Four
The Lady and the Dragon
Wiz Zumwalt stood at the window staring sightlessly at the snowscape below. The wan sun was painting the tops of the clouds sullen red as it sank toward the horizon. Guardsmen manned the castle walls at close intervals and in the growing gloom he could see blue witchfire flicker about one or two towers as the wizards within them worked protective spells.
Listlessly he wiped his breath fog from the diamond panes with his sleeve. He probably should have been with the other wizards but he couldn’t concentrate. Instead Danny was handling things. Nothing had happened for hours.
“Excuse me, My Lord.” Bronwyn, the castle’s chief Healer, was standing behind him. Her square face and brown eyes were grave, but then Bronwyn always looked serious.
“How is she? I mean, how is the dragon?”
“I think ‘she’ is most appropriate for now,” the chief Healer said. Then she paused to pick her words. “Lord, such things are not unknown. Wizards have inhabited others’ bodies by similar methods before. The adepts of the Dark League more commonly, but even the Mighty of the North have resorted to the tactic on occasion. As a result we know a good deal about the condition and its effects.”
Wiz brushed all that aside. “But is she going to be all right?”
“Her spirit and her intelligence, her ka, if you will, are safe for now,” Bronwyn said.
“For now?”
The Healer fixed him with her steady brown eyes. “A human in a dragon’s body is not a natural combination. Still less when the dragon is not yet full-grown and intelligent. Such mixtures are not stable.”
“Meaning what?”
“If it is allowed to go on long enough, deterioration sets in. The personalities become mixed, degenerate and the level of intelligence descends to match the body. Once that happens there is no restoring the human personality even if it is returned to its body.”
Wiz’s breath caught in his throat. “How long have we got?”
Bronwyn shrugged. “Weeks, perhaps a pair of moons. Moira’s personality is strong, so that works in our favor. But the dragon is an alien animal and not intelligent in his own right. That works against us.”
Wiz turned from her and slammed his fist into the stone wall. He left a dark smear of blood where his knuckles hit but he didn’t notice.
“We are doing everything we can, Lord.”
“I know you are. Thanks Bronwyn. Uh, how’s Jerry?”
“I think he will be well. We think the things attempted to do the same thing to him but you foiled them by your attack. For now he sleeps the enchanted sleep. He will awake in his own time, but we do not know how long it will be. Several days at least.”
“Well, thanks.” He turned back to the window.
“My Lord, there is something else you should know.”
Wiz turned and looked at her.
“Telling you this violates a confidence, but you are party to the situation and I do not think Moira will tell you herself.”
The Healer hesitated. Clearly violating a confidence did not come easy to her. “She was—is—pregnant.”
“What?”
Bronwyn regarded him soberly. “She is with child, perhaps two moons along.”
“But I didn’t know! I mean, why didn’t she tell me?”
“She wanted to be sure. Then she intended to tell you, after the fair. She did not want you to worry during the festivities. Now”—Bronwyn shrugged—“I do not believe she is thinking clearly.”
Wiz sank back against the stone wall. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”
The Healer watched him closely but did not move toward him. “I know it is a shock to find out like this. Still, it is best that you know.”
“We’d been trying . . .” was all he could get out.
With a Healer’s instinct Bronwyn ignored his tears. “As you well know it is uncommon for a witch to become pregnant. The practice of magic drains the vital energies and makes it hard for a magician to either father or conceive a child. Still, with patience, persistence and a little luck . . .” The Healer shrugged.
Wiz nodded dumbly. Moira had consulted Bronwyn several times in her efforts to conceive. He remembered the earlier byplay between Shauna and Moira. Now he understood.
“What . . . what should we do?”
Bronwyn shook her head. “Lord, this is beyond my experience. All we can do is to do the best we can to reunite Moira with her body.” She paused. “I have no reason to believe that the separation will harm the child.”
Wiz sat heavily on a bench beside the window. “Thanks, Bronwyn.”
“If there is aught else I can do? Something to help you sleep perhaps?”
“No, I’ll be all right. There’s things I need to do.”
The Healer nodded and withdrew, leaving Wiz to his thoughts.
###
Night and fog closed around the Wizards’ Keep, black, damp and almost palpable.
The lamps burned in Bal-Simba’s workroom where the leader of the Council of the North sat and thought.
There was a single knock at the door. Bal-Simba gestured and Arianne entered.
“Any sign?” the giant black wizard asked.
“The Watchers can find nothing. Not even sign of anything unusual.”
“To be expected, I fear.”
