by Rick Cook
"I meant what I said about appreciating your help. Thanks again."
"Any time, Wizard. Any time." With that she disappeared down the hall.
As Wiz turned back toward the kitchen there was a hammering on the front door.
"What in the . . . ?" Anna was halfway up from the kitchen, but he waved her back and tugged the door open himself.
As soon as the door cleared the latch it flew open, sending Wiz reeling backward. Llewllyn burst through, waving his arms. He was flushed, sweaty and almost completely out of breath.
"Flee!" he gasped. "There's a dragon . . . Anna. Run. We must . . . run or be . . . burned where we stand."
He tried to push past to the kitchen but Wiz put his arm around him.
"Relax. The dragon's dead. It's all over."
Llewllyn turned back to Wiz and blinked. "Dead?"
"Very dead. There's no danger."
"But . . . but, but . . ."
"Look, we've got houseful of company, so if you can just put off seeing Anna until tonight I'm sure she can explain the whole thing." He gently turned the sometime bard and would-be magician around and guided him back toward the front door.
Wiz almost had him out the door when Bal-Simba came out of the parlor, rubbing the "meditation" from his eyes.
"Sparrow, I . . ."
Llewllyn gaped. He might never have been near the Wizard's Keep, but even people who had barely heard of the Council of the North recognized its leader on sight. Even in our world how many six-foot-eight, 380-pound guys do you see—outside of the NFL? And even NFL linemen don't file their teeth to points.
"I am sorry, Sparrow," the huge wizard said, "I did not know you had a visitor."
Llewllyn's head was swiveling back and forth between them convulsively. His mouth hung open and he had suddenly gone pasty white.
"Uh, leave us for a minute will you, My Lord?"
"Of course," Bal-Simba rumbled. "I will be in the parlor."
"You knew," Llewllyn said dully as soon as Bal-Simba closed the parlor door. "You knew what I was all along."
"It was a little hard for me not to," Wiz said dryly.
Llewllyn struck a noble pose, chin-high. "Well, go ahead. Denounce me to the council. Have them stake me out for the dragons to rend and tear. Or will you simply turn me into a toad?"
It was awfully tempting, but Wiz shook his head.
"I've got a better idea. I'm leaving tomorrow and I'm going to make you my successor."
Llewllyn stopped posing and gawked. "But, My Lord, I am a liar! A charlatan! A back-stabbing schemer!"
Wiz smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "I can't think of a better set of qualifications for this job."
It is also, he thought, called making the punishment fit the crime.
"Besides," Wiz continued, "Anna needs you."
Llewllyn looked blank. "Anna, My Lord?"
"My housekeeper. You know, the woman at whose merest whim you'd lay down your life. The very light of your existence. You are in love with her, aren't you?"
"You know I am, My Lord," Llewllyn said quietly. "But why is she your concern now that you are leaving?" His eyes narrowed. "Or was there something between you?"
"Would it make a difference to you if there was?"
Llewllyn looked at him levelly. "Only that I'd have your heart for trifling with her, be you wizard or no."
Wiz suddenly discovered Llewllyn could be amazingly convincing under the right circumstances.
"No, there was nothing between us. But she's a good kid and she deserves to be happy. You are apparently what makes her happy, so . . ." He shrugged.
The blond man bowed. "I will endeavor to see that she is happy, My Lord."
"Do that. Meanwhile, come back later." With that he pushed him out the door.
Twenty-seven: Dragon Tale Home
Always end projects on a positive note, no matter what they were like.
—The Consultants' Handbook
"Excuse me, My Lord," Anna said from the top of the kitchen stairs. "But Llewllyn, what did he want?"
"Mostly to tell you about the dragon. I asked him to come back this evening."
Anna frowned, prettily. "The one you killed? But I already knew that."
"Yes, but he didn't."
"My Lord?" It was a good thing Anna looked so pretty when she was confused, Wiz thought, because she spent so much time being confused.
"He'll explain it to you this evening. But I wanted to talk to you anyway."
A shadow darkened the maid's beautiful, empty brow. "Have I done something wrong, My Lord?"
