The Wizardry Compiled, page 14
part #2 of Wizardry Series
At 7:00 a.m. the group gathered in the back parking lot of the shopping center.
They were carrying everything from designer luggage to backpacks. One or two of them had laptop computers under their arms. Jerry wondered how well those would work where they were going. A couple more had apparently believed the Afghanistan story enough to bring cases of liquor with them. That, at least, would be useful, he decided.
“Okay, people,” he called out. “Moira here, will . . .” he looked around. “Where’s Moira?”
“Here, Lord.” Moira came trotting up with a large flat box under her arm.
“What’s in the box?” Jerry asked her.
“A present.” She handed it to him. “Will you hold it for me?” Be careful not to tip it.” Then she looked up and frowned at the sky.
“The haze will make it hard to tell the time,” she said. “That complicates matters. Perhaps it would be best to wait for the afternoon time.”
“That’s smog and it’s not going to clear today,” Jerry told her. “If you need to tell the time, use my watch.” He stripped it off his meaty wrist and handed it to her.
Moira shook her head. I must know the time in day-tenths after sunrise,” she said. “Not the time by your local system.”
“Day-tenths?”
“One tenth of the time between sunrise and set.”
“Wait a minute,” said a small man with the face of an intelligent mouse and a mop of brown hair. He stripped off his own wristwatch, and began punching the tiny buttons beneath the face.
“There you go,” he said handing the watch. “I haven’t set it against the Naval Observatory in a couple of months so it may be a tenth of a second off, but I hope it will do.”
Moira studied the madly spinning numbers on the display. They looked something like the numbers Wiz used, but she didn’t know them well enough to use them.
She handed the watch to Jerry. “Here, My Lord. Tell me when it is two day-tenths.”
“Coming up on it now.”
“Hey, guys!”
Thorkil du Libre Dragonwatcher—Danny Gavin, Jerry reminded himself—came running across the parking lot with a backpack slung over one shoulder and bouncing against his hip.
“You are late,” Moira said severely.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I had to hitch, okay?”
Moira opened her mouth to say something else, but Jerry interrupted her.
“Time in thirty seconds.”
Moira handed her box to Jerry and gestured them all into a tight group. Then she drew out the golden cord Bal-Simba had given her and laid a circle perhaps fifteen feet in diameter in the dusty surface of the parking lot, muttering as she did so.
“Now,” she said, turning to the programmers. “You must all stand close together and above all, stay within the circle. Do not step outside it or break it in any way.”
Checking the watch Jerry had given her, she raised her wand and began to chant.
At first no one said anything. Then the astonishment began to wear off and the cracks started.
“Is this where the flying saucer shows up?” someone asked.
“Scotty, beam me up,” someone else called out.
Moira ignored them and went on with the chant.
“Next stop Oz,” Judith chimed in.
And then the world dissolved.
Part III: COMPILE
Fourteen :
Employee Orientation
You never find out the whole story until after you’ve signed the contract.
—programmer’s saying
They were crowded together on a smooth flagged floor. Looming over them on a dais at one end of the room was an enormous black man in a leopard skin loincloth and a necklace of bones. To his right was a blonde woman in a long gown.
The sun streamed in through narrow windows in the stone walls and struck shafts of gold through the dusty air.
At the points of the compass stood eight men and women in long blue robes, each holding a silver or ebony wand and each surrounded by glowing runes inscribed on the stone floor. Further back stood grim men in chain mail armed with swords and spears.
The programmers goggled.
Finally a female voice from the back of the group broke the silence. “Toto,” she whispered hoarsely. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more.”
“Merry met,” the black man boomed out. “I am called Bal-Simba. I am speaker for the Council of the North and of the Mighty of this place. We are your employers.”
“Did anyone bring a copy of that contract?” someone muttered.
Moira curtseyed. “Merry met, Lord. This one is called Jerry Andrews, of whom Wiz spoke often.” She gestured to the rest of the group. “These others are also of the Mighty of their place. Jerry enlisted their aid.”
Bal-Simba smiled, showing his teeth filed to points. “Excellent. Excellent. My Lords, Ladies, if you will come with me I will show you to your accommodations.” The wizards at the compass points moved out of the way as he descended the dais and the guards stepped back. With a dozen thoroughly bewildered programmers trailing in a clump, the giant wizard left the chantry through the carved oak doors and down the stone steps into the flagged courtyard.
The morning sun made the stone walls glow warmly and cast glints of light off the windows. Banners floated from staffs at tower tops, peacock blue and brilliant green against the sky and clouds. Around them men and women stopped to stare at the newcomers and the newcomers slowed to stare back.
“Look!” one of the group pointed off to the east. A gaggle of six dark shapes stood out against the high white clouds, shapes with far too much neck and tail to be birds.
The entire group stopped dead in the courtyard. The programmers craned their necks and shielded their eyes in an effort to see better.
“Are those . . . ?”
“Jesus, they’re dragons”
“How the hell would you know? You’ve never seen a dragon.”
