The Wiz Biz

by Rick Cook

  The things were much better climbers than wolves were, but not as good as a man. Only the one collapsed section of the tower gave access to the platform where Wiz lay.

  Wiz put his pack aside and picked up his halberd. He was armed and his enemies had to climb up a steep grade to reach him one at a time. Somehow, Wiz doubted that was enough to make it a fair fight.

  ###

  The dark coastline ahead looked about half as attractive as Hell with the fires out.

  Not all the fires on the southern continent were out. The volcano that towered above the City of Night was trailing a thin smear of dirty smoke from its top. Rising along its flank, the City of Night was a disordered jumble.

  Dragon Leader made his decision. They would come in fast, swooping from altitude to gain speed. One single fast pass over the ruined city and they would be away for an island in the Freshened Sea where they could rest for a few hours. Signaling his men to spread out in a patrol line, Dragon Leader urged his weary mount to climb higher in preparation for the sweep.

  “Got something here,” the rider on the far left of the patrol line reported. Dragon Leader pressed his mount’s flank with his knees to bring him around to check.

  As soon as he glided over the courtyard he saw what had attracted the rider’s attention.

  Scattered around were several dark-robed bodies, some crushed and dismembered. The walls and paving of the court were streaked and discolored from the aftereffects of powerful spells. One section of the wall had melted and run like candle wax under the magical impact.

  Looks like they dueled among themselves, Dragon Leader thought. That explains the magic the Watchers sensed. He looked down at the crumpled dark forms and shrugged mentally. Whatever it was, it doesn’t involve us. He spoke into his communications crystal. “Echelon right and climb for altitude. We need to reach the island before dark.”

  ###

  Now there were four Dire Beasts climbing the broken rock toward him. Wiz bit his lip and watched them come. He fished into his pouch and pulled out one of the fire globes. Animals were supposed to be afraid of fire. Perhaps this would frighten them off.

  Lying flat on the stones, Wiz tossed the fire globe over the side. There was a satisfying whoosh and leap of flames. After a second, he stuck his head over the edge to see the effect.

  He nearly lost his nose for his pains. Not only hadn’t the fire daunted the beast, the first one was almost to the top. Powerful jaws with two sets of fangs snapped shut so close Wiz could smell the stench of the thing’s breath. He jerked his head back and rolled away. Then he realized he had to keep the thing off the platform at all costs.

  Too late. The wolf thing had gained the platform with all four feet. Hackles up and back fur stiffened into a mane, the Dire Beast advanced on him. Wiz fumbled in his pouch and came up with the second fire ball.

  The globe flew straight and true to shatter at the Beast’s feet. Instantly, the animal was engulfed in an inferno. With a howl of agony, it threw itself from the stone platform. It made a blazing fireball all the way to the blackened sand. It struck with a “thump” and lay still.

  For a moment the Dire Beasts hung back. Then one of them howled and they charged up the crumbling stone again.

  In the back of his mind, Wiz realized he had just thrown away his last hope of signaling should help arrive.

  ###

  Dragon Leader had just crossed the beach out over the Freshened Sea when his wingman broke in on the communications frequency.

  “Smoke behind us.”

  Dragon Leader twisted in his saddle. A thin black curl of smoke was rising in the distance, back over the city. He hesitated. Should they turn south again to check it out? It was probably an accidental fire or a new volcanic vent. Their orders had been to search for magic. Certainly it was not magic, he told himself. Therefore it was none of his business.

  The welfare of his troop was his business and that demanded he get them to a safe resting place as soon as possible. The other members of the flight craned their necks to see and he could feel them waiting for orders.

  “Not our pigeon,” Dragon Leader said finally into the communications crystal. “Hold your course.” The rest of the troop relaxed. He felt his wingman start to say something and he braced for a challenge to the order, but the challenge never came.

