by Rick Cook
They had gone perhaps halfway down the main aisle when Shamus, the captain of the castle’s guards, separated himself from a knot of his men and came over to greet them.
“A pleasure to see you, My Lady,” he said loudly as he smiled and bowed. His eyes never stopped moving.
Moira nodded to the guard captain. “Good afternoon, Shamus,” she said equally loudly. “Oh, I would not have missed it.”
The guardsman took her hand as if to kiss it and used that as an excuse to move closer.
“Thanks for coming,” he muttered. “The whole place is nervous as a bunch of half-wild dragons. Want an escort?”
Moira dimpled as if she had been paid a compliment. “It would ruin the effect,” she said without moving her lips.
Shamus bowed as if taking his leave. “Need anything, just sing out.” With that he turned and strolled away as if he had not a care in the world. Moira noticed his sword was loose in its sheath.
What with one thing and another it took them the better part of two hours to tour the fairgrounds. Moira stopped and chatted with everyone she knew even casually and Jerry thought he’d never get his jaw unclenched. Even when Fluffy knocked over a pile of baskets with a careless twitch of his tail, Moira managed to turn the gaffe into a social triumph, getting down on her knees to help the stall owner gather up her spilled merchandise and talking gaily all the while.
By the time the group turned back toward the castle the mood in the fairgrounds had lightened perceptibly. Ian had fallen asleep on Shauna’s shoulder with Fluffy s leash still clutched tight in his fist. Caitlin was chattering away, but she was content to walk alongside her mother instead of scampering everywhere.
The older members of the party were doing no better.
“My feet hurt,” Jerry said as they picked their way up the muddy main aisle back toward the town gate.
Moira smiled at him. “It was in a good cause, My Lord. Thank you for coming.”
Something in the way she said it made Jerry look at her more closely. “You’re really wiped, aren’t you?”
A vagrant breeze drew a lock of coppery hair over the hedge witch’s cheek, emphasizing the paleness of her skin. “I am rather tired, but very content.” She sighed.
“You’d better rest up tonight if you want to be in shape for the ceremony tomorrow.”
The breeze turned suddenly chilly and Moira shivered and drew her green wool cloak closer around her. “I will,” she promised. “Just now nothing sounds so good as a hot bath and a warm bed.”
“Momma, I’m cold.” Caitlin pressed herself closer to Shauna.
“That’s what you get for not wearing so much as a cloak, like I told you to.” Then she hugged her daughter close against the cold wind. “Never you mind. We’ll be home soon enough.”
Jerry shivered and pulled his cloak tighter. “I wish I’d brought something heavier. This wind’s picking up.”
Even Fluffy seemed to notice the wind. The dragon lowered his neck and turned his head to shelter from the full force behind Shauna’s bulk. Ian stirred and whimpered on Shauna’s shoulder.
Moira looked at the tents beginning to flap against their ropes and squinted her eyes against the sting of windborne dirt. “Perhaps we had better rest a few minutes inside the city gate,” she said. “I think I need to sit down.”
Jerry raised his voice to be heard over the wind. “We’re only halfway there. Want to rest in one of the pavilions?”
“Let us go on. It is only a few hundred paces.”
They had reached the spot in the center of the fairgrounds where the main ways crossed. Here the aisles widened out into an impromptu square and the wind tore at them as they stepped out of the relative shelter of the narrower ways.
It tore and howled at them, kicking up dirt and debris until they could hardly see the far side of the square. The wind moaned through the tent ropes and made the canvas boom until it sounded like a chorus of lost souls. Jerry put his head down and pushed forward against the wind, clutching Moira’s arm to help her along.
He felt Moira stiffen and slow in spite of his efforts to help her along. “Jerry . . .” she began, and he looked up.
There were things in the wind. At first Jerry thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but they seemed to grow darker and more solid as he watched. Then they were black clouds within a lighter cloud, indistinct forms that grew and writhed as they moved toward him.
