Wizards At War

Nita swallowed. “Us, too,” she said. “I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say, I guess. I’m sorry all this is happening this way.”

“It’s hardly your fault,” her dad said after a moment. “And I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’m sorry, too. But I’m really relieved to hear from you.”

Nita had to admit that the relief was mutual. Her dad’s matter-of-fact groundedness was one of the things she’d come to count on to help keep her on course when everything else in her life seemed to be going to pieces. “Look,” Nita said, “I’ll call as often as I can. But we may get to places where it won’t be safe to do that. When that happens…”

There was a silence at the other end. I wish I could see his face, Nita thought, feeling a little nervous. “I’ll try to give you advance warning,” she said. “But I may not be able to. When we get where we’re going, we may have to operate undercover for a while.” She swallowed. “And if wizardry starts acting up, too, the phone connection might just stop working until we fix what’s broken.” Until. Just keep thinking “until.”

“You’re telling me that I’m just going to have to tough this one out,” her dad said.

“We all are, Daddy.”

He sighed. “Well, if that’s all we can do, I guess we may as well get on with it,” her dad said. “Speaking of ‘all’: have you heard anything from Dairine? I haven’t heard from her, either.”

“Nothing so far,” Nita said.

“Okay. Well, if you do, tell her to get in touch.”

“I will.”

“I know that tone of voice,” her dad said, with a sigh. “You’ve got something to do. Go do it, sweetie.”

“Okay, Daddy. Love you.”

“Love you, too, kidlet. Go kick old What’s-Its-Face around the block for me.” There, at least, was a flash of her dad’s normal humor.

“First thing on the list, Dad. Talk to you later.”

“Bye-bye.”

Nita hit the hang-up button and stared at the phone. Finally she shoved it into one of the vest’s many pockets, then reached sideways into her otherspace pocket and pulled out her manual. “You need to be a lot smaller,” she said.

Obediently the manual reduced itself to the size of a pocket notebook, and Nita shoved it in another of the vest’s pockets. As she did, she glanced down at the lightning-bolt charm on her bracelet, the slight glow around it showing that it was still undischarged. As she did so, she got a sudden flash of that image of intertwining light.

“You stopped me the second time, didn’t you,” Nita said.

Yes, the peridexis said. It sounded almost abashed. You were in transit between states of consciousness, and possibly unready to decide whether to destroy another wizard.

Nita laughed. “‘Possibly’? No kidding. Thanks.” Then she glanced sidewise, though she wasn’t quite sure what she was glancing at. “You’re not going to make a habit of that, are you?”

I have no such ability when you’re fully volitional, the peridexis said. And in transitional states, only as a fail-safe.

“Okay,” Nita said. She touched the bubble-charm that was shorthand for her personal air-handling spell; it came alive around her, and she stepped out the door and pulled the tab that collapsed the entry to the pup tent.

She was left holding nothing but the tab, like the pull of a zipper; she tucked it into her pocket. Kit ambled over to her, tucking his manual out of the way, while Ponch ran around with the wizardly leash flapping along behind him. Sker’ret wandered after him in a casual way, pausing every now and then to pick up a rock, turn it over in his front “handling” mandibles, and eat it.

“Did you talk to your dad?” Kit asked.

Nita nodded. “He sounded really messed up,” she said.

Kit gave her a sympathetic look. “He’s not the only one,” he said. “You should have heard my mama.”

“She go ballistic?”

“Suborbital at least.” Kit sighed. “But eventually she realized that it wasn’t just me being thoughtless … and there really wasn’t anything I could do.”

“Yeah.” Nita sighed. She glanced over at Filif, who stood off to one side with his branches lifted up, all the eye-berries looking up at the darkness. “We should get moving. The sooner we find what we’re looking for, the sooner we can get back home and sort out the parents. Where’d Ronan go?”

“He’s still there behind his hill,” Kit said.

“Okay,” Nita said. “You go collect Ponch and Sker’ret.” She went off in the direction of the little rise.

Filif was on her way. “You get some rooting done?” Nita said as she went by.

“A little,” he said, turning various berries toward her. “But it’s hard, without a star.”

“Tell me about it,” Nita said, grabbing a few of his fronds and tugging them affectionately. “Hang in there. We’ll get you out of here shortly.”

She went on around the rise. Ronan had just stood up and was stretching; he looked around and raised his eyebrows. “Are we ready?”