The Wizardry Quested

by Rick Cook

  “Is it all like this? The town, I mean.”

  “Oh no. Most parts of Las Vegas are really quite normal. It’s supposed to be a pretty nice place to live, actually.”

  “Will we go there? The normal parts, I mean.”

  Jerry looked at the twenty-foot-dragon and the giant black wizard dressed like a 1970’s pimp. “Nooo, I don’t think so.”

  It took them several hours to reach the Towne Centre hotel in the older “Glitter Gulch” downtown casino district. By now it was full dark and so late Jerry was afraid they might miss the reception completely. An even bigger worry was Moira, who was obviously getting more and more run down. Even with more frequent rests she was nearly punchy by the time they reached the alley behind the hotel.

  “Why don’t you wait out here?” Jerry suggested. Moira just nodded.

  “Perhaps I had best stay too while you go inside,” Bal-Simba said.

  Jerry considered. Anyone who found Moira by herself probably wouldn’t ask questions. Bal-Simba, on the other hand, would be expected to answer them. While Jerry had great confidence in the big wizard’s brains and judgment, he was much less sure of his ability to concoct a story that wouldn’t get him hauled off to jail by Las Vegas’ finest. Especially in the get-up he was wearing.

  “I think you’d better come with me,” he said. “Moira, you stay here. No, over here next to the dumpsters. Stay out of that yellow painted area, otherwise they’re likely to tow you away. If anyone comes by, just freeze like a statue. Pretend you’re not alive. We’ll try not to be too long.” Moira nodded and sank down in the space beside the dumpsters.

  Bal-Simba’s size and appearance may have attracted attention, but it made it remarkably easy for them to get an elevator. In fact as soon as the door opened on the first car the four tourists in the front row took one look at them and bolted. The other passengers pressed back against the walls, leaving them plenty of space.

  They paused just outside the elevators and Jerry briefed Bal-Simba on their mission.

  “Okay, this is going to be a little tricky since we’re not on the invite list. So we’ll just have to fake our way in. Act like you belong, smile a lot and be noncommittal.”

  “Will they not know we do not belong?”

  “They’ll know we’re not on the guest list, but they can’t be sure we won’t do them some good. We only need a few minutes to find out if Taj is here anyway. Follow my lead. And remember, smile a lot and say as little as you can.”

  Putting his advice into practice Jerry smiled at the people manning the table outside the door and picked up a press kit as if he was interested. Then they walked into a wall of noise.

  If the show floor had been a madhouse, this was bedlam. Up on stage a lounge band was backing a female impersonator belting out torch songs. The place was packed, of course, and everyone seemed to be trying to talk over the band and each other. Along the walls four bars were going and a huge buffet table dominated the center of the room, complete with a melting ice sculpture of what was probably supposed to be an orchid. There were orchids everywhere. Clouds of them. Wreaths of them. Garlands of them. Orchids as boutonnieres, orchids as corsages. Orchids as centerpieces. And where there weren’t orchids there were crepe streamers in orchid purple and white.

  Jerry parked Bal-Simba by the bandstand and set out to work the room in search of Taj. Trying to look inconspicuous, he jammed into the crowd around one of the buffet tables and scarfed a handful of shrimp. The crab claws were already gone he saw, so the parry had been going on for a while. Meanwhile he scanned the crowd, hoping to see Tajikawa, or at least a friendly face.

  He couldn’t see either and the more he looked the less likely it became. This wasn’t the right kind of party. The ratio of suits to ponytails was way too high and there was hardly a laptop open anywhere.

  He was still scanning, looking for technical types amid the noise and chaos, when a perfectly coifed woman in a blue suit slid in next to him.

  The woman smiled brightly. “Snarf mafoozle gleeber justik,” she said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She leaned closer and raised her voice to be heard over the din. “I said what did you think of the big announcement?”

