DIANE DUANE - A Wizard Alone

Some weird dreams, Nita said.

Scary

Not the one this morning.I felt more useless than anything else. Nita wasn t going to go too far into the specifics.

Goes along with the rest of the symptoms at this point, Mr.Millman said. The loss of appetite, the sleep troubles, and the mood swings

Depression, Nita said.

Mr.Millman nodded. That feeling of weight, he said. Or of being weighted down of feeling like yourface ll crack if you smile.

I wish I could make it go away, Nita said.

Fighting it probably won t make it go away faster.May prolong it, in fact. Let it be there, and do your best to work around it, or through it, and do what you usually do. Work on things you would normally enjoy. Mr.Millman leaned back in the chair and stretched. I would sayplay , but no one wants to hear that word at a time like this: It makes them feel guilty, even if it s what they need. If you have projects you work on, hobbies, keep them alive. You ll be glad you did, later the work you do at a time like this is likely to be worth keeping. You do have hobbies

Astronomy, Nita said. Gardening I help my dad. And then she added, Magic.

And instantly panicked.Now why did I say that

Millmanraised his eyebrows.

Oh, god, no. What have I done ! Nita thought.I'mgonna have to wash his brains now! And that s a badthing to do to your shrink

Ah, legerdemain, Millman said. An interesting field. Not enough women in it. Some kind of gender bar there; don t ask me why all the famous magicians have been men. Anyway, it has to be good for your hand-eye coordination. Show me some card tricks, someday. He looked at his watch. Not now, though someone else will be here shortly.

Thanks, Mr. M., Nita said, and escaped from his office as quickly as she could, wondering if, despite all Mr.Millman s casual reassurances, she was actually going crazy.

Kit had spent most of the previous day recovering from the exertions of followingPonch into the other-world where they d found Darryl. It wasn t as if he d actually done so much wizardry himself, but it seemed to Kit thatPonch drew on his own power somewhat.And then there s the leash , Kit thought, as he headed into the kitchen to snatch a hurried breakfast. He d overslept, partly in reaction to maintaining the leash-wizardry and the shield-spell, partly just because of physical tiredness from toiling up and down all those dunes. His calf muscles certainly ached badly enough. But just as wearying, intheir own way, were the events he d seen taking place.

And also tiring, in a different way, was the amount of time he d had to spend comfortingPonch afterward. The dog had seemed all right when they first got back, and had gone through the promised dog biscuits as if he hadn t eaten anything for days. But as the afternoon passed,Ponch started to look unhappy. And just after dinner, when Kit was helping his mama clear the table, they were both startled by a sound coming from outside.Ponch was howling.

Kit s mama gave him a peculiar look. What s the matter with him she said. Did the fire siren go off or something I didn t hear it.

Kit shook his head. I ll go find out, he said.

By the gate to the backyard, near the garage,Ponch was sitting in the grass of the yard, howling as if rehearsing for a part inThe Call of the Wild . Kit opened the gate. Ponch! What is it You want to come in

No.Ponch kept on howling.

Kit was mystified. He went to sit down by his dog,who ignored him and howled on. What s the matter Kit said in the Speech, after a few moments more.

Ponchfinished that howl and sat looking at the ground for a moment.How couldIt do that to him Ponch said then.Hecouldn t even do anything! And he was good.

Kit blinked at that. It s the Lone Power, he said. Unfortunately,It seems to like to hurt people and to like to see them hurting. Which is why we keep running intoIt , since it s our job to stop It from doing that whenever we can.

It s not fair,Ponch said. And he put his head up and howled again.

Down the street, Kit could hear one of the neighbors dogs start howling, too, in a little falsetto voice that would have made him laugh if he wasn t rather concerned aboutPonch . Soon every dog in the street was howling, and shortly there were some human shouts to go along with the noise: cries of Shut up! Would you please shut your dog up and Oh yeah, well, you shutyours up!

Kit had no idea what to make of it all, and couldn t think of anything to do but sit withPonch . Eventually the dog stopped howling, and one after another, slowly, the other dogs in the neighborhood got quiet.Ponch got up, shook himself, and walked out the still-open gate into the driveway. He made his way to the back door, waited for Kit to open it, and then went in and trotted up the stairs to Kit s bedroom.

Kit s mother had looked at him curiously as he came back in and closed the door. What was that about

Ponchwas upset about what we were doing this morning, Kit had said. I d try to explain it to you, but I m not sure I understand it myself.

Now, the next morning, as he went looking for his cereal bowl, he wasn t any closer to an answer.Ponch had been asleep when Kit had gotten up to his room, and he was sleeping still. I lltalk to him about it later , he thought, opening the cupboard over the counter.

There were no cornflakes. There was one box of his pop s shredded wheat, which Kit detested whenever circumstances forced him to eat it, it always made him think he was eating a scrubbing pad. The only other box contained one of the cereals his sister liked, some kind of frosted, fruit-flavored, multicolored, marshmallow-infested,hyperpuffed , vitamin-reinforced starch construct, which was utterly inedible due to its being ninety-eight percent sugar even though the word appeared on the box only once, in letters small enough for anyone without a magnifying glass to miss. Mama, Kit said, aggrieved, we re out of cereal!

