Prologue




Prologue
Part of the problem, Nita thought to herself as she tore desperately down Rose Avenue, is that
I can't keep my mouth shut.
She had been running for five minutes now, hopping fences, sliding side-ways through
hedges, but she was losing her wind. Some ways behind her she could hear Joanne and
Glenda and the rest of them pounding along in pursuit, threatening to replace her latest, now-
fading black eye. Well, Joanne would come up to her with that new bike, all chrome and
silver and gearshift levers and speedometer/odometer and toeclips and waterbottle, and ask
what she thought of it. So Nita had told her. Actually, she had told Joanne what she thought of
her. The bike was all right. In fact, it had been almost exactly the one that Nita had wanted so
much for her last birthday—the birthday when she got nothing but clothes.
Life can be really rotten sometimes, Nita thought. She wasn't really so irritated about that at
the moment, however. Running away from a beating was taking up most of her attention.
"Callahan, " came a yell from behind her, "I'm gonna pound you up and mail you home in
bottles!"
I wonder how many bottles it'll take, Nita thought, without much humor. She couldn't afford
to laugh. With their bikes, they'd catch up to her pretty quickly. And then...
She tried not to think of the scene there would be later at home—her
father raising hands and eyes to the ceiling, wondering loudly enough for the
whole house to hear, "Why didn't you hit them back?"; her sister making
belligerent noises over her new battlescars; her mother shaking her head,
looking away silently, because she understood. It was her sad look that would
Nita more than the bruises and scrapes and swollen face would. Her
mom would shake her head, and clean the hurts up, and sigh....
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SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
Crud! Nita thought. The breath was coming hard to her now. She was going to have to try to hide,
to wait them out. But where? Most of the people around here didn't want kids running through
their yards. There was Old Crazy Swale's house with its big landscaped yard, but the rumors
among the neighborhood kids said that weird things happened in there. Nita herself had noticed
that the guy didn't go to work like normal people. Better to get beat up again than go in there. But
where can I hide?
She kept on running down Rose Avenue, and the answer presented itself to her: a little brown-
brick building with windows warmly alight—refuge, safety, sanctuary. The library. It's open, it's
open, I forgot it was open late on Saturday! Oh, thank Heaven! The sight of it gave Nita a new
burst of energy. She cut across its tidy lawn, loped up the walk, took the five stairs to the porch in
two jumps, bumped open the front door and closed it behind her, a little too loudly.
The library had been a private home once, and it hadn't lost the look of one despite the crowding of

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all its rooms with bookshelves. The walls were paneled in mahogany and oak, and the place
smelled warm and brown and booky. At the thump of the door Mrs. Lesser, the weekend librarian,
glanced up from her desk, about to say something sharp. Then she saw who was standing there and
how hard she was breathing. Mrs. Lesser frowned at Nita and then grinned. She didn't miss much.
"There's no one downstairs, " she said, nodding at the door that led to the children's library in the
single big basement room. "Keep quiet and I'll get rid of them. "
"Thanks, " Nita said, and went thumping down the cement stairs. As she reached the bottom, she
heard the bump and squeak of the front door open-ing again.
Nita paused to try to hear voices and found that she couldn't. Doubting that her pursuers could hear
her either, she walked on into the children's library, smiling slightly at the books and the bright
posters.
She still loved the place. She loved any library, big or little; there was something about all that
knowledge, all those facts waiting patiently to be found that never failed to give her a shiver.
When friends couldn't be found, the books were always waiting with something new to tell. Life
that was getting too much the same could be shaken up in a few minutes by the picture in a book
of some ancient temple newly discovered deep in a rainforest, a fuzzy photo of Uranus with its up-
and-down rings, or a prismed picture taken through the faceted eye of a bee.
And though she would rather have died than admit it—no respectable thirteen-year-old ever set
foot down there—she still loved the children's li-brary too. Nita had gone through every book in
the place when she was younger, reading everything in sight—fiction and nonfiction alike, fairy
tales,
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD
13
science books, horse stories, dog stories, music books, art books, even the encyclopedias.
(Bookworm, ) she heard the old jeering voices go in her head, (foureyes, smartass, hide-in-the-
house-and-read. Walking encyclopedia. Think you're so hot. ) "No, " she remembered herself
answering once, "I just like to find things out!" And she sighed, feeling rueful. That time she had
found out about being punched in the stomach.
She strolled between shelves, looking at titles, smiling as she met old friends, books she had read
three times or five times or a dozen. Just a title, or an author's name, would be enough to summon
up happy images. Strange creatures like phoenixes and psammeads, moving under smoky London
day-light of a hundred years before, in company with groups of bemused children; starships and
new worlds and the limitless vistas of interstellar night, outer space challenged but never
conquered; princesses in silver and golden dresses, princes and heroes carrying swords like
sharpened lines of light, monsters rising out of weedy tarns, wild creatures that talked and tricked
one an-other....
I used to think the world would be like that when I got older. Wonderful all the time, exciting,
happy. Instead of the way it is—
Something stopped Nita's hand as it ran along the bookshelf. She looked and found that one of the
books, a little library-bound volume in shiny red buckram, had a loose thread at the top of its


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spine, on which her finger had caught. She pulled the finger free, glanced at the title. It was one of
those "So You Want to Be a... "books, a series on careers. So You Want to Be a Pilot there had
been, and So You Want to Be a Scientist... a Nurse... a Writer...
But this one said So You Want to Be a Wizard.
A what?
Nita pulled the book off the shelf, surprised not so much by the title as by the fact that she'd never
seen it before. She thought she knew the whole stock of the children's library. Yet this wasn't a
new book. It had plainly been there for some time—the pages had that yellow look about their
edges, the color of aging, and the top of the book was dusty, so you want to be a wizard.
hearnssen, the spine said: that was the author's name. Phoenix Press, the publisher. And then in
white ink, in Mrs. Lesser's tidy handwrit-ing, 793. 4: the Dewey Decimal number.
This has to be a joke, Nita said to herself. But the book looked exactly like all the others in the
series. She opened it carefully, so as not to crack the binding, and turned the first few pages to the
table of contents. Normally Nita was a fast reader and would quickly have finished a page with
only a few lines on it; but what she found on that contents page slowed her down a great deal.
"Preliminary Determinations: A Question of Aptitude. " "Wizardly Pre-
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I
occupations and Predilections. " "Basic Equipment and Milieus. " "Introduction to Spells,
Bindings and Geasa. " "Familiars and Helpmeets: Advice to the Initiate. " "Psychotropic Spelling.
"
Psychowhat? Nita turned to the page on which that chapter began, looking at the boldface
paragraph beneath its title.
WARNING
Spells of power sufficient to make temporary changes in the human mind are always subject to
sudden and unpredictable backlash on the user. The practitioner is cautioned to make sure that
his/her motives are benev-olent before attempting spelling aimed at...
I don't believe this, Nita thought. She shut the book and stood there holding it in her hand,
confused, amazed, suspicious—and delighted. If it was a joke, it was a great one. If it wasn't—
No, don't be silly.


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But if it isn 't—
People were clumping around upstairs, but Nita hardly heard them. She sat down at one of the low
tables and started reading the book in earnest.
The first couple of pages were a foreword.
Wizardry is one of the most ancient and misunderstood of arts. Its public image for centuries has
been one of a mysterious pursuit, practiced in occult surroundings, and usually used at the peril of
one's soul. The modern wizard, who works with tools more advanced than bat's blood and beings
more complex than medieval demons, knows how far from the truth that image is. Wizardry,
though exciting and interesting, is not a glamorous business, especially these days, when a wizard
must work quietly so as not to attract undue attention.
For those willing to assume the Art's responsibilities and do the work, though, wizardry has many
rewards. The sight of a formerly twisted grow-ing thing now growing straight, of a snarled
motivation untangled, the satisfaction of hearing what a plant is thinking or a dog is saying, of
talking to a stone or a star, is thought by most to be well worth the labor.
Not everyone is suited to be a wizard. Those without enough of the necessary personality traits
will never see this manual for what it is. That you have found it at all says a great deal for your
potential.
The reader is invited to examine the next few chapters and determine his/her wizardly potential in
detail—to become familiar with the scope of the Art—and finally to decide whether to become a
wizard.
Good luck!
SO
WANT TO BE A WIZARD
15
It's a joke, Nita thought. Really. And to her own amazement, she wouldn't herself—she was too
fascinated. She turned to the next chapter.
PRELIMINARY DETERMINATIONS
An aptitude for wizardry requires more than just the desire to practice the art. There are
certain inborn tendencies, and some acquired ones, that enable a person to become a wizard.
This chapter will list some of the better documented of wizardly characteristics. Please bear in
mind that it isn't necessary to possess all the qualities listed, or even most of them. Some of
the greatest wizards have been lacking in the qualities possessed by almost all others and have
still achieved startling competence levels....
Slowly at first, then more eagerly, Nita began working her way through the assessment
chapter, pausing only to get a pencil and scrap paper from the checkout desk, so that she could
make notes on her aptitude. She was brought up short by the footnote to one page—
Where ratings are not assigned, as in rural areas, the area of greatest population density will
usually produce the most wizards, due to the thinning of worldwalls with increased population
concentration...
Nita stopped reading, amazed. "Thinning of worldwalls"—were they saying that there are other

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worlds, other dimensions, and that things could get through? Things, or people?
She sat there and wondered. All the old fairy tales about people falling down wells into magical
countries, or slipping backward in time, or forward into it—did this mean that such things could
actually happen? If you could actually go into other worlds, other places, and come back again...
Aww—who would believe anybody who came back and told a story like that? Even if they took
pictures?
But who cares! she answered herself fiercely. If only it could be true....
She turned her attention back to the book and went on reading, though skeptically— the whole
thing still felt like a game. But abruptly it stopped being a game, with one paragraph:
Wizards love words. Most of them read a great deal, and indeed one strong sign of a potential
wizard is the inability to get to sleep without reading something first. But their love for and
fluency with words is what makes wizards a force to be reckoned with. Their ability to convince a
piece of the world— a tree, say, or a stone — that it's not what it thinks it is, that it's something
else, is the very heart of wizardry. Words skillfully used,


1
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the persuasive voice, the persuading mind, are the wizard's most basic tools. With them a
wizard can stop a tidal wave, talk a tree out of growing or into it — freeze fire, burn rain —
even slow down the death of the Universe.
That last, of course, is the reason there are wizards. See the next chap-
ter.
Nita stopped short. The universe was running down, all the energy in it was slowly being used
up; she knew that from astronomy. "Entropy, " the process was called. But she'd never heard
anyone talk about slowing it down before.
She shook her head in amazement and went on to the "correlation" sec-tion at the end of that
chapter, where all the factors involved in the makeup of a potential wizard were listed. Nita
found that she had a lot of them — enough to be a wizard, if she wanted to.
In rising excitement she turned to the next chapter. "Theory and Implica-tions of Wizardry, "
its heading said. "History, Philosophy, and the Wizards' Oath. "
Fifty or sixty eons ago, when life brought itself about, it also brought about to accompany it
many Powers and Potentialities to manage the business of creation. One of the greatest of
these Powers held aloof for a long time, watching its companions work, not wishing to enter
into Cre-ation until it could contribute something unlike anything the other Powers had made,
something completely new and original. Finally the Lone Power found what it was looking
for. Others had invented planets, light, gravity, space. The Lone Power invented death, and

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bound it irrevocably into the worlds. Shortly thereafter the other Powers joined forces and cast
the Lone One out.
Many versions of this story are related among the many worlds, assigning blame or praise to
one party or another. However, none of the stories change the fact that entropy and its
symptom, death, are here now. To attempt to halt or remove them is as futile as attempting to
ignore them.
Therefore there are wizards — to handle them.
A wizard's business is to conserve energy — to keep it from being wasted. On the simplest
level this includes such unmagical-looking actions as paying one's bills on time, turning off
the lights when you go out, and support-ing the people around you in getting their lives to
work. It also includes a great deal more.
Because wizardly people tend to be good with language, they can also become skillful with
the Speech, the magical tongue in which objects and
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 17
living creatures can be described with more accuracy than in any human language. And what
can be so accurately described can also be preserved—
freed to become yet greater. A wizard can cause an inanimate object or
animate creature to grow, or stop growing—to be what it is, or something
else. a wizard, using the Speech, can cause death to slow down, or go
somewhere else and come back later—just as the Lone Power caused it to
come about in the first place. Creation, preservation, destruction, transformation--all are a
matter of causing the fabric of being to do what you
want it to. And the Speech is the key.
Nita stopped to think this over for a moment. It sounds like, if you know what something is,
truly know, you don't have any trouble working with it. Like my telescope—if it acts up, I
know every piece of it, and it only takes a second to get it working again. To have that kind of
control over—over everything—live things, the world, even... She took a deep breath and
looked back at the book, beginning to get an idea of what kind of power was implied there.
The power conferred by use of the Speech has, of course, one insur-mountable limitation: the
existence of death itself. As one renowned Se-nior Wizard has remarked, "Entropy has us
outnumbered. " No matter how much preserving we do, the Universe will eventually die. But
it will last longer because of our efforts—and since no one knows for sure whether another
Universe will be born from the ashes of this one, the effort seems worthwhile.
No one should take the Wizards' Oath who is not committed to making wizardry a lifelong
pursuit. The energy invested in a beginning wizard is too precious to be thrown away. Yet
there are no penalties for withdrawal from the Art, except the knowledge that the Universe
will die a little faster because of energy lost. On the other hand, there are no prizes for the
service of Life—except life itself. The wizard gets the delight of working in a specialized


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area—magic—and gets a good look at the foundations of the Universe, the way things really
work. It should be stated here that there are people who consider the latter more of a curse
than a blessing. Such wizards usually lose their art. Magic does not live in the unwilling soul.
Should you decide to go ahead and take the Oath, be warned that an ordeal of sorts will
follow, a test of aptitude. If you pass, wizardry will ensue....
Yeah? Nita thought. And what if you don't pass?
"Nita?" Mrs. Lesser's voice came floating down the stairs, and a moment
18 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
later she herself appeared, a large brunette lady with kind eyes and a look of eternal concern.
"You still alive?"
"I was reading. "
"So what else is new? They're gone. "
"Thanks, Mrs. L. "
"What was all that about, anyway?"
"Oh... Joanne was looking to pick a fight again. "
Mrs. Lesser raised an eyebrow at Nita, and Nita smiled back at her shame-facedly. She didn't
miss much.
"Well, I might have helped her a little. "
"I guess it's hard, " Mrs. Lesser said. "I doubt I could be nice all the time, myself, if I had that
lot on my back. That the only one you want today, or should I just have the nonfiction section
boxed and sent over to your house?"
"No, this is enough, " Nita said. "If my father sees too many books he'll just make me bring
them back. "
Mrs. Lesser sighed. "Reading one book is like eating one potato chip, " she said. "So you'll be
tack Monday. There's more where that came from. I'll check it out for you. "
Nita felt in her pockets hurriedly. "Oh, crud. Mrs. L., I don't have my card. " "So you'll bring
it back Monday, " she said, handing her back the book as
they reached the landing, "and I'll stamp it then. I trust you. "
"Thanks, " Nita said. "Don't mention it. Be careful going home, " Mrs. Lesser said, "and have
a nice read. "
"I will. " Nita went out and stood on the doorstep, looking around in the deeping gloom.
Dinnertime was getting close, and the wind was getting cold, with a smell of rain to it. The
book in her hand seemed to prickle a little, as if it were impatient to be read.
She started jogging toward home, taking a circuitous route—up Washington from Rose
Avenue, then through town along Nassau Road and down East Clinton, a path meant to
confound pursuit. She didn't expect that they would be waiting for her only a block away from
her house, where there were no alternate routes to take. And when they were through with her,
the six of them, one of Nita's eyes was blackened and the knee Joanne had so carfully
stomped on felt swollen with liquid fire. Nita just lay there for a long while, on the spot where
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they left her, behind
the O'Donnells' hedge; the O'Donnells were out of town. There she lay, and cried, as she
would not in front of Joanne and the rest, as she would not until she was safely in bed and out
of her family's earshot. Whether she provoked these situations or not, they kept happening,
and there was nothing she could
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 19
do about them. Joanne and her hangers-on had found out that Nita didn't like to fight,
wouldn't try until her rage broke loose—and then it was too late, she was too hurt to fight
well, all her self-defense lessons went out of her head with the pain. And they knew it, and at
least once a week found a way to sucker her into a fight—or, if that failed, they would simply
ambush her. All right, she had purposely baited Joanne today, but there'd been a fight coming
anyway, and she had chosen to start it rather than wait, getting angrier and angrier, while they
baited her. But this would keep happening, again and again, and there was nothing she could
do about it. Oh, I wish we could move. I wish Dad would say something to Joanne's
father—no, that would just make it worse. If only something could just happen to make it
stop!
Underneath her, where it had fallen, the book dug into Nita's sore ribs. The memory of what
she had been reading flooded back through her pain and was followed by a wash of wild
surmise. If there are spells to keep things from dying, then I bet there are spells to keep people
from hurting you....
Then Nita scowled at herself in contempt for actually believing for a moment what couldn't
possibly be more than an elaborate joke. She put aside thoughts of the book and slowly got
up, brushing herself off and discovering some new bruises. She also discovered something
else. Her favorite pen was gone. Her space pen, a present from her Uncle Joel, the pen that
could write on butter or glass or upside down, her pen with which she had never failed a test,
even in math. She patted herself all over, checked the ground, searched in pockets where she
knew the pen couldn't be. No use; it was gone. Or taken, rather—for it had been securely
clipped to her front jacket pocket when Joanne and her group jumped her. It must have fallen
out, and one of them picked it up.
"Aaaaaagh!" Nita moaned, feeling bitter enough to start crying again. But she was all cried
out, and she ached too much, and it was a waste. She stepped around the hedge and limped the
little distance home.
Her house was pretty much like any other on the block, a white frame house with fake
shutters; but where other houses had their lawns, Nita's had a beautifully landscaped garden.
Ivy carpeted the ground, and the flowerbeds against the house had something blooming in
every season except the dead of winter. Nita trudged up the driveway without bothering to
smell any of the spring flowers, went up the stairs to the back door, pushed it open, and
walked into the kitchen as nonchalantly as she could.


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Her mother was elsewhere, but the delicious smells of her cooking filled the place; veal
cutlets tonight. Nita peered into the oven, saw potatoes baking, lifted a pot lid and found corn-
on-the-cob in the steamer.
Her father looked up from the newspaper he was reading at the dining-room table. He was a
big, blunt, good-looking man, with startling silver hair and large capable hands—"an artist's
hands!" he would chuckle as he pieced
20 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
together a flower arrangement. He owned the smaller of the town's two flower shops, and he loved
his work dearly. He had done all the landscaping around the house in his spare time, and around
several neighbors' houses too, refusing to take anything in return but the satisfaction of being up to
his elbows in a flowerbed. Whatever he touched grew. "I have an understanding with the plants, "
he would say, and it certainly seemed that way. It was people he sometimes had trouble
understanding, and particularly his eldest daughter,
"My Lord, Nita!" her father exclaimed, putting the paper down flat on the table. His voice was
shocked. "What happened?"
As if you don't know! Nita thought. She could clearly see the expressions going across her father's
face. MiGod, they said, she's done it again! why doesn't she fight back? What's wrong with her?
He would get around to asking that question at one point or another, and Nita would try to explain
it again, and as usual her father would try to understand and would fail. Nita turned away and
opened the refrigerator door, peering at nothing in particu-lar, so that her father wouldn't see the
grimace of impatience and irritation on her face. She was tired of the whole ritual, but she had to
put up with it. It was as inevitable as being beaten up.
"I was in a fight, " she said, the second verse of the ritual, the second line of the scene. Tiredly she
closed the refrigerator door, put the book down on the counter beside the stove, and peeled off her
jacket, examining it for rips and ground-in dirt and blood.
"So how many of them did you take out?" her father said, turning his eyes back to the newspaper.
His face still showed exasperation and puzzlement, and Nita sighed. He looks about as tired of this
as I am. But really, he knows the answers. "I'm not sure, " Nita said. "There were six of them. "
"Six!" Nita's mother came around the corner from the living room and into the bright
kitchen—danced in, actually. Just watching her made Nita smile sometimes, and it did now,
though changing expressions hurt. She had been a dancer before she married Dad, and the grace
with which she moved made her every action around the house seem polished, endlessly
rehearsed, lovely to look at. She glided with the laundry, floated while she cooked. "Loading the
odds a bit, weren't they?"
"Yeah. " Nita was hurting almost too much to feel like responding to the gentle humor. Her mother
caught the pain in her voice and stopped to touch Nita's face as she passed, assessing the damage
and conveying how she felt about it in one brief gesture, without saying anything that anyone else
but the two of them might hear.
"No sitting up for you tonight, kidlet, " her mother said. "Bed, and ice on that, before you swell up
like a balloon. "

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"What started it?" her dad asked from the dining room.
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 21
"Joanne Virella, " Nita said. "She has a new bike, and I didn't get as excited about it as she
thought I should. "
Nita's father looked up from the paper again, and this time there was discomfort in his face,
and regret. "Nita, " he said, "I couldn't afford it this month, really. I thought I was going to be
able to earlier, but I couldn't. I wish I could have. Next time for sure. "
Nita nodded. "It's okay, " she said, even though it wasn't really. She'd wanted that bike,
wanted it so badly—but Joanne's father owned the big five-and-dime on Nassau Road and
could afford three-hundred-dollar bikes for his children at the drop of a birthday. Nita's
father's business was a lot smaller and was prone to what he called (in front of most people)
"cash-flow prob-lems" or (in front of his family) "being broke most of the time. "
But what does Joanne care about cash flow, or any of the rest of it? I wanted that bike!
"Here, dreamer, " her mother said, tapping her on the shoulder and break-ing her thought. She
handed Nita an icepack and turned back toward the stove. "Go lie down or you'll swell worse.
I'll bring you something in a while. "
"Shouldn't she stay sitting up?" Nita's father said. "Seems as if the fluid would drain better or
something. "
"You didn't get beat up enough when you were younger, Harry, " her mother said. "If she
doesn't lie down, she'll blow up like a basketball. Scoot, Nita. "
She scooted, around the corner into the dining room, around the second corner into the living
room, and straight into her little sister, bumping loose one of the textbooks she was carrying
and scattering half her armload of pink plastic curlers. Nita's father raised his eyebrows and
turned his attention back to his paper as Nita bent to help pick things up again. Her sister, bent
down beside her, didn't take long to figure out what had happened.
"Virella again, huh?" she said. Dairine was eleven years old, redheaded as her mother, gray-
eyed as Nita, and precocious; she was taking tenth-grade English courses and breezing
through them, and Nita was teaching her some algebra on the side. Dairine had her father's
square-boned build and her mother's grace, and a perpetual, cocky grin. She was a great sister,
as far as Nita was concerned, even if she was a little too smart for her own good.
"Yeah, " Nita said. "Look out, kid, I've gotta go lie down. "
"Don't call me kid. You want me to beat up Virella for you?"
"Be my guest, " Nita said. She went on through the house, back to her room. Bumping the
door open, she fumbled for the light switch and flipped it on. The familiar maps and pictures
looked down at her—the National Geographic map of the Moon and some enlarged Voyager
photos of Jupiter and Saturn and their moons.
22 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
Nita eased herself down onto the bottom bunk bed, groaning softly—the deep bruises were
beginning to bother her now. Lord, she thought, what did I say? If Dari does beat Joanne up, I'll

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never hear the end of it. Dairine had once been small and fragile and subject to being beaten
up—mostly because she had never learned to curb her mouth either—and Nita's parents had sent
her to jujitsu lessons at the same time they sent Nita. On Dari, though, the lessons took. One or
two overconfident kids had gone after her, about a month and a half into her lessons, and had been
thoroughly and painfully surprised. She was protective enough to take Joanne on and, horrors,
throw her clear over the horizon. It would be all over school; Nita Callahan's little sister beat up
the girl who beat Nita up.
Oh, no! Nita thought.
Her door opened slightly, and Dari stuck her head in. "Of course, " she said, "if you'd rather do it
yourself, I'll let her off this time. "
"Yeah, " Nita said, "thanks. "
Dairine made a face. "Here, " she said, and pitched Nita's jacket in at her, and then right after it the
book. Nita managed to field it while holding the icepack in place with her left hand. "You left it in
the kitchen, " Dairine said. "Gonna be a magician, hull? Make yourself vanish when they chase
you?"
"Sure. Go curl your hair, runt. "
Nita sat back against the headboard of the bed, staring at the book. Why not? Who knows what
kinds of spells you could do? Maybe I could turn Joanne into a turkey. As if she isn't one already.
Or maybe there's a spell for getting lost pens back.
Though the book made it sound awfully serious, as if the wizardry were for big things. Maybe it's
not right to do spells for little stuff like this—and anyway, you can't do the spells until you've
taken the Oath, and once you've taken it, that's supposed to be forever.
Oh, come on, it's a joke! What harm can there be in saying the words if it's a joke? And if it's not,
then...
Then I'll be a wizard.
Her father knocked on her door, then walked in with a plate loaded with dinner and a glass of cola.
Nita grinned up at him, not too widely, for it hurt. "Thanks, Dad. "
"Here, " he said after Nita took the plate and the glass, and handed her a couple of aspirin. "Your
mother says to take these. "
"Thanks. " Nita took them with the Coke, while her father sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Nita, " he said, "is there something going on that I should know about?"
"Huh?"
"It's been once a week now, sometimes twice, for quite a while. Do you want me to speak to Joe
Virella and ask him to have a word with Joanne?"
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 23
"Uh, no, sir. "
Nita's father stared at his hands for a moment. "What should we do, then? I really can't afford to
start you in karate lessons again—"
"Jujitsu. "
"Whatever. Nita, what is it? Why does this keep happening? Why don't you hit them

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back?"
"I used to! Do you think it made a difference? Joanne would just get more kids to help. " Her
father stared at her, and Nita flushed hot at the stern look on his face. "I'm sorry, Daddy, I didn't
mean to yell at you. But fighting back just gets them madder, it doesn't help. "
"It might help keep you from getting mangled every week, if you'd just keep trying!" her father
said angrily. "I hate to admit it, but I'd love to see you wipe the ground up with that loudmouth
rich kid. "
So would I, Nita thought. That's the problem, She swallowed, feeling guilty over how much she
wanted to get back at Joanne somehow. "Dad, Joanne and her bunch just don't like me. I don't do
the things they do, or play the games they play, or like the things they like—and I don't want to. So
they don't like me. That's all. "
Her father looked at her and shook his head sadly. "I just don't want to see you hurt. Kidling, I
don't know... if you could just be a little more like them, if you could try to.... " He trailed off,
running one hand through his silver hair. "What am I saying?" he muttered. "Look. If there's
anything I can do to help, will you tell me?"
"Yessir. "
"Okay. If you feel better tomorrow, would you rake up the backyard a little? I want to go over the
lawn around the rowan tree with the aerator, maybe put down some seed. "
"Sure. I'll be okay, Dad. They didn't break anything. "
"My girl. " He got up. "Don't read so much it hurts your eyes, now. "
"I won't, " Nita said. Her father strode out the door, forgetting to close it behind himself as usual.
She ate her supper slowly, for it hurt to chew, and she tried to think about something besides
Joanne or that book.
The Moon was at first quarter tonight; it would be a good night to take the telescope out and have
a look at the shadows in the craters, Or there was that fuzzy little comet, maybe it had more tail
than it did last week.
It was completely useless. The book lay there on her bed and stared at her, daring her to do
something childlike, something silly, something absolutely ridiculous,
Nita put aside her empty plate, picked up the book, and stared back at it.
"All right, " she said under her breath. "All right. "
24
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
She opened the book at random. And on the page to which she opened, there was the
Oath.
It was not decorated in any way. It stood there, a plain block of type all by itself in the middle of
the page, looking serious and important. Nita read the Oath to herself first, to make sure of the
words. Then, quickly, before she could start to feel silly, she read it out loud.
" 'In Life's name, and for Life's sake, ' " she read, " 'I say that I will use the Art for nothing but the
service of that Life. I will guard growth and easel pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and
lives well in its own way; and I will change no object or creature unless its growth and life, or that

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of the system of which it is part, are threatened. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put
aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so—till Universe's end. ' "
The words seemed to echo slightly, as if the room were larger than it really was. Nita sat very still,
wondering what the ordeal would be like, wondering what would happen now. Only the wind
spoke softly in the leaves of the trees outside the bedroom window; nothing else seemed to stir
anywhere. Nita sat there, and slowly the tension began to drain out of her as she realized that she
hadn't been hit by lightning, nor had anything strange at all happened to her. Now she felt
silly—and tired too, she discovered. The effects of hen beating were catching up with her. Wearily
Nita shoved the book under hen pillow, then lay back against the headboard and closed her hurting
eyes. Sol much for the joke. She would have a nap, and then later she'd get up and, take the
telescope out back. But right now... right now....
After a while, night was not night any more; that was what brought Nita to the window, much
later. She leaned on the sill and gazed out in calm wonder at her backyard, which didn't look quite
the same as usual. A blaze of undying morning lay over everything, bushes and trees cast light
instead of shadow, and she could see the wind. Standing in the ivy under her window, she turned
her eyes up to the silver-glowing sky to get used to the brilliance. How about that, she said. The
backyard's here too. Next to her, the lesser brilliance that gazed up at that same sky shrugged
slightly. Of course, it said. This is Timeheart, after all. Yes, Nita said anxiously as they passed
across the yard and out into the bright shadow of the steel and crystal towers, but did I do right?
Her companion shrugged again. Go find out, it said, and glanced up again. Nita wasn't sure she
wanted to follow the glance. Once she had looked up and seen—I dreamed you were gone, she
said suddenly. The magic stayed, but you went away. She hurt inside, enough to cry, but her
companion flickered with laughter. No one ever goes away forever, it said. Especially not here.
Nita looked up, then, into the bright morning and the brighter shadows. The
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 25
day went on and on and would not end, the sky blazed now like molten silver....
The Sun on her face woke Nita up as usual. Someone, her mother proba-bly, had come in late last
night to cover her up and take the dishes away. She turned over slowly, stiff but not in too much
pain, and felt the hardness under her pillow. Nita sat up and pulled the book out, felt around for her
glasses. The book fell open in her hand at the listing for the wizards in the New York metropolitan
area, which Nita had glanced at the afternoon be-fore. Now she looked down the first column of
names, and her breath caught.
CALLAHAN, Juanita L., 243 E. Clinton Ave., Hempstead NY 11575
{516)555-6786. (novice, pre-rating)
Her mouth fell open. She shut it. I'm going to be a wizard! she thought. Nita got up and
got dressed in a hurry.

Preliminary Exercises
She did her chores that morning and got out of the house with the book as fast as she could,

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heading for one of her secret places in the woods. If weird things start happening, she thought,
no one will see them there. Oh, I'm going to get that pen back! And then . . ,
Behind the high school around the corner from Nita's house was a large tract of undeveloped
woodland, the usual Long Island combination of scruh oak, white pine, and sassafras. Nita
detoured around the school, pausing to scramble over a couple of chain-link fences. There
was a path on the other side; after a few minutes she turned off it to pick her way carefully
through low underbrush and among fallen logs and tree stumps. Then there was a solid wall
of clumped sassafras and twining wild blackberry bushes. It looked totally impassable, and
the blackberries threatened Nita with their thorns, but she turned sideways and pushed
through the wall of greenery undaunted.
She emerged into a glade walled all around with blackberry and gooseberry and pine,
sheltered by the overhanging branches of several trees. One, a large crabapplc, stood near the
edge of the glade, and there was a flatfish half-buried boulder at the base of its trunk. Here she
could be sure no one was watching.
Nita sat down on the rock with a sigh, put her back up against the tree, and spent a few
moments getting comfortable—then opened the book and started to read.
She found herself not just reading, after a while, but studying—cramming the facts into her
head with that particular mental stomp she used when she knew she was going to have to
know something by heart. The things the book was telling her now were not vague and
abstract, as the initial discussion of theory had been, but straightforward as the repair manual
for a new car, and nearly as complex. There were tables and lists of needed resources for
SO yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 27
working spells. There were formulas and equations and rules. There was a syllabary and
pronunciation guide for the 418 symbols used in the wizardry Speech to describe relationships and
effects that other human languages had no specific words for.
The information went on and on—the book was printed small, and there seemed no end to the
things Nita was going to have to know about. She read about the hierarchy of practicing
wizards—her book listed only those practic-ing in the U.S. and Canada, though wizards were
working everywhere in the world—and she scanned down the listing for the New York area,
noticing the presence of Advisory wizards, Area Supervisors, Senior wizards. She read through a
list of the "otherworlds" closest to her own, alternate earths where the capital of the United States
was named Huictilopochtli or Lafayette City or Hrafnkell or New Washington, and where the
people still called them-selves Americans, though they didn't match Nita's ideas about the term.
She learned the Horseman's Word, which gets the attention of any mem-ber of the genus Equus,
even the zebras; and the two forms of the Mason's Word, which give stone the appearance of life
for short periods. One chapter told her about the magical creatures living in cities, whose presence
even the nonwizardly people suspect sometimes—creatures like the steambreathing fireworms,
packratty little lizards that creep through cracks in building walls to steal treasures and trash for
their lair-hoards under the streets. Nita thought about all the steam she had seen coming up from


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manhole covers in Manhattan and smiled, for now she knew what was causing it.
She read on, finding out how to bridle the Nightmare and learning what questions to ask the
Transcendent Pig, should she meet him. She read about the Trees' Battle—who fought in it, and
who won it, and why. She read about the forty basic classes of spells and their subclasses. She read
about Timeheart, the unreal and eternal realm where the places and things people remember
affectionately are preserved as they remember them, forever.
In the middle of the description of things preserved in their fullest beauty forever, and still
growing, Nita found herself feeling a faint tingle of unease. She was also getting tired. She
dropped the book in her lap with an annoyed sigh, for there was just too much to absorb at one
sitting, and she had no c'ear idea of where to begin. "Crud," she said under her breath. "I thought
I'd be able to make joanne vanish by tomorrow morning. . . ."
Nita picked the manual up again and leafed through it to the section labeled "Preliminary
Exercises."
The first one was set in a small block of type in the middle of an otherwise page.
28 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
To change something, you must first describe it. To describe something, you must first see it. Hold
still in one place for as long as it takes to see something.
Nita felt puzzled and slightly annoyed. This didn't sound much like magic. But obediently she put
the book down, settled herself more comfortably against the tree, folded her arms, and sighed. It's
almost too warm to think about anything serious. . . . What should I look at? That rock over there?
Naah, it's kind of a dull-looking rock. That weed . . , look how its leaves go up around the stem in
a spiral. . . . Nita leaned her head back, stared up through the crabtree's branches. That rotten
Joanne. Where would she have hidden that pen? I wonder. Maybe if I could sneak into her house
somehow, maybe there's a spell for that. . . . Have to do it after dark, I guess. Maybe I could do it
tonight . . . wish it didn't take so long to get dark this time of year. Nita looked at the sky where it
showed between the leaves, a hot blue mosaic of light with here and there the fireflicker of sun
showing through, shifting with the shift of leaves in the wind. There are kinds of patterns—the
wind never goes through the same way twice, and there are patterns in the branches but they're
never quite the same either. And look at the changes in the brightness. The sky is the same but the
leaves cover sometimes more and sometimes less ... the patterns . . . the patterns, they . . . they. . . .
(They won't let you have a moment's rest,) the crabapple tree said irrita-bly. Nita jumped, scraping
her back against the trunk as she sat up straight. She had heard the tree quite plainly in some way
that had nothing to do with spoken words. It was light patterns she had heard, and wind
movements, leafrustle, fireflicker.
(Finally paid attention, did you?) said the tree. (As if one of them isn't enough, messing up
someone's fallen-leaf pattern that's been in progress for fifteen years, drawing circles all over the
ground and messing up the matrices. Well? What's your excuse?)
Nita sat there with her mouth open, looking up at the words the tree was making with cranky light
and shadow. It works. It works! "Uh," she said, not knowing whether the tree could understand
her, "I didn't draw any circles on your leaves—"

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(No, but that other one did,) the tree said. (Made circles and stars and diagrams all over
Telerilarch's collage, doing some kind of power spell. You people don't have the proper
respect for artwork. Okay, so we're amateurs,) it added, a touch of belligerence creeping
into its voice. (So none of us have been here more than thirty years. Well, our work is still
valid, and—)
"Uh, listen, do you mean that there's a, uh, a wizard out here somewhere doing magic?"
(What else?) the tree snapped. (And let me tell you, if you people don't—)
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 29
"Where? Where is she?"
(He,) the tree said. (In the middle of all those made-stone roads. I remem-ber when those
roads went in, and they took a pattern Kimber had been working on for eighty years and
scraped it bare and poured that black rock over it. One of the most complex, most—)
He? Nita thought, and her heart sank slightly. She had trouble talking to boys. "You mean
across the freeway, in the middle of the interchange? That green place?"
(Didn't you hear me? Are you deaf? Silly question. That other one must be not to have
heard Teleri yelling at him. And now I suppose you'll start scratching up the ground and
invoking powers and ruining my collage. Well, let me tell you—}
"I, uh—listen, I'll talk to you later," Nita said hurriedly. She got to her feet, brushed
herself off, and started away through the woods at a trot. Another wizard? And my God,
the trees— Their laughter at her amazement was all around her as she ran, the merriment
of everything from foot-high weeds to hundred-foot oaks, rustling in the wind—grave
chuckling of maples and alders, titters from groves of sapling sassafras, silly giggling in
the rasp-berry bushes, a huge belly-laugh from the oldest hollow ash tree before the
freeway interchange. How could I never have heard them before!
Nita stopped at the freeway's edge and made sure that there were no cars coming before
she tried to cross. The interchange was one of those cloverleaf affairs, and the circle
formed by one of the offramps held a stand of the original pre-freeway trees within it, in a
kind of sunken bowl. Nita dashed across the concrete and stood a moment, breathless, at
the edge of the downslope, before starting down it slantwise.
This was another of her secret places, a spot shaded and peaceful in sum-mer and winter
both because of the pine trees that roofed the hollow in. But there was nothing peaceful
about it today. Something was in the air, and the trees, irritated, were muttering among
themselves. Even on a foot-thick cush-ion of pine needles, Nita's feet seemed to be
making too much noise. She tried to walk softly and wished the trees wouldn't stare at her
so.
Where the slope bottomed out she stopped, looking around her nervously, and that was
when she saw him. The boy was holding a stick in one hand and staring intently at the

