The Wizard's Dilemma

by Diane Duane

  They usually would not even say the name of the thing that had attacked her mother from within. They merely said "C.A." or used long Latin and Greek words, all of which had the ominous "oma" ending clinging to them, like a dark shadow trailing away behind. The doctors were as afraid of what was going to happen to her mom as Nita was. For all the magic that was medical science, there was precious little hope in their eyes.

  If anything'* going to save her, Nita thought, it's going to have to be something I do. But which something?

  The weariness was beginnning to catch up with her. Nita put her face into her pillow. She wanted to cry, but she felt too tired to do even that.

  Mom. Kit. Her mind went back and forth between the two of them. I'm just going to have to go ahead and get what help I can get out ofPralaya. And then... if it doesn't work...

  She was afraid now to try to see that far ahead in her life. But she was considering the options—and the idea of what Kit would think of this scared Nita. Yet she knew that keeping her options open was the right thing.

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  Like you were right about Jones Inlet? said another small voice in the back of her mind.

  She gripped the pillow with both hands and ground her face into it. Tell me what to do! she begged whoever might be listening. Give me a hint!

  But the night was silent around her, and no answers came. And the only Power That had spoken to her so far had been the One she had sworn never to deal with.

  Finally sleep took her. But her dreams were all bad, and even in the midst of them, she knew that when she woke up, things would be no better.

  Thursday

  THE AWAKENING WAS SUDDEN, and Nita lay there with her heart pounding, knowing something was wrong but unable to work out what it was. Finally her eyes focused as she looked over at her alarm clock, and she realized it was eleven-thirty in the morning.

  Didn't it go off? What happened? she thought, sitting bolt upright in bed.

  "Dad called school," Dairine's voice said. Nita looked up and saw Dairine sitting in her chair with her feet up on Nita's desk, wearing nothing but one of her dad's T-shirts, and looking small and miserable. "He asked them to let us both off today because of the operation tomorrow."

  Nita lay down again, wishing that she could just go back to sleep... except that it was hardly any better than being awake.

  "Dair," she said, "if giving up your wizardry would make Mom better, would you do it?"

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  Her sister looked at her in complete shock and didn't say anything for at least a minute. For Dairine this was something of a record.

  "Is that what you're going to have to do?" she said at last. "I don't know."

  "I'd...," Dairine said. "I'd..." And she trailed off, her eyes going haunted. Nita nodded.

  "Are you sure it would work?" Dairine said after a while. Nita shook her head. "Nothing's sure," she said.

  Dairine pulled her knees up under the baggy T-shirt and hugged them to her for a long time. Then she looked up.

  "And then it would all be gone?"

  "Everything," Nita said. "All the magic, gone forever."

  Dairine sat with her forehead on her knees, minute after minute. When she looked up, her face was wet.

  "If you were sure..."

  Nita shook her head again. "I'd miss you," Dairine said. "I wouldn't be gone," Nita said. "You know what I mean."

  Nita nodded. "Yeah," she said. "I'd miss you, too."

  And Dairine got up and went out of Nita's room, heading downstairs.

  Nita could do little else that day but work with the manual, trying to evaluate the effectiveness of her work with the kernels and fine-tuning the spells she

  Thursday

  would have with her while working on her mother. But the problem that she could not solve kept intruding itself between her and her preparation, and there was no respite from it, nowhere to hide.

  The sound of the discreet bang! in the backyard brought Nita's head up—almost a welcome distraction. But then her heart went cold. Kit. How am I going to explain this to him?

  It just isn't fair, she thought. What's happened to Mom has spoiled everything. Even things I should be glad about hurt now.

  She heard the back door open and the faint sound of Kit saying something to Dairine in the kitchen, then his footsteps on the stairs, and a scrambling noise behind him as Ponch ran up. The dog was first into her room; he burst past Kit and ran up to Nita and put his forepaws up on her. "We went bang!" he said.

