“Not only is the universe stranger than you imagine, it is stranger than you can imagine.”
J.B.S. Haldane
“And so are all the other universes.”
Wiz Zumwalt
Jerry and Danny listened intently when Wiz related what Duke Aelric had told him.
“That’s weird,” Danny said when Wiz had finished. “I wonder how much of it is true.”
Jerry leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the console. “What I want to know is what stirred these things up. If they’ve been around forever why did they pick now to start causing trouble?”
“Duke Aelric talked about that some when he first joined us,” Wiz said. “He thinks it’s because of us. Our brand of magic apparently triggered something.” He glanced past Jerry’s feet to the console screen where the convoluted blue shape slowly rotated.
“I think the whole thing’s crazy,” Danny said. “Is he still around?”
“Aelric? I don’t think so. I think he left again right after I talked to him.”
“Pity,” Jerry said. “I would have liked to ask him some questions about this.”
“Bet you wouldn’t get any straight answers.”
Before Wiz could reply the door opened and Moira came into the computer room carrying a wicker basket with a cloth over it.
“Forgive me, my Lords, but I thought you might enjoy some refreshment,” she said as she put the basket down on the console.
Wiz started to object to covering up the stacks of papers, but then Moira folded back the cloth and he goggled instead.
“Doughnuts! Where did you learn to make doughnuts?”
“Jerry took me to a doughnut shop while I was in your world. I liked them, but it took me some little time to master the recipe.”
Wiz grabbed a chocolate-frosted chocolate a fraction ahead of Jerry’s and Danny’s reaching hands. He took half of it in one bite and closed his eyes in bliss.
“You sure got it right. This is wonderful.”
“You said it,” Danny enthused, spewing crumbs from his second choice over Moira’s skirt.
The hedge witch dimpled and bobbed a curtsey. “Thank you, my Lords. Now, if you will excuse me, I must see to the unpacking of our latest load of supplies.”
“Won’t you have some with us?” Wiz asked his wife.
“Thank you, no. I, ah, sampled several while I was making them. I fear I am more than somewhat full.” She turned toward the door. “Do not eat too many and ruin your appetites. June is preparing something special for dinner.” Behind her Wiz nodded and reached for his third doughnut.
For several minutes the only sound in the computer room was working jaws. Eventually a combination of sated appetites and an increasingly limited selection made the three more talkative.
“If she can whip up doughnuts why can’t she make coffee to go with them?”
Danny asked.
“She didn’t like coffee when she tried it,” Jerry told him. “She liked doughnuts.”
“Okay, but why so many maple ones? Everyone hates maple.”
“I think they were her favorites.”
“Anyway,” Wiz put in, “isn’t there something about looking gift horses in the mouth?”
“Yeah. Sorry,” Danny said perfunctorily.
“You know,” Jerry said after a moment, “what Aelric said almost makes sense in a quantum mechanical sort of way.”
Wiz looked around. “I’m not sure anything makes sense here,” he said.
“They’ve been saying that about quantum mechanics for years,” Jerry said.
“Anyway, this might, if you looked at it right.”
Wiz picked through the basket and selected a jelly doughnut as the best of the remaining batch. Then he turned back to his friends. “I’ll bite. What does quantum mechanics have to do with these bad guys?”
“Okay, you know that in quantum mechanics you deal with the position of a particle in terms of probabilities? There’s a probability wave and the particle is most likely to be found at the wave’s greatest magnitude and less likely to be found at lower magnitudes. But the point is, you don’t know exactly where it is.”
Danny rummaged through the box. “So? Are there any more chocolate ones?”
“I think you ate them all, but as I was saying, we already know that something like quantum effects occur here on a macroscopic scale. Remember when we tried to play cards? The shuffled deck was in something like a quantum indeterminate state. We had to create a demon to collapse the state vector by looking at the cards before we could play. Otherwise the deck would respond to everyone’s mental desires and you’d end up with everyone holding four aces or the like.”
Jerry took another swig of tea from his mug. “It’s as if the line between reality and unreality is drawn at a higher level here. Some things don’t become real here until someone becomes aware of them.”
Wiz took a bite of his doughnut and chewed thoughtfully, dribbling powdered sugar down his chin.
“How does that tie in with these-things-that want to destroy the World?”
“Well, there’s an alternate interpretation of quantum mechanics from a guy named Everett which says that what we’re really seeing is multiple worlds, all equally real. What collapsing the state vector really means is that we’ve chosen among them. One of them becomes ‘real’ because we’ve taken that branch of the skein of parallel universes and that makes the others unreal.”
Wiz put his doughnut down on the console behind him and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, leaving white streaks on his cheek.
“That would explain a lot about this place. For instance, why there are some operations that seem to be basic that we can’t use in our magic language because they’re unstable.”
“Yes,” Jerry said slowly. “We’ve been beating our brains out because we thought they have to be composed of several simpler operations. Maybe there’s some kind of uncertainty principle at work and those are primitives, they’re just one thing one day and another thing the next.”
“Well, the appearance of demons is sure influenced by the operator’s mental state, unless you specify what they look like in the spell.” Wiz wiped at the sugar on his cheek thoughtfully, smearing it out more evenly. “And so these things that Duke Aelric’s worried about come from one of these parallel universes?”
“I suppose you could say that they represent a universe with a low-probability wave function that overlaps ours,” Jerry said. Then he brightened. “Hey! If I work out the mathematics on this, will that make me the Neils Bohr of this universe?”
“You know . . .” Wiz began and reached behind him for the doughnut. When he couldn’t find it he turned to look.
A mouse-sized gremlin was halfway down the desk with the doughnut clasped in front of him. The prize was nearly as big as it was and the gremlin was bent backwards under the load as it staggered away.
“Hey!” Wiz yelled.
The gremlin looked over its shoulder at Wiz, grinned, and broke into a wobbly run. Right to the edge of the desk and several steps beyond into empty air.
Suddenly the grin faded. The little creature looked down and saw it was standing on nothing. Its face fell and its bat ears drooped to its shoulders.
“Uh oh,” it squeaked. Then gremlin and doughnut plummeted to the floor.
As the gremlin scuttled away, Wiz walked over, picked up the doughnut, brushed it off and took a second bite.
“I don’t know if that makes you Neils Bohr,” he began again, “but if you’re right I think Chuck Jones is the Erwin Schr”dinger of this universe.”
“Who’s Chuck Jones?” asked Jerry.
“Who’s Erwin Schr”dinger?” asked Danny.
Halfway to the hills Mick and Karin met a ruined army.
They smelled it before they saw it. The stink of burning rubber and insulation, of overheated metal and cordite. Of dust churned up in the heat of battle.
But there was no sound of combat. No artillery, no engines. Not even the shouts of men. Cautiously, Karin and Mick eased to the top of a rise and peered over it.
The panorama was so big and so torn up it was hard to tell what had happened here. Gilligan thought of the pictures he had seen of the destruction at Mitla Pass in the Sinai during the Six-Day War. But this was worse than any of those pictures. It seemed that the destroyed equipment spread over the plain for miles in front of them.
His first instinct was to go around, even if it meant walking for miles. But there was no hint of movement anywhere on that enormous battlefield, no contrails in the sky. Except for the occasional crackle of flame and the whistle of the wind there was nothing.
“Well?” Karin asked.
“I say go across. It’s risky, but we’re low on water. Besides, we’ll be harder to spot out among all that junk than we would be out on the plain.”
The dragon rider nodded and went back to get her mount.
It took hours to cross the battlefield.
They walked past a line of what looked like self-propelled guns-if self-propelled guns had barrels made of glass that would droop and melt under the effects of enemy weapons.
Here a half-dozen tanks in various stages of destruction confronted the remains of a fifty-foot-tall robot they had pulled down like wolves on an elk. Further on were the remains of a missile battery caught on the march and burned while trying to deploy.
But there were no bodies. The wind brought the smell of burnt vehicles but not a trace of the sweetish stink of burning flesh. Not even the carrion birds seemed interested in this plain of dead machines.
“Mick,” Karin asked at last, “why do they do this? Do our enemies fight among themselves?”
“I think it’s more likely they’re just conducting live ammo practices.”
“But they are killing their own creations!”
“These things weren’t ever alive. They’re machines, like my F-15, not living beings like Stigi. I doubt a single living creature lost its life here.”
“Still, there is something . . . obscene about all this.”
Gilligan shrugged. “For us, war is a material-intense business. You go through a lot of equipment.”
But looking over the carnage, Mick tended to agree with her. Even if these things weren’t alive, it had taken ingenuity to design them and time and resources to build them. He had been taught that in a war you expended your equipment wholesale in an effort to win. If you struck hard and fast with overwhelming strength you minimized casualties, or so the reasoning went.
Gilligan had always accepted it unthinkingly. Now, wandering among acres of scorched and twisted ruins, he began to appreciate what that meant.
Besides, he thought, this wasn’t a battle. This was an exercise, a test.
You don’t need to wreck all this just to test it.
“Mick?” Karin said after they had trudged on in silence for several minutes more. “The people who do this, why do they do it? Why like this?”
“I don’t know,” Mick told her sadly. “I don’t understand their thinking at all.”
Wiz Zumwalt sat on a rock under a spreading tree and savored the experience. It was cool and pleasant here. The late afternoon sun did not quite reach down through the leaves and the forest around him was alive with birdsong and the skitterings of squirrels and other little animals.
Wiz wondered what season it was. It looked like late summer, but the Bubble World didn’t seem to have seasons. How can a world shaped like a burrito have seasons? he wondered.
For once the pressure was off. The visualization program was running well, Lannach was keeping the gremlins under control and everything else he could think of to do was done. So he had slipped out of the Mousehole for a couple of hours to do a little exploring.
It was the first time he had really been outside the Mousehole since he arrived and he was enjoying it. No gremlins, no brownies, no elves and no dwarves.
Glandurg could not believe his luck. After all the weeks of hunting and the long weary days of waiting, there was the Sparrow, not two hundred paces away, with his back turned!
And better yet, there was no sign of the protection spell Snorri had reported. Nothing that would do violence to an attacker. There was magic about him, of course, but after all he was a wizard.
Glandurg nearly hugged himself with glee.
He dropped to his belly and wormed his way forward through the fallen leaves. He moved with exquisite care as he eased his silent way toward the sitting figure. Fifty paces and still no move from his quarry. Twenty. Ten.
Glandurg rose with a rush, took two steps and leaped toward the defenseless Sparrow.
He didn’t exactly bounce, but he certainly vibrated. Glandurg had leaped directly into the center of an enormous spider web that sprang up in his path. His sword fell to the leaves, but he remained thoroughly stuck in the mass of sticky strands.
Wiz turned around at the noise and gaped. There was a dwarf hanging upside down in a giant spider’s web. The dwarf was struggling frantically and cursing luridly. Wiz didn’t speak dwarfish, but it sure sounded lurid.
Wiz waited until the dwarf ran down.
“Now,” he said. “Just what is this all about?”
“A protection spell,” Glandurg spat. “I might have known.”
“You didn’t think I’d come walking in the woods without one, did you? I hoped I’d seen the last of you back at the Capital, but I wasn’t taking any chances.”
Actually Wiz had devised the spell against any wild animals that might be lurking in the forest. He didn’t want to kill them, so he had settled for something that would immobilize an attacker.
“You know, I’m sort of glad you did show up,” Wiz said. “Now maybe you’ll tell me what this is all about.”
Glandurg nodded and the gesture made his beard fall in his face. He shook his head to clear his eyes.
“Meet it is that you should know the cause and agent of your doom,” he said in his best skaldic voice. Or at least the best voice he could manage suspended upside down in midair.
“I hight Glandurg; son of Megli, praised above all smiths; son of Famlir, who fell in the battle of Breccan’s Doom; son of . . .”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re from a very distinguished line,” Wiz cut him off, “but that doesn’t explain why you’re trying to kill me.”
The dwarf glared. Mortals had no sense of family and no appreciation for skaldic recitation.
“My uncle is Tosig Longbeard, King of the Dwarves. To fulfill a debt he has commissioned me to seek your death. To this end I have sworn mighty oaths that my quest shall end in your death or my own.”
“Uh, I don’t suppose we can talk about this?”
The dwarf looked uncomfortable. “I am sorry, Wizard. You are brave and honorable and you are working for the good of all our World. But I have sworn a quest and you must die to satisfy it.”
Wiz bent and picked up Glandurg’s fallen sword.
“I can’t very well let you go, you know. I can’t be looking over my shoulder at every moment.”
“Wait,” Glandurg said quickly. “I cannot forgo my sacred mission but I can postpone it. If you release me, I swear to take no action against you,” he made a motion as if to cross his heart, “until you have fulfilled your own work.”
Wiz considered. He didn’t have much stomach for killing anyway.
“All right,” he said finally. “Swear to that and I’ll let you go.”
Glandurg moved his hands again. “I do swear that I shall not try to slay you until your battle with your enemies is over. I swear by the moon for as long as it is in the sky.”
“Fine,” Wiz said. He turned and started to walk away.
“Wizard,” Glandurg called, “what about me?”
“Oh, the web will dissolve in six or eight hours,” Wiz told him. “I’m sorry, but I can’t get rid of it before that.”
Besides, he thought as Glandurg’s curses died behind him, I’m not sure how far I trust you.
“Well, that’s one less problem anyway,” Wiz said as he walked into the Mousehole’s lounge. Aelric and the other programmers were nowhere to be seen, but Bal-Simba and Moira were there.
Bal-Simba looked up at him quizzically.
“The dwarves,” Wiz said, plopping down on a sofa. “I just got them off my back.”
“They are here?” Moira demanded.
Wiz nodded. “Their leader just tried to jump me. He ran right into my protection spell and before I’d let him go I made him promise he wouldn’t try to kill me any more. At least,” he amended, “not until this business with Craig and Mikey is finished.”
“You made a deal with a dwarf,” Moira said slowly.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Sparrow,” Bal-Simba said slowly, “what precisely did the dwarf swear to?”
“He promised he wouldn’t kill me until this business is over.”
“Can you remember his exact words?”
“Yeah. He said, ‘I will not slay you until your battle with your adversaries is over.’ Well, that’s pretty close anyway.”
Moira moaned.
“Is something wrong?”
Bal-Simba put a huge hand on Wiz’s shoulder. “Sparrow, there are scant dealings between mortals and dwarves, but this much we have learned. A dwarf keeps only his exact, literal word. They are slippery as river eels and will wiggle through any least little hole left in an agreement.”
“There’s a hole in this one?” Wiz asked in a sinking voice.
“Sparrow, how many dwarves are we dealing with?”
“About a doz . . . oh,” Wiz said in a small voice. “And he promised only for himself.”
The black wizard nodded. “He only swore that he himself would not kill you. He did not even promise he would not help the others.”
“Oh,” Wiz said again.
It was almost nightfall by the time Glandurg’s followers found him. The wait had done nothing to improve his temper.
“What happened to you?” Gimli asked in awe at the sight of his leader hanging enmeshed in sticky ropes.
“Never mind that, get me down!”
“He tried the Sparrow alone, he did,” Ragnar told Gimli. “I recognize the signs.”
“Now,” the red-faced Glandurg ground out, “now I shall have him.”
“Looks as if he had you,” Ragnar observed. “Trussed you up like a spider to a fly.”
“Just cut me down,” Glandurg growled.
The dwarves set about it, but it was a sticky, tedious business. While they hacked and sawed Glandurg fumed and muttered.
“I will have his heart’s blood.”
“Can’t very well do that,” Thorfin said from the tree limb where he was cutting away at one of the last strands of the web. “You said you swore an oath you wouldn’t harm him until after he’s completed his own quest.”
“I swore so long as the moon was in the sky,” Glandurg amended.
Ragnar gaped. “He let you get away with that?”
“I am cleverer than any mortal wizard,” Glandurg said smugly. “It was the first oath I offered and he took it.”
Thorfin looked up at the darkening sky where a sliver of waning moon hung high. “And the moon has, what, eight, nine more days? Then it will be the dark of the moon and it will be gone completely.” While he was looking up his knife severed the strand and Glandurg fell heavily to earth.
The dwarf rose and brushed off the last clinging bits of web. “Mark you, I shall use the time well. I have sent to my uncle the king for a thing which will finish this Sparrow once and for all.”
And maybe this time he’ll let me have it, Glandurg thought to himself.
Tosig Longbeard, king of the Mid-Northeastern Dwarves of the Southern Forest Range, fidgeted uneasily on his alabaster throne and waited for his visitor to get down to business. The smoky torches flared in their wall sockets, throwing distorted shadows dancing over the carved and inlaid walls of his audience chamber, but there were none but himself and his visitor to see. His court, his seneschal and even his guards had been withdrawn because Aelric, the most powerful elf west of the mountains, had “begged the favor” of a private audience.
Dwarves and elves have scant dealings and Tosig had absolutely no idea why one of the greatest elves should come to call. He noted his guest was carefully treating him to every shred of courtesy and respect to which he was entitled. Somehow that was not reassuring.
First there were the formalities to get through. Elves are notoriously punctilious and dwarves are sticklers for forms and honors, so that had taken time. Further, elves are as courteous and delicate as trolls are rude and direct. After half a morning’s pleasantries, Tosig almost preferred the trolls.
At last, when Tosig was ready to scream, the elf turned to the subject at hand.
“I understand your nephew has undertaken a quest to fulfill a promise you made to the troll kings.”
“He’s not my nephew,” Tosig snapped. Then he softened. “But, ah, yes, a minor kinsman of mine is off doing some small service for the trolls.”
Aelric said nothing for a space. Tosig watched him warily. This elf was known to consort with mortals, including even this strange wizard the trolls wanted dead. Were he to take a hand in the business . . .
“The honor of dwarves in keeping their promises is well-known,” Aelric said. “It would be tragic if such an important promise were not kept because your relative was not given full support.”
“I’ve supported that insufferable young pup to the limit of my purse and beyond!” Tosig burst out. “Oh, if you only know what this thing has cost me first and last. The supplies, the gold paid to griffins because he and his friends were too good to walk like ordinary dwarves. And always more demands. More supplies, more treasure. More gold to the griffins. More . . .” He stopped and beat his chest to relieve the burning pain. “I have supported him,” he finished.
“But perhaps not with everything asked for?” Aelric murmured. “There was mention of a sword, I believe?”
“Blind Fury?” Tosig screamed. “Never! Never in a thousand lifetimes I tell you!” He dissolved into a choking fit.
“A great treasure to be sure,” Aelric agreed. “And yet after all you have done it would be ironic if you were blamed for-lack of support.”
“Greed,” Tosig grated. “Say it outright! Dwarves are miserly and for my miserliness I would not risk giving Glandurg the sword Blind Fury.”
“I would never say such a thing.”
“But others would and you wouldn’t correct them. Bah! Even for an elf you’re mealy mouthed.”
Aelric only nodded gracefully in a way that indicated he was much too well-bred to argue with his host.
Tosig drummed his fingers on the throne arm. He could afford to turn his back on his debt to the trolls if he had Glandurg for a sacrificial goat. But to have an elf telling such a tale . . . Well, it would ruin his tribe’s trade for generations.
“The thing’s cursed, you know,” he said at last. “And the boy’s incompetent. He’s had a score of chances at this alien wizard and muffed them all. Sword won’t do him a bit of good.”
Aelric made a throw-away gesture with one elegant hand. “As you say, I am sure. Yet the point is not whether your nephew . . .”
“Don’t call him my nephew!” Tosig barked. “He isn’t my nephew, rot him!”
“Your relative then. The point is not whether he accomplishes his mission, only that you cannot possibly be blamed for his failure.” The elf arched a silvery eyebrow. “Besides, the wielder of Blind Fury is invincible in battle. Who knows what even your-relative-might accomplish with it?”
Tosig glared at the elf and continued to beat a tattoo on the throne arm.
He was trapped and they both knew it.
“Why are you so interested in this anyway?” the dwarf king demanded. “I thought you had dealings with the wizard.”
“Oh, I do,” Aelric told him. “However there is the matter of a prophecy. It were best if it were fulfilled.” A strange expression flashed across the elf’s face. “Fulfilled in all its particulars.”
“Behold the sword Blind Fury!”
Glandurg brandished the weapon aloft and the other dwarves crowded around. They had all heard stories of the great treasure of their tribe, but none of them had ever seen it before. Never in the memory of a living dwarf had the enchanted sword left the deepest, strongest treasury.
It was worth seeing. The golden hilt gleamed, throwing sparks and highlights where the sun’s rays caught a bit of carving or granulation at just the right angle. The rubies and sapphires set in the hilt glowed with inner fires and the fist-size emerald in the pommel flashed and flamed.
In fact, it was downright gaudy.
That was fine with the dwarves, whose taste for gaudy is perhaps exceeded only by Las Vegas architects. But it was also deadly. The double-edged blade glittered in the sunlight with a sinister brilliance that threatened to outshine the hilt. The blade was as wide as a man’s palm and nearly as long as a dwarf was tall and the magic of it twisted the air around it like heat waves in a mirage.
