Two
Foulness at the Fair
Almost at the end of the fair’s main row, as far from the Wizards’ Keep as possible, a smoke artist was displaying his illusions.
The open-fronted booth was carefully darkened to show off his creations to best advantage and, Wiz suspected, to hide the mirrors and other apparatus that made them possible. There were five or six people clustered in rapt attention before the booth, oblivious to the fair-goers pushing past them.
The artist was small and slender, dressed in a cowled black robe obviously meant to remind his audience of a wizard. For an instant, Wiz wondered if it was a man or a woman, but then the artist withdrew an unmistakably masculine hand from the sleeve of his robe to gesture.
At the hand motion, three gouts of gaily colored smoke blossomed within the booth, billowing toward the cloth veiling and swirling together in a pattern that seemed to pulsate and dance to an unheard melody. Garnet red and peacock blue smoke combined to form a deep, vibrant purple while tendrils of yellow smoke lanced through the cloud. Then the smokes sorted themselves into layers of pure color and began to interweave monochromatic tendrils in an increasingly complex design. At first it reminded Wiz of a simple geometric shape, then it became an evermore-elaborate piece of Celtic knotwork. Finally the smokes twisted into a design that seemed completely random, yet hinted at an underlying order. It seemed to Wiz that if he could just study the writhing smokes long enough he could unlock that secret.
Wiz had no real ability to sense magic as this world’s wizards could, but he understood the basic laws of physics and this smoke was behaving in a decidedly lawless manner. There was something wrong here and the realization sent a chill through him.
###
It took the better part of an hour for servants under Danny’s direction to get the workroom cleaned up and presentable again. It took about as lone for Jerry to track down and de-instantiate his fluffy pink creation. By the time they had settled down to work again Jerry had decided to shelve his screen saver and Danny had gotten a bright idea of his own.
“Somehow,” Jerry said, surveying the freshly patched plaster and the dusted and neatened-up piles of manuscripts, “I don’t think that was one of my better ideas.”
“Oh, I dunno,” Danny said. “It gave me an idea for something I’ve been working on.” This time Danny gestured with his mouse and an aquarium sprang into being on his desk. It was almost as big as the desk and full of water and life.
“Like it? It’s Ian’s birthday present.”
Jerry examined his companion’s work more closely. Against a backdrop of coral and rocks, brightly colored fish darted or hovered or swam lazily, according to their nature. Equally brightly colored crabs and other things crawled alone the white coral sand, and here and there something like a sea anemone waved delicately in the water.
It was beautiful, but there was something about the setup that bothered Jerry. Part of it, he decided, was that he didn’t recognize any of the fish. Then a black angelfish with pulsing neon-blue lights along its side swam by and Jerry’s suspicions were confirmed.
“Those aren’t real fish, are they?”
“No, they’re demons created by special little programs.” Danny spoke a word and the spell listed itself out in bright letters beside the tank. “Look, here’s something else too. The code’s self-modifying so the fish change over time.”
“They change over time?”
“Yeah. They evolve with each generation.”
“Hmmm,” Jerry said in a voice that wasn’t at all approving.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m not sure,” Jerry said. “But there’s something about that notion that bothers me.”
“You don’t like fish?”
“No, I . . . Well, never mind. I’m sure Ian will love it.” Jerry turned away from the demon fish tank and back to work.
###
As the smoke artist took a bow to a pattering of applause, Wiz nudged Moira.
“That stuff’s magic,” he muttered.
“But isn’t it lovely? See how it sparkles.”
Wiz looked sideways at his wife. Normally Moira was more wary of strange magic than he was. She had learned about magic at a time when the humans of this world were nearly powerless and magic was usually destructive or hostile. Wiz had changed that with his magic programming, but the old attitudes lingered. This wasn’t at all like her.