“Lord, you know that Moira was pregnant?”
Bal-Simba nodded. “Bronwyn told me.” He sank his chin into a meaty palm. “I wonder if that was what attracted this creature to her?”
Arianne’s eyes went wide at the thought. Then she bit her lip. “That implies somewhat unpleasant things about our enemy,” she said neutrally.
“Very unpleasant indeed.” He sighed. “Beyond the fact that it was Moira, this business has aspects I do not like at all.”
“Our enemy seems powerful.”
“Powerful, strange and malign,” Bal-Simba agreed. “Since the Sparrow has been among us we have seen the magic of elves and even things not entirely of this world. But never magic of the sort I saw today.”
Arianne, who had stayed at the Wizards’ Keep to organize the defenses cocked a questioning eyebrow.
“Have you ever dealt with a viper?” Bal-Simba asked. “Something small and mindless yet full of menace and the single desire to harm? That was what those things were like.”
“Yet even a viper has reason,” Arianne said. “They act so to defend themselves or because they are frightened.”
Bal-Simba gave her a tired smile. “And in understanding the viper we become able to deal with it. We may hope that these things act with reason as well and that by understanding their reason we can learn to deal with them.” He didn’t say it with a lot of conviction.
Both of them were silent for a moment. “Well,” Bal-Simba sighed at last. “If the Watchers cannot find anything, best to resort to other methods. Have my scrying bowl brought to me. If it will not show us Moira—and I doubt very much that it will—we can at least learn where this new magic lairs.”
“Oh, and Lady . . .” Arianne turned, hand on the door handle.
“We need not mention our speculations to the Sparrow. Certainly not yet.”
“Of course, My Lord.”
###
Someone edged into the room. Looking up, Wiz saw it was Malus.
“Excuse me, My Lord,” the pudgy wizard said. “I just heard what happened. I wanted to offer condolences—and whatever aid I might give.”
“Thanks, Malus. I appreciate it.”
“I was going to ask you about my spell.” He drew the roll of parchment from his sleeve and looked at it ruefully. “It seems so trivial now.”
Wiz held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
“Now, My Lord?”
“I’ve got to keep busy,” Wiz said grimly.
“Oh, of course, My Lord. And if there’s anything I can do, anything at all.”
Wiz clapped the fat little man on the shoulder. “Thank you, Malus. You’re a good friend.”
After Malus left, Wiz spread out the parchment strips and arranged them on a bench beside the window. Like all spells it was written on parallel strips so the spell would not be activated by the act of writing it. Wiz stared at them for nearly five minutes before he realized he had the strips out of order. With a sigh he picked them up and stuffed them in his belt pouch. Then he wandered down the hall toward the programmers’ workroom.
He found Danny hard at it. There were at least six listings in different colors above his workbench and two emacs below them giving more magical commands. As Wiz entered, his young colleague whispered something to a third emac seated cross legged on the floor and the demon made a note with a quill pen on a strip of parchment in its lap.
June was in the corner with Ian nestled wide-eyed and clinging in her skirt. Her other hand stayed near her knife. She hadn’t let her husband or son out of her sight since the attack.
“Have you been able to get a line on the spell?”
Danny turned toward him and made a face. “This thing is real cute. First, you were right. It was done with something based more or less on our magic compiler.”
“Which version?”
“I said more or less. It’s been hacked, moby hacked. There’s stuff in there I’ve never seen and I’ve got no idea what it does. There’s other stuff that goes back to your original quick-and-dirty interpreter, in a couple of cases stuff we took out of the later versions because it wasn’t stable. Then there’s stuff that’s just been fine-tuned.”
He gestured and another screen opened, showing another listing. Here and there lines of code stood out in brighter fire.
“Those things we met in the square are very loosely based, maybe ‘inspired’ is closer, on our searcher system. The highlighted parts were probably lifted verbatim. But each of the things in the square is considerably more complex than our searchers—and a lot more lethal.”
“How do they work?”
“I’m not quite sure. What they do is to suck the life force out of their victim, like a bunch of magical vampires. But there’s more to it than that and I’m not sure what. Like I say, some of this stuff is just real strange. Some of it is beautifully tuned, some of it is damn crude and a lot of it doesn’t look like it does anything at all.” He paused. “You know, I think I saw something like this once on the net. A guy kept posting stuff to alt.c.sources. He was a really good programmer only he was going psycho and in his last articles before they took him away e had this same kind of mix of off-the-wall brilliant and just plain off the wall.”
“This guy’s too strong just to be crazy. Where’s this stuff coming from?”
