A Wizard of Mars, New Millennium Edition (14 page)

Nita stared. 
Oooookay,
 she thought. 
Unusual.
 She walked slowly to the gate, tucking her manual under her armpit, and reached for her charm bracelet, pinching one small glassy lens-charm between finger and thumb and saying a few words in the Speech under her breath. A fragment of spell-shielding ran up and over her free hand and nearly to her elbow, like an oven mitt of thickened air. She wiggled her fingers to make sure that it felt right, and then stuck the shielded hand into that light.

Nothing happened. 
Just sunlight?
 Nita thought. 
Weird, unless there’s a window on the far side of the mountain.
She shook the shield-spell back down her arm: it vanished. Then she peered around through the bars of the gate.

 Her mouth dropped open. 
Sunlight,
 she thought. Inside the gate was a huge, domed, circular room nearly as wide across as the entire width of the spire of stone. Inside it, floating maybe three feet above the floor, was a sun.

Nita leaned against the gate, staring at the burning, dark-golden globe that hung there. It looked to be about fifty feet in diameter. Blobby black foot-long sunspots sailed slowly across its surface, the fiery red-gold plasma they pushed through getting all torn up by their magnetic fields. Plasma writhed and stretched away from the surface in bright filaments as the sunspots plowed stubbornly through it like inkblots with a mission. Elsewhere, sticking up off the surface like fuzz off a ball of yarn, spiky prominences licked into the upper reaches of the star’s atmosphere, frayed at their ends and fell back again. If you held still, you could just see the star’s rotation, as slow as watching sunrise. As Nita watched, movement off to the right caught her eye as someone walked around the side of the great globe and stood with her back to Nita, looking up at it.

What the heck is she wearing?
 Nita thought. There was no mistaking Dairine, especially in that small sun’s light: it made her red hair look even redder than usual. When Nita had seen her this morning, Dairine had been been wearing jeans leggings and a flowered T-shirt. She might still have them on, but it was hard to tell, as she also now wore some kind of silky floor-length tunic in a dark honey color.

Dairine half turned, pushed up the sleeve of the tunic—
yeah, the jeans and the top are still there; what a strange look!
— and thrust her arm into the sun, almost up to the shoulder, where she stood feeling around under the “star’s” surface like someone trying to find something hidden at the back of a dark cupboard. And as Dairine felt around inside the sun, her glance fell on Nita.

Dairine’s eyes went wide: she froze. 
That’s my cue,
 Nita thought. 
Is this open?
 She pushed the gate experimentally. It swung open under her push. Nita walked in and started across that broad shining floor toward Dairine. Dairine took her arm out of the sun, shook it, folded her arms, and stood watching Nita come.

This was a sure sign that Dairine was in a snotty mood and ready to be tough to deal with. 
Now it’s just a question of how to handle it.
 Nita kept walking, letting her attention move to that huge, slowly turning ball of energy. The energy was real; as she got closer, the heat from the “sun” was increasing, though it was nothing like what a star would genuinely have emitted. 
It’s a simulator,
 Nita thought. 
Maybe even a real-time mirror of Wellakh’s own star.

Another shape came out from behind the starglobe: a man. He was taller than all but the tallest human beings would be— slender, narrow-shouldered, wiry, with very long hair as red as Dairine’s. He wore the same sort of long, light tunic Dairine was wearing, though his was several shades darker, with nothing under it but a sleeveless vest and long, loose trousers of a similar silky material, almost exactly the dark fiery amber color of that star.

As Nita got closer she spotted something else unusual that Dairine was wearing besides the tunic. Around her neck was an oversize torc of red-gold metal, with a smooth, egg-shaped, egg-sized stone set in it— paler than the metal, slightly paler than the color of the star. In its depths, as Nita got close, she saw a glow that shifted and moved, echoing the stretch and snap of the prominences on the “star’s” surface. Every now and then the glow dimmed as a miniature sunspot slipped by under the surface of the gem.