He looked at the robed and cowled figure again, trying to discern what was beneath the flow of dark cloth. Again the smoke artist’s hands darted from his sleeves and he began anew with a delicate curl of blue smoke from his outstretched palm. Although Wiz could not see the artist s head, much less his eyes, he got the strong impression that the performer was concentrating on his audience rather than his illusion. The smoke thickened and deepened until there was a column of sapphire blue before him. The crowd pressed close, eager for the next display.
Again the smoke shifted and formed a pattern, this one like an intricately fretted snowflake. The tendrils of blue smoke twisted and wove among each other into a pattern that implied something without quite showing it. As Wiz watched, the pattern began to spin like a wheel, pulling the eye with it in a way that made Wiz’s stomach roil. He stared down at his boots, fighting dizziness.
As he looked away he felt Moira stir beside him, pressing closer to the artist and his creation. Without thinking Wiz put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off impatiently.
Wiz looked up and saw his wife slack-jawed with her eyes fixed on the smoke. She took a hesitant step toward it and then a stronger one.
“Moira?” There was no response. “Hey!” he shouted at the smoke artist, but neither artist nor audience paid the slightest attention.
Wiz went cold with fear and almost instantly hot with rage. In two strides he crossed the distance to the artist and grabbed him by the hood.
As he jerked him around, the hood fell back and Wiz recoiled at what was beneath it.
The face was normal enough, pale with high cheekbones and a long nose, but the eyes were not. Instead of showing a normal white and pupil they were iridescent, as though there were an opaline mist over the whole eyeball, or like an insect’s eye when the light strikes it right.
The illusionist hissed like a frightened snake and wrenched away from Wiz. His hand darted out of his sleeve and instinctively Wiz twisted away so the hand struck his wizard’s staff instead of his arm. There was a flash of blue lightning and a report like a rifle shot as magic met magic. That seemed to break his hold on the crowd and suddenly people were running and screaming, stampeding away from the booth.
Wiz stumbled back, his staff held before him. From down the row of booths came a shout and a flash of magic. Out of the corner of his eye Wiz saw Malus raise his staff to launch another attack.
The thing looked at Malus, back at Wiz and over Wiz’s shoulder where Moira was standing. Without a word it whirled, gathering up the hem of its robe. Black smoke reeking of brimstone poured from the robe and rose in a whirlwind above Wiz’s head. Malus fired another magic bolt at the growing black cloud, but it disappeared into the smoke without a trace.
Tall as a tree the black cloud grew, and the wind of its turning whipped and tore at the booths and the robes of the wizards. Then the cloud separated from the earth and darted into the sky, pursued by magical bolts from Malus and lightning bolts hurled by Wiz.
It climbed faster and faster until it was no larger than a hand, then a finger. Then it moved away to the south.
“What? Who?” Malus came rushing up oblivious to the commotion spreading throughout the fair. Then he seemed to realize he would not get answers to his questions and settled for indignation. “To think that they would try it here! Of all places! Why, why the sheer effrontery of it!” Wiz noticed he didn’t specify who “they” were.
“Get help,” Moira said tightly. “Quickly.” Her words brought Wiz and Malus back to themselves and both fumbled for the communications crystals they wore around their necks.
“Are you all right?” Wiz asked his wife.
“I think so.” She clung to him fiercely and let out a deep breath. “It was like being pulled along by a strong current, or sliding down a slope of loose earth. I’ve . . .”
Before she could continue there was a soft pop of displaced air and Arianne, Bal-Simba’s assistant, appeared before them. Arianne’s eyes were unfocused and her lips moved silently as she spoke to the communications crystal about her neck. Off behind her, Wiz could see a flight of three dragons soaring away from their cavern aerie in the cliffs below the Wizards’ Keep. The Watchers had launched the ready patrol.
“We sensed a flare of magic even before your call,” she told the two wizards. “Now, what was this all about?”
“I don’t know,” Wiz said, “but I don’t like it.”
“A magical invasion of the fair,” Malus added. “A creature posing as a man.”
Moira was pale and shaking. “It was magic indeed. Like no magic I have ever felt before.”
