Rick Cook - The Wizardry Quested

"Only for a minute. He placed second in the relativistic Tetris competition, you know, and he didn’t have much time. But I did find he’s staying with the people from, ah, Bizzareware at the Paladin."

Shit! Jerry thought, right where we started. "The Paladin? Okay, thanks, Dr. Haverford. We’ll get in touch with him right away and set up a meeting with your folks later. Thanks again."

"We gotta do something nice for that company," Jerry said as he handed the phone back to the scalper.

"What now?" Bal-Simba asked. "I believe you told me that everyone is at the show all day and unreachable at their lodgings until evening."

"Most people are," Jerry corrected. "But it’s barely ten. If I know Taj he’s still asleep, especially after a relativistic Tetris tournament. So let’s pick up the truck, head for the Paladin and set up a meet."

"Why not call him from here?"

"Because," Jerry said grimly. "If he doesn’t agree to meet us, we’re going to waylay him in the lobby and kidnap him. I don’t want to take a chance on waking him up and letting him get away before we get there."

It took nearly fifteen rings for someone to answer the phone in the Bizarreware suite at the Paladin. All the while Jerry fidgeted and Bal-Simba merely waited.

"Hello," came a muzzy voice at the other end of the line.

"Is Taj there?’

"This is Taj. Whaddya want?"

"My name is Jerry Andrews, jerry thekeep.org, and I’ve got to see you right away."

"Hey, it’s not even noon yet."

"I know, but this is important."

Taj’s voice hardened. "And you’ll only take five minutes of my time, right?"

"Actually," Jerry said, "it’ll probably take a couple of weeks of your time, but you’ll hate yourself if you don’t meet me."

The voice sighed. "Well, that’s original anyway. Okay, I’ll tell you what. Let me get a shower and some breakfast and I’ll meet you in the lobby, by the bird cage, say, in an hour. Okay?"

"Fine. We’ll be there."

"It has been longer than an hour, has it not?" Bal-Simba asked nearly two hours later.

"Yeah, but don’t worry. If he said he was coming, he’s coming. Probably. It’s just that time doesn’t mean the same thing to him it does to you or me." Bal-Simba nodded. "Elven blood." Jerry didn’t have a chance to respond before someone called out "Mr. Andrews?" and Jerry turned to see the object of their quest.

Seeing him once again Jerry appreciated how he got the nickname Tajmanian Devil."

E.T. Tajikawa was rather over six feet tall and loose-limbed without being gangly. But it was the face that got you. It was thin, with an unusually aquiline nose, high cheekbones, narrow lips and topped by a pronounced widow’s peak of black hair. The only thing that kept him from looking positively satanic was the perpetual expression of bemused interest. "Jerry; please. And this is Bal-Simba." "Cool." Taj shook hands. "Now what’s this big deal?" "Come on out back Part of the problems in a truck." "What are you guys gonna do, kidnap me?"

"Only if we must," Bal-Simba said mildly. "No, no," Jerry put in hastily.

"Nothing like that, but there’s something out there you gotta see." Taj eyed them suspiciously. "Prototype hardware?" "Kinda. Ah, look, have you heard anything about a dragon at the show?"

"Is that you? I’ll say! You guys are causing more of a stir than anything on the show floor. Even Intel’s pre-announcement leak of the Octium-and-a-half."

"Octium-and-a-half?" Jerry asked as he held the door open for Taj.

"It’s a P8 with a couple of extra ALUs, a bigger look ahead cache and another pipeline. Even in simulation the original was a slug, barely 300 MIPS. Anyway," Taj went on without a break, "there are stories about that dragon all over the show. There’s also a bidding war going on for the video game rights. If you guys don’t have an agent:"

"Right now we’ve got bigger problems," Jerry said.

All through this Bal-Simba had been behind Tajikawa, studying his ears closely for signs of points.

"What’s with him?"

"He thinks you’re an elf."

Taj looked over his shoulder at the wizard. "I’ve got some friends who are Radical Faeries. Does that count?"

When they got to the truck, Jerry rolled up the back and Fluffy’s head jerked erect.

"My God!" Tajikawa said.

"Get on in. We don’t want too many people to see this." He and Bal-Simba followed the Tajmanian Devil into the truck and rolled down the back behind them.

By that time Taj was already examining the dragon. "Someone did a hell of a job on this skin," he said. Then he reached out and grabbed Fluffy’s foreleg just above the joint and kneaded the flesh experimentally. The dragon drew back its head and hissed, giving Taj a faceful of sulfurous breath and a close look at a dragon’s dental equipment.

Taj didn’t so much jump back as levitate retrograde. "My God!" he yelped. "It’s real!"

"I’m sorry, My Lord," Moira said contritely. "I am not always the master of this body’s reflexes."

"But you’re a real dragon!"

"Actually," Moira said sadly, "I am a witch, trapped in a dragon’s body."

"That’s part of the problem," Jerry said. "But only part of it."

"So? Don’t you need a wizard or something to handle this, not a programmer." Jerry jerked his head at Bal-Simba. "Actually he’s a wizard. But where we’re from a programmer is also a wizard. That’s part of the problem as well." Taj cocked his head and Jerry congratulated himself. The trick had always been to get Tajikawa to buy into the deal once they found him. So far that part was going nicely.

"I know you’ve been up to something," Taj said. "There are all kinds of rumors about you and Wiz Zumwalt flying around the net." He looked behind Jerry at the twenty-foot dragon. "But I guess the rumors didn’t have the half of it."

"We’ve got a really weird problem."

Taj looked at the dragon again. "I’ll bet."

"No, I mean really weird. And we need help."

"No kidding?" Taj sounded intrigued. "Tell me about it."

"It’s so weird I can’t even describe it to you. You’ve got to experience it."

"No kidding," Taj said again.

Jerry tried to keep a poker face but he was smiling inside. Gotcha! Blue eyes crying in the rain:

Michael Francis Xavier Gilligan concentrated on the way the neon lights reflected off the ice in his highball. It hadn’t been raining when they had parted, but Karin’s blue eyes had been full of tears. So had Gilligan’s. A smattering of computer chatter drifted over from the group in suits at the next table. That was the other thing. The whole damn town was full of computer types.

Lines were terrible, traffic was more than normally awful, there were no rental cars to be had and hotel rooms were at a premium.

It was too damn early to be drinking, he knew, but what the hell else was there to do in this place? What I get for volunteering to come in a week early, he thought sourly.

Gilligan was in Las Vegas on business as well. Next week, after the computer show ended, was the Western Air Show. The aerospace company he joined after leaving the Air Force had needed someone to come in early and get things set and ready. It seemed like a good idea at the time. An extra week in sunny, exciting Las Vegas at company expense plus an opportunity to visit some of his old Air Force buddies stationed at Nellis.