Rick Cook - The Wizardry Quested

Like most Las Vegas hotel rooms the bathroom and dressing area were next to the door, forming a short corridor and shielding the beds from direct view of the door. While everyone else crowded around the corner, Gilligan pulled his shut from his pants, kicked off his shoes and went to the door, rumpling his hair as he went

"Yes?" he said trying to sound sleepy, as he opened the door a crack There was a man in a hotel blazer and two armed guards on the other side.

"I’m Mr. Masterson, the assistant manager," the man in the blazer said. "Have you seen anything, ah, unusual in the last few minutes?

"I’ve been asleep."

"Yes sir. Do you mind if we come in and check things out? Just as a precaution you understand."

"What’s wrong?"

"Please open the door, sir," one of the guards said firmly.

"Who is it, honey?" came a sleepy female voice from inside the room. An amazing voice, oozing sex and promise.

"Ah, it’s the hotel," Gilligan said, managing to keep his wits about him.

"Oh, what do they want?" Now there was a note of sultry disappointment. "Can’t you get rid of them and come back to bed?"

Gilligan looked at the manager and shrugged. "This is really inconvenient, you know. My wife, she’s just joined me, and:"

"Oh come on, honey," came the steam-heated voice. "Just tell them to go away." The manager, who didn’t believe this stuff about a dragon anyway, jerked his head. "Sorry to disturb you, sir. If you see anything please call the desk." The guard glowered, but moved back from the door.

"Sure, sure," Gilligan said as he shut the door. Then he leaned against it and let out a deep, heart-felt sigh.

"Okay people, they’re gone."

"Thank you for rescuing us, My Lord," the dragon said in an everyday version of the voice that had gotten rid of the searchers.

"Uh, you’re quite welcome," Gilligan said. A talking dragon, he thought numbly, a talking dragon with a voice made for phone sex. Of course.

The dragon’s eyelids dipped demurely. "I did not think they would be so base as to disturb a couple intimately engaged."

"Ah, right," was all Gilligan could manage. "By the way, I’m Mick Gilligan." He looked closely at Jerry. "I think we met once before, just briefly. Ah, someplace else."

Jerry looked at him and his mouth dropped open. The fighter pilot! Right, I remember you."

"And I am Ivan Kuznetsov."

From somewhere Gilligan remembered that "Kuznetsov" meant "Smith," so the Russian’s name translated as "John Smith" -a fact which reinforced Gilligan’s speculations about the man’s background. Jerry didn’t seem to notice. He shook the man’s hand vigorously. "Pleased to meet you."

The other Russian was older and leaner, with the leathery skin of someone who had spent most of his life outdoors and the studied, unobtrusive manner of someone who preferred not to be noticed. For some reason he reminded Gilligan of the instructors at Air Force survival school.

"This is Vasily Gregorivich, my associate."

Jerry put out his hand. "Pleased to meet you Mr. Gregorivich."

"Vasily," the man corrected, taking it.

"Gregor is his father’s name, so Gregorivich is his patronymic," Kuznetsov explained. Gilligan realized he had never heard Vasily’s last name. He wondered what it was, but Vasily didn’t seem inclined to volunteer the information and besides, he suspected it would probably turn out to be the Russian equivalent of

"Jones."

"I am called Bal-Simba." The wizard extended a meaty paw.

The Tajmanian Devil waved. "Taj."

"And I," the dragon said, "am called Moira. I believe we also met before, but I was in my proper body then."

Gilligan looked hard at her.

"Normally she’s a redhead with green eyes and freckles," Jerry explained."

"Oh! Right The Sparrow’s wife."

"Even so," Moira said sadly.

"Now," Gilligan said "Suppose you tell me just what the bloody hell is going on around here?"

The explanation took several hours.

They broke for lunch in a cul-de-sac with a convenient jumble of rocks to serve as table and chairs. The fare was the usual cracker bread and dried meat with magically heated herb tea.

"Okay, people," Wiz said as they waited for the tea to brew, "strategy session. So far we’ve only been reacting to what we’ve encountered. I think we need to start taking the initiative."

"Meaning what?" Malkin asked.

For starters let’s look back over what we’ve run into down here and try to see the pattern to it all"

"Well," Danny said slowly, "leaving aside the lobster, we haven’t run into the same thing twice."

"I think the lobsters a special case," Wiz said. "So the similarity is that they’ve all been different."

"There is something else," Malkin said quietly. "They haven’t ganged up on us. Usually the first time you have a run-in with a guard his fellows come running. So far it seems we have faced only those things we have encountered by chance."

"And that’s not good news?" Danny asked. "That we haven’t been mobbed?"

"I mislike it"

"They fear our steel," Glandurg said confidently.

Somehow Wiz didn’t think that was the answer.

There’s another possibility, " Danny said. " Maybe these things all have separate patrol areas they won’t leave. That’s the way a D&D game is set up. Most of your monsters are tied to their rooms, or a stretch of corridor, and there’re only a few roamers."

Malkin rubbed her chin. "It would keep all the guards from being drawn off by a distraction, but it still seems a strange way to protect something."

"Whoever’s running this show does a lot of strange things, so think about it and see what you can come up with," Wiz said. "Anyway, there’s another implication to that strategy."

The thief looked at him questioningly.

"In a D&D game the monsters get tougher as you get closer to the treasure."

": so anyway," Jerry finished. "All we’ve got to do now is get to this place in the desert where we can make the jump back to our world." Jerry spread out a Nevada road map. "It’s a couple of hours north of here." He put his finger down.

"Right here on this dry lake bed."

"Oh boy!" Gilligan said almost reverently.

"Boshemoi!" Kuznetsov added.

Jerry looked up from the map. "Now what’s wrong?"

"That’s part of Nellis Air Force Base," Gilligan said. "Restricted area."

"Worse than restricted," Kuznetsov said. That is Area 51, Groom Lake. Top-secret testing area for F-119, SR-25 and other aircraft your government swears do not exist. That is most tightly guarded piece of land in whole country. Almost as tight as places in Soviet Union-when there was a Soviet Union."

The Russian looked over at Gilligan. "He cannot tell you this because of agreement he signed when he left Air Force. Me, I signed no such agreement."

"Well, we don’t have to come in through the front gate. It looks pretty deserted out there and we’ll be gone within a couple of minutes of reaching the power vortex."

Gilligan kept a poker face. Kuznetsov just grinned. "As soon as you set foot on land they will be after you.