Wizard (The Key to Magic)

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  The voice that replied had a neutral machine-like quality "Nature of information?"

  "Priority 8."

  As the other voice paused, Prim took out her personal comm and watched the text bar as it read out Deposit>10,000. Confirmation #2349809.

  "Standard fee sent."

  "I have encountered an individual of Primary Line 6."

  "That line was extinguished. There must be an error."

  "There is no error. I confirmed the genetic sequence by use of equipment."

  A much longer pause ensued. Then, "Provide current location of individual."

  "Unknown. Individual was in custody of Investigative Section. He has now escaped. However, I can triangulate a general location by reading the diagnostics of the micro-nodes that were administered to him."

  "Do so. Signal confirmation immediately when you are able to fix his position."

  "This will be a time consuming process and I require the additional payment of a Priority 4 fee."

  The voice did not hesitate. "Agreed. Payment will be doubled if the individual is located within twenty-four hours."

  The comm went dead.

  As a happy couple too involved in each other to notice her occupied the adjacent bench, Prim stood up and moved away.

  Always previously, these clients had negotiated keenly over any demands for additional payments. Their eagerness to accept her terms this time was worrisome.

  When she came alongside a public oubliette, she jettisoned the one-shot comm without stopping. Once well out of sight of the bench, she ported home.

  EIGHT

  Mar froze, reading the background ether to try to discover the exact location of the speaker. The tone of the female voice had clearly made the designation "sorcerer" an epithet. Did that mean that she was no friend of the Oaurlervy Faction?

  "I'm not a sorcerer," he said. "I'm a --" He stopped as he searched for a word in the Common tongue that conveyed the same meaning as magician, but could only find the difficult to pronounce and less significant "-- technician."

  She made a scoffing sound. "And I'm a lace doily. Not wearing yellow does not change what you are."

  He was sure of it now. The woman's contempt made it clear that she was not fond of the Compliance Officers.

  But that did not mean that she would not be inclined to reveal him to his pursuers.

  Though he could not see her, he could easily make out her presence in the ether. It did not have the intensity of the chief questioner, but she was definitely magenfolk, to use Llylquaendt's term. Or, more specifically, she stirred an ethereal disturbance similar to that which Mar had noticed about the Pyrai medic. Though he could differentiate the weak spoil of several varied modulations in her ethereal presence, only one spell was currently active. He had to assume that this was the weapon that her attitude and words implied.

  "I'm not of the Faction and I'm no threat to you," he said. "May I make a light?"

  "Yes. Try any other spell and you're a dead man."

  Pondering the confidence displayed by her quick reply, he cast his new lamp spell, keeping the illumination small, no brighter than a candle, and positioned it between himself and his assailant so that he would not be a backlit target.

  The tunnel was as he had imagined with smooth, unmarked walls, and was otherwise empty.

  The woman, on the other hand, was ... naked.

  Or quite nearly so. Her clothing consisted of nothing more than a loose weave of bright red streamers and sheer blue ribbons and, while strategic locations were more or less obscured, "naked" certainly applied, for any practical purpose that might come to mind. With a slim frame, small breasts, a thin waist, and compact hips, she looked no older than himself. Her extravagant halo of hair, reinforced into a towering pile with bright pins and combs, was as green as a cabbage leaf.

  He took special note of the fact that she wore no bracelets or other jewelry.

  Her weapon, held with steady competence in her left hand, had a metal body and a tube, open end facing Mar, slung underneath.

  "Nothings for sale, but it's all for rent," she told him without humor as she watched the movement of his eyes. "I doubt, though, that you could afford the price."

  "You're a courtesan?"

  "I suppose that that's a polite way of putting it." She smirked, still watching his face. "You look, but I can tell that you aren't interested. That's not a reaction that I can say that I have encountered before from a young man. Why is that?"

  "I have a wife."

  "That doesn't make a difference."

  "It does for me."

  She shrugged. "I've heard that before."

  "I'm sure you have, but I don't really have time to chat, so if you don't mind, I'll be on my way."