"No, no. Not at all. It's just that . . . Look, you know I'm leaving here tomorrow with my friends?"
The maid nodded. "I know and I'm so happy." Then she went crimson. "Oh, that's not what I mean at all. I mean . . ."
"I know what you mean," Wiz said reassuringly.
"I mean it has been a pleasure serving you, My Lord, but I, I mean," then the words came in a rush. "I mean Llewllyn has asked me to marry him and I said yes and oh, I'm the happiest girl in the world!"
Wiz ignored the disembodied snort from over his shoulder. "Congratulations. When is the happy event?"
"As soon as can be." Her eyes sparkled. "He is wonderful and I love him so. Besides," her voice dropped. "I have been so alone since Grandma died. Oh you have been kind, My Lord, but there's been no one for me to turn to for advice and Llewllyn," she sighed, "why he knows everything!"
Wiz held up his hand, checking the explosion of spectral wrath behind him.
"Well, since I'm not going to be here for the wedding, I'd better give you your present early."
The girl flushed again. "Oh My Lord, that is not necessary."
"Still, I am going to give you this house. As a wedding present, you might say." Anna's jaw dropped and her face lit up like a child's at Christmas. He waved a finger. "Now mind, I am giving this to you personally. Not to the two of you. I've arranged it with the council that it shall be yours alone."
Anna hugged him and started to cry into his shirt pocket. "Hey, it's okay," Wiz protested and tried to move her away. "It's all right."
"Well, My Lord," Anna said with a smile and a sniffle. "I'd best go and finish in the kitchen."
"Yes, do that." Before Moira catches you hanging all over me and turns us both into toads.
"Smart," Widder Hackett said at last. "If she owns the house I'll be able to advise the poor child. And she'll need it, married to that empty-headed popinjay."
"That's kind of what I was thinking," Wiz said. That and I don't want to find out if the ghost stays with the owner if he leaves the house.
* * *
Malkin was gone for a long time doing Malkin-ish things. The principal one of those things was a visit to her fence to turn the last of her swag into gold. Since One-Eyed Nicolai didn't open for business until after dark, she took her dinner at a dingy little food stall in the Bog Side. On the way home she was diverted by a couple of opportunities to ply her trade and ended up returning with more loot than she left with, plus the gold from the fence, and coming in quite late to boot.
Thus it was that Malkin was sneaking up the back stairs with her latest acquisitions when a looming shadow blocked her way.
Jerry, who was wide-awake after the day's nap, had been net surfing on Wiz's workstation. He had taken a break to stretch his legs—and see if there was anything to eat in the kitchen. He wasn't expecting to meet anyone on the stairs and he nearly stepped on Malkin before he could stop. As it was he half-stumbled, half-fell into her and they ended up clinging to each other to keep from falling completely downstairs.
"Oh, hello," Jerry said mildly, releasing his hold on the girl.
"Hello yourself," said Malkin, looking up at him. Not only was she one stair lower on the stairway, but even on the level Jerry overtopped her by perhaps half a head. "Let's see, you're the one called Jerry, right?"
"That's me."
"And you're a wizard too?"
"Well, a p
rogrammer but around here it pretty much comes to the same thing." Between the darkness in the stairwell and Malkin's dark clothing Jerry couldn't see much of his new acquaintance, but the combination of dark hair working its way out from under the knit cap, the pale, fair skin and lithe figure he had wrapped his arms around to keep from falling all made a very favorable impression.
"I was just taking a break," he explained. "From work on the computer, ah, workstation, I mean." It occurred to Jerry he was babbling, but if he shut up she might just pass him by on the stairs. "I do that a lot. Work, you know. Besides I'm kind of a night person," he explained. "I do most of my best work then."
Malkin smiled up at him. "I know just what you mean. I'm that way myself."
Somehow the big programmer and the tall thief ended up sitting side by side on the stairs, talking. Somehow it was getting light outside before they reached a stopping place in their conversation and went their separate ways.
