The Wiz Biz

by Rick Cook

  “Human?” Arianne asked.

  “Perhaps. Although it appears that Sparrow has an unusual number of non-human enemies as well. Powerful ones.” He paused for a second and frowned. “And Lady . . .”

  Arianne bent close at his gesture. “Yes, Lord?”

  “Inquire—discreetly—into the activities of our own wizards over the last fourteen days. Especially any who have absented themselves from the Capital.”

  Arianne looked shocked. “Do you think—”

  “I think,” Bal-Simba said, cutting her off, “that we would be remiss if we did not explore every possibility to get our Sparrow back here as quickly as we can.”

  Arianne turned away to execute his command. “Oh, and Lady . . .”

  Arianne turned back. “Yes, Lord?”

  “Find that ex-apprentice, Pryddian, and ask him what he knows about this.”

  “Pryddian?”

  “Just a thought. A direct attack on Wiz in the Capital would be difficult. It would be easier if he were outside our walls. Pryddian was the cause of our Sparrow’s journey.” He shrugged his mountainous shoulders. “Unlikely, but we have to start somewhere.”

  ###

  Pryddian was sweating as he came over the last rise before his destination and not just from the noon sun. Before him the road curved to the left around the base of a hill, actually a large limestone outcropping. To the right, away from the road and along the outcropping, was a wild jumble of small trees, laurel bushes and boulders. The former apprentice started down the road, his feet kicking up powdery white dust fine as flour as he walked.

  When he reached the place where the road curved away he paused for an instant and scanned the bushes on the roadside. The dusty weeds beside the road showed no sign of disturbance, but there was a path there, leading off the road and in among the undergrowth. Pryddian patted the breast of his tunic for reassurance and then stepped off the road and onto the little-used path.

  He breasted his way through the bushes, dodged around trees and boulders and followed the meandering path deeper into the woodland. The thick brush and second-growth trees showed that once this place had been logged. But that had obviously been long ago. Getting felled trees out of such a place would be backbreaking and not worth it so close to the Fringe of the Wild Wood. It had been done once and men the wilderness had been allowed to reclaim this place.

  Finally the trail took a sharp turn and a dip and Pryddian stumbled through into an opening. He was against the flank of the hill now, in a little hollow hard against sheer rock face. All around him like grotesque sentries stood boulders twice as high as he was. Directly in front of him was a single table-high stone in the midst of a patch of beaten earth. There were dark splotches on the stone, as if something had been spilled there and allowed to dry.

  Pryddian walked hesitatingly into the place. Suddenly an arm like iron clamped across his windpipe and he felt cold steel against his neck.

  Instinctively he twisted his head and out of the corner of his eye saw that his captor was clad in the close-fitting black of the Dark League’s dread Shadow Warriors. The Shadow Warrior pressed the edge to his throat and Pryddian ceased struggling.

  “No move, no sound if you value your life,” a voice grated behind him.

  Pryddian licked his lips and remained silent.

  “Better,” the voice said at last. “Now, why are you here?”

  “I am called Pryddian. I am . . . URK.” The Shadow Warrior’s grip tightened on his windpipe.

  “I did not ask who you were, but why you had come,” his unseen questioner said sharply. “Answer only those questions I ask you, apprentice, or you will wish you had never been born.”

  “I came seeking the Dark League,” Pryddian said when the pressure on his throat relaxed.

  “And why should the Dark League be interested in the likes of you?”

  “I have talent. I desire to become a wizard and I bring you something.” He reached toward his tunic, but the Shadow Warrior drew the blade perhaps a quarter of an inch along his skin. He felt the burning sting of the cut and then the warm wetness of blood trickling down his throat.

  Pryddian froze, but the Shadow Warrior, reacting to an unseen signal, slackened his grip and moved the knife away from his throat. Slowly he extended his trembling hand and reached into his tunic. Equally slowly he withdrew his hand, holding a roll of parchment.

