Read Online Deep Wizardry-wiz 2 by Diane Duane - Free Book Online

affectionately. “I’m gonna get you for the first time you did that.”
    “You’ll have to catch me first,” Hotshot said with a wicked chuckle—as well he might have, for nothing in the Sea except perhaps a killer whale or one of the great sharks on the hunt was fast enough to catch a dolphin that didn’t want to be caught.
    “Where’s S’reee?” Kit said.
    “Out in deeper water, by the Made Rock. HNii’t’s change could be done right here, but the kind of whale you’re going to be would ground at this depth, Kit. Take hold; I’ll tow you.”
    The fishing platform was once more covered with seagulls, which rose in a screaming cloud at the sight of Kit and Nita and Hotshot. “I’ll meet you later, out at sea,” Hotshot said, leaving them beside a rusty metal ladder that reached down into the water.
    Kit and Nita climbed up it and walked across the platform to where they could look down at S’reee, who was rolling in the wavewash.
    “You’re early,” she whistled, putting her head up out of the water at them, “and it’s just as well; I’m running a bit late. I went a-Summoning last night, but I didn’t find most of the people—so we’ll have to make a stop out by the Westernmost Shoals today. Sandy Hook, you call it.”
    “New Jersey?” Nita said, surprised. “How are we going to get all the way out there and back before—“
    “It’s going to be all right, HNii’t,” S’reee said. “Time doesn’t run the same under the waters as it does above them, so the Sea tells me. Besides, a humpback swims fast. And as for Kit—well, one change at a time. It’ll come more easily for you, HNii’t; you’d best go first.”
    Wonderful, Nita thought. She had long been used to being picked last for things; having to go first for anything gave her the jitters. “What do I have to do?” she said.
    “Did you have a look at your book last night?”
    “Uh-huh. I understand most of what we’re going to be doing; it’s fairly straightforward. But there was some business I didn’t understand very well—“
    “The part about shapechanging.”
    “Yeah. There wasn’t that much in the book, S’reee. I think it might have been missing some information.”
    “Why? What did it tell you?”
    “Only a lot of stuff about the power of imagination.” She was perplexed. “S’reee, aren’t there supposed to be words or something? A specific spell, or materials we need?”
    “For shapechange? You have everything you need. Words would only get in the way,” said S’reee. “It’s all in the being. You pretend hard enough, and sooner or later what you’re pretending to be, you are. The same as with other things.”
    “Oh, c’mon, S’reee,” Kit said. “If somebody who wasn’t a wizard jumped into the water and pretended to be a whale, I don’t care how hard they pretended, nothing would happen without wizardry—“
    “Exactly right, Kit. Wizardry—not one particular spell. The only reason it works for you is that you know wizardry works and are willing to have it so. Belief is no good either; belief as such always has doubt at the bottom. It’s knowing that makes wizardry work. Only knowing can banish doubt, and while doubt remains, no spell, however powerful, will function properly. ‘Wizardry does not live in the unwilling heart,’ the Sea says. There’d be lots more wizards if more people were able to give up doubt—and belief. Like any other habit, though, they’re hard to break...”
    “It did take me a while to know for sure that it wasn’t just a coincidence when the thing I’d done a spell for actually happened as soon as I’d done the spell,” Kit admitted. “I guess I see the problem.”
    “Then you’re ready for the solution,” S’reee said. “Past the change itself, the chief skill of unassisted shapechanging lies in not pretending so hard that you can’t get back again. And as I said, HNii’t, you have an advantage; we’ve shared blood. You have humpback in