Rick Cook - Wizard’s Bane

In the riot and confusion of the shuddering palace no one noticed the screams. But they went on for a long, long time.

Blinded, burned and screeching, the goblins fell back around the bend in the tunnel. Atros paid them no heed.

So , breathed the wizard, now unknowingly the Mightiest in the League. So he is here after all. He spared a quick glance for his companions. Of the fifty or so who had accompanied Atros into the dungeons perhaps a dozen remained. No soldiers here, this would be a duel of wizardry.

The auspices were not ideal, but Atros meant to have this wizard and if his goblin soldiers could not take him, then he would do so himself. He flipped back his great fur cloak, baring his thickly muscled arms, and muttered a protective incantation before he stepped around the corner.

"What is it?" Wiz asked as the hulking skin-clad figure strode down the tunnel toward them.

"A wizard," Kenneth told him. "I’m sorry, Lord, but we cannot help you now. You must meet magic with magic in a duel of wizards."

Wiz licked his lips and took a deep, shuddering breath. Then he stepped into the blue-lit corridor, staff in hand.

Atros did not check his stride as Wiz came through the broken door. Stepping around the broken burned bodies of his goblin bodyguard he bored straight toward the slight dark-haired figure holding his oak staff as if it were a baseball bat.

As Atros came on Wiz pointed his staff at him. "bippity boppity boo,"he said and again the roaring lance of flame shot from the staff’s tip. But the big wizard made a dismissing gesture with a flip of his wrist and the flame veered to one side, splashing off the wall and dissipating harmlessly.

Atros raised his hand and balls of fire flew from his fingertips; one after the other they caroomed down the hall at Wiz. Wiz reached into his pouch and threw a tiny, pallid grub at his attacker. Grub and fireballs met in mid-tunnel and the flames were sucked away, leaving only a medium-sized worm behind.

Quickly Wiz muttered another spell. Suddenly Atros found his progress slowed, as if he were walking through molasses. The more he pushed, the slower he moved until by exerting all his mighty strength he was barely able to move at all.

Atros paused for a second, examining the spell, tasting it. Experimentally he tried moving a hand slowly and found it moved normally. The resistance built higher the faster he tried to move. The southern wizard smiled slightly and spoke a counter-incantation. Then he strode on unhindered.

His next step was nearly his last. His foot landed on a patch of something as slippery as the slickest ice over polished marble. He could get no purchase and his feet shot out from under him. Instinctively Atros used a spell to stay upright. Again a pause while he analyzed the magic and again Wiz’s best effort was nullified by a counterspell.

Atros assayed a transformation spell. But Wiz just stood there, unchanged and unharmed. A disorientation spell, a sleep spell and an earthquake spell followed in quick succession. Still his slender opponent stood unscathed.

Atros was baffled. He had never seen its like before. Normally a barrage of spells had some effect, but this was as if they weren’t even reaching their target. A bit tentatively, Atros hurled a bolt of lightning down the corridor. It reached the worm and vanished.

Aha! The worm had grown noticeably larger. The thing was actually soaking up magic. Again Atros smiled and shaped a spell carefully.

The Southern wizard raised his staff, an inky blob of darkness formed on the end of it and wobbled down the corridor. It was black beyond black, blacker than night and it floated toward Wiz like a balloon wafted on a breeze.

Wiz watched as the sphere of darkness passed over the now-fattened worm. The worm reached out greedily for the magic just as the sphere bobbed to the floor of the corridor to meet it, bending toward the worm like a lover bending toward a kiss.

The pair touched. Suddenly the worm faded and shrunk as the black sphere of negation drained the magic it had hoarded. As the worm grew smaller so did the sphere, until at last there was again a tiny writhing grub and the sphere closed in on itself and vanished.

Atros ground the worm under his heel as he stepped forward to confront Wiz.

Wiz hit Atros with everything but the kitchen sink. A hundred lightning bolts flashed toward him so fast the corridor was lit by a constant blinding glare and the air reeked of ozone. The tunnel roof caved in with a roar and a huge cloud of dust. Thirty sharp knives flew at Atros from all directions. His bearskin tried to crawl off his back. A hurricane swept down the corridor blowing with a force no man could withstand.

Still Atros came on. The lightning struck all about him but never touched him. The falling rocks bounced off an invisible shield over his head. His skin garment convulsed and lay still. The wind did not move a hair on his head.

Wiz’s spells had raw power, but they lacked the carefully crafted subtlety of a truly great wizard. And Atros, for all his braggadocio, was one of the great wizards of the World. More, he had the hard-won experience that comes from fighting and winning a score of magical duels. But most of all, Atros was a killer. Wiz simply was not.

Now Atros raised his staff and it was Wiz’s turn to endure.

"New magic in the City of Night, Lord. Strong and strange."

Bal-Simba rushed to the Watcher’s side. "Is it Sparrow? Can you locate him?"

"It appears to be and, yes Lord, we have it very precisely. He is in the dungeons beneath the city." The Watcher peered deeply into the crystal again. "There is other magic close by, Lord. Very strong and… Atros! Lord, your Sparrow is locked in a magical duel with Atros!"

"Fortuna!" Bal-Simba swore. "How is the Sparrow doing?"

"I can’t tell, Lord. His spells are so peculiar. But there is a lot of magic loose in those tunnels." Another pause and the Watcher tore his eyes from the crystal to face Bal-Simba. "He seems to be holding his own, but I don’t think he is winning, Lord."

"A Sparrow against a bear. That is not an even match.

"I fear not, Lord."

Bal-Simba bowed his mighty head and frowned into the crystal. Then he snapped his head up and slapped his palm on his thigh with a crack like a pistol shot.

"A circle!" he bellowed to the assembled Mighty. "Quickly to me! I must have a circle!"

Magic constricted around Wiz like a vise. As quickly as he erected a barrier against the onrushing spells, it was torn away and magic wound ever tighter around him. Again and again Atros thrust with his staff and Wiz was driven back toward the door of the cell where Moira and the two wounded guardsmen cowered, blinded and deafened by the effects of the duel and choked by the dust and magic thick in the air.

Suddenly Atros took his staff in both hands, raised it high over his head and brought it down with a vicious chopping motion. Wiz raised his staff to ward it off, but he was driven to his knees by the force of the blow. Blindly he raised his staff and gestured again. But the stroke was weak and ill-judged and Atros thrust it aside contemptuously. He stepped forward again and raised his staff for a final, killing spell.

From the cell door a blazing ball flew over Wiz’s head and straight at Atros’s face. The wizard dropped his staff and flinched aside from the burning sphere. He gestured and it swerved off to splatter in a flaming gout on the tunnel wall behind him.

Atros looked over Wiz and saw Moira standing in the door with her eyes blazing and her hands extended clawlike.

"Witch!" he said contemptuously and made a shooing motion with both hands. Moira screamed and flew back into the cell as if pushed by an unseen hand. Then the skin-clad giant stooped to pick up his staff. Inside the cell an explosion blasted out. A choking cloud of dirt billowed from the shattered door and a reddish light like a new-kindled fire burned within. Atros frowned and made a warding move with his staff. Wiz shook his head and climbed half to his feet.