CONTENTS

Beware of open-ended contracts. They are hell to support.

Programmers’ saying

Torches flickered and smoked, casting fitful light through the cavern. Tosig Longbeard, King of the Dwarves-or at least the Mid-Northeastern Dwarves of the Southern Forest Range-shifted on his carved alabaster throne and eyed his visitors with distaste.

It was, he had to admit, a most unusual sight. Three Troll Kings in the same room and not fighting. The sight and stench would have been enough to gag a human; but dwarves have a somewhat different aesthetic and King Tosig’s attitude owed more to the delegation’s demands than their looks or smell. He drummed his fingers on the throne arm as he tried to figure a diplomatic way out of this mess.

The smaller troll in the center did the talking. He was unusually intelligent for a troll and their host had no doubt he was the one who had organized this meeting. Pox rot him! Tosig thought as he waited for him to run down.

“This is not a matter for me or my people,” Tosig broke in at last. “If this new human wizard bothers you, then destroy him.”

“We cannot,” the troll king replied. “This magic is too strong.” His face split into a snaggle-toothed grin. “But dwarves have powerful magic. Dwarves can kill this new wizard.”

His two companions nodded and growled assent. King Tosig glowered back and felt a tiny burning sensation kindle somewhere up under his breastbone. At that moment he truly wanted to kill the new wizard who had brought him all this trouble.

At that moment the new wizard wouldn’t have been at all averse to being killed.

Like King Tosig’s hall, the chamber was underground and dimly lit. But instead of rough stone, the walls were fine mosaics in subdued and tasteful patterns. There were no smoky torches here, only a diffuse radiance that seemed to emanate from everywhere in the room. And while the creature that faced the two humans across the table might be decidedly odd, by no stretch of the imagination could it be called either ugly or stinking.

But that did not mean the wizard was enjoying himself.

“Okay, look,” William Irving Zumwalt said. “If the dryads mark their trees our woodcutters will leave them alone. But in return our people can cut other trees and use the forest without being harassed.”

The being across the nacreous table cocked its head, as if listening to far-away voices. It was manlike, but then so is a gorilla if you stretch the term far enough. Parchment skin stretched over delicate bones. Fingers so long they were almost tentacles. Enormous dark eyes that slanted at the corners. Ears blood-pink and pointed. The thing was at once inhumanly beautiful and deeply disturbing.

The silence dragged on. Wiz shifted and fidgeted while the creature sat with its head to one side and its eyes focused on things far beyond its visitor. Elven magic could warp time to make centuries pass in a single night. But Wiz was finding that non-mortals didn’t need magic to make a night drag on for centuries.

“It will be done,” the creature said finally. “The trees will be marked.”

“But when?”

The other lifted a delicate hand and waved it airily. “Soon,” it fluted.

Wiz took a tighter rein on his temper. “Soon” to a non-mortal meant any time in the next geologic eon-if then.

“But precisely when? I can’t go back to my people and tell them just ‘soon.’ We’ve got to be able to go into the forests to cut wood and gather food.”

“You wish it done soon. I say it will be soon. That is enough.”

“Fine, but we need . . .” Wiz was talking to empty air. The being had vanished, leaving Wiz and his companion alone in the gently glowing chamber. Slowly and inexorably the light was dying, a none-too-subtle hint that the meeting was over.

“Well, then . . .” Jerry Andrews put his palms on the opalescent table and heaved himself up from the low chair. He had lost weight in the year or so he had been in this world, but he still outweighed Wiz by nearly 100 pounds just as he overtopped him by a head.

“Next full moon,” Wiz agreed and got up as well.

I hope they will be here then, he thought as he followed Jerry through the fading light of the corridor and out into the clear frosty air outside the hill. There was no door or other obvious exit. One step they were within the enchanted hill and the next step they were outside, with the forest looming up behind them and the gently glowing magic barrier that cordoned off this place in front of them.

Reflexively they both inhaled deeply. There was nothing wrong with the air inside, but the air outside seemed sweeter. The smell of freedom, Wiz decided. It was just a few more steps along the moonlit path and they were past the barrier and back in the forest that belonged to men.

“Mortals drive us from the forest,” the troll king’s voice echoed off the walls of the cavern. “We cannot hunt where we did.”

Meaning you can’t hunt mortals, King Tosig thought sourly. Well, what did you expect, you silly nit? You go around eating people, even mortals, and naturally they’ll object. The burning in his stomach was stronger and he knew he would be up all night, walking the floor and drinking ground chalk.

He understood the trolls’ problem in a general way. For time out of mind trolls had roamed the marches of the human realms, devouring human travelers and occasionally daring to attack mortal farms and villages. Then three or four seasons ago a new magician had arisen among the humans.

Brought from outside the World, or so the story went.

At first this alien wizard had only used his power in human quarrels. But before long his vastly more powerful magic had begun to spread among mortals. Suddenly the humans had respectable magical powers and the trolls, who had almost none, had lost a major item in their diet.

Tosig tugged his beard. This was a pretty problem indeed. So far there had been little contact between humans and dwarves and he would just as soon keep it that way. His realms were far from the lands of mortals and his people had not suffered from the humans’ new magic. However he had heard stories and they were not the sort to encourage him to stir up trouble in that direction.

Well, maybe he wouldn’t have to. The king had been talking for nearly a day-tenth and hadn’t yet . . .

“I call debt-right!” the troll king thundered. “Blood for my people.”

A stillness settled over the hall. All the dwarves present knew that the troll kings’ claim was legitimate. Tosig sighed and inwardly cursed the day he had contracted a debt to a gang of trolls. But contract it he had, and now the troll had made a formal demand. Debts must be paid.

There were practical considerations as well. The dwarves traded salt and iron to the trolls for hides, some forest products and the odd bit of booty. It was not a terribly profitable trade, but if the truth be known the Mid-Northeastern Dwarves of the Southern Forest Range were not a terribly wealthy tribe. They didn’t need complications with the trolls now.

As if I didn’t have enough problems! Tosig thought as the pain in his stomach gnawed and the silence stretched on. As if . . . Suddenly he stopped short and thought furiously.

Ignoring the burning inside he nodded to his visitors.

“It pleases me to grant your request. The thing shall be done.” He waved dismissal. “Now go.”

“When?” the small troll demanded eagerly.

“Soon,” Tosig said loftily. “Return to your forests.” He repeated the dismissing gesture. The guards around the perimeter of the hall shifted and the trolls took the hint. Jostling and squabbling, they made their way out of the hall.

As soon as his unwelcome guests were gone, he motioned to his seneschal.

“Make sure they leave immediately,” he said, rising from his throne. “And see that their rooms are fumigated. The last batch had lice.”

The seneschal nodded and began to back away, but the dwarf king caught his sleeve and pulled him close.

“Send Glandurg to me in my chamber,” he commanded in a low voice.

There was a flash of bewilderment on the seneschal’s leathery face. Normally it was part of his job to keep Glandurg as far away from his royal relative as he could. But he nodded, sketched another bow and hurried to do his master’s bidding.

Beyond the barrier, Bal-Simba was waiting. The enormous black wizard sat patiently on a rock, wrapped in a cloak against the evening chill. Beside him was Danny, the other member of the programming team. Huddled next to Danny was his wife June. Fortunately it was a large rock.

Bal-Simba was there because it was as close as he could get to the negotiations. Despite being the head of the Council of the North and as such the leader of nearly all the mortals in the World, the non-mortals would not treat with him. Wiz Zumwalt’s new magic was stronger and to the non-mortals that made him the only mortal who mattered. They would tolerate Jerry, Wiz’s cubicle mate from his days as a programmer in Cupertino, because Jerry was Wiz’s right-hand man and also an expert with the new magic.

Danny was there because Wiz and Jerry were. Like Jerry, he had been magically brought to this world to help Wiz complete his magic compiler and like Jerry he had chosen to stay behind when most of the programmers went back. He had matured considerably in the year or so since he had come to the World, but there was still a lot of punk kid and hacker in Danny.

June was there because Danny was. If being a father and husband had matured Danny, being mother and wife apparently affected June not at all. She was still an almost feral presence; shy, silent and remote from everyone except Danny and their infant son. Even pregnancy and motherhood had not added a single pound to her painfully thin frame.

Sitting pressed up against Danny she reminded Wiz of a wild animal, unsure of her surroundings and ready to lash out at anyone who came too close. As she moved, Wiz saw that she had Ian with her, nursing under the cloak.

“Well, Sparrow?” Bal-Simba asked as they approached.

“They said they’d do it, but they won’t say when. I think we’re supposed to meet again at the next full moon.”

Bal-Simba nodded. He had hoped for something definite to tell the farmers, but he had not really expected much more.

Wiz sighed. “Lord, do you think we’re making any progress at all?”

Bal-Simba sighed in return. “How am I to judge, Sparrow? I know as little of dealing with these creatures as you do. Less perhaps.” He rubbed his massive forehead with a meaty hand. “Still, they continue to treat with us and that is no small thing. Nor is there any sign of war by non-mortals against mortals and that is a large thing indeed.”

Wiz nodded. His new magic had upset the balance of this World and sent humans thrusting out past their ancient boundaries in a wave of settlement, destroying magical creatures as they went. The non-mortals had reacted and the World had teetered on the brink of a war of extermination against humans. With the aid of a team of shanghaied computer programmers, Wiz had been able to stem the tide and temporarily confine the humans within somewhat larger boundaries, blunting the threat and removing the danger of war.

But to keep the peace the humans needed some kind of treaty with the World’s non-mortals, something that would set out rules for both groups. The negotiations had dragged on for months with many different beings. Apparently most of the non-mortals either couldn’t conceive of the idea of a general policy or weren’t interested in negotiating one with the humans. So arrangements had to be made a bit at a time with one group of non-mortals after another.

It would have tried the patience of a seasoned diplomat and Wiz was a long way from being any sort of diplomat. Worse, he was the only mortal the elves and others wanted to deal with and to him the meetings were a form of exquisite torture.

“Well, now what?”

Bal-Simba heaved his bulk up off the rock and picked up his wizard’s staff. “That we shall know at the next full moon, Sparrow.”

“You sent for me, Uncle?”

King Tosig looked up sourly at the young dwarf standing in the door of his study. His sister’s niece’s son was well-enough formed, with broad shoulders and powerful limbs. His beard was long and thick, as a dwarf’s beard should be, and his craggy features bore a hint of the dwarf king’s own.

The face was fine. It was what was behind it that was the problem.

Instead of digging, making, hoarding and other normal dwarfish pursuits, Glandurg’s mind was forever on other things. Where the average dwarf is an intensely practical, rather unimaginative sort, Glandurg was a dreamer and a romantic.

The young dwarf knew that there was more to life than the tunnels and forges of his subterranean home. He just wasn’t sure what. Being young, inexperienced and a romantic, he was convinced it was better than what was here.

Worse, he had gathered a group of young dwarves about him and converted them with his cockamamie chatter. They careened about the tunnels, refusing to listen to their elders and engaging in all sorts of undwarvish nonsense.

To Tosig, who was practical and unimaginative even for a dwarf, Glandurg and his friends were a constant source of trouble. If such a thing were possible Tosig would have suspected a taint of mortal blood in his ancestry.

The dwarf king forced his face into an unaccustomed smile and gestured at his visitor. “Come in, boy. And close the door behind you.”

“Uncle, I really am sorry about the sewage tunnel,” Glandurg began breathlessly. “But the survey showed . . .”

The dwarf king reddened at the thought of the stope flooded when that tunnel broke through, and his already perilous hold on his temper weakened. As if a dwarf had to rely on a survey to know where he was underground!

“Never mind that,” he cut his near-nephew off. “I have another job for you and your friends.”

“It’s not another sewage tunnel, is it?” Glandurg began apprehensively.

“Because if it is . . .”

“No, this is something else. Something more suited to your talents. Oh sit down, boy! Sit!” He shooed the young dwarf into a three-legged chair in front of his desk.

Apprehensive at this unprecedented honor, Glandurg sank into the chair, his eyes riveted on Tosig’s face.

“Now then,” said Tosig, composing his thoughts. “You know I had an embassy from the trolls this evening?”

Glandurg nodded eagerly. “Three mighty kings of the trolls-or so it is said.” His face fell. “I was on guard duty on the peaks.”

Tosig nodded. He did not mention he had given standing orders to keep Glandurg out of the throne room during audiences.

“The trolls came asking a great favor and for reasons of state I have decided to grant their request.”

Glandurg leaned forward expectantly.

“The trolls are threatened by a new wizard who has arisen among the mortals. A wizard from beyond the World, bringing with him strange and powerful magic. Our allies the trolls suffer cruelly under his influence and they beg succor.”

He fixed his young relative with an eagle stare. “You are to be their succor. I want you to gather a troop of hardy adventurers and kill the human wizard with the new magic.”

Glandurg gulped. “You mean go Outside? Out into the World?”

“Well, you’re not going to find him in our tunnels are you?” Tosig snapped.

“No, I mean, of course not, but . . .”

The dwarf king glared and the young dwarf trailed off. Glandurg was all for adventure and travel, in the abstract. But now that he was facing the possibility of leaving the tunnels where he had lived all his 184 years, he discovered he wasn’t so sure he wanted to go.

“We’ll need supplies,” he said at last. “And gold.”

Tosig’s stomach flared again, but he nodded. “Anything you need. Within reason, boy! Within reason. Now, how soon can you leave?”

“I don’t know. A week perhaps.”

Tosig nodded. “A week if you must, then. Sooner if you can. Our allies depend on us in this and I am depending on you.”

Glandurg’s face glowed.

“Thank you, Uncle. I will strive to prove myself worthy.” He bowed deeply and then whirled and raced out the door, slamming it behind him.

As the door reverberated behind his young relative, King Tosig allowed himself a tight little smile.

A debt was a debt and debts must be paid, even to trolls. On the other hand, he thought, nowhere it is written what coin they must be paid in. Clearly there must be an effort to crush this Sparrow, but if the effort failed and one of his blood relatives perished in the attempt, why, who could blame the king or his people? Even mortal magicians were not without defenses after all.

He shifted and the pain in his stomach came back, but not so bad this time. Maybe he wouldn’t need the ground chalk after all.

“Dammit, they’re stalling!” Danny said as the group picked its way along the trail in the moonlight. “They’re just keeping us hanging.”

“Why?” asked Jerry. “It doesn’t get them anything.”

“I dunno why,” Danny said stubbornly, “but we’re being stalled.”

Wiz walked beside his fellows, too tired to join the argument. Pointless anyway, he thought. No matter what their motives are we’ve got to keep negotiating with them. It’s the best we’ve got.

Behind them Ian made a tentative whimper. June quickly hushed him.

“I thought you were going to leave her home,” Wiz said in an undervoice as he jerked his head back at June.

“Well, I tried,” Danny said defensively. “But she came anyway. You can’t argue with her. It’s like she doesn’t hear.”

“If you can’t keep her at home maybe it would be better if you didn’t come to these things.”

“No way, man. This is where stuff is happening. Besides, she’s not a problem. She just sits with me.” Wiz saw the angry jut of his jaw and decided to try a different approach.

“Okay, but it can’t be good for the baby to be out in this weather. And it will be even colder next full moon.”

Danny’s expression cleared as he thought about it. “Yeah. You’re right.

Maybe I should stay home.”

Wiz nodded. The new Danny could be just as obnoxious as the know-it-all kid who had come to this world a little over a year ago, but at least you could reason with him.

More or less, Wiz reminded himself.

At the base of the enchanted hill Bal-Simba motioned the party to halt in a clearing. They clustered together while he began the chant to transport them back to the Capital on the Wizard’s Way.

A quickly spoken spell, a flash of familiar darkness and they were standing on the flagstones of the Outer Court of the Wizard’s Keep, just inside the main gates of the castle.

Wiz blinked at the brightness of the lantern-lit courtyard after the moonlit forest clearing.

“You know, this is still wrong,” Jerry said as the guardsmen hurried to open the inner gate that separated the Outer Court from the Keep proper.

“Looks fine to me,” Wiz said as his wife Moira came through the gate to meet him. The mellow glow of the lanterns caught the coppery highlights in her red hair and warmed the creamy tones of her freckled skin. She was easily the best thing Wiz had seen all day and he hugged her tight and kissed her soundly.

“No, think about it,” Jerry persisted as Wiz and Moira broke the clinch. “We just teleported in here. But what about the velocity differences caused by the rotation of the planet? There should be a speed difference. And there’s the energy gradient, and . . .”

Moira’s green eyes gleamed with amusement. “Has he been like this all evening, love?”

“Just since we got back,” Wiz told her.

But . . .” Jerry interjected.

Wiz was in no mood for one of Jerry’s attempts to apply the finer points of physics to this world. “It’s magic, okay?”

