Rick Cook - Wizardry Compiled

June watched Danny and said nothing.

They sat side by side on the roof, looking out over the Capital to where the late afternoon sun turned puffy clouds into a symphony of pale golds and blush pinks.

They had met up on the roof nearly every day since their first encounter. Sometimes one or both of them brought food and they had an impromptu picnic. Sometimes they just sat and talked. Or rather Danny talked and June listened. June hadn’t said a dozen words since that first day, but now they sat together on the slates. Sometimes they held hands.

"You ought to come and see the place sometime. It’s really pretty interesting."

June smiled and shook her head.

"Well, look, I gotta get down there or they’re gonna start asking questions. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?"

Danny started to rise, but June took hold of his arm and pulled him close. She kissed him full on the mouth and before Danny could respond she skittered away over the roof ridge.

Danny sat there for a moment longer, tasting her on his lips and trying to understand what had happened. One thing he was sure of. He liked it.

Even by the standards of the City of Night, this place was strange. The windows about the tower gave good light, else he never would have dared to approach the eerie blue glow issuing through the open doorway.

At this level the tower was divided into two rooms. The one beyond the carved black portal must be by far the larger, but the one was substantial as well. Looking at the layout, Wiz had the odd feeling that this level was larger inside than it was on the outside.

This was obviously a wizard’s tower and judging by the effects a very powerful wizard at that. Through the inner door Wiz could see forms writhing in the smoky red dark. It might just be fumes from the ever-burning braziers, but he had no intention of crossing the threshold to find out.

This room must have been an adjunct to the workroom. There were shelves along one wall which had obviously held scrolls. Pegs and hooks on another wall had perhaps held ceremonial robes and other magical apparatus.

But none of that was left. The small room had been thoroughly ransacked. Hangings had been pulled off the walls and lay rotting in a heap on the floor. The shelves were empty and broken. The floor was littered with broken glass, smashed crockery and bits of less savory items that might once have been in pots and jars. In one corner an armoire leaned crazily against the wall, its doors torn half off their hinges and showing the scars where someone had hastily chopped them open.

Wiz walked over to the cabinet and looked inside. The shelves were askew and the drawers were ripped apart. Like the room itself the armoire had been looted.

On an impulse, he stuck his hand into the cabinet. He struck the back much sooner than he expected and jammed his fingers painfully.

That wasn’t right, he thought as he flexed the aching digits. The back was closer than it should be. He put his hand back in the cabinet and reached around to feel the back from the outside. Yes, there was definitely a space there. There was a good eight-inch difference between the inside and outside back.

A careful examination of the inside back and the sides showed him nothing. The wood was plain and the grain straight and simple. He pressed and twisted, but the back remained in place.

Well, he thought hefting his halberd, there’s always the field engineering approach.

Three quick blows from the halberd splintered the thin wood of the back. On the third blow the armoire gave a despairing "sproing" and the remains of the back fell toward him. Eagerly Wiz reached inside.

At first he thought the compartment was empty. But when he thrust his hand into the dark recess, his fingers touched cloth. He lifted the garment off the peg on the side of the recess and brought it out into the light.

It wasn’t much, just a brown wool travelling cloak, frayed and slightly moth eaten. The kind of thing a wizard might wear for a disguise, or because he was too engrossed in his magic to worry about appearances. It doesn’t even look very warm, Wiz thought as he fingered the thin cloth. For the hundredth time Wiz thought of the fine gray and red cloak with the fur trim he had left in the village.

Well, anything was better than nothing and that’s what I’ve got now. He threw the cloak over his shoulders and pulled it tightly about him. He was right, it wasn’t very warm. Still it was comforting to have something to wrap around himself.

"I saw Moira today, My Lord," Arianne said as she and Bal-Simba finished the day’s business in his study. "She asked if there was any news of Wiz."

"If there was news, she would be the first to know," the giant wizard told his deputy. "No, so far our search has turned up nothing." He frowned. "We know an accident did not befall him in the Wild Wood. If he started out on the Wizard’s Way and did not return to the Capital, we may assume some magical agency intervened."

"Human?" Arianne asked.

"Perhaps. Although it appears that Sparrow has an unusual number of non-human enemies as well. Powerful ones." He paused for a second and frowned.

"And Lady…"

Arianne bent close at his gesture. "Yes, Lord?"

"Inquire—discreetly—into the activities of our own wizards over the last fourteen days. Especially any who have absented themselves from the Capital."

Arianne looked shocked. "Do you think…"

"I think," Bal-Simba said, cutting her off, "that we would be remiss if we did not explore every possibility to get our Sparrow back here as quickly as we can."

Arianne turned away to execute his command. "Oh, and Lady…"

Arianne turned back. "Yes, Lord?"

"Find that ex-apprentice, Pryddian, and ask him what he knows about this."

"Pryddian?"

"Just a thought. A direct attack on Wiz in the Capital would be difficult. It would be easier if he were outside our walls. Pryddian was the cause of our Sparrow’s journey." He shrugged his mountainous shoulders. "Unlikely, but we have to start somewhere."

Pryddian was sweating as he came over the last rise before his destination and not just from the noon sun. Before him the road curved to the left around the base of a hill, actually a large limestone outcropping. To the right, away from the road and along the outcropping, was a wild jumble of small trees, laurel bushes and boulders. The former apprentice started down the road, his feet kicking up powdery white dust fine as flour as he walked.

When he reached the place where the road curved away he paused for an instant and scanned the bushes on the roadside. The dusty weeds beside the road showed no sign of disturbance, but there was a path there, leading off the road and in among the undergrowth. Pryddian patted the breast of his tunic for reassurance and then stepped off the road and onto the little-used path.

He breasted his way through the bushes, dodged around trees and boulders and followed the meandering path deeper into the woodland. The thick brush and second-growth trees showed that once this place had been logged. But that had obviously been long ago. Getting felled trees out of such a place would be backbreaking and not worth it so close to the Fringe of the Wild Wood. It had been done once and then the wilderness had been allowed to reclaim this place.

Finally the trail took a sharp turn and a dip and Pryddian stumbled through into an opening. He was against the flank of the hill now, in a little hollow hard against sheer rock face. All around him like grotesque sentries stood boulders twice as high as he was. Directly in front of him was a single table-high stone in the midst of a patch of beaten earth. There were dark splotches on the stone, as if something had been spilled there and allowed to dry.