Диана Дуэйн - Wizards At War

Young Wizards

New Millennium Editions

Book 8:

Wizards at War

Diane Duane

Errantry Press

County Wicklow

Republic of Ireland

Copyright page

Wizards at War

New Millennium Edition

Errantry Press

County Wicklow, Ireland

Original edition copyright © 2005 by Diane Duane

Revised edition copyright © 2012 by Diane Duane

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to the following address:

Donald Maass Literary Agency

Suite 801, 121 West 27th Street

New York, NY 10001

USA

Publication history

Harcourt Books hardcover, October 2005

HMH Magic Carpet Books paperback, 2007

Harcourt Trade Publishers ebook, 2010

Errantry Press International ebook edition, 2011

About this edition:

This New Millennium Edition of Wizards at War follows the text of the 2011 Young Wizards International Editions ebook, and has been revised and edited to conform with the new timeline established in the New Millennium Edition of So You Want to Be a Wizard.

Dedication

Once again, and more than usual,

for James White

Rubrics

“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter…. Once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”

—Sir Winston Churchill

…Moon reflected on the water:

The moon doesn’t get wet,

nor is the water broken.

Although its light is broad and great,

The moon’s reflected even

in an inch-wide puddle.

The whole moon and the entire wide sky

Lie mirrored in one dewdrop on the grass.

—Dogen, Genjokoan

To be the miracle,

Get out of its way.

—Distych 243, The Book of Night with Moon

Time Fix

Late April / Early May, 2010

1: Situational Awareness

In the bright light of an early mid-spring morning, a teenaged girl in faded blue jeans and a white V-necked T-shirt stood in her downstairs bathroom, brushing her teeth and examining herself with a critical eye. Have I lost weight? she thought, pulling the T-shirt a little away from her as she looked down. This doesn’t fit like it did two weeks ago…

The view in the mirror was more or less the usual one: light brunette hair cut just above her shoulders, a face neither unusually plain nor unusually beautiful, a nothing-special figure for a fifteen-year-old. But there were changes besides the fit of her T-shirt. Nita Callahan racked the toothbrush and then leaned close to the mirror over the sink, pulling down the skin above her right cheekbone with one finger. My tan looks pretty good, but are those circles under my eyes? she thought. I look wrecked. You’d think I hadn’t just had ten days off on a planet that was almost all beach. “I think I need a vacation from my vacation,” Nita muttered.

She started to turn away from the sink; then stopped, noticing something in the mirror. Nita leaned close to it again, pushing her bangs up with one hand and eyeing her forehead. Oh no, is that a pimple coming up? She poked it, felt that telltale sting. Great. I really need this right now!

She sighed. “Okay,” she said. Normally she wouldn’t have been enthusiastic about spending any significant part of her morning talking to a zit, but if she talked the pimple out of happening right now, it’d take her less effort than if she waited until later.

“Uh, excuse me,” she said in the wizardly Speech—and then stopped. Wait a minute. I don’t know the word for “pimple. ”

Nita frowned. For a moment she considered the tube of facial scrub on the shelf by the sink, then shook her head and reached out toward what looked like empty air beside her. Her arm promptly disappeared nearly to the shoulder into that “empty air” as she dug deep into the pocket of otherspace where she normally kept her wizard’s manual. Nita felt around for a moment— I really have to clean this thing out; there’s way too much stuff in here —and then pulled out what to most people would have looked like a small hardbound library book an inch or so thick.

Nita started paging through it. Let’s see. Pimple, pimple … see “aposteme. ” She shook her head, turning more pages. What’s an aposteme? Sometimes I really wonder about the indexing in this thing.

“Nita?” came a shout, faintly, from the other end of the house.

“What, Daddy?” she shouted back.

“Phone!”

Nita raised her eyebrows. At this hour of the morning? Not Kit; he wouldn’t bother with the phone, or he’d just text instead of calling the house phone. “Thanks!”

The word for “phone,” at least, she knew perfectly well. Nita held out her hand. “If you would?” she said in the Speech to the handset in question.

The portable phone from the kitchen appeared in her hand, its hold button blinking. She hit the button, meanwhile balancing her manual on the edge of the sink while she kept paging through it. “Hello?”

“Nita,” Tom Swale’s voice said. “Good morning.”

“Hey, how are you?” Nita said.

“A little pressed for time at the moment,” said her local Senior Wizard. “How was your holiday?”

“Not bad,” she said. “Listen, what’s the Speech word for ‘pimple’?”

There was a pause at the other end. “I used to know that,” Tom said.

“But you don’t anymore?”

“I’ll look it up. You should do that, too. How are your houseguests doing?”

“They’re fine as far as I know,” Nita said. “Probably having breakfast. I was just going to get some myself.”

“You should definitely do that,” Tom said. “But can you and Kit and the visiting contingent spare me and Carl a little time afterward?”

“Uh, sure,” Nita said. “I was going to call you anyway, because I heard some really strange things from Dairine about what went on here while we were away… and the manual wouldn’t say anything about the details. Where did you guys vanish to? Assuming I’m allowed to ask.”

“Oh, you’re allowed. That’s what I’m calling about. I have a lot of people to get in touch with today, but since you two and your guests are just around the corner, we thought we might drop by and brief you in person.”

“Sure,” Nita said. “I’ll let everybody know you’re coming.”

“Fine. An hour or so be all right?”

“Sure.”

“Great. See you then.”

Tom hung up, leaving Nita staring at the phone in her hand. She pushed the hang-up button and just stood there.

“Wow,” she said. She looked down at the manual, which now lay open to one of its many glossaries, and was showing her fourteen different variations on the “aposteme” word. “Kit?” Nita said.