Rick Cook - Wizardry Compiled

Eventually he was able to work the spike free of damp and somewhat rotten wood. It was heavier than he expected and his biceps ached from the pulling, but he ignored that and attacked the loose stone in the wall.

The tool was clumsy and there wasn’t much of a joint around the stone, but Wiz set to with a will, heedless of the noise he made. His technique was crude and it took a long time before he was able to pry the block part way out of the wall. With hands trembling from eagerness and fatigue, he jammed the bar into the joint and heaved one final time. The block clattered out onto the floor and Wiz thrust his hand into the opening.

Behind the stone was nothing but dirt and rock.

With a groan he threw the iron bar across the trap and slumped to the floor. It wasn’t a doorway at all, just a loose stone in the wall. He looked up at the hole in the ceiling. The only way out of here had to be through that hole. That meant he was trapped unless he could climb the overhanging walls or build a ladder.

There was wood in the spiked device, but not nearly enough to reach the surface, even if it were all combined into a single long pole. Stick the spikes into the wall and climb them like a ladder? Not enough spikes. Besides, how would he get past the overhang?"

Magic? With that demon on the loose he’d never live to complete the first spell.

And that was it, some half-rotten wood, a few pieces of iron and a block of stone levered from the wall.

A block of stone? Just one?

Wiz stood up and began to try the wall again. He found another loose stone, and then another and another. Most of the wall seemed to be loose, almost every other block could be pried free.

It was the cold, Wiz realized, the cold and the damp working at the stones. When this place was built the City of Night was kept magically warm. But with the fall of the League the magic had vanished and the stones had been subjected to alternate freezing and thawing. The walls of the trap had not been mortared and the working of the water had shifted the stones. The fact that most of the courtyard was paved in dark stone probably helped warm things up.

He picked up the spike and eyed the wall. This wasn’t as elegant as a hidden passage and it was sure going to take a lot longer, but it would work. Besides, he thought as he attacked the first stone, I don’t have anything better to do.

The real problem was going to be to get out enough of the blocks to do some good without bringing the whole place down on his head, but he had some ideas on that and it would be a while before he really had to worry.

Moira did not look up when they turned off the freeway and headed up a poorly paved road. She did not know how long they rocked along before they turned again onto a dirt road and rattled over a cattle crossing. The dust tickled her nose and made her cough, but she still didn’t look up.

"Well, here we are," Jerry said. You can look now." Moira kept staring at the dashboard, as if she intended to memorize every wrinkle and crack in the vinyl.

"Come on, end of the line. Are you all right?"

"I think," Moira said judiciously, "that Wiz was far braver than I ever knew."

She tore her eyes away from the dashboard and looked around. They were in a small valley. The brown hills above them were crowned with the gray-green of live oak trees. There was dust everywhere. The stink was still in the air, but not as strong here as in the city.

The field before them was crammed with vehicles standing cheek-by-jowl and all covered with a thin film of dust. A steady stream of people filtered out of the field, stopped at a table by the path and then headed over a low hill. Most of them were weighted down with bags, boxes, bundles and long poles of some light-colored wood.

"What is this place?"

"It’s a war. These people come here to pretend to be living in ancient times. Um, something like your place but with no magic."

Moira looked around, bemused. "They come here to pretend to be peasants?"

"Well, ah, not exactly."

"And why would the Mighty of your world wish to pretend there is no magic?"

"Actually," Jerry explained, "some of them are pretending there is magic."

Moira opened her mouth to ask another question and then thought better of it. This was remarkably similar to conversations she had sometimes with Wiz.

"It gets a little complicated. But we’ve got a better chance of finding what we need here than anyplace else I can think of."

Moira nodded and followed him across the field toward the table. She wondered what awaited them at the end of that path.

Wiz leaned back against the wall and examined his handiwork. Even with the iron bar and the frost-loosened stones it had been a rough job to pry the blocks loose. His knuckles were scraped, his palms were blistered and his shoulders and arms ached from pulling on the prybar.

He had taken the stones in more or less checker-board around the walls and piled them in the center of the pit directly under the trap door. Standing on the pile, he could reach up to the narrow neck of the pit. He still had a long way to go before he would have enough blocks to reach the top of the trap.

This is going to take forever, he thought, rubbing his shoulders and looking up. But the sooner he got to it the quicker it would be done. Anyway, it took his mind off how cold and hungry he was.

Sighing, Wiz picked up the bar again and went back to work.

"Morning, My Lord, My Lady," said one of the three large young men sitting at the table. "Site fee’s five bucks."

While Jerry peeled off several gray-green paper oblongs, Moira studied him, trying to make sense out of what she was seeing.

He was not a guardsman, of that Moira was sure. He had the body of a man but the face was still that of a child. He was dressed in a simple tunic over the sort of blue trousers Wiz called "jeans." He wore a red leather belt with a cheap, gaudy sword thrust scabberdless through it. Like a boy pretending to be a warrior, she thought, but with more self-importance, as if he expected people to take him seriously.

"Okay," the man said. "Medievals are required on site. You’ll have to stop by the hospitaller and get a loaner costume." He looked over at Moira in her long green wool skirt and scoop-neck blouse. "Your friend’s fine."

Jerry was fitted with a slightly-too-small tunic in purplish gray, trimmed with a darker purple zig-zags and tied about the middle with a piece of brown cord. The color made him look ill, but the woman with the trunk of clothing had nothing else that would fit someone of his girth.

As they topped the rise Moira gawked at what was spread out in the small valley below.

Nestled in among the live oaks and chaparral was an encampment of hundreds of tents of different shapes, sizes and colors. What seemed like thousands of people in clothing of every shade and hue milled about the valley like ants in an anthill.

In the center of the valley was a cleared space with perhaps two hundred men whaling away at each other with wooden weapons. The smack of wood on wood, the clank and clatter of steel and the shouts echoed off the hillsides.

For an instant she thought they were actually hurting each other. Then she saw a warrior who had dropped like a sack of sand under the blow of a pole-ax roll out of the fight, stand up and walk off the field. As the fighter came away from the battle, he took off his helm and shook out a mane of long blond hair. Moira realized with a shock it was a woman.

"Excuse me, My Lord, My Lady," came a voice behind them, "but you’re blocking the trail."

As they stepped aside a boy of perhaps fourteen struggled past them loaded down with several bundles and a half-dozen pole weapons. When he passed, Moira saw the heads were padding wrapped with some kind of silvery material.