One Quest, Hold the Dragons

by Greg Costikyan

  "Then you won't help us?" demanded Sidney.

  "My dear!" Siebert protested. "You wound me to the quick! Why, all of the resources at my command are at your disposal."

  "What resources do you command?" asked Nick.

  "There's the rub," said Siebert, smiling.

  There was silence for a moment.

  "See here" said Siebert. "Go to the Drachehaus, scout it out. If possible, obtain clear evidence of von Grentz's treason. With hard evidence, I can do much. Even without, perhaps I can help you obtain the wherewithal to invade von Grentz's mansion and steal the statue from it the aid of a wizard or two, documents, perhaps a few loyal soldiers. Once you know what you need, perhaps Guismundo Stantz can be persuaded to assist us; but while I am happy to assist you as I can, without unduly destabilizing my own precarious position, I have no magic wand, no helpful genie. You must solve your own problems."

  "Thanks a lot," said Nick.

  Siebert shrugged. "Life is hard. Leftenant von Kremnitz, stay with these people, and assist their however you may; you know how to contact me, if further assistance is needed."

  "Yes, my lord," said von Kremnitz.

  "May we leave by the front door, please?" said Timaeus. "I've had enough of scuttling through the walls like a roach."

  "I see no harm in it," said Siebert. "And now, adieu, farewell, stay not upon the hour of thy going." He turned to Sidney. "Do come back and visit an old man sometime, my dear," he said, pressing her hand to his breast. To Timaeus's vast surprise, she actually smiled back.

  III

  Wolfe chanted a spell.

  A near full moon shone down on the horses, the hansom cab, and its top-hatted driver, casting sharp shadows against the cobblestones of the street. Across the street, behind its iron fence, the Drachehaus stood amid carefully tended gardens. Dark windows declared that nothing disturbed the slumber of those within.

  "None of tha' magic, now, miss," said the hansom's driver sleepily, waving his whip at Wolfe and her three companions. "My fare' ll be two shillings, and I've an amulet 'gainst illusion. Yell "

  With a gesture, Wolfe completed her spell: The carriage and its driver flattened out, as if they had turned from rounded matter instantly to flat portrait; the color leached from them, leaving shades of black and gray; the image distorted, as if it were twisting down toward the shadow cast on the stones; and then they were gone.

  Their shadow, etched against the cobbles, remained; a shadow, now, with nothing to cast it. The whole had happened in a space of seconds.

  Wolfe removed a pouch from her belt; it glowed silver in the moonlight, an intricate pattern in black and white rippling across its surface. She chanted again, a brief cantrip this time, and laid the pouch down on the cobblestones. Like water streaming into a drain, the shadow was sucked into the pouch's confines. Wolfe pulled the drawstring and knotted it with satisfaction, then left the pouch on the cobblestones and turned to her three companions.

  "Whhhhhhheeeeeeernrrrre," said the brown-robed earth mage, scanning the street in confusion. Agent G nudged the pouch with the toe of her boot. The troll waited patiently for Wolfe to tell him what to do.

  "Aaaaaaammmmmmm," the earth mage said.

  A warm breeze rustled leaves. Scattered clouds scudded across the moon. It was late, past midnight. G gave the pouch a harder nudge, surprised that she had been completely unable to budge it. Wolfe smiled faintly at that; the pouch contained two horses, a hansom cab, and a rather beefy man. Wolfe could transform them into a shadow, but that didn't diminish their weight. She had no qualms about leaving the pouch here while they invaded the mansion; thieves might try to steal it in their absence, but she doubted they'd have much luck.

  "Iiiiiii?" said the earth mage.

  "Quick on the uptake, isn't he?" said Agent G. She was a corpulent, stringy-haired woman, clad for tonight's work in loose-fitting black clothes and an amazing variety of weapons. At her belt were throwing stars, knives, and two swords. Slung on her back was a small crossbow, a case of quarrels, and a rope with a noose. And those were only the visible arms; others were secreted about her person. Wolfe had been glad to get her: The agents of Internal Serenity came in three states-individually lettered, individually numbered, and general release—and of these, the letteredagents were by far the most highly prized. Wolfe had expected to be forced to settle for one of the more numerous numbered agents, but G had been at loose ends and Wolfe had been able to commandeer her.

  "Actually, he's a veritable speed demon," said Wolfe as she held up a placard for the man to read. "Earth mages deal with phenomena that change over geologic epochs. As they get older, their metabolism tends to slow down to suit. There are some who move so slowly they can't even interact with the rest of human society anymore." The earth mage had by now brought up his right hand and taken the placard from Wolfe.

  "I'll take your word for it," said G. "I thought this was supposed to be fast in and fast out. How's that going to work with a guy who sprints at a slow walk?"

  The earth mage was slowly mouthing the words written on the placard: "Please begin your spell."

  "He's not going in with us," said Wolfe. "He's just going to get us in."

  "Past the wards?" asked G.

  "That's the idea," said Wolfe.

