"… if this agreement is breached, employee will immediately be struck by lightning and hereby agrees to forfeit his immortal soul…" Ali Akhan read out. He looked up angrily. "What kind of shit is this? I mean it’s very funny, but who’s gonna believe that nonsense?"
Moira smiled sweetly. "Oh, I think we can contrive to convince, My Lord."
"This is weird," he muttered, reaching for a pen. Then he looked up and grinned. "You don’t want me to sign in blood do you?"
"Oh no, that will not be necessary," Moira told him seriously.
Ali Akhan gave her a funny look and then signed his name. Taking the contract back, Jerry saw that his real name was Larry Fox.
Several other people looked at them strangely after they finished reading the contract, but none of them refused to sign it—much to Jerry’s surprise. Either things were slow in the Valley or these people were stranger than most computer types.
Considering the milieu…
"Fine then," he told the assembled group. "We will meet at the back parking lot of Los Alamitos Mall at seven o’clock Wednesday morning. Have someone drive you or leave your cars at home. Transportation will be provided from the meeting point to our destination.
"Come packed and ready to leave. Oh yeah. Don’t have anyone wait for you. Security, you know."
Several people looked at him strangely.
"Gotta be SDI," someone muttered.
"I wish we could leave sooner," Moira said as the newly formed team dispersed.
"I know, but we’ve got to give people time to get their affairs in order. Three days is really pushing it."
"Oh, I know, but I just wish…" She looked up at him. "Besides, I miss Wiz terribly."
Jerry studied her expression. "I’m getting kind of anxious to see him myself."
Wiz stayed at the black and white palace for as long as he dared. But there wasn’t any more food to be found in the kitchen or the palace storerooms. Besides, the Dark League’s search was working its way down into the waterfront neighborhood. He could hear the wizards calling to each other as they searched the streets and warehouses.
With the search moving to the waterfront, he decided the best thing he could do was to head back to the top of the town. Maybe there would be places up there heated by the volcano.
"Is there aught else to do here?" Moira asked after the last of their new employees had signed and left.
"Well, we could head back tonight, but there are a couple of more people here I’d like to talk to. The king has offered us space in his motorhome. Would you mind spending the night?"
"If we left now we would have to drive back the way we came in darkness?"
"Yes."
"Then let us stay the night," Moira said firmly. She wasn’t looking forward to the return trip in daylight and the idea of doing it at night was more than she could stand.
While none of the city of Night was warm, there were definitely some parts that were colder than others. Whether because of the natural microclimate or magic, Wiz didn’t know. But this street was especially cold.
Water had trickled down the street and frozen into a layer of glare ice, dark, shiny and unbelievably slick.
Wiz picked his way up the edge of the street carefully. The last thing he needed now was a broken leg.
He was so busy watching his step that he forgot to watch where he was going. He turned the corner and literally collided with a black-robe wizard.
They were both knocked flat, but Wiz recovered quicker. He spun onto his hands and knees and took off like a sprinter around the corner.
The wizard pounded around the corner hot on his heels and shouting at the top of his lungs. "I have found him. To me! To me! I have found HHHHIIIIIIIIIMMMMMMMM…"
Wiz ducked into a doorway and looked back to see the wizard go sliding by, flat on his back with his arms and legs waving in the air like a big black beetle. He almost laughed. Then he thought better of it and took off running as fast as he could.
When he stopped running he was more than a half a mile from the icy street. He sank to his heels with his head between his knees while he gasped in great lungfuls of the frigid air. Gradually his breath came back and he began to study his surroundings.
Behind him was a gate big enough to lead an elephant through. Through it he could see a courtyard with rooms opening onto it.
One place is as good as another, he thought. Keeping a wary eye for traps, he started exploring the building.
Nearly three hours later, Wiz stepped through the last smashed door and wrinkled his nose. The storeroom had been thoroughly ransacked, more than once from the looks of it. Besides, it smelled as if something had been lairing here.
But there was nothing here now and a storeroom seemed like the best place to find food. The buildings around this courtyard had apparently been barracks, with the workrooms, armories and storerooms that supported the soldiers. The armories had been stripped to the walls and the barracks were deserted, but there was a chance there might be something left in the storerooms.
This one didn’t look promising, he admitted as he poked among the rubble. There were bolts of cloth that had been pulled off the shelves, torn and trampled. Boxes of iron rivets had been broken open and the rivets scattered across the floor. Bundles of leather thongs, cracked and rotted hung from pegs on one wall. It didn’t seem like the kind of place where food had been kept.
Still, he was here and a quick check of the other buildings showed nothing more promising. The barracks kitchen had been easy to locate, but there was nothing to eat there. What hadn’t been carried off had been consumed by rats or larger animals.
The City of Night was more complex than he had ever imagined, Wiz thought vaguely as he poked the piles of rubbish in the corners and turned over debris on the floor. Somewhere there had to be food storehouses to feed the people who had lived here. But he didn’t have the faintest notion where.
Wiz stopped short. There, on the very top shelf was a pottery jar with a familiar shape.
Pickled fish, he realized. There were some districts along the Freshened Sea where salted fish was packed in vinegar with garlic, onions, vegetables, and spices and sealed in crocks to age and ferment. To the people of those districts pickled fish was a delicacy. Everyone else made jokes about it, especially about its tendency to produce gas.
Apparently the jokes about pickled fish were universal and whoever used this room had kept a personal cache here rather than listen to them.
With shaking hands he took the jar off the shelf. It was full and the clay seal around the lid was unbroken. Quickly he smashed the lid with a piece of wood from the floor.
The contents were dark brown, definitely past their prime and Wiz had made his share of jokes about pickled fish. But this was the most delicious thing he had ever eaten. Heedless of the promissory rumblings of his stomach, he finished the entire crock.
At 7:00 a.m. the group gathered in the back parking lot of the shopping center.
They were carrying everything from designer luggage to backpacks. One or two of them had laptop computers under their arms. Jerry wondered how well those would work where they were going. A couple more had apparently believed the Afghanistan story enough to bring cases of liquor with them. That, at least, would be useful, he decided.
"Okay, people," he called out. "Moira here, will…" he looked around. "Where’s Moira?"
"Here, Lord." Moira came trotting up with a large flat box under her arm.