“I have now.”
The dragons came closer, dropping lower and making it easier to pick out the details. Their guides made as if to move on but the programmers stood rooted in place.
“Hey, there are people on them!”
The Californians watched awestruck as the dragons glided around the tallest tower in tight V formation, wingtips almost touching as their riders pulled them into the turn. Then as one, the beasts winged over and fell away toward their aerie in the cliff beneath the castle.
And then they were gone. The newcomers let out a sigh with a single breath and everyone started across the courtyard again.
The programmer standing next to Bal-Simba, a heavy-set dark-haired woman wearing a faded unicorn T-shirt, touched his arm.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what, My Lady?”
She nodded toward where the flight of dragons had disappeared, her eyes shining. “For that. For letting me see that.”
Bal-Simba looked at her closely. To him dragons were simply part of the World, sometimes useful, often dangerous, but nothing extraordinary. He had never stopped to think about what dragons on the wing meant. Now, confronted with her wonder, he saw them in a new light.
“Thank you, My Lady,” he said gravely.
Not everyone was impressed with the dragons’ performance. One who wasn’t at all impressed was the leader of the flight.
“Where were you on that last turn?” he demanded of his wingman as they crossed the cavern that served as roost and aerie for the dragon cavalry.
“There’s a turbulence on the west side of the tower at this time of day,” his wingman explained. “I figured it would be safer to open it up a little.”
“Turbulence, nothing! That was sloppy. What did you think you were doing hanging out there?”
Behind them the riders and grooms were leading the dragons to their stalls, the rider at the head, holding the bridle and talking gently to his mount and a groom at each wingtip and two at the tail to see that the dragons did not accidently bump and perhaps begin to fight.
Other teams of grooms hurried about, removing saddles and unfastening harnesses. The armorers removed the quivers of magic arrows from the harness and counted each arrow, carefully checking the numbers against the tally sticks before returning them to the armory.
In spite of the lanterns along the walls the aerie was gloomy after the bright morning. The entrance was a rectangle of squintingly bright white. It was noisy as well. The rock walls magnified sound and the shuffle of beasts, the shouts of the men and the occasional snort or hiss of a dragon reverberated through the chamber.
Both dragon riders ignored the noise and the bustle, intent on their conversation. The other members of the troop avoided them until the chewing out was done.
“Playing it safe, sir.”
“Safe my ass! Mister, in combat that kind of safety will get you killed.”
The wingman bridled. “Sir, there is no one left to fight.”
The Dragon Leader grinned nastily. “Want to bet? Do you think the Council keeps us around because we look pretty?”
The wingman didn’t answer.
“Well,” the Dragon Leader demanded. “Why do you think we exist?”
“To fight, sir.”
“Too right we exist to fight. And how much good do you think you’re going to be in a melee if you’ve trained your mount to open wide on the turns? Mister, in my squadron if you are going to do something, you are going to do it right. We exist to fight, and war or no war, you will by damn be ready to fight. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir,” the wingman said woodenly, eyes straight ahead.
“Every maneuver, every patrol, you will treat like the real thing. Remember those checklists they drilled into you in school? Well mister, you will live by those checklists. As long as you’re in my squadron you will do everything by the checklist. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then see to it. And if you float out like that on a turn again you’ll spend the next two weeks on stable duty! Now see to your mount.”
The Dragon Leader watched the man go and frowned. With the Dark League crushed there were no enemy dragons to face. It was hard to keep an edge on his men. The kid was good, one of the best of the crop of new riders that had come along since the defeat of the Dark League, but he didn’t have the same attitude as the men and women who had fought through the long, bitter years of the League’s ascendancy.
He could have made it easy on himself and insisted on an experienced second. But somebody had to work these young ones up and if it wasn’t done right they wouldn’t be worth having if they had to fight.
Meanwhile his muscles were stiff, his flying leathers soaked with sweat and he stank of dragon and exertion. He turned and walked out of the aerie toward the riders’ baths.
At the door the Dragon Leader looked back and sighed. In some ways it was easier when we were at war.
“ . . . and there you have it, My Lords,” Bal-Simba said finally. “That is our situation and that is what we need.”
Jerry, Karl, Bal-Simba and Moira sat around the table. They had talked the day away and a good part of the night. Moira was hoarse, so Bal-Simba had taken over filling in the background while Jerry and Karl shot questions.
The remains of dinner, bread, fruit and cheese, sat on the sideboard and a glowing globe on a wrought iron stand beside the table gave them light.
The soft evening breeze ruffled through the room and stars spangled the velvety blackness outside. Idly Jerry wondered what time it was. Their watches had stopped working at the moment of transition. After midnight, he decided.
The rest of the programmers were bedded down somewhere but Bal-Simba was eager to get started and Jerry was too keyed up to sleep anyway.
“Well, it’s hard to say until we’ve gone over the work that’s already been done,” Jerry said. If the libraries and tool kit are sufficiently developed . . .”
