by Rick Cook
"I am not sure," Moira said. "This is the first I have heard of such a thing. It seems:" She fell silent for a minute and then the dragon’s head came erect, chin out in a gesture that was achingly Moira. "It seems to me this is our best chance, is it not?" Jerry and Bal-Simba nodded. Then this is what we should do." Jerry felt a sudden pang of conscience. "Uh, I ought to point out this is still experimental. Things could go wrong."
The dragon snorted. "My Lord," Moira’s voice said bitterly, "they could not go any more wrong than they have already."
Another day, another maze, Wiz thought, looking around. In the tight of the magic globe he could see no less than six different tunnels leading off from the one they were in, including one in the roof. The whole area was like that, twisty, turning, branching and rebranching. He had been in the lead with the magic Moira locator for most of the morning as the group picked their way along, stopping every few feet while he consulted the device to see which way to go. It seemed as if they had barely made a quarter of a mile the whole day and Wiz was fuming with impatience.
"I mislike this place," Malkin said quietly over Wiz’s shoulder. She had taken the number-two position to let Wiz guide the party.
"Not my favorite piece of geography either, but what’s your point?" The tall thief looked past him, eyes never still as they talked. "There are far too many openings here. Ideal for an ambush."
Wiz hadn’t thought of that. "Danny hasn’t seen anything on the magic detector." Malkin looked at him as if he was stupid. "Okay, pass the word to close up, and no straggling."
There was a sound behind them, a scuffle and then Danny yelled. They both whirled to see June locked in a deadly embrace with a tall figure in rags. Her knife was flashing as she struck home again and again but the thing kept its grip on her.
There was another sound and Wiz and Malkin whirled again to face a new danger from the front. A figure in black armor was closing, almost on top of them, sword raised.
Like a striking snake Malkin’s rapier darted over Wiz’s shoulder and thrust into the attackers face. The armored figure never flinched and brought his own sword down in a vicious overhead blow aimed at Wiz’s skull.
The cut was clumsily made and poorly aimed. The sword slid along Malkin’s rapier and off past her side. Before the attacker could recover Wiz hit it square on with a lightning bolt and it burst into flames.
Even that didn’t stop it. Slowly, deliberately, it brought its sword back and above its fiery body to strike again. Then it tottered and fell backwards as fire reduced its substance to ashes.
Beyond it there were other figures in the corridor. Wiz didn’t hesitate. He sent bolt after bolt of lightning flashing down the tunnel to consume the others even as they shuffled forward.
And then it was quiet again. There was no sound but the labored breathing of the adventurers and June’s knife, striking again and again into the dismembered body of her foe. Danny went to his wife’s side and gentry pulled her off the still quivering body.
"It’s all right," he said, "it’s dead."
"A long time dead," Malkin amended, studying the body. ’This was not a living man. It’s an animated corpse."
"Zombie?"
"Why not?" Wiz said grimly. The Enemy probably had a lot of corpses to work with here."
"I would suggest," Malkin said with equal grimness, "that we get out of this place as quickly as we can. We do not want to be set upon from all sides at once by things like this."
Night had fallen over the Wizards’ Keep, though its inhabitants needed magic or a sand glass to tell them that. Outside, the unremitting gray fog beat against the castle, pushing, squeezing, trying to insinuate its tentacles into the structure.
The great hall was lit by magical glow lamps. At each of the eight cardinal points stood one of the Mighty, staff in hand. Within the inscribed circle stood two men, a woman and a dragon.
"May Fortuna aid you all," Arianne said to Bal-Simba, Jerry and Moira as she finished giving them final instructions.
"We’ll be all right," Jerry said. "I just hope you can do something on this end while we’re gone."
"The other wizards say that given time they will be able to control this thing, at least here."
Silence fell over the group. Unconsciously they turned to watch the sand trickle out of the glass.
"There is still time, My Lady," Bal-Simba said quietly. Moira shook her head. The big wizard breathed a gusty sigh. "Well, then. I believe we are ready."