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ground underneath a huge shag-larch on one side of the grove. He was shorter than she
was, and looked younger, and he also looked familiar somehow. Now who is that? she
thought, feeling more ner-vous still. No one had ever been in one of her secret places
when she came there.
out the boy just kept frowning at the ground, as if it were a test paper and ne was trying to scowl
the right answer out of it. A very ordinary-looking kid, w'th straight black hair and a Hispanic look
to his face, wearing a beat-up
50 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
green windbreaker and jeans and sneakers, holding a willow wand of a type that Nita's book
recommended for certain types of spelling.
He let out what looked like a breath of irritation and put his hands on his hips. "Cofones,"he
muttered, shaking his head—and halfway through the shake, he caught sight of Nita.
He looked surprised and embarrassed for a moment, then his face steadied down to a simple
worried look. There he stood regarding Nita, and she realized with a shock that he wasn't going to
yell at her, or chase her, or call her names, or run away himself. He was going to let her explain
herself, Nita was amazed. It didn't seem quite normal.
"Hi," she said.
The boy looked at her uncertainly, as if trying to place her. "Hi."
Nita wasn't sure quite where to begin. But the marks on the ground, and the willow wand, seemed
to confirm that a power spell was in progress. "Uh," she said, "I, uh, I don't see the oak leaves. Or
the string,"
The boy's dark eyes widened. "So that's how you got through!"
"Through what?"
"I put a binding spell around the edges of this place," he said. "I've tried this spell once or twice
before, but people kept showing up just as I was getting busy, and I couldn't finish."
Nita suddenly recognized him, "You're the one they were calling crazy last week."
The boy's eyes narrowed again. He looked annoyed. "Uh, yeah. A couple of the eighth graders
found me last Monday. They were shooting up the woods with BB guns, and there I was working.
And they couldn't figure out what I was doing, so at lunch the next day they said—"
"I know what they said." It had been a badly rhymed song about the kid who played with himself
in the woods, because no one else would play with him. She remembered feeling vaguely sorry for
the kid, whoever he was; boys could be as bad as girls sometimes.
"1 thought I blew the binding too," he said. "You surprised me."
"Maybe you can't bind another wizard out," Nita said. That was it, she thought. If he's not one—
"Uhh ... I guess not." He paused. "I'm Kit," he said then. "Christo-pher, really, but I hate
Christopher."
"Nita," she said. "It's short for Juanita. I hate that too. Listen—the trees are mad at you."
Kit stared at her. "The trees?"
"Uh, mostly this one." She looked up into the branches of the shag-larch, which were trembling
with more force than the wind could lend them. "See, the trees do—I don't know, it's artwork, sort

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of, with their fallen leaves—and you started doing your power schematic all over their work, and,
uh—"
SO yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 31
"Trees?" Kit said, "Rocks I knew about, I talked to a rock last week—or it talked to me,
actually—though it wasn't talking, really. . . ." He looked up at the tree. "Well, hey, I'm
sorry," he said. "I didn't know. I'll try to put things back the way I found them. But I might as
well not have bothered with the spell," he said, looking again at Nita. "It got caught, it's not
work-ing. You know anything about this?"
He gestured at the diagram he had drawn on the cleared ground, and Nita went to crouch
down by it. The pattern was one she had seen in her book, a basic design of interlocking
circles and woven parallelograms. There were symbols drawn inside the angles and outside
the curves, some of them letters or words in the Roman alphabet, some of them the graceful
characters of the wizardly Speech. "I just got my book yesterday," she said. "I doubt I'll be
much help. What were you trying to get? The power part of it I can see."
She glanced up and found Kit looking with somber interest at her black eye. "I'm getting tired
of being beat up just because I have a Spanish ac-cent," he said. "I was going to attract
enough power to me so that the big kids would just leave me alone and not start anything. An
'aura,' the book called it. But the spell got stuck a couple of steps in, and when I checked the
book it said that I was missing an clement." He looked questioningly at Nita. "Maybe you're
it?"
"Uhh—" She shook her head. "I don't know. I was looking for a spell for something different.
Someone beat me up and stole my best pen. It was a space pen, the kind the astronauts have,
and it writes on anything, and I always took all my tests with it and I always pass when I use
it, and I want it back." She stopped, then added, "And I guess I wouldn't mind if they didn't
beat me up any more either."
"We could make a finding spell and tie it into this one," Kit said.
"Yeah? Well, we better put these needles back first."
"Yeah."
Kit stuck the willow wand in his back pocket as he and Nita worked to push the larch's
needles back over the cleared ground. "Where'd you get your book?" Nita said.
'In the city, about a month ago. My mother and father went out antique hunting, there's this
one part of Second Avenue where all the little shops are
and one place had this box of secondhand books, and I stopped to look at them because I
always look at old books—and this one caught my eye. My "and, actually. I was going after a
Tom Swift book underneath it and it Pinched me. . . ."
-^Jita chuckled. "Mine snagged me in the library," she said. "I don't know
• • • I didn't want Joanne—she's the one who beat me up—I didn't want
er to get my pen, but I'm glad she didn't get this." She pulled her copy of


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32 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
the book out of her jacket as Kit straightened up beside her. She looked over at him. "Does it
work?" she demanded. "Does it really work?"
Kit stood there for a moment, looking at the replaced needles. "I fixed my dog's nose," he said. "A
wasp stung him and I made it go down right away. And I talked to the rock." He looked up at Nita
again. "C'mon," he said. "There's a place in the middle where the ground is bare. Let's see what
happens."
Together they walked to the center of the hollow, where the pine trees made a circle open to the
sky and the ground was bare dirt. Kit pulled out his willow wand and began drawing the diagram
again. "This one I know by heart," he said. "I've started it so many times. Well, this time for sure."
He got his book out of his back pocket and consulted it, beginning to write symbols into the
diagram. "Would you look and see if there's anything else we need for a finding spell?"
"Sure." Nita found the necessary section in the index of her book and checked it. "Just an image of
the thing to be found," she said. "I have to make it while you're spelling. Kit, do you know why
this works? Leaves, pieces of string, designs on the ground. It doesn't make sense."
Kit kept drawing. "There's a chapter on advanced theory in there, but I couldn't get through it all
the way. The magic is supposed to have something to do with interrupting space—"
"Huh?"
"Listen, that's all I could get out of it. There was this one phrase that kept turning up,
'temporospatial claudication.' I think that's how you say it. It's something like, space isn't really
empty, it folds around things—or words— and if you put the right things in the right place and do
the right things with them, and say the right things in the Speech, magic happens. Where's the
string?"
"This one with all the knots in it?" Nita reached down and picked it up.
"Must have fallen out of my pocket. Stand on this end, okay?" He dropped one end of the
string into the middle of the diagram, and Nita stepped onto it. Kit walked around her and
the diagram with itf using the end of the string to trace a circle. Just before he came to the
place where he had started, he used the willow wand to make a sort of figure-eight
mark—a "wizards' knot," the book had called it—and closed the circle with it. Kit tugged
at the string as he stood up, Nita let it go, and Kit coiled it and put it away.
"You've got to do this part yourself," Kit said. "I can't write your name for you—each
person in a spelling does their own. There's a table in there with all the symbols in it—"
Nita scuffed some pages aside and found it, a long list of English letters and numbers, and
symbols in the Speech. She got down to look at Kit's
SO yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 33
name, so that she could see how to write hers, and group by group began to puzzle the
symbols out. "Your birthday's August twenty-fifth?"
"Uh huh."
Nita looked at the symbol for the year. "They skipped you a couple grades,

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huh?"
"Yeah. It's rotten," Kit said, sounding entirely too cheerful as he said it. Nita knew that tone of
voice—it was the one in which she usually answered loanne back, while trying to hide her
own fear of what was sure to happen next. "It wouldn't be so bad if they were my age," Kit
went on, looking over Nita's shoulder and speaking absently. "But they keep saying things
like 'If you're so smart, 'ow come you talk so funny?' " His imitation of their imita-tion of his
accent was precise and bitter. "They make me sick. Trouble is, they outweigh me."
Nita nodded and started to draw her name on the ground, using the substitutions and symbols
that appeared in her manual. Some of them were simple and brief; some of them were almost
more complex than she believed possible, crazy amalgams of curls and twists and angles like
those an insane stenographer might produce. She did her best to reproduce them, and tied all
the symbols together, fastening them into a circle with the same wizards' knot that Kit had
used on the outer circle and on his own name.
"Done?" Kit said. He was standing up again, tracing the outer circle around one more time.
"Yup."
"Okay." He finished the tracing with another repetition of the wizards' knot and straightened
up; then he put his hand out as if to feel something in the air. "Good," he said. "Here, come
check this."
"Check what?" Nita said; but she got up and went over to Kit. She put out her hand as he had,
and found that something was resisting the movement of her hand through the air—something
that gave slightly under increased pres-sure, like a mattress being pushed down and then
springing back again. Nita felt momentarily nervous. "Can air get through this?"
I think so. I didn't have any trouble the last couple of times I did it. It's only supposed to seal
out unfriendly influences."
Nita stood there with her hand resting against nothing, and the nothing supported her weight.
The last of her doubts about the existence of magic went away. She might have imagined the
contents of the book, or been Purposely misreading. She might have dozed off and dreamed
the talking «ee. But this was daylight, the waking world, and she was leaning one-handed on
empty air!
Hiose guys who came across you when you had this up," she said, "what d"d they think?"
U", it worked on them too. They didn't even understand why they
34 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
couldn't get at me—they thought it was their idea to yell at me from a distance. They thought they
were missing me with the BB guns on purpose too, to scare me. It's true, what the book said. There
are people who couldn't see a magic if it bit them." He glanced around the finished circle. "There
are other spells like this that don't need drawings after you do them the first time, and when you
need them, they're there really fast—like if someone's about to try beating you up. People just kind
of skid away from you. . . ."
"I bet," Nita said, with relish. Thoughts of what else she might be able to do to Joanne flickered

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through her head, but she pushed them aside for the moment. "What next?"
"Next," Kit said, going to the middle of the circle and sitting down care-fully so as not to smudge
any of the marks he'd made, "we read it. Or I read most of it, and you read your name. Though first
you have to check my figuring."
"How come?" Nita joined him, avoiding the lines and angles.
"Two person spell—both people always check each other's work. But your name, you check again
after I do."
Kit was already squinting at her squiggles, so Nita pulled out her book again and began looking at
the symbols Kit had drawn in the dirt. There were clearly two sides to the diagram, and the book
said they both had to balance like a chemical equation. Most of the symbols had numerical values
attached, for ease in balancing, and Nita started doing addition in her head, making sure both sides
matched. Eventually she was satisfied. She looked again at her name, seeing nothing wrong. "Is it
okay?"
"Yeah." Kit leaned back a little. "You have to be careful with names, it says. They're a way of
saying what you are—and if you write something in a spell that's not what you are, well. . . ."
"You mean . . . you change . . . because the spell says you're some-thing else than what you are?
You become that?"
Kit shrugged, but he looked uneasy. "A spell is saying that you want something to happen," he
said. "If you say your name wrong—"
Nita shuddered. "And now?"
"Now we start. You do your name when I come to it. Then, the goal part down there—since it's a
joint goal, we say it together. Think you can do it okay if I go slow?"
"Yeah."
Kit took a deep breath with his eyes closed, then opened his eyes and began to read.
Nita had never heard a voice speaking a spell aloud before, and the effect was strange. Ever so
slightly, ever so slowly, things began to change around her. The tree-sheltered quiet grew quieter.
The cool light that filtered through the canopy of branches grew expectant, fringed with secrecy
the way
SO yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 35
things seen through the edge of a lens are fringed with rainbows. Nita began to feel as if she was
caught in the moment between a very vivid dream and the awakening from it. There was that
feeling of living in a body—of being aware of familiar surroundings and the realities of the
daylight world waiting to be resumed—yet at the same time seeing those surroundings differently,
colored with another sort of light, another kind of time. On one level Nita heard Kit reciting a
string of polysyllables that should have been meaningless to her—words for symbols, pieces of
words, babble. Yet she could also hear Kit talking, saying casually, and, it seemed, in English,
"We need to know something, and we suggest this particular method of finding the information. ."
And the words didn't break the expectancy, the listening silence. For once, for the first time, the
dream was real while Nita was awake. Power stirred in the air around her and waited for her to
shape it.


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Magic.
She sat and listened to Kit. With each passing second she could catch more clearly the clean
metallic taste of the equation as it began to form itself, flickering chill and bright in her mind. Kit's
speech was giving it life, and with quiet, flowing efficiency it was going about its purpose. It was
invoking the attention of what Nita might have called physical laws, except that there was nothing
physical about them—they had to do with flows of a kind of power as different from ordinary
energy as energy was from matter. The equation stretched and coiled and caught those powers
within itself as the words wove it. Nita and Kit were caught in it too. To Nita it seemed as if,
without moving, she held out her hands, and they were taken—by Kit, and by the spell itself, and
by the ponderous powers caught across from her in the dance. There was a pause: Kit looked
across the diagrams at her.
Nita scowled at the symbols beside her and began to read them, slowly and with some
hesitation—naming herself one concept or one symbol at a time, hinding herself into the spell. At
first she was scared, for she could feel the strangeness folding in close around her. But then she
realized that nothing awful was happening, and as her name became part of the spell, that was
what was sliding down around her, protecting her. She finished, and she was °ut of breath, and
excited, and she had never been happier in her life.
Kit's voice came in again then, picking up the weave, rejoining the dance, ^o it went for a while,
the strange words and the half-seen, half-felt move-ments and images falling into a rhythm of light
and sound and texture, a s°ng, a poem, a spell. It began to come whole all around them, and all
around the tingling air stayed still to better hold the words, and the trees bent close to listen.
Kit came to the set of symbols that stood for his name and who he was,
jind read them slowly and carefully, Nita felt the spell settle down around
'ro too. He finished it and glanced up at Nita, and together they began the
36 -        SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
goal section of the spell. Nita did her best to make a clear image of the pen as she spoke—the
silver case, gone a little scratched and grubby now, her initials incised up on the top. She hardly
had time to wonder at the harmony their paired voices made before things began to change again.
The shadows of the trees around them seemed to grow darker; the aura of expectancy grew sharp
enough to taste. The silence became total, and their voices fell into it as into a great depth.
The formula for their goal, though longer than either of their names had been, seemed to take less
time to say—and even stranger, it began to sound like much more than just finding a pen and
being left alone. It began to taste of starfire and night and motion, huge and controlled, utterly
strange. Saying the formula left Kit and Nita breathless and drained, as if something power-ful had
briefly been living and speaking through them and had worn them down. They finished the
formula together, and gulped for air, and looked at each other in half-frightened expectation,
wondering what would happen next.
The completed spell took effect. Nita had thought that she would gradu-ally begin to see
something, the way things had changed gradually in the grove. The spell, though, had its own
ideas. Quick as a gasp it slammed them both out of one moment and into another, a shocking,

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wrenching transition like dreaming that you've fallen out of bed, wham! Instinctively they both
hung on to the spell as if onto a railing, clutching it until their surroundings steadied down. The
darkness had been replaced by a lowering, sullen-feeling gloom. They looked down as if from a
high balcony onto a shadowed island prisoned between chill rivers and studded with sharp spikes
of iron and cold stone.
(Manhattan?) Kit asked anxiously, without words. Nita felt frozen in place like a statue and
couldn't turn to answer him—the spell was holding her immobile.
(It looks like Manhattan,) she said, feeling just as uneasy. (But what's my pen doing there:')
Kit would have shaken his head if he could have. (I don't get it. What's wrong here? This is New
York City—but it never looked this awful, this dirty and nasty and . . .} He trailed off in confusion
and dismay.
Nita looked around her. It was hard to make out anything on the island— there was a murky pall
over the city that seemed more than just fog. There was hardly any traffic that she could see, and
almost no light—in fact, in all of Manhattan there were only two light sources. In one place on the
island-the cast Fifties, it looked like—a small point of brittle light seemed to pulse right through
steel and stone, throbbing dully like a sown seed of wildfire waiting to explode. The pulses were
irregular and distressing, and the light was painful to look at. Some blocks to the south, well into
the financial
SO K)U WANT TO BE A WIZARD 37
district near the south end of the island, another fire burned, a clear white spark like a
sunseed, beating regularly as a heart. It was consoling, but it was
very small.
(Now what?) Nita said. (Why would my pen be in this place?) She looked down at the dark grainy
air below them, listened to the brooding silence like that of a beast of prey ready to spring, felt the
sullen buildings hunching themselves against the oppressive sky—and then felt the something
malevo-lent and alive that lay in wait below—a something that saw them, was con-scious of them,
and was darkly pleased.
(Kit, what's that?)
(It knows!) Kit's thought sang with alarm like a plucked string. (It knows we're here! It
shouldn't be able to, but—Nita, the spell's not balanced for this. If that thing grabs us or
holds us somehow, we won't be able to get back!)
Nita felt Kit's mind start to flick frantically through the memories of what he had read in
his wizards' manual, looking for an idea, for something they could do to protect
themselves.
She held very still and looked over his shoulder at his thoughts, even though part of her
trembled at the thought of that dark presence which was even now reaching out toward
them, lazy, curious, deadly. Abruptly she saw something that looked useful.
{Kit, stop! No, go back one. That's it. Look, it says if you've got an imbal-ance, you can
open out your side of the spell to attract some more power.)

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(Yeah, but if the wrong kind of power answers, we're in for it!)
(We're in for it for sure if that gets us,) Nita said, indicating the huge, hungry darkness billowing
upward toward them like a cloud. (Look, we'll make a hole through the spell big enough for
something friendly to fall into, and we'll take pot luck.)
Nita could feel Kit's uncertainty as he started choosing from memory the words and symbols he
would need. (All right, but I dunno. If something worse happens . . .)
(What could be worse?) Nita hollered at Kit, half in amusement, half in tear. The hungry
something drew closer.
Kit started to answer, then forgot about it. (There,) he said, laying the equation out in his
mind, (I think that's all we need.)
(Go ahead,) Nita said, watching anxiously as their pursuer got closer and the air around them
seemed to grow thicker and darker yet. (You say it. Just Wl me what to do and when.)
(Right,) Kit said, and began speaking in his mind, much faster than he had during the initial
spelling. If that first magic had felt like the weaving of a Wf|ole, this one felt like ripping
something apart. Their surroundings seemed to shimmer uncertainly, the dark skyline and lead-
gray sky rippled like a
38 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
wind-stirred curtain; even that stalking presence seemed to hesitate in mo-mentary confusion.
(Push,) Kit said suddenly, {push right there.) Nita felt the torn place that Kit had made in the spell,
and she shoved clumsily at it with her mind, trying to make the hole larger.
(It's . giving . . .)
(Now, hard/} Kit said, and Nita pushed until pain stabbed and stabbed again behind
where her eyes should have been, and at the moment she thought she couldn't possibly
push any more, Kit said one short sharp syllable and threw the spell wide open like a
door.
It was like standing at the core of a tornado which, rather than spinning you away to Oz, strips the
roof off your home, opens the house walls out flat as the petals of a plaster flower, and leaves you
standing confused and disbe-lieving in the heart of a howling of smoke and damned voices; or lilte
moving through a roomful of people, every one of whom tries to catch your eye and tell you the
most important thing that ever happened to him. Nita found herself deluged in fragments of sights
and sounds and tastes and feelings and thoughts not her own, a madly coexisting maelstrom of
imageries from other universes, other earths, other times. Most of them she managed to shut out by
squeezing her mind shut like eyes and hanging on to the spell. She sensed that Kit was doing the
same and that their stalker was momentarily as bewil-dered as they were by what was happening.
The whirling confusion seemed to be funneling through the hole in the spell like water going down
a drain— things, concepts, creatures too large or too small for the hole fell through it, or past it, or
around it. But sooner or later something just the right size would catch. (Hope we get something
useful,) Nita thought desperately. (Some-thing bigger than that thing, anyway.)
And thump, something fitted into the hole with snug precision, and the crazy whirling died away,


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and the two of them had company in the spellweb. Something small, Nita felt, very small, too
small—but no, it was big, too . . . Confused, she reached out to Kit.
(Is that it? Can we get out now? Before that what's-tts-name—)
The what's-its-name shook itself with a ripple of rage and hunger that Kit and Nita could feel even
at a distance. It headed toward them again, quickly, done with playing with them.
(Uh oh!) Kit said. (Let's get outa here!)
(What do we—)
(What in the—) said a voice that neither of them recognized.
(Out!) Kit said, and hooked the spell into the added power that the newj comer provided, and
pulled—
—and plain pale daylight came down around them, heavy as a collapsed tent. Gravity yanked at
them. Kit fell over sideways and lay thete pSnting on
SO yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 39
the ground like someone who's run a race. Nita sagged, covered her face, bent over double
right down to the ground, struggling for breath.
Eventually she began to recover, but she put off moving or opening her eyes. The book had
warned that spelling had its prices, and one of them was the physical exhaustion that goes
along with any large, mostly mental work of creation. Nita felt as if she had just been through
about a hundred English tests with essay questions, one after another. "Kit?" she said, worried
by his silence.
"Nnngggg," Kit said, and rolled over into a sort of crouch, holding his head in his hands.
"Ooooh. Turn off the Sun."
"It's not that bad," Nita said, opening her eyes. Then she winced and shut them in a hurry. It
was.
"How long'vc we been here?" Kit muttered. "The Sun shouldn't be show-ing here yet."
"It's—" Nita said, opening her eyes again to check her watch and being distracted by a bright
light to her right that was entirely too low to be the Sun, and squinting at it—and then
forgetting what she had started to say.
Hanging in midair about three feet away from her, inside the circle, was a spark of eye-
searing white fire. It looked no bigger than a pinhead, but it was brilliant all out of proportion
to its size, and was giving off light about as bright as that of a two-hundrcd-watt bulb without
a shade. The light bobbed gently in midair, up and down, looking like a will-o'-the-wisp
plugged into too powerful a current and about to blow out. Nita sat there with her mouth open
and stared.
The bright point dimmed slightly, appeared to describe a small tight circle so that it could take
in Kit, the drawn circle, trees and leaves and sky; then it came to rest again, staring back at
Nita. Though she couldn't catch what Kit was feeling, now that the spell was over, she could
feel the light's emotions quite clearly—amazement, growing swiftly into unbelieving pleasure.
Sud-denly it blazed up white-hot again.

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(Dear Artificer,) it said in bemused delight, {I've blown my quanta and gone to the Good
Place!)
Nita sat there in silence for a moment, thinking a great many things at once. Uhh. ... she
thought. And, So I wanted to be a wizard, huh? Serves 106 right. Something falls into my
world and thinks it's gone to Heaven. Boy, ls >t gonna get a shock. And, What in the world is
it, anyway?
'Kit," Nita said. "Excuse me a moment," she added, nodding with abrupt courtesy at the light
source. "Kit." She turned slightly and reached down to stlake him by the shoulder. "Kit.
C'mon, get up. We have company." ( Mmrnp?" Kit said, scrubbing at his eyes and starting to
straighten up. Oh, no, the binding didn't blow, did it?"
Nope. It's the extra power you called in. I think it came back with us."
40 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
"Well, it—oh," Kit said, as he finally managed to focus on the sedately hovering
brightness, "Oh. It's—uh. . . ."
"Right," Nita said. "It says," she added, "that it's blown its quanta. Is that dangerous?" she asked
the light.
(Dangerous?) It laughed inside, a crackling sound like an overstimulated Geiger counter.
(Artificer, child, it means I'm dead.) "Child" wasn't precisely the concept it used; Nita got a
fleeting impression of a huge volume of dust and gas contracting gradually toward a common
center, slow, confused, and nebulous. She wasn't flattered.
"Maybe you won't like hearing this," Nita said, "but I'm not sure this is the Good Place. It doesn't
seem that way to us, anyhow."
The light drew a figure-eight in the air, a shrug. (It looks that way to mej it said. (Look how
orderly everything is! And how much life there is in just one place! Where I come from, even a
spore's worth of life is scarcer than atoms in a comet's tail.)
"Excuse me," Kit said, "but what are you?"
It said something Nita could make little sense of. The concept she got looked like page after page
of mathematical equations. Kit raised his eye-brows. "It uses the Speech too," he commented as he
listened.
"So what is it?"
Kit looked confused. "Its name says that it came from way out in space somewhere, and it has a
mass equal to—to five or six blue-white giant stars and a few thousand-odd planets, and it emits
all up and down the matter-energy spectrum, all kinds of light and radiation and even some
subatomic particles." He shrugged. "You have any idea what that is?"
Nita stared at the light in growing disbelief. "Where's all your mass?" she said. "If you have that
much, the gravity should have crushed us up against you the minute you showed up."
(Elsewhere,) the light said offhandedly. (I have a singularity-class temporospatial claudication.)
"A warp," Nita whispered. "A tunnel through space-time. Are you a white hole?"
It stopped bobbing, stared at her as if she had said something derogatory. (Do I look like a hole?)

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"Do I look like a cloud of gas?" Nita snapped back, and then sighed—her mouth was getting the
better of her again. "I'm sorry. That's just what we call your kind of, uh, creature. Because you act
like a hole in the Universe that light and radiation come through, I know you're not, really. But,
Kit,' she said, turning, "where's my pen? And where's the power you were after? Didn't the spell
work?"
"Spells always work," Kit said. "That's what the book says. When you ask for something, you
always get back something that'll help you solve your
SO }W WANT TO BE A WIZARD 41
roblem, or be the solution itself." He looked entirely confused. "I asked for that power aura
for me, and your pen for you—that was all. If we got a white hole, it means he's the
answer—" "If he's the answer," Nita said, bemused, "I'm not sure I understand the
question."
(This is all fascinating,) the white hole said, (but I have to find a func-tional-Advisory nexus
in a hurry. I found out that the Naming of Lights has gone missing, and I managed to find a
paradimensional net with enough empty loci to get me to an Advisory in a hurry. But
something seems to have gone wrong. Somehow I don't think you're Advisories.)
"Uh, no," Kit said. "1 think we called you—"
(You called me?) the white hole said, regarding Kit with mixed reverence and amazement.
(You're one of the Powers born of Life? Oh, I'm sorry I didn't recognize You—I know You
can take any shape but somehow I'd always thought of You as being bigger. A quasar, or a
mega-nova.) The white hole made a feeling of rueful amusement. (It's confusing being dead!)
"Oh, brother," Kit said, "Look, I'm not—you're not—just not. We made a spell and we called
you. I don't think you're dead."
(If you say so,) the white hole said, polite but doubtful. (You called me, though? Me
personally? I don't think we've met before.)
"No, we haven't," Nita said. "But we were doing this spell, and we found something, but
something found us too, and we wouldn't have been able to get back here unless we called in
some extra power—so we did, and it was you, I guess. You're not mad, are you?" she asked
timidly. The thought of what a live, intelligent white hole might be able to do if it got annoyed
scared her badly.
(Mad? No. As I said, I was trying to get out of my own space to get the news to someone who
could use it, and then all of a sudden there was a paranet with enough loci to handle all the
dimensions I carry, so I grabbed rt.) The white hole made another small circle, looking around
him curiously. (Maybe it did work. Are there Advisories in this—on this— What is this,
anyway?}
Kit looked at Nita. "Huh?"
(This,) the white hole said, (all of this.) He made another circle. 'Oh! A planet," Nita said.
"See, there's our star." She pointed, and the white hole rotated slightly to look.
(Artificer within us,) he said, (maybe I have blown my quanta, after all. I

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always wanted to see a planet, but I never got around to it. Habit, I guess.
on get used to sitting around emitting X-rays after a while, and you don't
'nk of doing anything else. You want to see some?) he asked suddenly. He
a little insecure. , maybe you'd better not," Nita said.
42 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
(How come? They're really pretty.)
"We can't see them—and besides, we're not built to take hard radiation. Our atmosphere
shuts most of it out."
(A real planet,) the white hole said, wondering and delighted, (with a real atmosphere.
Well! If this is a planet, there has to be an Advisory around here somewhere. Could you
help me find one?)
"Uhh—" Kit looked uncertainly at the white hole, "Sure. But do you think you could help
me find some power? And Nita get her pen back?"
The white hole looked Kit up and down. (Some potential, some potential,) he muttered. (I
could probably have you emitting light pretty quickly, if we worked together on a regular
basis. Maybe even some alpha. We'll see. What's a pen?)
"What's your name?" Kit said, "I mean, we can't just call you 'hey you' all the time."
(True,) the white hole said. (My name is Khairelikoblephareh-
glukumeilichephreidosd'enagouni—) and at the same time he went flickering through a
pattern of colors that was evidently the visual translation.
"Ky—elik—" Nita began.
"Fred/' Kit said quickly. "Well," he added as they looked at him again, "if we have to yell for help
or something, the other way's too long. And that was the only part I got, anyway."
"Is that okay with you?" Nita asked.
The white hole made his figure-eight shrug again. (Better than having my truename
mangled, I guess,) he said, and chuckled silently. (Fred, then. And you are?)
"Nita."
"Kit."
{I see why you like them short,) Fred said. (All right. Tell me what a 'pen' is, and I'll try
to help you find it. But we really must get to an Advisory as fast as we can—)
"Okay," Kit said. "Let's break the circle and go talk."
"Sounds good," Nita said, and began to erase the diagrams they had drawn. Kit cut the wizards'
knot and scuffed the circle open in a few places, while Nita took a moment to wave her hand
through the now-empty air. "Not bad for a first spell," she said with satisfaction.
(I meant to ask,) Fred said politely, (what's a spell?)
Nita sighed, and smiled, and picked up her book, motioning Fred to folio* her over by where Kit
sat. It was going to be a long afternoon, but she didn t care. Magic was loose in the world.



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Research and Development
They were at the schoolyard early the next morning, to be sure they wouldn't miss Joanne and
her crew. Nita and Kit sat on the curb by the front door to the school, staring across at the
packed dirt and dull grass of the athletic field next to the building. Kit leafed through his
wizards' manual, while Fred hung over his shoulder and looked around with mild interest at
everything. (Will it be long?) he said, his light flickering slightly.
"No," Nita said. She was shaking. After the other day, she didn't want anything to do with
Joanne at all. But she wanted that pen back, so ...
"Look, it'll be all right," Kit said, paging through his manual. "Just do it the way we decided
last night. Get close to her, keep her busy for a little while. Fred'11 do the rest."
"It's keeping her busy that worries me," Nita muttered. "Her idea of busy usually involves her
fists and my face."
{I don't understand,) Fred said, and Nita had to laugh briefly—she and Kit had heard that
phrase about a hundred times since Fred arrived. He used it on almost everything. (What are
you afraid of?)
"This," Nita said, pointing to her black eye. "And this—" uncovering a bruise. "And this, and
this—"
Fred regarded her with a moment's discomfiture. (I thought you came that Way Joanne makes
this happen?)
'Uh huh. And it hurts getting this way."
(But she only changes your outsides. Aren't your insides still the same afterward?)
^ita had to stop and think about that one. Okay/' Kit said suddenly, "here's the Advisory list
for our area." He ran a
nger down the page. "And here's the one in town. Twenty-seven Hundred Rose—"
44 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
"That's up the hill past the school. What's the name?"
"Lessee. 'Swale, T.B., and Romeo, C.J. Research Advisories, temporospa-tial
adjustments, entastics, non-specific scryings—' "
"Wait a minute," Nita said hurriedly. " 'Swale'? You mean Crazy Swale? We can't go in
there, Kit, that place is haunted! Everybody knows that! Weird noises are always coming
out of there—"
"If it's haunted," Kit said, "it's haunted by wizards. We might as well go after school, it's
only five or six blocks up the road."
They were quiet for a while. It was about twenty minutes before the bell would ring for
the doors to open, and a few early kids were gathering around the doors. "Maybe we
could rig you a defense against getting hit," Kit said, as he kept looking through his

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manual. "How about this?" He pointed at one page, and both Nita and Fred looked at the
formula he was indicating. All it needed was the right words. It would be something of a
strain to cany the shield for long, but Nita wouldn't have to; and any attempt to hit her
would fust glance off.
(The problem is,) Fred said, (that spell will alter the field slightly around this Joanne
person. I'm going to have a hard enough time matching my pattern to that of your pen so
that I can get it off her—if indeed she has it. Her own field is going to interfere, and so
will yours, Nita. More stress on the space in the area and I might not be able to get your
pen back at all.)
Nita shook her head. She could tolerate another black eye if it meant getting that pen
back. "Forget it," she said, still shaking, and leaned forward a bit, elbows on knees and
face in hands, trying to relax. Above her the old maple trees were muttering morning
thoughts in the early sunlight, languid observations on the weather and the decreasing
quality of the tenant birds who built nests in their branches. Out in the field the grass was
singing a scratchy soprano chorus—(growgrowgrowgrowgrowgrow)—which broke off
abruptly and turned into an annoyed mob-sound of boos and razzes as one of the ground-
keepers, way across the field, started up a lawnmower. I'm good with plants, Nita
thought. I guess I take after Dad. I wonder if I'll ever be able to hear people this way.
Kit nudged her. "You're on," he said, and Nita looked up and saw Joanne walking into the
schoolyard. Their eyes met, Joanne recognized her, saw her handiwork, smiled. Now or
never! Nita thought, and got right up before she had a chance to chicken out and blow
everything, She walked over to Joanne without a pause, fast, to keep the tremor in her
knees from showing. Oh, Fred, please be behind me. And what in the world can I say to
her?
"I want my pen back, Joanne," she said,—or ratber it fell out of her mouth, and she went
hot at her own stupidity. Yet the momentary shocked look on Joanne's face made her
think that maybe saying what was on her mind hadn't been so stupid after all. Joanne's
shock didn't last; a second later
5O YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 45
she was smiling again. "Callahan," she said slowly, "are you looking for another black eye to
match that one?"
"Lllp. No," Nita said, "just my pen, thanks."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Joanne said, and then grinned. "You always were a
little odd. I guess you've finally flipped out."
"I had a space pen on me the other day, and it was gone afterward. One of you took it. I want
it back." Nita was shaking worse than ever, but she was also surprised that the fist hadn't hit
yet. And there over Joanne's shoulder, a flicker, a pinpoint of light, hardly to be seen, looking

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at her.
(Don't react. Make me a picture of the thing now.)
"What makes you think I would want anything of yours?" Joanne was saying, still with that
smile. Nita looked straight at her and thought about the pen. Silver barrel, grooved all around
the lower half so your fingers, or an astronaut's, wouldn't slip. Her initials engraved on it.
Hers, her pen.
(Enough. Now then—}
"But now that I think of it, I do remember finding a pen on the ground last week. Let's see."
Joanne was enjoying this so much that she actually nipped open the top of her backpack and
began rummaging around. "Let's see, here—" She came up with something. Silver barrel,
grooved—and Nita went hot again, not with embarrassment this time.
"It's mine!"
"Come and get it, then," Joanne said, dropping her backpack, keeping her smile, holding the
pen back a little.
And a spark of white light seemed to light on the end of the pen as Joanne held it up, and then
both were gone with a pop and a breath of air. Joanne spun to see who Had plucked the pen
out of her fingers, then whirled on Nita again. Nita smiled and held out her hands, empty.
Joanne was not amused. She stepped in close, and Nita took a few hurried steps back, unable
to stop grinning even though she knew she was going to get hit. Heads were turning all
around the schoolyard at the prospect of a ngnt. "Callahan," Joanne hissed, "you're in for it
now!"
The eight-thirty bell went off so suddenly they both jumped. Joanne stared at Nita for a long
long moment, then turned and went to pick up her backpack. "Why hurry things?" she said,
straightening. "Callahan, if I were you, I'd sleep here tonight. Because when you try to
leave—"
^ne walked off toward the doors. Nita stood where she was, still shaking, ut with amazement
and triumph as much as with fear. Kit came up beside er when Joanne was gone, and Fred
appeared, a bright point between them.
%u were great!" Kit said.
*IT1

i m gonna get killed tonight," Nita said, but she couldn't be terrified at>°ut it just yet. "Fred,
have you got it?"
he point of light was flickering, and there was something about the way it
46 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
did so that made Nita wonder if something was wrong. (Yes,) Fred said, the thought coming with a
faint queasy feeling to it. (And that's the problem.)
"Are you okay?" Kit said. "Where1 d it go?"
(I swallowed it,) Fred said, sounding genuinely miserahle now.
"But that was what you were going to do," Nita said, puzzled. "Catch it in your own energy-field,

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you said, make a little pocket and hold it there."
(I know. But my fields aren't working the way they should. Maybe it's this gravity, I'm
not used to any gravity but my own. I think it went down the wrong way.)
"Oh, brother," Kit said.
"Well," Nita said, "at least Joanne hasn't got it. When we go to the Advisories tonight, maybe they
can help us get it out."
Fred made a small thought-noise somewhere between a burp and a squeak. Nita and Kit looked up
at him, concerned—and then both jumped back hurriedly from something that went bang! down by
their feet.
They stared at the ground. Sitting there on the packed dirt was a small portable color TV, brand
new.
"Uh, Fred—" Kit said.
Fred was looking down at the TV with embarrassment verging on shame. (I emitted it,) he said.
Nita stared at him. "But I thought white holes only emitted little things. Subatomic particles.
Nothing so big—or so orderly."
(I wanted to visit an orderly place,) Fred said miserably. (See what it got me!)
"Hiccups," Kit muttered. "Fred, I think you'd better stay outside until we're finished for the day.
We'll go straight to the Advisories' from here."
"Joanne permitting," Nita said. "Kit, we've got to go in."
(I'll meet you here,) Fred said. The mournful thought was followed by another burp/squeak, and
another bang! and four volumes of an encyclope-dia were sitting on the ground next to the TV.
Kit and Nita hurried for the doors, sweating. Apparently wizardry had more drawbacks than the
book had indicated. . . .
Lunch wasn't calm, but it was interesting, due to the thirty teachers, assistant principal, principal,
and school superintendent who were all out on the athletic field, along with most of the students.
They were walking around looking at the furniture, vacuum cleaners, computer components,
books, knickknacks, motorcycles, typewriters, art supplies, stoves, sculptures, lum-ber, and many
other odd things that had since morning been appearing one after another in the field. No one knew
what to make of any of it, or what to do; and though Kit and Nita felt sure they would be
connected with the situation somehow, no one accused them of anything.
SO TOt/ WANT TO BE A WIZARD 47
They met again at the schoolyard door at three, pausing just inside it while Nita peered out to
see if Joanne was waiting. She was, and eight of her friends were with her, talking and
laughing among themselves. "Kit," Nita said quietly, "we've got problems."
He looked. "And this is the only door we can use."
Something went bang! out in the field, and Nita, looking out again, saw heads turn among
Joanne's group. Without a moment's pause every one of the girls headed off toward the field
in a hurry, leaving Joanne to glare at the school door for a moment. Then she took off after the
others. Kit and Nita glanced at each other. "I get this feeling . . ." Kit said. **
"Let's go,"

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They waited until Joanne was out of sight and then leaned cautiously out of the door, looking
around. Fred was suddenly there, wobbling in the air. He made a feeling of greeting at them;
he seemed tired, but cheerful, at least for the moment.
Nita glanced over her shoulder to see what had drawn the attention of Joanne and her
group—and drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the shiny silver Learjet. "Fred," she said,
"you did that on purpose!"
She felt him look back too, and his cheerfulness drowned out his weariness and queasiness for
a moment. (I felt you wondering whether to come out, so I exerted myself a little. What was
that thing?)
"We'll explain later; right now we should run. Fred, thank you!"
(You're most welcome. Just help me stop this!)
"Can you hold it in for a few blocks?"
(What's a block?)
They ran down Rose Avenue, and Fred paced them. Every now and then a little of Fred's
hiccup-noise would squeak out, and he would fall behind them, controlling it while they ran
on ahead. Then he would catch up again. The last time he did it, they paused and waited for
him. Twenty-seven Hundred Rose had a high poplar hedge with one opening for the walk up
to the house, and neither of them felt like going any farther without Fred.
(Well?) he said, when he caught up. (Now what?)
Nita and Kit looked at each other. "1 don't care if they are wizards," Nita said, "I waT1t to
peek in and have a look before I just walk in there. I've heard too many stories about this
place—"
(Look,) Fred said in great discomfort, (I've got to—)
Evidently there was a limit on how long a white hole in Fred's condition hold it in. The sound
of Fred's hiccup was so much louder than usual "at Nita and Kit crowded back away from him
in near-panic. The bang!
Unded like the beginning of a fireworks display, and when its echoes faded, Powder-blue
Mercedes-Benz was sitting half on, half off the sidewalk.
(% gnaester hurts,) Fred said.
48 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
"Let's peek," Nita said, turned, and pushed a little way through the hedge. She wanted to be sure
there were no monsters or skeletons hanging from trees or anything else uncanny going on in the
yard before she went in. Wh she did not expect was the amiable face of an enormous black-and-
white English sheepdog, which first slurped her face energetically, then grabbed her right arm in
gentle but insistent teeth and pulled her straight through the hedge.
"Kit!" she almost screamed, and then remembered not to because Crazy Swale or whoever else
lived here might hear her. Her cry came out as sort of a grunt. She heard Kit come right through
the bushes behind her as the sheep-dog dragged her along through the yard. There was nothing
spooky about the place at all—the house was big, a two-story affair, but normal-looking, all warm