“Yeah,” Jerry persisted as they went through the inner gate, “but magic has rules.”

“But that doesn’t mean we understand them.”

“Still . . .”

“Look, there are a lot weirder things about this place than some missing energy when we teleport. Let’s leave it, all right?”

Jerry looked at him sympathetically.

“You’re really beat, aren’t you?”

Wiz sighed and put his arm around Moira’s waist. “Yeah, but at least that’s over for another month. Maybe we can concentrate on writing software for a while.”

“Oh, a week at least,” Jerry said. “Then we’ve got a couple of other loose ends to deal with.”

Wiz thought about those “loose ends” and glared at his friend. “You had to remind me, didn’t you?”

Two: DRAGON TROUBLE

The day was bright, the air was crisp and Judith Conally was off in a world full of dragons, elves and heroes.

So Prince Leopold slays the dragon Ferocious before he meets the wood elves, she thought as the trolley car jolted to a stop in front of the San Jose Public Library. But then where does he meet Bronwyn Halfelven? It can’t be in the troll’s cave. That’s too trite. And if he kills the dragon before he confronts Gorbash F1eshripper, why does Bronwyn agree to accompany him on the quest?

She sighed and shifted on the hard fiberglass seat. Her fellow passengers ignored her. Their thoughts might not be as colorful as Judith’s, but they were just as lost in them.

Externally, Judith was no different from the other passengers. Her clothing was more comfortable than stylish and while no one would have called her ugly, they wouldn’t have called her beautiful either. Her long dark hair was lustrous, but it was caught back in a severe bun. Her figure was substantial rather than eye-catching, her jaw was square and her nose on the large side. She looked, well, ordinary.

Judith sighed again and rose with the rest of the passengers. Working out the details of a novel wasn’t nearly as easy as she had thought. Maybe she could find a solution in the book on Celtic magic the library had gotten her through interlibrary loan. If not she would have to invent something that would be magically consistent with the universe she had created.

Problems, problems. She never knew being a successful fantasy author could be this difficult.

Well, almost a successful fantasy author, she admitted as she stepped down onto the trolley platform. The outline of her trilogy had caught the eye of an editor at Nemesis Books. The sample chapters had passed muster and now the editor wanted to see the completed manuscript of the first novel.

The other passengers had stepped off the platform to cross the street in either direction, but Judith still stood there, trying to decide.

For a moment she concentrated on dragons. Not dragons as they were-quarrelsome, nasty-tempered beasts that stank of sulfur and snake-but dragons as she had first seen them. Mighty, ethereal creatures printed against the pale pink glow of clouds at earliest morning as they swooped around the tower of the Wizard’s Keep.

She was bound by oath not to reveal what she had seen in that other world. As part of the small team of programmers who had taken Wiz Zumwalt’s crude magic compiler and turned it into a piece of production software, she had really experienced magic and dragons and the rest of it. She couldn’t directly refer to her time in a world where magic worked and dragon riders were as common as 747s are here. But she could draw on what she had seen and done to make her novel come alive. And most of all she had the memories to sustain her as she struggled to write.

As always thinking about her time in another world refreshed her. Judith started to cross to the library, head high and still lost in thought.

Can I do it in two trilogies? she wondered as she stepped off the curb. Or will I need to stretch it to three?

If Judith was lost in thought, the truck driver was just plain lost. He had driven the semi all the way from Minneapolis to deliver a load of exhibits to the San Jose convention center next to the library. But he had gotten his directions mixed up and instead of arriving at the back of the center and the loading docks, he ended up in front of the building, on a street that wasn’t supposed to have truck traffic. He certainly didn’t know the neighborhood well enough to realize that people on the trolley platform in the center of the street were given to crossing no matter what the traffic light said.

The blare of the horn and the screech of air brakes brought Judith half out of her reverie. Instinctively she jumped back as the driver yanked the wheel desperately in an effort to avoid her.

Together it was almost enough. Instead of receiving an obliterating blow from the truck’s front bumper, Judith Conally was only kissed by the left fender. But the kiss was near as deadly as a blow. Her purse flew out of her hands in a high arc, opening in mid-air and spilling wallet, tissues, keys and coins along the curbside. Limbs flailing, Judith spun away and slammed headfirst into the curb.

She did not move again.

A woman and a dragon waited for them when they entered the programmers’ quarters in the Wizard’s Keep.

Of the two the woman was slightly the larger and by far the more formidable. Shauna was broadbeamed with brown hair and an easy gap-toothed smile. She had an infant daughter of her own and she was more than happy to nurse Ian-and mother June and Danny as well.

“My Lords, Lady,” she curtsied. “I have a cold supper waiting.”

“Thanks,” Wiz said, “but I’ll just have something to drink.” He drew a mug of ale from the small cask at the end of the table and plopped down on a bench along the wall. It was something past midnight, but all of them were too keyed up to sleep. A light meal and light conversation had become a ritual after meeting with the non-humans by the light of the full moon.

Shauna surveyed Wiz’s thin frame disapprovingly. “You’ll never put on any meat that way.” Then she turned to June. “Here child, let me hold the baby and you get yourself something to eat.”

Shauna, Moira and Danny were the only three people June would allow to hold Ian. Without protest June handed the baby to Shauna and went to heap her plate. Jerry, Danny and Bal-Simba joined her while Moira stayed with Shauna and Ian.

“It’s a wonder you don’t catch the ague, all of you. Out all night in the cold and damp consorting with uncanny beings. And taking the child to such doings, well . . .” Shauna peered under the blanket at the sleeping infant.

Ian awoke briefly, saw he was being made much of, accepted it as his due and drifted back to sleep.

Wiz took a pull on his mug and nearly lost it when the dragon rammed his head into his ribs.

“Well, what’s your problem, Scales-For-Brains?” he said, reaching out to scratch the dragon behind its ears.

Shauna looked up from Ian. “Naming such a beast ‘Lord,’ “ she said with a shake of her head.

“Not Lord,” Wiz corrected as he dug his fingers into the scaly hide. “LRD.” The dragon stretched his neck out luxuriously to expose a spot behind his right ear.

“LRD?”

“It’s a TLA for Little Red Dragon,” Jerry put in from where he was building a triple-decker sandwich.

“What is a TLA?”

“Three-letter acronym.”

Shauna looked puzzled and Moira chuckled. “Never ask them for an explanation. You will only end up worse confused.”

Shauna sniffed and turned her attention back to June and Ian. LRD reminded Wiz to keep scratching with a butt to the side that nearly knocked him off the bench.

As a two-foot hatchling, LRD had been as cute as a kitten when he wandered into the programmers’ makeshift workshop and decided he liked the company. Now, a little over a year later, LRD was something more than six feet from snout to tail-tip and massive in proportion. Compared to the 80- to 100-foot cavalry mounts in the aeries below the castle, LRD was still tiny. Compared to the scale of the rooms and passages in the castle, LRD was definitely on the large side and getting bigger every day.

He had given up trying to sleep on tables after a couple of them collapsed under his weight, but he still liked to nudge people to have his head scratched. Of course what had once been just a firm, insistent push was now enough to knock a grown man off his feet. He was also beginning to show flashes of typically dragonish temper-which is to say he could turn nasty in an instant-and occasionally he would burp a little tongue of flame. Almost everyone steered clear of him and the only place he was really welcome was the programmers’ workrooms and their living quarters.

The dragon decided he had had enough head scratching and ambled over to see how Ian was doing. Shauna eyed him disapprovingly but he extended his neck and sniffed the sleeping infant, giving nurse and baby a good snort of dragon breath in the process. Ian opened his eyes and cooed at the scaly monster looking down at him.

For some inexplicable reason LRD had decided he liked Ian. He would curl up next to the baby’s crib for hours, dozing or watching the infant with an unwinking golden stare. If Ian was distressed or uncomfortable, LRD became frantic. When he wasn’t with Ian, the dragon divided his time between chasing the castle’s cats and sunning himself on any convenient surface.

He seemed mildly approving of June, and he and Shauna had arrived at an armed truce. Everyone else he ignored-unless he wanted his head scratched.

Wiz finished his ale and debated making himself a sandwich. He decided he wasn’t hungry and putting food in his stomach would only dilute the soporific effect of the ale. He needed something to help him sleep after the hours spent under the magic hill.

Moira left June and Shauna and came over to sit by him.

“You’re not eating?”

Wiz took a moment just to admire her. Moira was broad-hipped, deep-bosomed and had a pair of wonderful green eyes set in a wide freckled face under a mane of red hair. The hedge witch was the first person he had seen when he had been kidnapped into this world and he had thought she was breathtakingly beautiful then. They had been married nearly two years and she still took his breath away.

“I want to make sure I can sleep tonight,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist. Then he leaned close and nuzzled her hair. “What’s the matter, do you want your ears scratched too?”

Moira turned and gave him one of her patented 10,000-volt looks. “Perhaps we should discuss that back in our chambers, my Lord.”

Wiz rose and pulled her up with him. “Maybe we should at that.”

Looks like the ale was wasted, he thought as they made their goodbyes to the others and headed off to bed.

Once again torches lit a meeting of dwarves in an underground chamber. But this was a much smaller gathering in much less impressive surroundings than King Tosig’s audience hall.

It was, in fact, a storeroom for hides. The torches were leftovers plundered from wall sconces elsewhere in the hold and the twelve dwarves sitting on the smelly bales or lounging against the rough-hewn walls had no more right to be there than the torches did.

A minor detail, Glandurg thought as the last of his followers slipped into the room and closed the storeroom door. Anyway, now that he was acting under his uncle’s orders, not even old Samlig, the keeper of the storehouses, would dare to question them.

Still Glandurg couldn’t help looking over his shoulder. Samlig was a crusty one and he’d just as soon not put his new legitimacy to the test.

Taking a deep breath, he drew himself up to his full three-foot-eight and faced his men.

“Comrades,” he proclaimed, but softly. “At last we have a mission worthy of us.”

“Not another sewage tunnel, is it?” asked a dwarf named Ragnar.

Glandurg dismissed the question with a lofty gesture. “This is a mission to the Outside World. Beyond the tunnels of the Hold.”

A couple of the dwarves exchanged suspicious glances, wondering what kind of unpleasant and menial chore had been arranged for them now.

“I have just come from a secret audience with my uncle, the King,” Glandurg told them. “He has entrusted us with an important mission.”

“I thought the King said he’d cut your ears off if you came next nor nigh him,” put in a dwarf named Gimli who was so young his beard barely touched his chest.

Glandurg glared at him and planted his hands on his hips. “Do you want to hear this or don’t you?”

Gimli wilted under his leader’s stare and Glandurg adopted his heroic pose again.

“As I was saying, a secret audience with the King. He has commanded us upon a vital mission for all of dwarfdom.”

He paused for effect and the other dwarves leaned forward expectantly.

“We are to penetrate the world of mortals to its very heart and there find and slay a wizard from beyond our World! It is a dangerous, desperate quest and in his hour of need my uncle the King has turned to us as the staunchest, bravest among all his subjects.” He surveyed his wide-eyed followers and saw they were satisfactorily impressed.

“This isn’t another one of your stories?” one of the dwarves asked at last.

“Why don’t you go to my uncle the King and put that question to him?”

That settled it. None of them would go anywhere near King Tosig, but the assurance with which Glandurg issued the challenge told them that for once their leader was not exaggerating. At least not much.

“How are we supposed to get there?” asked Thorfin, always the practical one. “That’s two hundred leagues at least.”

“We will ride,” Glandurg said loftily. “It has been arranged.”

“I don’t know about horses,” a dwarf named Snorri said dubiously. “I’m not much for them.”

“We will not ride horses. We will fly.”

“I thought you said we’d ride,” said Ragnar. “Which will it be then?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” Glandurg told him with a superior smile. He was pleased that he had thought of the transportation problem and he was even more pleased with the solution he had worked out in the few hours since meeting with the king. But he didn’t want to tip his hand. His companions might not be as happy with his cleverness as Glandurg was.

“What about supplies?” Ragnar asked.

“Our every need will be supplied from the hold’s storehouses,” Glandurg said. He smiled at the thought of old Samlig’s face when he issued out the carefully hoarded goods. “We shall have the weapons, the armor and the gold we need from my uncle the King’s personal treasury.”

He looked them over again. “This will not be easy. The alien wizard has mighty magic and his legions of mortal warriors are numberless and not to be despised. It will be a long, difficult adventure and danger awaits us at every turn.”

The dwarves all nodded. Danger and adventure were fine with them.

“This will be to the death,” he proclaimed. “Some of us-nay, all of us!-may not return.”

He swept his gaze over his followers impressively.

“Now swear with me in blood!” Glandurg drew his knife and nicked himself on the wrist. He cut deeper than he meant to and winced slightly at the sudden pain. There was a lot more blood than he intended, but his sleeve reddened satisfactorily and the blood dripping off his wrist made a most impressive touch.

One by one the other dwarves cut themselves and mingled their blood with their leader’s for the oath.

“To the wizard’s death-or our own.”

Three: OPERATION 500-POUND PARAKEET

The problem with a kludge is eventually you’re going to have to go back and do it right.

Programmers’ saying

“You’re sure this will work?” Wiz asked for the fourth time that morning amid the bustle of final preparations. He was wearing a warm wool tunic and pants, a heavy travelling cloak and a very apprehensive look.

“If you can remember to do your part of it,” Moira said a little sharply.

Then she caught his expression and placed her hand on his arm.

“Do not worry, love,” she said softly. “The spells are as simple and foolproof as we can make them. What was your phrase?-‘Idiots-and-English-majors’ simple.”

Wiz didn’t object to the characterization. In spite of the power his spell compiler gave him, he had absolutely no talent for this world’s magic. It had taken Moira and Bal-Simba weeks to teach him what he would have to do today.

Wiz was much more warmly dressed than necessary for the Council chantry where he stood. But the clothing didn’t entirely explain the sweat beading on his forehead.

He was standing in the middle of a circle traced in white powder on the flagged stone floor. Around him stood eight of the blue-robed wizards of the Mighty, each of them at one of the points of the compass. Late morning sunlight pouring in through the stained glass windows cast gaily colored patterns on the floor and the wizards, but beside each of them burned a pair of tall wax candles. Apprentices bustled around the edges of the room putting the finishing touches on preparations and sometimes conferring in hushed low tones. On the dais at one end of the room, Arianne, Bal-Simba’s second in command, was overseeing three Watchers hunched over their communications crystals. Next to the tall blonde woman stood a pudgy little man in the blue robe of the Mighty, his lips moving silently and his eyes focused far away as he maintained contact with others of his fellows at their assigned tasks.

“Are we prepared then?” asked Bal-Simba from his spot on the circle.

“Lord, the patrols are off the beach,” Arianne told him, pushing back a stray lock of blonde hair.

“The other wizards are standing by,” reported Malus, the wizard next to her.

“Operation 500-Pound Parakeet is ready to go,” Jerry called from his place at the side of the room. Everyone looked to the sun stick which cast a shortening shadow on the marks on the opposite wall. The tip of the shadow was inexorably approaching one of the marks.

Danny and Jerry stepped into the circle to clap Wiz on the back and wish him well.

“I never did understand why you call this after a giant parrot,” Moira said as they waited for the last minutes to pass.

“Parakeet,” Danny corrected. “It’s how you get rid of cats. You get a

500-pound parakeet and teach it to say ‘here, kitty kitty kitty.’ “

Moira started to frown and then laughed as she caught the joke.

“So you call this Operation 500-Pound Parakeet.”

“They call it Operation 500-Pound Parakeet,” Wiz said sourly. “I had nothing to do with the name.”

“Hey man, it’s gonna be easy,” Danny told him lightly. “All you gotta do is zip back to the City of Night, off a demon who’s waiting to toast you, and then call for the cavalry-us. We handle the rest.” He made a palm-down gesture as if sweeping aside minor details. “Nooo problemo.”

“It is indeed simple if you remember your spells and execute them correctly,” Moira agreed.

“I rest my case,” Wiz said sourly.

“Crave pardon?”

“Almost time,” Bal-Simba called from his place at the head of the circle.

“Make ready.”

“I mean you just proved my point. Oh well, if we’re going to do this thing, let’s get on with it.”

He kissed Moira long and hard.

“Okay,” he said. “Places everyone.”

Moira, Jerry and Danny stepped back and out of the circle, being careful not to scuff the chalked lines. The seven other wizards looked at Bal-Simba and he watched the sun stick as the shadow crept the last fraction of an inch along its track.

Then all the wizards raised their hands and began chanting. Wiz gripped his staff and tried to breathe slowly and evenly as the chant rose around him and the air seemed to fill with smoke. The sound became louder and louder, then began to fade as the air around him became thick and opaque.

