A Wizard Abroad

Taoiseach can borrow the Chalice to show it off at a politicians' dinner party, I think we might take the loan of it for a night or so and not feel too guilty afterwards. But it all depends on the circumstances, and the power of the ritual used to call the Cup's soul back. Which is what we're going to have to work on. It's not just warriors we're going to need to make this work, but poets. Where are Charles and Alison?' 'Stuck in traffic,' said someone from the bar side of the room.

Johnny grinned. 'Ah, the real world. But at least Liam and Mairead and Nigel are here. I'll be wanting to talk to you three afterwards. The rest of you: I want you all to talk to your Area Supervisors about your schedules for the next two weeks. Any one of you may have to drop everything at a moment's notice and lend a hand. Also, given the seriousness of the situation, travel restrictions on teleportation are off for the duration. Just use your judgement and be very careful about the overlays!'

More chatter erupted. In the middle of it, someone said, 'But Johnny, wait a tick! Isn't this going to make things worse?'

Johnny waved for relative quiet. The room settled a little. 'How do you mean?' he said. 'If you're going to call back the souls of the Treasures — if you can,' said the speaker, a tall dignified-looking wizard with a mighty moustache, 'isn't the land going to get even more awake and aware than it already is? I mean, the Treasuresare the land, in some ways. At least that's what we were always told: four of the five Elements, in their most personified forms. Air and Water and Earth and Fire are going to wake up more than ever, until the situation is resolved and everything is laid to rest again.'

Johnny nodded slowly. The room went quiet as people looked at his expression. 'Yes,' he said after a while. 'It's going to getmuch worse. Which makes it to our advantage to get the situation resolved, as you say, as quickly as possible. Otherwise first Ireland, then the rest of Europe, and eventually all the other continents, are going to be overrun with the past happening again, and the dead walking, and all kinds of other inconveniences. If we can't stop this, then the barriers between present and past will break down everywhere, and the physical world will be progressively overrun by the nonphysical: all the myths, and truths that became myth, all the dreams and nightmares, all the more central and more peripheral realities, will superimpose themselves on this one. inextricably.'

'For how long?' said a small voice out of the hush.

'If that level of imposition ever takes hold fully,' Johnny said, 'I don't see how the process could ever be reversed.'

Silence, broken only by the noise of cheerful conversation in the frontmost, nonwizardly part of the pub. 'Right,' said the man with the moustache again. 'But in the meantime, while you Seniors are intervening, Ireland's dreams and nightmares are going to keep coming true — even more than they have been — and the past will keep happening, and the dead and the undead and the immortal will walk. And 'other inconveniences'.' 'That's exactly right, Scott,' Johnny said.

There was another long silence. Then a voice said, 'I need another pint.'

A chorus of other voices went up in agreement. Nita noticed that her Coke was long gone, and she was very thirsty.

'I'll get you another,' Aunt Annie said, and got up. 'Anybody else? Katherine? Nuala? Orla? Hi, Jim. .' She moved off.

Nita sat there feeling somewhat shaky. 'Hey, you look like a sheet,' said a voice by her. She looked up: it was Ronan.

She smiled faintly at him as he sat down, and did her best to control herself. He looked, if possible, even more attractive than he had previously. Black leather suited him, and so did this subdued lighting. 'I feel like one,' she said. 'How about you?'

'Sounds pretty bad,' Ronan said. But he looked and sounded remarkably unconcerned. 'Don't worry about auld Shaun there, he just likes to sound like doom and destruction all the time. Comes of being Area Senior; they all sound like the world's ending half the time.'

Probably because it is, Nita thought. It was only the sheer number of wizards in the world, and the sacrifices they kept making from week to week, that kept civilization on an even keel; or so it seemed to her. 'Look, can I ask you something?' 'Sure.'

'I'm just curious. Was your Ordeal bad?'