They had no arms, but they seemed to reach out to clutch. They had no heads, but they seemed to fasten their attention on Jerry and Moira with the intentness of a hunting eagle. They had no mouths, but their voices seemed to call out for them, eagerly, hungrily. Moira whimpered and shrank back against Jerry’s shoulder as the things drew close.
Jerry stepped in front and threw up his hands in a warding spell. A foggy tentacle lashed out to touch him and he collapsed like a sack of meal.
In the excitement, Ian dropped Fluffy’s leash. With a wheep of dragonish rage the young dragon lumbered into the fray, tail lashing left and right, upsetting tables and knocking down a pavilion. He snapped at the cloud things but his jaws closed on nothing at all with the sound of a rifle shot.
“Wiz!” Moira screamed.
And Wiz was there. Cloakless, hatless, bootless, his wizard’s staff clutched before him in both hands. He looked around wide-eyed, then leaped over his friend’s prostrate body to put himself between the shadows and Moira, but he did not let the things touch him. Instead he raised his staff, shouting a magic word as he did so.
Wiz swung his staff overhead in a mighty bash. There was an eye-searing burst of purple fire as magic met magic and an ear-piercing peal of thunder as the thing disintegrated. Without hesitating he lashed out again and another monster disappeared with the same flash and roar. Again and again Wiz laid about him at the encircling fog things. Behind him Bal-Simba popped into the square.
With an inarticulate roar the big wizard charged into the battle. Behind him wizard after wizard popped into existence as the Mighty of the North rallied to protect their own. The square echoed and flashed with the blasts of magic.
Wiz tried to reach Moira but Fluffy was in his way. So he put his back against the dragon and struck out furiously at the things in the whirlwind.
And then it was over.
As suddenly as they had come the things were gone. The wind dropped to nothing, the air cleared and only wizards and their allies were left in the open space.
Wiz looked around. Two of the wizards rushed to where Jerry lay senseless on the ground. The others stood or milled around, alert for their enemy. Pressed up against the tents, Shauna stood with Ian and Caitlin gathered behind her skirts. June stood next to her, knife drawn, nostrils flared, and showing white all the way around her pupils like a frightened animal. She only relaxed when Danny rushed to her side.
The only person Wiz couldn’t see was the person he wanted to see most.
“Moira?” Wiz called. “Moira!”
“Here darling.”
Wiz turned to the sound of the voice, but Moira wasn’t there. Only Fluffy, leaning drunkenly against a post.
“Moira?” Wiz looked around wildly.
“I feel funny,” came Moira’s voice again. “So dizzy.”
Wiz’s jaw dropped. The voice was coming from Flurry, the little red dragon.
“Oh my God!”
Four
The Lady and the Dragon
Wiz Zumwalt stood at the window staring sightlessly at the snowscape below. The wan sun was painting the tops of the clouds sullen red as it sank toward the horizon. Guardsmen manned the castle walls at close intervals and in the growing gloom he could see blue witchfire flicker about one or two towers as the wizards within them worked protective spells.
Listlessly he wiped his breath fog from the diamond panes with his sleeve. He probably should have been with the other wizards but he couldn’t concentrate. Instead Danny was handling things. Nothing had happened for hours.
“E
xcuse me, My Lord.” Bronwyn, the castle’s chief Healer, was standing behind him. Her square face and brown eyes were grave, but then Bronwyn always looked serious.
“How is she? I mean, how is the dragon?”
“I think ‘she’ is most appropriate for now,” the chief Healer said. Then she paused to pick her words. “Lord, such things are not unknown. Wizards have inhabited others’ bodies by similar methods before. The adepts of the Dark League more commonly, but even the Mighty of the North have resorted to the tactic on occasion. As a result we know a good deal about the condition and its effects.”
Wiz brushed all that aside. “But is she going to be all right?”
“Her spirit and her intelligence, her ka, if you will, are safe for now,” Bronwyn said.
