A Wizard Abroad by Diane Duane

YA Fantasy

Published in 1993 by Corgi Books, London

Book 4 of The Young Wizard Series

Perfect example of a hard magic system

Nita's parents think she's become too involved in wizardry, and are worried she is getting too close to her partner, Kit. They send her to Ireland to stay with her aunt for the summer to give her a break from being a wizard. But magic runs deep in Ireland and wizards always end up where they are needed. Instead of a vacation, Nita is thrust into a battle with the dark forces of Irish mythology that are threatening to destroy the world as we know it.

Things to Emulate

True hard magic systems are rare in fantasy, especially in YA. Diane Duane's Young Wizards Series is one of the few YA fantasy universes that has a clearly defined system of magic. It is so detailed that the books are often classified as science fiction instead of fantasy. Duane has gone as far as creating a conlang full of magical technobabble. (To see it in all its glory, read The Book of Night with Moon.)

At its most basic level, the magic of The Young Wizard Series is based around language. It is literally called the Speech: What wizards say has the potential to change the very fabric of reality:

Her mother had her and knew she did, for a wizard's promise had to be kept. When you spend your life working with words that describe and explain—and even change—the way the universe is, you can't play around with those words, and you can't lie ... at least not without major and unpleasant consequences. (Chapter an tSionainn/Shannon)

How things are described and named hold power:

A wizard's spells worked best when everything in them was completely named, and it was always easier to use existing names than to coin new ones—which you had to do if no one had previously named a thing or a place, or if it didn't know its name already. And the name you coined had to be right; otherwise the wizardry would backfire. (Chapter an tSionainn/Shannon)

There is also an inherent understanding within the magic system that everything has consciousness. Otherwise, a place or thing knowing its name wouldn't be an important part of the working:

Nita laid her hand against it, and snatched it back with the shock. Life, for a wizard, is something that can be felt like the warmth from a radiator. This was not just warmth, but a burning—and totally unlike the kind of low-level awareness that inanimate objects normally manifested. (Chapter Cheárta na Chill Pheadair/Kilpeddr Forge)

The rules of magic that Duane has developed feed into one another. Once one rule has been established, it informs what other rules are. The development of wizardry progresses almost like a science as the narrative progresses:

Nita pictured the place in her head ... and translated the image quickly into coordinates that could be plugged into a transport spell. ...

Nita said the transport spell quickly in her head, considering how much air she would need, doubling it as usual, and arranging the spell intake so that it would take the air from outside the house rather than inside. (Chapter Cheárta na Chill Pheadair/Kilpeddr Forge)

Nita didn't let that distract her, concentrating instead on the part of the spell that located and verified the piece of alternate spacetime they needed. They copied it into the spell buffer prepared for it and held it ready. Then they performed the second part of the spell, which bilocated the copied spacetime with the one presently proceeding locally. (Chapter Sliabh O Cualann/Great Sugarloaf Mountain)

There is a clear logic to how these spells function, similar to mathematical equations. The text even reads a little like a scientific manual as spells are performed. While the reader might not be privy to the actual equations, there is still a clear understanding of how spells are completed and the downsides to working magic. In this universe, magic is something that must be planned. It doesn't work spontaneously or quickly. Spells can be set up in advance, but this means a wizard needs to know what spells they might need before embarking on a task. If the wizard doesn't have the right spells prepped, there is no substitution. Even with prepped spells, there are limits on their use:

A wizard with a mouthful of caramel and peanuts is not much good for saying spells, even the last word of one that's already set up. She pushed backward out of the way while trying to swallow, managed it, and shouted the one word she needed just in time ... Something grabbed Nita from behind by her throat and chest, choking her. Nita fought to turn, for you can't blast something you can't see. (Chapter Tir na nOg)

These basic principles create the foundation of the magic system in A Wizard Abroad, expanding on what Duane established in the first book of the series, So You Want to Be a Wizard. Throughout the series, Duane continues to add layers to the magic system (following Sanderson's Third Law of Magic), including elements that are unique to the time and place of the specific story she is telling.

[She] quickly did the spell that showed one whatever active wizardries were working in an area. Ideally what would happen was that the world blanked out and you were presented with a sort of schematic—points of light in a field—on which the real world was dimly overlaid. She did not get what she was expecting. Nita staggered back against one of the trees, half blinded. It was not just points of light that she was perceiving, but fields of it ... great tracts of residual wizardry that just had not gone away ... In theory the traces of a wizardry were gone by at least forty-eight hours later. But this—! It looked as if either the biggest wizardry on earth had been done here about two days ago, or else—and this concerned Nita more— all wizardries done here in the past where still here, in residue. (Chapter Ath na Sceire/Enniskerry)

This build up of magic plays a big part in the plot of A Wizard Abroad, adding more restrictions to the characters than in previous books. The layering of magic requires even more planning than was previously necessary and forces Nita and Kit to work more closely with other wizards than they have in the past. While all the books in the Young Wizard Series use the rules of magic as a framework, A Wizard Abroad is completely governed by them. Unlike the other books in the series, there is very little wiggle room to push beyond the rules without serious, often deadly, consequences:

"When you live in the physical world, you have to do it in a physical body. Those are the rules. And if you're going to spend as long in a mortal form as I have, you give up a lot of you power by necessity. It would burn the body out, otherwise, and the brain." (Chapter Cheárta na Chill Pheadair/Kilpeddr Forge)

This is exemplified by one pivotal moment where they must get starsteel to make a spear to defeat the lone power (the series big bad). While in previous books there would be some level of improvisation to get the starsteel, in A Wizard Abroad, everything is carefully planned by all the wizards of Ireland and built into a carefully rendered diagram.

She wandered over to the diagram that Johnny was working on, noticing the elegance and cleanness of it. Half the figures in the Speech that she was used to tracing out laboriously and in whole here where only hinted at; a single graceful stroke held the place for a figure or diagram much more complex ... It was a big five-noded diagram, with a separate circle for each of the existing three Treasures—each written around with reinforcing and warding spells that each specific Treasure would need—and a fourth circle for the strarsteel that would become the spear. That fourth circle was particularly densely written in. (Chapter Casleán na mBroinn/Caher Matrices/Castle Matrix)

This section also serves to establish that Nita is still a fairly junior wizard, for all the impressive things that she's done, and that there are still more complex depths to magic that she has yet to learn. This opens the door for more entries in the series (there are currently another seven) because while the magic system has been well established, there is clearly still more for Nita, and by extension the reader, to learn.