Диана Дуэйн - A Wizard Of Mars

For how long? Bobo said.

Nita shook her head. There was no telling how long this effect might linger: the wizardry that had initially fueled it had surprising staying power. “Maybe a couple of hours?” she said, but it was a guess at best. “Can you get any sense of how much oomph is left in the original spell?”

A fair amount, the peridexis said. You could parasitize it, if you wanted to .

“You mean tell the illusion to hide itself?”

Yes. That will save you having to make the energy outlay for the shield yourself. And it’ll run the spell down faster.

“I’m all for that,” Nita said. “Let’s do it.”

A moment later the heat-shimmer of the simplest kind of visual shield came alive in the air above the city and spread itself downward toward her in an expanding dome. Seconds later, nothing was visible but a duplication of the rock-tumble and cratery landscape directly beyond the city’s limits. “Okay,” Nita said under her breath, “that should keep the neighbors from getting too crazy…” For there were already enough people on Earth who got all overexcited about rock formations that they insisted as seeing as faces and pyramids and whatnot—people who also insisted these “carvings” were proof that the doings of alien civilizations were being covered up by one government or another. Sometimes I wish wizards could just come out and tell them how hard it’s been to find out anything on the subject, even when you’re right down here walking around on the planet!

But that wasn’t likely to happen for a long time. Nita glanced around, seeing nothing outside the shield but the usual scatter of reddish stones and sand. “Everything behaving itself at the other spell sites?” she said.

Yes; those wizardries have run their course. Just as well— they were potentially quite dangerous, especially the second one.

Nita blinked as the peridexis showed her a few glimpses of the previous visitations. “Yeah,” she said, and shivered: she’d never been wild about the whole war-machine concept.

But certainly elegant in that the wizardries were built with the expectation that each triggering wizard would set the parameters of his own test… and then be required to understand the trigger in order to defuse the attack.

Nita stood looking southward for a moment. “Sounds almost like you approve, Bobo.”

I can hardly fail to appreciate good workmanship in a spell, that’s all, Bobo said, sounding a little hurt.

She snickered a little as she turned, looking southeastward toward Burroughs crater. “Well,” Nita said, “maybe it’s just as well I wasn’t on site when one of those other spells was live. No telling what might have turned up.”

She turned back toward were the city was hidden and abruptly realized that something was standing between her and the slight waver of the force field. It was a small red-suited alien creature wearing what looked like oversize white sneakers, white gloves, a green metal tutu, and a shiny green helmet that appeared to have a scrub brush attached to the top of it. Out of a dark and otherwise featureless face, large oval eyes regarded Nita with mild alarm.

“What happened to the kaboom?” the creature said. “There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!” And he scuttled through the force field and vanished.

Nita just stood there for a second. “Bobo …?!”

Just a flicker of residual spell artifact, Bobo said, unconcerned. Nothing to worry about.

Oh yeah? Not sure I want to know what this says about my relationship with Mars. “Do me a favor?” Nita said as she headed for the force field herself.

Speak, demand: I’ll answer.

“If there’s a spell against the use of an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator, get it ready. Just in case…”

Nita stepped through the shield, looking cautiously around her. To her relief, there was no further sign of her own brief Martian moment. But the city was there: a handsome place, futuristic-looking in a charming and retro way— doubtless accurately reflecting Kit’s take on the Burroughs Martian books. Nita had read them years previously, but for some reason their vision hadn’t really appealed to her. She’d had too much trouble syncing the writer’s ideas about the Martian climate and terrain with what people now knew to be true about the place. And the concept of egg-laying humanoids and green-skinned, multi-armed tusky guys riding ten-legged lizard creatures all over the landscape and shooting at each other with radium guns simply struck her as funny.

He likes it, though, Nita thought. Just what makes it so interesting for him? The whole place lay still and quiet now, the wizardry running down. But… I wonder. I should still be able to see what he saw, if I work at it. It’s just the recent past, after all, and the imagery was wizardry-based to begin with. I might be able to use the visionary talent a little to patch into it.

It would be like the viewing she’d been doing in the library cavern a while ago, though she would have to power it herself. Nita closed her eyes. Let’s see—

The proper state of mind took a few minutes to achieve. As she’d been discovering more and more often lately, this kind of vision was usually more about letting go than about staring at something and willing yourself to see the reality behind it. Realities were shy, Nita was discovering. To get a good look at them up close, you had to tempt them out by holding still and letting them get curious about you— the way a nonwizardly person might pique the curiosity of a wild bird by standing still for a long time with an outstretched handful of birdseed.

When she started getting that sense that things outside were becoming curious about her, she opened her eyes and looked around casually. The city was alive now, as Kit had seen it. Little ships were streaking around among the towers, and Nita noted that some of them looked a lot like those she’d seen as part of the exodus from Shamask-Eilith. Interesting …And then she caught sight of the gates of the city starting to open.

Hmm, she thought. Let’s have a look at that.

Instantly Nita was down there, standing on the wide white roadway outside the gates. So was Kit— or the Kit of a while ago. And as the gates opened, out came something that Nita hadn’t quite been expecting …

Would you get a load of that, Nita thought. A genuine Martian princess. Well, sort of genuine.

Nita walked around them, observing, as Kit and the stranger met. God, Nita thought, she’s really pretty. Though did Kit even notice, the way she’s dressed? Or not dressed.

Her smile was more wistful than annoyed. There was nothing wrong with Nita’s figure: it was average for her age. But she couldn’t help but feel scrawny and non-toned next to this interplanetary pinup girl. And the way the princess moved, and the way her hair floated in the air, made Nita feel clumsy and inelegant. But this isn’t about elegance,Nita thought. There’s something else going on here. Specifically— that spell was personality-locked. Whoever designed this piece of work wasn’t looking for just anybody. They were looking for Kit.

But why?

Nita watched that beautiful shape come close to Kit, taking his hand, looking into his eyes with real emotion. But as she watched, she caught a glimpse of something else under the red-Martian illusion. Something dark—

Now what the—? But the glimpse was gone, and she was looking at the beautiful girl and Kit again.

Nita frowned, then let out a long breath and shut her eyes again. Don’t try to force it, she thought. Doitsu and the other koi had said it often enough. Vision comes in its own time. Pushing won’t help, but intention will. Be patient: wait. But wait with purpose.

She stood quiet and waited, thinking of the sun on the water on the koi pond in back of Tom’s house: the ripple and the flicker of it, coexisting with what lay under the surface, only hiding what was under there when you looked at it from the wrong angle. There was no rush: what she needed to see wanted to be seen, would be waiting for her when…