by Diane Duane
Her dad handed her the glass from the drainer. “Before I turn in,” he said, “anything I should know about the downstairs?”
“They’ve got a pup tent each,” Dairine said, “and they’re probably sleeping in them. So if you go down there, make sure you turn on the light so you don’t stumble into any place you don’t want to be. They’ve also got a worldgate each, fastened to the bare wall, in case they need to get home in a hurry for some emergency. I wouldn’t lean any tools against those. You might not get them back.”
Her dad nodded. “It’s strange,” he said, “hearing them speak. It sounds like English… but it runs deeper, somehow. You hear undertones.”
“That’s the Speech,” Dairine said. “Everything understands it somewhat. But you’re hearing it with better understanding than a nonspeaker usually gets.” She finished drying the glass, put it up on the counter. “If it starts to bother you… ”
Her father shook his head. “I’ll let you know,” he said. “But no problems so far.” He finished with the last glass, handed it to Dairine, and leaned against the counter. “So what are we going to do with them for two weeks? Regardless of where Nita and Kit might be, it’s too cold for us to go to the beach… though you might take them out that way once to show them the sea. I get a feeling there aren’t many oceans where Filif comes from.”
“You’re getting to like him already,” Dairine said, and smiled.
“I’m not used to having the plants talk back,” her dad said. “Or, if they do, being able to understand them. It’s an experience.”
Dairine nodded. “Well, we can help them get used to suburban life gradually,” she said. “Carmela wants to come talk to the visitors, anyway. And once they’ve got their disguise routines sorted out, we can take them around the neighborhood, to start with. They can even go over to the Rodriguezes’ and see Kit’s weird TV. For all I know, they may be able to see some program they’re missing.”
Dairine’s dad chuckled at that. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s try to keep them out of sight until we’re sure their disguises are going to stay in place. I really don’t want a UFO scandal erupting on my doorstep.”
“Leave that to me.”
“All right,” her dad said. He had been washing the last couple of dishes; he racked them up in the drainer. “I’m going to turn in, sweetie. It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah.”
Her dad grabbed Dairine and hugged her hard. “A long day for you, too,” he said. “No, leave those last two. Throw in the towel and go to bed.”
Dairine hung up the dish towel, but not before tossing a last amused glance at the two dishes still in the drainer. “You’re just hoping that Sker’ret will wake up with an urge for something in the middle of the night… ”
Her dad grinned at her and went to bed.
***
Dairine took herself to bed after him, first walking through the house and making sure that doors were locked and lights turned off. Once up in her room, the tiredness came down over her as if someone had put a sack over her head. She kept blinking to keep her eyes open. But before she got undressed for bed, before she even thought of doing anything else, she turned to Spot, who was sitting on her desk as usual, and flipped his lid open. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Get me Roshaun’s profile.”
It’s right here, Spot said.
Dairine looked at the profile, once again examining that picture of Roshaun. She knew she was imagining it, but on this examination, after meeting the original, that picture seemed to have something that had been missing before: just the slightest sneer.
She glanced down the column of material in the Speech that was the public part of Roshaun’s name. There, embedded in the long intertwined tracery of characters, would be information about his personality, his abilities, his power levels and level of accomplishment as a wizard, and much else. But now that she looked at it, there was something strange about that long series of names he flaunted around. Some family thing, she’d thought at first. But now she was having doubts.
Dairine read Roshaun’s full name again, slowly, not as a phrase in an alien language this time, worth savoring for the exotic sounds, but this time translating each word. Roshaun ke Nelaid, it began, those two words simply being proper names and a patronymic article, with a string of more proper names following them. But then it went on: “Roshaun of the princes’ line of Seriv, son of the Sun Lord, beloved of the Sun Lord, son of the great King, descendant of the Inheritors of the Great Land, the Throne-destined—”
Dairine sat there at her desk and was appalled, realizing that Roshaun had actually given her the short version of his name. It went on for about six more epithets, which sounded impressive but were difficult to decipher, and ended in the words am me’stardet Wellakhir, “royal and kingly Masters, Guardians, and Guarantors of Wellakh.”
