They were at the schoolyard early the next morning, to be sure
they wouldn’t miss Joanne and her crew. Nita and Kit sat on
the curb by the front door to the school, staring across at the
packed dirt and dull grass of the athletic field next to the
building. Kit leafed through his wizards’ manual, while Fred
hung over his shoulder and looked around with mild interest at
everything. (Will it be long?) he said, his light flickering
slightly.
“No,” Nita said. She was shaking. After the other
day, she didn’t want anything to do with Joanne at all. But
she wanted that pen back, so . . .
“Look, it’ll be all right,” Kit said, paging
through his manual. “Just do it the way we decided last
night. Get close to her, keep her busy for a little while.
Fred’ll do the rest.”
“It’s keeping her busy that worries me,” Nita
muttered. “Her idea of busy usually involves her fists and my
face.”
(I don’t understand,) Fred said, and Nita had to laugh
briefly—she and Kit had heard that phrase about a hundred
times since Fred arrived. He used it on almost everything. (What
are you afraid of?)
“This,” Nita said, pointing to her black eye.
“And this—” uncovering a bruise. “And this,
and this—”
Fred regarded her with a moment’s discomfiture. (I thought
you came that way. Joanne makes this happen?)
“Uh huh. And it hurts getting this way.”
(But she only changes your outsides. Aren’t your insides
still the same afterward?)
Nita had to stop and think about that one. “Okay,” Kit said
suddenly, “here’s the Advisory list for our
area.” He ran a finger down the
page. “And here’s the one in town. Twenty-seven
Hundred Rose—”
“That’s up the hill past the school. What’s
the name?”
“ Lessee. ‘Swale, T.B., and Romeo, C.J. Research Advisories,
temporospatial adjustments, entastics, non-specific
scryings—’ ”
“Wait a minute,” Nita said hurriedly. “
‘Swale’? You mean Crazy Swale? We can’t go in
there, Kit, that place is haunted! Everybody knows that! Weird
noises are always coming out of there—”
“If it’s haunted,” Kit said, “it’s
haunted by wizards. We might as well go after school, it’s
only five or six blocks up the road.”
They were quiet for a while. It was about twenty minutes before
the bell would ring for the doors to open, and a few early kids
were gathering around the doors. “Maybe we could rig you a
defense against getting hit,” Kit said, as he kept looking
through his manual. “How about this?” He pointed at one
page, and both Nita and Fred looked at the formula he was
indicating. All it needed was the right words. It would be
something of a strain to carry the shield for long, but Nita
wouldn’t have to; and any attempt to hit her would just
glance off.
(The problem is,) Fred said, (that spell will alter the field
slightly around this Joanne person. I’m going to have a hard
enough time matching my pattern to that of your pen so that I can
get it off her—if indeed she has it. Her own field is going
to interfere, and so will yours, Nita. More stress on the space in
the area and I might not be able to get your pen back at all.)
Nita shook her head. She could tolerate another black eye if it
meant getting that pen back. “Forget it,” she said,
still shaking, and leaned forward a bit, elbows on knees and face
in hands, trying to relax. Above her the old maple trees were
muttering morning thoughts in the early sunlight, languid
observations on the weather and the decreasing quality of the
tenant birds who built nests in their branches. Out in the field
the grass was singing a scratchy soprano
chorus—(growgrowgrowgrowgrowgrow)—which broke off
abruptly and turned into an annoyed mob-sound of boos and
razzes as one of the ground-keepers, way across the field,
started up a lawnmower. I’m good with plants, Nita thought. I
guess I take after Dad. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to hear
people this way.
Kit nudged her. “You’re on,” he said, and Nita
looked up and saw Joanne walking into the schoolyard. Their eyes
met, Joanne recognized her, saw her handiwork, smiled. Now or
never! Nita thought, and got right up before she had a chance to
chicken out and blow everything. She walked over to Joanne without
a pause, fast, to keep the tremor in her knees from showing. Oh,
Fred, please be behind me. And what in the world can I say to
her?
“I want my pen back, Joanne,” she said—or
rather it fell out of her mouth, and she went hot at her own
stupidity. Yet the momentary shocked look on Joanne’s face
made her think that maybe saying what was on her mind hadn’t
been so stupid after all.
Joanne’s shock didn’t last; a
second later she was smiling again. “Callahan,” she
said slowly, “are you looking for another black eye to match
that one?”
Gulp. “No,” Nita said,
“just my pen, thanks.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking
about,” Joanne said, and then grinned. “You always were
a little odd. I guess you’ve finally flipped out.”
“I had a space pen on me the other day, and it was gone
afterward. One of you took it. I want it back.” Nita was
shaking worse than ever, but she was also surprised that the fist
hadn’t hit yet. And there, over Joanne’s shoulder, a
flicker, a pinpoint of light, hardly to be seen, looking at
her.
(Don’t react. Make me a picture of the thing now.)
“What makes you think I would want anything of
yours?” Joanne was saying, still with that smile. Nita looked
straight at her and thought about the pen. Silver barrel, grooved
all around the lower half so your fingers, or an astronaut’s,
wouldn’t slip. Her initials engraved on it. Hers, her
pen.
(Enough. Now then—)
“But now that I think of it, I do remember finding a pen
on the ground last week. Let’s see.” Joanne was
enjoying this so much that she actually nipped open the top of her
backpack and began rummaging around. “Let’s see,
here—” She came up with something. Silver barrel,
grooved—and Nita went hot again, not with embarrassment this
time.
“It’s mine!”
“Come and get it, then,” Joanne said, dropping her
backpack, keeping her smile, holding the pen back a little.
And a spark of white light seemed to light on the end of the pen
as Joanne held it up, and then both were gone with a pop and a
breath of air. Joanne spun to see who had plucked the pen out of
her fingers, then whirled on Nita again. Nita smiled and held out
her hands, empty.
Joanne was not amused. She stepped in close, and Nita took a few
hurried steps back, unable to stop grinning even though she knew
she was going to get hit. Heads were turning all around the
schoolyard at the prospect of a fight. “Callahan,”
Joanne hissed, “you’re in for it now!”
The eight-thirty bell went off so suddenly they both
jumped. Joanne stared at Nita for a long long moment, then turned
and went to pick up her backpack. “Why hurry things?”
she said, straightening. “Callahan, if I were you, I’d
sleep here tonight. Because when you try to leave—”
She walked off toward the doors. Nita
stood where she was, still shaking, but with amazement and triumph
as much as with fear. Kit came up beside her when Joanne was gone,
and Fred appeared, a bright point between them.
“You were great!” Kit said.
“I’m gonna get killed tonight,” Nita said, but
she couldn’t be terrified about it just yet. “Fred,
have you got it?”
The point of light was flickering, and there was something about
the way it did so that made Nita wonder if something was wrong.
(Yes,) Fred said, the thought coming with a faint queasy feeling to
it. (And that’s the problem.)
“Are you okay?” Kit said. “Where’d it
go?”
(I swallowed it,) Fred said, sounding genuinely miserable
now.
“But that was what you were going to do,” Nita said,
puzzled. “Catch it in your own energy-field, you said,
make a little pocket and hold it there.”
(I know. But my fields aren’t working the way they should.
Maybe it’s this gravity, I’m not used to any gravity
but my own. I think it went down the wrong way.)
“Oh, brother,” Kit said.
“Well,” Nita said, “at least Joanne
hasn’t got it. When we go to the Advisories tonight, maybe
they can help us get it out.”
Fred made a small thought-noise somewhere between a burp
and a squeak. Nita and Kit looked up at him, concerned—and
then both jumped back hurriedly from something that went bang! down
by their feet.
They stared at the ground. Sitting there on the packed dirt was
a small portable color TV, brand new.
“Uh, Fred—” Kit said.
Fred was looking down at the TV with embarrassment verging on
shame. (I emitted it,) he said.
Nita stared at him. “But I thought white holes only
emitted little things. Subatomic particles. Nothing so big—or
so orderly.”
(I wanted to visit an orderly place,) Fred said miserably. (See
what it got me!)
“Hiccups,” Kit muttered. “Fred, I think
you’d better stay outside until we’re finished for the
day. We’ll go straight to the Advisories’ from
here.”
