Tom smiled slightly, glancing at the various parents, who were listening with interest. “Later on, as a wizard’s power decreases and his mastery of the complexities of the Art increases, the Lone One’s able to make more inroads into his life in the way it does with nonwizardly people: using a lot less power, but also being a lot more subtle.”
He looked at Nita and Kit and the other younger wizards. “Don’t think this makes It any less dangerous! You see how close It came to getting a result on Mars that would have absolutely delighted It, just by working underhandedly and using people’s own habits and weaknesses against them—sometimes even their strengths. Death and destruction on two worlds: the poor dupes doing the Lone One’s work for It, while It sits back and laughs.”
Carl shook his head. “This time, just in time, Kit got smart. So did you.” Carl looked at Nita from under his brows, his eyes glinting. “And so did Khretef. Together you found your way past the pitfalls the Lone Power hoped you’d be blind to, because you’d dug them yourselves. That’s always one of our great strengths, as wizards: we’re committed to looking out for each other, each seeing the thing the other is blind to. The tricky part is convincing each other that ‘blind’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘stupid.’”
Tom sighed and finished his iced tea. “But sometimes we get lucky,” he said. “This last time, we all did. You kids especially. So now we get to relax.”
Nita’s dad reached down by the chair and picked up the iced-tea jug, filled Tom’s glass again. “Even you?”
Tom laughed. “I’ve got enough time off next weekend to want to talk to you about some landscaping.”
Nita got up and headed toward the house. Kit came along after her, catching up with her where she had paused to look at the spark of red light hanging low in the sky.
Nita glanced at it as he came up behind, then went back to gazing at Mars. “I’m not sure I got smart,” she said under her breath. “It felt completely like luck to me.”
Kit stared at her. “Neets, are you kidding? Think what you did with that passthrough—”
“If I hadn’t had Bobo to help, I could never have done it. You should’ve seen the size of that spell—”
Kit shrugged. “So? You used what you had. You used what you remembered you had. And what you had enough power to pull off. Every wizard does that every day with their manual or whatever they use...”
Nita thought about that. “I was the one who was kind of late about getting smart,” Kit said then. “Seemed like it took me forever to figure out that not only was Aurilelde’s take on everything all wrong, but so was Khretef’s. Even a wizard’s perceptions of wizardry can get screwed up under the right circumstances. Khretef was too busy believing everything Aurilelde told him. Aurilelde was too busy believing what her father told her.”
“And he was busy believing what Rorsik told him.” Nita shook her head. “And with that whole Shamaska-versus-Eilitt thing going on, nobody was thinking straight about anything. Except you, eventually.”
“They were too busy believing in stuff to look at what was true,” Kit said. “I just hadn’t been stuck in the middle of it for as long as they had.”
Nita nodded, leaning back against the fence. “So, no Martians after all? That’s got to come as a letdown.”
“Yeah,” Kit said. But he didn’t look away from the red star burning up there. “Still, it’s a neat place, and it needs taking care of. I’m not going to dump it just because its backstory’s changed.”
Looking up at it, Nita nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “Besides, there are still some craters up there that don’t have names...”
She was expecting a snicker, but none came. After a moment she got a strange feeling and turned to find Kit watching her. “What?” she said.
“Charcoal’s ready,” Kit said. “Don’t you want a burger?” And he headed back to the group at the rear of the backyard.
Nita smiled slightly and followed him.
***
Much later, in the dark, someone spoke Nita’s name.
She woke up in the middle of the night and turned over, eyes open in the dark. What?
But no one was there to have said anything. Nita sighed. Just another of those dreams, she thought. She closed her eyes again, completely worn out but for the moment also completely happy. Nothing to do tomorrow, she thought. School’s over. This is so great! I can sleep as late as I want. And I’m going to start that all over again right now...
But perversely, it didn’t happen. Outside her closed eyes, she could tell that there was light. I hate this, Nita thought, resigned. This has been one of those sleeps where you wake up and you don’t feel like you’ve been to sleep at all. She felt vaguely cheated, but there was no point in trying to go back to sleep under these circumstances. She sighed and opened her eyes again.