Dairine, hostile-eyed, watched Nita coming as the man walked around the side of the “star” toward them. Nita paused and waited for him to approach.

His walk was easy and graceful, but his expression suggested that the outer calm concealed a tremendous tension. Nita found herself being examined by very immediate green eyes, shadowed under heavy brows. The Wellakhit’s face was a sharp one, high-cheekboned, eyes slanted, so that it was easy to get the impression of some cool and thoughtful predator looking at you. As he got closer, Nita picked up on something else: a sense of sheer power that transmitted itself right across the empty air. She concentrated on hanging on to her composure as he came, for she’d never felt anything quite like this before from a being who worked with wizardry and was also mortal. 
Most immortals spend a lot of effort covering up their power,
 she thought, 
so we ephemerals won’t get too freaked. And mortal wizards don’t flaunt their power: it’s rude.
 

But 
this
 wizard possibly had reasons for handling his aura differently. On Wellakh, where there were relatively few wizards, Nelaid ke Seriv was very senior indeed: if not actually the Planetary—for some worlds had none—then the next thing to it on Wellakh, a person of crucial importance to the planet’s well-being and a power to be reckoned with. 
Which is probably why it annoys him so much that some of his people keep trying to assassinate him. And why he walks around with his aura hanging out, so anybody in range gets reminded what they’re in for if they cross him.

As he came, Nita’s eyes went back to that flaming hair of his. It wasn’t just almost the same shade as Dairine’s: it was 
exactly
 the same shade. 
That is beyond strange!
 And at the back of Nita’s mind, the thought stirred that, in a wizard’s world, there were no coincidences. When something looked like a connection, it was smart for you to pay attention—

Later.
 When she judged that Nelaid was close enough, Nita executed the half bow that she’d found worked well with most bipedal humanoid species. “Senior,” Nita said, having considered which of ten or twenty terms of address would be most correct, “in the Powers’ names, and on Their behalf, greetings from another jurisdiction.”

“Young cousin,” he said, a response correct if not precisely comradely, “in Their names, and on Their business as always, welcome.”

“What are 
you
 doing here?” Dairine said.

Nita didn’t even spare Dairine a glance. Protocol dictated otherwise: you always greeted and briefed the most senior wizard first. This also left Nita with a perfect way to outflank Dairine’s temper. “Sir, I’m sorry to interrupt whatever’s going on, but we have a family situation that in my judgment overrides what my manual indicates is an elective exercise on my sister’s part. With your permission—”

Nelaid nodded, a gracious gesture of agreement, and turned away as if to examine the star-simulation. Nita went over to Dairine. Under her breath she said, “You look like a Jedi knight who lost the bathrobe’s belt.”

Dairine rolled her eyes. “I live for your fashion bulletins.”

“Your continued life is just what we’re talking about. Your home life, at least. Dad wants you back there right now.”

“You came all the way here to tell me 
that?
 Well, you can just go right back, thanks.”

The dismissive, cutting tone made Nita flush hot. As she opened her mouth, “Your pardon,” Nelaid said, “but a matter has arisen that requires my intervention. If I may be excused—”

Surprised by the very status-neutral language, Nita caught the oddest look from Nelaid, a slight narrowing of the eyes. Then he vanished without so much as a breath of wind, the effortless displacement of a wizard who had long since perfected the art of teleporting in or out without anyone being the wiser. 
Especially whoever’s trying to murder him this afternoon...

Nita turned back to Dairine. “What exactly are you doing?”

“Practicing. Or I was until you butted in.” Dairine turned away.

“Practicing what?”

Shrugging out of her overrobe, Dairine glared at Nita. “Messing with the energy management of a live star,” she said. “What are you, obtuse?”

She’s trying to get me mad,
 Nita thought, 
and that’ll be her excuse to blow me off.
 “Cruel question for someone you know hates geometry,” Nita said.

Her sister’s mouth quirked as she folded up the robe. Nita kept her own face still. “Dair, you ditched school.”