"Merry part," Arianne said to them.
"Merry meet again, Lady," Bal-Simba replied.
Arianne stepped out of the circle, being careful not to scuff it. As the sand ran from the glass the wizards threw back their robes to expose their arms and raised their staffs. As the final grains fell to the bottom they began to chant. The world wavered, dissolved and suddenly they were in a narrow alley between blind wooden walls. It took a moment for Jerry to realize the walls were really shipping containers stacked six high.
Jerry and Bal-Simba were dizzy and a little disoriented. Moira seemed to be worse affected. The dragon leaned drunkenly against the crates, making little pawing motions with his front claws.
"My Lady, are you all right?" Bal-Simba asked.
The dragon shook his head feebly, as if trying to clear it. Then he heaved himself upright. For an instant Jerry was afraid he would fall, but the dragon steadied and seemed to draw inner strength.
"How do you feel?" Jerry asked.
"Let us get on with it," Moira said grimly.
Jerry was relieved both at the dragon’s apparent recovery and at Moira’s response. He hadn’t been absolutely sure that Moira would be able to talk to them in this world
"Where are we?" Bal-Simba asked, craning his neck to look at the
three-story-stack of crates surrounding them.
"We’re in a storage area next to an exhibit hall, but I don’t recognize which one."
He looked around trying to orient himself. It wasn’t easy. The view at ground level was completely blocked by the stacks of crates. Beyond the crates on one side was a solid brick wall, perhaps four stories high. Above that were two hotel towers perhaps twenty stories high each. Scanning the horizon over the tops of the crates he could see mountains in the distance and here and there tall buildings, obviously more hotels. The sky above was pale turquoise blue with just a few wisps of high clouds.
"I don’t recognize this at all," Jerry said. This isn’t the Convention Center. It must be one of the new hotels."
"What do we do first?"
Jerry looked at Bal-Simba in his leopard-skin kilt, bone necklace and blue cloak. "First we get some clothes. No, first we get some money."
It took them a while to find their way out of the wooden maze. Finally, with the help of some rather profane instructions from a startled forklift driver who nearly ran over them, they found a gate and stepped into a parking lot dominated by a fleet of semis, trailers and satellite dishes.
"Okay," Jerry said, looking around, "this is the Paladin. That tells me where we are, more or less."
Bal-Simba and Moira didn’t say anything. They were too busy staring. There was reason to stare. Off in one direction a castle raised pinnacled towers to the pale blue sky. In another a giant lion of blue glass crouched, and off to the side stood a glittering black pyramid. A tropical rain forest rose under a glittering dome, a gigantic brightly striped pavilion stood in another direction. Off in the distance there were more spires and domes. That all these wonders were accompanied by nearly identical blocky high-rise towers sheathed in golden glass did nothing to dim the effect on Bal-Simba and Moira,
"Amazing," Bal-Simba said at last. "Moira may have seen its like before, but it is new to me."
"This is unlike what I saw before of this world," Moira told him.
"This is Las Vegas," Jerry explained. "It’s unlike just about anything." He looked around, getting his bearings and then patted the brown suede purse that hung from his belt. "Come on, l
et’s go around to the front."
They trudged across acres of asphalt crammed with automobiles, threaded their way between the towering hotel block and a multi-story parking garage and finally emerged at the front of the hotel.
As soon as they came around the corner their surroundings changed completely. Jerry led them up a walkway beside a winding drive, past groves of palm trees and stands of giant bamboo springing from an impossibly green lawn. They passed statues in classical poses, acorn-pound holding several white tigers, crossed over a bridge above a pool housing a number of dolphins, passed an artificial geyser at a discreet distance and finally came to the bank of glass doors leading into the hotel proper.
"Moira, you’d better wait outside," Jerry told the dragon. "I’m not sure what their rules are on animals and I don’t think we can pass you off as a seeing eye dog."
"Well enough, My Lord," Moira said. "It sounds excessively noisy in any event."
