A Wizard Abroad

5. Faoin gCnoc / Under the hill

The chasm was deeper and wider than it looked.Is this happening in the real world? Nita thought, and paused for a moment to try to see with double vision, as she had seen the other day. True enough, mere daylight vision showed her a smooth hill — no crack; nothing. But then no-one in the house had seen her aunt. She had. Nita was seeing sideways where her aunt was, and this was sideways too. Not as sideways as it might have been, of course.

"Aunt Annie," she said, not loud, but urgently, and loud enough to carry. Ahead of her, her aunt stopped in shock, standing there with the rake. She looked back at Nita and said, "Oh, no."

"Aunt Annie," Nita said, grinning a little in spite of herself, "whatdid they tell you about why they'd sent me here.?"

Aunt Annie's mouth opened and shut, and then she said, "When I get my hands on Ed. I'm going to rip his head off and hand it to him."

"They couldn't exactly tell you," Nita said, immediately wanting to defend her father. "It's not his fault."

"Maybe not," Aunt Annie said, "but Nita.! I had no idea!"

"Actually, I was hoping you wouldn't," Nita said, wryly. "I don't usually try to advertise it." "But how can yoube here?" Aunt Annie said. Then in she shook her head. "Never mind that now. That you're here means you're intended to be. I've got business. Let's go and see them." "Them?"

"Be polite," Aunt Annie said. "And follow my lead." Nita was entirely willing. She followed her aunt into the hill.

It was not a hill. It was a city. It was like the one that Nita had seen crowning Sugarloaf, but smaller, more intimate. It could not, of course, be inside the hill. It was two, three — ten? fifty? — universes over from the 'real world'. Broad streets, airy; shade, the sound of running water, stone as fluidly formed as if it had been clay once, or flesh — all paused in mid-movement, possibly to move again some day. There were echoes of thatched houses, and of old castles, and of castles no human being could have imagined, hints of architecture Nita recognized as extraterrestrial from her travels — apparently the builders had had connections elsewhere.

The light was different too; harder, sharper, somehow clearer than the light that rested on the fields around Aunt Annie's farm. Things seemed to have sharper edges, more weight, more meaning. Nothing here needed to glow with magical light, or anything so blatant. Things here were too busy beingreal… more real even than the 'real world'. It was a slightly unnerving effect. "Oh, and one other thing," her aunt said. "Don't eat or drink anything here." Nita burst out laughing. "There had to beone place in Ireland where no-one was going to make me drink tea or eat anything," she said.

Her aunt looked at her cockeyed, then laughed. "Well, you keep thinking of it that way." They walked on among the high houses. "Where are we going?" Nita said.

"To talk to the people who live here," said Aunt Annie. "I do have certain rights. This is my land — I am the landowner. ." She chuckled then. "As if anyone in Ireland can really own land. We all just borrow it for a while." She looked sidewise at Nita. "Where were you last night?" "I was out with some very very large things that should have been wolves, but Weren't," Nita said. "Oh, by the way. There was a phone call for you. A Shaun O'Driscoll. ." I

"I just bet," said Aunt Annie. "The Area Supervisor. Well, we'll see him shortly, but I need to deal with these first." "These people. ."

"You know the name," her aunt said. "We don't usually say it. it's considered impolite. Like shouting at someone, 'Hey, human!'."

The Sidhe, Nita thought. The people of the hills… the not-so-little people. "You see them often?" Nita said.

"Often enough. "Good fences make good neighbors," as the poet says. However, every now and then, when you share common ground, you need to have a good long chat over the fence. That's what this is about."

They came to the heart of the city. There were twelve trees in a circle, and three bright chairs under the trees, seemingly resting on the surface of a pool of water. Or rather, the chairs on either side of the central one were true chairs; the central one was a throne. The trees moved in the wind, and the shadows thrown by their branches wove and shifted on the surface of the bright water in patterns that seemed to Nita to be always on the edge of meaning.

People stood around and watched from under the shade of those trees; tall people, fair people, with beautiful dogs at heel. Handsome cats sat here and there, watching; unconcerned birds sang rainbows in the trees. Nita tried to look at a few of the people, and found it difficult. Not that they were indistinct. They were almost too solid to bear, and their clothes and weapons, in an antique style, all shone with certainty and existence.

