by Rick Cook
"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 him 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 or 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 then-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 attackers 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 dings 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 wizards brow furrowed. "Not discovered, exactly, but I did have a thought. Obviously our adversary has access to the Sparrows 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 unknowing."
"Let us hope it was merely unwise," the big wizard said to his assistant. "You may have noticed mat 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, off hand, 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 sum 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, tile councils chief Healer, tight-lipped and white-faced. "My Lord, I think you had better come look at this." Bal-Simba hesitated. "Now."
With Bal-Simba and Arianne in tow, Bronwyn led them up the winding stone stairs to the door of Mikey’s cell. The door was open and the two guards outside were clearly uneasy.
Once Mikey had been a skilled programmer and
, as "Panda," one of the best system breakers in Silicon Valley. But the shock of his final battle against Wiz and his elven allies had left him with the mind of a four-year-old. Now he spent his days playing with blocks and toy soldiers in a prison-cell-cum-playroom in one of the Keeps towers. He was fed, cared for and guarded, but otherwise ignored. Now he was slumped in the corner, surrounded by a scattering of blocks. His eyes were closed, his head sunk on his chest and his breathing deep and regular. Bronwyn knelt and pulled open an eyelid. Mikey did not stir. She looked up at Bal-Simba. "An empty shell, Lord. There is nothing left here at all."
"When did this happen?"
"Sometime in the last two days. He sat in a corner all that time, but that was not unusual for him. The guards were becoming worried because he had not eaten." She rose and looked down at him. "Before, he had the mind of a child. Now he has-nothing."
Bal-Simba frowned "Did he still have his knowledge? Before this happened, I mean."
Bronwyn shrugged. "Since we never knew just what was wrong with him I cannot tell you. Certainly he did not have the mind to use it. But as to the knowledge itself:" She shrugged again.
"I think we can assume he still had at least some of it." Bal-Simba rubbed his chin.
"And now we can assume the Enemy has that knowledge," Arianne added. Bal-Simba nodded and looked down at the not-quite-human thing at his feet.
"Come, Lady, we have work to do."
"And him?" Arianne asked.
"I will make him comfortable," Bronwyn said grimly. "He will not last long like that."
Malkin stopped and touched Wiz’s arm. "It’s getting light up ahead again," she whispered.
Wiz strained to see beyond the magic light’s glow. "More bugs?"
The thief shook her head. "The light’s not as blue and the shadows are sharper." Now what? Wiz thought. He looked over at Danny. The younger programmer checked his magic detector. "A lot of magic, but it’s not immediately dangerous." It wasn’t the most reassuring report Wiz had ever heard but he motioned the group on and they crept down the tunnel.
Ahead of them the tunnel grew brighter and the air around them grew warmer. Suddenly they turned the corner and found themselves staring into the mouth of Hell.
The very walls of the tunnel glowed incandescent. Orange and red, yellow and white, churned and roiled on every side. Instinctively the party flinched back as if from a blast furnace and retreated around the corner.
"No heat," Wiz said wonderingly as soon as they were back around the corner. He stuck his hand around to make sure. "There’s no heat."
"It’s magically blocked," Danny said, checking his magic detector. "That tunnel must run right through the heart of the volcano, but magic keeps the heat away." He looked at the magic detector again. "Tunnels, I mean. There’s a whole pile of them out there."
"Another maze."
"A hotter-than-hell maze," Danny agreed.
"Well, we’ve got an answer to that," Wiz said as he fished in his pouch. "I have here the granddaddy of all maze solvers." He held up a demon that looked remarkably like a white rat.
"Put that away," Malkin said firmly.
Wiz frowned. Malkin had her faults, including kleptomania, but squeamishness wasn’t one of them.
"It’s not a real rat," he explained, "it just looks that way because:"
"I know what it is," the tall thief said. There is a trap here and that thing may trigger it."
"What kind of trap?"
"Magical. Beyond that:" She shrugged.
"How do you know?" Danny asked.
"Because I know. It is my business to know and this is not the place for magic." Wiz looked at the rat demon, which twitched its whiskers. He put it back in his pouch. "Okay, let’s take a break while Danny and I see what we can learn." Hall an hour later a grim-faced Wiz and Danny called the others to gather around them.
"This is the cutest thing yet," Wiz told them. "All these tunnels are kept open by magic, very carefully balanced magic. Too much additional magic will upset the spell and they’ll collapse."
Even Glandurg looked uneasily at the glowing red magma beyond. "Better it were that we use no magic then."
"We won’t, mostly. Danny and I have a spell running to strengthen the tunnels, so it’s not quite the trap it was when we came in, but any large expenditure of magical energy is still likely to bring the place down."
"So we feel our way through magicless," Malkin said.
"Not exactly. With the tunnels reinforced Danny and I can use a real low-power spell to narrow our choices."
"You say that as if there is a problem."
Wiz frowned. "Not a problem exactly, but there is a consideration. The spell is sensitive and people throw it off. It will work best if Danny and I go ahead alone while the rest of you wait here."
