The Wiz Biz II: Cursed & Consulted (6 page)

Wiz made a feeble attempt to brush himself off and peered around the archway.

The remains of the arch were pocked and scarred with fresh blemishes, white against the polished black granite. But the room itself was as clean as if it had been excavated by a team of expert archaeologists and then scrubbed and vacuumed by a village of Japanese housewives. There, almost exactly in the center of the room, sitting on the newly exposed mosaics of the floor, was a cloudy gray sphere.

Wiz stepped through the archway and realized he was tracking dirt back onto the clean floor.

"Okay," he said into the communications crystal. "We have the thing located. If it's safe come on through."

Then he looked around and bit his lip.

Wiz didn't like
any
part of the operation, but this next step was his least favorite, even counting facing the golden demon. Moira was not immune to Bale-Zur, but she knew more about controlling a demon than any of the programmers. In addition to having more skill at natural magic, she had spent long sessions at Heart's Ease with Shiara the Silver learning all the former wizardess could tell her about such things. If their plan failed, Moira was their last line of defense.

"Sharp lookout everyone," he called over his shoulder. Danny and Jerry spread out, staffs ready, peering into the building gloom for any sign of trouble.

Two figures popped into existence on the polished floor, not just one.

"What the hell is she doing here?" Wiz demanded.

Moira frowned at the greeting and then she whirled. Standing behind her, not two paces away, was June.

"How did you get here?" Moira asked sharply. But June just smiled triumphantly and made a beeline for Danny.

"I thought you said she didn't have any magical ability," Wiz whispered to Moira as the couple hugged and June clung to Danny's arm.

"She does not—I think," Moira whispered back.

"Well then?"

Moira only shrugged.

"Let us get it over with," Moira said. With Danny, Wiz and Jerry forming a perimeter guard, she knelt by the heart of Bale-Zur and reached slowly out to it.

For a long time she stayed motionless, her hand hovering over the cloudy crystal sphere. At last she began to move her fingers slowly over the surface, caressing it without quite touching it. Her lips began to move as she started the chant she had been taught to bring the demon back under control.

With the point of her staff she marked a pentagram around the demon's heart. Then she stood up, backed off a step and raised her staff. Her voice rose to a wild cry as she gestured into the air. In spite of himself Wiz found his attention was drawn to his wife and her work.

The sphere pulsed and glowed with an inner light, casting a greenish-gray luminance around itself and Moira. It rocked back and forth as if seeking to break free of the imprisoning figure. Still Moira continued the eerie chant, bouncing the words off the ruined walls like bullets.

And then Bale-Zur was there.

Half-hopping, half-shambling, the huge demon moved into the circle of weird radiance. Its great horned head turned neither right nor left and its glowing eyes, red as the fires of Hell, stayed fixed on the hedge witch and the heart. For an awful moment Wiz thought the monster would reach out and grind Moira into a red smear, as he had done with a legion of wizards from the Dark League. Instead the demon approached her across its heart and sank down on its haunches to stare motionless at the woman and the sphere.

Moira continued her chant as if nothing had changed. She lowered her staff and pointed at the heart. Bale-Zur stayed motionless, great taloned hands resting on his misshapen horned knees. The hedge witch extended her staff and tapped the crystal sphere once, twice, three times. The demon leaned forward as if in special interest. Moira repeated the three taps and Bale-Zur cocked its head. Again the three taps and this time the demon seemed to shrink in on itself like a deflating balloon. Suddenly, noiselessly, it shrank and vanished without a trace. The glow faded and all that was left was a woman and a head-sized ball of some shiny black material.

Moira grounded her staff and sighed deeply. Then she sagged against it.

That broke the spell. Wiz rushed to her and put his arms about her shoulders. She leaned against him and he could feel her heart pounding even through the thick cloak she wore.

"Fine," she muttered. "M'fine. Just hold me, will you?"

Danny, Jerry and June all gathered around them in the deepening gloom of evening. Moira took a deep breath and straightened in Wiz's arms.

