A Wizard Alone

sweeping after in a trail as It brought the sword swinging around. Kit swallowed one more time and spoke the first of three words that would activate the dissociator, as the sword struck the middle of that block of methane ice—

— and shattered.

Kit stared.

The Lone Power straightened up from the stroke— and looked, suddenly dumbfounded, at the broken stump of a sword in Its hand. The block of ice wasn’t marred, not even scratched.

If It was astonished, so was Kit. Could it be that the Lone Power can’t see you when you’re in someone else’s Ordeal

? he wondered. But Tom would’ve said something.

Or is this space just the way it is because of Darryl being here? If Mama’s right, if some autistic people have trouble with the concept that other people might be or think differently from them, then maybe nothing It does to Darryl here can hurt him… because the things It does aren’t things he’d do—

Kit looked at the Lone Power, wondering in a scared way what was going through Its mind. It regarded the broken sword for a moment, then flung it furiously away. Where the hilt-shard came down in the blue snow, there was a brief and noisy explosion. But the Lone One ignored that. It put Its hands up against the front of the block of ice and spoke softly to the small shape entombed there.

“Are you really stupid or crazy enough to think I’m just going to walk away?” the Lone Power said, and the menace in Its voice made Kit’s hair stand up all over him. “I have centuries, aeons at my disposal. I can hound you from life to life if I chose, until for the sake of a moment’s peace you beg me to destroy your soul! Is this what your precious Powers gave you your wizardry for? To stand here inactive as a statue, refusing the inevitable? Well, it won’t help you. Coward! You can’t come out the other side of this until you confront me. And you won’t confront me! You’ll just stay in here like the pitiful reject that you are, while outside in reality your darling mother and father grieve over you every day. You’re not being very considerate of them, are you? After everything they’ve gone through? Now you have a chance to stand up, to conquer me, to come out the other side of your power, and you won’t take it.”

Kit was having trouble believing what he was hearing. The Lone Power was frustrated. He saw the unbelievable — saw the Power that invented death start hammering with Its fists on the upright coffin of ice. “Come out!” the Lone One cried, and thunder cracked in response, high up in the wind-torn air. The snow blew around again, hiding nearly everything but that relentless, furious, stymied darkness. “Come out and let’s finish it! Come out!”

The thunder of Its voice started to drown out even the thunder up in the turbulent atmosphere.

How long this went on Kit wasn’t sure, but finally It fell silent, looking once more at the small, unmoving shape in the ice.

“It doesn’t matter,” the Lone One said. “I can wait. I have all the time in all the worlds. Sooner or later, you’ll drop this ploy and try another that’s less effective.

Sooner or later, in life or after, you’ll be forced to face me… and when you finally do, you’ll wish your soul had never been created. For that day, I’ll wait as long as it takes.“

It turned and walked away into the blue-white snow. Kit lost sight of It within seconds, and a few seconds after that, by a lightening of the spirit that was impossible to mistake, Kit knew that It had left this space. Next to him, Ponch was shivering with a combination of nervousness and amusement.

“Wow,” Kit said.

Yes. Let’s get him out of there

! Ponch said.

“Absolutely.”

Kit dismantled the dissociator, and he and Ponch hurried over to the block of ice. But the closer Kit got to it, the stranger things started to seem. That weariness that Kit had been feeling, to a certain extent, since he got here, now got stronger with every step closer to Darryl.

He rubbed his eyes, staggered over to the block, put a hand on it. It was frozen methane, but the force field protected him from its touch. “Darryl,” Kit said. “Dai stiho, guy. I can’t believe you held It off like that. Nice going.”

But Darryl didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid. And as Kit bent over the block, trying to figure out how to get rid of it, or at least how to rouse Darryl, he found himself having more and more trouble believing in any of this. It started to seem as if none of it was real: not the cold, not the wind, not the single small, still, cold shape standing there rigid in the ice, expressionless, unmoving, unseeing. And as for the concept of the Lone Power banging on the block of ice, not only frustrated but powerless — that couldn’t have happened, either.

“Darryl,” Kit said. “Come on, buddy, this is no place for our kind of people.”

But the feeling began to grow in Kit that this wasn’t really Darryl, that he wasn’t here — which was something Ponch had said the last time. Now, though, Kit could feel for himself what Ponch had meant. Darryl’s presence here was illusory. None of this was real. What a relief, because this is all just too weird—

Kit straightened up, passed his hand over his eyes. He was incredibly tired, and there was nothing he could do here. Outside the force field, the noise was scaling up again. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter, though.

Kit.

“What?”

We have to go.

“Go where?”

Kit! We have to go home. The wizardry’s failing. Come on!

“What?”

Ponch turned, leaped at him, knocked him over. For a moment the two of them fell through darkness. Kit flailed for balance, found none, cried out—

And came down, wham, into something cold and wet. At first Kit panicked, because with a terrible suddenness his mind became clear again about two things: that the force field had failed, and that he was lying in the snow, which meant that in about another five seconds he would be dead. But then Kit realized that this snow was so much warmer and wetter than the snow where he’d just been that it might as well have been steaming; and the silence surrounding them was so complete, compared to where they had been, that Kit’s ears rang with it.

Ponch was lying on top of him, licking his face in apology and fear. Are you all right? Boss! I had to get us out of there. Are you all right? Kit!

“Oh, wow,” Kit whispered. “Okay, yeah, I’m okay.” He pushed himself up on his elbows with some difficulty, dislodging Ponch in the process. Kit was lying in his driveway, in approximately three inches of snow, and as he looked over at the corner streetlight, he saw that more snow was falling, in big flakes, through still and silent air.

He turned around to look at his house and saw that all the lights were off except for the one in his parents’ bedroom. “Oh, no,” he said. “What time is it?”

Kit looked at his watch. It was two-thirty in the morning.

“Oh, god, the time flow in there wasn’t what I was expecting. I’m going to get it now,” he muttered as he staggered to his feet. “I’m completely wrecked. And they’re going to kill me.”

Not if I can help it

, Ponch said.

“Buddy,” Kit said, “I don’t think even the Powers That Be could prevent the massacre at this point. Let’s go in and get it over with.”

Together they made their way up the driveway.

Elucidations

Nita looked up from her reading and glanced out the window into the darkness to see that snow was just