The chairs on either side of the throne were filled; the throne itself was empty. Aunt Annie walked straight towards the throne, across the water. Nita watched with professional interest. She knew several ways to walk on water, but she felt safe in assuming that the water here was more assertive, and didn't mind being walked on without more active spelling. She headed out after her aunt. Aunt Annie stopped about three meters away from the central throne, acknowledged it with a slight nod, and then looked at the person sitting in the right-hand chair. "The greeting of gods and men to you,Amadaun of the People of the Hill in Cualann. And to you, lady of this forth." The lady bowed her head. "To you also, Aoine ni Cealodhain, greeting," said the man in the right- hand chair. "And greeting to you, Shonaiula ni Cealodhain."

Nita was slightly out of her depth, but she knew how to be polite. She bowed slightly and said, "I am on errantry, fair people, and the One greets you by me." "This we had known," said the woman in the chair.

"Then perhaps you will explain to me," said Aunt Annie, "why my niece was chased halfway across my field last night bythat one's hunt. I thought we had an agreement that if you saw any power of that kind waking, you would warn me so that I could take appropriate action." "We had no warning ourselves, Aoine," said the lady.

"I would then appreciate your view of what's happening here. It's most unusual for you to have no warning of so major an intrusion, and that you didn't means we have trouble on our hands." "Trouble rarely comes near us, Aoine. But it would be true to say that the past is becoming troublesome. We have had a messenger at our gates. one of the Fomori." "And what did this messenger say?"

"That the old shall become new in our fields, and yours. He offered us. what we were offered once before. The end of your kind, once and for all."

Aunt Annie said nothing. The young man, the'Amadaun', looked at Nita and said, "You must understand that the children of the Milesians are not looked upon with favour in some of the Fifth House."

"If you mean that some of the nonhuman species think humans were a silly idea," Nita said, "yes, I've heard that opinion before."

"There are those Powers in this part of the world, and children of the Powers — Powers fallen lower than we — who never looked kindly on human folk, and would be glad to see them all dead. At their own hands, or by the hands of other humans — so that old angers are inflamed, and old hatreds seem to live uncannily long." "Yes," Nita said, "I've noticed that."

"It is the land, of course," said the fair young woman. "The land remembers too well. It saw Partholon come; it saw Nemed; it saw us, and the Fir Bolg, and the hosts of man. One after another of us it threw off, in its way, having been taught to do so by the Lone One, and given a memory that other lands don't have — a sense of injury. Long time we've tried to heal that, but there is no healing it now. The old angers wake up again and again."

"There must be something that could be done," Nita said.

"If there is an answer, we do not have it," said the lady of the forth, "and the Fomori are at our gates. Soon enough they'll be at yours."

"They have been at our gates, they and their children, for a long while," said Aunt Annie, "under various names. We do what we can, as do you. What are the Fomori threatening you with this time?"

"Nothing concrete as yet. Of course they demanded tribute. They have done that before. We will of course refuse to give it; we have done that before too. And then they will begin to strike, here, and there, at the innocent, the ones who have no defense."

"That too we know about," said Aunt Annie, "for a long time now. Nonetheless, something needs to be done. I think all the wizards will now be called together. Probably there should be another meeting between us once that has taken place. Doing seems to have passed into our hands, these days, and out of yours."

"That seems to be true," said theAmadaun. "Advise us what you do. We will back you as much as possible. Meanwhile, rain has not fallen here for too long. We seem to be losing the ability to order our world as we used to. Something outside is becoming very strong. and Lughnasad is coming, when old battles are remembered. Even with the power of the Treasures, it was very close. We almost lost, last time. Without the Treasures. ." The form on the left shook her head. "There is no saying. We need your help."

"Keep your people in, then, if you would," said Aunt Annie. "The "sideways" and the not-sideways parts of the world are getting too close together at the moment; we need to part them until this is resolved."

"We will do that. And you. ." TheAmadaun looked at Nita. "What would you say to us?" Nita looked at the shining forms all around her, and shook her head. "I think you owe me one," she said. "For the hunt the other night. If your carelessness let that happen, I think you owe me a favour one of these days."

There were shocked looks at her boldness, and Aunt Annie looked at her sideways. But there was a wry smile from theAmadaun. "Our people have long known that a favour given must be returned, and a wrong done must be avenged," he said. "Come here, then, and let me speak a word in your ear."

Nita stepped up to him, wondering. TheAmadaun leaned over and whispered; and the hair stood up all over Nita. It was a word in the Speech, a name. but not the kind of name mortals had. There was too much power in it, and too much time. She glanced sideways in shock, and met his eyes, and found no relief there: the time was there too. "Should you need help," he said, "name that name."

"Thank you," Nita said, trying to get some of her composure back. "I'll do that. Meanwhile, I hope you do well, and that things are quiet for you."

"A mortal wishes what we wish," said the lady of the forth, smiling. "There's a change." "Thank you," said Aunt Annie.

