The Wiz Biz

by Rick Cook

  The corridor was utterly still and completely empty. Save for the soft dripping and the even softer pad of his own feet there was no sound at all. When he stopped the quiet pressed in around him like a smothering cloak.

  Most of the lanterns in the stretch still worked, albeit dimly, holding the dark at bay and leaving the shadows as patches in the corners, to writhe threateningly each time the lamps flickered.

  At first Wiz thought the patch ahead of him was another shadow. But it did not shift or vanish as he approached. In the dim light he was almost on top of it before he realized what it was.

  In the center of the corridor lay a bloody heap of dark robes wrapped about a thing which might have been a wizard. The head had been smashed hike a melon and there was a smear of blood and yellowish brains on the wall beside the corpse. The arms and legs stuck out at impossible angles and the torso was bent backwards as if it had been broken like a dry stick over a giant knee.

  Wiz gasped and shrank back against the wall. There were killers aplenty in the ruins, he knew, but nothing he had seen or heard that had the power to take a wizard—or the sheer ferocity to do this.

  Then Wiz looked more closely. There was steam rising from the sundered torso, steam from the shattered skull as the corpse gave up its body heat to the surrounding cold. There were even faint wisps of steam coming from the pools of blood surrounding the remains. The wizard had been dead for only minutes. Whatever had done this had to be nearby.

  Wiz turned and ran, all thoughts of fresh water forgotten.

  Nineteen: Half-Fast Standard Time

  Putting twice as many programmers on a project that is late will make it twice as late.

  —Brooks’ Law of programming projects

  “Good morning,” Karl said as he walked into his makeshift classroom.

  The faces of his pupils showed they didn’t think there was anything good about it. Their expressions ranged from grim determination to equally grim disapproval. He didn’t know what methods Moira and Bal-Simba had used to round up the dozen or so blue-robed wizards who were sitting at the rows of tables in front of him, but he had heard hints of everything from cajolery to blackmail.

  Well, Karl thought as he turned back to the blackboard. At least I don’t have to worry about this bunch throwing spitballs. He turned around to face the grim-looking men and women in their magician’s robes. Lightning bolts maybe, but no spitballs.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go back and review some basics.”

  ###

  “You sent for me, Lord?” Jerry Andrews asked as he knocked on the door of Bal-Simba’s study.

  The black wizard looked up. “I did. Please come in and close the door.”

  Uh-oh, one of those meetings, Jerry thought as he complied.

  “I wanted to find out if there was any way you can speed up your project,” Bal-Simba said as soon as Jerry sat down.

  “Lord, as I told you at our first meeting, this will take time. We have accomplished an amazing amount, largely because you have been willing to let us alone to get on with it. We’re way ahead of any reasonable schedule on this project, but we’re still only about forty percent done. It just takes time, Lord.”

  “I know,” Bal-Simba said. “But there have been some, ah, changes since our first meeting. You know that we face the possibility of war with the elves and others?”

  Jerry nodded.

  “What I tell you now is not common knowledge and I would keep it so. In the past three days we have lost two northern villages.”

  Jerrys eyes widened. “You mean they were invaded?”

  Bal-Simba smiled mirthlessly. “I mean we lost them. They are not there anymore. Where they stood is virgin forest once again.”

  “That’s scary.”

  “Perhaps more frightening than you know. Our Watchers and other magicians had not the slightest hint that anything was amiss. There was not the least quiver, not a sign that magic was at work.”

  “That’s real scary.”

  “That is also why I wish to keep it quiet for the time being. But you see why we must have your new magic, and have it soon. If we had this we could use it as evidence to help us bargain. Or as a weapon should the bargaining fail. In either event, we must have it quickly.”

  Jerry thought hard. Pressure to complete a project early was nothing new and he had been in a few situations where the fate of the company depended on it. But this was the first time being late with a project meant war.

  “How fast do you need it?”

  “We need it today,” Bal-Simba said. “But the need will be critical in a moon or less.”

  “We’ll try,” he said finally. “We’ll try like hell, but there’s no way we can have a working project in that amount of time.”

  “I understand,” Bal-Simba said heavily. “Be assured that if it comes to open war we will return you and the others to your World before matters come to a head.”

  “Thanks,” Jerry said uncomfortably. “Lord, you do understand that we’re working as fast as we can? There’s just not much more we can do.”

  “I do understand that and I thank you for your efforts. Meanwhile, is there anything we can do to make your job easier?”

  Jerry made a wry face. “I don’t suppose you could come up with a forty-eight-hour day, could you?”

  “Would that help?” Bal-Simba asked.

  Jerry froze. “You mean you can come up with a forty-eight-hour day?”

  “No,” the huge wizard said sadly. “Only a spell makes a night stretch to twice its normal length. The great wizard Oblius created it for his wedding night. It did not help him for he discovered that his reach exceeded his grasp—so to speak.” He shrugged. “I do not think it would aid us for you to sleep twice as long. Or would it?” he asked as he caught the look on Jerry’s face.

  “Do you mean,” Jerry said carefully, “that you have a spell that makes time pass half as fast?”