Oh my god, Dairine thought. The situation was worse than she’d thought it could possibly be. They’ve sent me some kind of planetary prince, she thought. The Powers That Be really did think I was getting out of hand, and this is my punishment. I’m going to get to spend two weeks’ worth of holiday baby-sitting spoiled royalty.
She tried to read the rest of Roshaun’s profile— “Power level 6.0-6.8 ± 0.5; Specialty: stellar dynamics, stellar atmospheres and kinetics, consultant level 3.6… ”—but she couldn’t concentrate. Very gently she put Spot’s lid down. Normally, her next line would have been, What have I done to deserve this? But she knew what she had done. Boy, Dairine thought, when the Powers That Be get annoyed with you, they don’t play around. She put her face down in her hands and moaned.
Then she opened Spot’s lid again and looked one more time at that endless name. That by itself was bad… very bad. It was also full of reasons for Roshaun’s self-importance. Still, Dairine thought, it’s no excuse for him to be such a snot. Maybe we can do something about that, given enough time.
But there was something even stranger about the name—not anything specifically bad… just odd. Not once in that whole epic string of words was the word wizard mentioned, not even as a footnote.
Now what am I supposed to make of that? Dairine thought. Because even if he was the king of a world somewhere, or in line to be one, if he was also a wizard, that fact was more than worthy of being mentioned in the same breath.
Dairine lay there and brooded over it for a while.
You’re worried about Roshaun, Spot said.
About him? No, Dairine said. But he raises questions.
Like how to avoid killing him, Spot said. And behind the words, Dairine could hear that very characteristic, machine-accented laugh of his. It was something Spot had learned from her. It was one of the first things Spot had learned from her.
We shouldn’t even joke about it, she said. He’s our guest. The Powers That Be sent him to us. We have to be nice to him.
Within reason, Spot said.
I didn’t say that! Dairine said.
You were thinking it, Spot said. I heard you.
Dairine sighed. Can’t keep much away from you, can I?
Not for a while now, Spot said. So what do we do next?
Hope that nothing gets worse, Dairine said.
She got undressed, and instead of the usual floppy T-shirt, she actually put on pajamas. There was always the chance that something untoward would happen in the middle of the night. Among other possibilities, Dairine had begun dreading any sudden crunching noises that might start coming from the kitchen. Do Rirhait get the midnight munchies? she wondered. If it’s just for the dishes, Daddy won’t mind. But if Sker’ret forgets himself and gets started on the woodwork…Let’s just hope he doesn’t.
The bed creaked under her as she got into it. Dairine sighed, thinking of Nita having a good time far away. Off getting a suntan on Beach World, she thought. I hope she remembered to bring sunblock. She burns so easily…
Dairine pulled the covers up and tried to snuggle down into the pillow and get comfortable. Her mind, though, was
buzzing with the events of the day, and she knew it was going to be a long time before she got to sleep. Especially since there was another issue bothering her, one much larger than the potential impact of a Rirhait on the structure of her kitchen. This is supposed to be a vacation, Dairine thought, a holiday. But at the same time, there are no accidents, and the Powers never do anything without a reason: In a finite universe, energy is too precious to waste. Which means these wizards were sent here for some reason.
Dairine pulled the covers over her head. Wizards are always answers, she thought. But if these three are the answer to something here, then what’s the question?
The image of Roshaun, elegant, completely self-assured, and absolutely infuriating, rose before Dairine’s closed eyes. Furious, she squeezed them closed tighter.
And will I find out what it is before I have to strangle myself to keep from killing him?
6: Customs and Other Formalities
Nita and Kit turned toward the source of the voice that had spoken to them. “Sorry,” its owner said. “Sorry! I was late. I had to help my tapi, my father. Are you all right?”