Nita rejoined her, and together they walked out the way they came. The sunlight looked thin and wan when they came out, when it should have looked golden; everything seemed a little unreal, a little fake, now.

Nita looked at Aunt Annie and was a little surprised to find that she had sweat standing out on her forehead. "Are you OK?" she said. "You look pale."

"I'm all right," said Aunt Annie. "It's just a strain talking to those people. They don't see time the way we do."

"I kind of liked it in there," Nita said.

Her aunt looked at her. "Yes, I thought you might. They prefer the young; the younger wizards have always bent a little more easily to their ways. I make them uneasy, too; I'm a little too close to mortality for their liking. But anyway," her aunt looked at Nita, "I can't believe it. You're a wizard!"

"At times I find it hard to believe myself," Nita said. "Like last night. My wizardry was not working terribly well."

"Yes, it's a problem we have around here," said her aunt. "The overlays. If I'd have known, I could have warned you."

"How could you have known? How was I supposed to tell you?" She broke out laughing. "Whatdid they tell you when they sent me out here?"

Her aunt shook her head. "They said you were getting too involved with your friend Kit. He's your partner, I take it."

"Yeah. They're really nervous about it, Aunt Annie. I try to calm them down."

"Listen, you're lucky. At least you were able to tell your parents. I was never able to tell your grandma and grandpa."

"Listen, even when they know, it doesn't always run smoothly. But Aunt Annie, look, what are we going to do?"

"We can't do anything just yet."

Nita groaned. Her aunt looked at her with a sympathetic expression. "Look, honey, I know. But the tradition of wizardry is different in this part of the world. They've been doing it for thousands of years longer than there evenwere American wizards. And don't forget that at home you're working in a relatively clean environment; the magic of the Amerind wizards was of a much more naturalistic kind. There was practically no overlay, since it worked so completely in conjunction with nature and the environment. Over here we're dealing with the equivalent of wizardly toxic waste. the accumulation of thousands of years of buildup. No, we take our time. We need to get everyone together to talk." "When is this Lughnasad thing?" "It starts tomorrow, really. ." "Tomorrow?!"

"It goes on for two weeks. don't panic. The first is the beginning of it: August the fifteenth is the end. It's the end that we have to worry about. things will be building up, forces will have to be released. It's going to be like a dam breaking. If we can dig a channel somehow, something for the power, the flow, to run off into. Otherwise. ." "Otherwise even the nonwizards are going to notice."

Her aunt laughed. "Nita, nonwizards have been noticing foryears. Fortunately, Ireland just has a reputation for being a strange place. So when people hear these weird stories, they discount them. But we'll get the wizards together and talk to them. Meanwhile, try to restrain yourself. I know the urge to do wizardry all the time is very strong, especially at your age. But don't — you know — just don't."

And that was the last that was said about it for a while. Aunt Annie went into the estate office and shut herself in, and started making phone calls. Nita took herself off to her caravan to do some more reading in the manual.

As she turned the corner, she froze in surprise: the caravan shifted slightly as she looked at it. Someone was in there. She paused and tried to see through the window before coming any closer. Inside, someone bent forward into the light: a shadow moved. .

She ran to the caravan door and threw it open. On the bed, Kit looked up in surprise, blinked at her. "Hi, Neets. What's the rush?"

Nita stood there with her mouth working, and nothing coming out. "What are youdoing here?" she said finally.

Kit opened his mouth, too, and closed it, and then said, "I thought you'd be glad to see me." "You idiot, Iam glad to see you! But what are youdoing here? I thought. ." "Oh." Kit turned red, then started laughing, "Neets, uh, I feel like a fool." She withheld comment for the moment. "Oh?"

"Well, I mean,you promised your parents that you wouldn't come back to see me. But I never said anything of the kind. No-oneasked me. So I said to my mum, "I have to go out for a while, I'll be back for dinner." And she said, "Fine, have a nice time. " "Dynamite! Come and see my aunt."

She dragged him inside. Her aunt had taken a little while off from phone calls to feed the cats, and now stood there looking at Kit with a can of cat food in her hand, and a somewhat bemused expression. "Aunt Annie," Nita shouted,"this is Kit!" "Ah." Her aunt blinked. "Haifa second, then, and I'll feed him too."

Nita snickered and sat him down at the table, and started making tea. Out of the tangle of mewing and hollering cats, one detached itself and strolled over to the kitchen table, jumped up on it, and regarded Kit with big eyes. It was Tualha. "And who is this?" she said.

