A Wizard Abroad yw[n&k-4

by Диана Дуэйн

  He put the Spear right through Its eye, Nita thought abruptly. That's it! Unless It opens Its eye first. Here it comes, Kit said to Nita. This had better work. .

  Off to one side, Ronan was holding the Spear. It was immobile no longer; it was shaking in his hands, its point leaning towards the terrible dark shape before them, the fires writhing in its point. "Not yet," Nita said un-der her breath, "Ronan, not yet. .!"

  She knew he couldn't hear her; even if he could, it was a good question whether the being he was becoming would recognize Nita as someone it might be useful to listen to. Ronan was wrestling with the Spear, holding it back as it pulled and strained in his hands.

  A bare slit of light opened in the dark face of the bulk before them, like the first sliver of the sun coming up over a hill. It hit Nita in the eyes and face like thrown acid, searing. She cried out, fell down and crouched in on herself, trying to make herself as small as possible, as the light hit her all over and burned her. All around her she could hear the screams of others going down, and right next to her, on top of her she thought, the sound and feel of Kit crying out hoarsely and rolling over in agony. It was worse than almost anything she could remem-ber, worse than the time the dentist was drilling and the novocaine wore off and he couldn't give her any more; the pain scraped down her nerves and burned in her bones, and no writhing or crying helped at all. The tears ran out and mixed with the mud that her face was grinding into.

  But at the same time, something in her refused to have anything to do with all this, and was embarrassed, and angry — the same kind of anger that had awakened in her while she was fighting, and liking it. Shaking her head in that anger, Nita pushed herself up on her hands and knees, even though it felt like she would die doing it, and squinted ahead of them. Through the mud and her tears of pain she could just make out Ronan, still struggling with the Spear. Further ahead, the darkness was broken only by that awful sliver of evil light, getting wider now as the Eye opened. And if it had opened all the way, all Ireland would have burnt up in that one flash, she heard Tualha half-singing, half-saying. But it has to be open enough for him to get a clean shot. He won't get another chance, and if he misses it'll all have been for nothing. Ronan, Ronan, don't let it go yet! Tualha yowled and fell off the stone on to Nita. She scooped the kitten up, fumbled for her rucksack, couldn't reach it, and stowed her, writhing, inside her shirt, where her clawing made little difference against the storm of pain Nita was already feeling. It could be fought, but not much longer; she could feel the onslaught of the light increasing its power-building. Soon it would be ready. .Beside her, Kit stirred and bumped up against her. "Come on," she moaned, grabbed him by one arm and tried to get him up at least on his hands and knees. "Come on. Oh, God, Kit, Ronan!"

  She looked over and saw that the Eye was open enough. But Ronan was still holding the Spear, despite its struggles. It was roaring now, a desperate noise, trying to get loose. What's the matter? Nita thought. "Ronan!"

  He was nothing but a silhouette against that light, writhing himself, kept on his feet by the Power that had been dwelling in him more and more since they came here. "Ronan, let it go!" she cried. "Kit, he has to — he won't. ."

  Their minds fell together, as they had before. That reassuring presence: frightened, as she was, but also per-turbed, looking for an answer. What's the matter with him? she heard him think. With me, Meets. RONAN!

  Their minds hit him together, fell into his. Only for a second, for something larger than both of them was fighting for control, and losing. Ronan was holding that Power off, and he had only one thought, all fear and horror: // I let it go now, if once I throw the Spear, I become the Power, become Lugh, become the Champion. Never mortal again. .

  Make him do it, Kit cried, frantic, to him and the Other who listened. He's going to get the whole world killed!

  No! It doesn't work that way! Nita was equally frantic. He has to do it himself! Ronan — and she gulped — go on! Silence. .

  . .and then Ronan lifted the Spear. It shouted triumph as Ronan leaned back, and then it leapt out of his hands, roaring like the shock wave of a nuclear explosion, trailing lightnings and a wild wind behind it as it went. That terrible eye opened wide in shock as a fire more terrible than its own hurtled at it. In the instant of the Eye's opening, the pain increased a hundred times over. Nita screamed and fell. .

