Wizardry Compiled

Twenty-One: Bed Rest

A hospital looks like a hospital anywhere you go. At least this one smelled of sweet herbs and fresh cut hay instead of stinking of disinfectant.

Wiz was in no shape to appreciate it. He was asleep when they carried him in and he was still asleep when Moira and Bal-Simba came to see him.

Moira bit her lip to keep from crying when Bronwyn and Bal-Simba ushered her into his room. They had cleaned him up, but he was thin and drawn with new lines etched about his mouth and eyes. He looked as if he had aged a decade in the weeks he had been gone. He was still and unresponsive and for a terrible moment she thought he was dying.

But Bronwyn touched her arm when she moved toward the bedside. "It would be best if you did not wake him, Lady," the healer said.

"What is wrong with him?"

"Shock, fatigue and starvation mostly. There was some sickness in his lungs but we cleared that up."

"What happened to him?"

"We are not certain," Bal-Simba told her. "He was kidnapped to the City of Night by what is left of the Dark League, but aside from that he has told us very little." He frowned. "He was not in very good shape when we found him."

"Best we leave now," Bronwyn said softly. "He needs to sleep for as long as he can."

"May I stay, Lady?" Moira asked. "I’d like to be here when he awakes."

"It is likely to be a long vigil. He will doubtless sleep the night through and perhaps a good portion of tomorrow."

"Please, Lady?"

Bronwyn sighed. "Very well. But leave him strictly alone."

Moira nodded and settled herself in a chair next to the bed.

Pryddian hunched into the corner to get out of the freezing wind. The stones were like ice against his back and the chill crept closer around him. Overhead the clouds rolled low and slate gray, driven and torn to streamers. He felt a freezing drop on his face and realized it was starting to snow.

He had to find shelter. But there was no shelter to be seen. Behind him was the pitch black mouth of the tunnel he had stumbled from. The buildings on either side of the street had collapsed in heaps and the roadway was full of rubble.

Pryddian was not sure what day it was. At least one had passed since he had been left imprisoned in the workroom, but was it just one or had there been more?

He had been content to wait for the wizards’ return—until the lights went out, the wall of fire vanished and the heating spell failed leaving him alone with the demon in icy darkness. It took him a few minutes in the absolute dark to nerve himself to try the door and it took him hours more to blunder out into the wan cold day.

Pryddian shivered as he considered his options. The wizards had not returned from their confrontation with the Sparrow. That meant they were either dead or they had forgotten him in their victory. Remembering the way the light globes had flickered and failed and how the heat cut off suddenly, Pryddian did not think the Dark League had won.

He shivered uncontrollably and his breath puffed white. Now what? He could not walk the Wizard’s Way unaided; he did not know how. He could not sail the Freshened Sea back; he was not a sailor and there were no boats left in the City of Night. He did not even have a communications crystal to call the Council and beg for rescue.

Come to that, he could not find his way back to the Dark League’s workroom, not through that maze of darkened tunnels. Despair, cold and cruel as the wind, knifed through him as he realized he was probably doomed to dwell alone in the City of Night for the rest of his life. He did not allow himself to think about how long that might be.

He felt more snowflakes on his face, stinging now as the rising wind drove them against his exposed skin. No point in standing here. Somewhere in the city there had to be something to eat and a place out of the cold.

Cautious as a mouse, Pryddian, ex-apprentice of both the Council of the North and the Dark League, picked his way down the ruined street in search of food and warmth.

Bronwyn was right. Wiz slept like a log the night through, not even turning. Moira watched and dozed as best she could in the chair, waking every time Wiz so much as sighed.

The middle of the following morning he began to stir. Moira moved to his bedside as his eyes fluttered open.

"Moira?" Wiz said weakly.

"Hush," she said as she caressed his forehead. Instinctively he reached up to clasp her to him.

"Feeling better, are we?" said a brisk voice from the door. Wiz and Moira broke their clinch with a start and turned to see Bronwyn stride into the room with Arianne trailing her.

The healer ran a practiced eye over Wiz, checked his pulse and poked and prodded him a bit and then nodded in satisfaction.

"Will I ever play the piano again, Doc?"

"You mean will you recover? Of course you will. But that is what I need to speak to you about.

"There is nothing wrong with you that time and rest and a little careful nursing will not cure." She looked over at Moira. "Now I could use a healing spell to cure you this afternoon. It would be better if you were left to heal naturally but they tell me the North needs you on your feet as quickly as possible." She frowned her professional disapproval, but Arianne nodded.

"Yeah," Wiz shifted and sat up in bed, "there’s a lot I’ve got to do."

Bronwyn sighed. "Very well, then. I will keep you here overnight just to be sure, though. After that get what rest you can and try to conserve your strength."

She turned to Moira. "Lady, you are bonded to this one. Will you assist me?"

Moira nodded. "Willingly."

Bronwyn took a position on the right side of the bed and Moira stood on the left. Each of them took one of Wiz’s hands, and Bronwyn began to chant and gesture with her wand. She tapped Wiz’s temples, his throat, his chest and his groin with the wand, then laid it aside and clasped Moira’s free hand. Now Moira took up the chant in a minor key.

As they watched, the color flowed back into Wiz’s skin and the lines in his face smoothed out. Wiz’s mouth formed a little o of surprise as he felt the strength flow back into him.

Bronwyn released her grip, sighed and sagged into a chair.

Wiz shook his head. "Whoooeeee. That is really something."

"Just be careful not to overtax yourself," Bronwyn said from her chair. "Healing spells extract their price."

"I think I know the first one. I’m starved."

"Indeed," Arianne said. "I will see to it. And what will you do afterwards?"

"First I need to talk to Bal-Simba. We’re in big trouble.

"And then," he said deliberately, "I’m going to eat a little crow."

Arianne nodded and left. Bronwyn stayed for a few minutes more, resting in the chair and then examining Wiz again before repeating her admonition that he get all the rest he could.

"Bal-Simba or no, I am keeping you one more night," she told him. Then she too left.

Finally Wiz and Moira were alone.

Moira rested her hand on Wiz’s shoulder and he clasped it tightly in both of his.

"God, I missed you," he said.

"And I missed you," she told him, putting her other hand on top of his.

"We’ve got to talk, you know," he said at last.

"I know. I came back from Heart’s Ease to talk to you and you were gone."

