by Rick Cook
"Yes, I’m sure you’re from a very distinguished line," Wiz cut him off, "but that doesn’t explain why you’re trying to kill me."
The dwarf glared. Mortals had no sense of family and no appreciation for skaldic recitation.
"My uncle is Tosig Longbeard, King of the Dwarves. To fulfill a debt he has commissioned me to seek your death. To this end I have sworn mighty oaths that my quest shall end in your death or my own."
"Uh, I don’t suppose we can talk about this?"
The dwarf looked uncomfortable. "I am sorry, Wizard. You are brave and honorable and you are working for the good of all our World. But I have sworn a quest and you must die to satisfy it."
Wiz bent and picked up Glandurg’s fallen sword.
"I can’t very well let you go, you know. I can’t be looking over my shoulder at every moment."
"Wait," Glandurg said quickly. "I cannot forgo my sacred mission but I can postpone it. If you release me, I swear to take no action against you," he made a motion as if to cross his heart, "until you have fulfilled your own work."
Wiz considered. He didn’t have much stomach for killing anyway.
"All right," he said finally. "Swear to that and I’ll let you go."
Glandurg moved his hands again. "I do swear that I shall not try to slay you until your battle with your enemies is over. I swear by the moon for as long as it is in the sky."
"Fine," Wiz said. He turned and started to walk away.
"Wizard," Glandurg called, "what about me?"
"Oh, the web will dissolve in six or eight hours," Wiz told him. "I’m sorry, but I can’t get rid of it before that."
Besides, he thought as Glandurg’s curses died behind him, I’m not sure how far I trust you.
"Well, that’s one less problem anyway," Wiz said as he walked into the Mousehole’s lounge. Aelric and the other programmers were nowhere to be seen, but Bal-Simba and Moira were there.
Bal-Simba looked up at him quizzically.
"The dwarves," Wiz said, plopping down on a sofa. "I just got them off my back."
"They are here?" Moira demanded.
Wiz nodded. "Their leader just tried to jump me. He ran right into my protection spell and before I’d let him go I made him promise he wouldn’t try to kill me any more. At least," he amended, "not until this business with Craig and Mikey is finished."
"You made a deal with a dwarf," Moira said slowly.
"Uh, yeah."
"Sparrow," Bal-Simba said slowly, "what precisely did the dwarf swear to?"
"He promised he wouldn’t kill me until this business is over."
"Can you remember his exact words?"
"Yeah. He said, ’I will not slay you until your battle with your adversaries is over.’ Well, that’s pretty close anyway."
Moira moaned.
"Is something wrong?"
Bal-Simba put a huge hand on Wiz’s shoulder. "Sparrow, there are scant dealings between mortals and dwarves, but this much we have learned. A dwarf keeps only his exact, literal word. They are slippery as river eels and will wiggle through any least little hole left in an agreement."
"There’s a hole in this one?" Wiz asked in a sinking voice.
"Sparrow, how many dwarves are we dealing with?"
"About a doz… oh," Wiz said in a small voice. "And he promised only for himself."
The black wizard nodded. "He only swore that he himself would not kill you. He did not even promise he would not help the others."
"Oh," Wiz said again.
It was almost nightfall by the time Glandurg’s followers found him. The wait had done nothing to improve his temper.
"What happened to you?" Gimli asked in awe at the sight of his leader hanging enmeshed in sticky ropes.
"Never mind that, get me down!"
"He tried the Sparrow alone, he did," Ragnar told Gimli. "I recognize the signs."
"Now," the red-faced Glandurg ground out, "now I shall have him."
"Looks as if he had you," Ragnar observed. "Trussed you up like a spider to a fly."
"Just cut me down," Glandurg growled.
The dwarves set about it, but it was a sticky, tedious business. While they hacked and sawed Glandurg fumed and muttered.
"I will have his heart’s blood."
"Can’t very well do that," Thorfin said from the tree limb where he was cutting away at one of the last strands of the web. "You said you swore an oath you wouldn’t harm him until after he’s completed his own quest."
