DIANE DUANE - A Wizard Alone

Justlook at all this, Kit said, gazing around him. Did Darryl s autism make this Or did he

Idon t know .

Kit shook his head. I ve seen an interior landscape or two in my time, he said, but this one Look how empty it is. He scanned the horizon. If this is the inside of Darryl s mind, then where is he

Maybe he s hiding

Kit thought about that, and about what his mother had said about the autistic people who found life simply too intense to bear. From himself, too Kit said.

I don t know. But heishere. Look !Ponch said. Kit looked wherePonch s nose pointed. Footsteps led down from the dune-crest, dug in deep where someone had had to dig his heels in to stop sliding, and then had kept on sliding anyway. Down at the bottom of the dune, in the space sheltered from the wind, the footsteps were better preserved, better defined. They reminded Kit of certain footsteps left in themoondust ofTranquillity Base, except that those were now being eroded by micrometeorites. These footsteps were still sharp, and they had a familiar sneaker company s logo scored across them, one that Armstrong s andAldrin s boot soles had definitely been missing.

Weird, Kit said softly. The footsteps led away across that blazing wilderness, up the next dune and into the unremitting day. Where s he going Kit said.

Away from the Other One,Ponch said.Can t you feelIt It s here, too. It s following him .Ponch scented the air.It s been following him for a long time .

Three months Kit said.

Ithink longer .

How can that be

Idon t know. ButIts scent is strong in Darryl s neighborhood. I ve smelled it often enough when It s been chasing after you .Ponch shook himself all over and this time it had nothing to do with feeling itchy; it was his version of a shudder.He flees Itpursues.Ponch s nose worked; he looked bemused.And not just here.

Then where

I m not sure. Come on.

The sand they slid down was more pink than golden. Kit looked at it and thought of the book that Darryl s teacher had been reading him. It had been open to a page about the pyramids.Something of the world s getting through to him , he thought.The question is, what s he making of it

The heat from the sun was oppressive. Kit pulled off his parka, rolled it up, and stuck it into hisotherspace pocket. Then he andPonch reached the bottom of the dune and started the climb up the side of the next one. We couldairwalk it Kit said.

He didn t,Ponch said.His trail s down here. We need to go the way he went, for now .

Kit nodded, put his head down to try to keep the wind-whipped sand out of his eyes, and went up the next dune inPonch s wake.That way ,Ponch said as he came up to the top of the dune.

Kit looked across the sand, followingPonch s gaze. Maybe eight or ten miles away, almost obscured by the height of the farther dunes and the haze of sand and dust in the air, a low line of jagged stone rose against the horizon. Are those hills Kit said.

Ithink so. He s there somewhere. Come on .

Ponchled, and Kit followed. Once or twice,Ponch was certain enough of the trail to let Kit use a transit spell to cover some distance, but more often he insisted on doing it on foot, so Kit simply had to slog after him, for the time being unwilling to use any spells to protect him from the wind and the sand, on the off chance that they would somehow interfere withPonch s tracking sense. The sand seemed to get into everything downKit s shirt and up his pants, into the bends of his knees and elbows. It rubbed him raw around the neck and even under his socks. Ican barely stand this , Kit thought as he toiled up yet another dune afterPonch .And if I can t, what s it doing to Darryl

Ponchreached the top of that dune and looked ahead of them. From here the low, jagged hills that had shown earlier near the horizon finally seemed within reach, no more than a few miles away. They looked taller than they had, harsher and more forbidding; they cast long, dark shadows at their feet, under that unforgiving sun, which hadn t moved in the sky the whole time they had been there. Kit glanced up toward it, then away. It s almost like this is a real place, he said softly.

It s real to him. And therefore it s real toWhat s chasing him

Kit shook his head at that. Tom s warning not to get caught up in Darryl s Ordeal had been straightforward enough. Yet was it going to be possible to stand to one side and let another wizard handle the Lone Power by himself And what ifIt doesn t want just to concentrate on him Kit thought.What am Isupposed to do ifIt decides to try to do something about me Just cut and run, just leave him there

I wishNeets were here. I could really use some backup.

Ponchstood panting in the heat, gazing down.That looks sort of like a building , he said.

Kit squinted. Down among the rock-tumble at the foot of the steep, jagged hills, there did seem to be something that looked built, and in it was a vertical, oblong darkness that could have been a gigantic door. Is that where he went Kit said.

Ithink so. Do you want to take us down there

Kit looked at the dark patch in the long ominous shadows thrown by the hills.Want to he thought.Wow, I can t wait . Nonetheless, he pulled out the transit spell. Let s go, he said.