“I think it would be best if we left the technical details until Wiz returns,” Moira said. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Bal-Simba shift uneasily. “He is the only one among us who really understands them.”
“Anyway, the outlines are clear enough,” Jerry said. “As I told Moira back in Cupertino I think this is do-able, especially given the work Wiz has already put into it.”
“How soon do you need all this?” Karl asked.
“As soon as possible,” Bal-Simba told him. “Perhaps a fortnight at most.”
Jerry and Karl looked at each other.
“Well,” Karl said, “no matter where you go, some things don’t change.”
Bal-Simba frowned. “Is there a problem?”
Jerry sighed. This was the point where you usually started lying to the client. But this was a very unusual situation and an even more unusual client. Besides, there was no one on this world to undercut them and steal the contract by overpromising.
“Look,” he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table, “the truth is, it will take us months to do this job right.”
“But Wiz put together his attack on the Dark League in a matter of days!” Bal-Simba protested.
“Right,” Jerry nodded. “What Wiz did was create a set of tools and build some simple programs, uh, spells with them. But there’s a big difference between something that an expert hacks together for his own use and a production system.”
“You need something anyone can use, right?” Karl asked.
“Any wizard,” Bal-Simba amended. “But yes, basically.”
“Okay, that means you need a lot more support, error checking and utilities and libraries. And it’s all got to be wrapped up in a neat package with no loose ends.”
The huge wizard thought about that for a minute. “How long will all this take?”
“We won’t know that until after we’ve examined what’s been done already and had a chance to talk to Wiz.”
“You can begin the examination tomorrow,” Bal-Simba said, rising. “There is no need to wait until Sparrow returns.” He turned to Moira. “My Lady, will you escort them to their chambers?”
“If you please, My Lord, there is another matter I wish to discuss with you. I will ring for a servant.”
The serving man was yawning when he arrived, but he came quickly and ushered the visitors out of Bal-Simba’s study.
“Now,” Moira said as the door closed behind them, “where is Wiz?”
“Well, as to that, My Lady . . .”
Her face darkened. “Something has happened to him, has it not?”
“Well . . .”
“Has it not?”
She tried to shout but her strained vocal cords could only produce a whisper.
“We do not know,” Bal-Simba told her. “He went off into the Wild Wood and no one has seen him since.”
“Fortuna!” Moira stared. “You let him wander into the Wild Wood alone?” The she laughed bitterly. “And you were concerned about my safety?”
Wiz tiptoed down the corridor, stopping every few feet to listen. Outside the bright daylight promised warmth the sun failed to deliver.
He was desperately hungry, but he was past feeling the pangs. In the last two days he had turned up nothing that looked edible. He wasn’t the only scavenger going through the rubble. Rat droppings abounded, as did signs of larger, less identifiable creatures.
He stopped to listen again, pressing himself flat against the wall as he did so. He had learned caution the hard way. Twice more since he left the palace with the trap he had barely avoided blundering into searching wizards of the League. Once he ducked into an open doorway just as two of them came around a corner not ten feet in front of him. Another time one of them caught a glimpse of him from one street over. The wizard made the mistake of calling for help and Wiz scampered away before he could get close.
He was surprised that no one had used magic to locate him. Even with the competing magical remnants in the City of Night it should have been easy for wizards who had stood in his presence to track him down, especially since he dared not leave the city. The land beyond the walls was as frozen and barren as Antarctica. Away from the shelter of these buildings he’d be dead in a day and he was sure the wizards knew it.
Perhaps Dzhir Kar was playing with him, stretching out the agony. Through his exhaustion, Wiz realized he could not win. Sooner or later, he had to use magic or fall to the searching wizards or the danger of this place.
Well, not yet. He was still alive and still free. At this minute finding food and warmth were more important to him than his ultimate fate. Moving as quietly as he could he moved down the corridor to the next door.
This place must have been pleasant once, or as pleasant as any in this benighted city ever had been. The building itself was mostly underground, a gloomy mass of tunnels and small rooms dimly lit by slowly fading magic globes. But this wing was built into the face of a cliff. The rooms on the outside had long narrow windows that looked out over the city. Judging by the shattered, soaked junk that remained they had been richly furnished as well.
But shattered, soaked junk was all that remained. What had once been rich fabric lay in sodden rotting piles. Scattered about were pieces of furniture, all hacked, broken and upended.
He looked at the wood regretfully. There were the makings there for a warming fire—if he could figure out how to light one without bringing the demon down on him and if he didn’t mind attracting every wizard in the city.
Aside from that, there was no sign of anything useful. No food, no clothing, nothing. He turned to leave when something caught his eye. He bent and plucked it from the litter.
It was a halberd, its head red with rust and its shaft broken to about three feet long. Looking at the end of the shaft, Wiz could see it had been cut halfway through before it snapped, as if the owner had warded a stroke.
Wiz hefted it dubiously. He knew nothing about halberd fighting and this one was broken, useless for its original purpose. But it could still serve as a tool to pry open chests and boxes. Perhaps with it he would have a better chance of finding food.