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wood and shingles. The yard was grassy, with a landscaped garden as pretty as one of her father's.
One side of the house had wide glass patio doors opening on a roofed-over terrace. Potted plants
hung down and there was even a big square masonry tank, a fishpond—Nita caught a glimpse of
some-thing coppery swimming as the sheepdog dragged her past it to the terrace doors. It was at
that point that the dog let go her arm and began barking noisily, and Nita began thinking seriously
of running for it.
"All right, all right," came a man's voice, a humorous one, from inside the house, and it was
definitely too late for running. Kit came up behind Nita, panting. "All right, Annie, let's see what
you've got this time."
The screen door slid open, and Nita and Kit looked at the man who opened it in slight surprise.
Somehow they had been expecting that any wizard not their age would be old, but this man was
young, certainly no more than in his middle thirties. He had dark hair and was tall and broad-
shoul-dered. He looked rather like someone out of a cigarette ad, except that he was smiling,
which the men in cigarette ads rarely do. "Well," the man said, sounding not at all annoyed by
three unexpected guests, "I see you've met Annie. ..."
"She, uh," Nita said, glancing down at the dog, who was smiling at her with the same
bemused interest as her master. "She found me looking through your hedge."
"That's Annie for you," the man said, sounding a bit resigned. "She's good at finding
things. I'm Tom Swale." And he held out his hand for Nita to shake.
"Nita Callahan," she said, taking it.
"Kit Rodriguez," Kit said from beside her, reaching out to shake han« too.
"Good to meet you. Call me Tom, What can I do for you?"
"Are you the Advisory?" Kit said.
Tom's eyebrows went up. "You kids have a spelling problem?"
SO }OU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 49
Nita grinned at the pun and glanced over her shoulder. "Fred?"
Fred bobbed up between her and Kit, regarding Tom, who looked back at the unsteady
spark of light with only moderate surprise. "He's a white hole," Nita said. "He swallowed
my space pen."
CY-hup!) Fred said, and bang! went the air between Kit and Nita as they stepped
hurriedly off to either side. Fourteen one-kilogram bricks of 999-fine Swiss gold fell
clattering to the patio's brown tiles.
"I can see this is going to take some explaining," Tom said, "Come on in."
They followed him into the house. A big comfortable living room opened onto a den on one side
and a bright kitchen-dining room on the other. "Carl, we've got company," Tom called as they
entered the kitchen.
"Wha?" replied a muffled voice—muffled because the upper half of its owner was mostly in the
cabinet under the double sink. The rest of him was sprawled across the kitchen floor. This by itself
wasn't so odd; what was odd was the assortment of wrenches and other tools floating in the air just

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outside the cabinet doors. From under the sink came a sound like a wrench slipping off a pipe, and
a sudden soft thump as it hit something else. Probably its user, for "Nnngg!" said the voice under
the sink, and all the tools fell clattering to the kitchen floor. The voice broke into some most
creative swearing.
Tom frowned and smiled both at once. "Such language in front of guests! You ought to sleep
outside with Annie. Come on out of there, we're needed for a consultation."
"You really arc wizards!" Nita said, reassured but still surprised. She had rarely seen two
more normal-looking people.
Tom chuckled. "Sure we are. Not that we do too much freelancing these days—better to leave that
to the younger practitioners, like you two."
The other man got out from under the sink, brushing himself off, He was at least as tall as Tom,
and as broad-shouldered, but his dark hair was shorter and he had an impressive mustache. "Carl
Romeo," he said in a voice with a pronounced Brooklyn accent, and shook hands with Kit and
Nita. "Who's this?" he said, indicating Fred. Fred hiccuped; the resulting explosion pro-duced six
black star sapphires the size of tennis balls. Fred here," Tom said, "has a small problem."
I wish / had problems like that," Carl remarked. "Something to drink, P^ple? Soda?"
After a few minutes the four of them were settled around the kitchen "'e, with Fred hovering
nearby. "It said in the book that you specialize in temporospatial claudications," Kit said.
^arl does. Maintenance and repair; he keeps the worldgates at Grand
ntralStation and Rockefeller Center working. You've come to the right Place."
50 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
"His personal gate is acting up, huh?" Carl said. "I'd better get the books." He got up. "Fred,
what're the entasis figures on your warp?"
Fred mentally rattled off a number of symbols in the Speech, as he had when Kit asked him what
he was. "Right," Carl said, and went off to the den.
"What do you do?" Nita said to Tom.
"Research, mostly. Also we're something of a clearinghouse for news and gossip in the Business.
If someone needs details on a rare spell, or wants to know how power balances are running in a
particular place, I can usually find out for them."
"But you do other things too." Kit looked around at the house.
"Oh, sure, we work. I write for a living—after all, some of the things I see in the Business make
good stories. And Carl sells commercial time for WNXT in the city. As well as regular time, on
the side."
Kit and Nita looked at each other, puzzled. Tom chuckled. "Well, he does claudications, gatings,
doesn't he? Temporospatial—time and space. If you can squeeze space—claudicate it—so that you
pop out of one place and into another, why can't you squeeze time the same way? Haven't you
heard the saying about 'buying time'? Carl's the one you buy it from. Want to buy a piece of next
Thursday?"
"I can get it for you wholesale," Carl said as he came back into the room. In his arms he was
carrying several hardbound books as thick as telephone directories. On his shoulder, more

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interesting, was a splendid scarlet-blue-and-yellow macaw, which regarded Kit and Nita and Fred
out of beady black eyes. "Kit, Nita, Fred," Carl said, "Machu Picchu. Peach for short." He sat
down, put the books on the table, and began riffling through the one on top of the stack; Tom
pulled one out of lower in the pile and began doing the same.
"All right," Tom said, "the whole story, from the beginning."
They told him, and it took a while. When they got to Fred's part of the story, and the fact
that the Naming of Lights was missing, Tom and Carl became very quiet and just looked
at one another for a moment. "Damn,' Tom said, "I wondered why the entry in the
Materia Magica hadn't been updated in so long. This is news, all right. We'll have to call
a regional Advisories' meeting."
Fred hiccuped again, and the explosion left behind it a year's back issues of TV Guide.
"Later," Carl said. "The situation here looks like it's deteriorating." He paused at one page of the
book he was looking through, ran his finger down a column. The macaw peered over his shoulder
as if interested. "Alpha-rai-eri' tath-eight, you said?"
(Right.)
SO yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 51
"I can fix you," Carl said. "Take about five minutes." He got up and headed for the den again.
"What is the Naming of Lights:3" Kit said to Tom. "We tried to get Fred to tell us last night,
but it kept coming out in symbols that weren't in our
books."
"Well, this is a pretty advanced subject. A novice's manual wouldn't have much information
on the Naming of Lights any more than the instruction manual for a rifle would have
information on atomic bombs. . . ." Tom took a drink. "It's a book. At least that's what it looks
like when it's in or near this Universe. The Book of Night with Moon, it's called here, since in
these parts you need moonlight to read it. It's always been most carefully accounted for; the
Senior wizards keep an eye on it. If it's suddenly gone missing, we've got trouble.
"Why?" Nita said.
"Well, if you've gotten even this far in wizardry, you know how the wiz-ards' symbology, the
Speech, affects the things you use it on. When you use it, you define what you're speaking
about. That's why it's dangerous to use the Speech carelessly. You can accidentally redefine
something, change its nature. Something, or someone—" He paused, took another drink of his
soda. "The Book of Night with Moon is written in the Speech. In it, every-thing's described.
Everything. You, me, Fred, Carl . . . this house, this town, this world. This Universe and
everything in it. All the Uni-verses. ..."
Kit looked skeptical. "How could a book that big get lost?"
"Who said it was big? You'll notice something about your manuals after a while," Tom said.
"They won't get any bigger, but there'll be more and more mside them as you learn more, or
need to know more. Even in plain old math "t s true that the inside can be bigger than the


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outside; it's definitely true in wizardry. But believe me, the Book of Night with Moon has
everything de-scribed in it. It's one of the reasons we're all here—the power of those
descriptions helps keep everything that is, in existence." Tom looked worried. And every now
and then the Senior wizards have to go get the Book and r£ad from it, to remind the worlds
what they are, to preserve everything alive Or inanimate—"
Have you read from it?" Nita said, made uneasy by the disturbed look on Tom's face.
Tom glanced at her in shock, then began to laugh. "Me? No, no. I hope I never have to."
But if it's a good Book, if it preserves things—" Kit said.
" s good—at least, yes, it preserves, or lets things grow the way they want • t reading it,
being the vessel for all that power—I wouldn't want to.
52 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
Even good can be terribly dangerous. But this isn't anything you two need to worry about. The
Advisories and the Senior wizards will handle it."
"But you are worried," Kit said.
"Yes, well—" Tom took another drink. "If it were just that the bright Book had gone missing, that
wouldn't be so bad. A universe can go a long time without affirmation-by-reading. But the bright
Book has an opposite number, a dark one; the Book which is not Named, we call it. It's written in
the Speech too, but its descriptions are ... skewed. And if the bright Book is missing, the dark one
gains potential power. If someone should read from that one now, while the Book of Night with
Moon isn't available to counter-act the power of the dark one—" Tom shook his head.
Carl came in then, the macaw still riding his shoulder. "Here we go," he said, and dumped several
sticks of chalk, an enormous black claw, and a 1943 zinc penny on the table. Nita and Kit stared at
each other, neither quite having the nerve to ask what that claw had come off of. "Now you
under-stand," Carl said as he picked up the chalk and began to draw a circle around the table, "that
this is only going to stop the hiccups. You three are going to have to go to Manhattan and hook
Fred into the Grand Central worldgate to get that pen out. Don't worry about being noticed. People
use it all the time and no one's the wiser. / use it sometimes when the trains are late."
"Carl," Tom said, "doesn't it strike you as a little strange that the first wizardry these kids do
produces Fred—who brings this news about the good Book—and they come straight to us—"
"Don't be silly," the macaw on Carl's shoulder said in a scratchy voice. "You know there are no
accidents."
Nita and Kit stared.
"Wondered when you were going to say something useful," Carl said, sounding bored.
"You think we keep you for your looks? OW!" he added, as the bird bit him on the car.
He hit it one on the beak, and, while it was still shaking its head woozily, put it up on the
table beside Tom.
Picchu sidled halfway up Tom's arm, stopped and looked at Nita and Kit. "Dos d'en agouni nikyn
toude phercsthai," it muttered, and got all the way up on Tom's shoulder, and then glared at them
again. "Well?"

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"She only speaks in tongues to show off," Tom said. "Ignore her, or rap her one if she bites you.
We just keep her around because she tells the future." Tom made as if to smack the bird again, and
Picchu ducked back' "How about the stocks tomorrow, bird?" he said.
Picchu cleared her throat. " 'And that's the way it is,' " she said in a voice very much like that of a
famous newscaster, " 'July eighteen, 1988. Frofl1 New York, this is Walter—' "
Tom fisted the bird in the beak, clunk! Picchu shook her head aga>n'
SO K)U WANT TO BE A WIZARD 53
" 'Issues were down in slow trading,' " she said resentfully. " 'The Dow-Jones . jex_' " and she
called off some numbers. Tom grimaced,
"\ should have gone into pork bellies/' he muttered. "I ought to warn you two- If y°u nave Pe*s> l°°k
out- Practicing wizardry around them can cause some changes."
"There we go," Carl said, and stood up straight. "Fred, you ready? Hiccup for me again."
(I can't,) Fred said, sounding nervous. (You're all staring.)
"Never mind, I can start this in the meantime." Carl leaned over the table, glanced down
at one of the books, and began reading in the Speech, a quick flow of syllables sharpened
by that Brooklyn accent. In the middle of the third sentence Fred hiccuped, and without
warning the wizardry took. Time didn't precisely stop, but it held still, and Nita became
aware of what Carl's wizardry was doing to Fred, or rather had done already—subtly
untan-gling forces that were knotted tight together. The half-finished hiccup and the
wizardry came loose at the same time, leaving Fred looking bright and well for the first
time since that morning. He still radiated uncertainty, though, like a person who isn't sure
he's stopped hiccuping yet.
"You'll be all right," Carl said, scuffing away the chalk marks on the floor. "Though as I said, that
pen is still in there with the rest of your mass, at the other end of your claudication, and you'll need
Grand Central to get it out."
(Have you stopped my emissions entirely?) Fred said,
"No, of course not. I couldn't do that: you'll still emit from time to time. Mostly what you're used
to, though. Radiation and such."
"Grand Central!" Kit was looking worried. "1 don't think my mother and father are going to want
me in'the city alone. I could sneak in, I guess, but they'd want to know where I'd been all that
while."
Well," Tom said, looking thoughtful, "you've got school. You couldn't go before the weekend
anyway, right? Carl could sell you a piece of Saturday or Sunday—"
Kit and Nita looked at each other, and then at the two men. "Uh, we don't have much money."
Who said anything about money?" Carl said. "Wizards don't pay each
° "er cash. They pay off in service—and sometimes the services aren't done
or   years. But first let's see if there's any time available this weekend. Satur-
ays go fast, even though they're expensive, especially Saturday mornings."

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l^e picked up another book and began going through it. Like all the other
ks. it was printed in the same type as Nita's and Kit's manuals, though
eprint was much smaller and arranged differently. "This way," Tom said,
you buy some time, you could be in the city all day, all week if you wanted
y llt once you activate the piece of time you're holding, you're back then.
nave  to pick a place to anchor the time to, of course, a twenty-foot
54 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
radius. But after you've finished whatever you have to do, you bring yout marked time to life,
and there you are. Maybe five minutes before ybu started for the city, back at home. Or
anywhere and anywhen else along the path
you'll follow that day."
"Huh," Carl said suddenly, "Callahan, J., and Rodriguez, C., is that you two?" They nodded.
"You have a credit already," Carl said, sounding a little surprised. "What have you two been
doing to rate that?"
"Must have been for bringing Fred through," Tom said. "I didn't know that Upper
Management had started giving out door prizes, though."
From her perch on Tom's shoulder, Picchu snorted. "Oh? What's that mean?" Tom said.
"Come on, bird, be useful. Is there something you know
that these kids ought to?"
"I want a raise," Picchu said, sounding sullen.
"You just had one. Talk!"
" 'Brush your teeth twice a day, and see your dentist regularly,' " the macaw began, in a
commercial-announcer's voice. Tom made a fist and stared at her. "AH right, all right,"
Picchu muttered. She looked over at Kit and Nita, and though her voice when she spoke had
the usual good-natured annoyance about it, her eyes didn't look angry or even teasing—they
looked anxious. Nita got a sudden chill down her back, "Don't be afraid to make corrections,"
Picchu said. "Don't be afraid to lend a hand." She fell silent, seeming to think for a moment.
"And don't look down."
Tom stared at the macaw. "Can't you be a little more specific?" "Human lives," Picchu said
irritably, "aren't much like the Dow-Jones
index. No, 1 can't." Tom sighed. "Sorry. Kids, if she says it, she has a reason for saying it—so
remember."
"Here you go," Carl said. "Your piece of time is from ten forty-five to ten forty-seven on this
next Saturday morning. There aren't any weekend open-ings after that until sometime in July."
"We'll take this one," Kit said. "At least I can—Nita, will your folks let
you go?"
She nodded. "I have some allowance saved up, and I'd been thinki about going into the city to
get my dad a birthday present anyhow. I doul

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there'll be any trouble."
Kit looked uncomfortable for a moment. "But there's something I'm sure about. My
spell—our spell brought Fred here. How are we going to him back where he belongs?"
(Am I a problem?) Fred said, sounding concerned.
"Oh, no, no—it's just that, Fred, this isn't your home, and it seemed as sooner or later you
might want to go back where you came from,"
"As far as that goes," Tom said, "if it's your spell that brought him
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD
55
ou'H be able to send him back. The instructions are in your book, same as the instructions for
opening the Grand Central worldgate."
"Stick to those instructions," Carl said. "Don't be tempted to improvise. That claudication is
the oldest one in New York, and it's the trickiest because of all the people using it all the time.
One false syllable in a spell and you may wind up in Schenectady."
(Is that another world?) Fred asked.
"Nearly." Carl laughed. "Is there anything else we can do for you?"
Nita and Kit shook their heads and got up to leave, thanking Tom and Carl and Picchu. "Let
us know how things turn out," Tom said. "Not that we have any doubts—two wizards who
can produce a white hole on the first try are obviously doing all right. But give us a call.
We're in the book."
The two men saw Nita and Kit as far as the patio door, said their good-byes, and went back
into the house. Nita started off across the lawn the way she had come, but Kit paused for a
moment by the fishpool, staring down into it. He pulled a penny out of his pocket, dropped it
in.
Nita saw the ripples spread—and then suddenly another set of ripples wavered away from the
head of a very large goldfish, which spat the penny back at Kit and eyed him with distaste.
"Do / throw money on your living-room floor?" it said, and then dived out of sight.
Kit picked up his penny and went after Nita and Fred as they pushed through the poplar hedge
again. The blue Mercedes, which had been half in the street and half on the sidewalk, was
now neatly parked by the curb. In front of it sat Annie., with her tongue hanging out and a
satisfied look on her face. There were teethmarks deep in the car's front fender, Annie grinned
at them as Nita and Kit passed, and then trotted off down the street, probably to "find"
something else.
"If my dog starts doing things like that," Kit muttered, "I don't know how I m going to explain
it to my mother."
Nita looked down the street for signs of Joanne. "If we can just get home without being killed,
I wouldn't care what the dog found. Uh oh—" A good ways down the street, four or five girls
were heading toward them, and Nita saw Joanne's blond hair. "Kit, we'd better split up. No


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reason for them to c°irie after you too."
Right. Give me a call tonight. I'm in the book. . , ." He took off down a
S|de street. •>he looked around, considering the best direction to run in—and then
nought of the book she was carrying. There wasn't much time, though. She
°rced herself to calm down even while she knew they were coming for her, acte herself turn
the pages slowly to the place Kit had shown her that °rning, the spell that made blows slide
off. She read through it slowly in the
^ech, sounding out the syllables, taking the time to look up the pronuncia-
56 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
tion of the ones she wasn't sure of, even though they were getting close and she could
hear Joanne's laugh.
Nita sat down on the curb to wait for them. They let her have it when they found her, as they had
been intending to all day; and she rolled around on the ground and fell back from their punches
and made what she hoped were horrible groaning noises. After a while Joanne and her four friends
turned away to leave, satisfied that they had taught her a lesson. And Nita stood up and brushed
herself off, uncut, unbruised, just a little dirty. "Jo-anne," she called after them. In what looked like
amazement, Joanne turned around.
Nita laughed at her. "It won't work any more," she said.
Joanne stood dumb,
"Never again/' she said. She felt like turning her back on them, but in-stead she walked
toward them, watching the confusion in their eyes. On a sudden urge, she jumped up in
the air and waved her arms crazily. "BOO!" she shouted.
They broke and ran, all of them. Joanne was the first, and then the rest followed her in a
ragged tail down Rose Avenue. Not a word, not a taunt. They just ran.
Nita stopped short. The feeling of triumph that had been growing in her withered almost
instantly. Some victory, she thought. It took so little, so little to scare them. Maybe I
could have done that at any time, without a shield. Maybe. And now I'll never know for
sure.
(Are you all right?) Fred said quietly, bobbing again by her shoulder. (They didn't hurt
you this time.)
"No," Nita said slowly. She was thinking of all the glorious plans she'd had to use her
new-found wizardry on Joanne and her bunch, to shame them, confuse them, hurt them.
And look what so small and inoffensive thing as a body shield had done to them. They
would hate her worse than ever now.
I've got to be careful with this, she thought. I thought it was going to be all fun.
"Come on, Fred," she said, "let's go home."



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 Prologue




Temporospatial Claudications Use
and Abuse
The week went by quickly for Nita. Though Carl had made the business of opening a
worldgate sound fairly simple, she began to suspect that he'd been doing it so long that it
actually seemed that way to him. It wasn't simple, as her book told her as soon as she opened
to the pertinent chapter, which was forty pages long in small print.
Grand Central worldgate had its own special requirements: specific sup-plies and objects that
had to be present at an opening so that space would be properly bent, spells that had to be
learned just so. The phone calls flew between Nita's house and Kit's for a couple of days, and
there was a lot of visiting back and forth as they divided up the work. Nita spent a lot of time
keeping Fred from being noticed by her family, and also got to see a lot of Kit's mother and
father and sisters, all of whom were very friendly and kept forgetting that Nita couldn't speak
Spanish. She started to learn a little of it in self-defense. Kit's dog told her the brand of dog
biscuits it could never get enough of; she began bringing them with her when she visited. The
dog spoke the Speech with a Spanish accent, and would constantly interrupt Kit and Nita as
they discussed who should do what in the spelling, Kit wound up with most of the spoken
work, since he had been using the Speech longer and was better at it; Nita picked up supplies.
You ever swallow anything accidentally before, Fred?" Nita said under
er breath. It was late Friday afternoon, and she was in a little antiques-and-)unk store on
Nassau Road, going through boxes of dusty odds and ends in
arch of a real silver fork. Fred was hanging over her shoulder, almost invisi-
e> a faint red point lazily emitting heat.
INot for a long time) he said, glancing curiously at a pressed-glass salt-
a*er Nita was holding. (Not since I was a black hole, certainly. Black holes '°w everything, but
a white hole's business is emission. Within limits,) he
58 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
added, and the air around him rippled with heat as he shuddered. (I don't ever again want
to emit the way I did after your pen went down. Some of those things hurt on the way out.
And anyway, all that emission makes me nervous. Too much of that kind of thing and I
could blow my quanta.)
She looked up at him, worried. "Really? Have you emitted that much stuff that you're in danger of
blowing up?"
(Oh, not really—I'd have to lose a lot more mass first. After all, before I was a black hole,
I was a respectable-sized blue-white star, and even those days I massed a few hundred
thousand times what your cute little yellow-dwarf Sun does. I wouldn't worry about

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it—I'm nowhere near the critical threshold yet.)
" 'Cute'?" Nita said.
(Well, it is. . . . And I suppose there's no harm in getting better at emis-|
sions. I have been improving a lot. Wliat's that?) |
Nita looked farther down in the box, dug deep, and came up with a|
battered old fork. It was scratched and its tines were bent out of shape, but if
was definitely silver, not stainless steel. "That's what I needed," she said|
"Thanks, Fred. Now all I need is that piece of rowan wood, and then tonighf
I go over my part of the spells again." •
(You sound worried.) '
• "Well, yeah, a little," Nita said, getting up. All that week her ability to
hear what the plants were saying had been getting stronger and surer; the
better she got with the Speech, the more sense the bushes and trees made.
"It's just—the rowan branch has to come off a live tree, Fred, and I can't just
pick it—that'd be like walking up to someone and pulling one of their fingers
off. I have to ask for it. And if the tree won't give it to rne , . ."
(Then you don't get your pen back, at least not for a while.) Fred shim-mered with colors
and a feeling like a sigh. (I am a trouble to you.)
"Fred, no. Put your light out a moment so we can get out of here." Nita interrupted the
shopkeeper's intense concentration on a Gothic novel long enough to find out what the
fork cost (a dollar) and buy it. A few steps outside the door, Fred was pacing her again.
"If you're trouble, you're the best trouble that's happened around here for a while. You're
good to talk to, you're good company—when you don't forget and start emitting cosmic
rays—"
Fred blazed momentarily, blushing at Nita's teasing. In an excited n* ment the night
before he had forgotten himself and emitted a brief blast ultrashortwave radiation, which
had heated up Nita's backyard a good ^£ ionized the air for miles around, and produced a
local but brilliant ai (Well, it's an old habit, and old habits die hard. I'm working on it.)
"Heat we don't mind so much. Or ultraviolet, the longwave kind doesn't hurt people's
eyes,"
SO
WANT TO BE A WIZARD
59
(You fluoresce when I use that, though. , . .)
Nita laughed. "I don't mind fluorescing. Though on second thought, don't do that where anyone but
Kit can see. I doubt my mother'd understand."
They walked home together, chatting alternately about life in the suburbs and life in a Part °f deep
space close to the Great Galactic Rift. Nita felt niore relaxed than she had for months. Joanne had

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been out of sight since Monday afternoon at Tom and Carl's. Even if she hadn't, Nita had been
practicing with that body shield, so that now she could run through the syllables of the spell in a
matter of seconds and nothing short of a bomb dropped on her could hurt her. She could even
extend the spell to cover someone else, though it wasn't quite so effective; she had a harder time
convincing the air to harden up. But even that lessened protection would come in handy if she and
Kit should be in trouble together at some point and there was no time to cooperate in a spelling.
Not that she was expecting any more trouble. The excitement of a trip into the city was already
catching at her. And this wasn't just another shopping trip. Magic was loose in the world, and she
was going to help work some. . . .
She ate supper and did her homework almost without thinking about either, and as a result had to
do much of the math homework twice. By the time she was finished, the sun was down and the
backyard was filling with a cool blue twilight, In the front of the house, her mother and father and
Dairine were watching TV as Nita walked out the side door and stood on the step, letting her eyes
get used to the dimness and looking east at the rising Moon. Canned laughter echoed inside the
house as Fred appeared by her shoulder.
(My, that's bright for something that doesn't emit heat,) Fred said, looking at the Moon too.
"Reflected sunlight," Nita said absently.
(You're going to talk to the tree now?)
"Uh huh."
^ (Then I'll go stay with the others and watch that funny box emit. Maybe II figure out what it's
trying to get across.)
'Good luck," Nita said as Fred winked out. She walked around into the Mcyard,
Spring stars were coming out as she stood in the middle of the lawn and °°Ked down the
length of the yard at the rowan, a great round-crowned tree nowy with white flowers.
Nita's stomach tightened slightly with nervous-Iess' It had been a long time ago, according
to her manual, that the trees had j>0rie to war on mankind's behalf, against the dark
powers that wanted to
eP human intelligence from happening at all. The war had been a terrible ' *•> lasting
thousands of centuries—the trees and other plants taking more
a rnore land, turning barren stone to soil that would support them and the
60 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
animals and men to follow; the dark powers breaking the soil with earthqua[.e and mountain
building, scouring it with glaciers, climate-changing good ground for desert, and burning away
forests in firestorms far more terrible than the small brushfires any forest needs to stay healthy. But
the trees and the other plants had won at last.
They had spent many more centuries readying the world for men—but when men came, they
forgot the old debts and wasted the forests more terribly than even the old dark powers. Trees had
no particular reason to be friendly to people these days. Nita found herself thinking of that first
tree that had spoken to her, angry over the destruction of its friend's artwork. Even though the

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rowan tree had always been well tended, she wasn't certain how it was going to respond to her.
With the other ash trees, rowans had been in the forefront of the Battle; and they had long
memories.
Nita sighed and sat down under the tree, book in hand, her back against its trunk. There was no
need to start right away, anyhow—she needed a little while to recover from her homework. The
stars looked at her through the rowan's windstirred branches, getting brighter by the minute. There
was that one pair of stars that always looked like eyes, they were so close together. It was one of
the three little pairs associated with the Big Dipper. The Leaps of the Gazelle, the ancient Arabs
had called them, seeing them as three sets of hoofprints left in the sky. "Kafza'at al Thiba," Nita
murmured, the old Arabic name. Her eyes wandered down toward the horizon, finding a faint
reddish gleam. "Regulus." And a whiter gleam, higher: "Arcturus." And another, and another, old
friends, with new names in the Speech, that she spoke silently, remembering Carl's warning:
(Elthathte . . , ur'Senaahel . . .} The distant fires flickered among shadowy leaves. (Lahirien . . .)
(And Methchane and Ysen and Cahadhwy and Rasaug6hil. . . . They are nice tonight.)
Nita looked up hurriedly. The tree above her was leaning back comfortably on its roots, finished
with the stretching-upward of growth for the day, and gazing at the stars as she was. (I was hoping
that haze would clear off,) it said as silently as Nita had spoken, in a slow, relaxed drawl. (This
will be a good night for talking to the wind. And other such transient creatures. I was wondering
when you were going to come out and pay your respects, wizardling.)
{Uh—) Nita was reassured: the rowan sounded friendly, fit's been a bus)' week.)
(You never used to be too busy for me,) the rowan said, its whispery voice sounding ever so
slightly wounded. (Always up in my branches you were, and falling out of them again. Or
swinging. But I suppose you outgrew me.)
Nita sat quiet for a moment, remembering how it had been when she w littler. She would swing for
hours on end, talking to herself, pretending
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 61
k'nds of things, talking to the tree and the world in general. And some-- es_ (You talked
back!) she said in shocked realization. (You did, I wasn't
making it up.)
(Certainly ! talked. You were talking to me, after all. . . . Don't be sur-nrised. Small children
look at things and see them, listen to things and hear them. Of course they understand the
Speech. Most of them never realize it any more than you did. It's when they get older, and
stop looking and listening, that they lose the Speech, and we lose them.) The rowan sighed,
many leaves showing pale undersides as the wind moved them. (None of us are ever happy
about losing our children. But every now and then we get one of you back.)
(All that in the book was true, then,) Nita said. (About the Battle of the
Trees—)
(Certainly. Wasn't it written in the Book of Night with Moon that this world's life would
become free to roam among our friends there)—the rowan stretched upward toward the


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turning stars for a moment—(if we helped? After the world was green and ready, we waited
for a long time. We started letting all sorts of strange creatures live in our branches after they
came up out of the water. We watched them all; we never knew which of our guests would be
the children we were promised. And then all of a sudden one odd-looking group of creatures
went down out of our branches, and looked up-ward again, and called us by name in the
Speech. Your kind. . . .) The tree looked down musingly at Nita. (You're still an odd-looking
lot,) it said.
Nita sat against the rowan and felt unhappy. (We weren't so kind to you,) she said. (And if it
weren't for the plants, we wouldn't be here.)
(Don't be downcast, wizardling,) the tree said, gazing up at the sky again. (It isn't your fault.
And in any case, we knew what fate was in store for us. It was written in the Book.)
(Wait a minute. You mean you knew we were going to start destroying your kind, and you got
the world ready for us anyway?)
(How could we do otherwise? You are our children.)
(But ... we make our houses out of you, we—) Nita looked guiltily at tne book she was
holding. (We kill you and we write on your bodies!)
The rowan continued to gaze up at the night sky. (Well,) it said. (We are
all m the Book together, after all. Don't you think that we wrote enough in
he rock and the soil, in our day? And we still do. We have our own lives, our
Wn 'eclings and goals. Some of them you may learn by your wizardry, but I
°ubt you'll ever come to know them all. We do what we have to, to live.
Orfietimes that means breaking a rock's heart, or pushing roots down into
ground that screams against the intrusion. But we never forget what we're
lng As for you)—and its voice became very gentle—(how else should our dren climb to the
stars but up our branches? We made our peace with
62 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
that fact a long time ago, that we would be used and maybe forgotten. So be it. What you learn in
your climbing will make all the life on this planet greater, more precious. You have your own
stories to write. And when it comes to that, who writes the things written in your body, your life?
And who reads?) It breathed out, a long sigh of leaves in the wind. (Our cases aren't that much
different.)
Nita sat back and tried to absorb what the tree was saying. (The Book of Night with Moon,) she
said after a while. (Do you know who wrote it?)
The rowan was silent for a long time. (None of us are sure,) it said at last. (Our legends say it
wasn't written. It's simply been, as long as life has been. Since they were kindled, and before.) It
gazed upward at the stars.
(Then the other Book, the dark one—)
The whole tree shuddered. (That one was written, they say.) The rowan's voice dropped to a
whisper. (By the Lone Power—the Witherer, the one who blights. The Kindlcr of Wildfires. Don't

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ask more. Even talking about that one or its works can lend it power.)
Nita sat quiet for a while, thinking. (You came to ask something,) the rowan said. (Wizards are
always asking things of rowans.)
(Uh, yes.)
(Don't worry about it,) the rowan said. (When we decided to be trees of the Light, we knew we
were going to be in demand.)
(Well—I need some live wood. Just enough for a stick, a little wand. We're going to open the
Grand Central worldgatc tomorrow morning.)
Above Nita's head there was a sharp cracking sound. She pressed back against the trunk, and a
short straight branch about a foot and a half long bounced to the grass in front of her. (The Moon is
almost full tonight,) the rowan said. (If I were you, I'd peel the leaves and bark off that twig and
leave it out to soak up moonlight. I don't think it'll hurt the wood's usefulness for your spelling,
and it may make it more valuable later on.)
(Thank you, yes,) Nita said. The book had mentioned something of the sort—a rowan rod with a
night's moonlight in it could be used for some kind of defense. She would look up the reference
later. (1 guess I should go in and check my spells over one more time. I'm awfully new at this.)
(Go on,) the tree said, with affection. Nita picked up the stick that the rowan had dropped for her,
got up and stretched, looking up at the stars through the branches. On impulse she reached up,
hooked an arm around the branch that had had the swing on it.
(I guess I could still come and climb sometimes,) she said.
She felt the tree looking at her, (My name in the Speech is Liused,) it said in leafrustle and
starfhcker. (If there's need, remember me to the trees in Manhattan. You won't be without help if
you need it.)
"I'm Nita," she said in the Speech, aloud for this once. The syllables didn't
SO }OU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 63
ound strange: they sounded like a native language and made English feel like a foreign tongue. For
a moment every leaf on the tree quivered with her name, speaking it in a whispery echo.
(Go,) the rowan said again. (Rest well.) It turned its calm regard to the stars again.
Nita went back inside.
Saturday morning about eight, Kit and Nita and Fred took the bus down to the Long Island
Railroad station and caught a shiny silver train for Man-hattan. The train was full of the usual
cargo of Saturday travelers and shop-pers, none of whom paid any particular attention to the boy
and girl sitting by one window, going over the odd contents of their backpacks with great care.
Also apparently unnoticed was a faint spark of white light hanging in the center of the window
between the two, gazing out in fascination at the backyards and parking lots and stores the train
passed.
(What are all those dead hunks of metal there? All piled up?)
(Cars, Fred.)
(I thought cars moved.)
(They did, once.)

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(They all went there to die?)
(They were dead when they got there, probably.)
(But they've all climbed on top of each other! When they were dead?)
(No, Fred. They have machines—)
(What was that? There are three—I don't know who those were, but they have them shut up in a
box hanging from that long thing.)
(No one you know, Fred. That was a traffic light.)
(It was emitting— Look, he's trying to say something! Hello! Hello!)
(Fred, you're flashing! Calm down or someone'll sec you!)
(Well, I don't know what a nice guy like him was doing in a place like that)
Nita sighed out loud, "Where were we?" she said to Kit.
"The battery."
"Right. Well, here it is."
'Lithium-cadmium?"
Right. Heavy thing, it weighs more than anything else we've got That's last thing for activating the
piece of time, isn't it?" more. The eight and a half sugar cubes."
Nita held up a little plastic bag. . Now the worldgate stuff. The pine cone—"
(<Bristlecone pine." Nita held it up, then dropped it in her backpack. aspirin." huh."
64 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
"The fork."
"Here."
"The rowan branch."
"Yup." She held it up. Cut down and peeled, it was about a foot long, a greenish-white wand.
"Great. Then we're set, You've got all that other stuff, why don't you give me the battery?"
"Here." Nita handed it to him, watched as he found a good spot for it in his backpack, under the
sandwiches. "What's that?" she said, spotting some-thing that hadn't been accounted for in the
equipment tally.
"Huh? Oh, this." He reached in and brought out a slim piece of metal like a slender rod, with a
small knob at one end and broken off jaggedly at the other.
"What is it?"
"A piece of junk. A busted-off car antenna. Well," Kit amended, "it was, anyway. I was sitting out
behind the garage yesterday afternoon, reading, and I started talking to my dad's old car. He has
this ancient Edsel. He's always talking about getting it reconditioned, but I don't think he's really
going to— there's never enough money. Anyway he goes out every now and then to work on the
engine, usually when he's tired or mad about something. I don't know if he ever really gets any
work done, but he always comes inside greasy all over and feeling a lot better. But I was going
over the spells in my head, and the car spoke to me in the Speech—"
"Out loud?"
"No, inside, like Fred does. Kind of a grindy noise, like its voice needed a lube job. I wasn't too
surprised; that kind of thing has been happening since I picked the book up. First it was rocks, and

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then things started to talk to me when I picked them up. They would tell me where they'd been and
who'd handled them. Anyway, the car and I started talking " Kit paused, looking a touch guilty.
"They don't see things the way we do. We made them, and they don't understand why most of the
time we make things and then just let them wear out and throw them away afterward. . . ."
Nita nodded, wondering briefly whether the train was alive too. Certainly it was as complex as a
car. "What about this antenna thing, though?" she said after a moment.
"Oh. The car said to take it for luck. It was just lying there on the ground, rusting. Dad replaced the
antenna a long time ago. So I took it inside and cleaned it up, and there are some wizardries you
can do with metal, to remind it of the different forces it felt when it was being made. I did a couple
of those. Partly just practicing, partly . . ."
"You thought there might be trouble," Nita said.
Kit looked at her, surprised. "I don't know," he said. "I'm going to be
SO yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 65
reful anyway. Carl was pretty definite about not messing around with the
nrldeate; I wasn't thinking about anything like that. But it occurred to me ,1 t jt'j be easy
to carry the antenna to school if I wanted to. And if anyone started bothering me—" He
shrugged, then laughed. "Well, that's their oroblem. Hey, look, we're getting close to that
big curve where you can see the city before you go under the river. Come on, these trains
have a window in the very front of the first car. Fred! Want to see where we're going?"
(Why not? Maybe I'll understand it better than where we've been. - . .)
Kit and Nita wriggled into their backpacks and made their way up through a couple of
cars, hanging on carefully as they crossed the chained walkways between them. Treetops
and housetops flashed by in a rush of wind and clatter of rails. Each time Nita touched the
bare metal of the outside of the train, she jumped a little, feeling something, she wasn't
quite sure what. The train? she thought. Thinking? And now that I'm aware that it does, I
can feel it a little?—though not as clearly as the trees. Maybe my specialty is going to be
things that grow and Kit's is going to be things that run. But how many other kinds of life
are there that I could learn to feel? Who knows where thought is hiding? . . .
They went into the first car and made their way up to the front window, carefully hanging
on to the seats of oblivious riders to keep the swaying of the train from knocking them
over. There were no more stops between there and Penn Station, and the train was
plunging along, the rails roaring beneath it. Those rails climbed gradually as the already
elevated track went higher still to avoid a triple-stacked freeway. Then the rails bent away
to the left in a long graceful curve, still climbing slightly; and little by little, over the low
brown cityscape of Brooklyn, the towers of Manhattan rose glittering in the early
sunlight. Gray and crystal for the Empire State Building, silver-blue for the odd sheared-
off Citibank building, silver-gold for the twin square pillars of the World Trade Center,
and steely white fire for the scalloped tower of the Chrysler Building as it caught the Sun.