Nita had to laugh a little at Kit's bemused expression. "Kit, Tualha. She's a bard. Tualha, Kit Rodriguez. He's a wizard." "Dai stiho," said Kit.

"Slan,"said the cat, looking him up and down. To Nita she said, "I see the Spanish have finally arrived."

"What?"

"Kit, don't get her started. She'll be reciting poetry at you in a minute." "I don't mind that."

"So listen," Nita's aunt said then, coming over to the table and sitting down as she dried her hands on a dishcloth. "Kit, you're welcome here, but one question. Do your parents know you're a wizard?" "Oh, yeah."

She shook her head. "It's getting easier these days than it used to be." She looked at Nita, and then at Kit, and at Nita again. "Listen," she said, "I want the straight word from you on this. You two aren't doing what your mum and dad were concerned you were doing — I mean, what theytold me they thought you were doing. Are you?"

She had the grace to look embarrassed as she said it. Nita and Kit could do nothing but look at each other and then burst out laughing. "Why does everyone think that?" Kit said, sounding momentarily aggrieved. "Are we panting at each other or something?" Then he lost it and cracked up again.

"No," Nita said to Aunt Annie. "We're not."

"Well," said her aunt. "It's matters here that really concern me, and I've got enough on my plate at the moment. You know anything about it?"

"There was a preqis in the manual of what's been going on here," Kit said. He sighed. "We've got problems."

That 'we' was one of the nicest things Nita had heard in a long time. She had had enough of working by herself. "Yeah. Well, the Seniors here seem to have at least a handle on what to do. I just hope it works. Did you read about that?"

"Yeah. It seems they've already made some progress. There's a stone, is it? That they had to wake up-"

"It was half-awake already," Nita said. "It's the other three that are going to be a problem." "Yeah. They said that the second one was "dormant", the third one was "unusable" and the fourth one was "unaccounted for". That doesn't sound terrific." "Nope."

"Listen," Aunt Annie said, I" ll leave you two to chat. I've got to get back on the phone." She smiled at them and headed out of the room. "Phone? What for?" "Other wizards," Nita said.

Kit looked mystified. "To just talk to them? Why don't they. ."

"NO, DON'T DO THAT!" she said, sitting bolt upright as she felt him starting to casually line up the beam-me-up spell in his head. "You can't do that here!" "Why not?"

"Feel around you for the overlays! They're all over the place! And you better watch how you go home, too."

He paused a moment, and then looked surprised. "You're not kidding. How do you get around here?"

"I walk. Or there's a bike to ride."

"Well, let's go and do that, then. Sounds like I've got a lot of catching up to do."

Nita slipped into the office, bent over Aunt Annie at her desk, scribbled a note on her pad: Going out bike riding, OK?

Her aunt nodded and went right on with her conversation about spell structure.

They were out for a long time. Part of it was Kit rubbernecking at the scenery while they talked. But part of it was the weather turning odd. The thunderstorms the weathermen had been predicting materialized, but they dropped hail rather than rain. They had to take shelter from several of these showers, and when they finally got down to the dual carriageway again, they found hailstones as big as marbles lying around on the road, steaming bizarrely in the bright sunshine. The sound of thunder rumbled miles away, sporadic but threatening, all through the ride. They had been taking turns riding, or sometimes Kit would ride and Nita would sit on the crossbar, or the other way around. At the moment Kit was walking the bike beside her, looking around appreciatively. "This is great," he said. "I guess if you had to be sent somewhere, this is as good a place as any."

"Huh," Nita said. "I don't remember you being very excited about it at first."

He coloured somewhat. "Yeah, well."

Nita grinned. "Listen, how's Dairine getting on?"

"OK, as far as I can tell. I think she may be on assignment; she doesn't seem to have been around your place much in the past few days. Busy."

"I bet. Wizards all over the place are really busy about now." Nita shook her head. The oppressive, thunderstorm-about-to-happen feeling had not stopped. She was still prickling, but not so violently as she had been that morning.

"Here it comes," Kit said, looking up at one thundercloud that they had watched drifting halfway between them and the sea as they turned down the Kilquade road. Almost immediately as he said it, Nita saw the bolt of lightning lance down and strike one of the hills behind the farm. Silently she started counting seconds, and had barely got to 'two' before the crack of thunder washed over them. "A little too close," said Kit. "Let's get inside."

They headed down the drive in a hurry, and came out into the gravel yard in front of the house. Nita was heading for the front door when Kit looked around him with a sudden surprised expression. "Wait a minute. What's that?" he said.

