tracking restlessly back and forth. It was the very picture of mechanized
death, even if a thin stream of oil was leaking from a blown knee seal,
leaving oily footprints in its wake. Every time the robot took a step the
piston in the leaking hydraulic damper slammed against the stop, making a
distinct “clank.” But the noise only made the black metal thing more
menacing.
Twice it circled the computer, alert for any sign of life or anything out
of order. Finding nothing, it clanked around the room once more and left.
The dim light glinted faintly off its shiny black carapace as it turned
the corner and the sound of its passage faded into the silence and
stillness of the night.
Long after the guard’s last echo died something moved in the deepest dark
at the base of the computer. Slowly and oh so cautiously a smaller patch
of darkness separated itself from the computer’s shadow. As it scuttled
along the base of the wall a stray glimmer of light caught it and resolved
the patch into a tiny manlike figure.
The gremlin squeaked inaudibly at the light and scurried back into the
shadows. There it paused, casting this way and that, its leaflike ears
flapping and its long pointed nose quivering.
Machines! It was in the middle of an enormous collection of machines with
a variety and complexity it had never imagined. In every direction beyond
these stone walls was a gremlin king’s ransom of machines. The computer
that had been such a regal home just a few days ago was shabby and
threadbare by comparison.
A broad, snaggle-toothed and beatific smile spread over the little
creature’s face.
Suddenly it was a very happy gremlin.
Forty-one: LOSS
“Nothing?” Bal-Simba demanded. “Nothing at all left?”
Dragon Leader shook his head. “A smoking crater, Lord. We landed and
searched for survivors, but we found only one.”
He gestured at the brownie standing on the council table.
“Breachean, my Lord.” The little man hung his head. “It is my great shame
that when the invaders came I ran away.”
“It is our good fortune that you did,” Bal-Simba said kindly. “Else there
would be none to tell us what happened.”
“I cannot tell you much, my Lord. I was outside when the metal creatures
arrived and I ran. From the top of the hill I saw them carry out the thing
the gremlins loved and put it in their ship. But then I ran over the hill
and saw nothing more until the explosion.”
“The computer?” Moira demanded from her place behind Bal-Simba’s chair.
“They took the computer?”
“Aye, my Lady. The metal things carried it out.”
“But you saw no people?”
“No, Lady, either yours or my own.”
The giant black wizard was silent for a moment, his head sunk on his
chest. Up and down the long table the wizards of the Council of the North
simply stared. One seat at the table was conspicuously vacant.
“Very well,” he said at last. “Thank you, Breachean. Dragon Leader, keep
what watch you can on the area in case someone else did survive, but do
not endanger your riders.”
Dragon Leader saluted and left with the brownie at his heels.
Bal-Simba sighed and looked back at Moira. “Child, I am sorry,” he said
simply.
The hedge witch was white, her freckles standing out vividly. “They will
pay for this,” she said softly. “By the World, the sea and the sky above
they will pay!”
“Indeed they shall,” the wizard Juvian said from his place near the head
of the table. “Lady, the Council extends its deepest sympathies to you in
your bereavement.”
“He is not dead,” Moira said fiercely. “The others perhaps, but not Wiz. I
would know if he was.”
The wizards did not point out that psychic bonds worked poorly between the
Worlds.
“Remember the elf Lisella’s prophecy,” another wizard said. “All would
suffer great loss, the mightiest among them would perish and our enemy
would gain his heart’s desire.”
“The first part is fulfilled,” Bal-Simba said. “Let us see if we can
prevent the rest from coming true.”
“We still have the wizards and apprentices that Jerry was training,”