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Forty-eight: WINNERS AND LOSERS

The now-useless computer sat in a cellar at the Wizard's Keep. The pieces had been unpacked and set together in a pale imitation of a working system. It looked strangely out of place in the low room with the beamed ceiling and the rough masonry walls.

Wiz was sitting at the console with his back to the door, idly tapping on the keyboard with one hand.

"What are you doing, love?" Moira asked as she came up behind him.

Wiz shook himself out of his reverie and stood to kiss her.

"Just thinking," Wiz said after the kiss. "When I was back in Cupertino I dreamed of having one of these things all to myself. Now I've got one and it won't work here."

"I wonder if it is worth keeping?" Moira said with a housewife's practicality.

"I wouldn't feel right throwing it away. Maybe we can find a use for it."

"As a haven for gremlins, no doubt."

"I don't guess the gremlins are interested in machinery that doesn't work."

"Just as well," Moira said. "Else there would not be a moment's peace."

They stood arm in arm looking at the computer for a while.

"Well," Wiz said heavily. "At least that's over."

"Not quite, mortal."

Wiz and Moira whirled. There stood the elf Lisella.

Lisella smiled, cold and beautiful as the full moon at midwinter. "I mean you no harm, mortal. I come with a message. Duke Aelric bids you to him."

Moira moved in front of Wiz like a terrier protecting her master.

"Why does not the duke deliver his invitation himself?"

Ice blue eyes locked onto flashing green. "Because he is dying, Lady."

* * *

Duke Aelric lay on snowy linen in a cavern with softly glowing walls. He was so still and composed that at first Wiz thought they were too late. But as they approached he turned his head toward them.

"So Sparrow, we meet again." His voice was as firm as ever but he sounded weary, as if tired out by a great exertion.

"Yes, Lord," Wiz said numbly. Even this close he could not see a mark on the elf duke, but his normally pale skin was now almost chalk white.

"I wanted to see you once more to thank you. You have performed a great service for the whole World, including the ever-living."

"We almost screwed it up, Lord."

"You did very well indeed." His eyes flicked to Lisella. "Much better than some expected."

He stopped speaking and he seemed to drift for a moment. Then his eyes focused and he turned his attention back to Wiz. "You have my personal thanks as well." He sounded even wearier. "Ennui is part of the price the ever-living must pay." He smiled slightly. "Our association has been many things, perhaps, but it has never been boring."

"No, Lord." Wiz smiled through his tears. "It was not boring."

"No," Duke Aelric muttered almost beyond hearing. "Not boring."

Then he was still.

* * ** * *

Silently Lisella placed a hand on Wiz's shoulder and guided him away from the bier. Behind him he saw other elves drape the linen over the body.

"It was the key, wasn't it?" Wiz said at last. "That was what those others wanted all along."

"Of course," Lisella said. "You did not realize that it could be used to destroy a World as easily as to close it off?"

"Well, why the Hell didn't he tell me the thing was that dangerous?" Wiz blazed. "We came within an ace of losing it to Craig and Mikey and losing the entire World with it."

She looked at him with amusement. "Would you have dared to use your Mousehole to construct it if you had known?"

"Then why . . . Oh! You can't build one, can you? You can't make a key on your own."

"Not so precisely as to be that powerful, no. Neither could the others. To attempt to make it by magic is to warp the very fabric of the World."

"So you used us," Wiz said dully. "Just like those others were using Craig and Mikey."

"You disapprove, Sparrow?" the elf said coldly. "You find the price high?" She tossed her head in the direction of the still form under the linen draping. "Consider the price he knew he would pay."

Wiz gaped. "He knew?"

Lisella cocked a raven eyebrow. "Why do you think he took such an interest in you?"

"But why? I mean if he knew it was going to kill him . . ."

"Because he knew there was a better chance of success with you and your alien magics than working only with the ways of his people. He chose a road of certain destruction because it gave a better chance—not a certainty, only a better chance—that the World would live."

She looked at Wiz oddly. "It must be a strange and wonderful thing to be so attached to a place you would willingly go down to non-existence for it."

Lisella raised her hand and made a gesture in the air. "Go in peace, mortal. Our business is at an end."

And suddenly they were back in the computer room.

* * *????????????

For a long time neither of them said anything.

"Well," Wiz said at last, "the prophecy was true. The mightiest among us died and all of us lost."

"Craig lost his life. Danny and June lost the chance for more kids. Mick and Karin lost each other. Glandurg lost his quest. Judith lost months out of her life and we lost . . ." He stopped and swallowed hard, unable to go on.

Moira wiped her eyes. "Not everyone lost, I think. Mikey can be said to have gotten his heart's desire. So the prophecy was truly fulfilled."

Wiz thought about that. "Yeah," he said flatly. "You're right. He did get what he wanted."

* * *

Sunlight streamed through the mullioned windows of the Wizard's Keep in golden shafts and painted warm bright patches on the floor. Dust motes danced in the beams.

Mikey looked at the dust, fascinated. He stretched out his hand and tried to catch the dancing specks in his fist. But they would not be caught and he had more important things to do.

Very deliberately he plumped down on the floor and returned to the job of arraying his army. With exaggerated care he added a new tin soldier to the end of the first line of men. Then he took brightly painted wooden blocks from the pile beside him and added a new building to the town behind his men. He rearranged the cutout trees next to the town and leaned back to survey his work.

Looking out at the kingdom of block villages and tiny metal soldiers spread over the floor of his playroom cum prison cell, Mikey the Great beamed and gurgled with joy.

At last he was truly the master of all he surveyed.

 

 

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