“You say that as if there is a problem.”
Wiz frowned. “Not a problem exactly, but there is a consideration. The spell is sensitive and people throw it off. It will work best if Danny and I go ahead alone while the rest of you wait here.”
Malkin’s face didn’t move a muscle. “Is that wise?” she asked neutrally.
“About as wise as a lot of the rest of this expedition,” Wiz told her. “Anyway people, stay close and we’ll be back as soon as we can. Above all, use no magic you don’t absolutely have to use.”
It took several minutes to get the details sorted out and somewhat longer to convince June she had to stay behind and not go with Danny. That done, the two wizard programmers started off down a likely tunnel.
It wasn’t a pleasant experience. The heat from the walls beat in on them and soaked up through the soles of their boots until Wiz was reminded of bread in an oven. There was no noise through the insubstantial walls, but there was a low vibration as if hundreds of tons of melted rock around them was flowing and shifting under some unimaginable pressure. Sweat streaked their faces and soaked into their clothing. Even Wiz’s socks soaked until he squished in his boots with every step he took Here and there a trick of the light turned a patch of wall into a mirror that threw back a distorted funhouse reflection of the pair.
Nor was the maze easy to unravel. It was mostly on one level, but it twisted and turned and divided and rejoined in a way that was not only confusing, it was downright unpleasant For all that, Wiz and Danny made good progress. Their spell allowed them to eliminate first large chunks of the maze and then successively smaller sections. Once or twice Wiz got an uneasy feeling they were being followed, but they saw no one and they heard nothing.
Of course, because the spell was so weak it was not infallible. Time and again, they found themselves headed in the wrong direction or caught up against a dead end.
The exit should be right up ahead here,” Wiz said at last as they moved down a twisty, glowing corridor. They turned another corner and found themselves face to face with a rock wall.
“Dead end,” Danny observed needlessly.
Wiz shrugged and turned to start back down the way they had come. There was a noise down the tunnel. A noise like heavy footfalls. A lot of them. Wiz motioned Danny to silence and peeked around the corner to see what was ahead.
What was ahead was goblins. Big, hairy, nasty goblins armed to the fangs. The tunnel was packed three deep with them. The light from the molten rock reflected redly off the creatures’ armor and made their little pig eyes seem even redder. They were still some ways off and they apparently hadn’t seen the humans yet, but there was no place for them to go wrong.
“Oh boy,” Danny said quietly “Oh boy.”
The breath caught in Wiz’s throat. He had plenty of spells that would deal with a mere pack of goblins, but the more magic they used, the more chance the tunnels would collapse and engulf them in molten rock. But without magic both Wiz and Danny together probably weren’t a match for just one of the oncoming goblins.
Wiz raised his staff and prepared to fight “Well, we can’t delay the inevitable.”
“Let me try something first, okay?” Danny said Wiz raised his eyebrows and nodded. Out of the corner of his eve Wiz saw Danny gesture with his staff as he said something unintelligible. Wiz took a tighter grip on his own staff and Doth stepped out to face the oncoming monsters.
Only the goblins weren’t coming any more. They stopped dead in the center of the tunnel. Then they huddled together. Then they turned and ran screaming from the two humans.
Wiz lowered his staff and looked after the fleeing monsters.
“What the heck was that all about?”
Danny looked smug. “A little something I cooked up. Look at yourself in the wall there.”