by Rick Cook
"There are worse paths to follow than to gain information before acting. As we know more I think the Council’s position will become more definite." And the worst of it is, Wiz thought as he turned down the hall to his quarters, he’s right. In spite of his loss and anger, Wiz understood Bal-Simbas caution. They desperately needed to know more about this strange enemy and there really was no good strategy that could be formulated until they knew more. From his time on the Council Wiz also understood that Bal-Simba had deliberately let the meeting drift so the Council would not commit foolishly to a plan. He knew all that, he understood the need for it and he didn’t like any of it. He opened his door and nearly tripped over his wife’s tail.
The dragon jerked its head upright with its neck taut. Then the eyes seemed to soften and the body relaxed as Moira asserted control.
"I’m sorry, love, you startled me." "Sorry. I was thinking about something else." The dragon slithered around to face him. "It did not go well?" Wiz forced himself to look into the reptilian eyes. "Well enough, I guess. The Council didn’t decide anything, but at least they’re not going charging off on a wild goose chase. Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?"
Moira started at the change of subject. "I meant to, but first I wasn’t sure and then with the Winter Fair coming on, I didn’t want you to worry."
"I wish you had told me."
Moira sighed, a great sulfurous sigh. "I wish I had too."
Instinctively Wiz moved to take Moira in his arms, but the only part of her he could get his arms around was her long scaly neck and that put her head well above his. She lowered her head and he adjusted his grip to just behind her ears but found he couldn’t look at her that way. He settled for dropping into a chair and Moira resting her head in his lap.
One side of Wiz’s mouth twitched up in what might have passed for a smile. "Some technical problems here."
"I Know," Moira said sadly. "I’m afraid the bedroom is a mess. When I got back my first thought was to throw myself on the bed and cry. But the bed was not made to support this body’s weight and I am afraid we shall both nave to sleep on the floor tonight."
"That’s all right."
Moira twisted around to look at him. "Do you know dragons cannot cry? No matter how sad they are, or how miserable or how frightened, they cannot cry." Wiz felt the tears flowing down his own cheeks. "I guess:" He took a deep breath. "I guess I’ll have to do the crying for both of us."
Then his head came up. "I swear I’ll get you back. I don’t care who’s behind it, I’ll get you back and make them pay!"
"I know you will, love," Moira said simply and snuggled her head into his lap. Wiz wasn’t sure how much either of them was lying for the other’s benefit. The late-rising winter sun was just a dull glow through the fog and low-hanging clouds, but already the programmers’ workroom was full. Jerry was still in a coma, but Danny was hard at work at his desk. June was sitting in the corner with Ian more or less asleep in her lap. Malkin was in another corner, very ostentatiously touching up the edges of a double-edged dagger with a bit of fine-grained stone. Beside her lay a swordbelt with a cup-hiked rapier. Moira was off attending to what she delicately referred to as "dragon business."
"Anything?" Wiz asked as he strode into the room.
Danny didn’t take his eyes off the screens. "Not much. Mostly it just confirms what we knew last night. I’ve got a little more on how this spell works, but boy is it peculiar. I wish Jerry was here, this is more his kind of thing." He turned to face his friend. "Do you want to take a crack at it?"
"Not right now. I’ve got some other stuff to do."
Malkin tested the dagger’s edge against her thumbnail, paring off a nearly transparent scraping. "Like what?"
"Like a little scouting expedition. The one thing we do know is that the Enemy seems to be headquartered at the City of Night. The other thing we know is we need to know a lot more about him. So I intend to go poking around and see what I find."
"What you are likely to find, Sparrow, is more trouble than you can handle." Wiz turned and saw Bal-Simba standing in the doorway. "This enemy is dangerous enough on our ground," he continued as he came into the room. "He is likely to be far more dangerous on ground he has made his own."
The big wizard settled into his over-sized chair. "I met Moira in the corridor," he said by way of explanation.
"She said she believed you had formed a plan last night and begged me to discover it."
