A Wizard Abroad

water.' He looked away again, as if slightly embarrassed. 'Sure nothing came of it anyway. They were marooned there; no one ever came after them. They settled down there, and married the people there, some of them. I'm related to them, for all I know.' Nita smiled slightly. 'You didn't know that no-one would come after them, though. Suppose you had changed history? Suppose you had just saved the lives of the people who were going to report back to Rome and bring in the conquerors?' Ronan drank his drink and looked away.

Nita reached out and patted his arm — a casual enough gesture, she did it with Kit all the time, but as she did it to Ronan, the shock of it, the closeness of actually touching him, ran up the arm like fire and half wilted her. 'Never mind,' she said, trying to get some control back. The point of each wizard's Ordeal was always a private thing: that Ronan should share this much of it with her was more than he had to do. 'You want another of those?' she said. 'What did you call it?' 'A St Clements. 'Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clements. .' ' He burst out laughing at Nita's uncomprehending look. 'Don't know that one, I take it. Not in the Top Forty.' Nita knew when she was being made fun of, and knew when not to take it seriously: her heart warmed that he liked her enough to do it at all. 'Eat turf and die, Paddy,' she said, and got up, feeling in her pocket for change.

She got Ronan's drink, and when she got back, found her own waiting for her, and rather to her surprise, Johnny sitting in her seat and chatting with Ronan. 'Here,' Johnny said, and got up; 'I was holding it for you. Listen, dear, I have a message for you. Tom and Carl send their best.' 'You know them? How are they?' Nita said, sitting right up. 'Are they OK? It was them, then!' 'They're fine. I consult with them fairly often, especially Tom: he's an Advisory to the North American Regional for compositional spelling. But 'Them'?' 'I mean, it was them who sent me on assignment. Wasn't it?'

Johnny smiled very slightly, and all his wrinkles deepened. 'Ahh. no. Not even a Regional Senior, or one of the Planetaries, can actually put a wizard on active assignment. No matter how certain we are that the world's ending.' He shot a humorous look at Ronan, and Ronan looked like he was tempted to try to pull his head down inside his black turtle-neck. 'No, those decisions are made higher up. I might have mentioned North American Regional, but there are more than humans involved in that. Never mind for now. I take it Doris had a little talk with you about our local problems.'

Nita opened her mouth to answer, and was startled by a sudden shout from up front. 'LAST ORDERS NOW! TEN MINUTES, GENTLEMEN. LAST ORDERS, PLEASE. .!' Johnny laughed at the look her face must have been wearing. 'All the pubs have to close at eleven- thirty this time of year,' he said. 'Anyway, Doris says she told you the ropes.' 'If you mean she told me not even to sneeze in the Speech,' Nita said, 'yes.'

Johnny laughed under his breath. 'It must seem hard. Believe me, it's for the best. and there'll be enough magic around here for anybody, come the end of the month, if things keep going the way they've been going. We'll be in touch with you, of course.' 'Johnny,' Ronan said suddenly,'this may be out of turn. .' 'Knowing you, my lad,' Johnny said, 'probably.'

'Johnny. .Look, it's nothing personal,' Ronan said, glancing at Nita and blushing furiously again. 'But why can't this be handled locally? Why do we need blow-ins?'

Nita went red too, with annoyance. She thought of about six different cutting things to say, and kept her mouth shut on them all.

But Johnny simply looked mildly surprised. 'Self-sufficiency, is it?' he said. 'Have you fallen for that one? It's an illusion, Ro. Why do we 'need' the help of the Tuatha? Why do we need the Powers that Be? Or even the Lone Power? — forthat One has a function in the universe, too. You know that. The whole lot of us are interconnected, and there's no way we can get away from it, or any one group of us solve even the littlest problementirely by ourselves. This matteris being handled locally. It's being handled onEarth. Next thing, you're going to ask me what the Northern Irish wizards are doing here.' His eyebrows went up and down. 'You've been listening to too many politicians. Better apologize to her before she turns you into a soggy beermat,' Johnny said, patted Nita on the shoulder, and moved on.

