"Only the light," Kit said, looking up at the aurora. Even that was fading now. Silently they made their way to Grand Central and entered the Pan Am Building at the mezzanine level. The one guard was sitting with his back to them and his feet on the desk, reading the Post Kit went wearily over to one elevator, laid a hand on it, and spoke a word or three to it in the Speech. Its doors slid silently open, and they got in and headed upstairs.
The restaurant level was dark, for the place served only lunch, and there was no one to see them go back up to the roof. Kit opened the door at the top of the stairs, and together they walked out into peace and darkness and a wind off the ocean. A helicopter was moored in the middle of the pad with steel pegs and cables, crouching on its skids and staring at them with clear, sleepy, benevolent eyes. The blue high-intensity marker lights blazed about it like the circle of a protection spell. Nita looked away, not really wanting to think about spells or anything else to do with wizardry. The book said 11 would be hard. That I didn't mind. But I hurt! And where's the good part-Therc was supposed to be happiness too…
The bright Book was heavy on her back as she looked out across the nigh*-
All around, for miles and miles, was glittering light, brilliant motion, shining under the Moon; lights of a thousand colors gleaming from windows, glowing On streets, blazing from the headlights of cars. The city, breathing, burning, living the life they had preserved. Ten million lives and more. //something should happen to all that life—how terrible.'Nita gulped for control as she remembered Fred's words of just this morning, an eternity ago. And this was what being a wizard was about. Keeping terrible things from happening, even when it hurt.
Not just power, or control of what ordinary people couldn't control, or delight in being able to make strange things happen. Those were side effects—not the reason, not the purpose. She could give it up, she realized suddenly. In the recovery of the bright Book, she and Kit had more than repaid the energy invested in their training. If they chose to lay the Art aside, if she did, no one would say a word. She would be left in peace. Magic does not live in the unwilling soul.
Yet never to hear a tree talk again, or a stone, or a star …
On impulse Nita held out her hands and closed her eyes. Even without the rowan rod she could feel the moonfire on her skin as a tree might feel it. She could taste the restored sunlight that produced it, feel the soundless roar of the ancient atomic furnace that had burned just this way while her world was still a cloud of gas, nebulous and unformed. And ever so faintly she could taste a rainbow spatter of high-energy radiation, such as a white hole might leave after blowing its quanta.
She opened her eyes, found her hands full of moonlight that trembled like bright water, its surface sheened with fading aurora-glow. "All right," she said after a moment. "All right." She opened her hands to let the light run out. "Kit?" she said, saying his name in the Speech. He had gone to stand beside the helicopter and was standing with one hand laid against its side. It stared at him mutely. "Yeah,"\ie said, and patted the cool metal, and left the chopper to rejoin Nita. "Iguess we pass the test"
They took their packs off and got out the materials necessary for the timeslide. When the lithium-cadmium battery and the calculator chip and the broken teacup-handle were in place, Kit and Nita started the spell — and without warning were again caught up by the augmenting power of the bright Book and plunged more quickly than they expected into the wizardry. It was like being on a slide, though they were the ones who held still, and the events of the day as seen from the top of the Pan Am Building rushed backward past them, a high-speed 3-D movie in reverse. Blinding white fire j*nd the nova Moon grew slowly in the sky, flared, and were gone. The Moon, briefly out, came on again. Darkness flowed backward through the suddenly °Pen worldgate, following its master on his huge dark mount, who also stcpped backward and vanished through the gate. Kit and Nita saw them-Sewes burst out of the roof door, blurred with speed; saw themselves run backward over the railing, a bright line of light pacing them as they plunged out into the dark air, dove backward through the gate, and vanished with it The Sun came up in the west and fled back across the sky. Men in coveralls burst out of the roof door and unpegged the Helicopter; two of them got into it and it took off backwards. Clouds streamed and boiled past, jets fell back-ward into LaGuardia. The Sun stood high—
The slide let them go, and Kit and Nita sat back gasping. "What time have you got?" Kit said when he had enough breath.
Nita glanced at her watch. "Nine forty-five." "Nine forty-five! But we were supposed to—"
"It's this Book, it makes everything work too well. At nine forty-five we were—" They heard voices in the stairwell, behind the closed door. Kit and Nita stared at each other. Then they began frantically picking up the items left from their spelling. Nita paused with the lithium-cadmium battery in her hand as she recognized one of those voices coming up the stairs. She reared back, took aim, and threw the heavy battery at the closed door, hard. crack!
Kit looked at her, his eyes wide, and understood. "Quick, behind there," he said. Nita ran to scoop up the battery, then ducked around after Kit and crouched down with him behind the back of the stairwell. There was a long, long pause before the door opened and footsteps could be heard on the gravel Kit and Nita edged around the side of the stairwell again to peer around the corner. Two small, nervous-looking figures were heading for the south facing rail in the bright sunlight. A dark- haired girl, maybe thirteen, wearing jeans and a shirt and a down vest; a dark-haired boyf small and a touch stocky, also in jeans and parka, twelve years old or so. The boy held a broken-off piece of antenna, and the girl held a peeled white stick, and they were being paced by a brilliant white spark like a will-o'-the-wisp plugged into too much current and about to blow out. " There arc no accidents,' " Kit whispered sadly.
The tears stung Nita's eyes again. "G'bye, Fred," she said softly in English, for fear the Speech should attract his attention, or hers.
Silently and unseen, Kit and Nita slipped through the door and went downstairs for the shuttle and the train home.
Timeheart
The walk home from the bus stop was weary and quiet. Three blocks from Nita's house, they reached the corner where their ways usually parted. Kit paused there, waiting for the light to change, though no traffic was in sight. "Call me tomorrow?" he said. What for? Nita felt like saying, for there were no more spells in the offing, and she was deadly tired. Still -. "It's your turn," she said.
"Huh. Right," The light changed, and Kit headed across the street to Nita's left. In the middle of the street he turned, walking backward. "We should call Tom and Carl," he shouted, sounding entirely exhausted.
"Yeah." The light changed again, in Nita's favor; Kit jumped up onto the sidewalk on the other side and headed south toward his place. Nita crossed east, watching Kit as she went. Though the look on his face was tired and sad, all the rest of his body wore the posture of someone who's been through so much fear that fear no longer frightens him. Why's he so afraid of getting beat up? Nita thought. Nobody in their right mind would mess with him.