The Wiz Biz (20 page)
Authors: Rick Cook
Below everything was white. The snow sparkled in the mild winter’s sun. Tree branches bore their load of white. Down in the courtyard of the keep, the outbuildings were shapeless mounds buried under the snowdrifts. The whole world looked dean and bright and new that morning from Wiz s window.
After a quick breakfast Wiz and Moira went outside.
“It appears no damage was done,” Moira said as she looked over the buildings in the compound. “The roofs all seem to be secure and the snow does not lie too heavily on them.” Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were rosy with the cold, almost hiding her freckles. “We will have to shovel paths, of course.”
“Yeah, and make snowmen,” Wiz said, sucking the cold crisp air deep into his lungs and exhaling in a huge cloud.
Moira turned to him. “What is a snowman?”
“You’ve never made a snowman?” Wiz asked in astonishment. “Hey, I’m a California boy, but even I know how to do that. Here, I’ll show you.”
Under Wiz’s instruction, they rolled the snow into three large balls and stacked them carefully. There was no coal, so stones had to serve as eyes and buttons, while Moira procured a carrot from the kitchen to act as the nose.
“What does he do?” Moira asked when they finished building him.
“Do?” said Wiz blankly.
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t do anything. It’s just fun to make.”
“Oh,” said Moira, somewhat disappointed. “I thought perhaps it came to life or something.”
“That’s not usually part of the game,” Wiz told her remembering
Frosty the Snowman.
“It’s something done only for enjoyment.”
“I suppose I ought to do more things just for enjoyment,” Moira sighed. “But there was never time, you see.” She looked over at Wiz and smiled shyly. “Thank you for showing me how to make a snowman.”
“My pleasure,” Wiz told her. Suddenly life was very, very good.
He spent most of the rest of the day helping Ugo shovel paths through the drifts to reach the outbuildings. For part of the afternoon he cut firewood to replace the quantities that had been burned during the blizzard. But with that done, they were at loose ends again. The snow was still too deep to do much outside work and most of the inside work was completed. So Wiz suggested a walk in the woods to Moira.
“If it’s not too dangerous, I mean.”
“It should not be. The storm probably affected all lands of beings equally.” She smiled. “So yes, Wiz, I would like to walk in the woods.”
They had to push through waist-high drifts to reach the gate, but once in the Wild Wood the going was easier.
The trees had caught and held much of the snow, so there was only a few inches on the ground in the forest
Although the weak winter’s sun was bright in the sky it was really too cold for walking. But it was too beautiful to go back. The snow from the storm lay fresh and white and fluffy all around them. Here and there icicles glittered like diamonds on the bare branches of the trees. Occasionally they would find a line of tracks like hieroglyphics traced across the whiteness where some bird or animal had made its way through the new snow.
“We had a song about walking in a winter wonderland,” Wiz told Moira as they crunched their way along.
“It is a lovely phrase,” Moira said. “Did they have storms lite this in your world?”
“In some places worse,” Wiz grinned. “But it never snowed in the place where I lived. People used to move there to get away from the snow.”
Moira looked around the clean whiteness and cathedral stillness of the Wild Wood. “I’m not sure I’d want to be away from snow forever,” she said.
“I had a friend who moved out from—well, from a place where it snowed a lot and I asked him if he moved because he didn’t lite snow. You know what he told me? I like snow just fine, he said, it’s the slush I can’t stand.”
Moira chuckled, a wonderful bell-like sound. “There is that,” she said.
They had come into a clearing where the sun played brighter on the new snow. Wiz moved to a stump in the center and wiped the cap of snow off with the sleeve of his tunic.
“Would my lady care to sit?” he asked, bowing low.
Moira returned the bow with a curtsey and sat on the cleared stump. “You have your moments, Sparrow,” she said, unconsciously echoing the words she had said to Shiara on their arrival at the castle.
“I try, Lady,” Wiz said lightly.
Sitting there with her cheeks rosy from the cold and her hair hanging free she was beautiful, Wiz thought. So achingly beautiful.
I haven’t felt this way about her since I first came to Heart’s Ease.
“But not as hard as you used to.” She smiled. “I like you the better for that.”
Wiz shrugged.
“Tell me, where do you go when you disappear all day?”
“I didn’t think you’d noticed,” he said, embarrassed.
“There have been one or two times when I have gone looking for you and you have been nowhere to be found.”
“Well, it’s kind of a secret.”
“Oh? A tryst with a wood nymph perhaps?” she said archly.
“Nothing like that. I’ve been working on a project.” He took a deep breath.
