The Wizardry Quested

ONE WINTER FAIR

It was high winter and beyond the town the world lay under a blanket of white. Wiz and Moira stood outside the outer gate of the castle and looked down the long sloping High Street to the scene beyond.

"Oh Wiz! Look at the fresh snow! Isn’t it beautiful?""If you say so," Wiz Zumwalt told his wife. "I’m a California boy and this isn’t my style." "Oh you just don’t like snow." "It’s not that I don’t like snow. But I hate slush."

"Still," Moira said firmly, "it’s beautiful." Wiz reached out and circled her waist with his arm. "You’re beautiful."

Even an objective observer-which Wiz most definitely was not-would have agreed. Moira was wearing a heavy cloak of dark green wool lined and trimmed with dark fur. Her red hair, sparkled by diamond drops of melted snowflakes, hung down over the collar. The cold brought roses to her pale cheeks and her green eyes were bright under lashes the color of brushed copper. He had loved her from the first moment he had seen her, but that had been a magic spell. What had grown between them since then needed no spells.

She clung to him for an instant and then broke away. "Oh, come on," she said breathlessly, "I want to see my domain."

Wiz sketched a mock bow. "Lead on, Your Majesty."

Moira struck a regal pose. "Not until tomorrow. After Our coronation you may address Us as Your Majesty. Meanwhile you may give Us your arm."

Ever since the fair committee had announced its choice it had been a joke between them. When the fair officially opened tomorrow Moira would be crowned with holly and mistletoe and proclaimed Winter Queen to reign over the fair. Normally the queen was one of the women of the town, but this year the townsfolk had chosen Moira. If the truth be known this was due to a deadlock between the two logical candidates, but Wiz and Moira had chosen to ignore the politics and concentrate on the honor.

"What? You don’t want the rest of me?"

Moira opened her green eyes wide and gave him one of her patented 10,000-volt looks. "There are other parts of you that are useful," she said, "but let us leave that for later." Side by side they started down the icy street toward the fair.

The Wizards’ Keep stood on a great bluff that jutted up at the joining of two rivers. The town known simply as the Capital tailed down the sloping back of the rock to the flatlands below. From where they stood they could see over the roofs and walls of the Capital down to the fairgrounds.

Two days ago the water meadows beside the rivers had been as plain and white as the fields beyond. Now, as if by magic, a city had sprung up. Brightly colored canopies spilled carelessly against the fields of white. Along the dark river, boats lay ashore. Here and there campfires burned against the midwinter’s chill and everywhere people bustled like ants, erecting tents and stalls, unloading and setting up to display their wares.

Merchants had come from all over the human lands to trade at the Winter Fair. Wizards, townsfolk, farmers and villagers for miles around came to buy, barter, gossip and just gawk at the spectacle.

"Have you ever seen the like?" Moira asked excitedly.

"In my world we call them trade shows," Wiz said. "Remind me to tell you about Comdex some time."

Side by side they strolled down the Capital’s main street, greeting townsfolk and acknowledging greetings. Thanks to his magic, Wiz was a member of the Council of the North, the wizards who ruled and watched over the human lands. With his combination of magic and computer programming he was perhaps the mightiest of the Mighty who sat upon the Council. But most of the hellos were for Moira. Before they met she had been a hedge witch in a village near the borders of the Wild Woods sharing the lives of the villagers, healing, advising and helping them in their day-to-day concerns. Her magical ability would never be above moderate, but she had a warmth and genuine liking for people that none of the Mighty could match.

There were few enough folk out as they made their way down the cobbled streets. The cold kept as many who could stay inside and as it was midmorning most of the residents were hard at work. Wiz could hear the ring of a blacksmith’s anvil carried from some side street in the frosty air. From another street came the steady rhythmic clanging of a coppersmith beating out a vessel on a stake. The women of the Capital liked to do their marketing early and anyone who had free time and didn’t mind the cold would be down at the water meadows watching the fair go up.

Wiz and Moira were perhaps halfway through the town when Moira slowed and clutched Wiz’s arm more tightly. Wiz turned to look at her and saw she had gone white, making her freckles stand out starkly against her skin.

"Darling are you all right?"

"Fine," Moira gasped. "Be fine. Just let me sit for a minute."

Wiz guided his wife to a wooden bench by a nearby doorstep. She sank down on it and leaned forward until her head was nearly between her knees. She gasped for breath a couple of times and then held the air in. Wiz stood with his hand on her shoulder, feeling helpless.

"Can you make it back all right?"

"I do not want to go back," Moira said, staring at her toes. "I will be all right and we can go on."

"Nuts. You’re going back to the castle."

Moira breathed deeply again and straightened up. Wiz could see the color coming back to her cheeks.

"I am fine," she said in a stronger voice. "It was just a momentary dizziness."

"You’re trying to do too much and you know you haven’t been feeling well. You need to slow down, or at least let Bronwyn have a look at you."

She smiled up at him and patted his hand. "I will. After the fair, I promise." Wiz started to protest, then smiled back. "Why is it I never seem to win these arguments?"

Moira’s smile grew even brighter and she squeezed his hand in hers. "Because I am always right."

Cold. Black, bitter, eternal cold and forever-frozen silence. They lay heaped where they fell, as they would lie until the primal forces of weather and earth moved them, Some had lived once. Others had lived never. Immaterial. Now the living were as lifeless as the never-living, all mixed together in the dark and endless, freezing Cold.

Somewhere in the chill mass a thing stirred.

As they got lower into town more people appeared on the street, all going in the same direction. By the time they reached the main gate at the foot of the bluff they were part of a small crowd.

The fair started just outside the gate. The road was lined with a double row of booths and pavilions in various stages of erection. Behind those rows Wiz could glimpse other tents, all brightly colored, all erected without the least regard for the appearance of their neighbors, yet all of them swirling together into an oddly harmonious whole.

The place was a cheerful babble of excited voices chattering, calling, crying wares, and shouting. Here, there was a cheer as a pavilion was raised to its full height, followed immediately by a groan as the center pole slipped on the frozen earth and the tent billowed to the ground again. There, children chased one another between the tents and through the crowds, shrieking their excitement. Over yonder a horse whinnied and a bull bellowed. Somewhere else musicians played on pipe and drum and tambourine. From the river bank came the chant of boatmen pulling in unison to bring their boat ashore.

The frosty air was rich with the smell of roasting chestnuts and mulled spiced wine. It smelled of horses and people, garlic and new leather. Of faraway places and pine smoke. It was a wonderful odor and Wiz drank it in eagerly as they let the crowd carry them along.

Ice film strained and cracked from motion where no motion should be. Another jerk, and another and another until the ice flaked away from what had once been a human hand. The skeletal fingers convulsed and tightened to form a parody of a fist.

"Wiz look out!" Moira’s words brought him out of his reverie as her hand on his bicep guided him away from a large and uninviting mud puddle. Every morning fresh straw and tanbark was spread to keep mud from fairgoers’ boots, but in short order it was trampled, crushed and dragged into the slushy dirt. Moira’s eyes were laughing. "I believe the expression is ’wake up and die right.’ "

"Sorry," he mumbled "I got distracted." Moira’s smile and resigned sigh told him she was all too familiar with her husband’s absent-mindedness. Looking at her like that he was reminded once again of how much he loved her. "Let’s go check out the jeweler’s row," he suggested. "Perhaps they will have something fit for a queen."

Moira inclined her head regally. "Very well You may proceed Us to guard Us from the mud."

Rocks shifted, clods of frozen earth fell free and the once-living sat erect in his icy grave. The misshapen head turned neither right nor left but the eyelids lifted on still-frozen eyeballs. Moving in uncoordinated jerks and broad swipes it began to dear the rest of the rubble from its form.

A massive wound left the brain half exposed to the freezing air, but scraps and shards began to return. Of true consciousness there was none, nor soul nor spirit, nor coherent memories. But there were reflexes, and skills learned long and well at very fundamental levels. For the animating intelligence that was sufficient.

There was snow drifted against the windows, but the room in the Wizards’ Keep was warm and cozy. A wood fire crackled and danced in the stone fireplace, perfuming the air with cedar. With its carved furniture of dark oak, stone walls, and diamond-paned windows, the place looked positively medieval. With its overflowing litter of scrolls, wooden tablets, and a large crystal ball on a stand, it looked like a magician’s study. With the letters of glowing fire hanging above the two occupied work-tables, the remains of sandwiches beneath the "displays," the pot of industrial-strength tea in a corner and the flowcharts scrawled in charcoal on one whitewashed wall, it looked like a programmer’s workroom. In fact it was both, and the effect managed to be oddly harmonious in spite of the contrasts.

Wiz’s desk was deserted, but Danny and Jerry were hard at work. Actually Danny was surfing the Internet and Jerry was just doodling, but they were both doing it with the fierce concentration which is the hallmark of a good programmer and the bane of a good programmer’s Significant Other.

"Going to the fair tomorrow?" the younger, slighter, man asked over his shoulder when he reached a pausing place.

Jerry Andrews shrugged his massive shoulders. He was a big man and if he was somewhat soft, he was definitely not fat. "I dunno. Hadn’t really thought about it."

Danny spun his chair around and grinned. That’s the advantage of having kids. You gotta think about things like the fair."

"I’m not sure I see that as an advantage," Jerry said slowly. "If Malkin were here I’m sure she’d want to go." He paused "But then that’s why Malkin’s not here. It’s bad enough having to return the stuff she’s lifted and make explanations here and in town. At the fair:" He shuddered.

"Yeah. At least June keeps Ian out of trouble rather than encouraging him. Just wait until you have kids."

"That may be quite a wait," Jerry said dryly. "Malkin and I have talked about it and we’re not sure we will"

Danny just smirked.

"Oh, speaking of lads," Jerry said, "take a look at this, win you?" Danny got up and crossed over to look at the work on Jerry’s "screen"-actually a glowing rectangle of fiery letters floating in the air above his desk.

"It’s something kind of silly, really," Jerry went on, "but I wanted to see what would happen. Anyway, Ian’s birthday is coming up and I thought maybe I could adapt it into something for him."

Danny frowned

"It’s a screen saver. Here, let me."

Jerry gestured with the mouse, clicked twice (producing two squeaks from the rodent-like demon) and sat back. After a few seconds a fluffy, pink mechanical rabbit wearing sunglasses and beating a bass drum marched back and forth through the lines of code.

"Pretty neat," Danny agreed, watching the bunny rub out the letters with its passage. Then the rabbit hopped down off the worktable and made for the door, still banging his drum. It was out the door and down the corridor before either programmer could react. It had almost reached the corner when Jerry reached the door and gestured at the runaway bunny. It disappeared with a soft pop.

"I didn’t expect that."

"Yeah. It just kept going, and going, and:"

Jerry shot his colleague a dirty look. "You and Wiz."

"Sorry, ft was too good to pass up. Anyway, you’re gonna need a way to keep that rabbit within bounds."

Jerry rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I’ve got just the solution."

The frozen thing tottered erect. Now the half-crushed head swiveled left and right in a ghastly parody of a hunting dog seeking a scent. Finding what it sought, it jerked and stumbled off down an unlit corridor hay-choked with rubble.

The fair would not open officially until tomorrow morning. But many of the booths were set up and operating. It was already possible to buy things from the early-arriving merchants and Moira managed quite a regal progress, except when she forgot herself and gave way to bright-eyed excitement. Wiz wished he was walking beside her to watch. But it was faster pushing through the throng single-file.

They were barely three-quarters of the way along the main way when someone came up behind them. Wiz turned and saw Malus, one of his fellow members of the Council of the North. Besides the staff of a wizard and the blue robe of the Mighty, the pudgy wizard also wore the green sash of a fair warden. He was not young and not light and the combination of age and the effort to catch up with them had him red-faced and puffing.

"How is it going Malus?"

Malus sketched a bow to the pair of them. "Ah, good morrow, My Lord, My Lady. Well enough. Well enough." He paused to wipe a film of sweat from his bald pate.

"Someone tried to set up a trained dragon show down by the corrals. Horses cannot stand the smell, you know, and it just would not have been suitable. Not suitable at all. But we have him on the other side of the grounds now. Oh, and when your turn comes, keep a close eye on Mother Charisongs booth-the tawdry orange-and-green one, you know? She swears not, but I think some of her love charms have compulsion spells on them. Not that I could find any, you understand, but I have my suspicions.’’

"Oh, Mother Charisongs not a bad sort," Moira said. "She used to come through my village every year or two." She frowned slightly. "She’s not malicious at all, but I think she is a bit of a romantic and the idea of instant undying love would appeal to her."

"I’ll keep an eye on her," Wiz promised. "Anything else?"

It was Malus’ turn to frown. "Well, I was not going to mention it just now, but since you ask I am having a little problem with one of the spells in the new magic.

To brighten and dim magical lights, you know. The demon is not doing what it is supposed to. I have been over and over the code and I can’t seem to find the problem. Do you suppose you:"

"I’d be happy to. I’ll be back at the castle in a couple of day-tenths. Could you bring it by then?"

"Thank you, My Lord. Two day-tenths it is. Enjoy the fair. Good day, My Lady." With that he wandered off.

Moira looked after him, eyes sparkling with laughter. "He is a dear, isn’t he?"

"Yeah, but I wish he was a little more logical when it comes to programming." Moira shrugged. It was an old discussion. While anyone could use a spell written with Wiz’s magic compiler, creating them required the same knack for logical thinking and organization it takes to be a programmer in any language. Traditional magic did not build up spells a statement at a time and so relied on other qualities, notably memory, intuition and courage. It was hard to be good at both the old and new magics, and as one of the Mighty and a member of the Council of the North, Malus was very good at the traditional magic.

"He has an eye for chicanery though," Moira said. "Perhaps I had better have a word with Mother Charisong before you or one of the other fair wardens has to take official notice."

At least one journeyman wizard was always on duty among those overseeing the fair to guard against magical trickery. It was not required that the Mighty take a turn as fair wardens, still less that the members of the Council do so, but many of them did.

"Want me to come along?"

"It would be best if you escorted me there and then went off on another errand while Mother Charisong and I talked of old times."

"Thus implying a threat without having to make it."

Wiz nodded.

Moira’s green eyes grew wide and innocent. "Why no, My Lord. How can you think I would threaten a poor old woman? We will merely have a quiet gossip." Wiz put his arm around his wife’s waist. "Which will make the point without having to say a word Darling, did I ever tell you you are brilliant?" Moira cocked a burnished copper eyebrow. "Only by comparison."

"Hey, Danny," Jerry called, "watch this."

Two mouse clicks, two mouse squeaks, and the rabbit with the bass drum was back on Jerry’s desk It marched up and down, beating the drum and getting closer to the table’s edge with each pass.

As the rabbit reached the edge of the table, a green tentacle curled out of the

"screen," wrapped around the rabbit’s throat and jerked it back into the system, cutting the rabbit off in mid-beat.

"Crude," Danny said, "but effective."

Deep in the Wild Wood, the sun was also shining. The weak winter rays slanted through the multi-paned windows of the great hall at Heart’s Ease, throwing diamond-shaped patterns on the table. Two women stood beside it, studying a curiously carved casket. Both of them were tall and slender, but the younger one with raven-dark hair was slightly taller than the older woman with the prematurely white hair.

"Now watch closely," Shiara the Silver said to her pupil. Working by touch, because she was blind, she selected a lock pick from the assortment that lay on the table. "You must keep the tension on the mechanism," she said as she smoothly manipulated the lock. Two heads, one silver-white and the other black with russet highlights, bent over the chest "Past the first ward. Then past the second ward."

Malkin, sometime thief on the Dragon Marches and now lady to Jerry Andrews of the Wizards’ Keep, nodded.

"And then the tumbler slips like so," Shiara said. "Now you try it." Malkin bent to it with a will. In seconds the lock clicked and the dark-haired woman straightened up in triumph. Then her face froze, her eyes widened, her features contorted and she let out a thunderous sneeze.

"Had it been real, the blow tube would have been filled with something more lethal than pepper," Shiara said mildly.

"You didn’t say anything about that," Malkin protested, sneezing again. The silver-haired woman smiled. The lesson is never to trust a lock-or the person who tells you how to pick it."

Malkin grunted.

"Well, that is enough for now," Shiara told her pupil. "Your fingers are getting stiff from the cold and it is best we rest for a bit."

"I can go on," Malkin said stubbornly.

The older woman put her hand on the younger one’s shoulder. "Of course you can. But there is no need and it is best not to force such things without need. Now come and have some hot spiced cider."

"How did you know?" Malkin asked as they settled in to high-backed chairs before the fire in the great fireplace.

"Hmm?" Shiara said into her mug. "About your fingers? Why, I could hear them. You were slowing down on simple operations."

If Shiara was blind she still had her ears, her hands, her brains and her memories. Malkin was in the presence of a master burglar and she knew it. She used no magic, of course. Although Shiara had been a sorceress of high skill, the accident that had ended her career as the Council’s master thief had left her so sensitive to magic that its very presence hurt her. That was why she lived in a magically "dead" zone deep in the Wild Wood, away from other people and their everyday magics. It was why Hearts Ease itself, from stone tower to attached hall to outbuildings to surrounding stockade, had been built completely without resort to magic.

"It is kind of you to teach me, Lady," Malkin said as she warmed her hands on the mug of fragrant cider.

"It is my pleasure. There is not much human company here in the Wild Wood in wintertime."

Although she didn’t mention it, Shiara was also doing Wiz a favor. Wiz wanted to get Malkin out of town during the fair. The multitude of booths and merchants was just too tempting for someone of Malkin’s proclivities.

Calling Malkin a thief was like saying Don Vito Corleone was a little dishonest, or Dr. Jekyll had his moody days. Malkin was that rare combination of aptitude, dedication and intelligence that marks a true adept at any art. In her case it just happened to be the art of separating people from their property. For Malkin, stealing wasn’t just a job and it was more than an adventure. It was business, pleasure and a way of life all rolled into one. She was as dedicated to it as a medieval monk was to his calling-a comparison which would have surprised Jerry, considering her distinctly un-monk-like proclivities in other areas.

"You have a powerful talent," Shiara went on. "In some ways too much talent." Malkin made a noncommittal noise and raised the steaming beaker to her lips.

"I doubt you have ever been seriously challenged in your skill. So far you have been able to rely on your natural abilities blindly, without having to learn the other requirements of your calling."

"Such as?"

"Patience. Forethought. Perhaps a little humility."

Malkin smiled. "As you say, I’ve done well enough."

"But will you do well enough if you face something that really tests you?" The younger woman sighed and set the beaker of cider on the table. Like as not I’ll never find out. Little enough opportunity I’m like to have for a great test. Things are much changed from your day, Lady."

"Indeed they are," Shiara agreed. "And very much for the better."

Humans had little magic in those not-so-long-gone days when Shiara the Silver and her mate Cormac the Golden had plied their trade. The pair had relied more on stealth and cunning than Cormac’s skill with a sword or Shiara’s abilities as a wizardess to purloin especially dangerous pieces of magic for the Council of the North. It had been the last of these quests which had cost Cormac his life and left Shiara blind and allergic to magic of any land.

