The Wizardry Quested

by Rick Cook

  Twenty-Two

  Finding a Place

  Mick Gilligan peered down onto the floor of the aerie, trying to pick a familiar blond head out of the dozen or so mounted dragon riders assembled below for the dawn patrol. But the aerie was softly lit and the observation balcony where he stood was high. He thought Karin was the third in line, but he couldn’t be sure.

  At an unheard command the first dragon lumbered forward, spreading its great bat wings as it picked up speed. In five strides it blocked the daylight and then it was out of the cave, its wings beating strongly. By that time the second dragon had started its run and the third was straining forward. One by one the beasts and their riders poured out of the door and vanished into the bright Blue beyond. Mick waited until the last of them had gone and turned away as the grooms and other ground crew swarmed out onto the floor to prepare for further operations.

  “Forgive me, My Lord,” came a gentle female voice behind him. “You seem troubled.” Gilligan turned and started when he found himself face to face with a dragon.

  “Yeah, I guess I am,” Gilligan said, ignoring his questioner’s physical form.

  “You are worried about Karin, are you not?”

  “She asked to be put back on flying status. We had a big fight.”

  “She is a dragon rider, after all,” Moira said gently. “As a flier, surety you can understand how she feels.”

  “Yeah, but it’s different from this side of the fence. I’m getting some of my own back.” His mouth quirked bitterly. “You know something? I don’t like it.”

  Shit! Telling my problems to a dragon. Well, it was no crazier than the rest of this place.

  “We seldom do,” Moira agreed. For a while both of them stared at the bustle of activity in the aerie below without talking.

  “What brings you here?” Gilligan asked.

  “Watching the dragons. I enjoy it—or rather this body enjoys it.” She sighed. “Sometimes I am not sure of the difference anymore.”

  ###

  Charlie was at Bal-Simba’s door early the next morning. That was surprising because the old man had established himself as a late riser. Looking at his generally disheveled condition and smelling the alcohol on his breath, Bal-Simba surmised he hadn’t been to bed yet.

  “I need to talk to you,” Charlie said without preamble.

  “I am at your disposal, My Lord.” Bal-Simba gestured to a chair but Charlie kept standing.

  “You’ve got a big show coming up,” Charlie said. “I want a piece of it. Flying.”

  Bal-Simba cocked his head. “On a dragon? I believe your machine will not work here.”

  “You mean it won’t fly under its own power,” Charlie corrected. “But if you guys can float a big rock you can float a plane.”

  “Perhaps, but—without meaning offense—what can your craft do that dragons cannot do better?”

  A broad smile spread over Charlie’s face. “Confuse the hell out of ’em.”

  “Eh?”

  “You need a distraction, right? Okay, Mick and the nerds tell me that comes down to an ECM problem. Electronic Counter-Measures,” he added quickly at Bal-Simba’s puzzled look. “You need something that will spoof them into thinking you’re coming at them from one direction when you’re really gonna hit them blind-side.” He leaned forward and put his hands on Bal-Simba’s work table, heedless of etiquette. “So we load the Colt up with all the magic it can carry and your wizards wave their wands to make it fly. I go blasting toward the Enemy, radiating magic like it was going out of style. They’ll know something is coming, but they won’t know what. It will be radiating enough magic to cover every dragon in the North.”

  In spite of himself, Bal-Simba nodded.

  Charlie grinned “The best part of it is that even once they acquire me visually they still won’t know what the hell they’ve got .They can’t just break off like they would with a drone.”

  The big wizard grinned mirthlessly. “You mean they would continue to pursue you and try to destroy you. We cannot spare the dragons to protect you. Not a safe position, I fear.”

  The old man grinned back equally mirthlessly. “It’s sporty son. Downright sporty.”

  Bal-Simba looked more closely at the pilot, and thought hard. The man was apparently sincere and undoubtedly sober enough to understand what he was suggesting. Having such a strange thing at the center of the magic would indeed confuse the Enemy.

  “I will see what I can do,” he told Charlie.

  ###

  Dragon Leader ignored the constant boom of the sea as it crashed on the nearly vertical rock. He was not much given to conversation and there was no need as long as he kept an eye on his wingman. His wingman had climbed to the top of the pinnacle to watch for intruders. Dragon Leader surveyed the jagged fissures, overhangs and holes in the rock.

  Their dragons were resting in the great crack that nearly cleaved the place in two. They were invisible, save from the proper angle at close range.

  They had not sought a confrontation with the Enemy’s dragons this time. Instead they had sneaked south by a roundabout route to this place and several others similarly situated.

  The Executioner was as bleak and unattractive as its name. A snag of red-black volcanic rock thrusting above the restless gray sea like a monstrous fang. All around it lay Murder Shoals, the names a tribute to the terror these places inspired in those who sailed the Freshened Sea.

  Even here, as far “inland” as it was possible to get on this place, spray stung his eyes. The chill, wet air sucked the heat from his body. It was not a comfortable place, but he had known that before he came. Comfort was not one of the parameters he was interested in.

  Dragon Leader nodded to himself. The place would do.

