The Wizard That Wasn't (Mechanized Wizardry) (15 page)

Spheres, but Samanthi was brilliant.  Lundin shook his head in wonder, keeping one ear to the foot traffic outside and another on the squawk box, to make sure he’d be ready to swap in the next disks when these ones finished.  Leave it to her to figure out how the one spell they had could be the perfect tool for the job.  Earlier in the week, after inspecting the Illustration disks closely in the wake of the over-successful casting on Sir Kelley, they’d had a brainstorm for how to tighten up the code and keep it more narrowly focused.   Punching the new disks had taken time, but he and Samanthi had decided it was worth it. Now, with any luck at all, this friendship spell would do nothing except make Ouste a loyal subject of the Crown again, full of devotion to her Princess.  And it might also make her mouth move strangely for a few days. 
I’m okay with that
, Lundin thought, fingers drumming on the next set of disks.

The portraits out in the hall had proven invaluable.  Not only had Princess Naomi’s full name, Naomi Elizabeth Galidate Haberstorm, been on her portrait, but Ouste’s portrait too had been titled “Xanaka Ouste of Upper Elthenia.”  That’s exactly what they’d punched into a new pair of Enunciation disks for this particular casting of the friendship spell.  The full details would make the spell that much more accurate when it came to targeting in the Illustration and Enunciation alike. 

“Come on, come on,” Lundin whispered, peeking into the open side of the squawk box.  This pair of disks still had at least two minutes to go.  There were five more pairs in the Illustration before the Enunciation even began. 
Another half-hour with no disasters, and maybe we have a chance to put Princess Naomi’s survival into the hands of a woman who’s currently letting her die!
 

“I need a new job,” Lundin said morosely as the squawk box brayed into his ear.

Princess Naomi’s eyes cracked open. 

There was her ceiling, great waves of fabric stretching from one wall to the other.  As she looked at them, they seemed to swim, making her queasy.  An overwhelming impulse filled her to close her eyes again, but through sheer force of will she kept her eyelids fluttering, reaching out to the real world.  She was covered in sweat; she could feel it all over her face, and her back.  Her blood was on fire.  Every muscle throbbed with the pain of it.

With a powerful effort, she turned her head, her mouth falling open and her tongue lolling out like a hound’s.  It was taking all her strength not to go back inside her head, to the place darker than sleep where she had been for what seemed like months. 
Was it just last night I fell asleep giggling, ready for the final Ordeals and the feastday?
  she thought. 
Can that be?  What’s happening to me?

Lady Ceres was there, thank the Spheres.  The towering woman had her back to the Princess, in low conversation with one of the maids.  Elsie?  Veronica?  Naomi’s vision was blurry, and she couldn’t make out any features.  She gritted her teeth and scraped her fingers against the thin bedsheet to get their attention.  The scratching sound was like tidal waves crashing in her ears, and she could feel the vibrations of her movements all up and down her aching arms.  But Ceres didn’t even stir.

Blackness was creeping into her vision from every side.  This wasn’t like any fever she’d ever experienced.  No—this was something darker, and much more wicked. 

Naomi’s fingers flicked across each other, and her hand rotated at the wrist. 
<>
she said. 
<>

Like a swimmer catching only a quick breath before being pushed underwater by the waves, Princess Naomi’s lids closed and she sank back into unconsciousness.

“—javinish s’kal mar lindish spir ith brovalia—”

Resting on the shelf across the tiny room, Lundin’s two
ojing
were still pulsing with white as the words kept coming.  He clung to that whenever he felt his nerves getting the better of him; whether or not the plan would work, at least the spell was working.  One more pair of disks in the Illustration, then Lundin would put on the Enunciation disks and have the squawk box repeat Ouste’s name for as long as he could.  Once he had toggled the box to ‘repeat,’ he might even risk stepping into the outside world to see what had happened in the past hour-and-a-half.  This closet was feeling awfully cramped by now. 
Thank the Spheres nobody seems to need sheets today
, he thought, picking at the fraying edge of a duvet cover. 