  Her weapon remained steady. "I can put six bolts into you before you take a single step."

  He frowned, read the flux modulations of the device, devised a counter, and then took a challenging step toward her.

  Her expression did not change as she fired. True to her word, she blasted half a dozen shots at him.

  As soon as they exited the device, the steel slugs lost momentum as he drained their ethereal impetus and dropped to the floor of the tunnel.

  Then her expression did change -- to a smile.

  With a dismissive shrug, he swung around, bringing the lamp, and proceeded along the tunnel.

  "You don't want to go that way," she called after him in a matter-of-fact tone.

  He stopped. "Why is that?"

  "That way leads to the surface. The Bazaar is this way."

  He made a disparaging comment under his breath about Myd, Goddess of Wayward Travellers, Misapplied Repairs, and Faulty Directions. The multiplied names of the Forty-Nine must surely not have ever been spoken in this time and place, but the female medic's spell had not provided him with any curses or coarse comments of any sort in the language of this people. Feeling muzzled, he had no way to vent his frustration save through curses that no one but himself would understand.

  Now that the tension of his escape from the dungeon cell had begun to wane, a growing sense of urgency had started to gnaw at his thoughts.

  He had to return to the real world.

  This place -- this city and these people -- were not even dust to him. They were forgotten spirits, vanished for five millennia with their doomed world. Their lives and concerns, from those of the armsmen that had harried him to that of this peculiar harlot, did not even exist.

  Every second that he allowed these spirits to keep him from his goal was a second wasted, a second that kept him from his own life and the war that he had still to fight.

  Grimacing, he turned about and walked around the woman. It was much too soon for the skyships and the automatons to have given up their search and it would be foolish to return above ground now. He had no money and no particular interest in seeing an underground market, but it appeared to be his only alternative.

  After carelessly dropping the weapon in a pouch that hung from her hip, she hurried to catch up with him. "That's the first time that I've seen a spell that could disable a slug thrower."

  Eyes fixed on the dark tunnel ahead, he made no comment.

  "Unauthorized sorcery is illegal here."

  "I know."

  "You have a weird accent. Where are you from?"

  "Pyra."

  "You don't sound like someone from Pyra."

  "Have you been to Pyra?"

  "I can't get a permit to leave Dhiloeckmyur."

  Mar scowled. "How far is the Bazaar?"

  "Ten minutes at this pace. I'm Nali."

  "Plydrol."

  "That's a fake name if I ever heard one."

  "Is there any particular reason why you're following me?"

  "I was headed to the Bazaar when you smashed into the tunnel. Where are your shoes?"

  Mar stopped. "What's your game?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Two minutes ago you tried to kill me. Now you act as if you're my boon compan
ion. A turnaround like that has to be a set up for a swindle or the bait for a trap. I promise you, I'll be very difficult to waylay."

  "Boon companion? That's a phrase that you only hear in the theatre."

  "Answer my question."

  She wrinkled her nose and looked comically wounded.

  "Come on. Let's have it."

  With a grin, she said, "Well, at first, I thought that you were Faction."

  It was plain that she thought the average person would believe that alone sufficient reason for murderous intent.

  "And now?"

  "You're an unlicensed sorcerer. I know someone that needs your services. My finder's fee will be considerable."

  Mar considered the woman for a moment. "What's my cut?"

  "I know that Fynd will pay at least two thousand."

  Not having any idea what sort of coin these people used, he did not know if this amount were a lot or a little, but given Nali's undisguised mercenary attitude, it could hardly be a pittance. By definition, money in his pocket had to be an advantage. Besides, he was hungry. Every market that he had ever seen had had food vendors. Though he was a bit out of practice, he might have just stolen a bit to eat, but he did not know enough about this Bazaar to chance the unsophisticated sneak and grab technique that had served him so well in Khalar.

  "I'll listen to her offer. She's at the Bazaar?"

  "Of course. She has a permanent stall."