"Yeah, I thought about you in the City of Night a lot. When I could.

"Moira, I’m sorry," Wiz said. "I let myself get so wrapped up in my own problems that I shut you out."

"And I crowded you too closely because I had nothing of my own here."

He smiled up at her. "We’ll just have to try to do better, won’t we?"

"We shall both have to try."

"Darling, do me a favor will you? If I start acting like a jerk again, punch me in the ribs. Hard."

Moira took his hand in hers. "I think I can manage that."

He reached up, pulled her down to him and kissed her again.

"In fact I will do better than that," she said with an amused glint in her sea-green eyes. "If you ever ignore me again, or treat me like a piece of furniture, I will make you very sorry indeed." Moira made a quick little motion with her hand and the air in front of her sparkled with shards of the rainbow. "And believe me, My Lord, I am just the witch who can do it."

Wiz looked at her openmouthed. "You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?"

Moira smiled sweetly. "Try me."

There was a discreet knock at the door. They turned and saw a servant carrying a covered tray.

"Your, ah, dinner, Lord," the man said with an odd expression as he laid the tray on the table beside Wiz’s bed. He removed the warming cover and withdrew.

Sitting on the plate, neatly trussed and roasted, was a small bird. The odor from the platter had unappetizing overtones.

Wiz looked at it dubiously. Then he poked at it with his knife. Then he looked up at Moira.

"Crow, right?"

Her eyes sparkled. "Well, Lord, you did say…"

"I know," Wiz sighed. "I know." Deliberately he cut a slice of the breast, put it into his mouth and chewed a couple of times.

"You know," he said at last. "I think I finally understand that expression."

Wiz was dozing again when he got his next visitor.

"Wiz?" a familiar voice said gently. At first he thought he was dreaming. There was no way he could be hearing…

"Wiz?"

"Jerry!" Wiz sat bolt upright in bed. "How the hell…"

"Relax, I volunteered," his friend told him. "We’ve got over a dozen people here; programmers, systems analysts, documentation specialists. We’ve been working on your spell compiler and magic operating system. We call it WIZ-DOS. You’re famous, boy."

Wiz shook his head. "I… I don’t know what to say… except God, it’s good to see you!"

"I missed you too. ZetaSoft wasn’t the same after you left. Look, I know you’re supposed to be resting, but there are a couple of things that have been driving us nuts."

Without waiting for an answer he spread four scrolls out on the bed.

"Okay, now here…"

"Just what do you think you’re doing?"

They both looked up to see Bronwyn standing in the door, hands on hips and fire in her eye.

"This is a friend of mine," Wiz told her. "I was just helping him…"

"You are helping nothing!" Bronwyn said, advancing into the room. "You risk relapse My Lord! Especially with the healing spell. You are supposed to be resting and rest you shall." She turned to Jerry. "As for you, you will take your magics and you will go back where you came from." She gestured as if exorcising a demon. "Begone"

"Look, I need to talk…"

"Out," Bronwyn ordered.

"But this will only take…"

"Out!" She made shooing motions. "Tomorrow he will be released and he can work himself to death as he pleases. But he will have a good night’s sleep before he begins."

"Tomorrow, okay?" Jerry grabbed the scrolls and left.

Later in the afternoon Bal-Simba came to visit him.

"They tell me you are recovered," the huge black wizard said as he entered the room.

"They want me to stay here overnight just in case, but I’m fine."

"Arianne said you wanted to talk to me."

"Yeah. We’ve got a very serious problem." He outlined his conversation with Duke Aelric and what he had seen on his travels through the Wild Wood.

Bal-Simba nodded gravely at the end of it. "I have talked to Aelric and I already know much of it. Besides there have been some incidents." He told Wiz about the disappearing villages.

"So it’s already started," Wiz said heavily. "Shit! I should have gotten back sooner."

"Little enough you could have done about that, Sparrow. Now, what of Duke Aelric?"

"He thinks we can make some kind of deal. But we’re going to have to work fast."

"What would he require?"

Wiz looked uncomfortable. "It’s not him, exactly. The way he explained it to me, there are so many factions and kinds of non-mortals that we can’t just sit down and bargain. What we’ve got to do is remove the threat in their eyes so their coalition falls apart. Then maybe we can come to an agreement with the elves."

"And what would this take?"

"Hey, I don’t know, I’m just the messenger boy."

"Hardly," rumbled Bal-Simba. "It was obviously your idea. Further, the elves, or at least Duke Aelric, are willing to treat with you."

Yeah, Wiz thought, only one of them keeps trying to kill me. "You make it sound like I’m ambassador to the elves or something."

"Very nearly, Sparrow. You have had more success dealing with them than any living mortal."

"Great. Another job I don’t want and I’m no good at."

Bal-Simba sighed. "Sparrow, we would be much further along if you would stop prejudging what you are or are not capable of. You can do a great deal more than you suppose if you put your mind to it. Now I ask you again, what will it take to avert a war?"

Wiz thought. "At the very least we’re going to have to fix things so they don’t feel threatened. That means we’re going to have to do something about demon_debug."

"That falls within the purview of you and the team from your world," Bal-Simba said. "What else?"

"Well, we’re going to have to stop this mad dash into the Wild Wood. We may be able to work out some kind of homesteading arrangement later, but for right now we need to keep people from going further."

Bal-Simba stroked his chin and the little bones of his necklace clicked against each other. "As easy to sweep back the sea, I fear."

"Can’t you order them to stop?"

The giant wizard smiled wryly. "Sparrow, even at the height of our power the Council never had that kind of hold over the people. Were we to issue such an order it would be ignored and there are not enough guardsmen to post at every forest road and trail."

"You’ve got to do something."

"We can only try."

"I understand you’ve got a whole team of programmers here," Wiz said to change the subject.

"Almost a score of them, recruited from the Valley of Quartz."

"You mean Silicon Valley."

"That is what I said, is it not? In any event they have been working on your system of magic and making excellent progress—or so they tell me." He chuckled. "Meanwhile they have been, ah, enlivening things here to no end."

"I dunno," Wiz said. "You make me feel superfluous. I’ve been gone and you and Moira have been doing all the work. All I managed to do was get myself kidnapped and chased all over the City of Night."

"Hardly. Aside from wiping out the remnants of the Dark League, you were the one who approached Duke Aelric with the notion of a treaty."

