The Wizardry Consulted (Wiz, #4)(9)

There was a stirring in a corner of the room off behind the stairs. Wiz looked again and someone stepped out of the shadows. Someone tall, slender and wearing a jerkin and tight trousers. Then she took another step out into the full light and Wiz saw it was a woman. A young woman, actually, he amended, with dark hair down to her shoulders, dark eyes and fair skin. She strode lightly across the room with the easy grace he associated with gymnasts or dancers. Somehow Wiz didn’t think she was either of those things.

She stopped several paces from the bars and put her hands on her hips. “So you’re the wizard, eh?”

Wiz nodded. “Who are you?”

“Name’s Malkin. I’m here for stealing. What’d you do?”

“Not much of anything, actually. My name’s Wiz.”

“You came here riding a dragon, didn’t you? That’s enough.”

“Well, if you knew why did you ask?”

Malkin shrugged.

“And,” he added, “if you’re a prisoner too, how come you’re on the outside?”

Malkin grinned and held up a key ring. “Like I said, I steal things.”

“And you’re still hanging around here?”

His new acquaintance grinned. “Jail’s as good a place as any to doss,” she said lightly. “Besides, listening is more fun than escaping. They’re arguing about you in the sheriff’s office.”

“What are they saying about me?”

“They want to take you to The Rock.”

“What’s The Rock?”

“That’s where they chain out the condemned for the dragons to eat,” Malkin told him. “Supposed to keep the dragons satisfied so they don’t eat anyone important.”

“Does it work?”

“Nah. But the dummies keep doing it anyway.” She shrugged. “You’re an outsider, so you’re natural.”

“Not much tourist business here, is there?” Wiz asked sourly.

Malkin shrugged again. “Anyhow, the folks who brought you want to take you to The Rock right away and the sheriff doesn’t want to until the mayor and council have a chance to see you. So far the sheriff’s winning. That means you’ve got a few hours because it will take them that long to get most of the council together.”

“Does the sheriff think the mayor won’t want to see me killed?” Wiz asked hopefully.

“Nah. But ol’ Droopy’s a stickler for protocol. If he isn’t consulted he’ll make the sheriff’s life miserable for weeks. So it’s better for the sheriff to wait.”

Wiz opened his mouth to reply but Malkin faded soundlessly back into the shadows. An instant later the jailer poked his head up the stairwell.

“Who are you talking to?” he demanded.

“Myself,” Wiz said brightly. “I often have long conversations with myself. I find I’m excellent company. I play bridge with myself, too. You don’t happen to have a deck of cards, do you?”

The jailer looked at him oddly and ducked back down the stairs.

Wiz lay down on his bunk and thought hard. Unless these people had some very powerful magicians, something he had seen no sign of, he could get out of here any time he wanted to. But that wouldn’t help solve his problem. Given a little time to prepare spells, his magic would probably let him beat a dragon-provided it wasn’t too big or too powerful. But he didn’t think that he could take on all the dragons in the Dragon Lands alone and win. That obviously wasn’t the answer.

He might be here to help these people but they felt he had a higher and better purpose as dragon bait. They didn’t want help, they wanted a sacrificial goat they could hang all their trouble on. Yet he had to help them! It was imperative that he solve their problem.

Wiz chased the problem round and round in his mind without finding even the beginnings of a solution. He did, however, find an increasing sympathy for that long-ago rat in the nearly forgotten psych lab. He wondered if the rat had ever found the solution to its problem. Then he wondered what constituted a “solution” to a psych maze from the rat’s point of view. The patch of sunlight from the window in the side wall finished its journey up the wall and gradually dimmed out at dusk. Outside the street noises quieted and died as the city settled into sleep. Eventually Wiz did the same.

Gently, soundlessly, the searcher floated north into the graying dawn. Physically it looked like a smear of smoke or a wisp of gray silk about the size of a handkerchief. Magically it was nearly as uncomplicated. All it did was gather sense impressions and pass them on to a slightly larger, somewhat more substantial entity floating along well behind it. It had only limited mobility and moved mostly by floating on the wind.

By itself it wasn’t much, but the searching spell cranked them out by the tens of thousands. The searchers fed back into hundreds of the larger concentrators and they fed into dozens of high-level analysis demons. Given time they could find anything in the World that was in the open and unmasked. Slowly, inexorably, the net of magical watchers was spreading over the face of the World.

The rising sun tinted the underside of the clouds orange but the mountains below were still in deep shadow. Soon the sun would break above the horizon and bathe the mountain peaks in fire. It would be a glorious sunrise but the searcher was incapable of knowing or caring. It floated where the wind took it, working generally north on the air currents.