Glandurg could not conceal his glee. “One stroke! One stroke and the Sparrow is finished! Nothing can stop Blind Fury and he who wields it cannot be harmed in battle.”
“Can we see?” Gimli asked eagerly.
“Yes,” Ragnar said. “Show us.”
The others took up the chorus. “Yes. Yes. Show us.”
Glandurg smiled and nodded. Obviously the sword had gone a long way toward restoring his tattered prestige with his followers. He didn’t tell them he had asked King Tosig for it before setting out and received a rebuff that singed his beard.
He marched to the edge of the clearing where a log nearly two feet thick lay against a head-high boulder.
“Observe the log,” he said. He wound up and swung at the log with all his strength.
Blind Fury whistled through the air and Thorfin jumped back as the tip removed the bottom six inches of his beard. With an evil hiss the weapon missed the log completely and bit deeply into a boulder, cleaving the rock to the ground.
The dwarf looked around. Thorfin was fingering the end of his newly trimmed beard and several of the other dwarves were looking at the newly split boulder with a combination of wonder and skepticism.
“I meant to do that,” Glandurg told the watching dwarves. “Now stand back and give me room.”
The others needed no urging. They backed off to give him a good twenty feet of room in every direction.
Glandurg hefted the sword. In the back of his mind it came to him that there were stories about how Blind Fury got its name.
“Now watch,” he said. This time he did not specify a target.
Again he raised the sword over his head, braced his feet apart and swung a mighty blow. He was aiming at the boulder but the blade’s arc flashed past the stone and on around and into the oak tree beside him. Glandurg was dragged along helplessly but Blind Fury sliced through the three-foot trunk as if it wasn’t there.
Slowly, majestically, the tree rocked, teetered and began to fall-straight toward the watching dwarves. Dwarves scattered in every direction as the oak crashed down on them. The trunk itself missed Glandurg by scant inches where he stood holding the enchanted sword.
Wiz looked up from where he was checking some wiring in the computer room.
“What was that crash?”
Jerry, who was closer to the window, looked out. “Just a tree falling up on the hillside.”
“Oh,” Wiz said, turning back to the wiring. “Nothing important then.”
A curse! Yes, that was it, Glandurg remembered. There was a curse on the sword. Dwarfish faces began poking out among the still-shaking leaves of the fallen tree. Somehow they didn’t show the respect they had a few minutes ago.
“Well, that’s enough of that, isn’t it?” Glandurg said. “Hand me the scabbard, will you?”
It was just after dawn and Wiz was finishing up an all-nighter on a workstation when a shadow swept over the window. He jerked his head up in time to see a dragon land almost at the front entrance of the Mousehole.
It looked like a league dragon, but Wiz grabbed his staff and headed for the main door anyway. The dragon scouts were under strict orders to stay away from the Mousehole lest the coming and going of the dragons should attract attention.
By the time he reached the entrance Moira was already there. Of the other programmers or wizards there was no sign, but one of the guardsmen was holding the door for their unexpected guest. As he strode in, Wiz recognized Dragon Leader, the commander of all the League’s dragon cavalry.
Dragon Leader was a bowlegged, solid little man with pale blond hair and eyes like the fog off an arctic glacier. He was dusty and he and his flying leathers reeked of the snake-and-sulfur odor of dragon.
“My Lord, my Lady.” His head bobbed in something more than a nod and less than a bow. “Forgive me for coming here, but we have a problem I thought you should hear of immediately.”
“I understand,” Wiz said. “We’re still trying to find what’s causing the trouble with the communications crystals.”
“Thank you, my Lord. But now we have a new problem. In the past two days we have started to encounter enemy scouting demons over the island-well south of their usual routes.”
Wiz gripped his staff tighter. “Do you think they know we’re here?”
Dragon Leader considered. “So far as we know they have not tried to come this far south. But they are searching the island. That means you are in danger of discovery.”
“Well, danger or not we can’t leave.”
Dragon Leader nodded. “Your decision, Lord. But understand we cannot protect you this close to our enemies’ base.”
“Understood.”
“You should be safe for another ten-day or so. Their scouts are thorough but they do not move as quickly as dragons.” He shrugged. “Perhaps they will not come this far south. Or if they do your disguise may fool them.”
“But you wouldn’t put money on it.”
“As I say, Lord, their scouts are thorough.”
“Anything else you can tell us?”
“Nothing not in our regular reports. There is constant activity around the castle, but no sign of any more great explosions.”
“Okay,” Wiz sighed. “Well, thanks for the warning. We’ll do what we can.”
“Will you stay for refreshment?” Moira asked. “Perhaps a bath?”
“Sorry, my Lady, but I have to rejoin my patrols.” He sketched a bow, turned on his heel and strode from the room. A minute later they watched through the windows as man and dragon lifted off in a cloud of dust.
“What is that guy’s name anyway?” Wiz asked as they watched their guest dwindle into a dot in the sky. “Everyone just calls him Dragon Leader.”
“Ardithjanelle, which means ‘shy flower of the forest,’ “ Moira said. “The story is that his parents were expecting a girl child.”
Wiz watched the dot for a second. “I think I’ll just call him Dragon Leader.”
* * *
It was less than half an hour after Dragon Leader departed that the still-sleepy programmers, Moira and Duke Aelric met in the day room. Wiz outlined the situation to them and then posed the question on everyone’s mind.
“Well, what do we do now?”
“How much longer do we need?” Moira asked.
“Maybe another two weeks, if Lannach can keep those damn gremlins at bay.”
“There really isn’t much we can do,” Jerry said. “We have got to have this place to keep using the supercomputer.”
“We could move to another island,” Moira suggested, in a tone that indicated she didn’t think much of the idea.
Wiz shook his head. “We’d have to stop work, get the system into a stable state, back up everything, move it all and then try to get up and running again. I know companies that have gone broke in the process and they could get spares from the manufacturer if they broke something. Besides, I think those patrols already cover the other islands.” He grimaced. “Probably the best we can do is continue here for as long as we can and be ready to cut and run as soon as we’re discovered.”
“We may have more time than you think,” Aelric put in from where he stood. “Our enemies seek something toward the middle of the island. I do not think they will come this far south.”
“How do you know that?” Danny asked. Aelric shrugged elegantly.
“Anyway, we need to be ready to bug out if they do find us,” Wiz said.
“We can put together some really righteous defenses,” Danny said brightly.
“I’ve been working on some ideas.”
Moira shook her head. “Not as many as you might think. Defenses attract attention. Powerful ones are likely to shine like a beacon to anyone who can sense magic.”
“We discussed this once before, Danny,” Wiz said. “The logic still holds.
Stealth is better than weapons.”
“Shit,” said Danny and scowled down at the table top.
“One thing we ought to do is to get as many people off the island as we can,” Jerry said. “If we can’t defend this place we don’t need guardsmen and there is no reason to have as many support people as we have.”
“We can all do our share of the cooking and laundry,” Wiz agreed.
“Or do it by magic,” Moira said to her husband. “Forgive me, Lord, but no one but a goat could stomach your cooking.”
“Hey, I lived on it for years.”
Moira leaned over and kissed him lightly. “I rest my case.”
“In any event,” Jerry said, “it’s getting too dangerous to keep anyone here who isn’t absolutely necessary.”
He carefully avoided looking at Danny and so did everyone else in the room.
The brownies hadn’t attended the council, so as soon as the meeting broke up, Wiz went to tell them. He found Lannach in the computer room, crouched on his haunches at the rear of the console and apparently talking to someone inside the computer.
“Lannach, we’re going to have to pull your people out.”
The little man stood up and dusted his knees. “Why, Lord? Are you dissatisfied with our work?”
“No, nothing like that. But Mikey and Craig are getting close to finding this place. We’re sending everyone we can spare back.”
Lannach frowned. “Forgive me, Lord, but you cannot spare us if you want your computer to work.”
“We can’t protect you if they find us and attack.”
“Lord, we will not leave. Not just for our own safety.”
“I don’t want that on my conscience.”
“It is not upon your head, Lord. It is our decision.”
“Thanks, Lannach.” Wiz held out his hand. Gravely Lannach took his first two fingers in both his tiny hands and pumped them up and down.
“Look, you’ve got to go.”
It was late and the hall lights had long since dimmed, but Danny and June were still at it.
Again June shook her head so hard her mouse-colored curls beat against her forehead. “You come,” she said with undiminished firmness.
“I told you, I can’t. I’ve got to keep working.”
June planted herself on the edge of the bed and crossed her arms. “You will not be rid of me,” she said fiercely.
He pulled her up off the bed and held her in his arms. “Honey, I don’t want to get rid of you, I want to save your life.”
Ian stirred restlessly in his crib and started to whimper again. He wasn’t used to hearing his parents argue and he had been crying off and on all evening.
June turned her back on her husband and scooped Ian out of the crib. For a moment all her attention was concentrated on soothing him while Danny tried to think of something more to say.
“Just this once,” he promised. “Just this once you’ve got to leave me.”
June shook her head wildly and clung to Ian.
“Dammit, you can’t stay here,” Danny said desperately. “If not for you think about Ian.”
June looked down at the child and her eyes filled with tears but she shook her head again.
Wiz was trying to find a way to squeeze more speed out of the algorithm when Danny came into the lab the next morning. His eyes were red, his skin was pale and blotchy, as if he’d been crying. Even his hair was a worse mess than usual. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all last night.
“I had it out with June,” he said dully.
Wiz put down the sheaf of papers. “Is she going back?”
Danny snorted. “Fuck no. That silly little bitch is determined to stay here and get herself killed.” He growled in frustration and slammed his fist down on the desk. “Goddamn her and her stubbornness.”
“I’m really sorry, man. I could ask Moira to talk to her.”
“What for? She won’t listen. She just rocks back and forth and shuts out the world.”
Wiz couldn’t think of anything to say. When he had come to this World Danny had been a self-centered twerp who did what he wanted and didn’t care about anyone. Now he had others to worry about and he was having to make hard choices. Wiz could sympathize. He’d had a fair measure of twerphood in his makeup when he first met Moira. But there wasn’t anything he could do to make the choice easier.
“She’s sending Ian back with Shauna,” Danny said finally. “That’s something anyway.”
“But she won’t go?”
Danny bit his lip. “It’s real simple. Where I go she goes. And I’ve got to be here.”
“Hey look, you could handle some of this stuff from the Capital.”
“Bullshit,” Danny said without heat. “The only place I can do any good is here.”
“But the risk . . .”
“Moira’s staying here, isn’t she?” He looked up at Wiz with a ghost of a smile. “Besides, I want a World for my kid to grow up in.” He looked down. “Shit. I left my notebook back in my room. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Danny brushed past Jerry as he went out.
“What was that all about?” Jerry asked after Danny disappeared down the hall.
“I think,” Wiz said wonderingly, “that was Danny growing up.”
By the time Danny got back Wiz and Jerry were hip-deep in trying to find something to make the algorithm work faster. By noon they considered and rejected at least four approaches.
Outside the computer center the Mousehole was abuzz with activity as nearly everyone else got ready to leave. Guardsmen, servants and wizards went back and forth in the hall carrying boxes, bags and piles of clothing. They finally took a break when Moira came in to discuss details of the move.
“You know,” Jerry said as he pushed back his chair, “I could think a lot better if I didn’t feel like I had a target painted on my back.”
“Well, we’re stuck with it,” Danny said angrily. “We gotta stay and if they find us we can’t fight. All we can do is hope we can get outta here in time.”
“Wait a minute,” Wiz said slowly. “Maybe there is something we can do.”
“Like what?”
“Protection spells. Really heavy-duty protection spells. You know, like force fields in the science fiction movies.”
Danny’s eyes lit up. “Hey, cool!”
“Do you think that would work?” Jerry asked.
“It might. At least it would be better than nothing.”
“Such spells are powerful magic that stands out strongly,” Moira said dubiously.
“They stand out strongly in your World,” Wiz said. “But magical senses don’t work as well here. Besides, Craig and Mikey don’t use magical detectors the way your people do.”
“We hope,” Moira corrected. “And in any event, where do you propose to get the time to create such a spell?”
“Oh, I’ve got most of the groundwork done already,” Wiz said. “I’ve been working on it off and on ever since I was rescued from the City of Night. Believe me, there is nothing like being nearly killed a dozen times over to make you think about ways to protect yourself.”
“Voila!” Wiz proclaimed and placed five rings on the table like a handful of jacks.
“They look like something out of a Crackerjack box,” Danny said dubiously.
“Well, as a matter of fact . . .” Wiz began. “Never mind. It isn’t what they look like, it is what they do.”
“They are certainly charged with magic,” Moira said, eyeing the pile of trinkets. “Even in this place they have powerful auras.”
“They’ve got more than that,” Wiz said smugly. “This is a truly tasty hack, if I do say so myself.”
Danny reached out and poked one of the rings with his forefinger. “So what do they do, shoot lightning bolts?”
“Nope, they generate a stasis field. Basically the spell is an amplified variation of that spell we used to stretch out a night and get more programming time while we were working on the magic compiler. Except instead of stretching nights out two-to-one, this spell stretches time out sagans to one.”
“Sagans?” asked Jerry.
“Yeah, you know. Like ‘SAY-guns and SAY-guns of light years.’ “
“Oh, right,” Jerry said, catching the imitation of the famous astronomer.
Moira frowned. “One moment. You say this spell slows down time enormously?”
“Yep.”
“Then how can you move when the spell is active?”
“You can’t. It freezes you solid. But nothing can hurt you.”
“Still, the spell can be broken, can it not?”
“It automatically shuts off when malevolent magic goes away. Kind of like the protective spell I used against those dwarves.”
“So at the first sign of trouble you slip on the ring and turn into a statue?”
“Well, no. We wear the rings all the time. They activate automatically when you’re under direct attack and they stay active as long as you’re in danger. The rest of the time they’re inert.”
“These things are like bullet-proof vests?” asked Jerry.
“More like an airbag in a car. Nothing happens until you need it.”
Wiz passed the rings around and each of them slipped one on. Then Danny turned and held one out to June. But she hissed and shrank away as if Danny had offered her a scorpion.
“June, please.” But June’s face was white and she refused to touch the ring.
“It is not like the enchantment in the elf hill,” Moira said, coming over to her and laying a hand on her arm. “It will serve only to protect you.” Still June shook her head and turned away.
Danny held up his hand to display the ring he was wearing. “Look, if I wear this and you don’t, we’ll be separated if something happens. But if we both wear one we’ll always be together. Please darling, wear it for me.”
Hesitantly June reached out a shaking hand and clutched the ring Danny extended to her. With a sudden move she jammed the ring onto her finger and then jerked her hands back into the folds of her skirt. Danny grabbed her and hugged her to him.
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” Wiz said a shade too brightly. “There’s another way to turn the ring on and off.”
He held up his hand and mimed twisting the stone. “If you want you can activate the spell by turning the stone in the ring a quarter turn to the right. You can deactivate the spell in the presence of danger by having someone turn the stone a quarter turn to the left.”
“What kind of a moron would want to turn off the spell when he’s in danger?” Danny asked.
Wiz stopped short. “You know, I never thought of that.”
“Feeping creatureism,” Jerry said.
“What kind of creature?” Moira asked.
“A feeping one,” Danny explained. “That’s one that has too feeping many .
. .”
“What it means is that I’ve added features just to add features,” Wiz interrupted. “It’s a spoonerism on featurism.”
“If you expect me to ask you about spoons, my Lord, you will be sorely disappointed. Nevertheless I understand the idea.”
“Yeah,” Wiz said sadly, “and that took more work than all the rest of the spell put together.”
“So now we can continue to work even under the strongest magical attack?” Moira asked, eager to get the conversation back to something that halfway made sense.
“Not under actual attack, but right up to the minute it begins.”
Moira looked down at the ring on her finger. “I hope it works.”
“I hope we never find out,” Jerry said fervently.
The drone had come so far south only by accident, cut off from its base by a line of strong thunderstorms and blown well past the point where it should have turned for home. Nevertheless it kept recording what its sensors recorded and transmitting it back to the castle.
There wasn’t much. This part of the island was mostly low hills covered with open forest. It had been hours since the drone had seen anything even as interesting as a herd of animals. Just the occasional bird, a motion in the branches that might be an animal and the mixture of trees and grassy clearings.
The sun was almost to the horizon and the shadows had lengthened and begun to blend together into the beginnings of dusk. The drone was a already headed north, back toward its home when its infrared sensor recorded a patch of anomalous heat off to the right. True to its programming, it turned away to investigate.
A quick scan found nothing in the visual band to account for the heat, no sign of sun-heated rocks or hot springs. The machine was too simple-minded to be puzzled, but it did have contingency programming for something like this. It shut down its engine, switched on its full sensor array and turned to glide over the hot spot.
Beneath the trees and magical camouflage a lone guardsman was shifting the last of his troop’s equipment into a neat pile for transport back to the Capital. He looked up as the shadow swept over him, caught a glimpse of something like a large bird and then bent again to his task.
He didn’t even consider the incident worth reporting.
It took time for the drone’s report to filter up the chain of command at Caermort. Craig had just finished a dinner of magically produced tacos and Coke when the notification popped up in a box on his screen. He glanced at it, frowned, and wiped the grease from his mouth and hands before he hit the key to get more information.
A strong source of IR and magic emissions under what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary hill at the far south of the island. Craig chewed at his lip. That wasn’t that uncommon. There were a lot of centers of magic in this world and some of them had funny effects on the non-magic sensors.
But this magic fell off fast. Right over the site it showed up strongly on the drone’s sensors. As soon as the drone moved off the spot it faded fast. A few hundred yards from the hill the magic was too weak to pick up.
Without taking his eyes off the screen, Craig balled up the taco wrappers and threw them in the direction of the wastebasket. The basket sensed the incoming object, saw that it would miss, and scuffled over to catch it. Craig was too preoccupied to notice.
That kind of fall-off was unusual. Magic usually faded out evenly, following a kind of inverse square law. Still, it was more curious than anything else and a long way away besides.
“Ah, what the shit,” Craig muttered at last. He had plenty of drones and besides, there were a couple of new types of recon robots he wanted to try out.
“Well, that’s the last of them,” Wiz said, looking at the spot where the guardsmen had just winked out.
“Gonna be lonely around here,” Danny said from where he was lounging against the wall. June, who was standing at his side, bit her lip and nodded. Shauna had taken Ian back four or five hours ago and it was the longest June had been separated from her son since he was born.
The storeroom, which had been packed with equipment and supplies, was mostly empty now. The departing guards and staff had taken much of the material back with them. Two of the three residential wings of the complex were completely shut down and only a few rooms in the other residential section were still being used.
“Yeah, at least until tomorrow night,” Wiz agreed absently. Moira had gone back earlier to reorganize the supply effort to fit the new and much smaller operation. Only Wiz, Jerry, Danny, June and the brownies were left in the complex.
And who-knows-how-many gremlins, Wiz added to himself.
“Well,” said Jerry, “now that we’re alone what’s for dinner?”
“Moira left us bread, cheese and cold roast beef in the kitchen,” Wiz said. “I think we’d better enjoy it while we can.”
He looked sourly at the stack of waxed cardboard cartons next to him. Each one was stenciled “Meals, Ready-To-Eat” and a lot of government-sounding gobbledygook. Wiz didn’t know where Moira had gotten them, but he hoped she got back soon with some real food.
Noiselessly the metal spider crept toward the darkened buildings. At the edge of the tall grass it paused, bobbed slowly as if testing the air, and then skittered across the open space to the concealing shadows.
Carefully lifting only one leg at a time it eased its way along the wall, every sense alert for any sign of danger or alarm.
Danger there was none. The building’s spells discouraged animals, kept away insects and were proof against dwarves. But there was nothing to keep away or warn of a robot.
There was a door halfway down the wall. Standing on its hind pair of legs and balancing itself with its left and right pairs, the robot stretched its front pair full out to try the knob. When it found the door locked, the robot retracted its legs and lowered its egg-shaped body to the ground. There it sat, listening intently for several minutes. A sliver of moon appeared through the scudding clouds, faintly illuminating the building. The robot stayed pressed to the ground, looking like a rock and a couple of sticks to the casual observer.
At last the moon disappeared into the clouds and the robot stretched up to the doorknob again. It swiveled its body and a beam of blinding red light lanced out of its underside to trace around the knob and lock.
If there had been anyone in the wing the brilliant light and the smell of burnt paint and scorched metal would have alerted them. But there wasn’t. No one heard when the spider robot wrenched the lock free and no one saw when the thing pulled open the door a crack and slipped through.
It was pitch dark in the corridor, but that didn’t matter to something equipped with image intensifiers backed by ultrasonics. Slowly, carefully the robot moved down the deserted hallways, its front pair of legs extended before it like antennae.