"It is done," she said in a surprisingly strong voice.

Wiz looked at the globe, now cold and dark. "That's it then," he said. "Bale-Zur is gone."

"May we never see its like again," Moira said fervently.

"Oh, you will not, mortals," said a sweetly mocking voice behind them. "I see that in your future."

All four of them whirled. There, standing poised on the ruined wall, was an elf.

Like all her kind, she was tall and slender. The delicate points of her ears peeked through the long dark hair that curved around her face and fell loose down her back. Her oddly slanted eyes were as blue as Moira's were green. In spite of the cold she wore a shoulderless gown of fine pale pink stuff that rippled in the chill wind and set off her pale skin and dark hair. She was as alien as she was beautiful, utterly relaxed and as menacing as a tiger poised to spring.

June screamed and sank back against Danny. Moira stepped to the side and held her staff aloft as if to strike. Danny clutched June to him and Wiz and Jerry simply goggled.

"Uh, hi," Wiz said, completely nonplussed. "Lisella, isn't it?"

The elf maiden arched her beautifully formed brows and pursed her red lips in a mock pout.

"You have forgotten me already. I am disappointed, Sparrow."

"Ah, not exactly."
I never forget someone who's tried to kill me.
The elf looked amused at his discomfort.

"So," he said at last, "what brings you here?"

Lisella smiled, bright and cold as the moon at midwinter. "Why, I came to renew our acquaintance, Sparrow, and to offer you a gift of prophecy. Shall I tell you your future?"

"Uh, no thanks."

"Ruin and loss," Lisella went on as if he had not spoken. "Your company shall meet your greatest enemy, one like you with powers as great as yours and allies greater than you can imagine." Her voice rang off the stones and the wind pulled at her skirt and hair. "At the crossroads of the worlds you and your companions shall meet him in a great battle. The mightiest among you shall die, each of your number shall suffer great loss and your enemy shall achieve his heart's desire."

She raised her arm and made a sweeping gesture that encompassed all of them. "That is your future, mortals. That is what lies ahead."

And then she was gone. The only sound was June's harsh sobbing echoing off the cold stone.

They looked at each other.

"Bitch!" Danny said fiercely as he clung to his wife. "Goddamn bitch."

"That's the one who was trying to kill you?" Jerry asked Wiz.

"Yeah. She kept trying to set up magical accidents."

"Why?"

"Who knows? I met her once at Duke Aelric's but by that time she'd been after me for months. I think it was some sort of cat-and-mouse game between her and Aelric—with them as cats and me as the mouse. She'd try to kill me by accident and Aelric would help me escape by the skin of my teeth."

"Do you think she's after you again?"

Wiz looked apprehensively at the place on the wall where Lisella had stood. Then he shrugged. "Maybe."

Jerry followed his gaze. "It sounds like we're in for some real trouble."

"If she's right, maybe."

"Well, elves can foretell the future, can't they?"

"Foretelling and true speaking are two different things," Moira said firmly. "Elves can see truly but they are as false and tricksome as a piskhie maze. Clearly she means us no good and we had best ignore what she has said."

It would have been more convincing, Wiz thought, if her knuckles hadn't been white on her staff.

"Well anyway, I think we'd better wind up here and get back to the Capital," Jerry said. "Bal-Simba needs to know about this."

"I don't think he's going to like it much," Wiz predicted.

Wiz's prophecy, at least, was correct. The enormous black wizard heard them out and then led them back through their story time and again with sharp questions. At last he had no more questions and simply sat with his head sunk into his hamlike hands. The group of programmers sat clustered around the table, unsure what to do next but unwilling to depart without his leave.

"What do you think it means, Lord?" Wiz ventured at last.

"I wish I knew, Sparrow." He lapsed into silence again.

"There have been other elven prophecies to mortals," Moira said. "Or so the stories say."

"Not like this," Arianne said from her place behind Bal-Simba's chair. "Those stories speak of chance meetings and a prophecy given either as a reward or punishment."