  "Yeah, I heard you, big guy," Nita said, and looked at Kit as he came in and sat down on the bed. "How'd it go?" Kit said. "You get your practice done?"

  "Yeah... the last one, I think."

  He looked concerned. "Is that going to be enough? Are you ready?"

  At that she had to put her face in her hands, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to keep from looking like she was hiding her face. "I don't know," she said. "But it can't wait any longer."

  "I guess you couldn't really put it off," Kit said, sounding like he could tell perfectly well that Nita wanted to.

  "No," she said, unhappy. "When Mom's anesthetized is the best time to do this; even during sleep there's a chance she could be conscious enough to get caught up in what's going on, and that'd be a problem."

  "Well," Kit said, "if you've done all the preparation you can... I guess there's nothing to do now but wait." "Yup," she said.

  "And while we're doing that, we can talk about exactly what you want me to be doing to help."

  She didn't answer right away. Kit looked at her sharply, and she noticed Ponch's eyes on her, too, an expression more subtle and considering than you usually got from him. "Neets," Kit said, "why're you so twitchy all of a sudden?"

  "Well, why on Earth wouldn't I be twitching!" Nita said.

  Kit and Ponch just looked at her. "Neets," Kit said, "give me a break. This is me, remember? You're twitching more than usual. More than makes sense even for what you're going through, not that it's not awful enough. What's happened to you since we talked last?"

  "Kit...," Nita said at last. "We've saved a lot of lives in our time. A lot." "Millions," Kit said. There might have been some pleasure in the way he said it, but no pride.

  "So how come I may not be able to save the one who matters?"

  "Like those other times didn't matter, really," Kit said, with mild scorn. "But Neets, the key word here is we. You don't have to go through this alone."

  She didn't say anything for a long while. "You don't

  Thursday

  understand," Nita said at last. "This time, I think I have to do it alone." And she tightly controlled her mind so that he wouldn't hear her thought: Because I couldn't stand it if somehow you wound up paying the same price I might have to... and losing your wizardry, too!

  Kit's look got suddenly even more concerned. "Neets. Tell me what you've been doing. I don't want a precis. I want the details. All of them."

  She was silent for some moments. Then Nita told him.

  It took a while, though doing some of the explaining mind to mind sped things up. But toward the end of it, as she began telling him about Pralaya, Kit's expression turned grave. When she told him about that last conversation she and Pralaya had had, Kit's eyes went cold. He didn't say anything for a good while.

  "I'm still not sure how He was doing that," Nita said.

  "As an avatar," Kit said. "Neets, all the. Powers That Be can do that when They need to, when They're on the job. For cripes' sake, if the One's Champion can live inside a macaw for years at a time, why should it surprise you that the Lone Power can pull the same stunt every now and then?"

  Slowly she nodded, feeling cold inside.

  "Neets, I hate to say it, but this really looks like the Lone One's been getting at you. Even before It fell, It preferred to work by Itself. Then It got isolated and proud, and after that came the Fall...and now that

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  pride is still Its favorite way of tripping peopl
e up. It makes them think they can handle everything by themselves."

  "Kit, in this case there's actually something to it! You just don't have the experience at what I'm going to have to be doing—*

  "As if that matters! Neets, you're not thinking straight right now. You even missed something as simple as the mechanism the Lone One's using to hide inside Pralaya. How can you be so sure about your thinking on everything else?"

  That was something she couldn't bear to hear. Followed to its logical conclusion, that line of reasoning would suggest that everything Nita had been planning was possibly useless, doomed to failure from the start.

  "If you accept Its help," Kit said, "you're probably going to lose your wizardry! But what's more important is that doing that is just wrong."

  Now she did hide her face in her hands. "Kit," she said softly, "it looks more and more like, to save my mom, I'm going to lose it no matter what I do. Or die trying. But I have to try."

  "Not alone," Kit said. "And not this way, Neets! You come to any kind of deal with that One, it's gonna backfire somehow. Believe me!"

