“Besides,” Malkin said, “he tends to get lost.”
“Slander,” hissed the dwarf.
“Okay, settle down, people. The important thing is it won’t work” Glandurg and Malkin glared at each other but obeyed.
“What about re-casting the seeker spell?” Malkin asked after a minute.
“Hard to do. We could write a new spell easily enough, but we need something like a lock of Moira’s hair to focus the spell.” He sighed. “If Moira’s personality were still with her body we could work something up to seek that, but otherwise we’ve got to have something intimately connected with her.”
“Her cloak,” June said from her place beside Danny. “Like mine.”
“Similarity isn’t good enough I’m afraid.”
“From the same cloth. Made at the same time.”
With a pang Wiz remembered the long summer afternoons when Moira and June had sat together under a rose bower at Wizards’ Keep, sewing the matching cloaks for the coming winter and watching Ian and Caitlin romp among the rose bushes. Sometimes they had worked together, with a cloak stretched across their knees as they sat side by side or across from each other.
“Wait a minute! You both worked on Moira’s cloak, didn’t you?”
June nodded.
“Did you ever prick your finger while you worked and get blood on the cloak?”
A hesitation and then another nod.
“Jackpot! Okay, we can do this then.”
Everyone looked at him. “DNA,” he explained. “If June got blood on the cloak her DNA is still on there.”
“Washed it,” June said defensively.
“I’m sure you didn’t get it all out. We can home on your DNA.”’
Danny grinned. “Yeah, and because it’s uniquely hers it will stand out almost as strongly as a true name.” Then his face fell. “Wait a minute. How are you going to make it sensitive enough to find June’s blood on Moira’s cloak with June standing right here?”
“I’ve got a way to make a spell directional, like an antenna. As long as June’s not in the beam, her presence won’t interfere.”
“Let’s get to it, then.”
In the event it took several hours to produce and check the spell. Part of that was because Wiz and Danny took good care to armor the code against tampering and to sprinkle alarms throughout the program to warn of attempted subversion. Part of it was the usual quota of unexpected problems and glitches. Part of it was simply that it’s harder to work sitting on rocks in a cave than it is in your own workroom. So while Glandurg fidgeted, Malkin watched and June did whatever June did, the pair turned out a new spell.
The only real difficulty came in drawing a sample of June’s blood for comparison. June was so eager to hero she slashed a four-inch gash in her arm and Wiz and Danny had to break off preparing the spell to give her first aid.
Finally they held up the finished product and commanded it to find Moira. Almost instantly the pointer lit up and swung around, pointing almost back the way they had come.
“Wonderful,” Danny said glumly. “We have been going in the wrong direction.”
Wiz ached to get going in the new direction but common sense prevailed. “In the morning. Let’s get a good night’s rest and then we’ll head out. And this time we’ll be heading for Moira.”
Honesty compelled him to admit that what they’d actually be heading for was Moira’s cloak. There was no guarantee Moira would still be with it. He tried very hard to push that thought out of his mind.
They moved out the next morning in good order and somber spirits. Once again Malkin led the way and Wiz followed, staff at the ready. His senses were alert but his mind was elsewhere. Malkin was right. The defenses of this place didn’t make any sense in the real world. They made sense in terms of a fantasy role-playing game, but there weren’t any fantasy role-playing games here. The only people in this World now who knew about such things were Danny, Jerry and himself. There had been Craig and Mikey, two computer crackers who had come to this World and hooked up with the forces of primal chaos. But Craig was dead and Mikey was a mindless husk held under tight guard at the Wizards’ Keep. So where had the idea come from?