There was a flash of darkness and suddenly the air was so cold it burned his lungs.

Wiz Zumwalt clung to his staff and pressed his eyes tightly shut as waves of dizziness washed over him. When he opened his eyes he found he was nose to nose with a wall of crudely dressed black basalt.

He turned and nearly fell when he stepped on a patch of ice in the wall’s shadow. He scraped his palm as he caught himself against the rough wall. Then his vision cleared and the dizziness receded as he looked out over desolation.

Even at its height the City of Night had not been attractive. Its builders, the wizards of the Dark League, had cared much more for power than for beauty. Most of the city had been crudely built out of the volcanic stone of the Southern continent with no regard to appearance or city planning.

But when the Dark League had ruled here at least there had been a kind of sinister vitality to the place. In its ruin and abandonment the city was simply ugly. The cobbled street fell away steeply and over the roofs of the close-huddled buildings Wiz could see the steel-gray harbor merging at the horizon into steel-gray sky. Behind him the volcano on whose flank the city stood curled a thin plume of smoke to the leaden sky. Even the snow that capped the mountain was dirty gray.

Studded here and there around the city were gaunt black towers, several of them with their tops blown off. A few yards ahead of Wiz the street was blocked by rubble where one of the buildings had collapsed. Many of the buildings between him and the harbor were ruined, roofless or in a couple of cases simply melted.

He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a tiny bit of blue crystal he wore on a thong around his neck. “I’m here,” he said into the communications crystal. “Start Operation 500-Pound Parakeet.”

Then he looked out over his handiwork again and shivered, not entirely from the cold.

Directly or indirectly, Wiz was responsible for most of the destruction. In his first great battle with the Dark League he had used his mixture of computer programming and magic to rout the League and destroyed a good part of the city in the process. In the second confrontation, he had been kidnapped to this place by the remnants of the League. For weeks the enemy wizards had hunted him through the freezing ruins of the City of Night while a tracking demon waited to destroy him if he used the least of his new magic.

He had been rescued after he had incited a magical battle between the wizards and Bale-Zur, the invincible slaying demon who had once served them. The effect of so much magic unleashed had attracted the attention of the Council’s Watchers and brought a patrol of dragons south over the City to his rescue.

However the battle had stirred up the slaying demon. Instead of staying in one place and killing whatever came to him, the Watchers reported Bale-Zur now roamed the City of Night ceaselessly looking for victims. Worse, it had begun to range beyond the City itself. If this kept up it was sure to use its powers to travel across the Freshened Sea to the lands of men.

Wiz knew he was safe enough, but he kept his back to the freezing wall anyway. The communications crystal used the old magic of the Mighty, not his new spell compiler that would activate the tracking demon. Even though it needed eight powerful wizards and a complicated ceremony, Bal-Simba had sent him along the Wizard’s Way by conventional magic so he did not have to use his own spells.

Of all the mortals in the World only three were safe from Bale-Zur. The demon would not touch Wiz, Jerry and Danny because their full names-their true names-had never been spoken anywhere in the World. To Bale-Zur they were no more prey than a rock.

However Bale-Zur was only half the problem. The other half was the hunting demon the Dark League had created in their attempt to destroy Wiz. Unlike Bale-Zur it could not range much beyond the Southern Continent. However it was keyed to Wiz’s special brand of magic and would attack and destroy anything that used it.

But spells built with the magic compiler were the only kind Wiz, Jerry and Danny knew. If they tried to make magic the demon would be on them instantly.

It presented a pretty problem. Wiz, Jerry and Danny were immune to Bale-Zur, but if they used their magic they would be immediately attacked by the hunting demon. The hunting demon would not respond to conventional magic, but not even all of the Mighty together could hope to stand against Bale-Zur.

Until Bale-Zur was contained it was horribly risky for any mortal but Wiz or his friends to enter the City of Night and until the hunting demon was contained, they could not be safe here.

The demons weren’t the only dangers in the City of Night. Remnants of the League’s old magic remained and there were other monsters here as well. However none of those were the equal of a well-prepared magician-well, probably not, Wiz told himself-and most of them were not active by daylight in the open. We don’t think!

Naturally they had backup. He was being closely watched by magical means, and several of the Mighty were poised to jump to his aid if he appeared to be in danger. There were two squadrons of dragon riders circling just off the beach. But he was still here alone and if anything went wrong he would be the first to know it.

Well, now I know how a worm on a hook feels, Wiz thought. He pulled his cloak tighter and set to work.

After hashing it over repeatedly, they had worked out a plan. It seemed like a good idea back at the Capital, but standing in the shattered city, Wiz was growing less fond of it by the minute.

He shifted his grip on his staff. The sooner they got this part of the operation over with the sooner he would be able to protect himself. And the sooner I can use a spell to stay warm.

He reached into his pouch, drew out four pieces of blue stone and set one at each point of the compass. Then he stood between them and began to scratch in the frozen dust with his staff.

Carefully he traced the figure in the dust as he had been taught. The old magic of this world depended for its success on precise execution. Everything had to be done just right and even the tiniest deviation from the rituals could mean disastrous changes in the outcome. The secret of the success of his magic compiler lay in the fact that it used extremely simple, reliable little spells that could be built up to produce complex, powerful effects with little or no talent on the part of the user.

With his new magic Wiz was easily the most powerful mortal magician in this world. But he was as natural a klutz as he was a computer programmer. Even this simple spell would tax him to the limit.

He finished the tracing and made especially sure the lines crossed to close the figure around him. The freezing wind whipped up little eddies of dust, but it did not erase the pentagram.

Finally he surveyed his handiwork one more time and reached back into his pouch. This time he pulled out a bit of forked, twisted root. Stepping to the edge of the circle, he lifted the root to his mouth and whispered to it the words Moira and Bal-Simba had spent so long pounding into his head. He leaned over and placed it outside the circle. Then he stepped back and waited.

He had barely reached the center when the root stirred in the dust. As he watched it seemed to untwist and swell until it became a tiny brown man shape, no longer than Wiz’s thumb. It got to its knees and then to its feet and then shook itself once, as if to clear its head. It strode forward, placed its hands on its hips, threw back its head and began to shout.

Inside the circle Wiz heard nothing but the wind. He knew that the manikin was reciting a simple spell in the new magic. The spell didn’t do much, but it should be enough to attract the demon. Wiz gripped his staff harder and forced himself not to hold his breath as he watched.

Suddenly, with an earsplitting roar, the demon arrived.

A clawed foot crushed the mandrake manikin to the dust. The burning red eyes searched right and left and the horned, scaled, fanged head swiveled on the snakelike neck as it scanned for more prey. It stopped when it saw Wiz standing perhaps twenty feet away, seemingly unprotected and reeking of traces of the new magic. Without warning and without seeming to gather itself it leapt at Wiz, jaws gaping and talons spread. Its bellows rang off the surrounding stone walls.

Perhaps five feet from the human, the demon bounced. It stopped dead in mid-air and with talons scrabbling for purchase it slid slowly down the invisible barrier that lay between it and its would-be prey.

Again and again, the thing hurled itself against the invisible barrier that separated it from its prey. In spite of himself Wiz flinched and shrank back from its fury.

It was wasted effort. The demon clawed impotently at the barrier and scrabbled frantically against it, but it could not come close to penetrating it.

Wiz raised his staff and spoke. “demon debug begone exe!” he proclaimed.

The demon renewed its desperate attack on the magical barrier and its screams rose to a crescendo. Then the spell took hold. The demon became translucent. Its roars faded to the merely deafening, down through the loud and then trailed away like a locomotive whistle disappearing in the distance. It became transparent, faded to a mere outline and then it was gone.

Wiz let out his breath in a great gasping sigh and sagged against his staff.

“Okay,” he said into the communications crystal. “Phase one is accomplished. Come on through and let’s get the rest of this thing over with.”

There were two soft pops behind him and there were Jerry and Danny, looking disoriented and a little sick, but clutching their staffs gamely. They were burdened with packs and hung about with an assortment of pouches, crystals, strangely shaped bits of metal and other less identifiable things. In addition Danny carried a large leather sack that pulsated and moved as if the contents were alive.

The contents of the sack were to help them in their search. Everything else Danny and Jerry carried was for protection or defense. Looking them over, Wiz reflected there was probably enough magical firepower between the pair of them to defeat the Dark League ten times over. Far more than they would need for anything they were likely to meet here.

Which was fine with Wiz. He had not the slightest intention of giving anything in the City of Night an even break.

“You okay?” Wiz asked as his friends seemed to become aware of their surroundings.

“Yeah,” Danny mumbled. Then he shook his head to clear it. “Boy that’s a weird feeling.”

“It’ll be a good feeling when we get out of here. And the sooner we start the search the sooner that will be.”

Danny nodded and bent to open the leather bag.

Hundreds of things like dirty gossamer handkerchiefs half-flapped, half-floated out of the sack and wafted off in all directions. Behind them came a half-dozen things of the same stuff about the size of a bath towel. Finally Danny reached in and pulled out a crystalline object about a foot high. The facets flashed in the pale light and the thing began buzzing weakly as it started receiving data from the searching units.

“It will take them a few minutes to get some kind of search pattern set up,” Wiz said into the comm crystal. “There’s not a lot we can do until then.”

“Just be careful doing nothing,” Moira’s voice admonished them. “That place is not safe.”

“No kidding,” Wiz said, thinking of the close calls he had when he was a fugitive in the city.

“They’re spreading out fast,” Jerry said, craning his neck and shielding his eyes with his hands to try to follow the searchers’ progress.

All the things in the sack were variants of the system of searching demons which had been one of Wiz’s first projects with his new magic. The smaller searchers had almost no intelligence or volition. They were passive receptors which passed information back to the bath towel things for concentration and interpretation. They in turn passed the information back to the crystal object which did the final evaluation.

Unlike Wiz’s original system, this one was tuned to look for only one object, the heart of Bale-Zur. The demons had been trained on similar demon hearts held in the vaults beneath the Capital. When they found a demon heart they would report back to the humans.

Danny poked at the rubble with his staff. “What does the heart of a demon look like anyway?”

“It’s a cloudy sphere about as big as your head,” Wiz told him. “Anyway, that’s how it was described to me.”

“Do not worry about identifying it,” Moira’s voice came inside their heads. “Your searching demons will know it when they see it.”

“If it still exists, it should be somewhere in Toth-Set-Ra’s old palace,” Moira’s voice told them. “That is,” she paused for a second while she translated what the Watcher’s crystal was showing her into their coordinate system, “almost straight behind you.”

“I hope it is there,” Wiz said. “It will make our job a lot easier.”

He motioned toward the palace and all three of them gathered up their magical paraphernalia and set off.

Four: COMA

“Hi. Uh, I’d like to see Judith Conally.”

The nurse looked up from her paperwork and flashed a professional smile.

“Are you a relative?”

“No, I’m a friend.”

“I’m sorry, but only relatives are allowed to visit patients in the neurological unit.”

“She doesn’t have any relatives out here. I’m her best friend. Can’t I please see her?”

The nurse looked him over. He wasn’t much more than twenty. A pale and soft youth with brown hair and a complexion that bore a trace of adolescent acne. He was wearing an old flight jacket with several felt-tip pens in the left sleeve pocket and a T-shirt with a picture of a warrior in a horned helmet air-brushed on it.

He had laid a three-ring notebook on the counter with a couple of library books on top.

A student, she decided. Harmless and very earnest.

The nurse glanced at the chart. The visiting rule wasn’t rigidly enforced in the neurological unit unless the doctor requested it and there was nothing on the chart about that. The patient hadn’t had a visitor in a while.

She smiled again, a little less professionally. “I suppose it would be all right, but you’ll have to be very quiet.”

The searchers found the heart of the demon before Wiz and his friends reached the palace.

As they got close to the former seat of the Dark League’s power the destruction got worse and the going got harder. In some places it was hard to tell the streets from the flattened houses and in a couple of instances it was easier to avoid the street and go over the remains of the buildings. Once they came to a place where the stone had melted into glassy slag with razor-sharp edges everywhere. Another time seeping water in deep shadows had formed a waterfall of ice nearly ten feet tall.

They saw no signs of life, but once they heard something scrabbling over the rubble as if fleeing their approach.

“Boy, what a mess,” Jerry panted as they pulled themselves to the top of the latest obstacle.

Wiz shaded his eyes and looked ahead, trying to find the easiest route. “I don’t remember it being this bad. On the other hand, I stayed away from this part of town as much as I could.”

Danny consulted the crystal device. “It’s over that way, in that big black pile of rubble.”

Jerry scanned the horizon. “Which big black pile of rubble?”

“That one,” Wiz pointed. “Let’s go.”

Another fifteen minutes of hard travel brought them through the shattered black gates of the palace. The going was easier here because there had been just one building set in an extensive courtyard. None of the roof remained and everything had collapsed in on itself, but enough of the walls still stood that you could pick out the general outlines of the floor plan.

“This guy sure had lousy taste,” Jerry said, eyeing the remains of a strangely twisted mosaic on a partly standing wall.

“I think some of it’s kind of neat,” Danny said as he looked over a doorway shaped like the gaping mouth of a monster. He reached out and stroked the door jamb admiringly.

The door growled and Danny jumped back, landing sprawled on the rubble.

“I told you not to touch stuff,” Wiz said.

“Yeah.” He consulted the locator to hide his embarrassment. “Uh, what we want is down this way.”

Another couple of hundred yards and the trio came to an archway that was still mostly standing. Through it they saw five or six searchers hovering around like a patch of smog, pulsing weakly as they sensed their quarry.

“I guess it’s down there,” Danny said.

“Great,” Wiz said, eyeing the remains of the room. “The debris is only about ten feet deep in there. I don’t suppose you guys brought shovels?”

Jerry looked down at the equipment festooned about him. “No. We’ve got enough stuff here to flatten this place in an eyeblink, but we don’t have anything that will let us move the rubble.”

“I could send shovels to you,” Moira’s voice said in Wiz’s ear.

Wiz considered. “Let’s try it bare-handed first. Where’s Bale-Zur?”

“The Watchers say it is down by the harbor.”

“Moving this way?”

“Not yet. We will let you know.”

“Well, come on,” Wiz said to his companions. “Maybe the heart is close to the top.”

“Maybe pigs will grow wings,” Danny said, eyeing the rubble.

“Around this place you never know,” Wiz said as he cast the first stone.

As he followed the nurse down the hall, Craig felt like the place was closing in on him. Everything was hushed, like sound didn’t carry here. The lighting was all indirect and the colors were all neutral browns or dark greens. It was like your senses didn’t work right.

He didn’t like hospitals anyway. They reminded him of the time he had spent in corridors, rooms and visitors’ lounges waiting for his mother to die. But even for a hospital this place was spooky. It was visiting hours, but most of the room doors were closed. Only once did he catch a glimpse of someone sitting at a bedside, a dark form outlined in the flickering glow of a TV screen.

The nurse stopped before one of the too-wide doors, gently pushed it open and then motioned him to follow her in.

At first he thought Judith was someone else. She was wizened and shrunken down into the immaculate white sheets of the hospital bed. They had cut her hair short and shaved part of one side of her head. There was a tube in her nose and another one running from her arm to a bottle of clear liquid hanging by the bed.

Craig looked dubiously at the nurse.

“Can she hear me?” he whispered.

“Perhaps,” the nurse said gently. “Try talking to her. You don’t have to whisper.”

“Thank . . .” Craig started to whisper and caught himself. “Thank you.”

“I’ll be at the nurse’s station.”

As she went out the door the nurse felt a flash of pity. The young accident victims were about the worst, second only to the little kids who had nearly drowned. Maybe the visitor would do the patient good, but she doubted it. After six years on Neuro she had a feel for the patients and this one probably wasn’t ever going to come out of it.

At first the programmers didn’t have too much trouble digging through the rubble. The pieces were about the size of Wiz’s head; small enough to handle easily and big enough to make obvious progress. The stone was freezing cold, but their sturdy gloves protected their hands and kept their fingers warm.

The heart wasn’t under the first layer of rubble, or the next. By now the job was getting harder. They started to run into pieces that took two or all three of them to shift. More and more of the pieces were locked together like jackstraws and could only be moved in order. Soon all three of them were sweating in spite of the cold and panting from the effort.

“You know,” Jerry said as they took a breather, “logically the heart should be all the way at the bottom of this pile.”

Danny picked up a pebble and chucked it against the wall. It bounced off with a metallic clang. “It’ll take us days to dig down that far, even with picks and shovels.”

“Well, we can’t bring anyone through to do our digging for us,” Wiz said.

“We’re the only ones the demon won’t harm.”

Jerry rubbed his thumb where he had mashed it between two stones. “This seems to be an ideal job for magic. We could use a summoning spell and just call the heart to the surface.”