“For now?”
The Healer fixed him with her steady brown eyes. “A human in a dragon’s body is not a natural combination. Still less when the dragon is not yet full-grown and intelligent. Such mixtures are not stable.”
“Meaning what?”
“If it is allowed to go on long enough, deterioration sets in. The personalities become mixed, degenerate and the level of intelligence descends to match the body. Once that happens there is no restoring the human personality even if it is returned to its body.”
Wiz’s breath caught in his throat. “How long have we got?”
Bronwyn shrugged. “Weeks, perhaps a pair of moons. Moira’s personality is strong, so that works in our favor. But the dragon is an alien animal and not intelligent in his own right. That works against us.”
Wiz turned from her and slammed his fist into the stone wall. He left a dark smear of blood where his knuckles hit but he didn’t notice.
“We are doing everything we can, Lord.”
“I know you are. Thanks Bronwyn. Uh, how’s Jerry?”
“I think he will be well. We think the things attempted to do the same thing to him but you foiled them by your attack. For now he sleeps the enchanted sleep. He will awake in his own time, but we do not know how long it will be. Several days at least.”
“Well, thanks.” He turned back to the window.
“My Lord, there is something else you should know.”
Wiz turned and looked at her.
“Telling you this violates a confidence, but you are party to the situation and I do not think Moira will tell you herself.”
The Healer hesitated. Clearly violating a confidence did not come easy to her. “She was—is—pregnant.”
“What?”
Bronwyn regarded him soberly. “She is with child, perhaps two moons along.”
“But I didn’t know! I mean, why didn’t she tell me?”
“She wanted to be sure. Then she intended to tell you, after the fair. She did not want you to worry during the festivities. Now”—Bronwyn shrugged—“I do not believe she is thinking clearly.”
Wiz sank back against the stone wall. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”
The Healer watched him closely but did not move toward him. “I know it is a shock to find out like this. Still, it is best that you know.”
“We’d been trying . . .” was all he could get out.
With a Healer’s instinct Bronwyn ignored his tears. “As you well know it is uncommon for a witch to become pregnant. The practice of magic drains the vital energies and makes it hard for a magician to either father or conceive a child. Still, with patience, persistence and a little luck . . .” The Healer shrugged.
Wiz nodded dumbly. Moira had consulted Bronwyn several times in her efforts to conceive. He remembered the earlier byplay between Shauna and Moira. Now he understood.
“What . . . what should we do?”
Bronwyn shook her head. “Lord, this is beyond my experience. All we can do is to do the best we can to reunite Moira with her body.” She paused. “I have no reason to believe that the separation will harm the child.”
Wiz sat heavily on a bench beside the window. “Thanks, Bronwyn.”
“If there is aught else I can do? Something to help you sleep perhaps?”
“No, I’ll be all right. There’s things I need to do.”
The Healer nodded and withdrew, leaving Wiz to his thoughts.
###
Night and fog closed around the Wizards’ Keep, black, damp and almost palpable.
The lamps burned in Bal-Simba’s workroom where the leader of the Council of the North sat and thought.
There was a single knock at the door. Bal-Simba gestured and Arianne entered.
“Any sign?” the giant black wizard asked.
“The Watchers can find nothing. Not even sign of anything unusual.”
“To be expected, I fear.”
“Lord, you know that Moira was pregnant?”
Bal-Simba nodded. “Bronwyn told me.” He sank his chin into a meaty palm. “I wonder if that was what attracted this creature to her?”
Arianne’s eyes went wide at the thought. Then she bit her lip. “That implies somewhat unpleasant things about our enemy,” she said neutrally.
“Very unpleasant indeed.” He sighed. “Beyond the fact that it was Moira, this business has aspects I do not like at all.”
“Our enemy seems powerful.”
“Powerful, strange and malign,” Bal-Simba agreed. “Since the Sparrow has been among us we have seen the magic of elves and even things not entirely of this world. But never magic of the sort I saw today.”