"That what?" Nita was feeling a little cross. She could feel the rain coming on in the air, and didn't want to stand around outside waiting for it, after all she'd been through that day. "That," Kit said, swinging around as if looking for something. "Can't you feel it? Inanimate. Strong."

Nita shook her head, wondering what he was talking about. Kit was staring down towards the farmyard, between the buildings. "There's something going on down there," he said. "Something alive."

"This place is full of horses and sheep and cows," Nita said. "Kit. ."

"No," he said. "Not something that'susually alive. It's inanimate, it's athing, it's — come on!" He started down that way. There was another roll of thunder. Nita didn't see the lightning bolt this time. She went after him, muttering to herself. The problem was that Kit frequently sensed things she didn't, just as she sensed things he didn't. They had areas where their talents overlapped, certainly, but Nita's specialty was live things; Kit had always been more for inanimate objects. And if he really felt he was on the trail of something important. .

"It's really weird," he said as she caught up with him. "It's nothing — I've never felt one that alive before." "One what?

He looked into the farmyard and shook his head, and gestured. "That," he said.

Nita looked. There was nothing in the farmyard but Biddy the farrier's pickup truck, with its forge on the back. "That?"

"It's not the truck," Kit said. "Not the truck itself. That's a little more awake than usual, but nothing really strange. It's the thing in the back. That box. What is that?"

"It's a forge, a portable forge," Nita said, mystified. "She's the lady who comes and puts the horses' shoes on."

Right then, Biddy herself came out of the hay barn, in the act of shrugging into a waterproof jacket. She looked up at the sky, pausing for a moment; then headed towards the truck. "Uh oh," Kit said, looking up too, with a panicked expression. And a second later, the lightning came down.

That was only the first thing that happened. As Kit said 'uh oh', Nita had felt the potential building in the air become suddenly unbearable, not just a prickling but a pain all over her. It was a matter of a second, even with her brains as tired as they were from spelling, to put a shield spell up around herself and Kit. She saw Biddy look up; she saw the lightning lance down at the truck. The breath went right out of Nita in horror, for there was no way, no way, she could extend her shield so far. . Biddy lifted her hand abruptly and the lightning simply went elsewhere. It didn't strike anything else, it didn't miss; it just stopped. And went away. There was not even a thunderclap. And Biddy stood there, looking up at the sky, and glanced around, as if looking to see whether anyone had been watching. Then she smiled very slightly, and got into the truck. "Now what was that?" Kit whispered.

Nita pulled him behind the nearby smoking shed, out of sight of the truck as it turned, heading for the drive. He barely noticed; he was watching the truck. "Whois that?" he said. "I told you, that's the lady who puts the horseshoes on. Biddy." "She's a wizard!"

"She's not. She can't be," Nita said. It just didn't feel right. "That wasn't a wizardry. Wizards can hide. But the magic feels like magic, whatever."

Kit shook his head. "Then how do you explain that? She swatted a lightning bolt away like a bug. And her truck, or that forge in her truck anyway, isalive. That I can feel." "I don't know," Nita said. "Things are getting weird around here."

"Getting"!" Kit started to laugh, then sobered and looked thoughtful. "Are you going to tell your aunt about this?"

"I don't know," Nita said. "I think. I think I want to talk to Biddy first."

"Makes sense," Kit said. "Then what?"

"Check with the Seniors. They seem to be running this show."

"OK," Kit said. "You're on."

They talked until nearly midnight. The last thin Kit said was, "You been meeting a lot of people around here? Kids, I mean?" "Some. They're OK." "Are they nice to you?"

Nita thought of Ronan, and immediately flushed hot. How was she supposed to explain this to Kit Explain what? some part of her mind demanded. Heaven only knows what he thinks about you: if anything, he probably thinks you're too young for him. "They're fine," she said after a moment.

"They're not geeky, the ones I've met."

"Some of the kids back home," Kit said, "They're saying that I had got you in trouble."

She burst out laughing. "No wonder you jumped in there when Aunt Annie questioned you. Kit, who cares what they think? Idiots." She punched him "Go on home, it's your dinnertime."

"Oh, blast, I forgot!" He got up hurriedly an started riffling through his manual.

"Don't forget the overlays!" Nita said. "You leave them out of your calculations, you'll wind up in th middle of the Atlantic."

"So? We have friends there." He found the page he was looking for. "Kuuut!" Nita said, annoyed, until he looked 1 her. "Just be careful."

He nodded, and started reading the transposition spell under his breath. At the very end of it, on th last word, he looked back up at her. "Don't be late tomorrow," Nita said quietly.

He nodded, and grinned, and the air slammed int the space where he had been. Nita went to bed.