So You Want to Be a Wizard, New Millennium Edition (10 page)

Right.

“I can fix you,” Carl said. “Take about five minutes.” He got up and headed for the den again.

“What
is
the
Naming of Lights
?” Kit said to Tom. “We tried to get Fred to tell us last night, but it kept coming out in symbols that weren’t in our books.”

“Well, it’s a pretty advanced subject. A novice’s manual wouldn’t have much information on the
Naming of Lights
any more than the instruction manual for a rifle would have information on atomic bombs…” Tom took a drink. “It’s a book. At least that’s what it looks like when it’s in or near this Universe. The
Book of Night with Moon,
it’s called here, since in these parts you need moonlight to read it. It’s always been most carefully accounted for; the Senior wizards keep an eye on it. If it’s suddenly gone missing, we’ve got trouble…”

“Why?” Nita said

“Well, if you’ve gotten even this far in wizardry, you know how the wizards’ symbology, the Speech, affects the things you use it on. When you use it, you
define
what you’re speaking about. That’s why it’s dangerous to use the Speech carelessly. You can accidentally redefine something, or someone, change their nature.” He paused, took another drink of his mineral water. “The
Book of Night with Moon
is written in the Speech. In it, everything’s described.
Everything.
You, me, Fred, Carl…this house, this town, this world. This Universe and everything in it.”

Kit looked skeptical. “How could a book that big get lost?”

“Who said it was big? You’ll notice something about your manuals after a while,” Tom said. “They won’t get any bigger, but there’ll be more and more inside them as you learn more, or need to know more. Even in plain old math it’s true that the inside can be bigger than the outside; it’s definitely true in wizardry. So there’s no problem with the
Book of Night with Moon
having
everything
described in it. In fact, it’s one of the reasons we’re all here—the power of those descriptions helps keep everything that
is
in existence.” Tom looked worried. “And every now and then the Senior wizards have to go get the
Book
and read from it, to remind the worlds what they are, to preserve everything alive or inanimate.”

“Have
you
read from it?” Nita said, made uneasy by the disturbed look on Tom’s face.

Tom glanced at her in shock, then began to laugh. “Me? No! And I hope I never have to.”

“But if it’s a good
Book,
if it preserves things—” Kit said.

“Oh, it’s good, all right. It preserves, or lets things grow the way they want to. But reading it, being the vessel for all that power—I wouldn’t want to. Even good can be terribly dangerous.” Tom shook his head, sighed. “But this isn’t anything you two need to worry about. The Advisories and the Senior wizards will handle it.”

“You’re worried, though,” Kit said.

“Yes, well—” Tom took another drink. “A universe can go a long time without affirmation-by-reading. But the bright
Book
has an opposite number, a dark one; the
Book Which Is Not Named,
we call it. It’s written in the Speech too, but its descriptions are… skewed. And if the bright
Book
has somehow fallen out of the protection of the wizards who should be looking after it, the dark one gains potential power. If someone should read from that one now, while the
Book of Night with Moon
isn’t available to counteract the power of the dark one…” Tom shook his head.

Carl came in then, the macaw still riding his shoulder. “Here we go,” he said, and dumped several sticks of chalk, an enormous black claw, and a 1943 zinc penny on the table. Nita and Kit stared at each other, neither quite having the nerve to ask what the claw had belonged to. “Now you understand,” Carl said as he picked up the chalk and began to draw a circle around the table, “that this is only going to stop the hiccups. You three are going to have to go to Manhattan and hook Fred into the Grand Central worldgate to get that pen out. Don’t worry about being noticed. People use it all the time and no one’s the wiser.
I
use it sometimes when the trains are late.”

“Carl,” Tom said, “doesn’t it strike you as a little strange that the first wizardry these kids do produces Fred—who brings this news about the good
Book
—and they come straight to us—”

“Don’t be silly,” the macaw on Carl’s shoulder said in a scratchy voice. “
You
know there are no accidents.”

Nita and Kit stared.

“Wondered when you were going to say something useful,” Carl said, sounding bored. “You think we keep you for your looks? OW!” he added, as the bird bit him on the ear. He knocked it on the beak with one knuckle, and while it was still shaking its head in annoyance, he put the bird up on the table beside Tom.

