do something useful, redesign this fucking castle and make it more
livable.”
Okay, Craig thought, turning back to his workstation and away from
thoughts of Ur-elves and magical theory. Let’s really turn this sucker
into something!
Craig stood at the topmost point of the highest tower, surveyed his work
and found it good.
The skimpy, saggy little castle they had formed out of pure magic was long
gone. Now the entire top of the mountain had been terraced and leveled.
What had been the original castle was now just the central piece of an
elaborate structure. Even it was much changed.
Caermort-the Castle of Death, he thought. That’s what we’ll call it.
It certainly looked deadly enough. Energy cannons poked their ugly snouts
out of domed turrets on the stone ramparts. The central tower of gleaming
steel soared to neck-craning height, glittering like a mirror in the
afternoon sun. Several of the courtyards had been roofed over with domes
of crystal. Random bolts of lightning flew between towers and played over
the domes. Further up the air sparkled and flickered as the protective
magical shell around the castle interacted with random dust motes which
were wafted into it.
Within the castle itself hordes of servants, robots and living creatures
hurried to do his bidding. In the caves dug into the mountain giant robots
worked with monster tools to assemble more of their kind and other engines
of destruction to boot.
It still wasn’t absolutely perfect, he admitted modestly. If he did not
work a thing up in complete detail on his screen the details were likely
to be filled in haphazardly.
But all in all it was a marvelous engine of destruction. All this power
aimed at a single goal. Conquest. Already his drones scouted the limits of
this world and his robot legions formed in the huge caverns beneath the
mountain or exercised on the desert plains. Mikey might sneer, but he’d
stop when Craig’s mechanical armies marched across the border between the
worlds.
The border between both worlds, he amended silently. Why limit himself to
the one where magic worked? There was no army on Earth that could stand
against his creations.
Better to be Lord of Three Worlds, than Lord of Two, he decided.
Ten: WRECK’S WARNING
The programming team was up to its elbows in source code when Arianne came
into their workroom.
“Forgive me, my Lords, my Lady,” the tall blonde lady said as she entered
the room. “Are you occupied?”
Wiz turned toward the door. “Occupied, but not super busy. What’s up?”
“Bal-Simba sent me to request your presence.”
“Sure. In his office?”
“At Oak Island off the south coast. A strange thing has washed ashore at
the village. Bal-Simba asks that you examine it.”
Wiz looked over at the pile of scrolls and the shimmering letters hanging
above his desk and paused. A summons to meet Bal-Simba here was one thing.
A jaunt to a distant village to look at something was another matter. Even
walking the Wizard’s Way, such a trip would probably eat the rest of the
day.
“Can’t we just send one of our searching units?” he asked. “We do have to
get this stuff done before-”
Arianne hesitated. “Lord, I think you had better see this personally.”
“What is it?”
“We do not know. But from the description I think it owes more to your
world than ours.”
Wiz smelled salt and mud. They were in a hollow between two sand dunes.
Gray-green sand grasses and little twisted shrubs grew here and there
around them and even in this sheltered spot a breeze ruffled the
vegetation and their clothing.
There was a man waiting for them, a rough, grizzled fellow dressed in the
bulky knit sweater and canvas trousers favored by the folk who made their
living upon the Freshened Sea.
“My Lords, welcome,” he said, bowing perfunctorily, as if unused to the
exercise. “I am Weinrich, the mayor of Oak Island.”
Moira curtsied and the rest bowed. “Well met, Lord. I am Moira and these
are the wizards Sparrow, Jerry and Danny.”
Weinrich’s face cleared, as if a burden had been lifted from him.
“Ah, well met indeed. They said you might come.”