Red dirt all around, and stones and rust-beige rubble, and a light dusting of snow—
Nita sat up and stared around her. Her first thought was that Dairine had finally gotten around to getting revenge on her for sending her bed to Pluto that time. But as Nita looked around, she started getting the slightly rainbowy, shivery feeling around the edges of things, what Tom called “temporal aberration,” that told her this wasn’t a real physical experience: it was vision. Oh, okay, she thought, and got up. Let’s see what this is about.
There was no mistaking the view; this was Kit’s preferred landing spot on Mars, at the top of Elysium Mons. Nita stood there feeling under her bare feet the cool gritty dust of another world. This is what visions are really good for,she thought, not having to worry about force fields, or the real temperature, or whether you brought enough air. For the morning around her felt no chillier than an early spring morning on Earth.
The Sun was just up and actually felt warm on her skin. Overhead the sky was lightening, swiftly going from violet to blue. Silhouetted against it, a couple of hundred yards away where the tableland dropped off, Kit was standing, looking southward across the plains of Elysium Planitia. Nita just watched him for a moment, then felt a draft and looked down at herself.
Oh, no, she thought, seeing the gossamer draperies again, and the gleaming wrought and gemmed metal of the bodice. I have got to talk him out of this look for me: it does not work!!
But second thoughts did intrude, and surreptitiously Nita glanced down. Well, okay, maybe the top isn’t bad—
Down by her foot she saw a small rock that she recognized. Nita reached down to pick it up. “So,” she said to it, “what’s new up here?”
Water snow and gas snow, said the rock. And then some changes in the terrain. It sounded bemused.
“Yeah, I just bet,” Nita said, and put the rock carefully down. “Later…”
She wandered over to where Kit was standing. He, too, was in “Martian” harness and metallic kilt, his wand stuck in his belt, and he was gazing across at the spires of the city that from this height could just be glimpsed away many miles to the south, where the highlands of Aeolis Mensae ran down to the plains of Elysium. “It’s a nice location,” Kit said. “Pretty close to the equator. The weather’s as good as it’s going to get anywhere on the planet...”
And without warning they were standing up somewhere high in that city, looking down at the proud, calm people in the streets, and the little busy flying craft zipping around among the towers, more of the Shamaska going about their business. Nita looked over her shoulder and saw that the spot where they were standing was a terrace of the Scarlet Tower: and toward them came gracefully bounce-walking two people, a Shamaska female and an Eilitt male. Behind them a multi-legged, many-clawed green lizard creature was scrambling along to keep up on the polished floor.
“We thought we might see you here eventually,” Aurilelde said, smiling at Nita and Kit as they got closer. “We’re so glad you came!”
“Just look at it,” Khretef said to Kit. “It’s grown.” He gestured toward the City’s outskirts. “There have been plenty of raw materials to work with: it’s a ri
ch world. We’ll do well here.”
“You’re running things now?” Kit said to him.
Khretef nodded. “In more ways than one. I’m the Master of the City here now, it seems. Iskard didn’t want the position: he was tired. And happy to pass rule to Aurilelde once we’d moved and were finally safe in our new home, for the stress of the old life had taken its toll. He’s got a place in the uplands now.”
“And he’s been so glad that there’s no need to fear the Eilitt anymore,” Aurilelde said. “We all have. Now we can be at peace at last.” She looked at Nita with embarrassment. “Fear can make you do such terrible things. I can’t believe the way I was thinking...”
If I was awake, Nita thought, you’d better believe I’d have something to say about that! But this didn’t seem to be the place or the time. “It was all a long time ago,” Nita said. “Or a long time from now. Let’s just forget about it. It turned out okay in the end.”
They looked out across the City. Khretef’s scorpion-pet now caught up with them, put his front end up under one of Kit’s hands, and wriggled like a puppy. Kit looked down at it, grinning, and scratched it on top of the head between the eyes. After a moment it came over to her, and Nita looked down at it, now bemused that she could ever have seen these creatures as strange or threatening. And then she caught something in its eyes, a familiar look—
I get around, said the large Presence behind the odd alien gaze. There are a lot more kinds of dogs in the universe than just the Earth ones.
Nita smiled at him, then looked over at Khretef and Aurilelde. “So the story has a happy ending,” she said.
