The Wiz Biz

by Rick Cook

  “Every maneuver, every patrol, you will treat like the real thing. Remember those checklists they drilled into you in school? Well, Mister, you will live by those checklists. As long as you’re in my squadron you will do everything by the checklist. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then see to it. And if you float out like that on a turn again you’ll spend the next two weeks on stable duty! Now see to your mount.”

  The Dragon Leader watched the man go and frowned. With the Dark League crushed there were no enemy dragons to face. It was hard to keep an edge on his men. The kid was good, one of the best of the crop of new riders that had come along since the defeat of the Dark League, but he didn’t have the same attitude as the men and women who had fought through the long, bitter years of the League’s ascendancy.

  He could have made it easy on himself and insisted on an experienced second. But somebody had to work these young ones up and if it wasn’t done right they wouldn’t be worth having if they had to fight.

  Meanwhile his muscles were stiff, his flying leathers soaked with sweat and he stank of dragon and exertion. He turned and walked out of the aerie toward the riders’ baths.

  At the door, the Dragon Leader looked back and sighed. In some ways it was easier when we were at war.

  ###

  “. . . and there you have it, My Lords,” Bal-Simba said finally. “That is our situation and that is what we need.”

  Jerry, Karl, Bal-Simba and Moira sat around the table. They had talked the day away and a good part of the night Moira was hoarse, so Bal-Simba had taken over filling in the background while Jerry and Karl shot questions.

  The remains of dinner, bread, fruit and cheese sat on the sideboard and a glowing globe on a wrought iron stand beside the table gave them light. The soft evening breeze ruffled through the room and stars spangled the velvety blackness outside. Idly, Jerry wondered what time it was. Their watches had stopped working at the moment of transition. After midnight, he decided.

  The rest of the programmers were bedded down somewhere but Bal-Simba was eager to get started and Jerry was too keyed up to sleep anyway.

  “Well, it’s hard to say until we’ve gone over the work that’s already been done,” Jerry said. “If the libraries and tool kit are sufficiently developed . . .”

  “I think it would be best if we left the technical details until Wiz returns,” Moira said. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Bal-Simba shift uneasily. “He is the only one among us who really understands them.”

  “Anyway, the outlines are clear enough,” Jerry said. “As I told Moira back in Cupertino, I think this is do-able, especially given the work Wiz has already put into it.”

  “How soon do you need all this?” Karl asked.

  “As soon as possible,” Bal-Simba told him. “Perhaps a fortnight at most.”

  Jerry and Karl looked at each other.

  “Well,” Karl said, “no matter where you go, some things don’t change.”

  Bal-Simba frowned. “Is there a problem?”

  Jerry sighed. This was the point where you usually started lying to the client. But this was a very unusual situation and an even more unusual client. Besides, there was no one on this world to undercut them and steal the contract by overpromising.

  “Look,” he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table, “the truth is, it will take us months to do this job right.”

  “But Wiz put together his attack on the Dark League in a matter of days!” Bal-Simba protested.

  “Right,” Jerry nodded. “What Wiz did was create a set of tools and build some simple programs, uh, spells with them. But there’s a big difference between something that an expert hacks together for his own use and a production system.”

  “You need something anyone can use, right?” Karl asked.

  “Any wizard,” Bal-Simba amended. “But yes, basically.”

  “Okay, that means you need a lot more support, error-checking and utilities and libraries. And it’s all got to be wrapped up in a neat package with no loose ends.”

  The huge wizard thought about that for a minute. “How long will all this take?”

  “We won’t know that until after we’ve examined what’s been done already and had a chance to talk to Wiz.”

  “You can begin the examination tomorrow,” Bal-Simba said, rising. “There is no need to wait until Sparrow returns.” He turned to Moira. “My Lady, will you escort them to their chambers?”

  “If you please, My Lord, there is another matter I wish to discuss with you. I will ring for a servant.”

  The serving man was yawning when he arrived, but he came quickly and ushered the visitors out of Bal-Simba’s study.

  “Now,” Moira said as the door closed behind them, “where is Wiz?”

  “Well, as to that, My Lady . . .”

  Her face darkened. “Something has happened to him, has it not?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Has it not?” She tried to shout but her strained vocal cords could only produce a whisper.

  “We do not know,” Bal-Simba told hen “He went off into the Wild Wood and no one has seen him since.”

  “Fortuna!” Moira stared. “You let him wander into the Wild Wood alone?” The she laughed bitterly. “And you were concerned about my safety?”

  ###

  Wiz tiptoed down the corridor, stopping every few feet to listen. Outside the bright daylight promised warmth the sun failed to deliver.

  He was desperately hungry, but he was past feeling the pangs. In the last two days he had turned up nothing that looked edible. He wasn’t the only scavenger going through the rubble. Rat droppings abounded, as did signs of larger, less identifiable creatures.

  He stopped to listen again, pressing himself flat against the wall as he did so. He had learned caution the hard way. Twice more since he left the palace with the trap he had barely avoided blundering into searching wizards of the League. Once he ducked into an open doorway just as two of them came around a corner not ten feet in front of him. Another time one of them caught a glimpse of him from one street over. The wizard made the mistake of calling for help and Wiz scampered away before he could get close.

