He picked up the spike and eyed the wall. This wasn’t as elegant as a hidden passage and it was sure going to take a lot longer, but it would work. Besides, he thought as he attacked the first stone, I don’t have anything better to do.
The real problem was going to be to get out enough of the blocks to do some good without bringing the whole place down on his head, but he had some ideas on that and it would be a while before he really had to worry.
Moira did not look up when they turned off the freeway and headed up a poorly paved road. She did not know how long they rocked along before they turned again onto a dirt road and rattled over a cattle crossing. The dust tickled her nose and made her cough, but she still didn’t look up.
“Well, here we are,” Jerry said. You can look now.” Moira kept staring at the dashboard, as if she intended to memorize every wrinkle and crack in the vinyl.
“Come on, end of the line. Are you all right?”
“I think,” Moira said judiciously, “that Wiz was far braver than I ever knew.”
She tore her eyes away from the dashboard and looked around. They were in a small valley. The brown hills above them were crowned with the gray-green of live oak trees. There was dust everywhere. The stink was still in the air, but not as strong here as in the city.
The field before them was crammed with vehicles standing cheek-by-jowl and all covered with a thin film of dust. A steady stream of people filtered out of the field, stopped at a table by the path and then headed over a low hill. Most of them were weighted down with bags, boxes, bundles and long poles of some light-colored wood.
“What is this place?”
“It’s a war. These people come here to pretend to be living in ancient times. Um, something like your place but with no magic.”
Moira looked around, bemused. “They come here to pretend to be peasants?”
“Well, ah, not exactly.”
“And why would the Mighty of your world wish to pretend there is no magic?”
“Actually,” Jerry explained, “some of them are pretending there is magic.”
Moira opened her mouth to ask another question and then thought better of it. This was remarkably similar to conversations she had sometimes with Wiz.
“It gets a little complicated. But we’ve got a better chance of finding what we need here than anyplace else I can think of.”
Moira nodded and followed him across the field toward the table. She wondered what awaited them at the end of that path.
Wiz leaned back against the wall and examined his handiwork. Even with the iron bar and the frost-loosened stones it had been a rough job to pry the blocks loose. His knuckles were scraped, his palms were blistered and his shoulders and arms ached from pulling on the prybar.
He had taken the stones in more or less checker-board around the walls and piled them in the center of the pit directly under the trap door. Standing on the pile, he could reach up to the narrow neck of the pit. He still had a long way to go before he would have enough blocks to reach the top of the trap.
This is going to take forever, he thought, rubbing his shoulders and looking up. But the sooner he got to it the quicker it would be done. Anyway, it took his mind off how cold and hungry he was.
Sighing, Wiz picked up the bar again and went back to work.
“Morning, My Lord, My Lady,” said one of the three large young men sitting at the table. “Site fee’s five bucks.”
While Jerry peeled off several gray-green paper oblongs, Moira studied him, trying to make sense out of what she was seeing.
He was not a guardsman, of that Moira was sure. He had the body of a man but the face was still that of a child. He was dressed in a simple tunic over the sort of blue trousers Wiz called “jeans.” He wore a red leather belt with a cheap, gaudy sword thrust scabberdless through it. Like a boy pretending to be a warrior, she thought, but with more self-importance, as if he expected people to take him seriously.