“Joanne permitting,” Nita said. “Kit,
we’ve got to go in.”
(I’ll meet you here,) Fred said. The mournful thought was
followed by another burp/squeak, and another bang! and four volumes
of an encyclopedia were sitting on the ground next to the
TV.
Kit and Nita hurried for the doors, sweating. Apparently
wizardry had more drawbacks than the book had
indicated . . .
Lunch wasn’t calm, but it was interesting, due to the
thirty teachers, assistant principal, principal, and school
superintendent who were all out on the athletic field, along with
most of the students. They were walking around looking at the
furniture, vacuum cleaners, computer components, books,
knickknacks, motorcycles, typewriters, art supplies, stoves,
sculptures, lumber, and many other odd things that had since
morning been appearing one after another in the field. No one knew
what to make of any of it, or what to do; and though Kit and Nita
felt sure they would be connected with the situation somehow, no
one accused them of anything.
They met again at the schoolyard door at three, pausing just
inside it while Nita peered out to see if Joanne was waiting. She
was, and eight of her friends were with her, talking and laughing
among themselves. “Kit,” Nita said quietly,
“we’ve got problems.”
He looked. “And this is the only door we can
use.”
Something went bang! out in the field, and Nita, looking out
again, saw heads turn among Joanne’s group. Without a
moment’s pause every one of the girls headed off toward the
field in a hurry, leaving Joanne to glare at the school door for a
moment. Then she took off after the others. Kit and Nita glanced at
each other. “I get this
feeling . . . ” Kit said.
“Let’s go,”
They waited until Joanne was out of sight and then leaned
cautiously out of the door, looking around. Fred was suddenly
there, wobbling in the air. He made a feeling of greeting at them;
he seemed tired, but cheerful, at least for the moment.
Nita glanced over her shoulder to see what had drawn the
attention of Joanne and her group—and drew in a sharp breath
at the sight of the shiny silver Learjet. “Fred,” she
said, ”you did that on purpose!”
She felt him look back too, and his cheerfulness drowned out his
weariness and queasiness for a moment. (I felt you wondering
whether to come out, so I exerted myself a little. What was that
thing?)
“We’ll explain later; right now we should run. Fred,
thank you!”
(You’re most welcome. Just help me stop this!)
“Can you hold it in for a few blocks?”
(What’s a block?)
They ran down Rose Avenue, and Fred paced them. Every now and
then a little of Fred’s hiccup-noise would squeak out,
and he would fall behind them, controlling it while they ran on
ahead. Then he would catch up again. The last time he did it, they
paused and waited for him. Twenty-seven Hundred Rose had a
high poplar hedge with one opening for the walk up to the house,
and neither of them felt like going any farther without Fred.
(Well?) he said, when he caught up. (Now what?)
Nita and Kit looked at each other. “I don’t care if
they are wizards,” Nita said, “I want to peek in and
have a look before I just walk in there. I’ve heard too many
stories about this place—”
(Look,) Fred said in great discomfort, (I’ve got
to—)
Evidently there was a limit on how long a white hole in
Fred’s condition hold it in. The sound of Fred’s hiccup
was so much louder than usual so Nita and
Kit crowded back away from him in near-panic. The bang!
sounded like the beginning of a fireworks display, and when its
echoes faded, a powder-blue Mercedes-Benz was sitting
half on, half off the sidewalk.
(My gnaester hurts,) Fred said.
“Let’s peek,” Nita said, turned, and pushed a
little way through the hedge. She wanted to be sure there were no
monsters or skeletons hanging from trees or anything else uncanny
going on in the yard before she went in. What she did not expect
was the amiable face of an enormous black-and-white
English sheepdog, which first slurped her face energetically, then
grabbed her right arm in gentle but insistent teeth and pulled her
straight through the hedge.
“Kit!” she almost screamed, and then remembered not
to because Crazy Swale or whoever else lived here might hear her.
Her cry came out as sort of a grunt. She heard Kit come right
through the bushes behind her as the sheepdog dragged her
along through the yard. There was nothing spooky about the place at
all—the house was big, a two-story affair, but
normal-looking, all warm wood and shingles. The yard was
grassy, with a landscaped garden as pretty as one of her
father’s. One side of the house had wide glass patio doors
opening on a roofed-over terrace. Potted plants hung down and
there was even a big square masonry tank, a fishpond—Nita
caught a glimpse of something coppery swimming as the sheepdog
dragged her past it to the terrace doors. It was at that point that
the dog let go her arm and began barking noisily, and Nita began
thinking seriously of running for it.
“All right, all right,” came a man’s voice, a
humorous one, from inside the house, and it was definitely too late
for running. Kit came up behind Nita, panting. “All right,
Annie, let’s see what you’ve got this time.”
The screen door slid open, and Nita and Kit looked at the man
who opened it in slight surprise. Somehow they had been expecting
that any wizard not their age would be old, but this man was young,
certainly no more than in his middle thirties. He had dark hair and
was tall and broad-shouldered. He looked rather like
someone out of a cigarette ad, except that he was smiling, which
the men in cigarette ads rarely do. “Well,” the man
said, sounding not at all annoyed by three unexpected guests,
“I see you’ve met
Annie . . . ”
“She, uh,” Nita said, glancing down at the dog, who
was smiling at her with the same bemused interest as her master.
“She found me looking through your hedge.”
“That’s Annie for you,” the man said, sounding
a bit resigned. “She’s good at finding things.
I’m Tom Swale.” And he held out his hand for Nita to
shake.
“Nita Callahan,” she said, taking it.
“Kit Rodriguez,” Kit said from beside her, reaching
out to shake hands too.
“Good to meet you. Call me Tom. What can I do for
you?”
“Are you the Advisory?” Kit said.
Tom’s eyebrows went up. “You kids have a spelling
problem?”
Nita grinned at the pun and glanced over her shoulder.
“Fred?”
Fred bobbed up between her and Kit, regarding Tom, who looked
back at the unsteady spark of light with only moderate surprise.
“He’s a white hole,” Nita said. “He
swallowed my space pen.”
(Hi-cup!) Fred said, and bang! went the air between Kit
and Nita as they stepped hurriedly off to either side. Fourteen
one-kilogram bricks of .999-fine Swiss gold fell
clattering to the patio’s brown tiles.
“I can see this is going to take some explaining,”
Tom said, “Come on in.”
They followed him into the house. A big comfortable living room
opened onto a den on one side and a bright kitchen-dining
room on the other. “Carl, we’ve got company,” Tom
called as they entered the kitchen.
“What?” replied a muffled voice—muffled
because the upper half of its owner was mostly in the cabinet under
the double sink. The rest of him was sprawled across the kitchen
floor. This by itself wasn’t so odd; what was odd was the
assortment of wrenches and other tools floating in the air just
outside the cabinet doors. From under the sink came a sound like a
wrench slipping off a pipe, and a sudden soft thump as it hit
something else. Probably its user, for “Nnngg!” said
the voice under the sink, and all the tools fell clattering to the
kitchen floor. The voice broke into some most creative
swearing.
Tom frowned and smiled both at once. “Such language in
front of guests! You ought to sleep outside with Annie. Come on out
of there, we’re needed for a consultation.”
“You really are wizards!” Nita said, reassured but
still surprised. She had rarely seen two more normal-looking
people.
Tom chuckled. “Sure we are. Not that we do too much
freelancing these days—better to leave that to the younger
practitioners, like you two.”
The other man got out from under the sink, brushing himself off,
He was at least as tall as Tom, and as broad-shouldered, but
his dark hair was shorter and he had an impressive mustache.
“Carl Romeo,” he said in a voice with a pronounced
Brooklyn accent, and shook hands with Kit and Nita.
“Who’s this?” he said, indicating Fred. Fred
hiccuped; the resulting explosion produced six black star
sapphires the size of tennis balls. “Fred here,” Tom said,
“has a small problem.”
“I wish I had problems like that,” Carl remarked.
“Something to drink, Fred?”
(Drink? What is that?)
After a few minutes the four of them were settled around the
kitchen, with Fred hovering nearby. “It said
in the book that you specialize in temporospatial
claudications,” Kit said.
“Carl does. Maintenance and repair; he keeps the
worldgates at Grand Central Station and Rockefeller Center working.
You’ve come to the right place.”