"This was neither," Bal-Simba said. "She asked for nothing. More, she obviously sought you out at a time when you would all be together and away from the Capital and its protections."

"What should we do?"

"There is nothing we can do. The future may be open to elves, but to us it is closed and hidden. We can only live our lives as best we can and see what comes of all this."

"I wish I knew what her game was," Wiz said.

"I wish I knew why she wanted you dead," Moira replied.

"She hasn't tried to kill me since I was kidnapped to the City of Night. That's something anyway."

"True," Bal-Simba said. "It is something. I only wish I knew what."

Good help is so hard to find nowadays.

—Personnel manager's lament 
 

Craig paused at the foot of the stairs and went over his spiel again. He wanted to get this just right, otherwise Panda would think he was crazy.

For two weeks he had visited Judith every night, even missing two Friday gaming sessions in a row. Slowly and patiently he had worked the story out of her; where she had gone and what she had seen and done.

It was unbelievable. It was fantastic. Except that it made sense. When you put it together with other little things over the last year, it
had
to be true!

The exultation grew until a lump rose in his throat from sheer joy.
There were other worlds where magic worked!
It wasn't all just game scenarios and science fiction. Those places really did exist and you could get there from here! He shivered again at the wonder of it all.

Only—now he needed help.

Out on the street the traffic rushed by unheeded. Craig stared unseeing, while he went over his dilemma one more time.

Somehow he had to find a way to open that door into the other world. He wanted that more desperately than he had ever wanted anything in his life, even, he realized with a guilty start, more than he had wanted his mother to live. But he had to have a Quest Companion, someone to help him push that door open.

Who? He had spent most of the last three days going over possibilities and the list was disappointingly small. When you got right down to it, Craig realized, he didn't have any close friends except maybe Judith.

The gamers were the only people he actually knew. But he really didn't like them much and most of them thought he was kind of strange. Besides, they couldn't help him. The thought of Joe or Howard as Quest Companions on a real quest was silly and the rest didn't know enough about computers.

There were the others, the ones he met in the shadowy neverland of bulletin boards in his secret identity as Skullslayer, the master hacker. But he knew as little about them as they did about him. It would be embarrassing to confide in someone and then have it turn out to be a pimply faced thirteen-year-old.

There was one whose real identity he did know. A year and a half ago Panda had taken the unusual and dangerous step of contacting him in person. He was such an outtasight hacker that he'd discovered Skullslayer's identity and found that he used to work as a part-time operator in the University computer center. Not only that, he knew that Craig's password and login were still active!

The stuff about the virus, that had been an accident. Mikey had explained it all to him the night he showed up at his apartment and wanted help to cover it up. At first he'd been scared that Mikey was going to turn him over to the FBI, but Mikey just sort of mentioned in passing that he knew a lot about Skullslayer and of course if he was picked up he'd have to make a deal to save his own skin. Just this one favor, Mikey had promised, and we'll be square.

Actually it was a thrill and kind of an honor to be involved in something as big as the Jesse James Virus. So in a matter of ten minutes, from his living room, he had hopelessly muddled the trail that led from the out-of-control computer virus back to Panda.

They'd never met in person again, but they had become good friends over the BBSs. Craig followed Panda's exploits with admiration and more than a little awe. The guy was not only good, he was, well,
daring.
A dozen times or more Panda had boldly gone where no hacker had gone before, coming up with phone numbers and access codes to some of the most outrageous systems.

A woman with a bag of groceries in either arm came up the walk from the parking lot. She stepped off the sidewalk to pass well around Craig, eyeing him suspiciously as she did so.

She's gonna call the cops on me.
Well, he couldn't delay any longer.

The name on the door was "Michael E. Baker," but Craig knew everyone called him Mikey—like in the cereal commercial.

"Panda? It's me. Skullslayer."

There was a muffled "just a minute" and the sound of a lock turning.

The door opened a crack and a blue eye peered out.

"You alone?"

"Yeah. Just me."

The door closed and then opened wide.