  “I give you the Sparrow’s magic,” he said.

  ###

  “Lord, Moira asked again today about Sparrow,” Arianne said.

  Bal-Simba turned away from his window to face his deputy.

  “Today as every day, eh?” He shook his head. “The answer is still the same. We can find no trace of him, in all the World.”

  “Is he dead then?” Arianne asked.

  Bal-Simba shook his head. “Moira does not think so. I trust her judgment in this.”

  “Moira was away in his world when he left Aelric’s hold,” Arianne pointed out.

  “Still, I think she would know if he had died.”

  “Then where could he be?”

  “There are many possibilities. He might be in a place where he is shielded by magic. He might have been sent beyond the World. He might be held in a state of undeath. One thing I think we can safely venture. He is not where he is voluntarily and wherever he is, he needs any aid we can give him.” He returned to his desk and sat down again. “On that subject, have you learned more in the matter you were pursuing?”

  “You mean the actions of the Mighty? There is one thing new. Ebrion is missing for near three weeks.”

  “Ebrion?”

  Arianne nodded. “There is more. We cannot be sure, but it appears that he may well be dead.”

  “Dead? How?”

  Arianne shrugged. “We do not know. We are not even certain that he is dead.”

  Bal-Simba sucked his lip against his sharpened teeth thoughtfully. “Ebrion, eh?”

  He twisted in his chair to face her. “This should be explored. Investigate closely.”

  “But discreetly,” Arianne agreed. “I am already doing so, Lord.”

  ###

  Just like all the rest, Wiz thought as he surveyed the room in the failing light. Nothing to eat, just more piles of junk. The wind whistled through the broken windows and he shivered as he pulled the worn brown cloak tighter around himself.

  Outside the setting sun poked fitfully through the layer of lead-gray clouds. By now Wiz knew the signs of a storm moving in, perhaps with snow. It was going to be another cold, miserable night. Too cold for foraging.

  Since his encounter with the flying wizard, Wiz had stayed out of the open, at least in daylight. Every day, unless the winds were too high, one or more wizards of the Dark League floated over the ruined city looking for a sign of him. Now he tried to move from building to building only at night.

  Well, none of that this evening. Storms in the Southern Land were nothing to take lightly. He needed a place to hole up. And food, of course.

  He made one more survey of the room. Broken furniture, bits of smashed crockery and junk, and piles of what had probably once been wall hangings or drapes. He poked at the largest pile, over against the far wall with his broken halberd. Nothing but cloth. Then he stopped in mid-poke. Maybe he could use this after all. There was a lot more of it here than normal and it was pretty dry. More than enough to make a nest for a human.

  Wiz burrowed into the pile of cloth and rolled himself in the rags. He pulled up the hood of his cloak and drew another layer of cloth over him. The material was none too clean. It had been soaked repeatedly and Wiz was not the first creature to nest in it, but it kept out the chill and as his body heat warmed the cloth, Wiz stopped being cold for the first time since he had arrived. As the wind whistled and howled outside, his breathing steadied and he fell deeply asleep for the first time in days.

  ###

  Voices woke him the next morning. Human voices in the same room.

  Beneath the ho
od of the cloak he could see two men had entered the chamber—men who wore the black robes of the Dark League.

  “He is here,” the older one protested. “I can smell him!” He cast about like a hunting dog, his head turning this way and that as if he actually was smelling Wiz out.

  “He was here,” the other one corrected. “Do you see him in the room? Or do you think he has acquired a cloak of invisibility?”

  Wiz dared not breathe.

  The balding wizard straightened up. “This is foolishness anyway. Why not use spells to find this Sparrow? I have stood in his presence and I could locate him in minutes, even if Dzhir Kar could not.”

