Rick Cook - The Wizardry Consulted

"That’s suckered," Danny corrected.

"What it is does not matter," Moira snapped. "We have to find him."

Bal-Simba shrugged. "Easier said than done, I fear."

Danny twisted the ring on his finger. "I thought these things could punch through any counter-magic."

"Any human magic," Bal-Simba said. "Dragon magic is different and of a very high order. This Wurm is extremely powerful even for a dragon, I think."

"What do you think he wants with Wiz?" Danny asked.

Bal-Simba only shrugged. "Who knows the mind of a dragon?" Then he caught Moira’s expression. "But I do not think he intends to kill him," he added quickly, "or even harm him, necessarily. Beyond that? I would not venture to guess."

"Wait a minute," Jerry said. "Can’t Wiz contact us?"

"He can if he is unconstrained," Bal-Simba said.

They all fell silent. Everyone in the room knew what it took to constrain a wizard from communicating.

"Well, how do we find him?"

"The Watchers are being alerted now," the giant black wizard said. He turned to Jerry. "My Lord, can you release the recon demons?"

"I’ll get on it immediately. It will take a while to extend their coverage though."

"As quickly as you can, then. Now if you will excuse me…" He turned and hurried from the room.

Okay, Wiz admitted and he leaned against the bars of his cell, maybe it wasn’t my best opening line.

At least they hadn’t killed him. On the other hand, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t kill him. And considering the way they’d acted that was a definite possibility. In fact that option had strong minority support in the mob. What had passed for cooler heads had held out for "The Rock," whatever that was. Wiz had a suspicion he’d find out soon enough and an even stronger suspicion he wouldn’t like it.

After a brief argument over his fate, they had hustled him back to town with a pitchfork in his back. Now he was on the second floor of a fairly substantial building. More precisely, he was in jail.

Wiz had never seen one of this world’s jails before but he had no doubt that he was in one now. There were bars running from floor to ceiling on three sides and a windowless stone wall on the fourth. There was a narrow bunk bolted to the wall and a chamberpot underneath. The layout reminded Wiz vaguely of a Western movie set, but the substantial bars were no stage props. The cells to either side of him were empty. The place was clean enough, but smelled faintly of must and dust, as if it wasn’t swept regularly.

From the glimpses he had gotten as the mob frog-marched him through town, the place was larger than it had appeared. In fact it was a good-sized town or even a small city, enclosed in stone walls. Most of the buildings were built of a combination of timber and stone, but a few of the more imposing ones were all stone. That included this very imposing jail off the main square of the town.

There were offices of some sort down on the ground floor and every so often someone would mount the narrow staircase to peek in. Somewhat less frequently the jailer, a thin, sour-looking man with jug ears and a big nose, would come all the way into the room to check on him. He was careful not to get too close, Wiz noticed, and if he had the keys he wasn’t carrying them.

Wiz toyed with the idea of creating a spell to unlock the door but he decided the best thing to do was to wait and see. If he was going to solve these people’s problem he needed more information and he wasn’t likely to get that as a fugitive from justice.

Still, it wasn’t a very comfortable situation. Wiz sat on the edge of the bunk and wondered how he had gotten into this mess.

Let’s see, he thought. A dragon wants me to protect these people from dragons. The people who live here want to string me up because I’m working for a dragon-only I’m not working for a dragon, I just agreed to find out what the dragon wanted. Except the people still want to string me up for associating with dragons and I’m still not sure what the dragon really wants and…" And he was getting a headache.

For some reason he remembered visiting a psych major buddy in her lab long ago and far away. Sybil had been running rats through mazes as part of some kind of project and while they talked she kept a stopwatch on the rat and its frantic efforts to escape. It had been a long time ago and Wiz found he couldn’t remember what Sybil looked like very well, but he had a crystal-sharp memory of the expression on the rat’s face.

There was a stirring in a corner of the room off behind the stairs. Wiz looked again and someone stepped out of the shadows. Someone tall, slender and wearing a jerkin and tight trousers. Then she took another step out into the full light and Wiz saw it was a woman. A young woman, actually, he amended, with dark hair down to her shoulders, dark eyes and fair skin. She strode lightly across the room with the easy grace he associated with gymnasts or dancers. Somehow Wiz didn’t think she was either of those things.

She stopped several paces from the bars and put her hands on her hips. "So you’re the wizard, eh?"

Wiz nodded. "Who are you?"

"Name’s Malkin. I’m here for stealing. What’d you do?"

"Not much of anything, actually. My name’s Wiz."

"You came here riding a dragon, didn’t you? That’s enough."

"Well, if you knew why did you ask?"

Malkin shrugged.

"And," he added, "if you’re a prisoner too, how come you’re on the outside?"

Malkin grinned and held up a key ring. "Like I said, I steal things."

"And you’re still hanging around here?"

His new acquaintance grinned. "Jail’s as good a place as any to doss," she said lightly. "Besides, listening is more fun than escaping. They’re arguing about you in the sheriff’s office."

"What are they saying about me?"

"They want to take you to The Rock."

"What’s The Rock?"

"That’s where they chain out the condemned for the dragons to eat," Malkin told him. "Supposed to keep the dragons satisfied so they don’t eat anyone important."

"Does it work?"

"Nah. But the dummies keep doing it anyway." She shrugged. "You’re an outsider, so you’re natural."

"Not much tourist business here, is there?" Wiz asked sourly.

Malkin shrugged again. "Anyhow, the folks who brought you want to take you to The Rock right away and the sheriff doesn’t want to until the mayor and council have a chance to see you. So far the sheriff’s winning. That means you’ve got a few hours because it will take them that long to get most of the council together."

"Does the sheriff think the mayor won’t want to see me killed?" Wiz asked hopefully.

"Nah. But ol’ Droopy’s a stickler for protocol. If he isn’t consulted he’ll make the sheriff’s life miserable for weeks. So it’s better for the sheriff to wait."

Wiz opened his mouth to reply but Malkin faded soundlessly back into the shadows. An instant later the jailer poked his head up the stairwell.

"Who are you talking to?" he demanded.

"Myself," Wiz said brightly. "I often have long conversations with myself. I find I’m excellent company. I play bridge with myself, too. You don’t happen to have a deck of cards, do you?"