"I begin to understand why the search will be difficult," Bal-Simba said as soon as they were through the door and out of Moira’s earshot. "This place is larger than I had imagined."
"Oh, this is only one of the places we’ve got to look There are maybe a couple of dozen more this big or bigger. One 01 the problems we’ve got is that the show is spreading out again. For a while they had all the exhibits concentrated in just two big exhibit halls and the Hilton next to the Convention Center," Jerry said "But those overflowed and they’ve had to start using the hotel exhibition space again."
Bal-Simba started forward toward the line of clerks and away from the racket in the casino, but Jerry stopped him.
"No, this is just the registration area. What we want is probably the tellers cage. That’s over this way."
Bal-Simba frowned slightly but followed Jerry out into the maze of the casino. Everywhere there were lights, colors and noise. It took Jerry a minute to realize the casino didn’t have many players.
The casinos hate the show even if the hotels love it," he told Bal-Simba as they maneuvered through the aisles and past the occasional slot player. "Most of the attendees don’t gamble-well, except for the startups and product rollouts on the show floor."
Bal-Simba nodded as if the comment made perfect sense.
The cashier’s office was off at one side of the casino so it only took about ten minutes and three sets of directions from change girls and a guard before they found it.
The cage manager was well-groomed, well-mannered and impossible to surprise. The sight of a couple of characters in Halloween costumes with a bag of gold they wanted to change into money didn’t so much as turn a hair. He laid out the terms for them as if this happened every day. Looking around the casino, Jerry reflected that maybe it did.
Ten thousand dollars maximum," the manager told them. "Market less twenty-five percent." He shook his head. I’ll tell you right now you can do better in most of the pawn shops."
"We need some walking-around money."
The manager shrugged. He led them around the corner, past two armed guards and into a small room where a clerk was waiting for them with a tabletop full of machinery.
The clerk was not as well groomed and considerably less mannered. He took the coins and ten by ten put them in a large piece of equipment in one corner.
"Neutron spectroscope," the manager explained. "We get a lot of Asian customers with gold."
It took time to test the coins and more time to count out the cash. In the process Jerry had to sign a statement saying who he was, that the gold was legal and that he had paid all the applicable taxes. He noticed that the manager didn’t ask them for identification.
"Now do we begin our search?" Bal-Simba asked as they threaded their way back through the casino.
"Now we go get our credentials," Jerry said. "That will take a good chunk of this money."
"Excuse me," said a woman’s voice off to one side. Both men turned and took a blinding light full in the face.
"Thanks," said a shadowy form perfunctorily as she lowered her camera and pushed by them.
Bal-Simba bunked as he tried to get his sight back. "What was that?"
"That was a reminder that we need some different clothes." Jerry frowned. "But that’s going to take more time and:" Then his rapidly returning sight fell on an arcade of shops off beyond the registration area. "Come on. It’ll be expensive, but we need to save time more than we need to save money."
The shopping arcade angled off from the registration area leading to one of the hotel towers. Beyond the frozen yogurt shop, the jeweler’s, the furrier’s and the "art gallery" selling brightly colored paintings whose kitsch was only exceeded by their prices, was the men’s store Jerry had known had to be there. The place had an Italian name that Jerry thought was some kind of sausage, but he wasn’t picky. The interior was all white and old gold and decorated in a way that for some reason reminded Jerry of a tapestry woven of polyester. The salesman was tall, lean and dressed in an extreme version of Italian style. He was also showing a five o’clock shadow.
"May I help you?" he said in tones that indicated he probably couldn’t, but he was going to go through the motions anyway.
"Uh, my friend and I need some clothes."
The man looked them up and down. "I’ll say."
"They lost our luggage and all we have left are our costumes. We need something for street wear."
"Hmm," the man said. "Hmm," he said again. "Hey, Meyer, can you come out here a minute?"
Meyer was a wizened old man with thick glasses set low on his nose. His trousers were dusty with chalk and he wore a tape measure draped around his neck like a shawl.