"I swore so long as the moon was in the sky," Glandurg amended.
Ragnar gaped. "He let you get away with that?"
"I am cleverer than any mortal wizard," Glandurg said smugly. "It was the first oath I offered and he took it."
Thorfin looked up at the darkening sky where a sliver of waning moon hung high. "And the moon has, what, eight, nine more days? Then it will be the dark of the moon and it will be gone completely." While he was looking up his knife severed the strand and Glandurg fell heavily to earth.
The dwarf rose and brushed off the last clinging bits of web. "Mark you, I shall use the time well. I have sent to my uncle the king for a thing which will finish this Sparrow once and for all."
And maybe this time he’ll let me have it, Glandurg thought to himself.
Tosig Longbeard, king of the Mid-Northeastern Dwarves of the Southern Forest Range, fidgeted uneasily on his alabaster throne and waited for his visitor to get down to business. The smoky torches flared in their wall sockets, throwing distorted shadows dancing over the carved and inlaid walls of his audience chamber, but there were none but himself and his visitor to see. His court, his seneschal and even his guards had been withdrawn because Aelric, the most powerful elf west of the mountains, had "begged the favor" of a private audience.
Dwarves and elves have scant dealings and Tosig had absolutely no idea why one of the greatest elves should come to call. He noted his guest was carefully treating him to every shred of courtesy and respect to which he was entitled. Somehow that was not reassuring.
First there were the formalities to get through. Elves are notoriously punctilious and dwarves are sticklers for forms and honors, so that had taken time. Further, elves are as courteous and delicate as trolls are rude and direct. After half a morning’s pleasantries, Tosig almost preferred the trolls.
At last, when Tosig was ready to scream, the elf turned to the subject at hand.
"I understand your nephew has undertaken a quest to fulfill a promise you made to the troll kings."
"He’s not my nephew," Tosig snapped. Then he softened. "But, ah, yes, a minor kinsman of mine is off doing some small service for the trolls."
Aelric said nothing for a space. Tosig watched him warily. This elf was known to consort with mortals, including even this strange wizard the trolls wanted dead. Were he to take a hand in the business…
"The honor of dwarves in keeping their promises is well-known," Aelric said. "It would be tragic if such an important promise were not kept because your relative was not given full support."
"I’ve supported that insufferable young pup to the limit of my purse and beyond!" Tosig burst out. "Oh, if you only know what this thing has cost me first and last. The supplies, the gold paid to griffins because he and his friends were too good to walk like ordinary dwarves. And always more demands. More supplies, more treasure. More gold to the griffins. More…" He stopped and beat his chest to relieve the burning pain. "I have supported him," he finished.
"But perhaps not with everything asked for?" Aelric murmured. "There was mention of a sword, I believe?"
"Blind Fury?" Tosig screamed. "Never! Never in a thousand lifetimes I tell you!" He dissolved into a choking fit.
"A great treasure to be sure," Aelric agreed. "And yet after all you have done it would be ironic if you were blamed for-lack of support."
"Greed," Tosig grated. "Say it outright! Dwarves are miserly and for my miserliness I would not risk giving Glandurg the sword Blind Fury."
<
br /> "I would never say such a thing."
"But others would and you wouldn’t correct them. Bah! Even for an elf you’re mealy mouthed."
Aelric only nodded gracefully in a way that indicated he was much too well-bred to argue with his host.
Tosig drummed his fingers on the throne arm. He could afford to turn his back on his debt to the trolls if he had Glandurg for a sacrificial goat. But to have an elf telling such a tale… Well, it would ruin his tribe’s trade for generations.
"The thing’s cursed, you know," he said at last. "And the boy’s incompetent. He’s had a score of chances at this alien wizard and muffed them all. Sword won’t do him a bit of good."
Aelric made a throw-away gesture with one elegant hand. "As you say, I am sure. Yet the point is not whether your nephew…"
"Don’t call him my nephew!" Tosig barked. "He isn’t my nephew, rot him!"
