Free The Book of Night With Moon by Diane Duane Page B

more, and which would quickly grow past control if ignored….
    Halfway down the platform, a slender blond-haired she- ehhif in dark skirt and jacket stood waiting, a briefcase under one arm. Rhiow smiled at the sight of her, knowing immediately that she was not waiting for the train— though she would claim to be, should anyone question her. The odds of her being noticed at all in so busy a place were minimal. If she were noticed, her manner of leaving wouldn't surprise anyone. She would simply be there one moment, and gone the next, and anyone watching would assume that they'd simply somehow missed seeing her walk away. Even if someone looked at that wizard right at the moment she passed the gate, the nature of wizardry itself would protect her. Almost no nonwizardly creature is willing to see the "impossible," even right under its nose, and shortly it finds all kinds of explanations for the strange thing it saw. This useful tendency meant that many short-duration wizardries didn't have to be concealed at all. Other kinds were simply invisible to most species, like the glowing, shimmering webwork of the gate where it hung face-on to the platform, the surface of the web slowly beginning to pucker inward in the beginning of patency.
    Rhiow strolled on down to the she- ehhif. At the flicker of motion, seen out the corner of an eye, the woman turned and saw Rhiow coming, and raised her eyebrows. " Dai stihó, " the woman said. "Was this one down this morning?"
    "For a change, no," Rhiow said. "This will come in phase in about thirty seconds. Got far to go?"
    "Not too far, but Penn's a mess right now, and I'm on deadline," the woman said. "Vancouver, and then Kamchatka."
    "Oh, the oil spill."
    "If we can get authorization from the Powers That Be for the timeslide," the woman said, and smiled slyly, "it'll be, ' What oil spill?' But we won't know until we check with the A.A. in Vancouver."
    "Well, dai, " Rhiow said, as the woman turned toward the gate, "and good luck with the Advisory. And with Them…"
    "Thanks. You go well, too," the woman said, stepping forward as the center of the gate's string structure puckered fully inward into metaextension. A human wizard couldn't see the strings without help, but she certainly could see the metaextension's sudden result. Hanging in the air before them was a round (or actually, spherical) window into deep gray shadow with the beginnings of dawn outside it, a sky paling above close-planted pine trees. A park, perhaps, or someone's backyard, there was no telling— a given wizard set the coordinates to suit his mission's needs. Had Rhiow been curious about the location, she could check the gate's log later. For the moment, she watched the young woman step into the predawn dimness, and heard her speak the word that completed the wizardry, releasing the hyperextended strings to pop back out of phase.
    The gate-weft persisted in metaextension just a second or so— a safety feature— and then the curvature snapped back flat as if woven of rubber bands, light rippling up and down the resonating strings as the structure collapsed into a configuration with lower energy levels. The spherical intersection with otherwhere vanished: the tapestry of light lay flat against the air again, waiting.
    That's working all right, at least, Rhiow thought. Last week, as the wizard had mentioned, this had been the gate that had needed adjustment. Three mornings out of five, its web had refused to extend properly, making it impossible to use without constant monitoring.
    Saash had had to stand here sidled all during rush hour, running the gate on manual and being jostled by insensible commuters. Her comments later had left Rhiow's ears burning: that soft breathy little voice sounded unusually shocking when it swore.
    Rhiow smiled at the memory, and said silently, Saash?
    A pause, and then, Here.
    I'm over by your favorite gate. I'm going Downside to make sure none of the others is fouling it.
    A slight shudder