Rick Cook - The Wizardry Cursed

The little man stood up and dusted his knees. "Why, Lord? Are you dissatisfied with our work?"

"No, nothing like that. But Mikey and Craig are getting close to finding this place. We’re sending everyone we can spare back."

Lannach frowned. "Forgive me, Lord, but you cannot spare us if you want your computer to work."

"We can’t protect you if they find us and attack."

"Lord, we will not leave. Not just for our own safety."

"I don’t want that on my conscience."

"It is not upon your head, Lord. It is our decision."

"Thanks, Lannach." Wiz held out his hand. Gravely Lannach took his first two fingers in both his tiny hands and pumped them up and down.

"Look, you’ve got to go."

It was late and the hall lights had long since dimmed, but Danny and June were still at it.

Again June shook her head so hard her mouse-colored curls beat against her forehead. "You come," she said with undiminished firmness.

"I told you, I can’t. I’ve got to keep working."

June planted herself on the edge of the bed and crossed her arms. "You will not be rid of me," she said fiercely.

He pulled her up off the bed and held her in his arms. "Honey, I don’t want to get rid of you, I want to save your life."

Ian stirred restlessly in his crib and started to whimper again. He wasn’t used to hearing his parents argue and he had been crying off and on all evening.

June turned her back on her husband and scooped Ian out of the crib. For a moment all her attention was concentrated on soothing him while Danny tried to think of something more to say.

"Just this once," he promised. "Just this once you’ve got to leave me."

June shook her head wildly and clung to Ian.

"Dammit, you can’t stay here," Danny said desperately. "If not for you think about Ian."

June looked down at the child and her eyes filled with tears but she shook her head again.

Wiz was trying to find a way to squeeze more speed out of the algorithm when Danny came into the lab the next morning. His eyes were red, his skin was pale and blotchy, as if he’d been crying. Even his hair was a worse mess than usual. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all last night.

"I had it out with June," he said dully.

Wiz put down the sheaf of papers. "Is she going back?"

Danny snorted. "Fuck no. That silly little bitch is determined to stay here and get herself killed." He growled in frustration and slammed his fist down on the desk. "Goddamn her and her stubbornness."

"I’m really sorry, man. I could ask Moira to talk to her."

"What for? She won’t listen. She just rocks back and forth and shuts out the world."

Wiz couldn’t think of anything to say. When he had come to this World Danny had been a self-centered twerp who did what he wanted and didn’t care about anyone. Now he had others to worry about and he was having to make hard choices. Wiz could sympathize. He’d had a fair measure of twerphood in his makeup when he first met Moira. But there wasn’t anything he could do to make the choice easier.

"She’s sending Ian back with Shauna," Danny said finally. "That’s something anyway."

"But she won’t go?"

Danny bit his lip. "It’s real simple. Where I go she goes. And I’ve got to be here."

"Hey look, you could handle some of this stuff from the Capital."

"Bullshit," Danny said without heat. "The only place I can do any good is here."

"But the risk…"

"Moira’s staying here, isn’t she?" He looked up at Wiz with a ghost of a smile. "Besides, I want a World for my kid to grow up in." He looked down. "Shit. I left my notebook back in my room. I’ll be back in a minute."

Danny brushed past Jerry as he went out.

"What was that all about?" Jerry asked after Danny disappeared down the hall.

"I think," Wiz said wonderingly, "that was Danny growing up."

By the time Danny got back Wiz and Jerry were hip-deep in trying to find something to make the algorithm work faster. By noon they considered and rejected at least four approaches.

Outside the computer center the Mousehole was abuzz with activity as nearly everyone else got ready to leave. Guardsmen, servants and wizards went back and forth in the hall carrying boxes, bags and piles of clothing. They finally took a break when Moira came in to discuss details of the move.

"You know," Jerry said as he pushed back his chair, "I could think a lot better if I didn’t feel like I had a target painted on my back."

"Well, we’re stuck with it," Danny said angrily. "We gotta stay and if they find us we can’t fight. All we can do is hope we can get outta here in time."

"Wait a minute," Wiz said slowly. "Maybe there is something we can do."

"Like what?"

"Protection spells. Really heavy-duty protection spells. You know, like force fields in the science fiction movies."

Danny’s eyes lit up. "Hey, cool!"

"Do you think that would work?" Jerry asked.

"It might. At least it would be better than nothing."

"Such spells are powerful magic that stands out strongly," Moira said dubiously.

"They stand out strongly in your World," Wiz said. "But magical senses don’t work as well here. Besides, Craig and Mikey don’t use magical detectors the way your people do."

"We hope," Moira corrected. "And in any event, where do you propose to get the time to create such a spell?"

"Oh, I’ve got most of the groundwork done already," Wiz said. "I’ve been working on it off and on ever since I was rescued from the City of Night. Believe me, there is nothing like being nearly killed a dozen times over to make you think about ways to protect yourself."

"Voila!" Wiz proclaimed and placed five rings on the table like a handful of jacks.

"They look like something out of a Crackerjack box," Danny said dubiously.

"Well, as a matter of fact…" Wiz began. "Never mind. It isn’t what they look like, it is what they do."

"They are certainly charged with magic," Moira said, eyeing the pile of trinkets. "Even in this place they have powerful auras."

"They’ve got more than that," Wiz said smugly. "This is a truly tasty hack, if I do say so myself."

Danny reached out and poked one of the rings with his forefinger. "So what do they do, shoot lightning bolts?"

"Nope, they generate a stasis field. Basically the spell is an amplified variation of that spell we used to stretch out a night and get more programming time while we were working on the magic compiler. Except instead of stretching nights out two-to-one, this spell stretches time out sagans to one."

"Sagans?" asked Jerry.

"Yeah, you know. Like ’SAY-guns and SAY-guns of light years.’ "

"Oh, right," Jerry said, catching the imitation of the famous astronomer.

Moira frowned. "One moment. You say this spell slows down time enormously?"

"Yep."

"Then how can you move when the spell is active?"

"You can’t. It freezes you solid. But nothing can hurt you."

"Still, the spell can be broken, can it not?"

"It automatically shuts off when malevolent magic goes away. Kind of like the protective spell I used against those dwarves."