“Programmer magic?” Arianne asked.
Moira bit her lip. “Not exactly. Something like it, but different—colder. Does that make any sense?”
Since Wiz lacked the natural talent needed to sense magic of any sort he could only nod. He had heard his kind of magic described as “feeling” like a horde of ants as the tiny spells that made up the words of the magic programming language operated, but he’d never felt it.
Arianne, however, had. “Colder?”
Moira hesitated. “Not cold, exactly. Rather, not-alive.”
Wiz had an image of zombie army ants. He didn’t like the picture at all.
###
“. . . so whatever that thing was it had a special attraction for people who are sensitive to magic,” Wiz summed up.
Around the table in the programmers’ office Jerry, Danny, Bal-Simba and Arianne all listened intently. After more than an hour’s rehashing of events, Moira wasn’t paying much attention.
“Which explains why it didn’t affect you,” Danny put in. “Like the rest of us you haven’t got any magical talent to speak of. But Moira probably had more than anyone else in the crowd so it really worked on her.”
“All it did was make me dizzy,” Wiz added. Moira looked down at her hands and said nothing.
“None of the other Mighty have ever seen or heard of the like,” Arianne told them. “This is something completely new. Worse, the magic is so different we did not detect it until the Sparrow confronted the thing.”
“Where did it come from?” Jerry asked.
“It arrived at the fairgrounds early this morning and set up its pavilion like any other merchant or entertainer,” Arianne said. “None of the other merchants had ever seen the thing before but none took special notice of it until the whirlwind began. It so well concealed its nature that Malus walked by the booth several times without seeing anything amiss.” She nodded at Wiz and Moira. “He apologizes most abjectly for not discovering it sooner.”
“I cannot blame him,” Moira said weakly.
“This thing is also,” Wiz added, “immune to lightning bolts, and whatever spell Malus was throwing at it. But we still don’t know what it is or what it was after.”
“We can hazard a guess on the last, I think,” rumbled Bal-Simba from his oversized chair at the head of the table. Although he had been physically present for the whole conference he had spent most of it receiving reports and communing magically with others of the Mighty.
“An attack?” Arianne asked.
“More likely a scout,” the great black wizard said slowly. “Something sent ahead to spy us out and discover our defenses.”
“So you don’t think it was alone?”
“It seems unlikely. What we know now seems to suggest a being controlled or commanded from elsewhere, not an independent entity.”
“Any idea who or where?”
Bal-Simba shrugged. “That is as yet unknown. Perhaps we can discover more when the Council of the North meets this evening.” He heaved himself erect. “Now if you will excuse me, I must consult directly with the Watchers. My Lords, My Ladies.” He sketched a bow and left.
“Are you sure you’re all right? Do you want to go lie down?”
“No, I am fine.”
“You don’t look it,” Danny put in. “You’re white as a sheet and you look awful.”
Moira looked up. “A fine thing to tell a woman, I am sure.”
“Well, you do,” Danny said defensively.
“Perhaps you had better go lie down, darling. You really don’t look well.”
Moira reached out and patted Wiz’s hand. “Perhaps I will. Dealing with strange magics seems to take a lot out of me.”
“Well,” came a female voice from the door, “all alive I see.”
Wiz looked up and saw a stout woman standing at the door. A boy and girl were peeking around her from either side and a dragon was looking over her shoulder.
“Oh, hello Shauna,” Wiz said. “Any reason why we shouldn’t be?”
Shauna was nurse to Ian, Danny and June’s son, and mother of Ian’s playmate, Caitlin. In addition to looking after the children and mothering June as needed, she provided a strong dose of common sense for the programming team.
“Fortuna, but you should hear the stories being bandied about in the town!” She looked at Moira. “Do you know you and Wiz both are dead a dozen times over? And each death grislier than the last?”
In spite of himself Wiz grinned. “And there are a dozen eyewitnesses to each death, no doubt.” He took a pull on his mug of tea.
