Deep Wizardry-wiz 2 by Diane Duane Page A

especially the vegetation that the fish depend on for food, has been killed off entirely. Other species have been ... changed. The manual will give you details. You won’t like them.”
    Nita suspected that Tom was right. “Anyway,” he said, “let me give you the rest of this. After you do the appropriate rituals, which the whales will coach you through, the access through the Gates of the Sea takes you down through Hudson Canyon to its bottom at the lower edge of the Shelf, and then deeper and farther southeast—where the canyon turns into a valley that gets shallower and shallower as it goes. The valley ends just about where the Abyssal Plain begins, at seven hundred miles off the coast, and seventeen thousand feet down. Then you come to the mountain.”
    It was on the map—a tiny set of concentric circles—but it had looked so peculiar, standing there all by itself in the middle of hundreds of miles of flatness, that Nita had doubted her judgment. “The Sea’s Tooth,” she said, reading from the map.
    “Caryn Peak,” Tom agreed, giving the human name. “Some of the oceanographers think it’s simply the westernmost peak of an undersea mountain range called the Kelvin Seamounts—they’re off the eastward edge of your map. Some think otherwise; the geological history of that area is bizarre. But either way, the Peak’s an important spot. And impressive; that one peak is six thousand feet high. It stands up sheer from the bottom, all alone, a third as high as Everest.”
    “Five Empire State Buildings on top of each other,” Kit said, awed. He liked tall things.
    “A very noticeable object,” Tom said. “It’s functioned as landmark and meeting place and site of the whales’ great wizardries for not even they know how long. Certainly since the continents started drifting toward their present positions ... at least a hundred thousand years ago. And it may have been used by ... other sorts of wizards ... even earlier than that. There’s some interesting history in that area, tangled up with whale-wizards and human ones too.”
    Tom’s voice grew sober. “Some of the wizards who specialize in history say that humans only learned wizardry with the whales’ assistance ... and even so, our brands of wizardry are different. It’s an old, old branch of the Art they practice. Very beautiful. Very dangerous. And the area around Caryn Peak is saturated with residue from all the old wizardries that whales and others, have done there. That makes any spell you work there even more dangerous.”
    “S’reee said that the ‘danger’ level wouldn’t go above ‘moderate,’ “ Kit said.
    “She said it shouldn’t,” Nita said.
    “Probably it won’t,” Tom said. He didn’t sound convinced, though. “You should bear in mind that the ‘danger’ levels for humans and whales differ. Still, the book said she was about to be promoted to Advisory status, so she would know that— All the same ... you two keep your eyes open. Watch what agreements you make. And if you make them—keep them, to the letter. From all indications, the Song of the Twelve is a lovely wizardry, and a powerful one ... probably the most powerful magic done on a regular basis. The sources say it leaves its participants forever changed, for the better. At least, it does when it works. When it fails—which it has, once or twice in the past—it fails because some participant has broken the rules. And those times it’s failed... Well, all I can say is that I’m glad I wasn’t born yet. Be careful.”
    “We will,” Nita said. “But what are the chances of something going wrong?”
    “We could ask Peach,” Kit said. It was a sensible suggestion; the bird, besides doing dramatic readings from Variety and TV Guide, could also predict the future—when it pleased her.
    “Good idea. Carl?”
    “Here I am,” Carl said, having picked up an extension phone. “Now, Kit, about the monsters—“
    “Carl, put that on hold a moment. What