  "All this is real easy for you to say, butjowr mother's not dyingl"

  Kit's expression was pained, but he just shook his head. "You think I haven't imagined about a hundred times how this must be for you? But it doesn't change

  Thursday

  the rights and wrongs of it, Neets. It says right there in the Oath, 'I will defend life when it is right to do so.' It's never right to do it on the Lone Power's terms, and if you let It sucker you into this—"

  "Kit, you've got to believe me. It's not like that. You don't really understand what's going on here."

  "I understand that you're messing around with the Lone Power, and you're going to get burned! What makes you think It has the slightest intention of doing what It says It's going to? It's gonna find some loophole to exploit, just the way It always does, and leave you out in the cold."

  He stopped. There was a long, long silence as he and Ponch watched her.

  Nita discovered that she was actually starting to shake. He's right. But I'm right, too. What do I do—? "Look," she said. "I can't take much more of this right now. Tomorrow morning is getting closer every minute, and I'm not sure I'm ready yet."

  "When are you going to start work in the morning?" Kit said.

  Nita rubbed her eyes again. "Around eight. The doctors said that's when they're starting."

  "I'll be here," Kit said. "Neets, please... Get some rest. Get your brains straightened out. You're not going to do this alone."

  He got up and headed out hurriedly, almost as if something was making him nervous. Ponch licked her hand and trotted out after Kit.

  Nita sat there for a long while. There's no way I'm going to be able to keep him from coming along...... if I wait for him.

  But Nita did want to wait for him. She knew his help would be invaluable. At the same time, she knew that the minute Kit set eyes on Pralaya, there would be trouble. She would lose Pralaya's help. And she needed that, too, regardless of who might live inside Pralaya from time to time.

  And at the end of it all, if she could not cure her mother herself, then Pralaya had to be there to implement the bargain.

  There were no answers, and time was running out. The only consolation was for Nita to keep telling herself that tomorrow around this time, it would all be over. Her mother would have been saved or else she wouldn't have been, and if she hadn't, Nita wouldn't be in any position to worry about anything else.

  It was not much consolation at all.

  The rest of the day was a waking nightmare. Nita was tempted to go back into the practice universes one last time, but she wasn't sure what difference that would make—and she was tired, tired. She needed her rest but couldn't seem to get any. Details of the spells she would need to take with her, last-minute ideas, and the constantly returning thought that Kit might be right and she might be completely wrong kept going around and around in her head, and gave her no peace.

  It seemed like about five minutes after Kit had come over that Nita's dad came home from work, and they all went to the hospital together. Her mother hadn't had any more seizures, for which Nita was profoundly

  Thursday

  thankful. Except the thought kept creeping in: Is this the Lone One just giving me more time to think... and to be grateful to It? The idea made her shudder.

  When they went into Nita's mom's room, Nita saw that a number of machines had been moved in by the bed. One apparently was to make sure there was warning if she had any more seizures—there were ugly little pink and blue contact pads glued all over her head, with the hair held down around them in a hopeful sort of way by one of the "turbans" Nita had seen some of the nurses wearing. Her mom looked unnatural, drawn, more tired than ever, and her smile was wearing thin at the edges.

  "Oh, honey, don't look at me like that," her mom said, seeing Nita's expression. "I look like the bride of Frankenstein, I know that. It's all right. I was due for another haircut, anyway."

  Two things hit Nita at once. The first thing was that, as always, her mother was trying to take care of her, even when she herself was sick. The second, which struck Nita with a terrible inevitability, was that what her mother was saying was not true: It would never be all right, never again. Her mom was really going to die.

  For several long seconds, Nita could find nothing at all to do or say, and she didn't dare look her mom in the eye; she knew her mother would see instantly what was the matter. Fortunately, Dairine got between her and her mom, and Nita disentangled herself and turned away, never more grateful for her sister's inborn ability to get in the way.