"Still, you should strive to perfect your art." And be careful what you wish for, the blind woman thought, for you may get it.

"Hey, Danny, I’ve got a new wrinkle for the screen saver. Take a look" Two quick mouse clicks and the bunny appeared.

This time the rabbit didn’t have its drum. Instead it was wearing crossed bandoleers and carrying what looked like the mother of all assault weapons. Its pink ears poked out of folds in a camouflage scarf tied around its head pirate-fashion.

"Uh-oh," Danny said. "This looks serious."

As the rabbit approached the edge of the desk, the green tentacle reached out to grab it. The rabbit whirled and ripped off a burst with its machine gun/grenade launcher. Chunks of tentacle and ichor flew everywhere and most of the screen disintegrated under the force of the blast.

Danny and Jerry dived under the table and nearly butted heads.

Suddenly it was quiet again. The room reeked of powder smoke and plaster dust but there was no more shooting. Danny sneaked a peek over the edge of the table. There was nothing left of the screen but an occasional letter or two. The pink bunny in the boonie rag blew the smoke from the end of the gun barrel, surveyed the damage, hopped down off the table and disappeared out the door. Danny crawled the rest of the way out from under the table. "What did you call that thing again?"

Jerry coughed and brushed the dust off his tunic as he stood up. "Uh, a screen saver."

"Well it didn’t save it, it blew it all to hell."

"Yeah. I guess it needs a little more work."

Danny could only nod.

TWO FOULNESS AT THE FAIR

Almost at the end of the fair’s main row, as far from the Wizards’ Keep as possible, a smoke artist was displaying his illusions.

The open-fronted booth was carefully darkened to show off his creations to best advantage and, Wiz suspected, to bide the mirrors and other apparatus that made them possible. There were five or six people clustered in rapt attention before the booth, oblivious to the fair-goers pushing past them.

The artist was small and slender, dressed in a cowled black robe obviously meant to remind his audience of a wizard. For an instant Wiz wondered if it was a man or a woman, but then the artist withdrew an unmistakably masculine hand from the sleeve of his robe to gesture.

At the hand motion, three gouts of gaily colored smoke blossomed within the booth, billowing toward the cloth ceiling and swirling together in a pattern that seemed to pulsate and dance to an unheard melody. Garnet red and peacock blue smoke combined to form a deep, vibrant purple while tendrils of yellow smoke lanced through the cloud. Then the smokes sorted themselves into layers of pure color and began to interweave monochromatic tendrils in an increasingly complex design. At first it reminded Wiz of a simple geometric shape, then it became an evermore-elaborate piece of Celtic knotwork. Finally the smokes twisted into a design that seemed completely random, yet hinted at an underlying order. It seemed to Wiz that if he could just study the writhing smokes long enough he could unlock that secret.

Wiz had no real ability to sense magic as this world’s wizards could, but he understood the basic laws of physics and this smoke was behaving in a decidedly lawless manner. There was something wrong here and the realization sent a chill through him.

It took the better part of an hour for servants under Danny’s direction to get the workroom cleaned up and presentable again. It took about as long for Jerry to track down and de-instantiate his fluffy pink creation. By the time they had settled down to work again Jerry had decided to shelve his screen saver and Danny had gotten a bright idea of his own.

"Somehow," Jerry said, surveying the freshly patched plaster and the dusted and neatened-up piles of manuscripts, "I don’t think that was one of my better ideas."

"Oh, I dunno," Danny said. "It gave me an idea for something I’ve been working on." This time Danny gestured with his mouse and an aquarium sprang into being on his desk. It was almost as big as the desk and full of water and life.

"Like it? It’s Ian’s birthday present."

Jerry examined his companion’s work more closely. Against a backdrop of coral and rocks, brightly colored fish darted or hovered or swam lazily, according to their nature. Equally brightly colored crabs and other things crawled along the white coral sand, and here and there something like a sea anemone waved delicately in the water.

It was beautiful, but there was something about the setup that bothered Jerry. Part of it, he decided, was that he didn’t recognize any of the fish. Then a black angelfish with pulsing neon-blue lights along its side swam by and Jerry’s suspicions were confirmed.

"Those aren’t real fish, are they?"

"No, they’re demons created by special little programs." Danny spoke a word and the spell listed itself out in bright letters beside the tank. "Look, here’s something else too. The code’s self-modifying so the fish change over time."

"They change over time?"

"Yeah. They evolve with each generation."

"Hmmm," Jerry said in a voice that wasn’t at all approving.

"What’s the matter?"

"I’m not sure," Jerry said. "But there’s something about that notion that bothers me."

"You don’t like fish?"

"No, I: Well, never mind. I’m sure Ian will love it" Jerry turned away from the demon fish tank and back to work.

As the smoke artist took a bow to a pattering of applause, Wiz nudged Moira.

"That stuffs magic," he muttered.

"But isn’t it lovely? See how it sparkles."

Wiz looked sideways at his wife. Normally Moira was more wary of strange magic than he was. She had learned about magic at a time when the humans of this world were nearly powerless and magic was usually destructive or hostile. Wiz had changed that with his magic programming, but the old attitudes lingered. This wasn’t at all like her.

He looked at the robed and cowled figure again, trying to discern what was beneath the flow of dark cloth. Again the smoke artist’s hands darted from his sleeves and he began anew with a delicate curl of blue smoke from his outstretched palm. Although Wiz could not see the artists head, much less his eyes, he got the strong impression that the performer was concentrating on his audience rather than his illusion. The smoke thickened and deepened until there was a column of sapphire blue before him. The crowd pressed close, eager for the next display.

Again the smoke shifted and formed a pattern, this one like an intricately fretted snowflake. The tendrils of blue smoke twisted and wove among each other into a pattern that implied something without quite showing it. As Wiz watched, the pattern began to spin like a wheel, pulling the eye with it in a way that made Wiz’s stomach roil. He stared down at his boots, fighting dizziness. As he looked away he felt Moira stir beside him, pressing closer to the artist and his creation. Without thinking Wiz put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off impatiently.

Wiz looked up and saw his wife slack jawed with her eyes fixed on the smoke. She took a hesitant step toward it and then a stronger one.

"Moira?" There was no response. "Hey!" he shouted at the smoke artist, but neither artist nor audience paid the slightest attention.

Wiz went cold with fear and almost instantly hot with rage. In two strides he crossed the distance to the artist and grabbed him by the hood.

As he jerked him around, the hood fell back and Wiz recoiled at what was beneath it.

The face was normal enough, pale with high cheekbones and a long nose, but the eyes were not. Instead of showing a normal white and pupil they were iridescent, as though there were an opaline mist over the whole eyeball, or like an insect’s eye when the light strikes it right.

The illusionist hissed like a frightened snake and wrenched away from Wiz. His hand darted out of his sleeve and instinctively Wiz twisted away so the hand struck his wizards staff instead of his arm. There was a flash of blue lightning and a report like a rifle shot as magic met magic. That seemed to break his hold on the crowd and suddenly people were running and screaming, stampeding away from the booth.

Wiz stumbled back, his staff held before him. From down the row of booths came a shout and a flash of magic. Out of the corner of his eye Wiz saw Malus raise his staff to launch another attack.

The thing looked at Malus, back at Wiz and over Wiz’s shoulder where Moira was standing. Without a word it whirled, gathering up the hem of its robe. Black smoke reeking of brimstone poured from the robe and rose in a whirlwind above Wiz’s head. Malus fired another magic bolt at the growing black cloud, but it disappeared into the smoke without a trace.

Tall as a tree the black cloud grew, and the wind of its turning whipped and tore at the booths and the robes of the wizards. Then the cloud separated from the earth and darted into the sky, pursued by magical bolts from Malus and lightning bolts hurled by Wiz.

It climbed faster and faster until it was no larger than a hand, then a finger. Then it moved away to the south.

"What? Who?" Malus came rushing up oblivious to the commotion spreading throughout the fair. Then he seemed to realize he would not get answers to his questions and settled for indignation. "To think that they would try it here! Of all places! Why, why the sheer effrontery of it!" Wiz noticed he didn’t specify who "they" were.

"Get help," Moira said tightly. "Quickly." Her words brought Wiz and Malus back to themselves and both fumbled for the communications crystals they wore around their necks.

"Are you all right?" Wiz asked his wife.

" I think so." She clung to him fiercely and let out a deep breath. "It was like being pulled along by a strong current, or sliding down a slope of loose earth. I’ve:"

Before she could continue there was a soft pop of displaced air and Arianne, Bal-Simba’s assistant, appeared before them. Arianne’s eyes were unfocused and her lips moved silently as she spoke to the communications crystal about her neck Off behind her Wiz could see a flight of three dragons soaring away from their cavern aerie in the cliffs below the Wizards’ Keep. The Watchers had launched the ready patrol.

"We sensed a flare of magic even before your call," she told the two wizards.

"Now, what was this all about?"

"I don’t know," Wiz said, "but I don’t like it"

"A magical invasion of the fair," Mains added. "A creature posing as a man." Moira was pale and shaking. "It was magic indeed. Like no magic I have ever felt before."

"Programmer magic?" Arianne asked.

Moira bit her lip. "Not exactly. Something like it, but different-colder. Does that make any sense?"

Since Wiz lacked the natural talent needed to sense magic of any sort he could only nod. He had heard his Kind of magic described as "feeling" like a horde of ants as the tiny spells that made up the words of the magic programming language operated, but he’d never felt it.

Arianne, however, had. "Colder?"

Moira hesitated. "Not cold, exactly. Rather, not-alive."

Wiz had an image of zombie army ants. He didn’t like the picture at all.

": so whatever that thing was it had a special attraction for people who are sensitive to magic," Wiz summed up.

Around the table in the programmers’ office Jerry, Danny, Bal-Simba and Arianne all listened intently. After more than an hour’s rehashing of events, Moira wasn’t paying much attention.

"Which explains why it didn’t affect you," Danny put in. "Like the rest of us you haven’t got any magical talent to speak of. But Moira probably had more than anyone else in the crowd so it really worked on her."

"All it did was make me dizzy," Wiz added. Moira looked down at her hands and said nothing.

"None of the other Mighty have ever seen or heard of the like," Arianne told them. "This is something completely new. Worse, the magic is so different we did not detect it until the Sparrow confronted the thing."

"Where did it come from?" Jerry asked.

"It arrived at the fairgrounds early this morning and set up its pavilion like any other merchant or entertainer," Arianne said. "None of the other merchants had ever seen the thing before but none took special notice of it until the whirlwind began. It so well concealed its nature that Malus walked by the booth several times without seeing anything amiss." She nodded at Wiz and Moira. "He apologizes most abjectly for not discovering it sooner."

"I cannot blame him," Moira said weakly.

"This thing is also," Wiz added, "immune to lightning bolts, and whatever spell Malus was throwing at it But we still don’t know what it is or what it was after."

"We can hazard a guess on the last, I think," rumbled Bal-Simba from his oversized chair at the head of the table. Although he had been physically present for the whole conference he had spent most of it receiving reports and communing magically with others of the Mighty.

"An attack?" Arianne asked.

"More likely a scout," the great black wizard said slowly. "Something sent ahead to spy us out and discover our defenses."

"So you don’t think it was alone?"

"It seems unlikely. What we know now seems to suggest a being controlled or commanded from elsewhere, not an independent entity."

"Any idea who or where?"

Bal-Simba shrugged. That is as yet unknown. Perhaps we can discover more when the Council of the North meets this evening." He heaved himself erect. "Now if you will excuse me, I must consult directly with the Watchers. My Lords, My Ladies." He sketched a bow and left.

"Are you sure you’re all right? Do you want to go lie down?"

"No, I am fine."

"You don’t look it," Danny put in. "You’re white as a sheet and you look awful." Moira looked up. "A fine thing to tell a woman, I am sure."

"Well, you do," Danny said defensively.

"Perhaps you had better go lie down, darling. You really don’t look well." Moira reached out and patted Wiz’s hand. "Perhaps I will. Dealing with strange magics seems to take a lot out of me."

"Well," came a female voice from the door, "all alive I see."

Wiz looked up and saw a stout woman standing at the door. A boy and girl were peeking around her from either side and a dragon was looking over her shoulder.

"Oh, hello Shauna," Wiz said. "Any reason why we shouldn’t be?"

Shauna was nurse to Ian, Danny and June’s son, and mother of Ian’s playmate Caitlin. In addition to looking after the children and mothering June as needed, she provided a strong dose of common sense for the programming team.

"Fortune, but you should hear the stories being bandied about in the town!" She looked at Moira, "Do you know you and Wiz both are dead a dozen times over? And each death grislier than the last?"

In spite of himself Wiz grinned. "And there are a dozen eyewitnesses to each death, no doubt." He took a pull on his mug of tea.

"Folk are bolting their doors strong tonight," the stocky woman agreed. "Fact is, I’ve never seen them so frightened. It will put a damper on this year’s fair, I’ll tell you."

Moira stood up suddenly. Then I am going back to the fair."

Wiz spewed tea all over the table. "What?"

Moira reached for her cloak. "I said I am going back. The people need reassurance."

"You’re sick and you’re going to bed."

"People need my help and I am well enough for that"

Wiz started to protest, realized this was another one of those arguments he wasn’t going to win and changed course.

"Then I’m going with you," he said grimly.

"How much reassurance is there if I am in the company of the mightiest wizard of the North? No, if this is to be effective you must not come."

"Look, we don’t know what that thing was or what it can do. I’m not going to let you go down there alone."

Moira put her cloak down on the table and turned to face him. That ’thing’ is gone."

"And what happens if you nearly pass out like you did this morning? That’ll be a lot of reassurance for everyone."

"I will manage."

"You’ll manage better with the proper company, My Lady," Shauna said, looking closely at Moira. "No, not you," she added before Wiz could open his mouth. "I’m the one to go with her."

Wiz had the feeling he’d just missed something important and an even stronger feeling that the situation was getting out of control.

"Still, I’m not sure it’s safe."

"As safe as anywhere," Moira retorted.

Arianne nodded. Three of the Mighty have examined the rest of the fair and found nothing more. This thing harmed no one and I have alerted the Watchers in the castle. With them on guard it will not be able to sneak close again. Meanwhile, Bal-Simba has summoned the Council of the North to meet to consider what more is to be done."

"Besides, Fluffy will protect us!" Ian said.

Wiz raised his eyebrows and looked past the boy at the twenty-foot dragon standing behind him. The dragon’s tongue was lolling out and he was panting like a particularly dumb dog.

Fluffy was a very young dragon, hardly older than Ian. Like all immature dragons he was not very smart. But unlike most of them he was more or less a house pet- a circumstance that aroused considerable comment in the Wizards’ Keep and even more among the townsfolk.

Fluffy had attached himself to the programmers as a housecat-sized hatchling. When Ian was born, the two became inseparable. Originally the programmers had called him Little Red Dragon, or LRD for short. But Ian insisted his name was Fluffy and, wildly inappropriate as the monicker was, it stuck.

If there was trouble the dragon was only likely to make it worse, but separating Ian and Fluffy made them both mope, so if Ian went to the fair it was a foregone conclusion that Fluffy was going too. The prospect did nothing to raise Wiz’s enthusiasm for the expedition.

Danny, meanwhile, had grasped the critical point "Us?" he demanded of his son.

"Who said anything about you going?"

"Shauna’s going," Ian said. "You always said we should stay close to Shauna, especially if there’s trouble."

While Danny was at a loss over the eight-year-old’s logic, Shauna’s daughter saw her opportunity and moved in for the kill. Caitlin was a couple of years older than Ian, with a mop of jet-black hair, apple cheeks and great dark eyes. She had her Ph.D. in cute with advanced graduate work in wheedling.

"We want to go to the fair," Caitlin protested.

Danny tried for a compromise. "You can go to the fair tomorrow when it’s open." Tomorrow’s too late," Ian protested "Everything will be up by then." Wiz wasn’t sure why it was more interesting to watch the booths go up than to see them once they were up and open, but that was clearly the general opinion. Even Fluffy managed to droop sadly at what he’d be missing.

"All right, then I’m going too," Danny said.

"You would be almost as bad as Wiz," Moira told him. "You had best stay here as well."

June stood close behind her son with a hand on his shoulder. "I go too." Which figured, since June was as protective of Ian as a mother tiger is of her cub. Danny looked over at June and Ian and scowled, but he nodded.

"Well, all right but you stay close, you hear?" And then, as Caitlin and Ian cheered, Shauna added: "And keep that creature on the leash!"

Ian had obviously been anticipating victory because he had the dragons collar and braided leather leash tucked in his belt.

Fluffy drooped his head so Ian could attach his collar. In fact the leash was strictly for show. Fluffy wouldn’t allow anyone but Ian to lead him and there was no way the boy could have held the dragon against his will. As it was Fluffy had a tendency to jerk Ian off his feet with a casual toss of his head. But the sight of the leash made townsfolk slightly more comfortable around the dragon and Fluffy seemed to understand that the leash meant he was to be on his best behavior. Besides, Ian was inordinately proud of his job "controlling" Fluffy.

"Okay," Wiz said to his wife. "You won’t take me and you won’t take Danny. What about Jerry?"

Moira raised an eyebrow and looked over at Arianne. The tall woman stroked her chin in thought. "Appropriate enough," she said finally.

"I dunno," the big programmer demurred. "I’ve got this homicidal screen saver I’m working on."

Caitlin tugged on his arm and looked up at him with enormous dark eyes.

"Please, Unca Jerry. It won’t be any fun without you. Please come." Jerry suddenly found he was not at all immune to the wiles of a little girl. In fact, like most men without children of their own, he could be twisted around a tiny pinky almost without effort.

"Sure," he sighed. "I’ll go back with you. That way the kids can see what’s going on."

Wiz looked down at the dark stain of spilled tea on his shirt. "Well, darling," he sighed, "at least keep your eyes open and yell at the first sign of trouble. I think that thing was after you."

Arianne looked at him closely. "Can you be sure it is aimed at Moira?"

"I don’t like the way it looked at her."

"You said it seemed to be surveying the crowd."

"Yeah, but:" Wiz lapsed into an unhappy silence.

"Oh, don’t brood love," Moira said. "It is perfectly safe and I will have Jerry with me should need arise."

"Plus two kids," Wiz added. There was an insistent whuff over his shoulder. "And a dragon."

"Shauna and June will be along as well," Moira countered.

That carried some weight, Wiz had to admit. Shauna could keep the lads under control and June was likely to be at least some help. Danny’s wife was strange and half wild from growing up in an elf hill, but she was no one to trifle with. On one memorable occasion Wiz had seen her take out three fully armed hobgoblins with the knife she always carried.

"Well, I still don’t like it."

Moira reached out and put her hand on his arm. "Pooh. You heard Arianne. There is no danger now. But the townsfolk must be reassured, so it needs to be done."

"We’ve got to do something about this Calvinist sense of duty of yours," Wiz said as Moira picked up her cloak

"Who is Calvin?"

"He designed genes," Wiz said absently, "and he gave you the heavy-duty kind." Moira did what she usually did when she didn’t understand her husband, which was to change the subject.