  It occurred to Jerry that he was laboring under a severe disadvantage here. Not only didn’t he know what the “big announcement” was, he’d never even heard of Mauve Technology. And hadn’t the faintest idea what—if anything—it made. He thought about opening the press kit and actually reading it but he discarded the notion instantly. For one thing the light was so poor he wouldn’t be able to read anything and for another it would make him suspicious. He decided to play it safe.

  “Really something. Pretty ambitious, isn’t it?”

  “We have to stay on the leading edge. I’m sorry I don’t recognize your company name. Are you a distributor or a VAR?”

  “Uh, we’re kinda a technology partner. Actually I was hoping to meet someone here. E.T. Tajikawa.”

  “Oh, is he with our West Coast sales office?”

  “Uh, not exactly. Your software people know him.”

  “You wait right here and I’ll go see.” With that she turned and dived into the crowd. Jerry made to follow her but before he could take a step, a large man in a suit stepped in front of him and stuck out his hand.

  “Jerry Jacobs,” he boomed, “vice-president of sales.” It was both a greeting and a challenge and Jerry was acutely aware of how little he fit with the business-suited crowd swarming around them.

  Jerry smiled brightly. “Cantraf colgain esper jokake jon,” he mumbled, as if it meant something.

  “Glad you’re enjoying it,” the other boomed. “Here let me give you one of my cards.”

  Jerry extended one of his. “Meeper gleeble ranamuck shusur.”

  “Yeah, I’ve gone through a pack of them, too,” Jacobs boomed.

  ###

  Meanwhile, Bal-Simba was enjoying himself, in a bemused sort of way. The singer, a Judy Garland impersonator, was taking advantage of his size and appearance by playing off him, flirting with him as he sang, flicking him with his silk scarf and vamping outrageously. When the number ended the singer blew Bal-Simba a lass and scampered offstage. That was the cue for the band to take a break, and for the first time in several minutes Bal-Simba could hear himself think.

  “I said, quite a show isn’t it,” said a voice at his elbow

  The wizard turned and saw a small man in a bad toupee standing beside him.

  “It is indeed,” Bal-Simba agreed, which seemed safe enough.

  “They’re going all out,” his new acquaintance said. “They missed the top of the IPO cycle, their quarterlies are off and if this doesn’t fly big they’re probably going to have to gobble up a couple of startups with good stories to save their offering.”

  Bal-Simba nodded sagely.

  The man extended his hand. “Peter Saperstein, of the Saperstein Group. You know, the Saperstein Technology Letter.” Bal-Simba nodded again.

  “So, who are you here for?”

  Bal-Simba took the first name he could think of. “IBM.”

  “That’s not what it says on your badge,” Saperstein shot back.

  Bal-Simba realized he had blundered.

  “You weren’t supposed to say that, were you?”

  If there was one thing the big wizard knew it was when to keep his mouth shut. So he just smiled slightly at his new acquaintance.

  “Look,” Saperstein went on, “I know you can’t say anything, non-D and all that, but just let me lay a scenario on you.”

  “I cannot stop you.”

  “First off, it’s gotta be big if you’re here under a cover name.” Saperstein thumped the big wizard on his chest where his badge was pinned. “Your badge doesn’t say IBM. But it does say ‘wizard,’ so you’re obviously in software development and you sure as hell don’t work on the AS400 if you’re walking around dressed like that. So you gotta be blue-sky and if you’re here, that means eduta
inment and that,” Saperstein concluded triumphantly, “means a partnership arrangement with Mauve.”

  “That is a great deal of speculation,” Bal-Simba said mildly. Anyone who knew him would have recognized the reproof in his voice, but Saperstein didn’t know him and wouldn’t have wanted to spoil a hot story even if he had.

  Saperstein craned to look through a random rift in the crowd. “Excuse me, I gotta go talk to someone.”

  Bal-Simba nodded, not realizing he had not only made his acquaintance’s evening, but saved Mauve Technology as well.

  ###

  “. . . unique market position with the possibility for strong leverage of our technology through the channel,” Jacobs was saying.