At the end of the third corridor, the spy droid detected a light far off to the right. It eased down the corridor, becoming more cautious as its sound sensors began to pick up voices.
“ . . . and he used Interrupt 21h for error handling!”
There was a burst of laughter and then a second voice started to tell another joke.
Ahead was a doorway letting warm yellow light out into the hall. The robot pressed itself hard against the wall and crept ahead one tentative step at a time, moving sideways like a steel crab.
It paused again at the door and then with exquisite caution it eased a single leg around the corner so the video sensor in the “ankle” could scan the room.
Wiz was sitting in the console chair with his feet up on the console, tearing a bite out of an oversized sandwich. Danny was perched on the edge of the console drinking from a mug and Jerry was over at the table building himself another sandwich.
“ . . . so, anyway,” Wiz said around the half-chewed sandwich, “the
physicist says, ‘First assume a spherical chicken of uniform density.’ “
Jerry roared and Danny broke up in a coughing fit when some of his drink went down wrong.
Very funny, Craig thought as he looked at the image his scout was sending back. Laugh while you can.
Come on, damn you! Wiz stared hard at the computer screen. We’re running out of time! But the twisting, convoluted blue shape looked no different today than it had before.
“I hate asymptotically converging algorithms,” he growled. “The closer you get to the solution the longer they take.”
“If you’ve got a better algorithm it’s not too late,” Jerry said mildly.
Wiz just snorted. “I’m just on edge. It’s a combination of being a little kid waiting for Christmas and the fact that the longer we’re here the riskier it gets.”
“Plus, Moira’s not here,” Danny said from the table where he and June were sitting. “When’s she due back anyway?”
“She said probably late this afternoon.” Wiz swiveled back to the monitor, but the shape still looked the same. Irritably he started flipping through the views, each of which showed three of the shape’s dimensions at a time. But the effect started to give him a headache.
June stiffened and grabbed Danny’s arm.
“Noise,” she said.
“I don’t hear anything,” Jerry told her.
Danny was frowning and listening hard. “I do. Kind of a whine.”
“Are we losing a bearing on the disk drive?” asked Wiz. He bent and pressed his ear to the case. “No, I don’t think it’s coming from there.”
By now the whine was louder.
“I think it’s coming from outside,” Jerry said and all four of them moved to the window.
There was a flash and the window blew in with a roar.
Pieces of glass the size and shape of knives scythed toward them in a glittering rain. But they shattered or bounced off when they struck the four immobile figures. Clouds of dust from the explosion roiled through the empty window frames. But not one of the four moved so much as a muscle.
They stood still and silent as the doors to the computer room flew open and three hulking robots marched in, tracking mud behind them.
Then came Craig in a suit of power armor and lastly Mikey wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
“What’s wrong with them?” Craig’s voice was tinny through the battle armor’s speaker.
“They were like that when I came in.” Mikey looked them up and down and smiled nastily. “It’s a spell of some sort.” He turned his back on the group and went to the computer console. The screen still showed the weaving blue form of the key.
“Son of a bitch,” Mikey said, open-mouthed.
Craig stomped up to peer over Mikey’s shoulder. “What is it?”
“Something that makes this whole business worthwhile. Something that gives us just what we need.”
Mikey smiled. Not one of his half-sneers or tight little mouth quirks, but a big broad smile like a child on Christmas Day.
He left the console and went around in front of the impromptu sculpture garden where he could stare directly into Wiz’s eyes.
“Thanks for the computer. It will save us a lot of trouble.”
He turned to Craig. “Have the robots pack all this up and load it on the ship. Then search the place and grab anything else that looks useful.”
“What about them?”
Mikey looked at the frozen group. “Finish them.”
Craig raised his arm and pointed the laser in his suit’s right forearm at the group. A brilliant beam of red light shot out and played across Wiz and his friends. The wall behind them smoked and scorched but the four statues were unaffected.
“What the hell?” Craig raised both arms and two laser beams converged in a spot of blinding incandescence that moved over the forms. The concrete wall behind them pocked and spalled and the aluminum window frame with its remaining shards of glass melted and ran. But still Wiz and his friends were unharmed.
“Oh shit, just leave them,” Mikey said. “Later we’ll see how well that spell stands up to a nuclear fireball. If that doesn’t work we’ll just drop them in the Sun. But get the computer on board first.”
With one last look at the object on the screen, he left the computer room.
Quickly Craig brought the system down, cursing the clumsiness of his armor’s steel fingers on the keyboard. For a space there was no sound save the clicking of the keyboard. Neither the programmers nor the robots stirred.
Gradually the room began to fill with dense black smoke from a fire elsewhere in the Mousehole. Craig, protected by his armor, barely noticed.
After several minutes the system blinked and died. Craig ordered the robots to begin dismantling and removing the computer. Then he went over to stand in front of the four motionless figures.
“Greatest wizard in the world, huh?” he said to Wiz. “Man, you were easy.”
Wiz did not twitch. Not even the look in his eyes changed.
Craig turned from one to the other, savoring the moment. So this was what it felt like to be a winner, a real winner. He tried to burn the feeling into his memory so he could relive it over and over for the rest of his life.
But why have just a memory? Why not a souvenir to help keep the memory fresh. In fact, why not four souvenirs?
As the robots returned from moving the computer, Craig gave them new orders.
Outside the Mousehole was a ship, a golden cigar shape lying on its side and pressing into the earth. One by one the robots carried their burdens up the gangway and carefully stowed them in one of the holds.
“Okay,” Mikey said as he came back into what had been the computer center.
“Let’s get going. Hey! Where’s Zumwalt and the others?”
“On the ship. I’m gonna build a trophy room and they’re going to be my first trophies.”
Mikey snorted and shook his head.
“Have it your way. Just make damn sure they stay frozen. Now have you got everything? Then let’s haul ass.”
As soon as they were aboard the gangway withdrew into their ship and the airlock doors swung shut. With an ear-piercing whine the golden craft rocked slightly and then rose straight up.
In the cockpit, Craig and Mikey lounged back in their acceleration couches and watched the ground fall away. Once they were high above the valley, Mikey used the mouse to line the crosshairs up on the now-deserted Mousehole. Then he pressed the left button quickly three times.
“Bombs awaaaay,” he called as three dots detached themselves from the ship and plummeted to Earth.
Three blinding, shattering explosions came as one, making the ship’s screens darken for an instant and filling the world below them with boiling, churning dust. The ship rose and fell slightly in the blast wave and then sailed serenely out of the billowing mushroom cloud, made a right-angle turn and headed north.
The cloud of smoke rose high in the air behind them.
From the hillside where he lay, Glandurg cursed as the airship vanished in the distance. “Balked again!” Then he straightened. “Come. We must follow these strangers to their lair.”
“Don’t see why,” Snorri grumbled. “Seems like this Sparrow is bloody well finished.”
“He was alive when he was taken from his abode.”
“Didn’t look none too healthy,” Thorfin said. “All stiff like that.”
“But he was alive. To fulfill the quest we must kill him ourselves or make certain of his death.”
“Lot of extra work, if you ask me,” Snorri said.
Glandurg turned on him, red-faced. “Who’s leading this quest, you or me?”
“Oh you are,” Snorri said sullenly. The other dwarves stood in a silence Glandurg chose to interpret as assent.
“Too right I am! And I say we track the wizard down.”
“How far do you reckon they’ll take him?”
“That’s immaterial. We will follow our prey to the ends of the World.”
“We’re a good bit beyond those already,” Thorfin muttered.
Glandurg ignored the remark. “Besides, I doubt these newcomers will have their lair ensorcelled against us. We should be able to penetrate easily.”
“Does this mean griffins again?” Gimli asked plaintively.
“We would be too easy to see. No, we shall follow on foot. Now quickly.” He looked down at the cloud of smoke roiling out of the valley. “There is nothing left here for us.”
Gathering their packs the dwarves set out toward the north, following Glandurg’s magic indicator toward an unseen foe.
There was no sign of life in the room where Wiz had met Craig and Mikey.
Now the glass wall showed the night sky clear but oddly devoid of stars. There were just a few sprinkled around, making it hard to tell where the sky left off and the shadow of the mountains began.
Aside from the weak starlight, the only illumination came from the console monitor which spilled a squarish puddle of pale light onto the tiled floor. The only motion was the slow ceaseless rotation of the strange shape on the computer screen as the system ground inexorably closer to the final solution.
The door opened and a robot guard clanked in, sensors swiveling left and right as it probed the darkness, the laser turrets on its shoulders tracking restlessly back and forth. It was the very picture of mechanized death, even if a thin stream of oil was leaking from a blown knee seal, leaving oily footprints in its wake. Every time the robot took a step the piston in the leaking hydraulic damper slammed against the stop, making a distinct “clank.” But the noise only made the black metal thing more menacing.
Twice it circled the computer, alert for any sign of life or anything out of order. Finding nothing, it clanked around the room once more and left. The dim light glinted faintly off its shiny black carapace as it turned the corner and the sound of its passage faded into the silence and stillness of the night.
Long after the guard’s last echo died something moved in the deepest dark at the base of the computer. Slowly and oh so cautiously a smaller patch of darkness separated itself from the computer’s shadow. As it scuttled along the base of the wall a stray glimmer of light caught it and resolved the patch into a tiny manlike figure.
The gremlin squeaked inaudibly at the light and scurried back into the shadows. There it paused, casting this way and that, its leaflike ears flapping and its long pointed nose quivering.
Machines! It was in the middle of an enormous collection of machines with a variety and complexity it had never imagined. In every direction beyond these stone walls was a gremlin king’s ransom of machines. The computer that had been such a regal home just a few days ago was shabby and threadbare by comparison.
A broad, snaggle-toothed and beatific smile spread over the little creature’s face.
Suddenly it was a very happy gremlin.
“Nothing?” Bal-Simba demanded. “Nothing at all left?”
Dragon Leader shook his head. “A smoking crater, Lord. We landed and searched for survivors, but we found only one.”
He gestured at the brownie standing on the council table.
“Breachean, my Lord.” The little man hung his head. “It is my great shame that when the invaders came I ran away.”
“It is our good fortune that you did,” Bal-Simba said kindly. “Else there would be none to tell us what happened.”
“I cannot tell you much, my Lord. I was outside when the metal creatures arrived and I ran. From the top of the hill I saw them carry out the thing the gremlins loved and put it in their ship. But then I ran over the hill and saw nothing more until the explosion.”
“The computer?” Moira demanded from her place behind Bal-Simba’s chair.
“They took the computer?”
“Aye, my Lady. The metal things carried it out.”
“But you saw no people?”
“No, Lady, either yours or my own.”
The giant black wizard was silent for a moment, his head sunk on his chest. Up and down the long table the wizards of the Council of the North simply stared. One seat at the table was conspicuously vacant.
“Very well,” he said at last. “Thank you, Breachean. Dragon Leader, keep what watch you can on the area in case someone else did survive, but do not endanger your riders.”
Dragon Leader saluted and left with the brownie at his heels.
Bal-Simba sighed and looked back at Moira. “Child, I am sorry,” he said simply.
The hedge witch was white, her freckles standing out vividly. “They will pay for this,” she said softly. “By the World, the sea and the sky above they will pay!”
“Indeed they shall,” the wizard Juvian said from his place near the head of the table. “Lady, the Council extends its deepest sympathies to you in your bereavement.”
“He is not dead,” Moira said fiercely. “The others perhaps, but not Wiz. I would know if he was.”
The wizards did not point out that psychic bonds worked poorly between the Worlds.
“Remember the elf Lisella’s prophecy,” another wizard said. “All would suffer great loss, the mightiest among them would perish and our enemy would gain his heart’s desire.”
“The first part is fulfilled,” Bal-Simba said. “Let us see if we can prevent the rest from coming true.”
“We still have the wizards and apprentices that Jerry was training,” Arianne pointed out.
“Even the best of them is more promising than skillful,” Bal-Simba told her. “They are but half trained and none of them is close to being a match for any of the off-worlders.” He nodded to Malus and Juvian. “Meaning no offense, my Lords.”
“None taken,” Juvian replied. “You speak only the simple truth.”
“What about the elf?” Honorious asked.
“Aelric? There is no sign. Perhaps he perished or perhaps he has returned to his own domains.”
“Well then,” Agricolus said. “We must still face these others. What chance have we?”
“If they have the computer they can take the Sparrow’s work and turn it against us,” Bal-Simba said grimly. “Now time is on their side. We must deny them as much of it as we can.”
“You mean attack them now?” Arianne asked.
“As soon as we can. They will only grow stronger.”
The wizards shifted in their chairs. Arianne opened her mouth as if to ask another question and then thought better of it.
“Well,” said Juvian at last. “I see no way to better our position by waiting.”
No one at the table was under any illusion about their chances. That was written in their faces. However cowards do not gain the magical power that lifts a man or woman into the ranks of the Mighty, still less are they chosen to sit on the Council of the North.
“Very true,” said Malus with a completely uncharacteristic seriousness. “With the Sparrow and his friends gone there is no one left who is truly a master of the new magic.”
“No, wait!” Moira shouted. “There is another!”
Judith was awake and sitting up in bed when Bronwyn and Moira came in.
“Hey Bronwyn, look at this.” She held up her right arm, clenched a shaky fist and beamed. “Not bad, eh?”
Then she caught her visitors’ mood and sobered. “Is something wrong?”
“A great deal, I am afraid,” Bronwyn told her.
Moira stepped up to the bed. “My Lady, you know that Wiz and the others were hiding in the halfway world to use a computer?”
Judith nodded, eyes wide.
“They were . . .” Moira stopped and took a deep, ragged breath. “They were discovered there and apparently overwhelmed.”
“Oh shit!” Judith breathed. Her eyes began to fill with tears. “I’m really sorry, Moira.”
Moira reached out and patted her hand. Then she gathered herself. “Our one chance now is to strike quickly against these other two wizards from your world, but we have no one who is expert with the new magic.”
“You have me,” Judith said quietly. “I may not be in Wiz’s league, but I helped write the compiler and I’m a pretty damn good programmer.”
Moira sighed. “Thank you, my Lady. I had hoped you would say that.”
“There is more,” Bronwyn put in sharply. “Lady, before you can do anything, you must be further healed. The spells to do so are dangerous and could harm you.”
Judith didn’t say anything.
“I know this is difficult,” Moira said sympathetically. “Craig is your friend.”
“Ex-friend,” Judith said coldly. She looked up at Moira, her face white and her lips pressed into a bloodless line.
“Do you understand what he did to me?” she asked, her voice shaking. “He came to me when I was helpless and he used me! He pried things out of me I never intended to tell anyone. Then he took that information and he turned it against my friends.” Her eyes glittered with a mixture of tears and rage.
“I feel like I’ve been raped. If there is anything I can do to get back at that son of a bitch, I’m for it.”
“Even at the cost of your health?” Bronwyn asked sharply. “Understand Lady, this healing spell could leave you worse than you are now with no hope of recovery.”
“I don’t care if it leaves me confined to a goddamn iron lung! If I can take that slimy little bastard down with me it will be worth it.”
Bronwyn nodded and motioned Moira to one side.
“Well?” Moira demanded. “She is willing.”
“She is blinded by anger,” Bronwyn said coldly. “She is not thinking rationally.” She held up a hand to cut off the protest. “But nevertheless I will do it.”
It was the work of a few moments to prepare for the spell. Bronwyn summoned her two most senior assistants and they prepared the brazier and candles while the chief healer traced the warding circle about the bed.
Judith sat in the center of things and watched. “This isn’t the spell you used on Wiz, is it?” she asked.
Bronwyn finished the warding circle and looked up. “You are more seriously ill, Lady.” She stepped back and regarded Judith carefully. “You may still withdraw.”
“Not on your life.”
Bronwyn nodded. One assistant reached into the sleeve of his robe and pulled out a packet of herbs which he threw on the brazier. As the fragrant smoke billowed up, Bronwyn and her other assistant raised their wands and began the chant. The first assistant joined in in a minor key. Judith’s eyes widened and her mouth formed a little “O” of surprise as the spell took effect. She lay back on the pillows and jerked spasmodically, her breath coming in short gasps. Moira caught her breath, but Bronwyn and her assistants continued the chant uninterrupted.
The chant soared, dropped and finally died away like the after note of a great bell. Judith twitched once more and lay still. The smoke dissipated and Bronwyn ritually defaced the circle before stepping to the bedside.
“Is she all right?” Moira demanded.
“Only time will tell that,” the healer said.
“But the convulsions . . .”
“Nerves knitting together and forming new pathways. I have seen worse.”
Judith’s eyes fluttered and she breathed in great wracking gasps. Moira reached to her, but Bronwyn placed a hand on her arm.
“Can you hear me, Lady?” the healer asked gently.
Judith opened her eyes and her mouth worked convulsively. “Wwww . . .” she gasped.
“Yes, Lady?”
“Wwwater,” Judith forced out.
“Here, Lady,” Bronwyn took a bowl from one of her assistants and held it to Judith’s lips. “Sip, now. Just sip.” Judith slurped the liquid in the bowl, choked and spluttered.
Bronwyn removed the bowl. “That is enough for now,” she said. Judith sank back against the pillow and breathed strongly and regularly. In a moment she was asleep and snoring gently. The healer nodded and motioned for them to withdraw. Already her assistants were carrying out the brazier, candles and other paraphernalia.
“She will probably sleep for a few hours,” Bronwyn told Moira as they left the room. “We will know more when she awakens.”
“Do you have any idea?”
“Well,” the chief healer said judiciously, “she is not dead. That is something.”
Moira couldn’t bear the thought of going back to the apartment she had shared with Wiz, so she went to her office off the programmers’ quarters. She hoped that work would help, but after she went over the same list of supplies three times without being able to remember what was what from the top to the bottom of the tablet, she gave up the idea of doing anything useful. Instead she contented herself with trying to file some of the stacks of wooden tablets and sheets of parchment that had accumulated on her desk while she was in the Bubble World. Vaguely she realized she would probably never be able to find half the material again, but she didn’t really care. At least it kept her from breaking down completely.
“Hi.”
Moira looked up from her filing and saw Judith standing in the door of her office.
“Lady!” she whooped, knocking over a pile of files in her haste to get around the desk. “Are you all right?”
“Never better,” Judith said as the hedge witch hugged her tight. “Hungry as hell, but I feel great and I don’t think I’ve weighed this little since I was sixteen.” She stood back and patted her now-concave stomach. “Hell of a way to lose weight, though.”
“I’m so glad.”
“Bronwyn says I’m fine, so I thought I’d come and surprise you. Now let’s go get some dinner. I haven’t eaten in-oh-fifteen minutes.” Her voice hardened. “And then we need a council of war.”
In the event, the council was combined with dinner. For the first half-hour or so, Judith tore into a heaping selection of meats, fruits, bread and cheeses laid out on the table in Bal-Simba’s study while Moira, Bal-Simba and Arianne filled her in. Then as she started to dawdle over her food instead of wolfing it, she began to ask questions and contribute information.
“You say you have pictures of some of these robots Craig and Mikey have been producing?” she asked, polishing off another hunk of bread. “Can I see them?”
In response Arianne gestured at the tabletop and a miniature tableau sprang into existence among the bread crusts and fruit rinds. On a barren landscape of red hills and sand perhaps a dozen metal creations were locked in mortal combat.
“Well, what do you know?” Judith said wonderingly. “Warbots.”
“You recognize them?” Bal-Simba asked.
“I’ll say. That’s a Murderer. That one’s a Red Terror. That thing over there is a Fer de Lance tank. And a couple of King Cobras. I don’t know what that one is, but it looks like a Preying Mantis with a couple of laser pods added.”
She looked up from the display. “They’re game pieces. Imaginary fighting machines. Only it looks like the little shit’s made them real here.”
“They are real enough, Lady,” Arianne said.
Judith examined the display again. “I wish I had my rule books; then I could tell you exactly what they’re capable of. But I can remember enough to do pretty good without them.”
“They look powerful,” Juvian said dubiously.
Judith twisted her mouth to the side and rubbed her chin. “Well, yes and no. They’re sure nothing to mess with, but they have a lot of weaknesses.”
Absently, she picked up a pear and bit into it.
“Look, I don’t know this Mikey, but I know Craig. I know how he thinks and I know how he fights.” She wiped a dribble of juice off her chin and took another big bite.
“When you do a long campaign with someone you get to know them pretty well. Craig is not very original. That’s why we didn’t let him DM. He was too predictable.”
“DM?” Juvian asked.
“Dungeon Master. The person who sets up the game. Anyway, Craig’s strictly a by-the-book player and he expects everyone else to be the same way.” She stopped talking, demolished the remaining pear in three bites and wiped her chin before she went on.
“So maybe we can surprise them.” She grinned nastily. “In fact, I know we can surprise them. And I have a few ideas on how.”
“How long will it take you to-ah-arrange your surprises?” Bal-Simba asked.
“The longer the better, but I can have some stuff ready in a few days.”