Malkin’s face didn’t move a muscle. "Is that wise?" she asked neutrally.
"About as wise as a lot of the rest of this expedition," Wiz told her. "Anyway people, stay close and we’ll be back as soon as we can. Above all, use no magic you don’t absolutely have to use."
It took several minutes to get the details sorted out and somewhat longer to convince June she had to stay behind and not go with Danny. That done, the two wizard programmers started off down a likely tunnel.
It wasn’t a pleasant experience. The heat from the walls beat in on them and soaked up through the soles of their boots until Wiz was reminded of bread in an oven. There was no noise through the insubstantial walls, but there was a low vibration as if hundreds of tons of melted rock around them was flowing and shifting under some unimaginable pressure. Sweat streaked their faces and soaked into their clothing. Even Wiz’s socks soaked until he squished in his boots with every step he took Here and there a trick of the light turned a patch of wall into a mirror that threw back a distorted funhouse reflection of the pair. Nor was the maze easy to unravel. It was mostly on one level, but it twisted and turned and divided and rejoined in a way that was not only confusing, it was downright unpleasant For all that, Wiz and Danny made good progress. Their spell allowed them to eliminate first large chunks of the maze and then successively smaller sections. Once or twice Wiz got an uneasy feeling they were being followed, but they saw no one and they heard nothing.
Of course, because the spell was so weak it was not infallible. Time and again, they found themselves headed in the wrong direction or caught up against a dead end.
The exit should be right up ahead here," Wiz said at last as they moved down a twisty, glowing corridor. They turned another corner and found themselves face to face with a rock wall.
"Dead end," Danny observed needlessly.
Wiz shrugged and turned to start back down the way they had come. There was a noise down the tunnel. A noise like heavy footfalls. A lot of them. Wiz motioned Danny to silence and peeked around the corner to see what was ahead. What was ahead was goblins. Big, hairy, nasty goblins armed to the fangs. The tunnel was packed three deep with them. The light from the molten rock reflected redly off the creatures’ armor and made their little pig eyes seem even redder. They were still some ways off and they apparently hadn’t seen the humans yet, but there was no place for them to go wrong.
"Oh boy," Danny said quietly "Oh boy."
The breath caught in Wiz’s throat. He had plenty of spells that would deal with a mere pack of goblins, but the more magic they used, the more chance the tunnels would collapse and engulf them in molten rock. But without magic both Wiz and Danny together probably weren’t a match for just one of the oncoming goblins.
Wiz raised his staff and prepared to fight "Well, we can’t delay the inevitable."
"Let me try something first, okay?" Danny said Wiz raised his eyebrows and nodded. Out of the corner of his eve Wiz saw Danny gesture with his staff as he said something unintelligible. Wiz took a tighter grip on his own staff and Doth stepped out to face the oncoming monsters.
Only the goblins weren’t coming any more. They stopped dead in the center of the tu
nnel. Then they huddled together. Then they turned and ran screaming from the two humans.
Wiz lowered his staff and looked after the fleeing monsters.
"What the heck was that all about?"
Danny looked smug. "A little something I cooked up. Look at yourself in the wall there."
Wiz moved over to the stretch of reflecting wall Danny had indicated. Staring back at him was a Thing. It was big and amorphous and tentacled, and clawed and fanged and looking at him with hundreds of beady red eyes. It had pincers, and stingers and hair and scales and fins and teeth. Lots and lots of teeth. After several years in this World, Wiz knew Things. This was an E-flat, full-bore, world-class Thing.
"Holy:" Wiz jumped back.
"That’s what they thought," Danny said smugly. "Oh relax, it’s just a seeming, a minimum-magic disguise you might say."
"A nightmare you might say," his friend corrected shakily. "Where did you come up with that thing?"
Danny smirked. "My imagination."
Wiz looked at the younger programmer and frowned "You know, there are times I really wonder about you. Now let’s find the exit and get back to the others before something wanders by that doesn’t frighten so easily."
NINE
KILLER VEES
It took another hour to get through the magma maze. Beyond were more tunnels, and beyond them a series of natural caves variously modified. They made their way without incident until they came to a crudely hacked-out tunnel connecting the second and third caves.
"Wait a minute guys," Danny whispered, "I think I’ve got something-or nothing." The party clustered around as Danny checked his magic detector.
"Well, which is it?" Malkin asked.
Danny looked up. "Both. The whole area up ahead is magically dead," Danny reported. "I mean not a spark anywhere that I can see."
"Not even the normal background magic?" Wiz asked.
The young programmer shook his head. "Not a sign."
Wiz noticed Malkin make sure her rapier was loose in its sheath.
"Okay then. Let’s take the hint and move slow and careful."
Again the tunnel widened out into a cavern and again the party moved ahead by the light of a single magical globe. Strain as they might they could hear nothing but their own footfalls and what sounded like rushing water faint and far ahead of them.