  “We do,” Bal-Simba said, “but it does not mean that time actually slows down. The people inside think so, but to outsiders they seem to speed up. Besides, it only works from sunset to sunrise.”

  Jerry whooped and pounded Bal-Simba on the back. “Fire up that spell! We just may be able to beat this sucker yet.”

  “People do not work at night,” Bal-Simba protested.

  “You’re not dealing with people,” Jerry told him. “These are programmers, boy. Programmers!”

  ###

  Seklos announced his presence to his master by sniffling and wiping his nose on the sleeve of his robe. He had been showing Dzhir Kar progressively less respect as the hunt for the Sparrow dragged on interminably. Besides, his cold had gotten worse.

  “We have lost another one,” Seklos said without preamble.

  Dzhir Kar raised his head. “Where? How?” he demanded.

  “In the south tunnels. Isk-Nor. Killed like the others.”

  Dzhir Kar nodded. So far half a dozen of the Dark League’s wizards had disappeared in the City of Night. Two of the bodies had been found, torn to pieces. Privately Dzhir Kar suspected that most or all of the others had deserted.

  “I gave instructions that none were to hunt alone.”

  “He was not hunting. He was returning from a trip to a warehouse when he became separated from his companion.”

  “You mean he was out looting and found more than he bargained for,” Dzhir Kar said sharply. “I warned you all that it is dangerous to go poking about. The City of Night is no longer ours.”

  Seklos sniffed and wiped his reddened nose on the sleeve of his robe. “And I warned you we must be done with your notion and sport and use magic to find him quickly.”

  “No! No detection spells. I forbid it.”

  “This is absurd! If you wish the Sparrow dead, then let us find him and kill him. But this constant chasing about wastes our time and disperses our energies.”

  “Do you question my authority?” Dzhir Kar said dangerously.

  “No, Master, only your jud
gment.”

  Dzhir Kar glared at his second-in-command. Under Toth-Set-Ra it would have been unthinkable for one of the Dark League, even the second, to use such language to the leader. But Toth-Set-Ra was dead. Dzhir Kar did not have his predecessor’s power.

  “I will consider what you say,” he said at last.

  “Consider this also. There are those who grow restive. The deaths and disappearances of their fellows upset them. All are cold and hungry and many wonder if the prize is worth the effort. Today they grumble quietly. But soon they will do more than that. We must either find the Sparrow or call this off and do one or the other quickly.”

  Dzhir Kar nodded and waved dismissal. The wizard bowed and, still sniffling, backed from the room.

  After Seklos left, Dzhir Kar sat for a long time with his head bowed and his hood pulled up around his face. His lieutenant was right, the deaths and disappearances had made the other wizards nervous. If something was not done, he would have a mutiny on his hands—probably led by Seklos.

  His position was anything but secure and he and Seklos both knew it. Unlike Toth-Set-Ra, who had a powerful slaying demon at his beck, or the councils which had ruled the Dark League by playing off the shifting factions, Dzhir Kar ruled by the force of his personality alone. As long as he led the Dark League to success, or at least kept it out of major trouble, he would remain in power. But this business had occupied far too many of his wizards far too long in something both boring and dangerous. If that did not change quickly, the Dark League would have a new leader.

  He had promised the Dark League that this would be a simple task. Use the turncoat northern wizard to lure out the Sparrow, rely on the homing demon to neutralize the Sparrows alien magic and then kill him quickly. On the strength of the League’s hatred for the Sparrow and the demonstration of his demon, the League wizards had agreed to his plan.

  He raised his head and looked over to where his creation sprawled, eyes slitted and tendrils quivering as it sought a trace of the Sparrow’s magic. Dzhir Kar frowned. He hadn’t told them the whole truth about his demon. A wizard never did, of course, for knowledge was power. But in this case he had concealed a crucial fact and now that concealment was coming back to haunt him.

  It was not a desire for sport that kept him from using detection spells, it was necessity. Detection spells would interfere with the demon’s senses. If anyone tried to use a detection spell to find the Sparrow, the demon would not be able to sense his magic in time to stop him from casting a spell. The League knew all too well what the Sparrow’s magic was like if he were free to employ it.

  Dzhir Kar’s head dropped back on his chest and his claw hand tightened on the arm of his chair. Close. So very close to success and now time was running out.

  ###

  “Two no-trump.”

  Karl, Nancy, Mike and Larry Fox were sitting at the table in the Wizard’s Day Room, all hunched over their cards.

  “I thought you’d given up on cards,” Jerry said as he came over to them.

  “We did, but we figured out a way to make it work,” Nancy told him.

  “Yeah. It turns out that in this universe a shuffled deck of cards is in something like a Schroediger-indeterminate state,” Mike explained. “The cards don’t have a value until you—ah—‘collapse the state vector’ by revealing them.”

  “Which means you can’t play a game if no one has seen the order of the cards,” Nancy said. “Even Canfield solitaire, you go through the whole pack the first time.”

  “Anyway, the key to playing is to collapse the state vector after the cards are shuffled and before they’re dealt.”