"Your relative then. The point is not whether he accomplishes his mission, only that you cannot possibly be blamed for his failure." The elf arched a silvery eyebrow. "Besides, the wielder of Blind Fury is invincible in battle. Who knows what even your-relative-might accomplish with it?"
Tosig glared at the elf and continued to beat a tattoo on the throne arm. He was trapped and they both knew it.
"Why are you so interested in this anyway?" the dwarf king demanded. "I thought you had dealings with the wizard."
"Oh, I do," Aelric told him. "However there is the matter of a prophecy. It were best if it were fulfilled." A strange expression flashed across the elf’s face. "Fulfilled in all its particulars."
"Behold the sword Blind Fury!"
Glandurg brandished the weapon aloft and the other dwarves crowded around. They had all heard stories of the great treasure of their tribe, but none of them had ever seen it before. Never in the memory of a living dwarf had the enchanted sword left the deepest, strongest treasury.
It was worth seeing. The golden hilt gleamed, throwing sparks and highlights where the sun’s rays caught a bit of carving or granulation at just the right angle. The rubies and sapphires set in the hilt glowed with inner fires and the fist-size emerald in the pommel flashed and flamed.
In fact, it was downright gaudy.
That was fine with the dwarves, whose taste for gaudy is perhaps exceeded only by Las Vegas architects. But it was also deadly. The double-edged blade glittered in the sunlight with a sinister brilliance that threatened to outshine the hilt. The blade was as wide as a man’s palm and nearly as long as a dwarf was tall and the magic of it twisted the air around it like heat waves in a mirage.
Glandurg could not conceal his glee. "One stroke! One stroke and the Sparrow is finished! Nothing can stop Blind Fury and he who wields it cannot be harmed in battle."
"Can we see?" Gimli asked eagerly.
"Yes," Ragnar said. "Show us."
The others took up the chorus. "Yes. Yes. Show us."
Glandurg smiled and nodded. Obviously the sword had gone a long way toward restoring his tattered prestige with his followers. He didn’t tell them he had asked King Tosig for it before setting out and received a rebuff that singed his beard.
He marched to the edge of the clearing where a log nearly two feet thick lay against a head-high boulder.
"Observe the log," he said. He wound up and swung at the log with all his strength.
Blind Fury whistled through the air and Thorfin jumped back as the tip removed the bottom six inches of his beard. With an evil hiss the weapon missed the log completely and bit deeply into a boulder, cleaving the rock to the ground.
The dwarf looked around. Thorfin was fingering the end of his newly trimmed beard and several of the other dwarves were looking at the newly split boulder with a combination of wonder and skepticism.
"I meant to do that," Glandurg told the watching dwarves. "Now stand back and give me room."
The others needed no urging. They backed off to give him a good twenty feet of room in every direction.
Glandurg hefted the sword. In the back of his mind it came to him that there were stories about how Blind Fury got its name.
"Now watch," he said. This time he did not specify a target.
Again he raised the sword over his head, braced his feet apart and swung a mighty blow. He was aiming at the boulder but the blade’s arc flashed past the stone and on around and into the oak tree beside him. Glandurg was dragged along helplessly but Blind Fury sliced through the three-foot trunk as if it wasn’t there.
Slowly, majestically, the tree rocked, teetered and began to fall-straight toward the watching dwarves. Dwarves scattered in every direction as the oak crashed down on them. The trunk itself missed Glandurg by scant inches where he stood holding the enchanted sword.
Wiz looked up from where he was checking some wiring in the computer room. "What was that crash?"
Jerry, who was closer to the window, looked out. "Just a tree falling up on the hillside."
"Oh," Wiz said, turning back to the wiring. "Nothing important then."
A curse! Yes, that was it, Glandurg remembered. There was a curse on the sword. Dwarfish faces began poking out among the still-shaking leaves of the fallen tree. Somehow they didn’t show the respect they had a few minutes ago.
"Well, that’s enough of that, isn’t it?" Glandurg said. "Hand me the scabbard, will you?"