Picchu sidled halfway up Tom’s arm, stopped and looked at Nita and Kit.
“Dos d’en agouni nikyn toude pheresthai,”
it muttered, and got all the way up on Tom’s shoulder, and then glared at them again. “Well?”

“Speaking in tongues again,” Tom said, sounding resigned. “Showoff. Ignore her, or rap her one if she bites you. We just keep her around because she tells the future.” Tom made as if to smack the bird again, and Picchu ducked back. “You want to show off? How about the stocks tomorrow, bird?” he said.

Picchu cleared her throat. “‘And that’s the way it is,’“ she said in a voice very much like that of a famous newscaster of many years before, “‘May 20
^th
, 2008. From New York, this is Walter—’“

Tom fisted the bird lightly in the beak,
clunk!
Picchu shook her head again.” ‘Issues were down in slow trading,’“ she said resentfully. “‘The Dow-Jones average—’“ and she rattled off some numbers. Tom grimaced.

“I should have gone into pork bellies,” he muttered. “I ought to warn you two: If you have pets, look out. Practicing wizardry around them can cause some changes.”

“There we go,” Carl said, and stood up straight. “Fred, you ready? Hiccup for me again.”

I can’t,
Fred said, sounding nervous.
You’re all staring.

“Never mind, I can start this in the meantime.” Carl leaned over the table, glanced down at one of the books, and began reading in the Speech, a quick flow of syllables sharpened by his Brooklyn accent. In the middle of the third sentence Fred hiccuped, and without warning the wizardry took. Time didn’t precisely stop, but it held still, and Nita became aware of what Carl’s wizardry was doing to Fred, or rather had done already—subtly untangling forces that were knotted tight together. The half-finished hiccup and the wizardry came loose at the same time, leaving Fred looking bright and well for the first time since that morning. He still radiated uncertainty, though, like a person who isn’t sure he’s stopped hiccuping yet.

“You’ll be all right,” Carl said, scuffing away the chalk marks on the floor. “Though as I said, that pen is still in there with the rest of your mass, at the other end of your claudication, and you’ll need Grand Central to get it out.”

Have you stopped my emissions entirely?
Fred said.

“No, of course not. I couldn’t do that: you’ll still emit from time to time. Mostly what you’re used to, though. Radiation and such.”

“Grand Central!” Kit was looking worried. “Wait a minute… my mama and pop wouldn’t want me being in the city alone.”

“Wouldn’t be alone,” Nita said.

“Yeah, but you know what I mean. I could sneak in, I guess, but they’d still want to know where I’d been all the time I’d been away.”

“Well,” Tom said, looking thoughtful, “you’ve got school. You couldn’t go before the weekend anyway, right? Carl could sell you a piece of Saturday or Sunday—”

Kit and Nita looked at each other, and then at the two men. “Uh, we don’t have much money.”

“Who said anything about money?” Carl said. “Wizards don’t pay each other cash. They pay off in service—and sometimes the services aren’t done for years. But first let’s see if there’s any time available this weekend. Saturdays go fast, even though they’re expensive; especially Saturday mornings.”

He picked up another book and began leafing through it. Like all the other books, it was printed in the same type as Nita’s and Kit’s manuals, though the print was much smaller and arranged differently. “This way,” Tom said, “if you buy some time, you could be in the city all day, all week if you wanted—but once you activate the piece of time you’re holding, you’re back
then.
You have to pick a place to anchor the time to, of course, a twenty-foot radius. But after you’ve finished whatever you have to do, you bring your marked time to life, and there you are. Maybe five minutes before you started for the city, back at home. Or anywhere and any when else along the path you’ll follow that day.”

“Huh,” Carl said suddenly. “Callahan, J., and Rodriguez, C., is that you two?” They nodded. “You have a credit already,” Carl said, sounding a little surprised. “What have you two been doing to rate that?”

“Must have been for bringing Fred through,” Tom said. “I didn’t know that Upper Management had started handing out free backtiming credits, though. Something unusual’s going on.”

From her perch on Tom’s shoulder, Picchu snorted. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Tom said. “Be useful, bird. Is there something you know that these kids ought to?”

“I want a raise,” Picchu said, sounding sullen.