  “But if you have to look at the cards what’s the point of playing?”

  “Oh, the players don’t have to know the values,” Karl said. “It’s enough if someone or something else does. So,” he gestured at the head of the table, “meet Moe the Dealer.”

  Sitting there was a small demon wearing a green eyeshade, a violently patterned vest and garters to hold his shirtsleeves up. His skin was a particularly pale and unhealthy shade of green and a large cigar stuck out of the corner of his mouth.

  “So youse gonna bid or youse gonna talk?” Moe demanded in a raspy voice.

  “He looks at the cards after he shuffles and before he deals,” Larry explained.

  “Come on, come on, play cards,” Moe said.

  Jerry shook his head. “Amazing. Well, finish your game. Starting tonight we go on overtime.”

  ###

  Dark purple shadows were already creeping across the landscape when Danny climbed through the trap door and out onto the roof. June was already there, looking out over the World.

  “I guess you heard there’s a war brewing,” he said without preamble as he sat down next to her. June nodded without taking her eyes off the horizon.

  “They’ve got to have the project even faster, so they’ve worked out something special,” he said eagerly. They’re going to use magic to stretch the nights in the Bull Pen so we can get more work done.”

  June gasped and turned to him, her face chalk white. “No!”

  “Hey, take it easy, it’s not that big a thing.”

  June grabbed Danny’s hand and held it tight in both of hers.

  “Do not go! If you go you will never come out again.”

  “Hey now . . .” Danny said, but June started to cry silently.

  He put his arm about her and patted her shoulder. “Look, it will be all right, I promise. It’s only for a night.”

  “A night in such a place lasts an eon,” June said. “I will be dead and dust ere you return.”

  “No you won’t,” Danny said and reached forward to pat her shoulder.

  June released her hand and locked her arms about him fiercely. She pressed her lips to his and her tongue was like a living thing in his mouth.

  Wordlessly, she drew him down onto the roof slates, fumbling with his shirt as they went.

  Half-numb and half-exhilarated, Danny followed where she led.

  ###

  The moon peeking over the gabled roof caught the two naked bodies stretched on the slates. Danny rolled over on his side and admired the play of moonlight and shadow on the curve of June’s hip.

  “You’re really something, you know that?” He ran his hand up over her hip and pressed her small breast, feeling her nipple harden in the center of his palm. June smiled contentedly and turned toward him, lifting her mouth up for a kiss,

  Danny kissed her long and gently. Then he broke away with a sigh and reached behind him for his clothes. “You know I’m gonna get in a lot of trouble for this.”

  June didn’t say anything; she just looked at him.

  Danny got to his knees and picked up his pants. “I gotta see if I can get in.”

  June grasped his wrist hard. “You will not go.”

  Danny fidgeted. “I’ve got to,” he said. “Look, this is important. For everybody, okay? They need me. I’ve got to go, okay?”

  This time June seemed to accept it. She dropped her hands to her side and nodded dumbly.

  He pulled his shirt over his head. “I’m gonna have to apologize all over the place, tell ’em how sorry I am.” He stopped talking while he tucked his shirt into his pants. Then he leaned over and kissed her. “But I’m not sorry.”

  June smiled but her gaze was troubled.

  ###

  Danny was in a daze as he made his way down the stairs and out into the courtyard. He wasn’t sure what, but something had changed up there on that rooftop and somehow he knew the world would never be the same.

  He approached the Bull Pen cautiously. It didn’t look any different tonight than it had on any other night. The whitewashed sides shone silver in the moonlight and warm yellow light leaked out of the cracks around the door. But as he got closer he felt a tingling on his skin and the hairs on his arms and legs rose.

  The feeling got stronger as he got closer. When he reached for the door there was a resistance like moving his hand
through water. The latch was hard to work and the door was very hard to open. When he stepped through something pressed against his face and he couldn’t breathe. Then he was through the door and everything was normal again.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Jerry demanded as Danny came in.

  “Just out.”

  He looked at him suspiciously. “You were out screwing around, weren’t you?”

  Danny just grinned.

  “Dammit, we’re here to do a job, not get laid by the locals. If you can’t keep your mind on what you’re doing, then you don’t belong here. Is that clear?”

  Around them the other programmers were bent to their work, studiously ignoring Jerry and Danny.

  “Yes, sir.” Danny said meekly.

  “I don’t care what you do between sunrise and sunset or who you do it with. Men, women or underage goats, it doesn’t matter. But between sunset and sunrise your ass belongs to me and you’ll have it in here working. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then get the hell over there and get it to work.”

  Danny’s ears burned, but somehow the dressing down didn’t sting as much. For perhaps the first time in his life, Danny knew that somebody really cared what happened to him.

  As Danny took his seat, Jerry shook his head and muttered under his breath before turning back to the routine he had been analyzing with Cindy Naismith.

  “Are you sure that little punk’s nineteen?” she asked. “He acts more like thirteen.”

  “He has a California driver’s license that says he’s nineteen.” He looked at her. “He been bothering you?”