It’s now or never, I guess.
“Actually I’ve been working out some theories I have on magic. You see—”
Moira’s mouth fell open. “Magic? You’ve been practicing
magic?”
“No, not really. I’ve been developing a spell-writing language, like those computer languages I told you about.”
“But you promised!” Moira said, aghast.
“Yes, but I’ve got it pretty well worked out now. Look,” he said. “I’ll show you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the jay’s feather he had used in his experiment. “I’ll use a spell to make this feather rise.”
“I want nothing to do with this!”
“Just hold up a minute will you? I know I can make this work. I’ve been doing it in secret for weeks.”
“Weeks?”
Moira screeched. “Fortuna! Haven’t you listened to
anything
you’ve been told since you got here?”
“I’m telling you it works and I’ve been doing it for a long time,” Wiz said heatedly. “You haven’t seen any ill effects have you? In fact you didn’t even know I was working magic until I told you.”
Moira let out an exasperated sigh. “Listen. It is possible,
just possible,
that you have been able to do parlor tricks without hurting anything. But that doesn’t make you a magician! The first time you try something bigger there’s going to be trouble.”
“I tell you I
can
control it.”
“Those words are carved on many an apprentice’s tomb.”
“All right. Here, give me your shawl.”
“No. I’m going to tell Shiara.”
“Moira, please.”
Dubiously, Moira got off the stump and unwound the roughly woven square of cloth she wore around her neck under her cloak. The shawl was bigger than anything Wiz had ever worked with, but he set it down on the stump confidently. Mentally he ran over the rising spell, making a couple of quick changes to adapt it for a heavier object. He muttered the alterations quickly and then thrust his hands upward dramatically.
“Rise!” he commanded.
The edges of the shawl rippled and stirred as a puff of air blew out from under the fabric. Then the cloth billowed and surged taut as the air pressure grew. Then the shawl leaped into the air borne on a stiff breeze rising from the stump. The wind began to gently ruffle Wiz’s hair as the air around the stump pushed in to replace what was forced aloft by the spell.
“See,” he said triumphantly. “I told you I could make it work.”
“Shut it off!” Moira’s green eyes were wide and her freckles stood out vividly against her suddenly pallid skin. “Please shut it off.”
The wind was stronger now, a stiff force against Wiz’s back. Wisps of snow and leaves on the forest floor began to stir and move toward the rising air. Even as Wiz started the spell and the wind rose even higher, Moira’s shawl was long gone in the uprising gale. The wind grabbed leaves and twigs off the ground and hurled them into the sky. The trees around the clearing bowed inward and their branches clattered as they were forced toward the column of air rising out of the clearing.
“Do something!” Moira shouted over the force of the wind.
“I’m trying,” Wiz shouted back. He recited the counterspell, inaudible in the howling wind. Nothing happened. The gale grew stronger and Wiz backed up against a stout tree to keep from being pushed forward. He realized he had made a mistake in the wording and swore under his breath Again he tried the counter spell. Again nothing.
In designing the spell Wiz had made a serious error. The only way to undo it was to reverse the process of creating it. There was no word which could shut the flow of air off quickly.
Meanwhile the wind was picking up, gaining even more force. Now the leaves and twigs were supplemented by small branches torn from the trees around them. With a tremendous CRACK and a thunderous CRASH, a nearby forest giant, rotten in its core, blew over and toppled halfway into the clearing.
The wind was so great Wiz was forced to cling to the tree trunk to keep from being swept up in the raging vortex of air. Moira was invisible through the mass of dirt, leaves, snow and debris being pulled into the air. Desperately Wiz tried the counterspell again. Again nothing.
The vertical hurricane carried denser ground air aloft. As it rose the pressure lessened and the water vapor in the air condensed out. Heart’s Ease was marked by a boiling, towering mushroom cloud that could be seen for miles.
In the heart of a raging hurricane, Wiz forced himself to think calmly. Again he reviewed the spell, going through it step by step as if he were back in front of his terminal. Taking a deep breath and ignoring the howling in his ears, he recited the spell again, slowly and deliberately.
The wind cut off as if by a switch.
The clearing was quiet save for the sound of branches falling back to earth and crashing through the trees around them. Moira was wet and disheveled, her red hair a tangled mess from the buffeting it had received from the wind.
“Of course there are still a few bugs in the system,” Wiz said lamely.
“Ohhh,” Moira hissed. “I don’t want to talk to you.” She spun away from him.
“All right. So it wasn’t perfect. But it worked didn’t it? And I shut it off didn’t I?”