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The place looked magical enough in (ne bright morning. Nita grinned to herself, looking
at the view and realizing that there was magic there. That forest of towers opened onto
other worlds. Une day she would open that worldgate by herself and go somewhere.
Fred stared at the towers, amazed. (This is more life? More even than the place where you
two live?)
(Ten million lives in the city, Fred. Maybe four or five million on that lsland alone.)
I Doesn't it worry you, packing all that life together? What if a meteor hits • What if
there's a starflare? If something should happen to all that life— ho* terrible!)
v,. /

,,. to laughed to herself. (It doesn't seem to worry them. . . .) Beside her, Was hanging on to a
seat, being rocked back and forth by the train's
66 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
speed. Very faintly Nita could hear what Kit heard and felt more strongly; the train's aliveness, its
wild rushing joy at doing what it was made to do—its dangerous pleasure in its speed, the wind it
fought with, the rails it rode. Nita shook her head in happy wonder. And I wanted to see the life on
other planets. There's more life in this world than I expected. . . .
(It's beautiful,) Fred said from his vantage point just above Kit's shoulder.
"It really is," Nita said, very quiet.
The train howled defiant joy and plunged into the darkness under the river.
Penn Station was thick with people when they got there, but even so it took them only a few
minutes to get down to the Seventh Avenue Subway station and from there up to Times Square
and the shuttle to Grand Central. The shuttle ride was short and crowded. Nita and Kit and Fred
were packed tight together in a corner, where they braced themselves against walls and seats and
other people while the train shouted along through the echoing underground darkness.
(I can't feel the Sun,) Fred said, sounding worried.
(We're ten or twenty feet underground,) Nita said silently. (We'll get you some Sun as soon as we
get off.)
Kit looked at Fred with concern. (You've been twitchy ever since we went into the tunnel, haven't
you?)
Fred didn't speak for a moment. (I miss the openness,) he said then. (But worse I miss the feeling
of your star on me. Where I come from no one is scaled away from the surrounding emissions.) He
trailed off, his thoughts full of the strange hiss and crackle of interstellar radiation—subtly
patterned sound, rushing and dying away and swelling up again—the Speech in yet another of its
forms. Starsong, Nita thought. (You said you heard about the Book of Night with Moon,) she said.
(Was that how? Your . . . friends, your people, they actually talk to each other over all those
distances—millions of light-years?)
(That's right. Not that we use light to do it, of course. But the words, the song, they never stop.
Except now. 1 can hardly hear anything but neutri-nos. . . .)
Kit and Nita glanced at each other. (The worldgate is underground, Fred,) Kit said. (In

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back of a deli, a little store. We'll have to be there for at least a few minutes to get Nita's
pen out.)
(We could go out first and look around,) Nita said. {We're early—it's only nine thirty. We
don't even have to think about anchoring the timeslide for a little bit yet.)
The subway cars screeched to a halt, doors rolled open, and the crush loosened as people piled out.
Nita got off gladly, looking around for direc-
50 }VU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 67
tional signs to point the way toward the concourse level of Grand Central—it had been a
while since she'd been there.
"Are you sure you know your way around this place?" Kit said as Nita headed down one tom-
up looking corridor.
"Ub huh. They're always doing construction in here. C'mon."
She led them up a flight of stairs into the lower Grand Central concourse __all beige tiles,
gray floor, signs pointing to fifty different trains, and small stores packed together. "The deli's
down there," she said as she went, waving a hand at a crowd of hurrying people and the wide
hall past them. "We go up here." And another flight of stairs, wider and prettier, let them out
on the upper concourse, a huge stretch of cream-colored marble under a great blue dome
painted with constellations and starred with lights.
They headed across the marble floor, up a short ramp, and out one of many brassy yellow
doors, onto the street. Immediately the three of them were assailed by noise, exhaust fumes,
people hurrying in all directions, a flood of cabs and buses and cars. But .there was also
sunlight, and Kit and Nita stood against the wall by the Grand Central doors, letting Fred soak
it up and get his composure back. He did so totally oblivious to the six men and three
jackhammers working just across the street behind a barrier of saw-horses and orange plastic
cones. (That's much better,) he said.
(It was quieter inside, though,) Kit said, and Nita was inclined to agree with him. The rattling
clamor of the jackhammers was climbing down her ears into her bones and making her teeth
jitter. The men, two burly ones and one skinny one, all three broad-shouldered and tan, all in
helmets and jeans and boots, appeared to be trying to dig to China. One of them hopped down
into the excavation for a moment to check its progress, and vanished up to his neck. Then the
hammering started again, "How can they stand it?" Nita muttered.
(Stand what? It's lovely out here.) Fred danced about a little in the air, brightening out of
invisibility for a few moments and looking like a long-lived remnant of a fireworks display.
(Fred, put it out!) Kit said. (If somebody sees you—)
(rtiey didn't see me in the field the other day,) Fred replied, (though Artificer knows they
looked.)
(Probably the Learjet distracted them. Fred, come on, tone it down a
t'e,} Nita said. (Let's go back inside and do what we have to. Then we can the timeslide and


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have fun in the city for the rest of the day.)
1 hey went back inside and down the stairs again, accompanied by the j^'et inward sound of
Fred's grumbling. There was no trouble finding the
Je deli where the worldgate was situated, and Nita and Kit paused outside • ubu have
everything ready?) Nita said.
in here.) Kit tapped his head. (The spells are all set except for one or
68 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
two syllables—it's like dialing almost all of a phone number. When I call f0r you, just come on
back. All we need is for the supplies to be in range of the spell; there's nothing special that has to
be done with them. Fred, you stay with Nita.)
(As you say.)
They went in. Nita lingered by the front counter, staring at dill pickles and sandwich makings,
trying to look normal while she waited for Kit to call her. Fred hung over her shoulder, looking
with great interest at bologna and salami and mayonnaise and cream cheese. (You people certainly
have enough ways to internalize energy,) he said. {Is there really that much difference between
one brand of matter and another?)
(Well, wasn't there any difference when you were a black hole? Didn't a rock, say, taste different
from a ray of light, when you soaked one or the other up?)
(Now that you mention it, yes. But appreciating differences like that was something you had to
work at for a long time. I wouldn't expect someone as young as you to—)
(Nita,) Kit's thought came abruptly. (We've got trouble. It's not here.)
(What? It has to be!)
(It's gone, Nita.)
"Girlie," said the man behind the deli counter in a no-nonsense growl, "you gonna buy
anything?"
"Uh," Nita said, and by reflex more than anything else picked up a can of soda from the
nearby cooler and fished around in her pocket for the change, "Kit—" she called.
"Coming?"
Nita paid for the soda. Kit joined her, carrying a small bag of potato chips, which he paid for in
turn, Together they went back out into the corridor, and Kit knelt down by the window of a store
across the way, a window full of shiny cutlery. He got his wizards' manual out of his pack and
began going through the pages in a hurry. "I don't get it," he said. "I even checked this morning to
make sure there hadn't been any change in the worldgate status. It said, right here, 'patent and
operative.' "
"Were the spells all right?"
Kit glared up at Nita, and she was instantly sorry she'd asked. "The spells were fine," Kit said.
"But they got caught like that first one I did, when you came along. Oh, damn. . . ." He trailed off,
and Nita edged around beside him to look at the page, "Something's changed," Kit said, and indeed
the page didn't look as it had when Nita had checked it herself in her own manual the night before.


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The listings for the other Manhattan worldgate5 were the same—the World Trade Center gate was
still listed as "under con-struction" and the Rockefeller Center gate as "closed for routine mainte-
50 YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 69
nance." But under the Grand Central gate listing was a small red box that said in boldface
type, Claudication temporarily dislocated due to unscheduled sdatial interruption, followed
by a string of numbers and symbols in the Speech, a description of the gate's new location. Kit
glanced up at the roof, through which the sound of jackhammers could plainly be heard. "The
con-struction," he said. "It must have screwed up the worldgate's interruption of space
somehow."
Nita was puzzling over the symbols for the new location. "Isn't that term there the one for
height above the ground?" she asked.
"Uh huh. Look at it, it must be sixty, seventy stories straight up from here." Kit slapped the
book shut in great annoyance, shoved it back in his backpack. "Now what do we do?"
{We go back outside?) Fred said, very hopefully.
It seemed the best suggestion. The three of them walked out again, and Fred bobbed and
danced some more in the sunlight while Nita and Kit walked slowly eastward along Forty-
second Street, toward the Park Avenue overpass. "Dislocated," Kit muttered, "And who
knows how long it'll take to come undisiocated? A perfectly good piece of time wasted."
Nita stopped and turned, looking up into the air and trying to estimate where the deli lay
under the Grand Central complex. She picked a spot that seemed about right, let her eye travel
up and up, sixty, maybe seventy stories. "Kit," she said. "Kit! Look what's seventy stories
high, and right next door."
Kit looked. Dark blue and silver, with its big stylized globe logo on one side, the Pan Am
Building reared its oblong self up at least seventy stories high, right there—not only right
behind Grand Central, but part of it. "Yeah," Kit said, his voice still heavy with annoyance.
"So?"
"So you remember that shield spell you showed me? The one that makes the air solid? If you
change the quantities in the spell a little, you can use it for something else. To walk on, even.
You just keep the air hard."
She couldn't keep from grinning. Kit stared at Nita as if she'd gone crazy. Are you suggesting
that we walk out to the worldgate and—" He laughed. How are we going to get up there?"
There's a heliport on top of the building," Nita said promptly. "They aon t use it for big
helicopters any more, but the little ones still land, and there's an elevator in the building that
goes right to the top. There's a restaurant up there too; my father had lunch with someone up
there once. I bet we could do it."
Kit stared at her. "If you talk the air solid, you 're going to walk on it first! I sa* that spell; it's
not that easy."
1 practiced it some. Come on, Kit, you want to waste the timeslide? It's J most ten now! It'll

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probably be years before these guys are finished digging. Let's do it!"
70 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
'They'll never let us up there," Kit said with conviction.
"Oh, yes, they will. They won't have a choice, because Fred'11 make a diversion for us. We don't
even need anything as big as a Learjet this time. How about it, Fred?"
Fred looked at them reluctantly. (I must admit I have been feeling an urge to burp—)
Kit still looked uncertain. "And when we get up there," he said, "all those stories up, and looking
as if we're walking on nothing—what if somebody sees us?"
Nita laughed- "Who are they going to tell? And who's going to believe them?"
Kit nodded and then began to grin slowly too. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah! Let's go, it's getting late."
Back they went into Grand Central, straight across the main concourse this time and up one of the
six escalators that led up to the lobby of the Pan Am Building. They paused just outside the
revolving doors at the end of the escalators. The Pan Am lobby was a big place, pillared and
walled and paved in dark granite, echoing with the sound of people hurrying in and out of the
station. They went up the escalator to the next floor, and Nita pointed off to one side, indicating an
elevator bank. One elevator had a sign standing by it: copter club—helipad level—express, Also
standing by it was a bored-looking uniformed security guard.
"That's it," Nita said.
"So if we can just get him away from there . . ."
"It's not that simple." She pointed down at the end of the hall between two more banks of
elevators. Another guard sat behind a large semicircular desk, watching a row of TV monitors.
"They've got cameras all over the place. We've got to get that guy out of there too. Fred, if you're
going to do something, do it right between them. Out in front of that desk."
(Well,) Fred said, sounding interested, (let's see, let's see. . . .) He damped his light down and
floated off toward the elevators, nearly invisible unless you were looking for him, and even then
looking like an unusually large speck of dust, nothing more. The dustmote stopped just between
the desk and the elevator guard, hung in midair, and concentrated so fiercely that Nita and Kit
could both feel it thirty feet away.
(T-hupt)
bang!
"That'll get their attention," Kit muttered. It did; both the guards started at the noise, began looking
around for the source of it—then both went very very slowly over to examine the large barrel
cactus in a brass pot that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the shiny floor.
"Now," Kit said, and took off toward the elevator with Nita close behind'
SO rot/ WANT TO BE A WIZARD 71
Both the guards had their backs turned, and Nita, passing them, saw the elevator keys hanging off
one guard's belt. (Fred,) she said hurriedly, (can you erab those real fast, the way you grabbed my
pen? Don't swallow them!)
(Once I might make that mistake,) Fred said, (but not twice.) As they slipped into the elevator Fred
paused by the guard's belt, and the keys van-ished without so much as a jingle. He sailed in to

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them. (How was that?)
(Great. Quick, Nita, close the door!)
She punched one of the elevator buttons and the doors slid shut; the keys appeared again, and Kit
caught them in midair before they fell. "It's always one of these round ones, like they use on coin
phones," he said, going through the keys. "Fred, I didn't know you could make live things!"
(I didn't know either,) Fred said, sounding unsettled, (and I'm not sure I
like it!)
"Here we go/' Kit said, and put one key into the elevator lock, turning it to run, and then pressed
the button marked 73—restaurant—helipad. The elevator took off in a hurry; it was one of the high-
speed sort.
Nita swallowed repeatedly to pop her ears. "Aren't you going to have to change the spells a little to
compensate for the gate being up high now?" she said after a moment.
"A little. You just put in the new height coordinate. Oops!"
The elevator began to slow down quickly, and Nita's stomach churned for a moment. She and Kit
both pressed themselves against the sides of the elevator, so they wouldn't be immediately visible
to anyone who might hap-pen to be standing right outside the door. But when the doors slid open,
no one was there. They peered out and saw a long carpeted corridor with a plate-glass door at one
end. Through it could be seen tables and chairs and, more dimly, through a window, a hazy view
of the East Side skyline. A muffled sound of plates and silverware being handled came down the
hall to them.
(It's early for lunch,) Nita said, relieved. (Let's go before someone sees us.)
(What about these keys?)
(Hmm. . . .)
(Look, let's leave them in the elevator lock. That way the guard down-stairs'll just think he left
them there. If they discover they're missingp they'll start looking for whoever took them—and this
would be the first place they'd look.)
Ueah, but how are we going to get down?)
Well walk on air,) Kit said, his voice teasing. Nita rolled her eyes at the eiling. (Or we'll go down
with the people coming out from lunch, if that °esn t work. Let's just get out of here first, okay?
Which way do we go to get on the heliport?) . There are stairs.) slipped out of the elevator just as it
chimed and its doors shut again
72 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
—probably the guard had called it from downstairs. The corridor off to the left was
featureless except for one door at its very end. helipad access, the door said in large red
letters. Nita tried the knob, then let her hand fall in exasperation. (Locked, Crud!)
(Well, wait a moment,) Kit said, and tried the knob himself. "You don't really want to be locked,
do you?" he said aloud in the Speech, very quietly. Again Nita was amazed by how natural the
wizards' language sounded when you heard it, and how nice it was to hear—as if, after being lost
in a foreign country for a long time, someone should suddenly speak warmly to you in English.
"You 've been locked for a couple of days now," Kit went on, his voice friendly and persuasive, not

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casting a spell, just talking—though in the Speech, the two were often dangerously close. "It must
be pretty dull being locked, no one using you, no one paying any attention. Now we need to use
you at least a couple of times this morning, so we thought we'd ask—"
Kt-chk! said the lock, and the knob turned in Kit's hand. "Thank you,"he said. "We'll be
back later." He went through the door into the stairwell, Nita and Fred following, and as
the door swung to behind them and locked itself again, there was a decidedly friendly
sound to the click. Kit grinned trium-phantly at Nita as they climbed the stairs. "How
about that?"
"Not bad," Nita said, determined to learn how to do it herself, if possible, "You've been
practicing too."
"Not really—some of this stuff just seems to come naturally as you work with it more.
My mother locked herself out of the car at the supermarket last week and I was pulling on
the car door and talking at it—you know how you do when you're trying to get something
to work. And then it worked. I almost fell over, the door came open so fast. It's the
Speech that does it, I think. Everything loves to hear it."
"Remember what Carl said, though."
"I know. I won't overdo it. You think we ought to call him later, let him know what
happened to the gate?"
They came to the top of the stairs, paused before the next closed door, breathing hard
from the exertion of climbing the stairs fast. "Probably hfi knows, if he's looked at his
book this morning," Nita said. "Look, before we do anything else, let's set the timeslide.
This is a good place for it; we're out of sight. When we're tired of running around the city,
we can just activate it and we'll be back here at quarter of eleven. Then we just go
downstairs, int° Grand Central and downstairs to the shuttle,, and then home in time for
lunch."
"Sounds good." They began rummaging in their backpacks, and before too long had
produced the eight and a half sugar cubes, the lithium-cadrniu"1 battery—a fat one, bigger
than a D cell and far heavier—a specific grated-circuit chip salvaged from the innards of
a dead pocket calculator,
SO
WANT TO BE A WIZARD
73
.. handle of a broken glass teacup. "You might want to back away a little, Fred s° y°ur
emissions don't interfere with the spell," Kit said.
(Right.) Fred retreated high up into one ceiling-corner of the stairwell, flaring bright with
interest. There was a brief smell of burning as he acciden-tally vaporized a cobweb.
"All right," Kit said, thumbing through his manual to a page marked with


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bit of ripped-up newspaper, "here we go. This is a timeslide inauguration," he said aloud in
the Speech. "Claudication type mesarrh-gimel-veignt-six, authorization group—" Nita
swallowed, feeling the strangeness set in as it had during their first spell together, feeling the
walls lean in to listen. But it was not a silence that fell this time. As Kit spoke, she became
aware of a roaring away at the edge of her hearing and a blurring at the limits of her vision.
Both effects grew and strengthened to the overwhelming point almost before she realized
what was happening. And then it was too late. She was seeing and hearing everything that
would happen for miles and miles around at quarter to eleven, as if the building were
transparent, as if she had eyes that could pierce stone and ears that could hear a leaf fall
blocks away. The words and thoughts of a million minds poured down on her in a roaring
onslaught like a wave crashing down on a swimmer, and she was washed away, helpless. Too
many sights, commonplace and strange, glad and fright-ening, jostled and crowded all around
her, and squeezing her eyes shut made no difference—the sights were in her mind. I'll go
crazy, I'll go crazy, stop it! But she was caught in the spell and couldn't budge. Stop it, oh, let
it stop—
It stopped. She was staring at the floor between her and Kit as she had been doing when the
flood of feelings swept over her. Everything was the same as it had been, except that the sugar
was gone. Kit was looking at her in concern. "You all right?" he said. "You look a little
green."
"Uh, yeah." Nita rubbed her head, which ached slightly as if with the memory of a very loud
sound.
"What happened to the sugar?"
It went away. That means the spell took." Kit began gathering up the rest °' the materials and
stowing them, He looked at her again. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Yeah, I'm fine." She got up, looked around restlessly. "C'mon, let's go."
K-'t got up too, shrugging into his backpack. "Yeah. Which way is the—"
crack! went something against the door outside, and Nita's insides con-r'cted. She and Kit
both threw themselves against the wall behind the door,
ere they would be hidden if it opened. For a few seconds neither of them ^d to breathe.
Nothing happened.
was that?) Kit asked.
74 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
(I don't know. It sounded like a shot. Lord, Kit what if there's somebody up here with a gun or
something—)
(What's a gun?) Fred said.
(You don't want to know,) Kit said. (Then again, if there was somebodv out there with a gun, I
doubt they could hurt you. Fred, would you go out there and have a quick look around? See who's
there?)
(Why not?) Fred floated down from the ceiling, looked the door over, put his light out, and slipped

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through the keyhole. For a little while there was silence, broken only by the faint faraway rattle of
a helicopter going by, blocks away.
Then the lock glowed a little from inside, and Fred popped back in. (1 don't see anyone out there,)
he said.
Kit looked at Nita. (Then what made that noise?)
She was as puzzled as he was. She shrugged. (Well, if Fred says there's nothing out
there—)
(I suppose. But let's keep our eyes open.)
Kit coaxed the door open as he had the first one, and the three of them stepped cautiously out onto
the roof.
Most of it was occupied by the helipad proper, the long wide expanse of bare tarmac ornamented
with its big yellow square-and-H symbol and sur-rounded by blue low-intensity landing lights. At
one end of the oblong pad was a small glass-walled building decorated with the Pan Am logo, a
dis-tended orange windsock, and an anemometer, its three little cups spinning energetically in the
brisk morning wind. Beyond the helipad, the roof was graveled, and various low-set ventilator
stacks poked up here and there. A yard-high guardrail edged the roof. Rising up on all sides was
Manhattan, a stony forest of buildings in all shapes and heights. To the west glimmered the
Hudson River and the Palisades on the New Jersey side; on the other side of the building lay the
East River and Brooklyn and Queens, veiled in mist and pinkish smog. The Sun would have felt
warm if the wind had stopped blow-ing. No one was up there at all.
Nita took a few steps off the paved walkway that led to the little glass building and scuffed at the
gravel suspiciously. "This wind is pretty stiff," she said. "Maybe a good gust of it caught some of
this gravel and threw it at the door." But even as she said it, she didn't believe it.
"Maybe," Kit said. His voice made it plain that he didn't believe it either "Come on, let's find the
gate."
"That side," Nita said, pointing south, where the building was wider. They headed toward the
railing together, crunching across the gravel. Fred perche" on Nita's shoulder; she looked at him
with affection. "Worried?"
(No. But you are.)
"A little. That sound shook me up." She paused again, wondering if s"e
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 75
heard something behind her. She turned. Nothing; the roof was bare. But still-— Nita turned
back and hurried to catch up with Kit, who was looking back at her.
"Something?"
"I don't know. I doubt it. You know how you see things out of the corner Of your eye,
movements that aren't there? I thought maybe the door moved a
little."
"I don't know about you," Kit said, "but I'm not going to turn my back on anvthing while I'm
up here. Fred, keep your eyes open." Kit paused by the railing, examining the ledge below it,


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maybe six feet wide, then looked up again. "On second thought, do you have eyes?"
(I don't know,) Fred said, confused but courteous as always. (Do you have chelicerae?)
"Good question," Nita said, a touch nervously. "Kit, let's do this and get out of here."
He nodded, unslung his pack, and laid the aspirin, pine cone, and fork on the gravel by the
railing. Nita got out the rowan wand and dropped it with the other materials, while Kit went
through his book again, stopping at another marked spot. "Okay," he said after a moment.
"This is an imaging-and-patency spell for a. temporospatial claudication, asdekh class.
Purpose: retrieval of an accidentally internalized object, matter-energy quotient ..." Kit read a
long string of syllables, a description in the Speech of Nita's pen, followed by another symbol
group that meant Fred and described the proper-ties of the little personal worldgate that kept
his great mass at a great dis-tance.
Nita held her breath, waiting for another onslaught of uncanny feelings, but none ensued.
When Kit stopped reading and the spell turned her loose, it was almost a surprise to see,
hanging there in the air, the thing they had been looking for. Puckered, roughly oblong,
vaguely radiant, an eight-foot scar on the sky; the worldgate, about a hundred feet out from
the edge where they stood and maybe thirty feet below the heliport level.
'Well," Kit said then, sounding very pleased with himself. "There we are. And it looks all
right, not much different from the description in the book." Now all we have to do is get to it."
Nita picked up the rowan wand, wnich for the second part of the spell would serve as a key to
get the pen through the worldgate and out of Fred. She tucked the wand into her belt, leaned
on the railing, and looked out at the air.
According to the wizards' manual, air, like the other elements, had a
"lemory and could be convinced in the Speech to revert to something it had
eeji before. It was this memory of being locked in stone as oxides or nitrates,
'•frozen solid in the deeps of space, that made the air harden briefly for the
e^ding spell. Nita started that spell in its simplest form and then went on
76 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
into a more formal one, as much a reminiscence as a convincing—she talked to the air about the
old days when starlight wouldn't twinkle because there was nothing to make it do so, and when
every shadow was sharp as a razor and distances didn't look distant because there was no air to
soften theirj. The immobility came down around her as the spell began to say itself alone with
Nita, matching her cadence. She kept her eyes closed, not looking, for fear something that should
be happening might not be. Slowly with her words she began to shape the hardening air into an
oblong, pushing it out through the other, thinner air she wasn't including in the spell. It's working
better than usual, faster, she thought. Maybe it's all the smog here—this air's half solid already.
She kept talking.
Kit whispered something, but she couldn't make out what and didn't want to try. "/ know it's a
strain, being solid these days," she whispered in the Speech, "but just for a little while, fust to


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make a walkway out to that puck-ered place in the sky, then you can relax. Nothing too thick,
fust strong enough to walk on—"
"Nita. Nita!"
The sound of her name in the Speech caught her attention. She opened her eyes. Arrow-straight,
sloping down from the lower curb of the railing between her and Kit, the air had gone hard. There
was dirt and smog trapped in it, making the sudden walkway more translucent than
transparent—but there was no mistaking it for anything but air. It had a more delicate, fragile look
than any glass ever could, no matter how thin. The walkway ran smooth and even all the way out
to the worldgate, widening beneath it into room enough for two to stand.
"Wow!" Nita said, sagging against the railing and rubbing at her eyes as she let the spell go. She
was tired; the spelling was a strain—and that feeling of nervousness left over from the loud noise
outside the stairwell came back. She glanced over her shoulder again, wondering just what she was
looking for.
Kit peered over the railing at the walkway. "This better be some pen," he said, and turned his back
to the worldgate, watching the roof. "Go ahead.'
Nita made sure her backpack was slung properly, checked the rowan wand again, and slowly
swung over the guardrail, balancing on the stone in which it was rooted. She was shaking, and her
hands were wet. If I don't just do this, she thought, I never will. Just one step down, Callahan, and
then a nice solid walkway straight across. Really. Believe. Believe. Ouch!
The air was so transparent that she misjudged the distance down to it— her foot hit before she
thought it would, and the jolt went right up her spine-Still holding the railing, Nita lifted that foot a
bit, then stomped down hard on the walkway. It was no different from stomping on a sidewalk.
She let he' weight down on that foot, brought the second down, and stomped with that too. It was
solid. fjj
SO >Ot/ WANT TO BE A WIZARD 77
rock, Kit!" she said, looking up at him, still holding the rail.
"
"Sure," Kit said, skeptical. "Let go of the rail first."
Nita made a face at Kit and let go. She held both arms out at first, as she might have on a balance
beam in gym, and then waved them experimentally. "See? It works. Fred?"
Fred bobbed down beside her, looking with interest at the hardened air of the walkway. (And it
will stay this way?)
"Until I turn it loose. Well?" She took a step backward, farther onto the walkway, and looked up
challengingly. "How about it?"
Kit said nothing, just slung his own backpack over his shoulders and swung over the railing as
Nita had done, coming down cautiously on the hardened air. He held on to the rail for a moment
while conducting his own tests of the air's solidity. "Come on," Nita said. "The wind's not too
bad."
"Lead the way."
Nita turned around, still holding her arms a little away from her to be sure of her balance, and

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started for the worldgate as quickly as she dared, with Fred pacing her cheerfully to the left. Eight
or ten steps more and it was becoming almost easy. She even glanced down toward the
walkway—and there she stopped very suddenly, her stomach turning right over in her at the sight
of the dirty, graveled roof of Grand Central, a long, long, long fall below. "Don't look down," a
memory said to her in Machu Picchu's scratchy voice. She swallowed, shaking all over, wishing
she had remembered the advice earlier.
"Nita, what's the—"
Something went whack! into the walkway. Nita jumped, lost her balance, and staggered back into
Kit. For a few awful seconds they teetered back and forth in wind that gusted suddenly, pushing
them toward the edge together —and then Kit sat down hard on the walkway, and Nita half fell on
top of aim, and they held very still for a few gasps.
"Wh-what—"
'I think it was a pigeon," Nita said, not caring whether Kit heard the trernulousness of her voice.
"You okay?"
Sure," Kit said, just as shakily. "I try to have a heart attack every day Aether I need one or
not. Get off my knee, huh?"
They picked each other up and headed for the gate again. {Even you have ouble with gravity,)
Fred said wonderingly as he paced them. (I'm glad I left my mass elsewhere.)
So are we," Nita said. She hurried the last twenty steps or so to the 'uened place at the end of the
walkway, with Kit following close.
knelt down in a hurry, to make sure the wind wouldn't push her over , and looked up at the
worldgate. Seen this close it was about four feet
78 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
by eight, the shape of a tear in a piece of cloth. It shone with a glowing, shifting, soap-bubble
iridescence. Finally, finally, my pen! she thought—but somehow, the thought didn't make Nita as
happy as it should have. The uneasy feeling that had started in the stairwell was still growing She
glanced over her shoulder at Kit. He was kneeling too, with his back to
her, watching the walkway and the rooftop intently. Beside her, Fred hune
i        • • quietly waiting.
(Now what?) he asked.
Nita sighed, pulled the rowan rod out of her belt, and inserted one end of it delicately into the
shimmering veil that was the surface of the worldgate. Though the city skyline could be seen very
clearly through the shimmer, the inch or so of the wand that went through it appeared to vanish.
"]ust perch yourself on the free end here," Nita said, holding the wand by its middle. "Make
contact with it the same way you did with those keys. Okay?"
(Simple enough.) Fred floated to the end of the rod and lit there, a bright, still spark. (All right, I'm
ready.)
Nita nodded. "This is a retrieval," she said in the Speech. "Involvement confined to a pen with
the following characteristics: m 'sedh-zayin six point three—"
(Nita!)

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The note of pure terror in Kit's mind-voice caused Nita to do the unforgiv-able—break off in the
middle of a spell and look over her shoulder. Shapes were pouring out of the little glass shelter
building, which had been empty, and was still somehow empty even as Nita looked. She got a first
impression of grizzled coats, red tongues that lolled and slavered, fangs that gleamed in the
sunlight, and she thought, Wolves!
But their eyes changed her mind as ten or twelve of the creatures loped across the roof toward the
transparent walkway, giving tongue in an awful mindless cacophony of snarls and barks and
shuddering howls. The eyes. People's eyes, blue, brown, green, but with almost all the intelligence
gone out of them, nothing left but a hot deadly cunning and an awful desire for the taste of blood.
From her reading in the wizards' manual, she knew what they were: perytons. Wolves would have
been preferable—wolves were socta-ble creatures. These had been people once, people so used to
hating that at the end of life they'd found a way to keep doing it, by hunting the souls of others
through their nightmares. And once a peryton caught you . . .
Nita started to hitch backward in total panic and then froze, realizing that there was nowhere to go.
She and Kit were trapped. Another second ana the perytons would be on the bridge, and at their
throats, for eternity. K» whipped his head around toward Nita and the worldgate. "Jump through
artf break the spell!" he yelled.
"But—" And she grabbed his arm, pushed the rowan wand through ne
SO K)U WANT TO BE A WIZARD
79
, u and yelled, "Come on, Fred!" The first three perytons leaped the guard-
•i anj landed on the bridge, running. Nita threw herself and Kit at the
Ideate, being careful of the edges, as she knew she must, while screaming
• absolute terror the word that would dissolve the walkway proper. For a fraction of a second she
caught the sound of screams other than her
own, howls of creatures unseen but falling. Then the shimmer broke against
her face like water, shutting out sound, and light, and finally thought.
Blinded, deafened, and alone, she fell forever. . . .

Exocontinual Protocols
She lay with her face pressed against the cold harsh gravel, feeling the grit of it against her
cheek, the hot tears as they leaked between her lashes, and that awful chill wind that wouldn't
stop tugging at her clothes. Very slowly Nita opened her eyes, blinked, and gradually realized
that the problem with the place where she lay was not her blurred vision. It was just very dim
there. She leaned on her skinned hands, pushed herself up, and looked to see where she was.
Dark-gray gravel was all around. Farther off, something smooth and dark, with navy-blue
bumps. The helipad. Farther still, the raiting, and beyond it the sky, dark. That was odd—it
had been morning. The sound of a moan made Nita turn her head. Kit was close by, lying on
his side with his hands over his face. Sitting on his shoulder, looking faint as a spark about to

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go out, was Fred.
Nita sat up straighter, even though it made her head spin. She had fallen a long way, she didn't
want to remember how far. . . . "Kit," she whispered. "You okay? Fred?"
Kit turned over, pushed himself up on his hands to a sitting position, and groaned again. Fred
clung to him. "I don't think I busted anything," Kit said-slow and uncertain. "I hurt all over.
Fred, what about you?"
(The Sun is gone,) Fred said, sounding absolutely horrified.
Kit looked out across the helipad into the darkness and rubbed his eyes-"Me and my bright
ideas. What Have I got us into?"
"As much my bright idea as yours," Nita said. "If it weren't for me, *e wouldn't have been out
by that worldgate in the first place. Anyway, Kltr where else could we have gone? Those
perytons—"
Kit shuddered. "Don't even talk about them. I'd sooner be here than
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 81
them get me." He got to his knees, then stood up, swaying for a moment. "Oooh. C'mon, let's
see where the worldgate went."
He headed off across the gravel. Nita got up on her knees too, then caught sight Of a bit of
glitter lying a few feet away and grabbed at it happily. Her pen, none the worse for wear. She
clipped it securely to the pocket of her shirt and went after Kit and Fred.
Kit was heading for the south-facing railing. "I guess since you only called for a retrieval, the
gate dumped us back on top of the . . ,"
His voice trailed off suddenly as he reached the railing. Nita came up beside him and saw
why.
The city was changed. A shiver ran all through Nita, like the odd feeling that comes with an
attack of deft vu—but this was true memory, not the illusion of it. She recognized the place
from her first spell with Kit—the lowering, sullen-feeling gloom, the shadowed island held
prisoner between its dark, icy rivers. Frowning buildings hunched themselves against the
oppres-sive, slaty sky. Traffic moved, but very little of it, and it did so in the dark. Few
headlights or taillights showed anywhere. The usual bright stream of cars and trucks and
buses was here only dimly seen motion and a faint sound of snarling engines. And the sky! It
wasn't clouded over; it wasn't night. It was empty. Just a featureless grayness, hanging too
low, like a ceiling. Simply by looking at it Nita knew that Fred was right. There was no Sun
behind it, and there were no stars—only this wall of gloom, shutting them in, imprisoning
them with the presence Nita remembered from the spell, that she could feel faintly even now.
It wasn't aware of her, but— She pushed back away from the rail, remembering the rowan's
words. (The Other. The Witherer, the Kindler of Wildfires—)
"Kit," she said, whispering, this time doing it to keep from perhaps being overheard by that. "I
think we better get out of here."

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He backed away from the rail too, a step at a time. "Well," he said, very '°w, "now we know
what your pen was doing in New York City. . . ."
"'The sooner it's out of here, the happier I'll be. Kit—where did the world-gate go!"
"e shook his head, came back to stand beside her. "Wherever it went, it's "ot out there now."
Nita let out an unhappy breath. "Why should it be? Everything else is
cl)anged." She looked back at the helipad. The stairwell was still there, but
s door had been ripped away and lay buckled on the gravel. The helipad
J*'r had no design painted on it for a helicopter to center on when landing.
e glass of the small building by the pad was smashed in some places and
med all around; the building was full of rubble and trash, a ruin. "Where
"* we?" Nita said,
' he place we saw in the spell. Manhattan—"
82 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
"But different." Nita chewed her lip nervously. "Is this an alternate world maybe? The next
universe over? The worldgate was just set for a retrieval but we jumped through; maybe we
messed up its workings. Carl said this one was easy to mess up."
"I wonder how much trouble you get in for busting a worldgate," Kit muttered.
"I think we're in enough trouble right now. We have to find the thing."
(See if you can find me the Sun and the stars and the rest of the Universe while you're at it,) Fred
said. He sounded truly miserable, much worse than when he had swallowed the pen. (I don't know
how long I can bear this silence.)
Kit stood silent for a moment, staring out at that grim cold cityscape. "There is a spell we can use
to find it that doesn't need anything but words," he said. "Good thing. We don't have much in the
way of supplies. We'll need your help, though, Fred. Your claudication was connected to the
worldgate's when we went through. You can be used to trace it."
{Anything to get us out of this place,) Fred said.
"Well," Nita said, "let's find a place to get set up."
The faint rattling noise of helicopter rotors interrupted her. She looked westward along the long
axis of the roof, toward the dark half-hidden blot that was Central Park, or another version of it.
A small flying shape came wheeling around the corner of a skyscraper a few blocks away and
cruised steadily toward the roof where they stood, the sharp chatter of its blades ricocheting more
and more loudly off the blank dark faces of neighboring skyscrapers. "We better get under cover,"
Kit said. Nita started for the stairwell, and Kit headed after her, but a bit more slowly. He kept
throwing glances over his shoulder at the approaching chopper, both worried by it and interested in
it. Nita looked over her shoulder too, to teO him to hurry—and then realized how close the
chopper was, how fast it was coming. A standard two-scat helicopter, wiry skeleton, glass bubble
protect-ing the seats, oval doors on each side. But the bubble's glass was filmed over except for the
doors, which glittered oddly. They had a faceted look. No pilot could see out that, Nita thought,
confused. And the skids, the landing skids are wrong somehow. The helicopter came sweeping

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over their heads, low, too low.
"KIT!" Nita yelled. She spun around and tackled him, knocking him flat, as the skids made a
lightning jab at the place where he had been a momem before, and hit the gravel with a screech of
metal. The helicopter soared on past them, refolding its skids, not yet able to slow down from the
speed of i*5 first attack. The thunderous rattling of its rotors mixed with another sound,z high
frustrated shriek like that of a predator that has missed its kill—-and almost immediately they
heard something else too, an even
SO yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 83
uea]ing, ratchety and metallic, produced by several sources and seeming to come from inside the
ruined glass shelter.
Kit and Nita clutched at each other, getting a better look at the helicopter from behind as it swung
around for another pass. The "skids" were doubled-back limbs of metal like those of a praying
mantis, cruelly clawed. Under what should have been the helicopter's "bubble," sharp dark
mandibles worked hungrily—and as the chopper heeled over and came about, those faceted eyes
looked at Kit and Nita with the cold, businesslike glare reserved for helpless prey.
"We're dead," Nita whispered.
"Not yet." Kit gasped, staggering up again. "The stairwell—" Together he and Nita ran for the
stairs as the chopper-creature arrowed across the rooftop at them. Nita was almost blind with
terror; she knew now what had torn the door off the stairwell and doubted there was any way to
keep that thing from getting them. They fell into the stairwell together. The chopper roared past
again, not losing so much time in its turn this time, coming about to hover like a deadly dragonfly
while positioning itself for another jab with those steel claws. Kit fell farther down the stairs than
Nita did, hit his head against a wall and lay moaning. Nita slid and scrabbled to a stop, then turned
to see that huge, horrible face glaring into the stairwell, sighting on her for the jab. It was unreal.
None of it could possibly be real; it was all a dream; and with the inane desperation of a dreamer
in nightmare, Nita felt for the only thing at hand, the rowan rod, and slashed at the looming face
with it.
She was completely unprepared for the result. A whip of silver fire the color of the Moon at full
cracked across the bubble-face from the rod, which glowed in her hand. Screaming in pain and
rage, the chopper-creature backed up and away, but only a little. The razor-combed claws shot
down at her. She slashed at them too, and when the moonfire curled around them, the crea-ture
screamed again and pulled them back.
Kit!" she yelled, not daring to turn her back on those raging, ravenous eyes. "Kit! The antenna!"
She heard him fumbling around in his pack as the hungry helicopter took another jab at her, and
she whipped it again with fire. Quite suddenly some-"»ng fired past her ear—a bright, narrow line
of blazing red light the color of metal in the forge, The molten light struck the helicopter in the
underbelly, Pattering in bright hot drops, and the answering scream was much more terrible this
time.
<('ts a machine," Nita said, gasping. "Your department."
threat," Kit said, crawling up the stairs beside her. "How do you kill a

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lcopter?"   But he braced one arm on the step just above his face, laid the
enna over it, and fired again. The chopper-creature screeched again and away.
84 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
Kit scrambled up to his feet, pressed himself flat against what remained of the crumbling doorway,
pointed the antenna again. Red fire lanced out followed by Nita's white as she dove back out into
the stinging wind and thunder of rotors and slashed at the horror that hung and grabbed from
midair. Gravel flew and stung, the wind lashed her face with her hair, the air was full of that car-
tearing metallic scream, but she kept slashing. White fire snapped and curled—and then from
around the other side of the chopper-creature there came a sharp crack! as a bolt of Kit's hot light
fired upward. The scream that followed made all the preceding ones sound faint. Nita wished she
could drop the wand and cover her ears, but she didn't dare—and anyway she was too puzzled by
the creature's reaction. That shot hadn't hit anywhere on its body that she could see. Still
screaming, it began to spin helplessly in a circle like a toy pinwheel. Kit had shattered the
helicopter's tail rotor. It might still be airborne, but it couldn't fly straight, or steer. Nita danced
back from another jab of those legs, whipped the eyes again with the silver fire of the rowan wand
as they spun past her. From the other side there was another crack! and a shattering sound, and the
bubble-head spinning past her again showed one faceted eye now opaque, spiderwebbed with
cracks. The helicopter lurched and rose, trying to gain altitude and get away.
Across the roof Kit looked up, laid the antenna across his forearm again, took careful aim, fired.
This time the molten line of light struck through the blurring main rotors. With a high, anguished,
ringing snap, one rotor flew off and went pinwheeling away almost too fast to see. The helicopter
gave one last wild screech, bobbled up, then sideways, as if staggering through the air. "Get
down!" Kit screamed at Nita, throwing himself on the ground. She did the same, covering her head
with her arms and frantically gasping the sylla-bles of the defense-shield spell.
The explosion shook everything and sent gravel flying to bounce off the hardened air around her
like hail off a car roof, fagged blade shards snapped and rang and shot in all directions. Only when
the roaring and the wash of heat that followed it died down to quiet and flickering light did Nita
dare to raise her head. The helicopter-creature was a broken-backed wreck with oily flame licking
through it. The eye that Kit had shattered stared blindly up a* the dark sky from the edge of the
helipad; the tail assembly, twisted and bent, lay half under the creature's body. The only sounds
left were the wind and that shrill keening from the little glass building, now much muted. rid
herself of the shielding spell and got slowly to her feet. "Fred?" whispered.
A pale spark floated shakily through the air to perch on her (Here,) he said, sounding as tremulous
as Nita felt (Are you well?)
She nodded, walked toward the wreck. Kit stood on the other side of it, J"5 fist clenched on the
antenna. He was shaking visibly. The sight of his terror
SO }OU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 85
made Nita's worse as she came to stand by him. "Kit," she said, fighting the e t0 cry and
losing—tears spilled out anyway. "This is not a nice place,"
she said.

