by Rick Cook
The wind died, the fog dissipated as rapidly as it had come and the party found themselves standing in a large room crudely hewed from the rock.
Moira was pirouetting in static little circles, her arms flung out.
“Free!” she crowed, a wonderful silvery sound, “I’m free.”
She stumbled back against Wiz and he caught her close. “I’m also a little unbalanced,” she said, looking down at her swollen abdomen. Wiz lifted her chin and kissed her passionately, holding on as if for dear life.
Fluffy let out a plaintive wheep as if to say he wasn’t sure what had happened but he wasn’t at all happy about it.
Wiz broke his hold on Moira and looked over her shoulder at Danny.
“If that change hurt the baby . . .”
“Relax,” Danny said. “I didn’t morph her. It was just an illusion.” He gestured at Glandurg and the dwarf instantly shrank into a particularly warty and unappealing brown toad. Before anyone could react, he gestured again and there was Glandurg.
“Stupid mortal tricks,” the dwarf muttered.
Moira laid her hand on her husband’s sleeve. “No, I am fine. Honestly love. Never better.”
“You!” came a roar from the cavern entrance. Wiz and the others turned as King Tosig stomped into the chamber with a half-dozen dwarves trailing behind. Their armor was bent, their shields were battered and their battle axes were nicked and scarred. Tosig’s blade was as damaged as those of his followers and he held it aloft in a way that boded no good. Instinctively Wiz took a tighter grip on his staff and the guardsmen moved between the wizards and the oncoming dwarves.
Tosig ignored the mortals. “Come here, you,” he roared, pointing at Glandurg. “I want to talk to you.”
“Uncle!” exclaimed Glandurg, a little apprehensively. “I mean Your Majesty. I am here . . .”
“I don’t care what you’ve been up to, you young hooligan!” King Tosig bellowed. “Come here and give me that sword!”
“Of course, Uncle.” Glandurg whipped Blind Fury from its scabbard and brandished it aloft, nearly eviscerating King Tosig Longbeard in the process.
“Give me that, you silly nit!” the dwarf king snarled and grabbed the sword from his relative’s hand.
“I was going to present it to you proper,” Glandurg sounded hurt. “With a bow and all.”
Tosig only snorted.
###
“Well, there it is.”
E.T. Tajikawa stepped up and examined the glistening mass. “It probably wasn’t alive anyway,” Taj said.
Wiz looked at the wall of ice and the shadow forms embedded in it. So this was the Enemy. He knew he should feel something. Rage, triumph, something. But looking at the glassy mass he couldn’t work up any emotion at all.
Then he turned back to Moira and all the emotions in the world overwhelmed him.
Meanwhile, the dwarves had been busy looting since the end of the battle. Parties of six or seven disappeared down every tunnel and poked into each room, returning laden with boxes, bags and chests. From the rapidly growing piles it appeared that they were almost as good at looting as they were at fighting. Malkin wandered over to inspect one of the piles, heedless of the dwarves’ glares. Jerry could have sworn she kept her hands clasped behind her back the whole time, but she returned to him with a suspiciously lumpy tunic.
Bal-Simba turned to Tosig.
“Will you come back with us to the Wizards’ Keep? We owe you a debt and wish to thank you properly.”
“Alas, we must return immediately to our own land,” the dwarf king said. “We will arrange our own transportation from here.”
Down the corridor dwarves were carrying boxes and bales out of one of the rooms and stacking them in the middle of the floor. Bal-Simba pointedly ignored the looting.
“Mementos of our trip,” Tosig said and Bal-Simba nodded.
“Do not delay your departure over-long. It is our intent to see that this place gives us no more trouble.”
“Gone we shall be right enough,” Tosig said and turned away. “Hey, you,” he yelled to his scavengers, “hurry up with all that. We haven’t got all day.”
Wiz and Moira were still locked in an embrace, oblivious to everything around them until Fluffy pushed his head between them by main force and wheeped for petting and reassurance. Absentmindedly Wiz compiled.
“Poor dragon,” Moira said without taking her eyes off Wiz’s face. “This must be so hard for him to understand.”
“I’m not sure I understand it,” Wiz told her. “Except that you’re back just the way you were and all’s well that ends well.”
“Well,” said Moira, green eyes twinkling, “to tell the truth, I do feel an urge to go chase a cat.”
She laughed at his expression. “No, I am fine.” Then she looked down. “Bloated, swollen, clumsy, but fine.”
“You’re beautiful,” Wiz said with all the conviction in the world. “You’ve never been more beautiful than you are right now.”
Fluffy wheeped because Wiz had stopped petting him. This time he was ignored.
“This isn’t the end of it, you know,” Moira said softly.
She was right. There would be others like this thing to deal with. This wasn’t the last such entity that would come to be in out-of-the-way corners of the World. For the rest of his time here he and the others would face that problem and the problem wouldn’t stop when he died.
Then Wiz Zumwalt looked down at his obviously pregnant wife and hugged her even tighter to him. “No,” he said softly, “it’s only beginning.”