The wizardry compiled, p.19
The Wizardry Compiled, page 19
part #2 of Wizardry Series
The man sighed. “Well, let’s get to it. This is going to take a while.” He nodded to Wiz’s book of notes on his magic compiler. “Hand me the Dragon Book, will you?”
Ghost-gray and insubstantial, the searching demons began to pour from the ruined tower and blanket the City of Night.
Each demon had very little power. It could only absorb impressions from the world around it and forward them to a larger demon which would catalog them. The final step in the process was a demon formed like a weird crystal construct that perched atop the tower. It did the final sorting and alerted the wizards if it found anything that looked worthwhile.
Wiz had endowed the demons with all the mortal senses, but no magical ones. Of those senses, sight was the most important to an airborne creature. Since Wiz wore his tarncape constantly there was little visible sign of him. Demons by the thousands searched every nook and cranny of the city, but they saw nothing of Wiz.
Dzhir Kar ground his teeth in fury at the news and ordered Pryddian beaten to make him fix the spell. But Pryddian could not repair what he did not understand and in spite of the demons Wiz eluded the Dark League.
Sixteen :
Trouble in the North
You can’t unscramble an egg.
—old saying
You can if you’re powerful enough.
—the collected sayings of Wiz Zumwalt
Dragon Leader looked back over the flight in satisfaction. They weren’t parade-perfect, but their spacing was good. Even his wingman was keeping his proper distance and holding position on the turns.
As he moved in easy rhythm with his mount’s wing beats, he surveyed the forest below. The trees were dark green in their late summer foliage and the pattern was broken here and there by the lighter green of a natural meadow or the twisting channel of a brown stream wandering among the trees. This far north there were a lot of streams because the land got a lot of rain.
Today’s patrol had had good weather all day, thank goodness, and if he was any judge of weather, tomorrow would be fair as well. Only a few clouds, all of them high enough still to be tinted golden by the setting sun—and scattered enough not to provide shelter for possible ambushers, Dragon Leader thought.
No likelihood of that, of course. There were no more enemy dragons. This was simply a routine patrol over the northernmost reaches of the human lands—a pleasant summer’s excursion for men and dragons alike.
Dragon Leader gave a hand signal and applied gentle knee pressure to his mount’s neck. As his dragon swept around to the right the three other dragons in the flight followed, speeding up to hold their relative position. He noticed that his wingman held almost exactly the right distance and speed.
The kid’s shaping up,
he thought as the dragons swept over a heavily wooded ridge, so low they startled a flock of brightly colored birds out of one of the taller trees. He’ll have his own squadron yet.
But that was for the future. Just over the next ridge was the Green River and on a bluff above a wide looping bend sat Whitewood Grove, the northernmost of the settlements and their destination for the night.
It didn’t have a full aerie, but there was a covered roosting ground for the dragons and snug quarters with their own bath for the riders. Right about now, Dragon Leader reflected, that sounded pretty good.
Again the dragons swept up over a ridge, buoyed by the upwelling currents of air. Dragon Leader started to signal another wide turn to line up on the village. Then he froze in mid-gesture.
What in the . . .
There was the river and a bluff, but there was no village there. Instead the rise was crowned by a grove of large trees.
Could they be that far off course? Unlikely. Although the people of the World did not use maps as the term is commonly understood—the Law of Similarity made any map a magical instrument—they did have lists of landmarks. Dragon Leader had been checking them automatically and they had hit each landmark in turn. Besides, he had been to Whitewood Grove many times. He recognized the shape of the bluff, the bend in the river and the rapids just downstream. He even saw a snag near shore he recalled from his last visit. Everything was exactly as it should be except the village was missing.
The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and his mouth tasted of metal. Suddenly Dragon Leader was very, very alert.
Without using his communications crystal he signaled his flight to break into pairs. A wave of his arm sent the second pair climbing and circling wide around the area. Then with his wingman following he bored straight in to pass over the place where the village should be.
Splitting his forces like this was bad tactics and Dragon Leader didn’t like it at all. But if he hadn’t made a stupid mistake, then whatever had caused this was probably more than a match for four dragons. Splitting into pairs increased the chances that someone would get word back to the Council. For the first time since the patrol began, Dragon Leader wished he had an entire squadron of a dozen dragons behind him instead of a single flight of four.
They came in low and fast over the bluff, nearly brushing the tops of the trees. It appeared a perfectly ordinary grove of Whitewood trees. This was definitely the spot, but there was no sign of a village. No buildings, no ruins, not even any footpaths. He signaled his wingman and they swept back over the spot, quartering the site.
The village of Whitewood Grove was simply gone. The wharf was gone from the river and even the path that led from the wharf to the village was missing.
They circled the site while Dragon Leader considered. There was nothing on any checklist that applied to a situation like this. Looking over his shoulder at the place where the village of Whitewood Grove should have been, he made a decision.
“Second element, run for the patrol base,” he said into his communications crystal. “Fly all night if you have to and as soon as you are over the ridge start reporting to the Capital. Wingman, stay on perimeter patrol. I am going to land and inspect the site on foot. If I am not back in the air in one half of a day-tenth, run for the patrol base. Now go!”
