by Rick Cook
Cautiously, the party crept up the tunnel toward the glow, Malkin flitting along without a whisper of sound and the others coming as quietly as their natures permitted. Wiz tried to watch where he put his feet, keep up with Malkin and not make any noise. He winced every time one of his companions made a scrape or dislodged a loose rock with a clatter.
There was no sign of life ahead, just the glow which gradually got stronger as they approached. It filled the tunnel with a soft cool radiance that seemed to radiate evenly from the top third of the tunnel. There was no sound and not so much as a breath of air moving. But there was a smell that reminded Wiz somehow of the basement of an old house, musty without being damp.
At last they stepped out into a section of tunnel with a flat floor and walls that looked as if the rock had been adzed smooth. At this distance they could detect irregularities in the glowing surface as if it had a somewhat lumpy undercoat. There was still no sign of life.
Wiz motioned Danny forward to take a reading with the magic detector.
The younger programmer came up beside him and swept his talisman over the glowing surface. “I’m not getting any magic from it,” Danny whispered.
Wiz reached out and touched the glow. It felt like dry wood pulp and some of the glow came off on his hand. “It’s fungus,” he said quietly. “Nothing but fungus.”
“Hmmf!” said Glandurg, striding up and yanking off a large handful of the glowing material. The move filled the air around him with dust and he sneezed thunderously. “All that over a little fox fire.”
“Quiet,” Malkin hissed.
“Bah!” the dwarf roared. “There’s nothing here but some fungus.”
“And whatever planted it,” Malkin said quietly. “Something has been bringing it wood to feed upon.”
“And what,” demanded the dwarf,” do you suppose this oh-so-dangerous farmer of fungus might be?”
Wiz saw indistinct shadows moving in the blueness ahead. “I think we’re about to find out.”
An ant! was Wiz’s first thought. But it wasn’t. It was insectile and proportioned something like an ant, with divided body and long, spindly legs. But ants don’t walk erect. Nor are they six feet tall. True, some ants do have oversized heads with enormous pincers that open and close reflexively, but Wiz had never heard of an ant with polished steel blades riveted to its pincers.
The thing came on, stopping every couple of steps to swing its head this way and that as if testing the air. Wiz and Malkin began to creep backwards, one slow step at a time. The ones behind them backed up as well, to the end of the smoothed part of the tunnel and then into the unworked portion.
It was then that Glandurg’s undwarflike clumsiness betrayed him. He put his foot down on a loose rock, which went scooting out from under him, taking his foot and leg with it. Glandurg went down with a crash and a curse and the ant-thing lowered its head, opened its pincers and charged.
“Drop!” Wiz yelled to Malkin and hurled a lightning bolt at the attacker. The bolt struck home and the creature shriveled and blackened under the impact. The fungus-impregnated wood pulp around it began to smolder, releasing clouds of noxious black smoke. Malkin rolled past Wiz and bounced to her feet, rapier and dagger ready. Beyond her the light from the tunnel was blocked off as a mass of ant-things swarmed toward the intruders.
“Let’s get out of here,” Wiz shouted.
No one needed a second invitation. They turned and ran with Wiz bringing up the rear and throwing lightning bolts to slow down pursuit.
Another ant-thing appeared out of a side tunnel. It barely had time to open its jaws before Danny dropped it with a fireball. Two others poked their armored heads out of side crevices as the party fled past. Wiz struck one with a spell and Malkin cut the forelegs out from under the other with a deft stroke of her rapier. The thing stumbled, rebalanced itself on its remaining legs and came on after them.
Wiz cast his anti-friction spell on the tunnel. The creatures slipped and slid, but they were more nimble than a dragon and they kept coming, skating down the tunnel toward their fleeing prey.
Wiz stopped dead in the middle of the tunnel and took a deep breath.
“Are you mad?” Malkin yelled. “Come on!” But Wiz ignored her, raised his staff and began to chant.