The black giant turned his attention to Moira. “And you said that Wiz believed we had at least two weeks?”
“So he said, Lord.”
“Then we had best postpone our plans for an immediate attack. A few days will make us much stronger without appreciably strengthening our opponents, I think.” He turned to Judith. “When can you begin?”
Judith took an apple out of the fruit bowl. “How does right now sound?”
In the event, it took a few hours longer than that to clear off her old desk in the Bull Pen and get started. It was after midnight when Malus and Juvian reported to her there.
“Moira tells me you’re pretty good with the spell compiler.”
“We are hardly what you might call skilled, Lady,” Juvian said. Malus stifled a yawn. He hadn’t been up this late in years.
“Okay, I want you to pick out the best of the apprentices and journeyman wizards. No, let that wait until morning. There are a couple of things I want you two to start on right away.”
“You mean tonight?” Malus asked.
Judith smiled. “Get used to it. The time-expansion spell only works from sundown to dawn and we’re going to need all the time we can get.”
The morning sun was streaming into the Bull Pen when Moira came calling. Juvian and Malus had dragged themselves off to bed some time before, but Judith was still hard at work.
“My Lady, Bal-Simba sent me to see if you are in need of anything.”
“Just fine, thanks. But if you could have the kitchen send over some more food, I’d appreciate it.”
“And a quantity of blackmoss tea. It is already being prepared.”
Judith leaned back away from her desk and put her arms behind her head. “Bronwyn told me the healing spell would make me hungry, but I didn’t have any idea it would be like this.”
“The healing process takes energy, Lady. The body must replenish itself.”
“Anyway, I’m not tired and that’s useful. Look what we whipped up last night.”
Over on the center table sat a vaguely familiar object. Except instead of being made of coiled straw basketwork it was made of shiny metal. The shape was different, too. As if two of them had been placed bottom to bottom. The result was something like a football, if a football had been two feet long and made of steel finished to look like coiled straw.
“Malus did the critical part of the spell,” Judith explained as she reached down to the object and detached a tinier thing. This she held up for Moira’s inspection.
It was a shiny piece of metal no bigger than the first joint of Moira’s finger. She looked closely and realized it was a perfectly formed metal insect, a bee to be precise. She became aware of a muted buzzing coming from inside the larger thing, as if it was full of thousands of steel bees.
“They’ll ignore you unless you’re moving fast,” Judith explained. “But they home in on anything going faster than about 800 feet per second and destroy it.”
Moira handed the robot bee back to Judith. “That is clever, but I am not sure I see the purpose.”
“That’s because you don’t know our weapons. The most common ones are guns that shoot pieces of metal at very high speeds.”
“Wiz told me about those. He said they were very destructive.”
“They are. And they’re going to be one of Craig’s prime weapons. But our little killer bees can destroy bullets and shells before they can hit anything. So when we attack, we saturate the area with a bunch of these beehive rounds.”
“But that thing is not round,” Moira said. Then she looked narrowly at Judith. “Or does it approach roundness for sufficiently large values?”
Judith looked blank. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” Moira sighed. “It was something Jerry said.”
She stopped and for an instant Judith thought she was going to cry. But instead she said, “If there is nothing more you need I will leave you to your work.”
Judith leaned forward to her desk again. “You know,” she said absently, “I’ve worked on mission-critical software before. But this is the first time I’ve had the whole world on my shoulders.”
“How does it feel?”
Judith gave her a tight little smile. “I don’t like it.” She sighed and turned back to Moira. “People are going to get killed in this, aren’t they? Probably a lot of people.”
Moira nodded gravely. “This troubles you?”
“Yeah. A lot. Before when I’ve fought a campaign it’s been a game. At the end you picked your pieces up and put them back in the box until next time. Here there won’t be any next time and I’m sending people to their deaths on the strength of my bright ideas.”
“They will go with or without you, Lady,” Moira told her. “The best you can do for them is to give them the tools so they may win.”
Judith grimaced as if she was tasting something sour. “Yeah, but that doesn’t make it easier.”
“I am told that it never is easy, Lady.”
“Lady, this is fantastic,” Bal-Simba said as he looked over the plans. “I am astonished that you have accomplished so much in so little time.”
Judith shrugged. “Mostly it wasn’t any harder than hacking out some simple BASIC subroutines. Besides, I had Malus, Juvian and some of the apprentices to help me.”
“Still, I remember how long it took a dozen of you to produce what we needed the last time you were our guest.”
“That’s why it took so long. What we did then laid the groundwork for what I’m doing now.” She smiled. “The secret of good programming is that you spend ninety percent of your time up front building tools and maybe ten percent on the actual job-plus the other ninety percent of the time it takes to debug everything, of course. Unlike most of the people I’ve worked for, you were smart enough to stand back and let us spend the time on the tools. So now . . .” again the shrug, “it’s easy.”
“You said you also wanted to discuss strategy. My guard commander tells me your suggestions are, um, somewhat unorthodox.”
Judith smiled. “I’ll bet he did.”
“Well, he did put the matter-ah-somewhat more strongly.”
“I can understand that. But I know Craig and Craig’s a gamer.”
Judith rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Look, one of the problems most gamers have is they spend too much time worrying about hardware and not enough on C3-command, control and communications. If I know Craig, he’s got some horrendously effective hardware. But he’s weak on the things that will let him use it effectively.
“Now,” she went on judiciously, “we could try to match him on the hardware. But we really can’t because he’s had longer to play with this stuff and he has control of the Bubble World. So mostly we won’t bother. Instead we’ll use pretty much the weapons and tactics your people already know-plus the new magic-and we’ll primarily use technology to enhance the C3. We may not be as powerful as he is, but we’ll be better coordinated.”
Bal-Simba grinned. “Excellent, Lady.” Then the grin faded. “But you have laid your plans in terms of only one of our enemies, this Craig. What about the other one? The one called Mikey?”
Judith’s frown matched the wizard’s. “I don’t know. So far we haven’t seen anything that isn’t in Craig’s style. Either Mikey is just like Craig or he’s up to something that hasn’t shown up yet.”
“Ah,” said the wizard Malus, “you sent for me, my Lord.”
Bal-Simba looked up from his desk and eyed his tubby little colleague.
“My Lord,” he inquired pleasantly, “have you ever flown on a dragon?”
Malus blinked. “A dragon, my Lord?”
“Yes. Have you ever flown on one?”
“Why, ah, no. No I haven’t. That is . . .”
“We need wizards with the dragon cavalry in the attack. You are among the best qualified of the Mighty for the job.” Bal-Simba forbore to mention that Malus’s main qualification was his weight. In spite of his girth, he was the lightest of all the Mighty-save for Juvian, who suffered from an airsickness no spell could cure.
Malus half-bowed, torn between honor and trepidation. “Well, thank you, my Lord, but I mean, after all, a wizard on dragonback . . .”
“It is voluntary, of course,” Bal-Simba said blandly.
“Oh naturally I volunteer, but, ah, wouldn’t a levitation spell work just as well?”
“Dragons do not like to have other flying things near them when they are on the wing. Especially not something so unnatural as a flying wizard.”
Malus deflated like a cold souffle. “Oh.”
Bal-Simba beamed and clapped the smaller man on the shoulder. “Excellent. Now, report to the Master of Dragons in the main aerie. He will see to your training as a dragon rider. Later the Lady Judith will brief you on tactics and teach you the new spells you will need.”
As the pudgy wizard bowed and turned toward the door he remembered that he was deathly afraid of heights.
Judith pushed a strand of dark hair out of her face as she bent over the map again. Her lower back ached from the time she had spent standing like this and she was hoarse from talking all morning, but at last the plan seemed to be coming together.
“Okay, that leaves the communications relay here.” She stabbed her finger down on the three-dimensional map that occupied the whole table top. “If we lose that we lose most of our ability to coordinate between the attacking force and the Capital.”
Moira checked her stack of wooden tablets. “We have an entire squadron of dragons assigned to protect it. They carry your new weapons. The squadron leader is waiting outside should you wish to meet her.”
Judith stood up from the map and stretched to try to get the kinks out of her back. “Yeah. There are a couple of things we need to go over.” And it’ll give me an excuse to sit down. She was still studying the map when she heard the door open.
“Reporting as ordered, my Ladies.”
Judith looked up at the sound of the voice and gaped.
The squadron leader was a fresh-faced brunette with a fine dusting of freckles and one of those complexions that no one over the age of twenty can ever have.
“Have they explained your mission to you?” Moira asked, apparently oblivious of the effect the squadron leader was having on Judith.
“Yes, Lady. We have been running training exercises every day for as long as our dragons can fly.”
“And the weapons?”
The dragon rider grinned. “Amazing, Lady. The dragons do not like them, but . . .” She shrugged.
“Okay,” Judith put in. “Remember those things are most effective against metal-robots or flying machines. Don’t use them against biologicals unless you have to. Also keep in mind there is a maximum and a minimum range. Also, the closer they get before you shoot the better your chances of hitting, but the fewer shots you can get off before they are too close.”
“We have been practicing these things, Lady.”
“Good. Now if we’re lucky they won’t detect the communications platform at all and you won’t have to fight.” The expression that flashed across the squadron leader’s face showed she wouldn’t consider that lucky at all. “If you do have to fight, you’ll probably be in-ah-a target-rich environment. Keep in mind your job is to protect the relay, not shoot down attackers.”
The girl nodded gravely. “I understand, Lady.”
“Okay. Anything else? Then you’re dismissed. I’ll try to talk to you later about last minute details.”
The squadron leader bowed and closed the door gently behind her as she left.
“Our apprentice squadron,” Moira explained as Judith scowled at the closed door.
“Hell, she can’t be more than fourteen!”
“Closer to sixteen summers.”
“A goddamn kid!”
“What would you? The alternative is to send them into the thick of the battle. Besides, young riders and dragons are adaptable in ways that older ones are not. Believe me, my Lady, if they must use those weapons of yours, the dragons had better be the most adaptable ones we have.”
The four frozen statues stood in a neat row, like the pieces in some gigantic game.
In truth, Craig’s trophy room was only a storeroom off in one wing of the castle. Wiz and his friends were dumped there and left to gather dust against the day when Craig would have a proper trophy room to display them.
Once or twice in the succeeding days Craig came down to look at them and gloat. But mostly they were left alone to stare sightlessly at the stone wall across the room.
“Hhsst,” a tiny voice squeaked. “Hhsst! my Lord.”
But Wiz flicked not so much as an eyelid.
Lannach tiptoed into the room, keeping his back to the wall. He reached out to touch the hem of June’s dress, he tugged on Wiz’s pant leg. There was no response.
The protection spell! Of course. They were still in danger in this place so the protection spell still held them fast.
The brownie danced up and down in frustration. He and his companions had spent days searching for their friends and now they could do nothing for them. The castle was constantly patrolled by warbots and other strange creatures and Lannach knew it would only be a matter of minutes before he was discovered. Danger of discovery aside, any one of the four was far too large for even all of the brownies together to move.
Then he remembered the rings and what Wiz had said when he gave them out. Lannach had been busy with the gremlins then and hadn’t paid much attention, but he did remember that the spell could be turned off.
If he could get to the rings.
Lannach stepped back and considered. Both Danny and Jerry had their arms raised and away from their bodies. June had both her fists jammed in her mouth. Wiz’s arms were out, slightly away from his body. Clearly it would be easier to reach his ring.
But even with his hands down, Wiz’s ring was still easily at three times Lannach’s height. The brownie looked around frantically, but there was nothing he could use as a ladder anywhere in the room.
Lannach reached above Wiz’s boot and touched his leg. The fabric of his pants moved easily under his tiny hand. Not ideal, but it would have to do. Carefully he stretched up and grabbed Wiz’s pant leg, pulling himself up to stand on the top of Wiz’s boot.
He had just reached belt level when a shadow in the hall told him someone was coming. It was too far to jump to the floor and there was no obvious place to hide. But Wiz’s jerkin was the kind that laced all the way down the front. Quickly he wiggled his way beneath the jerkin, clinging to the shirt for dear life.
The guard’s little red eyes shifted back and forth as it scanned the room. Lannach pressed himself close and dared not to breathe. He knew he must make an unsightly bump on Wiz’s stomach. He just hoped the guard didn’t notice it.
Finally the creature gave a piglike grunt and shambled out the door, trailing his halberd behind him. Lannach closed his eyes and sighed in relief. He lost his grip and squeaked in terror as he almost slipped out of the jerkin. Then he resumed his ascent of Mt. Wiz.
A quick reach and grab gave Lannach a double handful of Wiz’s shirt sleeve. Resolutely ignoring the drop below, the brownie swung his body out until he could wrap his legs around Wiz’s forearm. Then he shinnied down the arm feet-first, locked his legs around Wiz’s wrist and reached out with both hands for the ring.
It was an awkward position and the stone was stiff. It took all of Lannach’s strength to turn it.
Suddenly Wiz relaxed and dropped his arms, nearly dashing Lannach to the floor.
Wiz shook his head, felt the weight on his right arm and looked down to see Lannach clinging to his shirt sleeve for dear life. He put his left hand out to support the brownie’s feet.
“Thanks, Lannach,” Wiz said.
“We pay our debts, Lord.”
Quickly he set the brownie down on the floor and moved to free his companions.
“Where are we?” Wiz asked the brownie.
“In your enemies’ castle, Lord. They attacked the Mousehole, stole the computer and then destroyed the place.”
“Damn!” Wiz breathed. “What about the rest of your people?”
“All here, Lord. Save only Breachean. We think he got away.”
“Thank God for that.”
“There is more, Lord,” Lannach squeaked. “The Council is preparing to attack this place with everything they have.”
“They’ll be slaughtered!”
“Perhaps, but with you and the others dead, they saw it as their only chance.”
“Can you get word to them that we’re still alive?”
“Alas, Lord, their magic blocks us here.”
“Damn!”
“Doesn’t make much difference,” Jerry said grimly. “If we don’t stop Mikey and Craig right now we’re cooked anyway.”
“Damn!” Wiz said for the third time. He thought hard. “Okay, I guess our best chance is to do all the damage we can in here. The first thing we’ve got to do is take out that computer.”
“That will not be easy,” Lannach said dubiously. “It is heavily guarded. Besides, your enemies get little enough use of their prize. When they brought the computer they brought the gremlins with it. Now the whole castle is infested.”
“The gremlins are here?”
“In greater numbers than ever, I fear.”
“Hey Lannach,” Danny said. “Do you think you could, like, stir those gremlins up a little?”
The little man grinned. “You mean encourage them to cause trouble? Easily, my Lord.”
“Then do it,” Wiz commanded. “Let’s turn this place into a gremlin jamboree.”
“With pleasure. But what will you do?”
“We,” said Wiz, “are going to stage our own jamboree.”
With Wiz in the lead the group made its way down the hall. Lannach had told them the computer was in the central tower and that meant they had to go to the center of the castle to reach it. That wouldn’t be easy, Wiz knew. Not only was the place enormous, Lannach said there were guards everywhere.
Don’t think of it as a problem, Wiz told himself. Consider it a challenge.
Their first challenges were just around the corner. Three of them, all nearly seven feet tall. Their faces were piglike with tusked snouts and red eyes that looked mean even as they laughed uproariously at something one of them said. They were wearing armor of fantastic designs and carrying an assortment of wicked-looking polearms. Curved swords and daggers hung from their studded metal belts, and nickel-plated machine guns were slung over their backs.
Wiz peered around cautiously and then jerked his head back before they could see him. Danny, Jerry and June also peeked around.
June laid a hand on Danny’s arm and looked at him quizzically.
“We’re going to sneak up on them and knife all three of them when they’re not looking,” Danny whispered sarcastically.
Wiz signaled his companions into a huddle twenty feet or so back from the corner.
“We’ve got to go this way,” he whispered to them. “Lannach says this is a blind corridor and there’s only this one way out.”
“Can we distract them?” Jerry asked.
“Without them raising the alarm? How?”
When they looked back, June was halfway down the corridor. All three motioned frantically for her to come back but June ignored them. Then she whipped around the corner.
“Oh shit! Come on.” Danny set off at a dead run with Wiz and Jerry pounding after him.
As they came around the corner June was walking back toward them, wiping her knife on her skirt. Behind her were three large steel-clad forms lying in a heap.
“Now what?” she whispered to Danny.
“Uh, now we keep going,” Danny whispered hoarsely. Wiz and Jerry just goggled.
Just past the guards was an open door leading to a room with masses of wires running down the walls.
“What do you suppose all this is anyway?” Danny asked, looking around the room.
“Hard to say, but if I was to guess I’d say it was a wiring closet for their phone exchange.”
Wiz looked over the mass of wiring speculatively.
“I’d say it was a good place to start sabotage then.” He raised his hands.
“Let’s see how long it takes this stuff to melt.”
“I got a better idea,” Danny said. “We’ve got a couple of minutes, don’t we?”
Wiz looked down at the bodies of the three guards. “Uh, yeah.”
Danny grinned. “Good. Let’s see what happens when they get their wires crossed.”
Wiz looked at the wall of hair-fine wires dubiously. “I said a couple of minutes, not a few hours.”
“Oh, I’m gonna have help. Emac!”
Instantly one of the little demons stood before him.
“backslash,” Danny commanded.
“?” the Emac responded.
“list spaghetti exe”
As Wiz and Jerry watched the demon scribbled furiously, filling the air with glowing symbols. Danny knelt down and began giving the creature commands in a low voice.
“You know,” Jerry observed, “it’s kind of handy carrying your own software development environment with you wherever you go. Kind of like having the world’s niftiest laptop-except you don’t get tired lugging it through airports.”
Wiz eyed his friend. “I think you’ve been here too long.”
With a final whispered exe!, Danny stood up. There was a quick swirl of air and another little demon stood next to the Emac. This one wore a blue denim work shirt, jeans and construction boots-much like the one Danny had produced to connect up the computer. However this demon bore a striking resemblance to Alfred E. Neuman.
Danny pointed at the wiring panel. “Kill!” he commanded.
The demon grinned and swarmed up the panel, clinging with its feet while it swapped wires with both hands.
“That was fast work,” Wiz said as the quartet left the wiring room. Behind them the demon was still furiously switching connections.
“It’s something I’ve been kinda working on for a while,” Danny admitted.
Wiz shook his head. “I don’t think it’s ever going to be safe to let you go back to California.”
A line of dwarves came out of the desert. They were footsore, dusty, travel-worn and thirsty. Glandurg was in the lead, limping slightly, and the rest were strung out behind him.
“Let us rest before the final assault,” Glandurg commanded. His followers needed no second order. They threw themselves down in the shade of a red earth hillock.
While they rested, Glandurg and Thorfin crawled to the top and looked out at their target.
“Big enough,” said Thorfin, craning his neck to try to see the top of the central tower.
“Our magic will let us locate our target no matter how big it is.”
Thorfin looked ahead dubiously. The desert had been singularly unappealing and the castle before them looked less appealing than that.
“Not what I was thinking of,” he muttered.
Glandurg started to say something but he was interrupted by one of the other dwarves.
“Hsst! Someone’s coming.”
Quickly the party concealed themselves as only dwarves can.
What this time? Glandurg thought. More of those big metal walking things?
Or the ones that roll over the ground?
Then he heard the crunch of walking feet. The walkers again; two small ones from the sound of them.
But it wasn’t the walkers. Instead it was two mortals and a dragon, looking as tired, dusty and footsore as the dwarves. While the dragon rested behind the hillock the humans climbed to the spot Glandurg and Thorfin had vacated just moments before to spy out the castle.
“Now,” said Major Mick Gilligan, “we can see the whole place from here. Is this close enough for you?”
Karin frowned. The trickles of sweat down her face left clean tracks through the reddish dust. “But we cannot see clearly. We must move closer.”
Gilligan licked his lips and tasted grit. “From here on the land’s flat as a pancake. We get any closer and we’re going to stick out like three sore thumbs.”
Karin smiled. “You only have two thumbs, silly.”
Mick leaned over and kissed her on her dusty, sweaty cheek. “Two sore thumbs and a sore big toe, then. Anyway, we’re not going to have any cover.”
“I think we must risk it,” Karin said seriously. “We won’t learn much watching from here.” She shaded her eyes and scanned the plain before them. “Besides, there is some cover out there. Enough to hide a person if you are careful.”
Gilligan glanced back at Stigi and didn’t say anything.
Karin scanned the plain. “At least there do not seem to be any robots out there.”
Fine, Gilligan thought, so it’s a killing zone.
“Okay, but remember what I told you. We keep spread out, drop at the least sign of trouble and be on the lookout for mines.”
Karin nodded. They slithered down the hill, collected Stigi and started out onto the plain.
Now what was that all about? Glandurg thought as he watched the humans and the dragon go. He signaled his own group to assemble and they too started out on the plain.