"You’re a fine one to talk about duty. All a dragon has to do is show up and make some threats and you go off with him and we don’t hear from you for weeks."

"That was different," Wiz said with some dignity- hoping reverently Moira wouldn’t ask him how it was different. She settled for cocking a coppery eyebrow and fastening the cloak at her throat.

Then, seeing his expression, Moira reached out and took his hand. "Please, Wiz." Wiz hesitated and then relented. "As long as it’s safe."

She kissed him on the cheek. "Oh, we’ll be fine," she told him. "You worry too much."

Far and far away, in a place below the earth, a thing considered.

It was enough. It had found what it needed. Now there was only the harvest. Danny and Wiz stood at a window and watched the group cross the courtyard and pass out the castle gate.

"I guess they’re right," Wiz said, as much for his own reassurance as Danny’s.

"It’s perfectly safe." He sighed. "I wonder if I’m getting paranoid in my old age."

"I know I’m paranoid," Danny said grimly. "I just don’t know if I’m paranoid enough."

THREE THE FAIR AGAIN

The fair was very different in the afternoon than it had been that morning. Intermittent clouds hid the sun and the air that had been crisp and invigorating in the morning was now chill and damp. Even the mud seemed deeper.

All of which could have been her imagination, Moira admitted, but there were other changes which clearly were not.

The crowds of gawkers were gone, leaving only the fair workers, merchants and here and there a knot of guardsmen, armed and alert. There was less shouting and no laughter as people struggled to get their goods unloaded and their tents up. None of which mattered to the children. Ian and Caitlin went whooping and shouting among the booths, avoiding most of the uninteresting mud puddles and seeming to be everywhere at once. Fluffy trotted along with them, head high like a show dog in the ring. Shauna puffed along behind, calling out admonishments and generally trying to keep them under control. June floated along near Ian, close and silent as always.

It would have been a perfectly normal scene, Moira thought, if June didn’t keep one hand always on her knife.

She dug Jerry in the ribs with her elbow. "Smile," she commanded out of the side of her mouth. Then, putting on her best beauty-pageant smile, she and Jerry began to stroll among the booths.

Moira paused frequently to admire goods on display or to chat with someone she knew. Jerry contented himself with smiling until his jaw ached and responding to any pleasantries directed to him.

Ian and Caitlin were disappointed at the pace, especially since June and Shauna would not let them get too far ahead of the others. Still they managed to find all sorts of interesting things to look at and interesting questions to ask. They even cajoled a chestnut vendor into blowing up his fire to roast some nuts for them.

They had gone perhaps halfway down the main aisle when Shamus, the captain of the castle’s guards, separated himself from a knot of his men and came over to greet them.

"A pleasure to see you, My Lady," he said loudly as he smiled and bowed. His eyes never stopped moving.

Moira nodded to the guard captain. "Good afternoon, Shamus," she said equally loudly. "Oh, I would not have missed it."

The guardsman took her hand as if to loss it and used that as an excuse to move closer.

"Thanks for coming," he muttered. "The whole place is nervous as a bunch of half-wild dragons. Want an escort?"

Moira dimpled as if she had been paid a compliment "It would ruin the effect," she said without moving her lips.

Shamus bowed as if taking his leave. "Need anything just sing out." With that he turned and strolled away as if he had not a care in the world. Moira noticed his sword was loose in its sheath.

What with one thing and another it took them the better part of two hours to tour the fairgrounds. Moira stopped and chatted with everyone she knew even casually and Jerry thought he’d never get his jaw unclenched. Even when Fluffy knocked over a pile of baskets with a careless twitch of his tail, Moira managed to turn the gaffe into a social triumph, getting down on her knees to help the stall owner gather up her spilled merchandise and talking gaily all the while. By the time the group turned back toward the castle the mood in the fairgrounds had lightened perceptibly. Ian had fallen asleep on Shauna’s shoulder with Fluffy’s leash still clutched tight in his fist. Caitlin was chattering away, but she was content to walk alongside her mother instead of scampering everywhere.

The older members of the party were doing no better.

"My feet hurt," Jerry said as they picked their way up the muddy main aisle back toward the town gate.

Moira smiled at him. "It was in a good cause, My Lord. Thank you for coming." Something in the way she said it made Jerry look at her more closely. "You’re really wiped, aren’t you?"

A vagrant breeze drew a lock of coppery hair over the hedge witch’s cheek, emphasizing the paleness of her skin. "I am rather tired, but very content." She sighed.

"You’d better rest up tonight if you want to be in shape for the ceremony tomorrow."

The breeze turned suddenly chilly and Moira shivered and drew her green wool cloak closer around her. "I will," she promised. "Just now nothing sounds so good as a hot bath and a warm bed."

"Momma, I’m cold." Caitlin pressed herself closer to Shauna.

"That’s what you get for not wearing so much as a cloak, like I told you to." Then she hugged her daughter close against the cold wind. "Never you mind. We’ll be home soon enough."

Jerry shivered and pulled his cloak tighter. "I wish I’d brought something heavier. This wind’s picking up."

Even Fluffy seemed to notice the wind. The dragon lowered his neck and turned his head to shelter from the full force behind Shauna’s bulk. Ian stirred and whimpered on Shauna’s shoulder.

Moira looked at the tents beginning to flap against their ropes and squinted her eyes against the sting of wind-borne dirt. "Perhaps we had better rest a few minutes inside the city gate," she said. "I think I need to sit down." Jerry raised his voice to be heard over the wind. "We’re only halfway there. Want to rest in one of the pavilions?"

"Let us go on. It is only a few hundred paces."

They had reached the spot in the center of the fairgrounds where the main ways crossed. Here the aisles widened out into an impromptu square and the wind tore at them as they stepped out of the relative shelter of the narrower ways. It tore and howled at them, kicking up dirt and debris until they could hardly see the far side of the square. The wind moaned through the tent ropes and made the canvas boom until it sounded like a chorus of lost souls. Jerry put his head down and pushed forward against the wind, clutching Moira’s arm to help her along.

He felt Moira stiffen and slow in spite of his efforts to help her along.

"Jerry:" she began, and he looked up.

There were things in the wind. At first Jerry thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but they seemed to grow darker and more solid as he watched. Then they were black clouds within a lighter cloud, indistinct forms that grew and writhed as they moved toward him.

They had no arms, but they seemed to reach out to clutch. They had no heads, but they seemed to fasten their attention on Jerry and Moira with the intentness of a hunting eagle. They had no mouths, but their voices seemed to call out for them, eagerly, hungrily. Moira whimpered and shrank back against Jerry’s shoulder as the things drew close.

Jerry stepped in front and threw up his hands in a warding spell. A foggy tentacle lashed out to touch him and he collapsed like a sack of meal. In the excitement Ian dropped Fluffy’s leash. With a wheep of dragonish rage the young dragon lumbered into the fray, tail lashing left and right, upsetting tables and knocking down a pavilion. He snapped at the cloud things but his jaws closed on nothing at all with the sound of a rifle shot.

"Wiz!" Moira screamed.

And Wiz was there. Cloakless, hatless, bootless, his wizard’s staff clutched before him in both hands. He looked around wide-eyed, then leaped over his friend’s prostrate body to put himself between the shadows and Moira, but he did not let the things touch him. Instead he raised his staff, shouting a magic word as he did so.

Wiz swung his staff overhead in a mighty bash. There was an eye-searing burst of purple fire as magic met magic and an ear-piercing peal of thunder as the thing disintegrated. Without hesitating he lashed out again and another monster disappeared with the same flash and roar. Again and again Wiz laid about him at the encircling fog things. Behind him Bal-Simba popped into the square. With an inarticulate roar the big wizard charged into the battle. Behind him wizard after wizard popped into existence as the Mighty of the North rallied to protect their own. The square echoed and flashed with the blasts of magic. Wiz tried to reach Moira but Fluffy was in his way. So he put his back against the dragon and struck out furiously at the things in the whirlwind. And then it was over.

As suddenly as they had come the things were gone. The wind dropped to nothing, the air cleared and only wizards and their allies were left in the open space. Wiz looked around. Two of the wizards rushed to where Jerry lay senseless on the ground. The others stood or milled around, alert for their enemy. Pressed up against the tents, Shauna stood with Ian and Caitlin gathered behind her skirts. June stood next to her, knife drawn, nostrils flared, and showing white all the way around her pupils like a frightened animal. She only relaxed when Danny rushed to her side.

The only person Wiz couldn’t see was the person he wanted to see most.

"Moira?" Wiz called, "Moira!"

"Here darling."

Wiz turned to the sound of the voice, but Moira wasn’t there. Only Fluffy, leaning drunkenly against a post

"Moira! Wiz looked around wildly.

"I feel funny," came Moira’s voice again. "So dizzy."

Wiz’s jaw dropped. The voice was coming from Fluffy, the little red dragon.

"Oh my God!"

FOUR THE LADY AND THE DRAGON

Wiz Zumwalt stood at the window staring sightlessly at the snowscape below. The wan sun was painting the tops of the clouds sullen red as it sank toward the horizon. Guardsmen manned the castle walls at close intervals and in the growing gloom he could see blue witchfire flicker about one or two towers as the wizards within them worked protective spells.

Listlessly he wiped his Breath fog from the diamond panes with his sleeve. He probably should have been with the other wizards but he couldn’t concentrate. Instead Danny was handling things. Nothing had happened for hours.

"Excuse me, My Lord." Bronwyn, the castles chief healer, was standing behind him. Her square face and brown eyes were grave, but then Bronwyn always looked serious.

"How is she? I mean, how is the dragon?"

"I think ’she’ is most appropriate for now," the chief healer said. Then she paused to pick her words. "Lord, such things are not unknown. Wizards have inhabited others’ bodies by similar methods before. The adepts of the Dark League more commonly, but even the Mighty of the Norm have resorted to the tactic on occasion. As a result we know a good deal about the condition and its effects."

Wiz brushed all that aside. "But is she going to be all right?-

"Her spirit and her intelligence, her ka, if you will, are safe for now," Bronwyn said.

"For now?"

The healer fixed him with her steady brown eyes. "A human in a dragon’s body is not a natural combination. Still less when the dragon is not yet full-grown and intelligent. Such mixtures are not stable."

"Meaning what?"

"If it is allowed to go on long enough, deterioration sets in. The personalities become mixed, degenerate and the level of intelligence descends to match the body. Once that happens there is no restoring the human personality even if it is returned to its body."

Wiz’s breath caught in his throat. "How long have we got?"

Bronwyn shrugged. "Weeks, perhaps a pair of moons. Moira’s personality is strong, so that works in our favor. But the dragon is an alien animal and not intelligent in his own right. That works against us."

Wiz turned from her and slammed his fist into the stone wall. He left a dark smear of blood where his knuckles hit but he didn’t notice.

"We are doing everything we can, Lord."

"I know you are. Thanks Bronwyn. Uh, how’s Jerry?"

"I think he will be well. We think the things attempted to do the same thing to him but you foiled them by your attack. For now he sleeps the enchanted sleep. He will awake in his own time, but we do not know now long it will be. Several days at least"

"Well, thanks." He turned back to the window.

"My Lord, there is something else you should know."

Wiz turned and looked at her.

"Telling you this violates a confidence, but you are party to the situation and I do not think Moira will tell you herself."

The healer hesitated. Clearly violating a confidence did not come easy to her.

"She was-is-pregnant."

"What?"

Bronwyn regarded him soberly. "She is with child, perhaps two moons along."

"But I didn’t know! I mean, why didn’t she tell me?"

"She wanted to be sure. Then she intended to tell you, after the fair. She did not want you to worry during the festivities. Now"-Bronwyn shrugged-"I do not believe she is thinking clearly."

Wiz sank back against the stone wall. "Oh my God. Oh my God."

The healer watched him closely but did not move toward him. "I know it is a shock to find out like this. Still, it is best that you know."

"We’d been trying:" was all he could get out.

With a healer’s instinct Bronwyn ignored his tears. "As you well know it is uncommon for a witch to become pregnant. The practice of magic drains the vital energies and makes it hard for a magician to either father or conceive a child. Still, with patience, persistence and a little luck:" The healer shrugged. Wiz nodded dumbly. Moira had consulted Bronwyn several times in her efforts to conceive. He remembered the earlier byplay between Shauna and Moira. Now he understood.

"What: what should we do?"

Bronwyn shook her head. "Lord, this is beyond my experience. All we can do is to do the best we can to reunite Moira with her body." She paused. "I have no reason to believe that the separation will harm the child."

Wiz sat heavily on a bench beside the window. "Thanks, Bronwyn."

"If there is aught else I can do? Something to help you sleep perhaps?"

"No, I’ll be all right. There’s things I need to do."

The healer nodded and withdrew, leaving Wiz to his thoughts.

Night and fog closed around the Wizards’ Keep, black, damp and almost palpable. The lamps burned in Bal-Simba’s workroom where the leader of the Council of the North sat and thought.

There was a single knock at the door. Bal-Simba gestured and Arianne entered.

"Any sign?" the giant black wizard asked.

The Watchers can find nothing. Not even sign of anything unusual."

"To be expected, I fear."

"Lord, you know that Moira was pregnant?"

Bal-Simba nodded. "Bronwyn told me." He sank his chin into a meaty palm. "I wonder if that was what attracted this creature to her?"

Arianne’s eyes went wide at the thought. Then she bit her lip. That implies somewhat unpleasant things about our enemy," she said neutrally.

"Very unpleasant indeed." He sighed. "Beyond the fact that it was Moira, this business has aspects I do not like at all."

"Our enemy seems powerful."

"Powerful, strange and malign," Bal-Simba agreed. "Since the Sparrow has been among us we have seen the magic of elves and even things not entirely of this world. But never magic of the sort I saw today."

Arianne, who had stayed at the Wizards’ Keep to organize the defenses cocked a questioning eyebrow.

"Have you ever dealt with a viper?" Bal-Simba asked. "Something small and mindless yet full of menace and the single desire to harm? That was what those things were like."

"Yet even a viper has reason," Arianne said. They act so to defend themselves or because they are frightened."

Bal-Simba gave her a tired smile. "And in understanding the viper we become able to deal with it. We may hope that these things act with reason as well and that by understanding their reason we can learn to deal with them." He didn’t say it with a lot of conviction.

Both of them were silent for a moment. "Well," Bal-Simba sighed at last. "If then the Watchers cannot find anything, best to resort to other methods. Have my scrying bowl brought to me. If it will not show us Moira- and I doubt very much that it will-we can at least learn where this new magic lairs."

"Oh, and Lady:" Arianne turned, hand on the door handle.

"We need not mention our speculations to the Sparrow. Certainly not yet."

"Of course, My Lord."

Someone edged into the room. Looking up, Wiz saw it was Malus.

"Excuse me, My Lord," the pudgy wizard said. "I just heard what happened. I wanted to offer condolences- and whatever aid I might give."

"Thanks, Malus. I appreciate it."

"I was going to ask you about my spell." He drew the roll of parchment from his sleeve and looked at it ruefully. "It seems so trivial now."

Wiz held out his hand. "Give it to me."

"Now, My Lord?"

"I’ve got to keep busy," Wiz said grimly.

"Oh, of course, My Lord. And if there’s anything I can do, anything at all." Wiz clapped the fat little man on the shoulder. "Thank you, Malus. You’re a good friend."

After Malus left, Wiz spread out the parchment strips and arranged them on a bench beside the window. Like all spells it was written on parallel strips so the spell would not be activated by the act of writing it Wiz stared at them for nearly five minutes before he realized he had the strips out of order. With a sigh he picked them up and stuffed them in his belt pouch. Then he wandered down the hall toward the programmers’ workroom.

He found Danny hard at it. There were at least six listings in different colors above his workbench and two emacs below them giving more magical commands. As Wiz entered, his young colleague whispered something to a third emac seated cross legged on the floor and the demon made a note with a quill pen on a strip of parchment in its lap.

June was in the corner with Ian nestled wide-eyed and clinging in her skirt. Her other hand stayed near her knife. She hadn’t let her husband or son out of her sight since the attack.

"Have you been able to get a line on the spell?"

Danny turned toward him and made a face. This thing is real cute. First, you were right. It was done with something based more or less on our magic compiler."

"Which version?"

"I said more or less. It’s been hacked, moby hacked. There’s stuff in there I’ve never seen and I’ve got no idea what it does. There’s other stuff that goes back to your original quick-and-dirty interpreter, in a couple of cases stuff we took out of the later versions because it wasn’t stable. Then there’s stuff that’s just been fine-tuned."

He gestured and another screen opened, showing another listing. Here and there lines of code stood out in brighter fire.

Those things we met in the square are very loosely based, maybe ’inspired’ is closer, on our searcher system. The highlighted parts were probably lifted verbatim. But each of the things in the square is considerably more complex than our searchers-and a lot more lethal."

"How do they work?"

I’m not quite sure. What they do is to suck the Me force out of their victim, like a bunch of magical vampires. But there’s more to it than that and I’m not sure what. Lake I say, some of this stuff is just real strange. Some of it is beautifully tuned, some of it is damn crude and a lot of it doesn’t look like it does anything at all." He paused. "You know, I think I saw something like this once on the net. A guy kept posting stuff to alt.c.sources. He was a really good programmer only he was going psycho and in his last articles before they took him away he had this same kind of mix of off-the-wall brilliant and just plain off the wall."

"This guy’s too strong just to be crazy. Where’s this stuff coming from?" Danny shrugged. "Bal-Simba and some of the others are working on that. I’ve been concentrating on trying to understand what we’re up against."

Wiz was still looking at the code when the door banged open and Malkin strode in.

The tall thief looked like grim death. Her lips were pressed into a hard bloodless line and her dark eyes glinted dangerously. Clearly she wanted to kill someone. Wiz could sympathize.

"Word reached me at Heart’s Ease," she said by way of greeting.

"Jerry’s in your apartment:" Wiz began.

"I know. I have already seen him, much good that it did me. Now I want some answers. Then I want someone’s head."

"I bet you think those are original ideas," Wiz said bitterly.

Malkin softened. "I know they are not, My Lord Your loss is much greater than mine and I am truly, deeply sorry." Then her jaw clenched and her eyes flashed again. "And it gives me one more reason to want this one’s head on a pike." Even through his own misery Wiz was impressed, and a little awed. Normally Malkin was almost obsessively cheery, even in the face of utter disaster. He had never seen her this angry before-not, he thought, that she’d ever had this kind of reason before-and the effect was definitely impressive. More accurately, it was downright scary.

Malkin let out a sigh through her teeth and seemed to relax through a sheer effort of will. "Now then, tell me what happened at the fair this day." Talking in shifts and interrupting each other, Wiz and Danny filled her in on the attack.

"So," Malkin said as the programmers wound down, "does this thing come to us or do we winkle it out of its hole?"

Danny and Wiz looked at each other. Neither of them had gone that far in their thinking.

"I think we need more information," Wiz said. "We don’t know where this thing is from, how many of them there are, how their magic works or even much about how they operate."

"What he means is we’re still in the fact-gathering phase on this one," Danny said. "We gotta get our information together and work out a strategy." Malkin snorted. "And once you have done all that? What then?"