“We could also summon Bale-Zur right on top of us. No thanks.”

“So?” Danny interjected. “He won’t hurt us.”

Wiz thought of the huge black demon with the yard-wide mouth and glowing red eyes. “You seriously do not want to meet this guy. I still have nightmares about what he did to those Dark League wizards. Anyway, we can’t conduct the next phase of the operation with him right on top of us.”

“May I make a suggestion?” Moira’s voice spoke in his ear.

“Sure darling, go ahead.”

Danny started and then realized Wiz wasn’t talking to him.

“Jerry is right. Could you use magic to do your digging?”

“Won’t that attract Bale-Zur?”

There was muffled noise over the crystal as Moira conferred with other wizards.

“Perhaps, but it is imperative we complete this before nightfall. Unless you want to spend the night there.”

Wiz remembered some of the things that inhabited the City of Night after dark and he shuddered again. “No thanks.”

“Besides, should worse come to worst we can lay the demon elsewhere.”

Wiz weighed that. “Okay. We’ll give it a try.” He turned to his companions. “Now does anyone have any good ideas for a digging spell?”

As the nurse left, Craig pulled a chair close to the bed, wincing at the slight scraping sound.

“Hi, Judith. Can you hear me?” Always Judith. She hated to be called Judy and she had pinned his ears back when he slipped the first time they met.

The figure in the bed did not respond. There was not a flicker from the eyelids and the rhythm of breathing continued uninterrupted.

Craig wanted to bolt. This was too much like his mother had been, before she’d wake up and start screaming for her shot. The only thing that kept him in the chair was knowing he’d have to pass the nurse and she’d know he couldn’t take it. He had to stay for a few minutes anyway.

He felt like an idiot for coming. None of the others had, not since Judith was transferred out of ICU. So he’d said he would at the last gaming session and then he was committed.

“Everybody misses you on Friday nights,” he said brightly.

“Bill and Sheri are taking your place in the campaign, but they’re really not very good.”

Still no response from the bed.

“We had a really good game last Friday. Joe was dungeon master and he set up a really nasty scenario. You had all these flocks of dragonlets in a crystal cave and they’d just swarm the party from all directions. But you had to be careful what spells you used because a lot of the crystals were Reflect Magic and you could get the spell thrown right back in your face.” His grin made him look even younger. “Boy, you should have seen it! Dragons diving on us everywhere. They’d make flame attacks and then swoop down with claws and tail, ssshhhewww.” He imitated the motion with his hands.

Judith tossed restlessly and mumbled.

“Anyway we were up to our asses in dragons. Then Howard’s mage figured out you could use the Reflect Magic crystals for bank shots and he started bouncing stuff off the walls and hitting the dragons from behind! Hey, did you say something?”

“ . . . real dragons ugly,” Judith mumbled. “Smell like snakes . . . ride over the castle.”

She was talking! For an instant Craig thought about ringing for the nurse, but then he realized she probably wouldn’t give a shit.

“ . . . tie into the saddle . . .” Judith went on. “ . . . takes years to learn to ride. No fun, anyway . . . better dragons imagine . . .”

“Yeah, dragons are neat all right.”

“Real,” Judith said very distinctly.

“Huh?”

“Real dragons. Saw them myself come over the Wizard’s Keep first morning we were there. Real dragons . . .” She settled back and trailed off into incomprehensibility.

Craig hunched closer to the bed.

“Tell me more, Judith. What about the dragons?”

Five: UNSOUGHT PROPHECY

It was late in the afternoon when they got the digging spell working. The wan sun was sinking toward the horizon, throwing highlights off the sullen gray surface of the Freshened Sea and sending dark shadows creeping out across the ruins. The cold deepened with the growing twilight and all three programmer/magicians had wrapped their cloaks tightly around themselves to try to stay warm.

“I’m not sure I like this,” Jerry said as they huddled together for a final review of their handiwork. “We really should run a couple more tests.”

“We don’t have time. Unless you want to stay here all night?”

Jerry looked around at the menacing ruins and pulled his cloak tighter.

“No thanks. I just wish . . .”

“Oh come on, we’ve tested the thing to death,” Danny said. “Let’s get this over with. I’m freezing.”

Mentally Wiz reviewed the spell one more time. It simply checked each loose piece within its radius of operation to see if it was the heart of the demon and if it wasn’t, tossed it aside. When it reached the demon’s heart, it would stop. It was straightforward enough and Wiz couldn’t find any flaws. Besides he was as cold as Danny was.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

All three of them stepped back from the pile of rubble and out the collapsed archway. When they were in position, Wiz called:

“emac”

A three-foot-high demon with enormous ears popped up before him. “?” it said.

Wiz pointed his staff at the rubble choking the room. “kill exe!” he commanded.

The Emac turned toward the spot and gabbled soundlessly. Then it bowed and popped out of existence.

For a moment nothing happened.

“It takes a while for the effect to build up,” Wiz explained unnecessarily.

“I just wish . . .” Jerry began. “I have this awful feeling we forgot something.”

“It’s working!” Danny shouted, pointing at the rubble. A single pebble detached itself from the pile and flew off in a flat arc. Then another pebble whipped off in another direction, and another and another.

As the three watched a head-sized chunk of material shook itself loose and lobbed away from the rubble. Then several more pebbles.

One of the pebbles flew over Wiz’s head with an ugly singing whirr.

“Direction,” Jerry said abstractedly. “Did we put anything in the spell to control which way the rubble would go when it left the pile?”

“No,” Wiz said apprehensively, as another volley of material broke loose from the mound.

“Then hit the dirt!” Jerry shouted as a dozen big chunks of rubble came flying straight at them.

All three of them dropped and rolled behind the remains of the wall just as a half-dozen pieces of stone went through the spot where they had been standing, humming like angry bees. Then a torso-sized slab of black marble lofted over the wall and crashed into the frozen dust behind them.

Then all Hell broke loose.

The pile of rubble exploded outwards in all directions. The small stuff came off with the velocity of rifle bullets. The bigger pieces arced away like mortar shells. The three wizards pressed themselves against the base of the wall and tried to burrow into the dirt as debris landed all around them.

I am not a target, Wiz told himself as he tried to become one with the base of the wall. This is not aimed at me. He shifted slightly just as the remains of a large piece of furniture sailed over the ruined wall and crashed to earth a few feet from him. Abstractedly he realized there should be a simple command to shut the spell down, but it’s hard to think when you’re in the middle of an artillery barrage and impossible to talk when your mouth is full of dirt.

There were crashes and thuds and whizzes and occasionally a nasty spang as something hit the wall and ricocheted away. Once a big piece hit the top of the wall, knocking off chips and showering them down on the cowering trio. The dust grew so thick that Wiz couldn’t see two feet in front of him-not that he was looking.

Then suddenly it was quiet.

No more crashes. No more earth-shaking thuds. Just a couple of zips from small stuff and then silence. Even the dust started to settle.

Wiz raised his head and looked around wonderingly. Then he realized Moira was screaming at him through the communications crystal.

“We’re fine,” he told her, looking at his companions. “The spell was just a little more effective than we thought.”

“Oh man,” Danny muttered. “Anyone got anything for shell shock?”

“It’s the details,” Jerry said to no one in particular. “It’s always the details that get you in trouble.”

Wiz made a feeble attempt to brush himself off and peered around the archway.

The remains of the arch were pocked and scarred with fresh blemishes, white against the polished black granite. But the room itself was as clean as if it had been excavated by a team of expert archaeologists and then scrubbed and vacuumed by a village of Japanese housewives. There, almost exactly in the center of the room, sitting on the newly exposed mosaics of the floor, was a cloudy gray sphere.

Wiz stepped through the archway and realized he was tracking dirt back onto the clean floor.

“Okay,” he said into the communications crystal. “We have the thing located. If it’s safe come on through.”

Then he looked around and bit his lip.

Wiz didn’t like any part of the operation, but this next step was his least favorite, even counting facing the golden demon. Moira was not immune to Bale-Zur, but she knew more about controlling a demon than any of the programmers. In addition to having more skill at natural magic, she had spent long sessions at Heart’s Ease with Shiara the Silver learning all the former wizardess could tell her about such things. If their plan failed, Moira was their last line of defense.

“Sharp lookout everyone,” he called over his shoulder. Danny and Jerry spread out, staffs ready, peering into the building gloom for any sign of trouble.

Two figures popped into existence on the polished floor, not just one.

“What the hell is she doing here?” Wiz demanded.

Moira frowned at the greeting and then she whirled. Standing behind her, not two paces away, was June.

“How did you get here?” Moira asked sharply. But June just smiled triumphantly and made a beeline for Danny.

“I thought you said she didn’t have any magical ability,” Wiz whispered to Moira as the couple hugged and June clung to Danny’s arm.

“She does not-I think,” Moira whispered back.

“Well then?”

Moira only shrugged.

“Let us get it over with,” Moira said. With Danny, Wiz and Jerry forming a perimeter guard, she knelt by the heart of Bale-Zur and reached slowly out to it.

For a long time she stayed motionless, her hand hovering over the cloudy crystal sphere. At last she began to move her fingers slowly over the surface, caressing it without quite touching it. Her lips began to move as she started the chant she had been taught to bring the demon back under control.

With the point of her staff she marked a pentagram around the demon’s heart. Then she stood up, backed off a step and raised her staff. Her voice rose to a wild cry as she gestured into the air. In spite of himself Wiz found his attention was drawn to his wife and her work.

The sphere pulsed and glowed with an inner light, casting a greenish-gray luminance around itself and Moira. It rocked back and forth as if seeking to break free of the imprisoning figure. Still Moira continued the eerie chant, bouncing the words off the ruined walls like bullets.

And then Bale-Zur was there.

Half-hopping, half-shambling, the huge demon moved into the circle of weird radiance. Its great horned head turned neither right nor left and its glowing eyes, red as the fires of Hell, stayed fixed on the hedge witch and the heart. For an awful moment Wiz thought the monster would reach out and grind Moira into a red smear, as he had done with a legion of wizards from the Dark League. Instead the demon approached her across its heart and sank down on its haunches to stare motionless at the woman and the sphere.

Moira continued her chant as if nothing had changed. She lowered her staff and pointed at the heart. Bale-Zur stayed motionless, great taloned hands resting on his misshapen horned knees. The hedge witch extended her staff and tapped the crystal sphere once, twice, three times. The demon leaned forward as if in special interest. Moira repeated the three taps and Bale-Zur cocked its head. Again the three taps and this time the demon seemed to shrink in on itself like a deflating balloon. Suddenly, noiselessly, it shrank and vanished without a trace. The glow faded and all that was left was a woman and a head-sized ball of some shiny black material.

Moira grounded her staff and sighed deeply. Then she sagged against it.

That broke the spell. Wiz rushed to her and put his arms about her shoulders. She leaned against him and he could feel her heart pounding even through the thick cloak she wore.

“Fine,” she muttered. “M’fine. Just hold me, will you?”

Danny, Jerry and June all gathered around them in the deepening gloom of evening. Moira took a deep breath and straightened in Wiz’s arms.

“It is done,” she said in a surprisingly strong voice.

Wiz looked at the globe, now cold and dark. “That’s it then,” he said.

“Bale-Zur is gone.”

“May we never see its like again,” Moira said fervently.

“Oh, you will not, mortals,” said a sweetly mocking voice behind them. “I see that in your future.”

All four of them whirled. There, standing poised on the ruined wall, was an elf.

Like all her kind, she was tall and slender. The delicate points of her ears peeked through the long dark hair that curved around her face and fell loose down her back. Her oddly slanted eyes were as blue as Moira’s were green. In spite of the cold she wore a shoulderless gown of fine pale pink stuff that rippled in the chill wind and set off her pale skin and dark hair. She was as alien as she was beautiful, utterly relaxed and as menacing as a tiger poised to spring.

June screamed and sank back against Danny. Moira stepped to the side and held her staff aloft as if to strike. Danny clutched June to him and Wiz and Jerry simply goggled.

“Uh, hi,” Wiz said, completely nonplussed. “Lisella, isn’t it?”

The elf maiden arched her beautifully formed brows and pursed her red lips in a mock pout.

“You have forgotten me already. I am disappointed, Sparrow.”

“Ah, not exactly.” I never forget someone who’s tried to kill me. The elf looked amused at his discomfort.

“So,” he said at last, “what brings you here?”

Lisella smiled, bright and cold as the moon at midwinter. “Why, I came to renew our acquaintance, Sparrow, and to offer you a gift of prophecy. Shall I tell you your future?”

“Uh, no thanks.”

“Ruin and loss,” Lisella went on as if he had not spoken. “Your company shall meet your greatest enemy, one like you with powers as great as yours and allies greater than you can imagine.” Her voice rang off the stones and the wind pulled at her skirt and hair. “At the crossroads of the worlds you and your companions shall meet him in a great battle. The mightiest among you shall die, each of your number shall suffer great loss and your enemy shall achieve his heart’s desire.”

She raised her arm and made a sweeping gesture that encompassed all of them. “That is your future, mortals. That is what lies ahead.”

And then she was gone. The only sound was June’s harsh sobbing echoing off the cold stone.

They looked at each other.

“Bitch!” Danny said fiercely as he clung to his wife. “Goddamn bitch.”

“That’s the one who was trying to kill you?” Jerry asked Wiz.

“Yeah. She kept trying to set up magical accidents.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? I met her once at Duke Aelric’s but by that time she’d been after me for months. I think it was some sort of cat-and-mouse game between her and Aelric-with them as cats and me as the mouse. She’d try to kill me by accident and Aelric would help me escape by the skin of my teeth.”

“Do you think she’s after you again?”

Wiz looked apprehensively at the place on the wall where Lisella had stood. Then he shrugged. “Maybe.”

Jerry followed his gaze. “It sounds like we’re in for some real trouble.”

“If she’s right, maybe.”

“Well, elves can foretell the future, can’t they?”

“Foretelling and true speaking are two different things,” Moira said firmly. “Elves can see truly but they are as false and tricksome as a piskhie maze. Clearly she means us no good and we had best ignore what she has said.”

It would have been more convincing, Wiz thought, if her knuckles hadn’t been white on her staff.

“Well anyway, I think we’d better wind up here and get back to the Capital,” Jerry said. “Bal-Simba needs to know about this.”

“I don’t think he’s going to like it much,” Wiz predicted.

Wiz’s prophecy, at least, was correct. The enormous black wizard heard them out and then led them back through their story time and again with sharp questions. At last he had no more questions and simply sat with his head sunk into his hamlike hands. The group of programmers sat clustered around the table, unsure what to do next but unwilling to depart without his leave.

“What do you think it means, Lord?” Wiz ventured at last.

“I wish I knew, Sparrow.” He lapsed into silence again.

“There have been other elven prophecies to mortals,” Moira said. “Or so the stories say.”

“Not like this,” Arianne said from her place behind Bal-Simba’s chair. “Those stories speak of chance meetings and a prophecy given either as a reward or punishment.”

“This was neither,” Bal-Simba said. “She asked for nothing. More, she obviously sought you out at a time when you would all be together and away from the Capital and its protections.”

“What should we do?”

“There is nothing we can do. The future may be open to elves, but to us it is closed and hidden. We can only live our lives as best we can and see what comes of all this.”

“I wish I knew what her game was,” Wiz said.

“I wish I knew why she wanted you dead,” Moira replied.

“She hasn’t tried to kill me since I was kidnapped to the City of Night.

That’s something anyway.”

“True,” Bal-Simba said. “It is something. I only wish I knew what.”

Six: QUEST COMPANION

Good help is so hard to find nowadays.

Personnel manager’s lament

Craig paused at the foot of the stairs and went over his spiel again. He wanted to get this just right, otherwise Panda would think he was crazy.

For two weeks he had visited Judith every night, even missing two Friday gaming sessions in a row. Slowly and patiently he had worked the story out of her; where she had gone and what she had seen and done.

It was unbelievable. It was fantastic. Except that it made sense. When you put it together with other little things over the last year, it had to be true!

The exultation grew until a lump rose in his throat from sheer joy. There were other worlds where magic worked! It wasn’t all just game scenarios and science fiction. Those places really did exist and you could get there from here! He shivered again at the wonder of it all.

Only-now he needed help.

Out on the street the traffic rushed by unheeded. Craig stared unseeing, while he went over his dilemma one more time.

Somehow he had to find a way to open that door into the other world. He wanted that more desperately than he had ever wanted anything in his life, even, he realized with a guilty start, more than he had wanted his mother to live. But he had to have a Quest Companion, someone to help him push that door open.

Who? He had spent most of the last three days going over possibilities and the list was disappointingly small. When you got right down to it, Craig realized, he didn’t have any close friends except maybe Judith.