  They had flown north for three more wing beats when he sensed a change in the formation. He looked back and saw his wingman sliding in. The formation had opened out, as it always did on long patrols. Now the wingman was closing in to the precise Number Two position, tucked in tight to his leader’s right, exactly as he had been taught in riding school. In spite of the long hours they had been in the air, the younger man was sitting bolt upright in his saddle and he was ostentatiously checking his weapons and equipment in exactly the manner prescribed when leaving a combat zone.

  Every maneuver, every patrol, you will perform as if it were the real thing . . . by the checklist, Mister!

  He felt his subordinate’s eyes boring into him and he knew every other man in the flight was watching as well. Dragon Leader had seen nearly thirty winters and suddenly he felt all of them.

  “Shit!” he muttered to himself. But he sat up straighter and tightened the straps holding him to the saddle. Then he pressed his knees into his weary mounts side and with a wave of his arm turned his squadron south again over the City of Night.

  ###

  Wiz thrust desperately at the snarling face just a few inches below him. The creature snaked its head to the side to avoid the thrust and snapped at the halberd head. Claws scrabbled against rough stone as the Dire Beast got first one foot and then another up on the stone ledge. Wiz chopped down at a leg, but the animal yanked it back and the blade struck sparks from the basalt. The head lunged forward and the jaws snapped like a pistol shot. Wiz was forced to give ground as the creature got all four feet on the stone. Behind the first, Wiz could see the head of a second Dire Beast climbing the same path.

  Unbidden, Donal’s words came back to him. Put your back to the wall and die like a man.

  Halberd in both hands, Wiz edged away from the snarling monster, back towards the wall. Hackles up, the creature advanced slowly across the rock.

  Wiz bumped into the wall and nearly stumbled. He pressed his back against the cold, rough stone and raised the broken halberd. The two Dire Beasts split up and circled to either side of him. Wiz took a deep, gasping breath and squinted into the pale sun, trying to keep track of both creatures at once.

  A shadow fell over his face. Above him he heard the sound of wings. Dragon wings.

  ###

  What in the . . . ?

  Dragon leader scanned the scene below. Down in the arena there were about a half-dozen wolves or something attacking what looked like a lone man.

  There was even a checklist for cases like this. It called for two dragons to drop low to investigate while the others stayed overhead flying a complex figure eight pattern. Dragon riders knew from bitter experience that there were things beyond the borders of men which were masters of illusion and used that power to lure men and dragons to their deaths.

  Dragon Leader watched as the speck on the ground retreated before the two larger, darker specks that split up to come at him from either side. The checklist called for him to spread his formation out while the two scouts descended in broad circles, looking for signs of an ambush. Already the two dragon riders on the rear of the formation were drifting out and getting ready to spiral down on his command.

  The tiny figure moved back against the central pylon and raised a weapon of some sort above its head. The attackers were now on either side of him, ready for the final killing lunge.

  Bugger the checklist! Dragon Leader winged his mount over and signaled the rest of the squadron to follow. In a compact mass a dozen dragons hurtled down on the arena.

  The Dire Beasts were so intent on their prey they had no warning. The first they knew of the dragons overhead was when a fusillade of
missiles tore into their pack.

  Suddenly two of the beasts were down with iron arrows in them. One of them bit weakly at the bolt that skewered through its flank and the other one was already still. Three more arrows vibrated in the sand where they had missed their targets.

  The dragons swept low into the arena, their wingtips almost brushing the dark sand and the wind of their passage, raising clouds of sand behind them as their riders pulled them into steep turns.

  The Dire Beasts on the rock hesitated, torn between the nearness of their prey and the threat from the air. Finally a gout of dragon fire decided for them and they broke away, leaping down the crumbled stone and sprinting across the arena pursued by arrows and bursts of fire.

  One of the dragons settled onto the ledge behind Wiz. As the animal folded its wings, the rider swung off and walked stiffly to where he stood.

