A Bad Spell in Yurt - Wizard of Yurt - 1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

communications spel to a string. An object with a spel attached became a magic object, and anyone could operate it.
    "It's like invisibility," I said to myself cheerful y. A ring of invisibility wil always work, even though invisibility is one of the harder spel s. For some reason, even though it is straightforward to make the empty air take on solidity in il usions, it is very hard to make solidity look empty. There is probably a good theoretical explanation, but I have never paid much attention to theory, preferring the practical.
    I paused to see how wel I could make myself invisible. I had been working on the spel s intermittently for almost a year now. Concentrating hard, breaking off pieces of the flow of magic and control ing them with the Hidden Language, I watched my feet disappear, first the left one, then the right one. At this point, however, things stopped. My knees remained obstinately visible. I snapped my fingers in disgust and my feet came back. Just last week I had made it almost al the way up my thighs.
    "But I'm not trying to make a ring of invisibility anyway," I told myself firmly. "I'm making a communications string." I put both hands on the string and concentrated on it, thinking of how one reaches out, slides just the corner of one's mind into the stream of magic while leaving most of it firmly anchored to one's body (one of the most dangerous moments for young wizards is discovering how to slip one's mind out without losing oneself forever). I alternated the spel s that seek another mind with attachment spel s, and suddenly the string stiffened and glowed pink.
    I rushed out into the courtyard. Since it was Sunday, the servants were only doing necessary chores, and a number of them were now playing vol eybal while the others watched and cheered. I found my own saucy servant girl, flushed and laughing after having just been replaced at the net.
    "Come on," I said, "I need your help with a magic spel ."
    She looked over her shoulder at the others, said, "I'l be back in just a minute!" and came with me, straightening her skirt. "What sort of magic spel ? You're not going to turn me into a frog or anything!"
    Ever since that practical exam, I had tried to avoid mention of things being turned into frogs, but she wouldn't know that. "No," I said, "I think I've invented a new kind of telephone, and I want to test it."
    In my chambers, I stationed her in the study, at one end of the string, and went into the bedroom. "You listen," I said, "and see if you can hear me." Then, with my mouth close to the other end of the string, I said in my deepest voice, "Al powers of earth and air must obey the spel s of wizardry."
    To my surprise, she burst into peals of laughter. "You're the funniest person I've ever met!" she said when she had caught her breath. "Are you sure you're real y a wizard?"
    "Did it work?" I said with irritation. "Could you hear me?"
    "Of course I could hear you. You were only standing ten feet away! Al powers of earth and air!" Stil laughing, she went back out to rejoin the game.
    I looked at my piece of string in disgust. It was stil glowing. I snapped my fingers and said the words to break the spel , but nothing happened. I seemed to have a piece of string permanently able to convey words over the same distance one could hear them anyway.
    "Except that it may not even do that," I thought. "Al I know for sure is that it's pink now." Besides, the more I thought about it the more strings seemed like an impractical idea. One couldn't run a string two hundred miles to the City. It was with relief that I heard the gong for dinner.

    My good humor was restored by another excel ent meal. At the end, King Haimeric said, "Come with me. I want to show you my rose garden."
    He walked on his nephew's arm out of the great hal , through the courtyard, and out through the great gates of the castle. Since I had arrived in the courtyard by air cart, I had not before been through the gates. The portcul is was up