"They need some street clothes," the younger man told him.
Meyer looked them over with an obviously professional eye. "Come on back into the fitting room and let’s see what we can do."
"He keeps me around for color," the old man confided as he led them into the back. "Pfafh! Like I’m a museum exhibit or something."
Like its inhabitant the back room wasn’t nearly as fancy but looked a lot more businesslike. Meyer whipped the tape measure off his shoulders and began to lay it against Jerry’s body. "My nephew. He should have learned his trade at his father’s knee-God rest him- but instead he goes off and gets an MBA. An MBA! Better he should learn tailoring to run a haberdashery, no? But kids, you can’t tell them anything. So, you want suits or what?"
"Something less formal," Jerry said.
"Hmm," the old man said without stopping his measurements. "Pity. I could do some real good things for both of you in suits." He sighed. "But these days, you don’t get a chance to show off what you know. Well, at least it’s not leisure suits any more."
Museum exhibit or no, Meyer knew his business. With hardly a pause he had both Jerry and Bal-Simba measured and the sample book laid out for them to pick the cloth.
"Here you go. Not a thread of polyester in the bunch. Just show me what you want and in two, three days we’ll have you turned out sharp."
"We were hoping for something today. Something we can wear out of here."
"You want miracles too?"
"We can’t go walking around like this."
"I don’t see why not. You look like a bartender from the Excalibur. That’s a hotel," he added at Jerry’s puzzled expression. Then he nodded toward Bal-Simba.
"Him, he’s a problem."
"It can be just about anything. We’re kinda desperate."
He looked at Jerry. "In that case, you I can fit off the rack, almost. Your friend-" He shrugged. "That’s special."
"How long will it take?"
"So you’re in a hurry too?"
"Look, if it’s a matter of money:" The old man waved him to silence. "It’s a matter of possible. A challenge like this I haven’t had in a long time, but even so:" Again the shrug. Then he brightened. "Wait a minute. I do have something a customer never picked up. I can even make you a price on it"
A few minutes later Jerry stepped out of the dressing room the pi
cture of Las Vegas casual. His polo shirt and slacks fit him beautifully. The clothing felt odd after the loose shirts, tunics and breeches he had worn for so long at the Wizards’ Keep. The shoes were stiff and pinched a little after the soft leather boots of the other world, but he could get used to it.
"Are you ready?" he called into the dressing room where Bal-Simba was changing.
"I believe so," Bal-Simba said, somewhat hesitantly.
Bal-Simba emerged wearing a puffy-sleeved pink shirt open to the navel. A fancy vest fitted tightly over the shirt. Tight tan bell-bottoms stretched across his ample rear. He had left his bone necklace around his chest and a snap-brim hat with a leopard-skin band completed the outfit. Meyer fussed around him, pulling down the vest here and tugging the shirt into position there.
Jerry looked his friend up and down. "We don’t have to guess the guy’s profession, do we?"
The old man shrugged. "So who asks? Now come on up front and we’ll get you taken care of."
Jerry gulped when he saw the bill, but he peeled off hundreds without comment.
"The rest of the stuff, four o’clock tomorrow," Meyer admonished. "I swear not a minute sooner."
They found Moira outside by the dolphin pool, posing for pictures with a family of tourists while a couple of bemused security guards looked on.
"Don’t you need a leash for that thing?" one of the guards asked when Jerry came up to rejoin her.
"Audio-Animatronics," Jerry explained.
"No kidding?" one of the guards said. "Like the showgirls?" Jerry wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not so he just smiled.
There was a covered slideway from the lobby to the street, but Jerry led them down the ordinary sidewalk beneath it. He wasn’t sure how his friends would take to a moving walkway and he wasn’t at all sure Moira would be able to keep her tail out of the gears.
"How do we begin our search for this wizard?" Moira asked as the three made their way out to the street.
"First things first. We gotta get registered. We do that at the main Convention Center."