He looked peculiarly at her. 'Almost got me killed, if that's what you mean.' 'So will crossing O'Connell Street,' Nita said. 'Never mind. I don't know what I mean. I mean, it seemed to me that my Ordeal was pretty awful. I was just curious whether I was an exception, or whether everyone had that bad a time. My sister did, but she's not exactly a normal case. And I haven't had that many chances to discuss it with other wizards.'

Ronan looked thoughtful and took a sip of his orange-and-lemon drink. 'I got timeslid,' he said. Nita shrugged slightly. 'We bought a timeslide from our local Seniors for ours,' she said. 'I didn't buy mine,' Ronan said. 'Igot it.' He took another drink. 'One day I took the Oath — the next I was walking up Vevay Road. You know, at the top of Bray by the Quinnsworth? Well, it stopped being Vevay Road. It was just a dirt track with some thatched huts down near the school, at the bottom of the hill, and it was raining cats and dogs. Thunder and lightning.' Nita shivered: she disliked being caught out in the rain. 'What did you do?' 'I went up Bray Head,' Ronan said, bursting out in a laugh that sounded as if, in retrospect, he didn't believe his own craziness. 'I wanted to see where everything was, you know? It was a mess. You know how the sea gets during a storm. Well, maybe you don't…'

'I live on Long Island,' Nita said. 'We get high-force gales on the Great South Bay, when the hurricanes come through.'

'Well, this storm was driving inland,' Ronan said, 'between the rain and the spray, there was almost no difference between being in the water and on the land. Well, I saw the boat come in, straight for the rocks. Little thing.' He saw Nita's blank look and said, 'The Romans.' That made her raise her eyebrows. She had seen the Roman coins that had been found at the base of Bray Head: she had seen a reconstruction of the archaeological site, with their bones. 'They were going to try to set up a colony, weren't they?' she said.

Ronan nodded. Nita watched him. She remembered that afternoon in the chicken place in Bray, and the vehemence of Ronan's feelings about colonizers of any kind. But at the moment, Ronan just sat, and flushed a little, and looked away from Nita as he said, 'Well, they were going to get killed, weren't they? Them and their little boat and all, in that sea. One of the lifeboats couldn't have stood it, let alone that little smack. So I 'took the sea in'.'

Nita stared at him. What Ronan was describing was temporary but complete control of a pure element: using the wizardly Speech to describe every molecule of an object or area so completely and accurately that for a short period youbecame it. Control was barely the word for it. It became as much part of you as your body. for a while. Then came the backlash: for human beings are not really meant to have more than one physical body at a time. You might find the association impossible to break — and have to spend the rest of your life coexisting with what you had described: which would surely drive you insane. Or the strain of the wizardry itself might kill you. An adult wizard, full of experience, might have done such a wizardry once. and no other wizardry, ever again. A young wizard, on Ordeal, or soon after, would have done it and lived. maybe. It was a good question whether his head would ever be entirely right again. But here sat Ronan, still blushing slightly, and said, 'It wasn't much of it I had to take, just the sea around Bray Head. They jumped ship and made it ashore. I couldn't save the boat, it went all to pieces when I lost control. I must have passed out up there — the slide came undone after a while, and some tourists doing the cliff walk from the Greystones side found me slipping down the rocks on the seaward side, and they called the Guards. I spent a few days in the hospital.' He shrugged.

'Hypothermia,' he added, and laughed. 'Too true — but they never knew from what.' 'Wow,' Nita said under her breath, almost lost in admiration of him. She was starting to blush, but she ignored it as she looked at him again. 'But you knew,' she said. 'That there was just the one boat. The Romans never made it here except for those people. Britain was giving them too much trouble. You could have let them go under.'

If there was a little challenge in her voice, Ronan didn't rise to it. 'Could I?' he said. 'I knew it was a timeslide. Would I have been changing history? Did I have any choice?' 'Too right you did,' Nita said, again under her breath.

Ronan heard it. He looked up from under his brows at her, that familiar scowl. 'That's as may be. What could I do? Seeing them waving their arms and trying to get off, and knowing they would drown if they tried it, in that