Wiz went white. “That thing’s alive,” he shouted to Philomen. “It’s alive and intelligent!”
“Such things often are in their own way,” the wizard agreed, keeping his eyes on the mass before them.
“But you can’t kill it, it’s intelligent!”
“Can we not? Watch.”
Still groaning, the stone reared above them, heaving itself free of the earth and towering above them as if it would slam down on them and crush them like bugs. The villagers gasped and shrank back, but the thing slammed to earth in its own bed. The ground shook so hard Wiz nearly lost his balance. The creature reared again, not so high this time, and pounded to the earth once more. It tried to rear a third time, but could only quiver.
“Stop it!” Wiz yelled. “Stop it! Can’t you see it can’t hurt you?”
” ‘Tis magic,” Andrew replied. ” ‘Tis magic and must be burned from the land.
“Too long we trembled under the magical ones. Now let them tremble.” His voice rose to a shout over the windy moans of the dying stone. “Let them know fear!”
The crowd behind him growled agreement.
The thing thinned, its stony gray turning opalescent and gradually lightening until Wiz could dimly see the outline of the hills through it. Then the creature’s body went foggy and he could see that the hills were cloaked in summer’s green. The outline blurred and became indistinct and finally, at last, the mist dissipated, leaving nothing but a hole in the ground with tendrils of smoke rising from it.
Wiz stood shocked and numb, oblivious to the cheers of the villagers. Someone was pounding him on the back and shouting in his ear, but he couldn’t make out the words.
Alaina left in the midst of an excited knot of villagers, talking and cheering and doing everything but hoisting her on their shoulders in triumph. Some of the others remained behind to gape at the huge pit where the rock creature had stood. Then by ones and twos they began to drift back toward the village square.
“A waste, I calls it,” one old gaffer said to his younger companion as they passed by where Wiz stood. “They should have pounded it into gravel stead of just making it disappear. We needs gravel for our roads, we does.”
Finally only Wiz remained, standing at the edge of the pit and looking down.
He didn’t know what the thing was that had died here today. He had never heard of such a creature and it may well have been the only one of its kind. But whatever it was it didn’t deserve what had been done to it.
His cheeks were wet and he realized he was crying.
There was a footstep behind him. Wiz didn’t turn around.
“Are you coming, My Lord?” Philomen asked. “There will be a feast tonight in honor of slaying the monster.”
Wiz turned to face the wizard. “No thanks. Right now I don’t think my stomach could stand a feast.”
“Our presence is expected.”
“Vomiting on your hosts is probably bad form, even in this bunch.”
Philomen’s face froze and he bowed formally. “As you will, My Lord. I will see you at the mayor’s house then.”
“Maybe.” Wiz strode off toward Leafmarsh Brook and the bridge into the Fringe beyond.
“My Lord, where are you going?”
“Into the Wild Wood,” Wiz flung back over his shoulder. “Right now I want some civilized company. Weasels maybe, or snakes.”
Eight : Side Effects
You can’t do just one thing.
—Campbell’s Law of everything
Sitting under a flowering bush on a hillside, Wiz called up an Emac and studied the code for demon_debug again.
It was obvious what had happened, he thought as he traced the glowing lines. Somewhere out in one of the villages, some bright person with a knack for magic and a little knowledge of his programming language had taken ddt apart and found a way to make it more effective. What he or she had done was related to the magic-absorbing worms Wiz had invented for his attack on the City of Night. The new spell, demon_debug, sucked the magical energy right out of its victim. It was crude, it was dangerous and it was absolutely deadly.