  Except for his lamp -- he wondered why Nali had been able to manage without one but did not feel moved to ask -- the tunnel, which took on a gradual downward slope, remained dark until they arrived at an ethereal curtain that sliced completely across the passage. He had detected it several dozen paces before they approached, but did not recognize the gloomy argent of which it was composed and had no inkling of its purpose. Although discernable because the tunnel could not be seen beyond it -- the light of his lamp did not pass through or reflect from it -- it was apparently immaterial and had no surface that he could visually perceive.

  Nali gave no indication that she took the curtain's presence as anything other than expected and did not alter her pace, barreling straight through without any apparent harm or interference and vanishing from his sight.

  Nevertheless on guard against anything untoward, he paused for a moment then followed. Immediately within, he had to stop to blink against a light as bright as noon. As his eyes adjusted, he held his position and took a look around.

  Now lit by lamps fixed overhead, the tunnel ended only a few steps beyond the ethereal curtain, with the left wall taken away to give access to a large, likewise smooth-walled circular cavern as large as had been the lower level in Llylquaendt's bunker. From what he could see, people, merchandise, and stalls filled the cavern from one side to the other. Neglecting the fact that he could not identify a large portion of the items for sale, this Bazaar seemed no different than any street market he had seen in his own time.

  Nali had stopped at the roughly oval tunnel exit and turned to see what delayed him. Waving in agitation and grinning, she urged. "Hurry up! I've already figured out how I want to spend my fee!"

  Returning her smile in spite of his own dark mood, he extinguished his lamp and the two of them trotted down the wide ramp into the crowd.

  Mar's clothing drew some stares, but no more than that of Nali or any number of others who struck him as oddly attired. The people themselves fit the same general cosmopolitan pattern that he had encountered in the big markets in Mhajhkaei -- tall and short, thin and fat, young and old, poor and affluent -- and were shopping with the same intensity or lack thereof. At first, he kept close watch on all that they came near, but after a short while, the familiar feel of the place caused him to relax.

  Nali stopped only once -- and that as if on impulse -- at a round kiosk that had banners with amazingly lifelike portraits showing men and women coiffured in various unnatural shades and blends.

  "A number seven," she told the rainbow-haired proprietor as she handed him a blue, square chip that looked like solidified lacquer.

  With a quick nod, the man pocketed the chip, then held his hands above her head, fingers splayed and said, "Dyonastrowl."

  Mar's magical sense told him that a spell had been cast and also that it was the gesture rather than the word that keyed the flux modulation.

  In a gradual tip to root process, the young woman's hair transformed from green to a weak purple.

  "Too many greens running about," she confided as they walked away. "I don't want to blend in to the crowd."

  More than two-thirds of the patrons retained a natural -- or at least natural seeming -- hair color. Those that sported the magically colored locks were of both sexes and though a few were dressed as revealingly as Nali, most wore conventional clothing in unexpressive colors.

  "All the people with the different hair are courtesans?" he asked her.

  She rolled her eyes in a fetching way. "That's absurd. The hair is a statement. No one does anything out of the ordinary up above because the Compliance Officers would take instant notice. Down here people can do as they please. Hair color is just a popular way to thumb our noses at the Faction."

  "What keeps the Compliance Officers from coming down here?"

  "A lot of people say that the Bazaar is so well hidden that the yellow jackets don't know that it exists, but I think that they just don't care what we do as long as don't try to soil their society in plain sight."

  Mar tended to agree. No secret could be kept with this vast number aware of it. This thought made him wonder if some paid stooge were already reporting his presence.

  The Bazaar proved to be a sprawling honeycomb of interconnected chambers, both large and small, and it took another fifteen minute walk through stalls, booths, solid-looking store fronts and their bargaining customers, gawking strollers, and hawking proprietors, to reach their destination, an alcove defined by gaily painted head-high cloth screens.

  With a watchful Mar following, Nali breezed through an unattended opening into a shaded interior. Padded couches and chairs were scattered about on a large red and green carpet, but there was no counter or obvious merchandise. Several of the seats were occupied by men and women of all dispositions, most reclining or stretched out flat. All of the customers were asleep.

