Moira’s brow wrinkled. “I wish he was here too. But we cannot even get a message to him, try as we might.” She shook the mood off. “It must be very hard to work with spells without having the magician who made them to guide you.”
“It’s not as bad as it might be,” Jerry told her. “Probably our biggest advantage is that we know all the code was written by one person and I’m very familiar with Wiz’s programming style.
“Look, a lot of this business is like playing a guessing game with someone. The more you know about the person and the way that person thinks, the more successful you are likely to be.”
He sighed. “Still, it would be nice not to have to guess at all. Besides, Wiz is good. He’d be a real asset.”
“We are doing everything we can to locate him,” Moira said. “Meanwhile, is there anything else you need?”
“A couple of things. First, is there any way to get cold cuts and sandwich fixings brought in? My people tend to miss meals.”
“Certainly. Anything else?”
“Well, you don’t have coffee, tea or cola here, so I guess not.”
“Wiz used to drink blackmoss tea,” Moira told him, “but that is terrible stuff.”
“Can we try some?” Jerry asked.
Moira rang for a servant and while they waited for the tea, she and Jerry chatted about the work.
“We call the new operating system ‘WIZ-DOS’—that’s the Wiz Zumwalt Demon Operating System.”
“If this thing has a 640K memory limit, I quit!” someone put in from one of the stalls.
“As far as we know there’s no limit at all on memory,” Jerry said. It’s just that addressing it is kind of convoluted.”
Moira didn’t understand the last part, but her experience with Wiz had taught her the best thing to do was to ignore the parts she didn’t understand. To do otherwise invited an even more incomprehensible “explanation.”
“I’m sure Wiz would be honored to have this named after him,” she said.
The tea arrived already brewed. Moira, who had used it when she was standing vigil as part of her training, thought it smelled nasty. Jerry didn’t seem to notice. Moira poured out a small amount of the swamp-water-brown brew. Dubiously, she extended the cup. Jerry sniffed it, then sipped. Then he drained the cup and smacked his lips. “Not bad,” he said appraisingly. “A little weak, but not bad. Can we arrange to have a big pot of this stuff in the Bull Pen while we’re working?”
“Of course, My Lord, I’ll have the kitchen send up a pot.”
“I mean a big pot,” Jerry said. “Say thirty or sixty cups.”
Moira, remembering the effect that even a cup of blackmoss tea had on her, stared at him.
“Well, there are more than a dozen of us,” he said apologetically.
Moira nodded, wondering if there was enough blackmoss in the castle to supply this crew for even a week.
Fifteen : War Warning
A jump gone awry is one of the hardest bugs to locate.
—programmers’ saying
Bal-Simba was walking in the castle garden when his deputy found him.
“Lord,” Arianne said strangely. “Someone wishes to speak to you.”
“Who?” the black wizard asked, catching her mood.
“Aelric, the elf duke.”
Duke Aelric, or rather his image, was waiting for him in the
Watcher’s room. The Watchers, who kept magical watch on the entire world, shifted uneasily at their communications crystals in the elf’s presence.
Bal-Simba studied the apparition as he mounted the dais overlooking the sunken floor where the Watchers worked. The elf duke was wearing a simple tunic of dark-brown velvet that set off his milk-white complexion. His long hair was caught back in a golden filet set with small yellow gems at his temples. His face was serene and untroubled, not that that meant anything. Elves were inhumanly good at hiding their feelings and in any event their emotions were not those of mortals.
Bal-Simba had heard Wiz and Moira’s story of their rescue by Duke Aelric and their dinner with him, but this was the first time Bal-Simba had ever seen him. Come to that, it is the first time I have ever seen any elf this close, he thought as he seated himself in his chair.