Danny shrugged. “Bal-Simba and some of the others are working on that. I’ve been concentrating on trying to understand what we’re up against.”
Wiz was still looking at the code when the door banged open and Malkin strode in.
The tall thief looked like grim death. Her lips were pressed into a hard bloodless line and her dark eyes glinted dangerously. Clearly she wanted to kill someone. Wiz could sympathize.
“Word reached me at Heart’s Ease,” she said by way of greeting.
“Jerry’s in your apartment. . . ” Wiz began.
“I know. I have already seen him, much good that it did me. Now I want some answers. Then I want someone’s head.”
“I bet you think those are original ideas,” Wiz said bitterly.
Malkin softened. “I know they are not, My Lord. Your loss is much greater than mine and I am truly, deeply sorry.” Then her jaw clenched and her eyes flashed again. “And it gives me one more reason to want this one’s head on a pike.”
Even through his own misery Wiz was impressed, and a little awed. Normally Malkin was almost obsessively cheery, even in the face of utter disaster. He had never seen her this angry before—not, he thought, that she’d ever had this kind of reason before—and the effect was definitely impressive. More accurately, it was downright scary.
Malkin let out a sigh through her teeth and seemed to relax through a sheer effort of will. “Now then, tell me what happened at the fair this day.”
Talking in shifts and interrupting each other, Wiz and Danny filled her in on the attack.
“So,” Malkin said as the programmers wound down, “does this thing come to us or do we winkle it out of its hole?”
Danny and Wiz looked at each other. Neither of them had gone that far in their thinking.
“I think we need more information,” Wiz said. “We don’t know where this thing is from, how many of them there are, how their magic works or even much about how they operate.”
“What he means is we’re still in the fact-gathering phase on this one,” Danny said. “We gotta get our information together and work out a strategy.”
Malkin snorted. “And once you have done all that? What then?”
“Then,” Wiz said grimly, “we are going to kick some serious magical butt.”
###
All three of them were early for the council meeting but they found Bal-Simba already in the council chamber with an elaborately chased bronze bowl before him.
“My Lords, My Lady,” the big wizard greeted them as they entered.
“Have you found them?” Malkin asked, noting the scrying bowl on the table.
“We are not sure, but we have located the place where the effect is most powerful.”
“Where?” Wiz, Danny and Malkin demanded as one.
In response Bal-Simba gestured. The water in the bowl darkened and then the image sprang up bright and clear. The image of a ruined black city on the slope of an extinct volcano.
“The City Of Night!” Wiz breathed.
“So it would appear,” Bal-Simba said grimly. “The force is strongest in the caverns and tunnels beneath the place.”
“We should have wiped it off the face of the earth,” Wiz said bitterly. “It’s been nothing but trouble since the Dark League built it.”
“Do not be so eager to upset the balance of the World,” Bal-Simba told him. “Still, we have been remiss in how we watched the place.”
Theoretically, the City of Night was deserted, save for occasional roaming monsters left over from the Dark League’s reign. Part of the city had been destroyed in the climactic magical battle in which Wiz and the Council had broken the League’s power and killed many of its members.
In practice the place had needed the attentions of the Council twice since, once when Wiz was kidnapped there by a remnant of the Dark League and once to lay the slaying demon Bale-Zur, who had been the League’s most potent weapon. Since then the Council had watched the place by magic and occasional patrols of dragon cavalry but otherwise left it alone.
“What do we do now?” Wiz asked.
“That is for the Council to decide, I think.”
“Hmpf!” said Malkin, in a tone that left no doubt about her opinion of the Council’s decision-making ability. Wiz tried to ignore her and look on the bright side.
Four hours later it was abundantly clear that Malkin had been looking on the bright side.
“So we are at least agreed, are we not, on the need for action?” Bal-Simba rumbled wearily. That produced a general murmur and nodding of heads all the way down the table. Of course, Wiz noted sourly, some of the older heads were nodding because they were having trouble staying awake after going around and around over the same issues.
“Oh, certainly,” old Androclus said from his seat halfway down the table, “but,” he waggled an admonitory finger, “with caution.”
“Caution be fornicated,” growled Juvian. “We must act before this thing strikes again.” He traded glares with Androclus, they being opponents of long standing.
From his seat next to Bal-Simba, Wiz looked over at Malkin sitting against the wall. They exchanged looks of complete sympathy. If some of the older members were having trouble staying awake at this late-night session, Wiz and Malkin were having trouble keeping from strangling the council members. Danny and June had taken Ian to bed a couple of hours ago when it became abundantly clear where this session wasn’t going. Wiz and Malkin had stayed and fretted and fumed.