* * *
The plain before them was not only flat, it was wired. There were pressure sensors in the soil, motion sensors concealed in rocks, capacitance sensors masquerading as bushes and an invisible network of radar, laser and ultrasonic beams lacing back and forth so tightly not even a field mouse could move without being detected.
Neither group was more than a hundred yards onto the flat ground before they were picked up, marked as hostile and targeted.
In pillboxes disguised as hillocks of red earth, shutters slid off firing ports and machine guns poked out their ugly black snouts. Artillery buried in the base of the castle swung around as automatic loaders delivered shells and powder charges to their gaping breeches. Firing impulses raced at the speed of light along buried wires to fields of mines.
Suddenly the earth erupted in flame and smoke and flying pieces of metal.
“What was that?” Karin asked.
“Barrage,” Gilligan told her shortly. “About a mile to our right. Come on.
Let’s move!”
“What was that?” Glandurg demanded as the explosions and gunfire rang out over the plain.
“Dunno,” Snorri said. “But it’s about half a league over yonder.” He pointed to the column of smoke and dirt boiling up well to the dwarves’ left.
“Well, let’s not wait around to find out, shall we?”
The wiring closet had been heavily guarded because it was the concentration point for the sensors and fire control systems for the outer defenses of the entire southern quadrant of the castle.
The wiring was automatically monitored, but the computer doing the monitoring could only detect breaks and bad connections. It wasn’t bright enough to realize that connections were being switched at the rate of hundreds per minute. So it didn’t go to the backup.
Not that it would have mattered. The gremlins had been at the backup all morning.
* * *
“What the hell?” Craig muttered as the alert box popped up on his screen. Quickly he called up the display for the outer sensor array. The map showed possibly hostile contacts at half a dozen shifting points in the southern quadrant. They were being fired on but as fast as one winked out another appeared somewhere else.
Not another herd of those damn grazing things, he thought and called up the security camera displays. The cameras in the area showed a wild jumble of confused flickering images, but the ones mounted on the castle walls showed several tiny figures out on the plain. But they weren’t any place close to the target zones.
“Shit!” The damn system was messed up again. He switched over to manual control and ordered a battery to fire on one of the groups of dots.
The guns fired, but the shells landed a couple of miles from where they were supposed to be. He tried to correct his aim and a different battery fired at a point well behind the targets. In rapid succession the same command fired other batteries.
Craig growled in frustration. He switched to his backup control system, only to get a message on the screen saying it was inoperative. He gritted his teeth and tried to sort out the mess by experimenting with the controls. But the demon in the wiring closet was changing connections at random much faster than Craig could fire ranging shots. At that point coincidence could be defined as the same command firing the same weapon twice in succession at the same target.
“Shit!” Craig yelled. Then he reached over and sounded the general alarm. The lights flickered and one wall of the room slid back to reveal a wall-sized map of the castle and its approaches. “Guards to the perimeter,” he barked into a microphone. “We have intruders approaching from the south.”
Then he threw himself back in his chair, crossed his arms and watched the screens. “All right, suckers. Let’s see you evade that!”
Slowly and cautiously Wiz and his friends made their way toward the center of the castle. They saw no more of the live guards, but several times they had to hide from heavily armed robot sentries. Fortunately they were so noisy the quartet could hear them coming and June was particularly adept at finding hiding places.
Finally they found the elevator.
Wiz eyed the number painted on the wall across from the elevator doors. “From the looks of this, we’re pretty low in the castle. I’ll bet what we want is further toward the top.”
Off down the corridor there was a distinct clank clank clank.
“Robot coming. Everyone in quick.” They piled in and Wiz pressed the button. “Okay, going up.”
The elevator doors jerked towards each other, slammed back and then jerked together. The car twitched spasmodically, almost throwing its occupants into a heap.
“Maybe,” Wiz amended. But the car began to rise, slowly and jerkily at first and then faster and jerkily. All four of them braced themselves against the sides of the car and tried their best to stay upright.
“Hey,” Danny said after a few minutes, “isn’t there something about being trapped in an elevator?”
“Huh?”
“In the spy movies. Aren’t people always getting trapped in elevators?”
“Don’t be morbid.”
“I’m not being morbid, I’m being practical.”
“If you’re so damn practical why didn’t you think of that before we got on the frigging elevator?”
Danny just shrugged.
“Wait a minute,” Wiz said, looking up, “there is something we can do.
Jerry, see if you can reach the ceiling of the car.”
Jerry extended his hand experimentally. “Sure. Now what?”
“See if you can find the service hatch.”
Jerry prodded at the ceiling as the car continued its jerky climb. Finally one of the ceiling sections flipped back to reveal an opening perhaps two feet square.
“Okay,” Wiz said, “we climb up on top of the car.”
“Is that safe?” Jerry asked dubiously.
“Safer than meeting a reception committee. Now hoist Danny up, will you?”
With Jerry’s help Danny easily wriggled through the hatch. June followed lithely with a slight assist from Danny. Wiz followed June with an easy leap and a quick chin up. That left Wiz, Danny and June on top of the elevator and Jerry in the car.
Since Jerry weighed nearly as much as Wiz and Danny put together this presented a problem. Since Jerry was not exactly light on his feet, it presented a serious problem. The first attempt to hoist Jerry through the opening nearly pulled Wiz and Danny back into the car. Finally, Wiz dropped back into the car to push from below while Danny heaved from above. With much tugging and shoving, they were able to get Jerry onto the roof of the car.
Then the elevator ground to a stop and the doors started to open.
Wiz leaped for the hatch and wriggled through just as the doors ground open. Before they could close the panel two goblin guards strode into the elevator with drawn laser pistols. As the four humans held their breath the guards looked around suspiciously, their weapons tracking their head movements.
One snorted like a bull and drew in a deep breath, as if testing the air. His companion grunted something to him and he exhaled with a grunt. They looked around again, but they did not look up.
Finally the pair backed out of the car and the doors closed. After a moment, the elevator creaked and jerked and started upward again.
Wiz let out a deep breath and nearly collapsed with relief.
“It’s the helmets,” Jerry said after a moment.
“What?”
“The helmets. They’re so ornate the guards have trouble looking up.” He shook his head. “Bad design. Like a lot of this place.”
“Personally I think it’s great design,” Wiz said sharply. “It just saved our bacon.”
“Aw, we could have taken them easy,” Danny said. “A few lightning bolts and, hey-“ He made a gun with his finger and mimed shooting at the door. There was a flash of blue spark from his fingertip and a large scorch mark appeared on the wall of the shaft.
Danny looked down at his finger in surprise. “I didn’t know it was loaded.”
“Well, holster it. And remember we’re just a little bit outnumbered here.
We don’t start throwing fireballs until we absolutely have to.”
“Get ready then,” Jerry said, looking up at the indicator over the door.
“We may have to. We’re almost there.”
Quickly the three magicians arranged themselves to have the best field of fire when the door opened. All three of them muttered preparation spells so they could come out shooting if they had to. Then they waited.
The elevator creaked and swayed, jerked twice more and then expired with a sigh. The doors started to open, slammed closed, and then slid all the way open with a despairing groan-leaving them looking at a blank stone wall.
Wiz looked down through the hatch and out the open door. At the bottom of the door there was a narrow slit of corridor visible, perhaps eighteen inches wide. The elevator had gone almost completely past their intended floor.
“Shit!” Wiz muttered and all of them quickly dropped through the hatch into the car.
Jerry reached out and punched the elevator button. The car lurched and groaned again, but did not move.
“Reminds me of the elevator at a Star Trek convention in Denver,” he said.
“We’ll have to squeeze out through that space then,” Wiz said.
Jerry eyed the slit. “I don’t know if I’ve got that much octopus blood in me,” he said dubiously.
“Maybe there are working controls outside,” Wiz said as he knelt to slip through the crack. He eased through the opening and felt for the floor with his feet. The elevator was just high enough that he couldn’t keep his weight resting on his elbows in the car and touch the floor at the same time. He eased out further and for a terrible second kicked his legs over empty air in the elevator shaft. Then his left foot caught the floor and he eased himself down on solid footing. He sighed and turned around to face down the corridor.
And found himself face-to-face with a goblin guard.
The guard roared a challenge and swung his halberd two-handed. Wiz ducked and the halberd knocked chips of stone off the door jamb. Snarling, the guard swung the weapon back over his head and down toward the crouching programmer. Instinctively Wiz lunged forward as the blade descended. He hit the goblin in the knees just as the halberd came down with the full force of the monster’s body behind it. The combination overbalanced him, and the guard went sprawling headfirst down the elevator shaft, screaming as he fell.
Wiz collapsed forward on his face, sucking great lungfuls of air. Somewhere in the distance a siren began to wail. Behind him he heard his three companions drop to the floor of the corridor. Then Jerry and Danny reached down and pulled him to his feet.
“How’d you do that?” Jerry panted, red-faced from the tight squeeze.
“I don’t know,” Wiz gasped. “Now run!”
The four of them pounded down the corridor, turned a corner and headed off in what Wiz hoped was the right direction. After several hundred yards they ducked into a side corridor to catch their breath.
All four of them leaned up against the wall gasping. Off in the distance, faintly, they could still hear the siren. Then another siren sounded and another and another until the castle reverberated to the sound.
“Guards to the perimeter,” the speakers in the wall above them squawked.
“We have intruders approaching from the south.”
“What’s that?” Danny panted.
“I think,” Wiz said slowly between gulps of air, “that all hell just came unshirted.”
The Wizard’s Keep boiled with activity. From the tallest towers the trumpeters blew “Assembly” over and over. Down on the drill ground armored guardsmen fell in rank by rank while the drummers beat the Call To Arms on the great bass drums that hung by the reviewing stand. From the aeries below wing after wing of dragons rose and circled and grouped themselves into larger formations.
In the Watch Room every post was manned. The Watchers on the main floor murmured into communications crystals or peered into scrying glasses for some sign of the enemy. On the wall behind them glowed a huge map of the northern end of castle island, casting an eerie bluish glow over the proceedings.
On the dais at the opposite end of the room groups of wizards hovered over their own crystals and muttered spells and incantations. Bal-Simba was there, seated in his raised chair where he could watch and command everything. Judith was there, seated next to Moira at a small table to Bal-Simba’s right. Arianne was at his left and next to her, the elf duke.
Aelric stood tall and terrible in shining silver mail of elven metal. His helm, intricately and carefully wrought, extended down over his cheeks and neck, unlike the conical helms of the Council’s guardsmen. But save for the nose guard it left his face unprotected.
“Is there aught else?” Bal-Simba asked the people clustered around him.
Arianne and Moira shook their heads and Aelric said nothing.
“My Lady Judith?”
“We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. The dragon riders have got the new spread-spectrum communications crystals so they can cut through the jamming, the guardsmen have the last of the special weapons and the scouting demons are deploying now.” She took a deep breath. “It’s going to be rough, but Craig’s in a world of hurt unless he can make a saving roll.”
“Saving roll?”
“Uh, unless he gets lucky.”
Aelric smiled without warmth. “Fear not, Lady; luck they shall not have this day.”
Bal-Simba looked around the group once more. “Aught else? Then we are ready.”
Aelric bowed to the group. “If you will excuse me, I have my own part to play. This battle will not be fought entirely in the World you know and my own role comes-elsewhere.” He started to go and then turned back. “One other thing. You may find you have acquired some unexpected allies. I would suggest that you simply accept such help as you are given.” He picked his way off the crowded dais and strode toward the door.
Moira followed him and caught up with him in the corridor.
“You came back.”
Aelric looked down at her. “Did you doubt that I would, Lady?”
She stopped. “Lord . . .” The elf duke turned back at the sound of her voice.
“Lord, I have not properly thanked you for your aid. I have been surly and ill-natured to you and,” her eyes begin to fill with tears and the words came with a rush, “and I am sorry and thank you. That is all I wish to say.”
“You are most welcome, Lady,” Duke Aelric said, ignoring her tears. “Truly this has not been easy for any of us.”
“I wish there was something I could do to make up for everything.”
“Bend every power you possess to our victory,” Duke Aelric said. “Then hope that it is enough.”
The dwarves were panting and exhausted by the time they reached the base of the castle. The explosions and beams of burning light had never come close but they had taken them as a hint and crossed the plain at a dead run. Since dwarves are too short and stumpy for distance running they were pretty well worn out.
A dozen dwarves slumped down in a row beneath the towering walls of living rock and gulped great lungfuls of air. Out on the plain the explosions continued unabated.
“Now that we’re here,” Thorfin gasped after several minutes, “how do we get inside?”
“Place isn’t spelled against us,” said Snorri. “Don’t see any gates, though.”
“Gates would be guarded,” Gimli pointed out.
“There are openings further up,” Glandurg shaded his eyes and craned his neck. “Leave your packs here and bring only what we shall need for the final assault.”
Thorfin and Snorri looked at each other and shifted uneasily. “You mean those openings that spout fire and explosions every so often?”
“You have a better idea? I thought not.”
The wall was solid rock and so steep it was only a few degrees off vertical. But dwarves are creatures of the mountains and if they cannot run they can climb like flies.
Glandurg lifted Blind Fury high above his head with both hands.
“Forward!” he proclaimed. “For glory and honor!” Glandurg turned and began to climb the wall. Behind him his loyal followers hesitated and then started after him.
It took Mick and Karin longer to cross the plain. Mick insisted on going flat every time the artillery came within a few hundred yards of them. Fortunately the fire never got really close and their only injury was to Stigi, who received a scratch from a shell fragment.
“Well, we’re here,” Mick said as they rested in the shade of the wall.
“Now are you satisfied?”
“I wonder if we can get inside?” Karin said thoughtfully.
“Even for you that’s a crazy notion. We’ve done too much already.”
“Let us work our way along the wall and see if we can find a gate,” she went on as if she had not heard him.
Mick looked at her, sighed and nodded.
The things men do for love!
“The scouts are in position,” the Watcher reported.
Bal-Simba looked up at the display. Already it was beginning to show the information pouring in from tens of thousands of scouting demons like the ones Wiz and his company had used to locate the heart of Bale-Zur in the City of Night.
Unlike those demons, these absorbed everything that happened around them and transmitted the information back to dozens of concentrators floating well to the south out of the battle zone.
Circling off the southern end of the island was a thing like a gray tarp, a relay for communications and the concentrators. It absorbed the information, did some preliminary filtering and fed it back to the relay. The relay in turn passed the information back to the Watchers in the Capital.
As one, the controllers in the pit looked up at Bal-Simba. The giant wizard took a deep breath. Then he nodded.
The controllers turned back to their crystals and the attack was on.
“Dragon Leader, you have an allied force approaching to your right. I say again, you have friendlies approaching from widdershins high.”
What the . . . ? There were no more friendly forces. Save for a couple of squadrons on guard duty Dragon Leader had the entire cavalry of the North with him. Anything else in the air had to be hostile.
“Dragons at widdershins high,” the scout on the right flank sang out.
“Can you identify?” Dragon Leader barked into his communications crystal.
He hated surprises in the middle of a battle.
Silence.
“I say again, can you identify the dragons?”
“Uhhh . . .”
“Dammit, speak up!”
By now the formations were at almost the same level and closing fast as the newcomers pulled into a shallow dive.
Dragon Leader craned his neck to see the approaching force. Whoever they were, they had the most ragged-ass formation he had ever seen. They looked more like a flight of geese than a squadron of cavalry.
Dragon Leader’s mount bridled and nearly bucked as the flight approached. It took a moment to bring the animal under control and when Dragon Leader looked up again the leader of the new force was flying next to him.
Dragon Leader glanced. Then he gaped. Then he nearly fell out of his saddle. Flying beside him was the biggest dragon he had ever seen in his life.
This was no adolescent cavalry mount. It was a full-grown, fully intelligent dragon and a monster of its kind at that. It was easily twice the length of his own mount and might have reached 200 feet. Behind and above came dozens more wild dragons.
A great golden eye regarded Dragon Leader and his dragon with amused contempt. Then with a flick of its tail, the giant reptile winged over and dived for the deck. The rest of the wild dragons followed their leader down.
Dragon Leader licked lips suddenly gone dry. “Uh, central,” he croaked into his communications crystal. “The allied forces have taken the lead position and are going in low.”
“Allies lead and low,” the controller’s voice came back. “Acknowledged.”
Fortuna, Dragon Leader thought, what have we gotten ourselves into?
Out on the edge of the plain the warbots waited. There were 100-ton Murderers, 30-ton Hellfires, Skysweeper anti-aircraft units, a couple of 200-ton Gargantua fire support models and a dozen or so Springer scouts, all in a loose grouping just behind the military crest of the ridge. They were being held as a mobile reserve, ready to sweep down off the ridge and deal any attacker on the plain a crushing blow to the flank.
The Springer nearest the crest of the ridge turned its head. Its sensors had picked up something. . . .
With a rush the lead dragon swept over the hill scant feet off the ground. A blast of dragon fire destroyed the first robot before it could even face its foe.
The second warbot had time to half raise its laser before the hurtling mass slammed it to the ground. The warbot next to it had only half turned when the massive tail caught it in its midsection and sent it sprawling.
By now the engagement was general as a dozen more dragons topped the ridge and piled into their metal enemies. Laser blasts and gouts of dragon fire lanced through the air and parts of robots and pieces of dragon bodies flew in every direction.
Then there were no more robots. Seven of the dragons lay motionless amidst the carnage and one dragged a wing.
As one, the unharmed dragons galloped forward and took to the air again.
The one with the broken wing followed on foot.
Without warning clumps of guardsmen and wizards popped up all over the plain. Immediately they spread out into long, loose lines and started moving toward the castle.
Kenneth, at the head of his group, squinted at what lay ahead. Fortuna, what a mess! he thought. The wizards had been able to bring them no closer than a league to the castle because of interfering magic. They would have to cross the distance on foot, possibly under fire and almost certainly against enemies.
Kenneth felt especially naked without comrades at either shoulder. But they had been warned that concentrations which gave defense against sword and spear would only serve as targets for the weapons of these foreign sorcerers.
Well in front of the attacking forces a half dozen football-shaped metal containers popped into existence and split open on the red sand. A dark cloud poured out of each of them and dissipated in the air.
That was the signal. Kenneth raised his arm and motioned his men to move forward.
I wish I had a drink, he thought.
“Mikey! Mikey!” Craig beat on the door frantically. Finally it opened a crack.
“Yeah?”
“Why the hell didn’t you answer the net? I’ve been calling you for fifteen minutes.”
“I told you. If you have business with me, you come to me. I’m not answering your goddamn pager.” The door started to swing shut.
“Goddamnit, we’re being attacked!” Craig yelled. “We’ve got dragons and infantry and shit all over the place.”
The door swung open and there was Mikey wearing only a pair of pants. In the back of his mind Craig realized he looked terrible, all thin and sort of stretched out. He moved like a speed freak, all jerky, uncontrolled energy. There was a predatory gleam in his eye that Craig didn’t remember seeing before.
“Yeah?” Mikey said. Then he paused as if listening to something that only he could hear.
“Come on, man! I need all the help I can get.”
“You keep them busy. I’ve got something to set up.”
Craig nodded and raced for his command center.
“We have isolated their control links,” one of the Watchers called out to the group on the dais.
“Transfer the characteristics to my station,” Judith called back. Instantly the Emac sitting cross-legged in front of her began to write in the air.
Judith smiled tightly. “Time to jam.” She turned to the Emac.
“backslash”
“?” the Emac responded.
“blackwatch exe”
The Emac gabbled and several dozen demons appeared on the table. They were fashioned like men but each wore a skirt and shawl of dark green patterned with black. Several had drums and the rest had odd contrivances with several shiny black tubes extending over their shoulders. The leader carried a silver-tipped staff near as tall as he was and wore an enormous hat made of some black fur.
“Give them ‘The Black Bear,’ “ Judith commanded. “Then ‘Scotland the Brave,’ ‘The Highland Brigade at Maggersfontein,’ ‘The Southdown Militia,’ ‘The Earl of Mansfield’ and ‘Lord Lovett Over The Rhine.’ After that use your imagination.”
The tiny drum major nodded, turned to the demons behind him and raised his staff. The pipers inhaled as one, the drummer struck the beat and the skirl of the pipes reverberated off the stone walls.
“Let’s see them even think through that,” she said viciously.
“I hope it is as effective on the enemy as it is on us,” Bal-Simba boomed over the noise.
Judith looked up and realized everyone in the command center had stopped work and was staring at the table. Several of them had clapped their hands over their ears. Judith made a gesture and the sound died to a whisper.
“Sorry Lord, I keep forgetting it’s an acquired taste.”
By the time Malus’s dragon approached the castle the fat little wizard was half-seasick and thoroughly miserable. Normally a dragon could not carry two people for very long. But the wizards had added their magic to the animal’s natural flying ability so they were able to keep up with the other dragons.