  He was surprised that no one had used magic to locate him. Even with the competing magical remnants in the City of Night it should have been easy for wizards who had stood in his presence to track him down, especially since he dared not leave the city. The land beyond the walls was as frozen and barren as Antarctica. Away from the shelter of these buildings he’d be dead in a day and he was sure the wizards knew it.

  Perhaps Dzhir Kar was playing with him, stretching out the agony. Through his exhaustion, Wiz realized he could not win. Sooner or later, he had to use magic or fall to the searching wizards or the danger of this place.

  Well, not yet. He was still alive and still free. At this minute finding food and warmth were more important to him than his ultimate fate. Moving as quietly as he could, he went down the corridor to the next door.

  This place must have been pleasant once, or as pleasant as any in this benighted city ever had been. The building itself was mostly underground, a gloomy mass of tunnels and small rooms dimly lit by slowly fading magic globes. But this wing was built into the face of a cliff. The rooms on the outside had long narrow windows that looked out over the city. Judging by the shattered, soaked junk that remained they had been richly furnished as well.

  But shattered, soaked junk was all that remained. What had once been rich fabric lay in sodden rotting piles. Scattered about were pieces of furniture, all hacked, broken and upended.

  He looked at the wood regretfully. There were the makings there for a warming fire—if he could figure out how to light one without bringing the demon down on him and if he didn’t mind attracting every wizard in the dry.

  Aside from that, there was no sign of anything useful. No food, no clothing, nothing. He turned to leave when something caught his eye. He bent and plucked it from th
e litter.

  It was a halberd, its head red with rust and its shaft broken to about three feet long. Looking at the end of the shaft, Wiz could see it had been cut halfway through before it snapped, as if the owner had warded a stroke.

  Wiz hefted it dubiously. He knew nothing about halberd fighting and this one was broken, useless for its original purpose. But it could still serve as a tool to pry open chests and boxes. Perhaps with it he would have a better chance of finding food.

  Clutching his prize, Wiz crept back out into the corridor.

  ###

  “Wiz kept notes on how his spell compiler worked,” Moira explained to the gaggle of programmers who followed her into her apartment the next morning. “He did most of that here rather than in his workroom. I think it would be best if you removed them yourselves, lest I miss something.”

  “Thanks,” Jerry said as he went over to the desk, “we’ll get some boxes and . . .”

  Then he saw the dragon sitting on top of the leatherbound book. A small, but very alert and obviously upset dragon. The dragon hissed and Jerry realized he, Karl and Moira were suddenly two paces ahead of everyone else in the group.

  “What’s that?”

  “That is the demon guardian Wiz created to protect his spells, especially the book holding most of his secrets. He called it the Dragon Book,” Moira explained.

  Karl looked at Moira, Jerry looked at Karl and the dragon eyed them both.

  “That had to be deliberate,” Karl said finally.

  Jerry made a face as if he had bitten into something sour. “Believe me, it was.”

  “Crave pardon?”

  “There’s a standard text on writing compilers called the dragon book,” Jerry explained. “It’s got a picture of a dragon on the cover. A red dragon.”

  “It was orange on my edition.”

  “As protection of the contents?” Moira asked.

  “More like a warning of what the course is like. It’s a real bear.”

  “Then why not put a bear on the cover?”

  “Bears aren’t red,” Karl put in before Jerry could answer. “They’re not orange either.”

  Moira frowned. “Oh,” she said in a small voice.

  “Anyway, how do we get rid of him?”

  “Easily enough. Wiz taught me the dismissal spell.” She stepped to the edge of the desk and spoke to the demon.

  “puff at ease exe

  The dragon crawled off the book and retired to the corner of the desk.

  “That is a spell in Wiz’s magic language,” she explained, turning back to the programmers. “The word exe is the command to start the spell, at ease is the spell and puff is the name of this demon.”

  “Well, it is a magic dragon,” Karl said. A couple of the programmers groaned and Jerry winced again.

  “Okay,” Jerry said. “We’ll get this stuff out of your way and moved to our office as soon as possible. Uh, do you know where we are going to be?”

  “The under-seneschal is waiting to show you to your workrooms,” Moira said. “He is in the courtyard, I believe.”

  “Great. Let’s go then.” Everyone moved back toward the door, except Danny Gavin who was lounging in a chair.

  “Are you coming?” Jerry asked.

  “No, I think I’ll stay here,” Danny said. “Unless you need me?”

  Jerry looked at Moira and Moira shrugged.

  “Just don’t wander off.”

  Almost as soon as the door was closed Danny was out of his chair and over to the Dragon Book. The guardian demon raised its head when he opened it but made no protest.

  Now let’s see what this magic stuff is like. Danny scanned the first few pages quickly, picking up the basics of the syntax as he went. Then he flipped further back and looked at a few of the commands.

  Shit, this is a piece of cake. He went back and reread the first part of the book more carefully, already mentally framing his first spell.