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He gulped, leaking tears himself. "No," he said, trying to keep his voice steady, "it sure
isn't," He looked over at the glass-walled building.
"Yeah," Nita said, scrubbing at her face. "We better have a look."
Slowly and carefully they approached the building, came to one collapsed wall, peered in. Nita
held her wand high, so they could see by its glow. Inside, hidden amid the trash and broken glass,
was what seemed to be a rude nest built of scraps of metal and wire. In the nest were three baby
helicop-ters, none more than two feet long. They stared fiercely at Kit and Nita from tiny faceted
eyes like their parent's, and threatened with little jabbing fore-legs, whirring with rotors too small
to lift them yet. Sharing the nest with the fledglings was the partially stripped skeleton of a dog.
Kit and Nita turned away together. "I think maybe we should go down-stairs a little ways before
we do that finding spell," Kit said, his voice still shaking. "If there's another of those things—"
"Yeah." They headed down the stairwell, to the door that in their own world had opened onto the
elevator corridor. The two of them sat down, and Nita laid the rowan wand in her lap so there
would be light—the ceiling lights in the stairwell were out, and the place felt like the bottom of a
hole.
"Fred," Kit said, "how're you holding up?"
Fred hung between them, his light flickering. (A little better than before. The silence is still very
terrible. But at least you two arc here.)
"We'll find you the Sun, Fred," Nita said, wishing she was as sure as she was trying to sound. "Kit,
which spell was it you were going to use?"
Kit had his manual out. "At the bottom of three eighteen. It's a double, we read together."
Nita got out her own book, paged through it. "McKillip's Stricture? That's for keeping
grass short!"
No, no!" Kit leaned over to look at Nita's manual. "Huh. How about that, our pages are different.
Look under 'Eisodics and Diascheses.' The °urth one after the general introduction. Davidson's
Minor Enthalpy."
Nita ruffled through some more pages. Evidently her book had more infor-
ation than Kit's on the spells relating to growing things. Her suspicion /out what their specialties
were grew stronger. "Got it." She glanced
r°ugh the spell. "Fred, you don't have to do anything actually. But this is
e ot those spells that'll leave us blind to what's happening around here. Watch fo
                                                                                  r us?-
[Absolutely!)
<0lcay," Kit said. "Ready? One—two—three—"
86 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
They spoke together, slowly and carefully, matching cadence as they de-scribed the worldgate, and
their own needs, in the Speech.
The shadowy stairwell grew darker still, though this darkness seemed less hostile than what hung
overhead; and in the deepening dimness, the walls around them slowly melted away. It seemed to
Nita that she and Kit and the small bright point between them hung at a great height, unsupported,

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over a city built of ghosts and dreams. The buildings that had looked real and solid from the roof
now seemed transparent skeletons, rearing up into the gloom of this place. Stone and steel and
concrete were shadows—and gazing through them, down the length of the island, Nita saw again
the two points of light that she and Kit had seen in the first spell.
The closer one, perhaps ten blocks north in the east Fifties, still pulsed with its irregular,
distressing light. Compelled by the spell's working, Nita looked closely at it, though that was the
last thing she wanted to do—that bit of angry brightness seemed to be looking back at her. But she
had no choice. She examined the light, and into her mind, poured there by the spell, came a
description of the light's nature in the Speech. She would have backed away, as she had from the
perytons, except that again there was nowhere to go. A catalogue, of sorts, that light was—a
listing, a set of descriptions. But all wrong, all twisted, angry as the light looked, hungry as the
helicopter-creature had been, hating as the surrounding darkness was, full of the horrors that
everything in existence could become. The Book which is not Named—
Nita struggled, though unable to move or cry out; her mind beat at the spell like a bird in a cage,
and finally the spell released her. But only to look in the other direction, downtown toward the
Wall Street end of the island. There in the illogical-looking tangle of streets built before the regular
gridwork of Manhattan was laid down, buried amid the ghosts of buildings, another light throbbed,
regular, powerful, unafraid. It flared, it dazzled with white-silver fire, and Nita thought of the
moonlight radiance of the rowan wand.
In a way, the spell said, this second light was the source of the wand's power, even though here
and now the source was bound and limited. This time the syllables of the Speech were no crushing
weight of horror. They were a song, one Nita wished would never stop. Courage, merriment, afl
invitation to everything in existence to be what it was, be the best it could oe, grow,
live—description, affirmation, encouragement, all embodied in one place, one source, buried in the
shadows. The Book of Night with Moon.
A feeling of urgency came over Nita, and the spell told her that without the protection of the bright
Book, she and Kit and Fred would never survive the hungry malevolence of this place long enough
to find the worldgate a^ escape. Nor, for that matter, would they he able to find the worldgate at
aUf it was being held against them by powers adept in wizardries more poteD'
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 87
than anything the two of them could manage. It would be folly to try match-• „ wizardries with the
Lone Power on its own ground, this outworld long given over to its rule. Their best chance was to
find the bright Book and free it of the constraint that held its power helpless. Then there might be a
chance.
The spell shut itself off, finished. Walls and physical darkness curdled around them again. Kit and
Nita looked at each other, uncertain.
"We've been had," Kit said.
Nita shook her head, not following him.
"Remember Tom saying it was odd that our first spell turned up Fred and the news that the bright
Book was missing? And what Picchu said then?"

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"There are no accidents," Nita murmured.
"Uh huh. How likely do you think it is that all this is an accident? Some-thing wanted us here, I
bet." Kit scowled. "They might have asked us! It's not fair!"
Nita held still for a moment, considering this. "Well, maybe they did ask us."
"Huh? Not me, I—"
"The Oath."
Kit got quiet quickly. "Well," he admitted after a while, "it did have all kinds of warnings in front
of it. And I went ahead and read it anyway."
"So did I." Nita closed her eyes for a second, breathing out, and heard something in the back of her
head, a thread of memory; Did I do right? Go find out. . . . "Look," she said, opening her eyes
again, "maybe we're not as bad off as we think. Tom did say that younger wizards have more
power. We don't have a lot of supplies, but we're both pretty good with the Speech by now, and
Fred is here to help. We're armed—" She glanced down at the rowan wand, still lying moon-bright
in her lap.
"For how long?" Kit said. He sighed too. "Then again, I guess it doesn't matter much—if we're
going to find the bright Book, the only way to do it is to hurry. Somebody knows we're here. That
thing showed up awful fast—" He nodded at the roof.
Yeah." Nita got up, took a moment to stretch, then glanced down at Kit. He wasn't moving.
"What's the matter?"
Kit stared at the antenna in his hands. "When I was talking to the Edsel," e said, "it told me some
things about the Powers that didn't want intelli-gence to happen in machines. They knew that
people would start talking to r01* make friends with them. Everybody would be happier as a result.
ose Powers—" He looked up. "If I understood that spell right, the one this place is the chief of
them all, the worst of them. The Destroyer,
e engenderer of rust—>h Kit!"
88 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
"I know, you shouldn't name it—" He got up, held out a hand to Fred who hobbled over to Kit and
came to rest on his palm. "But that's who we're up against. Or what. Fred, do you know what we're
talking about?"
Fred's thought was frightened but steady. (The Starsnuffer,) he said. (The one who saw light come
to be and could not make it in turn—and so rebelled against it, and declared a war of darkness.
Though the rebellion didn't work as well as it might have, for darkness only made the light seem
brighter.)
Kit nodded. "That's the one. If we do get the bright Book, that's who'll come after us."
Fred shuddered, a flicker of light so like a spark about to go out in the wind that Kit hurriedly
tucked the antenna under his arm and cupped his other hand around Fred protectively. (I've lost
enough friends to that one,) Fred said, {heard enough songs stilled. People gone nova before their
time, or fallen through naked singularities into places where you burn forever but don't learn
anything from it.)
For a moment neither of them could follow Fred's thought. Though he was using the Speech, as

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always, they couldn't follow what other things he was describing, only that they were as terrible to
him as a warped thing like the helicopter-creature was to them. (No matter,) he said at last. {You
two are part of the answer to stopping that kind of thing. Otherwise my search for an Advisory
nexus wouldn't have brought me to you. Let's do what we can.)
Kit nodded. "Whatever that is. I wish I knew where to begin."
Nita leaned back against the wall. "Didn't Tom say something about the two Books being tied
together? So that you could use one to guide you to the other?"
"Yeah."
"Well. We're not too far from the dark one." Nita swallowed. "If we could get hold of that—and
use it to lead us to the bright one. That vision only gave a general idea of where the Book of Night
with Moon was. Probably because of it being restrained, or guarded, or whatever—"
Kit looked at Nita as if she had taken leave of her senses. "Steal the dark Book? Sure! And then
have—" He waved his hand at the northward wall, not wanting to say any name. "—and Lord
knows what else come chasing aftef us?"
"Why not?" Nita retorted. "It's a better chance than going straight for the bright one, which we
know is guarded somehow. We'd go fumblini around down there in the financial district and
probably get caught rigl" away. But why would they guard the dark Book? They're the only ones
wn° would want it! I bet you we could get at the dark one a lot more easily thai1 the other."
Kit chewed his lip briefly. "Well?" Nita said. "What do you think?"
SO \OU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 89
"] think you're probably nuts. But we can't just sit here, and it wouldn't hurt to go see what the
situation is—Fred?"
(Lead,) Fred said, (I'll follow.)
Kit gently tossed Fred back into the air and paused long enough to put his book away. He
didn't put the antenna away, though. The rowan wand glowed steadily, and brilliantly. "Can't
you damp that down a little?" Kit said. "If somebody sees us—"
"No, I can't. I tried." Nita cast about for ways to hide it, finally settled on sticking it in her
back jeans pocket and settling her down vest over it. "Bet-ter?"
"Yeah." Kit had turned his attention to the doorknob. He touched it, spoke softly to it in the
Speech, turned it. Nothing happened. "Not listen-ing?" he wondered out loud, and bent to
touch the keyhole. "Now why— Ow!" He jumped back, almost knocking Nita over.
"What's the matter?"
Kit was sucking on his finger, looking pained. "Bit me!" he said, removing the finger to
examine it. It bled.
"I get the feeling," Nita said slowly, "that there's not much here that's friendly."
"Yeah." Kit looked glumly at the doorknob, "I guess we'd better consider everything we see
potentially dangerous." He lifted the antenna, bent down by the lock again, and touched the
keyhole delicately with the knob at the antenna's end. A brief red spark spat from the antenna;
the innards of the lock clicked. This time when Kit turned the knob, the door came open a

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crack.
With great caution he opened the door a bit more, peered out, then opened it all the way and
motioned Nita to follow him. Together they stepped out into a hall much like the elevator
corridor in their own world, but dark and silent. (The elevator?) Kit said inwardly, not
wanting to break that ominous quiet.
(Do you trust it?)
(No. Know where the stairs are?)
(Down the way we came. Past the elevator.)
"he door to the main stairway had to be coerced into opening by the same method as the door
to the roof. When they were through it Kit spent an-other moment getting it to lock again,
then stepped over to the banister and °°ked down at story after story of switchback stairs. (It
could be worse,) Nita said. (We could be going up.)
Ut will be worse,) Kit said. (If the worldgate stays at this level, we're going to have to come
back up. . . .)
T~*L

ney headed down. It took a long time. The few times they dared stop to st> Kit and Nita heard
odd muffled noises through the walls—vaguely
90 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
threatening scrapes and groans and rumbles, the kind of sounds heard in nightmares. The stairs
were as dark as the corridor had been, and it was hard to sit in the corner of a landing, rubbing
aching legs, with only the light of Nita's wand to argue with the blackness that towered above and
yawned below, as those sounds got louder.
They quickly lost count of how many stories downward they'd gone. All the landings looked the
same, and all the doors from them opened off into the same pitch-blackness—until finally Kit
eased one open as he had eased open scores of others and abruptly stood very still. He put his hand
out behind him, (Nita! The wand.)
She passed it to him. It dimmed in his hand from moonfire to foxfire, z faint silver glimmer that he
held out the door as he looked around. (It's all that shiny stone, like the other lobby, There should
be a way down into the station, then—)
Nita's hair stood up on end at the thought. (Kit, you saw what happened to helicopters. Do you
really want to meet a train? Let's go out on the street level, okay?)
He gulped and nodded. (Which way?)
(There's a door out onto Forty-fifth Street. C'mon.)
She slipped out, and Kit followed with the wand. Its pale light reached just far enough ahead to
gleam off the glass wall at the end of the corridor. Near it was the down escalator, frozen dead.
They made their way softly down it, then across the slick floor and out the glass doors to the street.
It was nearly as dark outside as it had been inside; a night without a hint of Moon or stars. The air
down there wasn't as chill as it had been on the building's roof, but it stank of dark city
smells—exhaust, spilled gasoline, garbage, and soot. The gutter was clogged with trash. They
stepped out to cross Forty-fifth—

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"No," Nita hissed, startled into speech, and dragged Kit back into the dark of the doorway. Pale
yellow-brown light flickered down the street, got brighter. A second later, with a snarl of its
engine, a big yellow Checker Cab hurled itself past them, staring in front of it with headlight-eyes
burned down to yellow threads of filament—eyes that looked somehow as if they could see. But
the cab seemed not to notice them. Its snarl diminished as it plunged down the street, leaving a
whirl of dirty paper and dead leaves in its wake. Kit coughed as its exhaust hit them.
(That was alive,) he said when he got his breath back. (The same way the helicopter was.)
Nita made a miserable face. (Let's get outa here,) she said.
Kit nodded. She led him off to their left, through the Hclmsley-Spear Building, which should have
been bright with gold-leafed statuary. Here »
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 91
was gray witn soot> an<^ tne carvings stared down with such looks of silent [jialice that Nita
refused to glance up more than that once.
She hoped for some more encouraging sight as they came onto Forty-sixth Street and looked
up Park Avenue. The hope was vain. The avenue stretched away and slightly upward for
blocks as it did in their own world, vanishing in the murk. But the divider between the uptown
and downtown lanes, usually green with shrubbery, had become one long tangle of barren
thorn bushes. The old-fashioned red-and-green traffic lights burned low and dark as if short
on power; and no matter how long one watched, they never changed from red. The shining
glass-and-steel office buildings that had lined the avenue in their Manhattan were grimy shells
here, the broad sidewalks before them cluttered with rubbish. Nothing moved anywhere,
except far up Park, where another pair of yellow eyes waited at a corner.
Those eyes made Nita nervous. (This way,) she said. She hurried past a dirty granite facade
full of still doors and silent windows. Kit followed close, and Fred with him, both looking
worriedly at everything they passed.
Nita was doing her best to keep herself calm as they turned the corner onto Forty-seventh. It
can't all be as bad as the helicopter, she told herself. And nothing really bad has happened to
us yet. It was just the shock of the—
She jumped back into the shadow of a building on hearing a clapping sound so loud she felt
sure the helicopter's mate was coming for them. Fred and Kit huddled terrified into that
shadow too, and it took a few seconds for any of them to find the source of the sound. Not
more than five or six feet from them, a pigeon had landed—a sooty-dark one, cooing and
strutting and head-bobbing in a perfectly normal fashion. It walked away from them,
mut-tering absently, intent on its own pursuits. Kit poked Nita from behind—not a warning: a
teasing poke. (Getting jumpy, huh.)
(Yeah, well, you were the one who said—)
. The lightning-stroke of motion not six feet away knocked the merriment "ght out of them.
What had seemed a perfectly ordinary fire hydrant, dull yellow, with rust stains and peeling


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paint, suddenly cracked open and shot °ut a long, pale, ropy tongue like a toad's. The pigeon
never had a chance. *i't side-on, the bird made just one strangled gobbling noise before the
tongue was gone again, too fast to follow, and the wide horizontal mouth it £anie from was
closed again. All that remained to show that anything had aPpened was a slight bulge under
the metallic-looking skin of the fire hy-arant. The bulge heaved once and was still.
Nita bit her lip. Behind her she could feel Kit start shaking again. (I feel
rry for the next dog that comes along,) he said. (I hope you don't mind if I cross the street.)
Kit headed out of the shadow.
U think I'll join you,) Nita said. She backed out of range of that tongue ef°re she started across
the street herself—
92 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
There was no time to move, to scream, even to think. Kit was halfway across the street, with his
eye on that fire hydrant, his head turned away from the big yellow Checker Cab that was maybe
six feet away and leaping straight at him,
A flash of brilliance struck Nita like a blow, and did the same for the cab so that it sv/crved to its
left and knocked Kit sideways and down. The cab roared on by, engine racing in frustration,
evidently too angry to try for another pass. But something about it, maybe the savage sidelong
look it threw Nita out of its burned-down eyes as it squealed around the corner of Forty-sixth and
Madison—something made Nita suspect that it would not forget them. She ran out into the street
and bent over Kit, not sure whether she should try to move him.
f'Sawright,) Kit said, groaning softly as he worked at getting up. Nita slipped hands under his arms
to help. (Fred did it.)
(Are you all right?) came the frantic thought, as Fred appeared in front of Kit's face. (Did I hurt
you, did I emit anything you can't take? I took out all the ultraviolet. Oh, no! I forgot the cosmic
rays again.)
Kit managed a smile, though not much of one, his face was skinned and bruised where one
cheekbone had hit the pavement. (Don't worry about it, Fred, that thing would have done a lot
worse to me than a few cosmic rays if it'd hit me the way it wanted to.) He stood up, wincing. (It
got my leg some, I think.)
Nita bent down to look at Kit's left leg and sucked in her breath. His jeans were torn, and he had a
straight horizontal gash six inches or so below the knee, which was bleeding freely. (Does it feel
deep?)
(No. It just hurts a lot. I think it was the cab's fender, there was a jagged piece sticking out of the
chrome. Listen, Fred, thanks—)
(You're sure I didn't hurt you? You people are so fragile. A little gamma radiation will ruin your
whole day, it seems.)
(I'm fine. But I've gotta do something about this leg. And then we've got to get moving again and
get to the dark Book.)
Nita looked over at the fire hydrant, fear boiling in her. Casually, as if this was something it did
many times a day, the hydrant cracked open and spat something out onto the sidewalk—a

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dessicated-looking little lump of bones and feathers. Then it got up and waddled heavily down to a
spot about fifty feet farther down the block, and sat down again.
And I thought it couldn 't all be bad.
Together, as quickly as they could, two small, frightened-looking figures and a spark like a lost
star hurried into the shadows and vanished there.

Entropies Detection and Avoidance
(How close are we?)
(Uh . . . this is Madison and Forty-ninth. Three blocks north and a long one east.)
(Can we rest? This air burns to breathe. And we've been going fast.)
(Yeah, let's.)
They crouched together in the shadow of a doorway, two wary darknesses and a dim light,
watching the traffic that went by. Mostly cabs prowled past, wearing the same hungry look as the
one that had wounded Kit. Or a sullen truck might lumber by, or a passenger car, looking uneasy
and dingy and bitter. None of the cars or trucks had drivers, or looked like they wanted them. They
ignored the traffic lights, and their engines growled.
Nita's eyes burned in the dark air. She rubbed them and glanced down at Kit's leg, bound now with
a torn-off piece of her shirt. {How is it?)
(Not too bad. It feels stiff. I guess it stopped bleeding.) He looked down, felt the
makeshift bandage, winced. (Yeah. . . . I'm hungry.)
Nita's stomach turned over—she was too nervous to even consider eating —as Kit came up with a
ham sandwich and offered her half. (You go ahead,) she said. She leaned against the hard cold
wall, and on a sudden thought Pulled her pen out of her pocket and looked at it. It seemed all right,
but as she held it she could feel a sort of odd tingling in its metal that hadn't been there before.
(Uh, Fred—)
He hung beside her at eye level, making worried feelings that matched the d'niness of his
light, (Are you sure that light didn't hurt you?)
(Yeah. It's not that.) She held out the pen to him. Fred backed away a
'e' 3s if afraid he might swallow it again. (Is this radioactive or anything?) N'ta said.
94 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
He drifted close to it, bobbed up and down to look at it from several angles. (You mean beta and
gamma and those other emissions you have trouble with? No.)
Nita still felt suspicious about the pen. She dug into her backpack for a piece of scrap paper, laid it
on her wizards' manual, clicked the point out, and scribbled on the paper. Then she breathed out,
perplexed. (Come on, Fred! Look at that!)
He floated down to look. The pen's blue-black ink would normally have been hard to see in that
dimness, no matter how white the paper. But the scrawl had a subtle glimmer about it, a luminosity
just bright enough to make out. (I don't think it's anything harmful to you,) Fred said. (Are you
sure it didn't do that before?)

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(Yes!)
(Well, look at it this way. Now you can see what you're writing when it's dark. Surprising you
people hadn't come up with something like that al-ready.)
Nita shook her head, put the paper away, and clipped the pen back in her pocket. Kit, finishing the
first half of his sandwich, looked over at the scribble with interest. (Comes of being inside Fred, I
guess. With him having his own claudication, and all the energy boiling around inside him, you
might have expected something like that to happen.)
(Yeah, well, I don't like it. The pen was fine the way it was.)
(Considering where it's been,) Kit said, (you're lucky to get it back in the same shape, instead of
crushed into a little lump.) He wrapped up the other half of his sandwich and shoved it into his
backpack. (Should we go?)
(Yeah.)
They got up, checked their surroundings as usual to make sure that no cabs or cars were anywhere
close, and started up Madison again, ducking into doorways or between buildings whenever they
saw or heard traffic coming.
(No people,) Kit said, as if trying to work it out. (Just things—all dark and ruined—and machines,
all twisted. Alive—but they seem to hate everything-And pigeons—)
(Dogs, too,) Nita said.
(Where?) Kit looked hurriedly around him.
(Check the sidewalk and the gutter. They're here. And remember that nest.) Nita shrugged
uneasily, setting her pack higher. (I don't know. Maybe people just can't live here.)
(We're here,) Kit said unhappily. (And maybe not for long.)
A sudden grinding sound like tortured metal made them dive for another shadowy doorway close
to the corner of Madison and Fiftieth. No traffic was in sight; nothing showed but the glowering
eye of the traffic light and the unchanging don't walk signs. The grinding sound came
again—metal scrap-
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 95
ing on concrete, somewhere across Madison, down Fiftieth, to their left. Kit edged a bit
forward in the doorway.
(What are you—)
(I want to see.) He reached around behind him, taking the antenna in
hand.
(But if—)
(If that's something that might chase us later, I at least want a look at it. Fred? Take a peek for
us?)
(Right.) Fred sailed ahead of them, keeping low and close to the building walls, his light
dimmed to the faintest glimmer. By the lamppost at Madison and Fiftieth he paused, then shot
low across the street and down Fiftieth between Madison and Fifth, vanishing past the corner.
Nita and Kit waited, sweating.


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From around the comer Fred radiated feelings of uncertainty and curios-ity. (These are like
the other things that run these streets. But these aren't moving. Maybe they were dangerous
once. I don't know about now.)
(Come on,) Kit said. He put his head out of the doorway. (It's clear.)
With utmost caution they crossed the street and slipped around the cor-ner, flattening to the
wall. Here stores and dingy four-story brownstones with long flights of railed stairs lined the
street. Halfway down the block, jagged and bizarre in the dimness and the feeble yellow glow
of a flickering sodium-vapor street light, was the remains of an accident. One carf a heavy two-
door sedan, lay crumpled against the pole of another nearby street light, its right-hand door
ripped away and the whole right side of it laid open. A little distance away, in the middle of
the street, lay the car that had hit the sedan, resting on its back and skewed right around so
that its front end was pointed at Kit and Nita. It was a sports car of some kind, so dark a
brown that it was almost black. Its windshield had been shattered when it overturned, and it
.had many other dents and scrapes, some quite deep. From its front right wheelwell jutted a
long jagged strip of chrome, part of the other car's fender, now wound into the sports car's
wheel.
(I don't get it,) Nita said silently. (If that dark one hit the other, why isn't l*s front all smashed
in—)
^>he broke off as with a terrible metallic groan the sports car suddenly
Tocked back and forth, like a turtle on its back trying to right itself. Kit
sucked in a long breath and didn't move. The car stopped rocking for a
foment, then with another scrape of metal started again, rocking more
energetically this time. Each time the side-to-side motion became larger. It
°cked partway onto one door, then back the other way and partway onto the
Jler> then back again—and full onto its left-hand door. There it balanced,
frecar'°us, for a few long seconds, as if getting its breath. And then twitched,
ardf shuddered all the way over, and fell right-side down.
96 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
The scream that filled the air as the sports car came down on the fender-tangled right wheel was
terrible to hear. Instantly it hunched up the fouled wheel, holding it away from the street,
crouching on the three good wheels and shaking with its effort. Nita thought of an old sculpture
she had seen once, a wounded lion favoring one forelimb—weary and in pain, but still dangerous.
Very slowly, as if approaching a hurt animal and not wanting to alarm it, Kit stepped away from
the building and walked out into the street.
(Kit!)
(Ssssh,) he said silently. (Don't freak it.)
(Are you out of your—j

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(Ssssshhh!)
The sports car watched Kit come, not moving. Now that it was right-side up, Nita could get a
better idea of its shape. It was actually rather beautiful in its deadly looking way—sleekly swept-
back and slung low to the ground. Its curves were battered in places; its once-shining hide was
scored and dull. It stared at Kit from hunter's eyes, headlights wide with pain, and breathed
shallowly, waiting.
(Lotus Esprit,) Kit said to Nita, not taking his eyes off the car, matching it stare for stare.
Nita shook her head anxiously. (Does that mean something? I don't know cars.)
(It's a racer. A mean one. What it is here— Look, Nita, there's your answer. Look at the front of it,
under the headlights.) He kept moving forward, his hands out in front of him. The Lotus held
perfectly still, watch-ing.
Nita looked at the low-sloping grille. (It's all full of oil or something.)
(It's a predator. These other cars, like that sedan—they must be what it hunts. This time its prey
hurt the Lotus before it made its kill. Like a tiger getting gored by a bull or something. Ooops!)
Kit, eight or ten feet away from the Lotus's grille, took one step too many; it abruptly rolled back
away from him a foot or so. Very quietly its engine stuttered to life and settled into a throaty
growl.
(Kit, you're—)
(Shut up,) "/ won't hurt you," he said in the Speech, aloud. "Let me see to that wheel."
The engine-growl got louder—the sound of the Speech seemed to upset the Lotus. It rolled back
another couple of feet, getting close to the curb, and glared at Kit. But the glare seemed to have as
much fear as threat in it now-
"/ won't hurt you," Kit repeated, stepping closer, holding out his hand5' one of them with the
antenna in it. "Come on, you know what this is. Let m& do something about that wheel You
can't run on it. And if you can't run, °r
SO yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 97
/ bet there are other hunters here, aren 't there? Or scavengers. I'm sure there are scavengers.
Who 'II be coming here to clean up this kill? And do you want them to find you here,
helpless?"
The Lotus stared at him, shifting a little from side to side, now, swaying uncertainly. The
growl had not stopped, but it hadn't gotten any louder either. "// / were going to hurt you, I
would have by now," Kit said, getting closer. The car was four feet away, and its headlights
were having to look up at Kit now. "fust kt me do something about that fender stuck in you,
then you 'II go your way and I'll go mine."
The dark eyes stared at the antenna, then at Kit, and back at the antenna again. The Lotus
stopped swaying, held very still. Kit was two feet away. He reached out with his free hand,
very slowly, reached down to touch the scratched fiberglass hide—
The engine raced, a sudden startling roar that made Nita stifle a scream and made Kit flinch
all over—but he didn't jump away, and neither did the Lotus. For a second or two he and the

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car stood there just looking at each other—small trembling boy, large trembling predator.
Then Kit laid his hand carefully on the brown hide, a gingerly gesture. The car shook all over,
stared at him. Its engine quieted to an uncertain rumbling.
"It's okay," he said. "Will you let me take care of it?"
The Lotus muttered deep under its hood. It still stared at Kit with those fearsome eyes, but its
expression was mostly perplexed now. So was Kit's. He rubbed the curve of the hurt
wheelwell in distress. (I can't understand why it's mute,) he said unhappily, (The Edsel wasn't.
All it took was a couple of sentences in the Speech and it was talking.)
(It's bound,} Nita said, edging out of the shadow of the building she stood against. (Can't you
feel it, Kit? There's some kind of huge binding spell laid over this whole place to keep it the
way it is.)
. She stopped short as the Lotus saw her and began to growl again. "Relax," Kit said. "She's
with me, she won't hurt you either,"
Slowly the growl dwindled, but the feral headlight-eyes stayed on Nita. She gulped and sat
down on the curb, where she could see up and down the street. "Kit, do what you're going to
do. If another of those cabs comes along—"
Right. Fred, give me a hand? No, no, no," he said hastily, as Fred drifted Own beside him and
made a light-pattern and a sound as if he was going to ^'t something. "Not that kind. Just
make some light so I can see what to do down here."
Kit knelt beside the right wheel, studying the damage, and Fred floated in se to lend his light
to the business, while the Lotus watched the process 'aelong and suspiciously.
"Mmmfff—nothing too bad, it's mostly wrapped around the tire. Lucky it didn't get fouled
with the axle.
98 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
"Come on, come on," Kit said in the Speech, patting the bottom of the tire, "relax it, loosen up.
You're forcing the scrap into yourself, holding the wheel up like that. Come on." The Lotus
moaned softly and with fearful care relaxed the uplifted wheel a bit. "That's better." Kit slipped the
antenna up under the Lotus's wheelwell, aiming for some piece of chrome that was out of sight.
"Fred, can you get in there so I can see? Good. Okay, this may sting a little." Molten light, half-
seen, sparked under the Lotus's fender. It jumped, and an uneven half-circle-shaped piece of
chrome fell clanging onto the pavement. "Now hunch the wheel up again. A little higher—" Kit
reached in with-both hands and, after a moment's tugging and twisting, freed the other half of the
piece of metal. "There," Kit said, satisfied. He tossed the second piece of scrap to the ground.
The engine roared again with terrible suddenness, deafening. This time Kit scrambled
frantically backward as the Lotus leaped snarling away from him. With a screech of tires
it swept so close past Nita that she fell over backward onto the sidewalk. Its engine
screaming, the Lotus tore away down Fiftieth toward Madison, flung itself left around the
corner in a cloud of blue exhaust, and was gone.
Very slowly Kit stood up, pushed the antenna into his pants pocket, and stood in the street dusting

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his hands off on his shirt as he gazed in disappoint-ment after the Lotus. Nita sat herself back up
again, shaking her head and brushing at herself. (I thought maybe it was going to stay long enough
to thank you,) she said.
Kit shook his head, evidently in annoyance at himself for having thought the same thing, (Well, I
don't know—I was thinking of what Picchu said. 'Don't be afraid to help.') He shrugged. (Doesn't
really matter, I guess. It was hurting; fixing it was the right thing to do.)
(I hope so,) Nita said. (I'd hate to think the grateful creature might run off to—you know—and tell
everybody about the people who helped it instead of hurting it. I have a feeling that doing good
deeds sticks out more than usual around here.)
Kit nodded, looking uncomfortable. (Maybe I should've left well enough alone.)
(Don't be dumb. Let's get going, huh? The . . . whatever the place is where the dark
Book's kept, it's pretty close. I feel nervous standing out here.)
They recrossed Madison and again started the weary progression from doorway to
driveway to shadowed wall, heading north.
At Madison and Fifty-second, Nita turned right and paused. (It's on this block somewhere,) she
said, trying to keep even the thought quiet. (The north side, I think. Fred, you feel anything?)
SO yDU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 99
Fred held still for a moment, not even making a flicker, (The darkness feels thicker up
ahead, at the middle of the block.)
Kit and Nita peered down the block. (It doesn't look any different,) Kit said. (But you're
the expert on light, Fred. Lead the way.)
With even greater care than usual they picked their way down Fifty-second. This street was stores
and office buildings again; all the store windows empty, all the windows dark. But here, though
external appearances were no different, the feeling slowly began to grow that there was a reason
for the grimy darkness of the windows. Something watched, something peered out those windows,
using the darkness as a cloak, and no shadow was deep enough to hide in; the silent eyes would
see. Nothing happened, nothing stirred anywhere. No traffic was in sight. But the street felt more
and more like a trap, laid open for some unsuspecting creature to walk into. Nita tried to swallow
as they ducked from one hiding place to another, but her mouth was too dry. Kit was sweating.
Fred's light was out.
(This is it,) he said suddenly, his thought sounding unusually muted even for Fred. (This
is the middle of the darkness.)
(This?) Kit and Nita thought at the same time, in shock, and then simulta-neously hushed
themselves. Nita edged out to the sidewalk to get a better look at the place. She had to
crane her neck. They were in front of a sky-scraper, faced completely in black plate glass,
an ominous, windowless mono-lith.
(Must be about ninety stories,) Nita said. (I don't see any lights.)
{Why would you?) Fred said. (Whoever lives in this place doesn't seem fond of light at


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all. How shall we go in?)
Nita glanced back up the street. (We passed a driveway that might go down to a delivery
entrance.)
(I'll talk to the lock,) Kit said. (Let's go!)
They went back the way they had come and tiptoed down the driveway. It seemed meant for trucks
to back into. A flight of steps at one side led up to a 'oading platform about four feet above the
deepest part of the ramp. Climb-mg the stairs, Kit went to a door on the right and ran his hands
over it as ^'ta and Fred came up behind. (No lock,) Kit said. (It's controlled from inside.)
(We can't get in? We're dead.)
(We're not dead yet. There's a machine in there that makes the garage
ooors go up. That's all I need.) Kit got out the antenna and held it against
e door as he might have held a pencil he was about to write with. He closed
15 eyes. (If I can just feel up through the metal and the wires, find it. . . .)
. 'j'ta and Fred kept still while Kit's eyes squeezed tighter and tighter shut
"erce concentration. Inside one garage door something rattled, fell silent,
led again, began to grind. Little by little the door rose until there was an
100 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
opening at the bottom of it, three feet high. Kit opened his eyes but kept the antenna
pressed against the metal. (Go on in.)
Fred and Nita ducked through into darkness. Kit came swiftly after them. Behind him, the door
began to move slowly downward again, shutting with a thunderous clang. Nita pulled out the
rowan wand, so they could look around. There were wooden loading pallets stacked on the floor,
but nothing else—bare concrete walls, bare ceiling. Set in the back wall of the huge room was one
normal-sized double door.
(Let's see if this one has a lock,) Kit said as they went quietly up to it. He touched the right-hand
knob carefully, whispered a word or two in the Speech, tried it, The right side of the double door
opened.
(Huh. Wasn't even locked!) Through the open door, much to everyone's surprise, light
spilled—plain old fluorescent office-building light, but cheery as a sunny day after the gloom
outdoors. On the other side of the door was a perfectly normal-looking corridor with beige walls
and charcoal-color doors and carpeting. The normality came as something of a shock. (Fred, I
thought you said it was darker here!)
(Felt darker, And colder. And it does,) Fred said, shivering, his faint light rippling as he did so.
(We're very close to the source of the coldness. It's farther up, though.)
(Up?) Nita looked at Kit uneasily. (If we're going to get the dark Book and get out of here fast, we
can't fool with stairs again. We'll have to use the elevators somehow.)
Kit glanced down at the antenna. (I think I can manage an elevator if it gets difficult. Let's find
one.)
They slipped through the door and went down the hall to their right, heading for a lobby at its far


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end. There they peered out at a bank of_ elevators set in the same dark-green marble as the rest of
the lobby. No 01 was there.
Kit walked to the elevators, punched the call button, and hurriedly m( tioned Nita and Fred to join
him. Nita stayed where she was for a moment (Shouldn't we stay out of sight here?)
(Come on!)
She went out to him, Fred bobbing along beside. Kit watched the elevator lights to see which one
was coming down and then slipped into a recess at the side. Nita took the hint and joined him. The
elevator bell chimed; doors slid open—
The perytons piled out of the middle elevator in a hurry, five of them together, not looking to left
or right, and burst out the front door into the street. Once outside they began their awful chorus of
howls and snarls, but Nita and Kit and Fred weren't sitting around to listen. They dove into the
SO K)U WANT TO BE A WIZARD 101
middle elevator, and Kit struck the control panel with the antenna, hard. "Close up and take
off!"
The elevator doors closed, but then a rumbling, scraping, gear-grinding screech began—low
at first, then louder, a combination of every weird, unset-tling noise Nita had ever heard an
elevator make. Cables twanged and ratch-ets ratcheted, and, had they been moving, she would
have sworn they were about to go plunging down to crash in the cellar.
"Cut it out or I'll snap your cables myself when I'm through with you! "Kit yelled in the
Speech. Almost immediately the elevator jerked slightly and then started upward.
Nita tried again to swallow and had no better luck than the last time. "Those perytons are
going to pick up our scent right outside that door, Kit! And they'll track us inside, and it won't
be five minutes before—"
"I know, I know. Fred, how well can you feel the middle of the darkness?"
(We're closer.)
"Good. You'll have to tell me when to stop."
The elevator went all the way up to the top, the eighty-ninth floor, before Fred said, (This is
it!)
Kit rapped the control panel one last time with his antenna. "You stay where you are," he said.
The elevator doors opened silently to reveal another normal-looking floor, this one more
opulent than the floor downstairs. Here the carpets were ivory-white and thick; the wall
opposite the elevators was one huge bookcase of polished wood, filled with hundreds of
books, like volumes of one huge set. Going left they came to another hallway, stretching off
to their left like the long stroke of an L; this one too was lined with bookcases. At the far end
stood a huge polished desk, with papers and Dictaphone equipment and an intercom and a
multiline phone jumbled about on it. At the desk sat—
—it was hard to know what to call it. Kit and Nita, peering around the corner, were silent with
confusion and fear. The thing sitting in a secretary's swivel chair and typing on an expensive
electric typewriter was dark green and warty, and sat about four feet high in the chair- It had

