“Impudent pest,” he muttered.
“Outasight,” Danny breathed. “Say, do you listen to Ozzie Osburne?”
The dwarf only scowled. For once Wiz was glad Glandurg was on their side.
Malkin was breathing heavily and bleeding from several bites on her arms and legs. “What did you do?”
“Jamming spell,” Wiz panted. “I figured those things were being driven by magic, so I interfered with any magic in the area. Once the spell was broken the rats panicked.”
“Nice trick,” the tall thief said as she resheathed her rapier. She looked at the bites on her sword arm. “Pity you didn’t think of it sooner.”
“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.