Rick Cook - The Wizardry Consulted

"Good evening," Wiz said crisply.

"Evening, My Lord," the guard said, trying to shield his eyes with his hands "Uh, would you mind…"

"Sorry I can’t turn it off," Wiz lied. "Now, what are you doing here?"

"Well, I’m ah, watching, My Lord. So to speak."

"Watching for what?"

"Criminals, begging My Lord’s pardon. We’ve had criminals around here in this neighborhood and we thought…"

" ’We’ being the council? Is that it?" Meaning Dieter, Wiz thought. But why?

"Well, ah, as to that, My Lord, I really couldn’t say. All I know is I’m supposed to keep watch here until the thieves are apprehended."

Thieves, eh? Suddenly it fell into place. "I appreciate your concern, but it isn’t necessary. Tell the sheriff I can guard my own property."

"That’s as may be," the guardsman said stolidly, "but I have my orders, My Lord."

"Oh well, if you want to watch, I’m sure you may. But I will tell you now you won’t find anything."

"That’s as may be, My Lord."

Wiz nodded and returned to his house. He left the light globe on until he was back inside.

"Where’s Malkin?" he demanded into thin air as soon as the door closed behind him.

"How would I know?" Widder Hackett rasped. "Out tarting it up I have no doubt."

"She didn’t go out the door. I would have known."

"She usually doesn’t," Widder Hackett said with obvious satisfaction.

With that there was nothing to do but wait until Malkin got back. Wiz went back to his programming, pausing every so often to peer through the crack in the shutters at his watchers.

It wasn’t a terribly productive evening. Between fuming over the watch, worrying about Malkin and starting at every squeak of a floorboard or rattle of a windowpane, Wiz didn’t do nearly the amount of work he had planned. Since it was well after midnight when he heard Malkin on the stairs he lost most of the night’s work.

When Wiz confronted her in the hallway she was dressed in dark trousers, dark soft boots and a dark pullover. Her dark hair was stuffed up under a dark knit cap and there was a dark burlap sack over her shoulder.

"Where have you been?"

"Oh, out and about," Malkin said nonchalantly. She set the sack on the floor with an audible clank. "Sightseeing, you might say."

"And the stuff in the bag is souvenirs, right? In case you don’t know it, lady, there is a cop across the street watching this place and two more at each end of the block."

"And two more on the street behind," Malkin added. "But they never watch the roofs. Half of them’s too fat to climb and the rest is scared of heights."

"So you’ve been coming and going over the roofs."

"Sometimes. The sewer’s good too, if you don’t mind a few rats."

"Are you trying to get us all killed? The cops are on to you, the place is being watched, half the council is looking for an excuse to put me away-and you with me. Lady, we are just one small slip from disaster here."

Malkin’s eyes glowed. "I know," she said breathlessly. "Isn’t it exciting?"

"An adrenaline junkie," Wiz groaned. "I had to get hooked up with a kleptomaniac adrenaline junkie."

"Serves you right for hiring folks out of jail."

Wiz growled in frustration.

"Besides, I don’t see what you’re so worried about. I got in safe with the stuff didn’t I? They never saw me."

"Did it ever occur to you that their next logical move is going to be to search the house?"

"Law says they can’t search no private home held freehold without a warrant signed by the mayor upon presentation of probable cause. Said probable cause to be solely within the discretion of the mayor. They gave you this place so you have it freehold." She grinned. "And you think the mayor’s going to issue a warrant to search this place? You being his ally and all? Old Iron Pants will have to wait a month of blue moons before that happens."

As it happened the month of blue moons ended at about seven o’clock the next morning. Wiz was pulled groggily awake by the sound of a thunderous pounding on the door. Stumbling downstairs he found Anna confronting a gang of armed ruffians. When he looked a little closer he realized that the lead ruffian was the sheriff and that he was brandishing a piece of paper as if it were a shield before him.

"Stand aside, Wizard," he announced before Wiz was even off the stairs. "We’re here to search the place for stolen goods. Got a warrant."

Wiz’s brain was at best severely challenged at this time of the morning, especially when his blood caffeine level was low, but that woke him up and sent his mind into high gear.

"The mayor signed a search warrant?"

The sheriff grinned nastily. "Mayor’s home with a cold. A real bad cold that’s got him incapacitated. So this was signed by three council members like the law provides. All legal and proper."

Meaning Dieter, Wiz thought, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Well, I can’t stop you from searching," he said standing aside from the door. "But I can’t protect you either," he added as the sheriff and his men pushed into the hall. "This is a wizard’s house, you know," he shouted to their backs as they thundered up the stairs.

For the next two hours the sheriff’s men went over the house eaves to cellars. They found a notebook Wiz had lost, an old copper pan that had belonged to Widder Hackett, a number of rats and an indignant pigeon who was trying to nest in the attic, but not one bit of stolen property.

The only excitement came when Bobo decided that for some inexplicable reason the sheriff’s highly polished boots belonged to him, and proceeded to mark his property in the time-honored tomcat fashion. Luckily for Bobo he was a good deal faster than the sheriff or any of his men.

Meanwhile Malkin stood around looking smug, Anna was wide-eyed with terror and Widder Hackett hurled abuse at the searchers at the top of her nonexistent lungs. Unfortunately the searchers couldn’t hear her. Even more unfortunately Wiz could. By the time the sheriff’s men finished, Wiz was a nervous wreck.

"Well?" the sheriff demanded as he strode into Wiz’s workroom. "Are you done in here?"

The two guards who had been tapping the floor for loose boards nodded in unison and stood up. "Every place but this table," the guard in front said. "You want us to dig up the garden next?"

"What’s wrong with this table?" demanded the sheriff.

"Looks as if it’s magic like."

"That’s my desk," Wiz added. "You’d better not touch it."

"Bah!" barked the sheriff.

"Hey, I won’t be responsible…" Wiz began, but the sheriff was already reaching for the pile of parchments.

No one but the very brave, the very skilled or the very foolish messes with a wizard’s working equipment. The sheriff might have been brave but he was certainly not at all skilled.

As soon as his hand moved over the top of the table there was a twisting in the air and a small green demon materialized below the glowing letters. A small green demon with a very large mouth. Lined with large, pointed and very sharp teeth. Before the sheriff could react the creature chomped down hard on the proferred hand.

The sheriff yelped and jerked his arm away. On the back of his hand in a neat semicircle were eight round puncture marks. "It bit me!" he screamed.