  ###

  Mick was having a drink in the pilot’s bar. It was the one place in the Wizards’ Keep where he felt really comfortable—as long as Karin and the members of her squadron weren’t around.

  Drinking by myself again, he thought. I gotta cut this out. It wasn’t as bad as Vegas. He wasn’t drinking as much and it was brown ale rather than whiskey—which apparently didn’t exist here—but he’d still rather be doing other things.

  Part of it was that he felt like a rat and he didn’t know how to apologize, or even if the apology would be accepted if he could find a way to make it. He’d have to get Karin alone and try sometime soon, but she was avoiding him and staying down in the pilots’ quarters.

  He took another swig of ale as someone came over to join him. Looking up ne saw it was one of the squadron leaders from the air wing.

  “Join you?”

  Gilligan waved him to a seat.

  “The wing was out practicing today,” said the man, whose name, Gilligan remembered, was Martinus or something like that.

  Gilligan nodded. “I was watching from the war room.”

  “What did you think?”

  “Still needs a little work.”

  “They say you’ve done operations like this before,” Martinus said.

  “Something like.”

  “This complicated?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “How do you keep it straight?”

  Gilligan considered. Although the dragon riders were skilled fliers and sometimes fought in wing or multi-wing strength they apparently seldom coordinated more than a squadron attack at once. More, the idea of closely coordinating forces which were out of sight of each other was completely alien to them.

  “Practice is part of it, of course,” Gilligan said, “but scheduling is more of it. One of the things we’ve found is that scheduling is a force multiplier. It lets us put maximum effort on the target at the right times.”

  The other looked interested and said nothing.

  “So the first thing we do is draft an ATO, that’s an air tasking order, that coordinates the entire operation. That comes down from the very top with basic assignments, timetable and such. Then each lower echelon fleshes it out so it all works to
gether.”

  “Could you draft this—ATO—for this operation?” Martinus asked.

  Traditional role for grounded pilots, he thought to himself, pushing paper.

  “Sure, but it’ll take time. Normally we’ve got software to help us.”

  Off in the corner a tall blond woman in a wizard’s robe was listening intently. Mick vaguely recognized her as someone he’d seen hanging around with Bal-Simba.

  “Basically it’s a matter of deciding what you want to do when and working backwards.”

  “It sounds complicated.”

  “Used to take a whole room full of staff officers to do it. Now we have specialized software, but before that we used to do it on spreadsheets.”

  The other nodded. “It would take something the size of a sheet to write all of this down.”

  “No, it’s a piece of software, a program. But you don’t have those here do you?” He thought for a minute. “You know, I’ll bet Jerry and his friends could turn one out in no time.”

  “The Mighty are all busy at their own tasks,” the other grunted.

  “Forgive me, My Lords.” Mick turned and saw the blond woman had joined them. “I could not help overhearing and I think perhaps we can convince the wizards to give you what you want.” She turned toward Mick. “You are the Great Gilligan, are you not?”

  It took Mick a second to recognize how his rank had transmuted. “That’s major. Actually I’m retired. Call me Mick.”

  The woman waved it off as if it were of no moment. “Very well, Mick. I am Arianne, Bal-Simba’s assistant. I wonder if perhaps you could help me.”

  Twenty-Three

  Enter the Dwarves

  Arianne growled in frustration and tossed her pen aside.

  “Trouble?” Bal-Simba asked mildly, looking up from his own work.

  “This plan of Gilligan s makes my head hurt.”

  “And mine as well,” the big wizard agreed. “Tis said that simple plans work best. But here we must have complexity if we are to attain our goal.” He gestured at the glowing letters. “So . . .”

  “This is far more complex than anything we have ever attempted and it must all work perfectly.”

  Bal-Simba nodded. “Complex indeed. But then we face a situation of unprecedented complexity. Indeed, I cannot see how matters could become more complicated.”

  He was about to go on, but Brian came dashing into the room. Then he remembered his lessons, pulled himself up short, squared his shoulders and pulled his tunic straight.

  “Excuse me, My Lord, but the seneschal says there are a hundred dwarves here to see you.”

  Arianne cocked an eyebrow at the big wizard, who shook his head and rose from his seat. “Foretelling the future was never my strong point,” he said, and sighed.

  Either Brian had understated the case or Wulfram miscounted. There were actually one hundred twenty-eight dwarves waiting in the great hall of the Wizards’ Keep. All adult males, since women and children never left the dwarven holds. All of them armored in knee-length byrnies of chain or heavy leather, all of them wearing steel caps and all of them with their traditional dwarfish battle axes strapped to their backs. Since their round shields of iron-rimmed oak were slung over the axes and since the axes were tied fast to their baldrics by peace bonds, it was obvious this was not a war party. Just what it was, Bal-Simba and the other wizards weren’t sure. Dwarves seldom left their delvings and never in human memory had so many been seen at the Wizards’ Keep.

  As Bal-Simba entered the hall behind Wulfram the dwarves arrayed themselves in parallel lines with an older dwarf at their head. From his position and stance, Bal-Simba took him to be their leader, a notion confirmed by the circlet of red gold fitted around his steel cap.

