Shea squeezed back, with a very fond smile. "I'm awfully lucky I met you." She was tall and slim, with red-gold hair trimmed in a long bob. It went splendidly with the green dress she was wearing, somehow suggesting the forest that was her natural home. Shea reflected once again on his amazing good luck in finding her, and the unbelievable phenomenon that she had actually fallen in love with him. "Maybe we can't begin to plan for the future yet, but at least the present is safe—for a little while."
Belphebe frowned. "Odd words, for a knight-errant. "
"This knight-errant has suddenly begun to be more interested in security than in adventure," Shea said sourly, "and his native universe is certainly higher in the former, than any of the others he had visited."
Belphebe smiled, touching his hand, her face glowing. "Wherefore so huge a transformation?"
"It has something to do with having a wife at home," Shea admitted. "I tell you, dear, when Archangle hinted that the "project" might be eliminated, it sent a chill through me. He implied that the Institute might need an overall replacement of personnel, myself included. I never would have thought the hint of losing my job would send me into such a panic."
Belphebe frowned. "That is not good."
"No, because there are always more jobs, right? But it's comfortable here, and Garaden is a good town for ..." He caught himself; child-rearing was a topic they had not discussed. Much. "... a good town for a young couple. I'd just as soon not have to move."
"If you must, we shall," she said simply, with a squeeze of his hand.
"Thanks, sweetheart." He smiled into the sun-dazzle of her eyes, then frowned. "But what am I supposed to do about contacting Doc and Walter?"
"Well," she responded quite reasonably, "since you cannot write to them, and cannot call them on this magical far-speaker of yours ..." She gestured to the telephone, "... then you have no recourse but to visit them, and present to them the Boards request."
Shea felt a stab of apprehension. "No, I don't suppose I have, have I?"
"Oh, be not so troubled!' Belphebe reached forward to take his hand in both of hers. "At worst, they'll give you definite answers that you can present to the Board; at best, they might decide to return to visit a while."
Shea smiled back, returning the handclasp, heartened by her support. "True. You always see things so clearly." Then he frowned. "But there's no telling how long it might take, dear, and I don't like the idea of leaving you for so long."
"Oh, as to the first, once you are arrived in a universe in which magic operates, you can easily cast a spell that will take you to him whom you seek—and as to the last, fear not! I shall come with you."
Shea stared. "You ...?"
"Of course." Belphebe rose, smiling, and pulling him up with her. "Have you forgot wherefrom I came? Or are you foolish enough to be concerned for my safety?"
Well, uh, now that you mention it ..."
"Foolish man! Have you forgot my skill with the bow, or who 'twas saved you from the Losels?" Belphebe gave him a sidelong, roguish glance. Nay, if you were to leave me behind, I would be every bit as concerned for you! Come, Harold, let us sup and sleep, then rise and go!"
So the next morning, Shea made a quick trip back to the Institute, to rifle his colleagues' desks. Then he came home, to find Belphebe dressed in the short-skirted tunic and feathered hat of her home world, with her bow in her hand and quiver on her back. He dressed in tunic and hose with sword and dagger at his side. Then he stepped into the middle of the living room, left hand holding the papers filled with the arcane characters of symbolic logic, right reaching out for Belphebe. Smiling, she came to stand beside him and clasped hands. He gave her one of the sheets of paper and grinned at her, feeling more lighthearted than he had for months. "Ready?"
"Ready, Harold!" She answered his grin with one of her own. "Sing hey, for ancient Erin!"
Then, holding each other's hands and reading from the sheets of paper, they began to read, reciting the sorites in unison, over and over, again and again, until the gray mists gathered about them, thickening and swirling until they seemed to be all the world there was, then shredding and dissipating to show them a countryside that was so green as to seem unbelievable.
Shea looked about him and breathed deeply of clean, fresh air. He felt the weight of patients, students, and administrators roll off his shoulders. He turned to Belphebe, and saw her looking about her with the same deep breath, then turning to him with sparkling eyes. " 'Tis not home, Harold—but 'tis a delightful place to sojourn."