“You just had one. Talk!”

“‘Brush your teeth twice a day, and see your dentist regularly,’“ the macaw began, in a commercial announcer’s voice.

Tom stared at her meaningfully. “All right, all right,” Picchu muttered. She looked over at Kit and Nita, and though her voice when she spoke had the usual good-natured annoyance about it, her eyes didn’t look angry or even teasing—they looked anxious. Nita got a sudden chill down her back. “Don’t be afraid to make corrections,” Picchu said. “Don’t be afraid to lend a hand.” She fell silent, seeming to think for a moment. “And don’t look down.”

Tom stared at the macaw. “Can’t you be a little more specific?”

“Human lives,” Picchu said irritably, “aren’t much like the Dow-Jones index. No, I can’t.”

Tom sighed. “Sorry. Kids, if she says it, she has a reason for saying it—so remember.”

“Here you go,” Carl said. “Your piece of time is from 10:45 to 10:47 on this next Saturday morning. There aren’t any weekend openings after that until sometime in July.”

“We’ll take this one,” Kit said. “At least I can. Nita, will your folks let you go?”

She nodded. “I have some allowance saved up, and I’d been thinking about going into the city to get my dad a birthday present anyhow. I doubt there’ll be any trouble.”

Kit looked uncomfortable for a moment. “But there’s something I’m not sure about. My spell—our spell brought Fred here. How are we going to get him back where he belongs?”

Am I a problem?
Fred said, sounding concerned.

“Oh, no, no—it’s just that, Fred, this isn’t your home, and it seemed as if sooner or later you might want to go back where you came from.”

“As far as that goes,” Tom said, “if it’s your spell that brought him here, you’ll be able to send him back. The instructions are in your book, same as the instructions for opening the Grand Central worldgate.”

“Stick to those instructions,” Carl said. “Don’t be tempted to improvise. That claudication is the oldest one in New York, and it’s the trickiest because of all the people using it all the time. One false syllable in a spell and you may wind up in Schenectady.”

Is that another world?
Fred asked.

Carl laughed. “It might as well be. …Is there anything else we can do for you?”

Nita and Kit shook their heads and got up to leave, thanking Tom and Carl and Picchu. “Let us know how things turn out,” Tom said. “Not that we have any doubts—two wizards who can produce a white hole on the first try are obviously doing all right. But give us a call. We’re in the book.”

The two men saw Nita and Kit as far as the patio door, said their good-byes, and went back into the house. Nita started off across the lawn the way she had come, but Kit paused for a moment by the fishpond, staring down into it. He pulled a penny out of his pocket, dropped it in.

Nita saw the ripples spread—and then suddenly another set of ripples wavered away from the head of a very large goldfish, which spat the penny back at Kit and eyed him with distaste. “Do
I
throw money on
your
living-room floor?” it said, and then dived out of sight.

Kit picked up his penny and went after Nita and Fred as they pushed through the poplar hedge again. The blue Mercedes, which had been half in the street and half on the sidewalk, was now neatly parked by the curb. In front of it sat Annie, with her tongue hanging out and a satisfied look on her face. There were teeth marks deep in the car’s front fender. Annie grinned at them as Nita and Kit passed, and then trotted off down the street, probably to “find” something else.

“If my dog starts doing things like that,” Kit muttered, “I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to my mother.”

Nita looked down the street for signs of Joanne. “If we can just get home without being killed, I wouldn’t care
what
the dog found—” And then she broke off. “
Uh
-oh…”

A good ways down the street, four or five girls were heading toward them, and Nita saw Joanne’s blond hair. “Kit, we’d better split up. No reason for them to come after you too.”

“Right. Give me a call tonight. I’m in the book…” He took off down a side street.

She looked around, considering the best direction to run in—and then thought of the book she was carrying. There wasn’t much time, though. She forced herself to calm down even while she knew they were coming for her and turned the manual’s pages to the place Kit had shown her that morning, the spell that made blows slide off. She read through it slowly in the Speech, sounding out the syllables, taking the time to look up the pronunciation of the ones she wasn’t sure of, even though she could hear Joanne’s nasty laugh getting closer.

And then Nita sat down on the curb to wait for them.