  . .and then came the piercing. Nothing alive on that field failed to feel it, for everything alive had entropy in its bones; all cries went up together as the essence of all burning ate the darkness to its heart, and however briefly, to each of theirs. It was painful, but a terrible relief: terrible because the mortals present knew that, once they returned to the real world, that small personal darkness would be back with them again.

  Something else, though, did not find it a relief; something that had almost nothing but entropy about it. The scream of the Lone Power in Its shape as Balor went up, and up, and would have torn the sky if the sky were made of anything solider than air. It took a long time to die away. The pain was gone, at least. Nita got up to her knees and looked around her, blinded no longer, though her ears were ringing. Kit was just getting up next to her: she helped him up, hugged him. "Are you all right?"

  "I'll live," he said, sounding dazed, and hugging back. "Where's Ronan?" He was standing there not too far away, looking fairly dazed himself. The Spear was in his hand again, but quiet now, not straining to go any-where. Ronan was leaning on it, panting, his forehead against the shaft of it; so he did not see the tall shadow rising up over him, towering higher and higher; the immense shape of a woman dressed in black, but with light flickering in the folds of the darkness like a promise, and long dark hair stirring in the wind that had begun to come down from the heights, blowing the blackness of the clouds out over the sea, so that high up the sky began to show again, dark blue, with here and there a star.

  Against the growing light, and the clean darkness, that woman raised her arms, and her voice went up into the silence like thunder. "Let the hosts and the royal heights of Ireland hear it," the Morrigan cried, and even Ronan looked up now in terror and wonder, "and all its chief rivers and invers, and every rock and tree; victory over the Fomori, and they never again to be in this land! Peace up to the skies, the skies down to the earth, the earth under the skies; power to every one!" The wizards and the Sidhe shouted approval. And the wind rose, and took the clouds away; and the Morrigan's great shape too bent sideways in that wind and dissipated like a mist, though Nita particularly noticed how her eyes seemed to dwell on Ronan before they vanished completely. You know, Kit said in Nita's head, it's funny, but she looks kind of like Biddy. She shook her head in bemusement, and she and Kit went over to Ronan. He was looking up at the sky, still leaning on the Spear. But when he looked down at last, and saw them coming, he straightened up slightly and smiled. Even through her weariness, Nita was very relieved; that abstracted, inhuman look was gone completely.

  "It came back," he said to Nita, sounding very bemused. "By itself." He looked ahead of him. The great bulk that had first been Balor and then the Hunter was nothing but a hill now; there was only the vaguest shape about it that suggested that awful bloated bulk. Grass grew on it, and as they looked a rabbit hopped out of cover under a thorn bush growing on it, and began to graze.

  "I didn't dare let it go," Ronan said.

  Nita nodded. "I know. But you're OK — aren't you?"

  He looked at her. "He's still in there, if that's what you mean."

  Kit shook his head. "I think you may be stuck with Him," he said. 'But remember which side He's on. I think He'll behave. if you do. If you're lucky, you'll never hear from Him again." "And if I'm not lucky?" Ronan said.

  "Those who serve the Powers,"' said the small voice from down by their feet," "themselves become the Pow-ers." It's usually the way."

  "You," Nita said, picking Tualha up. "I didn't know you knew language like that — that last bit. Don't think I didn't hear."

  "I got carrie
d away," Tualha said, sounding pleased.

  All around them the light was growing. Nita looked up and around, watching the clouds retreating, and the brightness growing still, though there was no sun now, but a soft violet evening all around them. Everything was beginning to burn with a certainty surpassing anything Nita hatt seen even in the duns of the Sidhe.

  Beside her, one of the wizards, that handsome woman with the dark hair, said with a chuckle, "Ah. the Celtic twilight." But Nita knew a joke when she heard one, and also knew that more excellent clarity drawing it-self about them; she had seen it before. All around them, the wizards gathered there began to shine in that light, seeming more perfectly themselves than ever before; the Sidhe, already almost too fair to bear, began to acquire a calmer beauty, more settled, older, deeper.

