Eleven :A Bit of Burglary

Always secure your files. You never know who's lurking about.   

—programmer's saying

Pryddian, once apprentice wizard, closed the door softly and looked around the sitting room. He saw no signs of traps or warning devices anywhere. Once the apartment's door had been breached there seemed to be nothing to protect the contents.

There was no reason why there should be. Ordinary theft was virtually unknown in the Wizards' Keep because it was so easy to find thieves by magic. The wizards' workrooms were carefully protected by multiple spells, but there was no reason to extend that protection to living quarters. After all, no one worked in his or her apartment.

With one very important exception.

Pryddian moved cautiously across the sitting room toward the desk piled high with books and papers. With the hedge witch fled and the Sparrow sent away there should be no one here, but the enormity of what he was doing made Pryddian careful nonetheless.

Well, Pryddian thought, the Sparrow had it coming. This was a way to avenge himself and perhaps profit as well.

As he approached the desk beneath, the red dragon demon reared up from among the clutter and hissed at him. Pryddian stopped and studied the creature carefully. He had expected something like this. Not even the Sparrow would be so careless as to leave his secrets completely unguarded.

However, Pryddian had come prepared, just as he had come armed with an unlocking spell for the door. The fact that it was a thing of the Sparrow's made it all the more delicious.

"ddt exe!" he whispered, pointing at the guardian demon.

The little red dragon paused in mid-hiss and scampered off the table. Pryddian watched in satisfaction as it ran whimpering for the bedroom.

Eagerly he bent over the desk and began to riffle through the material piled there. The large leatherbound book in the center of the table seemed most important, so he opened it first. But what was inside was the confused mishmash of the nonsense the Sparrow foisted off upon the wizards. Not a true spell in the lot. He slammed the book in disgust and turned to the piles of parchment, slates and tablets stacked around.

Quickly he sorted them, putting aside everything that was too arcane or too fragmentary to be useful. He was left with a sizable amount of material. Stacking the pile on top of the book, he reached into his cloak and produced a pen, a travelling inkwell and a sheaf of parchment. He dipped his pen into the ink and began to copy as fast as he could write, cursing when he blotted something in haste.

This was what he wanted. Not the inane babblings the Sparrow expounded in his classes, but his spells. His real power. Frantically he copied the crabbed smudged characters, taking care to put alternate lines on different sheets of parchment to prevent activating the spells. He added the marginal notes as he went, even though most of them meant nothing to him. With time perhaps he could puzzle out their meanings.

He was perhaps halfway down the pile when he came to the real prize. A powerful searching spell that would show the user anything that went on in the world. Flipping through the parchments he saw the spell commanded three separate sets of demons.

Pryddian licked his lips and his hand trembled. This must be the spell the Sparrow had used to track the Dark League. Like any magician, he believed that knowledge was power and this was a spell that would give him knowledge of the entire world.

The dragon demon peered around the corner at him and occasionally ventured a half-hiss. That Pryddian ignored. Every so often he glanced over his shoulder at the door, gripped by a mixture of elation and terror. If he was caught the consequences did not bear thinking about, but if he got away with this he would possess the essence of the Sparrow's magic.

Throw him out, would they? They would see who was the better wizard before he was through.

As he bent to copy the sheets he looked out between the drawn curtains and saw Moira coming across the courtyard, still wearing her travelling cloak.

Fortuna! The most powerful spell in the Sparrow's arsenal and he did not have time to copy it. Without thinking he thrust the originals inside his jerkin with the wad of copies. Hastily he gathered up his pen and ink and tried to put everything back where he found it.

Moira paused at the branching of the corridor and summoned up her courage.

Well, she thought, soonest stated soonest done. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and strode off down the hall toward the apartment she shared with Wiz.

As she made her way down the hall, a figure in a hooded cloak hurried by her. She nodded and half-voiced a greeting out of habit, but the hooded one ignored her. As he twisted to pass her she saw that it was the apprentice who had insulted Wiz on the drill ground.

If she had been less distracted, Moira might have wondered what an apprentice was doing in a wing reserved for wizards. Or why he was wearing a cloak with the hood up indoors. But she had more important things on her mind. She paused outside the door to their apartment, took a deep breath, wiped a sweaty palm on her skirt and opened the door.

The room was deserted. The little red dragon raised its head inquiringly as she came in, but there was no sign of Wiz.

Just like him! Moira thought. She was all steeled for what must be said and he wasn't here. She plopped down in her chair, determined to wait for him to come back.