Thirty-nine: PROTECTION
It was just after dawn and Wiz was finishing up an all-nighter on a workstation when a shadow swept over the window. He jerked his head up in time to see a dragon land almost at the front entrance of the Mousehole.
It looked like a league dragon, but Wiz grabbed his staff and headed for the main door anyway. The dragon scouts were under strict orders to stay away from the Mousehole lest the coming and going of the dragons should attract attention.
By the time he reached the entrance Moira was already there. Of the other programmers or wizards there was no sign, but one of the guardsmen was holding the door for their unexpected guest. As he strode in, Wiz recognized Dragon Leader, the commander of all the League’s dragon cavalry.
Dragon Leader was a bowlegged, solid little man with pale blond hair and eyes like the fog off an arctic glacier. He was dusty and he and his flying leathers reeked of the snake-and-sulfur odor of dragon.
"My Lord, my Lady." His head bobbed in something more than a nod and less than a bow. "Forgive me for coming here, but we have a problem I thought you should hear of immediately."
"I understand," Wiz said. "We’re still trying to find what’s causing the trouble with the communications crystals."
"Thank you, my Lord. But now we have a new problem. In the past two days we have started to encounter enemy scouting demons over the island-well south of their usual routes."
Wiz gripped his staff tighter. "Do you think they know we’re here?"
Dragon Leader considered. "So far as we know they have not tried to come this far south. But they are searching the island. That means you are in danger of discovery."
"Well, danger or not we can’t leave."
Dragon Leader nodded. "Your decision, Lord. But understand we cannot protect you this close to our enemies’ base."
"Understood."
"You should be safe for another ten-day or so. Their scouts are thorough but they do not move as quickly as dragons." He shrugged. "Perhaps they will not come this far south. Or if they do your disguise may fool them."
"But you wouldn’t put money on it."
"As I say, Lord, their scouts are thorough."
"Anything else you can tell us?"
"Nothing not in our regular reports. There is constant activity around the castle, but no sign of any more great explosions."
"Okay," Wiz sighed. "Well, thanks for the warning. We’ll do what we can."
"Will you stay for refreshment?" Moira asked. "Perhaps a bath?"
"Sorry, my Lady, but I have to rejoin my patrols." He sketched a bow, turned on his heel and strode from the room. A minute later they wat
ched through the windows as man and dragon lifted off in a cloud of dust.
"What is that guy’s name anyway?" Wiz asked as they watched their guest dwindle into a dot in the sky. "Everyone just calls him Dragon Leader."
"Ardithjanelle, which means ’shy flower of the forest,’ " Moira said. "The story is that his parents were expecting a girl child."
Wiz watched the dot for a second. "I think I’ll just call him Dragon Leader."
* * *
It was less than half an hour after Dragon Leader departed that the still-sleepy programmers, Moira and Duke Aelric met in the day room. Wiz outlined the situation to them and then posed the question on everyone’s mind.
"Well, what do we do now?"
"How much longer do we need?" Moira asked.
"Maybe another two weeks, if Lannach can keep those damn gremlins at bay."
"There really isn’t much we can do," Jerry said. "We have got to have this place to keep using the supercomputer."
"We could move to another island," Moira suggested, in a tone that indicated she didn’t think much of the idea.
Wiz shook his head. "We’d have to stop work, get the system into a stable state, back up everything, move it all and then try to get up and running again. I know companies that have gone broke in the process and they could get spares from the manufacturer if they broke something. Besides, I think those patrols already cover the other islands." He grimaced. "Probably the best we can do is continue here for as long as we can and be ready to cut and run as soon as we’re discovered."
"We may have more time than you think," Aelric put in from where he stood. "Our enemies seek something toward the middle of the island. I do not think they will come this far south."
"How do you know that?" Danny asked. Aelric shrugged elegantly.
"Anyway, we need to be ready to bug out if they do find us," Wiz said.
"We can put together some really righteous defenses," Danny said brightly. "I’ve been working on some ideas."
Moira shook her head. "Not as many as you might think. Defenses attract attention. Powerful ones are likely to shine like a beacon to anyone who can sense magic."