  Johnny was standing by the Queen's steed. He looked up at her now, and said, "Well, madam, you asked me a question once. Would your world ever draw closer to Timeheart, and end your exile? And I could only give you the answer that the bards gave us long ago: not until the Champion comes with His Spear, and the world of your desire is lost." He laughed softly. "But then the fulfillment of a prophecy rarely looks like our images of it. There is no journeying from your world to Timeheart. for Timeheart is widening to take your world in. Will this do?" She bowed her head. 'This will do, Senior. Do you take your people home, for shortly this world will per-fect itself beyond their ability to bear it. at least, just yet. And we…" She looked towards the sunset and said, "We will prepare for the dawn."

  Johnny looked at Nita's aunt. "We've got a dawn of our own waiting for us," he said. "Do the honors?"

  She lifted Fragarach. It burned like a star in her hands, and the other Treasures blazed in answer as the wind rose in the east and blew into the opening gap in the air before her. The dark outline of Castle Matrix grew in the early morning of their own world, and the song of a single early blackbird drifted through it.

  As one the heads of the People of the Hill turned towards that thin, sweet music. But then one by one they looked towards the light slowly growing in their own northeastern sky; sunrise following hard on the heels of sunset, as was normal in this part of the world, in the heart of summer. The splendor of morning in a world growing ever nearer to Timeheart began to swell in the sky, blinding, glorious. .

  The wizards looked around them with regret and moved through the doorway in the air. Nita and Kit and Tu-alha, followed by Ronan, were near the rear of the group; they turned, there in the parking lot of Castle Matrix, and looked through the gateway back into Tir na nOg. "I am sorry," Nita's aunt said softly to Johnny,"to have to leave our dead there. Another world, so far away."

  Johnny looked sorrowful as well — but there was a strange edge of thoughtfulness to the look, an expression of mystery, almost of joy. 'Yes, but. look what's happening to the place. It won't be just another world for long. it's being drawn into the very centre of things. Can you really be dead if you're in Timeheart?" he said. "Can anything.?"

  Northeastward, over the sea, a line of light, blinding, brighter than a sun, broke over the water. The Spear Luin in Ronan's hands flamed at the touch of that light on its steel. All that country on the other side of the gate-way flushed with a light more powerful, seemingly more solid than the solid things it fell on, and burned, trans-figured. . The gateway closed.

  'So," Johnny said, turning away."Little by little, we make the Oath come true."

  Nita and Kit and Ronan looked at each other. Behind them, the blackbird sang: and they heard the young wizard in the leather jacket say, "Oh, well. What's for breakfast?"

  They went to find out.

  "Now that things have quietened down somewhat," Johnny was saying to Nita's aunt in her kitchen the day after next,"the Chalice goes back to the museum, obviously. And the Stone naturally stays where it is. But Fraga-rach."

  "You take it," Aunt Annie said. "The neighbors would talk, if they saw something like that in here. You've got a castle. hang it on the wall there some place." "The Spear," Johnny said, "will stay with Ronan, natu-rally."

  "I wouldn't try to take it away from him," Kit said from the living-room, where he was playing with the teletext functions of the TV set. "It'd probably eat you alive." "Quite." He chuckled. "And I see that we're losing you two."

  "My mum," Nita said,"says they can change my flight home after all. So I go home at the weekend. Not that it hasn't been worthwhile. but every wizard knows her own patch of ground best." And she smiled at Ronan.

  He smiled back and said nothing that the others could hear.

  "Well, you come back any time," her aunt said, and grabbed her and hugged her one-armed. "She always does the washing-up," she said to Johnny. "And without wizardry, even."

  "Impressive," Johnny said. "But there was something else I was meaning to tell you. ." He sipped his tea. "Oh, that was it. I'd say the odd things aren't quite done happening yet." "Oh?" Everyone at the table looked at him.

  "No. I was out for a walk after things settled down last night, and I saw the strangest thing. A party of cats carrying a little coffin. I stopped to watch them go by, and one of them said to me, "This is Magrath. Magrath na Chualainn is dead." And they walked off. ."

  Tualha's eyes flew open at that. "What?" she cried. "What? Did you say Magrath?"

  "Why, uh, yes. ." Johnny said, sounding uncertain, and concerned. "If it's a relative, I'm. ."

  "Relative, never mind that, what relative! Great Powers about us, if Magrath is dead, then I'm the Queen of the Cats!"

  She leaped off the table and tore away into the living-room. There was a brief sound of scrabbling, and then from the living-room, sounding slightly bemused, Kit said, "Uh, Annie, your cat just went up the chimney. ."

