A Wizard Alone

something here. Who knows? Maybe it’s fun to be furniture.

Nita turned the page over. Pillars? What is this? First furniture, now architecture…

Abdah/“Pillars”

— This category of created being is independent of wizard status but still included because of the sharing of various functions and qualities across species and eschatological barriers. The sobriquet “Pillars” refers to the immense supportive strength inherent in these creatures wherever they appear. The physical and spiritual structure of the Universe and its contents is strengthened against the assaults of evil by the Pillars’ presence, and weakened by their loss. While they occasionally may also be wizards, abdals display no unusual aptitude for the Art: Their value lies elsewhere. Their status comes from direct endowment by the One; their power is derived strictly from the incorrupt nature of their personality. Some have unusual abilities of perception reaching into other universes, while still seeing the entire physical world as mirage. Some have sufficient control over their physical natures to change their bodies at will, without recourse to normal wizardry, or to travel great distances, or to appear in two places at the same time…

Certainty went straight through Nita like a lightning bolt, and not only because of the twoplacesat-once line. It was everything else in combination with that. She thought of the knight, of the strength and bravery she’d sensed in that version of Darryl, and of the power inherent in the robot.

All those experiences were fragments of this bigger picture, pieces of the jigsaw. Nita glanced on down the page.

The Pillars are rarely recognized as such by their contemporaries. Should they become conscious of their own status as abdals, the realization itself renders them ineffective in their role, which is to channel the One’s power without obstruction into the strengthening of the world. Their portion of that power is then lost to the Worlds, and with its loss, the abdal dies.

Nita slapped the manual shut and sat there, actually sweating, for a few moments. The language of the manual could be obscure sometimes, but this time Nita was sure she knew perfectly well what it was talking about when it said the Pillars’ power was “derived strictly from the incorrupt nature of their personality.” It means what Darryl’s got, she thought. Innocence. That plain, straightforward innocence that just goes right through whatever comes at it, like a knife, or bounces any attack off it, like a shield. And that really, really pisses off the Lone Power, so that It just keeps coming at him again and again, which is just the way Darryl wants it —

Nita pushed back from the table a little, leaning back in the chair and considering. Normally when the Lone Power turned Its attention to destroying a wizard during his or her Ordeal, It would lay out no more energy than It absolutely had to. The tendency not to waste energy unnecessarily was one It still shared with the other Powers. It didn’t waste Its time spending a lot of power on one wizard unless It knew that person was going to be something really special. Dairine, for example, Nita thought. It gave her a lot of grief because she was so young when her Ordeal hit. The kind of power she was going to have, even just for a while, was worth trying to knock out

But Darryl didn’t give Nita the same impression of huge and abrupt power that Dairine had, and the manual confirmed his power levels as being, while not unusually low, not unusually high, either.

So these repeated attacks suggest that the Lone Power knows Darryl’s one of the Pillars

, Nita thought. And killing an abdal has to be worth more to the Lone Power than just killing a wizard on Ordeal. Getting two for the price of one must look like an awful lot of fun to It.

But the game’s changed. Darryl’s not the only stuck one now!

Nita sat looking out into the front yard, watching the maple tree there shed little sparkles of snow into the air as a faint breeze moved its branches. If the Lone One finds out about this, It’s going to go ballistic

, Nita thought. It’s been having so much fun toying with Darryl that It doesn’t realize he’s turned the tables on It.

The Enemy will fight and fight again. I will hold It here, he said. He’s prolonging his Ordeal on purpose, running the Lone Power ragged —

But that can’t last forever. If there’s one thing the Lone Power hates worse than anything else, it’s someone laughing at It. The minute It discovers that Darryl’s tricking It, It’ll just kill him outright in the nastiest way It can.

Nita bit her lip. And that would be for It to make Darryl find out that he’s one of the Pillars. He loses the power. He dies. And the Lone Power gets back at the One, too, through Darryl’s death.

Her eyes narrowed as she remembered that mischievous smile, the courage in those dark eyesand thought of how long Darryl had been alone there in one or another of his worlds, righting, forgetting, fighting again, an endless battle with no hope of relief, no way to win… but with that valor always there, like shining armor.

Well, It’s not going to get Its way this time, Nita thought.

She got up and started picking up the banana skins lying around the dining room table. There’s been enough dying around here

, she thought. No more of it! As soon as Kit gets up, we’re going to sit down and make apian.

She headed upstairs to get dressed.

Complications

Kit stopped in the middle of the jungle path and looked around him. “We’re lost,” he said.

I don’t know if I’d say we, Ponch said, sounding ever so slightly reproachful.

Kit wiped the rain off his face and turned to look back the way they’d come. It was nearly impossible to see where that was, for the path they’d been following was scarcely any wider than he was. The jungle all around them was a tangle of dark reds and dark greens, huge trees and undergrowth, vines and creepers and strange-looking plants. High above, the upper canopy of broad leaves held away the burning whiteness of the sky. Down here, precious little of that light reached; all the plants were in mud and blood colors, depressing… and the shadows in between them were worse. There were creatures in this jungle that had messy eating habits, and Kit had stopped looking into the shadowy places at the bases of the immense trees unless he absolutely had to.

“Where is he?” Kit said.

Ponch stood there with his nose working. I’m not sure, he said.

“You’re not sure?”

We didn’t do this the usual way

, Ponch said. For one thing, neither of us is awake. For another, you went in first, and I followed you because I didn’t want you going in here alone. And you didn’t bring the leash.

Kit sighed and put out his hand. “Leash,” he said.

Nothing happened.

You tried that before

, Ponch said, and it didn’t work then, either.

Kit sighed and wiped the rain out of his eyes again. At least the rain was warm, which was a good thing because it never really stopped; even when the hot sky above it wasn’t actively raining, the jungle floor got more or less constantly dripped on.

So which way

? Ponch said.

“We might as well keep on down this path,” Kit said. “We’re bound to run into Darryl eventually.”

A high-pitched scream came out of the gloomy creeper-hung darkness ahead of them. Assuming that doesn’t run into him first, Ponch said.