Not that it was much comfort to Malus. He was strapped into a second saddle back on the dragon’s shoulders. The beast was too wide to straddle comfortably at that point and the insides of his thighs ached terribly. Although the straps holding him to the saddle were secure, the saddle itself had a tendency to shift alarmingly whenever the dragon maneuvered suddenly. For Malus’s taste there had been far too many sudden maneuvers. The blue robe of the Mighty, which was so impressive on the ground, was totally unsuited for dragon riding. The wind tugged at the hem and tended to flip it back above his knees. The cold air whipped up the robe and around his legs. Probably the only part of him that was still warm was his seat, which was protected by the saddle. But he couldn’t tell for sure because it had gone to sleep long since.
He tried to shut out the discomfort by concentrating on the back of the rider and not looking down. Above all, he didn’t want to look down.
The castle erupted in flame and smoke as every weapon fired on the attackers. Artillery and mortars of every description fired and fired again as fast as the automatic loaders could feed them. Streams of tracers fountained up into the sky as anti-aircraft batteries sought their targets. Lines of laser light swept back and forth over the plain and sky.
Between the killer bees and the messed-up control system in the southern quadrant it wasn’t nearly as effective as it should have been. What ought to have been annihilating was merely deadly. Men went down like tenpins and dragons fell from the sky under the impact, but still the others pressed on.
From ground and air the attackers returned fire. Lightning bolts and fireballs flew from the wizards’ fingers destroying emplacements and blinding sensors. Then two squadrons of dragons peeled off and let fly with heat-seeking missiles. The missiles went for the hottest things in the castle, which were the barrels of the artillery and the firing tubes of the lasers. A series of explosions blossomed on the castle walls and here and there the secondary explosion of a magazine made a section of castle wall bulge outward and slump.
Still the attackers came on.
Circling above the battle Malus groped in the sleeve of his robe and brought out a crystal sphere just large enough to fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. It was held in a net that was tied to his wrist so he would not lose it and the netting made it harder than normal to concentrate. Still the picture was clear enough.
Peering into the crystal he saw that there were a number of other things in the air, but little enough magic.
Fumbling in his other sleeve he produced a light hazel wand. It wasn’t as powerful or as impressive as his normal staff, but it was much easier to handle on dragon back. He kept his eyes fixed on the crystal as he raised his arm above his head and began to chant.
Craig’s screen started to fill with magically generated hash. He quickly applied a filter function to the image and some of the interference faded, but what was left pulsed rhythmically and seemed to beat against itself like a badly tuned instrument, creating irregular patches of dark and light on his screen.
The magical sensors were worse. The screen filled with glowing blobs of amorphous color that made it look like a neon lava light. Craig swore under his breath and started combining the output of various kinds of sensors and tinkering with filters until he got his best picture.
Vaguely Craig realized he hadn’t been smart in setting this system up. Everything flowed back to his command center, but he could only concentrate on a few facets of the battle at one time. There was too much happening for him to coordinate the defense. He would have to rely on the sensors and programming built into his warbots and other weapons. Which was fine, only there was no way for those weapons to coordinate without direct orders from his command center.
Still, he had a lot of weapons.
“What’s going on up there?” Gilligan demanded.
Karin shaded her eyes and squinted. “I cannot see. No, wait! Those are dragons. Ridden dragons and they are attacking.” She looked at Gilligan. “Those are my people.”
“Can we signal them?”
“They are too high and too fully engaged.” She picked up her bow and started back toward the castle. “Come on. We must help them.”
“How?”
She looked over her shoulder. “We will think of something, now come if you are coming.” She trotted off with Stigi humping along beside her. Gilligan had to run to catch up.
Thorfin looked at his leader’s boot soles and scowled. It seemed as if they had been climbing for hours. First up the steep outer wall, then in through a gun port and finally up through the castle’s ventilation ducts. There was plenty of room, but the wind was almost strong enough to pluck a dwarf from the wall and every few hundred yards they had to unfasten a grating that blocked the duct. Twice they had narrowly avoided the whirling blades of huge ventilation fans that threatened to turn the whole expedition into dwarf tartare. And still they climbed onward. Glandurg stopped every few minutes to check his locating talisman, but it always told them the Sparrow was above them.
I never realized glory was such hard work, Thorfin thought as Glandurg missed a foothold and kicked him in the face.
* * *
“Look,” said Jerry. “Do you have any idea where we are?”
The four of them were standing at the crossing of four identical corridors. There were no floor numbers, room numbers or anything else to give them a clue.
“One of the upper floors of the castle,” Wiz told him.
“In other words we’re lost, right?”
“No, I know where we are. I just don’t know where the computer is.”
Jerry growled. “Okay, let’s do this systematically. Lannach says the computer is in the room where you met Craig and Mikey, right?” Wiz nodded. “We know the room has an outside wall because it had a big window, right?”
Again the nod.
“So let’s go to the outside wall, put our left hands against it and follow it around, checking every door as we go. Eventually we’ve got to find the right room.”
“There are hundreds of rooms on this floor,” Danny protested.
“All the more reason we need a system.”
“Okay,” Wiz said. “There’s the outside wall. Let’s do it.”
All four of them put their left hands on the wall and started walking single file. The first room they came to was empty. The second held a mass of machinery that was obviously not the computer.
“This looks more like it,” said Wiz as they came to the third door. It was wider than the others and almost as high as the corridor.
Wiz opened the door and looked inside. Ranked along the walls in the dark were a dozen heavily armed robots, all motionless. Suddenly the lights came on, the robots jerked erect and a dozen metal heads swiveled toward the door.
The programmers didn’t wait for the rest. Wiz threw fireballs, Danny threw lightning bolts and Jerry hit them with some kind of spell that made them crumble to powder. A couple of laser beams flashed over their heads and left burning furrows in the wall behind them. The heat activated the fire sprinklers, drenching all four of them with water.
June looked up at the rain magically coming from the ceiling and laughed at the wonder of it all. Wiz choked on the smell of fried, electrocuted, powdered robot and shook his head to get the water out of his eyes.
He glared up at Jerry. “You and your system.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the system. It’s just that if you follow it you are certain to find everything on this floor.”
“Most of which we don’t want to find. Okay, we’ll keep following the wall, but from now on we don’t open any doors unless they look really promising.”
Karin stopped so quickly Mick almost ran into her. She turned, put her finger to her lips and gestured around the corner. Cautiously Mick peeked around. There was a door there, set at the end of a narrow corridor back into the wall. There were also six things out of someone’s nightmare guarding it. They were big, ugly, armored, and armed to the teeth.
He ducked back and looked at Karin. Go the other way? he pantomimed and Karin nodded.
Just then Stigi decided to see what was so interesting. He stuck out his neck, thrust his head fully around the corner and snorted in curiosity.
With a wild yell the guards charged forward.
“Shit,” Gilligan said, fumbling for his shoulder holster. Before Karin could draw her bow, he stepped around the corner, dropped to a semi-crouch and fired two-handed.
Eight shots rang out in the confined space and all six of the guards were down.
Karin’s eyes widened at the sight.
“Well done,” she said. “Now, shall we use the door they were guarding?”
At that moment the door flew open and a solid mass of the manlike monsters charged out waving swords, spears and other less identifiable, more nasty, weapons.
Instinctively Gilligan dropped into his shooters’ stance, but Karin grabbed his arm and pulled him down.
With a whoosh and a roar Stigi let go with a blast of flame.
The effect on the packed mass was instant and appalling. The things shriveled, screamed, burst into flame, and died in the ranks.
Again the whoosh and another lance of dragon fire struck the remaining attackers. Black smoke boiled off charred flesh and the stink was appalling. Here and there came a series of explosions as ammunition in guards’ bandoleers ignited.
And then there were no more attackers. Gilligan looked at the blackened mass in front of him and was almost sick. He’d seen people burned to death in air crashes before, but not on this scale. Karin had gone deathly pale under the layer of reddish dust.
“Let’s get inside,” he said. Carefully they picked their way through the grisly remains, trying to touch as little as possible.
“My God,” Gilligan breathed, “will you look at this place?”
The room was enormous. The ceiling was at least a hundred feet above them and it stretched out proportionally in all directions. In the center of the brightly lit area were half a dozen huge robots in various stages of construction with smaller robots swarming over them like worker ants. As they watched a traveling crane maneuvered a torso section over the legs and hips of one of the robots.
“It’s a factory,” he said, awed.
None of the robots paid the least heed to their unexpected visitors. They kept right on working.
Gilligan motioned and led Karin and Stigi along the wall and around the assembly area.
“There’s got to be another way out of here. No way those robots could get through the door we just came through.”
They were halfway around the room when another giant robot stepped out of the shadows behind them.
Karin screamed, Stigi whirled, inhaled and spouted a gout of flame. The robot stepped forward inexorably and raised its laser arm.
Craig had designed the robot with a magic power source, a magically reinforced body and magic sensors and control links. But the design was essentially technological. He hadn’t considered what might happen if his creation stepped in front of a giant flame thrower.
The robot’s first bolt went wild into the ceiling, knocking hot rock down on the three and burning a red afterimage in Mick’s vision. Then the chips in the control circuits overheated and failed. The robot pinwheeled its arms wildly and its glittering torso twisted from right to left and back again. Then the seals in the hydraulic cylinders in its legs and hips failed from the heat and contact with the boiling hydraulic fluid. The thing lost hydraulic power in a gush of robotic incontinence, tottered and fell face-first into a puddle of smoking hydraulic fluid. The floor shook, but the robot workers paid no attention.
Stigi stalked forward and sniffed disdainfully at his kill. Then he stepped daintily around the puddle-or as daintily as you can when you’re eighty feet long and in a confined space-and continued on his way.
The main door out of the assembly area was on the same scale as the rest of the factory. Fortunately it was also open.
“Now, where do we go from here?”
“Up I would think,” Karin said. “Their commanders would want to be as high as possible to see as much as they could.”
Gilligan didn’t bother to point out to her that it didn’t work that way when you had radar and advanced sensors.
“Think we can get Stigi upstairs?” he asked.
“Oh yes, Stigi is not afraid of heights.” She frowned. “Though this place is so tall it may take us hours to reach the top.”
Remembering how high the fortress looked from the outside Gilligan thought that was a wild underestimate.
Then he caught sight of something. “Wait a minute, we may not have to walk. Look at this.”
Set in the far wall was a freight elevator big enough to take a semi. “They must use this to move robots. If it will carry one of them it will sure hold Stigi.”
It took a little doing to get the dragon into the elevator. If Stigi wasn’t afraid of heights, he wasn’t very fond of confined spaces and to him an elevator big enough to move the Space Shuttle was still a confined space. He started alarmingly when the elevator began to move and for a moment Gilligan was afraid he was going to crush them both. But Karin stood by his head, stroking him and telling him what a good dragon he was.
Stigi calmed down but every so often he would glare over at Gilligan in a way that said he understood perfectly well Mick was to blame for all this and some day he would get even.
The elevator lurched to a stop and the doors opened. “End of the line,” Gilligan said.
He drew his pistol and peered out. They seemed to be in some sort of service area. The floors were bare concrete and the light fixtures were Spartan. Scattered about were a number of pieces of equipment Gilligan didn’t recognize and a thing like a metal octopus that was obviously a cleaning robot of some kind. At least it had a floor buffer built into its base.
As Craig studied his screen, a new symbol sprang up at the very bottom.
One of his scouts had located the attacker’s main communications relay.
“Get that relay,” Craig screamed into the screen. On the periphery of the battle a demi-wing of two squadrons wheeled and raced to do his bidding.
“Shield flight, you have sixteen enemy incoming. I say again, sixteen incoming.”
“Understood. Sixteen incoming,” Elke repeated into her communications crystal.
There were only five other dragons and riders at her back.
What was it the strange sorceress had called this? A “target-rich environment.” To hell with that. She called it being plain old-fashioned outnumbered.
She signaled her command and the dragons wheeled and spread out into the attack formation they had practiced so many times at the Capital. Off in a far corner of her mind Elke realized she wasn’t frightened, just terribly, terribly busy.
The fighters came in hugging the ground to escape radar detection, but that did nothing to shield them from magic. Elke and the Watcher both saw them coming.
Almost directly beneath their quarry the flight of metal shapes arrowed upward, jets thundering as they climbed toward their target.
Far above them Elke winged her dragon over into a steep dive. Out of the corners of her eyes she saw the dragons to her left and right fold their wings back and follow her down.
Her instructors might not have approved. The formation was loose and dragons were slowed by the objects they grasped in their talons. But it was closing with the enemy and that was all that mattered.
The targeting spell for the new weapons she carried began to sing. Before her eyes lines of glowing green merged into cross hairs and rectangle of her target sight. She kept staring intently at the specks below her, moving her head slightly to center them in the crosshairs, listening intently all the while. Then the squadron leader heard the bone-quivering hum in her ear that told her the weapon had locked on. She reached out and touched a stud on her saddle.
A trail of smoke sprang from the box in the dragon’s claw as the air-to-air missile leaped free of its launcher. Beside and behind her other trails of dirty gray smoke streaked the sky as the rest of her flight fired.
The squadron leader eased back on the reins and hauled her dragon around into a tight spiraling turn. Below her fourteen missiles raced toward their targets. In spite of their magical components, the guidance systems were essentially technological. They looked for the brightest radar returns in the sky. Dragons and the relay they were guarding returned only small echoes but the climbing fighters stood out sharply.
The fighters were hardly sitting ducks. Their radar sensors picked up the missiles as soon as they launched and the attackers broke and jinked all over the sky in an effort to break the radar locks, scattering flares and packets of chaff behind them.
For half of the fighters it was enough. Eight of their companions exploded in balls of black and orange as the missiles found them but the others continued to climb toward the relay demon.
Elke counted the explosions and nodded to herself. Well, they’d been warned that some might get through. But the survivors had lost momentum. That gave her squadron opening enough.
Again she led her dragons into a screaming dive into the midst of the attackers.
The fighters filled the air with ECM, flares dropped free with magnesium radiance that briefly outshone the sun and chaff bloomed everywhere around them.
None of which mattered in the slightest. Dragons, even missile-armed dragons, don’t carry radar and the forces were too close for missiles. Now the defenders relied on the traditional weapons of the dragon cavalry. Bursts of dragon fire ripped at the metal shapes. Then the great bows sang and iron arrows leaped toward their targets. Planes cartwheeled across the sky or dropped like stones as flames and death arrows found their marks.
One lone fighter pulled away from the melee, climbing toward the relay station. Elke lined her dragon up on the metal enemy and touched the second stud on her saddle. Again smoke streaked from the dragon’s claws as a second missile sprang free. But there was no pulse of radar energy to warn the aircraft. Instead Elke held the missile on course by manipulating the stud with her thumb, always keeping it centered in the glowing orange rectangle. The missile traveled up the plane’s tailpipe and blew it out of the sky before the aircraft or its controllers even knew it was there.
In his castle, Craig cursed and pounded his fist on the table. But he had other things to command his attention.
Well, it wasn’t the first time he had lost heavily in the early moves and gone on to win the campaign. The enemy couldn’t do jack shit unless they could penetrate his fortress. They hadn’t hit his outworks yet. When they did things would be different.
Vaguely he wondered where the hell Mikey was and what he was doing.
The wind whistled and whipped like knives of ice around the high, dark spire where Mikey stood. He could sense rather than see the formless shapes that pulsated and moved in the freezing distance beneath his feet.
A single wan pool of yellow light illuminated his workbench. For the last time he checked the spell before him.
It was a complex shape about the size of his head and so dark as to be beyond black.
Mikey caressed the thing, oblivious to its piercing chill. At last it was ready.
We are prepared. The voice pulsed in his ears like his own blood. We wait.
With a gesture Mikey killed the light on the workbench. Then he clasped the sphere to him and started down from his high place.
The guardsmen and wizards advanced in loose order over the barren ground.
Actually, Donal thought, “loose order” was a misnomer. A “swarm of gaggles” was more like it.
But this was the formation they had been advised to use. Having seen pictures of their likely opponents Donal was all for it. Absently he reached back and touched the tube slung across his back. He hoped it was as good as advertised.
So far they had met no real opposition on the ground. The shelling had died down to a background rumble. Once a cluster of gray metal things swooped down on them with fire and explosions. But between their wizards’ lightning bolts and the timely intervention of a wing of dragons there had been very little damage done.
Up ahead a door opened in the castle wall and several things shaped like men stepped out.
Either we’re a hundred paces from the castle, Donal thought, or those things are giants. He signaled his squad to spread out and take cover. Seemingly oblivious to the oncoming metal giants, the guardsmen responded as they had been drilled.
A lance of fire slashed into the earth so close to him he could smell the ozone stink. Behind him bullets beat a tattoo into the dirt. Donal jammed the point of his sword into the ground and brought the dull green tube slung across his back around and over his shoulder. As methodically as he had been taught he flipped up the sights and lined them up on the giant robot.
The tube bobbed up and down as he followed his target and then he squeezed the trigger. The tube bucked slightly and Donal dropped and rolled just before another blast of laser energy rent the place where he had been standing.
When he looked up the robot was swaying uncertainly, its right knee a smoking ruin. Before he could get to his hands and knees two more explosions blossomed on the giant torso. It swayed forward once more and then toppled like a felled tree.
In his tower Craig swore viciously. His warbots were programmed to fight other warbots or dragons, not infantry with anti-tank missiles. He’d have to override and run this action himself. He slapped a button on his console, but nothing happened.
“Get me a control link!” he yelled into his microphone.
“We are trying, dread master,” came a voice in his ear, “but there is something wrong in the transmitter.”
“Then switch to the alternate,” Craig yelled.
“That was the alternate,” the voice said. “Maintenance estimates it will have the primary repaired in three point oh eight minutes.”
“Shit!” Craig slumped back in his chair. This was like playing on a night when you couldn’t make a saving roll for love or money. Well, three minutes wouldn’t make that much difference in that part of the battle and there were plenty of other places he could put his time.
Meanwhile, was it his imagination or did he hear a high-pitched sound coming from his display console-a sound like a very small giggle?
“My palm’s sore,” Danny complained.
“Well, don’t drag it along the wall,” Jerry told him. “I didn’t mean that literally anyway.”
Even investigating only the likely looking doors it seemed that it was taking forever to check out the rooms. Even this high up the castle was much bigger than Wiz had imagined.
The next set of doors didn’t look like anything Wiz remembered, but they were big and probably important. He was just about to punch the button when they slid open and he found himself face-to-face with a dirty, unshaven man in a tattered flight suit waving a pistol. Over the man’s shoulder Wiz could see an equally dirty and disheveled woman and a large dragon.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
“Major Michael Gilligan, United States Air Force. Who the hell are you?”
“This is the Sparrow,” Karin put in, stepping forward. “He is the mighty wizard I told you of.” She sketched a curtsey. “Well met, my Lord.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Raising hell,” Gilligan told him.
“My Lords, the League is attacking the castle,” Karin said breathlessly.
“I know. Look, can you get a message back to the Capital? They need to know we’re alive.”
Karin’s face fell. “Alas, my Lord, the enemy is jamming our communications.”
“Damn,” Wiz said, entirely without heat. “All right. We’re searching this floor for a computer these guys are using to cook up something really nasty. Can you help us?”
“Of course, my Lord.” Karin bobbed another curtsey.
“Okay by me,” Gilligan said. “You really from the USA?”
“Cupertino,” Wiz shrugged. “It’s pretty much the same thing.”
“Hot damn!” Danny said, looking up at Stigi. “Firepower!”
“You might say that,” Gilligan said, thinking of the pile of charred bodies by the gate.
“Come on then, and keep your eyes peeled. We’ve run into all sorts of things.”
A couple of hundred more yards and two more uninteresting rooms and they came to a broad cross corridor that was carpeted in a different color and more richly finished than any they had seen so far.
“I recognize this!” Wiz said. “This is the way to the computer room.”
“Great!” said Danny as he stepped in front of Wiz and out into the center of the corridor. “Let’s go . . .”
A bolt of green radiance lashed down the corridor and caught Danny square in the back. He pitched forward and dropped like a sack of sand. June screamed and rushed toward him, heedless of the bolts of energy crackling around her.
Down the corridor came a packed mass of goblin troops, the ones in front firing ray guns.
Gilligan stepped forward, dropped to one knee and braced the pistol in both hands, elbow resting on knee. Three well-placed shots dropped the leaders and the rest hesitated for a moment.
Then Wiz started throwing fireballs.
“Stigi,” Karin’s voice rose over the noise. “Forward.”
Stepping past June kneeling over Danny, the dragon shouldered Gilligan and Wiz out of the way and advanced down the corridor. The guards reformed and came on, energy bolts scoring the walls ahead. If any of them hit Stigi he didn’t show it. Instead he breathed deeply and sent a gout of flame washing down the corridor.
That was the final straw. The attacking guards broke and ran.
Wiz bent over Danny, but June bared her teeth and hissed at him. The young programmer’s shirt was burned away and the flesh beneath was charred and smoking. Wiz could see the white of bone from his ribs and spine. He was still breathing, but his breath was coming in great harsh gasps.
