"I’m not sure," Jerry said. "But there’s something about that notion that bothers me."
"You don’t like fish?"
"No, I: Well, never mind. I’m sure Ian will love it" Jerry turned away from the demon fish tank and back to work.
As the smoke artist took a bow to a pattering of applause, Wiz nudged Moira.
"That stuffs magic," he muttered.
"But isn’t it lovely? See how it sparkles."
Wiz looked sideways at his wife. Normally Moira was more wary of strange magic than he was. She had learned about magic at a time when the humans of this world were nearly powerless and magic was usually destructive or hostile. Wiz had changed that with his magic programming, but the old attitudes lingered. This wasn’t at all like her.
He looked at the robed and cowled figure again, trying to discern what was beneath the flow of dark cloth. Again the smoke artist’s hands darted from his sleeves and he began anew with a delicate curl of blue smoke from his outstretched palm. Although Wiz could not see the artists head, much less his eyes, he got the strong impression that the performer was concentrating on his audience rather than his illusion. The smoke thickened and deepened until there was a column of sapphire blue before him. The crowd pressed close, eager for the next display.
Again the smoke shifted and formed a pattern, this one like an intricately fretted snowflake. The tendrils of blue smoke twisted and wove among each other into a pattern that implied something without quite showing it. As Wiz watched, the pattern began to spin like a wheel, pulling the eye with it in a way that made Wiz’s stomach roil. He stared down at his boots, fighting dizziness. As he looked away he felt Moira stir beside him, pressing closer to the artist and his creation. Without thinking Wiz put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off impatiently.
Wiz looked up and saw his wife slack jawed with her eyes fixed on the smoke. She took a hesitant step toward it and then a stronger one.
"Moira?" There was no response. "Hey!" he shouted at the smoke artist, but neither artist nor audience paid the slightest attention.
Wiz went cold with fear and almost instantly hot with rage. In two strides he crossed the distance to the artist and grabbed him by the hood.
As he jerked him around, the hood fell back and Wiz recoiled at what was beneath it.
The face was normal enough, pale with high cheekbones and a long nose, but the eyes were not. Instead of showing a normal white and pupil they were iridescent, as though there were an opaline mist over the whole eyeball, or like an insect’s eye when the light strikes it right.
The illusionist hissed like a frightened snake and wrenched away from Wiz. His hand darted out of his sleeve and instinctively Wiz twisted away so the hand struck his wizards staff instead of his arm. There was a flash of blue lightning and a report like a rifle shot as magic met magic. That seemed to break his hold on the crowd and suddenly people were running and screaming, stampeding away from the booth.
Wiz stumbled back, his staff held before him. From down the row of booths came a shout and a flash of magic. Out of the corner of his eye Wiz saw Malus raise his staff to launch another attack.
The thing looked at Malus, back at Wiz and over Wiz’s shoulder where Moira was standing. Without a word it whirled, gathering up the hem of its robe. Black smoke reeking of brimstone poured from the robe and rose in a whirlwind above Wiz’s head. Malus fired another magic bolt at the growing black cloud, but it disappeared into the smoke without a trace.
Tall as a tree the black cloud grew, and the wind of its turning whipped and tore at the booths and the robes of the wizards. Then the cloud separated from the earth and darted into the sky, pursued by magical bolts from Malus and lightning bolts hurled by Wiz.
It climbed faster and faster until it was no larger than a hand, then a finger. Then it moved away to the south.
"What? Who?" Malus came rushing up oblivious to the commotion spreading throughout the fair. Then he seemed to realize he would not get answers to his questions and settled for indignation. "To think that they would try it here! Of all places! Why, why the sheer effrontery of it!" Wiz noticed he didn’t specify who "they" were.
"Get help," Moira said tightly. "Quickly." Her words brought Wiz and Malus back to themselves and both fumbled for the communications crystals they wore around their necks.
"Are you all right?" Wiz asked his wife.
" I think so." She clung to him fiercely and let out a deep breath. "It was like being pulled along by a strong current, or sliding down a slope of loose earth. I’ve:"
Before she could continue there was a soft pop of displaced air and Arianne, Bal-Simba’s assistant, appeared before them. Arianne’s eyes were unfocused and her lips moved silently as she spoke to the communications crystal about her neck Off behind her Wiz could see a flight of three dragons soaring away from their cavern aerie in the cliffs below the Wizards’ Keep. The Watchers had launched the ready patrol.
"We sensed a flare of magic even before your call," she told the two wizards.
"Now, what was this all about?"
"I don’t know," Wiz said, "but I don’t like it"
"A magical invasion of the fair," Mains added. "A creature posing as a man." Moira was pale and shaking. "It was magic indeed. Like no magic I have ever felt before."
"Programmer magic?" Arianne asked.
Moira bit her lip. "Not exactly. Something like it, but different-colder. Does that make any sense?"
Since Wiz lacked the natural talent needed to sense magic of any sort he could only nod. He had heard his Kind of magic described as "feeling" like a horde of ants as the tiny spells that made up the words of the magic programming language operated, but he’d never felt it.
Arianne, however, had. "Colder?"
Moira hesitated. "Not cold, exactly. Rather, not-alive."
Wiz had an image of zombie army ants. He didn’t like the picture at all.
": so whatever that thing was it had a special attraction for people who are sensitive to magic," Wiz summed up.
Around the table in the programmers’ office Jerry, Danny, Bal-Simba and Arianne all listened intently. After more than an hour’s rehashing of events, Moira wasn’t paying much attention.
"Which explains why it didn’t affect you," Danny put in. "Like the rest of us you haven’t got any magical talent to speak of. But Moira probably had more than anyone else in the crowd so it really worked on her."
"All it did was make me dizzy," Wiz added. Moira looked down at her hands and said nothing.
"None of the other Mighty have ever seen or heard of the like," Arianne told them. "This is something completely new. Worse, the magic is so different we did not detect it until the Sparrow confronted the thing."
"Where did it come from?" Jerry asked.
"It arrived at the fairgrounds early this morning and set up its pavilion like any other merchant or entertainer," Arianne said. "None of the other merchants had ever seen the thing before but none took special notice of it until the whirlwind began. It so well concealed its nature that Malus walked by the booth several times without seeing anything amiss." She nodded at Wiz and Moira. "He apologizes most abjectly for not discovering it sooner."