  In the back left corner, a woman of moderate age, dressed in a loose many pocketed garment that was both trousers and blouse, sat perched on the edge of a lavish chair as she chatted with a man with chartreuse hair. This fellow, agitated and excitable, circled a matching chair across from her, hovering over it a time or two as if preparing to roost, but never quite sat down.

  When Nali coasted to her side, the seated woman -- apparently the aforementioned Fynd -- interrupted herself and stood to envelope the younger woman in a hug that seemed to spring from genuine affection.

  "Nali! Where have you been? I haven't seen you for days!"

  "I was at a party in the suburbs."

  "For eight days?"

  "It was a good party."

  Fynd laughed. "No doubt." She turned back to the man. "Well, Kemael, what will it be?"

  Kemael lurched to a stop, pursed his lips as he vacillated, then abruptly gave a sharp nod. "The full three hours."

  "Find an empty seat and I will be right with you."

  As Kemael skittered over to the nearest vacant couch, Nali caught Fynd's eye, tilted her head at Mar, and said quietly, "Sorcerer."

  Fynd gave Mar a neutral once-over, pausing ever so briefly at his bare feet, then turned with a professional smile to bustle after Kemael, who had laid himself out flat on the couch but was continuing to fidget as he watched her approach. As soon as she came alongside, Fynd produced a bare wooden dowel about the length of her forearm -- apparently from out of nothing -- pointed it at the tension wrinkled spot between Kemael's brows, and twitched the end in a looping gesture. Instantly, Kemael's lids drooped and his entire body relaxed.

  Making the dowel disappear with a roll of her hand, she
immediately swept back to Mar and Nali.

  He had to ask, "You sell sleep?"

  "Oh, no! I sell rest. Trouble free, whole body, no aches, no pains, no worries, no dreams, and absolutely no nightmares. Three hours on one of my couches will recharge anyone as if they had spent a month on a vacation beach. Many of my customers say that it makes them feel alive again. Want to try a free sample?"

  He kept his face blank. "No, thanks."

  She waved at Kemael's unused chair as she sank back into her own. "Let's talk."

  "I'll stand, if it's all the same."

  "You're a suspicious one, aren't you? Well, suit yourself. That will save Nali from having to drag up another chair."

  The younger woman threw Mar a quick grin and dashed to the chair as if to prevent him from having a chance to change his mind. With a sigh, she tucked her legs up under her and leaned back into the thick padding.

  "How about you, Nali? You look like you could use a couple of hours."

  "I might get half an hour when we're done."

  "Half-price."

  Nali flashed a quick smile. "A full hour then."

  With the young courtesan watching but otherwise seeming disengaged, Fynd took a small, shiny box from a pocket and placed it on the arm of her chair.

  "This will give us a bit of privacy," she explained at Mar's hard look.

  Three jewels decorated the top of the box. Two were clear, but one glowed orange. After a couple of seconds, a flux bubble of some sort radiated out from the box and enclosed the three of them.

  Sounds from outside of the bubble became muted and he presumed that this effect also worked in reverse, but he relaxed only slightly. There was no question but that the Bazaar was a black-market. From his experience in Khalar, he knew that only a fool trusted black-marketeers.

  To save time, he decided to try to dispense with any potential polite small talk. "Nali told me that you were looking for a sorcerer."

  The negative association that the term had in his mind with the Brotherhood of Phaelle made him disinclined to apply it to himself, but he had to claim the obviously important title to sell his services to the merchant.

  Fynd and Nali, as apparently everyone in this time did, used magic as a simple matter of course and clearly neither considered themselves sorcerers, while Nali, after seeing Mar penetrate the tunnel without harm, had immediately taken him to be one. The implication was that a sorcerer possessed a specific elevated level of magical skill and perhaps a standard toolkit of powerful spells. Of course, he had neither, but he might find a way to accomplish Fynd's task. Even should he fail, he would lose nothing but time.