Wizards At War

On the other side of Roshaun, her arms folded, eyes narrowed in annoyance, Dairine was saying, “He’s never done this before. How am I supposed to depend on Spot if he can’t even remember things from one moment to the next? He’s my version of the manual! What if this memory loss thing starts extending to his reference functions? The little spells I can keep in my head, sure, but how’m I supposed to do wizardry if he can’t feed me the complicated ones?” She let out a long breath. “I’m going to ask Spot’s people to check him out. If they can figure out what’s going on with him…”

Roshaun took the lollipop out and examined it. It was a red-and-white-striped one. “Everything is changing,” he said. “We are all going to have to learn new ways to be wizards, I think, if we are to bring our worlds safely through this.” He glanced at Nita’s manual. “Some of us have already started work, it seems.”

“It’s going to take me a while just to get used to how much it weighs now,” Nita said, hefting the manual. She glanced around. “Sker’ret went out. He seem okay to you?”

“He was fine.”

“Where’s Filif?”

“He might have gone through his gate downstairs,” Dairine said. “Where are you headed?”

“Gotta make a call,” Nita said, and went up the steps.

Inside the back door she paused and looked down the basement steps. “Filif?” she called.

No answer. Nita raised her eyebrows and went down the wooden stairs, reaching up for the string that hung down from the bulb at the stairs’ bottom. The basement was unfinished—some painted metal posts supporting the joists of the upstairs floor, a concrete floor underfoot, mostly covered with many cardboard and wooden boxes containing old books, kitchenware and magazines, and much other junk: off to the left, the oil burner and various yard tools; off to the right, an ancient busted chest freezer; more boxes, and the washing machine and dryer. Cellar windows high in the cinderblock walls let in a little daylight, except for three yard-wide circular spots on the wall at the back of the house. In those, complete darkness reigned, the visual effect of worldgates in standby mode: two of them Filif’s and Sker’ret’s original ones, and the third a replacement for Roshaun’s, which had become nonfunctional after being stuck into the core of the Sun.

From behind her came a faint clattering noise. Nita glanced that way and saw that Sker’ret was pouring himself down the stairs. “Hey,” she said, “have you seen Filif?”

“He said he was going to the Crossings to have a look around, while he still had free time,” Sker’ret said. “I’ll be meeting him. Do you need him, Senior?”

“Oh, please, don’t you start,” Nita said. “Look at this thing!” She showed him her manual.

He pointed several eyes at it. “It looks like the inside of my head feels at the moment,” Sker’ret said. “I wish my people got our wizardry like that. It looks so much more manageable.”

“Yeah, well, I wish my people didn’t have to keep it a secret,” Nita said. “Like yours don’t.”

Sker’ret chuckled at her. “We’ve all got our little problems.”

“The question is how much longer we’re gonna have them,” Nita said. “Years and years, I hope. How long will you be?”

“Not long.”

“Good. And listen—I meant to ask you earlier.” Then she stopped herself. Maybe this is too nosy … No, we have to start keeping an eye on each other; we may be getting into some dangerous places soon. “Sker’ret,” she said, “if you don’t want to go back to your own people for some reason… no matter what happens in the next few weeks… stay with us. We’re glad to have you here.”

Sker’ret held all his eyes still, the only time since she’d come home from the holidays that Nita could remember seeing him do that. “Thank you,” Sker’ret said. “Seriously, I thank you. I’ll be back in a while.”

And he poured himself through his own worldgate at some speed, vanishing into the darkness of the interface segment after segment, until nothing was left.

Oh, God, did I insult him somehow? I hope not. But now for my own problems…

Nita went up the cellar stairs and into the kitchen. Outside in the driveway she could still hear Dairine’s and Roshaun’s voices raised, and then Carmela’s laughter. Nita shook her head, amused. Dairine and Roshaun, she thought. I don’t get it. They’re too much alike: he ought to drive her nuts. In fact, it sounds like he is driving her nuts … But maybe that’s it, Nita thought, picking up the wireless phone from its cradle. Maybe she likes the challenge. Looks like she’s picked herself a big one.