Rick Cook - The Wizardry Quested

Malkin looked amused. "Do you think that’s the only danger we face? Look at this place. Why do you think it’s built like this?"

To hold the roof up?"

"Perhaps. But why here and nowhere else we have seen? Give me more light, if you can." With that she picked her way ahead, studying the floor before her intently and occasionally poking and prodding with her rapier.

She got perhaps a dozen steps beyond Wiz before she stopped dead and looked around. Finally she reached into her pack and pulled out a rock the size of her fist. She tossed it underhand at a perfectly unremarkable section of stone floor a couple of steps ahead of her.

As soon as the rock struck there was a creak and a section of the floor swung downward, leaving a gaping blackness beneath. Far below Wiz thought he heard the sound of rushing water, but he heard no splash from the stone. Then there was another creak and the stones swung back into place, leaving the floor looking as perfect as before. Malkin looked smug.

"How did you know that was there?"

The stonework was too regular," she told him, leaving Wiz to try to determine why that section of the paving was any more regular than any other.

"Now listen," she said. "I’m going to go ahead to find the traps. I’ll mark the safe path and then you come through one at a time. No more. We want as little weight on this floor as we can."

As Wiz and the others watched, Malkin picked her way over the stone floor. Twice more she marked hidden traps with a bit of charcoal stuck on the point of her rapier, and once she skipped neatly out of the way as a blade swung down from the ceiling on a long rod.

"All right," she called back as the blade slowed. "The place is so big we’ll have to do this in stages. The first one of you follow my path to here. The next one come to that white stone just in front of the second trap." Wiz picked his way forward and Danny followed. By the time he had reached the now-still blade, Malkin was up ahead, dodging in and out of the forest of columns.

They watched intently as she spotted another trap, then she stepped behind a pillar and they couldn’t see her anymore.

"Hey!" they heard her yell. "What:"

With that Wiz and Danny were off and running. They stayed on the safe path Malkin had marked for them but they were almost side by side when they reached her.

They gasped when Malkin stepped out in the light. Her entire right side was splattered with blood. Gore was matted in her hair and dripped down one side of her face. But she strode toward them strongly, rapier in hand, apparently unaware of the extent of her injuries.

"We," she announced, "have got to do something about that lobster." Shock, thought Wiz numbly. She’s in shock. He and Danny rushed to meet her and half-carried her back to the others. Malkin was apparently too dazed to appreciate their help. She struggled and protested all the way back.

"Will you to let go of me!" she demanded as they laid her down on a cloak. Danny managed to get her rapier and Wiz tried to hold her down so June could work on her. Malkin was having none of it. She pushed and shoved and tried to knee Wiz in the groin.

"Have you run mad?" she demanded.

"Take it easy, you’ve lost a lot of blood."

"What blood? The thing never touched me. I’m fine I tell you."

Wiz looked more closely. In spite of the amount of clotted red all up and down her side there was no sign of fresh blood. He dropped his arms to his sides and stood up.

"You’re all right?"

"Of course I’m all right. I came around the corner and the damn bug squirted me with something."

"But it’s red, and it’s:" Wiz extended a finger to touch Malkin’s gory torso. He drew it back, rubbed the red substance between his thumb and forefinger and sniffed it. "Cocktail sauce," he concluded.

Wordlessly, June produced a hand mirror and held it up before Malkin.

"Oh Fortuna!" the thief exclaimed at what she saw in the mirror. "And you thought I:" She broke up laughing and Wiz, Danny and June all joined in.

"I’m going to kill that lobster!" Malkin growled. Try to serve me up with cocktail sauce, will he?"

"I never did like lobster," Wiz said. "Always gave me gas."

June handed Malkin a cloth and she began wiping the sauce off her face. "I think I’m developing a taste for lobster." She looked down at the red-smeared cloth.

"If I can watch him boil," she added savagely.

Danny was still laughing. "Hey, what’s the matter? I heard you like being smeared with stuff."

"That was honey," Malkin said with some dignity. "And it was completely different. Besides, it was Jerrys idea."

"You what?" General Paul Manley roared into the receiver.

The lawyer on the other end was unperturbed by Manley’s rank or his command bellow.

"That aircraft is carrying a member of an endangered species," he repeated. "We have a federal court order protecting it. Under the terms of that order you cannot harm it."

"What?"

"Specifically," the lawyer went on, "you can’t shoot it down."

That’s the biggest goddamn load of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my lifer General Manley roared. He went on in that vein for several minutes. Then he slammed down the phone.

"Order the CAP not to fire," he said to the controllers. "We’ve got orders from Washington not to down that plane." The controller turned back to her radio to relay the message and General Manley grinned. Then he caught the lieutenant looking at him and scowled again.

"Get the ready squad loaded and in the air," he growled. "If that turkey lands I want him surrounded and arrested."

The Colt roared over the mountains so close Gilligan could have reached out and touched the rocks. Ahead lay a flat tan plain dotted with occasional greasewood bushes. Almost lost in the distance and the dark backdrop of mountains was a cluster of low buildings including several hangars and a control tower. As soon as they were over the ridge line Charlie pushed the wheel forward and sent the plane into a sickening swoop, sticking so close to the mountainside that, for an instant, Mick thought he was going to set down on the slope. Gilligan decided to look up instead but the view wasn’t any less menacing. The F-16s came flashing over the mountain at a much more reasonable altitude, then banked sharply to come around toward them.

General Manley studied the approaching speck through his binoculars. That was a bit of an affectation since he could have gotten a much better view from the optical sensor displays on the console. Heedless of the F-16s buzzing about, the lumbering biplane droned on like a bumblebee on a summer’s day.

"Alcatraz," General Manley growled.

"Sir?" the lieutenant asked.

"When I get that pilot I’m gonna send him to Alcatraz for the rest of his miserable life."

"Sir, they closed Alcatraz prison years ago."

"We’ll reopen it," the general growled, clamping the field glasses to his eyes.

"When I get done with him, that bastard’s never going to see daylight."

"Okay folks, almost there." Charlie chopped the throttle and the big biplane settled toward the desert floor at an unnerving rate. Gilligan resisted an urge to close his eyes.

The lake bed was flat and the Colt was made for rough-field landings. Charlie took full advantage of the plane’s ruggedness and brought them in steeply and hard Gilligan’s teeth rattled and Jerry lost his grip and landed in a heap against Moira.