a little and then caught himself.
“Lord are you all right?”
Aelric smiled tightly. “I am as you see me, Sparrow. Now if you will
excuse me, it would be best to get this to safekeeping.”
And with that he was gone.
Forty-seven: LOOSE ENDS AND FAREWELLS
Moira was with the first group of wizards and healers to come to Caermort.
She and Wiz had time for a brief tearful reunion before the demands of
their work pulled them apart. That night they ate a dinner of cold field
rations on a terrace at Caermort and stood on the parapet looking up at
the strange night sky with only a few odd stars.
“A fell place,” Moira said with a shiver. “I will be glad to be gone.”
“You and me both,” Wiz said, leaning over to kiss her.
“Ah, I hate to disturb you folks,” Jerry’s voice came out of the darkness.
“But there are some people here who want to talk to you.”
Wiz and Moira turned. There was Jerry with twelve dwarves clustered around
him.
“Oh, wizard,” Glandurg called. “We would have speech with you.”
Wiz stepped forward. Moira started to come with him but he stopped her.
“Stay back here. It’s all right.”
“What about you?”
“Whatever happens I’ll be perfectly safe,” he said with more confidence
than he felt. “But I don’t want you close to me if he starts swinging that
sword.”
Surreptitiously Wiz readied a fireball spell, but he stepped up to the
group as if he hadn’t a fear in the world. “Glandurg, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” said the dwarf leader. “We have come to bid you farewell.”
“Very nice-but not to bring up a sore subject-what about your debt of
honor?”
“Oh that,” Glandurg said. “We were hired to slay an alien wizard whose
magic was wreaking havoc upon the World. The wizard is dead so our
contract is fulfilled.” He looked slyly at Wiz and Moira. “After all, the
trolls did not say which alien wizard they wanted killed.”
Wiz could only nod.
“We go now,” said Glandurg. “The evil wizard is slain, the balance is
restored to the World and our debt is paid. Perhaps our paths shall cross
again should you need doughty warriors to stand at your back on some great
quest.”
With that Glandurg and his followers turned and filed through the door.
Then they began to sing, jauntily but very off key.
” ‘Debts must be paid, ‘” Jerry quoted as the dwarf song died out in the
distance. “Those guys are the kind who would pay off a debt in
subordinated debentures-if they knew what subordinated debentures were.”
“Don’t tell them,” Wiz said. “The last thing this world needs is gnomes of
Zurich.”
“But those are not gnomes, they are dwarves,” Moira said. Wiz and Jerry
broke up laughing and she jammed her elbow into Wiz’s ribs, making him
splutter. “Oh all right! You and your silly name jokes.”
“I wonder how they expect to get off this island?” Wiz said, massaging the
suddenly sore spot on his short ribs.
“Burrow for all I care,” Moira said. “I do not understand how they got
here in the first place.”
” . . . and you should have seen the wizards’ faces when that dragon rider
and her dragon, popped up in the chantry next to Major Gilligan,” Judith
said laughing. The others laughed too and she helped herself to more bread
and cheese.
They looked like a halloween party. There was Wiz in his usual tight
pants, open-necked shirt and sleeveless tunic. Mick Gilligan was sitting
next to him in his Air Force green flight suit. Then came Moira in a long
gown of russet velveteen with forest green lining showing in the insides
of the flowing dagged sleeves. Jerry was beside her in a medieval-looking
tunic with a most un-medieval patch pocket full of felt-tip pens. Finally
there was Judith wearing the open-backed hospital gown she had arrived in,
now artfully dirtied and torn.
It had been barely twenty-four hours since Caermort had fallen and none of
them had gotten much sleep. But everyone agreed that the sooner they got
Mick and Judith back to their own World the better.