The Wizardry Consulted by Rick Cook
One: Fluff the Magic Dragon
True, it is nonsense. But it is important nonsense.
Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein On His Life’s Work
(Quoted on the title page of The Consultants’ Handbook)
“You know one of the nice things about peace?” Wiz Zumwalt remarked to his cubicle mate. “It’s boring.”
Jerry Andrews turned away from the glowing letters of golden fire hanging in the air above his desk.
“Are you being sarcastic?”
William Irving Zumwalt, “Wiz” or “Sparrow” to one and all, twisted his wiry frame in his chair and brushed a lock of dark hair off his forehead. Like Jerry he was dressed in the flowing linen shirt, breeches and high, soft boots that were this world’s equivalent of jeans and a T-shirt. In spite of the clothes he still managed to look like a programmer.
“Heck no! I was just thinking how nice it is. No one’s trying to kill me, no one’s trying to destroy the world. No dwarf assassins, no elvish magic. Just peace and quiet. It’s boring, but you know something? I like being bored.”
Wiz sighed and looked out the traceried window into the rose garden below. Now that there were only three programmers left in the World, the Stablemaster had reclaimed their old quarters for his cows. In place of the Bull Pen, Danny, Jerry and Wiz had a spacious workroom in the main tower, with windows surrounded by climbing roses, and a view of the rose garden and the western wall of the Wizard’s Keep. Beyond the towers of the west wall, the green hills ran off into the purple distance.
In Wiz’s time in this world peace had been a scarce commodity. His first weeks after being shanghaied here were spent running for his life from the Dark League of the South. What with one thing and another, especially a red-haired hedge witch, he had discovered that the magic in this world could be made to work like a computer program. That led to a hacked-together magic language and a battle of magic that destroyed the Dark League. Then he’d been kidnapped by a remnant of the Dark League and spent weeks dodging wizards in the freezing, deserted City of Night. That was when Jerry, Danny and some other programmers were brought here from San Jose to help him. That in turn led to a couple of computer criminals finding their way to this world and that had ended in another enormous battle. In between there had been the job of teaching this world’s wizards how to program and months of delicate, wearing negotiations with the non-humans of the world who were upset by humans’ new magical powers. It had only been in the last few months that teaching and negotiating had tapered off and Wiz could get back to serious programming.
“Yep,” he repeated, taking his eyes away from the landscape. “It’s wonderful.”
“You sound as if you’re trying to convince yourself.” Jerry sounded amused.
“I’m already convinced,” Wiz said firmly. “I’m bored and I like it.”
Jerry leaned back in his chair, which squeaked in protest, and put his ham-like hands behind his head. He was several inches taller than Wiz and a lot heavier, although he had dropped perhaps forty pounds since coming to this world a couple of years ago. Even powerful wizards here got more physical exercise than their software counterparts in Cupertino. Like Wiz he was tanned, but unlike his friend, who drew his dark hair back in a shoulder-length ponytail, Jerry’s lighter brown hair was neatly trimmed above his collar. “I’d rather think of it as having enough time to work on interesting projects. Now that we’ve got wizards and apprentices trained in the basics of the magic compiler we’ve got the time for refinements.”
“Speaking of which, what is that you’ve been hacking on so furiously?”
“Kind of an experiment,” Jerry said, turning back to the code. “I’m trying to see how well the magic compiler works in a more conventional computer language.”
“You’re translating the thing into C?”
“Well, no,” Jerry said. “I thought I’d try something that was a little less tied to computer architecture. Something more general.”
Wiz looked over his shoulder at the lines of luminescent characters suspended in midair. Then he squinted and leaned closer.
The magic compiler was written in a combination of this world’s runes, the English alphabet and various made-up symbols. To the uninitiated a spell listing looked like someone’s graphics card had barfed on the screen. But even compared to that, this listing was strange. In addition to the “normal” symbols, there were tiny squares, triangles, right angles and things that were even less comprehensible. Wiz scanned the display several times, frowning.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that was . . .”
“Yep,” Jerry said proudly. “APL.”
Wiz groaned.
“Hey, you’re a fine one to complain. Who wrote the first spell interpreter in a hacked-up version of Forth?”
“That was different,” Wiz said with some dignity. “Forth was exceptionally well suited to what I needed to do.”
“So is this,” Jerry informed him. “APL is an extremely elegant language. You can express a whole series of complex mathematical operations in a single line of code simply, unambiguously and logically.”