Around the corner, Pryddian leaned against the wall, shaking and cursing inwardly. She saw me! He ground his teeth. The bitch saw me! True, she had not seen him come out of their apartment, but she had seen him in a hall where he had no business being. Once the Sparrow returned and missed the searching spell, it would take no great leap to trace the deed to him.

Even if the Sparrow noticed nothing amiss, it meant his foray was useless. As soon as he started using the knowledge he had stolen, the hedge witch would remember his presence and it would be obvious to everyone what he must have done. For all his daring and cunning, he was blocked before he could even begin. Pryddian turned his face to the wall and beat his fist against he stone in frustration.

Then he dropped his hand and gained control of himself. Perhaps he was not so blocked after all. If he used the Sparrow's magic anywhere in the North he would be detected as a thief. But there were other magics—and other places.

He let out a long, deep breath and straightened up. It was not the path he would have chosen, but there was a way still open to him.

Bal-Simba looked up at the knock upon his study door. He wasn't surprised to see Moira standing there.

"Merry met, Lady," he said, leaning back in his oversize chair. "Come in."

"Merry met, Lord. Where is Wiz?" The words tumbled out almost as a single sentence.

"I sent him on an errand," Bal-Simba told her. "It seemed expedient."

"I heard something . . . Lord, did he really threaten magic against someone?"

Bal-Simba nodded and Moira closed her eyes in pain. "Lord, we have got to help him. We must!" 

The giant wizard shook his head. "Neither of us has the skill, Lady. We are mere novices at this new magic and Wiz needs the help of the Mighty of his own world to do what needs to be done."

"Lord," she said formally. "I ask it of you and the Council that you do whatever is within your power to aid Wiz."

Bal-Simba smiled, showing his pointed teeth. "Willingly granted Lady, but what would you of us?"

"I have been thinking about this," Moira said. She stopped, gathering herself. Bal-Simba waited. The candles gave a bayberry tang to the air and the evening breeze made them flicker and the shadows dance on the wall.

"Lord," the redhaired witch said slowly, "we promised we would not Summon anyone hither, did we not?"

Bal-Simba looked at her narrowly. "That we did. A most solemn promise."

"So it was," Moira agreed. "But I do not recall ever promising not to ask others to help us."

"Eh?"

"Suppose we did not Summon another to us," she went on. "Suppose instead we used a Great Summoning to send someone to Wiz's people to appeal for their aid? Would the Council approve, do you think?"

The black giant's face split in an enormous grin. "Brilliant, Lady!" His laughter pealed off the ceiling. "You will wind up on the Council yet."

Then he sobered. "But it would be a dangerous journey."

"True, but think of what we could do if I brought Wiz back one of the Mighty of his world!"

"If you brought back . . . Oh no! No, My Lady! Wiz would have my head if I let you go haring off on such a scheme. And he would be richly entitled to it."

"But Lord . . ." Moira began.

"No! Not you. Someone else, but not you. And that's final!"

Wiz leaned back against the stone wall and shivered. He was so tired he could not keep his eyes open, but the least little movement or sound brought him awake with a start.

He was terribly hungry. His last meal had been at Duke Aelric's—how long ago? More than that, he was cold. Desperately, numbingly, bone-chillingly cold. He exhaled and watched his breath puff white.

It would be so simple to be warm again. But with that thing around he dared not use magic of any sort. He had only to begin forming a spell in his head and he could feel the quiver of the demon's anticipation. No matter how careful he was, he would be dead before he could ever complete the first line.

In theory he could write the spell out and then summon a demon to execute the code. But that wouldn't buy him much. In the first place, just the act of putting the spell down might be enough to send the demon arrowing after him. In the second place, even if the demon did finish the spell he wouldn't live to see it. He might come up with something that would finish the demon, but he wouldn't be there to see it.

Besides, he thought, I've got a war to stop. I've got to get back to the Capital. 

He had been stupid to travel unprotected, he saw now. Moira had told him that wizards kept one or more defense spells primed and ready against sudden danger. He'd laughed and told her he didn't need such precautions. With his new magic he could launch a spell in an instant. He remembered that Moira hadn't looked happy, but she hadn't said anything.

If only he had time to prepare he knew he could take the beast, or at least get beyond its grasp. But he had come unsuspecting and unprotected and now it was too late.

He leaned back and thought of Moira. At least she's safe, he told himself as he drifted off into a restless half-sleep.