"I’ll try to do better the next time," Wiz said without a trace of irony.
"Meanwhile people, let’s get out of here. All that magic is likely to attract more trouble."
Several hundred yards and dozens of twists and turns later, the party found a cul-de-sac where they felt safe enough to rest and treat their wounds. June had some of Moira’s salve in her pack and she applied it to everyone’s rat bites. Even Glandurg consented to have his wounds smeared with the pungent brown ointment The sharp, minty smell and the plain little pot from Moira’s stillroom brought a lump to Wiz’s throat. He noticed that even as she treated their wounds June didn’t turn her back on the tunnel entrance.
"Any idea where we are?" Wiz asked Danny.
"Lost," the younger man said as he fished into his tunic for the magic compass. He looked down at the glowing disk "I don’t know where we are, but what we’re after is off that way."
"Any sign of anything else?"
Danny squinted at the detector. "Not that I can pick up. This whole area’s lousy with magic, but none of it seems immediately hostile." He dropped the talisman back on his chest. "This thing’s getting less effective because of all the magical interference. Pretty soon it’s not going to work at all."
That was unwelcome but not unexpected so Wiz didn’t reply. "Okay, spread out. Danny you take the lead this time. And look out for those side tunnels."
"Remember," Charlie told Malus for about the hundredth time, "that baby’s fragile."
"Fear not, My Lord," the apple-cheeked wizard assured him. "We will be as gentle with it as a queen cat with her kits."
"I mean, I’ve put that baby into places it was hard to get out of, but this is ridiculous."
"It has posed a bit of a problem," Malus admitted, "but I believe we have solved it to everyone’s satisfaction."
They rounded the corner of the hall in time to see an apprentice wizard moving several of blocks of stone. He was walking backward holding a wand and the blocks were bobbing along behind him like ducklings behind their mother. Charlie stopped dead at the sight. "What’s holding those rocks up? Skyhooks?"
"That is not what we call the spell," said Malus.
Charlie’s eyes followed the line of floating stones across the courtyard. "You could put a bunch of helicopter pilots out of work with that."
The doors of the great hall were large enough to accommodate a cavalry dragon, but the creature would have to stoop and bend to get through. Charlie’s biplane couldn’t stoop and bend, so a team of workmen and a couple of wizards had spent the better part of two days taking off the doors and removing stones to expand the opening.
"We’re ready, Lord," one of the workmen said as he came over to join them.
"All tight," Charlie said. "Let me get into the cockpit and you put your guys on the lower wing. I’ll take the brakes off and you can push it out."
"Then what, Lord?" asked the foreman.
Charlie looked around the stone-walled court and sighed. Then I guess she’ll just sit there on gate guard. No other use for her here," he added sadly. That evening Wiz called another council of war. "Okay people, you know we’re running low on food?"
Nods all the way around. The dried vegetables, fruit and grains that constituted this world’s "iron rations" were easy to carry, but there was still a limit to how much they had brought with them.
"Well, on the theory that we’d have to head back, at least to replenish our supplies, I ran some tests this afternoon."
Tests?" Danny asked.
Wiz grinned but there was no humor in it. "I’m developing a nasty, suspicious nature down here. I wanted to make sure we could walk the Wizard’s Way with no trouble."
"I take it there was trouble?" Malkin asked dryly.
"In spades. I can’t open the way. It’s closed. Blocked by some kind of magical jamming."
Everyone was quiet for a moment.
"So we can’t go back?" Danny asked at last.
"Looks not."
This smells like a trap," Danny said. "Like we’ve been lured in."
"Lured?" asked Glandurg. "We have had to fight every step of the way. Only the power of Blind Fury has brought us this far."
That wasn’t the way Wiz remembered it, but he didn’t object.
This reminds me of Shiara’s tale of the cursed tomb that took her sight and magic,’’ Malkin said quietly. That was a trap too, but the trap was cloaked by a series of other traps designed to eliminate those who were not clever and possessed of strong magic.’’
There was silence while they all considered the possibilities. June moved closer to Danny and he slipped his arm around her shoulders.
"So what do we do about it?" Danny asked finally.
"Well," Wiz said slowly, "We can’t go back." He looked around the group, hoping someone would dispute the point, but no one did "So we’ve got to go forward against this thing."
"Seems to me we’ve got just one chance," Danny said at last.
"What?"
The young programmer flicked a tight little smile. "We’re gonna have to be a whole lot tougher than the thing that set this trap in the first place."
"Yes!" roared Glandurg and brandished Blind Fury aloft. The gesture drove the sword into the tunnel roof, knocking a liberal shower of fine, choking dirt down on them all.
Spitting, sneezing and brushing dirt out of their eyes, the other members of the group glared at the dwarf. He grinned sheepishly and carefully returned the sword to its scabbard.
"This stuffs trickier than I thought," E.T. Tajikawa said when Jerry broke to refill his tea mug. For the last two days he had been working his way systematically through the compiler and development system, coming back to Malus’ light dimming spell from time to time.
"It has its peculiarities," the big programmer agreed as he ambled over to look at Taj’s work "What’s the problem?"
Taj grinned sheepishly. "Probably really simple because I can’t find it. The listing looks fine."
For an instant Jerry wondered if Taj was really as good as his reputation.
"Well," he asked carefully, "how does it fail?"
"That’s the nasty part. It’s apparently an intermittent because I can’t get it to fail at all."
Jerry leaned over Taj’s shoulder and peered closely at the program, running down the instructions. That’s funny. I don’t see anything there that would cause an intermittent."
"You mean you don’t know what’s wrong with it?"
"Well, no," Jerry admitted. "Wiz was working on it when: well anyway. Let’s see."