Shea said, rather desperately, «Pete, I’m doing all I can. Honest. I haven’t the least idea where we are, or in what period. Until I do, I don’t dare try sending us anywhere else. We’ve already picked up a rather high charge of magical static coming here, and any spell I used without knowing what kind of magic they use around here is apt to make us simply disappear or end up in Hell — you know, real red hell with flames all around, like in a fundamentalist church.»
«Okay,» said Brodsky. «You got the office. Me, I don’t think you got more than a week to get us back at the outside.»
Belphebe pointed, «Marry, are those not sheep?»
Shea shaded his eyes. «Right you are, darling,» he said. The objects looked like a collection of lice on a piece of green baize, but he trusted his wife’s phenomenal eyesight.
«Sheep,» said Brodsky. One could almost hear the gears grind in his brain as he looked around. «Sheep.» A beatific expression spread over his face. «Shea, you must of done it! Three, two, and out we’re inIreland — and if it is, you can hit me on the head if I ever want to go back.»
Shea followed his eyes. «It does rather look like it,» he said. «But when.»
Something went past with a rush of displaced air. It struck a nearby boulder with a terrific crash and burst into fragments that whizzed about like pieces o fan artillery shall.
«Duck!» shouted Shea, throwing himself flat and dragging Belphebe down with him.
Brodsky went into a crouch, lips drawn tight over his teeth, looking around with quick, jerky motions for the source of the missile. Nothing more happened. After a minute, Shea and Belphebe got up and went over to examine a twenty-pound hunk of sandy conglomerate.
Shea said, «Somebody is chucking hundred pound boulders around. This may beIreland, but I hope it isn’t the time of Finn McCool or Strongbow.»