Rick Cook - The Wizardry Quested

"Never like this at home," the young wizard added breathlessly as he tried to keep up with Malcolm’s measured stride.

The guardsman spared a glance for his companion out of the corner of his eye. Like Bal-Simba, Elias was a wizard and a black man from the hot lands to the north. But there the resemblance ended and as far as Malcolm was concerned it didn’t extend near far enough. It was said they bred mighty magicians in those lands, and in truth Bal-Simba was mighty enough. But either the line had run thin since Bal-Simba’s day or this was an unusually poor specimen.

In theory the castle was already guarded against enemy magic. Which might be well and good for them as put their trust in it, Malcolm thought. But to his mind a place wasn’t properly guarded until the sentries were at their posts and the sentinels patrolled the perimeter. In theory he even approved of adding magicians to the patrols. Give them something useful to do instead of idling about in their towers, he thought. Show them what the world is really made of. However after a couple of hours in Elias’ company Malcolm was beginning to change his mind.

If only this one wouldn’t talk so! To his way of thinking, talking distracted guards from their duties and many’s the time he had had a junior guardsman marching his post with a pack full of sand for a week for talking one-tenth as much as this wizard.

He peered out into the darkness, trying to pierce the night and roiling fog. The air was close and cold, inserting clammy fingers into clothing and pulling out heat It was said there was magic in it of no friendly sort and certainly the guardsmen were nervous and uneasy at their posts.

Not that that’s a bad thing, he thought as he strode along at a measured pace. Keeps them on the alert. Still, this fog and cold could get to a man. It was easy to start seeing things in the swirls of darkness out at the edge of the light. It was almost as if:

Malcolm stopped dead in his tracks. "What’s that?" he barked. ,

"What, why noth:" The words froze in the wizard’s throat as he peered out into the blackness. "No wait. Yes there’s something there! It’s magic."

But Malcolm needed no wizard to tell him that. Things were moving in the mist, dark things. As Elias gabbled into his communications crystal, Malcolm was already blowing the first blast on his whistle.

There was a note like a crystal bell and Juvian’s image appeared in the crystal ball on Bal-Simba’s work table. "My Lord, the magic fog! It changes."

"Raise the wards. Quickly," Bal-Simba commanded, "seal the castle against it." Juvian nodded and even as his image blinked out, he had begun to raise his staff.

Arianne looked at him and raised an eyebrow in question.

"Alert the others. Our enemy begins his move." His assistant nodded and spoke into her own communications crystal.

Dimly through the fog, the walls of the castle began to glow.

Bal-Simba studied other forms in his crystal as the reports began to pour in.

"Recall the guard into the shelter of the towers," he ordered.

"More of the fog things?" Arianne asked, looking up from her communications crystal.

"It appears our enemy begins his attack." Outside the wind began to keen and sing. "I think I know what it wants," he added grimly.

The adventurers slept that night in an empty room with a guard posted at the door. The stone floor was cold and uneven and everyone was so keyed up that in truth they got little enough sleep. But after a decent interval they ate a hurried breakfast, packed up and moved out again, following the magic indicator toward where Moira-or Moiras body-lay.

"This looks like the section of the tunnels I was in before," Wiz said as they moved away from their resting place. "At least it’s built the same way."

"Can you say what lies before us?" Malkin asked.

Wiz shook his head. "I can’t even be sure it’s the same section. It just looks like it"

"Hmmpf," Malkin said in a tone that indicated how much help that was. Then she turned again and led off.

The tunnel was much as Wiz remembered it. Same musty smell, same dirt floor and walls, same occasional wooden beams for bracing and the same twisting, turning meandering that would confuse a homing pigeon. Wiz was a long way from a homing pigeon and he didn’t have the faintest idea where they were.

Malkin rounded a corner and stopped short, rapier half out of its scabbard. Glandurg hissed and stepped out beside her, whipping Blind Fury free. Wiz took a firmer grip on his staff and peered around Malkin and over Glandurg. Nothing moved. It had been a guardroom, Wiz realized. The same big fireplace and benches and tables he had seen when he had stumbled into such a room full of goblin guards on his first trip here. But the fireplace was cold and dead, the tables and benches were smashed and littered across the floor out beyond the range of the glow globe’s light, and there were other things mixed into toe litter on the stone-flagged floor.

Nearly at his feet was a halberd, its thick oak shaft neatly sheared off a foot behind the head. Beyond that lay a conical metal helmet and further out in the room was a scattering of other pieces of armor and bones.

Halfway out in the room was a set of leg armor, from shin guards to tassets. Because it was all together Wiz thought for an instant there might be a leg still in it Then he looked more closely and saw it was empty. The armor had been split open, as if someone-no, something had been at it with a giant can opener.

"What the: ?" Danny breathed in Wiz’s ear.

Sword and dagger at the ready, Malkin eased catlike into the room. Wiz shifted his grip on his staff to provide covering fire if needed. But mere was no movement, no sound but their own breathing.

Malkin knelt beside the leg armor and carefully turned it with the point of her dagger, wincing slightly at the noise. Then she turned and examined an unrecognizable bit of bone nearby.

"This is old," she announced. "Several years I would say."

Wiz turned up the glow globe and flooded the chamber with blue light. Then he and the others eased into the room in a tight knot.

"How many?" he asked the kneeling thief.

Malkin glanced around and shrugged. "More than half a dozen, perhaps as many as twenty. It would be a pretty puzzle to reassemble enough pieces for an accurate count" She looked more carefully. "But I would say they were all killed at the same time."

"It probably goes back to when the Dark League ruled the city, or a little after," Wiz said. "Even then these tunnels were full of nasties."

"Perhaps it departed with its masters," Malkin suggested.

Wiz looked skeptical. "The Dark League didn’t exactly have time to clean up after themselves. And I know there were some pretty unpleasant things left when I was kidnapped back here. A couple of them almost got me."

"Then best assume our foe lurks here yet," Glandurg said, shifting his grip on Blind Fury.

"Best assume whatever it is is pretty potent," Wiz added. "These guards were not pushovers."

"There is another thing we can assume," Malkin said as she stood up and brushed the dirt from her knees without letting go her grip on either her rapier or her dagger. "These bones show cut marks. After they were killed their flesh was stripped from their bones and probably consumed on the spot."

The group left the guardroom walking softly and peering into the shadows and silence with every sense alert.

"Nice thing to find," Danny muttered to Wiz as they continued down the tunnel.