190 SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL WIZARDShe elbowed him again, harder. "Oh, you'd shapechange too, Kit," S'reee said. "We couldn't take you down in the Great Deeps otherwise. —Look, you two, there's too much to tell, and some of it's going to have to be handled as we go along. We've got three days to get everyone together for the Song, so that it happens when the Moon's round. Otherwise it won't keep the sea bottom quiet—"Kit looked suddenly at Nita. "Did you see that thing on the news the other night? About the volcano?" "The what?""There was some scientist on. He said that hot-water vents had been opening up all of a sudden off the Continental Shelf. And he said that if those little tremors we've been having keep getting worse, it could open the bottom right up and there'd be a volcano. The least it'd do would be to boil the water for miles. But it could also break Long Island in two. The beaches would go right under water. And Manhattan skyscrapers aren't built for earthquakes." Kit was quiet for a moment, then said, "The rocks remem-bered. That's why they were upset. . . ."Nita wasn't thinking about rocks, or Manhattan. She was thinking that her folks were planning to be there for another week and a half at least—and she saw a very clear picture of a tidal wave of dirty, boiling water crashing down on the beach house andsmashing it to driftwood."When should we start, S'reee?" she said. "Dawn tomorrow. There's little time to waste. Hotshot will be going with us—he'll be singing the Fourth Lord, the Wanderer, in the Song.""Dawn—" Nita chewed her lip. "Could it be a little later? We've got to have breakfast with my parents or they'll freak out.""Parents?" S'reee looked from Nita to Kit in shock. "You're still calves, is that what you're telling me? And you went outworld into a Dark Place and came back! I'd thought you were much older—"
