Rick Cook - The Wizardry Cursed

For once the pressure was off. The visualization program was running well, Lannach was keeping the gremlins under control and everything else he could think of to do was done. So he had slipped out of the Mousehole for a couple of hours to do a little exploring.

It was the first time he had really been outside the Mousehole since he arrived and he was enjoying it. No gremlins, no brownies, no elves and no dwarves.

Glandurg could not believe his luck. After all the weeks of hunting and the long weary days of waiting, there was the Sparrow, not two hundred paces away, with his back turned!

And better yet, there was no sign of the protection spell Snorri had reported. Nothing that would do violence to an attacker. There was magic about him, of course, but after all he was a wizard.

Glandurg nearly hugged himself with glee.

He dropped to his belly and wormed his way forward through the fallen leaves. He moved with exquisite care as he eased his silent way toward the sitting figure. Fifty paces and still no move from his quarry. Twenty. Ten.

Glandurg rose with a rush, took two steps and leaped toward the defenseless Sparrow.

He didn’t exactly bounce, but he certainly vibrated. Glandurg had leaped directly into the center of an enormous spider web that sprang up in his path. His sword fell to the leaves, but he remained thoroughly stuck in the mass of sticky strands.

Wiz turned around at the noise and gaped. There was a dwarf hanging upside down in a giant spider’s web. The dwarf was struggling frantically and cursing luridly. Wiz didn’t speak dwarfish, but it sure sounded lurid.

Wiz waited until the dwarf ran down.

"Now," he said. "Just what is this all about?"

"A protection spell," Glandurg spat. "I might have known."

"You didn’t think I’d come walking in the woods without one, did you? I hoped I’d seen the last of you back at the Capital, but I wasn’t taking any chances."

Actually Wiz had devised the spell against any wild animals that might be lurking in the forest. He didn’t want to kill them, so he had settled for something that would immobilize an attacker.

"You know, I’m sort of glad you did show up," Wiz said. "Now maybe you’ll tell me what this is all about."

Glandurg nodded and the gesture made his beard fall in his face. He shook his head to clear his eyes.

"Meet it is that you should know the cause and agent of your doom," he said in his best skaldic voice. Or at least the best voice he could manage suspended upside down in midair.

"I hight Glandurg; son of Megli, praised above all smiths; son of Famlir, who fell in the battle of Breccan’s Doom; son of…"

"Yes, I’m sure you’re from a very distinguished line," Wiz cut him off, "but that doesn’t explain why you’re trying to kill me."

The dwarf glared. Mortals had no sense of family and no appreciation for skaldic recitation.

"My uncle is Tosig Longbeard, King of the Dwarves. To fulfill a debt he has commissioned me to seek your death. To this end I have sworn mighty oaths that my quest shall end in your death or my own."

"Uh, I don’t suppose we can talk about this?"

The dwarf looked uncomfortable. "I am sorry, Wizard. You are brave and honorable and you are working for the good of all our World. But I have sworn a quest and you must die to satisfy it."

Wiz bent and picked up Glandurg’s fallen sword.

"I can’t very well let you go, you know. I can’t be looking over my shoulder at every moment."

"Wait," Glandurg said quickly. "I cannot forgo my sacred mission but I can postpone it. If you release me, I swear to take no action against you," he made a motion as if to cross his heart, "until you have fulfilled your own work."

Wiz considered. He didn’t have much stomach for killing anyway.

"All right," he said finally. "Swear to that and I’ll let you go."

Glandurg moved his hands again. "I do swear that I shall not try to slay you until your battle with your enemies is over. I swear by the moon for as long as it is in the sky."

"Fine," Wiz said. He turned and started to walk away.

"Wizard," Glandurg called, "what about me?"

"Oh, the web will dissolve in six or eight hours," Wiz told him. "I’m sorry, but I can’t get rid of it before that."

Besides, he thought as Glandurg’s curses died behind him, I’m not sure how far I trust you.

"Well, that’s one less problem anyway," Wiz said as he walked into the Mousehole’s lounge. Aelric and the other programmers were nowhere to be seen, but Bal-Simba and Moira were there.

Bal-Simba looked up at him quizzically.

"The dwarves," Wiz said, plopping down on a sofa. "I just got them off my back."

"They are here?" Moira demanded.

Wiz nodded. "Their leader just tried to jump me. He ran right into my protection spell and before I’d let him go I made him promise he wouldn’t try to kill me any more. At least," he amended, "not until this business with Craig and Mikey is finished."

"You made a deal with a dwarf," Moira said slowly.

"Uh, yeah."

"Sparrow," Bal-Simba said slowly, "what precisely did the dwarf swear to?"

"He promised he wouldn’t kill me until this business is over."

"Can you remember his exact words?"

"Yeah. He said, ’I will not slay you until your battle with your adversaries is over.’ Well, that’s pretty close anyway."

Moira moaned.

"Is something wrong?"

Bal-Simba put a huge hand on Wiz’s shoulder. "Sparrow, there are scant dealings between mortals and dwarves, but this much we have learned. A dwarf keeps only his exact, literal word. They are slippery as river eels and will wiggle through any least little hole left in an agreement."

"There’s a hole in this one?" Wiz asked in a sinking voice.

"Sparrow, how many dwarves are we dealing with?"

"About a doz… oh," Wiz said in a small voice. "And he promised only for himself."

The black wizard nodded. "He only swore that he himself would not kill you. He did not even promise he would not help the others."

"Oh," Wiz said again.

It was almost nightfall by the time Glandurg’s followers found him. The wait had done nothing to improve his temper.

"What happened to you?" Gimli asked in awe at the sight of his leader hanging enmeshed in sticky ropes.

"Never mind that, get me down!"

"He tried the Sparrow alone, he did," Ragnar told Gimli. "I recognize the signs."

"Now," the red-faced Glandurg ground out, "now I shall have him."

"Looks as if he had you," Ragnar observed. "Trussed you up like a spider to a fly."

"Just cut me down," Glandurg growled.

The dwarves set about it, but it was a sticky, tedious business. While they hacked and sawed Glandurg fumed and muttered.

"I will have his heart’s blood."

"Can’t very well do that," Thorfin said from the tree limb where he was cutting away at one of the last strands of the web. "You said you swore an oath you wouldn’t harm him until after he’s completed his own quest."

"I swore so long as the moon was in the sky," Glandurg amended.

Ragnar gaped. "He let you get away with that?"

"I am cleverer than any mortal wizard," Glandurg said smugly. "It was the first oath I offered and he took it."