Arianne, who had stayed at the Wizards’ Keep to organize the defenses cocked a questioning eyebrow.
“Have you ever dealt with a viper?” Bal-Simba asked. “Something small and mindless yet full of menace and the single desire to harm? That was what those things were like.”
“Yet even a viper has reason,” Arianne said. “They act so to defend themselves or because they are frightened.”
Bal-Simba gave her a tired smile. “And in understanding the viper we become able to deal with it. We may hope that these things act with reason as well and that by understanding their reason we can learn to deal with them.” He didn’t say it with a lot of conviction.
Both of them were silent for a moment. “Well,” Bal-Simba sighed at last. “If the Watchers cannot find anything, best to resort to other methods. Have my scrying bowl brought to me. If it will not show us Moira—and I doubt very much that it will—we can at least learn where this new magic lairs.”
“Oh, and Lady . . .” Arianne turned, hand on the door handle.
“We need not mention our speculations to the Sparrow. Certainly not yet.”
“Of course, My Lord.”
###
Someone edged into the room. Looking up, Wiz saw it was Malus.
“Excuse me, My Lord,” the pudgy wizard said. “I just heard what happened. I wanted to offer condolences—and whatever aid I might give.”
“Thanks, Malus. I appreciate it.”
“I was going to ask you about my spell.” He drew the roll of parchment from his sleeve and looked at it ruefully. “It seems so trivial now.”
Wiz held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
“Now, My Lord?”
“I’ve got to keep busy,” Wiz said grimly.
“Oh, of course, My Lord. And if there’s anything I can do, anything at all.”
Wiz clapped the fat little man on the shoulder. “Thank you, Malus. You’re a good friend.”
After Malus left, Wiz spread out the parchment strips and arranged them on a bench beside the window. Like all spells it was written on parallel strips so the spell would not be activated by the act of writing it. Wiz stared at them for nearly five minutes before he realized he had the strips out of order. With a sigh he picked them up and stuffed them in his belt pouch. Then he wandered down the hall toward the programmers’ workroom.
He found Danny hard at it. There were at least six listings in different colors above his workbench and two emacs below them giving more magical commands. As Wiz entered, his young colleague whispered something to a third emac seated
cross legged on the floor and the demon made a note with a quill pen on a strip of parchment in its lap.
June was in the corner with Ian nestled wide-eyed and clinging in her skirt. Her other hand stayed near her knife. She hadn’t let her husband or son out of her sight since the attack.
“Have you been able to get a line on the spell?”
Danny turned toward him and made a face. “This thing is real cute. First, you were right. It was done with something based more or less on our magic compiler.”
“Which version?”
“I said more or less. It’s been hacked, moby hacked. There’s stuff in there I’ve never seen and I’ve got no idea what it does. There’s other stuff that goes back to your original quick-and-dirty interpreter, in a couple of cases stuff we took out of the later versions because it wasn’t stable. Then there’s stuff that’s just been fine-tuned.”
He gestured and another screen opened, showing another listing. Here and there lines of code stood out in brighter fire.
“Those things we met in the square are very loosely based, maybe ‘inspired’ is closer, on our searcher system. The highlighted parts were probably lifted verbatim. But each of the things in the square is considerably more complex than our searchers—and a lot more lethal.”
“How do they work?”
“I’m not quite sure. What they do is to suck the life force out of their victim, like a bunch of magical vampires. But there’s more to it than that and I’m not sure what. Like I say, some of this stuff is just real strange. Some of it is beautifully tuned, some of it is damn crude and a lot of it doesn’t look like it does anything at all.” He paused. “You know, I think I saw something like this once on the net. A guy kept posting stuff to alt.c.sources. He was a really good programmer only he was going psycho and in his last articles before they took him away e had this same kind of mix of off-the-wall brilliant and just plain off the wall.”