“Folk are bolting their doors strong tonight,” the stocky woman agreed. “Fact is, I’ve never seen them so frightened. It will put a damper on this year’s fair, I’ll tell you.”
Moira stood up suddenly. “Then I am going back to the fair.”
Wiz spewed tea all over the table. “What?”
Moira reached for her cloak. “I said I am going back. The people need reassurance.”
“You’re sick and you’re going to bed.”
“People need my help and I am well enough for that.”
Wiz started to protest, realized this was another one of those arguments he wasn’t going to win and changed course.
“Then I’m going with you,” he said grimly.
“How much reassurance is there if I am in the company of the mightiest wizard of the North? No, if this is to be effective you must not come.”
“Look, we don’t know what that thing was or what it can do. I’m not going to let you go down there alone.”
Moira put her cloak down on the table and turned to face him. “That ‘thing’ is gone.”
“And what happens if you nearly pass out like you did this morning? That’ll be a lot of reassurance for everyone.”
“I will manage.”
“You’ll manage better with the proper company, My Lady,” Shauna said, looking closely at Moira. “No, not you,” she added before Wiz could open his mouth. “I’m the one to go with her.”
Wiz had the feeling he’d just missed something important and an even stronger feeling that the situation was getting out of control.
“Still, I’m not sure it’s safe.”
“As safe as anywhere,” Moira retorted.
Arianne nodded. “Three of the Mighty have examined the rest of the fair and found nothing more. This thing harmed no one and I have alerted the Watchers in the castle. With them on guard it will not be able to sneak close again. Meanwhile, Bal-Simba has summoned the Council of the North to meet to consider what more is to be done.”
“Besides, Fluffy will protect us!” Ian said.
Wiz raised his eyebrows and looked past the boy at the twenty-foot dragon standing behind him. The dragon’s tongue was lolling out and he was panting like a particularly dumb dog.
Fluffy was a very young dragon, hardly older than Ian. Like all immature dragons he was not very smart. But unlike most of them he was more or less a house pet—a circumstance that aroused considerable comment in the Wizards’ Keep and even more among the townsfolk.
Fluffy had attached himself to the programmers as a housecat-sized hatchling. When Ian was born, the two became inseparable. Originally the programmers had called him Little Red Dragon, or LRD for short. But Ian insisted his name was Fluffy and, wildly inappropriate as the monicker was, it stuck.
If there was trouble the dragon was only likely to make it worse, but separating Ian and Fluffy made them both mope, so if Ian went to the fair it was a foregone conclusion that Fluffy was going too. The prospect did nothing to raise Wiz’s enthusiasm for the expedition.
Danny, meanwhile, had grasped the critical point. “Us?” he demanded of his son. “Who said anything about you going?”
“Shauna’s going,” Ian said. “You always said we should stay close to Shauna, especially if there’s trouble.”
While Danny was at a loss over the eight-year-old’s logic, Shauna’s daughter saw her opportunity and moved in for the kill. Caitlin was a couple of years older than Ian, with a mop of jet-black hair, apple cheeks and great dark eyes. She had her Ph.D. in cute with advanced graduate work in wheedling.
“We want to go to the fair,” Caitlin protested.
Danny tried for a compromise. “You can go to the fair tomorrow when it’s open.”
“Tomorrow’s too late,” Ian protested. “Everything will be up by then.”
Wiz wasn’t sure why it was more interesting to watch the booths go up than to see them once they were up and open, but that was clearly the general opinion. Even Fluffy managed to droop sadly at what he’d be missing.
“All right, then I’m going too,” Danny said.
“You would be almost as bad as Wiz,” Moira told him. “You had best stay here as well.”
June stood close behind her son with a hand on his shoulder. “I go too.” Which figured, since June was as protective of Ian as a mother tiger is of her cub.
Danny looked over at June and Ian and scowled, but he nodded.