  But the moment decided her. Kit or no Kit, Lone One or not, she would do anything she had to do to save her mother: give up her wizardry, agree to whatever had to be agreed to. She was lost.

  But at least I know now, she thought. The rest of the visit passed in a kind of cheerful fog of small talk, all of it forced; none of them felt much like discussing what was going to happen the next day. After a while Nita's dad asked Nita and Dairine to give him a few moments alone with their mom.

  Nita went down the hall, down by the soft-drink machine, and Dairine followed her slowly.

  "Is it gonna be all right?" Dairine said. Suddenly she didn't sound like her usual competent self. Suddenly she sounded very young and scared, really wanting her older sister to tell her that things were going to work.

  "Yeah," Nita said. "One way or another."

  And there was nothing else to say and nothing else to do but wait for the morning.

  Friday Morning

  How NITA SLEPT THAT night she never knew; she assumed it must have been exhaustion. At six that morning, her dad, fully dressed and ready to leave, awakened her.

  "Dad," Nita said, and got out of bed.

  He looked at her with a terrible stillness. She would almost have preferred him to cry or yell; but he was now reduced to simply waiting.

  "Are you ready?" he said.

  There was almost no way to answer him and still tell the truth. "I'm going to start work when they do," Nita said. "It may take me as long as Mom spends in the OR, or even longer, so don't panic if I'm not here when you get home."

  "All right," her father said.

  He reached out and put his arms around her. All Nita could do was bury her face in his shoulder and hang on, hang on hard, trying not to cry, much though she wanted to; she was sure it would frighten him if she lost her control now.

  "Be careful, honey," he said, still with that terrible control. "I don't want to—" He stopped. Lose you both, she heard him think.

  "I'll be careful," Nita said. "Go on, Daddy. I'll see you later."

  She let go of him and turned away, waiting for him to leave. He went out the back door; a moment later, Dairine came into her room.

  "Did you hear from Kit?" she asked.

  Nita nodded. Ob, please, don't ask me any more.

  Dairine didn't say anything. "Look," she said then, as outs
ide, their dad started the car. "Come back," Dairine said. "Just come back."

  Nita was astonished to see tears in her sister's eyes. For a split second she wanted desperately to tell Dairine that she was afraid she might not come back... or that she might come back and not be a wizard anymore—and Nita wasn't sure which possibility was more awful. But she didn't dare say anything. If Dairine got any real sense of what was going on inside Nita's head, there was too much of a danger that she might interfere... and Tom and Carl had been emphatic about what would happen then.

  Nita just nodded and hugged Dairine. "You ready to give the surgeons whatever energy they need?" "All set."

  "Then go on," she said. "Dad's waiting. Keep an eye

  Friday Morning

  on him, Dari." She swallowed. "Keep him from getting desperate. It's going to matter." Dairine nodded and went downstairs.

  Nita waited to hear the car drive away. Then she got herself ready, checking the charm bracelet one last time for the spells stored there. A couple of openings remained, and she spent a few minutes considering what she might add. Finally, thinking of that first meeting with Pont and the other wizards, she added the subroutine that let the wizard using it walk on water. If there was ever a day I needed to believe I could do that, she thought, it's today.

  Then she opened her manual to the pages involving access to the practice universes. Let's go, she said to the manual. The playroom first... and then the main event.

  The page she was looking at shimmered, and then the print on it steadied down to a new configuration, a more complex one than she'd seen so far. It flickered, and then said: Secondary access to nonaschetic "universe" analog has been authorized. Caution: This "universe" is inhabited. Population: 1.

  Nita pulled her transit-circle spell out of the back of her mind, dropped it to the floor, took one last deep breath, and stepped through.

  At seven-fifteen that morning, Kit was sitting on the beat-up kitchen sofa, eating cornflakes out of an ancient beat-up Scooby-Doo bowl in a studied and careful way. It was partly to steady his stomach— cornflakes were