Rick Cook - Wizardry Compiled

Then he saw the dragon sitting on top of the leather-bound book. A small, but very alert and obviously upset dragon. The dragon hissed and Jerry realized he, Karl and Moira were suddenly two paces ahead of everyone else in the group.

"What’s that?"

"That is the demon guardian Wiz created to protect his spells, especially the book holding most of his secrets. He called it the Dragon Book," Moira explained.

Karl looked at Moira, Jerry looked at Karl and the dragon eyed them both.

"That had to be deliberate," Karl said finally.

Jerry made a face as if he had bitten into something sour. "Believe me, it was."

"Crave pardon?"

"There’s a standard text on writing compilers called the dragon book." Jerry explained. "It’s got a picture of a dragon on the cover. A red dragon."

"It was orange on my edition."

"As protection of the contents?" Moira asked.

"More like a warning of what the course is like. It’s a real bear."

"Then why not put a bear on the cover?"

"Bears aren’t red," Karl put in before Jerry could answer. "They’re not orange either."

Moira frowned. "Oh," she said in a small voice.

"Anyway, how do we get rid of him?"

"Easily enough. Wiz taught me the dismissal spell." She stepped to the edge of the desk and spoke to the demon.

"puff at ease exe."

The dragon crawled off the book and retired to the corner of the desk.

"That is a spell in Wiz’s magic language," she explained, turning back to the programmers. "The word exeis the command to start the spell, at easeis the spell and puffis the name of this demon."

"Well, it is a magic dragon," Karl said. A couple of the programmers groaned and Jerry winced again.

"Okay," Jerry said. "We’ll get this stuff out of your way and moved to our office as soon as possible. Uh, do you know where we are going to be?"

"The under-seneschal is waiting to show you to your workrooms," Moira said. "He is in the courtyard, I believe."

"Great. Let’s go then." Everyone moved back toward the door, except Danny Gavin who was lounging in a chair.

"Are you coming?" Jerry asked.

"No, I think I’ll stay here," Danny said. "Unless you need me?"

Jerry looked at Moira and Moira shrugged.

"Just don’t wander off."

Almost as soon as the door was closed Danny was out of his chair and over to the Dragon Book. The guardian demon raised its head when he opened it but made no protest.

Now let’s see what this magic stuff is like. Danny scanned the first few pages quickly, picking up the basics of the syntax as he went. Then he flipped further back and looked at a few of the commands.

Shit, this is a piece of cake. He went back and re-read the first part of the book more carefully, already mentally framing his first spell.

"We had to prepare workspace for you on short notice," the under-seneschal said apologetically as he led the group across another courtyard. "I’m afraid all the towers are taken and Lord Bal-Simba doubted you would prefer caves. So to give you a place where you can all work together, we ah, well, we cleaned out an existing building."

He was a small, fussy man who seemed to bob as he walked and kept rubbing his hands together nervously. He had been given an impossible job on very short notice and he was very much afraid his solution would insult some very important people. As they moved across the courtyard he became more and more nervous.

"We weren’t expecting so many of you, you see and we are so terribly crowded here…" His voice trailed off as they approached the building.

It was sturdily built of stone below and timber above. As they drew nearer, a distinctive aroma gave a hint of its original purpose and once they stepped through the large double doors there was no doubt at all as to what it was.

"A stable?" Jerry said dubiously.

"Well, ah, a cow barn actually," the man almost cringed as he said it.

"Wonderful," Cindy said, "back in the bullpen."

"Oh wow, man," said one of the group, a graying man with his hair pulled back into a pony tail, "like rustic."

"Hell, I’ve worked in worse," one of the programmers said as he looked around. "I used to be at Boeing."

The room was good-sized, but as cold as every other place in the City of Night. A mullioned window, its tracery in ruins, let in the sharp outside air. Piles of sodden trash and pieces of broken furniture lay here and there. On one wall stood a tall black cabinet, tilting on a broken leg but its doors still shut.

Wiz came into the room eagerly. Maybe there was something in the closed cabinet he could use.

Cold and hunger dulled his caution and he was halfway across the room before a skittering sound behind him told him he had made a mistake.

Wiz whirled at the sound, but it was too late. There, blocking the only way out, was a giant black rat. It was perhaps five feet long in the body and its shoulder reached to Wiz’s waist. Its beady eyes glared at Wiz. It lifted its muzzle to sniff the human, showing long yellow teeth. Wiz stepped back again and the rat sniffed once more, whiskers quivering.

Wiz licked his lips and took a firmer grip on the broken halberd shaft. The rat eyed him hungrily and moved all the way into the room, its naked tail still trailing out into the corridor.

Wiz stepped to one side, hoping the rat would follow and leave him room for a dash to the door. But the rat wasn’t fooled. It lowered its head and squealed like a piglet caught in a fence. Then it charged.

In spite of his disinclination to exercise, Wiz had naturally fast reflexes. Moreover, his two years in the World had hardened his muscles and increased his wind. He was far from being the self-described "pencil-necked geek" he had been when he had arrived here, but he was even further from being a warrior.

The monster closed in squealing. Wiz swung wildly with his rusty axe. The giant rat ducked under the blade and leaped for his throat.

Against a halfway competent swordsman the tactic would have worked. But Wiz wasn’t even halfway competent. He had swung blindly and he brought his weapon back equally blindly, backhand along the same path.

The spike on the back of the axe caught the rat just below the ear. Any guardsman on the drill field would have winced at such a puny blow, but the spike concentrated the force on a single spot. Wiz felt a "crunch" as the spike penetrated bone. The rat squealed, jerked convulsively and fell in a twitching heap at Wiz’s feet.

Wiz’s first instinct was to turn and run. But he checked himself. Think he told himself sternly, you’ve got to think. Running wouldn’t solve anything. There was nowhere to run to and running burned calories he could ill-afford to lose. Panic wouldn’t get him the food he so desperately needed.

Well, he thought, looking down at the gray-furred corpse, maybe I can use one problem to solve another.

Kneeling over the body, he set to work with his halberd.

Wiz emerged from the room a while later wiping his mouth on a bit of more or less clean rag.

Rat sashimi, Wiz decided, wasn’t half bad—if you used lots of wasabe. He didn’t have any wasabe, but it still wasn’t half bad.

While the rest of the team broke for lunch, Jerry, Karl and Moira went back to the apartment to start sorting through Wiz’s papers.

"A barn!" Moira said angrily. "I cannot believe they would do that to you."

"Hey, it’s dry and it looks like it can be made fairly comfortable," Karl said. "Besides, it’s already divided up into cubicles."

"Well, I can assure you, My Lords…" Moira began as she started to open the door.

There was a low moan and the sound of scuffling from the apartment.