Moira shuddered with barely suppressed rage. But when she turned to face him she was icy calm.
“What you have done is less than any new-entered apprentice could do, were his master so foolish as to allow it,” she said coldly. “Not only have you proved that you have no aptitude for the Craft, you have shown you have no honor as well.”
“Now wait a minute—”
“No!” Moira held up a hand to silence him. “You gave your word that you would not attempt to reduce the things Shiara told you to practice. Now you boast of having violated that oath almost from the beginning and with no shred of excuse. You were not driven to forswear yourself by need. You did so only for your own amusement.”
“Shiara didn’t teach me—”
“Shiara taught you far more than was good for either of you,” Moira snapped. “You have proven yourself unworthy of her teaching and of her trust.” She paused and considered. “Normally a matter such as this would be handled by your master. But you,” she sneered, “have no master.”
The way she looked at him made Wiz feel as if he had crawled out from under some forest rock.
“Doubtless this matter will be placed before the Council and they will decide your fate. In the meantime you must be kept close and watched since it is obvious you cannot be trusted and your word cannot be relied upon.”
She turned and stalked out of the clearing and back toward Heart’s Ease. Wiz opened his mouth to call after her, then trudged up the path in her wake, fuming.
Ten: Storm Strike
“Moira, wait!” Wiz ran up the path after her. She kept walking, eyes straight ahead.
“Okay,” Wiz said defensively, as he trotted along beside her. “So it got a little out of hand.”
“A
little
out of hand?” Moira screamed. “A LITTLE out of hand. Ohhh . . . This is beyond all your stupidity. Not only do you learn nothing, you cannot even be trusted to keep your word.”
“Now wait a minute . . .”
“Get back to the keep. You must be kept mewed for your own safety and ours as well.” She threw him a contemptuous glance. “Tomorrow I will destroy your tools before they wreak more mischief.”
“Destroy it? But I was right!”
“Go!” Moira commanded with a hefty shove in the small of his back. Wiz stumbled forward and gave his beloved a wounded look.
“Must I take you by the ear?” she demanded. “Now go!”
###
Shiara was collapsed in a chair with Ugo hovering about her. Her skin was ghastly pale and she was breathing in quick shallow pants.
“Magic,” Ugo said. “Big magic and close pain her.”
Wiz started guiltily.
Of course. That much magic must have hurt her terribly.
Seeing Shiara was even worse than Moira’s anger.
“It seems that our Sparrow adds untrustworthiness to his other accomplishments,” Moira said tightly. “He has been using your ‘purely theoretical discussions’ to learn to practice magic.”
Ugo threw Wiz a look of poisonous hate.
Shiara clenched her fists on the chair arms so hard her knuckles turned white and levered herself erect. “Go to your room and remain there,” she commanded. “We will decide what is to be done with you tomorrow.”
“I’m getting damned tired of being ordered around,” Wiz said.
“Your feelings and the state of your soul are of very little concern to me right now,” Shiara said. “Now go. Or must Ugo escort you?”
“Look I’m sorry . . .”
“That too is of no concern to me. Ugo!”
“Okay, okay,” Wiz backed off hastily as the wood goblin came toward him with fire in his eyes. “I’m going.” He spun and started for the stairs.
###
“What was that?”
The voice of Toth-Set-Ra boomed out in the head of the new master of the Sea of Scrying.
“I do not know, Dread Master. Something to the North . . .”
“Imbecile! I know that already.” Toth-Set-Ra’s mental “voice” settled back into normal tones.
“It appears to come from a quiet zone in the Wild Wood.”
There was a thoughtful pause. “Yessss. I know of the place. Send word that it is to be investigated. I want to know what caused that.”
Toth-Set Ra turned back to the grimore he had been perusing. His hand caressed the elaborately illuminated parchment made from human skin but his eyes would not focus on the glowing runes that squirmed wormlike across the page.
The end to you and all yours
the demon’s voice echoed tinnily, mockingly, in his ears.
A bane, a curse a plague upon the race of wizards. Magic beyond magics.
He slammed the book shut and stalked out of his chamber. “Send Atros to me by the Sea of Scrying,” he flung over his shoulder to the goblin guards.
The watchers around the rim of the great copper bowl bowed low as he swept into the vaulted stone chamber and fell back respectfully as he approached the edge. Toth-Set-Ra ignored them and stared deep into the sea.