“He’s dying,” Jerry said quietly. His eyes were big and his face pale.
“Lord, unless you have powerful healing spells I am afraid this one is done for,” Karin said quietly to Wiz.
“No,” Wiz said without taking his eyes off Danny. “Nothing like that.”
“Then I am truly sorry, my Lord.”
“Goddamn!” Wiz breathed. If skilled healers could reach him in the next few minutes he still had a chance. But there were no healers among them and no way to get Danny to a healer in time. They could not walk the Wizard’s Way from inside the castle. The opposing magic was too strong. There just wasn’t time.
Time!
Quickly Wiz knelt again and reached for his friend’s arm. June bared her teeth again and fumbled in her skirt for her knife.
“I’m trying to save him, dammit!” June looked hard at him, but she relaxed slightly.
Wiz reached out and touched the ring of protection Danny still wore on his right hand. Before June could object he twisted the stone and Danny froze in stasis as the protection spell took hold.
“He’s all right,” Wiz said to June. “Don’t you see? The spell will keep him safe until we can get him back to a healer.” June looked down at her husband and bit her lip, but she made no move to touch the ring.
“Help me carry him further down the corridor.” He turned to Karin. “I don’t think there are any more branches off this corridor until we get to the computer room. Once we move Danny, can you back your dragon up past the intersection and hold them off here?”
Karin nodded.
“Great. Jerry, help me move him. We don’t have to be too gentle. Stasis is better than a backboard.”
“Then what?” asked Gilligan, looking down the corridor in the direction their attackers had fled.
“Then,” Wiz said in a hard cold voice, “we’re gonna find that goddamn computer and stomp a couple of people flat.”
Craig sat glued to his workstation and played as he had never played in his life. Slowly it dawned on him that this wasn’t just a couple of early setbacks. He was losing.
It wasn’t all one-sided. He was hurting them plenty, but it wasn’t enough. His carefully constructed defenses were washing away like sand. His warbots were powerful but the attackers were hitting him in ways they weren’t programmed to handle. If he took direct command of a unit he could do pretty well, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once and besides, his damn communications kept failing.
A motion at the corner of his screen caught his eye. There, superimposed on the glowing battle display, was a little manlike being perhaps six inches high. Unlike the rest of the screen image it was in full color and high resolution.
The thing turned toward him and pressed its face and palms against the inside of the tube, as if it was looking out. It wasn’t an image, Craig realized, there really was something inside his monitor!
The tiny being turned and gestured across the screen. Another manlike little thing stuck its head around the edge of the screen and peered at the world outside. Behind and around it the battle display scrolled on, unnoticed by the gremlins or by Craig.
The first creature tossed a glowing ball into the air and batted it with his free hand. The ball flew across the screen leaving a glowing trail behind it. The second thing leaped up and deflected it before it could touch the far side of the screen. The ball bounced off the bottom and ricocheted toward the upper right corner, smearing a goodly portion of the display. The first creature made a mighty jump and deflected it back toward the bottom left. His opponent dived for it, but the ball bounced over his head and off the side of the screen. The first gremlin chortled and held up a single finger.
Craig watched helplessly as his screen filled up with the lines of the ball tracks.
“Maintenance!” he yelled.
“He’s off this way,” Glandurg called back to his companions. “Down this side shaft, now.”
No more climbing for a bit, Glandurg thought. That’s a piece of good news. Although he never would have admitted it, he was just about done for. His arms and shoulders ached from clinging to fingerholds in the ventilation shaft and his calves and thighs were cramping from pressing his body flat against the wall. It would be a relief to just walk for a while.
He didn’t know how far they had climbed; a league or more, perhaps. But at last the arrow in the talisman had stopped pointing upward and was pointing off to the side.
As he started down the horizontal shaft, Glandurg reached back to touch the hilt of Blind Fury. Soon enough they’d be done with this climbing and sneaking into honest battle.
He wondered if battle was as exciting as the skald’s tales made it out to be.
It took nearly fifteen precious minutes for the maintenance robots to fix the display on Craig’s workstation. By the time he was back in control the situation had deteriorated even more. The last of his air force had been swept from the skies, and with it all of his recon drones. Now he was reduced to viewing the battle through the cameras and sensors mounted on the castle itself. Two critical outposts had fallen and even as he attempted to assert control a third one went.
In the southern quadrant the attackers were almost up to the last line of defenses at the base of the castle walls. Craig turned his attention there. Quickly he switched to one of the cameras on a forward emplacement to try to find a weak spot. He still had a couple of squadrons of warbots he could throw into the battle here, but he would have to command them directly if they were going to be any good.
As he scanned the line of approaching men, a shadow fell over the camera. He swiveled up in time to see a dragon diving straight at him. He flinched and tried to bring a weapon to bear but it was too late. The last view Craig had was of gaping jaws and an enormous golden eye as the dragon crashed head-on into the emplacement.
Cursing, he switched to an alternate view only to get a jerky low-resolution picture that barely resolved itself into blobs of light and dark. Two more switches and he found a camera high up on the walls that was working.
What he saw wasn’t good. Lines of dotlike figures, rendered tiny by the distance, were converging on the gates of the castle. Many of them were too close for the artillery, and the machine guns were strangely ineffective.
Some of the figures went down to energy beams or mines, but many more did not. They swarmed over the smoking ruins of his defenses and began to disappear down the tunnels.
Frantically, Craig ordered all his remaining robots to the lower levels to try to stem the attackers.
And then it was all too much. Craig turned and bolted from his war room, leaving the defenses entirely on automatic. He just couldn’t face any more fighting and losing.
Mikey! Mikey was working on something. Maybe Panda, the master hacker, could pull this out of the fire for them yet.
Mikey was sitting on a bench cradling something in his lap. As Craig came closer he saw it looked a lot like the figure that had been growing on the computer screen.
“We’ve got trouble, man.”
“No we don’t,” Mikey said softly. “We’ve won.”
“Goddamn it, they’re all over the fucking castle!”
Mikey looked up at him and smiled. For the first time Craig saw the mad, red glint in his eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” he said almost gently. “It’s all working according to plan.
“I was wrong about you, Craig,” he went on in the same gentle, hair-raising tone. “You and your robots were important. You were a wonderful diversion. The robots got them to grab the computer. All we had to do was bring them here. Now we’ll crush them. We’ll just fucking annihilate them.”
He caressed the black sphere in his lap. “We own the world. We own both worlds. And we’re going to prove it.”
Craig drew back in horror.
“You’re fucking crazy!”
“No man, I’m sane. Crazy is letting these fucking maggots walk all over you.”
He reached out and patted Craig’s forearm in a way that made Craig’s flesh creep.
“You did good, you know. You kept them so goddamn busy chasing around after your toys they never had a chance to focus on the serious stuff.” He caressed the thing in his lap.
“They couldn’t get at it. Did you know that? For all their power they couldn’t make what they needed without us. They needed the computer. And they needed us.”
Craig stared in horrified fascination.
“You see what that means, don’t you?” Mikey was talking to himself now, looking down at the black thing in his lap, crooning to it. “It means they’re not all-powerful. We can do things they can’t and that means we’re more powerful than they are.
“When I get done I’m gonna be master of all I survey.” He chuckled and his eyes glinted even redder, like live coals. “I’m gonna rule the whole goddamn world.”
Craig backed away from his former friend and then turned and ran.
There were problems, Glandurg admitted, even with an infallible magic direction finder.
It was undoubtedly pointing at the Sparrow, but it didn’t show the way to go to get to him. That was a problem when you were in a maze of ductwork that ran only in straight lines and right angles. A half-dozen times now they had followed the arrow directly only to be balked by a dead end. Glandurg suspected the Sparrow was moving around also. But so far they hadn’t gotten close enough to be sure.
They didn’t want to leave the vents. The roars, screams, explosions and gunfire echoing through the vents-not to mention the smell of burnt flesh-made it clear there was a battle going on out there.
“He is over this way,” Glandurg told his weary followers. “Forward.”
“We can’t go that way,” Thorfin protested.
“And why not?”
“Because it’s a blind tunnel, that’s why.”
“He’s right you know,” Snorri put in. “We’ve been there twice already.”
“I’m the leader and I say we bloody go this way!”
“You may be the leader, but you’ve got the sense of direction of a blind pig,” Thorfin said without heat.
“ ‘S’truth,” young Gimli added. “Remember the sewage tunnel back home.”
Glandurg reddened and puffed up like a toad. Then he got control of himself and exhaled slowly.
“Very well,” he bit out. “For this job I will appoint a scout. Snorri, you go first to find the way. But I’m still the leader, mind!”
Without a word, Snorri moved past Glandurg and led the party off.
What now? Craig tried desperately to think. The lower levels were already overrun, the control center was out of commission and he didn’t even want to think about what Mikey was up to. It couldn’t end like this. Not after so much. But now what?
It took him a minute to separate the shrill tone in his ear from the background noise of the battle and a minute longer to realize what it meant. The computer room! Someone had reached the computer room already. He touched a stud on his bracelet and the tiny screen lit up with a view of the computer room. He gaped at what he saw.
Zumwalt and the others were with the computer! Craig slapped his palm against his forehead and swore. A trojan horse! He’d brought them into the castle himself and they’d turned out to be a trojan horse. No wonder half his equipment wasn’t working. They must have been sabotaging it for days.
Craig looked at the tiny image and felt his gorge rise. Somehow those sonsofbitches were responsible for everything that had gone wrong since he got here. They were behind his defeat, his every loss.
Well, maybe he’d lose, but they sure as hell weren’t going to profit by it!
He turned on his heel and ran down the corridor, away from the War Room and toward his private workshop.
* * *
Craig met nothing in the halls. The robots and goblins were all fighting elsewhere. Half the lights were out and the elevators didn’t work. Now and again the sound of battle or a muffled explosion would reach him by some trick of acoustics, but otherwise the castle was deathly silent. Even the air tasted stale and he realized the air conditioning system had quit.
The automatic door opener wasn’t working either, so Craig had to use a spell to burn his way into his own workshop. Once inside, he pulled the door shut behind him and looked around.
There in the middle of the room, surrounded by scaffolding and equipment, was his latest creation: A full suit of Legion battle armor with some special improvements that no game master would ever have allowed.
The bottle-green armor glinted dully in the bright lights of the shop. It was almost twelve feet tall and so broad it looked squat by comparison. There was no neck, only a low rounded dome for a head. The arms were enormous, with oversized forearms to accommodate the blasters and heavy machine guns mounted in them. The hands were six-taloned metal claws, sharp as razors and hard enough to tear through armor steel. The legs were elephantine in proportion with all the actuators hidden behind layers of super-strong flexible armor.
It was hunched forward until its metal claws almost touched the ground and the upper back was opened up like a clam shell. In spite of his anger and haste, Craig stopped to pat the massive knee joint and look up approvingly.
Everything he knew, everything he had learned, was incorporated in this one lethal package. It wasn’t as big as his warbots, but thanks to the power of magic it was nearly as heavily armed. It could run at over a hundred miles an hour and slam through walls and buildings as if they were not there. Instead of jump jets it had anti-gravity plates that would let it fly from the surface of the planet out into space if the wearer wished. It could withstand a nuclear explosion and its own firepower was measured in kilotons per second. It was the ultimate warbot, the culmination of his dreams of power.
And now it existed for just one purpose. To destroy the people who had caused his ruin.
Craig mounted the scaffold and chinned himself on the grab bar to ease his legs into the suit. He wiggled the rest of his body in, fitting arms and legs into the sensor harnesses. Finally he touched a switch and the back sections slid noiselessly shut behind him.
He watched the screen displays for a moment as the power gauges rose levels and the view out the front port came alive with a network of glowing lines and cryptic inscriptions. A breath of cool air washed over him as the climate control system activated. This was one design that could stand up to dragon fire and not even feel it.
Once he was sure everything was operational, he stood erect and stepped away from the scaffolding, brushing it aside with a casual gesture that sent pieces ricocheting off the workshop walls. He turned and stepped lithely toward the door. As he passed the workbench he reached down and scooped up the thermonuclear hand grenades lying there. Maybe they would be good for something after all, he thought as he dropped them into a pouch on the armor.
Stigi couldn’t use his tail, but that didn’t matter much. He very nearly blocked the passage physically. The attackers’ only approach was through a mass of fire and straight into the dragon’s fangs and claws.
Even if the castle guards had been equipped with dragon-slaying arrows it would have been hard to take Stigi out. As it happened that wasn’t part of their equipment and so the problem was very nearly impossible. Warbots might have been able to handle Stigi, but they had all been sent to the lower levels to confront the League forces battling their way up through the castle.
Not that the guards stopped trying. They came on until their charred bodies reached nearly to the ceiling and then they climbed over the smoking corpses to keep coming. By the sheer mass of their onslaught they managed to force Stigi back a pace or two with every attack. But it was a long, straight corridor and Stigi had lots of room to back up.
* * *
The door at the end of the corridor was locked, but that didn’t stop Wiz.
He wasn’t fancy about it, he just used a fireball to blow the lock off. Almost without breaking stride he kicked the door open and stepped through. Jerry and Mick were hard on his heels.
The computer was sitting in the middle of the floor, almost exactly where Wiz’s double had been standing when Mikey hit him with the fireball. It was up and running quietly away with the image of the key rotating slowly on the screen.
“Is it my imagination,” Jerry asked, “or is that thing a lot more detailed than the last time we saw it?”
“Your imagination’s not that good. Let’s smash the computer and go get Craig and Mikey.” Wiz raised his arms to throw another fireball, but Jerry put his hand on his shoulder.
“You’re not thinking. Without the key how are we going to close the gate?”
Wiz turned his head and looked at him. “What’s your plan?”
“Make a copy of the file first. Binary representation should be as good as any other for the purposes of spell casting.”
Wiz dropped his arms and nodded. From down the corridor came roars and yells as Stigi held the entrance. “We’ve got the time. Let’s do it.”
Craig heard the fight in the corridor as soon as he stepped off the stairs. The din echoed and re-echoed through the entire level of the castle. His sensors reported combustion byproducts in the air, including some that came from burning flesh. Finally he saw the carpet of bodies in the corridor leading to the computer room. Cautiously he stuck his massively armored head around the corner.
The smoke was so thick he had to resort to his sensors to see what was happening. Up ahead was a packed mass of warriors, some living, some dead and some wounded and down. Every one who could move was pressing ahead. As he watched the scene was backlit by an enormous gout of flame that turned the figures to black silhouettes against a fiery background.
With his battle armor he could undoubtedly charge through the mass and handle whatever was blocking his guards. But that would take time. What he wanted was to get his hands on Zumwalt as fast as possible.
He turned and ran back the way he came. Plenty of time to finish this bunch later.
Several hundred yards and a number of turnings later he was in the corridor leading to the side entrance to the computer room. He had only gone a few yards when he heard a rhythmic banging coming from an alcove ahead of him.
In the alcove two light warbots were beating their heads against the wall, literally. They would step forward, run into the wall, bounce back and then step forward again. From the looks of the wall they had been doing it for some time.
“Halt!” Craig ordered and the robots froze in midstep. Quickly he ran diagnostics and found the robots had a bug screwing up their obstacle-avoidance routines. Fortunately they were light warbots or they would have long since walked through the wall.
A couple of quick commands and the warbots were functional again.
“Follow me,” Craig ordered and set off down the corridor with the two killing machines at his heels.
“Come on, damn you,” Wiz muttered, but the tape cartridge spun on unheeding. He only wanted one file, but the file was enormous. The tape backup was designed for reliability over speed; its designers had never imagined someone would have to transfer information to tape in the middle of a battle.
“They’re in there,” Snorri reported breathlessly. “I can hear them.”
“At last.” Glandurg thrust his scout out of the way. He turned to the others. “I will go first. Remember, give me room in battle to wield Blind Fury.”
His followers nodded. Glandurg motioned the others to follow him and trotted forward, Blind Fury slapping against his back at every step.
Craig paused outside the door to the computer room. One more thing. He took a thermonuclear grenade from his belt pouch and pulled the pin. Now the only thing preventing a multi-megaton explosion was his clawed grip around the grenade. If anything happened and he loosened his hand, everyone in the tower would die in a flash of nuclear fire.
Then he kicked down the door.
The side door to the computer room fell in with a crash and Craig and his robots stormed in. Gilligan was at the main door watching the fight in the corridor and Wiz and Jerry were at the console waiting for the download to finish. All of them jerked up at the sight of the three armored apparitions bearing down on them.
“Kill!” Craig screamed. The robot to his left took one step forward, caught one foot behind the other and tripped headlong with a metallic crash. The second robot raised both its arms to sweep its built-in lasers across the group.
“Drop,” Gilligan yelled and all of them pressed themselves to the floor as the beams of ruby incandescence swept toward them.
Wiz felt something gently warm across his back, unsquinched his eyes and looked up. The robot’s head swiveled back and forth as it looked from one gently glowing arm to another. It nodded twice, executed an about-face and marched headlong into the wall.
“Oh shit!” Craig screamed. Then he went for Wiz.
He could have used his blasters. He could have used his machine guns. He could have let go of the thermonuclear grenade. Instead he lumbered forward with one taloned hand outstretched. He didn’t just want to kill Zumwalt, he wanted to tear him apart, to trample him beneath the battle armor’s steel feet until there was nothing left but a thin red smear on the computer room floor.
Wiz dodged the first swipe of the hand by ducking under the massive arm. He got a desk between himself and Craig, but Craig picked the desk up one handed and threw it across the room. There was a terrific crash as the flying desk hit the window wall and the sheets of glass collapsed.
Mick Gilligan dropped to one knee and emptied his pistol at Craig. He ejected the empty magazine, slammed another home and kept on firing. Bullets bounced off Craig’s armor and ricocheted wildly around the laboratory, knocking up puffs of rock dust when they hit the wall and leaving neat holes in what was left of the big window.
Craig swiveled and pointed the arm holding the grenade at the pilot. A beam of roiling green fire lanced out. Mick dove for cover, but the very edge of the blaster bolt caught his left arm and side. He went down moaning.
Then Craig turned back to Wiz. Inexorably he closed in with one arm outstretched and his claws gaping. Wiz backed away, trying to dodge behind furniture. Craig kicked one piece after another out of his path as he herded Wiz back into a corner.
“Die, Wizard!”
In a single motion Glandurg kicked the grille free and sprang from the vent, screaming his war cry and brandishing Blind Fury. The enchanted sword hummed through the air in a mighty blow aimed straight at Wiz’s neck. At the last minute the blade twisted and struck Craig’s battle armor, slicing through the armor plate just above the knee joint.
Craig stopped and looked down in wonder at the oil and fluids gushing out of the cut. Slowly and almost gently the leg collapsed under him and he sank to one knee. Wiz just stared open-mouthed.
Undaunted, Glandurg drew back and struck at Wiz two-handed. Again the sword twisted, this time upward to catch Craig in his massively armored chest. Again the sword bit deep, cleaving through magically enhanced armor and what lay beneath it.
The suit’s speakers amplified Craig’s scream to a deafening level. Sparks and fluids poured out of the gaping wound in his chest. He rose on his good leg and tried to stagger back. The suit’s gyros moaned as they worked to hold him upright, then screeched as the bearings failed for lack of lubricant. Craig rocked backward, caught himself, overcorrected and fell forward just as Glandurg brought Blind Fury down in a mighty overhead chop to cleave Wiz in half.
Instead the enchanted sword connected with the back of the battle armor’s domed head. Blind Fury went deep and came out with the tip stained with a wash of crimson. The battle armor jerked convulsively and then lay still.
Glandurg looked down at the fallen metal giant, over at Wiz and up at his bloodstained blade.
“Shit,” he said.
Then he looked down at his feet. A gray, egg-shaped object had rolled clear of the armor’s lax hand. Now it lay on the floor between the dwarf and his quarry hissing quietly.
The dwarves didn’t know what the thing was, but their magic told them it was dangerous. Very dangerous.
“Run away!” Glandurg yelled to his men. It was wasted breath. The dwarves had turned as one and jumped for the air vent. There was a mad scramble as dwarves bounced off each other in mid-air, pushed one another out of the way and tried to squeeze three dwarves through an opening that wasn’t big enough for two. Glandurg wasn’t the first through the vent, but he wasn’t the last either.
Wiz and the others pressed themselves flat behind the console as the grenade hissed evilly. Then the hissing stopped. Wiz jammed his fingers in his ears and squinched his eyes tightly shut waiting for the explosion.
At last he opened his eyes, took his fingers out of his ears and cautiously peered around the corner of the console.
The deadly gray egg still lay in the middle of the room, rocking gently. As Wiz watched, the fuse protruding from one end slowly unscrewed itself and fell to the floor. A tiny head poked out of the fuse hole and peered about, enormous ears flapping.
The gremlin pulled itself out of the grenade and grinned widely at Wiz.
“Wheee,” it squeaked.