He was surprised not to have heard from Samanthi, quite frankly.  Maybe she figured the less attention she drew to the fact that Lundin was cloistered in a closet, the better for their plan.  It would be hard to convince even the most credulous observer that the chanting Melodimax was a mobile repair apparatus, and odds were good that the meddling clerks outside had only gotten less credulous as the morning drew on.

Well, they can be as sour-faced as they want
, Lundin thought, yawning,
as long as they stay out for another—

The door swung outwards into the anteroom.  He staggered, putting his foot into the stacks of already played Illustration disks.  The thin circles slid to the ground in a clatter of metal, resonating cacophonously in the tiny closet.  Lundin involuntarily clasped one hand over his ear as he braced against the man-sized Melodimax with the other, balancing himself.  A small war party of brocaded clerks stood glaring at him in the doorway, the men with huge hair and the women with tight bonnets.  Samanthi was barely visible behind them, her face flushed and her eyes furious.

“I told you, Mister Lundin’s work can’t be disturbed!  Close that door right now, or the repairs will fall apart!  You’re only hurting yourselves!”

“Mister Lundin,” the clerk in front said venomously, her eyes narrowed to unfriendly slits, “how are the repairs coming?”

“Nearly done, nearly done.  Fifteen more minutes,” he said, straightening up and putting on a smile.

“Ms. Elena said you would definitely be done twenty minutes before this,” another said.

“I’m sure I never said ‘definitely,’” Samanthi objected.

“This is your so-called ‘mobile repair apparatus?’” the tallest of the clerks said, looking past Lundin.

“I told you it looked like a squawk box!”

“It is a squawk box!  Listen to it!”

One of the women held up her hands.  Loud and clear, even through two layers of pillowcases, came the long strings of Mabinanto:

“—videl, lastic, joi arkhest teronion—”

“What a pack of liars!” the head clerk said, her eyes flashing.  “Our teams have been gathering data all day, while you’ve been locked in a closet listening to music?”

“You can’t call that music,” another said.

“Yeah!  What is that?”

“What are you lazy Petronauts up to?”

Samanthi and Lundin exchanged a desperate look.  Samanthi opened her mouth, ready to bluster or start beating some heads, when he suddenly raised a hand and tilted his head, as if listening to something.  The clerks briefly stopped chattering, and the only voice was that of the Melodimax.

“—sh’tanu hamish ell tosk—”

“Excuse me,” Lundin said absently.  He turned his back to the clerks and spoke directly into the trumpet.  “
Grabdesh orbintalo, ith bith d’lith moosh
?”

“—Barttic d’scel.  Wavin eth poreil, scim weshi—”

“Oh, of course,” Lundin said, nodding.  He reached for a blank metal disk, straining across the Melodimax to the shelf on which he’d happened to set them.  Then he crouched down on the ground, where the disk press was swung open, and lowered the blank into place.

The mob of clerks and the confused senior tech watched him work as if nothing was happening.  The magic box continued its arcane drone. 

“What in the burning fields are you doing?” a clerk asked, more bewildered than suspicious.

Lundin shushed him gently.  “Sorry, I need to hear this,” he said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the Melodimax.  “Dame Kylia from the Cavaliers is talking me through this repair.”

They looked at the stuffed-up trumpet.  “A Cavalier?  That’s another Petronaut talking?”

“Of course!  Chatty, isn’t she?”  Lundin grinned.  “She’s real thorough, though; I shouldn’t complain.  Hang on—
hivish grumbdumb? Aspic tonk lick b’doom
?”

“—vasil yin norinna poeva flasmic ile—”

“Oh, ‘
flasmic
ile,’” he said, readjusting a notch on the metal press.  “Got it!”

“You expect us to believe you’re actually talking to that thing?” a high-voiced clerk scoffed, his nervous eyes glancing around the rest of his group for support.  The rest of them had their heads tilted appraisingly, uncertain what they were seeing.  “You’re not even speaking real words,” he accused shrilly.

“Old Harutian, actually,” Lundin said, not even looking up from the press.  “It’s for security.  You never know who might be listening in on the transmission between here and there.”

The clerks murmured to each other, cowed and impressed.  “Okay, everyone,” Samanthi said, listening closely to the Melodimax, “Dame Kylia says we’re entering a very sensitive part of the repair.  It would really be best if we gave Mister Lundin some space.  Fifteen minutes, Mister Lundin?”

