Book 3-High Wizardry by Diane Duane

Author:Diane Duane
Format: mobi, pdf
Published: 2011-02-21T05:00:00+00:00

Initialization

Of course, Nita thought, there was a lot of it going around school. Going steady, dating, pins and rings, all the silliness. Her mother had forbidden Nita to do any such thing, telling her she was much too young. Nita didn't mind: it all seemed dumb to her. Sometimes, seeing how crazed some of the other girls her age were over the boy question, she wondered if she was normal. She was too busy, for one thing. She had something solider than going steady. When you were a wizard—

—with a partner—

Oh, come on. It's not as if they're going to make you marry him or something! Look at Tom and Carl, they're just buddies, they work together because they enjoy doing it. ...

But I don't want . . .

She trailed off. She didn't know what she wanted. Nita put her head down in her hands, trying to think. No answers came: only more problems. Thoughts of Kit backing her up when she was terrified, cheering her up when she was annoyed, Kit being the solid, reliable voice in the other half of a spell the presence on the far side of the circle, matching her cadence exactly, for

411

HIGH WIZARDRY

the fun and the challenge of it. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with having a best friend?

He's a boy, that's what. It's changing. I'm changing.

I'm scared.

She gazed up through unending night, down at oncoming morning, and tried to work out what to do. Has he noticed this happening to him too? And suppose he starts liking someone else better than me? Will he want to keep the team going? If only I knew what he was thinking. . . .

Then she let out a sad and annoyed breath. It's probably nothing, she thought. Everything is probably fine. . . .

". . . oh, so much is wasted," sang the earphones,

"and oh so little used!—

but the trick of the dreamer

is keeping yourself from the blues—"

Hah, Nita thought. I wish it were that simple. . . . And the voice that sang cried out at her, so sudden and defiant that she sat erect with startlement—

"Everyone's a hero if you want to be! Everyone's a prisoner holding their own key! And every step I take, every move I make,

- } I'm always one step closer—

I don't mind running alone!"

It was Steve Perry's fierce, clear voice, uplifted in almost angry encourage-ment, hitting the chorus hard. He went on, singing something about children and concrete canyons, but Nita was still full of that startlement and hardly heard. Even Dairine, she thought. There's some job out there that only she can do. ... She had not thought of it in this light before, and the thought of Dairine as a hero staggered her, and annoyed her for a moment. Her? The runt?

But then Nita felt ashamed. What had she been herself, not more than a few months ago? Basically a coward, afraid of everything, including herself— friendless, quiet and smart but with no one to do any good by being so.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.