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

and looked as though it had not been lowered for years. Swans were swimming peaceful y in the moat.
    A red brick road ran down the hil from the castle gates toward the forest below. Next to the road was a wal ed garden, with roses creeping over the tops of the wal s. Dominic swung the barred gate open, and we went in.
    I had thought the roses in the castle courtyard were good, but these were spectacular. "You can leave us, Dominic," said the king. "I'm sure this young man can see me back safely."
    His burly nephew gave me a slightly sour look but left. The king seated himself on a bench while I wandered up and down the rows, admiring the different colors, the enormous blooms, the vibrant green of the foliage.
    "I'm too stiff to work on them much any more, but I planted every bush you see," said the king. "Most of them are hybrids I developed myself, though I've also picked up a few cuttings over the years. The newest one is that white bush; I planted it the day I married the queen."
    It was smal er than the other bushes but growing vigorously. The white blooms faded to pink in the shadows of the petals. When I bent to smel it, the sweetness was almost overwhelming.
    "I'm looking forward to meeting the queen," I said, realizing that she must be substantial y younger than the king and wondering why I had ever thought otherwise.
    "I've been king of Yurt a long, long time. It's been a good run of years, but in many ways the last four years have been the best, even though I can't crawl around with a trowel any more."
    So they'd only been married four years. I had to readjust several of my assumptions. It seemed most likely that the king had found a pliant young princess to marry, someone to adore him and do his bidding and fulfil the adolescent fantasies he had never been able to fulfil in his years in the rose garden. The only difficulty with this picture was that it was hard to see the king as the old goat. "You may think me sil y," I said, "but when I heard the queen was visiting her parents, I'd somehow thought of them as extremely old."
    "Old?" he said and smiled. "No, they're not old. The Lady Maria, who lives here with us, is the sister of the queen's father. And you know from a remark at table last night how old she is."
    He laughed. "Give me your arm; I want to look across my kingdom."
    Though he needed my help to rise, he walked unaided back out of the wal ed garden. I swung the gate back into place, and we stood looking down the hil toward the plowed fields and the variegated green of the woods beyond.
    He stood without speaking for several minutes. Somewhere down there, I thought, was the old wizard. I was startled out of conjectures about him when the king said suddenly, "Can you transport me by magic?"
    "Transport you?" I said with some alarm. This was worse than telephones.
    "Lift me off the ground so I don't have to walk. I've always wanted to try it."
    "I think so," I said, and "I hope so," I thought. "Lifting spel s become more difficult the larger the object one is lifting," I explained. I didn't tel him that he was a lot larger than a wine glass.
    Inwardly I was wondering how, if I hadn't been sure I could magical y pick up a heavy box or an awkwardly-placed platter of meat, I was going to manage my liege lord. "We'l take it slowly. I'l just lift you a little way, and I'l walk right next to you so you can take my arm if you're feeling unsteady." "Or," I added silently, "if I start to drop you."
    The king, I decided as I started pul ing the spel s together in my mind, was actual y not much heavier than a box of books. He stood looking at me with a faint smile as I concentrated, feeling my way into the magic, making sure each word of the Hidden Language was right. Slowly and graceful y, as though he were thistledown blown by the wind, he rose four inches, so that his toes just brushed the grass.
    We started toward the castle gates. I walked immediately next to him, just barely not touching him. Fortunately he was