To his right and high above he saw the second element break off and scoot for the ridge. He waited until they were across before he turned his dragon inward toward the bluff.
There was barely room to land a dragon on the very tip of the bluff. The air currents off the river made it tricky and his dragon didn’t like the place at all. She bridled and growled and tried to break off the approach twice. He had to force her down and once on the ground she would not settle. She kept her wings half-spread and her neck extended high in the classic fighting posture. The way she was breathing told Dragon Leader she was building up for an enormous gout of flames.
Which was fine with Dragon Leader. An aroused dragon is far from the worst thing to have at your back in a tight spot.
Sword in hand, he scanned the trees while keeping close to the dragon’s bulk. The grove of Whitewoods looked peaceful and quite unremarkable. The early evening sun tinged their glossy green leaves with gold. A slight breeze gently rustled through the branches. Somewhere a bird sang and close to the grove’s edge a red squirrel jumped from branch to branch. The grove exuded the faint, sweet aroma of Whitewood blossoms.
None of which made Dragon Leader or his dragon feel any more secure. The dragon stayed poised for combat and on cat feet Dragon Leader moved into the wood.
The Whitewoods were fully mature, large enough that he could not have put his arms around them at their base. The litter on the forest floor was deep with dead leaves and rotting vegetation. There were ferns and there were many apples and here and there a purple forest orchid. But there was not the least little sign of anything that might possibly have once marked human habitation.
Warily Dragon Leader moved out of the grove, keeping watch over his shoulder as if he expected something to pounce on him at any minute. As quickly as he could he mounted, wheeled his dragon and launched her off the bluff. The dragon dived for the river to gain air speed and Dragon Leader finished securing himself to the saddle on the fly. As his wingman came up to join him and the pair ran south for the patrol base, he realized his jerkin was soaked with sweat.
For the first time since the war with the Dark League ended, Dragon Leader was very, very frightened.
Arianne gasped when Bal-Simba told her of the dragon rider’s report.
“Lord, what could have caused this?”
“I have not the slightest idea,” Bal-Simba told her. “I have never heard of such a thing.”
The blonde witch thought hard for a moment. “How many others know of this?”
“In the Capital? So far just two Watchers, you and I.”
“Then if I may suggest Lord, perhaps it would be best if we kept it a secret for now.”
Bal-Simba nodded. “The Watchers are already sworn to secrecy. But that does not help us get our people back—if they can be gotten back. Nor will it prevent such things in the future.”
“Such an attack must have been provoked by the changes on the Fringe,” Arianne said slowly. “Else this would have happened before.”
“Once again, my thinking. But what provoked it? And what was provoked?”
“Perhaps the elves could tell us.”
Bal-Simba snorted like a bull. “You grasp at straws.” Then his expression softened. “Besides, I have climbed all over that notion and can find no way in. The elves will have nothing to do with any mortal except Wiz. And even if they would, I doubt I could convince them of our sincerity.”
“Will not your word suffice as president of the Council of the North?” Arianne asked him.
“You know the answer to that, Lady,” Bal-Simba rumbled. “I am not the mightiest magician among us, and the Council’s power ebbs as people realize they do not stand in constant need of us. Wiz may be the most junior member of the Council, but he is our most powerful magician and our best hope for correcting what is wrong.”
Arianne shuddered. “So if we do not find him, we face war.”
“We must do more than find him, Lady,” Bal-Simba said. “We must find him alive and sound.”
Seventeen :
Everything Wild
Magic is real—unless declared integer.
—from the collected sayings of Wiz Zumwalt
“Okay, deal.”
Karl, Judith, Mike and Nancy were seated around the table in the Wizard’s Day Room, settling in for a quiet session of bridge. Ignoring the glares of the half-dozen or so wizards present, they had pulled a table from its accustomed place and brought chairs in around it.
Mike opened a fresh pack of cards and dealt the first hand with his wife Nancy as the dummy.
Nancy organized her hand and frowned. Every card she held was a heart. By some weird happenstance, she had drawn the entire suite of hearts!
“Damn, what a time to be dummy!”
Then she looked up and saw the strange expressions on the other players’ faces.
“What’s wrong?”
Wordlessly, Mike laid down his hand, face up. Karl and Judith followed suit. Mike had gotten every club, Judith had all the diamonds and Karl had all the spades.
“Jesus!” Nancy breathed. “Are you sure you shuffled those cards?”
“You saw me,” Karl said. “My lord! I wonder what the odds are on that happening?”
“Astronomical,” Judith said softly. “Simply astronomical.”
They all looked at the cards for a minute.
“Well,” Mike said finally. “Let’s shuffle and get down to play.”
He raked in the four hands and took great care to shuffle the deck thoroughly. Then he dealt them out again.
Nancy picked up her hand, looked at them, and threw them down. “Shit,” she said informatively.
The others followed suit. This time Nancy had gotten all the clubs, Karl had the diamonds, Mike had the hearts and Judith had the spades.