The gamers were the only people he actually knew. But he really didn’t like them much and most of them thought he was kind of strange. Besides, they couldn’t help him. The thought of Joe or Howard as Quest Companions on a real quest was silly and the rest didn’t know enough about computers.

There were the others, the ones he met in the shadowy neverland of bulletin boards in his secret identity as Skullslayer, the master hacker. But he knew as little about them as they did about him. It would be embarrassing to confide in someone and then have it turn out to be a pimply faced thirteen-year-old.

There was one whose real identity he did know. A year and a half ago Panda had taken the unusual and dangerous step of contacting him in person. He was such an outtasight hacker that he’d discovered Skullslayer’s identity and found that he used to work as a part-time operator in the University computer center. Not only that, he knew that Craig’s password and login were still active!

The stuff about the virus, that had been an accident. Mikey had explained it all to him the night he showed up at his apartment and wanted help to cover it up. At first he’d been scared that Mikey was going to turn him over to the FBI, but Mikey just sort of mentioned in passing that he knew a lot about Skullslayer and of course if he was picked up he’d have to make a deal to save his own skin. Just this one favor, Mikey had promised, and we’ll be square.

Actually it was a thrill and kind of an honor to be involved in something as big as the Jesse James Virus. So in a matter of ten minutes, from his living room, he had hopelessly muddled the trail that led from the out-of-control computer virus back to Panda.

They’d never met in person again, but they had become good friends over the BBSs. Craig followed Panda’s exploits with admiration and more than a little awe. The guy was not only good, he was, well, daring. A dozen times or more Panda had boldly gone where no hacker had gone before, coming up with phone numbers and access codes to some of the most outrageous systems.

A woman with a bag of groceries in either arm came up the walk from the parking lot. She stepped off the sidewalk to pass well around Craig, eyeing him suspiciously as she did so.

She’s gonna call the cops on me. Well, he couldn’t delay any longer.

The name on the door was “Michael E. Baker,” but Craig knew everyone called him Mikey-like in the cereal commercial.

“Panda? It’s me. Skullslayer.”

There was a muffled “just a minute” and the sound of a lock turning.

The door opened a crack and a blue eye peered out.

“You alone?”

“Yeah. Just me.”

The door closed and then opened wide.

Mikey was shirtless and barefoot. He was several years older than Craig, but Craig was already beginning to bulge and Mikey was lean without being skinny. His blonde hair was cut surfer style and wire-rimmed glasses hid mild blue eyes. While Craig looked like a computer nerd, nothing suggested Mikey Baker was one of the most accomplished hackers in Silicon Valley.

“Come on in.” He turned his back on his guest and strode back into the apartment.

“Nice place,” Craig said as he closed the door behind him. The living room was furnished in modern chrome-and-leather furniture. Brown leather that complemented the beige carpet and the darker brown drapes. One entire wall was taken up with an elaborate entertainment center, including a big-screen television that was playing soundlessly. It was fairly neat for a hacker pad. No printouts, no posters, no stacks of books and magazines, just the day’s newspaper on the floor by the recliner and a couple of empty beer cans.

Mikey went back into the kitchenette and opened the refrigerator. “Want a beer?”

Craig plopped himself down on the leather-and-chrome sofa. “No thanks.”

Then he saw what was on television and his jaw dropped.

A luscious brunette was squatting before a man who was hung like a horse. The man’s pants were down around his ankles and the woman was completely naked. The camera closed in tight on the man’s crotch and the woman’s mouth.

“X channel,” Mikey said as he came back into the living room with a beer in his hand. “Satellite feed.”

“Wow. I thought you couldn’t get those here.”

Mike smiled. “They’re up on the satellites if you know where to look.”

Craig watched the action on the screen some more. “Wow.”

“How’d you find me?”

Craig tore his eyes away from the television.

“The day you-uh-came over to my place. I got your license number.” He shrugged. To any true system breaker the rest was obvious.

Mikey grunted. “Pretty cute. So what brings you here?”

Craig tore his eyes away again.

“You know Judith Conally?”

“No.”

“Well, I game with her and . . .”

Mikey grinned. “Is she a good fuck?”

Craig colored. “I never . . . I mean, I don’t know her that well.”

Mikey’s grin got even wider. “So if she’s not a good fuck why play games with her?”

Craig stopped dead. That was the thing about Panda. He had a way of derailing your train of thought. And you could never be quite sure when he was kidding.

“Well, she’s in the hospital, see? She had a real bad accident. I’ve been going to see her and sometimes she, like, talks, you know? Like she doesn’t know what she’s saying.

“Anyway,” he hurried on, “she’s been talking about this world where magic works and there are dragons and wizards and all that kind of shit.”

Mikey popped the top of the beer. “So?”

“So I don’t think it’s just a story.”

“Get real!” Mike took a hefty swig from the can and turned back toward the TV. A skinny blonde with a haystack hairdo and basketball breasts was being caressed from behind by a black man.

“No, listen man. She went someplace last year, her and a bunch of other people. They were recruited at an SCA war and they were gone for maybe six months. Everyone who went has been real secretive. It was right after Judith came back that she started trying to write fantasy.

“And,” he concluded triumphantly, “they got paid in gold! I remember Judith bitching about how hard it was to get it changed into money.”

Mike turned back to his visitor. “And you think they went to Middle Earth or something?” he said contemptuously.

“They sure as hell didn’t go to Redmond, Washington. Microsoft doesn’t pay its people in gold.”

Mikey turned back to the television. “Bullshit.”

“Wait, there’s more. They were recruited to, like, program magic. Over there you can hack magic the way you can computers. Programmers are super-wizards in that world.”

“And you believe her. This cunt’s wacked out of her mind in the hospital and you still believe her.”

“I’m telling you it all fits!” Craig said desperately. “It’s gotta be true.”

“It’s still bullshit. And even if it’s true, so what? What’s that got to do with us?”

“Don’t you see, we can go there too!”

Mikey set the beer down. “Why the fuck would we want to do that?”

Craig stopped with his mouth open. In all his planning, in all his imagining this meeting, that question never occurred to him. “Well,” he said lamely, “it would be an adventure.”

Mikey snorted.

“There’s gotta be all kinds of treasure and stuff laying around. They paid all those people in gold, man! And we’d be wizards. Super-powerful wizards over there.”

Mikey stared at the television and said nothing. On the screen the blonde was pistoning up and down on the black man. Her breasts were flapping like tethered balloons, but not a strand of her haystack hair was out of place.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“I, uh, need help figuring out how to make the stuff work. I need someone who’s even better than I am and Panda’s the best!”

Mikey accepted the compliment without comment. For a long time he sat and drank his beer, watching the screen and saying nothing while Craig fidgeted in silence.

Finally he tilted the bottle and drained the last drops. “I want to talk to your friend.”

Craig hesitated. “She’s kind of hard to talk to.”

Mikey smiled a 1,000-watt smile. All of a sudden he looked about fifteen and utterly charming. “I think I can get through to her.”

“Hi, Sheila, we’re here to see Judith.”

The young black nurse stood up from the filing cabinet and turned around. “Hi, Craig. One of you will have to stay here. Rules say only one visitor at a time.”

“Oh, come on Sheila, it would only be for a couple of minutes.”

“Please,” Mikey said, flashing one of his winning smiles. “We’ll only be a few minutes and I really think it would do her good to see us both.”

He looked so sincere, so innocent and so vulnerable that Sheila hesitated and then nodded. “Well, all right. But don’t tire her out. And if the supervisor comes around, you snuck by me. Okay?”

“Did you catch the ass on that nurse?” Mikey asked in an undervoice as they headed for Judith’s room.

Judith had a roommate now, an elderly Italian woman who lay spread-eagled beneath the sheets and breathed in great, wracking gasps. Otherwise everything was exactly as it had been on Craig’s first visit.

“Hi, Judith,” Craig said brightly. “This is Mikey. He’s a friend.”

There was no response from the bed. Mikey glared at Craig.

“It takes a little bit to get her talking,” he whispered. Then he turned back to Judith.

“Mikey’s interested in dragons, Judith. Dragons and wizards and magic. You know, the stuff you saw in the other place.”

The woman’s eyelids fluttered.

“You remember the dragons you saw. The ones you could ride on.”

Judith’s lips moved. Out of the corner of his eye Craig could see Mikey sitting impassively.

“You remember the flying dragons, don’t you, Judith?” Craig went on with a tinge of desperation. “The ones you rode?”

“ . . . not ride,” Judith mumbled. “Mad at me . . .”

Craig threw a triumphant look at Mikey, but Mikey’s expression didn’t change.

“Magic, Judith. You did magic there.”

“ . . . spell compiler . . . full of spaghetti code. Worked asses off to fix it.” Her arms twitched restlessly against the soft restraints that tied them to the bed.

“The magic compiler, how did it work?”

“Weird language . . . hacked together.” She drifted off into incomprehensibility.

“Have you got a copy of the code?” Mikey put in sharply.

Judith tossed and mumbled. “ . . . secret. All secret . . .”

Mikey leaned closer to the bed.

“Have you got notes?” he demanded. “Where are your notes?”

“ . . . notebook . . . projects.”

“Where’s the notebook, Judith?” Mikey persisted. “Where did you put it?”

Judith began to move her whole body against the bed.

“Hey, she’s getting upset. I think we’d better leave her alone.”

Mikey ignored him. “Tell me!” he hissed, grabbing Judith’s hand and squeezing hard. Judith moaned and tried to pull away from his grip.

“Hey! You’re hurting her.”

Mikey squeezed harder, bearing down on each word. “Where. Are. Your.

Notes?”

“Home,” Judith gasped. “Desk.” She was thrashing from side to side and breathing hard now.

Mikey released her hand. “That’s fine, Judith,” he said gently. “You did real good.”

He turned to Craig. “You heard her. She’s got stuff back at her apartment.

Can you get in?”

“Well, yeah but . . .”

“Then come on.” He stood up and headed for the door without another look at Judith. Craig followed more slowly. At the doorway he looked back. Judith was still moving restlessly, panting with hard, regular gasps.

It was almost like she was sobbing.

Judith’s apartment was on the ground floor of a two-story complex in a quiet residential neighborhood. There were maybe fifty apartments grouped around a big central terrace and pool. They had obviously been built in the ‘60s, before San Jose land values went crazy, but they were well-maintained. Probably not a bargain, Craig thought as he led Mikey through the wrought iron gate into the court, but still the sort of place that was passed down from friend to friend.

The apartment was dark and the drapes were drawn. One of the nearby apartments had a television game show on, but no one was in the courtyard.

“There’s a key in the planter by the door, under one of those phony rocks,” Craig said. “She showed it to me when I stayed here.”

Mikey gave him a knowing smile.

“Not like that! I just crashed on her couch a couple of nights.” He didn’t add that it had been while his mother had been in the hospital and he couldn’t face going back to the house alone. Somehow that wasn’t the sort of thing you told Mikey.

He groped around, picking up rocks from the planter.

“Shit. It’s not here.”

“May I help you?” a voice demanded sharply.

Craig jerked erect and whirled. A middle-aged woman was glaring at them from perhaps twenty feet away. She had a sweater thrown over her shoulders and a cordless telephone in one hand. Her thumb was ostentatiously posed over one of the phone’s quick-dial buttons.

Before Craig could do more than flush, Mikey stepped forward smiling-far enough to establish contact but not close enough to be threatening. “Yes ma’am,” he said as if he was genuinely glad to see her. “My name is Ralph Simmons. I’m Judith Conally’s supervisor. This is Craig Scott, a friend of Judith’s. We’ve just come from the hospital and Judith asked us to bring her a few things.”

Some of the venom left the woman’s stare. “I thought she was in a coma.”

Mikey positively beamed. “Oh, she’s come out of it. She’ll be in the hospital a while, but she’s already talking about going back to work. I don’t mind telling you that’s a relief to me-I mean aside from being happy she’s going to be all right. Judith is the only one who really understands that code. Just between you and me, we’ve been hurting without her.”

The woman shifted her stance and her finger moved away from the call button. “Hadn’t she quit to write or something?”

“We’d brought her back on a consulting contract. You know, just for a few hours a week. You don’t just let someone like Judith walk out the door.”

The woman nodded reluctantly. “She always seemed like a real dedicated person.”

“Very dedicated,” Mikey agreed. “And a very good worker.” Then he frowned ever so slightly. “But we seem to have a little trouble here. Judith told us she left a spare key under a rock in the planter, but we can’t seem to find it.”

“Oh, I took that in after the accident. Didn’t seem safe.”

“That was very thoughtful of you, ma’am. I wonder if you could see your way clear to let us use it for a few minutes. You see, Judith wanted to look over some of the listings and the doctor thought it would be good for her. Kind of therapy, you know.”

“Well . . .”

Mikey turned up the wattage on the smile. “Oh, I know it’s a lot to ask, but they never did find Judith’s keys after the accident. Naturally if you’d like to call the hospital . . .” again the trace of a frown, “only Judith’s not supposed to have phone calls and they’d probably have to track the doctor down.”

“Just some papers, you say?”

“Yes, ma’am. She won’t be needing clothes or anything for a while.”

“I don’t suppose it would hurt. I’m Mrs. Mapelthorpe, the manager. I can let you in on my pass key.”

“Yes, ma’am. If you’d like to come in with us, just to make sure . . .”

Mrs. Mapelthorpe smiled. “Oh, I’m sure that won’t be necessary.” She fished in the pocket of her sweater and brought out a key ring. “Just stop by 102 and check with me before you leave. Oh, and if you could, remind her that her lease is up next month. She needs to decide what she’s going to do about the apartment then.”

Mike flashed that winning smile, again. “We will. Thank you.”

The place smelled of dust and cool, stale air. Someone had obviously tidied up after the accident, but apparently no one had been here since. The place had the feel of being not quite lived in.

“This is weird,” Craig said, looking around the apartment. Mikey made a beeline for the desk.

“If we’re going to see the old bitch on the way out I don’t guess we’d better take anything except the papers-unless she kept that gold here?”

“No, that’s in a safety deposit box.”

“Bingo!” Mike said, holding up a thick notebook triumphantly. “Right on top of the pile.” He looked at the papers stacked beneath it. “And here’s some more.” He started scooping up the papers and stacking them on top of the notebook. “And some disks too. Find me a box to carry this shit, will you?”

They couldn’t wait to get back to Mikey’s apartment, so they took a corner booth in a coffee shop and set their box of plunder on the seat while they spread the papers out to study them.

“Boy, I didn’t think that would work,” Craig said. “When the old lady showed up I was sure we were dead.”

Mike looked at him contemptuously. “All you have to do is act sincere and be polite. Then people will believe any bullshit you feed them. Especially the old farts.”

Neither of them said anything as they studied the papers and notebook. Their coffee arrived and Craig hardly looked up to add extra sugar and nearly a whole pitcher of creamer. Mikey sipped his black, apparently oblivious to the heat.

“It looks like the whole damn language is here,” Craig said finally.

“Weird-looking stuff, though.”

“You expected maybe ANSI C? Of course this shit’s weird. Look at what it does.”

Craig put his hand down on the stack of papers and leaned across the table to Mikey, eyes glowing. “You know what this is? I mean really? It’s the road to your heart’s desire. Anything you want.”

“So, what do you want?”

Craig hesitated. “I guess a better world. Where people really care about people, you know?”

Mikey looked amused. “No, I don’t know. Tell me.”

Craig fidgeted. “I dunno. But we went wrong here. I mean with all the pollution and shit. We’ve just squeezed the beauty out of the way we live. There’s no magic in the world.”

He toyed with the spoon in his coffee. “Maybe with magic we can build something better. Something that uses magic and technology both in the way they were supposed to be used.”

Outside the traffic rushed by.

“What about you? What’s your heart’s desire?”

Mike grinned lopsidedly. “That’s easy. I want to be master of all I survey.”

Seven: JOURNEY

“Getting there is half the fun.”

Wrong-way Corrigan

“I thought we were going outside,” Ragnar the dwarf complained as he puffed along under a pack nearly as large as he was.

“We are,” Glandurg told him as he led his band up the sloping passageway. Each of the dwarves was nearly buried in weapons, food and other necessities for the journey.

“This doesn’t lead to the gate. The only things up here are the watch posts.”

“You will see,” Glandurg assured his men. “Step lively now.”

The corridor grew steeper until finally it challenged even the surefootedness of the dwarves, burdened as they were. The way was narrower here above the highest of the workshops and habitations and the walls and floor rougher. The tunnel began to turn more frequently as the very mountain narrowed toward its peak. Several times they passed doors leading to lookout posts on the mountain itself. The dwarves guarding the doors did not salute them as they passed, but they didn’t try to stop them either. That was reassuring to Glandurg’s followers, who still had trouble believing that King Tosig had trusted his ne’er-do-well relative with an important mission.