"You could have done that."

Bal-Simba shook his head. "No, Sparrow, I could not. In the first place he never would have talked to me. In the second place I would not have had the courage to do something so insanely dangerous."

"Oh," said Wiz in a very small voice.

"Well, I do not wish to tire you, so we will leave these matters for the morrow."

"Fine. I’m pretty bushed. I’m going to get a snack and go back to sleep."

Bal-Simba made no move to leave.

"Is there something else?"

"There are questions we must answer and soon," he said at last. "Some things yet unclear about what happened to you."

"For instance?"

"Was your kidnapping connected with the attempts on your life?"

"No. That was someone else. I think I can take care of that."

"Ahh, I see," he said and then hesitated again. "I understand Ebrion is dead."

"Yeah. I was there when it happened."

The wizard looked closely at him. "Was he involved in your kidnapping?"

Wiz opened his mouth and then stopped. Telling Bal-Simba what had happened would definitely discredit Ebrion’s faction—the people who had been trouble ever since he arrived at the Capital. But discrediting them wouldn’t make them go away. They’d still be here and they’d be even angrier and more frustrated.

Always leave your opponent a line of retreat—unless you want a fight to the death.

Wiz realized Bal-Simba was watching him intently.

"Would it do any good if I said Ebrion was involved?" he said at last. "I mean in the long run?"

The giant black wizard considered. "In the long run? No, not really."

"Then let’s say he died trying to save me and leave it at that."

"Sparrow, you never cease to amaze me," Bal-Simba rumbled. "You grow constantly in wisdom."

Wiz snorted. "Too schoon ve get old und too late schmart." Then he sobered. "I just hope it really isn’t too late. I made a royal mess of things this time."

"Things are in an, ah, ’interesting’ state," Bal-Simba agreed. "But certainly not beyond hope."

Twenty-Two: Mending Fences

The Mighty in the Capital gathered in the chantry the next morning in no very good mood. They knew that Wiz had been kidnapped by magic and they knew Ebrion was dead. Some of them, guiltily remembering old conversations and half-dropped hints, suspected very strongly the two events were not unconnected. Most of them didn’t know enough to suspect, but they had an uneasy feeling that someone’s head was on the block.

As the blue-robed men and women took their seats in the carved throne-like chairs around the room they murmured and muttered among themselves. Bal-Simba had commanded this meeting, but obviously the Sparrow was the one who would do the talking.

Wiz stood up as soon as Bal-Simba called them to order.

"This isn’t easy for me to say," Wiz looked out over the assembled group. "But you were right and I was wrong. I am sorry. No matter how my magic compiler turns out, humans are still going to need your wisdom and your sense of restraint. I was so wrapped up in the technical details I couldn’t see that.

"My blindness has had very serious consequences. Now I can only hope to undo the damage I have done."

He took a deep breath and went on. "I can’t change the past, none of us can. But we can put it aside and go on from there. I’m asking you to work with me, both with the problems we have right now and in the long run.

"I hope that we can work together in spite of what happened in the past. We need each other." He paused. "At least, I need you. Thank you for listening." With that he stepped away from the podium to a smattering of applause.

"What of Ebrion?" someone called from the back of the room. Suddenly there was dead silence. The Mighty froze where they were and everyone looked at Wiz.

Wiz licked his lips. "I am sorry to say Ebrion is dead. He was a good man and he always acted in the way he believed was right. He was killed trying to protect me."

There was an almost audible sigh from the assembled wizards.

Several of the Mighty crowded around afterwards. The first to reach him was Malus. "Well, my boy," Malus said. "Well, well." Then the fat little wizard hugged Wiz to him.

"The fault was hardly yours alone, Lord," Juvian said, stepping up to him. "We have had our blindnesses." Several of the others pressed forward to offer their support as well, and for several minutes Wiz, Moira and the wizards stood making strained small talk.

"If you will excuse me, My Lords," Wiz said at last, "I have to meet with the programming team this afternoon and I want to get something to eat before then."

Malus followed them out. "I wanted you to see something," he said once they were alone in the corridor. "Your friend Karl has been teaching us while you were gone." He shook his head. "It is hard, very hard, this new magic of yours, but I have been practicing and, well… greeting exe."

Suddenly, written between them in glowing green letters six inches high was:

HELLO WORLD

"It is my first spell with the new magic," Malus said shyly. "How do you like it?"

Wiz grinned, Moira hugged the tubby little wizard and kissed him on the cheek.

"I think that’s wonderful, My Lord," she said, "and I’m sure Wiz does too."

"It’s great," Wiz agreed. It’s one of the best presents I could have had. Thank you, Malus."

"That speech has to be the hardest thing I ever did," Wiz said as they made their way back to their chamber.

Moira squeezed his hand more tightly. "Perhaps it was also the bravest."

He put his arm around her waist and kissed her. Then he opened the door and ushered her back into their apartment.

"The place looks bare with all my notes and stuff gone," he said, looking over at the table beneath the window.

"They went to a good home," Moira told him. Personally she thought it was a great improvement, but she wasn’t going to say so now.

"What have we got to eat? I’m starved and it smells wonderful."

Moira brought the dishes out of the cupboard where they had been magically kept warm. "I had luncheon sent up from the kitchens. Beef barley soup, roast beef, potatoes and bread and cheese."

"Heaven."

Wiz ate ravenously, enough for three normal men. Moira contented herself with a cup of soup and watched him pack the food away.

"Well," he said pushing away from the table at last, "that was wonderful, but I need to go meet the programmers."

Moira shook out her mane of copper-colored hair. "I was hoping you could spend some time with me this afternoon," she said softly.

"I’d like to darling, but I’ve got to get up to speed on this."

Moira put her arms around his neck. "Won’t it keep for a while?"

"Look, I really do need to get to the team meeting." Moira melted against him and pressed her lips to his for a long, slow kiss.

"Of course," he said as the kiss ended, "I could always tell them I was held captive by a wicked witch."

Moira opened her green eyes wide. "Wicked, My Lord?"

Wiz pulled her to him. "Darling, when you get going you’re the wickedest witch that ever was."

As always the Council of the North met in the morning. However this time Wiz was sitting in the center of the long wooden table, next to Bal-Simba and he was anything but bored with the proceedings.

