Getting back wouldn’t be a problem: he’d programmed the gate to produce an automatic portal for him three hours from now, picking him up at the border between the City of Shamask and the Martian wilderness. I’ll be back before anyone even knows I’m gone ...and if I get into some kind of trouble, I can always yell for Ronan or Darryl, or even Neets. But any thought of what might cause such a need, or of the explanations he would make to the others regarding what he was doing and why, seemed very far away.
Right now the imperative of getting to Mars overrode everything else. In the back of his mind, Khretef was fretting, worrying, desperate to get back. Aurilelde needed them, needed him, before the trouble started... and Khretef seemed very sure that it would start. He also seemed very sure that they were— he was— was the only one who could stop it. We stopped it once before, Khretef’s voice said in the back of his head. But we can’t linger. We need to get going!
Kit nodded, let out one last breath of nervousness and guilt, passed through the gate, and the closet went dark behind him.
***
Nita came down for breakfast the next morning feeling very wrung out and weary of mind, for reasons she couldn’t fully understand. Granted, there’d been a lot going on lately, and the seemingly endless drudgery of the end of the school year had been wearing her down. And now there was this craziness with Kit as well. Banned. I can’t believe it. What’s the matter with him?
Coming down the stairs, Nita suddenly found herself thinking, as she’d kept finding herself doing lately, about Ponch. Obviously Kit missed him most of everybody, but it was difficult, sometimes, to look at Kit and realize that that constant, black presence was not ever again going to appear galloping along at his side. We’ve been losing so much stuff lately, Nita thought. This has not been a great year. First Mom, then Ponch…
She sighed, thinking of how she had heard her mom say sometimes that “these things come in threes.” Well, I hope they don’t! Two’s more than enough for me, thanks. Especially if losing Ponch is part of what’s left Kit acting so weird. What are we going to do about him?
In the kitchen, she yawned and put the kettle on to make tea. Listen to you, she said to herself. So depressed, and the day hasn’t even started yet! Probably your blood sugar. It was true that over the past couple of days she hadn’t been eating well: there’d been too much going on. Really need to do something about that. She leaned back against the kitchen counter, waiting for the water to boil.
It was just beginning to produce its pre-boil rumbling when Dairine came wandering into the kitchen in one of those shin-length T-shirts she favored. “You’re up early,” Nita said.
Dairine yawned, then looked at Nita with vague annoyance. “Unlike some people,” she said, “who have a half day today for the completely unfair reason that they’re older than me, I have school this morning. But if I get a head start on some of the things I need to do, I can leave early and get back to Wellakh.”
Nita nodded, turning her attention back to the kettle. “So things are going okay?”
“Dad’s lightened up, if that’s what you mean.” She opened the fridge and got out a quart of milk, then started foraging in one of the cupboards for cereal and came out with a box of her preferred oaty loops.
“Good,” Nita said.
Dairine threw her an oblique look. “When I’m working... how much is he seeing of what’s going on?”
Nita felt inclined to shy away from the question, but that would cause more trouble later. “Go ask him to show you. It’s physical stuff mostly: movements, video.” She raised her eyebrows at the slowness of the kettle and reached over to turn the stove up higher. “He’s interested, but not in an unhealthy way. So however you’ve been handling the content with him, you’re doing good.”
Dairine nodded, got down a cereal bowl from the cupboard, and poured the bowl almost entirely full of oat loops. “How are you planning to fit any milk in that?” Nita said.
“Magic,” Dairine said. “Back in a moment.” Dairine wandered out through the kitchen again, heading back upstairs to her bedroom. The milk carton that she’d left poised in midair now popped itself open, tilted, and started pouring milk into the cereal.
Nita watched this minor demonstration of expertise with interest, waiting for the milk to overflow: but it didn’t. The cereal in the bowl rose just high enough for some of the little oat o’s to teeter at the bowl’s edges without actually falling out. She’s good, Nita thought, amused. Can’t take that away from her...
