"Well, if you've gotten even this far in wizardry, you know how the wizards' symbology, the Speech, affects the things you use it on. When you use it, you define what you're speaking about. That's why it's dangerous to use the Speech carelessly. You can accidentally redefine something, change its nature. Something, or someone—" He paused, took another drink of his soda. "The Book of Night with Moon is written in the Speech. In it, every-thing's described. Everything. You, me, Fred, Carl … this house, this town, this world. This Universe and everything in it. All the Universes. …" Kit looked skeptical. "How could a book that big get lost?"
"Who said it was big? You'll notice something about your manuals after a while," Tom said. "They won't get any bigger, but there'll be more and more inside them as you learn more, or need to know more. Even in plain old math "t s true that the inside can be bigger than the outside; it's definitely true in wizardry. But believe me, the Book of Night with Moon has everything described in it. It's one of the reasons we're all here—the power of those descriptions helps keep everything that is, in existence." Tom looked worried. And every now and then the Senior wizards have to go get the Book and r£ad from it, to remind the worlds what they are, to preserve everything alive Or inanimate—"
Have you read from it?" Nita said, made uneasy by the disturbed look on Tom's face. Tom glanced at her in shock, then began to laugh. "Me? No, no. I hope I never have to." But if it's a good Book, if it preserves things—" Kit said. " s good—at least, yes, it preserves, or lets things grow the way they want t reading it, being the vessel for all that power—I wouldn't want to.
Even good can be terribly dangerous. But this isn't anything you two need to worry about. The Advisories and the Senior wizards will handle it." "But you are worried," Kit said.
"Yes, well—" Tom took another drink. "If it were just that the bright Book had gone missing, that wouldn't be so bad. A universe can go a long time without affirmation-by-reading. But the bright Book has an opposite number, a dark one; the Book which is not Named, we call it. It's written in the Speech too, but its descriptions are… skewed. And if the bright Book is missing, the dark one gains potential power. If someone should read from that one now, while the Book of Night with Moon isn't available to counter-act the power of the dark one—" Tom shook his head. Carl came in then, the macaw still riding his shoulder. "Here we go," he said, and dumped several sticks of chalk, an enormous black claw, and a 1943 zinc penny on the table. Nita and Kit stared at each other, neither quite having the nerve to ask what that claw had come off of. "Now you under-stand," Carl said as he picked up the chalk and began to draw a circle around the table, "that this is only going to stop the hiccups. You three are going to have to go to Manhattan and hook Fred into the Grand Central worldgate to get that pen out. Don't worry about being noticed. People use it all the time and no one's the wiser. / use it sometimes when the trains are late." "Carl," Tom said, "doesn't it strike you as a little strange that the first wizardry these kids do produces Fred — who brings this news about the good Book—and they come straight to us—" "Don't be silly," the macaw on Carl's shoulder said in a scratchy voice. "You know there are no accidents."
Nita and Kit stared.
"Wondered when you were going to say something useful," Carl said, sounding bored. "You think we keep you for your looks? OW!" he added, as the bird bit him on the car. He hit it one on the beak, and, while it was still shaking its head woozily, put it up on the table beside Tom.
Picchu sidled halfway up Tom's arm, stopped and looked at Nita and Kit. "Dos d'en agouni nikyn toude phercsthai," it muttered, and got all the way up on Tom's shoulder, and then glared at them again. "Well?" "She only speaks in tongues to show off," Tom said. "Ignore her, or rap her one if she bites you. We just keep her around because she tells the future." Tom made as if to smack the bird again, and Picchu ducked back' "How about the stocks tomorrow, bird?" he said.
Picchu cleared her throat. "'And that's the way it is,'" she said in a voice very much like that of a famous newscaster, "'July eighteen, 1988. Frofll New York, this is Walter—'" Tom fisted the bird in the beak, clunk! Picchu shook her head again.
" 'Issues were down in slow trading,' " she said resentfully. " 'The Dow-Jones Index—' " and she called off some numbers. Tom grimaced,
"I should have gone into pork bellies,' he muttered. "I ought to warn you two - If you have peas, look out- Practicing wizardry around them can cause some changes."
"There we go," Carl said, and stood up straight. "Fred, you ready? Hiccup for me again." (I can't,) Fred said, sounding nervous. (You're all staring.)
"Never mind, I can start this in the meantime." Carl leaned over the table, glanced down at one of the books, and began reading in the Speech, a quick flow of syllables sharpened by that Brooklyn accent. In the middle of the third sentence Fred hiccuped, and without warning the wizardry took. Time didn't precisely stop, but it held still, and Nita became aware of what Carl's wizardry was doing to Fred, or rather had done already—subtly untangling forces that were knotted tight together. The half-finished hiccup and the wizardry came loose at the same time, leaving Fred looking bright and well for the first time since that morning. He still radiated uncertainty, though, like a person who isn't sure he's stopped hiccuping yet.
"You'll be all right," Carl said, scuffing away the chalk marks on the floor. "Though as I said, that pen is still in there with the rest of your mass, at the other end of your claudication, and you'll need Grand Central to get it out."
(Have you stopped my emissions entirely?) Fred said,
"No, of course not. I couldn't do that: you'll still emit from time to time. Mostly what you're used to, though. Radiation and such."
"Grand Central!" Kit was looking worried. "1 don't think my mother and father are going to want me in the city alone. I could sneak in, I guess, but they'd want to know where I'd been all that while."
Well," Tom said, looking thoughtful, "you've got school. You couldn't go before the weekend anyway, right? Carl could sell you a piece of Saturday or Sunday—"
Kit and Nita looked at each other, and then at the two men. "Uh, we don't have much money." Who said anything about money?" Carl said. "Wizards don't pay each other cash. They pay off in service—and sometimes the services aren't done for years. But first let's see if there's any time available this weekend. Satur-
ays go fast, even though they're expensive, especially Saturday mornings." lAe picked up another book and began going through it. Like all the other ks. it was printed in the same type as Nita's and Kit's manuals, though e print was much smaller and arranged differently. "This way," Tom said, you buy some time, you could be in the city all day, all week if you wanted y llt once you activate the piece of time you're holding, you're back then. nave to pick a place to anchor the time to, of course, a twenty-foot radius. But after you've finished whatever you have to do, you bring yout marked time to life,
and there you are. Maybe five minutes before ybu started for the city, back at home. Or anywhere and anywhen else along the path you'll follow that day."