Never argue with a redhaired witch. It wastes your breath and only delays the inevitable.
—the collected sayings of Wiz Zumwalt
"I still think this is too dangerous," Bal-Simba grumbled for the twentieth time.
"Hush, Lord," Moira placed her hand gently on his massive ebony arm. "It is less dangerous for me than for any other. Who else knows as much about Wiz's world?"
"Will you not at least take a couple of guardsmen? Donal and Kenneth . . ."
"No, Lord. From what Wiz has told me they would only attract notice. And perhaps trouble."
"I suppose so." He sighed and looked around the room. Six other wizards were already at their places and the shadow on the sun dial crept ever closer to noon. "Best you take your place then, Lady. Remember, we will search for your signal every day two day-tenths after sunrise and two day-tenths before sunset. When we sense your signal we will perform the Grand Summoning. Do you have the cord?"
"Yes, Lord," Moira said, touching the pouch at her waist, "and thank you." She stretched up to kiss him on the cheek. "Please when Wiz returns tell him not to worry." Then she turned and strode to her place in the center of the circle of wizards.
Bal-Simba frowned slightly at that. He did not tell her he had expected Wiz back days ago. The great black wizard was beginning to get worried.
"Merry part, Lady."
Moira dropped him a slight curtsey from her position in the center of the floor. "Merry meet again, Lord."
The chant swelled up in six-part harmony as the wizards sought to bend the forces of the Universe to their will. Moira stood straight-backed at her place in the growing maelstrom of magical energies. As the grayness swirled up about her Bal-Simba thought he saw her lip quiver.
Jerry Andrews rattled off the sequence to start compiling the program. Then he leaned back and the chair creaked. He sucked a lungful of the chill, air-conditioned air and rubbed his eyes. The after image of the screen was burned into his vision.
The fix he had just installed was a fairly elegant piece of work. He would have liked to show it to someone, but he was alone. His new cubicle mate was a day person and they seldom met unless Jerry was going home late while he was coming in early.
Whole damn company's going to hell, he thought sourly. Next thing you know we'll be doing weekly project reviews with input from marketing. When that happened Jerry intended to bail out. He was an old hand and he knew the signs.
Besides, he thought, this place hasn't been the same since Wiz Zumwalt went away.
Wiz's disappearance had shaken people up plenty. There were lights in the parking lot at ZetaSoft now and security guards patrolled the grounds and the buildings.
It wasn't unknown for a late-working programmer to be robbed or killed in company parking lot, but it still struck hard when it happened close to home. Especially since they never found the body.
Besides, Wiz had been his friend. If it hadn't been for his taste for truly rotten puns, he would have been the perfect work companion.
Well, he thought, just link this module in and . . .
There was a sudden blurring of the world and Jerry Andrews realized he had a girl in his lap.
Since most of Jerry's lap was already taken up by his rather ample stomach, she promptly rolled off and landed on the floor.
She shook her mane of red hair and looked up at him, her green eyes wide. "Oh! Crave pardon, My Lord."
Jerry stared at her, stunned.
Moira rose quickly and clutched at the edge of the desk as the room spun around her. Even with Bal-Simba's improved technique she was still dizzy and weak from the aftereffects of the Summoning.
"Uh, hi," Jerry said for want of anything better to say. Not only was this totally unexpected, but she was gorgeous—if you liked busty redheads. Jerry liked busty anything.
"Greetings, My Lord," Moira said, still clutching the edge of the desk. "I am called Moira."
"I'm Jerry Andrews."
Her eyes widened again. "Oh, well met! Wiz has told me a great deal about you."
"Wiz? Wiz Zumwalt?"
"Yes. He is in trouble and he needs help."
"Wiz is alive?"
"Oh yes, but he is not here. There was a Great Summoning and Wiz . . ." she trailed off. "It is a rather long story, I fear, and perhaps a complicated one."
Jerry nodded. "That sounds like Wiz."
They couldn't stay here, he decided. Moira didn't have a badge and sooner or later the guard would come by. But it was early in the morning and there wasn't any place to sit and talk.
Jerry decided to fall back on his first instinct whenever he had a problem. "Let's get something to eat."
The Capital of the North did not so much end as it trailed off in a dispirited gaggle of buildings, set ever further apart along the high street as the rocky promontory slanted down to the surrounding plain. At the upper end of the town, the Front, the houses and shops of the well-to-do crowded close to the walls of the Wizards' Keep. The further you moved down the spine of rock, the meaner and poorer the town became.