“My Lords,” Bal-Simba said. “I think we need to sleep on this before we decide further. Let us meet again at midday tomorrow. By then perhaps we shall know more.” That produced the strongest agreement Wiz had heard all evening and the meeting broke up without having decided anything at all.
“Well,” Wiz growled to Bal-Simba as they left the room, “that was a complete and utter waste of time.”
“Because we did not set out on crusade this evening?” the big wizard asked. “You judge too quickly, Sparrow.”
In reply Wiz drove his fist into the stone wall beside them. The scabs on his knuckles broke and blood marred the smooth white limestone.
“Speaking of wastes of time,” Bal-Simba said mildly.
“Yeah, but it’s so frustrating! We’re spinning our wheels wasting time and Moira doesn’t have much time.”
“A wizard must be the master of his frustrations. If you let them master you they will lead you to disaster entire. Besides, we learned several things this night.”
“Name three,” Wiz snapped.
Bal-Simba ticked them off on his fingers. “We learned that none of the Mighty has ever encountered this thing before, nor, as far as we can find, have the hedge witches or any other human magician. That means that it struck first at the heart of the human lands. Which in turn means what happened was not some chance encounter but a planned attack with magic we have never seen. That suggests in turn that this thing has been biding its time while it honed its powers elsewhere. And that . . . but there are your three, Sparrow, and several besides.”
“So what are we going to do about it?”
“Scant choice in that, is there? We will fight this thing and I hope we shall defeat it. As to the details—” Bal-Simba shrugged “—those we shall decide in Council.”
“I wonder if that bunch will ever decide anything.”
“Unjust, Sparrow. True, the Council is a deliberative body but would you rather we dash off heedless and ignorant against an enemy who is clearly prepared for us?”
Wiz looked at him narrowly. “You’re not real unhappy about the way things went tonight, are you?”
“There are worse paths to follow than to gain information before acting. As we know more I think the Councils position will become more definite.”
And the worst of it is, Wiz thought as he turned down the hall to his quarters, he’s right. In spite of his loss and anger, Wiz understood Bal-Simba’s caution. They desperately needed to know more about this strange enemy and there really was no good strategy that could be formulated until they knew more. From his time on the Council Wiz also understood that Bal-Simba had deliberately let the meeting drift so the Council would not commit foolishly to a plan. He knew all that, he understood the need for it and he didn’t like any of it. He opened his door and nearly tripped over his wife’s tail.
The dragon jerked its head upright with its neck taut. Then the eyes seemed to soften and the body relaxed as Moira asserted control.
“I’m sorry, love, you startled me.”
“Sorry. I was thinking about something else.”
The dragon slithered around to face him. “It did not go well?”
Wiz forced himself to look into the reptilian eyes. “Well enough, I guess. The Council didn’t decide anything, but at least they’re not going charging off on a wild goose chase. Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”
Moira started at the change of subject. “I meant to, but first I wasn’t sure and then with the Winter Fair coming on, I didn’t want you to worry.”
“I wish you had told me.”
Moira sighed, a great sulfurous sigh. “I wish I had too.”
Instinctively, Wiz moved to take Moira in his arms, but the only part of her he could get his arms around was her long scaly neck and that put her head well above his. She lowered her head and he adjusted his grip to just behind her ears but found he couldn’t look at her that way. He settled for dropping into a chair and Moira resting her head in his lap.
One side of Wiz’s mouth twitched up in what might have passed for a smile. “Some technical problems here.”
“I know,” Moira said sadly. “I’m afraid the bedroom is a mess. When I got back my first thought was to throw myself on the bed and cry. But the bed was not made to support this body’s weight and I am afraid we shall both have to sleep on the floor tonight.”
“That’s all right.”
Moira twisted around to look at him. “Do you know dragons cannot cry? No matter how sad they are, or how miserable or how frightened, they cannot cry.”
Wiz felt the tears flowing down his own cheeks. “I guess . . .” He took a deep breath. “I guess I’ll have to do the crying for both of us.” Then his head came up. “I swear I’ll get you back. I don’t care who’s behind it, I’ll get you back and make them pay!”
“I know you will, love,” Moira said simply and snuggled her head into his lap.
Wiz wasn’t sure how much either of them was lying for the others benefit.
