Diane Duane - The Wizard's Dilemma

It was a cry of utter anguish, and the air all around them trembled with it, rent as if by thunder. That shadow, crouched down off to the side, stirred just slightly, crouched down further. "Not even for that," her mother said, a lot more quietly, unclenching her fists. "It is not going to happen."

"Mom...," Nita said, and could find no other words.

Her mother just shook her head. For a moment, she seemed too choked up to speak. She pulled Nita close and held her, and then, her voice rough, she said, "Sweetie, I may not be what you are, but this I know. There's a power in what we are as mortal beings that even that One can't match. If we throw it away, we stop being human. I won't do it. And certainly not when doing it plays into the enemy's hands."

She let go of Nita and turned around. "So as for you," Nita's mother said to the Lone Power, her eyes narrowing in what Nita recognized as her mother's most dangerous kind of frown, "you'll get what you incorrectly consider your piece of me soon enough. But in the meantime, I'm tired of looking at you. So you just take yourself straight on out of here before I kick your poor deluded rear end from here to eternity."

The Lone Power slowly picked Itself up, towered up before them all in faceless darkness... and vanished without a sound.

"Mom..." Nita shook her head, again at a loss for words. "Wow," Kit said. "Impressive."

Her mother smiled slightly, shook her head. "It's all in the documentation, honey," she said to Nita. "It says it plain enough: 'Have I not said to you, "you are gods"?' So we may as well act like them when it's obviously right to and the power's available."

They all turned to look around at the sound of a splash. Ponch had jumped into one of the now-cleansed pools and was paddling around.

Nita's mom smiled, then looked at the surroundings, once again dark and wet, then she glanced down at what Nita still held in her hands. "Is that what I think it is?"

Nita nodded and handed it over. Her mother tossed the apple in her hand, caught it again, looking at it thoughtfully, and polished it against her skirt. "Are we done here?" she said.

Nita looked around her sorrowfully. "Unless you can think of anything to add."

Her mother shook her head. "No point in it now," she said. She looked at the apple with an expression of profound regret, turning it over in her hands. For a moment Nita saw through the semblance, saw the kernel as it was, the tangle of intricate and terrible forces that described a human body with a human mind and soul inside it, infinitely precious, infinitely vulnerable. Then her mother sighed and chucked the apple over her shoulder into one of the nearby pools. It dropped into the waters and sank, glowing, and was lost.

Nita let out a long breath that became a sob at the end. There was no getting it back now, nothing more that could be done.

"Better this way," her mother said, sounding sad. "You don't often get a chance like this; be a shame to ruin it. Come on, sweetie." She looked around at the darkness and the water. "We should either call the plumber or get out of the basement. How do we do that, exactly?"

"I don't think you have to do anything but wake up," Kit said. "But Nita and I should go."

"Don't forget Ponch," Nita's mother said, as the dog clambered out of the pool he'd been swimming in and came over to the three of them. "If I come out of the anesthesia barking, the doctors are going to be really confused."

Ponch shook himself, and all three of them got splattered. "Kit needed me to get in," Ponch said. "Without me, I don't think he can get out. I'll see him safely home."

Nita's mother blinked at that. "Sounds fair," she said. "Meantime, what about this?" She bent over to pick up the dwindling knot of lightning that was all that was left of the glede.

The question answered itself, as it faded away in her hands. "One use only, I think," Kit said.

"I think I got my money's worth," Nita's mother said. "But thanks for the hint, Kit; you made the difference."

"Just a suggestion someone gave me," Kit said. "To listen to my hunches when it all went dark..." "That one sure paid off. Go on, you kids, get out of here."

Nita hugged her mom while Kit put the leash on Ponch. Then Kit offered Nita his arm. She paused a moment, took it, and they stepped forward into the darkness.

The two of them came out in Kit's backyard. Nita saw Kit looking around him with an odd expression. "Something wrong?" she said. "Or is it just that reality looks really strange after what we've been through?"

"Some of that, maybe," he said. He took the leash off Ponch and let the dog run toward the house. "Kit—"

He looked at her.

"You saved my butt," she said. Kit let out a breath. "You let me." She nodded.

"Anyway," Kit said, "you've saved mine a few times. Let's just give up keeping score, okay? It's a distraction."

Nita nodded. "Come on," she said. "Let's go to the hospital." Between transit circles and the business of appearing far enough away from the hospital not to upset anybody, it took them about fifteen minutes to get there. Down in that awful little waiting room, Nita found her dad and Dairine—and the look on her father's face nearly broke Nita's heart. There was hope there, for the first time in a long, long week.

Nita sat down while Kit shut the door. "Are they done?" Nita said.

Her father nodded. "They got the tumor out," he said. "All of it. It went much better than they hoped, in fact. And they think... they think maybe it hasn't spread as far as they thought. They have to do some tests."

"Is Mom awake yet?"

"Yeah. The trouble with her eyes is clearing up already, the recovery room nurses said, but they want us to leave her alone till this evening; it's going to take her a while to feel better. We were just waiting here for you to catch up with us." He looked at her. "What about you?"

Nita swallowed. "I think we did good," she said, "but I'm not sure how good yet. It's gonna take a while to tell."

Her dad nodded. "So let's go home...and we'll come back after dinner."

As much as Nita felt like she really needed a nap, she couldn't sleep. Kit went home for a while, but when Nita's dad was starting the car, Kit appeared again in the backyard, and Nita went downstairs to meet him.

As she was walking across the yard, there was another bang, less discreet: Dairine. She stalked out of the air with an annoyed expression. "Where've you been?" Nita said.

"The hospital."

"You weren't supposed to go yet!"

"I know. I sneaked in. They just found me and threw me out."

She looked at the two of them. "Have you seen the precis in the manual?" she said. Nita shook her head.

"I have," Dairine said softly. "I owe you guys one."

Kit shook his head. "Dari, if you read the precis, then you know—"

"I know what's probably going to happen to her," Dairine said. "Yeah. But I know what you guys did. You gave it your best shot. That's what matters."

She turned and went into the house.

"She's mellowing," Kit said quietly.

"She's in shock," Nita said. "So am I. But, Kit-Thanks for not letting me go through it alone." She gulped, trying to keep hold of her composure. "I'm not— I mean, I'm going to need a lot of help."

"You know where to look," Kit said. "So let's get on with it."

In the hospital they found Nita's mother already sitting up in bed. She had a blackening eye and some bruising around her nose, but that was all; and the sticky contacts and wires and machines were all gone, though she now had an IV running into her arm. Nita thought her mom looked very tired, but as they came in, her face lit up with a smile that was otherwise perfectly normal.

She looked at Kit. "Woof," she said.

Kit cracked up.

"Does this have some profound secret meaning," Nita's dad said, sitting down and taking his wife's hand, "or is it a side effect of the drugs?"