Wiz tore his eyes away from the mess above Jerry’s desk and poured himself another mug of blackmoss tea. “If you’ve got a computer that can produce hieroglyphics and if you never need to remember what you did.”
“Nonsense. It’s no harder to write understandable code in APL than anything else. You can even write incomprehensible code in C.”
“I rest my case.”
Before Jerry could reply the door banged open and Danny limped in.
“How’s the back?” Wiz asked, grateful for a respite from what promised to be a full-scale language debate.
“Getting better,” the young programmer said, plopping himself down in his chair. He leaned forward almost forty-five degrees. “See? No pain.”
Considering the extent of his injuries, Danny was lucky to be alive, much less walking around. A blast from a guard’s weapon had nearly burned him in half during the great battle for Caermort almost three years before. Magic had saved him and magic had healed him, but not even the world’s most skillful healers could restore him fully in safety. So for months he had been going to the healers in the Wizard’s Keep for a combination of physical therapy, massage and healing magic. Gradually but steadily he was improving.
The third member of the software development team was several years younger with fresh good looks that made him look younger still. Even before his ordeal he had been slender, but the rigors of his recovery had taken flesh off his bones until he was positively skinny, despite the best efforts of his wife June and the castle cooks to feed him up.
He looked over at the characters above Jerry’s desk. “What’s that?” he asked, levering himself out of the chair and limping over to join them.
“APL,” Wiz told him. “He could have been doing something useful and he’s been writing an APL interpreter.”
“Well, whatever makes you happy,” Danny said with a shrug.
“Like figuring out how to tap into our world’s telephone system, I suppose,” Jerry retorted.
“Hey, we needed an Internet connection. We have to keep up with what’s going on back in the real world. Besides,” he added, “you’re the one who’s on that thing four hours a night.”
“I have a lot of newsgroups I have to keep up with,” Jerry said virtuously. “There’s a lot going on there.”
“Well, better keep it away from the wizards,” Wiz said. “I’m not sure what they’d make of some of those newsgroups.”
“You mean like the alt.sex groups?” Danny asked.
“I was thinking more of comp.language.flames, but yeah, the alt.sex groups too. Especially alt.sex.gerbils.
duct-tape.”
“That’s bogus,” Jerry said. “The real name is alt.sex.
bestiality.hamster.duct-tape.”
It was Danny’s turn to look smug. “You mean that’s another group. Just because it’s not in the official alt hierarchy you can’t find it.”
Wiz wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not. The Internet, an international computer network originally built around universities and research institutions, was famous for the depth and breadth of the knowledge contained in its newsgroups. However, even the Internet’s staunchest advocates had to admit that not all the newsgroups were research-related-or even serious. Hidden away in various places in the sprawling multi-dimensional message space were some decidedly odd things, including some highly unofficial newsgroups. But you needed to know how to use the net to get to them. Danny’s knowledge of the ins and outs of the net was extensive.
Danny was no sooner settled back in his chair than there was a discreet knock at the door. In all the Wizard’s Keep there was only one person who knocked so delicately, so discreetly and so exquisitely.
“Come in Wulfram,” Wiz called.
“Excuse me, My Lord.” The castle seneschal was calm, dignified and more than a little bit stuffy. “But . . .”
Before he could finish the door banged open again and two children and a dragon charged into the room.
“UncaWiz, UncaWiz,” shouted Caitlin, the daughter of one of the guardsmen. She was a couple of years older than Danny’s son Ian, with dark curly hair, flashing dark eyes and a single black eyebrow stark against her pale, fair skin. She was utterly charming, she knew it and she used it shamelessly.
Right on her heels came Ian. He was barely three and well into the head-down-and-charge stage of childhood locomotion. Without pausing he ran full-tilt across the room and bounced into Danny’s lap.
But the real attraction was the third member of the group, who charged into the room just as heedlessly, got his feet tangled up with the rug and his own tail, caromed off a pile of manuscripts and executed a neat bank shot to end up beside Ian and Danny.
Little Red Dragon, or LRD to the programmers, was little only in comparison to the eighty-foot cavalry mounts in the aeries below the castle. He-Wiz thought he was a he-was nearly ten feet long from snout to tail tip. His scales were darkening from scarlet to maroon and the blue edges were going from turquoise toward navy and his combination of exuberance, dragonish temper and size was making him increasingly hard to handle. Dragons do not become intelligent until they are nearly full grown. LRD was a long way from full grown and somewhat further than that from intelligent. But LRD and Ian were inseparable, so the dragon was allowed in the programmers’ workroom and their quarters in the Wizard’s Keep.
