A Wizard Abroad

driveway leading to a large two-storey house, square and blocky, maybe a farmhouse once.

It had a beautiful view of the Dargle valley, leading downward towards Bray, and also of the church and water meadow just down the hill.

They went up to the door and knocked. There was a long pause, and then a little old lady came to the door. She was very fresh-faced and smooth-skinned, and only the fact that her hair was quite silver really gave away much about her age. She was a little stocky, with very sharp, intelligent eyes. 'Morning, Mrs Smyth,' said Ronan.

'And good morning to you,' she said in a faintly Scots accent. 'Are you on business or pleasure?' 'Business,' Ronan said, nodding at Nita. 'She's on errantry.'

'I greet you, ma'am,' Nita said, as she would have said to an American Senior she was being introduced to. The lady blinked at her. 'Are you on active status?' 'Yes'm. At least the manual says so.'

'Then you'd better come in and have a cup of tea, and tell me what it's all about.'

Nita rolled her eyes slightly at the prospect of yet another cup of tea, and resigned herself to the inevitable.

They were made comfortable in the sitting-room, the tea was brought out, and Mrs Smyth poured it out formally for them, and gave them biscuits and sandwiches, and cakes, and encouraged them to eat more of them before she would let them tell her anything about what was going on. Then Nita began to explain again, as she had to Ronan. When she mentioned Tualha, Mrs Smyth's eyes widened a bit. When Nita mentioned going sideways, Mrs Smyth's jaw almost dropped. 'My dear,' she said. 'I hope you understand that you must not do that again.'

'Ma'am, I didn't do it on purpose the first time. Or the third. The only time I did it on purpose was when I looked at Sugarloaf. I won't do it again.'

'I wonder. ' Mrs Smyth said. 'Well. Something is certainly in the wind. We're coming up to Lughnasad; I'd be surprised if it didn't have something to do with that.'

Ronan bit his lip. Nita looked from one of them to the other. 'I hope you'll forgive me if I don't know what's going on here,' she said, 'but if I'm going to be on active status.'

'No, indeed. Lughnasad is one of the four great holidays — Beltain, Samhain, and Imbolc. It used to be the harvest festival, a long time ago — people would celebrate the first crops coming in. And it also celebrated the turning of the heat of the summer towards the cooler weather.'

'The heat of the summer?' Nita said, mildly sceptical. So far it had only got up into the mid-seventies.

Mrs Smyth blinked at her. 'Oh, you're used to it warmer where you live? We're not, though. I think the drought is just about official now, isn't it, Ronan?' 'They said they were going to start water rationing,' Ronan said.

'So,' said Mrs Smyth. 'I suppose that's another indication as well. Anyway, Nita's quite right; if this is allowed to continue, even the nonwizardly will start to notice it. and be endangered by it. This is, mmm, an undesirable outcome.'

Nita couldn't help but laugh at that. 'But what are you going to do about it?' 'Well, I think we're going to have to get together and discuss the matter.' 'But if you don'tdo something. .'

'My dear,' Mrs Smyth said, 'you come from a very. energetic. school of wizardry. I appreciate that. But we do things a little more slowly here. No, we need to call the local wizards and the Area Supervisors together, and discuss what needs to be done. It'll take a few days at least.' Nita chafed at that. It seemed to her that a few days might be too long. But she was a stranger here, and theoretically these people knew best. 'What do you think they'll decide?' Ronan said. Mrs Smyth shook her head. 'It's hard to say. If we have here a rising of the old sort — a reassertion of the events associated with this holiday — then normally one would also have to reassert the events that stopped whatever thing it was that happened.' 'But what was it that happened?' Nita said.

'The second battle of Moytura,' Ronan said. 'I suppose you won't have heard about it. .' 'I've heard about it,' Nita said. 'A little cat told me. In considerable detail.'

'A cat told you?'

'Yeah. She said she was a bard, and. .'

Mrs Smyth looked at Nita in surprise. 'You mentioned this before, but we didn't pursue it. How old was this cat?'