  There was a moment of silence in the kitchen. "Ahem," Nita's aunt said to her after a breath or two.". .Welcome to Ireland. ."

  "Are you sure you don't want to stay another couple of weeks?" Johnny said. Nita smiled at him, and went out to the caravan to start packing.

  the End

  A Small Glossary

  ban-gall: Gall-woman. Possibly an insult, depending on who says it and how they feel about gallain qv.

  'Blow-in': A foreigner who settles in Ireland, and is presumed to be likely to leave suddenly; not seen as being seriously attached to the place as it really is, but 'in love' with some romanticized and inaccurate version of it. the Dail (pr. 'Doyle'): The 'lower house' of the Irish Parliament (the Oireachtas ['oyROCKtas']), more or less equivalent to the House of Representatives in the US, or the House of Commons in the UK. A member of theDail is called aTeachta Dail ('TOCKta DOYLE') or T.D. The upper house of theOireachtas is theSeanad ('SHAHnad') or Senate.

  Faery: One of the inhabitants of the Otherworlds, in this case particularly Tir na nOg: or something that has to do with them. Originally derived from the Latinfatae or 'fates', in this case meaning the Powers that involve Themselves in the destinies of living things. Unfortunately the term has been corrupted by various storytellers, from Shakespeare down to the mushier writers of Victorian children's moralistic tales, so that it now summons up imagery of tiny flying beings who ride butterflies, live in flowers, etc etcad nauseam. True Faery is beautiful, but extremely dangerous; the casualty rate of those who interact willingly with it is high, even among wizards. Gael: A member or descendant of the Gaelic or Goidelic Celts, who settled in Britain and Ireland during and after the Iron and Bronze Ages. The Welsh, Irish, Scots, and some of the Celts of Brittany and parts of Spain are included in this group. Gall (pi. gallain, pronounced like 'gallon'): A non-Gael.

  'Guards, the' — The Garda Siochona (GARda shiKOna) or Civil Guards: the Irish equivalent of police. Also found as 'Garda' (one policeman) orban-Garda (policewoman): the plural is Gardai, (pr. 'garDEE').

  Lia Fail (pr. LEEuh FAIL): the Stone of Destiny, supposedly near the Hill of Tara.

  rath (pr. 'rawth'): A hill-fort. Sometimes the term includes whatever buildings (halls, towers, etc) are built into or on the rath.
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  Sidhe (pr."shee'"): the Faery People of Ireland. Sometimes (most inaccurately) confused with elves. Usually considered to be the Tuatha de Danaan, the original Children of the Goddess Danu, one of the mother-Goddesses of Ireland; or descendants of those Children. Some legends identify them with 'weak-minded' fallen angels, too good to be damned, but too fallible for Heaven. Considered by wizards to be descendants of those of the Powers that Be

  Who could not bear to leave the place They had, under the instruction of the One, built. They are deathless except by violence, and are expert in some forms of wizardry, especially music, shapechange, illusion, and the manipulation of time; but humans are usually physically stronger, and their wizardries have much more effect on the physical world. Often referred to as'the Good Folk' or'the Good People of the Parish',"the Gentry',"the People of the Hills," (from which is derived their commonest name in Gailge, daoinesidhe,*) and other euphemistic idioms meant to keep from offending them by invoking their real names, or reminding them of portions of their history they prefer to forget. Slan (pr."shlawn'): Hello, or goodbye.

  Taoiseach (pr. TEEshock): the Prime Minister of Ireland. Leader of the political party presently in power, has legislative and political powers somewhat like those of the President of the US or the Prime Minister of the UK. By contrast, the Presidency of Ireland is largely a ceremonial position and is considered to be 'above polities'.

  Tir na nOg (pr. TEERnaNOHG): the Land of Youth (or of the Ever-Young), the alternate universe or other-Ireland inhabited by the Sidhe. Time runs at a different rate in this universe, or rather entropy does: experience continues unabated while bodily aging proceeds at an infinitesimal fraction of its usual speed, if at all. Humans who venture there frequently experience untoward side effects on attempting to return to universes with different time/entropy rates. See the legend of Oisin for an example.