One : Politics and Strange Bedfellows
You can always tell a really good Idea by the enemies
it makes.
—programmers' axiom
Pelus the wizard paused for dramatic effect. " . . . and so, My Lords, we must act quickly," he concluded ringingly.
For the sixth time that morning.
"Not so quickly, not so quickly," old Honorious said testily from the end of the table. He cleared his throat and prepared to restate his position for the eighth time.
The traceried windows along the south wall of the council chamber had been thrown open and the fitful summer breeze rustled the brightly colored tapestries hung along the buff sandstone walls. Outside trellised roses climbed the walls and peeked in the windows, perfuming the air. The stained glass in the window panes threw patches of brilliant color on the walls, the table and the men and women in the chamber.
Sitting at the long wooden table was the Council of the North. Fifteen of the mightiest wizards in the World—and one programmer from Cupertino, California who was bored out of his skull.
William Irving Zumwalt, "Wiz" to his friends, "Sparrow" to most, tried to shut out the bickering and concentrate on the latest improvement to his magic compiler. It wasn't easy, especially since every so often he would be called on to say something and he had to keep at least one ear cocked to the conversation.
The Council had been arguing over the same point for the entire morning. Everyone knew that eventually they would do it, just as everyone knew the idea was good as soon as it had been proposed. But Agricolus had to get his opinions on record, Juvian saw an opportunity to snipe at Pelus and Honorious was constitutionally opposed to anything that looked like action. The result was a three-hour wrangle over nothing much.
For Wiz, who had made a career out of avoiding bureaucracy in all forms, it was sheer torture.
And I thought ANSI standards committee meetings were bad. He tried to shut out the incessant droning and concentrate on the idea he was developing.
A shimmering green shape began to form in the air in front of him. Wiz realized he had been moving his lips and that was enough to start the spell up. The wizards on either side of him glared and he quickly wiped out his unintentional handiwork, flushing under their eyes.
"Come, My Lords," rumbled Bal-Simba from the head of the table. The enormous black wizard was clad in his usual leopard skin and bone necklace. Somehow he had managed to seem interested through the entire morning. "The hour draws nigh. Let us decide." He gestured to a ray of light moving along a design inlaid in light wood in the darker wood top of the table. The spot of light was almost at the end of the design.
That was one merciful feature of the Council meetings. By custom and for arcane magical reasons they lasted no longer than it took the sun to traverse a certain arc in the sky. That meant about four hours.
So Honorious grumbled, Juvian sniped and Agricolus had one more thing he wanted to make clear, but they voted nonetheless and of course they decided to act.
Wiz stood with the others while Bal-Simba led them through the closing ritual. Another morning shot to pieces, he thought as they filed out of the council chamber. He sighed to himself. It could have been worse. All the Council members could have been present.
"Wiz."
He turned and saw Moira waiting for him. The redheaded hedge witch was wearing a gown of sea green that matched her eyes and set off her milk-white freckled skin. Its cut showed off her figure as well. Wiz thoroughly approved.
"Darling, have I told you you look lovely?" he said hugging her.
She gave him a look that made him catch his breath. "Why no, My Lord," she said, with her green eyes wide. "Not for, oh, at least five minutes."
"Too long." Ignoring the Council members who were knotted about talking, he kissed her.
In a vague way he knew he had improved in the two years since he had been kidnapped to this world. A more active life had put muscle on his slender frame. He had let his dark hair grow shoulder length in the local fashion. Tight breeches and puffy-sleeved shirts had replaced jeans and short-sleeved white shirts. Over-all he now looked more like a romantic's idea of a pirate than a pencil-necked computer geek.
But Moira had been beautiful the first day he saw her and she had only gotten more beautiful. Well, he admitted, maybe that was subjective. They had been married for less than a year and brides were always beautiful. Then he looked at her again. Nope, she was definitely more beautiful.
"I wanted to see you and perhaps have lunch with you."
"Is something wrong?"
She shook her head. "Nothing, I just wanted to be with you."
"I wish I could darling, but I hadn't planned on having lunch. I've got a special tutoring session scheduled and I'm trying to get the module for the spell compiler done by the end of the week."
Moira sighed. "Of course. I understand."
"I'm glad to see you though."
"Probably the only chance I'll get," she muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing, my love. Nothing."
"Look, I'll try to get home early tonight, okay?"
"I'll have dinner waiting."
Wiz sighed. "No, you better go ahead and eat. You know how this works."
"I know," she said softly.
