Rick Cook - Wizardry Compiled

The tricky part is going to be making sure that everyone arrives when they are supposed to, he thought as he dodged down the corridor. Another bolt of lightning crashed into the stone behind Wiz, knocking off chips and tainting the air with the tang of ozone.

That and staying alive. Wiz ran faster and threw the tarncape around his shoulders.

" What was that?" Dzhir Kar roared, rising from his desk. From his place in an alcove off the workroom, Pryddian cringed back.

One of the wizards burst into the room, hair and beard singed and smoking holes in his robe. "Dread Master, the Sparrow has attacked us?"

"Then after him. After him! Everyone!" Dzhir Kar was hopping up and down in fury. "Catch him and bring him to me."

The wizards piled out of the workroom in a rush. Dzhir Kar paused long enough to look over at his demon, still coiled with its eyes closed. He grasped his staff with his good hand and hobbled after his wizards.

"Dread Master?" Pryddian spoke tentatively.

Dzhir Kar gestured and a wall of heatless blue fire sprang into being across the door to Pryddian’s alcove. The apprentice cringed back away from the deadly flame.

"Stay there until we return," he croaked and hobbled out.

It turned out to be nearly as hard to keep the hunt going as it had been to avoid it entirely. By alternately showing and concealing himself, Wiz was able to keep his pursuers after him. Once or twice he almost had to shout at them to bring them back on the track. At first he worried about being too obvious. Then he saw that the wizards were so eager to catch him that nothing could make them pause to consider his motives.

He had to wait for several minutes outside the gate near the strange tower before he was spotted by a wizard. Then three of them came around the corner at once and let fly at him with a flurry of lightning bolts as he dodged through.

"This way, Dread Master, this way," the wizards chorused a few moments later when Dzhir Kar came up, using his staff as a crutch.

"He did not go beyond this place," another assured him. "We came from all point of the compass."

Dzhir Kar peered through the gate at the courtyard beyond. The square was windowless with walls perhaps four times the height of a man. A single door gaped on the opposite side of them from the gateway.

"Trapped!" Dzhir Kar crowed. "There is no way out of that building. We have him now. Spread out, brothers. Spread out fingertip to fingertip and we will hunt down our Sparrow." He picked up a handful of windblown dust from the marble paving and threw it into the air before him.

"Use the dust. It will show his form."

The wizards quickly formed a ragged line. Two paces apart they advanced across the court, tossing dust into the air as they went.

Lying on his belly on the roof of the building Wiz watched them come. It had taken him the better part of the night to chop and pry a hole in the roof so he would have this vantage point and escape route. Now all he could do was watch and wait—and be ready to run if his plan went awry.

The line of wizards was half-way across the square when the shadows in the building began to move. As one man they stopped, forewarned by their magical senses. The line wavered as some of them stepped back, away from the darkened doorway where something was clearly stirring. Wiz held his breath.

And into the square came the demon Bale-Zur.

Normal mortals would have fled. But wizards need courage beyond ordinary men and women. Besides, they knew it would be futile to run.

A score of wizards threw back their sleeves and raised their staffs almost in unison. Suddenly it was Hell out for the Fourth of July in the square.

Magics flashed and roared across the square. Spells crackled through the air to bounce off the demon like many-hued lightnings. Balls of green and purple and blinding white fire flew this way and that across the square.

None of it mattered. Bale-Zur did not even flinch as he came across the marble flagging with a hopping, toad-like gait. A wizard screamed as the creature reached out with great rending claws.

Crippled as he was, Dzhir Kar could not run. He stood his ground to the end, flinging spells at the demon until the clawed hand reached down and scooped him up to the rending, blood-stained jaws.

The last few wizards tried to run, but it made no difference. In spite of his clumsy gait Bale-Zur was far faster than any human. Their screams mingled with the demon’s roars as he crushed the life out of them. Wiz clapped his hands to his ears and turned away from the scene in the court below him.

Then all was silent. There were no more cries, no more roars, no more crash and flash of magic. Suddenly the only sound was the icy wind playing over the stonework and making weird little whistling noises as it stirred the dust below.

Once again the warty head swiveled and again Wiz stared into eyes as red as the fires of Hell. Then the eyes slid over him and the huge toadlike demon turned away. Soundlessly it half-dragged, half-hopped out of the square, heedless of the black-robed bodies it crushed beneath its great clawed feet.

"Odd," the Watcher said, staring back into her crystal.

"What?" the wizard asked.

"There in the City of Night, a sudden flare of magic."

"Is it the Sparrow?" the other asked eagerly.

"No, it is not the new magic." She shrugged. "Perhaps just a remnant of the Dark League’s power."

The other nodded. The Watchers were used to strange things happening in the ruined city. As long as they were not too powerful they were nothing to worry about or to be passed up the chain of command.

Still, the Mighty were frantic to find Wiz and this was an unusual occurrence. The shift commander looked up. "What have we got near the City of Night?"

"No assets in place right now," the patrol commander called back from the other side of the pit. "There is a squadron of dragon cavalry that could swing further south and be there in two day-tenths."

"Then send them south," the shift commander told her. "Have them search over the City of Night carefully." The patrol commander nodded and turned back to her crystal.

"Should we also inform Bal-Simba, Lord?" asked the deputy commander.

"No. No point in that. This may be nothing after all."

With the flash and pulse of repeated magics still ringing in his ears, Wiz made his way to the large open space in the center of the city.

The forces unleashed as the wizards fought for their lives against Bale-Zur would provide a beacon, a magical flare big enough to be seen by the Watchers back at the Capital. Now all he had to do was mark his chosen vantage point and scan the skies for the dragon patrols which were sure to come south to investigate the magical maelstrom he had touched off. There was food and water in his pack for several days, and two more of the fire globes to make a final signal to guide the rescuers in. He had even taken the precaution of gathering up several long pieces of white fabric to use as marker panels. They would stand out vividly against the dark sand.

Carefully he laid down the white cloth taken from the chests in the shape of a large X. He anchored the pieces with handfuls of the fine black volcanic sand that floored the square. That done, he stood up, stretched and leaned over backwards to ease his aching back muscles.

Wiz looked up, squinting into the pale sun. The walls ran straight up and smooth for perhaps thirty feet. Above that they moved out in a series of steps. Like ranks of bleachers.

Like ranks of bleacher seats . . . Wiz looked around with a new comprehension. The black sand beneath his feet, the unclimbable walls, the seats above suddenly all made sense. An arena. He was standing in an arena. The central tower must have something to do with the events held here.