A Wizard Abroad

'R. Nolan?' she said. 'Junior?'

'Yeah,' he said, perplexed. 'You're from. .'

'I'm on errantry,' Nita said, 'and I greet you.'

He looked at her with his mouth open. He suddenly looked like one of the terminally shocked fish that Nita had seen in the Bray fish market the other morning. 'You?' he said.

'Me.'

'You meanyou're one of US?'

'Um.' Nita made a wry face at him, and lowered her voice. 'I've been places where the people had tentacles, and more eyes than you have hairs,' she said, 'and they didn't makethis much fuss about it. Can we talk? I require an advice.'

It was the formal phrasing for a wizard on assignment who needed technical information from another one. Ronan stared at her and said, 'Just a minute. I'll get my jacket.' The door shut in her face, and Nita stood there on the doorstep, feeling like an idiot. After a moment Ronan came out again, and they walked. 'Let's get out of here,' he said. 'I don't want to be seen.'

Nita had to laugh at that, though she got an odd twinge of pain when he said it.Not seen with me? Or what? 'What, am I contagious or something?' she said as they made their way down to the Boghall Road.

'No, it's just. .' He didn't say what it was just. 'Never mind. You meanyou're a. .'

'Can we stop having this part of the conversation?' Nita said, both irritated and amused. 'There's more stuff to talk about. Listen. This going 'sideways' thing. .'

'What?'

'Going 'sideways',' Nita said, getting a little more irritable. 'I assume you know about it. Well, it's happened to me three times in the past two days, and I don't mind telling you that I don't like it very much. .'

'You wentsideways?' Ronan said. 'We're notallowed to go sideways. .'

'Listen,' Nita said, 'maybe you're not allowed to go sideways, fine, but I did it, and not on purpose, let me tell you. Now I need to talk to someone and find out what's going on here, because last night I was almost eaten by wolves and nearly stepped on by an Irish elk!'

'Jeez,' said Ronan, almost in awe.

Nita smiled slightly. 'My feelings exactly,' she said. Carefully she told him how things had been going for her since she arrived.

'You could have been killed!' Ronan said.

'Tell me something I don't know,' Nita said. 'And I would like to avoid being killed in the future! Is this kind of thingnormal?'

'Not really,' Ronan said. 'At least, not for us. We're not supposed to be doing that kind of thing. This whole area is badly overlaid.'

'I saw that,' Nita said. 'But look. this kind of thing isn't safe. If a nonwizard falls into this. .' 'You got that in one,' Ronan said, looking grim. 'Jeez, Kilquade. Kilquade was supposed to be comparatively quiet. Not like Bray. .'

'Things have become very unquiet up that way,' Nita said. 'Do you have a Senior around here that we can go and talk to? This is not good at all.' 'Sure. She's up in Enniskerry.'

'Then let's get up there. I'm on active, and I don't know what for, and if I can't do wizardry for fear of overlays, I am going to have a nasty problem on my hands. Have you got your manual?' He looked at her. 'Manual?'

'You know. Your wizard's manual, where you get the spells and the ancillary data.' 'You get them out of abook?'

Nita was confused. 'Where else would you get them?'

Ronan looked at her as if she was very dim indeed. 'The way we always have — the way the druids and bards did it for two, three thousand years, maybe more. We do it by memory!' Now Nita's mouth fell open. 'You learn the whole manualby heart? The whole body of spells?' 'Well, the basic stuff. You have to learn the basic incantations that make more detailed information available. But mostly, mostly you learn it by heart — the area restrictions, the address list — if a change happens, you usually just wake up knowing about it one morning — and you make sure you remember it.' He shook his head. 'Why? You mean you get it written down?' Nita pulled out her manual and showed it to him. Ronan paged through it with a mixture of fascination and disgust. 'I can't believe this. This makes it too easy!'

'Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how thick this thing can get sometimes? I think we have a little more information to deal with than you do over here.'

'Don't be so sure,' Ronan said, handing the manual back to her in some irritation. 'We may be a smaller place than you Yanks have to deal with, but it's a lot more complicated.'

They walked down the street, each in a state of mild annoyance with the other. 'Look,' Nita said, 'let's not fight over details. Are there a lot of you working around here?'

Ronan shook his head. 'We don't seem able to keep a lot of our wizards after eighteen or so.'

'Why?'

'Emigration,' Ronan said. 'England and the States. There's not much work here. You may be a wizard, but you've got to have a job too. You can't make something out of nothing. the Universe doesn't allow it.' 'No,' Nita said.

Ronan looked at her with more annoyance. 'But there are still a fair number of locals. I can't understand why they should putyou on active all of a sudden.' 'Mmmh,' Nita said. 'Possibly past experience.'

She didn't feel like going into much more detail. 'Never mind that. Let's go and see your Senior.' 'We'll have to take the bus,' Ronan said.

So they did. Enniskerry was about four miles away. You had to cross the dual carriageway, and then go up a twisty-turny road which the locals called 'the thirteen-bend road'. It paralleled the course of the Glencree River as it poured down through beautiful woodland. Occasional old houses were scattered along the way, but mostly the road was bounded by hedges on one side and walls on the other, and the river chattering on the far side of the hedge.

They sat in the top of the bus. 'I can't believe it,' Ronan kept saying. 'I mean, a Yank. .!' 'Some of us have to be wizards,' Nita said, rolling her eyes. 'You know that. We can't function entirely with immigrants from Ireland.' She grinned at him wickedly. 'Well, I suppose. Butbooks.'

'You should see my sister,' Nita said. 'She gets hers out of a computer.' 'Jeez!' Ronan said in wonder and disgust.

They came to Enniskerry village. It was a pretty place; there was a smart little red-and-white hotel with peaked roofs, a pub, some small antique shops, a food shop and a florist. In the middle of the town's triangular 'square' was a wonderful blocky Victorian clock tower with a domed top and a weather vane. 'Do we get out here?' Nita said.

'Not unless you want to spend ten minutes climbing the steepest hill you've ever seen,' Ronan said. 'Noooo.I'll pass.'

The bus paused in the square for a few minutes, then continued up the winding road that led westward. Where the road topped out, near another housing estate and a little shop, they got off.

Ronan turned and began to walk back down the hill. 'It's over here,' he said.

They walked down the hill and crossed the road to a pair of wooden gates between two pillars, one of which had the words KILGARRON HOUSE painted on it. 'Wow,' Nita said.

There was a little side gate; Ronan opened it for her, and they stepped through. Inside it was a curving