It is possible they were overheard. But Danny was sleeping in the front parlor and Wiz and Moira were far too occupied to hear anything. If Bal-Simba heard he gave no sign. Widder Hackett didn't talk about it and Bobo just looked smug.
It was barely dawn, but Wiz was already up and packing to go. He was taking clothes out of the wardrobe, folding them more or less neatly and putting them in a thing he persisted in thinking of as a duffel bag, even if it was made out of sueded leather rather than canvas. There wasn't much besides a few clothes. He hadn't accumulated many possessions in his time here, just as he hadn't grown particularly attached to the place.
There was a shadow at the window, as if a cloud had passed before the rising sun. But a cloud doesn't usually send the early risers in the street running and screaming. Nor does a cloud rattle the windowpanes.
Shirt still in hand, Wiz went to the window. There was a dragon settling daintily into the square, oblivious to the townsfolk scattering like a herd of terrified sheep. He didn't have to be told it was Wurm.
"Leaving, Wizard?" the dragon's voice came in his head.
"Yes, now that I'm free of your damned geas."
Wurm waddled across the square until his head was just outside Wiz's room. It was a small square and Wurm was a large dragon, so it was only a few steps.
Wiz watched him come. He discovered he wasn't intimidated by dragons any more, but he was awfully tired of them.
"You had solved the problem so I would have removed that anyway."
"Big of you," Wiz said and turned back to his packing.
The dragon cocked an enormous golden eye at Wiz through the window.
"You have not claimed your fee."
Wiz put a stack of shirts into his pack and hissed in irritation as one of them slid onto the floor. "I'm not interested in a fee," he said stooping down to pick up the shirt.
Wurm raised an enormous eyebrow. "If you are not paid how do you expect to remain in business?"
"I'm out of business as of right now," Wiz told him. "The next time I feel the urge to do this I'll take up a more honest branch of the profession, like television evangelism."
"Nevertheless, you are entitled to payment."
"The only payment I want is a little peace and quiet, like about fifty years worth. I don't want ghosts screeching in my ear, I don't want to have to worry about the cops busting down my door because of my housemate's hobbies, I don't want to have to put up with a bunch of quarrelsome children masquerading as politicians." He threw the shirt into the bag and it promptly slid out again. "And most of all, I don't want to have to deal with dragons."
"That is a rather large reward indeed," Wurm said. "Even for a task such as you have performed."
Wiz stuffed the shirt into the bag again, more carefully this time, and turned to face the dragon. "You knew this, didn't you? You knew the new magic was spreading to the north and you knew that with it humans could beat the dragons."
"Let us just say I found the probabilities inopportune," Wurm said lazily.
"So you went right to the source of the new magic and kidnapped me to fix things before they got out of hand."
"And you fixed them. That is vindication enough, I think."
Wiz opened his mouth to protest and then closed it again. Dragons being cold-blooded in more ways than one, nothing else was likely to matter to Wurm, least of all the danger Wiz had been in.
"So you dragged me in here against my will to help the humans with their dragon problem."
"I prefer to think of it as dragons having a human problem," Wurm said.
"Well, why didn't you just tell me that?"
Wurm's "voice" was coldly amused. "Would you have bent all your skill to protecting dragons from humans? Even under geas?"
There was enough truth in that that Wiz didn't have a reply, so he changed the subject. "By the way, what are you going to do?"
"I? Oh, you mean dragonkind. We will solve our own problem—now that we agree it is a problem." The dragon sounded amused. "That is the essence of consulting, is it not? To, ah, 'borrow someone's watch and tell him what time it is'?"
Wiz wondered where the dragon had heard that. He had an uneasy feeling Wurm had heard, and knew, a lot more than he was telling.
"Goodbye Wizard. I do not think we will meet again, but I predict you will have an extremely interesting future." With that Wurm turned sinuously, took three running steps and launched himself into the air with a beat of wings that rattled the windows and made the shutters bang against the walls.
"If I have anything to say about it," Wiz said to the dragon's rapidly dwindling back, "my future will be about as exciting as watching grass grow."
"I see you had a visitor," Bal-Simba said as Wiz came down to breakfast in the kitchen.
