She opened her mouth and closed it again. Then she said, “Thank you, sir.”
“You’ re very welcome. Groth, my friend! While you have the Key, please open that door
upon the Fields of Cormorath.”
“Done, sir.”
“ Charles, Danton — go a nd run to your hearts’ content.” The half-turned werewolves
snarled their gratitude and went loping through the doorway to the endless moonlit grasslands
beyond. “Dino?”
A gruff, good-hearted man. He app roached, and he was miserable. “ They burned my
place.”
“ Be at peace. The dwarves w ill toil swiftly. In three days’ time, your diner will be better
than new, and stocked wi th knives that will never dull.”
In his ruddy face, ho pe dawned. “Thank you, sir!”
“ Nay, friend, I beg you to take our apologies. This fight was not yours, and we of dwarven
kind regret that you should suffer for it.”
“Well—well, merry Christmas!”
I smiled. “ A bit early, Dino. But likewise to you, when comes the season. Chief
Braddock, I sense a smoke upon the air, and not from tended c himneys. I fear you’re needed.”
Their radios crackled, and they headed for their vehicles. Some looked like men
awakening from dream; others, like men returning to it. Like all mortals who encounter the
mystical, they would remember just as much as they chose.
Dill grinned at me. “ A well-timed entrance, old friend. I fear even Jones here would have
been hard put to contain such chaos.”
75
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