"Negotiation or not, he should have been back by now," she announced.
Bal-Simba looked over from the oversized arm chair across the room. "Long before now," the black giant amended. "At the very least he should have contacted us."
By unspoken consent they had gathered in the programmers’ workroom. Danny and Jerry worked at their desks, Bal-Simba had settled himself into his special chair and relayed instructions through his assistant, Arianne. June, Danny’s wife, was sitting in the corner with Ian asleep in her lap and Moira was in the window seat looking out the way Wiz had gone.
The first several hours after Wiz’s departure had been a rush of frantic effort as programmers and wizards alike prepared for battle with the dragon. In several places in the castle wizards of the Mighty were still casting spells and apprentice programmers were still laboring, but in the main preparations had been complete for a couple of hours. Now as the long summer day drew to a close there was nothing left to do but wait and watch for some sign of Wiz or the dragon.
Danny turned from his workbench. "Time for the locator spell?"
Moira stood up. "Past time."
Once before Wiz had been kidnapped. As a result all the programmers carried a spell which would locate them anywhere in the World.
Jerry took down a beaten copper bowl from the top of a corner cabinet. The bowl was nearly hidden by scrolls and papers and he almost caused a small avalanche as he worked it free.
"We need some water," Jerry said looking around.
Moira snatched up the vase she had filled with flowers only hours before, tossed the flowers on the floor and extended it to Jerry.
As Jerry poured water into the bowl, Arianne entered, perhaps summoned by Bal-Simba. She stood beside him while they completed preparations.
Finally Jerry took a splinter from a vial and floated it carefully on the water’s surface.
arg wiz locate exe! Jerry commanded.
As the five leaned over the bowl, the needle spun twice around widdershins, quivered and then slowly drifted off until it was pointing firmly south.
"South?" Danny protested. "But they went north."
"The needle points south," Moira said. "They must have circled around when they were out of sight of the castle."
Jerry frowned. "Hold it." He reached into the bowl and nudged the sliver of wood gently with his finger. The needle swung aimlessly and finally stopped, pointing in another direction entirely.
"Northwest?" Moira said, "but…"
Jerry tapped the needle again. The sliver bobbed aimlessly.
"Shit! We’ve lost him."
Almost unnoticed by the others, Bal-Simba whispered something to Arianne. The tall blond woman nodded and hurried from the room.
"But the locator…" Moira began.
"Has been masked," Bal-Simba said, rising from his chair to join them.
The hedge witch rounded on Jerry. "You swore to me that the spell could follow him anywhere. No matter what."
Jerry spread his hands helplessly "It should. I don’t understand it."
"I do, I fear," Bal-Simba rumbled. "The dragon is shielding Wiz’s location from us."
Moira clenched her fists and hissed something very unladylike under her breath.
"I suspect he had no intention of attacking us at all," the giant wizard went on slowly. "That was simply a ruse to distract us while he made off with Wiz. And while we prepared for the attack which would never come the dragon wove his spell masking their whereabouts." He scowled fiercely. "As Wiz would say, we have been slurped."
"That’s suckered," Danny corrected.
"What it is does not matter," Moira snapped. "We have to find him."
Bal-Simba shrugged. "Easier said than done, I fear."
Danny twisted the ring on his finger. "I thought these things could punch through any counter-magic."
"Any human magic," Bal-Simba said. "Dragon magic is different and of a very high order. This Wurm is extremely powerful even for a dragon, I think."
"What do you think he wants with Wiz?" Danny asked.
Bal-Simba only shrugged. "Who knows the mind of a dragon?" Then he caught Moira’s expression. "But I do not think he intends to kill him," he added quickly, "or even harm him, necessarily. Beyond that? I would not venture to guess."
"Wait a minute," Jerry said. "Can’t Wiz contact us?"
"He can if he is unconstrained," Bal-Simba said.
They all fell silent. Everyone in the room knew what it took to constrain a wizard from communicating.
"Well, how do we find him?"
"The Watchers are being alerted now," the giant black wizard said. He turned to Jerry. "My Lord, can you release the recon demons?"
"I’ll get on it immediately. It will take a while to extend their coverage though."
"As quickly as you can, then. Now if you will excuse me…" He turned and hurried from the room.
Four: Misdirection for the Directionless
Sometimes the problem you’re hired to solve is not the real problem.
Okay, Wiz admitted and he leaned against the bars of his cell, maybe it wasn’t my best opening line.
At least they hadn’t killed him. On the other hand, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t kill him. And considering the way they’d acted that was a definite possibility. In fact that option had strong minority support in the mob. What had passed for cooler heads had held out for "The Rock," whatever that was. Wiz had a suspicion he’d find out soon enough and an even stronger suspicion he wouldn’t like it.
After a brief argument over his fate, they had hustled him back to town with a pitchfork in his back. Now he was on the second floor of a fairly substantial building. More precisely, he was in jail.
Wiz had never seen one of this world’s jails before but he had no doubt that he was in one now. There were bars running from floor to ceiling on three sides and a windowless stone wall on the fourth. There was a narrow bunk bolted to the wall and a chamberpot underneath. The layout reminded Wiz vaguely of a Western movie set, but the substantial bars were no stage props. The cells to either side of him were empty. The place was clean enough, but smelled faintly of must and dust, as if it wasn’t swept regularly.
From the glimpses he had gotten as the mob frog-marched him through town, the place was larger than it had appeared. In fact it was a good-sized town or even a small city, enclosed in stone walls. Most of the buildings were built of a combination of timber and stone, but a few of the more imposing ones were all stone. That included this very imposing jail off the main square of the town.