The soldiers looked at each other. Most of them knew where the Ladies’ Aid & Armor Society met. A few of them had been guests at the Occasional Teas. But no man went there uninvited. Especially not when Sophora Segundiflora was leaning on the doorframe, eyeing them with that lazy smile. They had started off to the meeting hall in step, and come around the corner already beginning to straggle… a straggle that became a ragged halt a few yards out of Sophora’s reach. They hoped.
“Hi, guys,” she said. “Got business with us?”
“Umm,” said the sergeant. And then, more coherently, “We heard that plastic wizard might be around here; the king wants him.”
“Probably not,” Sophora said. “Not now.” She glanced suggestively at the door behind her. No sounds leaked through, which was somehow more ominous than shrieks and gurgles would have been.
“Ummm,” said the sergeant again. No one had asked his opinion of the new tax code, but he had one. Anything that upset Sophora Segundiflora and Mirabel Stonefist was a bad idea. Still, he didn’t want to be the one to tell the king why the wizard wasn’t available.
“Anything else?” Sophora asked. She looked entirely too happy for the sergeant’s comfort; he had seen her in battle. The sergeant felt his old wounds paining him, all of them, and wished he had retired the year before, when he’d had the chance. Too late now; he’d re-upped for five. That extra hide of land and a cow wouldn’t do him much good if Sophora tore him limb from limb. He gulped, and sidled closer, making sure his hands were well away from any of his weapons without being in any of the positions that might signal an unarmed combat assault. There weren’t many such positions, and his wrists started aching before he’d gone ten feet.
“Look—can we talk?”
“Sure,” said Sophora. “You are, and I am. What else?”
He knew she wasn’t stupid. Word had gone around about that correspondence course. She must be practicing her courtroom manner. “It’s… kind of sensitive,” he said.
“Got an itch?” she inquired. “Down two streets and across, Sign of the Mermaid…”
“Not that,” he muttered. “It’s state business. The prince—”
“That twerp Nigel?”
“It’s not his fault he inherited that face,” the sergeant said. It would have been disloyal to say more, but everyone had noticed how the prince took after his uncle, the chancellor. “Not a bad kid, once you know him.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Sophora said. “So what about the prince?”
“He’s… that princess is coming this week. For the betrothal, you know.”
“I heard.”
“He… er… needs his spells renewed. Or it’s all off.”
“Why’d the king wait so long?” Sophora asked. She didn’t sound really interested.
“The gossip is that he felt it would be good for the prince’s character. And he thought with enough willpower maybe the prince could hold on until he was full-grown, when they could do the permanent ones, and a crown at the same time.”
“I see. But he needs a temporary before the princess arrives. How unfortunate.” Without even looking at him, she reached behind her and opened the door. The sergeant peered into the hall, where the wizard could be seen writhing feebly in Bertha’s grip. “We have a prior contract, you see, which he has yet to fulfill. And a complication has arisen.”
A slender woman jogged up the street, and came to a panting halt at the door. “Got here as soon as I could—what’s up?”
“About time, Gillian,” Sophora said. “Bertha’s got a problem with our wizard and your—” she stopped and gave the sergeant a loving look that made his neck itch. “Go away, sergeant. I have your message; I will pass it along.”
The sergeant backed off a spear length or so, but he didn’t go away. If he stayed, he might find out what happened to the wizard. Better to return to the palace with a scrap of the dismembered wizard (if that happened) than with no wizard at all. So he and the others were still hanging around when a grim-faced group of women warriors, some flat-chested in armor and others curvaceous in gowns, emerged from the Ladies’ Aid & Armor Society hall.
The sergeant pushed himself off the wall he’d been holding up and tried to stop them. “The king wants the wizard,” he said.
“So do we,” Sophora said. Her smile made the sergeant flinch, then she scowled—a release of tension. “Oh, well, you might as well come along. We’re going to see that the wizard corrects his errors, and you can report to the king.”
She led the way back to the wizard’s house, and the others surrounded the wizard.
Inside, it still looked like a wizard’s house, full of things that made no sense to the sergeant.
“Someone touched this,” the wizard said, pointing to the black box.
“How can you tell? And who could’ve touched it?” Sophora asked. But they all turned to look at the hapless soldiers.
“We were just looking for him,” the sergeant said. “He wasn’t here… we were just looking for evidence….”
“FATAL ERROR,” said the voice from the air again. Everyone shivered.
“Can’t you shut that up?”
“Not now. Not since some hamfisted boneheaded guardsman laid his clumsy hands on it.” The wizard looked particularly wizardly, eyebrows bristling, hair standing on end… Mirabel noticed her own hair standing on end, as the wizard reached out his staff and a loud blue SNAP came from the box.
“SYSTEM OVERLOAD,” said the voice from the air. “REALLY FATAL ERROR THIS TIME.”
“Code!” said the wizard.
“A…” the voice said, slowly.
“B!” said the wizard. “B code. B code run.” Mirabel wondered what that was about, just as a shower of sparkling symbols fell out of the air into the wizard’s outstretched palm.
“NO TRACE,” said the voice; the wizard stared at his hand as if it meant something.
“I need a dump,” the wizard said. Then he muttered something none of them could understand, nonsense syllables, and a piercing shriek came from the black box.
“NOOOOOOOoooo.” Out of the air came a shower of noses, ears, toes, fingers, and a pair of particularly ripe red lips.
“Aha!” said the wizard, and he followed that with a blast of wizardese that made another black object, not quite so boxy, appear shimmering on the desk. Without looking at any of them, the wizard picked it up and spoke into it. “I want technical support,” he said. “Now.”
The small demon in the black box enjoyed a profitable arrangement with others on various extradimensional planes. Quantum magery being what it was, wizards didn’t really understand it, and that kept the demons happy. Nothing’s ever really lost, nothing’s wasted, and the transformational geometry operated a lot like any free market. It was a lot easier to snatch extra mammaries than to create them from random matter. Demons are particularly good with probabilities, and it had calculated that it need keep no more than a fifth of its deposits on hand, while lending the rest brought in a tidy interest income.
“And I didn’t do nothin’ wrong, really I didn’t,” it wailed at the large scaly paw that held it firmly. Far beneath, eyes glowered, flamelit and dangerous.
“Subcontractors!” the universe growled, and the small demon felt nothing more as it vanished in universal disapproval.
“It’s under warranty,” the wizard insisted.
“Shipping replacement storage device…” the voice said.
“But my data…”
“Recovered,” the voice said. “Already loaded. Please stay on the line and give your credit card number—sorry, instruction error. Please maintain connection spell and give your secret name—” The wizard leaned over and said something through cupped hands.