Rick Cook - The Wizardry Cursed

At the end of the hall was a bronze portal. The robot stopped before it and made a motioning gesture with its arm that nearly took Wiz’s head off. Then it froze.

Wiz recovered from the accidental assault, realized his guide had signaled him through the door, saw that the robot wasn’t likely to make any other dangerous moves, and stepped past.

The room was as out-of-scale as everything else in the castle. One whole side and half the ceiling was picture-window-size panes of glass giving a panoramic eagle’s-eye view of red desert and sere mountains. The place was fitted out like a laboratory, or perhaps a control room, with panels of dials and switches everywhere, the odd arc of electricity here and there and huge pieces of unidentifiable apparatus scattered about. The whole room reeked of electricity and danger.

There were two humans waiting for him there.

The younger one reminded Wiz a little of the way Danny had looked when they first met, kind of soft and unformed. The other one was a few years older, harder and leaner. He was sitting on one of the control consoles with his legs dangling. Even though he was relaxed, there was something predatory in the way he looked at Wiz.

For a minute no one said anything.

"Uh, hi. I’m Wiz Zumwalt. From Cupertino." His voice was almost lost in the huge room.

"We know who you are," the older one said. He reached behind him, picked up a beer bottle and took a swig. No one made a move to offer Wiz a drink.

"Lurch there is really something," Wiz said brightly.

"He’s an early model," the younger one said. "The ones we build now are a lot better."

His companion grinned nastily. "Much better."

"Very impressive."

The silence stretched on.

"I’m Craig Scott," the young one said at last. "This is Mikey Baker."

"Craig talks too much," Mikey said conversationally. "Don’t you, Craig?"

Craig wilted.

"Pleased to meet you," Wiz said.

"Yeah?"

Again the silence stretched out.

"Anyway, I thought we should meet, you know, talk."

"So talk."

"You know you upset a lot of people when you showed up."

Mikey smiled. A not at all pleasant smile. "No shit? Well, we’re going to upset a lot more people, aren’t we Craig?"

"We sure are."

"What are you going to do? What do you want?"

"We’re going to build a whole new order," Craig said. "We’re going to combine magic and technology into a system that really works for mankind. When we get done things will be better than they have ever been."

"Only you won’t be around to see it, man," Mikey said.

"We’re going to…"

"You talk too much, Craig," Mikey repeated without heat. "Now shut up and let the grownups talk, will you?"

He took another pull on his beer.

"You see, you’re squatting on a prime piece of real estate, you and your friends. Now it so happens we need that place. So in just a little while we’re going to come over and take it."

Wiz went cold. "Hey look, we can negotiate…" But Mikey cut him off with a sharp bark of laughter.

"What’s to negotiate?" he said, sliding off the table and stalking over to Wiz. "We’re here and you’re history." He jammed his face into Wiz’s, so close Wiz could see the pores on his skin. "We’re gonna get your whole flicking world before we’re through, baby, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it."

"The hell there isn’t," Wiz flared back. "Technology doesn’t work over there, remember? And we’ve got magic the likes of which you’ve never seen."

Mikey smiled. "Wanna bet?"

Then his expression softened. "But maybe you’re right. Maybe we should negotiate this thing like adults." He smiled again, a more relaxed, gentle smile. "After all, there’s plenty for both of us. Two whole worlds, right?"

"Well…" Wiz didn’t want to break the moment, but he didn’t like the idea of giving away half the World. "I’m not empowered to negotiate directly, but I can take an offer back to the Council of the North."

Mike nodded and his smile grew wider, almost radiant. "Of course. So here’s the offer I want you to take back to your Council."

He flicked his hand up and a wave of fire washed over Wiz.

Wiz screamed as the flames hit him. He dropped to his knees and then fell to the floor, the center of a white-hot ball haloed in orange. Thick black smoke roiled off the body and disappeared.

Then the inferno vanished and nothing remained but a tiny blackened thing lying on the laboratory floor.

Craig was white with shock at what his friend had done. "It wasn’t him," he said dully. "He wasn’t really here after all."

"Shit!" Mikey picked up the charred bit of root and threw it against the wall. "Shit, shit, shit!"

Wiz screamed.

His very eyes were on fire. Heat singed his hair and beat on his brain through his skull. The flesh melted and ran off his face. The palms of his hands and the soles of his feet throbbed with pain as the awful, searing heat destroyed the nerve endings.

Somewhere far beyond the wall of terrible pain he was aware of Arianne gesturing wildly. Then waves of coolness washed over his body.

"Oh my God," Wiz moaned. "Oh my God."

Arianne held him in a way that combined professionalism and compassion. "You will be all right, my Lord," she said soothingly. "Try to relax."

Wiz relaxed one tiny, knotted muscle. The expected flare of pain did not come. He relaxed a few more muscles and still no pain.

"Jesus," he breathed out raggedly. Arianne released him to another’s arms. Moira. Instinctively he reached out to touch her hair.

"I warned you that the psychic effects could be painful," Arianne said.

"Yeah, but…" He gasped for breath again. "… my God." Moira hugged him to her and he felt her tears on his cheek.

"I’m all right now, darling," he said with a smile he did not feel.

"They will not be if ever we meet," his wife said fiercely.

"I am sorry we did not get you out sooner, my Lord," Arianne told him, "but we did not realize what was happening."

Wiz sucked another racking breath. "Sucker punched. That son-of-a-bitch sucker punched me."

The tall blonde sorceress shrugged. "Name it as you like. They have no honor."

Wiz was still shaking a few minutes later when the programmers and such of the Mighty as were in the castle assembled hastily in the chambers of the Council of the North. They took their places haphazardly around the long oak table without regard for the carefully established rules of place and precedence. That alone told Wiz how seriously the wizards took this.

"They’re programmers, all right," he told the group. "From our world or one very much like it."

"Do your people make war against us?" demanded Juvian.

"Definitely not. I could tell that much just by looking. But they’re trained in the same discipline we are."

"That’s bad," Jerry said.

"Worse than you know, perhaps," Bal-Simba rumbled. "They have some powerful magical force behind them."

"The Dark League again?"