So You Want to Be a Wizard
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| Cover art for So You Want to Be a Wizard | |
| Author | Diane Duane |
|---|---|
| Cover Artist | Cliff Nielsen |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Young Wizards |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Harcourt Trade Publishers |
| Released | 1983 (first printing by Delacorte Press, reprinted 1996 by Harcourt) |
| Media Type | Print (Mass market paperback) |
| Pages | 400 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-15-216250-X |
| Followed by | Deep Wizardry |
So You Want To Be a Wizard is the first book in the Young Wizards series currently consisting of eight books by Diane Duane. It was written in 1982 and published in the next year.
[edit] Synopsis
Juanita Callahan (age 13) is running away from bullies and takes refuge in the library. She goes to the children's section and finds a book about magic titled, So You Want To Be a Wizard. She reads a part of it and takes it home. On the way there she is cornered by her bullies and they beat her up, taking away a space pen her uncle gave her. Nita goes home and takes the Wizard's Oath before going to sleep. The next morning she wakes up, looks at her manual and sees her name in the wizards list.
She goes to a quiet place to make a retrieval spell for her pen and meets Christopher "Kit" Rodriguez, who is also a wizard and is making a spell; this one a power-attraction spell intended to create an aura around Kit, making him seem fearless. Combining their intentions, they create a new spell, which presents to them a vision of Manhattan city. Unlike the Manhattan they know, this city is dark and evil, being polluted, lightless, and frightening. Watching this evil city, they see something terrible, a being of what seems to be pure desire, reaching up to consume them. To escape this, they open their minds to the universe, which ends up bringing an intelligent white hole from space. The white hole's name is, when translated into English, Khairelikoblepharehglukumeilichephriedosd'enagouni- or, more simply, "Fred".
The next day at school Fred and Nita attempt to get Nita's pen back from her bullies, but Fred miscalculates the gravity required to simply lift the pen from the bullies' possession, and instead accidentally swallows it. This leads to Fred emitting objects instead of radiation and particles, a most unfortunate incident that results in the spontaneous appearance of a television, a learjet, and a blue Mercedes, among other things. To fix the problem, Nita, Kit, and Fred go to the Advisory Wizards after school. There, Fred's problem is fixed, but Nita's pen is not recovered. In order to retrieve it, they must link Fred to a worldgate in Grand Central Train Station of New York City and pull the pen out.
Fred also has some alarming news. According to him, a thing called the "Naming of Lights" has gone missing. The said "Naming of Lights" is a book, or takes the form of one; it is a compendium of information that describes the true Nature of everything that ever was, is, and can be. It has a shadow, "The Book Which is Not Named", whose descriptions of the Whole are twisted out of their true patterns. If the Lone Power-- the being of desire and hate sensed by Nita and Kit-- would read from the shadow Book when the bright Book is not also read from, the cosmos would be irreparably skewed.
To recover Nita's pen, the two young Wizards and the White Hole travel by train to the city. The question of how to react to the impending disaster is left unanswered, if only because Tom and Carl have not the faintest idea of what to do.
In Grand Central, Nita and Kit create a "timeslide"; a spell that would, when invoked, take them back in time so that they would not be missed at home. Finding the worldgate is another challenge, because due to construction work in the area it has been moved from the ground to the sky. Following it, the trio sneak up to the helicopter launchpad, above which the worldgate hovers. Nita invokes the air to solidify, creating a walkway between the Wizards and their goal.
Crossing the walkway, they reach the gate; but before Nita can complete the retrieval, a pack of werewolf-analogues, referred to in the text as perytons, emerge from the shadows and attack. Nita, Kit, and Fred are plunged through the worldgate itself.
On the other side, Nita's pen is lying on the floor, but that is small comfort. They are no longer in their own world. The landscape before them is very much like New York City, but it is dark and empty; lifeless, cold, and populated only by miserable predators who wander eternally in darkness, preying on one another. Few of these are anything like Gaian predators; most resemble automobiles, while others are like fire hydrants. This outworld belongs to the Lone Power, a thing far worse than any devil and more ancient than the Earth.
Here, too, are the two Books kept; the bright Book, hidden in the railways underneath City Hall, and the dark Book, kept in an office building. Prowling the streets and tunnels are the Perytons, as well as the glowing-eyed dun mice, the batlike skinwings, the mysterious hidebehinds, the lethal thrastles, and the dragonlike fireworms. Guarding the bright Book is the Eldest of the fireworms; guarding the dark Book is the Lone Power, manifest in human form, and his grotesque secretary Akthanath.
The only way for Nita, Kit, and Fred to go home is to find the bright Book and use it; simply dueling with the Lone Power is futile. Trusting to Fred's intuition, they find their way to the Starsnuffer's office. On the way, Kit finds a racing car, a Lotus Esprit, lying injured beside a "dead" sedan. In killing the sedan—its prey—the Lotus accidentally trapped a piece of metal in its axle, making locomotion painful. Kit cuts this piece away, and the Lotus roars off, free.
Inside the building, Nita, Kit, and Fred eavesdrop on a 'phone call the Lone Power is making to a character called Michael-- later revealed as Saint Michael the Archangel, an avatar of the Winged Defender, who is like the Lone Power a God. Apparently Michael suspects His brother in stealing the bright Book, while the Lone Power suspects Him of sending Nita and Kit to steal it back. Nita and Kit have evidently not considered this before, but it begins to make sense.
To find the bright Book, they steal the dark Book, hoping that as they draw near to one another, they will react more fiercely. Aided by the Lotus Espirit, who has returned to show its gratitude, they proceed to the tunnels under City Hall and enter the Eldest's lair.
Within, the Eldest lies on a vast hoard of stolen treasure. Once a small fire-breathing lizard-analogue, it has grown and is now, to all apparent purposes, a dragon. Buried amidst the mounds of gold, gems, costume jewelry, silver plate, plastic toys, drink tins, coins, tokens, and bones is the bright Book.
The Wizards approach the Dragon, and eventually come to bargain with it. In return for the bright Book, they give it the dark Book and work a spell around the lair that will make it inacessible to anyone, thereby ensuring the hoard's security.
The Lone Power is enraged, and comes after them on the back of an eight-legged, skull-faced beast, flanked by Perytons and armed with a rod that holds the power of ruin.
They flee, ultimately leaping back through the worldgate and re-entering their homeworld. Their mission is accomplished; but the Lone Power is on their heels, and will destroy all the Universe rather than let them get away. Their only hope is to use the bright Book, preserving the Whole long enough for them to withstand the Witherer's efforts.
Summoned by the Speech, trees and statues become animate, forming a living wall around Central Park, in the heart of which the Wizards and their white hole take refuge. Kit, and then Nita, read from the bright Book by moonlight, keeping the world and the city real while cudgeling their brains to understand the means by which to drive out the Lone Power.
Frustrated, the Lone Power covers the Sun with His shadow, extinguishing the moonlight. All seems lost; but Fred is a white hole. In one move, he unveils the power of all the forms he has taken: a star, a black hole, and everything absorbed or shone on by either. This energy brightens the Full Moon as never before, creating moonlight as clarifying as sunlight, by which the Wizards continue reading.
At the end of the passage, the Lone Power's true name is written. As they recite it, intending to control Him, Nita makes a slight modification on the text, which provides the Lone Power with a chance to become a positive rather than a negative energy.
Renamed and vanquished, the Lone Power withdraws. Nita and Kit go home, their first task as Wizards complete.