Dairine came thumping down the stairs again and appeared in the dining room completely dressed, with her school backpack thrown over her shoulder, and her manual and a copy of Three Men in a Boat in one hand. “Oh, and by the way,” Dairine said as she came back into the kitchen and grabbed the milk carton out of the air, closing it and shoving it back into the fridge, “there’s a dinosaur in the back yard to see you.”
Nita stared at Dairine as she slammed the refrigerator door shut, dislodging a few of the magnets stuck to the outside of it. “What?”
“A dinosaur,” Dairine said, stooping to pick up the magnets and put them back on the fridge door, then fumbling around in the silverware drawer for a spoon. “Really big lizard? Goggly eyes? Skin all lit up in fluorescent colors like someone who’s really pissed off about something? That kind of dinosaur.”
“Oh, my god,” Nita said, and ran toward the back door. “Oops—” She ran back to the stove, shut off the heat under the kettle, and then plunged outside.
Sure enough, at the rear end of the backyard, there was Mamvish, crouching in the spell-shielded area under the sassafras saplings and the big wild cherry tree. “Mamvish!” Nita said. “Dai stihó! What’s up?”
“Apparently,” Mamvish said, fixing one eye so intently on Nita that it actually held still, “your friend Kit. What’s he doing on Mars?”
She stared. “What? He can’t be on Mars. He’s banned.”
“Exactly,” Mamvish said. The colors under her hide swirled neon-bright. “He shouldn’t be there at all. Yet somehow he is. Would you care to explain?” The nearest eye was trained on her very hard.
Nita’s own eyes went wide. “What?” she said. “Are you suggesting I helped? I knew he was grounded! No way I’d take him up there: you think I’m crazy?”
“I have to ask,” Mamvish said, “because you’re his partner. You two are quite close, and have been through some... well, let’s say some extraordinary experiences together. Experiences that might tempt one of you to break the rules for the other’s sake.”
Nita shook her head, hardly knowing what to say. Close, yes, but this close? No!
Well, maybe yes! But not this time. And that obscurely pained her. She gulped, trying to get some control over herself.
“Mamvish,” Nita said, “look, sure, sometimes he’s gone off the rails and I’ve gone after him to pull him back on. But he’s done the same for me. Anyway, if you think I took him to Mars, I didn’t! I didn’t even know he was banned till last night, and I haven’t heard from him since then. And now he’s— Where is he??”
“Since you two are normally so close,” Mamvish said, “I’d hoped you might be able to give me a better idea, as we’re having difficulty locating him precisely. His location is being obscured by local factors—”
Nita scowled. “I just bet it is.”
Mamvish turned to stare at her with the other eye. “Do you know something I should know?”
“Probably yes,” Nita said. “But it would help a lot if you can stop assuming I’m guilty before I can explain my innocence!”
Mamvish looked stricken. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Terrible changes have begun up there, and I’m on my way to deal with them, but it’s no excuse for me to deal unfairly with you. Come along and tell me what’s been happening. You’re saying you don’t know how Kit got to Mars?”
Nita shook her head. “Unless one of the guys took him— But Darryl said he wouldn’t do that.”
“As did
Ronan,” Mamvish said.
“Then unless he—” Nita shut her mouth as the idea came to her. “Oh, my god. Carmela’s closet!”
Mamvish looked at her strangely. “A closet? That’s some kind of room in your house?”
“Not my house. Kit’s. His sister— you remember, she was at the Crossings when that trouble broke out? The Crossings administration gave her a spinoff worldgate as part of her compensation. It’s strictly mechanically managed. I guess if Kit used it—” Then she shook her head. “We don’t have to stand here guessing: we can find out from Kit’s manual. Let me get mine and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
“Good,” Mamvish said. “Hurry. And when we’re there, be ready to help, because this is likely to be difficult—”
Nita burst out in a sweat on hearing a wizard of Mamvish’s experience and power levels saying that something was likely to be difficult. “Sure, half a sec, let me go get my stuff—”
She was running toward the house when her father came out and met her halfway by the backyard gate, peering over it and down toward the end of the backyard. “Okay,” he was saying to himself as Nita ran up to him, “she wasn’t exaggerating. A dinosaur. Nice color scheme; didn’t know they came like that.”