  Jerry nodded and smiled. So far he’d managed to keep from revealing his ignorance, but it was getting harder. For one thing, since the band had quit playing he’d actually had to talk to Jacobs. For another, Jacobs was angling hard for some kind of commitment. Since Jerry still didn’t have the faintest idea what the company did he couldn’t agree to anything without giving himself away.

  “Well,” Jerry began, “you have to understand our position vis-à-vis the market.”

  “Excuse me.” Jerry found himself shouldered aside by a small middle-aged man in an expensive suit and cheap toupee. “Peter Saperstein, of the Saperstein Group. You know, the Saperstein Technology Letter? What’s this about a joint game venture with IBM’s European division?”

  “Where the hell did you hear that?” Jacobs demanded.

  Saperstein shrugged. “Around. So there is something to it?”

  “No. I mean, I can’t comment even if it was true.”

  “When are you going to make the announcement? Not at the show, is it? So that means sometime in the next quarter, right?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “A little further out then.”

  “Uh,” Jerry said, “if you gentlemen will excuse me . . .” But neither was paying any attention.

  He was heaving a sigh of relief when someone touched his arm. It was the woman in the blue suit.

  “I checked with the software people. They say Mr. Tajikawa isn’t here.”

  “Oh, well thanks anyway.”

  She smiled a thoroughly professional smile. “Don’t mention it. If there’s anything else I can do . . .” and with that she was lost in the crowd.

  The band had struck up again and “Judy Garland” was back on the stage, flirting with Bal-Simba as he swung into his first number. Jerry collected his friend and they made for the door.

  “Forgive me,” Bal-Simba said when they were out in the corridor and could talk in normal tones again, “but is there something peculiar about that woman?”

  “For starters, it’s a man.”

  “Ah,” Bal-Simba said mildly, “I see,” and seemed to lose interest. Jerry thought about trying to explain and then realized that to Bal-Simba a female impersonator was probably the least peculiar thing he seen had all day.

  ###

  Moira was waiting for them where they had left her. “Well?” she asked.

  “No sign of him. We’re going to have to look elsewhere.” He frowned. “This isn’t a real good strategy to find Taj anyway.”

  “What would you suggest then?”

  Jerry had pulled out his exhibitor book and was thumbing through it in search of inspiration.

  “Look, there are a couple of more companies on the hospitality suite list that Taj has a special relationship with. We can call them and see if they know where he is. It’ll take some calling around to track them down, but it will be faster than trying to hit all these exhibits.”

  He closed the book and looked up. “Meantime, we can’t stay here. Too public. Let’s get a few blocks away from the casinos and find a place where Moira can hole up and rest for a few hours while we hit a pay phone. It’s getting late enough for that.”

  “My Lady?” Bal-Simba asked.

  The dragon nodded “Forgive me, My Lords, but this body is not as strong as it looks.”

  “We understand,” Bal-Simba said gently.

  “Yeah,” Jerry added. “The last time I was here I would have collapsed if I’d done half as much walking as we have already.”

  “Then lead on,” Bal-Simba said. Jerry picked a direction and led them off away from the maze of casinos and neon.

  ###

  Just a few blocks from the downtown casino district the scene changed radically. From bright lights and constant bustle it became a run-down area of progressively cheaper motels and shabby buildings. The character of the people on the streets changed as well. In the next several blocks Bal-Simba’s appearance got them a number of interesting business propositions—both buying and selling.

  Bal-Simba and Moira didn’t know enough to see it as unusual, but Jerry was getting progressively more nervous. At six feet three and well over two hundred pounds he was the least physically impressive member of the trio, but even so he did not like the looks of the neighborhood. “There’s a mini-mart down the block,” he said finally. “It should have a pay phone.”

  A small sign informed them that the pay phones were inside.

  “Wait here. I’ll see what we can find out.” He paused and looked at Bal-Simba. “No, you come with me. Moira, you wait here.” The dragon settled down in a parking space and Jerry and Bal-Simba went into the mini-mart.