"Then," Wiz said grimly, "we are going to lack some serious magical butt." All three of them were early for the council meeting but they found Bal-Simba already in the council chamber with an elaborately chased bronze bowl before him.

"My Lords, My Lady," the big wizard greeted them as they entered.

"Have you found them?" Malkin asked, noting the scrying bowl on the table.

"We are not sure, but we have located the place where the effect is most powerful."

"Where?" Wiz, Danny and Malkin demanded as one.

In response Bal-Simba gestured. The water in the bowl darkened and then the image sprang up bright and clear. The image of a ruined black city on the slope of an extinct volcano.

The City Of Night!" Wiz breathed.

"So it would appear," Bal-Simba said grimly. The force is strongest in the caverns and tunnels beneath the place."

"We should have wiped it off the face of the earth," Wiz said bitterly. "It’s been nothing but trouble since the Dark League built it."

"Do not be so eager to upset the balance of the World," Bal-Simba told him.

"Still, we have been remiss in how we watched the place."

Theoretically the City of Night was deserted, save for occasional roaming monsters left over from the Dark League’s reign. Part of the city had been destroyed in the climactic magical battle in which Wiz and the Council had broken the League’s power and killed many of its members.

In practice the place had needed the attentions of the Council twice since, once when Wiz was kidnapped there by a remnant of the Dark League and once to lay the slaying demon Bale-Zur, who had been the League’s most potent weapon. Since then the Council had watched the place by magic and occasional patrols of dragon cavalry but otherwise left it alone.

"What do we do now?" Wiz asked.

That is for the Council to decide, I think"

"Hmpf!" said Malkin, in a tone that left no doubt about her opinion of the Councils decision-making ability. Wiz tried to ignore her and look on the bright side.

Four hours later it was abundantly clear that Malkin had been looking on the bright side.

"So we are at least agreed, are we not, On the need for action?" Bal-Simba rumbled wearily. That produced a general murmur and nodding of heads all the way down the table. Of course, Wiz noted sourly, some of the older heads were nodding because they were having trouble staying awake after going around and around over the same issues.

"Oh, certainly,’’ old Androclus said from his seat halfway down the table,

"but," he waggled an admonitory finger, "with caution."

"Caution be fornicated," growled Juvian. "We must act before this thing strikes again." He traded glares with Androclus, they being opponents of long standing. From his seat next to Bal-Simba, Wiz looked over at Malkin sitting against the wall. They exchanged looks of complete sympathy. If some of the older members were having trouble staying awake at this late-night session, Wiz and Malkin were having trouble keeping from strangling the council members. Danny and June had taken Ian to bed a couple of hours ago when it became abundantly clear where this session wasn’t going. Wiz and Malkin had stayed and fretted and fumed.

"My Lords," Bal-Simba said. "I think we need to sleep on this before we decide further. "Let us meet again at mid-day tomorrow. By then perhaps we shall know more." That produced the strongest agreement Wiz had heard all evening and the meeting broke up without having decided anything at all.

"Well," Wiz growled to Bal-Simba as they left the room, "that was a complete and utter waste of time."

"Because we did not set out on crusade this evening?" the big wizard asked. "You judge too quickly, Sparrow."

In reply Wiz drove his fist into the stone wall beside them. The scabs on his knuckles broke and blood marred the smooth white limestone.

"Speaking of wastes of time," Bal-Simba said mildly.

"Yeah, but it’s so frustrating! We’re spinning our wheels wasting time and Moira doesn’t have much time."

"A wizard must be the master of his frustrations. If you let them master you they will lead you to disaster entire. Besides, we learned several things this night."

"Name three," Wiz snapped.

Bal-Simba ticked them off on his fingers. "We learned that none of the Mighty has ever encountered this thing before, nor, as far as we can find, have the hedge witches or any other human magician. That means that it struck first at the heart of the human lands. Which in turn means what happened was not some chance encounter but a planned attack with magic we have never seen. That suggests in turn that this thing has been biding its time while it honed its powers elsewhere. And that: but there are your three, Sparrow, and several besides." "So what are we going to do about it?" "Scant choice in that, is there? We will fight this thing and I hope we shall defeat it. As to the details-" Bal-Simba shrugged "-those we shall decide in Council." "I wonder if that bunch will ever decide anything." "Unjust, Sparrow. True, the Council is a deliberative body but would you rather we dash off heedless and ignorant against an enemy who is clearly prepared for us?" Wiz looked at him narrowly. "You’re not real unhappy about the way things went tonight, are you?"

"There are worse paths to follow than to gain information before acting. As we know more I think the Council’s position will become more definite." And the worst of it is, Wiz thought as he turned down the hall to his quarters, he’s right. In spite of his loss and anger, Wiz understood Bal-Simbas caution. They desperately needed to know more about this strange enemy and there really was no good strategy that could be formulated until they knew more. From his time on the Council Wiz also understood that Bal-Simba had deliberately let the meeting drift so the Council would not commit foolishly to a plan. He knew all that, he understood the need for it and he didn’t like any of it. He opened his door and nearly tripped over his wife’s tail.

The dragon jerked its head upright with its neck taut. Then the eyes seemed to soften and the body relaxed as Moira asserted control.

"I’m sorry, love, you startled me.""Sorry. I was thinking about something else." The dragon slithered around to face him. "It did not go well?" Wiz forced himself to look into the reptilian eyes. "Well enough, I guess. The Council didn’t decide anything, but at least they’re not going charging off on a wild goose chase. Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?"

Moira started at the change of subject. "I meant to, but first I wasn’t sure and then with the Winter Fair coming on, I didn’t want you to worry."

"I wish you had told me."

Moira sighed, a great sulfurous sigh. "I wish I had too."

Instinctively Wiz moved to take Moira in his arms, but the only part of her he could get his arms around was her long scaly neck and that put her head well above his. She lowered her head and he adjusted his grip to just behind her ears but found he couldn’t look at her that way. He settled for dropping into a chair and Moira resting her head in his lap.

One side of Wiz’s mouth twitched up in what might have passed for a smile. "Some technical problems here."

"I Know," Moira said sadly. "I’m afraid the bedroom is a mess. When I got back my first thought was to throw myself on the bed and cry. But the bed was not made to support this body’s weight and I am afraid we shall both nave to sleep on the floor tonight."

"That’s all right."

Moira twisted around to look at him. "Do you know dragons cannot cry? No matter how sad they are, or how miserable or how frightened, they cannot cry." Wiz felt the tears flowing down his own cheeks. "I guess:" He took a deep breath. "I guess I’ll have to do the crying for both of us."

Then his head came up. "I swear I’ll get you back. I don’t care who’s behind it, I’ll get you back and make them pay!"

"I know you will, love," Moira said simply and snuggled her head into his lap. Wiz wasn’t sure how much either of them was lying for the other’s benefit. The late-rising winter sun was just a dull glow through the fog and low-hanging clouds, but already the programmers’ workroom was full. Jerry was still in a coma, but Danny was hard at work at his desk. June was sitting in the corner with Ian more or less asleep in her lap. Malkin was in another corner, very ostentatiously touching up the edges of a double-edged dagger with a bit of fine-grained stone. Beside her lay a swordbelt with a cup-hiked rapier. Moira was off attending to what she delicately referred to as "dragon business."

"Anything?" Wiz asked as he strode into the room.

Danny didn’t take his eyes off the screens. "Not much. Mostly it just confirms what we knew last night. I’ve got a little more on how this spell works, but boy is it peculiar. I wish Jerry was here, this is more his kind of thing." He turned to face his friend. "Do you want to take a crack at it?"

"Not right now. I’ve got some other stuff to do."

Malkin tested the dagger’s edge against her thumbnail, paring off a nearly transparent scraping. "Like what?"

"Like a little scouting expedition. The one thing we do know is that the Enemy seems to be headquartered at the City of Night. The other thing we know is we need to know a lot more about him. So I intend to go poking around and see what I find."

"What you are likely to find, Sparrow, is more trouble than you can handle." Wiz turned and saw Bal-Simba standing in the doorway. "This enemy is dangerous enough on our ground," he continued as he came into the room. "He is likely to be far more dangerous on ground he has made his own."

The big wizard settled into his over-sized chair. "I met Moira in the corridor," he said by way of explanation.

"She said she believed you had formed a plan last night and begged me to discover it."

"It’s kinda hard to get any sleep when you’re sharing a small bedroom with a dragon," Wiz said.

"And it is not wise to plan great matters when you are fatigued," Bal-Simba responded. ’This idea of yours does not seem to have much to recommend it"

"Relax. I’m not going to take this character on alone. All I’m going to do is get the lay of the land so we’ll have a better idea what we’re dealing with." Bal-Simba raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

"Look, you said it yourself. The Council won’t move until we know more. We’re likely to find out more by scouting this guy than sitting around here. I’ve been in those tunnels more than anyone else. Once when I rescued Moira from the Dark League, then when I was kidnapped back there and then when we went back to lay Bale-Zur."

"We didn’t go into the tunnels that time," Danny said. Wiz glared at him.

"Anyway, the point is, I’m the logical one to scout it out because I know that place."

Bal-Simba’s skeptical silence reminded Wiz just how untrue the last bit was. Wiz had seen only a tiny fraction of that giant maze and, being the kind who loses his car in a supermarket parking lot, he couldn’t remember much of anything about the layout.

"At some point we’re going to have to scout, and now’s the best time. Besides, we can’t just react. We’ve got to act and information is the only thing that will get the Council off dead center. Besides," he added after a brief pause,

"Moira doesn’t have time to waste."

For a long while Bal-Simba said nothing. Then he sighed. "If I could forbid you I would. But we both know I cannot and giving commands which you cannot enforce is unbecoming of a leader. So go if you must, and we will contrive without you." Malkin stood up and jammed her dagger home in its sheath. "You’ll have to contrive without me as well."

Wiz shook his head. "Sorry, this is a one-man show."

"I have a stake in this," Malkin said, jerking her head back toward the room where Jerry lay. "Besides I’ve got a feeling you’re going to need the best thief you can get."

"Meaning you?" Danny interjected.

Malkin spread her hands, smiled slightly and shrugged.

"Shiara does say she is as good as she herself was in her prime," Bal-Simba put in.

"Shiara’s not giving her enough credit," Wiz said sourly, remembering Malkin’s escapades as his "assistant" in the Dragon Marches.

"So you need me. I’m coming." Then her face softened and her eyes sparkled.

"Besides, it should be a tremendous adventure."

And if it’s not at first, you’ll make sure it is. His previous experience had left him all too familiar with Malkin’s taste for excitement. He looked over at Danny for support but June was beside him, clutching her husband’s arm.

"I’m in this too," he said.

June paled and bit her lip. Then she took Danny’s arm. "And me," she said simply.

"Why doesn’t that surprise me? Why don’t we just take every wizard in the North?"

"You cannot do it alone, Sparrow," Bal-Simba said mildly.

"This is supposed to be a surgical operation. The bigger the team the harder to hide."

Malkin and June just looked at him.

"Okay," Wiz sighed. "We’re four."

"Five, I think," said Bal-Simba, looking over Wiz’s shoulder.

Wiz looked hard at the big wizard "You too?"

"No," came a voice from behind him, "me."

FIVE A QUESTION OF COMPANY

There was a dwarf in the doorway. A rather young dwarf with a large and very gaudy sword slung over his shoulder.

Wiz wasn’t good at telling dwarves apart, but in all the World there was only one sword decorated in such hideously bad taste.

"Glandurg?"

"I told you once, Wizard, the day would come when you would need doughty fighters. I promised you then-that on that day I would stand with you."

"Uh, thanks," Wiz muttered. He and Glandurg had never been formally introduced. That had something to do with the fact that Glandurg had spent most of their acquaintance trying to kill him. This had been the result of some kind of deal between Glandurg’s uncle, a very minor dwarf king, and a gang of trolls. That had been patched over, but to say that Wiz wasn’t thrilled to see the dwarf again was to put it mildly.

Glandurg reached over his shoulder and patted the gem-encrusted hilt of his weapon. ’The sword Blind Fury has dispatched one of your enemies. Now it shall sing in battle against your new foes."

That was the other thing. Blind Fury was not only decorated in eye-searingly gaudy style, it was enchanted and no one could withstand its blows. But like its present wielder the spell was seriously lacking in ept. The sword had indeed slain an enemy programmer-magician by slicing through a suit of heavy power armor like it was soggy toilet paper. However, the blow had been aimed at Wiz, and Craig, the programmer, had the misfortune to be standing next to him. Wiz cast a look of mute appeal at Bal-Simba. The big wizard simply spread his hands. "If you will excuse me, Sparrow, I have other matters to attend to." With that he rose and left.

"Now then," Malkin said, striding toward the center of the room, flipping her dagger into the air and catching it by the point, "we need to get this expedition organized."

Wiz sighed. This was going to be a long quest.

Two hours later Wiz met Bal-Simba at the turning of the corridor. The big wizard looked at Wiz as he fell in beside him and raised an eyebrow in unspoken question.

"I think," Wiz said brightly, "that I may scream. In fact I’m on my way up to the battlements to do just that."

"I am not unfamiliar with the feeling."

"Want to join me?"

"I have never found it a particularly productive exercise."

Wiz made a face. "Has it ever occurred to you that trying to exercise leadership around this place is like herding cats?"

"Quite recently," his companion said dryly. "Sparrow, you already know what I think of this enterprise."

"Almost, I’m coming to share your view. Almost."

"Concerned about your companions?"

"Wouldn’t you be?" He ticked them off on his fingers. "June’s crazy, Malkin’s a kleptomaniac adrenaline junkie, Danny’s still kind of wild and Glandurg is just plain dangerous."

Bal-Simba didn’t argue. "Even so, they will be at your side in this business, and if you are determined to do this thing it were best if you counted their strengths rather than their weaknesses. None of them is without skills which you might need."

Wiz thought about it for a minute and looked up at the big wizard.

"Do you really think they’ll help?"

"The point, Sparrow, is that worrying about them will not help either. A positive attitude can give you an advantage and I think you will need every one you can find."

"All I wanted was a simple little scouting expedition, to probe around the edges a little."

"Life does not always give us what we want," Bal-Simba told him. "Very often we must choose to accept what it gives us with the best grace possible."

"Isn’t the sun ever going to break through?" Wiz growled as he looked out the window of the castle’s great hall toward the west.

"Not today," Bal-Simba said, looking over his friends shoulder.

It was afternoon, but the low clouds and deepening fog had made the day even dimmer than the dawn. The sullen gloom beyond the window reflected Wiz’s mood perfectly and that, he thought, was one thing he didn’t need right now. Most of the rest of the party shared his mood. Not entirely, of course. Malkin was bouncing around like a fox terrier, happy at the prospect of action-not to mention slitting a few throats and perhaps lifting some purses. Glandurg struck a grimly heroic pose. Danny was just grim and June was, well, June. Wiz kept looking out the window. "A blizzard coming on?"

"Perhaps. But I think something more than that"

"What?"

"I do not know," Bal-Simba said, "but I suspect we shall find out after you are gone."

The way he said it indicated he didn’t think they’d like what they found. Wiz turned away from the window. "Look, I know you don’t like this, but I have got to do what I can to save Moira."

Bal-Simba continued to look out the window. "You must act according to your nature, Sparrow. Only consider what a victory it would be for the Enemy if something were to happen to you."

Wiz bit his lip. I’ll be careful I promise."

As he said it, he rubbed his right ring finger, bare for the first time in months. Lake the others he was leaving his Ring of Protection behind. The spell, which froze the wearer into invulnerable immobility when facing a mortal threat, had not protected Moira. What’s more, Wiz’s experience in the Dragon Marches had proven that the spell could be used against the wearer by freezing that person through the simple expedient of keeping up the threat Wiz knew the rings wouldn’t help on this expedition, but still:

Bal-Simba turned from the window. "The time draws near."

The scouting parry all wore traveling cloaks and each of them carried a pack. They were armed and armored, each in his or her appropriate fashion. For Wiz and Danny that meant their wizard’s staffs, since neither of them was proficient with this world’s weapons. Glandurg had a mail byrnie to his knobby knees and Blind Fury slung over his back Malkin had a shirt of light mail and her rapier and dagger-plus who-knows-what concealed about her person. June had her knife. Since they would be sending themselves along the Wizard’s Way rather than being sent there was no need to start from the great hall. However the cavernous hall had enough room for the people who had come to see them off, plus the dozen or so of the Mighty posted at strategic points around them in case something nasty tried to come in as they went out.

Among the others were Shauna, holding tight to a tearful Ian. And of course the dragon that was now the body of Wiz’s wife.

Moira stepped close and pressed her scaly lips to his. "Please be careful." Wiz manfully ignored the dragon breath and hugged her as best he could. "Hey, we’re only going for a look-see, remember?"

He looked around one last time. "Okay, I guess we’re ready."

With that they took their places, close within the circle. Wiz raised his staff, gestured and spoke and with five small pops of displaced air they disappeared along the Wizard’s Way into the stronghold of the Enemy.

SIX DUNGEON REDUX

"backslash light exe."

The darkness around them was replaced with a cold blue light and Wiz and the others got their first look at the dungeons beneath the City of Night. For the others it was a first. Wiz had been in the multi-layered labyrinth beneath the city of the Dark League during the great magical battle that broke the Leagues power forever.

Not that he recognized a thing. His only memories were of endless tunnels of dirt and stone separated by doors of oak and corroded iron, and strange furtive movements in the shadows. He hadn’t liked the place when he had been here then, he hadn’t liked it when a remnant of the Dark League had kidnapped him back to the now-ruined city a while later and he certainly didn’t like it now. They were bunched together in a wide stone corridor apparently hewn from solid rock. The passage was wider and taller than any he remembered seeing in the dungeons and the walls were worked smooth instead of being left uneven and scarred with the marks of the hewers’ tools.

The place seems different," he said, running his hand along the stone. "As if someone’s been working on it.

"Probably," Malkin said as she looked around appraisingly.

Glandurg kept his hand on the hilt of Blind Fury and sniffed the stale air in great wheezing breaths. June stayed close to Danny, her head swiveling this way and that. Clearly she didn’t like what she was seeing. That was all right, Wiz didn’t like what he saw either.

"Well, which way?" Malkin asked. She seemed as calm as if they were out for a stroll in the castle rose garden, but Wiz noticed her hand stayed near the cup hilt of her rapier.

Wiz consulted the amulet around his neck. The amulet looked like an ordinary lensatic compass. The first time he came here he had used a seeker globe that floated ahead to show him the way to where Moira was held captive. That had proved less than ideal when the globe blithely floated into a guardroom full of goblin warriors with Wiz and his party close behind. If the compass was more prosaic it was also not as likely to get them in trouble.

Danny lifted a similar device hung around his neck and turned this way and that.

"No sign of hostile magic," he said.

The one thing they didn’t have was a map. The magical forces around this place were too strong for the wizards of the North to get the lay of the land and there were no pre-existing maps of the place. Wiz suspected that even the wizards of the Dark League, who had delved this place, hadn’t had a complete map. He suspected even more strongly that the dungeons’ new tenant had done some major remodeling.