"… so that’s it," he concluded. "Unless we can curb the invasion of the Wild Wood and stop people from using demon_debug we are going to have a war."

For once there were no objections from Honorious, no sniping from Juvian and no clarifications from Agricolus. Every man and woman at the table looked grave.

Juvian, who oversaw the Council’s dealings with the hedge witches, pursed his lips. "All easier said than done, I fear. The villagers prefer demon_debug because it is so effective against magic."

"ddt is just as effective and a lot less harmful to the environment. We’ve got to get them to use it instead of demon_debug."

The sorcerer rubbed a pudgy hand over a jowl. "That will not be easy, Lord. We do not have the authority we once had."

"They’ll listen to you if they ever want another bit of magic out of me," Wiz said firmly. "Look, this has got to stop. Unless magic is actively dangerous it is not to be destroyed."

Juvian shook his head. "I do not know, Lord."

"Just tell them that if they don’t stop, I’ll come there and start throwing lightning bolts."

"If you wish it we will, of course, but I do not know if they will listen to us."

"We have got to make them listen."

"We will do our best Lord, but it will be difficult."

"Okay," Wiz sighed, "what about limiting migration then?"

"That is not merely difficult, that is impossible," Honorious said. "The farms are too small and the soil is too poor. On that the peasants will not listen at all."

"We don’t have to freeze our boundaries exactly where we are. The part of the Wild Wood closest to the Fringe was human territory once anyway. But we can’t have uncontrolled expansion."

"Then tell us how to prevent such expansion, Lord."

"If we don’t prevent it we’ll be at war."

The old wizard sighed heavily. "Then, Lord, my advice is to prepare for war. For the people will not obey us on this."

All up and down the table the wizards looked even grimmer. But none of them disagreed with Honorious or offered an alternative.

Twenty-Three: Brainstorm Time

"Okay," Larry Fox said, "what about corned_beef?"

Wiz had spent most of the previous afternoon and a good part of the morning meeting the team and reviewing what they had done. Now he was beginning to tackle the problems Jerry had dumped in his lap—literally—two days before. All the stalls in the Bull Pen were taken so they had wedged a table in down by the whiteboard and tea urn. He and Larry had spent hours going over obscure bits of code and untangling particularly strange demons.

"corned_beef is a hashing routine, obviously," Wiz told him between bites of his third sandwich of the afternoon. "It’s a fast way to search for a demon—a routine—by name."

"But where’s the rest of it? We figured out that it was doing a hashed look up, but we couldn’t see how you searched the entries."

"Mmmf," said Wiz around his mouthful of sandwich. He shook his head and swallowed hard. "It’s a perfect hash. One item per entry, always." He took another big bite of sandwich. "You take the first characters of the demon’s name, multiply that by a magic number. That gives you the number that serves as a subscript to the array. If you pick your numbers right you always get a unique entry for each item."

"That’s weird!"

Wiz shrugged. "It works."

"One more question. Why do you divide by 65,353?"

"Because you’ve got to divide by a prime number, preferably one at least twice as large as the number of entries you want in the hash table. 65,353 is a Mersinne Prime and it was the largest prime I could remember."

Larry frowned. "Are you sure 65,353 is prime? I don’t think it is."

Wiz shrugged and took another bite. "It worked."

"Okay," Larry said, "I’ll clear the rest of these changes with Jerry or Karl and get right to work on them."

"No need for that. I intended to fix those other points anyway and it’s in the language specification."

Larry hesitated. "I’d still better clear them."

Wiz started to object and then stopped. It really wasn’t his project any more, he realized. The original specification might be his, but even that had been modified in the process of development. Now it was a team project and Jerry Andrews was the team leader. It hurt to recognize that, but fighting it would only damage the project.

"Fine," he sighed. "Let me know what Jerry wants to do about it."

The next afternoon the entire team gathered in the Bull Pen. One of the long trestle tables had been cleared and stools and benches were pulled up around it. Wiz sat at one end of the table with Moira and Jerry by his side. In the center was the new version of the Dragon Book, with the small red dragon curled peacefully asleep atop it.

"The news from the Council isn’t good," Wiz told them. "I was hoping they could solve their immediate problems by traditional methods once they understood what the problem was. They’ve been pushing for us to wave a magic wand," he smiled wryly at the phrase, "and make them go away. Well, as of this morning, it is definite. There is simply no way they can do it. We’ve got to come up with a magical means to head off a war."

"Not much to ask, is it?" Nancy said.

"Okay," Wiz said. "We’ve got two problems here. One of them is the hacked version of that protection spell. The second one is we’ve got to keep people from penetrating further into the Wild Wood until we get things straightened out."

"What’s the main problem?" Judith asked.

"The spell, I think. That’s what seems to be doing the most damage right now. We’ve got to either neutralize it or keep people from using it."

"Can you not neutralize their magic as you did at the City of Night?" Moira asked.

"The worms? That’s too non-specific." He shook his head. "No, we can’t afford to soak up all the available magic. That would leave the humans right back where they were before we started. We need something more subtle."

"But we have to have it quickly," the redheaded witch said. "We cannot afford to waste time in pursuit of the ’elegance’ you keep talking about."

"So we’re gonna need something quick and dirty." He held up a hand. "But not too dirty. Does anyone have any ideas?"

"Sounds like a job for a virus," Nancy said.

"Naw, as soon as they see the program is infected, they’ll switch back to the old one."

"A birthday virus!" Danny shouted suddenly.

"A what?" Wiz asked.

"A virus that doesn’t trigger until a specific event occurs. We set the magic event far enough in the future that the program will have had time to spread everywhere. Then it triggers," he waved his hands, "poof! The spell doesn’t work anymore."

"You know," Jerry said suspiciously, "you talk like you’ve had a lot of experience at this."

The other shrugged. "It’s, you know, been a special interest of mine."

Jerry snorted. "When we get back, remind me never to use any software you had anything to do with."

Wiz ignored the byplay. "Okay, what keeps them from going back to the old spell?"

There was silence down the table.

"We can’t just wipe it out of their memories, can we?" Jerry sighed.

"Even if we could, there are sure to be written copies around. When the new program self-destructs, they’ll just go back to the old one."

"Can we come up with a spell to attach itself to demon_debug and destroy it?"

Wiz thought hard. "I did something like that against the Dark League. The problem is, when it destroyed the spell it took out everything for about thirty yards around in a humongous blast. We don’t want to kill them and it would be a big job to weaken the effect."