“His personal gate is acting up, huh?” Carl said.
“I’d better get the books.” He got up.
“Fred, what’re the entasis figures on your
warp?”
Fred mentally rattled off a number of symbols in the Speech, as
he had when Kit asked him what he was. “Right,” Carl
said, and went off to the den.
“What do you do?” Nita said to Tom.
“Research, mostly. Also we’re something of a
clearinghouse for news and gossip in the Business. If someone needs
details on a rare spell, or wants to know how power balances are
running in a particular place, I can usually find out for
them.”
“But you do other things too.” Kit looked around at
the house.
“Oh, sure, we work. I write for a living—after all,
some of the things I see in the Business make good stories. And
Carl sells commercial time for WNXT in the city. As well as regular
time, on the side.”
Kit and Nita looked at each other, puzzled. Tom chuckled.
“Well, he does claudications, gatings, doesn’t he?
Temporospatial—time and space. If you can squeeze
space—claudicate it—so that you pop out of one place
and into another, why can’t you squeeze time the same way?
Haven’t you heard the saying about ‘buying time’?
Carl’s the one you buy it from. Want to buy a piece of next
Thursday?”
“I can get it for you wholesale,” Carl said as he
came back into the room. In his arms he was carrying several
hardbound books as thick as telephone directories. On his shoulder,
more interesting, was a splendid
scarlet-blue-and-yellow macaw, which regarded Kit
and Nita and Fred out of beady black eyes. “Kit, Nita,
Fred,” Carl said, “Machu Picchu. Peach for
short.” He sat down, put the books on the table, and began
riffling through the one on top of the stack; Tom pulled one out of
lower in the pile and began doing the same.
“All right,” Tom said, “the whole story, from
the beginning.”
They told him, and it took a while. When they got to
Fred’s part of the story, and the fact that the Naming of
Lights was missing, Tom and Carl became very quiet and just looked
at one another for a moment. “Damn,” Tom said, “I
wondered why the entry in the Materia Magica hadn’t been
updated in so long. This is news, all right. We’ll have to
call a regional Advisories’ meeting.”
Fred hiccuped again, and the explosion left behind it a
year’s back issues of TV Guide.
“Later,” Carl said. “The situation here looks
like it’s deteriorating.” He paused at one page of the
book he was looking through, ran his finger down a column. The
macaw peered over his shoulder as if interested.
“Alpha—rai—eri’ tath—eight, you
said?”
(Right.)
“I can fix you,” Carl said. “Take about five
minutes.” He got up and headed for the den again.
“What is the Naming of Lights?” Kit said to Tom.
“We tried to get Fred to tell us last night, but it kept
coming out in symbols that weren’t in our books.”
“Well, this is a pretty advanced subject. A novice’s
manual wouldn’t have much information on the Naming of Lights
any more than the instruction manual for a rifle would have
information on atomic bombs . . . ” Tom
took a drink. “It’s a book. At least that’s what
it looks like when it’s in or near this Universe. The Book of
Night with Moon, it’s called here, since in these parts you
need moonlight to read it. It’s always been most carefully
accounted for; the Senior wizards keep an eye on it. If it’s
suddenly gone missing, we’ve got trouble.”
“Why?” Nita said.
“Well, if you’ve gotten even this far in wizardry,
you know how the wizards’ symbology, the Speech, affects
the things you use it on. When you use it, you define what
you’re speaking about. That’s why it’s dangerous
to use the Speech carelessly. You can accidentally redefine
something, change its nature. Something, or someone—”
He paused, took another drink of his soda. “The Book of Night
with Moon is written in the Speech. In it, everything’s
described. Everything. You, me, Fred,
Carl . . . this house, this town, this world.
This Universe and everything in it. All the
Universes . . . ”
Kit looked skeptical. “How could a book that big get
lost?”
“Who said it was big? You’ll notice something about
your manuals after a while,” Tom said. “They
won’t get any bigger, but there’ll be more and more
inside them as you learn more, or need to know more. Even in plain
old math it’s true that the inside can be bigger than the
outside; it’s definitely true in wizardry. But believe me,
the Book of Night with Moon has everything described in it.
It’s one of the reasons we’re all here—the power
of those descriptions helps keep everything that is, in
existence.” Tom looked worried. “And every now and then the
Senior wizards have to go get the Book and read from it, to remind
the worlds what they are, to preserve everything alive or
inanimate—”
Have you read from it?” Nita said, made uneasy by the
disturbed look on Tom’s face.
Tom glanced at her in shock, then began to laugh. “Me? No,
no. I hope I never have to.”
“But if it’s a good Book, if it preserves
things—” Kit said.
“It is good—at least, yes,
it preserves, or lets things grow the way they want.
But reading it, being the vessel for all
that power—I wouldn’t want to. Even good can be
terribly dangerous. But this isn’t anything you two need to
worry about. The Advisories and the Senior wizards will handle
it.”
“But you are worried,” Kit said.
“Yes, well—” Tom took another drink. “If
it were just that the bright Book had gone missing, that
wouldn’t be so bad. A universe can go a long time without
affirmation-by-reading. But the bright Book has an
opposite number, a dark one; the Book which is not Named, we call
it. It’s written in the Speech too, but its descriptions
are . . . skewed. And if the bright Book is
missing, the dark one gains potential power. If someone should read
from that one now, while the Book of Night with Moon isn’t
available to counteract the power of the dark
one—” Tom shook his head.
Carl came in then, the macaw still riding his shoulder.
“Here we go,” he said, and dumped several sticks of
chalk, an enormous black claw, and a 1943 zinc penny on the table.
Nita and Kit stared at each other, neither quite having the nerve
to ask what that claw had come off of. “Now you
understand,” Carl said as he picked up the chalk and
began to draw a circle around the table, “that this is only
going to stop the hiccups. You three are going to have to go to
Manhattan and hook Fred into the Grand Central worldgate to get
that pen out. Don’t worry about being noticed. People use it
all the time and no one’s the wiser. I use it sometimes when
the trains are late.”
“Carl,” Tom said, “doesn’t it strike you
as a little strange that the first wizardry these kids do produces
Fred—who brings this news about the good Book—and they
come straight to us—”
“Don’t be silly,” the macaw on Carl’s
shoulder said in a scratchy voice. “You know there are no
accidents.”
Nita and Kit stared.
“Wondered when you were going to say something
useful,” Carl said, sounding bored. “You think we keep
you for your looks? OW!” he added, as the bird bit him on the
car. He hit it one on the beak, and, while it was still shaking its
head woozily, put it up on the table beside Tom.
Picchu sidled halfway up Tom’s arm, stopped and looked at
Nita and Kit. “Dos d’en agouni nikyn toude
phercsthai,” it muttered, and got all the way up on
Tom’s shoulder, and then glared at them again.
“Well?”
“She only speaks in tongues to show off,” Tom said.
“Ignore her, or rap her one if she bites you. We just keep
her around because she tells the future.” Tom made as if to
smack the bird again, and Picchu ducked back. “How
about the stocks tomorrow, bird?” he said.
Picchu cleared her throat. “ ‘And that’s the
way it is,’ ” she said in a voice very much like that
of a famous newscaster, “ ‘July eighteen, 1988. From
New York, this is Walter—’ ”
Tom fisted the bird in the beak, clunk! Picchu shook her head
again.
“Issues were down in slow trading,” she said
resentfully. “The Dow-Jones
index . . . ” and she called off some
numbers. Tom grimaced.
“I should have gone into pork bellies,” he muttered.
“I ought to warn you two—If you have pets, look out.
Practicing wizardry around them can cause some changes.”
“There we go,” Carl said, and stood up straight.
“Fred, you ready? Hiccup for me again.”
(I can’t,) Fred said, sounding nervous. (You’re all
staring.)
“Never mind, I can start this in the meantime.” Carl
leaned over the table, glanced down at one of the books, and began
reading in the Speech, a quick flow of syllables sharpened by that
Brooklyn accent. In the middle of the third sentence Fred hiccuped,
and without warning the wizardry took. Time didn’t precisely
stop, but it held still, and Nita became aware of what Carl’s
wizardry was doing to Fred, or rather had done already—subtly
untangling forces that were knotted tight together. The
half-finished hiccup and the wizardry came loose at the same
time, leaving Fred looking bright and well for the first time since
that morning. He still radiated uncertainty, though, like a person
who isn’t sure he’s stopped hiccuping yet.