"Off in this direction."

Then," said Glandurg, striding to the front, "let us away."

The dwarf took the lead with Malkin following, then Wiz, then June and then Danny. It wasn’t an ideal formation out it did mean that if Glandurg started swinging that sword the others would be able to get clear.

The tunnel led slightly off to the right and down. Here and there the old dirt walls or rough stone showed through, as if whatever was working on the dungeons hadn’t finished yet. Wiz found the thought comforting and he tried to hold onto it

Every hundred feet or so the tunnel would branch, sometimes into three or four directions. But the directional amulet kept pointing straight ahead. At last they came to a branching where the amulet told them to go right. Right through a large iron-bound door of age-darkened wood.

Malkin studied the door in the light of the magic globe. "No obvious lock," she said more to herself than the others. She ran her fingers over the rough iron surface, pressing experimentally here and there.

Glandurg reached for his sword.

"With a single blow of Bund Fury I shall cleave it asunder."

Danny and Wiz edged away from the door.

"Uh, we’re not to that stage vet," Wiz said a trifle desperately. "Just keep watch, okay?"

Malkin nodded and bent before the door. She ran her hands over the lock plate like a pianist touching her instrument She tapped on the door frame in two or three places and then turned her attention to the iron plate set in the stone to take the lock’s bolt.

"Easiest to take that off," she muttered and produced a set of tools from somewhere about her person. "Bring that light over here will you?"

As Wiz moved to comply she began to work on the plate in the wall It was held in place with three large and quite rusty nuts, he saw, with the bolt ends peened over them to prevent their removal. For some reason that bothered him, but he couldn’t quite understand why.

Malkin produced something that looked like a surgeons scalpel and applied it to the peened-over part of the bolts. The rusty iron cut like cheese under the pressure of the magical knife. Next she produced a small bottle and put several drops of an oily liquid on each bolt. The liquid seemed to soak into the joint between the nuts and bolts. Then she held up a tuning fork and struck it against the wall. A pure clear tone at the edge of human hearing filled the tunnel and Malkin applied the base of the fork to the first nut. There was a fine shifting of powder from the nut and bolt as the rust fell away under the influence of the vibrations.

She applied the tuning fork to each of the other bolts and then reached into the tool roll for something else. Then she stopped very deliberately, exhaled and stood up.

"Someone told me I shouldn’t rush these things," she explained. The next step is to remove those fasteners."

"Then we take the plate off and open the door," Danny said.

Malkin looked at him. "Then we see. Best not to anticipate what you’ll find on a job like this. Too much chance of missing something important."

With that she turned back and knelt again before the iron plate. She took the first nut between her thumb and forefinger and carefully, delicately, turned it. The rusty nut came off as if it was on only finger tight.

While the others watched Malkin moved to the center nut. She grasped it, moved as if to turn it and then stopped dead. Then slowly, ever so slowly, she began to turn the nut the other way.

That’s tightening it," Danny said, but the nut backed off and fell into Malkin’s hand. She shot Danny a raised-eyebrow look over her shoulder and went back to the third nut, which came off in the conventional direction.

Wiz picked up the second nut and looked at it. "A dummy thread," he said. The first few turns are cut right-handed, but the bearing threads are actually left-handed"

By this time Malkin had the plate off and the door open and while Wiz looked at the nut the others started filing through.

"Come here and look at this," Danny said from the other side of the door. Wiz followed him through. There, behind the now-open door was an evil-looking black sphere cradled like a nut in a nutcracker between a lever and the wall. One end of the lever was pivoted in place and the other end was fastened to the bolt with the backwards nut.

"Turn that thing the wrong way and you break the sphere," Danny told him. Suddenly Wiz felt very cold. "Nasty."

"I wonder what’s in that sphere anyway?"

"Danny."

"Yeah, Wiz?"

"Never ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to."

"How did you know how to open that door?" Wiz asked as he caught up with Malkin at the head of the party.

"Wizard, your problem is you’re too trusting," Malkin told him. "If it looks like it is supposed to open by turning deosil, then obviously it opens by turning widdershins."

"Thanks," Wiz mumbled and dropped back beside Danny, lost in thought.

"What’s wrong?" Danny asked.

"Malkin opened the door by turning the bolt clockwise."

"Just the opposite of what you’d expect. It was a trap."

"How many bolts have you seen since you got here with right-hand threads, like the ones in our world?"

The younger programmer stopped and looked at him. "I can’t remember seeing any bolts-except for the stuff we’ve made. Here they use pins or wedges."

"Exactly. They don’t use bobs, right-hand or left-hand. But that door was gimmicked to trap someone who expected a right-handed thread. What we’d expect."

"You mean this place is full of traps designed just for us?"

"Either that or the traps were designed by people who think like us. People from our world."

Danny let out a low whistle. "Jeez, I don’t know which is worse."

"Let me know when you decide," Wiz told him. "Because chances are whichever one is worse, that’s the one it is."

The evening came on dark and full of dirty fog. There was no sunset that day at the Wizards’ Keep, only the dank fog and the wind keening about the towers where lamps burned late as wizards labored over their spells. Here and there a guardsman paced the battlements, cloak drawn tight against the growing chill.

"What is the time?" Bal-Simba asked as he stared out the window, straining to make out the castle curtain wall.

Arianne glanced at the magic sundial sitting on her work table. "Barely the seventh day-tenth." She paused. "Dark, is it not?"

"Too dark," Bal-Simba agreed. "Unnaturally so, I think."

Arianne’s eyes flicked to the window but saw only Bal-Simba’s reflection against the darkness. "Our enemy’s work?"

"Perhaps." He turned from the window. "Ask Juvian to examine this fog for signs of magic."

His assistant nodded and spoke into a communications crystal.

So cold, Shauna thought, even for winter. She picked up the wrought iron poker and stirred up the fire. Listen to yourself. Like someone’s old grandmother. Still she stirred the fire, seeking comfort from the renewed flames. Normally the apartment in the guardsmens’ quarters was snug enough, with whitewashed walls and comfortable furniture enlivened with polished copper pots and examples of Shauna’s needlework But tonight it seemed chill and dank, oppressed by the air that had settled over the Wizards’ Keep.

She returned to the high-backed bench and Ian and Caitlin pressed back against her, seeking their own comfort. This deep in the castle they could not hear the keen of the wind, but they felt it just the same.

As she settled her bulk onto the bench she sighed and the children pressed closer. She put an arm around each and pulled them closer yet.

Shauna was a guardsman’s daughter and a guardsman’s wife and she had lived through the evil days of the Dark League’s ascendancy when human magic was puny and the Council of the North had faced constant ruin at the hands of foes human and non-human. For all that, she could not remember a more bleak evening. Malcolm, her husband, was eating soldier’s stew, taking the common meal in the guard room. Supper was done, the dishes washed and put away. Normally she would be gently hinting about bedtime by now, but no one was sleepy and, truth to tell, Shauna preferred their company.

"I wish daddy was here," Caitlin said without raising her head.

"Your daddy’s got duty," Shauna told her daughter, "special duty like half of ’em tonight."

"I want my daddy too," Ian added.

She stroked the boy’s ash-blond hair. "Hush. It will be all right. You’ll see. The Sparrow and your daddy and mommy have gone off to fix everything." Neither child said anything, but both seemed to snuggle even closer. For a bit they watched the flames in silence. "I wish Fluffy was here," Ian said finally.

"You’ll see him soon enough," she said. "Moira promised to stop by later." Ian looked up at her as if he would cry. "We can’t see Fluffy."

"He’s not Fluffy any more," Caitlin explained sadly into her mother’s bosom.

"He’s Moira."

"You were right, My Lord," the middle-aged man in the crystal sphere said to Bal-Simba. "The fog is not natural and it bears the mark of the Enemy’s magic."

"Is it dangerous?" Bal-Simba asked Juvian’s image.

The wizard frowned until the lines of his forehead nearly matched the angle of his widow’s peak "Not now.

But there are stirrings within. Perhaps it builds toward something. Shall I attempt to disperse it?"

It was Bal-Simba’s turn to frown. "I think not yet. Make sure that we are protected against it and continue to watch it carefully. Meanwhile, prepare spells to disperse it if need be. And report any changes to me."

"I shall, My Lord. I am not sure we can disperse it, but we will begin work on spells immediately. Merry part."

"Merry meet again," Bal-Simba replied and the image blinked out.

"On our very doorstep," Arianne said over Bal-Simba’s shoulder.

The big wizard turned to face his assistant. "Our enemy grows ever bolder ever more quickly. A bad sign, I think."

"Perhaps he will overreach himself."

Bal-Simba looked over at the dark window. "Perhaps. And if he does we must be ready."

Halfway down this stretch of tunnel there was a branch that ended after barely a dozen paces. Wiz sent the light globe floating in and examined it carefully before he motioned the others forward.

"Okay people, rest period."

Glandurg looked at him as though he was crazy. "We have barely begun." True," Malkin said, "I do not think any of us are tired."

’The idea is not to get tired," Wiz told them. "We don’t want to be worn out if we run into something nasty. Besides," he added, seeing Malkin’s hesitation, "we can cover more ground if we rest regularly."

Malkin grunted and sank down next to the others. Glandurg ostentatiously remained standing, guarding the entrance.

Wiz sighed as the pack’s weight came off his shoulders. He wasn’t tired, exactly, but he found he was glad for the break. None of them was hungry, but they all took sips of water from their canteens.

"Well," Danny asked after several minutes. "Now what?"

Wiz shifted his pack. "Now we check in."

"Are you sure that’s safe?"

"No, but Bal-Simba insisted on regular reports or he’d have a gang of wizards haul us out of here."

"If we are to be scouts we must needs report," Malkin said quietly. Wiz noticed that even when she talked her eyes kept searching up and down the tunnel. He hefted the special communications crystal. "Besides there’s no sign our enemy understands spread demon communications, much less knows bow to tap into the signal."

This guy seems to understand an awful lot we didn’t think he does," Danny pointed out.

Wiz ignored him and whispered into the crystal. The crystal glowed more brightly as the spell within it came alive. Suddenly there were twenty small demons floating in the air in two ranks before them. They hung silent and motionless. Wiz paused, cocked his head and whispered into the crystal again. Again the crystal glowed but the demons did nothing. Wiz frowned and tried a third time.

"What’s wrong?" Danny asked.

"I’m not getting any response. It’s like there’s nothing there."

"Jamming?"

"No sign of it." He tried again.

"Maybe the demons got out of sync," Danny suggested.

Wiz considered. Unlike a normal communications crystal, the "spread demon" crystals used many pairs of demons with the message split into tiny parts and switching from demon to demon in an apparently random but carefully calculated pattern. The system depended on having each demon listening at the right time and in the right sequence.

"Have you ever known anything like that to happen?" Wiz asked.

Danny shook his head. "In our stuff? No."

Malkin had been watching them intently. "If it is not working we had best assume that it is the result of malign action."

Wiz nodded "Probably best." Then he dismissed the demons and motioned his companions close around him.

"Now we’ve got to make a decision. If we can’t communicate, do we poke around some more or head back right away?"

"We have barely arrived," Malkin pointed out "Nor have we encountered anything dangerous."

"Nor have we seen anything interesting," Glandurg said. The way he pronounced the last word left Wiz in no doubt that "interesting" translated into "liquid assets."

"We haven’t learned anything either," Danny added. June just grasped her husband’s arm.

Wiz considered and drew a deep breath. "All right then. We’re going on." There were smiles all around, but somehow Wiz didn’t feel quite that cheerful.

"Ah, Fortuna, it’s cold!" Elias the wizard exclaimed.

"I need no magic to tell me that, My Lord," Malcolm said, never taking his eyes from the darkness beyond the castle walls.

Dark as it was and muffled as they were in their cloaks the only obvious difference between them was size. The guardsman was a good half-head taller than the wizard. Their cloaks hid both his chain mail armor and the wizard’s robe of office. Malcolm’s soldiers reserve hid his opinion of his companion. Full wizard this Elias might be, but in Malcolm’s eyes he was still a youngster, and a bumptious one at that. The guardsman wished for a more experienced magician, one who didn’t chatter so. But the Mighty and most of the journeymen were tucked warmly away, preparing spells against this new enemy. For duty on the walls he’d nave to take what he could get.

Malcolm, who had tramped these walls for a goodly number of years, had never seen colder weather. However talking about it made it no warmer. Besides, he wasn’t going to give this stripling the pleasure of hearing him say that. So he only shrugged and the pair continued on their way.

"Never like this at home," the young wizard added breathlessly as he tried to keep up with Malcolm’s measured stride.

The guardsman spared a glance for his companion out of the corner of his eye. Like Bal-Simba, Elias was a wizard and a black man from the hot lands to the north. But there the resemblance ended and as far as Malcolm was concerned it didn’t extend near far enough. It was said they bred mighty magicians in those lands, and in truth Bal-Simba was mighty enough. But either the line had run thin since Bal-Simba’s day or this was an unusually poor specimen.

In theory the castle was already guarded against enemy magic. Which might be well and good for them as put their trust in it, Malcolm thought. But to his mind a place wasn’t properly guarded until the sentries were at their posts and the sentinels patrolled the perimeter. In theory he even approved of adding magicians to the patrols. Give them something useful to do instead of idling about in their towers, he thought. Show them what the world is really made of. However after a couple of hours in Elias’ company Malcolm was beginning to change his mind.

If only this one wouldn’t talk so! To his way of thinking, talking distracted guards from their duties and many’s the time he had had a junior guardsman marching his post with a pack full of sand for a week for talking one-tenth as much as this wizard.

He peered out into the darkness, trying to pierce the night and roiling fog. The air was close and cold, inserting clammy fingers into clothing and pulling out heat It was said there was magic in it of no friendly sort and certainly the guardsmen were nervous and uneasy at their posts.

Not that that’s a bad thing, he thought as he strode along at a measured pace. Keeps them on the alert. Still, this fog and cold could get to a man. It was easy to start seeing things in the swirls of darkness out at the edge of the light. It was almost as if:

Malcolm stopped dead in his tracks. "What’s that?" he barked. ,

"What, why noth:" The words froze in the wizard’s throat as he peered out into the blackness. "No wait. Yes there’s something there! It’s magic."

But Malcolm needed no wizard to tell him that. Things were moving in the mist, dark things. As Elias gabbled into his communications crystal, Malcolm was already blowing the first blast on his whistle.

There was a note like a crystal bell and Juvian’s image appeared in the crystal ball on Bal-Simba’s work table. "My Lord, the magic fog! It changes."

"Raise the wards. Quickly," Bal-Simba commanded, "seal the castle against it." Juvian nodded and even as his image blinked out, he had begun to raise his staff.

Arianne looked at him and raised an eyebrow in question.

"Alert the others. Our enemy begins his move." His assistant nodded and spoke into her own communications crystal.

Dimly through the fog, the walls of the castle began to glow.

Bal-Simba studied other forms in his crystal as the reports began to pour in.

"Recall the guard into the shelter of the towers," he ordered.

"More of the fog things?" Arianne asked, looking up from her communications crystal.

"It appears our enemy begins his attack." Outside the wind began to keen and sing. "I think I know what it wants," he added grimly.

The adventurers slept that night in an empty room with a guard posted at the door. The stone floor was cold and uneven and everyone was so keyed up that in truth they got little enough sleep. But after a decent interval they ate a hurried breakfast, packed up and moved out again, following the magic indicator toward where Moira-or Moiras body-lay.

"This looks like the section of the tunnels I was in before," Wiz said as they moved away from their resting place. "At least it’s built the same way."

"Can you say what lies before us?" Malkin asked.

Wiz shook his head. "I can’t even be sure it’s the same section. It just looks like it"

"Hmmpf," Malkin said in a tone that indicated how much help that was. Then she turned again and led off.

The tunnel was much as Wiz remembered it. Same musty smell, same dirt floor and walls, same occasional wooden beams for bracing and the same twisting, turning meandering that would confuse a homing pigeon. Wiz was a long way from a homing pigeon and he didn’t have the faintest idea where they were.

Malkin rounded a corner and stopped short, rapier half out of its scabbard. Glandurg hissed and stepped out beside her, whipping Blind Fury free. Wiz took a firmer grip on his staff and peered around Malkin and over Glandurg. Nothing moved. It had been a guardroom, Wiz realized. The same big fireplace and benches and tables he had seen when he had stumbled into such a room full of goblin guards on his first trip here. But the fireplace was cold and dead, the tables and benches were smashed and littered across the floor out beyond the range of the glow globe’s light, and there were other things mixed into toe litter on the stone-flagged floor.

Nearly at his feet was a halberd, its thick oak shaft neatly sheared off a foot behind the head. Beyond that lay a conical metal helmet and further out in the room was a scattering of other pieces of armor and bones.

Halfway out in the room was a set of leg armor, from shin guards to tassets. Because it was all together Wiz thought for an instant there might be a leg still in it Then he looked more closely and saw it was empty. The armor had been split open, as if someone-no, something had been at it with a giant can opener.

"What the: ?" Danny breathed in Wiz’s ear.

Sword and dagger at the ready, Malkin eased catlike into the room. Wiz shifted his grip on his staff to provide covering fire if needed. But mere was no movement, no sound but their own breathing.

Malkin knelt beside the leg armor and carefully turned it with the point of her dagger, wincing slightly at the noise. Then she turned and examined an unrecognizable bit of bone nearby.

"This is old," she announced. "Several years I would say."

Wiz turned up the glow globe and flooded the chamber with blue light. Then he and the others eased into the room in a tight knot.

"How many?" he asked the kneeling thief.

Malkin glanced around and shrugged. "More than half a dozen, perhaps as many as twenty. It would be a pretty puzzle to reassemble enough pieces for an accurate count" She looked more carefully. "But I would say they were all killed at the same time."

"It probably goes back to when the Dark League ruled the city, or a little after," Wiz said. "Even then these tunnels were full of nasties."

"Perhaps it departed with its masters," Malkin suggested.

Wiz looked skeptical. "The Dark League didn’t exactly have time to clean up after themselves. And I know there were some pretty unpleasant things left when I was kidnapped back here. A couple of them almost got me."

"Then best assume our foe lurks here yet," Glandurg said, shifting his grip on Blind Fury.

"Best assume whatever it is is pretty potent," Wiz added. "These guards were not pushovers."

"There is another thing we can assume," Malkin said as she stood up and brushed the dirt from her knees without letting go her grip on either her rapier or her dagger. "These bones show cut marks. After they were killed their flesh was stripped from their bones and probably consumed on the spot."

The group left the guardroom walking softly and peering into the shadows and silence with every sense alert.

"Nice thing to find," Danny muttered to Wiz as they continued down the tunnel.

"In a way it’s good we found it. People will take this place more seriously now."

"I already took this place plenty seriously." "Well, take it even more seriously."

At the Wizards’ Keep, the day dawned on a castle under siege. There was no sun, only dark fog full of darker shapes that swirled about the castle and poked and pried at every nook and cranny. Nor were the fog’s powers growing any less.