The waters within were stained the color of weak tea by the blood of virgin sacrifices but the map graved on the bottom was easy to read. Glowing gems marked the cities of the World. A blood-red ruby, pulsing fitfully with inner light, represented the City of Night on the southern shore of the Freshened Sea. To the north and inland was the blazing blue sapphire which represented the headquarters of the Council. Here and there other gems winked green or blue or red or orange, their depth of hue marking the strength of the magics to be found there.
The effect was breathtaking, like a handful of gem-stones strewn carelessly across the bottom of a rocky pool. But Toth-Set-Ra paid no heed. His trained senses searched for bright spots not marked with precious stones. Those were places of new or unexpected magic.
There, well within the line setting the Wild Wood off from the Fringe was a glowing white pustule on the reddish copper surface. It was fading, the wizard saw as he bent his full attention to the spot, but it had been strong. Very strong and uncontrolled while it lasted. In the center of one of the quietest places in the Wild Wood, too.
He scowled again and reached out, weighing and savoring the magic that marked this place. It was powerful, that he knew almost without bothering to look. He sensed the disturbance in the weather, but he could see no purpose in it. There had been a mighty wind, but nothing seemed to have been accomplished.
His scowl deepened. Strange. Great spells were almost always supposed to accomplish great purposes. The spell itself was strange as well. It was as if a mass of minor spells had suddenly worked in the same direction.
Toth-Set-Ra was reminded of a marching column of army ants. Individually insignificant, they assumed enormous power because they all moved together. He savored the image and decided he didn’t like it at all.
Behind the wizard, the door opened and Atros entered quietly. He spoke no word and Toth-Set-Ra paid him no heed. Heart’s Ease. Yes. That was the place. Heart’s Ease.
Then Toth-Set-Ra’s fist smashed to the rim of the bowl, making the waters within quiver and the magical indications dissolve. He whirled to face his lieutenant. “Storm that place,” he commanded, his brows dark and knit. “Bring me the magician responsible for that magic.”
“Dread Master . . .” Atros began.
“Do it!” Toth-Set-Ra commanded. “Do not argue, do not scruple the cost. Do it!”
The big dark man bowed. “Thy will, Lord.”
“Alive, Atros. I want that magician alive.”
“Thy will, Lord.”
Toth-Set-Ra turned back to the Sea of Scrying, searching it with his eyes, trying to pry more meaning from it. Atros bowed again and backed from the room, considering the ways and means of accomplishing the task.
A purely magical strike was clearly impossible. The Quiet Zone lay well beyond the barriers set up by the Northerners. Magical assault would be detected immediately and countered quickly. If he was willing to spend his strength recklessly he could undoubtedly penetrate the Northern defenses, but he might not have time to find and seize the magician before the counterassault.
Fortunately,
thought the big wizard,
I have minions in place. The
old crow thought always of magic, but there are other ways to accomplish things. This time magic would be the mask, the shield; the cloak flourished in the opponent’s face. The dagger behind the cloak would use no magic at all.
Even as he strode down the corridor, he began issuing orders into a bit of crystal set in his cloak clasp. Before he had reached the end of the hall those orders were being carried out.
###
As Wiz was making his sullen way up the stairs at Heart’s Ease, the City of Night erupted into a hive of activity. Lines of slave porters toiled down the gloomy narrow streets, bent under the burden of provisions and weapons. Apprentices, wizards and artisans all jostled each other and the slaves as they rushed to carry out Toth-Set-Ra’s commands.
In the bay, ships were hurriedly rigged and loaded. In the mountain caves where the dragons and flying beasts were kept, animals were groomed, harnesses checked and packs were loaded.
Within minutes of Toth-Set-Ra’s order, the first flights of dragons were away from their cave aeries high on the mountain that loomed over the City of Night. They issued from their caverns like flights of huge, misshapen black bats. Their great dark wings beat the air as they climbed for altitude and sorted themselves into squadrons under the direction of their riders.
In a tower overlooking the bay, the busiest men of all were the black-robed master magicians who would coordinate the attack and make the magical thrusts. Down in the great chantry beneath the tower, brown-robed acolytes and gray-robed apprentices turned from their magical work and set to preparing the spells the black robes commanded. Astrologers updated and recast horoscopes to find the most propitious influences for the League and those which would be most detrimental to the Council.
Further below, in the reeking pits where the slaves were stabled, slave masters moved among their charges, selecting this one and that to be dragged out struggling and screaming. Whatever the spells, they would require sacrifices.
Far to the North, a spark appeared in a crystal.
“Lord, we are getting something,” the Watcher called out as the pinpoint of light caught his attention.
The Watch Master hurried to his side. “Can you make it out yet?”
