Rick Cook - The Wizardry Cursed

"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.

Pots of blackmoss tea and pitchers of chilled fruit juice shared the table with platters that had held small cakes and other delicacies. There was a sun dial very conspicuously planted in the middle and everyone made small talk while they waited for the shadow to shorten.

"How is Danny?" Judith asked.

"Bronwyn says he will recover well enough," Moira told her. "There is sickness in his blood and the burns were of a dangerous kind. Still, she can pull him through." She bit her lip. "But the energies released did something to him she cannot repair. He will have no more children."

"Damn," Wiz said softly.

"I’m so sorry," Judith said.

Moira shrugged. "Such things happen. Considering the carnage all about them they got off lightly."

"And June?" Judith asked.

Moira smiled. "With him night and day, of course. They have brought the cradle into the sick room so she may tend both of her men at once."

"What about Duke Aelric?"

Wiz shrugged. "He took the key and vanished. I imagine we won’t see him for a while."

Judith poured herself another cup of fruit juice, drained it and sighed. "My one chance to meet an elf. Gone."

The all fell silent for a moment.

"Well, anyway, I’m glad I got a chance to see you again," Judith said as she put her cup back on the table.

"And we are glad to see you, my Lady," Moira said. "I only wish it could have been a more pleasant visit."

Judith nodded and looked again at the creeping shadow of the sun dial.

"What are you going to tell them?" Wiz asked.

She looked down at the carefully soiled hospital gown. "That when I woke up I was wandering around downtown San Jose in this."

"That doesn’t explain anything."

Judith’s eyes twinkled. "I know. That’s the best kind of explanation."

"They’ll probably think you halfway came out of the coma, wandered out of the hospital and you’ve just been roaming around ever since," Jerry said.

Judith smiled. "How would I know? I was in a coma."

Wiz turned to Major Gilligan. "I wish I could reward you for your help, but I think anything we gave you would just complicate your life."

"I’ve been rewarded already," Gilligan told him. "And yeah, it would be a little hard to explain showing up with a bag of gold or something." As if this isn’t going to be hard enough to explain, he thought.

"Okay, we understand you want to go back to the Air Force as if you’d crashed in the ocean."

"I’ve pretty much got to."

"You know we would put you down just about anywhere in the world."

Gilligan shook his head. "I’ve got a duty to go back and it will be easier if it looks like I just crashed."

"We’ll put you and your gear down on an uninhabited island not too far from where you disappeared. From there you can use your radio to get help."

"How far is that island from where I went down?"

"About 200 miles."

Gilligan frowned. "That’s thin."

"We could put you and your raft in the water about where you crashed."

Gilligan thought about the freezing, fogbound Bering Sea and how long it would take to get rescued.

"I’ll take my chances on the island."

"Okay, one other thing. We could heal your burns completely, but you’d be left with marks you didn’t have when you took off." He looked Gilligan over. "Or we can partially heal you, so it will look as if you were burned when your plane went down."

"I’ve already been over this with your medics. I want to look like I was injured when I bailed out."

"You understand that once you’re on the other side the pain spells won’t work. Those burns will hurt."

Not half as much as some other things will hurt, Gilligan thought. But he just nodded.

Wiz nodded in return. "Very well, then. Your equipment’s in the next room. You might want to check it over and make sure you’ve got everything you need while you’ve still got time. Bronwyn will meet you there for the healing."

Just about all his gear was there in a neat pile, even the things he had discarded when he came ashore on the island. It was all restored by magic. Somehow they had even managed to refill the magazines of his pistol.

"Mick."

He turned around and saw Karin in the door. His equipment forgotten, he took her in his arms and kissed her. The burns made him clumsy but neither of them noticed. "Where have you been? Why didn’t you come with me?"

"Looking after Stigi and telling my superiors what had happened," she said in a small voice. "I could not come until my squadron leader released me."

He held her in his good arm close to his unburned side.

"Listen to me. I’ve got two more years left on this tour." If they don’t courtmartial me over this, he thought. "I’ll serve out my time and resign my commission. Then somehow, somehow, I’ll find a way to come back."

Karin looked deep into his eyes. "I will be waiting."

There was a discreet cough behind them.

"Time, my Lord," Arianne said. "Trooper, if you wish to accompany him to the chantry you may."

The wizards and others were already assembled when Gilligan and Karin came into the chantry.

As they came in, Wiz handed Gilligan a small wooden tablet. "Before you go, you might want to memorize this."

Gilligan looked down at it. "Is this what I think it is?"

"Yep, it’s an 800 number. Direct line to the Wizard’s Keep from any phone in the USA. Just don’t use it unless you really need to."

Gilligan looked up at Wiz. "I’m not going to ask how you did this."

Wiz shrugged. "It wouldn’t do any good. It was one of Danny’s projects. We figured we might need to contact people over there again and Danny set this up."

Gilligan stared intently at the scrap of wood and his lips moved as he burned the number into his memory. After a minute he handed the tablet back to Wiz.

"Is this legal?"

Wiz hesitated. "Like I said, it was one of Danny’s projects."

This time there were two circles of blue-robed wizards in the chantry. Bal-Simba stood at the head of one of them and Arianne led the other.

Mick and Karin embraced for one final time, then Arianne waved him to the center of her circle, next to his gear. Judith took her position in the other and the chants began.