"Aw, they’d get the message after the first couple of explosions," Danny said.

"No," Wiz said firmly.

"Well…" The young programmer’s face lit up. "Hey wait a minute! Suppose they get the idea the spell’s no good?"

"The problem is that it is good against magic. Too good."

Danny smiled an evil smile. "Not if we’re the ones making the magic."

Wiz looked at Danny and then at Jerry. "Now that’s got possibilities. Suppose we cook up something demon_debug doesn’t work against?"

"Yeah," Jerry said slowly. "Something that will convince them they don’t ever want to mess with demon_debug again. Danny, stick around after the meeting, will you? I think I know how we can put that arcade-game mind of yours to work."

Wiz made a check mark on the slate in front of him. "Okay, that gives us a handle on one problem. Now for the other one, keeping humans out of the Wild Wood."

"I don’t suppose we can just make a law?" Jerry asked hopefully.

Moira snorted and shook her head so violently her copper curls flew in front of her face.

"That is what the Council has been trying. The hunger for land is deep in our farmers and the soil within the Fringe is thin and poor." She reached up and brushed a strand of hair off her upper lip. —Besides, I think you misread the relation between the Mighty and the people. The Mighty are guardians and protectors, not governors."

"And right now the Council’s influence with the people is at an all-time low," Wiz said grimly. Thanks in part to my meddling.

"So we’re gong to need a barrier," Judith said. "A wall."

"They would climb a simple wall," Moira told her. "Or else batter breaches in it."

"What about your basic wall of fire?" Karl asked.

"How do you keep from burning down the Wild Wood?"

"We could do a line of death," someone else suggested.

"We don’t want to kill them, just keep them in," Wiz said.

"An electrified fence?"

"That’s a thought."

"Yeah," Danny said, "with mine fields and guard towers!"

"That is not a thought," Wiz said firmly.

Again everyone at the table fell silent. The little red dragon whuffed in his sleep and scuffled the papers beneath him with tiny running motions as he chased a dream mouse.

"Okay," Cindy said slowly. "What about making them not want to go beyond a certain point?"

"A geas?" Moira shook her head. "You cannot lay geas on an entire people, including ones you have never seen."

"But ddt does essentially that for magical creatures," Cindy said.

"That isn’t a geas," Wiz told her. That’s a repulsion spell. Different animal."

"Well, how about a repulsion spell then?"

"Repulsion spells attach to specific objects," Moira explained. "You would have to put the spell on every rock, every tree and every finger-length of soil along the line."

"That’s not a problem—in theory," Jerry said. "We can write a program that will do it. It would take a lot of demons… No, wait a minute! We could use the principle of similarity. Mark the line on a map."

"Yeah, fine," said Nancy. "Where are we going to get a map accurate enough to make a spell like that stick? Have you seen what these people call a map?"

"Okay, so we make our own map," Wiz said.

"How are we going to do that?" asked Karl. "You can’t just sketch it from dragon back."

"If we have to mark everything individually, it will take years to get the barrier up," Jerry said. "I don’t think we’ve got years."

"We will be fortunate if we have weeks," Moira told him

"Wait a minute!" Wiz put in. "We can use a modified version of my searching spell. Generate thousands of mapping units. We’ll have our data in a couple of days."

"Searching spell? You mean that R-squared D-squared thing?"

"No, the three-layer search system. You’ve used it, haven’t you?"

"That is the spell I was telling you about, Lord," Moira said to Jerry. "The one we could not find."

Wiz frowned. "There was a copy in my notes. Well, it doesn’t matter. It won’t take long to rewrite it and I’d want to translate it to run under the latest version of the compiler anyway."

Wiz made another mark on his slate.

"That’s it then. Okay people, split into your teams and let’s get cracking. We’ve got a lot of work to do here."

"Are you sure this will work?" Bal-Simba asked dubiously as Wiz, Jerry and Moira showed him the team’s latest creation.

"It will if they try to use demon_debug on it," Wiz assured him. "The basic spell is a modification of the one I used to create the watchers against the Dark League."

"And it will harm no one?" the giant black sorcerer pressed.

"It can’t do physical damage to anyone, Lord," Jerry said confidently. Of course, what it can do to their mental state…

"Amazing," Bal-Simba said as he studied the creature on the table before him. "Where did you get the idea for these things?"

"Where I get all my best ideas," Wiz said jauntily. "I stole it."

Twenty-Four: Demons Go Home

"Lady, Lady come quickly!" Mayor Andrew pounded frantically on the door and looked fearfully over his shoulder toward the village square. "We are beset!"

"Unnugh?" Alaina rolled over in her bed and tried to shake the mead fumes from her head. She threw the dirty bedclothes aside and stumbled to the door, cursing as she banged into an overturned stool.

"Not so loud," she grumbled, fumbling with the bar. "Not so bleeding loud." She threw open the door and glared at Andrew. "Now what is it?"

In answer he pointed back into the village. Pale translucent shapes floated here and there over the houses, flitting down the streets and hovering before windows. Now and again a bone-chilling shriek broke the night’s silence.

Alaina gathered herself. "Magic, eh? Well we’ll see about that." She snatched a grubby cloak from the hook beside the door and threw it over her night dress. Barefoot and with her hair in disarray she marched toward the square with the mayor trailing close behind.

One of the ghostly shapes floated down out of the night sky at her, gibbering as it came. Alaina stopped short and flung her arm up to it.

"demon_debug BEGONE," she commanded in a cracked voice. "exe!"

The pale form stopped in mid-flight, shuddered and dropped to the earth, coalescing and changing form as it did so. By the time it reached the ground it was a small green man-like thing with a bald head, pointed ears and a wide mouth. In the flickering light of the mayor’s torch, Alaina could see that the little creature was bright green.

It blinked once, extended a foot-long tongue and licked one of its eyebrows, like a cat grooming itself. Then it smiled up at her nastily.

"Ya know, Lady," the little green man said with a distinct Brooklyn accent, "ya really shouldnna have done that."

"I tell you we are overrun with these things!" Alaina screamed into the communications crystal. "They are everywhere."

One of the little green men sat on top of the image formed above the crystal, his legs dangling down in front, as if he were sitting on top of a television instead of in mid-air. She brushed at him like shooing a fly, but her hand passed through the little man’s legs. He stuck out a foot-long pink tongue and gave the hedge witch an especially juicy raspberry.