“This isn’t working,” Karl said finally. “Somehow the magic in this place is interfering with the shuffle.” He looked at the four piles of cards on the table and made a face. “Do you still want to play?”
“If we can find something that we can play,” Judith said. “I don’t think bridge is going to do it.”
“How about poker?” Mike asked. “We could play for matches or something.”
“I don’t really know how to play poker,” Judith protested.
“We’ll make it easy,” Mike told her. “Five-card draw.”
This time Karl shuffled the cards and dealt the first hand. Then he picked up his cards and looked at them.
The hand was assorted, but it was a dog. Not even a pair and no card higher than a five. Well, that was okay too. Karl played poker for the long haul and the first hand of the game was a good place to find out how the other players would react to a bluff.
Suddenly the top of his head felt wet.
Karl looked up and saw that a tiny thundercloud, no bigger than his hand, had formed above his head. A miniature bolt of lightning flashed from peak to fluffy gray peak and a fine mist of rain settled on him.
“Let me guess,” Nancy said. “You got the low hand.”
Karl threw down his cards in disgust. “I don’t think this universe is designed for card playing.”
“Wait a minute,” Mike said. “Let’s try something that’s more strategy and less pure luck of the draw. You ever played Texas Hold ‘em?”
“That’s a version of seven-card stud isn’t it?” Karl asked.
“I don’t know,” Judith said. “I’ve never played stud poker.”
“It’s easy,” Nancy told her. “You deal three cards to each player and four face down in the middle of the table. You try to make the best hand with the cards in your hand and the four on the table. You bet after the deal and then again after each card is turned. I’ll help you with the first hand, if you like.”
“And,” Mike continued, “it’s got the advantage that the outcome depends on the cards on the table more than the cards in your hand. That and your betting skill.”
They had no chips, and matchsticks were not a part of this world, but they appropriated a bowl of unshelled nuts from the sideboard by the port, ignoring the audible sniffs of the wizards.
Again Mike shuffled the cards and dealt.
“Three filberts.”
“I’ll see your filberts and raise you a brazil nut,” Judith said. She looked at the zebra-striped nut in her hand. “At least I think it’s a brazil nut.”
“What did we say, five pecans to a brazil nut?” asked Nancy, shoving into the pile of squirrel fodder.
“Ace,” Mike said, flipping the card. “Place your bets.”
They went around the table with everyone betting moderately. Mike reached out and flipped the second card.
“Ace again.”
Nancy made a strangled sound.
“What’s wrong?” her husband asked.
“Just keep going,” Nancy said, staring at the cards.
Again everyone bet and again Mike flipped a card.
“Another ace . . . wait a minute!”
There on the table face up were an ace of clubs and ace of diamonds. The last card was the ace of spades.
“What the hell . . .”
He pulled a card from his hand and threw it face up on the table. An ace of spades.
“That makes seven aces,” Nancy said, throwing down her and Judith’s hands.
“No, nine,” Karl said, adding his cards to the pile.
“Ten,” Mike said bitterly, adding another ace from his hand. “Come on guys, let’s go watch the sunset or something.”
Over in the corner Malus and Honorious watched them leave.
“What do you suppose that was all about?”
“Obviously a divination of some sort.” He shook his head. “I do not think they like the outcome.”
“I wonder what it portends?” said Agricolus coming over to join them.
“Nothing good, I warrant you,” said Juvian from his seat near the window. “I thought the Sparrow was bad with his strange magics and alien ways. Now we have near a score of them and they are all more fey than the Sparrow ever was.”
“And they left the table and chairs out of place,” Honorious snapped, ringing a silver bell to summon a servant to put them back. “Encroaching mushrooms. No manners at all.”
“It is a plague! A veritable plague,” Agricolus said.
Juvian, Malus and Honorious all nodded in glum agreement.
“Worse than that, perhaps,” said Petronus, a wizard with thinning hair and a pronounced widow’s peak, sitting apart from the others. “How much do we know of what these strangers do?”
“They have explained . . .” Agricolus started.
“Did you understand the explanation?”
“Well . . .”
“Just so. They labor endlessly in the very citadel of the North and foist us off with explanations none can understand. Meanwhile non-mortals everywhere prepare against us.”
“Do you think something is amiss?” asked Malus.
“And you do not? We stand on the brink of a war of extermination that is somehow bound up with the Sparrow and we let his cohorts work in our very midst doing things they will not explain.” He slapped his hand on his knee with a sharp crack. “If these strangers are so powerful, let them give us clear proof and reasonable explanations. As members of the Council of the North we should demand it of them.”
“That would be a task for the president of the Council,” Agricolus said.
“And I mean to talk to him about it. Now.” He rose and bowed to his fellows. “My Lords.” With that he swept out of the room.
“He does have a point,” Honorious said, lowering his voice as the servant came into the Day Room and started moving the furniture back. “They should not hide what they are doing from us.”
“I am not sure they are hiding from us,” Malus said slowly.
“Do you mean you believe that rubbish, that, that ‘spell compiler’?” Honorious snorted. “If so, I have an elixir of Immortality I wish to discuss with you.”