###
The late-rising winter sun was just a dull glow through the fog and low-hanging clouds, but already the programmers’ workroom was full. Jerry was still in a coma, but Danny was hard at work at his desk. June was sitting in the corner with Ian more or less asleep in her lap. Malkin was in another corner, very ostentatiously touching up the edges of a double-edged dagger with a bit of fine-grained stone. Beside her lay a swordbelt with a cup-hilted rapier. Moira was off attending to what she delicately referred to as “dragon business.”
“Anything?” Wiz asked as he strode into the room.
Danny didn’t take his eyes off the screens. “Not much. Mostly it just confirms what we knew last night. I’ve got a little more on how this spell works, but boy is it peculiar. I wish Jerry was here, this is more his land of thing.” He turned to face his friend. “Do you want to take a crack at it?”
“Not right now. I’ve got some other stuff to do.”
Malkin tested the dagger’s edge against her thumbnail, paring off a nearly transparent scraping. “Like what?”
“Like a little scouting expedition. The one thing we do know is that the Enemy seems to be headquartered at the City of Night. The other thing we know is we need to know a lot more about him. So I intend to go around and see what I find.”
“What you are likely to find, Sparrow, is more trouble than you can handle.”
Wiz turned and saw Bal-Simba standing in the doorway. “This enemy is dangerous enough on our ground,” he continued as he came into the room. “He is likely to be far more dangerous on ground he has made his own.”
The big wizard settled into his oversized chair. “I met Moira in the corridor,” he said by way of explanation. “She said she believed you had formed a plan last night and begged me to discover it.”
“It’s kinda hard to get any sleep when you’re sharing a small bedroom with a dragon,” Wiz said.
“And it is not wise to plan great matters when you are fatigued,” Bal-Simba responded. “This idea of yours does not seem to have much to recommend it.”
“Relax. I’m not going to take this character on alone. All I’m going to do is get the lay of the land so we’ll have a better idea what we’re dealing with.”
Bal-Simba raised an eyebrow and said nothing.
“Look, you said it yourself. The Council won’t move until we know more. We’re likely to find out more by scouting this guy than sitting around here. I’ve been in those tunnels more than anyone else. Once when I rescued Moira from the Dark League, then when I was kidnapped back there and then when we went back to lay Bale-Zur.”
“We didn’t go into the tunnels that time,” Danny said. Wiz glared at him.
“Anyway, the point is, I’m the logical one to scout it out because I know that place.”
Bal-Simba’s skeptical silence reminded Wiz just how untrue the last bit was. Wiz had seen only a tiny fraction of that giant maze and, being the kind who loses his car in a supermarket parking lot, he couldn’t remember much of anything about the layout.
“At some point we’re going to have to scout, and now’s the best time. Besides, we can’t just react. We’ve got to act and information is the only thing that will get the Council off dead center. Besides,” he added after a brief pause, “Moira doesn’t have time to waste.”
For a long while Bal-Simba said nothing. Then he sighed. “If I could forbid you I would. But we both know I cannot and giving commands which you cannot enforce is unbecoming of a leader. So go if you must, and we will contrive without you.”
Malkin stood up and jammed her dagger home in its sheath. “You’ll have to contrive without me as well.”
Wiz shook his head. “Sorry, this is a one-man show.”
“I have a stake in this,” Malkin said, jerking her head back toward the room where Jerry lay. “Besides I’ve got a feeling you’re going to need the best thief you can get.”
“Meaning you?” Danny interjected.
Malkin spread her hands, smiled slightly and shrugged.
“Shiara does say she is as good as she herself was in her prime,” Bal-Simba put in.
“Shiara’s not giving her enough credit,” Wiz said sourly, remembering Malkin’s escapades as his “assistant” in the Dragon Marches.
“So you need me. I’m coming.” Then her face softened and her eyes sparkled. “Besides, it should be a tremendous adventure.”
And if it’s not at first, you’ll make sure it is. His previous experience had left him all too familiar with Malkin’s taste for excitement. He looked over at Danny for support but June was beside him, clutching her husband’s arm.
“I’m in this too,” he said.
June paled and bit her lip. Then she took Danny’s arm. “And me,” she said simply.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me? Why don’t we just take every wizard in the North?”
“You cannot do it alone, Sparrow,” Bal-Simba said mildly.
“This is supposed to be a surgical operation. The bigger the team the harder to hide.”
Malkin and June just looked at him.
“Okay,” Wiz sighed. “We’re four.”
“Five, I think,” said Bal-Simba, looking over Wiz’s shoulder.
Wiz looked hard at the big wizard. “You too?”
“No,” came a voice from behind him, “me.”