by Rick Cook
The thing looked at Wiz with burning red eyes and then turned away. It lumbered through the last dying vestiges of the blue fire and out the door. Wiz heard it make its way down the corridor.
It took a long time for him to get his heart back under control. The monster had destroyed the wizard and it looked right at him, but it hadn’t touched him. The way the thing looked at him Wiz knew it had to have seen him. But it hadn’t made a move to harm him. Somehow Wiz did not think it was because the monster was a friend.
Wiz had never seen the huge black creature, but he recognized it from descriptions. It was Bale-Zur, the slaying demon which had brought Toth-Set-Ra to power in the Dark League and then destroyed him when Wiz attacked the City of Night.
There was something about that. Something he had learned. He cudgeled his brains, trying to recall that almost-remembered bit of knowledge. Something he saw? No, something someone told him. Before he used his new magic to travel to the City of Night and rescue Moira. Something someone told him about demons, or dragons, or . . .
Of course! True names. Humans weren’t the only creatures with true names. Fully mature dragons had them. And so did some lands of demons because it was only by knowing their true names that they could be controlled. That was how Bale-Zur found his prey. Unlike other demons, the great slaying demon did not need to know a thing’s true name to destroy it. All it needed was for the beings true name to have been spoken somewhere in the World at some time.
And of all mortals in the world, William Irving Zumwalt was the only one safe from Bale-Zur. No one had ever spoken his full name—his true name—anywhere in this World.
Licking his lips, he stepped over the gruesome remains of the wizard. As he did so he kicked something that rolled across the floor.
Wiz was almost afraid to look down for fear his foot had touched some body part, but it was only a silvery sphere about the size of a baseball that had been clutched in what was left of Seklos’s hand.
Seklos must have grabbed it when Bale-Zur attacked him, Wiz thought. Overcoming his revulsion, he bent down and picked up the sphere. He couldn’t be sure but it looked like the thing that the wizard had thrown at him, the one that spread fire on the stones.
He forced himself to look at what was left of Seklos and realized his left sleeve was lumpy. Swallowing his gorge, Wiz reached into the blood-sodden sleeve and fished out two more of the spheres. He could have done it faster except he kept his eyes closed through the whole process.
The three spheres gave him weapons, his first real weapons that might be effective against the wizards of the Dark League.
The wizards . . . ! Seklos had sent his companion for help. Wiz stuffed the balls into his pouch, grabbed his halberd and dashed down the stairs. There were three wizards not more than a hundred yards up the street when he emerged from the building. Without hesitating, Wiz ran around the corner, leaving the black robes to wonder at the sound of footsteps with no sign of the runner.
Several blocks away, Wiz sank back against the wall of an empty storeroom and listened for any sound of pursuit.
The situation got worse and worse. His cloak of invisibility’s spell had some loopholes. Wiz had no doubt at all that there were counter-spells that would render it useless.
Wiz forced himself to calm down and think. Through all the hunger and cold and terror, he had to think. He had to summon help somehow and if he expected to live long enough for that he had to defeat or neutralize the Dark League. Two problems and both of them looked insoluble.
But maybe—just maybe—one problem could solve another again.
He needed magic to get out of here. If not magic to walk the Wizards Way, then a burst of magic to attract the Watchers who stood guard over the whole of the World.
But it didn’t have to be a burst of his magic.
Wiz looked at the three spheres in his lap and a plan began to form in his mind.
###
Dzhir Kar rested his pink scarred forehead in his one good hand and ground his teeth in frustration.
The Sparrow had slipped through his grasp again. They had been within a hairsbreadth of him this time, he knew it. Yet that damnable little bird had fluttered through his clutches once more.
And now Seklos was gone. Seklos the tireless, the indefatigable. Seklos who hated this Sparrow almost as much as he did. Torn apart by something in the upper city while the entire contingent of the Dark League came running to his rescue.
That hadn’t been lost on the rest of his band. They had seen what had happened to Seklos and the sight had done nothing for their ardor in the search. Now most of them wanted to leave the City of Night and abandon the search. Only his overwhelming skill at magic and the loss of the natural leader of any opposition to him kept them here.
Still his demon lay coiled in an alcove of the chamber. Occasionally it would raise its head and the tendrils along its fanged mouth would quiver as the Sparrow considered using magic, but so far there was no magic from this most alien of wizards, nothing the demon could home in on.
It was enough, Dzhir Kar thought, to make a wizard cry.
Twenty: Forcing a Fight
Never give a sucker an even break.
—W.C. Fields
Especially not if he’s a big, mean sucker.
—the collected sayings of Wiz Zumwalt
Wiz tiptoed down the corridor, convinced that the sound of his heart must be giving him away at every beat. Over and over he repeated to himself the route out of this maze.
It was unfamiliar ground to him. This was the one part of the City of Night he had been striving to avoid ever since he was kidnapped. This was the path to the lair of the Dark League.
There were no guards and no sign of magic protecting this place, which only made Wiz more nervous.