Pryddian was no stranger to the Back of the Capital, but this was an area he had little occasion to visit. Down a twisting side street, so narrow the overhanging houses almost blocked the sun, there was a stable. So small and dark was the entrance Pryddian nearly passed the place before he realized it was what he sought. He kept the hood of his cloak up and looked up and down the street before ducking through the low door.
Inside the place smelt of moldy straw and horses ill-kept. The ex-apprentice wrinkled his nose at the odor and wondered what kind of person would keep a horse in such foul quarters.
"You want something?"
He whirled and saw a man standing beside one of the stalls, leaning on a pitchfork.
"I am looking for something."
The other advanced, still holding the pitchfork. Pryddian saw the man was short and powerfully built, with a permanent squint and lank dark hair. As he came closer Pryddian's nose told him he was as ill-kempt as his stable.
"If it's a horse we got 'em. If not, be on your way."
Pryddian licked his lips. If the rumors were wrong about this place he could be in a lot of trouble. But if they were true . . .
"I wish to meet—some people."
"Well, there's none here but myself. Now be off with you!" The man gestured threateningly with the pitchfork.
Pryddian almost turned and ran. But he was desperate, so he stood his ground.
"I need to reach the Dark League."
The man stopped. "You're an apprentice from the castle."
"Former apprentice. I seek a different master and I bring something with me that will be valued in other quarters."
"The way to the Dark League lies south and over the Freshened Sea, as everyone knows," the man said sullenly.
"No more. The City of Night is in ruins and the old roads are closed."
"That's nothing to me. I have no truck with the likes of those."
"A pity," said Pryddian, fingering his pouch. "I am prepared to pay for information." He reached in and pulled out a silver coin. "I pay well." He turned the coin around in his fingers so it flashed in the dim light.
"Well," said the stableman, lowering the pitchfork. "I don't say I know anything and I don't say I don't. But there are those that say that if you take the road west to the Wild Wood there is a place where you might be met, sometimes."
Pryddian held out the coin to the man's grasp. "Tell me more."
Damn! Jerry muttered as he peered around the corner into the lobby. The guard was at the desk reading a supermarket tabloid.
He pulled his head back and stopped to think. Moira had no business being in the building, of course, and right now Jerry didn't think he was up to inventing a good excuse for her presence. He had hoped the guard would be off making a round, but they did rounds at irregular intervals and in this case it looked like the next interval would come when the guard finished his reading.
"Okay," he whispered, "just stay close to me and don't say anything." Moira nodded and they both sauntered around the corner.
As they came into the lobby the guard glanced up briefly and went back to his reading. Moira was behind and to one side of Jerry's bulk and the man obviously missed her.
Jerry leaned over to sign out on the sheet. The guard kept his nose buried in the tabloid.
"Good night," he said. The guard mumbled a response without looking up from his magazine. As they went by, Jerry got a glimpse of the headline.
Americans Falling Down
On the Job, Prof Warns
Wiz took a deep breath and examined the scene in front of him carefully, weighing the odds. There was a faint reptilian scent in the air he didn't like at all, but he was hungry enough and desperate enough to ignore it.
Most of the buildings in this district were utilitarian; warehouses, barracks, workshops and the like. This one was different. It was made of glossy dark marble instead of rough hewn basalt. The slanting late afternoon sun picked out the fine carving on the window and door frames. The courtyard itself was paved in an elaborate pattern of black and white and dark green blocks, laid in a way that made the surface appear to swoop and undulate wildly even though it was perfectly flat. Around the court was a colonnade and extending off the colonnade at close intervals were open doors like gaping black mouths. Wiz stood in a niche in the gateway for a moment and studied the place.
He could edge around the courtyard under the colonnade, but that would expose him to anything that might be hidden in the deepening shadows or lurking in one of those rooms. The main entrance was directly across from the gate and in this case the better part of valor seemed to be a dash across the center of the court.
Place like this ought to have a lot more in it than a barracks, he thought as he looked around carefully for the last time. Then again, maybe not. A place like this would attract looters.
He was halfway across the courtyard when he had another thought. A place like this would have been guarded, too.
Then the ground opened up beneath him.
Jerry and Moira stepped out the door into a world Moira found completely unsettling. The sky was gray but the night was not foggy. She wrinkled her nose. The air stank—an odd pungent reek like nothing she had ever smelled before.
In front of them was a large flat area whose black surface was marked with white lines. Here and there curiously shaped and brightly painted metal boxes or sheds stood on the dark surface. Lights on tall metal poles cast an orangish-pink glare over the scene. In the background she heard a continuous whooshing roar.
All in all, it was an unsettling place, stranger than she had imagined. Yet Wiz had come from here so it must be all right.
"Okay," Jerry told her, "the next question is where do we go to eat."