  The man was dirty, disheveled and his eyes were rimmed red from fatigue and hours of squinting into the wind. Still he was the loveliest sight Wiz had ever seen.

  “Lord, we have been scouring the World for you!”

  “Just get me out of here,” Wiz said weakly.

  Part IV: RUN TIME

  Twenty-One: Bed Rest

  Sleep? Isn’t that a completely inadequate substitute for caffeine?

  —programmers’ saying

  A hospital looks like a hospital anywhere you go. At least this one smelled of sweet herbs and fresh cut hay instead of stinking of disinfectant.

  Wiz was in no shape to appreciate it. He was asleep when they carried him in and he was still asleep when Moira and Bal-Simba came to see him.

  Moira bit her lip to keep from crying when Bronwyn and Bal-Simba ushered her into his room. They had cleaned him up, but he was thin and drawn with new lines etched about his mouth and eyes. He looked as if he had aged a decade in the weeks he had been gone. He was still and unresponsive and for a terrible moment she thought he was dying.

  But Bronwyn touched her arm when she moved toward the bedside. “It would be best if you did not wake him, Lady,” the healer said.

  “What is wrong with him?”

  “Shock, fatigue and starvation mostly. There was some sickness in his lungs but we cleared that up.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “We are not certain,” Bal-Simba told her. “He was kidnapped to the City of Night by what is left of the Dark League, but aside from that he has told us very little.” He frowned. “He was not in very good shape when we found him.”

  “Best we leave now,” Bronwyn said softly. “He needs to sleep for as long as he can.”

  “May I stay, Lady?” Moira asked. “I’d like to be here when he awakes.”

  “It is likely to be a long vigil. He will doubtless sleep the night through and perhaps a good portion of tomorrow.”

  “Please, Lady?”

  Bronwyn sighed. “Very well. But leave him strictly alone.”

  Moira nodded and settled herself in a chair next to the bed.

  ###

  Pryddian hunched into the corner to get out of the freezing wind. The stones were like ice against his back and the chill crept closer around him. Overhead the clouds rolled low and slate gray, driven and torn to streamers. He felt a freezing drop on his face and realized it was starting to snow.

  He had to find shelter. But there was no shelter to be seen. Behind him was the pitch black mouth of the tunnel he had stumbled from. The buildings on either side of the street had collapsed in heaps and the roadway was full of rubble.

  Pryddian was not sure what day it was. At least one had passed since he had been left imprisoned in the workroom, but was it just one or had there been more?

  He had been content to wait for the wizards’ return— until the lights went out, the wall of fire vanished and the heating spell failed leaving him alone with the demon in icy darkness. It took him a few minutes in the absolute dark to nerve himself to try the door and it took him hours more to blunder out into the wan cold day.

  Pryddian shivered as he considered his options. The wizards had not returned from their confrontation with the Sparrow. That meant they were either dead or they had forgotten him in their victory. Remembering the way the light globes had flickered and failed and how the heat cut off suddenly, Pryddian did not think the Dark League had won.

  He shivered uncontrollably and his breath puffed white. Now what? He could not walk the Wizard’s Way unaided; he did not know how. He could not sail the Freshened Sea back; he was not a sailor and there were no boats left in the City of Night. He did not even have a communications crystal to call the Council and beg for rescue.

  Come to that, he could not find his way back to the Dark League’s workroom, not through that maze of darkened tunnels. Despair, cold and cruel as the wind, knifed through him as he realized he was probably doomed to dwell alone in the City of Night for the rest of his life. He did not allow himself to think about how long that might be.

  He felt more snowflakes on his face, stinging now as the rising wind drove them against his exposed skin. No point in standing here. Somewhere in the city there had to be something to eat and a place out of the cold.

  Cautious as a mouse, Pryddian, ex-apprentice of both the Council of the North and the Dark League, picked his way down the ruined street in search of food and warmth.