Finally he turned a corner and saw a brightly lighted doorway not thirty feet ahead. There were two black robes standing in front of it talking. Through the open door he could see others moving around.
Wiz stepped back around the corner and for the first time in weeks, removed his cloak of invisibility. Taking one of Seklos’s fire globes in his hand he turned the corner again and, before the wizards could react, threw the ball straight at them.
His aim with the ball was no better than his aim with the rock. About two-thirds of the way down the corridor the ball broke against the wall and a sheet of flame erupted between him and the wizards. A lightning bolt lanced through the flames and struck near him. Wiz turned and ran with the shouts of the wizards ringing in his ear.
The tricky part is going to be making sure that everyone arrives when they are supposed to, he thought as he dodged down the corridor. Another bolt of lightning crashed into the stone behind Wiz, knocking off chips and tainting the air with the tang of ozone.
That and staying alive. Wiz ran faster and threw the tarncape around his shoulders.
###
“What was that?” Dzhir Kar roared, rising from his desk. From his place in an alcove off the workroom, Pryddian cringed back.
One of the wizards burst into the room, hair and beard singed and smoking holes in his robe. “Dread Master, the Sparrow has attacked us!”
“Then after him. After him! Everyone!” Dzhir Kar was hopping up and down in fury. “Catch him and bring him tome.”
The wizards piled out of the workroom in a rush. Dzhir Kar paused long enough to look over at his demon, still coiled with its eyes closed. He grasped his staff with his good hand and hobbled after his wizards.
“Dread Master?” Pryddian spoke tentatively.
Dzhir Kar gestured and a wall of heatless blue fire sprang into being across the door to Pryddian’s alcove. The apprentice cringed back away from the deadly flame.
“Stay there until we return,” he croaked and hobbled out.
###
It turned out to be nearly as hard to keep the hunt going as it had been to avoid it entirely. By alternately showing and concealing himself, Wiz was able to keep his pursuers after h
im. Once or twice he almost had to shout at them to bring them back on the track. At first he worried about being too obvious. Then he saw that the wizards were so eager to catch him that nothing could make them pause to consider his motives.
He had to wait for several minutes outside the gate near the strange tower before he was spotted by a wizard. Then three of them came around the corner at once and let fly at him with a flurry of lightning bolts as he dodged through.
“This way, Dread Master, this way,” the wizards chorused a few moments later when Dzhir Kar came up, using his staff as a crutch.
“He did not go beyond this place,” another assured him. “We came from all point of the compass.”
Dzhir Kar peered through the gate at the courtyard beyond. The square was windowless with walls perhaps four times the height of a man. A single door gaped on the opposite side of them from the gateway.
“Trapped!” Dzhir Kar crowed. “There is no way out of that building. We have him now. Spread out, brothers. Spread out fingertip to fingertip and we will hunt down our Sparrow.” He picked up a handful of windblown dust from the marble paving and threw it into the air before him.
“Use the dust. It will show his form.”
The wizards quickly formed a ragged line. Two paces apart they advanced across the court, tossing dust into the air as they went.
Lying on his belly on the roof of the building Wiz watched them come. It had taken him the better part of the night to chop and pry a hole in the roof so he would have this vantage point and escape route. Now all he could do was watch and wait—and be ready to run if his plan went awry.
The line of wizards was halfway across the square when the shadows in the building began to move. As one man they stopped, forewarned by their magical senses. The line wavered as some of them stepped back, away from the darkened doorway where something was clearly stirring. Wiz held his breath.
And into the square came the demon Bale-Zur.
Normal mortals would have fled. But wizards need courage beyond ordinary men and women. Besides, they knew it would be futile to run.
A score of wizards threw back their sleeves and raised their staffs almost in unison. Suddenly it was Hell out for the Fourth of July in the square.
Magics flashed and roared across the square. Spells crackled through the air to bounce off the demon like many-hued lightnings. Balls of green and purple and blinding white fire flew this way and that across the square.
None of it mattered. Bale-Zur did not even flinch as he came across the marble flagging with a hopping, toadlike gait. A wizard screamed as the creature reached out with great rending claws.
Crippled as he was, Dzhir Kar could not run. He stood his ground to the end, flinging spells at the demon until the clawed hand reached down and scooped him up to the rending, blood-stained jaws.
The last few wizards tried to run, but it made no difference. In spite of his clumsy gait Bale-Zur was far faster than any human. Their screams mingled with the demon’s roars as he crushed the life out of them. Wiz clapped his hands to his ears and turned away from the scene in the court below him.
Then all was silent. There were no more cries, no more roars, no more crash and flash of magic. The only sound was the icy wind playing over the stonework and making weird little whistling noises as it stirred the dust below.
Once again the warty head swiveled and again Wiz stared into eyes as red as the fires of Hell. Then the eyes slid over him and the huge toadlike demon turned away. Soundlessly it half-dragged, half-hopped out of the square, heedless of the black-robed bodies it crushed beneath its great clawed feet.