From where he sat in the Council’s great hall, Wiz couldn’t see the little green man. But Alaina’s gestures told him clearly what must be happening.

"How long have you had this problem?" he asked sympathetically.

"Since last night. These things are driving us mad and when I call for help, you make me wait for near a day-tenth before anyone will speak to me. Nothing but that terrible music in the background while I wait."

Alaina put her head in her hands. The day had been the worst of her life. In laying the banshees she had created dozens of the little green men. Now they were all over the village, getting into everything, making rude and obnoxious comments to everyone and not giving anyone a moment’s peace.

Worse, there was nothing you could do to them. Magic didn’t seem to work and physical objects passed completely through them. Mayor Andrew was nursing a broken hand after trying to hit one of the little creatures that happened to be standing in front of a post. He was so angry at Alaina he wouldn’t even come to her for healing.

"I am sorry about the wait," Wiz told her. "We are very busy here and none of our service representatives, ah wizards, were immediately available." Out of the corner of his eye, Wiz could see all the communications positions in the great hall filled with wizards talking to people just as he was. But this one was special. Part of the reason Alaina had to wait was he wanted to handle this village himself. "Now, about these little green men. How did they appear?"

"First there was a plague of banshees and when I tried to exorcise them, we got—this." She waved her hand helplessly. "Oh, I would rather the banshees," she moaned.

"We have not been able to re-create your problem here," Wiz told her. "There is nothing in ddt that could produce an effect like that."

"I didn’t use ddt, I used demon_debug," Alaina said.

Wiz frowned and pursed his lips. "Well, as you know, demon_debug was not our spell. We cannot be responsible for the consequences if users attempt to apply spells with unauthorized modifications."

Alaina moaned again.

"However," Wiz went on, "we have encountered this problem before. The spell you used was not thoroughly tested before release and contained some serious bugs that interact destructively with certain kinds of magic. In fact, we find it actually attracts those kinds of magic. You were quite fortunate, you know."

"Fortunate?" Alaina asked miserably. Now three of the little green menaces were dancing a jig between her and Wiz’s image. They were accompanying themselves with their own singing and none of them had the slightest sense of pitch or rhythm.

"Fortunate," Wiz said solemnly. "It might have been dragons."

"Eh?" said Alaina, straining to hear over the caterwauling.

"I said it might have been dragons," Wiz shouted.

Now the green creatures had split up. Two of them were playing nose flutes which droned together like out-of-tune bagpipes while the third took center stage to perform a solo—and extremely rude—version of the Highland fling.

"Help us, Lord," Alaina shouted hoarsely over the racket of the demons. Wiz winced and muted the sound from his crystal.

"As it happens we do have a beta version of ddt Release 2.0. It should be very effective against these secondary demons." He pursed his lips severely. "However I would strongly suggest that you do not use any unauthorized spells from now on. The incompatibility problems are likely to become much more severe."

"Anything," Alaina said fervently. "Anything at all. I’ll burn every copy of demon_debug I can get my hands on. Just rid us of these monsters!"

"I’ll get a messenger off with ddt Release 2.0 right away," Wiz told the hedge witch. "And remember, no unauthorized spells."

He left Alaina blubbering thanks as the image faded.

"That’ll hold her," he said as he turned away from the now-dead crystal to Moira. "What’s the matter?" he asked as he caught her look.

"Wiz, this is cruel."

"What they did to that rock creature was ten times worse," Wiz said. "At least these demons won’t hurt them and they’ll vanish at a touch of Release 2.0. Besides, I want to make sure that new spell gets spread to every part of the human inhabited world—and that no one tries to use demon_debug again."

"Still, you make them suffer needlessly."

Wiz rose and held her close. "Not needlessly. If we don’t stop them there won’t be any magical beings at all left anywhere inside the Fringe."

"And would that be such a bad thing?"

He took her arms. "You don’t mean that. Magic is just as much a part of this World as humans are. You don’t handle something by destroying it. You come to terms with it and learn to use it."

Moira sighed and Wiz felt her relax in his grip. "Oh, you are right, of course. But I wish there were some other way."

"So do I," Wiz said. I don’t like this either." Except in certain selected cases.

"Well, what do you think?" Jerry asked the group gathered around the long table in the Bull Pen.

Moira gave a little gasp. "It is beautiful."

"It should be accurate enough to do the job," Wiz said judiciously as he looked over the map.

The little red dragon wandered over, sniffed at the map, decided it wasn’t good enough to eat or interesting enough to play with, and returned to his nap on top of the nearby books.

He was the only one in the room who was not impressed. It was a very special map. The parchment it was drawn on was made from the skin of a wild ox from the Wild Wood. The inks used in the drawing were made of pigments taken from the wood itself. Black from the oak galls, browns and full reds from the earth of the Wild Wood and the blues and the greens from minerals taken from its rocks. The pens and brushes used to draw the map were also made from Wild Wood products. Hairs from the tails of forest martens and squirrels, pens from the quills of forest birds and elder bushes. Even the water to mix the inks and the pumice to pounce the skin had come from the Wild Wood.

Unlike any other map ever seen in the World it was also accurate and to scale, thanks to modified versions of Wiz’s searching demons and an Emac Jerry had hacked to do the cartography.

The effect was breathtaking. The mountains seemed to rise up out of the parchment and the brooks and rivers appeared to flow in their beds. Even the forests seemed to be alive.

They all admired the map silently for a moment. Then Jerry picked up the wand that lay beside the map. It was made of ebony and ivory and was about the size and shape of a conductor’s baton.

"I still feel silly waving a magic wand around," he said to no one in particular.

"Just think of it as a funny looking mouse," Wiz advised.

"Okay, phase two." Jerry took the wand and drew it along the line on the map. Where the wand passed a trail of glowing green remained.

There was a stirring in the air, but nothing else changed.

"That’s it?" Judith asked.

"That’s it," Jerry said. "You wanted lightning bolts maybe?"

"Is it permanent?" Moira asked.

"Until it’s reversed," Jerry said. "But we can reverse it any time."

"This will work until the Council can come up with some kind of policy they can enforce," Wiz said. "It also establishes our good intentions with the elves and the other non-mortals. As long as the barrier’s in place I don’t think we will have a war."