  The other waved a hand airily. “Oh, but that would not be sporting. Our Dread Master desires to have his amusement with this alien wizard before he dies. Think of it as a little something to pay him back for all that he has cost us.” He smacked his lips and his eyes sparkled. “And would it not be delicious to have this one slain by magic, unable to use magic in his own defense? You have to admit, Seklos, it has a certain piquancy to it.”

  “Piquancy be damned! That—creature is dangerous and should be destroyed immediately. Do you play with a louse before you crack it between your fingers?” He looked narrowly at his companion. “Well, you might And so might he. But it is still foolishness.”

  The younger wizard shook his head. “No sporting blood. That’s your problem, Seklos. You’ve got no sporting blood at all.”

  “What I’ve got,” the older wizard said, “is a cold from tramping all over this pest-bedamned city. If it weren’t for that, I could smell him even more sharply. Now come on. Let’s see if we can track him down and end this charade.” He strode out through the other door with his companion still trailing behind, smiling tolerantly.

  It was several minutes after they left that Wiz could even shiver.

  Thank God I don’t snore! Wiz thought numbly.

  For a long time after they left, Wiz stayed huddled in the rags. His bladder was full to bursting, but he did not abandon his shelter for nearly an hour after the wizards left.

  They still should have seen me, he thought as he wiggled out of his cocoon. He had been snuggled into the pile of cloth, but he hadn’t been completely hidden. The storm had passed during the night and light in the room had been bright enough. But still the wizards had missed him completely.

  He paused and listened at the door. The hall was empty and there was no sign or sound of the wizards who had come so close to him. It was full daylight now so he looked around one more time. The only thing he had missed was a cracked and broken mirror hanging askew on the wall. Most of the glass was missing, but the piece that remained reflected back the empty room.

  Only it’s not empty! I’m here. He looked closely at the mirror. The mirror fragment showed the room, but there was no sign of Wiz. It was as if he was not there. A cloak of invisibility! That was why the magicians hadn’t seen him. He looked in the mirror again, turning this way and that and admiring his lack of reflection.

  He’d heard about cloaks of invisibility, but he had never seen one. What was it Moira called it? A tarncape.

  That was what he had found. He laughed aloud and spun in a full circle, the cloak standing out from his body from the speed.

  Then he froze. Magic! Wiz thought, his heart pounding, I’ve been using magic! But the demon hadn’t come for him. He hadn’t even felt the quiver he felt when he tried to frame a spell.

  Wiz slumped into the corner, his back against the cold stone wall, and tried to think. What was it the wizard had said? Of course! The demon wasn’t looking for him, it was looking for the kind of magic he made. He knew that the output of his spell compiler “felt” different from normal magic, probably because each of his large spells was built up on many smaller spells—the “words” in his magic language.

  But the tarncape wasn’t magic he had made. It was someone else’s magic he had found. It didn’t register with the demon even when he used it. And that meant that he could use magic after all, provided it was magic not of his making.

  Wiz thought about it, but he didn’t see how that helped much. Obviously most of the magical items in the City of Night had been carried off in the chaos that followed the Dark League’s defeat. There were undoubtedly some things left, but he didn’t know how to use them and magical implements did not come with user’s manuals. Worse, he wasn’t a wizard in the conventional sense. He had no training in the usual forms of magic so he probably wouldn’t recognize a magical object unless it bit him on the ankle.

  Still, he thought, fingering the cloak, there ought to be something I can do with this.

  ###

  The garden was beautiful this early, Moira thought. The sun painted the towers of the Wizard’s Keep golden and made the colors of the pennons leap out against the blue of the sky. The dew still filmed the plants and made diamond sparkles on the grass and the occasional spider web. The air was cool and perfumed with the fragrance of roses.

  Moira plucked a yellow one off the bush. Wiz had liked yellow roses on her. He thought they looked good against her red hair and fair skin and he especially liked her to wear them in her hair.

  What was it he had told her? Some custom in his world where a woman wore a rose over the left ear to show she was taken and the right ear to show she was available. Or was it the other way around?

