Rick Cook - The Wizardry Quested

"Have you got a list of those things?" Taj asked.

"The indeterminate instructions? Some of them. Mostly we didn’t bother. Why?"

"I want to play with them a little."

"Be careful. Some of those things are damn dangerous and we don’t know all the dangerous ones. Why mess with them?"

"Because," the Tajmanian Devil said, "you learn the most about a system by observing it when it becomes unstable."

"Yeah, well just remember that around here when the system becomes unstable you can get caught in a system crash. It nearly happened to us once and it wasn’t fun." He leaned back and rubbed his eyes. "Look, I’m about done in. How about we continue this tomorrow?

"You go on. I want to go on with this stuff a little."

Jerry hesitated. "What did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking I’d just take the docs and dive right in."

Jerry frowned "That’s not a real good idea. Danny tried that when he first got here and ended up stuck in a DO loop."

"So? That happens."

Jerry shook his head. "You don’t understand. When I say he got stuck in a DO loop, I mean he got stuck In a DO loop, repeating the same action over and over. Someone like had to get him out of it."

Taj looked serious. "I take your point. But I still want to keep going." The big programmer considered. "Probably the best thing to do is start you out with some simple little nothing spells so you can get the feel of things. He glanced around and spotted some pieces of wood on Wiz’s desk. " Wait a minute, here’s something. " He picked up a stack of slats with writing on them and handed them to Taj. " Study these and the docs tonight and we’ll take a crack at them tomorrow.’’

The Tajmanian Devil looked at the strips of wood and cocked a quizzical eyebrow.

"This is a spell one of the wizards wrote. Only there’s something wrong with it and it doesn’t work. It’s pretty harmless stuff, it just brightens and dims the lights, but it will give you some practice with the tool kit and the language."

"Sounds good. Where shall I work?"

"You can use Wiz’s desk. Tomorrow I’ll get you in on his system. When you’ve got that problem spotted, I’ve got a couple of other things around here. But don’t try to do anything tonight on your own. Remember, this stuffs dangerous." It was June who heard it first. They were picking their way down a straight section of tunnel when Danny’s wife hissed and suddenly her knife was in her hand.

"What?" Wiz asked over his shoulder.

"Shut up!" Danny commanded. Everyone froze. "I hear something down that way."

"What?"

"I don’t know. Shut up and let me listen, will you?"

Instinctively the group had arrayed itself facing the side tunnel. There was a faint scrape as Malkin’s rapier cleared its scabbard. Glandurg strode to the front, hand on the hilt of Blind Fury.

"Light exe!" Wiz commanded and a globe of blue light sprang from his fingertips. He gestured and the witch fight began to float down the side tunnel toward the source of the sound.

At first there was nothing to see. The tunnel was empty as far as the globe’s light reached. But no, there was something:

For an instant Wiz thought the tunnel was carpeted in brown-and-gray fur. Then he realized the carpet was writhing as if alive. As the mass moved out into the light he saw that it was an army of rats, packed shoulder to shoulder and climbing over each other in their eagerness to get at the humans.

"Rats! Danny yelled and he and Wiz raised their staffs simultaneously.

"lightning rapidfire exe!"

Lightning bolts flashed and scythed through the charging mass, slaying hundreds, but the rats closed ranks and came on. Their eyes glowed feral red in the magic light.

Wiz gestured to the floor and the earth shook, bringing dust and clods of dirt down on the party. A chasm opened before the oncoming army. The rats took no notice and kept coming. Row after row of them disappeared into the crack in the earth, but others leapt across, some of them pushing off from the backs of their fellows as they tumbled into the pit.

With a flash of steel that nearly took Wiz’s nose off, Glandurg drew Blind Fury and waded into the survivors. The blade’s curse kept him from hitting the rats he aimed at, but it didn’t matter. No matter where he struck there were rats aplenty.

Malkin stepped forward and lashed out with her rapier, skewering rat after rat. When she had three or four writhing on her blade she flicked it back toward the mass of rats, sending her victims twisting through the air and back into the horde.

Still the rats came on. Now a dozen or more of them were scrabbling up Glandurg as if he were a ladder, seeking chinks in his armor. Danny and June were laying about, he with his staff and she with her knife. But for every rat they struck down three more charged in.

Glandurg and Malkin were in front so Wiz couldn’t get a clear shot. He danced back and forth, trying to find an opening for a lightning bolt. Then suddenly he had a better idea. He raised his staff and began to chant.

The oncoming wave of rats convulsed, stopped and then turned tail and ran squealing. As quickly as the tunnel had filled with rats it was empty, save for the corpses and a few survivors locked in combat with the humans.

Three or four rats were still clinging to Glandurg, including one with its teeth buried in his cheek. Without wincing the dwarf reached up and jerked the rat free. Then he held the squealing creature up before his face and glared at it. With a single quick motion Glandurg bit the rat who had bitten him back, taking off the animal’s head with a single chomp. He spat the head out and tossed the corpse away.

"Impudent pest," he muttered.

"Outasight," Danny breathed. "Say, do you listen to Ozzie Osburne?" The dwarf only scowled. For once Wiz was glad Glandurg was on their side. Malkin was breathing heavily and bleeding from several bites on her arms and legs. "What did you do?"

"Jamming spell," Wiz panted. "I figured those things were being driven by magic, so I interfered with any magic in the area. Once the spell was broken the rats panicked."

"Nice trick," the tall thief said as she resheathed her rapier. She looked at the bites on her sword arm. "Pity you didn’t think of it sooner."

"I’ll try to do better the next time," Wiz said without a trace of irony.

"Meanwhile people, let’s get out of here. All that magic is likely to attract more trouble."

Several hundred yards and dozens of twists and turns later, the party found a cul-de-sac where they felt safe enough to rest and treat their wounds. June had some of Moira’s salve in her pack and she applied it to everyone’s rat bites. Even Glandurg consented to have his wounds smeared with the pungent brown ointment The sharp, minty smell and the plain little pot from Moira’s stillroom brought a lump to Wiz’s throat. He noticed that even as she treated their wounds June didn’t turn her back on the tunnel entrance.

"Any idea where we are?" Wiz asked Danny.

"Lost," the younger man said as he fished into his tunic for the magic compass. He looked down at the glowing disk "I don’t know where we are, but what we’re after is off that way."

"Any sign of anything else?"

Danny squinted at the detector. "Not that I can pick up. This whole area’s lousy with magic, but none of it seems immediately hostile." He dropped the talisman back on his chest. "This thing’s getting less effective because of all the magical interference. Pretty soon it’s not going to work at all."