Finally, just when it seemed the trail couldn’t get any steeper or the mountain any narrower, Glandurg stopped in front of an iron door set in the rock. Fumbling in his pouch he produced a large key and turned it in the lock. Soundlessly the door swung open and blinding daylight flooded into the tunnel.

Hard on each others heels the dwarves tumbled out onto the mountain top. They were standing on a broad, flat expanse of dark gray stone. Squinting off in the distance they could see the other peaks of the Southern Forest Range, most of them lower than they were now. Beyond the mountains in every direction stretched the dark green of the Wild Wood, cut here and there with the meandering silver thread of a river.

None of them had ever been this high on the mountain and most of them had been outside their home tunnels perhaps a half-dozen times in their lives. It was an intoxicating sight and they peered in every direction, jabbering excitedly as they pointed out features to one another.

Glandurg ignored his unsophisticated comrades and strode toward the edge of the open space. He reached into his pouch and produced a polished bone whistle, elaborately carved in dwarvish fashion. Placing it to his lips he blew loud and hard, but no sound came from it. He scanned the skies and then blew again.

The response came not from the air as he expected, but from behind him. There was a scrabbling sound and a griffin leapt lightly down into the center of the ledge.

There was a gasp from Glandurg’s followers and they shrank away from the apparition which had appeared in front of them. Glandurg gulped, terribly aware that the griffin was between him and the door to safety. But he put on his best leader’s manner and strode toward the beast in what he hoped was a good imitation of fearlessness.

The other dwarves were under no such burden. They moved back against the doorway, ready to vanish down their tunnel to safety at the first sign of a hostile move.

The griffin managed to look smug, amused and dangerous all at the same time. The dwarves were on her turf and they all knew it.

Dwarves and griffins shared the mountains in an uneasy truce. The griffins nested on the uppermost crags and the dwarves tunneled through the rock. Dwarf mothers frightened their children into obedience with tales of dwarf children who had wandered away and been seized and eaten by griffins. By the same token dwarves were known to enjoy the occasional griffin egg surreptitiously taken from the nest.

“I told you we would ride,” Glandurg said as he strode to the griffin.

The griffin hissed loudly and backed away.

“But you agreed to take us to the human wizard,” Glandurg protested.

The griffin nodded.

“Well,” said an exasperated Glandurg, “if we don’t ride how will you get us there?”

The griffin smiled-as much as a creature with the beak of an eagle can smile-and flexed its claws.

Craig scowled as he riffled through the papers spread out on Mikey’s coffee table. The clock display in the upper-right corner of the television set showed it was after midnight, but he paid no more attention to that than he did to the old movie on the screen. He took another pull on the can of grape soda and slammed it down, slopping sticky purple fluid on Judith’s notes.

“We got a problem.”

Mikey looked up from the recliner where he was curled up with Judith’s notebook. “Like what?”

“How are we going to get to this other world?”

“Judith got over there, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, but someone took her.”

Mikey considered for a moment. “What about that first guy, the one she called Wiz? He got there on his own, didn’t he?”

“No, he was taken over too. By one of their wizards.” Craig drained the last of the soda and threw the empty can in the general direction of the wastebasket. “Great! So we’ve got all this magic and stuff and we can’t do anything with it.”

Mikey laughed and shook his head.

“What’s so goddamn funny?”

“You. You’re talking like a system administrator. If it’s not obvious or it’s not in the manual, it can’t be done. What you need to do is chill out and keep working on this stuff.”

“What good does that do?” Craig asked, half-sullen.

“The more you learn, the easier it is to make things happen. That’s the secret of hacking. You don’t worry if something seems impossible. You just keep watching and learning and pretty soon it’s not impossible.”

He stood up and stretched on tiptoes, leaning far back to work the kinks out of his spine. “Now here, we can’t get over ourselves, but maybe we can get someone to bring us over.”

“How?”

“We make something like a beacon. Something that says ‘here we are, come

get us.’ “

“Can we do that?”

“Your friend thought so. She worked out a way to do it.”

He flipped open the notebook and put it on the coffee table. “See?”

Craig studied the block diagram scribbled on the page. “I don’t think that’s gonna be easy.”

Mikey grinned lopsided. “So? Nothing that’s worth having is.”

Craig was right. It wasn’t easy. Judith’s notes had no more than outlined the beacon spell. It was broken down into modules, but half the modules hadn’t been written and several of the ones that had been needed modification.

Worse, they were flying blind. They had no way of testing anything because the magic compiler didn’t work in their world. All they could do was check and re-check their work manually and hope they had everything correct.

They didn’t have much in the way of tools. Judith had started work on a cross-compiler for the magic language that would run on an MS-DOS computer, but it was only a skeleton. She had written a sort of a syntax checker for the magic language that worked something like lint for C. But like lint it flagged all possible errors. Since there was no way of running a test compile, they had to be “more Catholic than the fucking Pope,” as Mikey put it, and correct everything that the checker flagged.

Mikey ended up picking the basic approaches and doing the broad outlines while Craig did the detail work and coding. Partially this was because Craig wasn’t very good at the big-picture stuff and partially because that was just the way it worked out, somehow. That meant that while Craig spent hours sweating over the grunt work, Mikey lounged around the apartment drinking beer and playing computer games.

Since both of them were system breakers they worked essentially around the clock, catching naps when they felt like it and ordering in from fast-food joints when they got hungry. Thus it was nearly three o’clock in the morning when Craig came in to tell Mikey they were finished.

“I’ll get some sleep and then we can go over the whole thing one more time,” he said to Mikey’s back. “What are you playing anyway?”

“Empire.”

Craig nodded. He was familiar with the game. You explored an unmapped world, captured cities and built armies and fleets while the computer did the same thing. Eventually you met the computer’s forces in a climactic battle for control of the planet.

“Looks like you’ve got him on the run,” Craig said, surveying the map on the screen. “One or two more turns and he’ll surrender.”

“He surrendered a while ago,” Mikey said, maneuvering about thirty aircraft to attack the sprinkling of enemy armies in the upper left corner of the screen.

“So why are you still playing?”

“Because I want to crush the motherfucker,” Mikey said as his legions of aircraft tore into the opposing forces. Most of the armies went down under the onslaught, but one beat off five separate attacks.

“Die, you cocksucker!” Mikey snarled as he used the mouse to mass even more air forces against the remaining red marker on the screen.

“I always quit when the computer surrenders,” Craig told him as he watched over his friend’s shoulder.

“I don’t want surrender. I want him wiped out,” Mikey said without taking his eyes off the confrontation.

Craig took a swig of soda. “Takes too long that way.”

“Yeah, but when it’s over I’m the only one left standing.”

The computer beeped as its final army vanished under the combined attack of nearly twenty aircraft.

This is extremely undignified, Glandurg thought as he watched the green forest sail by beneath him. Warriors should ride into battle, not be carried along like a sack of meal.

Behind him came eleven more griffins, each carrying a dwarf dangling from its talons.

Still, there are advantages, he admitted. It would be hard to hold on riding griffin-back.

Craig looked at the stuff laid out on the coffee table dubiously. Some of it, like the sheets of typing paper with the spell written on them, was perfectly ordinary. Others, like the hibachi full of glowing coals, were ordinary but out of place. Still others, like the roots and powders he and Mikey had scoured Chinatown to find, were just plain odd. The table had been shoved to the center of the room and a circle drawn around it in blue marking chalk.

Mikey had just finished placing the black, white and red candles at the points of an invisible star outside the circle. He used the tape measure to check the distances between them and then did a quick calculation on his HP calculator.

“That should do it,” he said, carefully stepping over the chalk mark to join Craig at the coffee table.

“Give me your hand.”

“What do you want that for?”

Mikey picked up the Exacto knife lying next to the hibachi. “I don’t, I want some of your blood.”

Craig winced as Mikey drove the point into his fingertip. “Hey! Not so rough, okay?”

But the blood flowed freely and Mikey held Craig’s hand over the hibachi, letting the dark red drops drip onto the glowing coals.

Craig wrinkled his nose at the odor, but Mike didn’t seem to notice. He reached into the coffee cup, picked up a four-finger pinch of the powder there and cast it onto the coals where Craig’s blood still sizzled. The powder sparkled as it hit the charcoal and heavy sweet-smelling smoke boiled up out of the hibachi.

Craig coughed and his eyes watered, but he grabbed Mike’s outstretched hands in his across the glowing coals. Then he looked down at the notes to the side of the hibachi and both of them began to chant, reading the words in unison.

The smoke got thicker and thicker until Craig could hardly see the paper and the sweetish, pungent odor made his head swim. He shut out the discomfort and chanted for all he was worth as the room began to shimmer and dissolve around him.

Eight: THE OLD ONES

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Old Arab proverb

So with friends like these, who needs enemies?

Old Jewish proverb

Smoke and fire and candlelight . . .

At first Craig thought the place was on fire. There was smoke or fog everywhere and a dim red light coming from the wrong angle. Between the smoke and the dim red light, Craig couldn’t see very well and somehow he was very glad for that. What he could see was wrong, like an optical illusion.

They were in a cave, or maybe on a mountain crag. The ground under them was rough rock, kind of, and it sloped away so steeply that Craig was afraid to take a step. The air was thin and hard to breathe, or maybe just so full of smoke there wasn’t much oxygen in it. His chest heaved as he sucked great, unsatisfying lungs full. He clutched Mikey’s hands tight in his own. Mikey squeezed back so hard Craig’s hands hurt.

Craig was scared. For the first time in his life he was so afraid the very marrow of his bones chilled. He didn’t care about treasure, or adventuring, or magic. This place played on dark half-realized places in his psyche in ways that were horrible. He just wanted out.

Then he realized they were being watched.

It loomed above them in the fog, tall and manlike. There was a hint of distance about it as if it was enormous, but there was no way to tell. In the smoky red haze Craig could make out the outline, including the pointed ears. There was a suggestion of body hair, or maybe fur. Worst of all, it seemed to twist and flicker like an image in a mirage. Looking at the thing made Craig’s eyes hurt, but he couldn’t make himself look away.

Craig wanted to moan in terror, to yell a warning, to scream, but he couldn’t get his breath to do any of it. All he could do was stare at the half-seen creature and cling to Mikey’s hands for dear life.

“Who are you?” Mikey finally got out.

We are what was and what might be. The voice filled Craig’s head like ringing thunder until he wanted to clap his hands to his ears to shut it out. We are what will be again. The voice pressed on. We are the dawn and nightfall and deepest night. We are . . . Ur-elves.

“We, ah, we weren’t expecting this.”

We know, the voice came again and there was amusement in the rolling words. But you called and we answered.

“Why did you bring us here?”

To serve.

“Then you want to make a deal, right?” Mikey said, the words low and fast, as if he was desperate.

We have a bargain, the voice thundered inexorably. Sealed in blood. Craig thought of his finger, still throbbing where Mikey had pricked it, and moaned aloud.

Your talents will serve us. Your magic will be the spearhead of our power. You will bring down those who stand between us and our fulfillment and lay waste to their world.

Craig closed his eyes tightly and moaned again. The thing and its words were awful and terrifying and . . .

Attractive.

Nine: WORLDS’ MEETING

Come closer, the thing said. Come closer and watch.

As if moving through a zoom lens Craig and Mikey were sped to the side of the Ur-elf. Craig still couldn’t form a clear impression of what it looked like and for that he was just as glad.

Craig had the impression of two huge, shaggy hands cupped before him, hands with claws for nails. There was something glowing in the hollow, like a living coal. The radiance expanded and grew brighter until his face was bathed with yellow light. The light turned cloudy. Then it cleared and they were looking down on a world held in the Ur-elf’s palms.

There was deep blue ocean and spotted through it were islands. As Craig watched the islands formed as faceted images, then smoothed and took on color and texture. Vaguely he sensed that one end of this place connected to his own world and the other end to the world of magic.

Again the zooming effect and they were falling toward a large island in the center of the ocean. The place was long and narrow, with reddish brown desert shading from mountains at one end down through brown-yellow plains in the center to lush gray-green at the other end.

Faster and faster they fell, closer and closer to the mountains at the desert end. Craig sucked in his breath as the mountain peaks rushed up toward them.

Then suddenly they were standing on the tallest peak of all, looking out over the mountains and desert.

In this place the magic of both worlds works, the voice inside their heads told them. It is yours for now. Make good use of it.

And then they were alone on the crag.

Craig tasted bile on his tongue. His head hurt with a roaring, throbbing ache that threatened to take the top of his skull off with every beat of his hammering heart. Mikey didn’t look too much better.

The two looked at each other for a long moment while the chill mountain wind whipped around them and tugged at their clothing.

“Come on,” Mikey said at last. “Let’s get to work.”

The amazing thing was, Craig realized, he already knew this stuff. He didn’t have to think about how to do it, he could already make magic.

Working alongside Mikey, he sketched out the form of their new home, the citadel and fortress which would be their base for the attack into the new world.

Shadowy cloud forms hovered around the peak as the pair pushed and shaped the outlines of their castle. It would be small at first, covering no more than the top of the peak. But already Craig could visualize its spread as a great stronghold and arsenal to pour forth the sinews of conquest.

It was somehow right that they should conquer this world of magic. It was the natural order of things, meant to be. As he shaped and formed, Craig realized in the back of his mind he hadn’t always felt that way. But that was immaterial, like a long-ago dream. This was fated and he would bend all his talents to seizing this other world.

Something told him that those talents were now considerable.

A push, a twist, a sudden shimmering coalescence and their magic castle was done! Craig breathed a sigh and admired their creation.

The walls soared straight up out of the sides of the peak. Towers and turrets sprouted everywhere, flags flew from the staffs and whipped in the incessant wind. It was magnificent!

At least it was magnificent for a first effort. He had to admit that the walls leaned askew in a couple of places and that some of the towers slumped as if half-melted. Some of the windows were funny shapes too. And somehow it wasn’t as big as he had imagined it would be.

“Needs a lot of work,” Mikey said.

“It’s pretty good for a first effort.”

Mikey shrugged. “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of this wind.”

Together they strode over the canting drawbridge and through the lopsided gate of their redoubt.

Craig looked at his handiwork sitting in the flagged stone courtyard and suppressed a pang of disappointment. It was smaller than he had thought it would be, maybe ten feet from wingtip to wingtip. The color was a nice battleship gray, just like a real F-15, and the twin tails stood proudly above the jet exhausts, but somehow it didn’t look just right. It looked kind of like an F-15 Eagle, or maybe a Russian Foxhound or Flanker interceptor, or maybe even a Navy Tomcat. He tried to remember just exactly what an F-15 looked like and found he couldn’t separate the images of twin-engine, twin-tail interceptors in his mind.

Well, all right, it would have to do. They needed air defense, didn’t they? This might not be exactly right, but it could fly and it could fight. That was good enough.

Anyway, there was some good stuff. The conformal fuel tanks along the sides of the fuselage under the wings were right. And the missiles and drop tanks hanging from the pylons beneath the wings and body looked right. Who cared if it wasn’t perfect? It was wicked and it was all his.

“Hey Mikey,” he yelled, “look what I’ve got.”

“Yeah?” Mikey came out of the main keep, wiping his hands on a rag.

“There,” Craig gestured proudly. “It’s a robot F-15.”

Mikey walked over to the plane. “Bullshit.”

“Huh?”

“Bullshit. Look, you’ve got a missile under the left wing and a drop tank under the right.”

“So?”

“So what happens if you drop the tank or fire the missile? You’ve got an unbalanced load on the plane. And anyway, that missile isn’t off an F-15. It looks Russian or something. And you’ve got the center drop tank painted with a red nose, like a bomb.”

“So who the hell cares? It will fly and it can fight. All right? That’s what’s important, isn’t it?”

“Who’s it going to fight?” Mikey demanded. “We’re the only people in this world. You think the Russians are going to come swarming in here or something?”

“We’re here to fight someone,” Craig said stubbornly. “They told us so.”

“Oh yeah,” Mikey agreed. “We’re gonna have to fight all right. But shit like this,” he gestured at the plane, “isn’t going to be what decides that battle.”

“Oh yeah? Well, what will decide that fucking battle, hotshot?”

Mikey got that sneering smile Craig had come to hate. “Something a lot more powerful than any robot airplane. You’ll see when the time comes.”

Well, fuck you very much! Craig thought as Mikey disappeared back into their lumpy castle. He picked up a loose stone and threw it against the castle wall with all his strength.

He needed a better way to do this. He’d created the F-15 just by imagining it, but the problem with that was that you had to imagine all the details at once. That was too hard.

Okay, so what about breaking it down? Suppose you could imagine something one part at a time, like drawing it out on paper? Or on a computer screen! Yeah. Like a workstation!

