Rick Cook - The Wizardry Quested

"Now then," Malkin said, striding toward the center of the room, flipping her dagger into the air and catching it by the point, "we need to get this expedition organized."

Wiz sighed. This was going to be a long quest.

Two hours later Wiz met Bal-Simba at the turning of the corridor. The big wizard looked at Wiz as he fell in beside him and raised an eyebrow in unspoken question.

"I think," Wiz said brightly, "that I may scream. In fact I’m on my way up to the battlements to do just that."

"I am not unfamiliar with the feeling."

"Want to join me?"

"I have never found it a particularly productive exercise."

Wiz made a face. "Has it ever occurred to you that trying to exercise leadership around this place is like herding cats?"

"Quite recently," his companion said dryly. "Sparrow, you already know what I think of this enterprise."

"Almost, I’m coming to share your view. Almost."

"Concerned about your companions?"

"Wouldn’t you be?" He ticked them off on his fingers. "June’s crazy, Malkin’s a kleptomaniac adrenaline junkie, Danny’s still kind of wild and Glandurg is just plain dangerous."

Bal-Simba didn’t argue. "Even so, they will be at your side in this business, and if you are determined to do this thing it were best if you counted their strengths rather than their weaknesses. None of them is without skills which you might need."

Wiz thought about it for a minute and looked up at the big wizard.

"Do you really think they’ll help?"

"The point, Sparrow, is that worrying about them will not help either. A positive attitude can give you an advantage and I think you will need every one you can find."

"All I wanted was a simple little scouting expedition, to probe around the edges a little."

"Life does not always give us what we want," Bal-Simba told him. "Very often we must choose to accept what it gives us with the best grace possible."

"Isn’t the sun ever going to break through?" Wiz growled as he looked out the window of the castle’s great hall toward the west.

"Not today," Bal-Simba said, looking over his friends shoulder.

It was afternoon, but the low clouds and deepening fog had made the day even dimmer than the dawn. The sullen gloom beyond the window reflected Wiz’s mood perfectly and that, he thought, was one thing he didn’t need right now. Most of the rest of the party shared his mood. Not entirely, of course. Malkin was bouncing around like a fox terrier, happy at the prospect of action-not to mention slitting a few throats and perhaps lifting some purses. Glandurg struck a grimly heroic pose. Danny was just grim and June was, well, June. Wiz kept looking out the window. "A blizzard coming on?"

"Perhaps. But I think something more than that"

"What?"

"I do not know," Bal-Simba said, "but I suspect we shall find out after you are gone."

The way he said it indicated he didn’t think they’d like what they found. Wiz turned away from the window. "Look, I know you don’t like this, but I have got to do what I can to save Moira."

Bal-Simba continued to look out the window. "You must act according to your nature, Sparrow. Only consider what a victory it would be for the Enemy if something were to happen to you."

Wiz bit his lip. I’ll be careful I promise."

As he said it, he rubbed his right ring finger, bare for the first time in months. Lake the others he was leaving his Ring of Protection behind. The spell, which froze the wearer into invulnerable immobility when facing a mortal threat, had not protected Moira. What’s more, Wiz’s experience in the Dragon Marches had proven that the spell could be used against the wearer by freezing that person through the simple expedient of keeping up the threat Wiz knew the rings wouldn’t help on this expedition, but still:

Bal-Simba turned from the window. "The time draws near."

The scouting parry all wore traveling cloaks and each of them carried a pack. They were armed and armored, each in his or her appropriate fashion. For Wiz and Danny that meant their wizard’s staffs, since neither of them was proficient with this world’s weapons. Glandurg had a mail byrnie to his knobby knees and Blind Fury slung over his back Malkin had a shirt of light mail and her rapier and dagger-plus who-knows-what concealed about her person. June had her knife. Since they would be sending themselves along the Wizard’s Way rather than being sent there was no need to start from the great hall. However the cavernous hall had enough room for the people who had come to see them off, plus the dozen or so of the Mighty posted at strategic points around them in case something nasty tried to come in as they went out.

Among the others were Shauna, holding tight to a tearful Ian. And of course the dragon that was now the body of Wiz’s wife.

Moira stepped close and pressed her scaly lips to his. "Please be careful." Wiz manfully ignored the dragon breath and hugged her as best he could. "Hey, we’re only going for a look-see, remember?"

He looked around one last time. "Okay, I guess we’re ready."

With that they took their places, close within the circle. Wiz raised his staff, gestured and spoke and with five small pops of displaced air they disappeared along the Wizard’s Way into the stronghold of the Enemy.

"backslash light exe."

The darkness around them was replaced with a cold blue light and Wiz and the others got their first look at the dungeons beneath the City of Night. For the others it was a first. Wiz had been in the multi-layered labyrinth beneath the city of the Dark League during the great magical battle that broke the Leagues power forever.

Not that he recognized a thing. His only memories were of endless tunnels of dirt and stone separated by doors of oak and corroded iron, and strange furtive movements in the shadows. He hadn’t liked the place when he had been here then, he hadn’t liked it when a remnant of the Dark League had kidnapped him back to the now-ruined city a while later and he certainly didn’t like it now. They were bunched together in a wide stone corridor apparently hewn from solid rock. The passage was wider and taller than any he remembered seeing in the dungeons and the walls were worked smooth instead of being left uneven and scarred with the marks of the hewers’ tools.

The place seems different, " he said, running his hand along the stone. " As if someone’s been working on it.

"Probably," Malkin said as she looked around appraisingly.

Glandurg kept his hand on the hilt of Blind Fury and sniffed the stale air in great wheezing breaths. June stayed close to Danny, her head swiveling this way and that. Clearly she didn’t like what she was seeing. That was all right, Wiz didn’t like what he saw either.

"Well, which way?" Malkin asked. She seemed as calm as if they were out for a stroll in the castle rose garden, but Wiz noticed her hand stayed near the cup hilt of her rapier.

Wiz consulted the amulet around his neck. The amulet looked like an ordinary lensatic compass. The first time he came here he had used a seeker globe that floated ahead to show him the way to where Moira was held captive. That had proved less than ideal when the globe blithely floated into a guardroom full of goblin warriors with Wiz and his party close behind. If the compass was more prosaic it was also not as likely to get them in trouble.

Danny lifted a similar device hung around his neck and turned this way and that.