“Ending? I don’t know that I’d call it that,” Aurilelde said. “We have our whole lives ahead of us.”
Knowing what she now knew, Nita held her smile in place and said nothing. But Khretef, who had been exchanging some silent comment with Kit, now caught her eye. “And besides,” he said, “even a short life would be a good one in this world. Once you find happiness, why sit around worrying that it might not last forever? You make what you can out of it. No point in worrying away the gift.”
He looked out to the horizon. Nita followed his glance, and realized she was not looking at the Mars of half a million years ago. Looking northward, Nita saw that Elysium Planitia was no dry plain any longer, but a mighty sea. Against the vast empty northern horizon, Elysium Mons stood up lone and splendid on its tremendous low-lying pedestal-island, silhouetted against the rose-colored afternoon. To either side of the highlands, great waterfalls poured down through chasms in the upper tablelands, draining the upland lakes around the craters Lasswitz and Wien.
Not our Mars, Nita thought. Not exactly theirs, either. But the one they found together after their time on Mars finally ended...
Kit put out a hand to Khretef. “Dai stihó,” he said. “You found your way through. Good luck with the rest of it.”
“And to you, brother,” Khretef said, clasping Kit’s arm. “Watch over your world.”
Nita looked at Aurilelde’s outheld hand, and took it in the same clasp. “Take good care of him,” she said.
“It was all I ever meant to do,” she said. “I lost my way, but you two helped me find it again.”
Aurilelde and Khretef each raised a hand in farewell and turned away, heading for the Tower, with Khretef’s scorpion-pet scrambling after them. “So there goes the first real wizard of Mars,” Nita said. “But who knows, maybe not the last...”
“Huh?” Kit was startled out of his silence. “Stop listening to me think.”
“I wasn’t!” Nita said. “It’s just kind of funny. For a while there I thought you were going to ask Irina for the position.”
Kit shook his head and grinned, gazing out over the city. “Naah,” he said. “I’ve got a planet. These guys needed a spare. I’m glad it was here for them.”
Nita nodded. “I forgot to ask them what happened to Rorsik.”
Kit shrugged. “He was all about fear. Either he’s gotten himself past that, or he’s found himself some other patch of eternity to be scared in.”
Nita nodded. “Meanwhile,” Kit said, “something I forgot to ask you.”
“What?”
“Just what was it you called me back there?”
She shook her head. “Back there where?”
“You remember. Back at Argyre Planitia, when you were telling Aurilelde you didn’t have to keep yours in a cage.”
Nita stared at him, bewildered— then realized what he was talking about, and took a very deep breath.
“My boyfriend?” she said. And then Nita felt like cursing at herself for the way her voice squeaked with stress on the second word, turning it into a question.
Kit just looked at her. “Took you long enough,” he said. He grinned at her and vanished.
Nita’s eyes went wide: then narrowed with annoyance— and relieved delight.
“I’m gonna get you for that!” she said, and went after him.
By the same author
In the Young Wizards Series
So You Want to Be a Wizard • Deep Wizardry
High Wizardry • A Wizard Abroad
The Wizard’s Dilemma • A Wizard Alone
Wizard’s Holiday • Wizards at War
A Wizard of Mars
The Middle Kingdoms Series (for adult readers)
The Door into Fire • The Door into Shadow
The Door into Sunset
Other standalone adult fantasy:
Raetian Tales: A Wind from the South
Stealing The Elf-King's Roses
In the Star Trek (TM) universe:
The Wounded Sky • My Enemy, My Ally
Spock’s World • Doctor's Orders
Dark Mirror • Intellivore
The "Rihannsu Quartet"
The Romulan Way • Swordhunt
Honor Blade
(omnibus edtion: Star Trek: The Bloodwing Voyages)
The Empty Chair
Collected short fiction:
Uptown Local and Other Interventions
Midnight Snack and Other Fairy Tales
***
For ebook editions of many books above
and others not listed here,
please visit
EbooksDirect.dianeduane.com
or the Books page at the author's site:
DianeDuane.com
***
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@dduane
*****
Diane Duane, A Wizard of Mars, New Millennium Edition
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