The Watcher, a lean blonde young man stared deep into his scrying stone. “No Lord, there is too much background, or . . . Wait a minute! I think we’re being jammed.”
“A single source?” The Watch Master bent over to peer into the crystal.
The Watcher frowned. “No Lord, it is spread too wide.” The Watch Master straightened up with a jerk.
“Sound the alarm. Quickly!”
###
On a cliff overlooking the Freshened Sea, the Captain of the Shadow Warriors reviewed his troops’ dispositions and permitted himself a tiny smile of satisfaction.
For months he and his men had camped undetected on the enemy’s doorstep. They used no magic in camp, save for the communications crystal the commander wore about his neck. Even their great flying beasts were controlled, cared for and fed without magic. Instead their magicians had spent their time listening intently to the world-murmurs of magic from the Northerners.
For months the men had subsisted mostly on cold food. Cooking was limited so the smoke might not betray them. In twos and threes they had penetrated miles inland, observing and sometimes reporting back to their masters in the City of Night.
Thinking on that, the Captain frowned. This was not supposed to be an assault mission. But now his patrols had been hastily consolidated into a strike force and ordered to penetrate a Quiet Zone to assault a castle and capture the magicians laired there.
The message he received was as short as it could be so the Watchers of the North would not intercept it.
Burn the keep called Heart’s Ease and bring the magicians there alive and unharmed to the City of Night.
That was all, but for his well-trained band that was enough.
He had no doubt his men could do it. The castle defenses were minimal and although his men did not normally use magic, they had it at their call.
In the forest clearing three flying beasts waited. Their gray wrinkled skin bore neither hair nor scales. Their long necks and huge blunt-heads thrust aloft as their great nostrils quivered in the wind. The huge batlike wings were unfurled to their full three-hundred-foot span and the animals moved them gently up and down at the command of their mahouts. Unlike dragons, these creatures were cold-blooded. They must warm themselves up before they could fly. Even from this distance the captain could smell the carrion stench of the animals.
Ritually, the Captain checked his weapons. The long, single-edged slashing sword was over his back with the scabbard muffled with oiled leather at the mouth. His dagger and axe hung at his waist. The contents of the pouches and pockets scattered about his harness: poisons, powders of blindness, flash powders and pots of burning. A blowgun lay alongside his sword and the needles were sheathed in their special pouch. Everything was muffled and dull. There was nothing on him or his men to shine, clink or clatter and almost nothing of magic.
Their enemies might see the Shadow Warriors but even the Mightiest of the Mighty would be hard-put to sniff them out by magic.
The Captain moved to his flying beast and an aide formed a stirrup so he could mount. Behind him the five Warriors of his troop had settled themselves onto the beast’s broad back, their feet firmly placed in the harness.
The animal shifted slightly as the Captain settled in and opened its gaping mouth to honk complaint. But without a sound. Its vocal cords had been cut long ago so it might not betray itself in the presence of the enemy.
The Captain looked over his shoulders. Three other beasts were visible with their warriors aboard and their mahouts holding the reins without slack. To the side one of his sergeants signaled that the beasts out of his sight were also ready. The Captain nodded and raised his arm in signal.
In unison great leathery wings beat the air, raising flurries of dead leaves and dust as the animals clawed for purchase in the sky. Once, twice, three times the animals’ mighty wings smote the air and then they were away, rocking unsteadily at first as each animal adjusted its balance, and then climbing swiftly into a sky only touched by the rising moon. From other clearings on the forested top beasts rose by twos and threes to soar into the clouds. As they climbed they sorted themselves out into four formations of threes. They might have appeared to be on a mass mating flight, save that not even these creatures mated so deep in winter.
The long, snakelike necks stretched forth and the animals squinted to protect their eyes from the searing cold.
The cold bit sharp and fierce at the Captain despite his gloves and the mufflerlike veil wound around his face. He flexed his fingers to keep them supple and otherwise ignored it. Cold, hunger and hardship were always the lot of the Shadow Warriors and they were trained from childhood to bear them. Again he considered the plan and nodded to himself.
A glance behind him showed the Captain that the other warriors on his beast were flat against the animal’s back, partly to cut the air resistance and partly to stay out of the wind.
As the gaggle of flying beasts scudded through the sky, the Captain kept a close watch for landmarks. With the force under a strict ban on magic, he could not use more reliable methods. His trained senses told him there was little magic below or around him to conceal any use of magic by the Shadow Warriors.
Far below a lone, lost woodsman caught a glimpse of the horde as it hunted across the sky. With a whimper he thrust himself back into a bramble thicket and hid his eyes from the sight.
