DIANE DUANE - A Wizard Alone

From the back door at the far side of the kitchen came a scratching noise: his dog letting the world know he wanted to come back in. The scratching stopped as the door opened. Kit turned to his pop,who had just come into the dining room again, and handed him the remote. I think it s fixed now, he said. Just do this from now on: Instead of using this button to bring the system up, the one the manual tells you to, press this, and then this. He showed his pop how to do it.

Okay.But why

They may not remember the little talking-to I just gave them it depends on how the system resets when you turn it off. This should remind them I hardwired it in.

What was the problem

Something cultural.

Between the remote and the DVD player !But they re both Japanese.

Looks like it s more complicated than that. There seemed to be no point in suggesting to his pop that the universal remote and the DVD were both unsatisfied with their active or passive modes. Apparently doing what you had been built to do was a prospect no more popular among machines than it was among living things. Everything had its own ideas about what it really should be doing in the world, and the more memory you installed in the hardware, the more ideas it seemed to get.

Kit realized how thirsty all this talking to machinery had made him. He went to the fridge and rummaged around to see if there was some of his mom s iced tea in there. There wasn t, only a can of the lemon soft drink that Nita particularly liked and that his mom kept for her.

The sight of it made Kit briefly uncomfortable. But neither wizardry nor friendship was exclusively about comfort. He took the lemon fizz out, popped the can s top, and took a long swig.Neets he said silently.

Yeah, she said in his mind.

There wasn t much enthusiasm there, but there hadn t been much enthusiasm in her about anything for some weeks. At least it wasn t as bad for her now as it had been right after her mother s funeral. But clearly Kit wondered whether the bitter pain she d been in then was, in its way, healthier than her current gray, dull tone of mind, like an overcast that showed no signs of lifting. Then he immediately felt guilty for even being tempted to play psychiatrist. She had a right to grieve at whatever speed was right for her.

Busy today

Not really.

Kit waited. Normally Nita would now come forth with at least some explanation of what not really involved. But she wasn t anything like normal right now, and no explanation came just that sense of weariness, the same tiredwhy-bother feeling that kept rearing up at the back of Kit s mind. Whether he was catching it directly from her via their private channels of communication, or whether it was something of his own, he wasn t sure. It wasn t as ifhe didn t miss Nita s mother, too.

I finished fixing the TV, Kit said, determined to keep the conversation going, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. Someone around here had to try to keep at least the appearance of normalcy going.Now I m bored again and I want to stay that way for a while.Wanna go to the moon

There was a pause.No , Nita said.Thanks. I just don t feel up to it today . And there it was, the sudden hot feeling of eyes filling with tears, without warning; and Nita frowning, clenching her eyes shut, rather helplessly, unable to stop it, determined to stop it.You go ahead. Thanks, though .

She turned away in thought, breaking off the silent communication between them. Kit found that he, too, was scowling against the pain, and he let out a long breath of aggravation at his own helplessness.Why is it so embarrassing to be sad he thought, annoyed.And not just for me . Nita s overwhelming pain embarrassed her as badly as it did him, so Kit had to be careful not to notice it. Yet there wasn t anything he seemed able to do for her at the moment. He felt like an idiot unable to think of anything useful to say, and just as idiotic when he was tempted to keep saying the same things over and over: It ll pass, You ll come out of it eventually. They all sounded heartless and stupid.And besides, how quick would Icome out of it if it were mymama who died

Kit let out a long breath. There was nothing to do but keep letting Nita know that he was there, one day at a time. So he d taken care of today s responsibility.

The phone rang, mercifully relieving Kit of his guilt for thinking that doing the right thing for his best friend was some kind of awful burden.

Igotitlgotitlgotit! Carmelashrieked from upstairs. HolaMiguelque A pause. Oh. Sorry.Kit!.

What

TomdsEljefe.

Oh. Kit went to the extension phone in the kitchen. His mother, deep in the business ofdeboning a chicken, glanced at him as he passed and said nothing, but her smile had a little edge of ruefulness about it. She was still getting her head around the concept that a man she routinely saw at hospital fund-raisers, a successful writer for commercial television and a pillar of the community, was also one of twoSenior wizards for theNew York metropolitan area.Ponch , Kit s big black Labrador-cum-Border-collie-cum-whatever, was now lying on the floor with his head down on his paws, carefully watching every move Kit s mother made that had anything to do with the chicken. As Kit stepped over him, the dog spared him no more than an upward glance,then turned his attention straight back to the food.

Kit smiled slightly and picked up the phone. His sister was saying, And so then I told him Oh,finally . Kit, don t hog the line; I m expecting a call. Why can t you two just do the magic telepathy thing like you do with Nita It d be cheaper!

Vamos, Kit said, trying not to sound too severe.

Bye, sweetie, Tom Swale said on the other end.

Bye-bye, Mr. Tom, Carmela said, and hung up the upstairs phone.

Kit grinned. Magic telepathy, he said. Like she cares that much about the phone bill.