Wiz leaned against the wall, one hand on his chest, and enjoyed the luxury of breathing deeply.
Jerry came over and knelt by the battle armor.
“Is he . . . ?” Wiz asked.
Jerry stood up. “Yeah,” he said flatly. “He is.”
He turned to Mick Gilligan. “Are you all right?”
“Just burns,” Gilligan panted. “Not too bad, but it hurts.” He looked down at his flight suit. “Good old Nomex.”
“We’ll get a healer to you as fast as we can,” Wiz said. “Meanwhile, we’ve got one other thing to do.”
Jerry raised an eyebrow.
“Mikey,” Wiz said grimly.
“Someone call me?”
Mikey strolled through the broken door as casually as if it was still his castle. He was cradling a dark, misshapen thing in both hands. Wiz recognized it and sucked in his breath.
Mikey smiled and shook his head. “You poor dumb shits. You never did figure it out, did you?”
He stepped around the fallen robots and moved to the shattered window wall, shards of glass crunching under his feet.
“Now it’s too late.” He looked down at Craig’s corpse. “While that little shit kept you running around in circles, I finished this.”
Mikey held his prize high. A trick of reflection from the broken window made it appear that there were two of him, one floating in air and both holding the key.
Gilligan growled and scrabbled for his gun. Mikey looked over at him and he froze. Wiz wanted to scream, he wanted to run, he wanted to go for Mikey’s throat. But he couldn’t do any of it. Like Mick and Jerry he was rooted where he stood.
Mikey looked up and Wiz saw his eyes were red and glowing like an animal caught in the headlights.
“Always one step ahead. That’s the difference between a real master hacker and people like you, Zumwalt. We’re always one step ahead.
“Anyway, I just wanted you to know before . . .”
Out of the corner of his eye, Wiz caught a movement in the shattered window wall. Now there were two reflections in the glass. He shifted his eyes back to the room, but Mikey was alone with the key.
Then he looked in the window again. There was someone standing in front of Mikey’s reflection.
Duke Aelric.
The elf’s silvery armor was marred and stained. There were nicks in the blade of his curved sword and what looked like a burn mark along his helmet. Wiz had no idea where he had been, but he’d obviously been in a hell of a fight.
The elf stepped forward and laid both his hands on the key.
“Mine,” he said.
There was still no one in the room but Mikey took the black convoluted thing in a double death grip.
“I made it,” he yelled. “I can use it. It’s mine!”
The muscles in his arms quivered and the veins in his neck bulged as though he was trying to hold the key against a tremendous pull.
In the window Aelric’s teeth were set and splotches of high color stood out on his pale cheeks. His muscles swelled and rippled under his mail as he strove to wrest the key from Mikey’s grasp.
Aelric and Mikey both seemed to flicker. Behind them Wiz thought he saw other things, some of them manlike. The sky darkened and began to run like wax-or perhaps it was his vision closing in. Faster and faster the images flickered until it was like watching an old silent movie. Then they flickered faster yet and there were two images superimposed on each other in the glass.
Mikey alternated with something large and vaguely manlike with fur and the pointed ears of an elf. The thing with Aelric was manlike too, but it shone so brightly it hurt Wiz’s eyes.
Mikey’s breath was coming in harsh gasps and his arms were shaking from the strain. Aelric was straining too, but he wasn’t shaking. A fraction of an inch at a time the key moved toward the elf.
With a cry the Mikey in the window broke away. As soon as he released the key it was as if he had been sucked down a tunnel. With a despairing wail he dwindled and vanished in the distance.
The real Mikey whimpered, slumped to the floor and lay still. The black thing he had held was gone.
There was still no sign of Aelric in the room, but in the glass he stood with the key resting in the crook of his arm.
“Well done, Sparrow,” the image said.
Wiz found he could move again.
“Are you really there?”
“I am here,” the reflection said. “As for reality . . .” He shrugged in the old Aelric manner.
“Now,” he said, turning serious, “I think you will find that resistance has collapsed. You will have perhaps another day before this World starts to decay. I would suggest that you and all your people be gone by then.”
“And the key?”
“With it we can close the gate forever on these others.” He seemed to sway a little and then caught himself.
“Lord are you all right?”
Aelric smiled tightly. “I am as you see me, Sparrow. Now if you will excuse me, it would be best to get this to safekeeping.”
And with that he was gone.
Moira was with the first group of wizards and healers to come to Caermort. She and Wiz had time for a brief tearful reunion before the demands of their work pulled them apart. That night they ate a dinner of cold field rations on a terrace at Caermort and stood on the parapet looking up at the strange night sky with only a few odd stars.
“A fell place,” Moira said with a shiver. “I will be glad to be gone.”
“You and me both,” Wiz said, leaning over to kiss her.
“Ah, I hate to disturb you folks,” Jerry’s voice came out of the darkness.
“But there are some people here who want to talk to you.”
Wiz and Moira turned. There was Jerry with twelve dwarves clustered around him.
“Oh, wizard,” Glandurg called. “We would have speech with you.”
Wiz stepped forward. Moira started to come with him but he stopped her.
“Stay back here. It’s all right.”
“What about you?”
“Whatever happens I’ll be perfectly safe,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “But I don’t want you close to me if he starts swinging that sword.”
Surreptitiously Wiz readied a fireball spell, but he stepped up to the group as if he hadn’t a fear in the world. “Glandurg, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” said the dwarf leader. “We have come to bid you farewell.”
“Very nice-but not to bring up a sore subject-what about your debt of honor?”
“Oh that,” Glandurg said. “We were hired to slay an alien wizard whose magic was wreaking havoc upon the World. The wizard is dead so our contract is fulfilled.” He looked slyly at Wiz and Moira. “After all, the trolls did not say which alien wizard they wanted killed.”
Wiz could only nod.
“We go now,” said Glandurg. “The evil wizard is slain, the balance is restored to the World and our debt is paid. Perhaps our paths shall cross again should you need doughty warriors to stand at your back on some great quest.”
With that Glandurg and his followers turned and filed through the door.
Then they began to sing, jauntily but very off key.
“ ‘Debts must be paid, ‘” Jerry quoted as the dwarf song died out in the distance. “Those guys are the kind who would pay off a debt in subordinated debentures-if they knew what subordinated debentures were.”
“Don’t tell them,” Wiz said. “The last thing this world needs is gnomes of Zurich.”
“But those are not gnomes, they are dwarves,” Moira said. Wiz and Jerry broke up laughing and she jammed her elbow into Wiz’s ribs, making him splutter. “Oh all right! You and your silly name jokes.”
“I wonder how they expect to get off this island?” Wiz said, massaging the suddenly sore spot on his short ribs.
“Burrow for all I care,” Moira said. “I do not understand how they got here in the first place.”
“ . . . and you should have seen the wizards’ faces when that dragon rider and her dragon, popped up in the chantry next to Major Gilligan,” Judith said laughing. The others laughed too and she helped herself to more bread and cheese.
They looked like a halloween party. There was Wiz in his usual tight pants, open-necked shirt and sleeveless tunic. Mick Gilligan was sitting next to him in his Air Force green flight suit. Then came Moira in a long gown of russet velveteen with forest green lining showing in the insides of the flowing dagged sleeves. Jerry was beside her in a medieval-looking tunic with a most un-medieval patch pocket full of felt-tip pens. Finally there was Judith wearing the open-backed hospital gown she had arrived in, now artfully dirtied and torn.
It had been barely twenty-four hours since Caermort had fallen and none of them had gotten much sleep. But everyone agreed that the sooner they got Mick and Judith back to their own World the better.
Pots of blackmoss tea and pitchers of chilled fruit juice shared the table with platters that had held small cakes and other delicacies. There was a sun dial very conspicuously planted in the middle and everyone made small talk while they waited for the shadow to shorten.
“How is Danny?” Judith asked.
“Bronwyn says he will recover well enough,” Moira told her. “There is sickness in his blood and the burns were of a dangerous kind. Still, she can pull him through.” She bit her lip. “But the energies released did something to him she cannot repair. He will have no more children.”
“Damn,” Wiz said softly.
“I’m so sorry,” Judith said.
Moira shrugged. “Such things happen. Considering the carnage all about them they got off lightly.”
“And June?” Judith asked.
Moira smiled. “With him night and day, of course. They have brought the cradle into the sick room so she may tend both of her men at once.”
“What about Duke Aelric?”
Wiz shrugged. “He took the key and vanished. I imagine we won’t see him for a while.”
Judith poured herself another cup of fruit juice, drained it and sighed.
“My one chance to meet an elf. Gone.”
The all fell silent for a moment.
“Well, anyway, I’m glad I got a chance to see you again,” Judith said as she put her cup back on the table.
“And we are glad to see you, my Lady,” Moira said. “I only wish it could have been a more pleasant visit.”
Judith nodded and looked again at the creeping shadow of the sun dial.
“What are you going to tell them?” Wiz asked.
She looked down at the carefully soiled hospital gown. “That when I woke up I was wandering around downtown San Jose in this.”
“That doesn’t explain anything.”
Judith’s eyes twinkled. “I know. That’s the best kind of explanation.”
“They’ll probably think you halfway came out of the coma, wandered out of the hospital and you’ve just been roaming around ever since,” Jerry said.
Judith smiled. “How would I know? I was in a coma.”
Wiz turned to Major Gilligan. “I wish I could reward you for your help, but I think anything we gave you would just complicate your life.”
“I’ve been rewarded already,” Gilligan told him. “And yeah, it would be a little hard to explain showing up with a bag of gold or something.” As if this isn’t going to be hard enough to explain, he thought.
“Okay, we understand you want to go back to the Air Force as if you’d crashed in the ocean.”
“I’ve pretty much got to.”
“You know we would put you down just about anywhere in the world.”
Gilligan shook his head. “I’ve got a duty to go back and it will be easier if it looks like I just crashed.”
“We’ll put you and your gear down on an uninhabited island not too far from where you disappeared. From there you can use your radio to get help.”
“How far is that island from where I went down?”
“About 200 miles.”
Gilligan frowned. “That’s thin.”
“We could put you and your raft in the water about where you crashed.”
Gilligan thought about the freezing, fogbound Bering Sea and how long it would take to get rescued.
“I’ll take my chances on the island.”
“Okay, one other thing. We could heal your burns completely, but you’d be left with marks you didn’t have when you took off.” He looked Gilligan over. “Or we can partially heal you, so it will look as if you were burned when your plane went down.”
“I’ve already been over this with your medics. I want to look like I was injured when I bailed out.”
“You understand that once you’re on the other side the pain spells won’t work. Those burns will hurt.”
Not half as much as some other things will hurt, Gilligan thought. But he just nodded.
Wiz nodded in return. “Very well, then. Your equipment’s in the next room. You might want to check it over and make sure you’ve got everything you need while you’ve still got time. Bronwyn will meet you there for the healing.”
Just about all his gear was there in a neat pile, even the things he had discarded when he came ashore on the island. It was all restored by magic. Somehow they had even managed to refill the magazines of his pistol.
“Mick.”
He turned around and saw Karin in the door. His equipment forgotten, he took her in his arms and kissed her. The burns made him clumsy but neither of them noticed. “Where have you been? Why didn’t you come with me?”
“Looking after Stigi and telling my superiors what had happened,” she said in a small voice. “I could not come until my squadron leader released me.”
He held her in his good arm close to his unburned side.
“Listen to me. I’ve got two more years left on this tour.” If they don’t courtmartial me over this, he thought. “I’ll serve out my time and resign my commission. Then somehow, somehow, I’ll find a way to come back.”
Karin looked deep into his eyes. “I will be waiting.”
There was a discreet cough behind them.
“Time, my Lord,” Arianne said. “Trooper, if you wish to accompany him to the chantry you may.”
The wizards and others were already assembled when Gilligan and Karin came into the chantry.
As they came in, Wiz handed Gilligan a small wooden tablet. “Before you go, you might want to memorize this.”
Gilligan looked down at it. “Is this what I think it is?”
“Yep, it’s an 800 number. Direct line to the Wizard’s Keep from any phone in the USA. Just don’t use it unless you really need to.”
Gilligan looked up at Wiz. “I’m not going to ask how you did this.”
Wiz shrugged. “It wouldn’t do any good. It was one of Danny’s projects. We figured we might need to contact people over there again and Danny set this up.”
Gilligan stared intently at the scrap of wood and his lips moved as he burned the number into his memory. After a minute he handed the tablet back to Wiz.
“Is this legal?”
Wiz hesitated. “Like I said, it was one of Danny’s projects.”
This time there were two circles of blue-robed wizards in the chantry.
Bal-Simba stood at the head of one of them and Arianne led the other.
Mick and Karin embraced for one final time, then Arianne waved him to the center of her circle, next to his gear. Judith took her position in the other and the chants began.
I hope to God I can pull this off, Major Michael Francis Xavier Gilligan thought fervently as he faced the three men across the table. He had managed to get his blues on over his bandages and the meeting was in an office rather than his hospital room, but he still felt lousy from the burns and spacey from the pain killers.
This wasn’t a formal inquiry. Gilligan had only been back at the base for twelve hours. It was more of preliminary attempt to find out what had happened over the Bering Sea.
“Now Major Gilligan,” the debriefing officer began, “you say you can’t remember anything from the time you bailed out until you found yourself on the island?”
“Nossir. I think I cracked my head on the way out, but the first thing I really remember is being on that island with the radio.” He paused. “Ah, I was delirious most of the time, sir.”
The debriefing officer didn’t respond, but the black man behind him, the one wearing the flight suit with no insignia, half-nodded. Obviously he had already seen a report of Gilligan’s description of his “hallucinations.”
It was thin and he knew it. Especially in light of what must be on Smitty’s tape. But it was the best story he could come up with and he’d stick to it for as long as he could.
“The cold salt water apparently restricted the damage from those burns.
You’re extremely lucky, do you know that?”
A flash memory of blue eyes and a little dusting of freckles over a straight nose. “I figure I’m about the luckiest man in the Air Force,” Gilligan said sincerely.
The debriefing officer nodded and the man sitting next to him in the flight suit with no insignia remained impassive.
Step by step they went over Gilligan’s story-what there was of it.
“And you say you don’t remember anything after you sent your wingman back?”
“Nossir, not a thing.”
“Perhaps this will refresh your memory,” the man in the flight suit said.
He leaned forward and handed Gilligan a folder.
Here it comes, Gilligan thought as he opened the folder. Then he looked at the photograph.
“Nossir,” he said, fighting to keep his composure. “I’m sorry. This doesn’t look familiar to me at all.”
The picture was obviously the result of a lot of work with an image processor. The image had long, thin wings and a small tail set at the end of a tapering, torpedo-shaped fuselage. Just forward of the wings was a central turret with what was obviously intended to be a sensor array. The wings and body were marked with what were clearly intended to be phase-array antennas. On top of the wings were heavily baffled intakes for jet engines buried in the body. The tail showed additional inlets for cooling air to dilute the jet exhaust coming from the shielded tailpipe.
The man with no insignia frowned. “Pity. Some of the details are conjectural and we were hoping you’d be able to fill them in for us.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t remember anything like this.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter much. Aviation Week ran that picture in last week’s issue.” His face showed he didn’t care for that at all. “We know now the thing isn’t Soviet, so in the next week or two the Japanese or the South Koreans or the Israelis or whoever the hell else really did build it will let the information leak out.” He shook his head. “It’s a small world, Major, and you can’t keep secrets long.”
“Yes sir,” said Major Mick Gilligan, thinking of another World entirely.
“It is a very small world.”
The now-useless computer sat in a cellar at the Wizard’s Keep. The pieces had been unpacked and set together in a pale imitation of a working system. It looked strangely out of place in the low room with the beamed ceiling and the rough masonry walls.
Wiz was sitting at the console with his back to the door, idly tapping on the keyboard with one hand.
“What are you doing, love?” Moira asked as she came up behind him.
Wiz shook himself out of his reverie and stood to kiss her.
“Just thinking,” Wiz said after the kiss. “When I was back in Cupertino I dreamed of having one of these things all to myself. Now I’ve got one and it won’t work here.”
“I wonder if it is worth keeping?” Moira said with a housewife’s practicality.
“I wouldn’t feel right throwing it away. Maybe we can find a use for it.”
“As a haven for gremlins, no doubt.”
“I don’t guess the gremlins are interested in machinery that doesn’t work.”
“Just as well,” Moira said. “Else there would not be a moment’s peace.”
They stood arm in arm looking at the computer for a while.
“Well,” Wiz said heavily. “At least that’s over.”
“Not quite, mortal.”
Wiz and Moira whirled. There stood the elf Lisella.
Lisella smiled, cold and beautiful as the full moon at midwinter. “I mean you no harm, mortal. I come with a message. Duke Aelric bids you to him.”
Moira moved in front of Wiz like a terrier protecting her master.
“Why does not the duke deliver his invitation himself?”
Ice blue eyes locked onto flashing green. “Because he is dying, Lady.”
Duke Aelric lay on snowy linen in a cavern with softly glowing walls. He was so still and composed that at first Wiz thought they were too late. But as they approached he turned his head toward them.
“So Sparrow, we meet again.” His voice was as firm as ever but he sounded weary, as if tired out by a great exertion.
“Yes, Lord,” Wiz said numbly. Even this close he could not see a mark on the elf duke, but his normally pale skin was now almost chalk white.
“I wanted to see you once more to thank you. You have performed a great service for the whole World, including the ever-living.”
“We almost screwed it up, Lord.”
“You did very well indeed.” His eyes flicked to Lisella. “Much better than some expected.”
He stopped speaking and he seemed to drift for a moment. Then his eyes focused and he turned his attention back to Wiz. “You have my personal thanks as well.” He sounded even wearier. “Ennui is part of the price the ever-living must pay.” He smiled slightly. “Our association has been many things, perhaps, but it has never been boring.”
“No, Lord.” Wiz smiled through his tears. “It was not boring.”
“No,” Duke Aelric muttered almost beyond hearing. “Not boring.”
Then he was still.
* * *
Silently Lisella placed a hand on Wiz’s shoulder and guided him away from the bier. Behind him he saw other elves drape the linen over the body.
“It was the key, wasn’t it?” Wiz said at last. “That was what those others wanted all along.”
“Of course,” Lisella said. “You did not realize that it could be used to destroy a World as easily as to close it off?”
“Well, why the Hell didn’t he tell me the thing was that dangerous?” Wiz blazed. “We came within an ace of losing it to Craig and Mikey and losing the entire World with it.”
She looked at him with amusement. “Would you have dared to use your Mousehole to construct it if you had known?”
“Then why . . . Oh! You can’t build one, can you? You can’t make a key on your own.”
“Not so precisely as to be that powerful, no. Neither could the others. To attempt to make it by magic is to warp the very fabric of the World.”
“So you used us,” Wiz said dully. “Just like those others were using Craig and Mikey.”
“You disapprove, Sparrow?” the elf said coldly. “You find the price high?” She tossed her head in the direction of the still form under the linen draping. “Consider the price he knew he would pay.”
Wiz gaped. “He knew?”
Lisella cocked a raven eyebrow. “Why do you think he took such an interest in you?”
“But why? I mean if he knew it was going to kill him . . .”
“Because he knew there was a better chance of success with you and your alien magics than working only with the ways of his people. He chose a road of certain destruction because it gave a better chance-not a certainty, only a better chance-that the World would live.”
She looked at Wiz oddly. “It must be a strange and wonderful thing to be so attached to a place you would willingly go down to non-existence for it.”
Lisella raised her hand and made a gesture in the air. “Go in peace, mortal. Our business is at an end.”
And suddenly they were back in the computer room.
????????????
For a long time neither of them said anything.
“Well,” Wiz said at last, “the prophecy was true. The mightiest among us died and all of us lost.”
“Craig lost his life. Danny and June lost the chance for more kids. Mick and Karin lost each other. Glandurg lost his quest. Judith lost months out of her life and we lost . . .” He stopped and swallowed hard, unable to go on.
Moira wiped her eyes. “Not everyone lost, I think. Mikey can be said to have gotten his heart’s desire. So the prophecy was truly fulfilled.”
Wiz thought about that. “Yeah,” he said flatly. “You’re right. He did get what he wanted.”
Sunlight streamed through the mullioned windows of the Wizard’s Keep in golden shafts and painted warm bright patches on the floor. Dust motes danced in the beams.
Mikey looked at the dust, fascinated. He stretched out his hand and tried to catch the dancing specks in his fist. But they would not be caught and he had more important things to do.
Very deliberately he plumped down on the floor and returned to the job of arraying his army. With exaggerated care he added a new tin soldier to the end of the first line of men. Then he took brightly painted wooden blocks from the pile beside him and added a new building to the town behind his men. He rearranged the cutout trees next to the town and leaned back to survey his work.
Looking out at the kingdom of block villages and tiny metal soldiers spread over the floor of his playroom cum prison cell, Mikey the Great beamed and gurgled with joy.
At last he was truly the master of all he surveyed.