“You’ll be all right,” Carl said, scuffing
away the chalk marks on the floor. “Though as I said, that
pen is still in there with the rest of your mass, at the other end
of your claudication, and you’ll need Grand Central to get it
out.”
(Have you stopped my emissions entirely?) Fred said,
“No, of course not. I couldn’t do that: you’ll
still emit from time to time. Mostly what you’re used to,
though. Radiation and such.”
“Grand Central!” Kit was looking worried. “I
don’t think my mother and father are going to want me in the
city alone. I could sneak in, I guess, but they’d want to
know where I’d been all that while.”
“Well,” Tom said, looking thoughtful,
“you’ve got school. You couldn’t go before the
weekend anyway, right? Carl could sell you a piece of Saturday or
Sunday—”
Kit and Nita looked at each other, and then at the two men.
“Uh, we don’t have much money.”
“Who said anything about money?” Carl said. “Wizards
don’t pay each other cash. They pay off in service—and
sometimes the services aren’t done for years. But first
let’s see if there’s any time available this weekend.
Saturdays go fast, even though they’re expensive, especially
Saturday mornings.”
Tom picked up another book and began
going through it. Like all the other books, it was printed in the
same type as Nita’s and Kit’s manuals, though the print
was much smaller and arranged differently. “This way,”
Tom said, you buy some time, “you could be in the city all day, all
week if you wanted to, but once you
activate the piece of time you’re holding, you’re
back. Then you have to pick a place to
anchor the time to, of course, a twenty-foot radius. But
after you’ve finished whatever you have to do, you bring your
marked time to life, and there you are. Maybe five minutes before
you started for the city, back at home. Or anywhere and anywhen
else along the path you’ll follow that day.”
“Huh,” Carl said suddenly, “Callahan, J., and
Rodriguez, C., is that you two?” They nodded. “You have
a credit already,” Carl said, sounding a little surprised.
“What have you two been doing to rate that?”
“Must have been for bringing Fred through,” Tom
said. “I didn’t know that Upper Management had started
giving out door prizes, though.”
From her perch on Tom’s shoulder, Picchu snorted.
“Oh? What’s that mean?” Tom said. “Come on,
bird, be useful. Is there something you know that these kids ought
to?”
“I want a raise,” Picchu said, sounding sullen.
“You just had one. Talk!”
“’Brush your teeth twice a day, and see your dentist
regularly,” the macaw began, in a
commercial-announcer’s voice. Tom made a fist and
stared at her. “All right, all right,” Picchu muttered.
She looked over at Kit and Nita, and though her voice when she
spoke had the usual good-natured annoyance about it, her eyes
didn’t look angry or even teasing—they looked anxious.
Nita got a sudden chill down her back, “Don’t be afraid
to make corrections,” Picchu said. “Don’t be
afraid to lend a hand.” She fell silent, seeming to think for
a moment. “And don’t look down.”
Tom stared at the macaw. “Can’t you be a little more
specific?”
“Human lives,” Picchu said irritably,
“aren’t much like the Dow-Jones index. No, I
can’t.”
Tom sighed. “Sorry. Kids, if she says it,
she has a reason for saying it—so remember.”
“Here you go,” Carl said. “Your piece of time
is from ten forty-five to ten forty-seven on this next
Saturday morning. There aren’t any weekend openings
after that until sometime in July.”
“We’ll take this one,” Kit said. “At
least I can—Nita, will your folks let you go?”
She nodded. “I have some allowance saved up, and I’d
been thinking about going into the city to get my dad a birthday
present anyhow. I doubt there’ll be any trouble.”
Kit looked uncomfortable for a moment. “But there’s
something I’m sure about. My spell—our spell brought
Fred here. How are we going to him back where he
belongs?”
(Am I a problem?) Fred said, sounding concerned.
“Oh, no, no—it’s just that, Fred, this
isn’t your home, and it seemed as sooner or later you might
want to go back where you came from.”
“As far as that goes,” Tom said, “if
it’s your spell that brought him you’ll be able to send
him back. The instructions are in your book, same as the
instructions for opening the Grand Central worldgate.”
“Stick to those instructions,” Carl said.
“Don’t be tempted to improvise. That claudication is
the oldest one in New York, and it’s the trickiest because of
all the people using it all the time. One false syllable in a spell
and you may wind up in Schenectady.”
(Is that another world?) Fred asked.
“Nearly.” Carl laughed. “Is there anything
else we can do for you?”
Nita and Kit shook their heads and got up to leave, thanking Tom
and Carl and Picchu. “Let us know how things turn out,”
Tom said. “Not that we have any doubts—two wizards who
can produce a white hole on the first try are obviously doing all
right. But give us a call. We’re in the book.”
The two men saw Nita and Kit as far as the patio door, said
their goodbyes, and went back into the house. Nita started off
across the lawn the way she had come, but Kit paused for a moment
by the fishpool, staring down into it. He pulled a penny out of his
pocket, dropped it in.
Nita saw the ripples spread—and then suddenly another set
of ripples wavered away from the head of a very large goldfish,
which spat the penny back at Kit and eyed him with distaste.
“Do I throw money on your living-room floor?” it
said, and then dived out of sight.
Kit picked up his penny and went after Nita and Fred as they
pushed through the poplar hedge again. The blue Mercedes, which had
been half in the street and half on the sidewalk, was now neatly
parked by the curb. In front of it sat Annie, with her tongue
hanging out and a satisfied look on her face. There were teethmarks
deep in the car’s front fender, Annie grinned at them as Nita
and Kit passed, and then trotted off down the street, probably to
“find” something else.
“If my dog starts doing things like that,” Kit
muttered, “I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to
my mother.”
Nita looked down the street for signs of Joanne. “If we
can just get home without being killed, I wouldn’t care what
the dog found. Uh oh—” A good ways down the street,
four or five girls were heading toward them, and Nita saw
Joanne’s blond hair. “Kit, we’d better split up.
No reason for them to come after you too.”
“Right. Give me a call tonight. I’m in the
book . . . ” He took off down a side
street. She looked around, considering the best direction to run
in—and then thought of the book she was carrying. There
wasn’t much time, though. She forced herself to calm down
even while she knew they were coming for her, made herself turn the
pages slowly to the place Kit had shown her that morning, the spell
that made blows slide off. She read through it slowly in the
street, sounding out the syllables,
taking the time to look up the pronunciation of the ones she
wasn’t sure of, even though they were getting close and she
could hear Joanne’s laugh.
Nita sat down on the curb to wait for them. They let her have it
when they found her, as they had been intending to all day; and she
rolled around on the ground and fell back from their punches and
made what she hoped were horrible groaning noises. After a while
Joanne and her four friends turned away to leave, satisfied that
they had taught her a lesson. And Nita stood up and brushed herself
off, uncut, unbruised, just a little dirty.
“Joanne,” she called after them. In what looked
like amazement, Joanne turned around.
Nita laughed at her. “It won’t work any more,”
she said.
Joanne stood dumb,
“Never again” she said. She felt like turning her
back on them, but instead she walked toward them, watching the
confusion in their eyes. On a sudden urge, she jumped up in the air
and waved her arms crazily. “BOO!” she shouted.
They broke and ran, all of them. Joanne was the first, and then
the rest followed her in a ragged tail down Rose Avenue. Not a
word, not a taunt. They just ran.
Nita stopped short. The feeling of triumph that had been growing
in her withered almost instantly. Some victory, she thought. It
took so little, so little to scare them. Maybe I could have done
that at any time, without a shield. Maybe. And now I’ll never
know for sure.
(Are you all right?) Fred said quietly, bobbing again by her
shoulder. (They didn’t hurt you this time.)
“No,” Nita said slowly. She was thinking of all the
glorious plans she’d had to use her new-found wizardry
on Joanne and her bunch, to shame them, confuse them, hurt them.
And look what so small and inoffensive thing as a body shield had
done to them. They would hate her worse than ever now. I’ve got to be careful with this, she thought. I thought
it was going to be all fun.
“Come on, Fred,” she said, “let’s go
home.”