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limbs with tentacles and claws, all knotted together under a big eggplant-shaped head, and
goggly, wicked eyes. All the limbs didn't seem to help the creature's typing much, for every
few seconds it made a mistake and went grumbling and fumbling over the top of its messy
desk for a bottle of correcting fluid. 1 he creature's grumbling was of more interest than its
typing. It used the ^Peech, but haltingly, as if it didn't care much for the language—and
indeed the smooth, stately rhythms of the wizardly tongue suffered somewhat, com-ln§ out of
that misshapen mouth.
Kit leaned back against the wall. (We've gotta do something. Fred, are you Sl«e it's up here?)
102 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
(Absolutely. And past that door, behind that—) Fred indicated the warty typist. From down the
hall came another brief burst of typing, then more grumbling and scrabbling on the desk.
(We've got to get it away from there.) Nita glanced at Fred.
(I shall create a diversion,) Fred said, with relish. (I've been good at it so far.)
(Great. Something big. Something alive again, if you can manage it—then again, forget that.) Nita
breathed out unhappily. (I wouldn't leave anything alive here.)
(Not even Joanne?) Kit said with a small but evil grin.
(Not even her. This place has her outclassed. Fred, just—)
A voice spoke, sounding so loud that Kit and Nita stopped breathing, practically stopped thinking.
"Akthanath," it called, a male voice, sounding weary and hassled and bored, "come in here a
moment. . . ."
Nita glanced at Kit. They carefully peeked down the hall once more and saw the tentaclcd thing
hunch itself up, drop to the floor behind the desk, and wobble its way into the inner office,
(Now?) Fred said.
(No, save it! But come on, this is our best chance!) Nita followed Kit down the hall to the door,
crouched by it, and looked in. Past it was another room. They slipped into it and found themselves
facing a partly open door that led to the office the typist had gone into. Through the slit they could
just see the tentacly creature's back and could hear the voice of the man talking to it. "Hold all my
calls for the next hour or so, until they get this thing cleared up. I don't want everybody's half-
baked ideas of what's going on. Let Garm and his people handle it. And here, get Mike on the
phone for me. I want to see if I can get something useful out of him."
Nita looked around, trying not even to think loudly. The room they were in was lined with shelves
and shelves of heavy, dark, leatherrpound books with gold-stamped spines. Kit tiptoed to one
bookshelf, pulled out a volume at random, and opened it. His face registered shock; he held out the
book for Nita to look at. The print was the same as that in Carl's large Advisory manual, line after
line of the clear graceful symbols of the Speech—but whatever was being discussed on the page
Nita looked at was so complicated she could only understand one word out of every ten or twenty.
She glanced at Kit as he turned back to the front of the book and showed her the titfe
pagC. UNIVERSES, PARAUNIVERSES AND PLANES——ASSEMBLY AND MAINTE-NANCE,
it said. a creator's manual. And underneath, in smaller letters, Volume 108—Natural and Supernatural
Laws,

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Nita gulped. Beside her, Fred was dancing about in the air in great agiW' tion. (What is
it?) she asked him.
(It's in here.)
5O ) )t/ WANT TO BE A WIZARD 103
(Where?) Kit said.
(One of those. I can't tell which, it's so dark down that end of the room.) Fred indicated a bookcase
on the farthest wall. (It's worst over there.) Nita stopped dead when she saw the room's second
door, which gave on the inner office and was wide open.
Nita got ready to scoot past the door. The man who sat at the desk in the elegant office had his
back to it and was staring out the window into the dimness. His warty secretary handed him the
phone, and he swiveled around in the high-backed chair to take it, showing himself in profile. Nita
stared at him, confused, as he picked up the phone. A businessman, young, maybe thirty, and very
handsome—red-gold hair and a clean-lined face above a trim, dark three-piece suit. This was the
Witherer, the Kindler of Wildfires, the one who decreed darkness, the Starsnuffer?
"Hi, Michael," he said. He had a pleasant voice, warm and deep. "Oh, nothing much—"
(Never mind him,) Kit said. (We've got to get that Book.)
(We can't go past the door till he turns around.)
"—the answer to that is pretty obvious, Mike. I can't do a bloody thing with this place unless I can
get some more power for it. I can't afford street lights, I can barely afford a little electricity, much
less a star. The entropy rating—"
The young man swiveled in his chair again, leaning back and looking out the window. Nita
realized with a chill that he had a superb view of the downtown skyline, including the top of the
Pan Am Building, where even now wisps of smoke curled black against the lowering gray. She
tapped Kit on the elbow, and together they slipped past the doorway to the bookshelf.
(Fred, do you have even a little idea—)
(Maybe one of those up there.) He indicated a shelf just within reach. Kit and Nita started taking
down one book after another, looking at them. Nita was shaking—she had no clear idea what they
were looking for.
(What if it's one of those up there, out of reach?)
(You'll stand on my shoulders. Kit, hurry!)
"—Michael, don't you think you could talk to the rest of Them and get me just a little more
energy? —Well, They've never given me what I asked •or, have They? All I wanted was my own
Universe where everything works— Which brings me to the reason for this call. Who's this new
operative you
turned loose in here? This Universe is at a very delicate stage, interference
will-."
1 hey were down to the second-to-last shelf, and none of the books had
what they were looking for. Nita was sweating worse. (Fred, are you sure—}
(«s dark there, it's all dark. What do you want from me?)
104 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD

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Kit, kneeling by the bottom shelf, suddenly jumped as if shocked. (Huh?) Nita said.
(It stung me. Nita!) Kit grabbed at the volume his hand had brushed, yanked it out of the case, and
knelt there, juggling it like a hot potato. He managed to get it open and held it out, showing Nita
not the usual clean page, close-printed with the fine small symbols of the Speech, but a block of
transparency like many pages of thinnest glass laid together. Beneath the smooth surface,
characters and symbols seethed as if boiling up from a great depth and sinking down again.
Nita found herself squinting, fit hurts to look at.)
(It hurts to hold!) Kit shut the book hurriedly and held it out to Fred for him to check, for
externally it looked no different from any other book there. (Is this what we're looking for?)
Fred's faint glimmer went out like a blown candle flame with the nearness of the book. (The
darkness—it blinds—}
Kit bundled the book into his backpack and rubbed his hands on his jacket. {Now if we can just
get out of here. . . .)
"—oh, come on, Mike," the voice was saying in the other office. "Don't get cute with me. I had an
incident on top of one of my buildings. One of my favorite constructs got shot up and the site
stinks of wizardry. Your brand, moonlight and noon-forged metal." The voice of the handsome
young man in the three-piece suit was still pleasant enough, but Nita, peering around the edge of
the door, saw his face going hard and sharp as the edge of a knife. He swiveled around in his chair
again to look out the window at that thin plume of ascending smoke, and Nita waved Kit past the
door, then scuttled after him herself. "—that's a dumb question to be asking me, Michael If I knew,
would I tell you where the bright Book was? And how likely is it that I know at all? You people
keep such close tabs on it, at least that's what I hear. Anyway, if it's not read from every so often,
don't / go ffft! like everything else? —You're absolutely right, that's not a responsive answer. Why
should / be responsive, you're not being very helpful—"
Kit and Nita peeked back into the hall. Fred floated up to hang between them. (1 get a feeling—)
Kit started to say, but the sudden coldness in the voice of the man on the phone silenced him.
"—Look, Mike, I've had about enough of this silliness. The Bright Powers got miffed because I
wanted to work on projects of my own instead of following-the-leader like you do, working from
Their blueprints instead of drawing up your own. You can do what you please, but I thought when
1 settled down in this little pittance of a Universe that They would let me be and let me do things
my way. They said They didn't need me when They threw me out—well, I've done pretty well
without Them too. Maybe They don't like that, because now all of a sudden I'm getting
interference. You say
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 105
this operative isn't one of your sweetness-and-Light types? Fine. Then you won't mind if when
I catch him, her, or it, I make his stay interesting and permanent. Whoever's disrupting my
status quo will wish he'd never been bom, spawned, or engendered. And when you see the rest
of Them, you tell Them from me that—hello? Hello?"
The phone slammed down. There was no sound for a few seconds. "Akthanath," the young
man's voice finally said into the silence, "someone's soul is going to writhe for this."

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The slow cold of the words got into Nita's spine. She and Kit slipped around the door and ran
for it, down the hall and into the elevator. "—he's playing it close to the chest," that angry
voice floated down the hall to them. "I don't know what's going on. The Eldest still has it
safe?—Good, then see that guards are mounted at the usual accesses. And have Garm send a
pack of his people hacktime to the most recent gate opening. I want to know which universe
these agents are coming from."
In the elevator, Kit whipped out the antenna and rapped the control panel with it. "Down!"
Doors closed, and down it went, Nita leaned back against one wall of the elevator, panting.
Now she knew why that first crowd of perytons had come howling after them on top of the
Pan Am Building, but the solution of that small mystery made her feel no better at all. "Kit,
they'll be waiting down-stairs, for sure."
He bit his lip. "Yeah. Well, we won't be where they think we'll be, that's all. If we get off a
couple of floors too high and take the stairs—"
"Right."
"Stop at Four," Kit said to the elevator.
The elevator stopped, opened its doors. Kit headed out the door fast and tripped—the elevator
had stopped several inches beneath the fourth floor. "Watch your step," the elevator said,
snickering.
Kit turned and smacked the open elevator door with his antenna as Nita and Fred got out.
"Very funny. You stay here until f give the word. C'mon, kt'sget out of here!"
They ran down the hall together, found the stairs, and plunged down them. Kit was panting as
hard as Nita now. Fred shot down past landing after Ending with them, his light flickering as
if it were an effort to keep up. "Kit," N'ta said, "where are we going to go after we leave this
building? We need htte, and a place to do the spell to find the bright Book."
Kit sounded unhappy. "I dunno, How about Central Park? If we hid in there—"
But you saw what it looks like from the top of Pan Am. It's all dark in ^ there were things
moving—" 1 nere's a lot of room to hide. Look, Nita, if I can handle the machines
106 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
here, it's a good bet you can handle the plants. You're good with plants and live stuff, you said."
She nodded reluctantly. "I guess we'll find out how good."
They came to the last landing, the ground door. Nita pushed the door open a crack and found that
they were almost directly across from the green lobby and the elevators.
(What's the situation?) Kit said silently.
(They're waiting.) Six perytons, black-coated, brown-coated, one a steely gray, were sitting or
standing around the middle elevator with their tongues hanging out and looks of anticipation and
hunger in their too-human eyes.
(Now?) Fred said, sounding eager.
(Not yet. We may not need a diversion, Fred.) "Go!" he whispered then in the Speech. The antenna
in his hand sparked and sputtered with molten light, and Kit pressed close behind Nita. (Watch

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them!)
There was no bell, but even if there had been one, the sound of it and of the elevator doors opening
would have been drowned out in snarls as the perytons leaped in a body into the elevator. The
moment the perytons were out of sight, Nita pushed the door open and headed for the one to the
garage. It stuck and stung her as the dark Book had; she jerked her hand away from it. Kit came up
behind her and blasted it with the antenna, then grabbed it himself. This time it came open. They
dashed through and Kit sealed the door behind them.
No one was in the garage, but a feeling was growing in the air as if the storm of rage they'd heard
beginning upstairs was about to break over their heads. Kit raised the antenna again, firing a line of
hot light that zapped the ceiling-mounted controls of the delivery door, With excruciating slowness
the door began to rumble upward. (Now?) Fred said anxiously as they ran toward it.
(No, not yet, just—)
They bent over double, ducked underneath the opening door, and ran up the driveway. It was then
that the perytons leaped at them from both sides-howling, and Nita grabbed for her wand and
managed one slash with it. yelling, "Now, Fred! Now.'"
All she saw clearly was the peryton that jumped at her, a huge, blue-eyed, brindled she-wolf, as the
rowan wand spat silver moonfire and the peryton M away screaming. Then came the explosion,
and it hurled both her and Krt staggering off to their right. The street shook as if lightning-struck,
and par-of the front of the dark building was demolished in a shower of shattered plate glass as
tons and tons and tons of red bricks came crashing down froC1 somewhere to fill the street from
side to side, burying sidewalks and peryton and doors and the delivery bay twenty feet deep.
Nita picked herself up. A few feet away, Kit was doing the same, and
50 rot/ WANT TO BE A WIZARD
107
bobbed over to them as an ominous stillness settled over everything. (How was I?) Fred
said, seeming dazed but pleased.
"Are you all right?" Kit said.
(I'm alive, but my gnaester will never be the same,} Fred said. (You two?)
"We're fine," Kit said.
"And I think we're in trouble," Nita added, looking at the blocked street. "Let's get
going!"
They ran toward Fifth Avenue, and the shadows took them.

Contractual Magic An Introduction
A four-foot-high wall ran down the west side of Fifth Avenue, next to a sidewalk of gray
hexagonal paving-stones. Nita and Kit crouched behind it, just inside Central Park, under the
shadows of barren-branched trees, and tried to catch their breath. Fred hung above them, watching
both Fifth Avenue and Sixty-fourth Street for signs of pursuit.
Nita leaned against the dirty wall, careless of grime or roughness or the pigeon droppings that

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streaked it. She was scared. All through her life, the one thing she knew she could always depend
on was her energy—it never gave out. Even after being beaten up, she always sprang right back.
But here and now, when she could less afford exhaustion than she had ever been able to in her life,
she felt it creeping up on her. She was even afraid to rest, for fear it would catch up with her
quicker. But her lungs were burning, and it felt so good to sit still, not have death or something
worse chasing her. And there was another spell to be cast. . . .
If I'd known I was going to get into a situation like this, she thought would I ever have picked that
book up at all? Would I have taken the Oath? Then she shook her head and tried to think about
something else, for she got an inkling of the answer, and it shocked her. She had always been told
that she wasn't brave. At least that's what Joanne and her friends had always sai«: Can't take a
dare, can't take a joke, crybaby, crybaby. We were only teas-ing. ...
She sniffed and rubbed her eyes, which stung. "Did you find the spell?' she said.
Kit had been paging through his wizards' manual. Now he was running 3 finger down one page,
occasionally whispering a word, then stopping himself to keep from using the Speech aloud.
"Yeah. It's pretty simple." But he was frowning.
50 1OU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 109
"What's the matter?"
Kit slumped back against the wall, looked over at her. "I keep thinking about what—you know
who—was talking about on the phone."
"Sounded like he was hiding something."
"Uh hah. They know where the bright Book is, all right. And somebody's patching it. Whoever the
'Eldest' is. And now there're going to be more guards around it."
" 'The usual accesses/ he said. Kit, there might be an unusual access,
then."
"Sure. If we had any idea where the thing was hidden."
"Won't the spell give us a vision, a location, like the last one?"
"No. It's a directional." Kit dropped his hands wearily on the book in his lap, sighed, looked over
at Nita. "I don't know. ... I just don't get it."
"What?" She rolled the rowan wand between her hands, watching the way its light shone between
her fingers and through the skin.
"He didn't look evil. Or sound that way, at least not till right at the end there."
(The Snuffer was always glorious to look at before it scorned the light,) Fred said. {And
it kept the beauty afterward—that's what the stars always used to say. That's one reason
it's dangerous to deal with that one. The beauty . . . seduces.) Fred made a small feeling of
awe and fear. (What a blaze of darkness, what a flood of emissions. I was having a hard
time keeping my composure in there.)
"Are you all right now?"
(Oh, yes. I was a little amazed that you didn't perceive the power burning around the shell he was
wearing. Just as well—you might have spoken to him, and everything would have been lost. That


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one's most terrible power, they say, is his absolute conviction that he's right in what he does.)
"He's not right, then?" Kit said.
(I don't know.)
"But," Nita said, confused, "if he's fighting with . . . with Them . . . w'th the ones who made the
bright Book, isn't he in the wrong?"
(I don't know,) Fred said again. (How am I supposed to judge? But you're
*>zards, you should know how terrible a power belief is, especially in the
*rong hands—and how do you tell which hands are wrong? Believe some-
*"lrtg and the Universe is on its way to being changed. Because you've changed, by believing.
Once you've changed, other things start to follow, Is«'t that the way it works?)
Nita nodded as Fred looked across the dark expanse of Central Park. The
ranches     of trees were knitted together in tangled patterns of strife. Ivy
jangled what it climbed. Paths were full of pitfalls, copses clutched them-
elves full of threat and darkness. Shadows moved secretively through shad-
110 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
ows, making unnerving noises. (This is what—he—believes in,) Fred said sadly, (however he
justifies the belief.)
Nita could find nothing to say. The wordless misery of the trees had been wearing at her ever since
she set foot inside the wall. All the growing things there longed for light, though none of them
knew what it was; she could feel their starved rage moving sluggishly in them, slow as sap in the
cold. Only in one place was their anger muted—several blocks south, at Fifth and Central Park
South, where in her own New York the equestrian statue of General Sherman and the Winged
Victory had stood. Here the triumphant rider cast in black bronze was that handsome young man
they had seen in the black glass building, his face set in a cold proud conqueror's smile. The
creature he rode was a skull-faced eight-legged steed, which the wizards' manual said brought
death with the sound of its hooves. And Victory with her palm branch was changed to a grinning
Fury who held a dripping sword. Around the statue group the trees were silent, not daring to
express even inarticulate feelings. They knew their master too well.
Nita shook her head and glanced at Kit, who was looking in the same direction. "I thought it'd be
fun to know the Mason's Word and run around bringing statues to life," he said unhappily, "but
somehow 1 don't think there's any statue here I'd want to use the Word on, ... You ready? We
should start this."
"Yeah."
The spell was brief and straightforward, and Nita turned to the right page in her manual and drew
the necessary circle and diagram. Kit got the dark Book out of his backpack and dropped it in the
middle of the circle. Nita held up her wand for light. They began to recite the spell.
It was only three sentences long, but by the end of the first sentence Nita could feel the trees
bending in close to watch—not with friendly, secretive interest, as in her first spell with Kit, but in
hungry desperation. Even the abstract symbols and words of the Speech must have tasted of
another Uni-verse where light was not only permitted, but free. The rowan wand was blazing by

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the end of the second sentence, maybe in reaction to being so close to something of the dark
powers, and Nita wondered whether she should cover it up to keep them from being noticed. But
the spell held her immobile as usual. For another thing, the trees all around were leaning in and in
with such piteous feelings of hunger that she would as soon have eaten i*1 front of starving
children and not offered them some of what she had. Branches began to toss and twist, reaching
down for a taste of the light. and Kit finished the spell.
Kit reached right down to pick up the dark Book, which was as well immediately after the last
word of the spell was spoken it actually itself a little way along the ground, southward. Kit could
only hold it f°r
5O yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 111
moment before stuffing it back into his backpack. It no longer looked inno-cent. It burned,
both to touch and to look at. Even when Kit had it hidden away and the backpack slung on,
neither of them felt any easier. It was as if they were all now visible to something that was
looking eagerly for them.
"Let's get out of here," Kit said, so subdued that Nita could hardly hear him- Nita stood and
laid a hand against the trunk of the nearest tree, a consoling gesture. She was sorry she
couldn't have left them more light. (I wish there was something I could do,) she said silently.
But no answer came back. These trees were bound silent, like the car Kit had tended.
She rejoined Kit, who was looking over the wall. "Nothing," he said. To-gether they swung
over the dropp ing-streaked stone and hurried down Fifth Avenue, crossing the street to get a
safe distance between them and the strange cries and half-seen movements of the park.
"Straight south?" Nita said.
"Pretty nearly. It's pushing straight that way on my back. The bright Book looked like it was
way downtown, didn't it, in that spell?"
"Uh huh. The financial district, I think." She gulped. It was a long way to walk — miles —
even without having to worry about someone chasing you.
"Well, we'd better hurry," Kit said, He paused while they both stopped at the corner of Fifth
and Sixty-first. When they were across, he added, "What gets me is that he's so sure that we're
interference from the bright side. We haven't done anything yet."
"Huh," Nita said, gently scornful. "Sure we haven't. And anyway, whad-daya mean we aren't
'interference from the bright side'? You were the one who said we'd been had."
Kit mulled this over as they approached Sixtieth. "Well . . . maybe. If they know about us,
do you think they'll send help?"
"I don't know. I get the feeling that maybe we are the help,"
"Well, we're not dead yetf" Kit said, and peered around the corner of Sixtieth and Fifth — and
then jumped back, pale with shock. "We're dead," he said, turned around, and began running
back the way they had come, though he limped doing it. Nita looked around that corner just
long enough to see what he had seen — a whole pack of big yellow cabs, thundering down

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Sixtieth. The one in front had a twisted fender that stuck out slightly on one S|ae, a jagged
piece of metal. She turned and ran after Kit, frantic. "Where °an we hide?"
'The buildings are locked here too," Kit said from up ahead. He had been trying doors. "Fred,
can you do something?"
(After that last emission? So soon?) Fred's thought was shaken. (It's all I Can do to radiate
light. I need time to recover.)
'Crud! Kit, the park, maybe the trees'll slow them down."
They both ran for the curb, but there was no time. Cabs came roaring
112 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
around the corner from Sixtieth, and another pack of them leaped around the corner of Sixty-first
and hurtled down Fifth toward them; they would never make it across the street.
Kit grabbed for his antenna, and Nita yanked out the wand, but without much hope—it hadn't
worked that well on the helicopter. The cabs slowed closed in from both sides, forming a half-
circle with Kit and Nita and Fred at the center, backing them against the wall of a dingy building.
The cordon tightened until there were no gaps, and one cab at each side was up on the sidewalk,
blocking it. No matter where Nita looked, all she saw were chromed grilles like gritted teeth,
hungry headlights staring. One of the cabs shoul-dered forward, its engine snarling softly. The
jagged place at one end of its front fender wore a brown discoloration. Not rust—Kit's blood,
which it had tasted. Kit lifted the antenna, the hand that gripped it shaking.
The high-pitched yowl of rage and defiance from outside the circle jerked Kit's head up. Nita
stared. Fenders scraped and rattled against one another as the tight-wedged cabs jostled, trying to
see what was happening. Even the bloodstained cab, the pack leader, looked away from Kit. But
none of them could move any way but backward, and one cab paid immediately for that limitation
as a fanged grille bit deep into its hindquarters and dragged it screaming out of the circle. Metal
screeched and tore, glass shattered as the Lotus Esprit's jaws crushed through the cab's trunk,
ripped away its rear axle, and with a quick sideways shake of its front end flung the bitten-off axle
crashing down Fifth Avenue. Then the Lotus slashed sideways, its fangs opening up the side of
another cab like a can opener. The circle broke amid enraged roaring; cabs circled and Feinted
while the first victim dragged itself away by its front wheels to collapse in the street.
Everything started happening at once. Nita slashed at the front of the cab closest to her. The whip
of moonfire cracking across its face seemed to confuse and frighten it, but did no damage. 1 hope
it doesn't notice that right away, she thought desperately, for there was no use yelling for help. Kit
had his hands full. He had the antenna laid over his forearm again and was snapping off shot after
shot of blinding-hot light, cracking headlights, bum-ing holes in hoods and exploding tires, a hit
here, a hit there—nothing fatal, Nita noticed with dismay. But Kit was managing to hold the cabs
at their distance as they harried him.
Out in the street one cab lunged at the Lotus, a leap, its front wheels clear of the ground and meant
to come crashing down on the racer's hood—untu suddenly the Lotus's nose dipped under the cab
and heaved upward, sending the cab rolling helplessly onto its back. A second later the Lotus came
down on top of the cab, took a great shark-bite out of its underbelly, and then whirled around,

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whipping gas and transmission fluid all over, to slash at another cab about to leap on it from
behind. This was the king cab, the pac*
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD IB
leader, and as the Lotus and the Checker circled one another warily in the street, the other
cabs drew away from Kit and Nita to watch the outcome of the combat.
There were two more cabs dead in the street that Nita hadn't seen fall— one with everything
from right rear door to right front fender torn away, another horribly mangled in its front end
and smashed sideways into a tree on the other side of Fifth, as if it had been thrown there.
Amid the wreckage of these and the other two cabs, the cab and the Lotus rolled, turning and
backing, maneuvering for an opening that would end in a kill. The Lotus was scored along
one side but otherwise unhurt, and the whining roar of its engine sounded hungry and pleased.
Infuriated, the Checker made a couple of quick rushes at it, stopping short with a screech of
tires and backing away again each time in a way that indicated it didn't want to close in. The
Lotus snarled derisively, and without warning the Checker swerved around and threw itself
full speed at Kit and Nita, still braced against the wall.
This is it, Nita thought with curious calm. She flung up the rowan wand in one last useless
slash and then was thrown back against the wall with terrible force as a thunderstorm of
screaming metal flew from right to left in front of her and crashed not five feet away. She slid
down the wall limp as a rag doll, stunned, aware that death had gone right past her face. When
her eyes and ears started working again, the Lotus was standing off to her left, its back
scornfully turned to the demolished pack leader, which it had slammed into the wall. The
Checker looked like the remains of a front-end collision test—it was crumpled up into itself
like an accordion, and bleeding oil and gas in pools. The Lotus roared triumphant disdain at
the remaining two cabs, then threatened them with a small mean rush. They turned tail and
ran a short distance, then slowed down and slunk away around the corner of Sixty-flrst.
Satisfied, the Lotus bent over the broken body of one dead cab, reached down, and with
casual fierceness plucked away some of the front fender, as a falcon plucks its kill before
eating.
Nita turned her head to look for Kit. He was several feet farther down the wall, looking as
shattered as she felt. He got up slowly and walked out into the street. The Lotus glanced up,
left its kill and went to meet him. For a foment they simply looked at each other from a few
feet apart. Kit held one hand out, and the Lotus slowly inched forward under the hand,
permitting "ie caress. They stood that way for the space of four or five gasps, and then
he Lotus rolled closer still and pushed its face roughly against Kit's leg, like a
cat.
How about that," Kit said, his voice cracking. "How about that." JNita put her face down in
her hands, wanting very much to cry, but all she Quid manage were a couple of crooked,
whopping sobs. She had a feeling ar- much worse was coming, and she couldn't break down

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all the way. Nita
114 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
hid her eyes until she thought her voice was working again, then let her hands fall and looked up.
"Kit, we've got to—"
The Lotus had rolled up and was staring at her—a huge, dangerous, curi-ous, brown-hided beast.
She lost what she was saying, hypnotized by the fierce, interested stare. Then the Lotus smiled at
Nita, a slow, chrome smile silver and sanguine. "Uhh," she said, disconcerted, and glanced up at
Kit, who had come to stand alongside the racer. "We've gotta get out of here, Kit, It has to be the
spell that brought these things down on us. And when those two cabs let you-know-who know that
we didn't get caught, or killed—"
Kit nodded, looked down at the Lotus; it glanced sideways up at him, from headlights bright with
amusement and triumph. "How about it?" Kit said in the Speech. "Could you give us a lift?"
In answer the Lotus shrugged, flicking its doors open like a bird spreading its wings.
Nita stood up, staggering slightly. "Fred?"
He appeared beside her, making a feeling of great shame. "Fred, what's the matter?" Kit said,
catching it too.
(I couldn't do anything.)
"Of course not," Nita said, reaching up to cup his faint spark in one hand. "Because you just did
something huge, dummy. We're all right. Come on for a ride." She perched Fred on the upstanding
collar of her down vest; he settled there with a sigh of light.
Together she and Kit lowered themselves into the dark seats of the Lotus, into the dim, warm
cockpit, alive with dials and gauges, smelling of leather and metal and oil. They had barely
strapped themselves in before the Lotus gave a great glad shake that slammed its doors shut, and
burned rubber down Fifth Avenue—out of the carnage and south toward the joining of two rivers,
and the oldest part of Manhattan.
Nita sat at ease, taking a breather and watching the streets of Manhattan rush by. Kit, behind the
steering wheel, was holding the dark Book in his lap. feeling it carefully for any change in the
directional spell. He was reluctant to touch it. The farther south they went, the more the Book
burned the eyes that looked at it. The wizards' manual had predicted this effect—that, as the two
Books drew closer to one another, each would assert its own nature more and more forcefully. Nita
watched the Book warping and skewing the very air around it, blurring its own outlines, and found
it easy to believe the manual s statement that even a mind of terrible enough purpose and power to
wrench this Book to its use might in the reading be devoured by what was read. She hoped for
Kit's sake that it wouldn't devour someone who just touched it-
"We're close," Kit said at last, in a quiet, strained voice.
"You okay?" ,M
5O VOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 115
"I've got a headache, but that's all. Where are we?" «Uh—that was just Pearl Street. Close
to City Hall." She tapped the inside of her door, a friendly gesture. "Your baby moves."
"Yeah," Kit said affectionately. The Lotus rumbled under its hood, sped

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on.
"Fred? You feeling better?"
Fred looked up at her from her collar. (Somewhat. I'd feel better still if I knew what we were going
to be facing next. If I'm to make bricks again, I'm going to need some notice.)
"Your gnaester, huh?" Kit said.
(I'm not sure I have a gnaester any more, after that last emission. And I'm afraid to find out.)
"Kit, scrunch down," Nita said suddenly, doing the same herself. The Lotus roared past the corner
of Broadway and Chambers, pointedly ignoring a pair of sullen-looking cabs that stared and
snarled as it passed. They were parked on either side of an iron-railed stairway leading down to a
subway station. About a block farther along Broadway, two more cabs were parked at another
subway entrance.
From his slumped-down position, Kit glanced over at Nita. "Those arc the first we've seen."
" 'The usual accesses,' " Nita said. "They've got it down in the subway somewhere."
"Oh, no," Kit muttered, and (Wonderful,) Fred said. Nita swallowed, not too happy about
the idea herself. Subway stations, unless they were well lighted and filled with people,
gave her the creeps. Worse, even in her New York, subways had their own special
ecologies—not just the mice and rats and cats that everybody knew about, but other less
normal creatures, on which the wizards' manual had had a twenty-page chapter. "They're
all over the place," she said aloud, dealing with the worst problem first. "How are we
going to—"
"Ooof!" Kit said, as the dark Book, sitting on his lap, sank down hard as if pushed. The Lotus kept
driving on down Broadway, past City Hall, and Kit struggled upward to look out the back window,
noting the spot. 'That was where the other Book was—straight down from that place we just
passed."
The Lotus turned right onto a side street and slowed as if looking for something. Finally it pulled
over to the left-hand curb and stopped. What—" Kit started to say, but the racer flicked open first
Kit's door, then Nita's, as if it wanted them to get out.
They did, cautiously. The Lotus very quietly closed its doors, Then it rolled forward a little way,
bumping up onto the sidewalk in front of a dingy-looking warehouse. It reached down, bared its
fangs, and with great delicacy sank them into a six-foot-long grille in the sidewalk. The Lotus
heaved, and with a
116 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
soft scraping groan, the grille-work came up to reveal an electric-smelling darkness and stairs
leading down into it.
"It's one of the emergency exits from the subway, for when the trains break down/' Kit whispered,
jamming the dark Book back into his backpack and dropping to his knees to rub the Lotus
enthusiastically behind one head-light. "It's perfect!"
The Lotus's engine purred as it stared at Kit with fierce affection. It backed a little and parked
itself, its motions indicating it would wait for them. Kit got up, pulling out his antenna, and Nita
got out her wand "Well," she said under her breath, "let's get it over with. . . ."

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The steps were cracked concrete, growing damp and discolored as she walked downward. Nita
held out the wand to be sure of her footing and kept one hand on the left wall to be sure of her
balance—there was no banister or railing on the right, only darkness and echoing air. (Kit—) she
said silently, wanting to be sure he was near, but not wanting to be heard by anything that might be
listening down there.
(Right behind you. Fred?)
His spark came sailing down behind Kit, looking brighter as they passed from gloom to utter dark.
(Believe me, I'm not far.)
(Here's the bottom,) Nita said. She turned for one last glance up toward street level and saw a huge
sleek silhouette carefully and quietly replacing the grille above them. She gulped, feeling as if she
were being shut into a dun-geon, and turned to look deeper into the darkness. The stairs ended in a
ledge three feet wide and perhaps four feet deep, recessed into the concrete wall of the subway.
Nita held up the wand for more light. The ledge stretched away straight ahead, with the subway
track at the bottom of a wide pit to the right of it. (Which way, Kit?)
(Straight, for the time being.)
The light reflected dully from the tracks beside them as they pressed farther into the dark. Up on
the streets, though there had been darkness, there had also been sound. Here there was a silence
like black water, a silence none of them dared to break. They slipped into it holding their breaths.
Even the usual dim rumor of a subway tunnel, the sound of trains rumbling far away, the ticking of
the rails, was missing. The hair stood up all over Nita as she walked and tried not to make a sound.
The air was damp, chilly, full of the smells of life—too full, and the wrong kinds of life, at least to
Nita's way of thinking. Mold and mildew; water dripping too softly to make a sound, but still
filling the air with a smell of leached lime, a stale, puddly odor; wet trash, piled in trickling gutters
or at the bases of rusting iron pillars, rotting quietly; and always the sharp ozone-and-scorched-
soot smell of the third rail. Shortly there was light that did not come from Nita's wand. Pale
splotches of green-white radiance were splashed irregularly on walls and ceiling—firefungus,
SO K>U WANT TO BE A WIZARD
117
which the wizards' manual said was the main food source of the subway's smallest
denizens, dun mice and hidebehinds and skinwings. Nita shuddered at the thought and
walked faster. Where there were hidebehinds, there would certainly be rats to eat them.
And where there were rats, there would also be fireworms and thrastles—
(Nita.)
She stopped and glanced back at Kit. He was holding his backpack in one arm now and
the antenna in the other, and looking troubled in the wand's silver light. (That way,) he
said, pointing across the tracks at the far wall with its niche-shaped recesses.
(Through the wall? We don't even know how thick it is!) Then she stopped and thought a
moment. (I wonder—You suppose the Mason's Word would work on concrete? What's in
concrete, anyhow?)

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(Sand—quartz, mostly. Some chemicals—but I think they all come out of the ground.)
(Then it'll work. C'mon.) Nita hunkered down and very carefully let her-self drop into the
wide pit where the tracks ran. The crunch of rusty track cinders told her Kit was right
behind. Fred floated down beside her, going low to light the way. With great care Nita
stepped over the third rail and balanced on the narrow ledge of the wall on the other side.
She stowed the wand and laid both hands flat on the concrete to begin implementation of
the lesser usage of the Word, the one that merely manipulates stone rather than giving it
the semblance of life. Nita leaned her head against the stone too, making sure of her
memory of the Word, the sixteen syllables that would loose what was bound, Very fast,
so as not to mess it up, she said the Word and pushed.
Door, she thought as the concrete melted under her hands, and a door there was; she was
holding the sides of it, (Go ahead,) she said to Kit and Fred. They ducked through under
her arm. She took a step forward, let go, and the wall re-formed behind her.
(Now what the—) Kit was staring around him in complete confusion. It took Nita a
moment to recover from the use of the Word, but when her vision cleared, she understood
the confusion. They were standing in the fiddle of another track, which ran right into the
wall they had just come through and stopped there. The walls there were practically one
huge mass of ^efungus. It hung down in odd green-glowing lumps from the ceiling and
ayered thick in niches and on the poles that held the ceiling up. Only the jack and ties and
the rusty cinders between were bare, a dark road leading °wnward between eerily shining
walls for perhaps an eighth of a mile before curving around to the right and out of view.
U don't get it,) Kit said. (This track just starts. Or just stops. It would run
118 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
right into that one we just came off! There aren't any subway lines in the city that do that! Are
there?)
Nita shook her head, listening. The silence of the other tunnel did not persist here. Far down along
the track, the sickly green light of the fircfungus was troubled by small shadowy rustlings,
movements, the scrabbling of claws. (What about the Book?} she said.
Kit nodded down toward the end of the track. (Down there, and a little to the right.)
They walked together down the long aisle of cold light, looking cautiously into the places where
firefungus growth was sparse enough to allow for shadow. Here and there small sparks of
brightness peered out at them, paired sparks—the eyes of dun mice, kindled to unnatural
brightness by the fungus they fed on. Everywhere was the smell of dampness, old things rotting or
rusting. The burning-ozone smell grew so chokingly strong that Nita realized it couldn't be just the
third rail producing it—even if the third rail were alive in a tunnel this old. The smell grew
stronger as they approached the curve at the tunnel's end. Kit, still carrying the backpack, was
gasping. She stopped just before the curve, looked at him. (Are you okay?)
He gulped. (It's close, it's really close. I can hardly see, this thing is blur-ring my eyes so bad.)