  The earth mage dropped the placard. He said the first syllable of a Word, still looking a little confused.

  "He starting the spell?" asked G.

  "Yes," said Wolfe.

  "Take him long?" asked G.

  "We timed it," explained Wolfe. "It should take him fifteen minutes, give or take a bit. We need to get prepared."

  The earth mage finished the first syllable of his Word and started in on syllable two.

  "Yeah, okay," said G. "What about the troll?"

  "Ook," said the troll. He wore a peculiarly heavy leather harness, and carried no weapon other than a coil of thick rope.

  "Chad's coming with us," said Wolfe. "The statue is supposed to be heavy; we need muscle to haul it out, and they don't come much stronger than trolls."

  G sighed. "Trolls," she said.

  "Ook!" said Chad. "Trust Chad. Chad good troll."

  "He'll be fine," Wolfe said irritably.

  G snorted but made no reply. She was watching the earth mage, who drew a deep breath; he had actually completed the first Word of his spell. He began to drone the first syllable of the next.

  Wolfe glanced at the moon. "Maybe another ten minutes," she said.

  "Dragons," said Nick forebodingly.

  "Vhere?" said Kraki, drawing his enormous blade with a scritch of steel and adopting a ready stance.

  Nick pointed to the carving above the Drachehaus's main door: a dragon segreant.

  Kraki peered at it mistrustfully, perhaps expecting it to come to life.

  "Von Grentz's arms, I expect," said Timaeus. "You may recall that his guisardieres bore a similar badge."

  "I don't like it," Nick said. "There weren't supposed to be any dragons."

  "'There aren't," said Sidney. "It's just a carving."

  "I still don't like it," complained Nick. "If the dragon is his symbol, he might have. one around here somewhere." "In the midst of a human city?" said Jasper. "Don't be absurd. It would have half the town in flames."

  "Sure," said Nick. "Don't pay any attention to me. What do I know? I'm just saying—"

  "Oh, bosh," said Timaeus, knocking his pipe against a section of cast-iron fence. Charred pipeweed fell from the bowl and onto the slate of the street. "Do calm down, there's a lad."

  "Don't do that," said Nick. "Any mansion that big has got magical wards. Touching the fence might doanything-set off alarms, trigger a magical assault, wake up the dragon . . ."

  "There's no dragon, Pratchitt," said Timaeus somewhat irritably, thumbing more weed into his meerschaum. "Anyway, would you make your wards so sensitive as to register the thump of a pipe, or someone brushing up against the fence while strolling down the street? You'd run your guards ragged, chargin
g out to investigate every stray sparrow or inattentive pedestrian."

  "Still," said Jasper thoughtfully, hovering just shy of the fence, "the lad has a point. We durst not cross the fence without preparation. If the graf in truth has our statue within his mansion, it will be well protected; our only hope of snatching it is to get in quickly, without triggering alarms, and get out equally fast."

  "Pole-vault over fence," suggested Kraki. "Run like damn."

  "Hell," said Nick.

  "Vhat?" said Kraki.

  "Run like hell."

  "Yah," said Kraki. "That's vhat I said."

  "No, you said—"

  "Pole-vaulting won't do it," said Sidney. "Ward effects usually extend upward, as well as along a fence or wall. You'd probably trigger something even if you never actually touched the fence."

  "How high upward?" asked Frer Mortise.

  "Why?" said Sidney.

  Mortise coughed. "I am able, in the light of the moon, to transform myself into an owl. I might fly over the fence."

  "A thought, Brother," said Sidney deferentially, "but skulking about a mansion in search of valuables is more in my line than yours. More than once, I've gotten into a warded building in the guise of a cat. You don't want your wards to register animals, after all, or your guards would go charging out after the local mousers seven or eight times a night."

  "Perhaps so," said Jasper, "but the wards might be set to detect the passage of a sapient mind, or a concentration of magic—and your therianthropy is a form of magic, after all—in which case you'd set them off, even as a cat."

  "You're a were?" demanded von Kremnitz of Sidney, his face bearing a faint expression of disgust. Therianthropy was magically associated with chaos, and in the minds of the ignorant, especially, this meant with evil; von Kremnitz had a trace of the common prejudice against shapechangers.

  "Yeah," Sidney said belligerently. "Want to make something of it?"

  Von Kremnitz cleared his throat, and hastily turned to Jasper. "Why don't you just read the minds of those within the mansion?" he asked.

  "I've already tried, but as I expected, the mansion is warded against just such a thing," said Jasper. "Most noblemen, especially those with political ambitions, protect themselves against the more common methods of scrying."

  "Really," said Timaeus, pipe full but unwilling to light it with the concomitant explosion and the attention it might draw, "we ought to retreat and plan this assault in more detail. Nice to know the place is here, would be nicer to be certain that the statue's in it, but an impromptu attack on a well-defended site with no preparation strikes me as—"

  "Why don't I just run a recce?" said Jasper, spiraling upward. "I'll try to fly over the wards myself—"

  "No," Sidney said, raising her voice to reach him as he rose. "Magical flight is common enough, you're bound to trigger—"

  The earth mage completed his last slow gesture, spake his last slow Word. The bricks of the street buckled upward, then fountained aside in a shower of dirt. Where they had been stood a lumpen, earth-colored, vaguely humanoid shape, hulking and massive: an earth elemental, a gnome.

