Diane Duane - A Wizard Alone

“—get tired of waiting sometimes, you know?” said one of them, a man’s voice, Nita thought.

“Sometimes I wonder whether any of it matters at all.”

“Of course it matters,” said another voice, a softer one, sadder, but more certain of itself. “We have to keep doing what we’re doing. Someday…”

The voices got steadily more distinct as Nita got closer to the forest. Soon she saw that it wasn’t a forest of trees, but of mirrors. “Someday! But no one can tell us when that day’s going to be. No one has the slightest idea! And we’re the ones who know him best. We’re the ones who ought to be able to tell. For a while there it looked like it was working. A little. But since autumn, it’s like we’ve hit a brick wall or something. No change. I can’t help but think… can’t help but think that maybe there’s not going to be any more change. That this is as good as it’s ever going to get. That he’s going to be this way forever—”

The voice broke off, choked with pain.

“You know they told us this was likely to happen,” said the other voice. “That there’d be plateaus… times when nothing would seem to happen for a long time.”

“But this long?”

“Every case is different, they said. You know that, too.” A long pause. “We have to have faith, honey. If we don’t, if we lose it, no one else’s faith is going to help.”

The voices sounded two ways to Nita. On one hand, they were like any conversation she might have heard on the street. On the other, there was a terrible poignancy about them. Hearing their words was like being thrust through the heart with knives. I’m hearing this not just as I would , Nita thought, but as Darryl would. And possibly seeing his inner world as he does, too . Far from drawing her into Darryl’s trap for the Lone Power, this seemed to be giving her a kind of immunity. Good. If that just lets me see a way out

…

As she came closer to the fringes of the “forest,” Nita saw that the trees weren’t exactly just mirrored, either. They were half-mirrored. She could see partway through them, out their other sides, to the shapes that walked among them. And there were only four of those.

Two of them she knew instantly: Her heart seized at the sight of them. Ponch and Kit were wandering, sightless — or rather, it was Kit who looked and walked like someone blind, or like someone afraid to look at what he saw around him. Ponch walked ahead of Kit like a Seeing Eye dog, seeing for both of them. But something about the way the light fell on him made Nita wonder whether Ponch somehow saw more , in this chilly and sterile landscape, than any of them. What is it with him

? she wondered. He hadn’t been able to tell her the other day. Nita remembered Carmela telling her what Kit had said, that there was some kind of “wizardry leakage” going on in his household. Suddenly she felt sure that what was happening with Ponch was more than just a symptom of this.

She paused, watching the other two figures wander around separately in the light shining on and reflecting from the half-mirrored trees. One of them was small and dark, in jeans and a polo shirt. He looked less lost than Kit and Ponch… or the final figure.

That last figure was tall and looked human. He was slender, well-built, and extremely handsome.

Nonetheless, Nita couldn’t help but shudder at the sight of the Fairest and Fallen, the Lone Power, looking, in the dark suit he was wearing, like a businessman lost in a strange city and doomed to wander around because he was too proud to ask for directions.

The shudder passed, though. Nita’s anger was still running high enough to wash it out and leave her mind clear. All right , she thought. Nothing bad has happened yet. Let’s think about what to do .

Let’s…

Nita’s head jerked up, looking for the source of the word, and her hand went to her bracelet again. A second later she was holding the linac weapon, ready to discharge.

I am on errantry

, she thought, glancing around, and I greet you. Wherever you are …

I am errantry , the Silence said.

Nita held very still. There was something familiar about that voice… though it wasn’t a voice as such.

Then she remembered her earlier thought. “The Silence told me about that,” the clown-Darryl had said to her. You are the manual , she thought. Darryl’s version of it .

The Silence sang agreement.

Right

, Nita said, lowering the weapon again. Sorry, you startled me. How can I hear you now? I couldn’t before .

You are fully inside him now

… because you have the heart .

Nita wondered about that phrasing, and then smiled. The heart of Darryl’s universe: the kernel.

Yes, I do

, she said. Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with it .

He will know. He has full access now, as you’ve discovered.

Nita nodded and watched the four figures walking among the trees for a few minutes… She was looking things over, assessing where the weak point in this scenario might be. That was how she saw something start to happen, something that initially scared her — an encounter that she normally would have done anything to prevent. The Lone Power in Its dark majesty came striding down between the mirrored pillars, to Nita’s eye looking very much like someone who’s trying to act like he knows where he’s going when he doesn’t. Toward It, ambling, unhurried, maybe even unseeing, came Kit and Ponch. Nita sucked in her breath and lifted the linac weapon into an aiming line, pointing it at the Lone One.

She watched with profound unease as Kit and the Lone Power got closer and closer to each other. They were no more than a few paces apart when the Lone One made a single sudden move.

It looked at Itself in a mirror as It passed, and smiled faintly. And Kit walked right on by It, unnoticing, unnoticed.

Nita had to just stand there for a few moments, calming herself down, nearly lost in admiration at the sheer power of the otherworld Darryl had created. It’s like that fairy tale about the guy who does some magic creature a good turn

, she thought, and as a reward it gives him a bag that nothing can get out of. The guy lives a bad life, and when the devil comes for him, he tricks it into the bag, and it’s stuck there until he lets it out

But in this case, Darryl was in the bag, too — and apparently thought this a reasonable price to pay to keep part of the Lone Power out of circulation for days or weeks or even years at a time.

Carl had been completely right. If that’s not a saint , Nita thought, I don’t know what is .

I need to get them out of here

, she said to the Silence.

You will have to break this paradigm

, the Silence said. Break the mirrors. That will release them.

But it will also release the Lone Power back into Its full potency .

For just a breath of time, Nita weighed the pros and cons of the problem. Keeping It stuck in here, even just a fragment of It, couldn’t be a bad thing .

But keeping Kit here as well, and Ponch? And Darryl?

The price was much too high. Especially , Nita thought, putting aside her personal concerns for the moment, in Darryl's case .

Nita sighed. Besides , she thought, like in the fairy tale, the Powers That Be will make them let the devil out of the bag eventually. It’s still one of the Powers, and part of the world. Keep the Lone Power in here forever and It’ll never be able to change