Jerry nodded.
"What I tell you now is not common knowledge and I would keep it so. In the past three days we have lost two northern villages."
Jerry’s eyes widened. "You mean they were invaded?"
Bal-Simba smiled mirthlessly. "I mean we lost them. They are not there any more. Where they stood is virgin forest once again."
"That’s scary."
"Perhaps more frightening than you know. Our watchers and other magicians had not the slightest hint that anything was amiss. There was not the least quiver, not a sign that magic was at work."
"That’s real scary."
"That is also why I wish to keep it quiet for the time being. But you see why we must have your new magic, and have it soon.
"If we had this we could use it as evidence to help us bargain. Or as a weapon should the bargaining fail. In either event, we must have it quickly."
Jerry thought hard. Pressure to complete a project early was nothing new and he had been in a few situations where the fate of the company depended on it. But this was the first time being late with a project meant war.
"How fast do you need it?"
"We need it today," Bal-Simba said. "But the need will be critical in a moon or less."
"We’ll try," he said finally. "We’ll try like hell, but there’s no way we can have a working project in that amount of time."
"I understand," Bal-Simba said heavily. "Be assured that if it comes to open war we will return you and the others to your World before matters come to a head."
"Thanks," Jerry said uncomfortably. "Lord, you do understand that we’re working as fast as we can? There’s just not much more we can do."
"I do understand that and I thank you for your efforts. Meanwhile, is there anything we can do to make your job easier?"
Jerry made a wry face. "I don’t suppose you could come up with a forty-eight-hour day, could you?"
"Would that help?" Bal-Simba asked.
Jerry froze. "You mean you can come up with a forty-eight-hour day?"
"No," the huge wizard said sadly. "Only a spell makes a night stretch to twice its normal length. The great wizard Oblius created it for his wedding night. It did not help him for he discovered that his reach exceeded his grasp—so to speak." He shrugged. "I do not think it would aid us for you to sleep twice as long.
"Or would it?" he asked as he caught the look on Jerry’s face.
"Do you mean," Jerry said carefully, "that you have a spell that makes time pass half as fast?"
"We do," Bal-Simba said, "but it does not mean that time actually slows down. The people inside think so, but to outsiders they seem to speed up. Besides, it only works from sunset to sunrise."
Jerry whooped and pounded Bal-Simba on the back. "Fire up that spell! We just may be able to beat this sucker yet."
"People do not work at night," Bal-Simba protested.
"You’re not dealing with people," Jerry told him. "These are programmers, boy. Programmers!"
Seklos announced his presence to his master by sniffling and wiping his nose on the sleeve of his robe. He had been showing Dzhir Kar progressively less respect as the hunt for the Sparrow dragged on interminably. Besides, his cold had gotten worse.
"We have lost another one," Seklos said without preamble.
Dzhir Kar raised his head. "Where? How?" he demanded.
"In the south tunnels. Isk-Nor. Killed like the others."
Dzhir Kar nodded. So far half a dozen of the Dark League’s wizards had disappeared in the City of Night. Two of the bodies had been found, torn to pieces. Privately Dzhir Kar suspected that most or all of the others had deserted.
"I gave instructions that none were to hunt alone."
"He was not hunting. He was returning from a trip to a warehouse when he became separated from his companion."
"You mean he was out looting and found more than he bargained for," Dzhir Kar said sharply. "I warned you all that it is dangerous to go poking about. The City of Night is no longer ours."
Seklos sniffed and wiped his reddened nose on the sleeve of his robe. "And I warned you we must be done with your notion and sport and use magic to find him quickly."
"No! No detection spells. I forbid it."
"This is absurd! If you wish the Sparrow dead, then let us find him and kill him. "But this constant chasing about wastes our time and disperses our energies."
"Do you question my authority?" Dzhir Kar said dangerously.
"No master, only your judgment."
Dzhir Kar glared at his second in command. Under Toth-Set-Ra it would have been unthinkable for one of the Dark League, even the second, to use such language to the leader. But Toth-Set-Ra was dead. Dzhir Kar did not have his predecessor’s power.
"I will consider what you say," he said at last.
"Consider this also. There are those who grow restive. The deaths and disappearances of their fellows upset them. All are cold and hungry and many wonder if the prize is worth the effort. Today they grumble quietly. But soon they will do more than that. We must either find the Sparrow or call this off and do one or the other quickly."
Dzhir Kar nodded and waved dismissal. The wizard bowed and, still sniffling, backed from the room.
After Seklos left, Dzhir Kar sat for a long time with his head bowed and his hood pulled up around his face. His lieutenant was right, the deaths and disappearances had made the other wizards nervous. If something was not done, he would have a mutiny on his hands—probably led by Seklos.
His position was anything but secure and he and Seklos both knew it. Unlike Toth-Set-Ra, who had a powerful slaying demon at his beck, or the councils which had ruled the Dark League by playing off the shifting factions, Dzhir Kar ruled by the force of his personality alone. As long as he led the Dark League to success, or at least kept it out of major trouble, he would remain in power. But this business had occupied far too many of his wizards far too long in something both boring and dangerous. If that did not change quickly, the Dark League would have a new leader.
He had promised the Dark League that this would be a simple task. Use the turncoat northern wizard to lure out the Sparrow, rely on the homing demon to neutralize the Sparrow’s alien magic and then kill him quickly. On the strength of the League’s hatred for the Sparrow and the demonstration of his demon, the League wizards had agreed to his plan.
He raised his head and looked over to where his creation sprawled, eyes slitted and tendrils quivering as it sought a trace of the Sparrow’s magic. Dzhir Kar frowned. He hadn’t told them the whole truth about his demon. A wizard never did, of course, for knowledge was power. But in this case he had concealed a crucial fact and now that concealment was coming back to haunt him.
It was not a desire for sport that kept him from using detection spells, it was necessity. Detection spells would interfere with the demon’s senses. If anyone tried to use a detection spell to find the Sparrow, the demon would not be able to sense his magic in time to stop him from casting a spell. The League knew all too well what the Sparrow’s magic was like if he were free to employ it.
Dzhir Kar’s head dropped back on his chest and his claw hand tightened on the arm of his chair. Close. So very close to success and now time was running out.
"Two no-trump."
Karl, Nancy, Mike and Larry Fox were sitting at the table in the Wizard’s Day Room, all hunched over their cards.
"I thought you’d given up on cards," Jerry said as he came over to them.