They were at the schoolyard early the next morning, to be sure
they wouldn’t miss Joanne and her crew. Nita and Kit sat on
the curb by the front door to the school, staring across at the
packed dirt and dull grass of the athletic field next to the
building. Kit leafed through his wizards’ manual, while Fred
hung over his shoulder and looked around with mild interest at
everything. (Will it be long?) he said, his light flickering
slightly.
“No,” Nita said. She was shaking. After the other
day, she didn’t want anything to do with Joanne at all. But
she wanted that pen back, so . . .
“Look, it’ll be all right,” Kit said, paging
through his manual. “Just do it the way we decided last
night. Get close to her, keep her busy for a little while.
Fred’ll do the rest.”
“It’s keeping her busy that worries me,” Nita
muttered. “Her idea of busy usually involves her fists and my
face.”
(I don’t understand,) Fred said, and Nita had to laugh
briefly—she and Kit had heard that phrase about a hundred
times since Fred arrived. He used it on almost everything. (What
are you afraid of?)
“This,” Nita said, pointing to her black eye.
“And this—” uncovering a bruise. “And this,
and this—”
Fred regarded her with a moment’s discomfiture. (I thought
you came that way. Joanne makes this happen?)
“Uh huh. And it hurts getting this way.”
(But she only changes your outsides. Aren’t your insides
still the same afterward?)
Nita had to stop and think about that one. “Okay,” Kit said
suddenly, “here’s the Advisory list for our
area.” He ran a finger down the
page. “And here’s the one in town. Twenty-seven
Hundred Rose—”
“That’s up the hill past the school. What’s
the name?”
“ Lessee. ‘Swale, T.B., and Romeo, C.J. Research Advisories,
temporospatial adjustments, entastics, non-specific
scryings—’ ”
“Wait a minute,” Nita said hurriedly. “
‘Swale’? You mean Crazy Swale? We can’t go in
there, Kit, that place is haunted! Everybody knows that! Weird
noises are always coming out of there—”
“If it’s haunted,” Kit said, “it’s
haunted by wizards. We might as well go after school, it’s
only five or six blocks up the road.”
They were quiet for a while. It was about twenty minutes before
the bell would ring for the doors to open, and a few early kids
were gathering around the doors. “Maybe we could rig you a
defense against getting hit,” Kit said, as he kept looking
through his manual. “How about this?” He pointed at one
page, and both Nita and Fred looked at the formula he was
indicating. All it needed was the right words. It would be
something of a strain to carry the shield for long, but Nita
wouldn’t have to; and any attempt to hit her would just
glance off.
(The problem is,) Fred said, (that spell will alter the field
slightly around this Joanne person. I’m going to have a hard
enough time matching my pattern to that of your pen so that I can
get it off her—if indeed she has it. Her own field is going
to interfere, and so will yours, Nita. More stress on the space in
the area and I might not be able to get your pen back at all.)
Nita shook her head. She could tolerate another black eye if it
meant getting that pen back. “Forget it,” she said,
still shaking, and leaned forward a bit, elbows on knees and face
in hands, trying to relax. Above her the old maple trees were
muttering morning thoughts in the early sunlight, languid
observations on the weather and the decreasing quality of the
tenant birds who built nests in their branches. Out in the field
the grass was singing a scratchy soprano
chorus—(growgrowgrowgrowgrowgrow)—which broke off
abruptly and turned into an annoyed mob-sound of boos and
razzes as one of the ground-keepers, way across the field,
started up a lawnmower. I’m good with plants, Nita thought. I
guess I take after Dad. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to hear
people this way.
Kit nudged her. “You’re on,” he said, and Nita
looked up and saw Joanne walking into the schoolyard. Their eyes
met, Joanne recognized her, saw her handiwork, smiled. Now or
never! Nita thought, and got right up before she had a chance to
chicken out and blow everything. She walked over to Joanne without
a pause, fast, to keep the tremor in her knees from showing. Oh,
Fred, please be behind me. And what in the world can I say to
her?
“I want my pen back, Joanne,” she said—or
rather it fell out of her mouth, and she went hot at her own
stupidity. Yet the momentary shocked look on Joanne’s face
made her think that maybe saying what was on her mind hadn’t
been so stupid after all.
Joanne’s shock didn’t last; a
second later she was smiling again. “Callahan,” she
said slowly, “are you looking for another black eye to match
that one?”
Gulp. “No,” Nita said,
“just my pen, thanks.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking
about,” Joanne said, and then grinned. “You always were
a little odd. I guess you’ve finally flipped out.”
“I had a space pen on me the other day, and it was gone
afterward. One of you took it. I want it back.” Nita was
shaking worse than ever, but she was also surprised that the fist
hadn’t hit yet. And there, over Joanne’s shoulder, a
flicker, a pinpoint of light, hardly to be seen, looking at
her.
(Don’t react. Make me a picture of the thing now.)
“What makes you think I would want anything of
yours?” Joanne was saying, still with that smile. Nita looked
straight at her and thought about the pen. Silver barrel, grooved
all around the lower half so your fingers, or an astronaut’s,
wouldn’t slip. Her initials engraved on it. Hers, her
pen.
(Enough. Now then—)
“But now that I think of it, I do remember finding a pen
on the ground last week. Let’s see.” Joanne was
enjoying this so much that she actually nipped open the top of her
backpack and began rummaging around. “Let’s see,
here—” She came up with something. Silver barrel,
grooved—and Nita went hot again, not with embarrassment this
time.
“It’s mine!”
“Come and get it, then,” Joanne said, dropping her
backpack, keeping her smile, holding the pen back a little.
And a spark of white light seemed to light on the end of the pen
as Joanne held it up, and then both were gone with a pop and a
breath of air. Joanne spun to see who had plucked the pen out of
her fingers, then whirled on Nita again. Nita smiled and held out
her hands, empty.
Joanne was not amused. She stepped in close, and Nita took a few
hurried steps back, unable to stop grinning even though she knew
she was going to get hit. Heads were turning all around the
schoolyard at the prospect of a fight. “Callahan,”
Joanne hissed, “you’re in for it now!”
The eight-thirty bell went off so suddenly they both
jumped. Joanne stared at Nita for a long long moment, then turned
and went to pick up her backpack. “Why hurry things?”
she said, straightening. “Callahan, if I were you, I’d
sleep here tonight. Because when you try to leave—”
She walked off toward the doors. Nita
stood where she was, still shaking, but with amazement and triumph
as much as with fear. Kit came up beside her when Joanne was gone,
and Fred appeared, a bright point between them.
“You were great!” Kit said.
“I’m gonna get killed tonight,” Nita said, but
she couldn’t be terrified about it just yet. “Fred,
have you got it?”
The point of light was flickering, and there was something about
the way it did so that made Nita wonder if something was wrong.
(Yes,) Fred said, the thought coming with a faint queasy feeling to
it. (And that’s the problem.)
“Are you okay?” Kit said. “Where’d it
go?”
(I swallowed it,) Fred said, sounding genuinely miserable
now.
“But that was what you were going to do,” Nita said,
puzzled. “Catch it in your own energy-field, you said,
make a little pocket and hold it there.”
(I know. But my fields aren’t working the way they should.
Maybe it’s this gravity, I’m not used to any gravity
but my own. I think it went down the wrong way.)
“Oh, brother,” Kit said.
“Well,” Nita said, “at least Joanne
hasn’t got it. When we go to the Advisories tonight, maybe
they can help us get it out.”
Fred made a small thought-noise somewhere between a burp
and a squeak. Nita and Kit looked up at him, concerned—and
then both jumped back hurriedly from something that went bang! down
by their feet.
They stared at the ground. Sitting there on the packed dirt was
a small portable color TV, brand new.
“Uh, Fred—” Kit said.
Fred was looking down at the TV with embarrassment verging on
shame. (I emitted it,) he said.
Nita stared at him. “But I thought white holes only
emitted little things. Subatomic particles. Nothing so big—or
so orderly.”
(I wanted to visit an orderly place,) Fred said miserably. (See
what it got me!)
“Hiccups,” Kit muttered. “Fred, I think
you’d better stay outside until we’re finished for the
day. We’ll go straight to the Advisories’ from
here.”
