Диана Дуэйн - A Wizard Of Mars

“Somehow,” her father said, “over the years, I’ve picked up on that.”

“And she’s never going to be. She’s not that much like you or Mom, either. And she doesn’t fit any of the family stereotypes. Sometimes it’s like she’s from another planet—”

There Nita stopped, astonished at what had fallen out of her mouth.

“It is, isn’t it?” her dad said.

Though Nita heard what he said, she didn’t really have time to react to it, because of the completely bizarre idea suddenly occupying her entire mind.

Did she take a wrong turn?

From a casual conversation with Carl and some follow-up reading in the manual, Nita knew that there were always a certain number of wizards who cropped up on one world and seemed to spend their whole lives yearning for, and dealing with, some other one. The Powers That Be were notably silent on such subjects: privacy issues were a big deal with Them, and They didn’t go into detail on what made a wizard uniquely him-or herself. But there was an unspoken understanding among those out on errantry that some wizards who were born in one place but mostly lived and worked in another were meant to be bridge builders… or, more simply, to themselves be the bridges, with a foothold in each world, bearing a most unusual burden— sometimes consciously.

There was an abbreviated word-phrase in the Speech for this kind of profound involvement with another place and people: taraenshlev’. It didn’t translate well, like many words in the Speech: but there were curious and uncomfortable resonances with English words like expatriate and exile. “Took a wrong turn” was one shorthand phrase that attempted to express the tension: as if someone originally “supposed” to be born in one place had hung a left instead of a right and wound up somewhere else.

Nita stood up straight, aware that her dad was looking curiously at her. Kit, she was thinking. I never thought about him this way. But I never had reason to. Could it be that this is more than just some thing with Mars? Could it be that Mars has a thing with him? And why in the world..?

“What?” her dad said.

“I don’t know,” Nita said. “Thinking. Maybe thinking dumb things.”

Her dad gave her a dismissive look. “Whatever my daughters do,” he said, “and whatever planet they do it on, they do not think dumb things.” And then he regarded her with concern. “Have you had lunch?”

“No,” Nita said. “Gonna have that now. But I need a shower first. Jeez, Dad, when you go to Mars, wear a coat or something, because if you don’t the dust gets everywhere!”

“Okay,” he said, as she started up the stairs. “So when am I going?”

Nita paused. “Where?”

“To Mars!” He laughed. “What’s the point of being a wizard’s dad if I don’t get some perks out of it?”

“Uh—” She laughed. “I’ll set it up. Maybe in the next few days, okay?”

“Fine,” her dad said.

And Nita went up the stairs with something itching at her mind that was more than Mars dust.

***

To Kit, dinner seemed to take forever. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy it—he was starving—and the conversation over dinner had been innocuous, even fun. It only became boring when Helena started telling stories about the now-history boyfriend who’d dumped her.

But even during the more interesting parts of the conversation, Kit had trouble concentrating. The things he’d experienced on Mars today kept coming back to haunt him. And something else was bothering him that seemed to have gotten stronger since he’d come home: a sense of someone whispering in his ear, words he couldn’t quite make out against the ongoing conversation.

It wasn’t a new sensation. He’d noticed it a few times over the past couple of months. He’d even mentioned it to Nita once, and had then been surprised when she got a panicked look and said, “Tell me you’re not hearing Bobo!”

He’d been glad to tell her that whatever else was going on, no, he wasn’t hearing Bobo. Nita had looked bizarrely relieved. Kit had wondered about that at the time, and wondered again now. Did she think Bobo was going to start telling me Secret Girl Stuff?

Now, though, Kit found himself repeatedly straining to hear the voice that seemed to be whispering in reaction to things it heard other people say— or trying to get his attention during the silences. The experience made for a peculiar dinner, and Kit was relieved to get home and back to his room where he could shut the door and relax.

He checked his manual for anything from Nita, but she’d left no notes for him. On inquiring about her location, the listing next to her name merely said, Sunplace, Wellakh: transport flagged as family business: please do not contact except in emergency.

Dairine again, Kit thought. Never mind, I’ll catch up with Neets in the morning. I’m bushed. But he had reason to be. Spending the better part of a day being chased around Mars by various peculiar wildlife, not to mention visiting the ancient city of Helium, could kind of take it out of you.

He wrote Nita a note about getting together to exchange notes after the family got back from church in the morning, and then nervously took a look to see if there was any answer to his previous message from Mamvish. But there was none. He felt strangely relieved.

Okay, Kit thought. Either she read what I sent her and it wasn’t a big enough deal to get right back to me, or she’s really busy and hasn’t had time to answer at all. Whatever. I’ll check again in the morning.

He stretched out on his bed and lay looking for a while at the twin discs of the Mars map hanging on the wall. Full with a good dinner, tired, he never really realized when he fell asleep.

***

What took him by surprise was to find himself sitting in the Scarlet Tower, side by side with Aurilelde on the red sandstone bench at the center of it all.

“You saved us before,” she said. “And then you saved us again. You’ll do it a third time now: I see it.” She looked at him with a slight smile. “And anyway,” she said, “you promised you would— and that you would come back for me. And you always kept your promises.”

Kit looked around, somewhat in panic. But they were alone, and Aurilelde’s father was nowhere to be seen. As for Aurilelde—as she turned to Kit, he got something of a shock. The Martian princess he had seen was gone. Now he found himself looking at a slender young female figure, still not much older than him or Nita, but all gray; a handsome, polished-steel gray like stone come to life. Her eyes were dark—that much persisted at least from the previous vision. But the hair, the beautiful flowing dark hair, was hair no longer. It was a waist-length flow of deep sapphire-blue smoke. Kit thought for a moment of the filmy draperies she’d worn before and smiled.

She had been watching him with concern. Now, seeing his smile, Aurilelde smiled back. It was altogether like having a statue smile at you— but a vital one, with life in the eyes, and on the smooth features a look of intense life— made still more intense by an edge of fear.

“You’ve changed,” Kit said.

She gave him an amused look. “Of course I had to change. We all changed. We had no choice. The new world wasn’t going to suit our old bodies…”

Something else was different now: the light. Kit got up from that bench and walked over toward the side of the Tower, where he could get a clearer view of what was outside. It took no more than a few steps for him to realize that the city was no longer sitting in a flatland crater but under a mighty shadow. Looking out through the walls of the Tower, he looked a long way up indeed before he could see the top of the vast shape shutting away that whole side of the sky. The city was sitting on the shoulder of the highest mountain in the Solar System. The wide flat rust-colored cone of Olympus Mons loomed behind the spire of the Scarlet Tower, utterly dwarfing it.