'She's a kitten. Not very old. maybe ten weeks.'

Nita told them, as well as she could remember, everything that Tualha had said to her.

'That is interesting,' Mrs Smyth said. 'Normally cat-bards aren't born unless there's about to be some change in the 'ruled' world, the animal world — as well as the human one. And she mentioned the Carrion-Crow, did she?'

Nita nodded. 'I get a feeling that's not good?'

Ronan made a face. 'The Morrigan is trouble,' he said. 'She turns up in the old stories, sometimes, as a war goddess. Or sometimes as three of them.'

'It's the usual problem,' Mrs Smyth said, 'of the language not being adequate to describe the reality. The Morrigan is one of the Powers, a much diminished one. though even the lesser Powers were often mistaken for gods, in the ancient times. She has become, or made herself, the expression of change, and violence. A lot of that around here in the old days,' she said, and sighed. 'And now. But she's also the peace afterwards. if people will just let it be. 'Carrion-Crow' she might be, but the crows are the aftermath of the battle, nature's attempt to clean it up. not the cause of it.' Mrs Smyth turned her teacup around. 'It's dangerous to see her. but not always bad. She shows herself as a tall dark woman, a fierce one. But she always smiles. She is Ireland, some ways: one of its personifications. Or its hauntings.'

She looked up at Ronan again. 'So, the Morrigan. and the Hunt. Some very old memories are being resurrected. The foxhunt's running must have reminded the world of an older hunt over the same ground.'

'What were those?' Nita said. 'They looked like dire-wolves, but they had some kind of werelight around them.'

'They were faery dire-wolves,' Mrs Smyth said, 'from one of the companion worlds.' 'Who was that following them?' Nita said.

Mrs Smyth looked at her. 'I see by the Knowledge,' she said,'that you've had a certain amount of dealing with the Other. The head of the Fomori — the Lone Power. I should say, a dangerous amount of dealings with It.'

'I don't dealwith It,' Nita said. 'Against It, possibly.' She began to feel annoyed. 'I don't think you need to doubt which side I'm on. Are you saying that you think I'm attracting this trouble?' Wizards do not tell white lies to make people feel better. Mrs Smyth said nothing. 'Well, if I'm here for that purpose,' Nita said, 'I'm here because the Powers that Be sent me. If I'm a trigger, it's Their finger that's on it, not the Lone One's. The Lone One can't move wizards. you know that.'

'No, I do know that,' Mrs Smyth said. 'There have been changes in the Lone One recently, and you had something to do with those.' 'Something,' Nita said.

Ronan looked at her, and then back at Mrs Smyth. 'Her?'

'She was involved just now in the Song of the Twelve,' Mrs Smyth said. Ronan looked wide-eyed. 'She was also involved in. .Well, never mind. It's a distinguished start: if you and your partner survive, of course. Wizardly talent is usually tested to destruction. Your sister,' Mrs Smyth said, 'where is she now? Did she come with you?' 'No, she's back in New York.'

'Pity,' Mrs Smyth said. 'At any rate, I advise you to keep your use of wizardry to the minimum needed. Ronan, you'll want to speak to your friends among the locals, especially the young ones. If anyone finds themselves going sideways, tell them not to meddle.' 'What kind of re-enactment were you thinking of doing?' Nita said.

'Well, my dear,' Mrs Smyth said. 'We have a problem. If there's a re-enactment of Moytura to be done, we don't have anything to do it with, even though one or two of the Treasures still exist.' 'Then how do you mean you don't have anything to do it with?'

'Nita,' Mrs Smyth said, 'it took one of the Powers that Be a very long time to invest those four objects with strength enough to function against the Lone Power in the form It took. The legend says that anything that the Lone One in Balor's form beheld with his eye open, burst straightway into fire and fell as ash, and poisoned the ground for leagues around, so that nothing would grow there, and men who walked that ground died.' 'Sounds like something nuclear,' Nita said.

'So it might have been,' Mrs Smyth said. 'The Lone One has never minded using natural phenomena for Its