  “I am Tosig Longbeard, King of the dwarves,” the head dwarf proclaimed as soon as the wizard gestured for him to speak. “Here to reclaim my rightful properly.”

  Bal-Simba looked blank. “Property, Your Majesty?”

  “The sword Blind Fury, the greatest treasure of my tribe.”

  “Ah,” the giant wizard said softly. This was beginning to make sense.

  “My idiot kinsman stole it from our treasury. We have traced him here. Now give me the sword—and while you’re about it you can turn over my kinsman for punishment as well.”

  “I am afraid neither is here,” Bal-Simba said. “They were here but they have departed.”

  From the way the news left Tosig Longbeard unmoved, Bal-Simba suspected he already knew that neither the sword nor the dwarf were at the Wizards’ Keep.

  “Where?” he demanded, gimlet-eyed. “Where did they go?”

  “The dungeons beneath the City of Night. Your kinsman—Glandurg?—wished to accompany our folk on a hazardous mission there.”

  “A quest, eh? For what treasure?”

  “No treasure, just great danger and a mighty foe.”

  Bal-Simba didn’t need a mind reading spell to see Tosig didn’t believe that. Not even his moronic nephew would go charging into someone else’s dungeon unless there was treasure involved. The fact that the humans denied it only meant they didn’t intend to share if they could avoid it. To the dwarf king that was perfectly reasonable, but it only made him more determined to get part of the loot.

  “We will follow him, then.”

  “That may be a trifle difficult,” Bal-Simba said mildly. “The lord of the dungeons has closed the path to any who try to enter. Not even dwarfish magic may force the way, I fear.” For a moment wizard and dwarf regarded each other.

  “Well?” Tosig Longbeard said finally.

  “I beg Your Majesty’s pardon?”

  “Well, what’s the rest of it? You wouldn’t tell me that for no reason and you obviously don’t expect me to pay for that information. So you want something. What?”

  Bal-Simba didn’t even try to disabuse him of the notion they were bargaining. The dwarf wouldn’t have believed him, and besides . . .

  “No bargain, but I do have a suggestion. Soon we shall attempt a strategem to force our way into the dungeons. If you would care to accompany us, we would be glad for your help. Meanwhile, please stay with us in the Wizards’ Keep as our guests.”

  There was silence again while the king considered. “Very well,” he said at last. “If you do not delay too long we will combine our forces to breach this fortress and recover our property.”

  “I will have the seneschal prepare accommodations.”

  “We will camp amongst the trees across the river,” Tosig Longbeard said. “This whole place stinks of dragons.” With that he turned and marched between the ranks of his followers and out of the hall.

  “A hundred dwarves,” Bal-Simba murmured once the last mailed warrior had followed his king out of the hall. “And the Sparrow thought he had trouble with only one.”

  “A hundred and a score and eight,” Arianne corrected. “Do you think they will be much help?”

  Bal-Simba sighed. “I told you I fared poorly at predicting the future, Lady. I only know they will do less damage to our cause if they go with us rather than preceding us on their own and stirring up the Enemy.” He eyed the door where the dwarves had passed out “Probably,” he added.

  Twenty-Four

  Operation Winter Storm

  Although not bound to their tunnels, the dwarves were uncomfortable away from them. Clearly Tosig’s men would rather be back at their shafts and forges than preparing to battle an unknown enemy half a world away. Still, dwarves are stoic by nature and none has ever faulted them for lack of courage.

  There was snow in the wood, piled up under the trees, and a skin of ice lay on all the ponds and streams. The dwarves didn’t seem to notice as they bustled about, felling trees and digging into the frozen soil to make crude dugouts. Before the sun completed its short journey to the horizon, a section of the wood had taken on the appearance of a semipermanent and none-too-uncomfortable camp.

  Tosig Longbeard was standing in front of a campfire, overseeing th
e last of the work and warming himself when Durgrim, captain of the dwarven guard and his military second-in-command, approached him.

  “We are almost done with the sleeping holes,” Durgrim told his king. “Another day-tenth and the last of them will be done and the evening meal will be ready.”

  Tosig Longbeard grunted assent. Durgrim paused, judging the king’s temper.

  “Your Majesty,” he said slowly, “I have been thinking about this, and the place on the Southern Continent where we are bound.”

  “Speak your mind,” invited the dwarf king in a tone that suggested his lieutenant had better be careful about what he said.

  “Even before mortals started using it, the place had an evil reputation,” the other dwarf told him. “I am sure human occupation has not improved it.”

  “Unsurprising if it were so. You have an alternative to propose?”

  Durgrim paused again, obviously gathering his courage. “Your majesty, can we not simply bargain with this enemy, buy the sword back?”

  Tosig Longbeard glared at him. “Do you think I’m simple? I’ve tried that already. Whatever this creature is, it will not treat with us at all. Besides,” he continued, the anger leaving his voice, “even if he would deal the price would undoubtedly be too high.”

  The dwarf long scowled back into the fire. “No, there is no help for it. With or without the mortals we must penetrate this place to recover the sword.”

  Being dwarves and with dwarves’ careful sense of property rights—not to mention their greed for treasure—it never occurred to either of them to simply leave the sword in the Enemy’s hands.