A Wizard Alone

, she thought, glancing around, and I greet you. Wherever you are…

I am errantry, the Silence said.

Nita held very still. There was something familiar about that voice… though it wasn’t a voice as such.

Then she remembered her earlier thought. “The Silence told me about that,” the clown-Darryl had said to her. You are the manual, she thought. Darryl’s version of it.

The Silence sang agreement.

Right

, Nita said, lowering the weapon again. Sorry, you startled me. How can I hear you now? I couldn’t before.

You are fully inside him now

… because you have the heart.

Nita wondered about that phrasing, and then smiled. The heart of Darryl’s universe: the kernel.

Yes, I do

, she said. Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with it.

He will know. He has full access now, as you’ve discovered.

Nita nodded and watched the four figures walking among the trees for a few minutes… She was looking things over, assessing where the weak point in this scenario might be. That was how she saw something start to happen, something that initially scared her — an encounter that she normally would have done anything to prevent. The Lone Power in Its dark majesty came striding down between the mirrored pillars, to Nita’s eye looking very much like someone who’s trying to act like he knows where he’s going when he doesn’t. Toward It, ambling, unhurried, maybe even unseeing, came Kit and Ponch. Nita sucked in her breath and lifted the linac weapon into an aiming line, pointing it at the Lone One.

She watched with profound unease as Kit and the Lone Power got closer and closer to each other. They were no more than a few paces apart when the Lone One made a single sudden move.

It looked at Itself in a mirror as It passed, and smiled faintly. And Kit walked right on by It, unnoticing, unnoticed.

Nita had to just stand there for a few moments, calming herself down, nearly lost in admiration at the sheer power of the otherworld Darryl had created. It’s like that fairy tale about the guy who does some magic creature a good turn

, she thought, and as a reward it gives him a bag that nothing can get out of. The guy lives a bad life, and when the devil comes for him, he tricks it into the bag, and it’s stuck there until he lets it out

But in this case, Darryl was in the bag, too — and apparently thought this a reasonable price to pay to keep part of the Lone Power out of circulation for days or weeks or even years at a time.

Carl had been completely right. If that’s not a saint, Nita thought, I don’t know what is.

I need to get them out of here

, she said to the Silence.

You will have to break this paradigm

, the Silence said. Break the mirrors. That will release them.

But it will also release the Lone Power back into Its full potency.

For just a breath of time, Nita weighed the pros and cons of the problem. Keeping It stuck in here, even just a fragment of It, couldn’t be a bad thing.

But keeping Kit here as well, and Ponch? And Darryl?

The price was much too high. Especially, Nita thought, putting aside her personal concerns for the moment, in Darryl's case.

Nita sighed. Besides, she thought, like in the fairy tale, the Powers That Be will make them let the devil out of the bag eventually. It’s still one of the Powers, and part of the world. Keep the Lone Power in here forever and It’ll never be able to change

…

Nita stuck the linac weapon under her armpit and held it there against her side while she reached into her “pocket” again, found that tangle of light, and spent a few careful moments adjusting several of its properties. She altered the universe’s time flow first, so it matched their home universe, then made a few additional changes that might come in handy later. When that was done, she put the kernel away and considered the maze of half-mirrored trees. It was vast, possibly even infinite, but Nita didn’t let herself worry about that. All these mirrors, the Silence whispered to her, were clones of another one. At the center of the maze was the key to the secret, the way out.

We’re short on time here, Nita said silently. Tell me.

In her mind’s eye, she saw it.

Nita grinned.

She unlimbered the linac weapon again and started to make her way toward the spot she’d been shown. If she’d tried to search for it by sight, she might have passed it many times. But she closed her eyes again, so as not to be bewildered by the reflections, and found it the way the Silence showed her — by walking slowly, bumping into things sometimes, feeling her way. Once she bumped into a tall shape that burned her to be near. Out of reflex, she said, “Excuse me,” to the Lone Power, and slipped on past It toward the heart of the maze.

It should be near here, shouldn’t it

? Nita thought.

You’re close. Keep going

…

She walked now through the darkness behind her eyes, slowly, taking her time. A few minutes later Nita came to the place she’d been looking for, and opened her eyes. They’d been closed so long now that she had to blink a little in the light as she looked at the one mirror — among however many uncounted millions in that place — that had no reflection in it at all, not even of any other mirror.

This one was a plain bathroom mirror about three feet by two, hanging on a taller mirror-pillar and held in a steel frame — one that probably had a medicine cabinet behind it in the real world. Nita walked up to the rectangular mirror and waved at it, then jumped up and down in front of it. In the mirror, nothing showed at all.

That’s the way it’s supposed to be with vampires

, Nita thought, intrigued. But, here, the mirrors themselves were vampiric, sucking up fragments of personality, snatches of conversation, the glances of eyes, leaving the originals devoid of words and glances afterward. Nita once more shook her head in admiration. Darryl had done a fantastic job constructing this trap. Even the Lone One, once inside this universe that so perfectly mirrored Darryl’s autism, was vulnerable to it, slowly losing moments of Its vast existence, being worn down.

Okay

, Nita thought. Here we go. The one thing she made certain of was that her other weapons were all ready to use as soon as she was finished with the linac. I'll only get one shot with this, she thought. If it’s a good one, all I have to worry about is what’s handy to use next, when all hell breaks loose

…

Nita glanced around her to make sure no one was about to come wandering through one of the many openings of the maze that led into this central area. Then she lifted the linac weapon again, narrowed her eyes, took careful aim at the bathroom mirror, and fired.

The blast of energy that came out of the linac weapon didn’t radiate in the visible spectrum, but the air in its path did, ionizing and spitting blue lightnings where the particle beam passed. The mirror leaped and split into thousands of fragments as the blast hit it, and the fragments in turn went white-hot and vaporized in the air—

— and as they did, every other mirror in that world shattered.