carved lumps of pearl-gray material.
“Cute,” Jerry said at last. “Some of this stuff is obviously electronic,
but the guts of it,” he pointed to the pearl-gray lumps, “are obviously
magical.”
“We can probably untangle the electronics, but the magic?” He looked over
at Moira.
“That is likely to be difficult, my Lord. We do not know who made those
things or what they are supposed to do.” She frowned and concentrated. “I
can tell you that the spells are most powerful, however.”
“So the magic’s fine,” Jerry summed up. “It’s the engine that doesn’t
work.”
“Of course the engine doesn’t work,” Wiz said irritably. “It couldn’t work
here. The whole thing’s impossible.”
“Oh yeah?” Danny retorted. “Take a look at those exhaust pipes.”
Wiz followed Danny’s pointing finger and saw that the pipes were
discolored where they came out of the cylinders.
“Heat did that. That sucker ran and it ran for a while.”
“But if the engine worked, then the guidance system and the imaging stuff
wouldn’t. They’re based on magic.”
“Wait a minute,” Wiz said. “Let me try something. emac!” he commanded.
“?”
“list”
The Emac took the quill from behind his ear and scribbled furiously in the
air. Lines of fiery symbols appeared and scrolled upward from the Emac.
“carat S” Wiz pronounced and the Emac froze in mid-line.
“Hey, I recognize that!” Wiz peered closely at the glowing letters of
fire. “Not only are they magic, they’re our magic. These spells were
written with our magic compiler or something damn like it.”
Four pairs of eyes met over the wreckage and no one said anything.
“This will do,” Glandurg puffed, looking around the grove.
“High time too,” Thorfin wheezed, coming up behind him nearly bent double
by the climb and the weight of the enormous pack he carried.
One by one the other dwarves filed into the clearing and dumped their
packs. The griffins had left them off at dawn on the other side of the
forest and they had been walking ever since. The wooded land was a
collection of craggy hills cut by little valleys and laced with brooks and
streams. Generations of firewood gathering by mortals had left the woods
open and parklike under the spreading trees, but it was still hard going,
even for dwarves.
Glandurg had led his band almost entirely through the forest to a wooded
bluff overlooking the river that ran by the base of the Capital mount.
Just a few hundred yards and a stretch of placid water now separated the
dwarves from the enormous bluff that bore the capital city of the North on
its back and the Wizard’s Keep at its very tip.
As his followers rested behind him, Glandurg surveyed the scene. From here
they could watch the Wizard’s Keep and the comings and goings of their
quarry and stay concealed in the forest. A perfect spot to plan an ambush.
“How are we supposed to know this wizard when we find him?” Gimli asked
from where he lay against his pack under a spreading tree. “Mortals all
look alike.”
“No they don’t,” Snorri said with a superior air. “There’s men mortals and
there’s women mortals. You can tell them apart easy.”
“That only cuts it down by half,” Gimli said. “We can’t go around killing
all the male mortals we meet, can we?”
Glandurg turned back to his band. “That will not be necessary,” he said
loftily. “I thought of this before we left and I obtained from my uncle
the King a means to infallibly identify this mortal.”
He drew from his pouch a handful of hazelnut-sized lumps. “Each of you
will have one of these. They will always point the way to this foreign
sorcerer, be he a hundred leagues away.”
Each of the dwarves came forward and took one of the seekers from his
hand.
“It’s dark,” said Thorfin, staring into his palm.
“Mine’s not pointing any way at all,” Snorri chimed in.
Glandurg scowled and grabbed for the more powerful version of the device
that hung around his own neck. Cupping his hands to shield it from the
light he saw that it glowed only very dimly. The arrow within pointed