What he needed was a magical workstation. Already the image was forming in his mind. He’d never seen a jet fighter up close, but he knew exactly what a workstation was like. Of course, he’d want to make a few improvements.

Craig left the misshapen fighter sitting in the courtyard. He’d do a hell of a lot better the next time, but he was going to build that fighter anyway. Squadrons and squadrons of them, just on principle.

* * *

It took him nearly three days, but at last Craig had his workstation. The “screen” was a gently glowing rectangle nearly a yard across. There was a keyboard and a mouse, of course, but the system also had voice input. If he really wanted he could just think hard at the screen and make things happen.

The display was an engineer’s dream. Infinite resolution, at least sixteen million colors, three-dimensional, fully shaded modeling and redraws at better than sixty frames a second. He could design anything on this baby!

Craig stared at the glowing surface and tried to think of his first project. Maybe jet fighters were a little old fashioned for what they needed to do. They needed weapons that were more far-out, more science-fictional.

Like giant robots! Yeah, now there was something he could really get into. He’d always liked Robobattle, where the gamers slugged it out in twenty-fifth-century robot war machines. Now he could actually build something like that.

Instinctively he reached for the mouse and began to sketch designs on his super-workstation. More accurately, he tried to remember what the warbots in Robobattle were like. They were nice and impressive and in the game they had a lot of firepower. Then there were the giant intelligent tanks from Orc. And magic! Yeah, what would it be like to have a couple of hundred megaton/seconds of firepower and the destruction spells of a Seventh-Level Mage? That would be really something.

Working with bits and pieces from computer games, role-playing games and old television shows, Craig began to fashion his engines of destruction. It never occurred to him that he had the power to do something original.

“See?” Craig said eagerly. “I can design stuff here on the screen and then build it magically.”

Mikey looked over Craig’s workstation and didn’t say anything.

“I don’t have to imagine it all in one piece. I can work on it a piece at a time, and . . .”

“So build me a planet buster.”

“Huh?”

“Come on. Whip me up something that can blow up a whole planet.” He smacked his fist into his palm. “Pow! Just like that.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Craig said uncomfortably.

“Why not?”

“You’ve got to have at least a general idea of how something’s supposed to work before you can build it.”

“You mean we’ve got to sit down and fucking design all this shit?”

“No, not that bad. But we’ve got to know how the stuff functions or it won’t work.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Mikey muttered. “What a pile of shit.”

“You wanna go back and tell them that?” Craig snapped. “I sure as hell ain’t gonna.”

Mikey grinned in that nasty, superior way of his. “Maybe I will do that the next time I talk to them.”

Craig’s jaw dropped. “You’ve been talking to them?”

“They’re around, if you want to make contact.”

“But Jesus, I mean . . .”

“They’re real interesting too. I’m learning a lot from them.”

The way he said it made Craig uncomfortable. “You mean magic and stuff?”

Mikey grinned again. “Oh, I’m learning lots of things.”

Craig knew he needed to learn more about how magic operated, but the thought of even seeing an Ur-elf again made him weak in the knees.

“Look, suppose you concentrate on the theoretical stuff and I’ll keep working on the robots and shit.”

“Okay,” Mikey said with a little smile. Craig had the uneasy feeling he’d been outmaneuvered again.

Mikey stopped at the doorway and turned back to Craig. “Oh, if you want to do something useful, redesign this fucking castle and make it more livable.”

Okay, Craig thought, turning back to his workstation and away from thoughts of Ur-elves and magical theory. Let’s really turn this sucker into something!

Craig stood at the topmost point of the highest tower, surveyed his work and found it good.

The skimpy, saggy little castle they had formed out of pure magic was long gone. Now the entire top of the mountain had been terraced and leveled. What had been the original castle was now just the central piece of an elaborate structure. Even it was much changed.

Caermort-the Castle of Death, he thought. That’s what we’ll call it.

It certainly looked deadly enough. Energy cannons poked their ugly snouts out of domed turrets on the stone ramparts. The central tower of gleaming steel soared to neck-craning height, glittering like a mirror in the afternoon sun. Several of the courtyards had been roofed over with domes of crystal. Random bolts of lightning flew between towers and played over the domes. Further up the air sparkled and flickered as the protective magical shell around the castle interacted with random dust motes which were wafted into it.

Within the castle itself hordes of servants, robots and living creatures hurried to do his bidding. In the caves dug into the mountain giant robots worked with monster tools to assemble more of their kind and other engines of destruction to boot.

It still wasn’t absolutely perfect, he admitted modestly. If he did not work a thing up in complete detail on his screen the details were likely to be filled in haphazardly.

But all in all it was a marvelous engine of destruction. All this power aimed at a single goal. Conquest. Already his drones scouted the limits of this world and his robot legions formed in the huge caverns beneath the mountain or exercised on the desert plains. Mikey might sneer, but he’d stop when Craig’s mechanical armies marched across the border between the worlds.

The border between both worlds, he amended silently. Why limit himself to the one where magic worked? There was no army on Earth that could stand against his creations.

Better to be Lord of Three Worlds, than Lord of Two, he decided.

Ten: WRECK’S WARNING

The programming team was up to its elbows in source code when Arianne came into their workroom.

“Forgive me, my Lords, my Lady,” the tall blonde lady said as she entered the room. “Are you occupied?”

Wiz turned toward the door. “Occupied, but not super busy. What’s up?”

“Bal-Simba sent me to request your presence.”

“Sure. In his office?”

“At Oak Island off the south coast. A strange thing has washed ashore at the village. Bal-Simba asks that you examine it.”

Wiz looked over at the pile of scrolls and the shimmering letters hanging above his desk and paused. A summons to meet Bal-Simba here was one thing. A jaunt to a distant village to look at something was another matter. Even walking the Wizard’s Way, such a trip would probably eat the rest of the day.

“Can’t we just send one of our searching units?” he asked. “We do have to

get this stuff done before-“

Arianne hesitated. “Lord, I think you had better see this personally.”

“What is it?”

“We do not know. But from the description I think it owes more to your world than ours.”

Wiz smelled salt and mud. They were in a hollow between two sand dunes. Gray-green sand grasses and little twisted shrubs grew here and there around them and even in this sheltered spot a breeze ruffled the vegetation and their clothing.

There was a man waiting for them, a rough, grizzled fellow dressed in the bulky knit sweater and canvas trousers favored by the folk who made their living upon the Freshened Sea.

“My Lords, welcome,” he said, bowing perfunctorily, as if unused to the exercise. “I am Weinrich, the mayor of Oak Island.”

Moira curtsied and the rest bowed. “Well met, Lord. I am Moira and these are the wizards Sparrow, Jerry and Danny.”

Weinrich’s face cleared, as if a burden had been lifted from him.

“Ah, well met indeed. They said you might come.”

“Well, we’re here,” Wiz said a trace sharply. “Let’s see the thing that’s causing all the fuss.”

With the growing importance of Wiz’s new magic, and the spreading word that he was from beyond the World, there was a growing tendency to ascribe anything out of the ordinary to the new magic. Normally Arianne and Bal-Simba did not take the villagers’ reports this seriously, still . . .

As they climbed the dune Wiz saw four dragons flying complex figure eight patterns off the beach, obviously on guard.

“If this is another piece of driftwood,” he muttered to Jerry as they toiled up the sand dune, “I’ll . . .”

Then he came over the rise and saw what was down on the beach.

The villagers had dragged it further up the beach, above the tide line.

Now they clustered in knots at a respectful distance.

Off to one side the village hedge witch conferred nervously with a blue-robed wizard of the Mighty. Occasionally he would look over at the thing as if to make certain it had not moved under its own power.

It was worth looking at, Wiz had to admit. To the fisherfolk of this isolated island it must have seemed strange beyond all imagining.

One wing was crumpled under it and the other canted into the air. The front of the body was stove in, apparently from hitting the water. As they got closer Wiz could smell the sharp chemical reek of gasoline.

“An airplane,” Danny said.

“Perhaps, but there is magic here as well,” Moira said.

Wiz didn’t have his wife’s nose for magic, so he fished out the magic detector he carried in his pouch. The crystal glowed a strong green as he pointed it at the craft.

Magic all right. But gasoline as well. He felt the hair begin to rise on his neck. Whatever this thing was, it was very, very wrong.

“Moira, you and the others stay back. Jerry and I will go in for a closer look.”

Moira nodded. “Be careful, love.”

“Very careful.”

Wiz and Jerry half-stumbled, half-slid down the seaward face of the dune, oblivious to the sand that was trickling into their shoes. As they got onto the beach, they split up. Wiz approached from the tail and Jerry eased toward the crushed nose. There was no sign of movement.

The sea breeze swished through the grasses at the edge of the beach, drowning out the villagers’ whispers and dulling the wizards’ conversation to an unintelligible murmur.

“Look at this!” Jerry called. “It’s got a gasoline engine.”

As Wiz ducked under the wing of the plane to join him, Jerry reached out and gave the cowling fasteners an expert twist. Then he flipped the cowling back to expose the power plant.

“High output two-stroke,” he said looking it over. “That thing probably puts out ninety horses in spite of its size.” He looked further. “No muffler. If that thing was a two-stroke the villagers should have heard it coming for miles.”

“It had to be running,” Wiz said. “But that’s impossible.”

“Maybe not,” Jerry pointed to the front of the plane. “Look at the prop.

Only one blade bent. That means it wasn’t turning when it went in.”

Wiz knelt down beside the propeller. “If it crashed here it’s not surprising. That engine couldn’t possibly run in this World.”

“Do you think it was sucked through from our world?”

Wiz shrugged. “Maybe, but how? And why? Anyway, the thing’s obviously not dangerous now. Let’s get the others down here.”

Moira and Danny quickly joined them at the wreck. The other wizards kept their distance.

“It’s our technology, all right,” Wiz said as the others came up. “No cockpit, so it was a drone of some kind.”

“What about the magic?” Moira asked.

Wiz looked at his magic detector. “That seems to be concentrated in the boxes in the mid-section.”

“If I didn’t know better I’d say that was an instrument bay,” Jerry said, ducking under the up-tilted wing and squatting down beside it.

“Don’t be too sure you know better.”

Jerry popped the fasteners and lifted the covering. Inside was a wild tangle of wires and printed circuit boards leading back to several oddly carved lumps of pearl-gray material.

“Cute,” Jerry said at last. “Some of this stuff is obviously electronic, but the guts of it,” he pointed to the pearl-gray lumps, “are obviously magical.”

“We can probably untangle the electronics, but the magic?” He looked over at Moira.

“That is likely to be difficult, my Lord. We do not know who made those things or what they are supposed to do.” She frowned and concentrated. “I can tell you that the spells are most powerful, however.”

“So the magic’s fine,” Jerry summed up. “It’s the engine that doesn’t work.”

“Of course the engine doesn’t work,” Wiz said irritably. “It couldn’t work here. The whole thing’s impossible.”

“Oh yeah?” Danny retorted. “Take a look at those exhaust pipes.”

Wiz followed Danny’s pointing finger and saw that the pipes were discolored where they came out of the cylinders.

“Heat did that. That sucker ran and it ran for a while.”

“But if the engine worked, then the guidance system and the imaging stuff wouldn’t. They’re based on magic.”

“Wait a minute,” Wiz said. “Let me try something. emac!” he commanded.

“?”

“list”

The Emac took the quill from behind his ear and scribbled furiously in the air. Lines of fiery symbols appeared and scrolled upward from the Emac.

“carat S” Wiz pronounced and the Emac froze in mid-line.

“Hey, I recognize that!” Wiz peered closely at the glowing letters of fire. “Not only are they magic, they’re our magic. These spells were written with our magic compiler or something damn like it.”

Four pairs of eyes met over the wreckage and no one said anything.

“This will do,” Glandurg puffed, looking around the grove.

“High time too,” Thorfin wheezed, coming up behind him nearly bent double by the climb and the weight of the enormous pack he carried.

One by one the other dwarves filed into the clearing and dumped their packs. The griffins had left them off at dawn on the other side of the forest and they had been walking ever since. The wooded land was a collection of craggy hills cut by little valleys and laced with brooks and streams. Generations of firewood gathering by mortals had left the woods open and parklike under the spreading trees, but it was still hard going, even for dwarves.

Glandurg had led his band almost entirely through the forest to a wooded bluff overlooking the river that ran by the base of the Capital mount. Just a few hundred yards and a stretch of placid water now separated the dwarves from the enormous bluff that bore the capital city of the North on its back and the Wizard’s Keep at its very tip.

As his followers rested behind him, Glandurg surveyed the scene. From here they could watch the Wizard’s Keep and the comings and goings of their quarry and stay concealed in the forest. A perfect spot to plan an ambush.

“How are we supposed to know this wizard when we find him?” Gimli asked from where he lay against his pack under a spreading tree. “Mortals all look alike.”

“No they don’t,” Snorri said with a superior air. “There’s men mortals and there’s women mortals. You can tell them apart easy.”

“That only cuts it down by half,” Gimli said. “We can’t go around killing all the male mortals we meet, can we?”

Glandurg turned back to his band. “That will not be necessary,” he said loftily. “I thought of this before we left and I obtained from my uncle the King a means to infallibly identify this mortal.”

He drew from his pouch a handful of hazelnut-sized lumps. “Each of you will have one of these. They will always point the way to this foreign sorcerer, be he a hundred leagues away.”

Each of the dwarves came forward and took one of the seekers from his hand.

“It’s dark,” said Thorfin, staring into his palm.

“Mine’s not pointing any way at all,” Snorri chimed in.

Glandurg scowled and grabbed for the more powerful version of the device that hung around his own neck. Cupping his hands to shield it from the light he saw that it glowed only very dimly. The arrow within pointed waveringly south.

“He must be more than a hundred leagues from here,” Glandurg said weakly.

“We aren’t going to fly after him, are we?” Thorfin asked with a dangerous edge to his voice. The other dwarves muttered in agreement.

“No. There is no need for that. He will return soon enough. Meanwhile we will scout around us and wait.”

Bal-Simba was waiting for them at the crest of the dune. Outlined against the sky with sea breezes whipping the edges of his leopard-skin loincloth the big wizard was a most impressive sight. Wiz, who was a little chilly in spite of his traveling cloak, wondered how he managed to keep warm.

He heard their breathless report gravely and without comment. “We will have the thing taken back to the Capital for study,” he told them. “Unless you think it is unsafe?”

“No reason to think that, Lord,” Wiz said. “Although since we don’t even know where it came from I can’t guarantee anything.”

Bal-Simba pursed his lips. “I think we may have a clue as to that. I have been talking to Weinrich and the other villagers. They say there has been a change in the weather recently.”

“The weather?” Wiz said blankly.

“Folk who live by the sea are always sensitive to the weather. This far south on the Freshened Sea the pattern of wind and weather is constant, year to year.”

“Village folk are usually wise in the ways of the immediate surroundings,” Moira agreed. “But you say a change?”

“A fog bank about a day’s sail to the east. A fog that does not lift and does not move. A place where a sailor can get lost because neither compass nor magic works properly.”

“And they think this thing came out of the fog?” Wiz asked.

“It seems to have come from that direction.”

“Lord, if I were you I’d search the hell out of that fog bank.”

“That is already in train, Sparrow,” Bal-Simba said.

Dragon Leader looked over his formation again and then turned his eyes back to the sea below. Two days ago his entire wing of almost fifty dragons had been brought together from their scattered patrol bases and sent hurrying south to Oak Island. Yesterday had been spent frantically setting up a makeshift base among the fisherfolk and putting out the first hasty patrols to try to define the edges of this strangeness.

Now Dragon Leader was taking his flight into the heart of this new thing. Every rider and dragon was at the peak of alertness. He could tell from the way they were flying that none of them liked it at all.

Even the formation reflected that. Instead of putting his dragons in line abreast or an echelon to cover the maximum territory, he had his first element above and behind his main formation for top cover. The rest of the patrol was pretty much line abreast, but they were closer together than normal so they could support each other quickly in case of trouble.

Every man and woman in the patrol understood the significance of that. This was a fighting formation, not a scouting one. Dragon Leader was going into this strange place loaded for bear.

Dragon Leader and his troopers were used to flying into the unknown. In a world where maps were components of spells rather than guides to terrain, he had often struck out over uncharted territory. He was used to magic as well. Save for the death spells on their iron arrows and a few odds and ends, dragon cavalry did not use magic. But they dealt with it constantly and most of them had faced it on more than one occasion.

Not that they had seen any magic here. So far he had seen nothing but sun-dappled sea and the occasional wheeling sea bird. Just what they should have seen, in other words.

But it wasn’t right. There was something odd about this stretch of ocean, something that made his eyes hurt to look at it and made him queasy the deeper the patrol penetrated. It was like trying to look at two things at once, he decided. Two pictures that were almost but not exactly alike.