There was a rumble and a shiver and the loose rocks began to move. At first they shook where they were, as if the earth was quaking. Then they began to move. Gradually at first and then faster and faster the rocks flew down the tunnel like a reverse explosion. Two boulders tried to get through a space not quite big enough and caught. Three other smaller pieces piled up against them and then a host of rocks from pebbles to boulders jammed against them blocking the tunnel solid.
“Cute,” Malkin said, admiring Wiz’s handiwork.
“It’s a variation on Jerry’s rubble-moving spell, which we used the last time we were in the City of Night,” Wiz explained. “Now let’s get out of here before they get the tunnel unblocked.” He looked around. “There aren’t enough loose rocks here to do that trick again.”
“Now what?” the thief asked as they hurried along.
“Now we find a place where the roof and walls are solid rock and cave in this whole section of the tunnel. We can’t do it here because the ceiling is too unstable. We’d probably get caught in the landslide.”
“Hey,” Danny yelled from up ahead. “There’s a door here.”
As Wiz came puffing up he saw that there was indeed another door of iron-bound oak set in the solid rock wall.
“Can you get us through that?” Wiz asked Malkin. “It looks like the rock is solid enough on the other side to let me use my cave-in spell.”
Malkin bent and examined the door, running her fingertips over it.
“Hmm,” she said. “Ah, yes. Yes indeed.”
“Can you open it?”
“Of course.”
“How long will it take?”
Malkin looked at him as if he were simple. “As long as it takes, of course.”
Behind them they could hear a faint scrabbling and shifting as the bugs worked to clear the tunnel.
“We may not have that long. We’re gonna have to cut our way through this one.”
“Stand aside, Wizard,” Glandurg said. “It is time for Blind Fury to sing.”
That wasn’t what Wiz had in mind, but Glandurg had already unsheathed the gleaming blade and was waving it above his head. Obviously something—or someone—was about to get cut and on quick reflection Wiz decided it would be better for everyone if it was the door. He motioned the others back and stepped well clear himself.
Malkin indicated a spot on the wall to the right of the door. “Aim here.” Then she joined the group well behind the dwarf and out of range.
Glandurg nodded, raised the sword over his head and brought it down with a mighty blow. Naturally he missed completely. Instead of striking the rock wall, he hit the door along the hinge line, shearing wood and hinges from shoulder height to floor. The door, not made to withstand such an attack, simply collapsed into a pile of boards.
“Missed,” the dwarf said sheepishly.
“That’s all right,” Wiz told him as Malkin winked at him over Glandurg’s head. Then she stepped through the doorway and into the room beyond. As soon as they were through a couple of quick blasts from Wiz’s staff collapsed a hundred yards of tunnel.
Danny was looking down the tunnel after the dwarf. Then he caught Wiz’s arm as Wiz came past. “Wiz,” he whispered, “you’re sure, he’s on our side, right? I mean you checked out his credentials and everything?”
“He thinks he’s on our side,” Wiz whispered back. Then he hurried on, leaving Danny puzzled in his wake.
###
Even a small dragon was an uncomfortable fit in the Watchers’ chamber. The sunken floor was crammed with stations for those who used their scrying skills to see far beyond the borders of the Capital or to communicate across the length and breadth of the lands of mortals. The tables wer
e wood, the men and women sitting one or two to a table wore the robes of wizards and they stared at crystals or bowls. There was barely space between them for humans to move, much less a dragon. Nor was the raised platform that ran around three sides of the room really large enough for a beast the size of Moira’s new body to be comfortable.
Moira grimly ignored that, even when a hurrying Watcher tripped over her tail. She and Bal-Simba had come for a more important purpose.
“And they still have not reported in?” Bal-Simba asked the Chief Watcher.
“As I said, My Lord.”
“Have you tried to contact them?”
“I felt it was best to ask your advice before doing so.”
“Then do so now. Tell them to return. We can still bring them back along the Wizard’s Way, but if this thing continues to grow we will not be able to do so for much longer.”
The Chief Watcher spoke a spell and two dozen demons appeared in the air before him. He spoke again and the demons began to speak, each but a fraction of a syllable before the next took up the message.