"It’s kinda hard to get any sleep when you’re sharing a small bedroom with a dragon," Wiz said.
"And it is not wise to plan great matters when you are fatigued," Bal-Simba responded. ’This idea of yours does not seem to have much to recommend it"
"Relax. I’m not going to take this character on alone. All I’m going to do is get the lay of the land so we’ll have a better idea what we’re dealing with." Bal-Simba raised an eyebrow and said nothing.
"Look, you said it yourself. The Council won’t move until we know more. We’re likely to find out more by scouting this guy than sitting around here. I’ve been in those tunnels more than anyone else. Once when I rescued Moira from the Dark League, then when I was kidnapped back there and then when we went back to lay Bale-Zur."
"We didn’t go into the tunnels that time," Danny said. Wiz glared at him.
"Anyway, the point is, I’m the logical one to scout it out because I know that place."
Bal-Simba’s skeptical silence reminded Wiz just how untrue the last bit was. Wiz had seen only a tiny fraction of that giant maze and, being the kind who loses his car in a supermarket parking lot, he couldn’t remember much of anything about the layout.
"At some point we’re going to have to scout, and now’s the best time. Besides, we can’t just react. We’ve got to act and information is the only thing that will get the Council off dead center. Besides," he added after a brief pause,
"Moira doesn’t have time to waste."
For a long while Bal-Simba said nothing. Then he sighed. "If I could forbid you I would. But we both know I cannot and giving commands which you cannot enforce is unbecoming of a leader. So go if you must, and we will contrive without you." Malkin stood up and jammed her dagger home in its sheath. "You’ll have to contrive without me as well."
Wiz shook his head. "Sorry, this is a one-man show."
"I have a stake in this," Malkin said, jerking her head back toward the room where Jerry lay. "Besides I’ve got a feeling you’re going to need the best thief you can get."
"Meaning you?" Danny interjected.
Malkin spread her hands, smiled slightly and shrugged.
"Shiara does say she is as good as she herself was in her prime," Bal-Simba put in.
"Shiara’s not giving her enough credit," Wiz said sourly, remembering Malkin’s escapades as his "assistant" in the Dragon Marches.
"So you need me. I’m coming." Then her face softened and her eyes sparkled.
"Besides, it should be a tremendous adventure."
And if it’s not at first, you’ll make sure it is. His previous experience had left him all too familiar with Malkin’s taste for excitement. He looked over at Danny for support but June was beside him, clutching her husband’s arm.
"I’m in this too," he said.
June paled and bit her lip. Then she took Danny’s arm. "And me," she said simply.
"Why doesn’t that surprise me? Why don’t we just take every wizard in the North?"
"You cannot do it alone, Sparrow," Bal-Simba said mildly.
"This is supposed to be a surgical operation. The bigger the team the harder to hide."
Malkin and June just looked at him.
"Okay," Wiz sighed. "We’re four."
"Five, I think," said Bal-Simba, looking over Wiz’s shoulder.
Wiz looked hard at the big wizard "You too?"
"No," came a voice from behind him, "me."
FIVE
A QUESTION OF COMPANY
There was a dwarf in the doorwa
y. A rather young dwarf with a large and very gaudy sword slung over his shoulder.
Wiz wasn’t good at telling dwarves apart, but in all the World there was only one sword decorated in such hideously bad taste.
"Glandurg?"
"I told you once, Wizard, the day would come when you would need doughty fighters. I promised you then-that on that day I would stand with you."
"Uh, thanks," Wiz muttered. He and Glandurg had never been formally introduced. That had something to do with the fact that Glandurg had spent most of their acquaintance trying to kill him. This had been the result of some kind of deal between Glandurg’s uncle, a very minor dwarf king, and a gang of trolls. That had been patched over, but to say that Wiz wasn’t thrilled to see the dwarf again was to put it mildly.