He looked at Nita. “Please tell me it’s not an herbivore. I just got the new peonies planted out.”
“I don’t know about the peonies,” Nita said, “but when we get back you’d better hide the tomatoes.” She started to push past him.
He stopped her and handed Nita her backpack. “That white wand of yours,” he said, “your manual, your phone, a sandwich. Sorry, there wasn’t time for a Thermos. I’ll call school if you’re late. Mars again?”
“Mars!” she said, grabbing the stuff from him, kissing his cheek, and running back down the yard to where Mamvish waited. As she went, Nita could just hear him mutter, “When do I start getting my perks?”
Seconds later, they were there. Nita’s breath went out of her again, the sheer range of Mamvish’s power taking her once more by surprise.
The problem was that the Mars where they now stood, outside the City of the Shamaska, was not quite the one Nita had been expecting. Yesterday, the city through which she had walked had been an ephemeral thing—plainly a construct of wizardry, partly resurrected from the deeps of time, partly from fiction and illusion. This, however, was a city standing proudly out in view for anyone to see—including any number of satellites, and telescopes, and whatever else might be looking this way. And there was air here: thinner than Earth’s, but breathable. Streams were flowing through the red landscape, and they were real—
“This wasn’t here yesterday,” Nita whispered to Mamvish. “Or not like this.”
“Not in the present, you mean,” Mamvish said. “A memory? A reconstruction?”
Nita was unsure about the fine distinctions and now was wishing she’d bugged Kit’s manual a lot sooner. “It wasn’t just Kit’s imagination,” Nita said as she looked around, “or his memories. Someone else’s, too...”
And then she stopped, because Mamvish... had changed.
The giant saurian was gone. In her place was a giant ten-legged creature, also faintly saurian-looking and big enough for a number of humans or large humanoids to ride on in a line, for the length of the “wheelbase” was considerable. A long, high neck and small fierce-toothed head; blunt, flat feet somewhat like a camel’s, good for running on the legendary Martian sands; a long, straight deinonychus-like tail for balance—
Nita had to rummage around in memory for the name of the creature: it had been a while since she’d read the Burroughs books. A thoat. She’s turned into a thoat. Well, that’s weird! But she doesn’t look concerned...
Mamvish looked sideways at Nita. “The other Kit?”
Nita shook her head. “It’s like there was an earlier version of him.”
“A more ancient incarnation?”
“Not sure. You should check what I got out of his manual.”
Mamvish’s eyes shifted to and fro for a moment. Then she looked at Nita with some concern. “What you’ve done to his manual,” she said, “is very creative... and potentially very expensive.”
“I know.” They started walking down the white road toward the City. “I’m not real wild about doing it, either.”
“And a reincarnation it may indeed be,” Mamvish said, “though not in the usual style. More of an archive function, though it needs closer analysis.” She didn’t say anything for a moment as they walked along. Then she glanced at Nita again. “But you’re also thinking that he’s involved with someone who’s another version of you?”
Nita grimaced. “I don’t know about involved...”
Oh, yes, you do, said the back of her mind. “He was— He was definitely attracted to her.”
The look in the eye on that side of Mamvish’s new, smaller head was unreadable. But now she gazed forward at the city again, noting the water and the blueness of the sky. “This effect is spreading,” Mamvish said. “Detailed analysis is going to have to wait. For the moment—”
The whole of her hide blazed with Speech-symbols, swirling, burning. Mamvish gestured with her tail, and the fire of the symbols ran out of her, through the ground, straight out to the horizon, and seemingly up to the sky, running straight to the zenith. Sky and earth flared briefly: then the spell-flare vanished.
Nita stared at Mamvish as the spell expired. Mamvish was eyeing the ground with a dubious expression. “Interesting,” she said. “Some resistance—”
She waved her tail. “No matter,” Mamvish said. “Come. They know we’re here now. But for the time being, no one on Earth will see what’s happening.”
