“If there is aught else I can do? Something to help you sleep perhaps?”
“No, I’ll be all right. There’s things I need to do.”
The healer nodded and withdrew, leaving Wiz to his thoughts.
Night and fog closed around the Wizards’ Keep, black, damp and almost palpable.
The lamps burned in Bal-Simba’s workroom where the leader of the Council of the North sat and thought.
There was a single knock at the door. Bal-Simba gestured and Arianne entered.
“Any sign?” the giant black wizard asked.
The Watchers can find nothing. Not even sign of anything unusual.”
“To be expected, I fear.”
“Lord, you know that Moira was pregnant?”
Bal-Simba nodded. “Bronwyn told me.” He sank his chin into a meaty palm. “I wonder if that was what attracted this creature to her?”
Arianne’s eyes went wide at the thought. Then she bit her lip. That implies somewhat unpleasant things about our enemy,” she said neutrally.
“Very unpleasant indeed.” He sighed. “Beyond the fact that it was Moira, this business has aspects I do not like at all.”
“Our enemy seems powerful.”
“Powerful, strange and malign,” Bal-Simba agreed. “Since the Sparrow has been among us we have seen the magic of elves and even things not entirely of this world. But never magic of the sort I saw today.”
Arianne, who had stayed at the Wizards’ Keep to organize the defenses cocked a questioning eyebrow.
“Have you ever dealt with a viper?” Bal-Simba asked. “Something small and mindless yet full of menace and the single desire to harm? That was what those things were like.”
“Yet even a viper has reason,” Arianne said. They act so to defend themselves or because they are frightened.”
Bal-Simba gave her a tired smile. “And in understanding the viper we become able to deal with it. We may hope that these things act with reason as well and that by understanding their reason we can learn to deal with them.” He didn’t say it with a lot of conviction.
Both of them were silent for a moment. “Well,” Bal-Simba sighed at last. “If then the Watchers cannot find anything, best to resort to other methods. Have my scrying bowl brought to me. If it will not show us Moira— and I doubt very much that it will—we can at least learn where this new magic lairs.”
“Oh, and Lady…” Arianne turned, hand on the door handle.
“We need not mention our speculations to the Sparrow. Certainly not yet.”
“Of course, My Lord.”
Someone edged into the room. Looking up, Wiz saw it was Malus.
“Excuse me, My Lord,” the pudgy wizard said. “I just heard what happened. I wanted to offer condolences— and whatever aid I might give.”
“Thanks, Malus. I appreciate it.”
“I was going to ask you about my spell.” He drew the roll of parchment from his sleeve and looked at it ruefully. “It seems so trivial now.”
Wiz held out his hand. “Give it to me.”
“Now, My Lord?”
“I’ve got to keep busy,” Wiz said grimly.
“Oh, of course, My Lord. And if there’s anything I can do, anything at all.”
Wiz clapped the fat little man on the shoulder. “Thank you, Malus. You’re a good friend.”
After Malus left, Wiz spread out the parchment strips and arranged them on a bench beside the window. Like all spells it was written on parallel strips so the spell would not be activated by the act of writing it Wiz stared at them for nearly five minutes before he realized he had the strips out of order. With a sigh he picked them up and stuffed them in his belt pouch. Then he wandered down the hall toward the programmers’ workroom.
He found Danny hard at it. There were at least six listings in different colors above his workbench and two emacs below them giving more magical commands. As Wiz entered, his young colleague whispered something to a third emac seated cross legged on the floor and the demon made a note with a quill pen on a strip of parchment in its lap.
June was in the corner with Ian nestled wide-eyed and clinging in her skirt. Her other hand stayed near her knife. She hadn’t let her husband or son out of her sight since the attack.