"Jerry says there is nothing in the material he has. Is there anything they missed?"
The hedge witch shook her head.
"Nothing." Then she brightened. "But Lord, what about the searching system Wiz set up to find me? Could we not direct the searching demons to seek out Wiz?"
"We thought of that," Bal-Simba told her. "But it appears that the spell requires constant attention. The small searchers, the ones like wisps of dirty fog, are easily blown about by the wind. The larger ones drift as well, given time. A year’s storms have scattered the demons beyond recall."
"And without the spell we cannot recreate the work." Unconsciously she crushed the rose in her grasp.
"Wait a minute! Lord, what about the spell Wiz used to find me in the dungeon?" Moira asked. "The Rapid Reconnaissance Direction Demon?"
Bal-Simba slapped his thigh and the sound rang off the walls. "Of course! It could search the entire World in hours."
A quick survey of the notes in the Bull Pen turned up the spell. With Jerry and several of the other programmers who hadn’t yet turned in at their heels, Moira and Bal-Simba went out into the courtyard to put the spell in operation.
"Now then," Bal-Simba said to himself as he flipped between the pages where the spell was written, alternate lines on each page to prevent activating the spell by writing it down. "Hmmm, ah. Yes, very well." He faced into the courtyard, squinted into the morning sun and raised one hand.
"class drone grep wiz," he commanded in a ringing voice. There was soft "pop" and a squat demon appeared in the courtyard. Its cylindrical body was white, its domed top was blue and it supported itself on three stubby legs. "exe!" commanded Bal-Simba.
The demon emitted a despairing honk and fell forward on its face. A thin trickle of smoke curled out of its innards.
"Let me see that spell again," Bal-Simba said to Moira.
Three repetitions produced no better results. Once the demon simply froze, once it flashed off never to return and once it ran around in tight little circles emitting little beeps and squawks. At last Jerry listed out the spell to see if he could discover the difficulty.
"I think I see what’s wrong," Jerry said finally. "But it’s not going to be easy to fix."
"What is the problem?" Bal-Simba asked.
"The problem is that this code wasn’t written for anyone else to use."
"You mean this spell is protected by magic?" Moira frowned. Such protections were not unknown on powerful spells.
"Worse," Jerry said glumly. "This code is protected by being write-only."
"Eh?" said Bal-Simba.
"Wiz hacked this thing together to do a specific job, right? From the looks of it he was in a tremendous hurry when he did it."
"I was a prisoner of the Dark League," Moira said in a small voice. "He wrote the spell to find me."
"Okay, he needed it fast. He never expected that anyone else would use it, he used the quickest, dirtiest methods he could find, he didn’t worry about conforming to his language specification and he didn’t bother commenting on it at all." Jerry looked at the glowing letters again and shook his head. "I don’t think he could have understood this stuff a month after he wrote it and I don’t have the faintest idea what is going on here."
"This," he said pointing to a single line of half a dozen symbols, "apparently does about four different things. Either that or it’s some kind of weird jump instruction." He scowled at the code for a minute. "Anyway, the whole program is like that. I don’t see three lines in a row any place in this that I understand."
"We do not need to understand the spell," Bal-Simba rumbled. "We only need to use it this once."
Jerry shook his head. "It’s not that simple. What are the commands? What are the options you can use? How is it all supposed to work? You already tried this and it failed. Until we understand it we won’t know why it failed."
"How long will it take you to find out?"
Jerry shrugged.
"I don’t know. The hardest part of a job like this is always getting your head cranked around to see the other guy’s way of doing things. Once you do that, sometimes it just falls right into place." He frowned. "And sometimes not. Anyway, I’ll put a couple of people on it. I wouldn’t count on being able to use this any time soon, though."
"Hopes raised and dashed before breakfast," Bal-Simba said as they walked across the courtyard. "I am sorry, My Lady. I thought surely we had found the answer."
Moira clenched her jaw and held her head high. Bal-Simba saw she was crying. "There is still one thing we may try," she said tightly. "I will go to Duke Aelric and plead for his help."
Bal-Simba stopped dead. "What?"
"Elven magic is much more powerful than human. Surely they can find him."
"I was under the impression that duke Aelric was already looking for Wiz."
"Then we can share what we know."
"Dealing with elves is dangerous," Bal-Simba said neutrally.
Moira flicked a grim little smile. "Madness, you mean. But Aelric seems to have a fondness for Wiz and I think he might listen to me."
"I ought to forbid you to do this."
Moira resumed walked. "Forbid away. But do not expect me to heed you."
The hill managed to be peaceful and foreboding at the same time. The moonlight played down on the wooded knoll, silvering the leaves of the trees and the grassy clearing before them.
But the moon also caught the megalith standing at the base of the hill where woods met grass. Three great stones, two upright and one laid across them like the lintel of a door. Was it only a trick of the moonlight that made the shadows within stir?
Moira licked her lips and pressed them firmly together. In spite of her cloak she was chill and she did not think the warm summer night had much to do with it. She took a firmer grip on her staff and strode boldly into the clearing.
"I wish to speak to Duke Aelric," she said loudly.
There was no response, no movement. The hill lay in the moonlight exactly as it had. Moira thought of repeating her request and decided against it. Elves were a touchy breed and much consumed with politeness. A human thought pushy or demanding would be in dire trouble.
"My Lady."
Moira jumped. Duke Aelric was standing in the moonlight in front of her. He wore a white doublet and hose embroidered with silver that glinted in the moonlight and a hip-length cloak of pale blue.
He regarded her with interest but without the warmth he had showed the last time they had met. Nor did it escape her notice that the elf duke had not welcomed her, merely acknowledged her presence.
She licked her lips. "My Lord, we need your help in finding Wiz."
Aelric arched a silver brow. "An elf helping mortals? An odd notion, Lady."
"It has been known to happen."
He gestured languidly. "So it has, when it is sufficiently amusing. I fail to see the amusement here."
That was the end of it then, Moira acknowledged as a cold lump congealed in her stomach. When Wiz and Moira had first met Aelric, she had told him that elves acted for their own reasons and no mortal was ever likely to untangle them. Standing here in the moonlight with the elf duke she began to appreciate how true that was.
Moira took a deep breath and gathered all her courage. "Lord, forgive me for mentioning this, but is it not true that your honor is involved as well? Wiz did disappear while travelling from your hold."
Aelric gave her a look that made her go weak in the knees. For a horrible instant she thought she had offended the elf.
"My honor is my own concern," he said coldly, "and not a matter for discussion with mortals. I know who kidnapped him and at the proper time they will feel the weight of my displeasure."