  The earth mage began keening—a long, low, sustained note. After a few seconds, he changed pitch.

  "What's he doing?" asked G.

  "Chanting," said Wolfe. "He needs to tell the elemental what to do."

  "Public Works isn't going to like that," said G, nodding toward the gaping hole in the road.

  Wolfe snorted. "Come on, G," she said, "you going to tell them who did it?"

  "Ook?" said the troll.

  "Yes, Chad?" said Wolfe.

  "When do we go?" asked the troll.

  "Soon," said Wolfe. Under the mage's direction, the gnome had turned to face the fence. Now it was sinking back into the earth, as if gradually merging with it, the magician keening still.

  At last the gnome had disappeared within the hole its appearance had caused. Bricks adjacent to the hole buckled upward; dirt began to fly out of the hole in an arc away from the fence, pattering into a growing pile on the sidewalk across the street. More bricks buckled upward, as a low berm began to extend from the hole toward the fence surrounding the Drachehaus. The berm intersected the sidewalk; slate flags tilted at sharp angles. Then the berm passed underneath the cast-iron fence and into the garden beyond.

  "Big mole," said the troll. He was right, Wolfe thought; the berm looked like nothing so much as a gigantic molehill.

  Inside the fence, the berm extended into the roots of an enormous rhododendron, which tilted up and sideways, coming down on its side with a rustle of leaves and the faint cracks of twigs. A few moments later, there was a shower of dirt within the, garden, and the gnome's lumpen shape appeared, shedding soil like water.

  "Come on," said Wolfe, and stepped into the tunnel the gnome had dug.

  "Fear not," said Jasper faintly from above. "I'll be back in a jiffy. Ta-ta." The green light darted inward, across the fence.

  Almost instantly, from within the mansion there came a faint brass sound: the unmistakable noise of a gong. Jasper flitted onward, apparently oblivious to the alarm. Again the gong sounded.

  Sidney Stollitt cursed, her words ending in an annoyed cat's hiss. She twined through the bars and scampered across the lawn.

  "Hokay," said Kraki. "Might as vell be hanged for a sheep as a frying pan." He swarmed up and over the fence.

  Nick seized the bars of the fence. "Idiot," he shouted after Kraki. "You've got about as much sense as a sheep. You'll-oh, hell." He clambered up the fence himself, dropped to the nether side, and sprinted after Kraki.

  Timaeus, concluding that since the alarm had been given there was no longer any reason not to light his pipe, brought his finger toward the bowl.

  There was an explosion; Mortise, startled, transformed into an owl and flitted after the others. The flames about Timaeus's head dissipated after a moment, the fire mage puffing happily.

  Pablo von Kremnitz was running up and down the fence, épée in hand, rather wild-eyed. "What . . . ?" he sputtered. "They've .. . We've got to—"

  "We've got to do nothing," said Timaeus. "If they want to act like fools, it's not our responsibility to bail them out."

  "Ye gods, I thought you people had at least an iota ofsense," protested von Kremnitz. "No coordination, no plan, no-it's disastrous!"

  "Didn't we pass an alehouse a block or two back?" asked Timaeus. "Whisky sounds attractive about now."

  "Surely we had better do something," von Kremnitz said.

  "Well, you know," said Timaeus apologetically, "sneaking about is not exactly my métier. Blowing things up is rather more in my line."

  The gong had been sounding continuously. From somewhere on the mansion's grounds, there came a curious noise, like a deep barking or a low roar.

  "Sneaking about?" said von Kremnitz incredulously. "I'd say any element of sneakiness has long since been lost. And subtlety is not exactly your man Kraki's strong suit."

  "Point taken. No reason not to take more drastic measures, then?" said Timaeus.

  "I should say not," said von Kremnitz.

  "Oh, well then," said Timaeus. He chanted briefly and pointed a finger at the cast-iron bars. He swept the finger back and forth in long strokes, melting a line across the fence. Severed sections of iron fell out, some hitting the earth, others striking the sidewalk with clangs. "After you," said Timeaus, gesturing courteously toward the opening.

  "After you," said von Kremnitz, responding in kind.

  "No, no," said Timaeus, "after you, my dear chap."

  Wolfe examined the gnome's tunnel. It was low; she'd need to crawl through on hands and knees. And that meant she'd get covered with dirt. She grimaced fastidiously, but crouched down-and at that moment, a gong sounded from within the Drachehaus.

  Wolfe checked. What had set off the alarm? The gnome's passage shouldn't have done it. And indeed, she realized, it had not; the gnome had appeared within the garden well before the alarm had sounded. "Something's gone
wrong," she said.

  "Uhhhhhhh," said the earth mage.