Glandurg reached over his shoulder and patted the gem-encrusted hilt of his weapon. ’The sword Blind Fury has dispatched one of your enemies. Now it shall sing in battle against your new foes."
That was the other thing. Blind Fury was not only decorated in eye-searingly gaudy style, it was enchanted and no one could withstand its blows. But like its present wielder the spell was seriously lacking in ept. The sword had indeed slain an enemy programmer-magician by slicing through a suit of heavy power armor like it was soggy toilet paper. However, the blow had been aimed at Wiz, and Craig, the programmer, had the misfortune to be standing next to him. Wiz cast a look of mute appeal at Bal-Simba. The big wizard simply spread his hands. "If you will excuse me, Sparrow, I have other matters to attend to." With that he rose and left.
"Now then," Malkin said, striding toward the center of the room, flipping her dagger into the air and catching it by the point, "we need to get this expedition organized."
Wiz sighed. This was going to be a long quest.
Two hours later Wiz met Bal-Simba at the turning of the corridor. The big wizard looked at Wiz as he fell in beside him and raised an eyebrow in unspoken question.
"I think," Wiz said brightly, "that I may scream. In fact I’m on my way up to the battlements to do just that."
"I am not unfamiliar with the feeling."
"Want to join me?"
"I have never found it a particularly productive exercise."
Wiz made a face. "Has it ever occurred to you that trying to exercise leadership around this place is like herding cats?"
"Quite recently," his companion said dryly. "Sparrow, you already know what I think of this enterprise."
"Almost, I’m coming to share your view. Almost."
"Concerned about your companions?"
"Wouldn’t you be?" He ticked them off on his fingers. "June’s crazy, Malkin’s a kleptomaniac adrenaline junkie, Danny’s still kind of wild and Glandurg is just plain dangerous."
Bal-Simba didn’t argue. "Even so, they will be at your side in this business, and if you are determined to do this thing it were best if you counted their strengths rather than their weaknesses. None of them is without skills which you might need."
Wiz thought about it for a minute and looked up at the big wizard.
"Do you really think they’ll help?"
"The point, Sparrow, is that worrying about them will not help either. A positive attitude can give you an advantage and I think you will need every one you can find."
"All I wanted was a simple little scouting expedition, to probe around the edges a little."
"Life does not always give us what we want," Bal-Simba told him. "Very often we must choose to accept what it gives us with the best grace possible."
"Isn’t the sun ever going to break through?" Wiz growled as he looked out the window of the castle’s great hall toward the west.
"Not today," Bal-Simba said, looking over his friends shoulder.
It was afternoon, but the low clouds and deepening fog had made the day even dimmer than the dawn. The sullen gloom beyond the window reflected Wiz’s mood perfectly and that, he thought, was one thing he didn’t need right now. Most of the rest of the party shared his mood. Not entirely, of course. Malkin was bouncing around like a fox terrier, happy at the prospect of action-not to mention slitting a few throats and perhaps lifting some purses. Glandurg struck a grimly heroic pose. Danny was just grim and June was, well, June. Wiz kept looking out the window. "A blizzard coming on?"
"Perhaps. But I think something more than that"
"What?"
"I do not know," Bal-Simba said, "but I suspect we shall find out after you are gone."
The way he said it indicated he didn’t think they’d like what they found. Wiz turned away from the window. "Look, I know you don’t like this, but I have got to do what I can to save Moira."
Bal-Simba continued to look out the window. "You must act according to your nature, Sparrow. Only consider what a victory it would be for the Enemy if something were to happen to you."
Wiz bit his lip. I’ll be careful I promise."
As he said it, he rubbed his right ring finger, bare for the first time in months. Lake the others he was leaving his Ring of Protection behind. The spell, which froze the wearer into invulnerable immobility when facing a mortal threat, had not protected Moira. What’s more, Wiz’s experience in the Dragon Marches had proven that the spell could be used against the wearer by freezing that person through the simple expedient of keeping up the threat Wiz knew the rings wouldn’t help on this expedition, but still:
Bal-Simba turned from the window. "The time draws near."