They started walking again. Nita stared at Mamvish. “You just put a visual shield around the entire planet?”
“It’s going to take some holding,” Mamvish said, sounding aggrieved. “There’s resistance. And there shouldn’t be. But I thought this would get more complicated before it became less so. Let’s go see what these people think they’re doing.”
They continued their walk up the broad, paved way toward the city gates. About halfway there, Nita started feeling undressed. She looked down at her sweatshirt and jeans—
Or where they should have been. They were a lot less “here” now. It wasn’t that the ornaments and delicate draperies, the gems and gleaming precious metals weren’t pretty in a very exotic way. But for Nita, the thought of anybody seeing her dressed like this, especially Kit, immediately brought on a blush.
Mamvish glanced at her. “What’s the matter?”
“I, uh—” Nita grabbed at what was draped around her hips and passed for a skirt, at least in places. It was hard to get hold of, more like being dressed in faded blue-denim fog than anything else— and its opacity was subject to change without notice. “This isn’t exactly, I mean, it’s not what I usually—”
“Oh, come on, Nita,” Mamvish said as she ambled along, “it’s their reality, for the moment. We must play here if we’re to win here. What is it your people say? Snort it up?”
“Suck it up,” Nita said, and suited the action to the word, pulling in her stomach. It only hangs over a little bit, she thought. And the top doesn’t really look that bad. If there was just a little more fog between the metal bits, it might actually—
“You need to stop allowing yourself to get so self-absorbed,” Mamvish said as they got closer to the gates. “You’re a wizard! You should be well past the point in your practice where body taboos are an issue. You’ve been off-world enough now, spent time on the High Road: act the dignity of your role and stop looking like a nervous teenager!”
I am a nervous teenager! Nita thought. But she said nothing more for the moment, just concentrated on trying to walk tall. Her mother always used to say to her, When you’re embarrassed, make yourself taller. It covers.
And the covering, Nita thought as she tried to get rid of the last vestiges of panic, is exactly what I need about now!The chilly wind was
playing with the long, diaphanous draperies about her hips, and no attempt of Nita’s would get them to lie down. Finally she gave up trying. She had everything she needed. What had happened to the sandwich she wasn’t sure, but her manual was in a little pouch hanging on the right side of her low-slung belt, and her wand was in an elaborately chased metal sheath on the left. And Mamvish is right. I’m a wizard. Clothes don’t make any difference to that! Though she was left uncertain whether the goosebumps she was suffering were due to the clothes or her emotional state . .
Mamvish paused. “What is it with the gravity here?” she said, shuffling her feet and glancing around her. “I don’t feel quite right. Synesthesias of some kind...”
Nita stopped and gave her a look. “What?”
“I don’t know what’s causing it,” Mamvish said, “but it’s as if—” She looked down at her feet.
Her mouth dropped open. Her eyes wiggled as if they were trying to go around. Nita, caught off guard, tried to choke down her laughter, and failed. “Wait a minute. You mean you didn’t notice?”
A growl started rumbling somewhere inside Mamvish. “What— am— I?”
“You’re a thoat. They’re—” Oh, god, how can I say it? Never mind, just look at her face! Stop laughing, stop laughing! “In the stories, they’re a beast of burden. Not very smart. People ride them.”
The growl got louder. It took Nita a few moments to get control of her laughter. “Come on, Mamvish!” Nita said. “You ought to be past being shape-proud by now! A wizard like you has the power to look like anything she wants, and you ought to know the seeming’s not the self.” She started snickering again. “So act the dignity of your role. Snort it up!”
The thoat-eyes could be surprisingly expressive. They flared with annoyance, and then came a brief flurry of furious tantrum-based foot-stamping, even more impressive with all a thoat’s legs than with Mamvish’s own. Dust flew up from the pink-white Martian road until it almost concealed her. “This is so embarrassing, what if anybody ever hears about this, some kind of gratuitous insult, do they even know why I, how can this possibly, why do I even bother, don’t these people know why I—”