DIANE DUANE - A Wizard Alone

Let s

Nita s head jerked up, looking for the source of the word, and her hand went to her bracelet again. A second later she was holding thelinac weapon, ready to discharge.

I am on errantry, she thought, glancing around,and I greet you. Wherever you are 

Iamerrantry , the Silence said.

Nita held very still. There was something familiar about that voice  though it wasn t a voice as such.

Then she remembered her earlier thought.  The Silence told me about that,  the clown-Darryl had said to her.You are the manual , she thought.Darryl s version of it.

The Silence sang agreement.

Right, Nita said, lowering the weapon again.Sorry, you startled me. How can I hear you now  I couldn t before .

You are fully inside him now...because you have the heart .

Nita wondered about that phrasing, and then smiled. The heart of Darryl s universe: the kernel.Yes, I do , she said.Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with it .

He will know. He has full access now, as you ve discovered.

Nita nodded and watched the four figures walking among the trees for a few minutes  She was looking things over, assessing where the weak point in this scenario might be. That was how she saw something start to happen, something that initially scared her an encounter that she normally would have done anything to prevent. The Lone Power in Its dark majesty came striding down between the mirrored pillars, to Nita s eye looking very much like someone who s trying to act like he knows where he s going when he doesn t. TowardIt , ambling, unhurried, maybe even unseeing,came Kit andPonch . Nita sucked in her breath and lifted thelinac weapon into an aiming line, pointing it at the Lone One.

She watched with profound unease as Kit and the Lone Power got closer and closer to each other. They were no more than a few paces apart when the Lone One made a single sudden move.

It looked atItself in a mirror as It passed, and smiled faintly. And Kit walked right on byIt , unnoticing, unnoticed.

Nita had to just stand there for a few moments, calming herself down, nearly lost in admiration at the sheer power of the otherworld Darryl had created.It s like that fairy tale about the guy who does some magic creature a good turn , she thought,and as a reward it gives him a bag that nothing can get out of. The guy lives a bad life, and when the devil comes for him, he tricks it into the bag, and it s stuck there until he lets it out . But in this case, Darryl was in the bag, too and apparently thought this a reasonable price to pay to keep part of the Lone Power out of circulation for days or weeks or even years at a time.

Carl had been completely right.If that s not a saint , Nita thought, Idon t know what is .

I need to get them out of here, she said to the Silence.

You will have to break this paradigm, the Silence said.Break the mirrors. That will release them. But it will also release the Lone Power back intoIts full potency .

For just a breath of time, Nita weighed the pros and cons of the problem.KeepingIt stuck in here, even just a fragment of It, couldn t be a bad thing .

But keeping Kit here as well, andPonch  And Darryl

The price was much too high.Especially , Nita thought, putting aside her personal concerns for the moment,in Darryl's case .

Nita sighed.Besides , she thought,like in the fairy tale, the Powers That Be will make them let the devil out of the bag eventually. It s still one of the Powers, and part of the world. Keep the Lone Power in here forever andIt ll never be able to change 

Nita stuck thelinac weapon under her armpit and held it there against her side while she reached into her  pocket  again, found that tangle of light, and spent a few careful moments adjusting several of its properties. She altered the universe s time flow first, so it matched their home universe,then made a few additional changes that might come in handy later. When that was done, she put the kernel away and considered the maze of half-mirrored trees. It was vast, possibly even infinite, but Nita didn t let herself worry about that. All these mirrors, the Silence whispered to her, were clones of another one. At the center of the maze was the key to the secret, the way out.

We reshort on time here , Nita said silently.Tell me .

In her mind s eye, she saw it.

Nita grinned.

She unlimbered thelinac weapon again and started to make her way toward the spot she d been shown. If she d tried to search for it by sight, she might have passed it many times. But she closed her eyes again, so as not to be bewildered by the reflections, and found itthe way the Silence showed her by walking slowly, bumping into things sometimes, feeling her way. Once she bumped into a tall shape that burned her to be near. Out of reflex, she said,  Excuse me,  to the Lone Power, and slipped on past It toward the heart of the maze.

It should be near here, shouldn t it  Nita thought.

You re close. Keep going...