  Moira smiled at the memory and bit her lip to keep from crying.

  A shadow fell over her. She gasped and whirled to see Bal-Simba.

  “Oh, Lord, you startled me. Merry met.”

  “Merry met, Lady.”

  “Is there any news?”

  “None, I am afraid, but it is a related errand that brings me to you. Do you recall the three-demon searching spell Wiz created to seek news of you? I mentioned it to Jerry today and he says they have found no trace of such a spell in Wiz’s notes.”

  Moira frowned. “None? I could have sworn he had something, at least the copies on parchment of the wooden slabs he wrote on at Heart’s Ease when he created the spell.”

  “Jerry says there is nothing in the material he has. Is there anything they missed?”

  The hedge witch shook her head. “Nothing.” Then she brightened. “But Lord, what about the searching system Wiz set up to find me? Could we not direct the searching demons to seek out Wiz?”

  “We thought of that,” Bal-Simba told her. “But it appears that the spell requires constant attention. The small searchers, the ones like wisps of dirty fog, are easily blown about by the wind. The larger ones drift as well, given time. A year’s storms have scattered the demons beyond recall.”

  “And without the spell we cannot recreate the work.” Unconsciously she crushed the rose in her grasp. “Wait a minute! Lord, what about the spell Wiz used to find me in the dungeon?” Moira asked. “The Rapid Reconnaissance Direction Demon?”

  Bal-Simba slapped his thigh and the sound rang off the walls. “Of course! It could search the entire World in hours.”

  A quick survey of the notes in the Bull Pen turned up the spell. With Jerry and several of the other programmers who hadn’t yet turned in at their heels, Moira and Bal-Simba went out into the courtyard to put the spell in operation.

  “Now then,” Bal-Simba said to himself as he flipped between the pages where the spell was written, alternate lines on each page to prevent activating the spell by writing it down. “Hmmm, ah. Yes, very well.” He faced into the courtyard, squinted into the morning sun and raised one hand.

  “class drone grep wiz” he commanded in a ringing voice. There was soft pop and a squat demon appeared in the courtyard. Its cylindrical body was white, its domed top was blue and it supported itself on three stubby legs.

  “exe” commanded Bal-Simba. The demon emitted a despairing honk and fell forward on its face. A thin trickle of smoke curled out of its innards.

  “Let me see that spell again,” Bal-Simba said to Moira.

  Three repetitions produced no better results. Once the d
emon simply froze, once it flashed off never to return and once it ran around in tight little circles emitting little beeps and squawks. At last Jerry listed out the spell to see if he could discover the difficulty.

  “I think I see what’s wrong,” Jerry said finally. “But it’s not going to be easy to fix.”

  “What is the problem?” Bal-Simba asked.

  “The problem is that this code wasn’t written for anyone else to use.”

  “You mean this spell is protected by magic?” Moira frowned. Such protections were not unknown on powerful spells.

  “Worse,” Jerry said glumly. “This code is protected by being write-only.”

  “Eh?” said Bal-Simba.

  “Wiz hacked this thing together to do a specific job, right? From the looks of it he was in a tremendous hurry when he did it.”

  “I was a prisoner of the Dark League,” Moira said in a small voice. “He wrote the spell to find me.”

  “Okay, he needed it fast. He never expected that anyone else would use it, he used the quickest, dirtiest methods he could find, he didn’t worry about conforming to his language specification and he didn’t bother commenting on it at all.” Jerry looked at the glowing letters again and shook his head. “I don’t think he could have understood this stuff a month after he wrote it and I don’t have the faintest idea what is going on here.

  “This,” he said pointing to a single line of half a dozen symbols, “apparently does about four different things. Either that or it’s some kind of weird jump instruction.” He scowled at the code for a minute. “Anyway, the whole program is like that. I don’t see three lines in a row any place in this that I understand.”

  “We do not need to understand the spell,” Bal-Simba rumbled. “We only need to use it this once.”