“Like everybody else wasn’t ditching it today,” Dairine muttered, turning away. “Like it’s such a big deal. Some schools are more important than others.”

“Won’t argue,” Nita said. “But you and Dad had an agreement. If you’d let him know what you were going to do first, you might have been in less trouble than you are now. Now you’ve got a mess to clean up. The least you can do,” Nita said as Dairine opened her mouth to say something angry, “is let me help you get out of it so you can get on with business.”

Dairine paused. “What?”

Nita laughed, thinking, 
This is the way to go, keep her off balance!
“You think I enjoy watching you get in trouble? There’s nothing in it for me. And it screws up my schedule. Let’s keep this brief so we can both get back to what we were doing, okay?”

Dairine stared, caught between bemusement and suspicion. “Are you all right?” she said. “Have you flunked something?”

“No! This isn’t about anything but me helping you cover your butt, because it looks like you could use some help with that right now.”

Dairine scowled, but now at least the scowl suggested that they might be on the same side of the argument. “All right, how?”

“We’re going to bug your manual,” Nita said.

Dairine’s eyes went wide. 
“Oh, no you are not!”
 she said. “
Nobody
 but me messes with Spot!”

“Of course somebody does!” Nita said. “All the time. 
Wizardry
 messes with Spot every second of the day.”

Dairine gave her a strange look.

“All Dad wants is to know where you are, and that you’re okay,” Nita said. “There are two ways that can happen. He can make me run after you constantly and report in on everything you do. I mean 
everything.
 If he doesn’t like something you’re up to, I’ll have to haul you out of it... which is probably going to make us kill each other by the end of the summer. You’ll be sick and tired of me butting in on you every five minutes, yeah?”

“Yeah—”

“And I’ll want 
you
 dead because having to keep tabs on you will ruin 
my
 schedule and drive 
me
 berserk. Since killing each other would get the Powers That Be cranky with us, let’s try something else. Remember the translation spinoff we arranged with Tom last month, so Dad would have access to the manual info about Filif and Sker’ret and Roshaun when they came to visit?”

Dairine nodded, but couldn’t cover the wince of pain on hearing Roshaun’s name. Nita pretended she hadn’t noticed. “We’ll do the same deal,” Nita said, “but instead we’ll hook the output from your daily manual precís into it. Dad can read it on the computer, or even his cell phone.”

“He won’t understand half of it,” Dairine said, scowling.

“Not my problem,” Nita said. “You get to explain stuff to him when you get home every day. He’ll calm down even more when you’re telling him about what you’re doing.”

“It’s gonna be a nuisance,” Dairine said.

“Not as much a nuisance as being grounded.”

Dairine grinned. “Like he could.”

“He couldn’t. But Tom could.” The amusement fell out of Dairine’s expression. “You know he and Dad talk every few days! One word from Dad to Tom, and unless you’re officially on errantry, your butt’s going to be stuck on Earth till the two of them agree otherwise.” Dairine opened her mouth. “And the Powers That Be wouldn’t countermand Tom unless there was something big going on! Till we hit the local legal age, They’re mostly on Dad’s side.”

Dairine stared at the polished floor. “I don’t know,” she said at last, looking toward the simulation. “This has kind of a Big Brother sound to it...”

“Or Big Sister?” Nita said. “Yeah, it does. But it’s the best deal we’re going to get from Dad right now. And since Bobo 
is
 wizardry, and the Powers That Be run him, he can’t do anything bad to you or Spot.” Nita glanced around. “Where is he, anyway?”

Dairine gestured with her head toward the star simulator. To Nita’s considerable surprise, a small shadow, like a rectangular sunspot, materialized near the bottom of the slowly rotating globe: and then a dark oblong shape extruded itself from the shadow and dropped toward the shining floor. The shape put out legs in midair and landed on them, bouncing slightly as it came down. Then it came spidering over to Dairine and Nita.