“Well, all right but you stay close, you hear?” And then, as Caitlin and Ian cheered, Shauna added: “And keep that creature on the leash!”
Ian had obviously been anticipating victory because he had the dragon’s collar and braided leather leash tucked in his belt.
Fluffy drooped his head so Ian could attach his collar. In fact the leash was strictly for show. Fluffy wouldn’t allow anyone but Ian to lead him and there was no way the boy could have held the dragon against his will. As it was Fluffy had a tendency to jerk Ian off his feet with a casual toss of his head. But the sight of the leash made townsfolk slightly more comfortable around the dragon and Fluffy seemed to understand that the leash meant he was to be on his best behavior. Besides, Ian was inordinately proud of his job “controlling” Fluffy.
“Okay,” Wiz said to his wife. “You won’t take me and you won’t take Danny. What about Jerry?”
Moira raised an eyebrow and looked over at Arianne. The tall woman stroked her chin in thought. “Appropriate enough,” she said finally.
“I dunno,” the big programmer demurred. “I’ve got this homicidal screen saver I’m working on.”
Caitlin tugged on his arm and looked up at him with enormous dark eyes.
“Please, Unca Jerry. It won’t be any fun without you. Please come.”
Jerry suddenly found he was not at all immune to the wiles of a little girl. In fact, like most men without children of their own, he could be twisted around a tiny pinky almost without effort.
“Sure,” he sighed. “I’ll go back with you. That way the lads can see what’s going on.”
Wiz looked down at the dark stain of spilled tea on his shirt. “Well, darling,” he sighed, “at least keep your eyes open and yell at the first sign of trouble. I think that thing was after you.”
Arianne looked at him closely. “Can you be sure it is aimed at Moira?”
“I don’t like the way it looked at her.”
“You said it seemed to be surveying the crowd.”
“Yeah, but . . .” Wiz lapsed into an unhappy silence.
“Oh, don’t brood love,” Moira said. “It is perfectly safe and I will have Jerry with me should need arise.”
“Plus two lads,” Wiz added. There was an insistent whuff over his shoulder. “And a dragon.”
“Shauna and June will be along as well,” Moira countered.
That carried some weight, Wiz had to admit. Shauna could keep the kids under control and June was likely to be at least some help. Danny’s wife was strange and half-wild from growing up in an elf hill, but she was no one to trifle with. On one memorable occasion Wiz had seen her take out three fully armed hobgoblins with the knife she always carried.
“Well, I still don’t like it.”
Moira reached out and put her hand on his arm. “Pooh. You heard Arianne. There is no danger now. But the townsfolk must be reassured, so it needs to be done.”
“We’ve got to do something about this Calvinist sense of duty of yours,” Wiz said as Moira picked up her cloak.
“Who is Calvin?”
“He designed genes,” Wiz said absently, “and he gave you the heavy-duty kind.”
Moira did what she usually did when she didn’t understand her husband, which was to change the subject.
“You’re a fine one to talk about duty. All a dragon has to do is show up and make some threats and you go off with him and we don’t hear from you for weeks.”
“That was different,” Wiz said with some dignity—hoping reverently Moira wouldn’t ask him how it was different. She settled for cocking a coppery eyebrow and fastening the cloak at her throat.
Then, seeing his expression, Moira reached out and took his hand. “Please, Wiz.”
Wiz hesitated and then relented. “As long as it’s safe.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “Oh, we’ll be fine,” she told him. “You worry too much.”
###
Far and far away, in a place below the earth, a thing considered.
It was enough. It had found what it needed. Now there was only the harvest.
###
Danny and Wiz stood at a window and watched the group cross the courtyard and pass out the castle gate.
“I guess they’re right,” Wiz said, as much for his own reassurance as Danny’s. “It’s perfectly safe.” He sighed. “I wonder if I’m getting paranoid in my old age.”
“I know I’m paranoid,” Danny said grimly. “I just don’t know if I’m paranoid enough.”