"I know what you mean—I wouldn't want to live here either," Harold agreed.
"Nay, sir." A shadow crossed her face. "If we should chance to meet that brute Cuchulainn ..."
"Not likely." Shea rummaged in his wallet and brought out a stub of pencil. "We're just going to meet Walter, then on to the Ariosto's universe."
Belphebe stared. "With naught but a bit of lead in wood? flow shall that aid?"
"Because it's something that Walter used very often. It should have enough of his personality impressed on it to respond according to the Law of Contagion."
"Ah!" Belphebe's frown vanished. "Aye, then, chant!"
Harold reached out for her hand again, and held up the pencil stub, concentrating on it as hard as he could and reciting,
There was a moment's disorientation—the trees seemed to tilt and slew, blurring into a mass of green. But that mass slowed and separated into trees again ...
Trees all around. Shea looked about him, startled, then turned back to Belphebe, alarmed. But she was standing right beside him, looking only a trifle green, though she was clinging to his hand even more tightly than when they'd left. " 'Twas ... odd, Harold."
"Yes, it certainly was," Harold agreed. "We must not have had to travel terribly far—but far enough so that we definitely noticed the discontinuity." He looked about him again. "Forest, huh?"
" 'Tis most indeed like to home." Belphebe brightened at the sight of her native habitat. "Trees, wood, no doubt creatures great and small ..."
"But no Walter."
"Aye, there is that." Belphebe frowned.
Shea sighed. "What did I do wrong this time?"
"Naught, I should think." Belphebe eyed the shadows with a hunter's accustomed wariness. "You told the pencil stub to take us where he comes, so if we are not by him, we should surely see him."
"Or will!" Shea slapped his forehead. "I got the words in that last line out of order! I meant to say, 'Take us soon where he will be,' but instead I said, Take us where he soon will be! I shouldn't have used the future tense! I should have paid more attention to my teacher in grammar school!"
Belphebe looked up, startled. "Could that be why magic is termed 'gramarye'?"
"What?" Shea stared at her, taken aback, then recovered, shaking his head. "No, no, can't be! Must be a false cognate, just a common linguistic root, maybe, a ..."
Shouting broke out around a bend in the trail, out of sight, underscored by the ring of steel.
Shea and Belphebe stared at one another for a moment, startled. Then Belphebe cried, "Walter!" and they both turned and ran.
They skidded around the curve and saw half a dozen scruffy men in patched tunics, flailing with rusty swords at a prosperous-looking group. Shea whipped out his own blade, and Belphebe stepped back to string her bow, then dropped to one knee, nocking an arrow and waiting for a clear shot.
Harold did not help; he grabbed the nearest roughneck by the shoulder, yanked hard, spinning him around—and blocking him from Belphebe's view. The man roared with anger and swung down with a huge axe. Shea skipped back, then lunged, stabbing in. His blade scored an arm, and the man dropped his axe, clutching at the wound and howling. But he managed to stumble forward, barreling into Shea and knocking him down. His stench almost paralyzed Shea, but he forced himself to move, heaving the man away. The scruffneck rolled up to his knees, drawing a rude-looking dagger, but Shea was in too much of a hurry to oblige. He slapped with the flat of the blade, and the grubby one howled, the dagger spinning from his fingers. Shea shoved him aside and clambered to his feet, looking about for the next victim—just in time to see an arrow sprout from the buttock of another robber. The man howled and leaped back, hand clapped to his posterior, hopping away. Shea cast an anxious glance at Belphebe, saw she had another arrow nocked, and turned back to the melee ... just in time to see a huge flower of flame explode all about the travellers. The remaining bandits howled, tumbling away, their clothes smoking—but they could not have been hurt too badly, because they scrambled to their feet and took off running toward the forest. Shea's victim went staggering after them, still holding a bleeding forearm, and Belphebe's target came hopping alter, bellowing in pain.