day? Kit looked over his shoulder at the city and all the existence behind it, preserved in its fullest beauty while still growing and becoming greater.

  Possibly. What he did remains. Entropy’s still here, and death. They look like waste and horror to us now. But if he chooses to have them be a blessing on the worlds, instead of anger’s curse—who knows where those gates will lead then?… The Lotus sounded pleased by the prospect.

  Kit held out the Book of Night with Moon. Most delicately the Lotus opened fanged jaws to take it, then rubbed its face against Kit and dropped to all four wheels on the water. It smiled at them both, a chrome smile, silver and sanguine—then backed a little, turned, and was off, spraying Kit and Nita again.

  Fred started to follow, but Nita caught him in cupped hands, holding him back for a moment. Fred! Did we do right?

  Even here she couldn’t keep the pain out of her question, the fear that she could somehow have prevented his death. But Fred radiated a serene and wondering joy that took her breath and reassured her and filled her with wonder to match his, all at once. Go find out, he said.

  She opened her hands and he flew out of them like a spark blown on the wind—a brightness zipping after the Lotus, losing itself against the dazzling silver of the sea, gone. Nita turned around to lean on the railing again, and after a moment Kit turned with her. They breathed out, relaxing, and settled back to gaze at the city transfigured, the City preserved at the heart of Time, as all things loved are preserved in the hearts that care for them—gazed up into the radiance, the life, the light unending, the light….

  *

  The light was right in her eyes, mostly because Dairine had yanked the curtain open. Her sister was talking loudly, and Nita turned her head and quite suddenly felt what was not under her pillow. “You gonna sleep all morning? Get up, it’s ten thirty! The Sun went out last night, you should see it, it was on the news. And somebody blew Up Central Park; and Kit Rodriguez called, he wants you to call him back. How come you keep calling each other, anyhow?” Halfway out the bedroom door, realization dawned in her sister’s eyes. “Maaaaa!” she yelled out the door, strangling on her own laughter. “Nita’s got a boyfriend!”

  “Oh, jeez, Dairiiiiiiiine!”

  The wizard threw her pillow at her sister, got up, and went to breakfast.

  By the same author

  In the Young Wizards Series

  So You Want to Be a Wizard • Deep Wizardry

  High Wizardry • A Wizard Abroad

  The Wizard’s Dilemma • A Wizard Alone

  Wizard’s Holiday • Wizards at War

  A Wizard of Mars

  The Middle Kingdoms Series (for adult readers)

  The Door into Fire • The Door into Shadow

  The Door into Sunset

  Other standalone adult fantasy:

  Raetian Tales: A Wind from the South

  Stealing The Elf-King's Roses

  In the Star Trek (TM) universe:

  The Wounded Sky • My Enemy, My Ally

  Spock’s World • Doctor's Orders

  Dark Mirror • Intellivore

  The "Rihannsu Quartet"

  The Romulan Way • Swordhunt

  Honor Blade

  (omnibus edtion: Star Trek: The Bloodwing Voyages)

  The Empty Chair

  Collected short fiction:

  Uptown Local and Other Interventions

  Midnight Snack and Other Fairy Tales

  ***

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  DianeDuane.com

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