“There is nothing, Lord.”
Bal-Simba frowned mightily. “Perhaps the new crystals are not working,” Moira said.
“Perhaps,” the Watcher said neutrally.
“Try to reach them,” the wizard commanded. “See if you can get a reply. If you cannot reach them on the special crystal, try other means. If you cannot reach them, convene a coven of wizards and pull them back unawares.”
The Watcher nodded and turned back to his work, trying to ignore the scaly nose thrust over his shoulder.
The Watcher was still bent over the crystal when Bronwyn came hurrying into the Watch chamber.
“My Lord, My Lady, you had best come. Jerry is stirring. I think he may be awake.”
###
Jerry Andrews was tossing restlessly on the infirmary pallet when they arrived. Two of Bronwyn’s apprentices were beside him, bathing his brow and keeping him from falling out. They looked up and withdrew slightly as Bronwyn led the others in.
“He has become increasingly agitated in the last day-tenth,” the chief Healer explained. “That usually means the subject is returning to his body.”
“Will he be all right?” Moira asked.
“Ask me after he awakens.” She cast a professional eye at her patient. “I do not think that will be long.”
“Jerry,” Moira called. Then more loudly. “Jerry, wake up!”
“Wha . . .” It was a mumble rather than a word, but the apprentice Healers brightened at the sound.
“My Lord, can you hear me?” Bal-Simba didn’t shout, but the timbre of his voice carried to the very bones of the hearers.
“Ahh, okay, yeah.” Jerry seemed to relax into the bed then his eyes flickered and opened.
“Welcome back, My Lord,” Bronwyn said warmly. She motioned and one of the apprentices handed her a bowl. “Drink this.” She held it to Jerry’s lips. Jerry swallowed, gulped, wrinkled his nose and sneezed. From where she stood, Moira’s dragon sense of smell caught a whiff of the bowl’s contents. She could not blame mm at all.
“Gahh! ’S awful.”
“It will help you recover,” Bronwyn told him, handing the bowl back to the apprentice.
“Where am I?” He turned his head. “Infirmary, right?”
“Just so,” Bal-Simba told him.
“How long?”
“Were you gone? About three days.”
“Wiz?” Jerry slurred. “Malkin?”
“Not here,” Bal-Simba told him.
“Where are they? Are they all right?”
“They are safe and well. But they have gone on a mission.”
“Where?”
“To the City of Night to face the thing that did this.”
“No!” Jerry struggled to sit up, paled and sank back into the pillows. “Won’t work,” he gasped. “Can’t do it that way.”
“They do not intend to confront our enemy,” Bal-Simba said. “They only go to scout, to bring us back a better picture of what it is we are fighting.”
Jerry clutched at his arm. “You don’t understand. The thing absorbs. If Wiz and Danny get too close it will suck them in, make them part of it. That’s nearly what happened to me.”
“Wiz drove the things off before they could finish,” Moira told him.
Jerry looked at the dragon. “Hallucinating?” he mumbled.
“There was an accident,” Moira told him. “Or perhaps intentional action.”
“The Enemy has taken her body,” Bal-Simba said. “That is why Wiz and the others have gone there.”
“They can’t do it!” He broke off in a fit of coughing. “Get them back,” he said hoarsely.
Bronwyn moved to the head of the bed. “My Lord, unless you have pressing questions you had best let him rest. He is still very weak and somewhat disoriented.”
Bal-Simba nodded and touched the dragon’s shoulder. “Very well.” He nodded to Jerry. “We will talk later.”
“Get them back,” the programmer entreated to their retreating backs. “Call them off.”
Arianne was waiting for them in the corridor beyond the sickroom.
“More news from the Watchers?” Bal-Simba asked as soon as the door was closed.
“There is another complication, My Lord. We have not only lost contact with Wiz’s party, we cannot reach them along the Wizard’s Way. We can still penetrate the things attacking the castle, but apparently the Enemy found their entry and blocked it. The Watchers are still trying but so far they cannot reach them by any means.”