"Three wing beats out and you’re lost," Dragon Leader told Bal-Simba in the latter’s workroom. Dragon Leader was a compact man with blond hair and ice-gray eyes, still muffled in his flying leathers. His teeth did not chatter but that seemed more from an effort of will than warmth. The cold sucks the life out of you, heat spell or no."

Bal-Simba looked at his wing commander over the remains of his breakfast. He had worked the night through and eaten at his desk, much good it had done! He stood up and walked to the window, scowling out into the swirling fog with its half-revealed shapes. Arianne, who had been listening from the corner, moved beside him.

"Lord, say the word and we will go again. But I am not sure how many will return."

"No." The wizard shook his head and turned from the window. "You have done well and I thank you, but best that we husband our resources until we know more." As unobtrusively as possible a castle page slipped into the room and began to collect the breakfast things.

"I’m sorry, My Lord."

"There is nothing to be sorry for. You have done all you could while this magic fog hangs over the whole land."

"But it doesn’t," the page piped up.

All of them turned to face him and the boy colored to the roots of his ash-blond hair. "Well, it doesn’t," he added half-defiantly. "It starts thinning almost as soon as you get outside the castle walls and by the time you’re across the river it’s almost gone."

"How do you know?" Bal-Simba asked.

The boy studied his toes. "I’ve been there," he admitted finally. "I know I wasn’t supposed to but Henry bet me and:" He ran down, reserves of courage exhausted.

Bal-Simba and the others studied the page. Look at him once and you’d think he was fifteen or sixteen. Look closer and you’d see he was a couple of years younger, just tall for his age.

"Who are you?"

"Brian, My Lord. The cook’s son."

"Do those things in the fog hinder you?"

The page shook his head. "They sort of talk to you, but mostly they ignore you. You can walk right through them. It’s cold and you can’t see anything, but if you stay on the path you can follow it right down to the river and take one of the boats across."

"It appears," Dragon Leader said, "that this cub is a better scout than any of my riders."

"Or the thing is attracted by ridden dragons," Arianne said, "and perhaps the magic you carry." She looked back at the page. "Did you have any magic upon you?" The boy shook his head.

"Brian, do you think you can get back across the river?" asked Dragon Leader. The boy nodded.

"Your plan?" Bal-Simba asked Dragon Leader.

"The boy can go where my riders cannot. We must know more about this cloud and how far it extends."

"A dangerous mission for a child," Arianne pointed out.

"I’m almost thirteen!" Brian said and then blushed again as the others looked at him.

"Almost old enough for the apprentice squadron," Dragon Leader said.

"If he cannot carry magic, the boy cannot communicate with us once he is out there."

"I know," Bal-Simba said. "It will have to be in and out."

"I can do that, My Lord," Brian said enthusiastically.

"Very well," Bal-Simba said finally to Dragon Leader. "Take the cub, outfit him warmly and tell him what to look for. But no magic, mind!"

Dragon Leader put his hand on the beaming page’s arm and guided him from the chamber.

"The shifts we are driven to!" Bal-Simba sighed when they were out the door. Arianne laid her hand on the wizard’s shoulder. "I believe you are the one who said we do what we must."

Bal-Simba reached up and patted her hand. "That does not mean we have to like it."

SEVEN TROUBLE IN THE TUNNELS

In spite of his concentration Wiz nearly ran into Malkin when the tall thief stopped suddenly. Almost instinctively the others clustered around her. Malkin peered ahead intently. "I think there is a light at the end of this tunnel."

"Daylight?" Danny whispered.

"More likely a gorilla with a flashlight," Wiz whispered. The others looked at him oddly. "I mean, let’s be careful about this."

Malkin in the lead they crept down the tunnel, with the rest of the party following in a tight knot. Before they had gone another twenty paces Wiz was sure there was light ahead. Another hundred and the glimmer had resolved itself into an eerie blue glow.

Malkin looked over her shoulder at Wiz and raised her eyebrows in silent question.

"I don’t know," he whispered. "I don’t remember anything like this." He turned to the others. "Stay close and stay cool, people. And don’t make any noise." Cautiously the party crept up the tunnel toward the glow, Malkin flitting along without a whisper of sound and the others coming as quietly as their natures permitted. Wiz tried to watch where he put his feet, keep up with Malkin and not make any noise. He winced every time one of his companions made a scrape or dislodged a loose rock with a clatter.

There was no sign of life ahead, just the glow which gradually got stronger as they approached. It filled the tunnel with a soft cool radiance mat seemed to radiate evenly from the top third of the tunnel. There was no sound and not so much as a breath of air moving. But there was a smell that reminded Wiz somehow of the basement of an old house, musty without being damp.

At last they stepped out into a section of tunnel with a flat floor and walls that looked as if the rock had been adzed smooth. At this distance they could detect irregularities in the glowing surface as if it had a somewhat lumpy undercoat. There was still no sign of life.

Wiz motioned Danny forward to take a reading with the magic detector. The younger programmer came up beside him and swept his talisman over the glowing surface. "I’m not getting any magic from it," Danny whispered. Wiz reached out and touched the glow. It felt like dry wood pulp and some of the glow came off on his hand. "It’s fungus," he said quietly. "Nothing but fungus."

"Hmmf!" said Glandurg, striding up and yanking off a large handful of the glowing material. The move filled the air around him with dust and he sneezed thunderously. "All that over a little fox fire."

"Quiet," Malkin hissed.

"Bah!" the dwarf roared. "There’s nothing here but some fungus."

"And whatever planted it," Malkin said quietly. "Something has been bringing it wood to feed upon."

"And what," demanded the dwarf," do you suppose this oh-so-dangerous farmer of fungus might be?"

Wiz saw indistinct shadows moving in the blueness ahead. "I think we’re about to find out."

An ant! was Wiz’s first thought. But it wasn’t. It was insectile and proportioned something like an ant, with divided body and long, spindly legs. But ants don’t walk erect. Nor are they six feet tall. True, some ants do have oversized heads with enormous pincers that open and close reflexively, but Wiz had never heard of an ant with polished steel blades riveted to its pincers. The thing came on, stopping every couple of steps, to swing its head this way and that as if testing the air. Wiz and Malkin began to creep backwards, one slow step at a time. The ones behind them backed up as well, to the end of the smoothed part of the tunnel and then into the unworked portion.

It was then that Glandurg’s undwarf-like clumsiness betrayed him. He put his root down on a loose rock, which went scooting out from under him, taking his foot and leg with it. Glandurg went down with a crash and a curse and the ant-thing lowered its head, opened its pincers and charged.

"Drop!" Wiz yelled to Malkin and hurled a lightning bolt at the attacker. The bolt struck home and the creature shriveled and blackened under the impact. The fungus-impregnated wood pulp around it began to smolder, releasing clouds of noxious black smoke. Malkin rolled past Wiz and bounced to her feet, rapier and dagger ready. Beyond her the light from the tunnel was blocked off as a mass of ant-things swarmed toward the intruders.

"Let’s get out of here," Wiz shouted.

No one needed a second invitation. They turned and ran with Wiz bringing up the rear and throwing lightning bolts to slow down pursuit.

Another ant-thing appeared out of a side tunnel. It barely had time to open its jaws before Danny dropped it with a fireball. Two others poked their armored heads out of side crevices as the party fled past. Wiz struck one with a spell and Malkin cut the forelegs out from under the other with a deft stroke of her rapier. The thing stumbled, rebalanced itself on its remaining legs and came on after them.

Wiz cast his anti-friction spell on the tunnel. The creatures slipped and slid, but they were more nimble than a dragon and they kept coming, skating down the tunnel toward their fleeing prey.

Wiz stopped dead in the middle of the tunnel and took a deep breath.

"Are you mad?" Malkin yelled. "Come on!" But Wiz ignored her, raised his staff and began to chant.

There was a rumble and a shiver and the loose rocks began to move. At first they shook where they were, as if the earth was quaking. Then they began to move. Gradually at first and then faster and faster the rocks flew down the tunnel like a reverse explosion. Two boulders tried to get through a space not quite big enough and caught. Three other smaller pieces piled up against them and then a host of rocks from pebbles to boulders jammed against them blocking the tunnel solid.

"Cute," Malkin said, admiring Wiz’s handiwork.

"It’s a variation on Jerrys rubble-moving spell, which we used the last time we were in the City of Night," Wiz explained. "Now let’s get out of here before they get the tunnel unblocked." He looked around. ’There aren’t enough loose rocks here to do that trick again."

"Now what?" the thief asked as they hurried along.

"Now we find a place where the roof and walls are solid rock and cave in this whole section of the runnel. We can’t do it here because the ceiling is too unstable. We’d probably get caught in the landslide."

"Hey," Danny yelled from up ahead. ’There’s a door here."

As Wiz came puffing up he saw that there was indeed another door of iron-bound oak set in the solid rock wall

"Can you get us through that?" Wiz asked Malkin. "It looks like the rock is solid enough on the other side to let me use my cave-in spell."

Malkin bent and examined the door, running her fingertips over it.

"Hmm," she said. "Ah, yes. Yes indeed."

"Can you open it?"

"Of course."

"How long will it take?"

Malkin looked at him as if he were simple. "As long as it takes, of course." Behind them they could hear a faint scrabbling and shirting as the bugs worked to clear the tunnel.

"We may not have that long. We’re gonna have to cut our way through this one."

"Stand aside, Wizard," Glandurg said. "It is time for Blind Fury to sing." That wasn’t what Wiz had in mind, but Glandurg had already unsheathed the gleaming blade and was waving it above his head. Obviously something-or someone- was about to get cut and on quick reflection Wiz decided it would be better for everyone if it was the door. He motioned the others back and stepped well clear himself.

Malkin indicated a spot on the wall to the right of the door. "Aim here." Then she joined the group well behind the dwarf and out of range.

Glandurg nodded, raised the sword over his head and brought it down with a mighty blow. Naturally he missed completely. Instead of striking the rock wall, he hit the door along the hinge line, shearing wood and hinges from shoulder height to floor. The door, not made to withstand such an attack, simply collapsed into a pile of boards.

"Missed," the dwarf said sheepishly.

’That’s all right," Wiz told him as Malkin winked at him over Glandurg’s head. Then she stepped through the doorway and into the room beyond. As soon as they were through a couple of quick blasts from Wiz’s staff collapsed a hundred yards of tunnel.

Danny was looking down the tunnel after the dwarf. Then he caught Wiz’s arm as Wiz came past. "Wiz," he whispered, "you’re sure he’s on our side, right? I mean you checked out his credentials and everything?"

"He thinks he’s on our side," Wiz whispered back. Then he hurried on, leaving Danny puzzled in his wake.

Even a small dragon was an uncomfortable fit in the Watchers’ chamber. The sunken floor was crammed with stations for those who used their scrying skills to see far beyond the borders of the Capital or to communicate across the length and breadth of the lands of mortals. The tables were wood, the men and women sitting one or two to a table wore the robes of wizards and they stared at crystals or bowls. There was barely space between them for humans to move, much less a dragon. Nor was the raised platform that ran around three sides of the room really large enough for a beast the size of Moira’s new body to be comfortable.

Moira grimly ignored that, even when a hurrying Watcher tripped over her tail. She and Bal-Simba had come for a more important purpose.

"And they still have not reported in?" Bal-Simba asked the Chief Watcher.

"As I said, My Lord."

"Have you tried to contact them?"

"I felt it was best to ask your advice before doing so."

Then do so now. Tell them to return. We can still bring them back along the Wizard’s Way, but if this thing continues to grow we will not be able to do so for much longer."

The Chief Watcher spoke a spell and two dozen demons appeared in the air before him. He spoke again and the demons began to speak, each but a fraction of a syllable before the next took up the message.

There is nothing, Lord."

Bal-Simba frowned mightily. "Perhaps the new crystals are not working," Moira said.

"Perhaps," the Watcher said neutrally.

Try to reach them," the wizard commanded. "See if you can get a reply. If you cannot reach them on the special crystal, try other means. If you cannot reach them, convene a coven of wizards and pull them back unawares."

The Watcher nodded and turned back to his work, trying to ignore the scaly nose thrust over his shoulder.

The Watcher was still bent over the crystal when Bronwyn came hurrying into the Watch chamber.

"My Lord, My Lady, you had best come. Jerry is stirring. I think he may be awake."

Jerry Andrews was tossing restlessly on the infirmary pallet when they arrived. Two of Bronwyn’s apprentices were beside him, bathing his brow and keeping him from falling out. They looked up and withdrew slightly as Bronwyn led the others in.

"He has become increasingly agitated in the last day-tenth," the chief healer explained. ’That usually means the subject is returning to his body."

"Will he be all right?" Moira asked.

"Ask me after he awakens." She cast a professional eye at her patient. "I do not think that will be long."

"Jerry," Moira called. Then more loudly. "Jerry, wake up!"

"Wha:" It was a mumble rather than a word, but the apprentice healers brightened at the sound.

"My Lord, can you hear me?" Bal-Simba didn’t shout, but the timbre of his voice carried to the very bones of the hearers.

"Ahh, okay, yeah." Jerry seemed to relax into the bed then his eyes flickered and opened.

"Welcome back, My Lord," Bronwyn said warmly. She motioned and one of the apprentices handed her a bowl. "Drink this." She held it to Jerry’s lips. Jerry swallowed, gulped, wrinkled his nose and sneezed. From where she stood, Moira’s dragon sense of smell caught a whiff of the bowl’s contents. She could not blame him at all.

"Gahh!’s awful."

"It will help you recover," Bronwyn told him, handing the bowl back to the apprentice.

"Where am I?" He turned his head. "Infirmary, right?"

"Just so," Bal-Simba told him.

"How long?"

"Were you gone? About three days."

"Wiz?" Jerry slurred. "Malkin?"

"Not here," Bal-Simba told him.

"Where are they? Are they all right?"

They are safe and well. But they have gone on a mission."

"Where?"

"To the City of Night to face the thing that did this."

"No!" Jerry struggled to sit up, paled and sank back into the pillows. "Won’t work," he gasped. "Can’t do it that way."

"They do not intend to confront our enemy," Bal-Simba said. "They only go to scout, to bring us back a better picture of what it is we are fighting." Jerry clutched at his arm. "You don’t understand. The thing absorbs. If Wiz and Danny get too close it will suck them in, make them part or it. That’s nearly what happened to me."

"Wiz drove the things off before they could finish," Moira told him. Jerry looked at the dragon. "Hallucinating?" he mumbled.

There was an accident," Moira told him. "Or perhaps intentional action."

"The Enemy has taken her body," Bal-Simba said. "That is why Wiz and the others have gone there."

"They can’t do it!" He broke off in a fit of coughing. "Get them back," he said hoarsely.

Bronwyn moved to the head of the bed. "My Lord, unless you have pressing questions you had best let him rest. He is still very weak and somewhat disoriented."

Bal-Simba nodded and touched the dragon’s shoulder. "Very well." He nodded to Jerry. "We will talk later."

"Get them back," the programmer entreated to then-retreating backs. "Call them off."

Arianne was waiting for them in the corridor beyond the sickroom.

"More news from the Watchers?" Bal-Simba asked as soon as the door was closed.

"There is another complication, My Lord. We have not only lost contact with Wiz’s party, we cannot reach them along the Wizard’s Way. We can still penetrate the things attacking the castle, but apparently the Enemy found their entry and blocked it. The Watchers are still trying but so far they cannot reach them by any means."

Moira drew back her scaly neck and hissed like a berserk tea kettle. "A trap! The whole damned thing is a trap!"

"So it would appear," Bal-Simba said grimly. "Our enemy seems to have a special fondness for traps."

"If we do not find them and get them back-or at least warn them:" The thought hung unfinished.

"Then we will just have to bring them back or warn them-somehow."

EIGHT UNDER SIEGE

"My Lord?" Arianne asked.

"Hhhmpf?" Bal-Simba refocused his eyes and looked at his assistant.

"I asked if you were ready for luncheon."

"I am sorry. I was thinking. Piecing together what we know and what we do not." Arianne recognized the tone and saw that lunch would be delayed for a bit

"Our attackers magic is of a type which is unknown to us, although it appears to be based on the new magic. Juvian and Agricolus have done much good work on that So far his primary weapon appears to be this fog, which is attracted to magic, which seems to explain why it dings so close to the castle."

"Which we know it does thanks to the page Brian," Arianne added. "He went out no less than three times yesterday. Now we are using dismounted dragon riders to survey the fog’s extent. He will be serving us for a while, by the way, part of his reward."

Bal-Simba nodded.

"But most of this we knew as of this morning," Arianne added. "From your manner I suspect you have discovered something more."

The wizards brow furrowed. "Not discovered, exactly, but I did have a thought. Obviously our adversary has access to the Sparrows new magic. Perhaps that would be a fruitful line of inquiry."

"Lord, the new magic is fairly widespread by now," Arianne pointed out "The Sparrow and his friends have been teaching it to any who would learn and they in turn have been teaching it to others."

"True, but whoever is behind this has unusual abilities with it. Perhaps it would be well to make inquiries, delicately, as to the activities of the especially apt pupils."

"Yes," the blond woman said slowly. "If done quietly it costs us little enough and may perhaps offer a clue." Her expression changed.

"A thought of your own?" Bal-Simba asked.

"Perhaps," Arianne said slowly. "It was unwise of them to step into the Enemy’s jaws unknowing."

"Let us hope it was merely unwise," the big wizard said to his assistant. "You may have noticed mat prudence is a characteristic notably lacking in Wiz and his friends. Their magic is powerful, but their method of training does not teach them the value of patience and caution in great matters."

"I have noticed. So, apparently, has the Enemy. My Lord, has it occurred to you that this is a trap which would not work against most wizards? Only against Wiz and his friends?"

"I had not thought of that, but you are quite right."

"And that, in turn, implies a knowledge not only of the new magic but of the wizards of Wiz’s world."

"I take your point."

"In fact," Arianne went on, "there is one such here within our walls who might bear examination on both accounts."

"Mikey? But he has the mind of a child."

Arianne made a graceful gesture.

"You are right, of course." He struck a crystal bell on his work table and Brian appeared in the doorway.

"Go find the chief healer and have her examine the foreign wizard we hold prisoner," he told the page. "Then have her report to me."

Brian bowed and dashed off down the corridor.

"Are there any from the Wizards’ Keep who have learned the new magic whom we cannot account for?" Bal-Simba asked.

"I will have to check but, off hand, I cannot think of any. One or two have died, of course, but: No, wait! There was one several years ago, the apprentice Pryddian who disappeared about the time Wiz was kidnapped by the remnants of the Dark League. His whereabouts were never discovered."

Bal-Simba snorted. "I remember that one all too well. As I recall his skill was in stirring up discord, not magic. Still," he went on, "there was a suspicion he had rifled the Sparrow’s desk and taken some manuscripts with him." He sighed.

"A sum lead, My Lady."

"We have few better, My Lord."

"I think:" Bal-Simba began slowly, but he was interrupted by a strong knock on the door. It was Bronwyn, tile councils chief Healer, tight-lipped and white-faced. "My Lord, I think you had better come look at this." Bal-Simba hesitated. "Now."

