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he?”
    Uncle Alfred beckoned me to stop standing staring and put the bottles on the table. “Because,” he said, “to be brutally frank with you, I’ve only just found out who he should be dealing with. It’s someone up at Stallery.”
    There was a general groan at this.
    â€œThen send him there,” said Mr. Fellish.
    â€œI am. He’s going next week,” my uncle said. “It couldn’t be contrived any sooner.”
    â€œGood. Better late than never,” Mayor Seuly said.
    â€œYou know,” observed Mr. Priddy, “it doesn’t surprise me at all that it’s someone up at Stallery. That’s such a strong Fate on the boy. It looks equal to the power up there, and that’s so strong that it interferes with communications and stops this town thriving as it should.”
    â€œIt’s not just this town Stallery interferes with,” Mayor Seuly said. “Their financial grip is down over the whole world, like a net. I come up against it almost every day. They have magical stoppages occurring all the time, so that they can make money and I can’t. If I try to get round what they do— bang . I lose half my profits.”
    â€œOh, we’ve all had that,” agreed Mr. Goodwin. “Odd to think it’s in this lad’s hands to save us as well as himself.”
    I stood by the table, turning from one to the other as they spoke. My mouth went drier with each thing that was said. By this time I was so horrified I could hardly swallow. I tried to ask a question, but I couldn’t.
    My uncle seemed to realize what I wanted to know. He turned around. He was holding his glass up to the light, so that a red blob of light from it wavered on his forehead as he said, “This is all very true and tragic, but how is my nephew to know who this person is when he sees him? That’s what you wanted to ask, wasn’t it, Con?” It was, but I couldn’t even nod by then.
    â€œSimple,” said Mayor Seuly. “There’ll come a moment when he’ll know . There’s always a moment of recognition in cases of karma. The person he needs will say something or do something, and it will be like clicking a switch. Light will come on in the boy’s head, and he’ll know .”
    The rest of them nodded and made growling murmurs that they agreed, it was like that, and Uncle Alfred said, “Got that, Con?”
    I managed to nod this time. Then Mayor Seuly said, “But he’ll want to know how to deal with the person when he does know. That’s quite as important. How about he uses Granek’s Equation?”
    â€œToo complicated,” said Mr. Goodwin. “Try him with Beaulieu’s Spell.”
    â€œI’d prefer a straight Whitewick,” Mr. Loder, the butcher, said.
    After that they all began suggesting things, all of which meant nothing to me, and each of them got quite heated in favor of his own suggestion. Before long, the tall landowning one was banging his wineglass on the little table beside his chair and shouting, “You’ve got to have him eliminate this person for good, quickly and simply! The only answer is a Persholt!”
    â€œPlease remember,” my uncle said anxiously, “that Con’s only a boy and he doesn’t know any magic at all.”
    This caused a silence. “Ah,” Mayor Seuly said at length. “Yes. Of course. Well then, I think the best plan is to enable him to summon a Walker.” At this, all the others broke into rumbles of “Exactly! Of course ! A Walker. Why didn’t we think of that before?” Mayor Seuly looked around the circle of them and said, “Agreed? Good. Now what can we give him to use? It ought to be something quite plain and ordinary that no one will suspect.... Ah. Yes. A cork from one of those bottles will do nicely.”
    He held out his hand with a handsome gold ring shining on it, and Mr. Loder passed him the