Tom laughed. Explaining the differences of communications between you and me and you and Nita might make more trouble than it s worth, he said. Better let her get away with it just this once. Am I interrupting anything

I just finished dealing with a hardware conflict, Kit said, but it s handled now, I think. What s up

I wouldn t mind a consultation, if you have the time.

He wants a consultation fromme That s a new one . Sure, Kit said. No problem. I'll be right over.

Thanks.

Kit hung up, and saw the look his mother was giving him. When s it going to be ready, Mama he said. I won t be late.Not too late, anyway.

About six.It doesn t matter if you re a little late It ll keep. She gave him a warning look. You re not going anywhere sudden, are you This had become her code phrase for Kit leaving on wizardly business.

Nope, Kit said. Tom just needs some advice, it looks like.

His father wandered back into the kitchen. The TV working okay now Kit said.

Working his pop said. Well, yeah. But possibly not the way the manufacturer intended.

Kit looked at his pop, uncomprehending. His father went back into the living room. Kit followed.

Where the TV normally would have shown a channel number, the screen was now displaying the number 0000566478. The picture seemed to be of a piece of furniture that looked rather like a set of chrome parallel bars. From the bars hung a creature with quite a few tentacles and manystalky eyes, which werenot in the usual places. The creature was talking fast and loud in a voice like a fire engine s siren, while waving around a large, shiny object that might have been an eggbeater, except that, in Kit s experience, eggbeaters didn t usually have pulse lasers built into them. Characters flashed on the screen, both in the Speech and in other languages. Kit stood and looked at this with complete astonishment. His father, next to him, was doing the same.

You didn t hack into that new pay-per-view system, did you his father said. I don t want the cops in here.

No way, Kit said, picking up the remote and looking at it accusingly. The remote sat there in his hand as undemonstratively as any genuinely inanimate object might except that Kit was less certain than ever that there reallywere any such things as inanimate objects.

He shook the remote to see if anything rattled. Nothing did. I told you to behave, he said in the Speech.

But not likewhat the remote said in a sanctimonious tone.

His father was still watching the creature on the parallel bars, which pointed the laser eggbeater at what looked like a nearby abstract sculpture. This vanished in a flare of actinic green light, leaving Kit uneasily wondering what kind of sculpture screamed. Nice special effects, Kit s father said, though he sounded a little dubious. Almost too realistic.

It s not special effects,Pop , Kit said. It s some other planet s cable. He hit the reveal control on the remote, but nothing was revealed except, at the bottom of the screen, many more strings of characters flashing on and off in various colors. Shoppingchannel, looks like. Kit handed the remote back to his father.

This is ashopping channel his pop said.

Kit headed for the coat hooks by the kitchen door and pulled his parka off one of them. Popi, I ve got to get to Tom s. I ll be back pretty soon. It s all right to look at it, but if any phone numbers that you can read appear do me a big favor, okay Don t order anything !

Kit opened the back door.Ponch threw one last longing look at what Kit s mama was doing with the chicken,then threw himself past Kit, hitting the screen door with abang !and flying out into the driveway.

Kit followed him. At the driveway s end, he paused, looking up briefly. It was almost dark already; the bare branches of the maples were showing black against an indigo sky. January was too new for any lengthening of days to be perceptible yet, and the shortness of the daylight hours was depressing. But at least the holidays were over. Kit could hardly remember a year when he d been less interested in them. For his own family s sake, he d done his best to act as if he was, but his heart hadn t been in the celebrations, or the presents. He hadn t been able to stop thinking about the one present Nita most desperately wanted, one that not even the Powers That Be could give her.

Kit sighed and looked down the street.Ponch was down there near curbside in the rapidly falling dark, saluting one of the neighbor s trees. Back this way, please he said, and waited untilPonch was finished and came galloping back up the street toward him.

Kit made his way into the backyard again, withPonch bouncing along beside him, wagging his tail. Where did the meaning of life thing come from all of a sudden Kit said.

I heard you ask about it,Ponch said.

The question had, indeed, come up once or twice recently in the course of business, around the timePonch started talking regularly. So Kit said, as they made their way past the beat-up birdbath into the tangle of sassafras at the back of the yard, where they were out of sight of the houses on either side. Come to any conclusions

Just that your mama s easy to shake down for dog biscuits.

Kit grinned. You didn t need to start talking to her to find that out, he said. He reached into his pocket, felt around for the zipper in it that facilitated access to the alternate space where he kept some of his spells ready, and pulled one out a long chain of strung-together words in the Speech thatglowed a very faint blue in the swiftly falling darkness. I d keep it in the family, though, Kit said toPonch . Don t start asking strangers complicated philosophical questions It ll confuse them.

It may be too late,Ponch said.

Kit wondered what that was supposed to mean, then shrugged. He dropped the spell-chain to the ground around them in a circle. The transit wizardry knotted itself together at the ends in the figure-eight wizard s knot, and from it a brief shimmering curtain of light went up and blanked the night away as displaced air wentthump !and Kit s ears popped. A moment later he andPonch were standing together in Tom s backyard, behind the high privet hedge blocking the view from Tom s neighbors houses. Across the patio, lights were on in the house, and banging noises were coming from the kitchen.