However Bale-Zur was only half the problem. The other half was the hunting demon the Dark League had created in their attempt to destroy Wiz. Unlike Bale-Zur it could not range much beyond the Southern Continent. However it was keyed to Wiz’s special brand of magic and would attack and destroy anything that used it.
But spells built with the magic compiler were the only kind Wiz, Jerry and Danny knew. If they tried to make magic the demon would be on them instantly.
It presented a pretty problem. Wiz, Jerry and Danny were immune to Bale-Zur, but if they used their magic they would be immediately attacked by the hunting demon. The hunting demon would not respond to conventional magic, but not even all of the Mighty together could hope to stand against Bale-Zur.
Until Bale-Zur was contained it was horribly risky for any mortal but Wiz or his friends to enter the City of Night and until the hunting demon was contained, they could not be safe here.
The demons weren’t the only dangers in the City of Night. Remnants of the League’s old magic remained and there were other monsters here as well. However none of those were the equal of a well-prepared magician-well, probably not, Wiz told himself-and most of them were not active by daylight in the open. We don’t think!
Naturally they had backup. He was being closely watched by magical means, and several of the Mighty were poised to jump to his aid if he appeared to be in danger. There were two squadrons of dragon riders circling just off the beach. But he was still here alone and if anything went wrong he would be the first to know it.
Well, now I know how a worm on a hook feels, Wiz thought. He pulled his cloak tighter and set to work.
After hashing it over repeatedly, they had worked out a plan. It seemed like a good idea back at the Capital, but standing in the shattered city, Wiz was growing less fond of it by the minute.
He shifted his grip on his staff. The sooner they got this part of the operation over with the sooner he would be able to protect himself. And the sooner I can use a spell to stay warm.
He reached into his pouch, drew out four pieces of blue stone and set one at each point of the compass. Then he stood between them and began to scratch in the frozen dust with his staff.
Carefully he traced the figure in the dust as he had been taught. The old magic of this world depended for its success on precise execution. Everything had to be done just right and even the tiniest deviation from the rituals could mean disastrous changes in the outcome. The secret of the success of his magic compiler lay in the fact that it used extremely simple, reliable little spells that could be built up to produce complex, powerful effects with little or no talent on the part of the user.
With his new magic Wiz was easily the most powerful mortal magician in this world. But he was as natural a klutz as he was a computer programmer. Even this simple spell would tax him to the limit.
He finished the tracing and made especially sure the lines crossed to close the figure around him. The freezing wind whipped up little eddies of dust, but it did not erase the pentagram.
Finally he surveyed his handiwork one more time and reached back into his pouch. This time he pulled out a bit of forked, twisted root. Stepping to the edge of the circle, he lifted the root to his mouth and whispered to it the words Moira and Bal-Simba had spent so long pounding into his head. He leaned over and placed it outside the circle. Then he stepped back and waited.
He had barely reached the center when the root stirred in the dust. As he watched it seemed to untwist and swell until it became a tiny brown man shape, no longer than Wiz’s thumb. It got to its knees and then to its feet and then shook itself once, as if to clear its head. It strode forward, placed its hands on its hips, threw back its head and began to shout.
Inside the circle Wiz heard nothing but the wind. He knew that the manikin was reciting a simple spell in the new magic. The spell didn’t do much, but it should be enough to attract the demon. Wiz gripped his staff harder and forced himself not to hold his breath as he watched.
Suddenly, with an earsplitting roar, the demon arrived.
A clawed foot crushed the mandrake manikin to the dust. The burning red eyes searched right and left and the horned, scaled, fanged head swiveled on the snakelike neck as it scanned for more prey. It stopped when it saw Wiz standing perhaps twenty feet away, seemingly unprotected and reeking of traces of the new magic. Without warning and without seeming to gather itself it leapt at Wiz, jaws gaping and talons spread. Its bellows rang off the surrounding stone walls.
Perhaps five feet from the human, the demon bounced. It stopped dead in mid-air and with talons scrabbling for purchase it slid slowly down the invisible barrier that lay between it and its would-be prey.
Again and again, the thing hurled itself against the invisible barrier that separated it from its prey. In spite of himself Wiz flinched and shrank back from its fury.
It was wasted effort. The demon clawed impotently at the barrier and scrabbled frantically against it, but it could not come close to penetrating it.
Wiz raised his staff and spoke. "demon debug begone exe!" he proclaimed.
The demon renewed its desperate attack on the magical barrier and its screams rose to a crescendo. Then the spell took hold. The demon became translucent. Its roars faded to the merely deafening, down through the loud and then trailed away like a locomotive whistle disappearing in the distance. It became transparent, faded to a mere outline and then it was gone.
Wiz let out his breath in a great gasping sigh and sagged against his staff.
"Okay," he said into the communications crystal. "Phase one is accomplished. Come on through and let’s get the rest of this thing over with."
There were two soft pops behind him and there were Jerry and Danny, looking disoriented and a little sick, but clutching their staffs gamely. They were burdened with packs and hung about with an assortment of pouches, crystals, strangely shaped bits of metal and other less identifiable things. In addition Danny carried a large leather sack that pulsated and moved as if the contents were alive.
The contents of the sack were to help them in their search. Everything else Danny and Jerry carried was for protection or defense. Looking them over, Wiz reflected there was probably enough magical firepower between the pair of them to defeat the Dark League ten times over. Far more than they would need for anything they were likely to meet here.
Which was fine with Wiz. He had not the slightest intention of giving anything in the City of Night an even break.
"You okay?" Wiz asked as his friends seemed to become aware of their surroundings.
"Yeah," Danny mumbled. Then he shook his head to clear it. "Boy that’s a weird feeling."
"It’ll be a good feeling when we get out of here. And the sooner we start the search the sooner that will be."
Danny nodded and bent to open the leather bag.
Hundreds of things like dirty gossamer handkerchiefs half-flapped, half-floated out of the sack and wafted off in all directions. Behind them came a half-dozen things of the same stuff about the size of a bath towel. Finally Danny reached in and pulled out a crystalline object about a foot high. The facets flashed in the pale light and the thing began buzzing weakly as it started receiving data from the searching units.
"It will take them a few minutes to get some kind of search pattern set up," Wiz said into the comm crystal. "There’s not a lot we can do until then."