###
“Odd,” the Watcher said, staring back into her crystal.
“What?” the wizard asked.
“There in the City of Night, a sudden flare of magic.”
“Is it the Sparrow?” the other asked eagerly.
“No, it is not the new magic.” She shrugged. “Perhaps just a remnant of the Dark League’s power.”
The other nodded. The Watchers were used to strange things happening in the ruined city. As long as they were not too powerful they were nothing to worry about or to be passed up the chain of command.
Still, the Mighty were frantic to find Wiz and this was an unusual occurrence. The shift commander looked up. “What have we got near the City of Night?”
“No assets in place right now,” the patrol commander called back from the other side of the pit. “There is a squadron of dragon cavalry that could swing further south and be there in two day-tenths.”
“Then send them south,” the shift commander told her. “Have them search over the City of Night carefully.” The patrol commander nodded and turned back to her crystal.
“Should we also inform Bal-Simba, Lord?” asked the deputy commander.
“No. No point in that. This may be nothing after all.”
###
With the flash and pulse of repeated magics still ringing in his ears, Wiz made his way to the large open space in the center of the city.
The forces unleashed as the wizards fought for their lives against Bale-Zur would provide a beacon, a magical flare big enough to be seen by the Watchers back at the Capital. Now all he had to do was mark his chosen vantage point and scan the skies for the dragon patrols which were sure to come south to investigate the magical maelstrom he had touched off. There was food and water in his pack for several days, and two more of the fire globes to make a final signal to guide the rescuers in. He had even taken the precaution of gathering up several long pieces of white fabric to use as marker panels. They would stand out vividly against the dark sand.
Carefully he laid down the white cloth taken from the chests in the shape of a large X. He anchored the pieces with handfuls of the fine black volcanic sand that floored the square. That done, he stood up, stretched and. leaned over backwards to ease his aching back muscles.
Wiz looked up, squinting into the pale sun. The walls ran straight up and smooth for perhaps thirty feet. Above that they moved out in a series of steps. Like ranks of bleachers.
Like ranks of bleacher seats . . . Wiz looked around with a new comprehension. The black sand beneath his feet, the unclimbable walls, the seats above suddenly all made sense. An arena. He was standing in an arena. The central tower must have something to do with the events held here.
Wiz shuddered. Knowing what the Dark League had been he didn’t want to think about what those events must have been like.
Well, that’s over and done with, he told himself. Arena or not, it’s still the best place in the city to watch for help.
He looked over the tower speculatively. It was a squat oval with slanting sides perhaps four stories tall. The top was mostly flat with a large square block, man high, in the middle. In use the tower would have been as impossible to scale as the arena walls, but the earthquakes that had accompanied his attack on the City of Night had caused one section of the tower to collapse, leaving a crude stairway of large stone blocks up to the top.
Wiz hefted his pack, picked up his halberd and started across the sands to the tower.
There was a scuffling sound from the far end of the arena. Wiz turned and saw several lean wolflike shapes almost as dark as the sand emerge from one of the doors.
With a sinking feeling, he realized he wasn’t out of the woods yet.
###
Now what in the World did those sods back at the Capital want? The Dragon Leader thought.
He and his patrol had been on the wing for nearly twelve hours already. Men and dragons alike were tired and even with heating spells they were chilled beyond numbness. The flight would have to stop to rest the dragons on the way back as it was. If they continued south to pass over the City of Night they might have to set down on the Southern Continent itself. The Dragon Leader didn’t like that at all. The Dark League might be gone, but there were still things on that continent he did not wish to meet on the ground with half a dozen exhausted men and dragons.
Still, orders were orders. He rose in his saddle against the restraining straps and signaled his men to turn their patrol line south toward the ruined city.
One quick pass, he promised himself. One quick pass and then it’s north and home!
###
A weird warbling howl broke the windy stillness of the ruined city.
Dire Beasts!
Wiz had only seen the wolflike creatures once before, by moonlight on the night he and Moira had been chased through the forest by the forces of the Dark League. He had had only a glimpse then and the sight had left him with nightmares for months. Now he counted a half dozen of the great wolflike creatures slinking out into the open space.
Frantically, Wiz scrambled up the broken stone on the side of the tower. The blocks were six and seven feet high and sometimes he had to stand on tiptoe or jump to reach the next one. Once his fingers slipped off the smooth surface and he landed painfully on the block he had just left. Another time he jumped back as a block teetered dangerously when he grasped it.
He reached the top panting and gasping. Then he rolled over flat on his belly and peered down into the arena. The Dire Beasts had congregated below, looking up the way Wiz had come. One or two of them broke off from the pack and slunk around the base of the tower, as if looking for another way up.
He half-formed a spell in his mind, but he felt the familiar dread quivering and knew that the demon had survived its creators.
Now the ones that had split came racing back. The entire pack put their noses together and whined and growled at each other, looking up occasionally toward Wiz. Finally the huddle broke and very tentatively one of the Dire Beasts began to climb.