“Joanne permitting,” Nita said. “Kit,
we’ve got to go in.”
(I’ll meet you here,) Fred said. The mournful thought was
followed by another burp/squeak, and another bang! and four volumes
of an encyclopedia were sitting on the ground next to the
TV.
Kit and Nita hurried for the doors, sweating. Apparently
wizardry had more drawbacks than the book had
indicated . . .
Lunch wasn’t calm, but it was interesting, due to the
thirty teachers, assistant principal, principal, and school
superintendent who were all out on the athletic field, along with
most of the students. They were walking around looking at the
furniture, vacuum cleaners, computer components, books,
knickknacks, motorcycles, typewriters, art supplies, stoves,
sculptures, lumber, and many other odd things that had since
morning been appearing one after another in the field. No one knew
what to make of any of it, or what to do; and though Kit and Nita
felt sure they would be connected with the situation somehow, no
one accused them of anything.
They met again at the schoolyard door at three, pausing just
inside it while Nita peered out to see if Joanne was waiting. She
was, and eight of her friends were with her, talking and laughing
among themselves. “Kit,” Nita said quietly,
“we’ve got problems.”
He looked. “And this is the only door we can
use.”
Something went bang! out in the field, and Nita, looking out
again, saw heads turn among Joanne’s group. Without a
moment’s pause every one of the girls headed off toward the
field in a hurry, leaving Joanne to glare at the school door for a
moment. Then she took off after the others. Kit and Nita glanced at
each other. “I get this
feeling . . . ” Kit said.
“Let’s go,”
They waited until Joanne was out of sight and then leaned
cautiously out of the door, looking around. Fred was suddenly
there, wobbling in the air. He made a feeling of greeting at them;
he seemed tired, but cheerful, at least for the moment.
Nita glanced over her shoulder to see what had drawn the
attention of Joanne and her group—and drew in a sharp breath
at the sight of the shiny silver Learjet. “Fred,” she
said, ”you did that on purpose!”
She felt him look back too, and his cheerfulness drowned out his
weariness and queasiness for a moment. (I felt you wondering
whether to come out, so I exerted myself a little. What was that
thing?)
“We’ll explain later; right now we should run. Fred,
thank you!”
(You’re most welcome. Just help me stop this!)
“Can you hold it in for a few blocks?”
(What’s a block?)
They ran down Rose Avenue, and Fred paced them. Every now and
then a little of Fred’s hiccup-noise would squeak out,
and he would fall behind them, controlling it while they ran on
ahead. Then he would catch up again. The last time he did it, they
paused and waited for him. Twenty-seven Hundred Rose had a
high poplar hedge with one opening for the walk up to the house,
and neither of them felt like going any farther without Fred.
(Well?) he said, when he caught up. (Now what?)
Nita and Kit looked at each other. “I don’t care if
they are wizards,” Nita said, “I want to peek in and
have a look before I just walk in there. I’ve heard too many
stories about this place—”
(Look,) Fred said in great discomfort, (I’ve got
to—)
Evidently there was a limit on how long a white hole in
Fred’s condition hold it in. The sound of Fred’s hiccup
was so much louder than usual so Nita and
Kit crowded back away from him in near-panic. The bang!
sounded like the beginning of a fireworks display, and when its
echoes faded, a powder-blue Mercedes-Benz was sitting
half on, half off the sidewalk.
(My gnaester hurts,) Fred said.
“Let’s peek,” Nita said, turned, and pushed a
little way through the hedge. She wanted to be sure there were no
monsters or skeletons hanging from trees or anything else uncanny
going on in the yard before she went in. What she did not expect
was the amiable face of an enormous black-and-white
English sheepdog, which first slurped her face energetically, then
grabbed her right arm in gentle but insistent teeth and pulled her
straight through the hedge.
“Kit!” she almost screamed, and then remembered not
to because Crazy Swale or whoever else lived here might hear her.
Her cry came out as sort of a grunt. She heard Kit come right
through the bushes behind her as the sheepdog dragged her
along through the yard. There was nothing spooky about the place at
all—the house was big, a two-story affair, but
normal-looking, all warm wood and shingles. The yard was
grassy, with a landscaped garden as pretty as one of her
father’s. One side of the house had wide glass patio doors
opening on a roofed-over terrace. Potted plants hung down and
there was even a big square masonry tank, a fishpond—Nita
caught a glimpse of something coppery swimming as the sheepdog
dragged her past it to the terrace doors. It was at that point that
the dog let go her arm and began barking noisily, and Nita began
thinking seriously of running for it.
“All right, all right,” came a man’s voice, a
humorous one, from inside the house, and it was definitely too late
for running. Kit came up behind Nita, panting. “All right,
Annie, let’s see what you’ve got this time.”
The screen door slid open, and Nita and Kit looked at the man
who opened it in slight surprise. Somehow they had been expecting
that any wizard not their age would be old, but this man was young,
certainly no more than in his middle thirties. He had dark hair and
was tall and broad-shouldered. He looked rather like
someone out of a cigarette ad, except that he was smiling, which
the men in cigarette ads rarely do. “Well,” the man
said, sounding not at all annoyed by three unexpected guests,
“I see you’ve met
Annie . . . ”
“She, uh,” Nita said, glancing down at the dog, who
was smiling at her with the same bemused interest as her master.
“She found me looking through your hedge.”
“That’s Annie for you,” the man said, sounding
a bit resigned. “She’s good at finding things.
I’m Tom Swale.” And he held out his hand for Nita to
shake.
“Nita Callahan,” she said, taking it.
“Kit Rodriguez,” Kit said from beside her, reaching
out to shake hands too.
“Good to meet you. Call me Tom. What can I do for
you?”
“Are you the Advisory?” Kit said.
Tom’s eyebrows went up. “You kids have a spelling
problem?”
Nita grinned at the pun and glanced over her shoulder.
“Fred?”
Fred bobbed up between her and Kit, regarding Tom, who looked
back at the unsteady spark of light with only moderate surprise.
“He’s a white hole,” Nita said. “He
swallowed my space pen.”
(Hi-cup!) Fred said, and bang! went the air between Kit
and Nita as they stepped hurriedly off to either side. Fourteen
one-kilogram bricks of .999-fine Swiss gold fell
clattering to the patio’s brown tiles.
“I can see this is going to take some explaining,”
Tom said, “Come on in.”
They followed him into the house. A big comfortable living room
opened onto a den on one side and a bright kitchen-dining
room on the other. “Carl, we’ve got company,” Tom
called as they entered the kitchen.
“What?” replied a muffled voice—muffled
because the upper half of its owner was mostly in the cabinet under
the double sink. The rest of him was sprawled across the kitchen
floor. This by itself wasn’t so odd; what was odd was the
assortment of wrenches and other tools floating in the air just
outside the cabinet doors. From under the sink came a sound like a
wrench slipping off a pipe, and a sudden soft thump as it hit
something else. Probably its user, for “Nnngg!” said
the voice under the sink, and all the tools fell clattering to the
kitchen floor. The voice broke into some most creative
swearing.
Tom frowned and smiled both at once. “Such language in
front of guests! You ought to sleep outside with Annie. Come on out
of there, we’re needed for a consultation.”
“You really are wizards!” Nita said, reassured but
still surprised. She had rarely seen two more normal-looking
people.
Tom chuckled. “Sure we are. Not that we do too much
freelancing these days—better to leave that to the younger
practitioners, like you two.”
The other man got out from under the sink, brushing himself off,
He was at least as tall as Tom, and as broad-shouldered, but
his dark hair was shorter and he had an impressive mustache.
“Carl Romeo,” he said in a voice with a pronounced
Brooklyn accent, and shook hands with Kit and Nita.
“Who’s this?” he said, indicating Fred. Fred
hiccuped; the resulting explosion produced six black star
sapphires the size of tennis balls. “Fred here,” Tom said,
“has a small problem.”
“I wish I had problems like that,” Carl remarked.
“Something to drink, Fred?”
(Drink? What is that?)
After a few minutes the four of them were settled around the
kitchen, with Fred hovering nearby. “It said
in the book that you specialize in temporospatial
claudications,” Kit said.
“Carl does. Maintenance and repair; he keeps the
worldgates at Grand Central Station and Rockefeller Center working.
You’ve come to the right place.”