A few moments later, they stood at the foot of the biggest cliff. Kit looked up at it, and up, andup, and hardly knew what to think. The whole side of the cliff was a dark red stone, carved, deeply, for at least three hundred feet up. The red stone must have been the source of the pink tint in all the sand they d been toiling through. Someone had carved the cliff into pillars and arches, galleries and balconies, reaching back into solid stone that looked as if it had been laboriously hollowed out, chip by chip, by truly obsessive artisans. Niches and pedestals were carved into the stone; in them and on them stood statues, of people and animals and creatures not native to Earth, some of them not native to any planet Kit knew. Some of the poses, some of the expressions, were very creepy, indeed; all the statues, human or not, were staring down at the space in front of the oblong opening with stony blind eyes staring at Kit as if, stone or not, they could still see. And it all looked brand-new, as if whatever or whoever had done this work might still be here, somewhere inside the gigantic gateway that loomed, dark and empty, in front of Kit andPonch right now.

It wasn t an idea that made Kit particularly happy.What a great place to have a cozy chat with Darryl about what s bothering him , Kit thought. Can you smell anybody else here he said toPonch . Besides us, and Darryl, and you-know-who

No.Ponch stood there with his nose working.But I m not sure that means that nobody else canbe here

I ve got to stop asking him questions when I know the answers are going to make me more nervous than I already am, Kit thought. In there he said, breaking his resolution immediately.

In there.

Let s go, then.

Ponchstalked forward into the darkness. The way he was walking made Kit almost feel like laughing a little, even through his nervousness; it was the wayPonch stalked squirrels out in the backyard: stealthy, a little stiff-legged.That s all we need in here , he thought as he followedPonch into the dimness.To be attacked by millions of evil squirrels .

As the darkness around them got deeper, Kit pushed that thought away as one it was probably smarter not to encourage. Can you see all right he said very softly toPonch .

Ican smell all right. Seeing doesn t matter so much .

Kit swallowed as the darkness got deeper.To you, maybe , he thought. He reached into his pocket, got out his manual, and riffled through it briefly for a spell that would produce a bit oflight, no more than a pocket flashlight would produce. After a few whispered sentences in the Speech, he pointed one finger to test it out. No light source showed, but a soft white light nonetheless fell on what he pointed his finger at in this case, another immense carving, set into the wall to their left. Kit took one look at it and immediately turned the light elsewhere, reminded much too clearly of the alien with the laser eggbeater. The carving could have been one of that alien s relatives in a very bad mood, and it seemed to be looking right at him not only with all its eyes, but also with all its teeth.

Kit shook his head and turned his attention elsewhere, using the wizardry flashlight to look around asPonch led him further into the hill. There was no dismissing this space as just a cave: It was a long hall, a vast corridor of a dwelling of some kind, as intricately carved inside as it had been outside as if thousands of creatures with a passion for strange statuary had been working here for centuries. Where the walls were lacking actual statues, they were wrought in weird but wonderful bas-reliefs, vividly colored, touched here and there with the glint of gold or the glassy sheen of gems. Kit moved past them in a mixture of nervousness and admiration, his light flicking past stern creatures with vast, spread wings; tall, rigid humanoid shapes with arms held in positions ungainly but still somehow expressive; strange beast shapes whose expressions were peculiarly more human than those of the man shapes that alternated with them. The place made Kit think of the set of some kind of adventure movie about exploring ancient tombs, but realized in a hundred times more detail every chisel mark accounted for, the backs of the statues as perfectly executed as theirfronts, everything sharp and clear, down to the last grain of sand or dust.

Who d have thought somebody autistic couldnoticethings this way , Kit thought. But then he shook his head at himself. He d hardly ever thought about autistic people except to feel vaguely sorry for them, and he d never given any thought to what they might or might not be able to do. That was changing now. Whatever else might be going on inside of Darryl, he couldsee things possibly more clearly than Kit had ever seen them, except under the most unusual circumstances. If that was any kind of hint to what Darryl s talents as a wizard might eventually become

Ponchstopped, and growled.

Kit stopped, too, looking around, a little more nervously now. It had occurred to him that one of the other things Darryl had managed to include in this space, if he had, indeed, created it for himself, was a sense of it being haunted. And only now, alerted byPonch s growl, did Kit start to see the dark shapes moving beyond where his little light could reach, beyond the statues, in the gloom through the archways that opened here and there off the great main hall. And Kit looked up, unsure whether he had heard wings flapping way up above them, under the soaring shadows of the unseen ceiling.

What are they he said silently toPonch .

Ponchsniffed, let out a long whoosh of breath, as if smelling something bad.Fears.

Kit frowned, seeing more of the dark shapes gathering in the path he andPonch had been taking toward the heart of the hill. Even when he tried to look straight at them, they stayed vague, like the things you see or half suspect you see out of the corner of your eye, the things that creep up on you from behind in the dark. Point the light at them, and they re gone, flitting to either side; but let the light slide away, and they gather there again, seen better by averted vision than straight on. The glint of eyes, of teeth, showed in the dark: the flailing, skittering motion of too many limbs

Ponchgrowled again. It shere.Ahead, to the right, then left again.In the center of it all.

From ahead, further into the hill, came a low rumble of thunder. The sound of it went right up to that unseen ceiling, echoing, and went right through the floor; Kit could feel it through his feet.