astonished Nita. "Cousins, quick, kill the spell! We're going to need their good will later."Nita glanced at Kit, who was still staring at the wound with a tight, angry '°ok on his face. He glanced up at her. "Huh? Oh. Sure. Better put up a •zard's wall first, so that the dolphins can get back in the water without getting attacked again." |Right." Nita got her book out and riffled through pages to the appropri– 1178 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARDate spell, a short-term forcefield that needed no extra supplies to produce She said the spell and felt it take hold, then sagged back against the whale and closed her eyes till the dizziness went away. Off to one side she heard Kit saying the words that released the freeze.A few moments later fins began appearing again out on the water, circling inward toward the sandbar, then sliding away as if they bumped into some-thing, and circling in again."The water will take the blood away soon enough," the whale said. "They'll go away and not even remember why they were here. . . ." The whale's eye fixed on Nita again. "Thanks for coming so quickly, cousins.""It took us longer than we wanted. I'm Nita. That's Kit." "I'm S'reee," the whale said. The name was a hiss and a long, plaintive, upscaling whistle.Kit left the wound and came up to join Nita. "It was one of those explosive harpoons, all right," he said. "But I thought those were supposed to be powerful enough to blow even big whales in two.""They are. Ae'mhnuu died that way, this morning." S'reee's whistle was bitter. "He was the Senior Wizard for this whole region of the Plateau. I was studying with him—I was going to be promoted to Advisory soon. Then the ship came, and we were doing a wizardry, we didn't notice—"