  ###

  “We had to prepare workspace for you on short notice,” the under-seneschal said apologetically as he led the group across another courtyard. “I’m afraid all the towers are taken and Lord Bal-Simba doubted you would prefer caves. So to give you a place where you can all work together, we ah, well, we cleaned out an existing building.”

  He was a small, fussy man who seemed to bob as he walked and kept rubbing his hands together nervously. He had been given an impossible job on very short notice and he was very much afraid his solution would insult some very important people. As they moved across the courtyard he became more and more nervous.

  “We weren’t expecting so many of you, you see and we are so terribly crowded here . . .” His voice trailed off as they approached the building.

  It was sturdily built of stone below and timber above. As they drew nearer, a distinctive aroma gave a hint of its original purpose and once they stepped through the large double doors there was no doubt at all as to what it was.

  “A stable?” Jerry said dubiously.

  “Well, ah, a cow barn actually,” the man almost cringed as he said it.

  “Wonderful,” Cindy said, “back in the bullpen.”

  “Oh, wow, man,” said one of the group, a graying man with his hair pulled back into a pony tail, “like rustic.”

  “Hell, I’ve worked in worse,” one of the programmers said as he looked around. “I used to be at Boeing.”

  ###

  The room was good-sized, but as cold as every other place in the City of Night. A mullioned window, its tracery in ruins, let in the sharp outside air. Piles of sodden trash and pieces of broken furniture lay here and there. On one wall stood a tall black cabinet, tilting on a broken leg but its doors still shut.

  Wiz came into the room eagerly. Maybe there was something in the closed cabinet he could use.

  Cold and hunger dulled his caution and he was halfway across the room before a skittering sound behind him told him he had made a mistake.

  Wiz whirled at the sound, but it was too late. There, blocking the only way out, was a giant black rat. It was perhaps five feet long in the body and its shoulder reached to Wiz’s waist. Its beady eyes glared at Wiz. It lifted its muzzle to sniff the human, showing long yellow teeth. Wiz stepped back again and the rat sniffed once more, whiskers quivering.

  Wiz licked his lips and took a firmer grip on the broken halberd shaft. The rat eyed him hungrily and moved all the way into the room, its naked tail still trailing out into the corridor.

  Wiz stepped to one side, hoping the rat would follow and leave him room for a dash to the door. But the rat wasn’t fooled. It lowered its head and squealed like a piglet caught in a fence. Then it charged.

  In spite of his disinclination to exercise, Wiz had naturally fast reflexes. Moreover, his two years in the World had hardened his muscles and increased his wind. He was far from being the self-described “pencil-necked geek” he had been when he had arrived here, but he was even further from being a warrior.

  The monster closed in squealing. Wiz swung wildly with his rusty axe. The giant rat ducked under the blade and leaped for his throat.

  Against a halfway-competent swordsman, the tactic would have worked. But Wiz wasn’t even halfway competent. He had swung blindly and he brought his weapon back equally blindly, backhand along the same path.

  The spike on the back of the axe caught the rat just below the ear. Any guardsman on the drill field would have winced at such a puny blow, but the spike concentrated the force on a single spot. Wiz felt a “crunch” as the spike penetrated bone. The rat squealed, jerked convulsively and fell in a twitching heap at Wiz’s feet.

  Wiz’s first instinct was to turn and run. But he checked himself. Think, he told himself sternly. You’ve got to think. Running wouldn’t solve anything. There was nowhere to run to and running burned calories he could ill-afford to lose. Panic wouldn’t get him the food he so desperately needed.

  Well, he thought, looking down at the gray-furred corpse, maybe I can use one problem to
solve another. Kneeling over the body, he set to work with his halberd.

  Wiz emerged from the room a while later wiping his mouth on a bit of more or less clean rag.

  Rat sashimi, Wiz decided, wasn’t half-bad—if you used lots of wasabi. He didn’t have any wasabi, but it still wasn’t half-bad.

  ###

  While the rest of the team broke for lunch, Jerry, Karl and Moira went back to the apartment to start sorting through Wiz’s papers.

  “A barn!” Moira said angrily. “I cannot believe they would do that to you.”

  “Hey, it’s dry and it looks like it can be made fairly comfortable,” Karl said. “Besides, it’s already divided up into cubicles.”

  “Well, I can assure you, My Lords . . .” Moira began as she started to open the door.

  There was a low moan and the sound of scuffling from the apartment. Moira threw open the door.

  “Danny!” Jerry yelled.

  The young programmer was rocking back and forth, his body slamming first forward almost to the desk and then back so forcefully the chair teetered.

  “Something’s wrong! He’s having a stroke or something.”

  “Stay away from him!” Moira ordered. “He is caught in a spell.”

  “Stop it.”

  “I do not know how. The command should be in the book.”

  Jerry edged around the still-thrashing Danny and hooked the Dragon Book off the desk. The dragon demon ignored him, watching Danny the way a cat watches a new and particularly interesting toy.

  “Damn, no index!”

  “Try the table of contents,” Karl suggested.

  “No table of contents, either!” He paged frantically through the book and muttered something about hackers under his breath.

  “Here it is.” He read hurriedly, “reset” he commanded.