Moira drew back her scaly neck and hissed like a berserk tea kettle. “A trap! The whole damned thing is a trap!”
“So it would appear,” Bal-Simba said grimly. “Our enemy seems to have a special fondness for traps.”
“If we do not find them and get them back—or at least warn them . . .” The thought hung unfinished.
“Then we will just have to bring them back or warn them—somehow.”
Eight
Under Siege
“My Lord?” Arianne asked.
“Hhhmpf?” Bal-Simba refocused his eyes and looked at his assistant.
“I asked if you were ready for luncheon.”
“I am sorry. I was thinking. Piecing together what we know and what we do not.”
Arianne recognized the tone and saw that lunch would be delayed for a bit.
“Our attacker’s magic is of a type which is unknown to us, although it appears to be based on the new magic. Juvian and Agricolus have done much good work on that. So far his primary weapon appears to be this fog, which is attracted to magic, which seems to explain why it clings so close to the castle.”
“Which we know it does thanks to the page Brian,” Arianne added. “He went out no less than three times yesterday. Now we are using dismounted dragon riders to survey the fog’s extent. He will be serving us for a while, by the way, part of his reward.”
Bal-Simba nodded.
“But most of this we knew as of this morning,” Arianne added. “From your manner I suspect you have discovered something more.”
The wizard’s brow furrowed. “Not discovered, exactly, but I did have a thought. Obviously our adversary has access to the Sparrow’s new magic. Perhaps that would be a fruitful line of inquiry.”
“Lord, the new magic is fairly widespread by now,” Arianne pointed out. “The Sparrow and his friends have been teaching it to any who would learn and they in turn have been teaching it to others.”
“True, but whoever is behind this has unusual abilities with it. Perhaps it would be well to make inquiries, delicately, as to the activities of the especially apt pupils.”
“Yes,” the blond woman said slowly. “If done quietly it costs us little enough and may perhaps offer a clue.” Her expression changed.
“A thought of your own?” Bal-Simba asked.
“Perhaps,” Arianne said slowly. “It was unwise of them to step into the Enemy’s jaws unknowi
ng.”
“Let us hope it was merely unwise,” the big wizard said to his assistant. “You may have noticed that prudence is a characteristic notably lacking in Wiz and his friends. Their magic is powerful, but their method of training does not teach them the value of patience and caution in great matters.”
“I have noticed. So, apparently, has the Enemy. My Lord, has it occurred to you that this is a trap which would not work against most wizards? Only against Wiz and his friends?”
“I had not thought of that, but you are quite right.”
“And that, in turn, implies a knowledge not only of the new magic but of the wizards of Wiz’s world.”
“I take your point.”
“In fact,” Arianne went on, “there is one such here within our walls who might bear examination on both accounts.”
“Mikey? But he has the mind of a child.”
Arianne made a graceful gesture.
“You are right, of course.” He struck a crystal bell on his work table and Brian appeared in the doorway.
“Go find the chief Healer and have her examine the foreign wizard we hold prisoner,” he told the page. “Then have her report to me.”
Brian bowed and dashed off down the corridor.
“Are there any from the Wizards’ Keep who have learned the new magic whom we cannot account for?” Bal-Simba asked.
“I will have to check but, offhand, I cannot think of any. One or two have died, of course, but . . . No, wait! There was one several years ago, the apprentice Pryddian who disappeared about the time Wiz was kidnapped by the remnants of the Dark League. His whereabouts were never discovered.”
Bal-Simba snorted. “I remember that one all too well. As I recall his skill was in stirring up discord, not magic. Still,” he went on, “there was a suspicion he had rifled the Sparrow’s desk and taken some manuscripts with him.” He sighed. “A slim lead, My Lady.”
“We have few better, My Lord.”
“I think . . .” Bal-Simba began slowly, but he was interrupted by a strong knock on the door. It was Bronwyn, the council’s chief Healer, tight-lipped and white-faced. “My Lord, I think you had better come look at this.” Bal-Simba hesitated. “Now.”