Free A Wizard Alone New Millennium Edition by Diane Duane Page A

in the sky the whole time they had been there. Kit glanced up toward it, then away. “This is incredibly detailed,” he said softly. “So very real.”
    Maybe it has to be, so that it’ll be real to What’s chasing him …
    Kit shook his head at that. Tom’s warning not to get caught up in Darryl’s Ordeal had been straightforward enough. Yet was it going to be possible to stand to one side and let another wizard handle the Lone Power by himself? And what if It doesn’t want just to concentrate on him? Kit thought. What am I supposed to do if It decides to try to do something about me? Just cut and run, just leave him there?
    I wish Neets was here. I could really use some backup.
    Ponch stood panting in the heat, gazing down. That looks sort of like a building, he said.
    Kit squinted. Down among the rock-tumble at the foot of the steep, jagged hills, there did seem to be something that looked built, and in it was a vertical, oblong darkness that could have been a gigantic door. “Is that where he went?” Kit said.
    I think so. Do you want to take us down there?
    Kit looked at the dark patch in the long ominous shadows thrown by the hills. Want to? he thought. Wow, I can’t wait. Nonetheless, he pulled out the transit spell. “Let’s go,” he said.
    A few moments later, they stood at the foot of the biggest cliff. Kit looked up at it, and up, and up, and hardly knew what to think. The whole side of the cliff was a dark red stone, carved, deeply, for at least three hundred feet up. The red stone must have been the source of the pink tint in all the sand they’d been toiling through. Someone had carved the cliff into pillars and arches, galleries and balconies, reaching back into solid stone that looked as if it had been laboriously hollowed out, chip by chip, by gloriously detail-minded artisans. Niches and pedestals were carved into the stone; in them and on them stood statues, of people and animals and creatures not native to Earth, some of them not native to any planet Kit knew. Some of the poses, some of the expressions, were very creepy, indeed; all the statues, human or not, were staring down at the space in front of the oblong opening with stony blind eyes—staring at Kit as if, stone or not, they could still see. And it all looked brand-new, as if whatever or whoever had done this work might still be here, somewhere inside the gigantic gateway that loomed, dark and empty, in front of Kit and Ponch right now.
    It wasn’t an idea that made Kit particularly happy. What a great place to have a cozy chat with Darryl about what’s giving him trouble, Kit thought. “Can you smell anybody else here?” he said to Ponch. “Besides us, and Darryl, and you-know-who?”
    No. Ponch stood there with his nose working. But I’m not sure that means that nobody else can be here …
    I’ve got to stop asking him questions when I know the answers are going to make me more nervous than I already am, Kit thought. “In there?” he said, breaking his resolution immediately.
    In there.
    “So let’s go.”
    Ponch stalked forward into the darkness. The way he was walking made Kit almost feel like laughing a little, even through his nervousness. It was the way Ponch stalked squirrels out in the backyard: stealthy, a little stiff-legged. That’s all we need in here, he thought as he followed Ponch into the dimness. To be attacked by millions of evil squirrels. Then he hastily squashed that thought: all he needed was for it to come true.
    As the darkness around them got deeper, Kit pushed that thought away as one it was probably smarter not to encourage. “Can you see all right?” he said very softly to Ponch.
    I can smell all right. Seeing doesn’t matter so much.
    Kit swallowed as the darkness got deeper. To you, maybe, he thought. He started to reach into his otherspace pocket for his manual, to pull out a “virtual flashlight” spell he sometimes had recourse to. Then he paused. Maybe not a smart idea to do