“His personal gate is acting up, huh?” Carl said.
“I’d better get the books.” He got up.
“Fred, what’re the entasis figures on your
warp?”
Fred mentally rattled off a number of symbols in the Speech, as
he had when Kit asked him what he was. “Right,” Carl
said, and went off to the den.
“What do you do?” Nita said to Tom.
“Research, mostly. Also we’re something of a
clearinghouse for news and gossip in the Business. If someone needs
details on a rare spell, or wants to know how power balances are
running in a particular place, I can usually find out for
them.”
“But you do other things too.” Kit looked around at
the house.
“Oh, sure, we work. I write for a living—after all,
some of the things I see in the Business make good stories. And
Carl sells commercial time for WNXT in the city. As well as regular
time, on the side.”
Kit and Nita looked at each other, puzzled. Tom chuckled.
“Well, he does claudications, gatings, doesn’t he?
Temporospatial—time and space. If you can squeeze
space—claudicate it—so that you pop out of one place
and into another, why can’t you squeeze time the same way?
Haven’t you heard the saying about ‘buying time’?
Carl’s the one you buy it from. Want to buy a piece of next
Thursday?”
“I can get it for you wholesale,” Carl said as he
came back into the room. In his arms he was carrying several
hardbound books as thick as telephone directories. On his shoulder,
more interesting, was a splendid
scarlet-blue-and-yellow macaw, which regarded Kit
and Nita and Fred out of beady black eyes. “Kit, Nita,
Fred,” Carl said, “Machu Picchu. Peach for
short.” He sat down, put the books on the table, and began
riffling through the one on top of the stack; Tom pulled one out of
lower in the pile and began doing the same.
“All right,” Tom said, “the whole story, from
the beginning.”
They told him, and it took a while. When they got to
Fred’s part of the story, and the fact that the Naming of
Lights was missing, Tom and Carl became very quiet and just looked
at one another for a moment. “Damn,” Tom said, “I
wondered why the entry in the Materia Magica hadn’t been
updated in so long. This is news, all right. We’ll have to
call a regional Advisories’ meeting.”
Fred hiccuped again, and the explosion left behind it a
year’s back issues of TV Guide.
“Later,” Carl said. “The situation here looks
like it’s deteriorating.” He paused at one page of the
book he was looking through, ran his finger down a column. The
macaw peered over his shoulder as if interested.
“Alpha—rai—eri’ tath—eight, you
said?”
(Right.)
“I can fix you,” Carl said. “Take about five
minutes.” He got up and headed for the den again.
“What is the Naming of Lights?” Kit said to Tom.
“We tried to get Fred to tell us last night, but it kept
coming out in symbols that weren’t in our books.”
“Well, this is a pretty advanced subject. A novice’s
manual wouldn’t have much information on the Naming of Lights
any more than the instruction manual for a rifle would have
information on atomic bombs . . . ” Tom
took a drink. “It’s a book. At least that’s what
it looks like when it’s in or near this Universe. The Book of
Night with Moon, it’s called here, since in these parts you
need moonlight to read it. It’s always been most carefully
accounted for; the Senior wizards keep an eye on it. If it’s
suddenly gone missing, we’ve got trouble.”
“Why?” Nita said.
“Well, if you’ve gotten even this far in wizardry,
you know how the wizards’ symbology, the Speech, affects
the things you use it on. When you use it, you define what
you’re speaking about. That’s why it’s dangerous
to use the Speech carelessly. You can accidentally redefine
something, change its nature. Something, or someone—”
He paused, took another drink of his soda. “The Book of Night
with Moon is written in the Speech. In it, everything’s
described. Everything. You, me, Fred,
Carl . . . this house, this town, this world.
This Universe and everything in it. All the
Universes . . . ”
Kit looked skeptical. “How could a book that big get
lost?”
“Who said it was big? You’ll notice something about
your manuals after a while,” Tom said. “They
won’t get any bigger, but there’ll be more and more
inside them as you learn more, or need to know more. Even in plain
old math it’s true that the inside can be bigger than the
outside; it’s definitely true in wizardry. But believe me,
the Book of Night with Moon has everything described in it.
It’s one of the reasons we’re all here—the power
of those descriptions helps keep everything that is, in
existence.” Tom looked worried. “And every now and then the
Senior wizards have to go get the Book and read from it, to remind
the worlds what they are, to preserve everything alive or
inanimate—”
Have you read from it?” Nita said, made uneasy by the
disturbed look on Tom’s face.
Tom glanced at her in shock, then began to laugh. “Me? No,
no. I hope I never have to.”
“But if it’s a good Book, if it preserves
things—” Kit said.
“It is good—at least, yes,
it preserves, or lets things grow the way they want.
But reading it, being the vessel for all
that power—I wouldn’t want to. Even good can be
terribly dangerous. But this isn’t anything you two need to
worry about. The Advisories and the Senior wizards will handle
it.”
“But you are worried,” Kit said.
“Yes, well—” Tom took another drink. “If
it were just that the bright Book had gone missing, that
wouldn’t be so bad. A universe can go a long time without
affirmation-by-reading. But the bright Book has an
opposite number, a dark one; the Book which is not Named, we call
it. It’s written in the Speech too, but its descriptions
are . . . skewed. And if the bright Book is
missing, the dark one gains potential power. If someone should read
from that one now, while the Book of Night with Moon isn’t
available to counteract the power of the dark
one—” Tom shook his head.
Carl came in then, the macaw still riding his shoulder.
“Here we go,” he said, and dumped several sticks of
chalk, an enormous black claw, and a 1943 zinc penny on the table.
Nita and Kit stared at each other, neither quite having the nerve
to ask what that claw had come off of. “Now you
understand,” Carl said as he picked up the chalk and
began to draw a circle around the table, “that this is only
going to stop the hiccups. You three are going to have to go to
Manhattan and hook Fred into the Grand Central worldgate to get
that pen out. Don’t worry about being noticed. People use it
all the time and no one’s the wiser. I use it sometimes when
the trains are late.”
“Carl,” Tom said, “doesn’t it strike you
as a little strange that the first wizardry these kids do produces
Fred—who brings this news about the good Book—and they
come straight to us—”
“Don’t be silly,” the macaw on Carl’s
shoulder said in a scratchy voice. “You know there are no
accidents.”
Nita and Kit stared.
“Wondered when you were going to say something
useful,” Carl said, sounding bored. “You think we keep
you for your looks? OW!” he added, as the bird bit him on the
car. He hit it one on the beak, and, while it was still shaking its
head woozily, put it up on the table beside Tom.
Picchu sidled halfway up Tom’s arm, stopped and looked at
Nita and Kit. “Dos d’en agouni nikyn toude
phercsthai,” it muttered, and got all the way up on
Tom’s shoulder, and then glared at them again.
“Well?”
“She only speaks in tongues to show off,” Tom said.
“Ignore her, or rap her one if she bites you. We just keep
her around because she tells the future.” Tom made as if to
smack the bird again, and Picchu ducked back. “How
about the stocks tomorrow, bird?” he said.
Picchu cleared her throat. “ ‘And that’s the
way it is,’ ” she said in a voice very much like that
of a famous newscaster, “ ‘July eighteen, 1988. From
New York, this is Walter—’ ”
Tom fisted the bird in the beak, clunk! Picchu shook her head
again.
“Issues were down in slow trading,” she said
resentfully. “The Dow-Jones
index . . . ” and she called off some
numbers. Tom grimaced.
“I should have gone into pork bellies,” he muttered.
“I ought to warn you two—If you have pets, look out.
Practicing wizardry around them can cause some changes.”
“There we go,” Carl said, and stood up straight.
“Fred, you ready? Hiccup for me again.”
(I can’t,) Fred said, sounding nervous. (You’re all
staring.)
“Never mind, I can start this in the meantime.” Carl
leaned over the table, glanced down at one of the books, and began
reading in the Speech, a quick flow of syllables sharpened by that
Brooklyn accent. In the middle of the third sentence Fred hiccuped,
and without warning the wizardry took. Time didn’t precisely
stop, but it held still, and Nita became aware of what Carl’s
wizardry was doing to Fred, or rather had done already—subtly
untangling forces that were knotted tight together. The
half-finished hiccup and the wizardry came loose at the same
time, leaving Fred looking bright and well for the first time since
that morning. He still radiated uncertainty, though, like a person
who isn’t sure he’s stopped hiccuping yet.