Your kind, anyway.I know, his mother said, coming into the kitchen for another cup of coffee, with the TV remote in her hand. Take it up with your pop: He had a fit of wanting cornflakes late last night, and he finished the box. He said he d get some more on his way home from work. Have some toast.

It s not the same, Kit muttered, but all the same he closed the cupboard and went to get the bread out of the fridge.

IsPonch all right now his mother said as she poured more coffee and reached past Kit into the fridge for the milk.

I think so.Still sleeping, anyway.

His mama shook her head, and then smiled slightly. All that noise last night it reminded me. Is it just me, or has down-the-street s dog been louder than usual the past week or so

You meanTinkerbell That was not the dog s real name in the dogs own language,Cyene , and possibly reason enough for the down-the-street dog s incessant barking. Idunno , Mama. I m so used to hearing him bark all the time, I don t notice anymore.

Do you think you could talk to him, sweetie You know. She wiggled her fingers in what she imagined was a vaguely wizardly gesture.

Kit raised his eyebrows while he put the bread in the toaster. I can try. But, Mama, just because I talk to him doesn t necessarily mean he s going to listen. The dog s a head case. He thinks I m a crook. But then hethinks everybody who doesn t live in his house is a crook.

Dogs get like their owners, they say

Huh

Nothing, sweetie, his mother said, looking suddenly guilty.

Kit kept the smile off his face while he waited for the toast to come up. It was going to be fun to bemiddle-aged, someday, and be told the things his mother wasreally thinking, with no more need for the kid-filter that parents routinely seemed to self-install.

What about the youngster whose head you were going to get into his mother said. Were you able to talk to him

Kit shook his head. He was real busy, Kit said. Ponchand I are going to have to try again, when things are quieter. If they getany quieter , he thought.And what if they don t

Then something else occurred to him. Mom, you have any more trouble with the TV

What She looked at Kit as if she couldn t understand what he was talking about, and then blinked. Oh. No, it s been all right.

Good, Kit said, and started buttering the toast.

Except now that you mention it

Kit braced himself.

Your dad told me you weren t joking. About the cooking shows

Kit sat down with his toast and tried desperately not to look as if he was about to have a panic attack. Yeah.

His mother sat down across from Kit, looking thoughtfully at her coffee cup. Honey, none of these peoplehave ever tried to eatyou , have they

Aliens No. That, at least, was the truth. They might havethought about it, though. But so far it s not a crime to think about it. At least, not most places.

His mother s expression relaxed a little. No, I guess

I can see where it might not be. I just worry about you, that s all.

Kit finished one piece of toast. Mama, in one way it s like crossing the street. You know you have to watch out for traffic. So you look both ways before you cross. In some parts of the universe, you know that the locals think of you as a potential snack food, and you re just careful when you visit them not to act like a snack. But mostly Kit grinned wizards are nobody s snack. Dealing with those species mostly isn t any more dangerous than crossing the street. Also, some of them owe us.

His mama looked surprised. What, humans No, wizards. Kit took a bite of the next piece of toast. One of those species, the He paused; he wasn t used to saying their name except in the Speech, since their own word for themselves was hard to say. Let s call them theSpinies , because they ve got a lot of spines. They had a problem a while back: Their sun was going to go nova. One of us went in there and kept that from happening. It s not like they don t have their own wizards they do. But a wizard from another species was passing through, caught the problem before any of them did, and fixed it. He shook his head. The story ranked as a hero-tale even among wizards, who, because of their line of work, were more or less used to saving the world, or worlds. It was real time-critical stuff. The one who saved them came from one of the species that they normally would have thought of as food: humanoid, like us. The wizardry was a bigone, complex messing with the carbon cycle inside a star isn t for beginners. Doing the wizardry killed her. And the word got out. Now all theSpinies have something else to think about. Be nice to your food; it might save your life.

Kit worked on the second piece of toast while his mother thought about that.

She was how old his mother said suddenly.

Kit had been hoping this wouldn t come up. If you did it in human years, he said, she d have been about my age.

His mother s gaze rested on him as if a suspicion had been confirmed. Doesthis kind of thing happen often she said.

It was so tempting to lie but no temptation was more fatal for a wizard. Every day, Mama, Kit said. There aren t enough of us to do the job. Probably there never will be. Lots of us die of old age, in our beds. But some of us

His mother looked at him, and her expression changed. It became less confused, but the look that replaced it troubled Kit more, for reasons he couldn t understand. I don t know why this surprises me, she says. I m a nurse, after all. It looks like we re both in a service profession. I just keep thinking you should have been offered a choice when you were old enough to understand what you were choosing.

I was, Kit said. He pushed the plate away. You told me you decided to be a nurse when you were eight.

His mama s expression turned first shocked,then annoyed: the look of someone who doesn t expect to have her own revelations turned against her. Yes, but