The man in the blue wizard's robe looked around carefully before stepping into the clearing. A lesser man might have shivered, but he was of the Mighty and he knew well how to hold his emotions in check.
There was no sign of life or movement in the open space. The summer grasses lay pristine and untrampled. Here and there small red and yellow flowers nodded above them. The trees surrounding the clearing rustled and sighed as the breeze played through their tops. The air at ground level was still and smelled of leaves and sun-warmed grass.
The blue-robed man knew better than to trust ordinary senses. This was the time and the place appointed for the meeting and his higher senses told him magic of a lofty order lurked in that glade.
It is for the good of the entire World, he told himself firmly.
Still, if any of his fellow wizards found out . . .
Little enough chance of that. No one kept watch on the Mighty and with the Dark League defeated, watch of all sorts was lax in the North.
Even so, he had taken good care that the others would not find out. He had traveled the Wizard's Way only part of the distance to this place and come the final league on foot. He left the Capital with a plausible story about a real errand near here, an errand he had accomplished. If no one inquired too closely into these few hours, there was no way they could find out where he had gone or what he had done. If the other had taken similar precautions, they were both safe.
In the center of the clearing he stopped, extended his staff and traced a design in the air. The sigil glowed bright red and then began to fade imperceptibly toward crimson.
"Welcome magician," a voice hissed out behind him. Whirling, he saw the person he had come to meet.
The man was almost as tall as the blue-robed wizard and cadaverously lean. His skull was shaven, but showed black stubble from lack of recent attention. A wizard's staff was clasped firmly in his right hand. But most striking was his clothing.
In contrast to the blue of the first wizard's robe, the other wore the black robe of a wizard of the Dark League.
Wiz Zumwalt plopped down in the carved oak chair, poured a cup of wine from the carafe on the inlaid table and sighed deeply.
Bal-Simba looked up from the corner of the Wizards' Day Room where he was studying a scroll. "I take it it did not go well?" the giant black wizard asked mildly.
"You might say that." Wiz took a pull on the cup. Then he snorted with laughter.
"May I ask what is so funny?"
Wiz shook his head. "I was just thinking. Two years ago today I was being chased through the Wild Wood by trolls, bandits, Dire Beasts and the sorcerers of the Dark League."
"I remember."
"Now here I am, safe in the Capital of the North, the Dark League is in ruins and," he gestured mock grandly, "I'm supposed to be the greatest magician in the whole World."
"Your point, Sparrow?" Bal-Simba rumbled.
Wiz sighed deeply. "Just that right about now trolls, bandits and evil sorcerers look awfully good."
"I am Seklos," the black-robed one said. "I speak for the Dark League."
"Where is your master?" the northern wizard demanded.
"He is—indisposed," Seklos said. "I serve as his deputy with full authority to act in this matter."
The first one nodded. Since the great battle between the Sparrow and the Dark League, the conclave of sorcerers had been reduced to a pitiful few remnants. Their City of Night on the southern continent lay ruined and deserted and the black-robed ones who had once threatened to engulf the entire North were fugitives everywhere. The leaders of the Dark League, including Toth Set Ra, their chief, had died in the battle and the new leader was much less powerful. There were also disturbing rumors about him. The northern wizard was not surprised he had sent a deputy.
He advanced a step and then stopped. Crouching watchfully next to the wizard was a Shadow Warrior in the tight-fitting black of his kind. A slashing sword hung down his back and his eyes were hard and merciless through the slits in his hood.
"Foolish to bring such to a wizard's meeting," the blue-robed wizard said.
The other shrugged. "It seemed a simple enough precaution."
"We meet under a sign of truce. You need fear nothing from me so long as the sign glows."
Seklos regarded him with amused contempt. "I know the usage. But we did not come here to discuss custom. What is your proposal?"
"My proposal?"
"The sign changes color," the wizard pointed at the glowing character, which was now definitely orange. "Let us not waste time."
He hesitated, thrown off his carefully prepared approach. "Very well. It concerns the Sparrow, this Wiz."
"Ahhh," said Seklos in a way that made the other think that he had known very well what the subject would be.
"You mean you are not—what was that phrase you used?—'living happily ever after'?" Bal-Simba smiled gently. "Few people do, Sparrow."
"Yeah, I know, but I didn't expect it would be anything like what it's turned out to be. I thought I'd be able to finish my magic compiler and teach a few people how to use it. Then I could go on to more advanced magic programs."