His dragon sensed it too. Whatever there was about this place, his mount didn’t want anything to do with it. He signaled his patrol to extra alertness and pushed on. Then he reached for his communications crystal to report.

There-again there was strangeness. He managed to reach the Watcher on Oak Island, but the voice was weak and there were gaps, requiring several repeats to get the message through.

Interference? he thought as he replaced the crystal. But that didn’t seem right either. He knew the effects of jamming spells on communications crystals. He had felt them often enough during the years of war against the Dark League. But this was more as if someone had substituted a poorly ensorceled crystal for his own. It was as if the spell on the crystal had suddenly become much weaker, less competent.

He noticed that the rhythm of his mount had changed as well. The dragon’s wingbeats had increased, as if they were climbing instead of flying level. The beast wasn’t exactly laboring, but he was definitely working harder. He did a quick calculation and decided that if this continued, the extra effort would reduce his patrol’s flying time by one-third.

Down below the sea seemed the same, but this place was definitely different.

Off to his right one of the dragons flying top cover waggled its wings to attract attention. The riders on the right wing caught it as soon as Dragon Leader did and used hand signals to pass the information on to their commander.

Dragon Leader kneed his mount gently and his dragon banked gently left and right to acknowledge. Craning his neck he saw the rider rise in her saddle and raise both her arms above her head in the signal for land.

Dragon Leader hesitated for an instant and then signaled the entire patrol to turn toward the land.

The patrol was barely halfway into their turn when three gray shapes hurtled down on them out of the clouds.

“Break! Break!” Dragon Leader screamed into his communications crystal. The warning was unnecessary, already the squadron was scattering like a flock of frightened chickens as the screaming intruders dived on them. Riders fumbled for their war bows as they twisted and dove in every direction, trying desperately to get away from their attackers.

In the end it was biology rather than maneuvering that saved them. Dragons have poor radar returns and the targeting radars on the robot fighters were unable to get a lock. Craig hadn’t thought to equip his creations with cannon, so the planes were impotent against the dragons.

Of course the dragons were equally impotent against the planes. The aircraft were too fast and too unexpected. They swooped through the formation before a single rider could draw a bow or a single dragon could breathe fire. The planes made a tight curving climb back into the clouds and then they were gone.

The dragons didn’t hang around either. The entire squadron dove for the wavetops and ran for home as fast as their wings could carry them.

“That,” said Wiz grimly, “is definitely a jet fighter.”

The recording had been frozen at the moment that the plane was climbing away from the dragon squadron. The view was almost from directly above and the outline and details were unmistakable.

“Looks like it was drawn by a fourteen-year-old,” Danny said contemptuously. “It’s a combination of a bunch of different planes.”

“Notice that it’s unmanned,” Jerry said, sticking his finger into the image to point at the place where the cockpit should be. “Either these guys are real cautious about risking their necks or there aren’t very many of them. Maybe only one or two.”

“The main thing,” Wiz said, getting up from the table, “is that we’ve got both dragons and jet fighters in the same air at the same time.” He turned to Arianne, who had brought them the recording.

“You say the dragon riders were having trouble communicating?”

“Their voices were weak. And they said their dragons tired easily.”

Jerry gestured and the image started moving again.

“Those planes don’t look like they’re doing any too well, either.”

“Basically then,” Wiz said, “both magic and technology work in that place, they just don’t work very well.”

“Sounds like an IBM shop,” Jerry said.

“Whatever. Anyway that explains the drone. It was only designed to work in that world and it got in here by accident.”

“But it does not tell us who sent it,” Moira said. “Or why. Those are the things we most need to know.”

“It seems to me,” Bal-Simba rumbled, “that we have two ways to find out. We can sit here and wait for whomever or whatever is sending these things to come to us or we can send our own scouts through to spy out this new world.”

“Lord, that’s not much of a choice,” Wiz said. “So far these things aren’t hostile, but they’re sure not friendly. If we wait we may not like what we get.”

“My thinking precisely, Sparrow. So we must go and see.”

“Forgive me, Lord,” Moira said, “but might that not be taken as an unfriendly act? True, they have not sent us embassies, but they have done us no harm either.”

“Unfriendly, perhaps. But no more so than what they have done already. If you have a better suggestion, Lady, I am anxious to hear it.”

“No, none, Lord. But I would not have us blunder into war unnecessarily.”

“Fear not, Lady. We shall be very circumspect.”

Eleven: A WALK IN THE WOODS

Across the river from the castle mount a line of hills ran down to the water’s edge. Because the land was so rugged it had never been farmed. Instead it was left as a source of firewood, mushrooms and herbs for the denizens of the Capital.

It also made a pleasant place to walk on an Indian summer afternoon. Which is why Wiz, Danny and Jerry were picking their way through the woods as the sky started to darken from twilight to evening.

“I still think we ought to try to catch one of those drones,” Danny said as the trio made their way down a trail that skirted the edge of the bluff.

“For the tenth time, no,” Wiz told him. “And watch your step here, it’s steep.”

“We already have one drone,” Jerry said, stepping to the side of the trail away from the cliff. “What do we need another one for?”

“Yeah but . . .”

A small black-clad shape hurtled out of the trees above them, screaming and waving a samurai sword as he came. The trio watched open-mouthed as he passed a good four feet to their left, missed the path completely and went over the edge of the cliff.

There were a couple of bounces, a thud and then something that sounded like a particularly inventive brand of profanity.

“What was that?” Jerry asked, peering over the edge.

“I think it was a ninja dwarf,” Wiz said wonderingly.

Danny frowned. “That sounds like a character out of a D&D game.” He thought for a second. “A bad D&D game.”

Bal-Simba looked up from the scrying stone and blinked as if to clear his vision.

Wiz leaned across the table eagerly. “Well?”

“I sense malign influences aimed at you and a definite violent intent.” The big black wizard rubbed his temples. “It appears, Sparrow, that someone is trying to kill you-again.”

“Who?” Wiz asked. “And why? And why a dwarf, for Pete’s sake?”

“That I could not discover,” Bal-Simba said. “There is deadly intent and fixity of purpose. There are indications that non-mortals are involved, but that is all I know.”

“Lisella?” Jerry suggested.

“Perhaps,” Bal-Simba said slowly.

Wiz shook his head. “I don’t think so. Lisella is subtle. There’s nothing subtle about a dwarf jumping out of a tree waving a sword.”

“Nothing very effective either,” Danny said. “He missed us by a mile.

Well,” he amended under Wiz’s glare, “a good six feet.”

“Maybe that was Duke Aelric protecting you.”

Wiz snorted. “More likely it was incompetence.”

Bal-Simba stood up. “Whatever it was, I think it would be best if you stayed within the Wizard’s Keep for a space.”

“Fine by me. I’ve got more than enough to keep me busy for a couple of weeks.”

“It may be longer than that,” Bal-Simba told him. “Until we know who or what is behind this attack, you should stay where we can protect you.”

“How long then?”

“I do not know. But my magic tells me whoever is after you is not easily discouraged. Until we have found the guiding hand you are in danger.”

* * *

“You had to go after him yourself,” Glandurg said disgustedly. “You couldn’t wait for the rest of us.”

“Well, you said he had to be slain quickly,” Gimli said defensively. “There he was coming along the trail and there I was, so . . .” He shrugged.

“You’re lucky he didn’t turn you into a rabbit,” his leader told him, “instead of just throwing you over the cliff.”

“Didn’t throw me,” Gimli said sullenly.

“You jumped, I suppose?”

“Well . . .”

Glandurg looked around at the other dwarves. “Listen to me. No more striking half-hearted, do you understand?”

“Not much chance of that,” Snorri said. “The wizard hasn’t stirred from his castle for days.”

“Then we have run him to earth and trapped like a rat!” Glandurg gloated.

“Begging my Lord’s pardon, but how do we get him out of the trap now that we’ve got him in it?”

The dwarf leader frowned. There was more to this business than he had imagined and some of the details were proving quite annoying.

“We could tunnel in,” one of the other dwarves suggested. “That whole bluff’s nothing but limestone.”

The others shifted and murmured approval. Tunneling was something dwarves were comfortable with.

“How long would that take?” Glandurg demanded.

The dwarf who had made the suggestion eyed the distant cliff and castle.

“If we can sneak in close and drive the shaft steep up from the river level-oh-not more than two, three years, I should think,” he finished brightly.

The leader shook his head. “That will not do, then. Our king promised the trolls speedy action.” Besides he knew in a general way that two or three years was a long time for a human to stay in one place.

“You got a better idea then?” the other challenged.

“Of course I have.”

“What then?” the other persisted.

The leader reddened. “Don’t be impertinent!”

“I’m not being impertinent, I just want to know what your idea is.”

“I . . .” Over the shoulder of his questioner, the leader saw a flight of river swans glide down to the smooth river surface, their wings extended and motionless. As the swans touched down he had an inspiration.

“Backwards!” he proclaimed. “We will come at this alien wizard backwards!”

Twelve: PICNIC

Wiz paced to the window, looked down into the courtyard, paced back to his chair, sat down, picked up the scroll, got up and strode to the window again.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” he said turning to face his wife.

Moira kept her eyes on the blouse she was embroidering with a pattern of moss rose and holly leaves. “So go.”

“No, I mean I’ve got to get away from the Wizard’s Keep.”

Moira looked up from her work. “You never wanted to go outside the castle before.”

“Yeah, but I knew I could do it any time then. Now I’m cooped up here and its getting to me. I’m going stir crazy.”

Moira put down her needlework and frowned. “With assassins about that is not safe, but if you feel you must, I can summon a troop of guardsmen . .

.”

“No. That would be worse than not going out at all.”

“Then you must stay in, I am afraid.”

“Look, I could rig a spell that would protect me.”

“Against what? Dwarves are clever and we do not know when or how they will strike again.”

“We don’t even know if they’ll strike at all,” Wiz said. “That may have been a fluke.”

“Bal-Simba does not think so.”

Wiz growled.

Moira took his hands in hers. “I am sorry, my love. I do not mean to sound unsympathetic. It is just that here you are safe. Outside the castle you cannot be protected.”

“I feel like I’m wrapped in cotton wool and it’s suffocating me,” Wiz protested. “It’s affecting my work. I just want to get away from everyone for a while.”

Moira twisted her mouth sideways as she thought.

“I will speak to Bal-Simba,” she said finally, “and see if he thinks it is safe.”

“Where are we going anyway?” Wiz asked for the fifth time as Moira threw a light cloak over her new dress.

She smiled at him in the mirror as she adjusted the cloak on her otherwise bare shoulders. “To a special place. You will see.”

Wiz stepped up behind her and put his hands around her waist. “Darling, any place is special with you. Especially in that dress.”

“I am glad you like it, my Lord. I had it made specially for today.” Then she turned practical in a flash. “But come, we do not want to be late for our own picnic. And bring the basket.”

Moira didn’t tell Wiz where they were going even when she took them on the Wizard’s Way, so Wiz was completely unprepared for the place where they popped up.

A familiar flash of darkness and they were in a sunlit dell. Clear water leapt off the rocks above and splashed musically into the pool beside them. Sunlight poured into the open space about the pool and dappled through the trees and bushes around it. The grass was bright green and tiny orange and red flowers spangled the meadow. In a quiet side of the pool, sweet blue irises reared above swordlike stands of green leaves. The bushes were blooming in clusters of pink and white and sometimes blood red. Where it was not stirred by the fall, the water was so clear Wiz could see minnows darting among the pebbles on the bottom.

“This is beautiful,” Wiz said looking around him.

“Thank you, my Lord. Bal-Simba suggested it as a favorite picnic spot for those in the castle.”

She forbore to mention Bal-Simba had also suggested it because it was easy to defend. Nor did she tell him the area had been swept by a troop of guardsmen and wizards only moments before their arrival. Nor did she mention the other precautions which had been taken.

Watching from the hilltop, Snorri the dwarf could not believe his luck. When they weren’t working on Glandurg’s contraptions, the dwarves had been scouting through the forest and surrounding countryside, hoping for something that would give them any entry into the castle. He had suspected something when he saw the guardsmen searching the dell. He had hidden himself among the bushes and now his patience had been rewarded.

Their quarry himself! Without guards and completely at his ease. The dwarf’s hand crept to the sword strapped across his back. A quick charge and . . .

Then Snorri paused and frowned. There was magic about this strange wizard, and powerful magic at that. He did not recognize the spell, but its import was clear enough. Not only was the wizard shielded from violence, but any attempt at it would bring swift and deadly retribution. Protected as he was he could not be shot, cleaved, hacked, bashed or in any other wise attacked.

The dwarf bit his lip in frustration. He was closer to his prey than any of the party had been since the first day when that idiot Gimli tried. Yet he was as blocked from overt violence as if the wizard was still within the castle.

But that was only overt violence! Slowly, very slowly, Snorri put his hand into his belt pouch and felt the small tightly wrapped packet at the bottom. Then he turned his attention back to the protection spell. Finally he smiled. If his face had not been hidden by his hood it would have been a most unpleasant smile.

A fraction of an inch at a time, Snorri began to crawl forward toward the pair on the blanket.

Even if Wiz had been looking for the dwarf he couldn’t have seen him and Wiz’s mind-and eyes-were on other things.

Moira had laid aside her cloak and was bustling about spreading the blanket and laying out things from the hamper. As she came past, he reached out and pulled her to him for a long kiss.

“I thought you said you were hungry,” Moira said, slipping from his grasp.

Wiz looked deep into his wife’s green eyes. “There are all kinds of hunger.”

“Food first,” the hedge witch said firmly. “Then we shall see what else this blanket is good for.”

She settled herself on the blanket with Wiz beside her and took out a green bottle.

“Currant wine for me,” she said as she set the bottle to one side, “and for you, blackmoss tea.” She wrinkled her nose as she pulled the earthen jug from the hamper.

“How you can stand to drink that stuff is beyond me,” she told her husband, as Wiz poured the dark brew into a mug. “Especially when it is cold.”

“Iced tea is a tradition where I come from. And it really isn’t that bad once you get used to it.”

“Ugh!” said Moira.

Wiz raised his mug. “To us.”

Moira raised her goblet in response. Both drank and their eyes locked. Wiz eased closer, gazing deeply into his wife’s wonderful green eyes.

“Pig’s feet!” she said suddenly.

“Huh?”

“Pickled pig’s feet.” Moira turned and reached into the basket. “Shauna sent some along.”

“And you don’t like blackmoss tea,” he said, setting his mug down.

Moira unwrapped Shauna’s contribution. “But blackmoss tea is disgusting,” she said seriously. “Shauna’s pig’s feet are delicious.”

“Ugh,” said Wiz firmly.

Neither of them noticed the black-gloved hand that snaked out of the bushes behind them and passed over Wiz’s mug. Nor did they see the surface of the tea roil briefly and then settle back into oily stillness.

* * *

Worming his way backwards Snorri kept his eyes on the couple. Wizard the Sparrow might be, and lucky he certainly was, but neither wizardry nor luck would save any mortal who consumed the powerful corrosive in that cup. Even gold itself would dissolve under the puissant acid formed when the magic powder met water.

Snorri was clever, but common sense wasn’t his strong point.

“Well,” said Moira, “I also brought along some of those meat pies you are so fond of.”

“Now that’s more like it. Darling, I don’t know how to thank you for setting this all up. It’s wonderful.”

Moira picked up her goblet and took a sip. “I am glad you are enjoying yourself. And as for thanking me, perhaps we can think of something.”

Without taking his eyes off Moira, Wiz picked up his mug and raised it toward his lips.

At which point the bottom fell out of the mug and the tea splashed all over the blanket.

“I think I made it too strong,” Wiz said dumbly.

“Wiz, look!” Moira pointed at the blanket where the tea had splashed. The fabric was dissolving in smoking ruin and bare black earth was showing through beneath.

“Definitely too strong.”

“You ninny, it’s been poisoned!” Moira raised both her arms and gestured. Instantly five guardsmen and a blue-robed wizard popped through about them. The guardsmen surrounded Wiz and Moira and the wizard swung his staff over his head, throwing a glittering circle of protection around the group. Already Moira had started the spell to take them back to the castle along the Wizard’s Way.

Back in their quarters Wiz and Moira surveyed the ruins of their picnic. The guardsmen had brought the basket and utensils back, but the food and drink had been disposed of as possibly poisoned. The remaining contents of the basket had tested safe, Arianne assured them. But somehow it didn’t make up for the rest.

Moira looked sadly at the still-smoldering remains of the blanket. For a moment Wiz thought she would cry.

“I’m sorry about the blanket, darling.”

Moira looked up at him, smiled and clutched his arm. “I’m glad it was only the blanket.”