Einrich topped the rise and stopped. The path ahead of him lay clear, but he could not go that way. His ox whuffed and stamped nervously, catching his master’s indecision.

The peasant scanned the forest. The trees here were no different than the ones in the valley behind them. The same huge old giants sheltering an undergrowth of ferns. But it was different and he could not go that way.

The trail ran on ahead as it ran behind, winding between the big trees, skirting logs and avoiding the thickly grown patches where a tree had fallen and saplings and busy new growth competed for the light. But he could not follow the trail on.

Einrich frowned and without knowing quite why, turned back. The valley behind was far enough.

Twenty-Five: Project’s End

"… and a fifty percent bonus for successful completion of contract," the clerk said, adding a second, smaller stack of golden cartwheels to the stack already on the table. "Sign here please." Karl bent down and marked the leather-bound ledger next to his name. Behind him the other programmers were lined up to receive their pay.

"Hey, I like this," one of them said. "No invoicing, no hassles with the bookkeeping department and nobody trying to hang onto the money a few days more to improve their cash flow. Why can’t all assignments be like this?"

"Speak for yourself. When I get home I’m going to hit the hot tub for about two days solid."

"I"m for a Big Mac first," someone else said. "No, make that six Big Macs."

At the side of the room Bal-Simba smiled. "I am almost sorry to see them go. They have certainly enlivened this place."

"Um, yes," said Malus, who was standing between Bal-Simba and Wiz. He didn’t say it with a lot of conviction. "Uh, they are all going back, aren’t they?"

Wiz shook his head. "No. I learned my lesson. Jerry’s going to stay behind on a long-term contract to help with the programming. He isn’t the teacher that Karl is, but he’s a lot better than I am. In another year or so he can leave and we’ll be able to use our own people."

"Oh," said Malus. "But just one, you say?"

"Just one."

Moira, who was standing behind them, grinned at the byplay and turned her attention back to the programmers. They were all glad to be going, she saw. The work had been interesting, but the job was done. Now it was time to move on to other things.

Moira felt a pang. She would miss them, with their strange jokes and their casual insanities and their odd, warped way of looking at the universe. She would miss the camaraderie she had shared with them and even their cheerful way of working themselves into blind exhaustion to meet their goals.

But much as she liked them, they were not of her World. Malus was right. They did not belong here and it would be hard on everyone if they stayed.

Still, it hurt to say goodbye.

"Lady?" a voice said softly. Moira turned and saw it was Judith. She had changed from the long dress and girdle she had worn around the keep and back into her slacks and unicorn T-shirt, the first time she had worn that outfit since arrival.

"I wanted to thank you before we left."

"Thank me?" Moira said blankly.

"For your advice. You know, up on the battlements that day. About romance and where you can find it."

Moira bobbed a curtsey. "I am glad it pleased you, My Lady."

Judith made a little face. "I don’t know that it pleased me, but it helped. You were right. If I want to see the romance in the world I am going to have to stop looking for someone else to create it for me." She smiled wryly. "If I can’t count on anyone else to make my dreams real I’ll have to do it myself."

"How will you do that?"

"I’m going to write a fantasy trilogy," said Judith. "It’s going to be full of romance and color and heroics."

"And dragons?"

Judith grinned. "Oh yes. Lots of dragons."

"Well, you’ll have the money to do it," Nancy said as she and Mike joined them. "If you’re not extravagant you can live for a while on what this job paid, even at Bay Area prices."

"Are you planning to live at ease on your new wealth?" Moira asked.

"Nope," Mike said. "We’re going to open a shop specializing in real-time programming and process control," Mike said.

"Yeah," Nancy added. "After this gig anything is gonna be easy." She looked over at Judith. "We were hoping to get you to join us, but I guess not."

"Oh, all this talking about leaving reminds me," Moira said. "Will you excuse me, My Ladies, My Lord?"

"You will be here to see us off, won’t you?"

"Oh yes," Moira said. "But there is one other detail that must be attended to. Please excuse me." She grasped Judith’s hands in hers. "And good luck."

"My Lords, Ladies, may I have your attention for a moment?"

Heads turned toward the dais where Moira was standing alone. "While you are all gathered here, and before you depart, there is one other denizen of our World we wish you to meet."

She gestured toward the side of the stage and a demon lurched out from behind the curtains. Nearly everyone in the room, programmers and wizards alike, gasped.

It was twelve feet tall, horned and fanged, with a barbed tail sticking out from underneath the jacket of its pin-striped suit. Its forest green skin contrasted vividly with its dark purple shirt and its stark white tie. Under one arm it carried a violin case big enough to hold a bull fiddle.

Moira smiled sweetly. I am certain you all remember the non-disclosure agreement you signed when you took this job?"

The programmers gulped and nodded.

"This is Guido," Moira said. "He is our contract enforcer."

Guido favored the group with a smile that showed all three rows of dagger-like teeth.

Nobody said anything.

"Naturally we will insist on strict observance of the non-disclosure clause," Moira said and smiled sweetly again.

"Can that thing reach us when we get home?" Karl whispered to Jerry.

"You want to find out?"

Karl thought a minute. "No, not really."

Neither of them said anything as the demon clumped back behind the curtain.

"Boy, that’s one way to get everyone’s attention," Karl said.

Jerry scanned the room, counting people with his forefinger. "Not everyone. Danny’s missing."

"The little twerp’s probably late as usual."

"Hey, Fox," Jerry called across the room. "Where’s Danny?"

Larry shrugged. "I dunno. He collected his money and split."

"Well, if he doesn’t get back here soon he’s going to miss the bus. Damn! I’d better go find him."

Moira had come up to Jerry at the end of the exchange. "No, My Lord, you stay here. I will go find him."

Danny turned out to be in the first place Moira checked, which was his room. He was wearing an open-throated collarless shirt, light leather jerkin and trousers tucked into high soft boots. He was stuffing his belongings into a leather traveler’s pack. June stood next to him, so close he nearly bumped into her every time he turned to take more things form the cupboard.

"That is hardly appropriate for your world," Moira said, eyeing his clothing.

"I’m not going back," Danny said defiantly. "I’m going to stay here." June stood close and squeezed his hand hard.

Moira looked hard at June. She had a definite glow about her that meant only one thing to the hedge witch’s trained eye.