The seneschal knew when he was outclassed. With an exquisite sigh of resignation he stepped away from the door to await the wizards’ pleasure.
“The dragon’s got a new name!” Caitlin announced. “We had to come tell you because you can’t call him LRD any more.”
“Not LRD?” asked Danny, looking down at his son squirming in his lap.
“No! Fuf-fee,” Ian pronounced distinctly, reaching up and hugging the scaly monster’s neck. LRD looked pleased.
“I beg your pardon?” Wiz said.
“He means Fluffy,” Caitlin said with five-year-old superiority.
“Fluffy!” Ian repeated with three-year-old emphasis.
“Okaaay,” Wiz said, “his name’s Fluffy.”
“He’s taking us on a adventure,” Caitlin announced. “We’re going across the river to hunt for mushrooms.”
“All by yourselves?” Danny asked. “What does Shauna say?”
“Oh, Shauna can come too,” Caitlin said. “Fluffy says it’s all right.”
“Where is Shauna anyway?” Wiz put in.
“Here, My Lord,” the nursemaid said, puffing with exertion as she came into the room. She dropped a perfunctory curtsy to Wiz. “Sorry, My Lord, we were down in the orchard and they just took off running. The whole pack of them.” She turned toward her charges and planted her hands on her ample hips. “No manners in the lot of them. Just up and whooping off like a tribe of savages. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, bursting in here like that and disturbing wizards at their work. Why it would have served them right if they’d interrupted a powerful spell and been turned into a parcel of frogs!”
The boy, the girl and the dragon recognized their cue and they all managed to look properly abashed.
“Maybe it would be a good idea to take them over to the woods,” Danny said. “Let them run off some of this energy.”
“Well . . .”
“Please Shauna,” Caitlin wheedled.
“Peese,” Ian chimed in.
“Whuf,” added the dragon.
Shauna considered and then relented. “Well, all right, My Lord. But just to get them out of your hair.” She turned and glared fiercely at the children. “And this time that beast-“ She jerked her head at the dragon. “That beast has to swim the river. Near to upset the boat last time, he did, and the boatmen won’t take him any more.”
“Come on,” Caitlin whooped and dashed for the door. Ian jumped out of Danny’s lap and pounded after her and the dragon followed, nearly knocking Shauna down as he charged past.
“Here now!” she yelled. “Just slow down, the lot of you.” With an apologetic glance over her shoulder, she followed her charges out the door, calling to them to come back.
The racket died down as dragon, children and nursemaid vanished down the corridor.
At that point Wiz’s wife Moira came into the room, a wide-brimmed straw hat thrown back over her shoulders, setting off her freckled, slightly flushed skin and cascade of red hair. She was wearing a peasant blouse, a brightly colored skirt and she had a basket of fresh flowers in her hand. To Wiz she looked like a vision out of a Monet painting.
“Was that LRD?” Moira asked as she came over to kiss her husband hello.
“No, that was Fluffy.”
Moira arched her coppery eyebrows over great green eyes. “Love, even for you that is incomprehensible.”
“Wasn’t my idea.” Wiz shrugged. “Caitlin and Ian insist LRD’s name is Fluffy.”
“Where did they get that, I wonder?”
Wiz shrugged again. “Maybe the dragon told them.”
Moira just sighed and shook her head.
“Normalcy,” Wiz sighed. “It’s wonderful.”
Jerry snorted with laughter.
“What’s so funny?”
“Two kids go tearing out of here chased by a dragon, and you say it’s normal.”
“The dragon doesn’t bother me, I just think of it as an overgrown St.
Bernard.”
A discreet cough reminded him of the waiting seneschal.
“I’m sorry Wulfram. Now, you were saying?”
“There is a dragon to see you, My Lord.”
“A dragon?”
“A large dragon,” the seneschal amended with gloomy glee. “He is sitting on the East curtain wall and-ah-urgently desires an audience.”
For a minute no one said anything.
“Oh boy,” Wiz said at last.
“So much for normalcy,” Moira said.
“Just think of it as an executive vice-president from the home office,” Jerry suggested.