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(You want to give it to me?)
(No, you go ahead. This place seems to be full of live things. Your depart-ment—)
(Yeah, right,) Nita agreed unhappily, and made sure of her grip on the rowan wand. (Well, here
goes. Fred, you ready for another diversion?)
(I think I could manage something small if I had to.)
(Great. All together now. . . .)
They walked around the curve, side by side. Then they stopped.
It was a subway station. Or it had been at one time, for from where they stood at one end of the
platform, they could see the tons of rubble that had choked and scaled the tunnel at the far end of
the platform. The rubble and the high ceiling were overgrown with firefungus enough to illuminate
the old mosaics on the wall, the age-cracked tiles that said city hall over and over again, down the
length of the platform wall. But the platform and tracks weren't visible from where they stood.
Heaped up from wall to wall was a collection of garbage and treasure, things that glittered, things
that mold-ered. Nita saw gems, set and unset, like the plunder of a hundred jewelry stores, tumbled
together with moldy kitchen garbage; costly fabric in bolts or in shreds, half buried by beer cans
and broken bottles; paintings in ornate frames, elaborately carved furniture, lying broken or
protruding crookedly from beneath timbers and dirt fallen from the old ceiling; vases, sculpture,
crystal, silver services, a thousand kinds of rich and precious things, lying a"
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 119
t ether, wnole and broken, among shattered dirty crockery and base metal. \nd ly'n§ atop the
hoard, its claws clutched full of cheap costume jewelry, whispering to itself in the Speech, was
the dragon.
Once more Nita tried to swallow and couldn't manage it. This looked nothing like the
fireworm her book had mentioned—a foot long mouse-eating lizard with cigarette-lighter
breath. But if a fireworm had had a long, long time to grow—she remembered the voice of the
young man in the three-piece suit, saying with relief, "The Eldest has it." There was no telling
how many years this creature had been lairing here in the darkness, growing huger and huger,
devouring the smaller creatures of the underground night and dominating those it did not
devour, sending them out to steal for its hoard—or to bring it food. Nita began to tremble,
looking at the fireworm-dragon's thirty feet of lean, scaled, tight-muscled body, looking at the
size of its dark-stained jaws, and considering what kind of food it must eat. She glanced down
at one taloned hind foot and saw something that lay crushed and forgotten beneath it—a
subway repairman's reflective orange vest, torn and scorched; a wrench, half melted; the
bones, burned black. . . .
The dragon had its head down and was raking over its hoard with huge claws that broke what
they touched half the time. Its tail twitched like a cat's as it whispered to itself in a voice like
hissing steam. Its scales rustled as it moved, glowing faintly with the same light as the
firefungus, but colder, greener, darker. The dragon's eyes were slitted as if even the pale
fungus light was too much for it. It dug in the hoard, nosed into the hole, dug again, nosed

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about, as if going more by touch than sight, "Four thousand and ssix," it whispered, annoyed,
hurried, angry. "It was here sssomewhere, I know it was. Three thousand—no. Four thousand
and—and—"
It kept digging, its claws sending coins and bottlecaps rolling. The dragon reached into the
hole and with its teeth lifted out a canvas bag. Bright things spilled out, which Nita first
thought were more coins but that turned out to be subway tokens. With a snarl of aggravation
the fireworm-dragon flung the bag away, and tokens flew and bounced down the hoard-hill, a
storm of brassy glitter. One rolled right to Nita's feet. Not taking her eyes off the dragon, she
bent to pick it up. It was bigger than the subway token the New York transit ystem used these
days, and the letters stamped on it were in an old-time style. She nudged Kit and passed it to
him, looking around at the mosaics on ^e walls. They were old. The City Hall motif repeated
in squares high on toe train-side wall of the platform looked little like the City Hall of today.
]s station had to be one of those that were walled up and forgotten when
G area was being rebuilt long ago. The question was—
' ne problem is—) Kit started to say in his quietest whisper of thought.
j '* wasn't quiet enough. With an expression of rage and terror, the dragon
e° up from its digging, looked straight at them. Its squinted eyes kindled
120 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
in the light from Nita's wand, throwing back a frightful violet reflection "Who's there? Who's
there.'" it screamed in the Speech, in a voice like an explosion of steam. Without waiting for an
answer it struck forward with its neck as a snake strikes and spat fire at them. Nita was ready,
though; the sound of the scream and the sight of many tiny shadows running for cover had given
her enough warning to put up the shield spell for both herself and Kit. The firebolt, dark red shot
with billowing black like the output of a flamethrower, blunted against the shield and spilled
sideways and down like water splashing on a window, When the bolt died away, the dragon was
creeping and coiling down the hoard toward them; but it stopped, confused when it saw that Kit
and Nita and Fred still stood unhurt. It reared back its head for another bolt.
"You can't hurt us, Eldest," Nita said hurriedly, hoping it wouldn't try; the smell of burned
firefungus was already enough to turn the stomach. The dragon crouched low against the hoard, its
tail lashing, staring at them.
"You came to ssteal, "it said, its voice quieter than before but angrier, as it realized it couldn't
hurt them. "No one ever comes here but to ssteal. Or to try," it added, glancing savagely over
at another torn and fire-withered orange vest. "What do you want? You can't have it. Mine, all
thiss is mine. No one takes what'ss mine. He promissed, he ssaid he would leave me alone
when I came here. Now he breakss the promiss, is that it?"
The Eldest squinted wrathfully at them. For the second time that day, Nita found herself fascinated
by an expression. Rage was in the fireworm-dragon's face, but also a kind of pain; and its voice
was desperate in its anger. It turned its back, then, crawling back up onto the hoard. "I will not let


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him break the promiss. Go back to him and tell him that I will burn it, bum it all, ssooner than let
him have one ring, one jewel. Mine, all thiss is mine, no hoard has been greater than thiss in all
times, he will not diminishhh it—" The Eldest wound itself around the top of the hoard-mound like
a crown of spines and scales, digging its claws protectively into the gems and the trash. A small
avalanche of objects started from the place where it had been laying the hoard open before. Gold
bars, some the small collectors' bars, some large ones such as the banks used, clattered or crashed
down the side of the mound. Nita remembered how some ten million dollars' worth of Federal
Reserve gold had vanished from a bank in New York some years before—just vanished,
untraceable—and she began to suspect where it had gone.
"Mine, "hissed the Eldest. "Ihave eight thousand six hundred forty-two cw diamonds, I have six
hundred—no. I have four hundred eight emeralds. I hatf eighty-nine black opals—no, fifteen black
opals. I have eighty-nine—eighty-nine—" The anxiety in its voice was growing, washing out the
angerj Abruptly the Eldest turned away from them and began digging again, still talking, its voice
becoming again as it had been when they first came u*-
SO rot/ WANT TO BE A WIZARD 121
hurried, worried. "Eighty-nine pounds of silver plate. I have two hundred fourteen pounds of
gold—no, platinum. I have six hundred seventy pounds of
gold—"
"Nita," Kit said, very softly, in English, hoping the Eldest wouldn't under-stand it- "You get
the feeling it's losing its memory?"
She nodded- "Lord, how awful." For a creature with the intense posses-siveness of a fireworm
to be unable to remember what it had in its hoard must be sheer torture. It would never be able
to be sure whether everything was there; if something was missing, it might not be able to tell.
And to a fireworm, whose pride is in its defense of its hoard from even the cleverest thieves,
there was no greater shame than to be stolen from and not notice and avenge the theft
immediately. The Eldest must live constantly with the fear of that shame. Even now it had
forgotten Kit and Nita and Fred as it dug and muttered frantically, trying to find something,
though uncertain of what it was looking for.
Nita was astonished to find that she was feeling sorry for a creature that had tried to kill her a
few minutes before. "Kit," she said, "what about the bright Book? Is it in there?"
He glanced down at the dark Book, which was straining in his backpack toward the piled-up
hoard. "Uh huh. But how are we going to find it? And are you sure that defense shield is
going to hold up at close range, when it comes after us? You know it's not going to just let us
take something—"
{Why not trade it something?) Fred asked suddenly.
Nita and Kit both looked at him, struck by the idea. "Like what?" Kit said.
(Like another Book?)
"Oh, no," they said in simultaneous shock.
"Fred," Kit said then, "we can't do that. The—you-know-who—he'll just come right here and

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get it."
(So where did you get it from, anyway? Doubtless he could Have read from 't any time he
wanted. If you can get the bright Book back to the Senior wizards in your world, can't they use
it to counteract whatever he does?)
Nita and Kit both thought about it. "He might have a point," Nita said after a second.
"Besides, Kit—if we do leave the dark Book here, can you "nagine you-know-who getting it
back without some trouble?" She glanced UP at the mound, where the Eldest was whispering
threats of death and destruction against whoever might come to steal. "He wouldn't have put
the br'ght Book here unless the Eldest was an effective guardian."
Even through the discomfort of holding the dark Book, Kit managed to a small smile. "Gonna
try it?"
Nita took a step forward. Instantly the dragon paused in its digging to stare
"fir, its scaly lips wrinkled away from black fangs in a snarl, but its eyes
122 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
frightened. "Eldest," she said in the Speech, "we don't come to steal We re here to make a
bargain."
The Eldest stared at Nita a moment more, then narrowed its eyes further. "Hss, you're a
clever thiefff," it said. "Why ssshould I bargain with you?"
Nita gulped. Wizardry is words, the book had said. Believe, and create the truth; but be
careful what you believe. "Because only your hoard, out of all the other hoards from this
world to the next, has what we 're interested in," she said carefully. "Only you ever had
the taste to acquire and preserve this thing."
"OA?"said the Eldest. Its voice was still suspicious, but its eyes looked less threatened.
Nita began to feel a glimmer of hope. "What might thiss thing be?"
"A book," Nita said, "an old book something like this one." Kit took a step forward and held up the
dark Book for the Eldest to see. This close to its bright counterpart, the dark volume was warping
the air and light around it so terribly that its outlines writhed like a fistful of snakes.
The Eldest peered at the dark Book with interest. 'Wow there is ssome-thing I don't
have," it said. "Sssee how it changes. That would be an interest-ing addition. . . . What
did you ssay you wanted to trade it for?"
"Another Book, Eldest. You came by it some time ago, we hear. It's close in value to this
one. Maybe a little less,"Nita added, making it sound offhand.
The dragon's eyes brightened like those of a collector about to get the best of a bargain.
"Lesss, you say. Hsss. . . . Sssomeone gave me a book rather like that one, ssome time
ago, I forget just who. Let me ssseee. . . ."Ittumed away from them and began digging
again. Nita and Kit stood and watched and tried to be patient while the Eldest pawed
through the trash and the treasure, making sounds of possessive affection over everything

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it touched, mumbling counts and estimating values.
"I wish it would hurry up," Kit whispered. "I can't believe that after we've been chased
this far, they're not going to be down here pretty quick. We didn't have too much trouble
getting in—"
"You didn't open the wall," Nita muttered back. "Look, I'm still worried about leaving this
here."
"Whaddaya want?" Kit snapped. "Do I have to carry it all the way home?" He breathed
out, a hiss of annoyance that sounded unnervingly ii*e the Eldest, and then rubbed his
forearm across his eyes. "This thing burn*-I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Nita said, slightly embarrassed. "I just wish there were some way to be sure
that you-know-who wouldn't get his hands on it anytime soon."
Kit looked thoughtful and opened his mouth to say something. It was a* that moment that the
Eldest put its face down into the hole it had been digging and came up again with something
bright.
50 rot/ WANT TO BE A WIZARD 12?
The Book of Night with Moon fell with a thump onto a pile of gold and gems and made them
look tawdry, outshone them in a way that seemed to have nothing to do with light. Its cover
was the same black leather as that of the dark Book—but as one looked at it, the blackness
seemed to gain depth; light seemed hidden in it like a secret in a smiling heart. Even the dim
green glow of the firefungus looked healthier now that the Book lay out in it. \Vhere page
edges showed, they glittered as if brushed with diamond dust rather than gilding. The Eldest
bent over the bright Book, squinting as if into a great light but refusing to look away.
"Aaaaaahhh," it said, a slow, caress-ing, proprietary sigh. "Thisss is what you wisshed to
trade your book ffor?"
"Yes, Eldest,"Nita said, starting to worry.
The dragon laid its front paws on either side of the Book. "Ffair, it is ssso ffair. I had
forgotten how ssweet it was to look on. No. No, I will not trade. I will not. Mine, mine. . . ."It
nosed the bright Book lovingly.
Nita bit her lip and wondered what in the world to try next. "Eldest,"Kit said from beside her,
"we have something more to trade."
"Oh?" The dragon looked away from the Book with difficulty and squinted at Kit. "What
might that be?"
(Yeah, what?) Nita said silently.
(Sssh.) "// you will take our book in trade for that one, we'll work suck a wizardry about
this place that no thief will ever enter. You 'II be safe here for as long as you please. Or
forever,"
{What are you talking about!) Nita said, amazed. (We don't have the supplies for a major
wizardry like that. The only one you could possibly manage would be one of—)

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(—the blank-check spells, I know. Nita, shaddup!)
The Eldest was staring at Kit. 'Wo one would ever come in again to ssteal from me?" it
said.
"That's right"
Nita watched the dragon's face as it looked away from Kit, thinking. It was old and tired, and
terrified of losing what it had amassed; but now a fright-ened hope was awakening in its eyes.
It looked back at Kit after a few seconds. "You will not come back either? No one will trouble
me again?" 'Guaranteed," Kit said, meaning it.
'Then I will trade. Give me your book, and work your spell, and go. Leave We with what is
mine." And it picked up the Book of Night with Moon in its )aws and dropped it off the hoard-
hill, not far from Kit's feet. "Give me, give mt> ' the Eldest said. Warily, Nita dropped the
shield spell. Kit took a couple ° Ufieasy steps forward and held out the dark Book, The dragon
shot its head Sar|k teeth in the dark Book, and jerked it out of Kit's hands so fast he stared at
them for a moment, counting fingers.
mine," it hissed as it turned away and started digging at another
124 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
spot on the hoard, preparing to bury the dark Book. Kit stooped, picked up the Book of Night with
Moon. It was as heavy as the dark Book had been about the size of an encyclopedia volume, and
strange to hold—the depth of the blackness of its covers made it seem as if the holding hands
should sink right through. Kit flipped it open as Nita and Fred came up behind to look over his
shoulder. (But the pages are blank,) Fred said, puzzled.
(It needs moonlight,) Kit said.
(Well, this is moonlight.) Nita held up the rowan wand over the opened Book. Very vaguely they
could make out something printed, the symbols of the Speech, too faint to read. (Then again,
maybe secondhand moonlight isn't good enough. Kit, what're you going to do? You have to seal
this place up now. You promised.)
{I'm gonna do what I said. One of the blank-check wizardries.)
(But when you do those you don't know what price is going to be asked later.)
(We have to get this Book, don't we? That's why we're here. And this is something that has to be
done to get the Book. I don't think the price'll be too high. Anyway you don't have to worry, I'll do
it myself.)
Nita watched Kit getting out his wizards' manual and bit her lip. (Oh, no, you're not,) she said. (If
you're doing it, I'm doing it too. Whatever you're doing. . . .)
(One of the Moebius spells,) Kit said, finding the page. Nita looked over his shoulder and read the
spell. It would certainly keep thieves out of the hoard. When recited, a Moebius spell gave a
specified volume of space a half-twist that left it permanently out of synch with the spaces
surrounding it. The effect would be like stopping an elevator between floors, forever. (You read it
all through?) Kit said.
(Uh huh.)

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(Then let's get back in the tunnel and do it and get out of here. I'm getting this creepy feeling that
things aren't going to be quiet on ground level when we get up there.)
They wanted to say good-bye to the Eldest, but it had forgotten them already. "Mine, mine, mine,
"it was whispering as garbage and gold flew in all directions from the place where it dug.
(Let's go,) Fred said.
Out in the tunnel, the firefungus seemed brighter to Nita—or perhaps that was only the effect of
looking at the Book of Night with Moon. They halted at the spot where the tunnel curved and
began with great care to read the Moebius spell. The first part of it was something strange and
unsettling-—311 invocation to the Powers that governed the arts of wizardry, asking help this piece
of work and promising that the power lent would be returne They required. Nita shivered,
wondering what she was getting herself int0'
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD
125
(or use of the Speech made the promise more of a prediction. Then came the definition of the
space to be twisted, and finally the twisting itself. As they spoke the words Nita could see the
Eldest, still digging away at his hoard, going pale and dim as if with distance, going away,
though not moving. The words pushed the space farther and farther away, toward an edge that
could be sensed more strongly though not seen—then, suddenly, over it. The spell broke,
completed. Nita and Kit and Fred were standing at the edge of a great empty pit, as if
someone had reached up into the earth and scooped out the subway station, the hoard, and the
Eldest, whole. Someone had.
"1 think we better get out of here," Kit said, very quietly. As if in answer to his words came a
long, soft groan of strained timber and metal—the pillars and walls of the tunnel where they
stood and the tunnel on the other side of the pit, bending under new stresses that the pillars of
the station had handled and that these were not meant to. Then a rumble, something falling.
Nita and Kit turned and ran down the tunnel, stumbling over timbers and picking themselves
up and running again. Fred zipped along beside like a shooting star looking for the right place
to fall. They slammed into the wall at the end of the track as the rumble turned to a thunder
and the thunder started catching up behind. Nita found bare concrete, said the Mason's Word
in a gasp, and flung the stone open. Kit jumped through with Fred behind him. The tunnel
shook, roared, blew out a stinging, dust-laden wind, and went down in ruin as Nita leaped
through the opening and fell to the tracks beside Kit.
He got to his knees slowly, rubbing himself where he had hit. "Boy," he said, "if we weren't in
trouble with you-know-who before, we are now. . . ."
Hurriedly Kit and Nita got up and the three of them headed for the ledge and the way to the
open air.

Major Wizardries Termination and
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Recovery
With great caution and a grunt of effort, Kit pushed up the grille at the top of the concrete
steps and looked around. "Oh, brother," he whispered, "sometimes I wish I wasn't right."
He scrambled up out of the tunnel and onto the sidewalk, with Nita and Fred following right
behind. The street was a shambles reminiscent of Fifth and Sixty-second. Corpses of cabs and
limousines and even a small truck were scattered around, smashed into lampposts and the
fronts of buildings, over-turned on the sidewalk. The Lotus Esprit was crouched at guard a
few feet away from the grille opening, its engine running in long, tired-sounding gasps. As
Kit ran over to it, the Lotus rumbled an urgent greeting and shrugged its doors open.
"They know we're here," Nita said as they hurriedly climbed in and buck-led up. "They have
to know what we've done. Everything feels different since the dark Book fell out of this
space."
(And they must know we'll head back for the worldgate at Pan Am,) Fred said. (Wherever that
is.)
"We've gotta find it—oof!" Kit said, as the Lotus reared back, slamming its doors shut, and
dove down the street they were on, around the corner and north again. "Nita, you up for one
more spell?"
"Do we have a choice?" She got her manual out of her pack, started thumbing through it.
"What I want to know is what we're supposed to try on whatever they have waiting for us at
Grand Central. You-know-who isn't just going to let us walk in there and leave with the bright
Book—"
"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it." Kit had his backpack open in his lap and was
peeking at the Book of Night with Moon. Even in the sullen dimness that leaked in the Lotus's
windows, the edges of the pages of the Book shone, the black depths of its covers glowed with
the promise of
5O YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 127
light. Kit ran a finger along the upper edge of one cover, and as Nita watched his face settled
into a solemn stillness, as if someone spoke and he listened intently. It was a long moment
before the expression broke. Then Kit glanced over at her with a wondering look in his eyes.
"It really doesn't look like that much," he said. "But it feels—Nita, I don't think they can hurt
us while we have this. Or if they can, it won't matter much."
"Maybe not, if we read from it," Nita said, reading down through the spell that would locate
the worldgate for them. "But you remember what Tom
said—"
"Yeah." But there was no concern in Kit's voice, and he was looking soberly at the Book
again.
Nita finished checking the spell and settled back in the seat to prepare for it, then started

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forward again as a spark of heat burned into her neck, "Ow!"
(Sorry.) Fred slid around from behind her to perch farther forward on her shoulder.
"Here we go," Nita said.
She had hardly begun reading the imaging spell before a wash of power such as she had never
felt seized her and plunged her into the spell headfirst. And the amazing thing was that she
couldn't even be frightened, for what-ever had so suddenly pulled her under and into the
magic was utterly benevo-lent, a huge calm influence that Nita sensed would do her nothing
but good, though it might kill her doing it. The power took her, poured itself into her, made
the spell part of her. There was no longer any need to work it; it was. Instantly she saw all
Manhattan laid out before her again in shadow outlines, and there was the worldgate, almost
drowned in the darkness created by the Starsnuffer, but not hidden to her. The power let her
go then, and she sat back gasping. Kit was watching her strangely.
(I think I see what you mean,) she said. (The Book— it made the spell happen by itself,
almost.)
"Not 'almost,' " Kit said. "No wonder you-know-who wants it kept out of the hands of the
Senior wizards. It can make even a beginner's spell happen. " did the same thing with the
Moebius spell. If someone wanted to take this Place apart—or if someone wanted to make
more places like it, and they had tne Book—" He gulped. "Look, where's the gate?"
'Where it should be," Nita said, finding her breath. "Underground— under Grand Central. Not
in the deli, though. It's down in one of the train tunnels."
Kit gulped again, harder. "Trains. . . . And you know that place'll be Bearded. Fred, are you up
to another diversion?" (will it get us back to tne sun anci the stars again? Try me.) ^'ta closed her
eyes to lean back and take a second's rest—the power that ad run through her for that moment
had left her amazingly drained—but
128 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
nearly jumped out of her skin the next moment as the Lotus braked wildly fishtailing around a
brace of cabs that leaped at it out of a side street. With a scream of engine and a cloud of exhaust
and burned rubber it found its traction again and tore out of the intersection and up Third Avenue,
leaving the cabs behind.
"They know, they know," Nita moaned, "Kit, what're we going to do? Is the Book going to be
enough to stand up to him?"
"We'll find out, I guess," Kit said, though he sounded none too certain. "We've been lucky so far.
No, not lucky, we've been ready. Maybe that'll be enough. We both came prepared for trouble, we
both did our reading—"
Nita looked sheepish. "You did, maybe. I couldn't get past Chapter Forty, No matter how much I
read, there was always more."
Kit smiled just as uncomfortably. "1 only got to Thirty-three myself, then I skimmed a lot."
"Kit, there's about to be a surprise quiz. Did we study the right chapters?"
"Well, we're gonna find out," Kit said. The Lotus turned left at the corner of Third and Forty-

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second, speeding down toward Grand Central. Forty-second seemed empty; not even a cab was in
sight. But a great looming darkness was gathered down the street, hiding the iron overpass. The
Lotus slowed, unwilling to go near it.
"Right here is fine," Kit said, touching the dashboard reassuringly. The Lotus stopped in front of
the doors to Grand Central, reluctantly shrugging first Nita's, then Kit's door open.
They got out and looked around them. Silence. Nita looked nervously at the doors and the
darkness beyond, while the Lotus crowded close to Kit, who rubbed its right wheelwell absently.
The sound came. A single clang, like an anvil being struck, not too far away. Then another clang,
hollow and metallic, echoing from the blank-eyed buildings, dying into bell-like echoes. Several
more clangs, close together. Then a series of them, a slow drumroll of metal beating on stone. The
Lotus pulled out from under Kit's hand, turning to face down Forty-second the way they had come,
growling deep under its hood.
The clangor grew louder; echoes bounced back and forth from building to building so that it was
impossible to tell from what direction the sound was coming. Down at the corner of Lexington and
Forty-second, a blackness jutted suddenly from behind one of the buildings on the uptown side.
The shape of it and its unlikely height above the pavement, some fifteen feet kept Nita from
recognizing what it was until more of it came around the corner, until the blackness found its
whole shape and swung it around inW the middle of the street on iron hooves.
Eight hooves, ponderous and deadly, dented the asphalt of the street-They belonged to a
horse—a huge, misproportioned beast, its head skinned
SO }OC/ WANT TO BE A WIZARD 129
to a skull, leaden-eyed and grinning hollowly. All black iron that steed
s as if it had stepped down from a pedestal at its rider's call; and the one
lo rode it wore his own darkness on purpose, as if to reflect the black mood within. The Starsnuffer
had put aside his three-piece suit for chain mail like hammered onyx and a cloak like night with no
stars. His face was still hand-some, but dreadful now, harder than any stone. His eyes burned with
the burning of the dark Book, alive with painful memory about to come real. About the feet of his
mount the perytons milled, not quite daring to look in their master's face, but staring and slavering
at the sight of Kit and Nita, waiting the command to course their prey.
Kit and Nita stood frozen, and Fred's light, hanging small and constant as a star behind them,
dimmed down to its faintest.
The cold, proud, erect figure on the black mount raised what it held in its right hand, a steel rod
burning dark and skewing the air about it as the dark Book had. "You have stolen something of
mine," said a voice as cold as space, using the Speech with icy perfection and hating it. "No one
steals from me. "
The bolt that burst from the rod was a red darker than the Eldest's fiery breath. Nita did not even
try to use the rowan wand in defense—as well try to use a sheet of paper to stop a laser beam. But
as she and Kit leaped aside, the air around them went afire with sudden clarity, as if for a moment
the darkness inherent in it was burned away. The destroying bolt went awry, struck up sideways
and blasted soot-stained blocks out of the facing of Grand Central. And in that moment the Lotus

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screamed wild defiance and leaped down Forty-second at the rider and his steed.
"NO!" Kit screamed. Nita grabbed him, pulled him toward the doors. He wouldn't come, wouldn't
turn away as the baying perytons scattered, as the Lotus hurtled into the forefront of the pack,
flinging bodies about. It leaped up at the throat of the iron beast, which reared on four hooves and
raised the other four and with them smashed the Lotus flat into the street.
The bloom of fire that followed blotted out that end of the street. Kit responded to Nita's pulling
then, and together they ran through the doors, UP the ramp that led into Grand Central, out across
the floor—
Nita was busy getting the rowan wand out, had gotten ahead of Kit, who
couldn't move as fast because he was crying—but it was his hand that shot
put and caught her by the collar at the bottom of the ramp, almost choking
Jr. and kept her from falling into the pit. There was no floor. From one side
the main concourse to the other was a great smoking crevasse, the floor lower levels and tunnels
beneath all split as if with an axe. Ozone smell
a cinder smell and the smell of tortured steel breathed up hot in their c^s, while from behind,
outside, the thunder of huge hooves on concrete the howls of perytons began again, clow them
severed tunnels and stairways gaped dark. There was no seeing
130 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
the bottom—it was veiled in fumes and soot, underlit by the blue arcs of shorted-out third rails and
an ominous deep red, as if the earth itself had broken open and was bleeding lava. The hooves
clanged closer.
Nita turned to Kit, desperate. Though his face still streamed with tears, there was an odd, painful
calm about it. "I know what to do," he said, his voice saying that he found that strange. He drew
the antenna out of his back pocket, and it was just as Nita noticed how strangely clear the air was
burning about him that Kit threw the piece of steel out over the smoking abyss. She would have
cried out and grabbed him, except that he was watching it so intently.
The hoofbeats stopped and were followed by a sound as of iron boots coming down on the
sidewalk, immensely heavy, shattering the stone. De-spite her own panic, Nita found she couldn't
look away from the falling antenna either. She was gripped motionless in the depths of a spell
again, while the power that burned the air clear now poured itself through Kit and into his
wizardry. There was something wrong with the way the antenna was falling. It seemed to be
getting bigger with distance instead of smaller. It stretched, it grew, glittering as it turned and
changed. It wasn't even an antenna any more. Sharp blue light and diffuse red gleamed from flat,
pol-ished faces, edges sharp as razors. It was a sword blade, not even falling now, but laid across
the chasm like a bridge. The wizardry broke and turned Nita loose. Kit moved away from her and
stepped out onto the flat of the blade, fear and pain showing in his face again.
"Kit!"
"It's solid," he said, still crying, taking another step out onto the span, holding his arms out for
balance as it bent slightly under his weight. "Come on, Nita, it's noon-forged steel, he can't cross it.
He'll have to change shape or seal this hole up."

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(Nita, come on,) Fred said, and bobbled out across the crevasse, following Kit. Though almost
blind with terror, her ears full of the sound of iron-shod feet coming after them, she followed Fred,
who was holding a straight course out over the sword blade—followed him, arms out as she might
have on a balance beam, most carefully not looking down. This was worse than the bridge of air
had been, for that hadn't flexed so terribly under each step she or Kit took. His steps threw her off
balance until she halted long enough to take a deep breath and step in time with him. Smoke and
the smell or burning floated up around her; the shadows of the dome above the concourse stirred
with wicked eyes, the open doors to the train platforms ahead of muttered, their mouths full of
hate. She watched the end of the looked straight ahead. Five steps: Kit was off. Three. One—
She reached out to him, needing desperately to feel the touch of a hand. He grabbed her arm and
pulled her off the bridge just as another bias
SO K)U WANT TO BE A WIZARD 131
of black-red fire blew in the doors on the other side of the abyss. Kit said one sharp word in
the Speech, and the air went murky around his body again as the Book ceased to work through
him. Nita let go, glanced over her shoulder in time to see the sword blade snap back to being
an antenna, like a rubber band going back to its right size. It fell into the fuming darkness, a
lone glitter, quickly gone.
They ran. Nita could still see in her mind the place where the worldgate was hidden; the Book
's power had burned it into her like a brand. She took the lead, racing down a flight of stairs,
around a corner and down another flight, into echoing beige-tiled corridors where Fred and
the rowan wand were their only light. Above them they could hear the thunderous rumor of
iron footsteps, slow, leisurely, inexorable, following them down. The howls of perytons
floated down to them like the voices of lost souls, hungry for the blood and pain they needed
to feel alive again.
"Here!" Nita shouted, not caring what might hear, and dodged around a corner, and did what
she had never done in all her life before—jumped a subway turnstile. Its metal fingers made a
grab for her, but she was too fast for them, and Kit eluded them too, coming right behind. At
full speed Nita pounded down the platform, looking for the steps at the end of it that would let
them down onto the tracks. She took them three at a time, two leaps, and then was running on
cinders again, leaping over ties. Behind her she could hear Kit hobbling as fast as he could on
his sore leg, gasping, but keeping up. Fred shot along beside her, pacing her, lighting her way.
Eyes flickered in his light—hidebehinds, dun mice, ducking under cover as the three of them
went past. Nita slowed and stopped in the middle of the tracks. "Here!"
Kit had his manual out already. He found the page by Fred's light, thumped to a stop beside
Nita. "Here? In the middle of the—"
"Read! Read!" she yelled. There was more thunder rolling in the tunnel than just the sound of
their pursuer's footsteps. Far away, she could hear what had been missing from the other
tunnel beneath City Hall; trains. Away "i the darkness, wheels slammed into the tracks they
rode—even now the "ils around them were clacking faintly in sympathy, and a slight cool

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wind breathed against Nita's face. A train was coming. On this track. Kit began the
worldgating spell, reading fast. Again the air around them seemed clearer, fresher, as the
power of the Book of Night with Moon sei/ed the spell and its sPeaker, used them both.
That was when the Starsnuffer's power came down on them. It seemed mPossible that the
dank close darkness in which they stood could become ny darker, but it did, as an oppressive
blanket of clutching, choking hatred
1 Ov'er them, blanketing everything. The rowan rod's silver fire was smoth-
e<J. Fred's light went out as if he had been stepped on, Kit stopped reading, ruggled for
breath. Nita tried to resist, tried to find air, couldn't, collapsed
132 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
to her knees, choking. The breeze from the dark at the end of the tunnel got stronger: the onrushing
train, pushing the air in front of it, right up the track, right at them—
(I—will—not,) Fred said, struggling, angry. (I will—not—go out!) His de-termination was good
for a brief flare, like a match being struck. Kit found his voice, managed to get out a couple more
words of the spell in Fred's wavering radiance, grew stronger, managed a few more. Nita found
that she could breathe again. She clutched the rowan wand, thinking with all her might of the night
Liused had given it to her, the clear moonlight shining down between the branches. The wand
came alive again. Shadows that had edged forward from the walls of the tunnel fled again. Kit
read, hurrying. Two thirds done, Nita thought. If he can just finish—
Far away down the tunnel, there were eyes. They blazed. The headlights of a train, coming down
at them in full career. The clack of the rails rose to a rattle, the breeze became a wind, the roar of
the train itself echoed not just in the other tunnels, but in this one. Nita got to her feet, facing those
eyes down. She would not look away. Fred floated by her shoulder; she gathered him close,
perching him by her ear, feeling his terror of the overwhelming darkness as if it were her own but
having nothing to comfort him with. Kit, she thought, not daring to say it aloud for fear she should
intermpt his concentration. The sound of his words was getting lost in the thunder from above, iron-
shod feet, the thunder from below, iron wheels on iron rails.
Suddenly Kit's voice was missing from the melange of thunders. Without warning the worldgatc
was there, glistening in the light of the rowan wand and Fred and the train howling down toward
them—a great jagged soap bubble, trembling with the pressure of sound and air. Kit wasted no
time, but leaped through. Fred zipped into the shimmering surface and was gone. Nita made sure
of her grip on the rowan wand, took a deep breath, and jumped through the worldgate. A hundred
feet away, fifty feet away, the blazing eyes of the train glared at her as she jumped; its horn
screamed in delight, antici-pating the feel of blood beneath its wheels; sudden thunder rocked the
plat' form behind her, black-red fire more sensed than seen. But the rainbow shimmer of the gate
broke across her face first. The train roared through the place where she had been, and she heard
the beginnings of a cry of frustrated rage as she cheated death, and anger, and fell and fell and fell.
...
—and came down slam on nothing. Or it seemed that way, until opening her eyes a little wider she


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saw the soot and smog trapped in the hardened air she lay on, the only remnant of her walkway.
Kit was already getting up froin his knees beside her, looking out from their little island of air
across to the Pan Am Building. Everything was dark, and Nita started to groan, certa"j that
something had gone wrong and that the worldgate had simply duropetl
SO }OU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 133
them back in the Starsnuffer's world—but no, her walkway was there. Greatly daring, she
looked down and saw far below the bright yellow glow of sodium-vapor street lights and red
of taillights, City noise, roaring, cacopho-nous and alive, floated up to them. We're back. It
worked!
Kit was reading from his wizards' manual, as fast as he had read down in the train tunnel. He
stopped and then looked at Nita in panic as she got up. "I can't close the gate!"
She gulped. "Then he can follow us . , . through. . . ." In an agony of haste she fumbled her
own book out of her pack, checked the words for the air-hardening spell one more time, and
began reading herself. Maybe panic helped, for this time the walkway spread itself out from
their feet to the roof of the building very fast indeed. "Come on," she said, heading out across
it as quickly as she dared. But where will we run to? she thought. He'll come behind, hunting.
We can't go home, he might follow. And what'll he do to the city?
She reached up to the heliport railing and swung herself over it. Kit fol-lowed, with Fred
pacing him. "What're we gonna do?" he said as they headed across the gravel together.
"There's no time to call the Senior wiz-ards, wherever they are—or even Tom and Carl. He'll
be here shortly."
"Then we'll have to get away from here and find a place to hole up for a little. Maybe the
bright Book can help." She paused as Kit spoke to the lock on the roof door, and they ran
down the stairs. "Or the manuals might have something, now that we need it."
"Yeah, right," Kit said as he opened the second door at the bottom of the stairs, and they ran
down the corridor where the elevators were. But he didn't sound convinced. "The park?"
"Sounds good."
Nita punched the call button for the elevator, and she and Kit stood there panting; There was a
feeling in the air that all hell was about to break loose, and the sweat was breaking out all over
Nita because they were going to have to stop it somehow. "Fred," she said, "did you ever hear
anything, out where you were, any stories of someone getting the better of you-know-who?"
Fred's light flickered uncomfortably as he watched Kit frantically consult-In8 his manual. (Oh,
yes,) he said. (I'd imagine that's why he wanted a universe apart to himself—to keep others
from getting in and thwarting him. '* used to happen fairly frequently when he went up
against life.)
rred's voice was too subdued for Nita's liking. "What's the catch?"
'Well . . . it's possible to win against him. But usually someone dies of >*•)
Nita gulped again. Somehow she had been expecting something like that. Kit?"
'he elevator chimed. Once inside, Kit went back to looking through his

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134 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
manual. "I don't see anything," he said, sounding very worried. "There's a general-information
chapter on him here, but there's not much we don't know already. The only thing he's never been
able to dominate was the Book of Night with Moon. He tried—that's what the dark Book was for;
he thought by linking them together he could influence the bright Book with it diminish its power.
But that didn't work. Finally he was reduced to simply stealing the bright Book and hiding it where
no one could get at it. That way no one could become a channel for its power, no one could
possibly defeat him. . . ."
Nita squeezed her eyes shut, not sure whether the sinking feeling in her stomach was due to her
own terror or the elevator going down. Read from it? No, no. I hope I never have to, Tom's voice
said in her mind. . . . Reading it, being the vessel for all that power—I wovldn 't want to. Even
good can be terribly dangerous.
And that was an Advisory, Nita thought, miserable. There was no doubt about it. One of them
might have to do what a mature wizard feared doing: read from the Book itself.
"Let me do it," she said, not looking at Kit.
He glanced up from the manual, stared at her. "Bull," he said, and then looked down at the manual
again. "If you're gonna do it, I'm gonna do it."
Outside the doors another bell chimed as the elevator slowed to a stop. Kit led the way out across
the black stone floor, around the corner to the en-trance. The glass door let them out onto a street
just like the one they had walked onto in the Snuffer's otherworld—but here windows had lights in
them, and the reek of gas and fumes was mixed with a cool smell of evening and a rising wind,
and the cabs that passed looked blunt and friendly. Nita could have cried for relief, except that
there was no reason to feel relieved. Things would be getting much worse shortly.
Fred, though, felt no such compunctions. (The stars, the stars are back,) he almost sang, flashing
with delight as they hurried along.
"Where?" Kit said skeptically. As usual, the glow of a million street lights was so fierce
that even the brightest stars were blotted out by it. But Fred was too cheerful to be
suppressed.
(They're there, they're there!) he said, dancing ahead of them. (And the Sun is there too. I don't
care that it's on the other side of this silly place, 1 can feel—feel—)
His thought cut off so abruptly that Nita and Kit both stopped and glanced over their shoulders. A
coldness grabbed Nita's heart and wrung it-The sky, even though clear, did have a faint golden
glow to it, city ligW scattered from smog—and against that glow, high up atop the Pan Am
Building, a form half unstarred night and half black iron glowered down ^ them like a statue from
a dauntingly high pedestal. Nita and Kit froze like
SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 135
pinned to a card as the remote clear howl of perytons wound through
the air.
"He'll just jump down," Nita whispered, knowing somehow that he could do it, But the rider did
not leap, not yet. Slowly he raised his arms in summons. One hand still held the steel rod about

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which the air twisted and writhed as if in pain; as the arm lifted, that writhing grew more violent,
more tortured.
And darkness answered the gesture. It flowed forward around the feet of the dark rider's terrible
mount, obscuring the perytons peering down over the roof's edge, and poured down the surface of
the building like a black fog. What it touched, changed. Where the darkness passed, metal
tarnished, glass filmed over or shattered, lighted windows were quenched, went blind. Down all
the sides of the building it flowed, black lava burning the brightness out of everything it touched.
Kit and Nita looked at each other in despair, knowing what would happen when that darkness
spilled out onto the ground. The streets would go deso-late and dark, the cabs would stop being
friendly; and when all the island from river to river was turned into his domain, the dark rider
would catch them at his leisure and do what he pleased with them. And with the bright Book—and
with everything else under the sky, perhaps. This was no other-world, frightening but remote. This
was their home. If this world turned into that one—
"We're dead," Kit said, and turned to run. Nita followed him. Perhaps out of hope that another
Lotus might be waiting innocently at some curbside, the way Kit ran retraced their earlier path.
But there was no Lotus—only bright streets, full of people going about their business with no idea
of what was about to happen to them, cars honking at one another in cheerful igno-rance. Fat men
running newsstands and bemused bag-ladies watched Nita and Kit run by as if death and doom
were after them, and no one really noticed the determined spark of light keeping pace. They ran
like the wind down West Fiftieth, but no Lotus lay there, and around the corner onto r'fth and up to
Sixty-first, but the carnage left in the otherworld was not reflected here—the traffic on Fifth ran
unperturbed. Gasping, they waited tor a break in it, then ran across, hopped the wall into the park
and crouched down beside it as they had in the world they'd left.
The wind was rising, not just a night breeze off the East River, but a chill wind with a hint of that
other place's coldness to it. Kit unslung his pack as drew in close, and by his light Kit brought out
the Book of Night with . The darkness of its covers shone, steadying Kit's hands, making Fred seern
to burn brighter. Kit and Nita sat gasping for breath, staring at each other.
' rn out of ideas," Kit said. "I think we're going to have to read from this


136 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
to keep the city the way it should be. We can't just let him change things until he catches us.
Buildings are one thing; but what happens to people after that black hits them?"
"And it might not stop here either," Nita said between gasps, thinking of her mother and father and
Dairine, of the quiet street where they lived, the garden, the rowan, all warped and darkened—if
they would survive at all.
Her eyes went up to the Moon shining white and full between the shifting branches. All around
them she could feel the trees stirring in that new, strange, cold wind, whispering uneasily to one
another. It was so good to be in a place where she could hear the growing things again.
The idea came. "Kit," she said hurriedly, "that dark was moving pretty fast. If we're going to read

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from the Book we may need something to buy us time, to hold off the things that'll come with it,
the perytons and the cabs."
"We're out of Lotuses," Kit said, his voice bleak.
"I know. But look where we are! Kit, this is Central Park! You know how many trees there are in
here of the kinds that went to the Battle in the old days? They don't forget."
He stared at her. "What can they—"
"The Book makes everything work better, doesn't it? There's a spell that— I'll do it, you'll see. But
you've got to do one too, it's in your specialty group. The Mason's Word, the long version—"
"To bring stone or metal to life." He scrubbed the last tears out of his eyes and managed ever so
slight and slow a smile. "There are more statues within screaming distance of this place—"
"Kit," Nita said, "how loud can you scream?"
"Let's find out."
They both started going through their manuals in panicky haste. Far away on the east side,
lessened by all the buildings and distance that lay between, but still much too clear, there was a
single, huge, deep-pitched clang, an immense weight of metal hitting the ground with stone-
shattering force. Fred hobbled a little in the air, nervously. (How long do you think—)
"He'll be a while, Fred," Kit said, sounding as if he hoped it would be a long while. "He doesn't
like to run; it's beneath his dignity. But I think—' He broke off for a moment, reading down a page
and forming the syllables or the Mason's Word without saying them aloud. "I think we're going to
have a few friends who'll do a little running for us."
He stood up, and Fred followed him, staying close to light the page. "Nita, hand me the Book." She
passed it up to him, breaking off her own frantic^ reading for a moment to watch. "It'll have to be a
scream," he said as if himself. "The more of them hear me, the more help we get."
Kit took three long breaths and then shouted the Word at the top of 1 lungs, all twenty-
seven syllables of it without missing a one. The sound be-1
SO you WANT TO BE A WIZARD
137
impossibly more than the yell of a twelve-year-old as the Book seized the sound and the spell
together and flung them out into the city night. Nita had to hold her ears. Even when it seemed safe
to uncover them again, the echoes bounced back from buildings on all sides and would not stop.
Kit stood there amazed as his voice rang and ricocheted from walls blocks away. "Well," he said,
"they'll feel the darkness, they'll know what's happening. I think."
"My turn," Nita said, and stood up beside Kit, making sure of her place. Her spell was not a long
one. She fumbled for the rowan wand, put it in the hand that also held her wizards' manual, and
took the bright Book from Kit. "1 hope—" she started to say, but the words were shocked out of
her as the feeling that the Book brought with it shot up her arm. Power, such sheer joyous power
that no spell could fail, no matter how new the wizard was to the Art, Here, under moonlight and
freed at last from its long restraint, the Book was more potent than even the dark rider who trailed
them would suspect, and that potency raged to be free. Nita bent her head to her manual and read
the spell.