"My Lord, could we get pizza?"
"Right. Pizza it is. Little Italy's just around the corner. Come on, we'll walk." He set off toward the gate with Moira trailing behind.
The Little Italy was the sort of place that develops both regular clients and an idiosyncratic style over the years.
It was four o'clock on Saturday morning, but Mario, the owner, was behind the counter, baking loaves of bread to be used in the day's sandwiches. Jerry knew that at seven Mario's son would relieve him so the old man could go home and get a few hours sleep. Then he would be back for the lunch rush, take a nap in the afternoon and come back for the dinner crowd.
"Well, what do you want?" Jerry said as they came up to the counter. Mario stopped shaping loaves of dough and came up to wait on them.
"Pizza," Moira told him.
"Yeah, but what do you want on your pizza? What toppings?"
"Toppings?"
"Those things listed on the board."
Moira frowned. "Lord, I cannot read your language," she confessed.
"Look in the bins then." He pointed at the row of stainless steel containers lining the rear of the counter.
"What are you having?" she asked Jerry.
"I"ll have my usual. Sausage, ham, salami, pepperoni, hamburger and extra cheese. Medium, to eat here."
Mario nodded and got to work, swabbing the dough with spicy red tomato sauce redolent with basil and oregano. Next he scooped up handfuls of coarsely grated cheese and sprinkled them lavishly over the pizza. He didn't stop until the cheese hid nearly every trace of the sauce.
"Do you want the same thing?" Jerry asked.
"That is a great deal of meat," Moira said dubiously as the old man piled on the toppings. "I think I would prefer something else." She looked at Jerry. "I can have any of those I want?"
"Or any combination. If you come up with an unusual combination Mario names it after you." He nodded toward the board. "Wiz had one up there for a while. Something with jalapeños and pepperoni."
"I want Wiz's pizza."
Mario shook his head. "Don't got no jalapeños."
The hedge witch's brow furrowed and she went back to frowning at the bins, absently brushing back her coppery hair as it fell forward.
"Made up your mind yet, lady?" Mario asked, setting Jerry's pizza aside.
"What are those?" she asked, pointing to one of the bins.
"Anchovies," Jerry told her. "Highly salted fillets of tiny fish."
"I want some of those on mine," Moira said, looking over the bins. "And onions. Lots of onions. Oh, and is that garlic? Can I have some of that as well?
"And what is that on the end, floating in water?"
"That's feta. Goes on the gyros."
"It looks wonderful. I would have that on my pizza as well."
Jerry and Mario exchanged looks, but the counterman marked the order down.
"By the way lady, what's your name?"
"Why do you wish to know?"
"Because," Mario said, "if you eat that, I'm gonna put it on the menu and name it after you."
Even deathtraps need regular maintenance. This one had not been touched since the City of Night fell and it might have been damaged by the earthquakes touched off by the attack. That, and an instinct to keep his feet together, saved Wiz.
Wiz shook his head and climbed slowly to his feet. He was bruised, stunned and his ankles ached from the shock of landing, but he was alive and basically unhurt. He looked up and saw a strip of daylight disappearing as the trap door swung slowly closed with a creaking of unoiled hinges. The door didn't close all the way and by the dim light coming though the remaining crack, Wiz took stock of his surroundings.
On either side of the pit was a contrivance of rotting wood and rusty iron spikes as long as his arm. Wiz wasn't at all sure what it was supposed to do and he didn't want to think about it too closely. Whatever it was, it wasn't working and that had saved him.
Still, his position was precarious enough. The trap was shaped like a bottle, narrow above where the trap door was and wider down at the bottom. Even if the pit had not been twenty feet deep It would have been impossible to climb back out.
Wiz looked around. He didn't think he was going to get out of this without help and right now he didn't have the faintest idea where he could find help.
" . . . so you see, My Lord," Moira said, "Wiz needs help."
They had taken a booth in the back while they waited for their pizza and Moira filled Jerry in on his cubicle-mate's adventures and current plight.
Jerry considered. The more he considered, the less likely the whole thing became. There was no way that Wiz Zumwalt could ever have landed someone like the redheaded dish sitting across from him. The rest of her story didn't sound too plausible either.
Still . . . When a beautiful woman drops into your lap out of thin air, the event demands some explanation. Hers was no more outrageous than any other theory Jerry could come up with.
"Okay, I believe you," Jerry said. "But it's not going to be as simple as you think."
"Pizza's ready," Mario called from the counter.
"Excuse me, I'll get them."
Moira fidgeted until he returned with the two steaming pizzas and paraphernalia. He set them down and shook a dash of red pepper flakes onto his.
"Want some?"
