The Wizard's Dilemma, New Millennium Edition Read Free Page B

for hardly any return. And implementing these is going to be a real pain. If you just take this one—” he touched another section and it brightened—”and this, and this, and you—”
    Nita frowned. “But look, Kit, if you leave those out, then there’s nothing that’s going to deal with the sewer outfall between Zachs Bay and Tobay Beach. That’s tons of toxic sludge every month. Without those routines—”
    Kit closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose in a way Nita had seen Tom, their local advisory wizard, do more than once when the world started to get to him. “Neets, this is all just too involved. Or involved in the wrong way. You’re making it more complicated than it needs to be.”
    Oh no, here we go again. I thought he was going to get it this time, I really did…! “But if you don’t name all the chemicals, if you don’t describe them accurately—”
    “The thing is, you don’t have to name them all. If you just take a look at the spell I brought with—”
    “Kit, look. That stripped-down version you’re suggesting isn’t going to do the job. And the longer we don’t do something, the worse the problem gets! Everything that lives along this shoreline is being affected… whatever’s still alive, anyway. Things are dying out there. And every time we go back to the drawing board on this, more things die. Getting this wizardry running has taken too long already.”
    “Tell me about it,” Kit said in a tone that struck Nita as a lot more ironic than it needed to be.
    And after all the work I did! she thought. Nonetheless she tried to calm down. “Okay. What do you think we should do?”
    “Maybe,” Kit said, and paused, “maybe it would be good if we let S’reee take a look at both versions. If she thinks—”
    Nita’s eyes widened. “Since when do we need a third opinion on something this straightforward? Kit, it’ll either do what it’s supposed to or it won’t. Let’s test it and find out!”
    He took a deep breath and shook his head. “I can tell already, it’s not going to do what we need.”
    She stared at Kit, not knowing what to say, and then after a moment she got up and stared down at him, trying to keep from clenching her fists. “Well, if you’re so sure you’re right, why don’t you just do it yourself? Since my advice plainly isn’t worth jack to you.”
    “It’s not that it’s not worth anything, it’s that—”
    “Oh, now you apologize.”
    “I wasn’t apologizing.”
    “Well, maybe you need to!”
    “Neets,” Kit said, also frowning now, “what do you want me to do? Tell you that I think it’s gonna be fine, when I don’t really think so?”
    Nita flushed. When you were working with the Speech, in which what you described would come to pass, lying could be fatal … and you quickly learned that even talking about spells less than honestly was dangerous.
    “Energy’s precious,” Kit said. “Neither of us can just throw it around the way we used to a couple years ago. It’s a nuisance, but it’s something we have to consider.”
    “Do you think I wasn’t considering it? I took my time over that. I didn’t even put it through the spell checker. I checked all the syntax, all the balances, by hand. It took me forever, but—”
    “Maybe the ‘forever’ was a hint, Neets,” Kit said.
    She had been trying to hang on to her temper, but now Nita got so furious that her eyes felt hot. “Fine,” she said tightly. “Then you go right ahead and handle this yourself. And just leave me out of it until you find something you feel is simplistic enough to involve me in, okay?”
    Kit’s expression was shocked, and Nita didn’t care. Who needs this ? she thought. No matter what I try to do, it’s not good enough! So maybe it’s time I stopped trying. Let him work it out himself, if he can.
    Nita turned and made her way back down the jetty, her eyes narrowed in annoyance as she slapped her claudication open and pulled out the rowan