Then he saw the dragon sitting on top of the leather-bound book. A small, but very alert and obviously upset dragon. The dragon hissed and Jerry realized he, Karl and Moira were suddenly two paces ahead of everyone else in the group.
“What’s that?”
“That is the demon guardian Wiz created to protect his spells, especially the book holding most of his secrets. He called it the Dragon Book,” Moira explained.
Karl looked at Moira, Jerry looked at Karl and the dragon eyed them both.
“That had to be deliberate,” Karl said finally.
Jerry made a face as if he had bitten into something sour. “Believe me, it was.”
“Crave pardon?”
“There’s a standard text on writing compilers called the dragon book.” Jerry explained. “It’s got a picture of a dragon on the cover. A red dragon.”
“It was orange on my edition.”
“As protection of the contents?” Moira asked.
“More like a warning of what the course is like. It’s a real bear.”
“Then why not put a bear on the cover?”
“Bears aren’t red,” Karl put in before Jerry could answer. “They’re not orange either.”
Moira frowned. “Oh,” she said in a small voice.
“Anyway, how do we get rid of him?”
“Easily enough. Wiz taught me the dismissal spell.” She stepped to the edge of the desk and spoke to the demon.
“puff at ease exe.”
The dragon crawled off the book and retired to the corner of the desk.
“That is a spell in Wiz’s magic language,” she explained, turning back to the programmers. “The word exe is the command to start the spell, at ease is the spell and puff is the name of this demon.”
“Well, it is a magic dragon,” Karl said. A couple of the programmers groaned and Jerry winced again.
“Okay,” Jerry said. “We’ll get this stuff out of your way and moved to our office as soon as possible. Uh, do you know where we are going to be?”
“The under-seneschal is waiting to show you to your workrooms,” Moira said. “He is in the courtyard, I believe.”
“Great. Let’s go then.” Everyone moved back toward the door, except Danny Gavin who was lounging in a chair.
“Are you coming?” Jerry asked.
“No, I think I’ll stay here,” Danny said. “Unless you need me?”
Jerry looked at Moira and Moira shrugged.
“Just don’t wander off.”
Almost as soon as the door was closed Danny was out of his chair and over to the Dragon Book. The guardian demon raised its head when he opened it but made no protest.
Now let’s see what this magic stuff is like. Danny scanned the first few pages quickly, picking up the basics of the syntax as he went. Then he flipped further back and looked at a few of the commands.
Shit, this is a piece of cake. He went back and re-read the first part of the book more carefully, already mentally framing his first spell.
“We had to prepare workspace for you on short notice,” the under-seneschal said apologetically as he led the group across another courtyard. “I’m afraid all the towers are taken and Lord Bal-Simba doubted you would prefer caves. So to give you a place where you can all work together, we ah, well, we cleaned out an existing building.”
He was a small, fussy man who seemed to bob as he walked and kept rubbing his hands together nervously. He had been given an impossible job on very short notice and he was very much afraid his solution would insult some very important people. As they moved across the courtyard he became more and more nervous.
“We weren’t expecting so many of you, you see and we are so terribly crowded here . . .” His voice trailed off as they approached the building.
It was sturdily built of stone below and timber above. As they drew nearer, a distinctive aroma gave a hint of its original purpose and once they stepped through the large double doors there was no doubt at all as to what it was.
“A stable?” Jerry said dubiously.
“Well, ah, a cow barn actually,” the man almost cringed as he said it.
“Wonderful,” Cindy said, “back in the bullpen.”