Rick Cook: The Wizardry Quested

"Still, you should strive to perfect your art." And be careful what you wish for, the blind woman thought, for you may get it.

"Hey, Danny, I’ve got a new wrinkle for the screen saver. Take a look" Two quick mouse clicks and the bunny appeared.

This time the rabbit didn’t have its drum. Instead it was wearing crossed bandoleers and carrying what looked like the mother of all assault weapons. Its pink ears poked out of folds in a camouflage scarf tied around its head pirate-fashion.

"Uh-oh," Danny said. "This looks serious."

As the rabbit approached the edge of the desk, the green tentacle reached out to grab it. The rabbit whirled and ripped off a burst with its machine gun/grenade launcher. Chunks of tentacle and ichor flew everywhere and most of the screen disintegrated under the force of the blast.

Danny and Jerry dived under the table and nearly butted heads.

Suddenly it was quiet again. The room reeked of powder smoke and plaster dust but there was no more shooting. Danny sneaked a peek over the edge of the table. There was nothing left of the screen but an occasional letter or two. The pink bunny in the boonie rag blew the smoke from the end of the gun barrel, surveyed the damage, hopped down off the table and disappeared out the door. Danny crawled the rest of the way out from under the table. "What did you call that thing again?"

Jerry coughed and brushed the dust off his tunic as he stood up. "Uh, a screen saver."

"Well it didn’t save it, it blew it all to hell."

"Yeah. I guess it needs a little more work."

Danny could only nod.

Almost at the end of the fair’s main row, as far from the Wizards’ Keep as possible, a smoke artist was displaying his illusions.

The open-fronted booth was carefully darkened to show off his creations to best advantage and, Wiz suspected, to bide the mirrors and other apparatus that made them possible. There were five or six people clustered in rapt attention before the booth, oblivious to the fair-goers pushing past them.

The artist was small and slender, dressed in a cowled black robe obviously meant to remind his audience of a wizard. For an instant Wiz wondered if it was a man or a woman, but then the artist withdrew an unmistakably masculine hand from the sleeve of his robe to gesture.

At the hand motion, three gouts of gaily colored smoke blossomed within the booth, billowing toward the cloth ceiling and swirling together in a pattern that seemed to pulsate and dance to an unheard melody. Garnet red and peacock blue smoke combined to form a deep, vibrant purple while tendrils of yellow smoke lanced through the cloud. Then the smokes sorted themselves into layers of pure color and began to interweave monochromatic tendrils in an increasingly complex design. At first it reminded Wiz of a simple geometric shape, then it became an evermore-elaborate piece of Celtic knotwork. Finally the smokes twisted into a design that seemed completely random, yet hinted at an underlying order. It seemed to Wiz that if he could just study the writhing smokes long enough he could unlock that secret.

Wiz had no real ability to sense magic as this world’s wizards could, but he understood the basic laws of physics and this smoke was behaving in a decidedly lawless manner. There was something wrong here and the realization sent a chill through him.

It took the better part of an hour for servants under Danny’s direction to get the workroom cleaned up and presentable again. It took about as long for Jerry to track down and de-instantiate his fluffy pink creation. By the time they had settled down to work again Jerry had decided to shelve his screen saver and Danny had gotten a bright idea of his own.

"Somehow," Jerry said, surveying the freshly patched plaster and the dusted and neatened-up piles of manuscripts, "I don’t think that was one of my better ideas."

"Oh, I dunno," Danny said. "It gave me an idea for something I’ve been working on." This time Danny gestured with his mouse and an aquarium sprang into being on his desk. It was almost as big as the desk and full of water and life.

"Like it? It’s Ian’s birthday present."

Jerry examined his companion’s work more closely. Against a backdrop of coral and rocks, brightly colored fish darted or hovered or swam lazily, according to their nature. Equally brightly colored crabs and other things crawled along the white coral sand, and here and there something like a sea anemone waved delicately in the water.

It was beautiful, but there was something about the setup that bothered Jerry. Part of it, he decided, was that he didn’t recognize any of the fish. Then a black angelfish with pulsing neon-blue lights along its side swam by and Jerry’s suspicions were confirmed.

"Those aren’t real fish, are they?"

"No, they’re demons created by special little programs." Danny spoke a word and the spell listed itself out in bright letters beside the tank. "Look, here’s something else too. The code’s self-modifying so the fish change over time."

"They change over time?"

"Yeah. They evolve with each generation."

"Hmmm," Jerry said in a voice that wasn’t at all approving.

"What’s the matter?"

"I’m not sure," Jerry said. "But there’s something about that notion that bothers me."

"You don’t like fish?"

"No, I: Well, never mind. I’m sure Ian will love it" Jerry turned away from the demon fish tank and back to work.

As the smoke artist took a bow to a pattering of applause, Wiz nudged Moira.

"That stuffs magic," he muttered.

"But isn’t it lovely? See how it sparkles."

Wiz looked sideways at his wife. Normally Moira was more wary of strange magic than he was. She had learned about magic at a time when the humans of this world were nearly powerless and magic was usually destructive or hostile. Wiz had changed that with his magic programming, but the old attitudes lingered. This wasn’t at all like her.

He looked at the robed and cowled figure again, trying to discern what was beneath the flow of dark cloth. Again the smoke artist’s hands darted from his sleeves and he began anew with a delicate curl of blue smoke from his outstretched palm. Although Wiz could not see the artists head, much less his eyes, he got the strong impression that the performer was concentrating on his audience rather than his illusion. The smoke thickened and deepened until there was a column of sapphire blue before him. The crowd pressed close, eager for the next display.

Again the smoke shifted and formed a pattern, this one like an intricately fretted snowflake. The tendrils of blue smoke twisted and wove among each other into a pattern that implied something without quite showing it. As Wiz watched, the pattern began to spin like a wheel, pulling the eye with it in a way that made Wiz’s stomach roil. He stared down at his boots, fighting dizziness. As he looked away he felt Moira stir beside him, pressing closer to the artist and his creation. Without thinking Wiz put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off impatiently.

Wiz looked up and saw his wife slack jawed with her eyes fixed on the smoke. She took a hesitant step toward it and then a stronger one.

"Moira?" There was no response. "Hey!" he shouted at the smoke artist, but neither artist nor audience paid the slightest attention.

Wiz went cold with fear and almost instantly hot with rage. In two strides he crossed the distance to the artist and grabbed him by the hood.

As he jerked him around, the hood fell back and Wiz recoiled at what was beneath it.