With Bal-Simba and Arianne in tow, Bronwyn led them up the winding stone stairs to the door of Mikey’s cell. The door was open and the two guards outside were clearly uneasy.

Once Mikey had been a skilled programmer and, as "Panda," one of the best system breakers in Silicon Valley. But the shock of his final battle against Wiz and his elven allies had left him with the mind of a four-year-old. Now he spent his days playing with blocks and toy soldiers in a prison-cell-cum-playroom in one of the Keeps towers. He was fed, cared for and guarded, but otherwise ignored. Now he was slumped in the corner, surrounded by a scattering of blocks. His eyes were closed, his head sunk on his chest and his breathing deep and regular. Bronwyn knelt and pulled open an eyelid. Mikey did not stir. She looked up at Bal-Simba. "An empty shell, Lord. There is nothing left here at all."

"When did this happen?"

"Sometime in the last two days. He sat in a corner all that time, but that was not unusual for him. The guards were becoming worried because he had not eaten." She rose and looked down at him. "Before, he had the mind of a child. Now he has-nothing."

Bal-Simba frowned "Did he still have his knowledge? Before this happened, I mean."

Bronwyn shrugged. "Since we never knew just what was wrong with him I cannot tell you. Certainly he did not have the mind to use it. But as to the knowledge itself:" She shrugged again.

"I think we can assume he still had at least some of it." Bal-Simba rubbed his chin.

"And now we can assume the Enemy has that knowledge," Arianne added. Bal-Simba nodded and looked down at the not-quite-human thing at his feet.

"Come, Lady, we have work to do."

"And him?" Arianne asked.

"I will make him comfortable," Bronwyn said grimly. "He will not last long like that."

Malkin stopped and touched Wiz’s arm. "It’s getting light up ahead again," she whispered.

Wiz strained to see beyond the magic light’s glow. "More bugs?"

The thief shook her head. "The light’s not as blue and the shadows are sharper." Now what? Wiz thought. He looked over at Danny. The younger programmer checked his magic detector. "A lot of magic, but it’s not immediately dangerous." It wasn’t the most reassuring report Wiz had ever heard but he motioned the group on and they crept down the tunnel.

Ahead of them the tunnel grew brighter and the air around them grew warmer. Suddenly they turned the corner and found themselves staring into the mouth of Hell.

The very walls of the tunnel glowed incandescent. Orange and red, yellow and white, churned and roiled on every side. Instinctively the party flinched back as if from a blast furnace and retreated around the corner.

"No heat," Wiz said wonderingly as soon as they were back around the corner. He stuck his hand around to make sure. "There’s no heat."

"It’s magically blocked," Danny said, checking his magic detector. "That tunnel must run right through the heart of the volcano, but magic keeps the heat away." He looked at the magic detector again. "Tunnels, I mean. There’s a whole pile of them out there."

"Another maze."

"A hotter-than-hell maze," Danny agreed.

"Well, we’ve got an answer to that," Wiz said as he fished in his pouch. "I have here the granddaddy of all maze solvers." He held up a demon that looked remarkably like a white rat.

"Put that away," Malkin said firmly.

Wiz frowned. Malkin had her faults, including kleptomania, but squeamishness wasn’t one of them.

"It’s not a real rat," he explained, "it just looks that way because:"

"I know what it is," the tall thief said. There is a trap here and that thing may trigger it."

"What kind of trap?"

"Magical. Beyond that:" She shrugged.

"How do you know?" Danny asked.

"Because I know. It is my business to know and this is not the place for magic." Wiz looked at the rat demon, which twitched its whiskers. He put it back in his pouch. "Okay, let’s take a break while Danny and I see what we can learn." Hall an hour later a grim-faced Wiz and Danny called the others to gather around them.

"This is the cutest thing yet," Wiz told them. "All these tunnels are kept open by magic, very carefully balanced magic. Too much additional magic will upset the spell and they’ll collapse."

Even Glandurg looked uneasily at the glowing red magma beyond. "Better it were that we use no magic then."

"We won’t, mostly. Danny and I have a spell running to strengthen the tunnels, so it’s not quite the trap it was when we came in, but any large expenditure of magical energy is still likely to bring the place down."

"So we feel our way through magicless," Malkin said.

"Not exactly. With the tunnels reinforced Danny and I can use a real low-power spell to narrow our choices."

"You say that as if there is a problem."

Wiz frowned. "Not a problem exactly, but there is a consideration. The spell is sensitive and people throw it off. It will work best if Danny and I go ahead alone while the rest of you wait here."

Malkin’s face didn’t move a muscle. "Is that wise?" she asked neutrally.

"About as wise as a lot of the rest of this expedition," Wiz told her. "Anyway people, stay close and we’ll be back as soon as we can. Above all, use no magic you don’t absolutely have to use."

It took several minutes to get the details sorted out and somewhat longer to convince June she had to stay behind and not go with Danny. That done, the two wizard programmers started off down a likely tunnel.

It wasn’t a pleasant experience. The heat from the walls beat in on them and soaked up through the soles of their boots until Wiz was reminded of bread in an oven. There was no noise through the insubstantial walls, but there was a low vibration as if hundreds of tons of melted rock around them was flowing and shifting under some unimaginable pressure. Sweat streaked their faces and soaked into their clothing. Even Wiz’s socks soaked until he squished in his boots with every step he took Here and there a trick of the light turned a patch of wall into a mirror that threw back a distorted funhouse reflection of the pair. Nor was the maze easy to unravel. It was mostly on one level, but it twisted and turned and divided and rejoined in a way that was not only confusing, it was downright unpleasant For all that, Wiz and Danny made good progress. Their spell allowed them to eliminate first large chunks of the maze and then successively smaller sections. Once or twice Wiz got an uneasy feeling they were being followed, but they saw no one and they heard nothing.

Of course, because the spell was so weak it was not infallible. Time and again, they found themselves headed in the wrong direction or caught up against a dead end.

The exit should be right up ahead here," Wiz said at last as they moved down a twisty, glowing corridor. They turned another corner and found themselves face to face with a rock wall.

"Dead end," Danny observed needlessly.

Wiz shrugged and turned to start back down the way they had come. There was a noise down the tunnel. A noise like heavy footfalls. A lot of them. Wiz motioned Danny to silence and peeked around the corner to see what was ahead. What was ahead was goblins. Big, hairy, nasty goblins armed to the fangs. The tunnel was packed three deep with them. The light from the molten rock reflected redly off the creatures’ armor and made their little pig eyes seem even redder. They were still some ways off and they apparently hadn’t seen the humans yet, but there was no place for them to go wrong.

"Oh boy," Danny said quietly "Oh boy."

The breath caught in Wiz’s throat. He had plenty of spells that would deal with a mere pack of goblins, but the more magic they used, the more chance the tunnels would collapse and engulf them in molten rock. But without magic both Wiz and Danny together probably weren’t a match for just one of the oncoming goblins.

Wiz raised his staff and prepared to fight "Well, we can’t delay the inevitable."

"Let me try something first, okay?" Danny said Wiz raised his eyebrows and nodded. Out of the corner of his eve Wiz saw Danny gesture with his staff as he said something unintelligible. Wiz took a tighter grip on his own staff and Doth stepped out to face the oncoming monsters.

Only the goblins weren’t coming any more. They stopped dead in the center of the tunnel. Then they huddled together. Then they turned and ran screaming from the two humans.

Wiz lowered his staff and looked after the fleeing monsters.

"What the heck was that all about?"

Danny looked smug. "A little something I cooked up. Look at yourself in the wall there."

Wiz moved over to the stretch of reflecting wall Danny had indicated. Staring back at him was a Thing. It was big and amorphous and tentacled, and clawed and fanged and looking at him with hundreds of beady red eyes. It had pincers, and stingers and hair and scales and fins and teeth. Lots and lots of teeth. After several years in this World, Wiz knew Things. This was an E-flat, full-bore, world-class Thing.

"Holy:" Wiz jumped back.

"That’s what they thought," Danny said smugly. "Oh relax, it’s just a seeming, a minimum-magic disguise you might say."

"A nightmare you might say," his friend corrected shakily. "Where did you come up with that thing?"

Danny smirked. "My imagination."

Wiz looked at the younger programmer and frowned "You know, there are times I really wonder about you. Now let’s find the exit and get back to the others before something wanders by that doesn’t frighten so easily."

NINE KILLER VEES

It took another hour to get through the magma maze. Beyond were more tunnels, and beyond them a series of natural caves variously modified. They made their way without incident until they came to a crudely hacked-out tunnel connecting the second and third caves.

"Wait a minute guys," Danny whispered, "I think I’ve got something-or nothing." The party clustered around as Danny checked his magic detector.

"Well, which is it?" Malkin asked.

Danny looked up. "Both. The whole area up ahead is magically dead," Danny reported. "I mean not a spark anywhere that I can see."

"Not even the normal background magic?" Wiz asked.

The young programmer shook his head. "Not a sign."

Wiz noticed Malkin make sure her rapier was loose in its sheath.

"Okay then. Let’s take the hint and move slow and careful."

Again the tunnel widened out into a cavern and again the party moved ahead by the light of a single magical globe. Strain as they might they could hear nothing but their own footfalls and what sounded like rushing water faint and far ahead of them.

Halfway across the room they found the source of the sauna. A chasm divided the cavern and from the bottom, faint and far away, came the sound of the water.

"How deep do you think that is?" Danny asked as he squinted down into the blackness.

Too deep," Wiz said.

Too wide besides," Malkin added as she looked across the gap. "I don’t think our ropes will reach, even if we could find something on the other side to secure them to."

Wiz thought of crossing the dizzying blackness on a rope and got a distinctly queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Let’s assume ropes are a non-option," he said.

"Well, I’ve got something for this," Danny said. "Watch." He lifted his staff and pointed.

The hair on Wiz’s neck stood up and he started to protest, but he was too late. Rocks and boulders on both sides of the gap glowed blue, then rocked in their places and rose gently into the air. Danny waved his staff like a conductor’s baton. Waves of magic twisted and congealed into invisible forms as the rocks floated out into empty space and settled in place according to some unseen plan. More waves of magic as the rocks locked together and a great arched bridge began to take shape. More magic and smaller stones rushed to fill in the gaps. A final burst of magic and a bridge sat in place, glowing from the unnatural forces that held it together.

There!" Danny said proudly.

"Come on then," Wiz said unhappily. "Let’s get over this as fast as we can." The bridge was solid enough beneath their feet as the party started over.

"Beats a rope, doesn’t it?" Danny said gaily. "It’s a variation of a spell I worked out for Ian’s toy blocks. Just scale it up, and hey:"

Takes a lot of magic," Wiz said.

"So? We’ve got power to spare here."

The magic globe lighting their passage flickered, then flickered again. Wiz saw something like a moth flit around it. Then another and another and another. Something stung Wiz on the back of his neck. He slapped at the spot and felt something small and furry under his fingers. He jerked his hand away and shook his fingers and a scrap of black fluttered out of them.

"Get off the bridge!" he yelled and charged ahead. Caution forgotten, the rest of the party charged after him, swatting at the things around them. As soon as they were on the other side, Danny gestured and the rocks went thundering into the canyon. But by that time the entire party was under attack. In swarms and hordes and legions the tiny black things came on, diving mindlessly to the attack and sticking where they landed to bite and chew. Each of them was no larger than a mouse, but they struck with blind ferocity. Wiz laid about him with his staff, striking great swaths of the creatures down by magic. Malkin turned out to be a surprisingly good swordswoman. Her long arms gave her reach and her wrists were like iron. She used her reach to keep the things off and the edge of her rapier to take out several at once. June was a whirling dervish with her knife, slicing in a dozen directions at once. Danny also struck out with magic. Glandurg flailed about him with Blind Fury. He never hit what he was aiming at, but there were so many of the things that each stroke felled half a score. Along the way he also brought down two good-sized boulders and a stalactite, but he barely noticed.

The light in the cavern dimmed as the creatures mobbed the magic globe, like a pack of enraged moths. Wiz struck out desperately again and again. Caught in the open as they were the things could attack from any direction, including driving straight down. Even the ones who had been knocked from the air crawled toward them to continue the attack.

A fireball whizzed past Wiz’s ear and singed the hair on the left side of his head. He turned his head to glare at Danny and the thing that was diving on him missed his eyes and latched onto his ear instead. Danny shrugged and went back to throwing fireballs.

The little things were so thick in the tunnel there was really no place to aim at, but it didn’t matter. As soon as each fireball emerged from Danny’s staff it was surrounded by a horde of suicidal batlets who dived to their destruction in it. Wiz, seeing what was happening, began dividing his time between beating off attackers and throwing fireballs. The cavern filled with rank smoke and the reek of ozone and burned flesh. Gradually the attackers became fewer and fewer and finally there were none.

The party found themselves standing back to back in the cavern, surrounded by a haze of stinking smoke and a carpet of dead creatures. Wiz realized he had been bitten in a dozen places or more. He could feel the blood oozing down both cheeks and a wound in his forehead was trickling blood into his eyebrows. Most of the others appeared wounded in several places as well.

"What where those things?" Danny panted, as he wiped blood from his eyes. June was instantly at his side with a cloth, cleaning the wounds on his face and ignoring her own.

Wiz bent down to examine the litter of corpses around them. Each of the things had the form of a tiny bat, perhaps hah0 as long as his little finger. The mouths sported a pair of outsized fangs and even in death the little eyes showed a glazed malevolence. He picked one up and showed it to the others.

"Little vampire bats," Danny said. "I wonder if these things carry rabies."

"Rabies we can handle," Wiz reminded him. "Healing magic, remember?"

"Speaking of which:" Malkin said, looking at the bloody wounds on the back of her hand.

As one person, the party sank to the ground where they were and started rummaging through their packs for what Wiz persisted in thinking of as "first aid kits."

On an impulse Wiz tried a listing and scowled at the result.

"More weird code," Danny said and then winced as June dabbed a healing salve on a wound on his neck.

"So the Enemy sent these things against us," Malkin said.

"If I had to guess I’d say they weren’t exactly sent," Wiz said. This part here looks like another variation on the watcher spell and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of code for remote control."

"Meaning?" Danny studied that section of the listing-

"Meaning I think these things operate independently. If I had to guess, and that’s pretty much what it is at this point, I’d say this part here is a magic detector and they home in on magic. What’s more, magic seems to rouse them to a rage. You’ll notice Malkin wasn’t the focus of an attack and they didn’t go after Glandurg until he got Bund Fury into action."

"Kinda like leaving hives of killer bees around as guards," Danny said. "Cute."

"Ugly," Wiz corrected. "Especially since the same principle could be applied to other critters. Nastier ones."

Danny nodded. "Let’s get out of here then. There may be more on the way and I’m not sure I’d want to face a horde of maddened dragons."

"And no more magic," Wiz admonished. "Not if it attracts these things."

"Our steel and our courage alone shall carry us henceforth," said Glandurg.

"Well," Wiz amended, eyeing Blind Fury, "we don’t have to swear off magic completely."

TEN ENTER THE LOBSTER

"Moira," the wind moaned. "Moira, Moira, Moira, Moira."

It keened around the towers. Frigid fingers clutched at the banners and tugged at the windows. It could not find purchase against the wizards’ spells, but it kept on.

Moira went to the window and tried to look out, but a dark formless thing beat upon the pane, as if to strike her, and she turned away.

"Is it getting worse?" she asked Bal-Simba.

"It gets no better. That in itself means it will get worse. Like a starfish on an oyster. It pulls and pulls and eventually the oyster weakens."

The dragon hesitated. Then perhaps I should go out there," Moira said.

"And give our enemy the advantage he seeks? An unwise move, My Lady."

"Then what shall we do?"

"Work Wait. Perfect the spells to drive this thing from our door."

The dragon did not turn its head. "I wish Wiz was here."

Bal-Simba sighed. "So do I, My Lady. So do I."

Their first warning was the way sounds changed. Careless footsteps or dislodged pebbles rang sharper and more hollowly. Wiz was still trying to puzzle out the difference when they came around a bend in the tunnel and stepped out into a new world.

The cavern was immense. Stalactites and sheets of flow stone rippled from ceiling to floor in pastel pinks and yellows. They made weirdly distorted shadows in the light from Wiz’s glow globe. In spite of the steady illumination the shadows seemed to flicker and dance in eerie motion. The air was heavy with damp and utterly still. Occasionally a foot would dislodge a pebble and the sound would ring through the emptiness.

They picked their way along for perhaps two hundred paces and then, suddenly, there was no floor before ’ them.

It took a minute for Wiz to make a coherent picture out of the sense impressions, like staring at an optical illusion. Finally the elements snapped into focus and he realized they were standing at the edge of a cliff thickly coated with onyx flowstone. By directing the magic light out over the darkness he could see that the face was a steep cascade of the same orange, pink and white material as the surface they were standing on. He could not see the other side and the light did not show him the bottom, but his magic detector pointed straight out across the emptiness.

"It looks like we’re going to have to climb down," he said to the others." Tine," Malkin said, shedding her pack and unhooking a coil of rope from it "I’ll go first."

Wiz wasn’t exactly overjoyed at the prospect of climbing down a slippery cuff in the dark, but he felt he had to assert himself as leader. "Why you?" Malkin looked up at him. "Because you’re a klutz. Now help me find a rock to tie off on."

That was true enough that Wiz didn’t argue. But he was a little surprised she knew the word.

Malkin selected a convenient boulder, looped the rope around it and secured it with a particularly complicated looking knot. Keeping the rope taut in one hand she stepped back and admired her handiwork.

"All right everyone, I’ll go first. Be sure to keep tension on the rope and whatever you do don’t let it go slack and then jerk it."

"Why not?" asked Danny.

"Because if you do the knot comes undone. That’s how we get the rope down when we’re at the bottom."

Danny looked at the knot again.

"It’s perfectly safe," Malkin assured him. "The next person to go down stands by the rope and keeps the tension on. Just keep doing that and we’ll be fine." The thief rigged a harness from a shorter piece of rope and attached it to the main rope with a peculiar looking knot.

"I’ll take a light with me and signal for the next one to follow," she said, and with that she stepped backwards into the blackness and disappeared from view. Danny kept tension on me rope as she worked her way down. The others watched the rope twitch as Malkin worked her way down the cuff face. Finally it lay still and they heard her call up to them.

"Okay. It’s about a hundred paces down. There’s plenty of rope and its an easy descent. Come on down one by one."

Since he couldn’t lead, Wiz figured the leader’s next logical place was as rear guard. He let Danny and then June go down. Glandurg disdained the rope and scrambled down the cliff face like a fly. At last the rope was still again. Wiz picked up Malkin’s pack, slung it over one shoulder and started to work his way down the cuff.

In the back of Wiz’s mind a small voice kept telling him all this was wrong. You don’t find limestone caves beneath volcanoes. Halfway down the rope Wiz decided this was arrant pedantry and told the small voice to shut up.

The rope finned and steadied as someone took hold of it from the bottom. With that aid Wiz made good time the rest of the way down.