"You are pregnant!" she said accusingly.

June smiled shyly and nodded.

"You see," Danny said triumphantly. "I can’t go back."

Fortuna! Moira thought, didn’t the little ninny have enough sense to take precautions?

"You cannot stay, either. How to you plan to support yourself—and your family?"

"I’m staying," he said gruffly. "Here at the keep or someplace else, but there’s nothing back there for me. And I can work. It’s not like I’m lazy or anything.

"Look," he went on, almost pleading. "Wiz is going to need help, right? I mean like there’s still a shitload of stuff to do. Well, I can help him."

Moira realized she was completely out of her depth.

"I think we had better talk to Wiz about this," she said finally. "I don’t think he is going to like it."

Wiz didn’t like it. He scowled through the whole recitation, or as much as you can scowl while you’re eating an apple. When Danny finally ran down he continued to scowl and kept on eating. Then he tossed the core of that apple away, selected another one from the bowl and took a hefty bite out of it while he tried to think. Danny stood silent and held one of June’s hands in both of his, as if he were afraid she would vanish if he let go.

"Won’t there be trouble if you don’t go back?" Wiz asked at last.

Danny shook his head vigorously. "Nah. My dad doesn’t want anything to do with me since I dropped out of school and my mom’s remarried. I’m over eighteen, so what could they do anyway?"

"You realize that if you don’t go back now it may be a long time before you get another chance?"

"I don’t want to go back. I want to say here with June."

Wiz thought for about as long as it took him to finish the apple.

"Leave us alone for a few minutes, will you?"

The couple left the room, still joined at the fingers.

"What do you think?" Wiz asked as soon as the door closed behind them.

Jerry shrugged. "I don’t know how much help he’d be, but I don’t think it would be a problem to have him around. He’s got more sense than most hackers his age." He caught the look in Moira’s eye. "Programming sense," he amended.

"Moira?"

"I doubt it will last. Both are children in more than just years and neither has a strong family upbringing. Still, they deserve the chance to try and I am not sure what June would do if they were parted forcibly." She looked at Wiz. "It has to be your decision, Lord. Ultimately you would be the one responsible for him."

Wiz grabbed another apple from the bowl and took two bites. "I’d just as soon he went back. He’s got potential, but sometimes he’s so obnoxious I want to kick his ass from one end of the castle to the other." He sighed. "On the other hand, I don’t like playing the ogre by separating them and he sure can’t take her back to Cupertino." He stood silent for a moment, chewing reflectively.

"Okay, if we can paper this over so he’s not missed, I guess he can stay." He looked sharply at Moira. "What’s wrong?"

"Wrong?"

"You’ve got that look in your eye."

"Oh, nothing," Moira said. "It is just that I got an odd feeling…" She shook herself. "No, nothing at all."

Wiz knew better than to pursue that. "All right, bring them back in here."

"Okay," Wiz said as he faced the pair. "You can stay. If," he waggled a finger at Danny. "If we can arrange this so you won’t be missed. You can’t just drop out of sight."

"That’s easy," Danny said. "I’ll write my mom a letter telling her I’ve taken a long-term contract overseas." He grinned. "That’s even true. Then I’ll throw in a couple of more letters to be mailed on her birthday and stuff. That way she won’t worry and we’ll just gradually lose touch."

Wiz wondered what Danny’s mother would make of getting letters on parchment, but he decided not to ask.

"All right. Get those letters written and get them back here before it is time to leave. We’ll see they get sent."

"I hope I’m not going to regret this," Wiz said after the pair raced out of the room.

"I wouldn’t lay you odds," Jerry told him.

Again the programmers—less two—gathered in a tight knot inside the circle inscribed on the chantry floor. As the sundial’s shadow shortened, they chattered among themselves and called goodbyes to the friends who had come to see them off. Wiz, Moira and Jerry stood on the dais next to Bal-Simba and waved back until the shadow reached its mark and the wizard motioned them to silence.

Once again the six-part chant welled up and the air shimmered and twisted about the group in the center of the room. The voices grew stronger and the people grew fainter until at last there was nothing but emptiness where they had been. The chant itself died away and nothing was left but the echoes.

In unison the wizards dropped their arms and at Bal-Simba’s dismissal stepped away from their places. As the others filed out of the chantry the huge black wizard stepped down from the dais and ritually defaced the circle with his staff.

Wiz, Moira and Jerry remained for a couple of minutes more, looking at the place where their friends had been.

"Well, come on," Wiz said finally. "We’ve got a full day ahead of us tomorrow."

"How do you feel?" Moira asked Wiz as they walked hand in hand back to their apartment.

"Tired, hungry and very glad it’s over." He frowned and sighed. "Only it isn’t over. We’re going to have to arrange some sort of meeting with the non-mortals to work out a treaty, and we’ve got a pile of work to do on the software."

They came to the door and paused. "But at least it’s over for today and yes, I’m very glad of that." He bent his head down to kiss her and she responded enthusiastically.

"But first, food," he said as he pushed open the door to their rooms with his foot. "What’s for dinner?"

Moira smiled mysteriously. "Something very special."

"Special or not, I hope there’s a lot of it. I’m starved again."

"Sit down and I will bring it to you."

Wiz plopped himself down at the table and poured out a large glass of fruit juice from the pitcher sitting on it. He tasted it and then added several dollops of honey.

"Here it is," Moira said as she came through the door with a large flat box in her hands.

"Pizza!" Wiz said lovingly, caressing the cardboard as she set it on the table. "A real pizza from Little Italy!"

"I got it when I visited your world," Moira told him. "I have kept it hot and fresh by magic since we returned."

Wiz opened the box and breathed deeply. "Pepperoni, sausage and mushrooms. With extra cheese! This is wonderful."

"Best of all, the cooks say that now that they know what a pizza is supposed to be, they can make them."

"Wonderful," Wiz said, concentrating on separating a slice of pizza without losing the toppings.

"I thought you would be pleased."

"Oh, you have your compensations, wench," he said mock-loftily as he lifted the steaming slice to his mouth.

Moira smiled sweetly, waited until just the right moment and jabbed her elbow into his ribs—hard.

And Wiz Zumwalt—mightiest sorcerer in all the World, conqueror of demons, twice victor over the Dark League and keeper of the World’s balance—tried to breath tomato sauce through his nose.

THE END