The first thing that struck Nita was how very tall Quelt was. Nita was getting tall for her age, everyone said, though she still felt short to herself. Looking up at Quelt, her first thought was that she felt shorter than ever. Her second thought was, This girl would be a star at basketball…
But there was a lot more to Quelt’s looks than just her height. Her whole body was elongated; her arms and legs were perhaps half again as long as they would’ve been in any human born on Earth. She looked like a tall, slender, graceful ceramic sculpture, or a lovely smooth carving done in wood—a beautiful, polished brown wood, like teak or mahogany. Her skin even had that kind of subtle sheen, halfway between matte and shiny.
Her face was long and narrow, with high cheekbones, and she had large, dark, liquid eyes; her head was covered with something that Nita couldn’t quite analyze—a silvery blond growth halfway between hair and fur, shaggy at the top and sides, partly covering her small round ears, and reaching into a long, soft ponytail down the back of her neck to about the middle of her back. The effect of the fair hair against the dark, dark skin was striking, and, Nita thought, very stylish. Quelt was wearing a long, loose, sleeveless garment of some kind of woven fabric, and it flowed around her as she came hurriedly to them, her hand stretched out. She was smiling, a great wide smile that went right across her face. There seemed to be no separate teeth inside that smile. Instead, Quelt had two one-piece, dazzlingly white bony plates in the same place where teeth would be in a human.
“We’re fine!” Nita said. She was getting over that staggered-by-the-landscape feeling, and now she put her hand out to take Quelt’s.
Quelt took hers in turn, and pumped it up and down enthusiastically. “See,” Quelt said, “I’ve been studying your people’s customs. Dai stihó!”
“Uh, dai stihó!” Nita said. And then she laughed. “It’s okay,” Nita said, “you can stop now. You don’t have to keep doing it!” Quelt laughed, too.
“Quelt?” Kit said, offering his hand and getting the same pump-it-up treatment. “Did I pronounce that right?”
“Close enough,” Quelt said, and bobbed her head to Kit, producing again that curiously wide smile. “And Kit? And Nita? Is that right?”
Kit turned his head to the left and inclined it forward, an Alaalid nod. “A lot closer than usual,” he said. “We hear all kinds of variations.”
“I’m so glad,” Quelt said. “I’m so new at this—and I’ve only once met a wizard who wasn’t Alaalid. But never mind that. And this is Ponsh?” She softened the sound of the consonant a little bit as she bent down to have a good look at Ponch. He sat down and, without warning, offered her a paw.
Quelt took the paw and shook it nearly as enthusiastically as she had shaken Kit’s hand. “This is another of the sentient species on your planet?” Quelt said. “Your associate?”
“That’s right,” Kit said. “Except Ponch is a little more sentient than most.”
“Yes,” Quelt said, “it’s the contagion principle. I’ve heard of it.” She let Ponch’s paw go, straightened up again, and looked carefully at all three of them. “But are you sure you’re all right? Sometimes when we get visitors here, they have trouble with”—Quelt looked around at that tremendously distant horizon— “—the look of things.”
“Well, by our standards, this planet really is huge,” Kit said. “In fact, it’s almost as big as a planet can be for humanoid life to evolve, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Quelt said. “Any bigger and it wouldn’t have had enough metal and heavy elements in the crust to keep the atmosphere in place. We were very lucky when our system formed. And we still don’t have a lot of metal. But I’m keeping you standing around here talking exogeology, and you haven’t had anything to eat or drink yet, or even seen the house! And my pabi and tapi are waiting to meet you. Come on!”
They started walking downhill from the flowery clearing where the gate from the Crossings had deposited them. Quelt looked up at the sky with a critical expression, and then back at Nita. “Is this weather all right for you?” she said.
“It’s just fine!” Nita said. “It feels like summer.”
“It’s still only spring,” Quelt said. “But let me know if anything goes wrong, or if it’s cold for you, or anything. If the weather starts to act up, I’ll fix it.”
