Then the elevator ground to a stop and the doors started to open.
Wiz leaped for the hatch and wriggled through just as the doors ground open. Before they could close the panel two goblin guards strode into the elevator with drawn laser pistols. As the four humans held their breath the guards looked around suspiciously, their weapons tracking their head movements.
One snorted like a bull and drew in a deep breath, as if testing the air. His companion grunted something to him and he exhaled with a grunt. They looked around again, but they did not look up.
Finally the pair backed out of the car and the doors closed. After a moment, the elevator creaked and jerked and started upward again.
Wiz let out a deep breath and nearly collapsed with relief.
"It’s the helmets," Jerry said after a moment.
"What?"
"The helmets. They’re so ornate the guards have trouble looking up." He shook his head. "Bad design. Like a lot of this place."
"Personally I think it’s great design," Wiz said sharply. "It just saved our bacon."
"Aw, we could have taken them easy," Danny said. "A few lightning bolts and, hey-" He made a gun with his finger and mimed shooting at the door. There was a flash of blue spark from his fingertip and a large scorch mark appeared on the wall of the shaft.
Danny looked down at his finger in surprise. "I didn’t know it was loaded."
"Well, holster it. And remember we’re just a little bit outnumbered here. We don’t start throwing fireballs until we absolutely have to."
"Get ready then," Jerry said, looking up at the indicator over the door. "We may have to. We’re almost there."
Quickly the three magicians arranged themselves to have the best field of fire when the door opened. All three of them muttered preparation spells so they could come out shooting if they had to. Then they waited.
The elevator creaked and swayed, jerked twice more and then expired with a sigh. The doors started to open, slammed closed, and then slid all the way open with a despairing groan-leaving them looking at a blank stone wall.
Wiz looked down through the hatch and out the open door. At the bottom of the door there was a narrow slit of corridor visible, perhaps eighteen inches wide. The elevator had gone almost completely past their intended floor.
"Shit!" Wiz muttered and all of them quickly dropped through the hatch into the car.
Jerry reached out and punched the elevator button. The car lurched and groaned again, but did not move.
"Reminds me of the elevator at a Star Trek convention in Denver," he said.
"We’ll have to squeeze out through that space then," Wiz said.
Jerry eyed the slit. "I don’t know if I’ve got that much octopus blood in me," he said dubiously.
"Maybe there are working controls outside," Wiz said as he knelt to slip through the crack. He eased through the opening and felt for the floor with his feet. The elevator was just high enough that he couldn’t keep his weight resting on his elbows in the car and touch the floor at the same time. He eased out further and for a terrible second kicked his legs over empty air in the elevator shaft. Then his left foot caught the floor and he eased himself down on solid footing. He sighed and turned around to face down the corridor.
And found himself face-to-face with a goblin guard.
The guard roared a challenge and swung his halberd two-handed. Wiz ducked and the halberd knocked chips of stone off the door jamb. Snarling, the guard swung the weapon back over his head and down toward the crouching programmer. Instinctively Wiz lunged forward as the blade descended. He hit the goblin in the knees just as the halberd came down with the full force of the monster’s body behind it. The combination overbalanced him, and the guard went sprawling headfirst down the elevator shaft, screaming as he fell.
Wiz collapsed forward on his face, sucking great lungfuls of air. Somewhere in the distance a siren began to wail. Behind him he heard his three companions drop to the floor of the corridor. Then Jerry and Danny reached down and pulled him to his feet.
"How’d you do that?" Jerry panted, red-faced from the tight squeeze.
"I don’t know," Wiz gasped. "Now run!"
The four of them pounded down the corridor, turned a corner and headed off in what Wiz hoped was the right direction. After several hundred yards they ducked into a side corridor to catch their breath.
All four of them leaned up against the wall gasping. Off in the distance, faintly, they could still hear the siren. Then another siren sounded and another and another until the castle reverberated to the sound.
"Guards to the perimeter," the speakers in the wall above them squawked. "We have intruders approaching from the south."
"What’s that?" Danny panted.
"I think," Wiz said slowly between gulps of air, "that all hell just came unshirted."
Forty-four: FOR FAITH, FOR LOVE, FOR HONOR
The Wizard’s Keep boiled with activity. From the tallest towers the trumpeters blew "Assembly" over and over. Down on the drill ground armored guardsmen fell in rank by rank while the drummers beat the Call To Arms on the great bass drums that hung by the reviewing stand. From the aeries below wing after wing of dragons rose and circled and grouped themselves into larger formations.
In the Watch Room every post was manned. The Watchers on the main floor murmured into communications crystals or peered into scrying glasses for some sign of the enemy. On the wall behind them glowed a huge map of the northern end of castle island, casting an eerie bluish glow over the proceedings.
On the dais at the opposite end of the room groups of wizards hovered over their own crystals and muttered spells and incantations. Bal-Simba was there, seated in his raised chair where he could watch and command everything. Judith was there, seated next to Moira at a small table to Bal-Simba’s right. Arianne was at his left and next to her, the elf duke.
Aelric stood tall and terrible in shining silver mail of elven metal. His helm, intricately and carefully wrought, extended down over his cheeks and neck, unlike the conical helms of the Council’s guardsmen. But save for the nose guard it left his face unprotected.
"Is there aught else?" Bal-Simba asked the people clustered around him. Arianne and Moira shook their heads and Aelric said nothing.
"My Lady Judith?"
"We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. The dragon riders have got the new spread-spectrum communications crystals so they can cut through the jamming, the guardsmen have the last of the special weapons and the scouting demons are deploying now." She took a deep breath. "It’s going to be rough, but Craig’s in a world of hurt unless he can make a saving roll."
"Saving roll?"
"Uh, unless he gets lucky."
Aelric smiled without warmth. "Fear not, Lady; luck they shall not have this day."
Bal-Simba looked around the group once more. "Aught else? Then we are ready."