The scouting parry all wore traveling cloaks and each of them carried a pack. They were armed and armored, each in his or her appropriate fashion. For Wiz and Danny that meant their wizard’s staffs, since neither of them was proficient with this world’s weapons. Glandurg had a mail byrnie to his knobby knees and Blind Fury slung over his back Malkin had a shirt of light mail and her rapier and dagger-plus who-knows-what concealed about her person. June had her knife. Since they would be sending themselves along the Wizard’s Way rather than being sent there was no need to start from the great hall. However the cavernous hall had enough room for the people who had come to see them off, plus the dozen or so of the Mighty posted at strategic points around them in case something nasty tried to come in as they went out.
Among the others were Shauna, holding tight to a tearful Ian. And of course the dragon that was now the body of Wiz’s wife.
Moira stepped close and pressed her scaly lips to his. "Please be careful." Wiz manfully ignored the dragon breath and hugged her as best he could. "Hey, we’re only going for a look-see, remember?"
He looked around one last time. "Okay, I guess we’re ready."
With that they took their places, close within the circle. Wiz raised his staff, gestured and spoke and with five small pops of displaced air they disappeared along the Wizard’s Way into the stronghold of the Enemy.
SIX
DUNGEON REDUX
"backslash light exe."
The darkness around them was replaced with a cold blue light and Wiz and the others got their first look at the dungeons beneath the City of Night. For the others it was a first. Wiz had been in the multi-layered labyrinth beneath the city of the Dark League during the great magical battle that broke the Leagues power forever.
Not that he recognized a thing. His only memories were of endless tunnels of dirt and stone separated by doors of oak and corroded iron, and strange furtive movements in the shadows. He hadn’t liked the place when he had been here then, he hadn’t liked it when a remnant of the Dark League had kidnapped him back to the now-ruined city a while later and he certainly didn’t like it now. They were bunched together in a wide stone corridor apparently hewn from solid rock. The passage was wider and taller than any he remembered seeing in the dungeons and the walls were worked smooth instead of being left uneven and scarred with the marks of the hewers’ tools.
The place seems different," he said, running his hand along the stone. "As if someone’s been working on it.
"Probably," Malkin said as she looked around appraisingly.
Glandurg kept his hand on the hilt of Blind Fury and sniffed the stale air in great wheezing breaths. June stayed close to Danny, her head swiveling this way and that. Clearly she didn’t like what she was seeing. That was all right, Wiz didn’t like what he saw either.
"Well, which way?" Malkin asked. She seemed as calm as if they were out for a stroll in the castle rose garden, but Wiz noticed her hand stayed near the cup hilt of her rapier.
Wiz consulted the amulet around his neck. The amulet looked like an ordinary lensatic compass. The first time he came here he had used a seeker globe that floated ahead to show him the way to where Moira was held captive. That had proved less than ideal when the globe blithely floated into a guardroom full of goblin warriors with Wiz and his party close behind. If the compass was more prosaic it was also not as likely to get them in trouble.
Danny lifted a similar device hung around his neck and turned this way and that.
"No sign of hostile magic," he said.
The one thing they didn’t have was a map. The magical forces around this place were too strong for the wizards of the North to get the lay of the land and there were no pre-existing maps of the place. Wiz suspected that even the wizards of the Dark League, who had delved this place, hadn’t had a complete map. He suspected even more strongly that the dungeons’ new tenant had done some major remodeling.
"Off in this direction."
Then," said Glandurg, striding to the front, "let us away."
The dwarf took the lead with Malkin following, then Wiz, then June and then Danny. It wasn’t an ideal formation out it did mean that if Glandurg started swinging that sword the others would be able to get clear.
The tunnel led slightly off to the right and down. Here and there the old dirt walls or rough stone showed through, as if whatever was working on the dungeons hadn’t finished yet. Wiz found the thought comforting and he tried to hold onto it