Bal-Simba nodded. More than most of this world's wizards, he understood that Wiz's magical power came not from innate talent—Wiz had no talent for magic in the conventional sense. Rather, his abilities rested on his discovery that it was possible to write a magic "language," like the computer languages he had used back in Silicon Valley. Wiz might be spectacularly untalented as a magician, but where computers were concerned he was about as talented as they come.
Wiz shook his head. "1 never saw myself sitting in meetings or in a classroom, trying to pound programming into a bunch of apprentices."
"Power makes its own demands, Sparrow," Bal-Simba said gently, laying the scroll aside. "Your new magic makes you powerful indeed."
* * *
"You know this Sparrow," the northern wizard hissed. "You know his power. He broke you utterly in a single day."
"And you are cast down from your former high estate in the North," the black robe retorted. "Do you wish our aid in restoring you? A trifle chancy, I fear. As you say, we are not so great as we once were."
"I desire no such thing," the blue robe said with dignity.
"Oh, the presidency of the Council then? To replace Bal-Simba?"
"I desire what we of the north have always sought. Balance, the preservation of the World."
"I fear your Sparrow is proving as dangerous to your precious balance as ever he did to our League," Seklos said. "Well, what did you expect when you Summoned someone so powerful?"
"We did not agree to the Summoning," the other said testily. "That was Patrius's idea and he did not share it with the Council. And as for danger, he went on fiercely, "he is a greater danger than you know. With his outlandish magic he upsets the very balance of the World. Mortals attract attention from those who have ignored us ere now. They are likely to act against us, Council and League both."
Seklos nodded, saying nothing.
"There is still time. He can be stopped before matters come to a head, but to do it I must have your magic behind me."
Seklos laughed. "You propose to become an initiate of the Dark League?"
The blue-robed one gestured angrily. "Do not mock me, wizard. And understand this. We are mortal enemies, you and I. Under other circumstances I would crush you as I would kill a poisonous serpent."
Seklos smiled unpleasantly and cocked his head, but he did not interrupt.
"But," the first man went on, "the Sparrow is a threat to every human magic user in the World. For this once and on this one matter I suggest that we have common cause and propose that we act in concert to rid ourselves of this menace."
"You put the matter succinctly," said the black robe. "Let us therefore consider the destruction of this Sparrow."
"No!"
The other cocked an eyebrow. "Does our new alliance flounder so soon?"
"The Sparrow is to be neutralized, not destroyed."
"Why not?"
"Two reasons. First, I forbid it." Seklos smiled again, but the blue robe ignored him. "Second, if you had a modicum of mother wit you would know his death is your destruction. Kill the Sparrow, harm one hair of him, and every wizard in the North will descend upon you. They will grub you out of your burrows and exterminate you all."
"And doubtless in the inquiry your part in the business would be discovered."
"Doubtless," the blue robe agreed, making a brushing motion as if to shoo off an annoying insect. "No, we cannot kill him. But if he were to disappear there would be many to mourn aloud him and few to lament his passing in private."
"And you suggest . . . ?"
"A Great Summoning to send the Sparrow back where he belongs. Him and his alien magics."
"Such a thing would not be easy to do."
"It would take a number of wizards, but it would not be impossible."
"Patrius did it alone."
"I am not as great a magician as Patrius," the northerner said with dignity. "Nor do I wish to end as he did." He remembered how the Dark League had cut the mighty wizard down as he performed unaided the Great Summoning which brought the Sparrow to this world. "This requires more than I can accomplish alone and the others on the Council who feel as I do will not act."
"And you think we will?"
The northerner shrugged. "You have more reason and less to lose. It cannot be pleasant to be reduced to lording it over field mice and birds."
Seklos' eyes glittered and the other knew his shaft had gone home.
"We can do nothing while he remains in the Capital," Seklos said at last. "He must be brought to us."
"He can he maneuvered out of the Capital."
"He must be brought to—a place. It would be best if it were done while he treads the Wizard's Way. Then it is a matter of a simple spell."
The blue robe shrugged. Any wizard of the Mighty could be counted on to use that magical means for transport for any journey of over a few leagues.
"How long would it take you to be ready? The next full moon is on . . ."
"I did not say I would do it," Seklos cut him off. "I said we would consider it." He nodded toward the sign hanging in the air, now a deep violet fading to black. "The sigil darkens. Our meeting is at an end." He turned and walked toward the opposite edge of the clearing. Wordlessly the Shadow Warrior followed, moving crabwise to keep his enemy always in sight.
Behind them the blue-robed wizard nodded. He knew full well that the remnants of the Dark League would join him in this. What other choice had they?