  In the event it took longer than Jerry had expected. The hotels were overworked and the switchboards were glacial. Even when he did find where the companies were staying, the phone would ring forever before someone answered it and it would take somewhat longer to find anyone who knew the Tajmanian Devil and could tell Jerry that he wasn’t there. Jerry kept pumping in quarters, but it was slow.

  Meanwhile, things were quiet outside and Fluffy was exhausted. So Moira lay down in the parking space and drifted off to sleep.

  Fluffy was big enough to fill up the parking space, but down on all fours he wasn’t visible over the cars on either side. Incautiously the dragon let his tail trail out behind him, making him longer than the parking space.

  If Moira had thought about it she would have tucked the tail back around Fluffy’s body. But she was dead beat from all the walking, ill from the effects of being a magical creature in a non-magical world, and generally not thinking very well. All she wanted to do was to curl herself into a little ball of misery and let the body relax.

  Moira wasn’t the only one who felt that way. The couple in the Mini-Winnie had driven straight through from Los Angeles and the driver wasn’t as awake as he might have been. Besides, he was distracted by the simmering argument with his wife over finding a campground. As a result he didn’t see the thing lying in the parking lot until it was too late.

  The motor home ran over the dozing dragon’s tail and all hell broke loose.

  Fluffy jerked up with a roar of pain and rage. Moira was slow to regain control of the body so, for the first critical seconds, the dragon reacted out of instinct.

  Unfortunately the dragon’s instinct was to lash out at his tormentor. Fluffy’s tail slammed into the side of the motor home again and again, caving in some of the thin aluminum paneling and rocking the vehicle so violently it teetered on the brink of overturning.

  Moira quickly discovered she didn’t have as much control over the dragon as she thought, especially when the dragon was frightened or angry. Although dragons are physically tough, the young ones are more vulnerable psychologically. In general they do not take well to new experiences and they are somewhat skittish in strange circumstances. Fluffy had been a pampered pet almost all his life.

  Again and again the dragon lashed the motorhome with its tail while the occupants screamed and Moira tried desperately to regain control

  Jerry and Bal-Simba came running out of the store into a scene of complete and utter chaos. There was already a small crowd gathered at a safe distance and almost as soon as they stepped out of the store the first police car arrived, quickly followed by two others.
The lights and sirens did nothing to calm the hysterical dragon.

  Shotguns at the ready the officers advanced to the rescue.

  By this time Moira had gained partial control and Fluffy lay panting on the pavement.

  Jerry held his breath. If they could just get the situation calmed down, then maybe . . . An odd corner of his brain wondered what it would cost to bail out a dragon.

  He never had the chance to find out.

  The cops were understandably nervous. Even lying down, a dragon looks dangerous and there were a lot of civilians around to protect. When Moira suddenly heaved the dragon’s body back on his feet the logical conclusion was mat it was getting ready to attack, especially since the dragon’s open mouth was treating the cops to a spectacular display of fangs.

  One of the cops with a clear shot pumped a load of buckshot into Fluffy at close range.

  This was a spectacularly bad idea. The shot was #6, enough to drop a deer or a man in their tracks, but only enough to sting the scaled hide of a dragon.

  The results were equally spectacular. With another steam-whistle roar, Fluffy went berserk, charging directly at the police officers closing in. Two more rounds of buckshot did nothing to stop him. A lash of the scaled tail and the policemen went flying like tenpins. A few of the spectators applauded, it being that kind of neighborhood.

  “Get animal control. We need a tranquilizer gun,” one of the officers yelled into his microphone.

  “Tranquilizer, hell!” one of the other cops shouted. “We need a goddamn tank.”

  One of the officers, with more courage than tactical sense pulled her police cruiser into the parking lot to block the dragon’s escape. Fluffy stopped, hissed in breath, drew back his head and for the first time in his life, breathed flames.

  It wasn’t much of a blast by dragon standards, weak and low temperature, but the gout of yellow fire did quite a nice job of igniting the police car. The officer bailed out the driver’s door as the opposite side of the car erupted in fire.