“Are you allowed to do that?” Nita said. And then she thought about it for a moment, and added, “Well, I guess you would be, if you’re the only wizard here… ”
They started to climb a little rise between them and the sea, kicking through the flowers as they went; Ponch romped ahead of them. “Oh, yes,” Quelt said. “I listen to what the Telling has to say about the way the weather is at the moment, and if there’s a problem, or if I’m not to change it for some other reason, Those Who Are send me word. But beyond that, I’ve been working with the weather here for long enough now that They seem to trust me with it.”
“The Telling,” Nita said. “That’s your version of the wizard’s manual, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” Quelt said. “Did I understand that correctly? You get the Telling as a physical thing?”
“Sure,” Nita said. “Here, take a look.”
Nita pulled her manual out of her backpack and handed it to Quelt. Quelt turned it over curiously in her hands as they climbed. “It’s so compact,” Quelt said. “Isn’t it a problem for you, though? Don’t you leave it places and then realize you’ve left it behind?”
“There are ways around that,” Kit said. “If we don’t feel like physically carrying the manuals, we can always pull the fabric of space apart a little bit and stuff the manual into the pocket.”
“That could be tricky,” Quelt said thoughtfully.
“It can be,” Nita said, “but if you—”
She was interrupted by a sudden flurry of crazy barking from Ponch as he came to the top of the rise, saw something that excited him, and dived down over the far side. “Oh no,” Kit said, “what’s he seen now?”
The barking continued, and Kit ran up to the top of the rise. Nita and Quelt went after him. As Nita made the top of the rise herself, she looked down and saw Quelt’s house. “Wow,” she said. It was not just one building but an assortment of low, wide buildings clustered together, built in a soft-peach-colored material almost exactly the shade of the pink-and-peach-striped beach that stretched away for miles and miles on either side until it faded from view in the haze before the horizon. The buildings were topped off with conical, pointed roofs made of bunches of the silvery reeds that grew on the seaward side of the rise as it sloped down toward the beach. Through these long, tall reeds, Ponch was plunging—though he himself was invisible at the moment, the reed-leaves were thrashing with his passage—and heading at top speed for a big pen made of more of the silver reeds interwoven with lengths of darker, silver gray wood, built off to one side of the l
argest building.
Milling around in the pen were a number of creatures that Nita at first had a great deal of trouble making any sense of. They looked like golden or cream-colored pom-poms, and as Ponch and his barking got closer, the activity in the pen got more frenzied.
“Ponch!” Kit yelled. But it was too late. Ponch came rocketing out of the reeds at the bottom of the rise and shot straight toward the pen. He was within only a few feet of the silvery, wooden fence when there was a sudden chorus of sharp, odd honking noises. All of the pom-poms leaped into the air…
… and kept on going, as every one of them suddenly sprouted wide golden or cream-white wings, two pairs each, and flew off down the beach in a noisy, honking flock. Ponch danced around on his hind legs, barking at the creatures, and then took off down the beach after them.
“Oh no, I’m so sorry!” Kit said, and started running after Ponch.
Quelt started laughing. “No, it’s all right,” she said. “But this is why I was late! I was helping my tapi get the shesh off them. It doesn’t matter now. We were finished…” But she kept on laughing.
Nita shook her head. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “He really loves to chase things so much. He created a whole universe full of nothing but squirrels once, so he could spend all his time chasing them.”
“He created a universe?”
“Ponch is unusual,” Nita said. “It’s a long story.”
Quelt nodded a few times, a gesture that Nita was coming to read as the equivalent of an Earth human shaking his head. “I get that sense,” she said. “Well, he won’t have to create universes to have things to chase here. The ceiff are here three times a day, every day—they come back to be groomed and tended—and once we’ve got the shesh off them, Ponsh can chase them as often as he likes.”
Quelt and Nita ambled down through the reeds toward the houses. “They’re kind of like sheep,” Nita said. “And shesh—is it the furry stuff they’re covered with? Or is it something to do with food?”