She walked now through the darkness behind her eyes, slowly, taking her time. A few minutes later Nita came to the place she d been looking for, and opened her eyes. They d been closed so long now that she had to blink a little in the light as she looked at the one mirror among however many uncounted millions in that place that had no reflection in it at all, not even of any other mirror. This one was a plain bathroom mirror about three feet by two, hanging on a taller mirror-pillar and held in a steel frame one that probably had a medicine cabinet behind it in the real world. Nita walked up to the rectangular mirror and waved at it, then jumped up and down in front of it. In the mirror, nothing showed at all.

That s the way it s supposed to be with vampires, Nita thought, intrigued. But, here, the mirrors themselves werevampiric , sucking up fragments of personality, snatches of conversation, the glances of eyes, leaving the originals devoid of words and glances afterward. Nita once more shook her head in admiration. Darryl had done a fantastic job constructing this trap. Even the Lone One, once inside this universe that so perfectly mirrored Darryl s autism, was vulnerable to it, slowly losing moments ofIts vast existence, being worn down.

Okay, Nita thought.Here we go . The one thing she made certain of was that her other weapons were all ready to use as soon as she was finished with thelinac . I'llonly get one shot with this , she thought.If it s a good one, all I have to worry about is what s handy to use next, when all hell breaks loose 

Nita glanced around her to make sure no one was about to come wandering through one of the many openings of the maze that led into this central area. Then she lifted thelinac weapon again, narrowed her eyes, took careful aim at the bathroom mirror, and fired.

The blast of energy that came out of thelinac weapon didn t radiate in the visible spectrum, but the air in its path did, ionizing and spitting bluelightnings where the particle beam passed. The mirror leaped and split into thousands of fragments as the blast hit it, and the fragments in turn went white-hot and vaporized in the air

 and as they did, every other mirror in that world shattered.

The noise was deafening, terrifying. Tons ofrazory glass exploded into millions of pieces and came raining down on the glassy floor. The fragments vanished as they hit it, as if falling into water. Moments later there was nothing remaining inside that whole space but five figures, standing on a dark floor and looking around in various degrees of surprise.

Nita stood there and chucked away thelinac weapon, which vanished as soon as she let go of it, its wizardry now spent. She walked over to Kit andPonch while reaching to her charm bracelet and activating one of the charms.

Ponchwas shaking himself allover, as if he were wet He turned and saw Nita, and began wagging his tail so furiously that it was mostly wagging him. He jumped up and put his forepaws all over her and started jumping up so that he could lick her face.

 Yeah, yeah, big guy, how you doing   Nita said, sort of holding him by the ears and scratching them at the same time, in a mostly futile effort to keep his tongue out of her nose.  Kit  Give me a hand with this guy, will you 

Kit was standing there, blinking at her, looking completely astonished.  What are you doing in here   he said. Then he paused.  Come to think of it, what am I doing in here  I was home  I was lying down 

The energy bolt came at them from behind.

And it splashed.

Nita looked over her shoulder at the Lone Power and couldn t restrain a grin. The alterations she d made in the kernel had worked. And Kit was all right. Now she had backup and she felt howgood it was to have that again, after she d been alone.Now then !she thought.

 Well, I guess if you re going to omit the formalities, so will I,  Nita said, turning to face the Lone One.  I have to say, I would have expected a slightly higher level of function from you. But you ve been running on half-speed ever since you got in here, poor baby. Take a few moments and try to pull your brains back together. We ll wait.

The Lone Power s expression set cold, as Nita had known it would; there are few things the Eldest hates more than being made fun of.

 Your insolence,  It said,  is going to be short-lived.

 Compared to the age of the universe, yeah, I guess so,  Nita said.  But I think we re going to walk out of here today, becauseyou miscalculated. You never considered what might happen if Darryl ever realized that the door swings both ways. Or that the door can be locked. Ever since he took the Oath, ever since you decided to stop him from being a wizard, he s been keeping you stuck in here with him on purpose! He s been getting better and better at it all thetime, and you never even suspected, because you thought you were in control. But this is his masterwork, no matter what I did to the fun-house mirrors, which were just a local feature. And you restill sealed in here until he lets you go.

The Lone Power looked at Darryl.

Nita looked over at him, too.  Darryl   she said.  You okay 

 Yeah,  he said, though he sounded somewhat surprised.  I didn t know anyone else would be able to see what was happening.