Thanks," he said as his feet touched the ground Behind him the rope holder snorted Wiz turned to look His first impression was of Malkin in a silver fright wig. His second impression was of a lot of teeth, claws, flaming red eyes and really awful breath.

He yelled and ducked as the thing took a swipe at him. He rumbled for his staff, but the thing was too close, so he settled for tripping backwards and going flat on his back. The thing closed in for the kill and the world bunked. The protection spell, Wiz thought. The protection spell kicked in. His second thought was that he wasn’t wearing the magic ring, so he must have been stunned by his fall and before he had time for a third thought, a liquid voice broke in.

"Oh, I hope you are all right. Not damaged in any way? Here, let me help you up."

Thanks," Wiz said, taking the preferred hand.

It wasn’t a hand, exactly. It was a claw. A very large claw. At the other end of the claw was a lobster-about thirty feet of lobster.

"Uh, thanks," Wiz said again.

The lobster waved an antenna. "Think nothing of it. All in a day’s work, I can assure you." Its voice was a warm rich baritone, not at all the way Wiz had expected a lobster to sound. Although come to that, Wiz realized, he didn’t really have an idea how a lobster should sound. Terribly sorry about that," the lobster went on. Those creatures have no manners at all, not to mention absolutely no taste! Tasteless."

The lobster gave Wiz’s hand a little squeeze before releasing it "On, and you’re molting too," the lobster said delightedly. "How wonderful. You’re especially tender at this stage." The lobster sighed. "And the sheik are such a bother." It occurred to Wiz that he might not be out of trouble yet.

"Uh, where are my friends?"

"Oh, they’re off chasing the rest of those things. They attacked them, you know." A sniff of disdain. Tasteless. Utterly tasteless. No matter how much garlic and herbs you use, it’s like eating old leather."

Wiz remembered the guardroom with the dismembered skeletons.

"Now you, on the other hand! Oh, think how wonderful you’ll smell all boiled up with lemon pepper and a bouquet garnish of herbs."

Wiz scrambled back up the slope away from the huge claws. "Look, can’t we talk about this?"

"But it is the function of humans to be served up on a plate with garlic butter and surrounded by parsley," the lobster protested as it moved toward him. It paused. "Ah, you don’t happen to have any parsley with you? Pity. I’m out." The lobster extended his enormous pincers and advanced on Wiz. "Now, I assure you, your nervous system is so primitive you won’t feel a bit of pain."

"I’ll be the judge of that," Wiz said, continuing his backwards scramble. "Did anyone ever tell you it’s impolite to eat your acquaintances?"

The lobster sighed gustily through its gills, giving Wiz a whiff of iodine-scented "breath." "You humans have the most curious notions. We have always believed that a little light conversation before dinner allows you to fully appreciate the meal. But not too much. Come on now, into the pot you go." Wiz kept backing up. There wasn’t anyplace to run to and the lobster seemed to move over the rocky ground more easily than he did.

"You’re being quite unreasonable, you know." The lobster sounded almost hurt.

"After all, humans eat us."

"But you give us heartburn."

That," said the lobster smugly, "is the advantage of a superior constitution. We don’t get heartburn."

A fireball whizzed over the lobster to splatter against the cavern wall above them.

"Oh, drat!" said the lobster and scuttled backwards at astonishing speed as Malkin, Danny and the others came up the tunnel.

"Boy, am I glad to see you guys!" Wiz said as the rest of the party gathered around him.

"We had a little butt-kicking to do," Danny explained

"What was that?" Malkin demanded. "The Enemy?"

"No, that was a lobster. I think it was here before the Enemy took over. Local color you might say."

"I’d like to color him," Malkin retorted fiercely. "Boil him in a pot until he’s bright red."

"Yeah, well the feeling is mutual," Wiz told her.

ELEVEN LATERAL TO THE REAL WORLD

I wish these things would run straight for a while, Wiz thought irritably. But the tunnels down here didn’t and this was an especially twisty part. Wiz’s inner ear was starting to send queasy messages to his stomach because of all the sharp turns.

Then the tunnel opened out into another room, an enormous, echoing black space that yawned before them in all directions. Wiz hastily ducked back around the corner and dimmed the magic light. Then he motioned for a huddle.

"What does the magic detector say?"

Danny squinted at the device. That there’s something magical around here that probably wouldn’t be too glad to see us." He cocked his head and squinted some more. "But it’s not real active and it doesn’t seem to be directly in our path." Wiz peeked around the corner again and listened intently. The silence was as overpowering as the darkness. He looked at Malkin, but the thief shook her head.

"Nothing," she said quietly.

"Okay folks, single file and move softly. We don’t want whatever’s out there to surprise us."

Wiz considered leaving the light off, but he decided the danger of falling into a hole outweighed the risk of alerting whatever was in the neighborhood. With a gesture he sent the globe of light floating above them. I gotta figure out a way to make these things directional, he thought as he followed Malkin out into the room.

The room was huge. After nearly a hundred paces the light no longer showed the walls or ceiling, only the uneven, stalagmite-studded floor, glistening with moisture. It occurred to Wiz that the detector might be pointing toward their ultimate destination rather than toward the exit. If that was true they could spend hours searching for the way out and if there was more than one they could be thoroughly lost before they knew it.

Out in tile gloom was a heap of something. It wasn’t rocks and it didn’t seem to be alive, but aside from that Wiz couldn’t make out just what it was. With a gesture he increased the brightness of the magic light and was rewarded with a glint from the heap.

At first Wiz thought the pile had caught fire. Then he realized it was his own light reflected back at them, glittering off the objects in the pile. Another gesture and the light grew even brighter. Now there was no doubt at all what the heap was.

Gold winked yellow or glowed ruddy in the light. Gems flashed green and red and wine-purple fire. Pearls and opals threw back a soft luster. There were ingots and cups and brooches and rings; candlesticks and platters and coins and gems loose like marbles. Wiz even caught a glimpse of a full suit of golden armor, studded with precious stones and filigreed with enamel. All of it piled head-high in a loose, careless mass.

"Look at that," Wiz breathed.

The others could only stare. Malkin started edging toward it, only to be pushed aside roughly by Glandurg in his haste to reach the pile.

"Glandurg! Get back here. We’re not here for gold."

"What kind of adventure is it if you don’t get the treasure?" the dwarf grumbled. "Uncivilized, I say."

"Boy," said Danny, "I always knew dungeons were supposed to have treasure, but this:" He waved his arm in awe. June stayed behind her husband, obviously torn between wonder at the sight and distaste at his reaction.

Wiz noticed that there were no containers in the pile. No chests, no bags, nothing that could be used to transport or contain the hoard. It was as if it had been carefully brought here and emptied out and then the containers removed.

"Where do you suppose this came from?"

"Your dark wizards, or whatever." Malkin ran her fingers through the pile.

"Whoever it was is long gone."

"You hope," Wiz retorted.

With a clatter and the ringing sound of falling gold hitting the stone floor, Glandurg burrowed into the pile like a homesick gopher. Suddenly his head emerged from the top, sending a shower of wealth cascading down the mound. He spat out a ruby the size of a hen’s egg and grinned gleefully.

"Look, people," Wiz said, "this isn’t what we’re here for."

"But it doesn’t hurt," retorted Malkin, who was already elbow-deep in a mass of gold coins.

Danny threw himself down in the treasure; scooped up handfuls and poured it over his head. He winced when a particularly heavy and tasteless gold goblet hit him on me head. "Hey, Scrooge McDuck was onto something with his money bin." Wiz hesitated. He didn’t like this at all and he sure didn’t want to be encumbered by a lot of dead weight. But obviously the attraction of all that loot was an irresistible force for Glandurg and Malkin.

"We need a way to carry this stuff," Malkin said.

"If you think I’m going to whomp up a levitation spell just so we can take that along with us, you’re crazy." Malkin and Glandurg looked at him.

"Okay," he sighed, "you can take what you can carry in a cloak."

It took Malkin and Glandurg a minute to decide whose cloak was bigger. Then they started shoveling gold, jewels and other treasure from the pile. When the heap on Malkin’s cape was about three feet high in the center they stopped for breath.

""Now try to move it," Wiz said.

Dwarf and thief each seized an edge of the cloak and gave a mighty tug. The pile moved perhaps six inches.

"What you need is a cart," Danny suggested.

"Won’t work. Floors too rough."

"Okay," Wiz said, "if it will get us moving again, I’ve got a spell that reduces friction to almost nothing. That will make the cloak easier to haul. But we’re burying the stuff the first chance we get."

He stepped forward, raised his staff and spoke a few words.

"There, it should pull easily now."

Malkin tugged on the edge of her cloak and nearly went over backwards when her hands slipped off the material. Glandurg grabbed and yanked and went careening into Malkin when his hands slipped. Both of them landed in a tangle on the rocky floor and glared at Wiz.

"Okay, let me modify the spell."

He drew a breath to list out the spell, but before he could exhale he heard a noise from beyond the circle of light. Something was moving out there in the dark.

"Ah, folks:" Danny began. He never finished the sentence. He didn’t need to. Wiz didn’t know if it was the biggest dragon he’d ever seen or not. For one thing, the cavern was mostly dark. For another he couldn’t see all of it. But primarily, he was too scared to take accurate measurements. If it wasn’t the biggest dragon he’d ever seen it would do quite nicely for now.

The dragon spouted a gout of flame that illuminated the cavern to its corners and left a dark smear of an afterimage clouding his vision. He tried to raise his staff to cast a spell and realized he was magically frozen in place. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the others straining to move as well. The dragon fire had been misdirection while the creature pinned them where they stood with a spell.

Its enemies neutralized, the dragon lumbered forward for the kill

Wiz muttered under his breath.

Talons extended, the dragon’s left front paw landed on the cavern floor and promptly flew out from under him, dumping the beast on his nose. The great muzzle slipped on the floor and left the dragon lying spread-eagled and neck extended on the glistening limestone.

However dragons are not so easily defeated. The huge talons on all four feet dug into the limestone as if it were soft clay and the beast levered itself erect. It crouched to spring across the intervening distance at its prey, but its purchase failed just as it leapt and the dragon went sprawling and slithering across the cavern. Wiz and the others watched fascinated as the dragon slid helplessly by, bit the cave wall behind them and rebounded back into the cavern like a pool ball coming off the side rail

Wiz had cast the reduce-friction spell not on the floor, but on the dragon.-That not only made the dragon slippery all over, but it charged the beast to a high magic potential-and made every stalagmite, stalactite, flow-stone and ordinary rock in the cavern repel him violently. The creature had put enormous power into his spring and lost almost none of it in the inelastic collisions. As a result a very unhappy dragon went caroming off everything he hit, and he managed to hit just about everything in the cave except Wiz and his friends.

Every time the beast struck a rock it let out a roar and a gout of flame, making the walls ring and lighting the cavern to its edges. The result was like being in a giant pinball machine during especially active play.

Finally the dragon slid backwards into a tunnel off the main cave. A quick, precisely aimed lightning bolt struck inside the tunnel and collapsed the mouth into a pile of rock Behind the landslide they could hear the faint roaring of a very unhappy dragon.

"Dragon in the side pocket!" Danny whooped "Awesome."

Wiz discovered he could move again. "Let’s get our awes out of here before that dragon digs himself out. Move it people!"

"But the treasure!" Malkin protested.

"Mark it on the map and we’ll pick it up on the way out. Now come on!" Everyone complied, but Wiz noticed that Malkin and Glandurg clinked suspiciously as they hurried down the tunnel.

There was a dragon asleep beside the fire, with only an occasional tail twitch or foot thump to show he was dreaming dragonish dreams.

It was in fact an achingly normal scene for the programmers’ workroom, if you could ignore the whispering shadows outside the windows.

Jerry Andrews stared at the four screens hanging above his desk and bit his lip. As decoration they were spectacular, all neon colors ranging through the whole spectrum with annotations and hypertext finks in other glaring colors. As information they were just about use-

"Shit," Jerry exclaimed, throwing himself backwards so hard his chair creaked. The dragon lifted his head questioningly.

"My Lord?" Moira asked as her personality asserted itself.

"It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this frustrated."

As a hacker’s significant other, Moira recognized the signs. Jerry needed a sounding board. She also knew that a sympathetic ear was more important than cogent advice. A Siamese cat would do the job nicely if it meowed in the appropriate spots.

"A difficult problem?"

Jerry grinned but there was no joy in it "I don’t even know enough to know that" He spun around in the chair to face the dragon on the hearth.

"Normally on a job like this where you’ve got a pile of observables-stuff-and no paradigm, you just grab hold of anything that looks likely and see where it leads. You poke and prod at it and see what happens and eventually you can make sense out of what you’re seeing. Here-" he waved a hand expressively. "Here no matter where I grab and how much I poke and prod I don’t get anything that makes sense."

He spun back around and waved at the light show above his desk. "Ninety percent of this sort of project is getting inside the other guy’s head. Eventually you’ve got to be able to see the code through his eyes, to understand a little of how he thinks. Only here, no matter how hard I try, I can’t make any sense of what I’m seeing. Some of this stuff is truly elegant, some of it is a triumph of development over design, some of it is awfully crude and some of it is pigeon droppings. And there’s no sense to any of it, no rhyme or reason, no overriding structure."

"Well, Wiz always said you start with what you know."

Jerry spun back to her. "I know enough to know I’m out of my depth on this. We need help, heavy-duty help from our world."

"Another programming team?"

Jerry shook his head. "Not that simple. We need someone who can get his mind around this thing."

"Another wizard programmer?"

"No, we need someone even more powerful. We need a programming legend, a code demigod"

"Do you have anyone in mind?"

Jerry thought for a minute. That’s a problem. You can’t very well go up to someone like Ken Thompson and ask him to take a sabbatical from Bell Labs to go off to another world to solve a problem involving an evil magician."

"You mean he might not believe you?"

"I mean the paperwork would be a little excessive. People of this caliber don’t grow on trees and a lot of them are key figures at their companies, teaching at the university level or in jail for getting cute with someone else’s computer. In any event they’re not available."

"Are there some who are not occupied?"

"Yeah, a few." He thought for a minute. "Well, Tom Digby isn’t available right now, so the best is probably Taj."

"Taj?"

"E.T. Tajikawa, the Tajmanian Devil. The guy spends most of his time surfing the far, far end of the bell curve, out three sigmas west of Strange." Moira didn’t know what that meant but it sounded powerful. So she concentrated on the part she thought she understood.

"E.T. Is that like the movie Wiz likes so much?" Moira asked.

"No, it’s E.T. as in Elvis Twitty." Jerry shrugged. "His mom was Korean. She didn’t speak English real good but she loved country music and she wanted to give her son an American name.

"Taj used to teach an extension class in debugging down in the Valley. I learned a hell of a lot from him, but for the first four weeks I thought I’d wandered into a ’Kung Fu’ episode. He started us off with Tai Chi exercises and quotes from Bugs Bunny cartoons. We ended with five minutes of meditation while he rang this little bell. And crazy as it sounds, it all tied together."

Moira, who didn’t know what Tai Chi was and to whom a lot of programming was a mystery anyway, was willing to take his word for it.

"His power isn’t in his techniques. It’s in the way he sees."

"That sounds like Patrius," Moira said.

"The wizard who brought Wiz here in the first place?

Yeah, from what I’ve heard of him he would have liked Taj."

"What would it take to get him?"

"Mostly you’d have to catch his interest. But that’s hard to do. Last I heard he was hip-deep in a six-figure design project for a gaming company."

"Would it hurt to ask him?"

"No," Jerry said slowly. "No, it wouldn’t hurt." He brightened. "Thanks, Moira, you’re a genius."

Moira took the compliment without comment. "You had best ask Bal-Simba before you talk about bringing another through from your world."

"Right. I’m sure he won’t have any problem with it."

In a matter of minutes Bal-Simba was summoned and he listened carefully, if somewhat sleepily, to Jerry’s proposal.

"If you think it will aid us, by all means ask this person to come here," he said when Jerry finally wound down.

"Even if he can’t physically come to us we can probably do a lot over the Internet. But it would be better if he can get free for a while." He looked at Bal-Simba. "Can we still do a Great Summoning to bring someone over from our world?"

"Almost certainly. The shadows do not seem able to block that path."

"Well, let’s find out then." Jerry picked up the telephone sitting incongruously on his desk and began punching in the number. "I’ll put it on the speaker. I hope it’s late enough in the day that he’s up."

"Hallo," came a female voice with a hint of Scandinavian accent. In the background he heard the steady click of computer keys.

"Is Taj there? This is Jerry Andrews, jerry thekeep.org, I’m kind of a friend of his."

The keystrokes didn’t even slow. "Oh yah, I remember you, I think. From alt.comp.lang.theory.wild_blue. This is Sigurd, you know,

Sig Tniskatonic.frodo.org."

Jerry remembered Tajikawa’s girlfriend/soulmate/companion/secretary/keeper. "Hi, Sigurd. Is Taj there?"

"He’s at Comdex. He’s not gonna be back until, like, a week from Sunday."

"Oh. Well, is there any way to reach him?"

"I don’t think so. He said he was gonna beg crash space off a friend. Didn’t say who and I don’t think he knew himself."

"Didn’t he take a celluar phone?"

"Well, kinda. He’s got a loaner from MMCC-you know, the

Mini-Microcell-Communications Consortium-that’s running a demonstration network at the show. They’re setting up stations at all the major hotels. Only, one of their crates got lost in transit, then they had a problem with some weird connectors and had to have replacements airfreighted from Taiwan. Plus their directory software apparently has some kind of suicide pact with their hard drives and:"

"So their phones aren’t working," Jerry cut in.

"I understand the hotel books are giving eight to three that they won’t have them working before the show ends."

"Well, what about e-mail? Is he going to be on-line?"

"Well, he took his laptop but I don’t think he’s got the modem working. It’s a new machine with a Type III PC Card modem, only the card services for Linux are, like, flatlined. He was going to hack a driver but he didn’t have time before he left."

"That’s too bad. Look, do you know who’s he’s going to be seeing? It’s really important that I reach him."

"He wanted to check out some scientific visualization software, but other than that he didn’t say. I’m sorry."

"If he does check in have him contact me. It really is a matter of life and death. Have him send to jerry thekeep.org."

"Okay, let me open a window here." There was a brief pause then more clicking of keys as she took the address. "If I hear from him I’ll sure give him the message."

"Shit," said Jerry as he broke the connection.

"What now?’ Bal-Simba asked. "Will another serve?"

There aren’t any others in Taj’s class," Jerry said, "at least none that I know of who are available."

"Is there any other way to contact him?"

"We can put out the word on the Net, but I’m not sure how long that will take and we’ll probably get a lot of bogus reports. Taj is pretty famous." He thought. "Comdex only lasts a week so he should be home next Monday at the latest."

Bal-Simba considered. "I am not sure we can wait that long. These things press us relentlessly and ever closer despite our efforts."

"Can we hide Moira somewhere?"

"I do not think there is any place in the World where these things could not find her," Bal Simba told him.

"Okay, then. There’s only one thing to do."

Wizard and dragon looked at the programmer expectantly.

"We," said Jerry, "are going to Comdex."