'TIME NOW, GENTLEMEN, TIME NOW. TAKE THOSE GLASSES AWAY, CHARLIE!' Jack was shouting from the front of the pub. Nita did her best to keep her face still. She had gone quite hot and tight inside, and was holding on to herself hard; controlling her emotions had never been her strongest suit, and she had no desire to say something stupid here, where she was a guest and would make her aunt look bad.Besides, I'm a wizard among wizards. It should take more than some provincial punk with a chip on his shoulder to get me annoyed.. / 'Look, Nita,' Ronan said. He sounded slightly desperate. 'I didn't. .'

'Of course you didn't,' she said. And shut herself up: and then lost it again. 'Look,' she said, her voice low but fierce,'do you think this wasmy idea? Do you think I wouldn't rather be back home with my partner taking care of business, than messing around in this stupid little place where you can't even twitch without permission? Do you think I don't have better things to do? 'Blow-ins',' she said bitterly, and picked up her drink and began to drink the whole thing at once, to shut herself up: at least she couldn't say what she was thinking while she was drinking something. It was the wrong drink. In the middle of the second swallow she spluttered in shock at the alcoholic black-bread taste of it, and from beside her Aunt Annie said, 'You're going to get us thrown out of here, you know that? Here, have a tissue.'

Nita gasped and choked and took the tissue gratefully, and began mopping Guinness off herself and the table. Ronan was leaning against the wall and laughing, soundlessly, but so hard that he was turning twice as red as he had been. Furious, Nita felt around in her head for the small simple spell that would dump his own drink in his lap: then remembered where she was, and in rapid succession first shoved the sodden tissue down the neck of his turtleneck, and while Ronan was fumbling for it, knocked his glass sideways with her elbow. 'Oops,' she said in utter innocence, as it went all over him.

'COME ON NOW, GENTS, TIME NOW, TIME. HAVE YOU NO HOMES TO GO TO? YOU TOO, LADIES, NO OFFENSE MEANT,' Jack shouted from the front of the pub. The conversations were getting louder, if anything. Ronan sat and stared at his lap, and just as he lifted his eyes to Nita's, Johnny went by and patted him on the shoulder, and said, 'Itold you she was going to turn you into a soggy beermat. No-one ever listens to me. 'Night, Annie, give me a call in the morning. ' And he was away.

'I guess we'd better go,' Aunt Annie said, as the lights began flashing on and off. 'Doris is waiting. Ronan, do you need a lift home?'

'No thank you, Mrs Callahan,' he said, 'I came in with Barry.' 'Right, then. Come on, Nita, let's call it a night.' Nita got up, and looked down at Ronan. He was gazing back at her with an expression she couldn't interpret. Not anger, not amusement — what was it? She refused to waste her time trying to work it out. 'Keep your pants dry,' she said to him, trying desperately to keep her face straight, and losing it again. Gratefully she followed Mrs Smyth and Aunt Annie out, grinning to herself. Blow-ins. Huh.

She grinned all the way home. and wasn't quite sure why.

7. Slieve na Chulainn / Great Sugarloaf Mountain

'What's going on?' Kit said the next afternoon. 'How are things going with the Treasures?' They were sitting around the kitchen table, looking at the papers. 'Well,' Nita's aunt said, 'Doris and a couple of the other Seniors are going to go in tonight and get the Ardagh Chalice. They'll leave a perfect copy in its place. They think they have a guess at how to make it wake up. Apparently, whatever they did with the Stone worked better than they thought; it seems your friend Tom is quite an asset,' she said to Nita. 'They were able to wake it up on the first try, using the spell he wrote for them.'

Nita nodded. 'He says it's because he used to write so many adverts.'

Aunt Annie chuckled. 'I guess I can see the point. Well, anyway, it's awake. As you will have noticed, the land is getting, uh, restive. more than it was, anyway.' 'Are they going to bring the Stone here? Or somewhere special?' said Kit.

'Oh, no. there's no need for that. The Stoneis the earth of Ireland, some ways; anywhere there is earth of Ireland, the Stone is there in essence. The same way that the Cupis the water of Ireland, and all wells and pools; the Swordis the air of Ireland, the Spearis the fire. The Treasures exist in essence in all the things