Diane Duane - A Wizard Alone

“Just look at all this,” Kit said, gazing around him. “Did Darryl’s autism make this? Or did he?”

I don’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 he is here. Look ! Ponch said. Kit looked where Ponch’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 the moondust of Tranquillity 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 and Aldrin’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 feel It? 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.

I think longer .

“How can that be?”

I don’t know. But Its 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 — It pursues . 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 his otherspace pocket. Then he and Ponch reached the bottom of the dune and started the climb up the side of the next one. “We could airwalk 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 in Ponch’s wake. That way , Ponch said as he came up to the top of the dune.

Kit looked across the sand, following Ponch’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.

I think so. He’s there somewhere. Come on .

Ponch led, 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 with Ponch’s tracking sense. The sand seemed to get into everything — down Kit’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. I can barely stand this , Kit thought as he toiled up yet another dune after Ponch. And if I can’t, what’s it doing to Darryl ?

Ponch reached 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 to What’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 if It doesn’t want just to concentrate on him ? Kit thought. What am I supposed to do if It decides to try to do something about me? Just cut and run, just leave him there ?

I wish Neets were here. I could really use some backup.

Ponch stood 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.

I think 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, and up, 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 and Ponch 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 to Ponch. “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 can be 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.”

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