“That’s all,” he said, nodding calmly.

“Well, then, we’ll be back,” the head clerk said, trying to muster up a threatening voice.  The door closed gently from the outside, and Lundin was alone again.  He stopped playing with the press (he’d been busy spelling the names of his childhood pets backwards), and sat back on his bottom, knees upraised.  His heart was racing, and he let out a long, ragged breath.

The door popped back open about halfway.  Samanthi’s fist came flying down and pounded him on the shoulder three times in energetic succession.  He curled away, raising his hands as he looked up into the senior tech’s luminous, wild-eyed, smiling face.  “You damned stupid genius,” she crowed, slamming the door shut as quickly as she’d entered.  Lundin leaned back against the Melodimax and rubbed his shoulder, a grin spreading across his face.  He rested his head against the talking machine, feeling the vibrations bounce through his body.

Fifteen minutes.

Under normal circumstances, the notion that such a simple spell could slip through the defenses of a wizard like Ouste was laughable.  She had dueled with arcane warlords on the battlefields of Lessak.  She had beaten back two attacks on old Queen Tess, brought to bear by teams of anti-monarchial mages.  She had been the undisputed international champion at the Kolympask Sorcerous Games five years in a row; a feat yet to be duplicated.  When it came to direct magical competition with another spellcaster, she was the greatest wizard alive.

But any magical defense required, first, that the wizard recognize herself as under attack.  And with six white-washed leather disks hanging above her, instead of real
ojing,
the meditating Ouste was completely unaware of a new source of magic until—

Her eyes flashed open, like waking up from a dream.  Ouste looked around, feeling oddly disoriented.  She was on the floor of Princess Naomi’s sitting room, of course; she was here because the Princess was ill. 
No!
  The truth came flooding back into her mind. 
Not ill; under attack!
 

The entire plot raced through her mind, and her lips parted in horror.  She looked to an ornate clock on the wall.  Nearly nine.  That meant Jilmaq had been weaving his gradualistic spell for eleven hours now, stringing its effects out minute by torturous minute. 
At my direction,
she thought, with a stabbing pang of conscience.  Ouste thought of Princess Naomi’s smiling face, her courage in the face of the Ordeals, and the birthright this plot was so cruelly denying her, and tears came to her eyes. 
How could I have been so cruel?  How could I have come this far when my love for Her Highness is so strong?

A calculating part in the back of Ouste’s mind began taking stock of the inconsistencies and waving a tiny flag for her attention; but her dispassionate self was powerless against the flood of emotion now coursing through her.  She rose to her feet, startling several of the maids, who had nearly forgotten the sorcerer was in the room, sitting in silence all this time.  Ouste rubbed her hands together, her pale eyes flashing.  She knew exactly what spell Jilmaq was casting, having chosen it personally for him in what seemed like a past life.  That meant she knew precisely how to counter it.  The timing would be tight, given that she had wasted more than two hours in idle meditation.  But for all the pain she had caused Princess Naomi, Ouste was determined to make recompense.

“
Pingdu h’leth dagriss ith m’navei,
” she began in a ringing voice, hands lifted up high.

Chapter Twelve

The Last Ordeal

“Winding down,” Dame Miri Draker said, removing the Communicator helmet.  The Parade squad’s equipment pavilion was sweltering enough without the bulky metal helmet radiating heat back into her skull.  She lowered the helmet back onto its stand and made her way through the orderly stacks of gear and crates, all loaded with trinkets to distribute to the festive crowds outside.  She stopped in the passageway, a white-gloved hand resting on the corner of the tent flap.  Her mind was racing, playing through the announcement she’d just heard from the Board of Governors again and again:

“Notice to all squads: Palace Guard reports the discovery of a plot against the Crown.  The wizard Jilmaq is suspected of currently carrying out acts of sorcerous treason at the very highest level.  Stopping the wizard Jilmaq, without unduly alarming the populace, is of the utmost urgency.  Last known location is his home in Drabelhelm district outside the city walls, a two-room hut removed from the main boulevard.

“All squads are directed to assist the Guard to the fullest, according to your means and your capacity.”