 The Lone Power couldn t,  Kit said.  You built this place in such a way thatIt wouldn t be able to tell what was happening. But you weren t expectingus inside your worldview. You left a loophole.

 And once we got in though we came and went  our points of view stayed behind, at least a little,  Nitasaid to the Lone Power.  While only you were in here, Darryl believed what you believed about this space, and about his Ordeal 

Darryl had walked over toward Nita and Kit while Nita was speaking  and the smile growing on his face now was rapidly becoming a match for Nita s: angry, but still very amused.  I may be autistic,  Darryl said to the Lone One, grim,  but I m not stupid. You ve invested a lot of energy in your little cat-and-mouse game. Well, I can play this game, too. Maybe I ll just amuse myself playing withyou for the rest of my natural life. It s sure been fun so far!

The Lone One s expression was indescribable. Nita felt like laughing out loud, but this would have been the wrong moment.

 You cannot,  It said after a moment.  Now that I am alerted to this game of yours, it will never work again, even if I did allow you to escape with either life or soul intact.  It raisedIts hands, clenched Its fists

And nothing happened.

Nita smiled gently, and from her pocket, she pulled out the kernel to Darryl s internal universe.

The Lone One looked at it in sudden furious surprise.

 You really are runningslow today,  Nita said.  Youtaught me how to deal with these things when you were inside my old  friend Pralaya .How to find them how to manage them. Of course, you were doing it for your own reasons. Maybe it didn t occur to you that I was going to walk away after the dirty deal you offered me! Or that I was going to survive the consequences. Well, I did and I remember everything you showed me, very well.  She smiled.  Now I  excuse me,we  just have to decide what else to do with this besides making you temporarily powerless.

Nita stood there with the universe s kernel, the heart of the world, in her hand, juggling it like someone juggling a grenade with the pin pulled.  Make your stay here permanent, maybe   she said, glancing over at Darryl. By just wiping the whole place out 

 You wouldn t dare,  the Lone One said.

 I d dare a whole lot at the moment, so don t push me!  Nita said.  Doesn t it strike you as likely that I d have just awhole lot of fun killing you off  Oh, sure, it wouldn t be thewhole you. Here you re just a fragment of your greater self; I know that. And I d die, too. And so would Kit, and Darryl. But the power that the One has invested in Darryl won t be lost.

 That power is lostnow! Boy  the Lone Power turnedIts baleful gaze on Darryl  you are one of the 

ThenIts face suddenly went white, as if a whole universe had suddenly taken It by the throat and squeezed.

 You re not going to be able to discuss certain subjects,  Nita said,  so don t bother. Now, I think we were discussing what happens when we blow up this universe with you inside it. The damage done toyou by the total destruction of even just this fragment of you  well.

She smiled.

The Lone One trained that deadly look on Nita now.  If you did such a thing,  the Lone Power said,  your father and sister would 

 Spare me,  Nita said. Her eyes narrowed.  Life hasn t been so wonderful for me lately that I need to clingto it for my own sake. And if I went out taking you down, my dad andDairine would grieve, yeah, but they d applaud, too  because they d find out soon enough that what I did lessened your clout in this part of the solar system.  Nita grinned.  You ve underestimated me one time too many. Someone needs to teach you thatthis kind of behavior isn t going to get you anywhere. I think today we re the ones to do it.

She turned as the Lone One lunged at her and tossed the kernel to Kit. He fielded it expertly.

 Nice little universe you ve got here,  Kit said, tossing it up in front of him, and thenHacky Sacking it into the air a few more times, from his knee and elbow, and once from his head, while the Lone Power came toward him, a look of furious uncertainty on Its face.  It d be a shame if something happened to it. Whoa!

He flipped the kernel to Darryl. Darryl caught it, looked it over, and tossed it lightly in one hand. The kernel, which had been glowing only softly while Nita and Kit had been holding it, now blazed like a star in the possession of its rightful master and creator.

 I ve learned a lot from listening to the Silence for the past few months,  Darryl said.  Aboutwizardry, and a lot of other things. But that hasn t changed the fact that I haven t lived long enough to be really attached to life. Maybe this is the other thing that makes wizards so powerful when they re young. It s not that we don t know about death. It s not that we don t believe in it. It s that we re still able to let life go, if the price is right.

He looked at the other two, looked in their eyes.