  ###

  Bronwyn was right. Wiz slept like a log the night through, not even turning. Moira watched and dozed as best she could in the chair, waking every time Wiz so much as sighed.

  The middle of the following morning he began to stir. Moira moved to his bedside as his eyes fluttered open.

  “Moira?” Wiz said weakly.

  “Hush,” she said as she caressed his forehead. Instinctively he reached up to clasp her to him.

  “Feeling better, are we?” said a brisk voice from the door. Wiz and Moira broke their clinch with a start and turned to see Bronwyn stride into the room with Arianne trailing her.

  The healer ran a practiced eye over Wiz, checked his pulse and poked and prodded him a bit and then nodded in satisfaction.

  “Will I ever play the piano again, Doc?”

  “You mean will you recover? Of course you will. But that is what I need to speak to you about. There is nothing wrong with you that time and rest and a little careful nursing will not cure.” She looked over at Moira. “Now I could use a healing spell to cure you this afternoon. It would be better if you were left to heal naturally but they tell me the North needs you on your feet as quickly as possible.” She frowned her professional disapproval, but Arianne nodded.

  “Yeah,” Wiz shifted and sat up in bed, “there’s a lot I’ve got to do.”

  Bronwyn sighed. “Very well, then. I will keep you here overnight just to be sure, though. After that get what rest you can and try to conserve your strength.”

  She turned to Moira. “Lady, you are bonded to this one. Will you assist me?”

  Moira nodded. “Willingly.”

  Bronwyn took a position on the right side of the bed and Moira stood on the left. Each of them took one of Wiz’s hands, and Bronwyn began to chant and gesture with her wand. She tapped Wiz’s temples, his throat, his chest and his groin with the wand, then laid it aside and clasped Moira’s free hand. Now Moira took up the chant in a minor key.

  As they watched, the color flowed back into Wiz’s skin and the lines in his face smoothed out. Wiz’s mouth formed a little O of surprise as he felt the strength flow back into him.

  Bronwyn released her grip, sighed and sagged into a chair.

  Wiz shook his head. “Whoooeeee. That is really something.”

  “Just be careful not to overtax yourself,” Bronwyn said from her chair. “Healing spells extract their price.”

  “I think I know the first one. I’m starved.”

  “Indeed,” Arianne said. “I will see to it. And what will you do afterwards?”

  “First I need to talk to Bal-Simba. We’re in big trouble. And then,” he said deliberately,
“I’m going to eat a little crow.”

  Arianne nodded and left. Bronwyn stayed for a few minutes more, resting in the chair and then examining Wiz again before repeating her admonition that he get all the rest he could.

  “Bal-Simba or no, I am keeping you one more night,” she told him. Then she too left.

  Finally, Wiz and Moira were alone. Moira rested her hand on Wiz’s shoulder and he clasped it tightly in both of his.

  “God, I missed you,” he said.

  “And I missed you,” she told him, putting her other hand on top of his.

  “We’ve got to talk, you know,” he said at last.

  “I know. I came back from Heart’s Ease to talk to you and you were gone.”

  “Yeah, I thought about you in the City of Night a lot. When I could. Moira, I’m sorry,” Wiz said. “I let myself get so wrapped up in my own problems that I shut you out.”

  “And I crowded you too closely because I had nothing of my own here.”

  He smiled up at her. “We’ll just have to try to do better, won’t we?”

  “We shall both have to try.”

  “Darling, do me a favor will you? If I start acting like a jerk again, punch me in the ribs. Hard.”

  Moira took his hand in hers. “I think I can manage that.”

  He reached up, pulled her down to him and kissed her again.

  “In fact I will do better than that,” she said with an amused glint in her sea-green eyes. “If you ever ignore me again, or treat me like a piece of furniture, I will make you very sorry indeed.” Moira made a quick little motion with her hand and the air in front of her sparkled with shards of the rainbow. “And believe me, My Lord, I am just the witch who can do it.”