Moira looked at the shaker and liberally lashed her pizza with them.
"Careful, those are hot."
The hedge witch frowned and shook some flakes into her palm and popped a hefty pinch into her mouth.
"So they are," she agreed and added some more to her pizza.
Jerry sighed and took a bite of his own pizza. A couple of slices of pepperoni fell off the heaped toppings and onto the table.
"What is that?" Moira asked, pointing and wrinkling her nose.
"That's pepperoni," Jerry said. Here," he picked a slice off his pizza, "taste it."
The hedge witch drew away. "Thank you, no. It smells spoiled. I do not mean to be discourteous, My Lord, but I do not see how you can eat that."
Jerry eyed Moira's anchovy, onion, garlic and feta cheese pizza and said nothing.
They ate in silence for a few minutes, Jerry devouring about half his pie and Moira finishing her first slice.
"My Lord," Moira asked finally, "would you be willing to help us?"
"Oh sure. My deal with ZetaSoft is about through. But it isn't that simple."
He took another enormous bite of pizza and dribbled sausage crumbs and a piece of mushroom back onto his plate.
"If what you say is true you're going to need a lot more than me," Jerry said around the mouthful of pizza. "You're talking about taking a one-man program and turning it into full production software, with documentation, a bullet-proof user interface and probably a suite of programmers' tools as well."
Moira regarded him seriously but uncomprehending.
"Now, I presume there's some sort of deadline on this thing?"
"We need it as quickly as possible."
"Okay, that's do-able, but not with just one more programmer. We've got to have more people. We need a full team."
Moira helped herself to another slice of pizza. "Can we get them?"
Jerry considered. "There are some problems. For one thing it will be expensive."
Moira set down her slice of pizza. From the folds of her skirt, she produced a leather pouch. She opened the drawstring and tipped it up. A ringing cascade of golden coins rained out between the hot pepper flakes, grated parmesan and napkin dispenser. One or two of them rang tinnily against the pizza pans.
Behind the counter, Mario continued with his baking, oblivious to the fortune that had just been poured onto one of his Formica table tops.
Jerry stared and licked his lips, tasting pizza grease. Conservatively this redhaired space cadet had just put about $25,000 on the table—literally.
"Will that be enough?" Moira asked innocently. "I can get more, but it would mean another Summoning."
"Lady, for that kind of money we could buy a couple of software startups, programmers and all!" Jerry said fervently.
Then he stopped and frowned. "But that's only half of it. We'll have to recruit them and that's not going to be easy. You need the people fast, right?"
Moira nodded.
"You also need them good. They're going to have to pick up on a new language and a whole new operating environment and charge right into work. This is not gonna be a job for BASIC bozos or COBOL drones."
Moira nodded vigorously. She didn't know what BASIC or COBOL were, except that Wiz said they caused brain damage in those who used them.
"Now there's another thing. This has to be done secretly, correct?"
"We have no objection to telling those of your world how you aided us. Bal-Simba and the Council would not be so mean as to deny them credit."
"The Council?"
"The Council of the North. The wizards who oversee our land. They would gladly provide testimonial."
Jerry thought about what a letter of recommendation from a council of wizards would look like in his resume file.
"Totally secret," he said firmly. "And we need to find the people in a hurry."
"Is there some guild hall or chantry where we might go to find people?"
Jerry considered while he polished off another slice.
"Well, the headhunters are out, that's for sure."
"I should hope so! We need these people alive."
"That's not what I meant—although with the kind of candidates headhunters turn up it can be hard to tell if they are alive."
"You make sport of me."
"A little, maybe. But it's going to complicate things." He reached for the last slice of pizza on his plate.
"So what we need," he summed up, "are people who are good enough to do the job, who are available and who can be made to believe you." And, he added silently, who are crazy enough to come along on something this dangerous. "That's not a common combination."
Jerry's eyes fell on one of the handbills tacked to the bulletin board. Even from this distance he could see the picture of the man in full armor and the woman in a long dress.
"I think," he said slowly, "I know just the place."
Jerry took Moira home with him for the night. "There are no motels close by and I live near enough to walk," he explained as they trudged the deserted streets.
Moira simply nodded, unconcerned by the proprieties.
She was yawning behind her hand by the time they reached his apartment. He offered her his bed but she would not hear of it. So he settled her on the couch in his cluttered living room with a blanket and pillow.
"Tomorrow we'll get an early start," he told her. "The place is about an hour and a half from here and it may take us all day to find the people we need."
"Good night, My Lord," Moira said, drawing the blanket over her.
Jerry left her and headed into the bedroom. If she's not here in the morning I'm not going to believe any of this! he vowed to himself.