Wiz leaned over and kissed Moira soundly before replying. "Yeah, Wurm. He wanted to say goodbye."
Moira arched a coppery eyebrow and the big wizard accepted this without comment. Wiz helped himself to the porridge on the tile stove. He added some sliced apples and peaches from a bowl on the table and drizzled honey over the mixture.
It was a remarkably full kitchen, considering the programmers' normal working hours. Anna was still bustling about finishing up the last of breakfast. Moira was sitting next to Bal-Simba and Jerry and Malkin were off to one side, talking intently. Only Danny hadn't come down yet and that wasn't surprising. Yesterday was probably the earliest he had gotten up in months.
Wiz took a mouthful of porridge and fruit and sighed.
"A few more hours and we'll be back at the Wizard's Keep and peace and quiet."
Moira raised her eyebrows and gave Wiz one of her patented smoldering looks with her enormous green eyes. "So it's peace and quiet you want, My Lord?" Bal-Simba guffawed.
Wiz reddened. "Relatively speaking, I mean. And speaking of relations . . ."
Anna set another bowl on the table and Moira looked at the girl significantly. "We shall have plenty of time to discuss that when we get home."
"Home," Wiz repeated. "I can't wait to get back. I've missed you so much. I've missed all of you." He quirked a smile. "Heck, I even got to missing Little Red Dragon, I mean Fluffy."
Moira raised an eyebrow and smiled. "I take it you have not enjoyed your adventure? Seeing strange lands? Battling dragons? Doing great deeds of heroism?"
Wiz smiled back. "I only battled dragons when it was absolutely necessary, I rigorously avoided deeds of heroism, great or otherwise, and this place may be strange enough, but I wish I'd never seen it and I bet you all do too."
Moira turned to where Jerry and Malkin were deep in conversation.
"Well, not all of us perhaps."
Watching the pair Wiz felt a sudden chill.
"Well, we'll be out of here soon enough. Let me finish eating, grab my staff and we'll be leaving inside a half-hour." He smiled at the prospect and leaned back to take another pull from his mug of tea.
"Oh, that reminds me," Jerry said. "I've got some news too. Malkin's agreed to come back to the Capital with us."
Wiz spewed tea all over the table.
"WHAT?" he demanded indignantly and lapsed into a coughing fit that somewhat diminished the effect.
"I have decided to come with you," Malkin said gaily. "This Capital of yours sounds like an interesting place. Full of opportunities."
Wiz thought of Malkin's definition of "opportunity" and blanched. "I don't think you'll find any opportunities in the Capital. Nope, no opportunities at all. It's a dull place really. Full of all kinds of boring guards and burglar alarms and . . ." He trailed off when he saw he obviously wasn't making an impression. Then he looked at her more closely, over at Jerry and back at Malkin. "There's more to it than just opportunity, isn't there?"
Malkin looked shy. "He's the first man I've ever met I didn't have to look down on."
Wiz was tall by this world's standards and Malkin could look him square in the eye. Jerry was a head taller than Wiz, which made him about the biggest man around, save Bal-Simba. He was still heavy, but after several years of more exercise and the diet full of vegetables, grains and fiber eaten in this world he was no longer exactly fat.
Wiz looked at his friend.
"I've never met anybody like her before," Jerry said simply.
Considering that Jerry had never been in jail that was probably true, Wiz reflected.
Wiz turned to Moira. "I don't suppose this is some kind of infatuation spell?" he asked with a tinge of desperation in his voice.
Moira looked amused. "Infatuation, yes. A spell, no. Only the age-old magic between man and woman."
Wiz put his head in his hands and moaned.
"Is there aught I can do?"
"Yes, warn the people at the Wizard's Keep to nail down anything they want to keep." He considered. "And tell them to use big nails."
Jerry and Malkin had moved to the corner, intent on some private matter and oblivious to the other people in the room. She had her hands on the rough stone walls and was apparently explaining to him how to scale a wall at a corner. Jerry was just looking at her, ignoring what she was saying.
"I think Jerry has finally met his match," Moira said approvingly. "She seems quite taken with him as well."