Diane Duane - The Wizard's Dilemma

Kit laughed, finding that his voice worked again. Briefly he considered just letting Ponch off the spell leash. But then that struck Kit as a bad idea. He still had no sense of where they were, or what the rules of this place were. Better just tell the spell to extend as far as it needs to, so he can run.

It took a few seconds to change the loci-of-effect and extensibility variables—longer than it normally would have taken, but then, Kit thought he wasn't doing badly for someone who was being hauled along through a forest at what felt like about thirty miles an hour. Finally Kit was able to extend the leash, then slowed down from the run until he was standing there in the bright sun between two huge trees, watching his dog go tearing off across the beautiful grass, barking his head off with delight.

He's found Squirrel World, Kit thought, and had to laugh. There was seemingly infinite running room, there was an endless supply of squirrels, and there were trees for the squirrels to run up, because there had to be some challenge about this for it to be fun.

He's found dog heaven. Or maybe Ponch heaven...

Ponch was far off among the trees now. Kit sat down on the grass to watch him. This space had some strange qualities, for despite the increased distance, Kit's view of Ponch was still as clear and sharp as if he were looking at him through a telescope. Ponch was closing on the squirrel he'd been chasing. As Kit watched, the squirrel just made it to the trunk of a nearby tree and went up it like a shot. Ponch danced briefly around on his hind legs at the bottom of the tree, barking his head off, then spotted another squirrel and went off after that one, instead.

Maybe this isn't exactly Ponch heaven after all, Kit thought. Could this be the dog version of a computer game? For there didn't seem to be instant wish fulfillment here. Ponch still wasn't catching the squirrels; he was mostly chasing them.

Kit watched this go on for a while, as his dog galloped around over about fifty acres of perfect parkland, littered with endless intriguing targets. The question is, where is this? Somewhere inside his mind? Or is it an actual place? Though it's a weird one. Their entry here hadn't been anything like a normal worldgating. Normally you stepped through a gate, whether natural or constructed, and found another place waiting there, complete. Or sometimes, as he'd seen happen in Ireland over the summer, that other place came sweeping over you, briefly pushing aside the one where you'd been standing earlier.

But this was different. It's as if Poncb was making this world, one piece at a time...

He gazed down at the grass. Every blade was perfect, each slightly different from every other. Kit shook his head in wonder, looked up and saw Ponch still romping across the grass. There was always another squirrel to chase, and Kit noticed with amusement that the ones that weren't being chased were actually following Ponch, though always at a discreet distance. So he won't be distracted? When Ponch managed to pursue one closely enough that it actually had to run up a tree, there were always others within range when he was ready for them.

How is he doing this? Kit wondered. "Ponch?"

Ponch let off a volley of frustrated barks at the squirrel he was chasing, which had gone halfway up one of the massive tree boles and was now clinging to it head down and chattering at him. Kit couldn't make out specific Skioroin words at this point, but the tone was certainly offensive. Ponch barked at the squirrel more loudly. "Yeah, okay, get over it," Kit yelled. "There are about five thousand more like him out there! Can you give it a rest so we can have a few words, please?"

Ponch came galloping back to Kit a few seconds later. "Isn't it great, do you like it, do you want to chase some, I can make some more for you..."

"Sit down. Your tongue's gonna fall off if it waves around much more than that," Kit said. Ponch sat down beside him and leaned on Kit in a companionable manner, looking entirely satisfied with life, and panting energetically. "Look," Kit said. "How are you doing this?"

"I don't know."

"You must know a little," Kit said. "You told me yesterday, 'You're not there until you do something.' What did you do?"

"I wanted you."

"Yes, but that was the first time." "That's what I did."

Kit sighed and put his head down on his knees, thinking. "This," he said, "what you did just now. How did you do this? Where did all these squirrels come from?"

"I want squirrels."

"Yeah, and boy, have you got them," said Kit, looking around him in amusement. The two of them were completely surrounded by squirrels, an ever growing crowd of them, all sitting up on their little hind legs and staring at Ponch, all intent and quiet... as if someone in a whimsical mood had swapped them for the seagulls in The Birds. "Where did they all come from?"

Ponch sat quiet for a moment, and stopped panting as a look of intense concentration came over his face. Then he looked at Kit and said, "I wanted them here."

Suddenly Kit got it. The way Ponch used wanted was not the way it would have been used in Cyene; it was the form of the word used in the Speech. And in the wizardly language, the verb was not passive. The closest equivalent in English would be willed; in the Speech, the word implies not just desire but creation.

"You made them," Kit said.

"I wanted them to be here. And here they are." The dog jumped up and began to bounce for sheer joy.

"Isn't it great^l"

Kit rubbed his nose and wondered about that. "What happens when you catch them?" he asked, to buy himself time.

"I shake them around a lot," Ponch said, "and then I'm sorry for them."

Kit grinned, for this was more or less the way things went in the real world. But then he paused, surprised. He'd slipped and spoken to Ponch in English, but the dog had understood him.

"Are you able to understand me when I'm not using the Speech?" Kit asked. Ponch looked amused. "Only here. I made it so I would always know what you're saying." "Wow," Kit said. He looked around him again at the patient squirrels. "Have you made anything else?" "Lots of things. Why don't you make something?"

"Uh...," Kit said, and stopped. The ramifications of this were beginning to sink in, and he wanted to make some preparations. "Not right this minute. Look, you wanna go see Tom and Carl?"

Ponch began to bounce around again. "Dog biscuits!"

"Yeah, probably they'll give you some. And if they have a spare clue for me to chew on, that wouldn't hurt, either." Kit got up. "You done with these guys?"

"Sure. They wait for me. Even if they didn't, I can always make more." "Okay. Let's go home."

Ponch acquired a look of concentration. A second later, the landscape went out, as if a light had simply been turned off behind it, and Kit felt a tug on the leash. He followed it—

—and they stepped out again into early morning in Kit's backyard: birdsong, dew, the sound of a single station wagon going down the street in front of the house as the newspaper guy threw the morning paper into people's driveways...

Kit took a deep breath of the morning air and relaxed. From above them came an annoyed chattering noise. Ponch wheeled around and began dancing on his hind legs and barking.

"Didn't you just have enough of those?" Kit said. "Shut up; you're going to wake up the whole neighborhood! Come on... We need to go see Tom."

Nita rolled over in her bed that morning, feeling strangely achy. At first she wondered if she was catching a cold; but it didn't seem to be that. Probably it's just from being upset, she thought. Hey, I wonder...

She got up and padded over to the desk, where her manual lay. Nita picked it up and flipped to the back page, hoping to see some long angry rant from Kit. But there was nothing.