“You’ll be all right,” Carl said, scuffing
away the chalk marks on the floor. “Though as I said, that
pen is still in there with the rest of your mass, at the other end
of your claudication, and you’ll need Grand Central to get it
out.”
(Have you stopped my emissions entirely?) Fred said,
“No, of course not. I couldn’t do that: you’ll
still emit from time to time. Mostly what you’re used to,
though. Radiation and such.”
“Grand Central!” Kit was looking worried. “I
don’t think my mother and father are going to want me in the
city alone. I could sneak in, I guess, but they’d want to
know where I’d been all that while.”
“Well,” Tom said, looking thoughtful,
“you’ve got school. You couldn’t go before the
weekend anyway, right? Carl could sell you a piece of Saturday or
Sunday—”
Kit and Nita looked at each other, and then at the two men.
“Uh, we don’t have much money.”
“Who said anything about money?” Carl said. “Wizards
don’t pay each other cash. They pay off in service—and
sometimes the services aren’t done for years. But first
let’s see if there’s any time available this weekend.
Saturdays go fast, even though they’re expensive, especially
Saturday mornings.”
Tom picked up another book and began
going through it. Like all the other books, it was printed in the
same type as Nita’s and Kit’s manuals, though the print
was much smaller and arranged differently. “This way,”
Tom said, you buy some time, “you could be in the city all day, all
week if you wanted to, but once you
activate the piece of time you’re holding, you’re
back. Then you have to pick a place to
anchor the time to, of course, a twenty-foot radius. But
after you’ve finished whatever you have to do, you bring your
marked time to life, and there you are. Maybe five minutes before
you started for the city, back at home. Or anywhere and anywhen
else along the path you’ll follow that day.”
“Huh,” Carl said suddenly, “Callahan, J., and
Rodriguez, C., is that you two?” They nodded. “You have
a credit already,” Carl said, sounding a little surprised.
“What have you two been doing to rate that?”
“Must have been for bringing Fred through,” Tom
said. “I didn’t know that Upper Management had started
giving out door prizes, though.”
From her perch on Tom’s shoulder, Picchu snorted.
“Oh? What’s that mean?” Tom said. “Come on,
bird, be useful. Is there something you know that these kids ought
to?”
“I want a raise,” Picchu said, sounding sullen.
“You just had one. Talk!”
“’Brush your teeth twice a day, and see your dentist
regularly,” the macaw began, in a
commercial-announcer’s voice. Tom made a fist and
stared at her. “All right, all right,” Picchu muttered.
She looked over at Kit and Nita, and though her voice when she
spoke had the usual good-natured annoyance about it, her eyes
didn’t look angry or even teasing—they looked anxious.
Nita got a sudden chill down her back, “Don’t be afraid
to make corrections,” Picchu said. “Don’t be
afraid to lend a hand.” She fell silent, seeming to think for
a moment. “And don’t look down.”
Tom stared at the macaw. “Can’t you be a little more
specific?”
“Human lives,” Picchu said irritably,
“aren’t much like the Dow-Jones index. No, I
can’t.”
Tom sighed. “Sorry. Kids, if she says it,
she has a reason for saying it—so remember.”
“Here you go,” Carl said. “Your piece of time
is from ten forty-five to ten forty-seven on this next
Saturday morning. There aren’t any weekend openings
after that until sometime in July.”
“We’ll take this one,” Kit said. “At
least I can—Nita, will your folks let you go?”
She nodded. “I have some allowance saved up, and I’d
been thinking about going into the city to get my dad a birthday
present anyhow. I doubt there’ll be any trouble.”
Kit looked uncomfortable for a moment. “But there’s
something I’m sure about. My spell—our spell brought
Fred here. How are we going to him back where he
belongs?”
(Am I a problem?) Fred said, sounding concerned.
“Oh, no, no—it’s just that, Fred, this
isn’t your home, and it seemed as sooner or later you might
want to go back where you came from.”
“As far as that goes,” Tom said, “if
it’s your spell that brought him you’ll be able to send
him back. The instructions are in your book, same as the
instructions for opening the Grand Central worldgate.”
“Stick to those instructions,” Carl said.
“Don’t be tempted to improvise. That claudication is
the oldest one in New York, and it’s the trickiest because of
all the people using it all the time. One false syllable in a spell
and you may wind up in Schenectady.”
(Is that another world?) Fred asked.
“Nearly.” Carl laughed. “Is there anything
else we can do for you?”
Nita and Kit shook their heads and got up to leave, thanking Tom
and Carl and Picchu. “Let us know how things turn out,”
Tom said. “Not that we have any doubts—two wizards who
can produce a white hole on the first try are obviously doing all
right. But give us a call. We’re in the book.”
The two men saw Nita and Kit as far as the patio door, said
their goodbyes, and went back into the house. Nita started off
across the lawn the way she had come, but Kit paused for a moment
by the fishpool, staring down into it. He pulled a penny out of his
pocket, dropped it in.
Nita saw the ripples spread—and then suddenly another set
of ripples wavered away from the head of a very large goldfish,
which spat the penny back at Kit and eyed him with distaste.
“Do I throw money on your living-room floor?” it
said, and then dived out of sight.
Kit picked up his penny and went after Nita and Fred as they
pushed through the poplar hedge again. The blue Mercedes, which had
been half in the street and half on the sidewalk, was now neatly
parked by the curb. In front of it sat Annie, with her tongue
hanging out and a satisfied look on her face. There were teethmarks
deep in the car’s front fender, Annie grinned at them as Nita
and Kit passed, and then trotted off down the street, probably to
“find” something else.
“If my dog starts doing things like that,” Kit
muttered, “I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to
my mother.”
Nita looked down the street for signs of Joanne. “If we
can just get home without being killed, I wouldn’t care what
the dog found. Uh oh—” A good ways down the street,
four or five girls were heading toward them, and Nita saw
Joanne’s blond hair. “Kit, we’d better split up.
No reason for them to come after you too.”
“Right. Give me a call tonight. I’m in the
book . . . ” He took off down a side
street. She looked around, considering the best direction to run
in—and then thought of the book she was carrying. There
wasn’t much time, though. She forced herself to calm down
even while she knew they were coming for her, made herself turn the
pages slowly to the place Kit had shown her that morning, the spell
that made blows slide off. She read through it slowly in the
street, sounding out the syllables,
taking the time to look up the pronunciation of the ones she
wasn’t sure of, even though they were getting close and she
could hear Joanne’s laugh.
Nita sat down on the curb to wait for them. They let her have it
when they found her, as they had been intending to all day; and she
rolled around on the ground and fell back from their punches and
made what she hoped were horrible groaning noises. After a while
Joanne and her four friends turned away to leave, satisfied that
they had taught her a lesson. And Nita stood up and brushed herself
off, uncut, unbruised, just a little dirty.
“Joanne,” she called after them. In what looked
like amazement, Joanne turned around.
Nita laughed at her. “It won’t work any more,”
she said.
Joanne stood dumb,
“Never again” she said. She felt like turning her
back on them, but instead she walked toward them, watching the
confusion in their eyes. On a sudden urge, she jumped up in the air
and waved her arms crazily. “BOO!” she shouted.
They broke and ran, all of them. Joanne was the first, and then
the rest followed her in a ragged tail down Rose Avenue. Not a
word, not a taunt. They just ran.
Nita stopped short. The feeling of triumph that had been growing
in her withered almost instantly. Some victory, she thought. It
took so little, so little to scare them. Maybe I could have done
that at any time, without a shield. Maybe. And now I’ll never
know for sure.
(Are you all right?) Fred said quietly, bobbing again by her
shoulder. (They didn’t hurt you this time.)
“No,” Nita said slowly. She was thinking of all the
glorious plans she’d had to use her new-found wizardry
on Joanne and her bunch, to shame them, confuse them, hurt them.
And look what so small and inoffensive thing as a body shield had
done to them. They would hate her worse than ever now. I’ve got to be careful with this, she thought. I thought
it was going to be all fun.
“Come on, Fred,” she said, “let’s go
home.”