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Or tried to. She saw the words, the syllables, and spoke the Speech, but the moonfirc falling on the
Book ran through her veins, slid down her throat, and turned the words to song more subtle than
she had ever dreamed of, burned behind her eyes and showed her another time, when another will
had voiced these words for the first time and called the trees to battle.
All around her, both now and then, the trees lifted their arms into the wind, breathed the fumes of
the new-old Earth and breathed out air that men could use; they broke the stone to make ground
for their children to till and fed the mold with themselves, leaf and bough, and generation upon
generation. They knew to what end their sacrifice would come, but they did it anyway, and they
would do it again in the Witherer's spite. They were doing it now. Oak and ash and willow, birch
and alder, elm and maple, they teit the darkness in the wind that tossed their branches and would
not stand still for it. The ground shook all around Nita, roots heaved and came free— "rst the trees
close by, the counterparts of the trees under whicb she and Kit and Fred had sheltered in the dark
otherworld. White oak, larch, twisted Crabapp]e, their leaves glittering around the edges with the
flowering radi-ance of the rowan wand, they lurched and staggered as they came rootloose, ar|d
then crowded in around Kit and Nita and Fred, whispering with wind, Joking a protecting circle
through which nothing would pass but moonlight, ne effect spread out and away from Nita, though
the spell itself was fin-ned, and that relentless power let her sag against one friendly oak, gasping.
ror yards, for blocks, as far as she could see through the trunks of the trees * crowded close,
branches waved green and wild as bushes and vines and Ur>dred-year monarchs of the park pulled
themselves out of the ground and


138 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
moved heavily to the defense. Away to the east, the clangor of metal hooves and the barks and
howls of the dark rider's pack were coming closer. The trees waded angrily toward the noise, some
hobbling along on top of the ground, some wading through it, and just as easily through sidewalks
and stone walls. In a few minutes there was a nearly solid palisade of living wood between Kit and
Nita and Fred and Fifth Avenue. Even the glare of the street lights barely made it through the
branches.
Kit and Nita looked at each other. "Well," Kit said reluctantly, "I guess we can't put it off any
longer."
Nita shook her head. She moved to put her manual away and was momen-tarily shocked when the
rowan wand, spent, crumbled to silver ash in her hand. "So much for that," she said, feeling
unnervingly naked now that her protection was gone. Another howl sounded, very close by, and
was abruptly cut off in a rushing of branches as if a tree had fallen on something on purpose. Nita
fumbled in her pocket and pulled out a nickel. "Call it," she said.
"Heads."
She tossed the coin, caught it, slapped it down on her forearm. Heads. "Crud," she said, and
handed the bright Book to Kit.
He took it uneasily, but with a glitter of excitement in his eye. "Don't worry," he said. "You'll get

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your chance."
"Yeah, well, don't hog it." She looked over at him and was amazed to see him regarding her with
some of the same worry she was feeling. From outside the fence of trees came a screech of brakes,
the sound of a long skid, and then a great splintering crashing of metal and smashing of glass as an
attack-ing cab lost an argument with some tree standing guard. Evidently reinforce-ments from
that other, darker world were arriving.
"I won't," Kit said, "You'll take it away from me and keep reading if—
He stopped, not knowing what might happen, Nita nodded. "Fred," she said, "we may need a
diversion. But save yourself till the last minute."
fl will. Kit—) The spark of light hung close to him for a moment. (Be careful.)
Suddenly, without warning, every tree around them shuddered as if Vl°" lently struck. Nita could
hear them crying out in silent anguish, and cried out in terror herself as she felt what they felt—a
great numbing cold that smote at the heart like an axe. Kit, beside her, sat frozen with it, aghast.
Fred went dim with shock. (Not again!) he said, his voice faint and horrified. (Not here, where
there's so much life!)
"The Sun," Nita whispered. "He put out the Sun!" Starsnuffer, she thought. That tactic's worked
for him before. And if the Sun is out, pretty soon there won't be moonlight to read by, and he
can—
5O }OU WANT TO BE A WIZARD
139
Kit stared up at the Moon as if at someone about to die, "Nita, how long jo we have?"
"Eight minutes, maybe a little more, for light to get here from the Sun. gight minutes before it runs
out. . . ."
Kit sat down hurriedly, laid the bright Book in his lap, and opened it. The light of the full Moon
fell on the glittering pages. This time the print was not vague as under the light of Nita's wand. It
was clear and sharp and dark, as easily read as normal print in daylight. The Book 's covers were
fading, going clear, burning with that eye-searing transparency that Nita had seen about Kit and
herself before. The whole Book was hardly to be seen except for its printing, which burned in its
own fashion, supremely black and clear, but glistening as if the ink with which the characters were
printed had moonlight trapped in them too. "Here's an index," Kit whispered, using the Speech
now. "/ think—the part about New York—"
Yes, Nita thought desperately, as another cab crashed into the trees and finished itself. And what
then? What do we do about— She would not finish the thought, for the sound of those leisurely,
deadly hoofbeats was getting closer, and mixing with it were sirens and the panicked sound of car
horns. She thought of that awful dark form crossing Madison, kicking cars aside, crushing what
tried to stop it, and all the time that wave of blackness wash-ing alongside, changing everything,
stripping the streets bare of life and light. And what about the Sun? The Earth will freeze over
before long, and he'll have the whole planet the way he wants it— Nita shuddered. Cold and
darkness and nothing left alive—a storm-broken, ice-locked world, full of twisted machines
stalking desolate streets forever. , . .

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Kit was turning pages, quickly but gently, as if what he touched was a live thing. Perhaps it was.
Nita saw him pause between one page and the next, holding one bright-burning page draped
delicately over his fingers, then let-ting it slide carefully down to He with the others he'd turned.
"Here," he whispered, awed, delighted. He did not look up to see what Nita saw, the wave of
darkness creeping around them, unable to pass the tree-wall, passing onward, surrounding them so
that they were suddenly on an island of grass in a sea of wrestling naked tree limbs and bare-seared
dirt and rock. "Here—"
He began to read, and for all her fear Nita was lulled to stillness by w°nder. Kit's voice was that of
someone discovering words for the first time arter a long silence, and the words he found were a
song, as her spell to free the trees had seemed, She sank deep in the music of the Speech, hearing
the story told in what Kit read.
Kit was invoking New York, calling it up as one might call up a spirit; and
°°edient to the summons, it came. The skyline came, unsmirched by any
'ackness—a crown of glittering towers in a smoky sunrise, all stabbing points
n<J jeweled windows, precipices of steel and stone. City Hall came, brooding
ill
140 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
over its colonnades, gazing down in weary interest at the people who came and went and governed
the island through it. The streets came, hot, dirty crowded, but flowing with voices and traffic and
people, bright lifeblood surging through concrete arteries. The parks came, settling into place one
by one as they were described, free of the darkness under the night—from tiny paved vest-pocket
niches to the lake-set expanses of Central Park, they all came, thrusting the black fog back. Birds
sang, dogs ran and barked and rolled in the grass, trees were bright with wary squirrels' eyes. The
Battery came, the crumbling old first-defense fort standing peaceful now at the southernmost tip of
Manhattan—the rose-gold of some remembered sunset glowed warm on its bricks as it mused in
weedy silence over old battles won and nonetheless kept an eye on the waters of the harbor, just in
case some British cutter should try for a landing when the colonists weren't looking. Westward
over the water, the Palisades were there, shadowy cliffs with the Sifn behind them, mist-blue and
mythical-looking though New Jersey was only a mile away. Eastward and westward the bridges
were there, the lights of their spanning suspension cables coming out blue as stars in the twilight.
Seabirds wheeled pale and graceful about the towers of the George Washing-ton Bridge and the
Verrazano Narrows and the iron crowns of the 59th Street Bridge, as the soft air of evening settled
over Manhattan, muting the city roar to a quiet breathing rumble. Under the starlight and the risen
Moon, an L-1011 arrowed out of LaGuardia Airport and soared over the city, screaming its high
song of delight in the cold upper airs, dragging the thun-der along behind—
Nita had to make an effort to pull herself out of the waking dream. Kit read on, while all around
the trees bent in close to hear, and the air flamed clear and still as a frozen moment of memory. He
read on, naming names in the Speech, describing people and places in terrifying depth and detail,
mak-ing them real and keeping them that way by the Book 's power and the sound of the words.
But no sign of any terror at the immensity of what he was doing showed in Kit's face—and that

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frightened Nita more than the darkness that still surged and whispered around them and their circle
of trees. Nita could see Kit starting to burn with that same unbearable clarity, becoming more real,
so much so that he was not needing to be visible any more. Slowly-subtly, the Book's vivid
transparency was taking him too. Fred, hanging b^ side Kit and blazing in defiance of the dark,
looked pale in comparison. Even Kit's shadow glowed, and it occurred to Nita that shortly, if this
kept up; h6 wouldn't have one. What do I do? she thought He's not having trouble, he seems to be
getting stronger, not weaker, but if this has to go on much longer—
Kit kept reading. Nita looked around her and began to see an answer Th* darkness had not
retreated from around them. Out on the Fifth Avenue side
SO yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 141
r ^e tree-wall, the crashes of cabs were getting more frequent, the howls of •vrvtons were
closer, the awful clanging hoofbeats seemed almost on top of the'rn. There was nowhere to
run, and Nita knew with horrible certainty that not all the trees in the park would be enough to
stop the Starsnuffer when he came there. Keeping New York real was one answer to this
problem, but not the answer. The darkness and the unreality were symptoms, not the cause.
Something had to be done about him.
The iron hooves paused. For an awful moment there was no sound; howls and screeching tires
fell silent. Then metal began to smash on stone in a thunderous canter, right across the street,
and with a horrible screeching neigh the rider's iron steed smashed into the tree-wall,
splintering wood, bowing the palisade inward. Nita wanted to shut her mind against the
screams of the trees broken and flung aside in that first attack, but she could not- All around
her the remaining trees sank their roots deep in determina-tion, but even they knew it would
be hopeless. There were enough cracks in the wall that Nita could see the black steed rearing
back for another smash with its front four hooves, the rider smiling, a cold cruel smile that
made Nita shudder. One more stroke and the wall would be down. Then there would be
wildfire in the park, Kit, oblivious, kept reading. The iron mount rose to its full height.
"Fred," Nita whispered, "I think you'd better—" The sound of heavy hoofbeats, coming from
behind them, from the park side, choked her silent. He has a twin brother, Nita thought. We
are dead.
But the hoofbeats divided around the battered circle of trees and poured past in a storm of
metal and stone, the riders and steeds marble pale or bronze dark, every equestrian statue in or
near Central Park gathered to-gether into an impossible cavalry that charged past Nita and Kit
and Fred and into the street to give battle. Perytons and cabs screamed as General sherman
from Grand Army Plaza crashed in among them with sword raised, closely followed by loan
of Arc in her armor, and Simon Bolivar and General
fi *

aan Martin right behind. King Wladislaw was there in medieval scale mail,
galloping on a knight's armored charger; Don Quixote was there, urging poor
broken-down Rosinante to something faster than a stumble and shouting

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weats against the whole breed of sorcerers; Teddy Roosevelt was there,
cracking off shot after shot at the cabs as his huge horse stamped them into
he pavement; El Cid Campeador rode there, his bannered lance striking
Own one peryton after another. Behind all these came a wild assortment of
Matures, pouring past the tree circle and into the street—eagles, bears, huge
°§s, a hunting cat, a crowd of doughboys from the first World War with
aXoneted rifles—all the most warlike of the nearby statuary—even some not
Warlike, such as several deer and the Ugly Duckling. From down Fifth
enue came striding golden Prometheus from his pedestal in Rockefeller
er)ter, bearing the fire he brought for mortals and using it in bolt after bolt
142 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
to melt down cabs where they stood; and from behind him, with a stony ^ like the sky falling, the
great white lions from the steps of the Public Librarv leaped together and threw themselves upon
the iron steed and its dark rider For all its extra legs, the mount staggered back and sideways,
screaming (n a horrible parody of a horse's neigh and striking feebly at the marble claws that tore
its flanks.
Under cover of that tumult of bowls and crashes and the clash of arms Nita grabbed Kit to pull him
away from the tree-wall, behind another row of trees. She half expected her hands to go right
through him, he was becoming so transparent. Unresisting, he got up and followed her, still
holding the Book open, still reading as if he couldn't stop, or didn't want to, still burning more and
more fiercely with the inner light of the bright Book's power. "Fred," she said as she pushed Kit
down onto the ground again behind a looming old maple, "I've got to do this now. I may not be
able to do anything else. If a diversion's needed—"
(I'll do what's necessary,) Fred said, his voice sounding as awed and fright-ened as Nita felt at the
sight of what Kit was becoming. (You be careful too.)
She reached out a hand to Fred. He bobbed close and settled at the tip of one finger for a moment,
perching there delicately as a firefly, energy touch-ing matter for a moment as if to reconfirm the
old truth that they were just different forms of the same thing. Then he lifted away, turning his
attention out to the street, to the sound of stone and metal wounding and being wounded; and in
one quick gesture Nita grabbed the Book of Night with Moon away from Kit and bent her head to
read.
An undertow of blinding power and irresistible light poured into her, over her, drowned her deep.
She couldn't fight it. She didn't want to. Nita under-stood now the clear-burning transfiguration of
Kit's small plain human face and body, for it was not the wizard who read the Book; it was the
other way around. The silent Power that had written the Book reached through it now and read
what life had written in her body and soul—joys, hopes, fears, and failings all together—then took
her intent and read that too, turning it into fact. She was turning the bright pages without even
thinking about it, finding the place in the Book that spoke of creation and rebellion and war among
the stars—the words that had once before broken the terrible destroying storm 01 death and

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darkness that the angry Starsnuffer had raised to break the ne*' made worlds and freeze the seas
where life was growing, an eternity ago. am the wind that troubles the water," Nita said,
whispering in the SpeeC"-The whisper smote against the windowed cliffs until they echoed again,
anfl the clash and tumult of battle began to grow still as the wind rose at »e naming. "I am the -
water, and the waves; I am the shore where the waves bt$ in rainbows; I am the sunlight that
shines in the spray—" .
The power rose with the rhythms of the old, old words, rose with the wip
SO yOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 143
as all about her the earth and air and waters of the park began to remember what they
were—matter and energy, created, indestructible, no matter what darkness lay over them. '7
am the trees that drink the light; I am the air of the green things' breathing; I am the stone
that the trees break asunder; I am the molten heart of the world—"
"NO/" came his scream from beyond the wall of trees, hating, raging, desperate. But Nita felt
no fear. It was as it had been in the Beginning; all his no's had never been able to stand
against life's I Am. All around her trees and stones and flesh and metal bumed with the power
that burned her, self-awareness, which death can seem to stop but can never keep from
happen-ing, no matter how hard it tries. "Where will you go? To what place will you
•wander?" she asked sorrowfully, or life asked through her, hoping that the lost one might at
last be convinced to come back to his allegiance. Of all creatures alive and otherwise, he had
been and still was one of the mightiest. If only his stubborn anger would break, his power
could be as great for light as for darkness—but it could not happen. If after all these weary
eons he still had not realized the hopelessness of his position, that everywhere he went, life
was there before him— Still she tried, the ancient words speaking her solemnly. "—in vale or
on hilltop, still I am there—"
Silence, silence, except for the rising wind. All things seemed to hold their breath to hear the
words; even the dark rider, erect again on his iron steed and bitter of face, ignoring the tumult
around him. His eyes were only for Nita, for only her reading held him bound. She tried not to
think of him, or of the little time remaining before the Moon went out, and gave herself over
wholly to the reading. The words shook the air and the earth, blinding, burning.
"—will you sound the sea's depth, or climb the
mountain?
In air or in water, still I am there; Will the earth cover you? Will the night hide you? In deep
or in darkness, still I am there; Will you kindle the nova, or kill the starlight? In fire or in
deathcold, still I am there—"
The Moon went out.
'red cried out soundlessly, and Nita felt the loss of light like a stab in the art The power fell
away from her, quenched, leaving her small and cold ncl human and alone, holding in her
hands a Book gone dark from lack of °°n"ght She and Kit turned desperately toward each


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other in a darkness Pidly becoming complete as the flowing blackness put out the last light of
144 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
the city. Then came the sound of low, satisfied laughter and a single clang of a heavy
hoof, stepping forward.
Another clang.
Another.
(Now,) Fred said suddenly, (now I understand what all that emitting was practice for. No beta, no
gamma, no microwave or upper-wavelength ultravi-olet or X-rays, is that all?)
"Fred?" Kit said, but Fred didn't wait- He shot upward, blazing, a point of light like a falling star
falling the wrong way, up and up until his brightness was as faint as one more unremarkable star.
"Fred, where are you going?"
(To create a diversion,) his thought came back, getting fainter and fainter. (Nita, Kit—)
They could catch no more clear thoughts, only a great wash of sorrow and loss, a touch of
fear—and then brightness intolerable erupted in the sky as Fred threw his claudication open,
emitting all his mass at once as energy, blowing his quanta. He could hardly have been more than
halfway to the Moon, for a second or two later it was alight again, a blazing searing full such as no
one had ever seen. There was no looking at either Fred's blast of light or at the Moon that lit trees
and statues and the astounded face of the Starsnuffer with a light like a silver sun.
The rider spent no more than a moment being astounded. Immediately he lifted his steel rod,
pointing it at Fred this time, shouting in the Speech cold words that were a curse on all light
everywhere, from time's beginning to its end. But Fred burned on, more fiercely, if possible.
Evidently not even the Starsnuffer could quickly put out a white hole that was liberating all the
bound-up energy of five or six blue-white giant stars at once.
"Nita, Nita, read!" Kit shouted at her. Through her tears she looked down at the Book again and
picked up where she had left off. The dark rider was cursing them all in earnest now, knowing that
another three lines in the-#00* would bring Nita to his name. She had only to pronounce it to cast
him out into the unformed void beyond the universes, where he had been cast the first time those
words were spoken.
Cabs and perytons screamed and threw themselves at the barrier in a 'ast wild attempt to break
through, the statues leaped into the fray again, stone and flesh and metal clashed. Nita fell down
into the bright power once more, crying, but reading in urgent haste so as not to waste the light
Fred was giving himself to become.
As the power began again to read her, she could hear it reading Kit too, his voice matching hers as
it had in their first wizardry, small and thin and brave, and choked with grief like hers. She
couldn't stop crying, and the power burned in her tears too, an odd hot feeling, as she cried bitterly
for Fred, rof Kit's Lotus, for everything horrible that had happened all that day—all l"*
50 K)U WANT TO BE A WIZARD
145
fair things skewed, all the beauty twisted by the dark Lone Power watching on his steed. If
only there were some way he could be otherwise if he wanted to For here was his name, a

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long splendid flow of syllables in the Speech, wild and courageous in its own way — and it
said that he had not always been so hostile; that he got tired sometimes of being wicked, but
his pride and his fear of being ridiculed would never let him stop. Never, forever, said the
symbol at the very end of his name, the closed circle that binds spells into an unbreakable
cycle and indicates lives bound the same way. Kit was still read-ing. Nita turned her head in
that nova moonlight and looked over her shoul-der at the one who watched- His face was set,
and bitter stil], but weary. He knew he was about to be cast out again, frustrated again; and he
knew that because of what he had bound himself into being, he would never know fulfillment
of any kind. Nita looked back down to the reading, feeling sorry even for him, opened her
mouth and along with Kit began to say his name. Don 't be afraid to make corrections!
Whether the voice came from her memory or was a last whisper from the blinding new star
far above, Nita never knew. But she knew what to do. While Kit was still on the first part of
the name she pulled out her pen, her best pen that Fred had saved and changed. She clicked it
open, The metal still tingled against her skin, the ink at the point still glittered oddly — the
same glitter as the ink with which the bright Book was written, Nita bent quickly over the
Book and, with the pen, in lines of light, drew from that final circle an arrow pointing upward,
the way out, the symbol that said change could happen — if, only if — and together they
finished the Starsnuf-fer's name in the Speech, said the new last syllable, made it real.
The wind was gone. Fearfully Nita and Kit turned around, looked at Fifth Avenue — and
found it empty. The creeping blackness was gone with the breaking of its master's magic and
the sealing of the worldgate he had held open. Silent and somber, the statues stood among the
bodies of the slain — crushed cabs and perytons, shattered trees — then one by one each
paced off into the park or down Fifth Avenue, back to its pedestal and its long quiet Tegard of
the city. The howl of sirens, lost for a while in the wind that had risen, now grew loud again.
Kit and Nita stood unmoving as the trees ringing them moved away to their old places,
sinking roots back into torn-up earth and raising branches to the burning Moon. Some ninety-
three million miles
, the Sun had come quietly back to life. But its light would not reach for another eight minutes
yet, and as Nita and Kit watched, slowly the
star in the heavens faded, and the Moon faded with it — from daylight to silver fire, to steel-
gray glow, to earthlight shimmer, to nothing.
star went yellow, and red, and died. Nothing was left but a stunning,
"
y-wide aurora, great curtains and rays of rainbow light shivering and crack-mg all across the
golden-glowing city night.
146 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
"He forgot the high-energy radiation again," Kit said, tears constricting his voice to a whisper.
Nita closed the Book she held in her hands, now dark and ordinary-looking except for the black


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depths of its covers, the faint shimmer of starlight on page edges. "He always does," she said,
scrubbing at her eyes, and then offered Kit the Book. He shook his head, and Nita dropped it into
her backpack and slung it over her back again. "You think he 'II take the chance?" she said.
"Huh? Oh." Kit shook his head unhappily. "I dunno. Old habits die hard. If he wants to, . . ."
Above them the Moon flicked on again, full and silver-bright through the blue and red shimmer of
the auroral curtain. They stood gazing at it, a serene, remote brilliance, seeming no different than it
had been an hour before, a night before, when everything had been as it should be. And now—
"Let's get out of here," Nita said.
They walked out of the park unhindered by the cops and firemen who were already arriving in
squad cars and fire trucks and paramedic ambulances. Evidently no one felt that two grade-school
kids could possibly have anything to do with a street full of wrecked cabs and violently uprooted
trees. As they crossed Fifth Avenue and the big mesh-sided Bomb Squad truck passed them, Nita
bent to pick up a lone broken-off twig of oak, and stared at it sorrowfully. "There wasn't even
anything left of him," she said as they walked east on Sixty-fourth, heading back to the Pan Am
Building and the timeslide.
"Only the light," Kit said, looking up at the aurora. Even that was fading now.
Silently they made their way to Grand Central and entered the Pan Am Building at the mezzanine
level. The one guard was sitting with his back to them and his feet on the desk, reading the Post
Kit went wearily over to one elevator, laid a hand on it, and spoke a word or three to it in the
Speech. Its doors slid silently open, and they got in and headed upstairs.
The restaurant level was dark, for the place served only lunch, and there was no one to see them go
back up to the roof. Kit opened the door at the top of the stairs, and together they walked out into
peace and darkness and a wind off the ocean. A helicopter was moored in the middle of the pad
with steel pegs and cables, crouching on its skids and staring at them with clear, sleepy, benevolent
eyes. The blue high-intensity marker lights blazed about it like the circle of a protection spell. Nita
looked away, not really wanting to think about spells or anything else to do with wizardry. The
book said 11 would be hard. That I didn't mind. But I hurt! And where's the good part-Therc was
supposed to be happiness too. . . .
The bright Book was heavy on her back as she looked out across the nigh*-
SO }DU WANT TO BE A WIZARD 147
All around, for miles and miles, was glittering light, brilliant motion, shining under the Moon;
lights of a thousand colors gleaming from windows, glowing On streets, blazing from the
headlights of cars. The city, breathing, burning, living the life they had preserved. Ten million
lives and more. // something should happen to all that life—how terrible.' Nita gulped for
control as she remembered Fred's words of just this morning, an eternity ago. And this was
what being a wizard was about. Keeping terrible things from happening, even when it hurt.
Not just power, or control of what ordinary people couldn't control, or delight in being able to
make strange things happen. Those were side effects—not the reason, not the purpose.
She could give it up, she realized suddenly. In the recovery of the bright Book, she and Kit

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had more than repaid the energy invested in their training. If they chose to lay the Art aside, if
she did, no one would say a word. She would be left in peace. Magic does not live in the
unwilling soul.
Yet never to hear a tree talk again, or a stone, or a star . . .
On impulse Nita held out her hands and closed her eyes. Even without the rowan rod she
could feel the moonfire on her skin as a tree might feel it. She could taste the restored sunlight
that produced it, feel the soundless roar of the ancient atomic furnace that had burned just this
way while her world was still a cloud of gas, nebulous and unformed. And ever so faintly she
could taste a rainbow spatter of high-energy radiation, such as a white hole might leave after
blowing its quanta.
She opened her eyes, found her hands full of moonlight that trembled like bright water, its
surface sheened with fading aurora-glow. "All right," she said after a moment. "All right." She
opened her hands to let the light run out. "Kit?" she said, saying his name in the Speech.
He had gone to stand beside the helicopter and was standing with one hand laid against its
side. It stared at him mutely. "Yeah,"\ie said, and patted the cool metal, and left the chopper to
rejoin Nita. "I guess we pass the test"
They took their packs off and got out the materials necessary for the timeslide. When the
lithium-cadmium battery and the calculator chip and the broken teacup-handle were in place,
Kit and Nita started the spell—and without warning were again caught up by the augmenting
power of the bright Book and plunged more quickly than they expected into the wizardry. It
was like being on a slide, though they were the ones who held still, and the events of the day
as seen from the top of the Pan Am Building rushed backward past them, a high-speed 3-D
movie in reverse. Blinding white fire j*nd the nova Moon grew slowly in the sky, flared, and
were gone. The Moon, briefly out, came on again. Darkness flowed backward through the
suddenly °Pen worldgate, following its master on his huge dark mount, who also stcpped
backward and vanished through the gate. Kit and Nita saw them-Sewes burst out of the roof
door, blurred with speed; saw themselves run
148 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
backward over the railing, a bright line of light pacing them as they plunged out into the dark air,
dove backward through the gate, and vanished with it The Sun came up in the west and fled back
across the sky. Men in coveralls burst out of the roof door and unpegged the Helicopter; two of
them got into it and it took off backwards. Clouds streamed and boiled past, jets fell back-ward
into LaGuardia. The Sun stood high—
The slide let them go, and Kit and Nita sat back gasping. "What time have you got?" Kit said when
he had enough breath.
Nita glanced at her watch. "Nine forty-five."
"Nine forty-five! But we were supposed to—"
"It's this Book, it makes everything work too well. At nine forty-five we were—"
They heard voices in the stairwell, behind the closed door. Kit and Nita stared at each
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other. Then they began frantically picking up the items left from their spelling. Nita
paused with the lithium-cadmium battery in her hand as she recognized one of those
voices coming up the stairs. She reared back, took aim, and threw the heavy battery at the
closed door, hard. crack!
Kit looked at her, his eyes wide, and understood. "Quick, behind there," he said. Nita ran to scoop
up the battery, then ducked around after Kit and crouched down with him behind the back of the
stairwell. There was a long, long pause before the door opened and footsteps could be heard on the
gravel Kit and Nita edged around the side of the stairwell again to peer around the corner. Two
small, nervous-looking figures were heading for the south facing rail in the bright sunlight. A dark-
haired girl, maybe thirteen, wearing jeans and a shirt and a down vest; a dark-haired boyf small
and a touch stocky, also in jeans and parka, twelve years old or so. The boy held a broken-off
piece of antenna, and the girl held a peeled white stick, and they were being paced by a brilliant
white spark like a will-o'-the-wisp plugged into too much current and about to blow out.
" There arc no accidents,' " Kit whispered sadly.
The tears stung Nita's eyes again. "G'bye, Fred," she said softly in English, for fear the Speech
should attract his attention, or hers.
Silently and unseen, Kit and Nita slipped through the door and went downstairs for the shuttle and
the train home.

Timeheart
The walk home from the bus stop was weary and quiet. Three blocks from Nita's house,
they reached the corner where their ways usually parted. Kit paused there, waiting for the
light to change, though no traffic was in sight. "Call me tomorrow?" he said.
What for? Nita felt like saying,, for there were no more spells in the offing, and she was deadly
tired. Still - . . "It's your turn," she said.
"Huh. Right," The light changed, and Kit headed across the street to Nita's left. In the middle of
the street he turned, walking backward. "We should call Tom and Carl," he shouted, sounding
entirely exhausted.
"Yeah." The light changed again, in Nita's favor; Kit jumped up onto the sidewalk on the other
side and headed south toward his place. Nita crossed east, watching Kit as she went. Though the
look on his face was tired and sad, all the rest of his body wore the posture of someone who's been
through so much fear that fear no longer frightens him. Why's he so afraid of getting beat up? Nita
thought. Nobody in their right mind would mess with him.
In midstep she stopped, watching him walk away. How about that. How "bout that. He
got what he asked for.
After a second she started walking home again. The weight at her back suddenly
reminded her of something. (Kit!) she called silently, knowing he could hear even though
he was now out of sight. (What about the Book?)

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(Hang on to it,) he answered. (We'll give it to the Advisories. Or they'll know what to do
with it.)
(Right. See ya later.)
(See ya.)
Nita was so tired that it took three or four minutes before the identity of blond person
walking up East Clinton toward her registered at all. By Joanne was within yelling
distance, but she didn't yell at Nita at all,
150 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
much to Nita's surprise. This was such an odd development that Nita looked at Joanne carefully as
they got closer, something she had never done before There was something familiar about Joanne
today, a look that Nita couldn't quite pin down—and then she recognized the expression and let
out a tired unhappy breath. The look was less marked, less violent and terrible than that of the
pride-frozen misery of the dark rider, but there all the same. The angry fear was there too—the
terror of what had been until now no threat but was now out of control; the look of the rider about
to be cast out by a power he had thought himself safe from, the look of a bully whose victim
suddenly wasn't a victim any more.
Nita slowed down and stopped where she was, in the middle of the side-walk, watching Joanne.
Even he can be different now, she thought, her heart beating fast—her own old fear wasn't entirely
gone. But that was partly because we gave him the chance.
She stood there, watching Joanne slow down warily as she got closer to Nita. Nita sweated. Doing
something that would be laughed about behind her back was almost as bad as being beaten up. But
she stood still until Joanne came to a stop four or five feet away from her. "Well?" Joanne said, her
voice full of anger and uncertainty.
I don't know what to say to her, we have absolutely nothing in common, Nita thought frantically.
But it has to start somewhere. She swallowed and did her best to look Joanne in the eye, calmly
and not in threat. "Come on over to my place after supper sometime and look through my
telescope," she said. "I'll show you Jupiter's moons. Or Mars—"
Joanne made that old familiar haughty face and brushed past Nita and away. "Why would I ever
want to go to your house? You don't even have a color TV."
Nita stood still, listening to Joanne's footsteps hurrying away, a little faster every second—and
slowly began to realize that she'd gotten what she asked for too—the ability to break the cycle of
anger and loneliness, not necessarily for others, but at least for herself. It wouldn't even take the
Speech; plain words would do it, and the magic of reaching out, It would take a long time, much
longer than something simple like breaking the walls between the worlds, and it would cost more
effort than even the reading of the Book of Night with Moon. But it would be worth it—and
eventually it would work. A spell always works.
Nita went home.
That night after supper she slipped outside to sit in Liused's shadow and watch the sky. The tree
caught her moon and, after greeting her, was quiet-' until about ten o'clock, when it and every other
growing thing in sign*

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5O K)U WANT TO BE A WIZARD 151
suddenly trembled violently as if stricken at the root. They had felt the Sun
go out.
(It's all right,) she said silently, though for someone whose tears were starting again, it was an odd
thing to say. She waited the eight minutes with them, saw the Moon blink out, and leaned back
against the rowan trunk, sheltering from the wind that rose in the darkness. Branches tossed as if in
a hurricane, leaves hissed in anguish—and then the sudden new star in the heavens etched every
leaf's shadow sharp against the ground and set the Moon on fire. Nita squinted up at the pinpoint
of brilliance, unwilling to look away though her eyes leaked tears of pain. She'd thought, that
afternoon, that living through the loss a second time would be easier. She was wrong. The tears
kept falling long after the star went out, and the Moon found its light again, and the wind died to a
whisper. She stopped crying long enough to go back inside and go to bed, and she was sure she
would start again immediately. But she was wrong about that too. Exhaustion beat down grief so
fast that she was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow under which she had hidden
the Book of Night with Moon. . . .
The place where they stood was impossible, for there's no place in Man-hattan where the water
level in the East River comes right up to the railed path that runs alongside it. There they stood,
though, leaning with their backs against the railing, gazing up at the bright city that reared against
the silver sky, while behind them the river whispered and chuckled and slapped its banks. The
sound of laughter came down the morning wind from the apartments and the brownstones and the
towers of steel and crystal; the seabirds wheeled and cried over the white piers and jetties of the
Manhattan shoreline, and from somewhere down the riverside came the faint sound of
music—quiet rock, a deep steady backbeat woven about with guitars and yoices in close harmony.
A jogger went by on the running path, puffing, followed by a large black and white dog galloping
to catch up with its master.
Are we early, or are they late? Kit asked, leaning back farther still to watch an overflying Learjet
do barrel-roll after barrel-roll for sheer joy of being alive.
Who cores? Nita said, leaning back too and enjoying the way the music a"d the city sounds and the
Learjet's delighted scream all blended. Anyway, "& is Timeheart. There's nothing here but Now. . .
.
"hey turned their backs on the towers and the traffic and the laughter, and out across the shining
water toward Brooklyn and Long Island. Nei-was there just then—probably someone else in
Timeheart was using , and Kit and Nita didn't need them at the moment. The silver expanse
'he Atlantic shifted and glittered from their feet to the radiant horizon, . Far off to their right, south
and west of the Battery, the Statue of
erty held up her torch and her tablet and looked calmly out toward the
152 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARD
sunrise as they did, waiting. Nita was the first to see the dark bulge out on the water, She nudged
Kit and pointed. Look, a shark/
He glanced at her, amused. Even here I don't think sharks have wheels. . . .

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The Lotus came fast, hydroplaning. Water spat up from its wheels as it skidded up to the railing
and fishtailed sideways, grinning, spraying them both. On its wildly waving antenna rode a spark
of light. Nita smiled at her friend, who danced off the antenna to rest momentarily on one of her
fingers like a hundred-watt firefly. Well, Nita said, is it confusing being dead?
Fred chuckled a rainbow, up the spectrum and down again. Not very. Beside him, the Lotus stood
up on its hind wheels, putting its front ones on the railing so that Kit could scratch it behind the
headlights.
We brought it, Kit said.
Good, said the Lotus, as Nita got the bright Book out of her backpack and handed it to
Kit. The Powers want to put it away safe. Though the precaution may not really be
necessary, after what you did.
It worked? He's changed? Nita said.
Fred made a spatter of light, a gesture that felt like the shake of a head. Not changed, fust
made otherwise, as if he'd been that way from the begin-ning. He has back the option he
'd decided was lost—to put aside his anger, to build instead of damn. . . .
Then if he uses that option—you mean every place could be like this some day? Kit looked over his
shoulder at the city and all the existence behind it, preserved in its fullest beauty while still
growing and becoming greater.
Possibly. What he did remains. Entropy's still here, and death. They look like waste and
horror to us now. But if he chooses to have them be a blessing on the worlds, instead of
anger's curse—who knows where those gates will lead then? . . . The Lotus sounded
pleased by the prospect.
Kit held out the Book of Night with Moon. Most delicately the Lotus opened fanged jaws to take it,
then rubbed its face against Kit and dropped to all four wheels on the water. It smiled at them both,
a chrome smile, silver and sanguine—then backed a little, turned and was off, spraying Kit and
Nita again.
Fred started to follow, but Nita caught him in cupped hands, holding him back for a
moment. Fred! Did we do light?
Even here she couldn't keep the pain out of her question, the fear that she could somehow have
prevented his death. But Fred radiated a serene and wondering joy that took her breath and
reassured her and filled her wiW wonder to match his, all at once. Go find out, he said.
She opened her hands and he flew out of them like a spark blown on tn wind—a brightness
zipping after the Lotus, losing itself against the silver of the sea, gone. Nita turned around to lean
on the railing again,
SO 1OU WANT TO BE A WIZARD
153
after a moment Kit turned with her. They breathed out, relaxing, and settled back to gaze at the
city transfigured, the city preserved at the heart of Time, as all things loved are preserved in the
hearts that care for them—gazed up into the radiance, the life, the light unending, the light. . . .

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... the light was right in her eyes, mostly because Dairine had yanked the curtain open. Her sister
was talking loudly, and Nita turned her head and quite suddenly felt what was not under her
pillow. "You gonna sleep all morning? Get up, it's ten thirty! The Sun went out last night, you
should see it it was on the news. And somebody blew up Central Park; and Kit Rodri-guez called,
he wants you to call him back. How come you keep calling each other, anyhow?" Halfway out the
bedroom door, realization dawned in her sister's eyes. "Maaaaa!" she yelled out the door,
strangling on her own laugh-ter. "Nita's got a boyfriend.'"
"Oh, jeez, Daimiiiiime/"
The wizard threw her pillow at her sister, got up, and went to breakfast.




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