“The usual stuff,” Azzie said. “Animated flame trees will do nicely. There are always plenty of them in stock.”
“You’re a horticulturist that you know that?” Merioneth said caustically. “Fact is there are damn few flame trees available at this time of year. And I suppose you want them to have magic thorns?”
“Of course.”
“Magic thorns aren’t standard.”
A few more gems changed hands.
“Now, let’s see,” Merioneth said. “What exactly should these magical thorns do?”
“The usual thing,” Azzie said. “When a traveler passes who is not pure in heart, or not in possession of the proper magical counterspells, they impale him.”
“I thought you’d want that! Impaling’s extra!”
“Extra! What in hell are you talking about?”
“I got more to do than hang around here jawing with you,” Merioneth said, and unfolded his wings.
Azzie paid over a few more gems. The chamois bag was empty. He had gone through Rognir’s treasure in a surprisingly short time.
“I guess we’re in agreement on basics now,” Merioneth said. “There are a few more refinements I can think of, stuff you might like, but it’d cost more.”
“Never mind the refinements,” Azzie said. “Just do what we’ve agreed upon. And quickly, please! I have other matters to attend to.”
Merioneth called up a work crew and the demons started building the forest. They worked rapidly, thorough professionals once they got moving. Some of the younger demons were obviously unaccustomed to manual labor. But the supervisors kept them up to the mark and things proceeded nicely.
As soon as the basic forest was in place, with the spells set up but not yet activated, the head work-crew demon left an underling to put in the shrubs and wildflowers and turned his attention to setting up the castle. Crews up in Limbo threw down the building blocks with gusto, and the demons below cursed and dodged and caught up the pieces and put them together. Piece by piece a high structure of crenellated walls and pointed turrets rose into the air. It was historically inaccurate but definitely of fairy-tale design. At this stage there were a few small mix-ups. When it came time to dig the moat around it, they found they lacked earth-moving equipment. A team of dragons was summoned and bribed with an offering of maidens. After they had dined, the dragons scooped out a fine moat, twenty feet wide, thirty feet deep. But of course there was no water in it, and no one seemed to know who was in charge of getting the water. Azzie finally solved the problem by ordering a weather spell from Supply and calling up a brief but very heavy rain. This, plus the water from the runoffs, did the trick nicely. A pair of swans added a touch of class.
Soon the castle stood, tall and stately, a lofty collection of stone towers in the midst of domed shapes. From the topmost towers bright banners floated in the breeze. The place was unfurnished, of course, and extremely drafty, because no one thinks of closing up the chinks and gaps in magical castles. Azzie ordered furniture from Supply. There was a problem on how to light the place. He decided upon magical lighting, since it was difficult to see anything with oil lamps.
At last it was all together. Azzie stood back a few hundred yards and admired. It was a castle that Mad King Ludwig would have loved. It would do.
Azzie returned to the mansion to finish work on the principals. The bodies looked fine now in their vats, all seams faded. The ichor and spells had done their work to perfection. But the bodies had no intelligence as yet, since that comes last, and they did some strange things as one part of the body or another came to life. Azzie worked to stabilize them and, at last, had them set up properly.
Then Frike pointed out that both creatures were still blind.
“You’re right,” Azzie said. “I was saving that for last.”
He sat and remembered Ylith. Yes, he’d saved that for last.
Chapter 4
Azzie liked witches. He considered them a sort of permanent dating pool where a demon could always find a companion for a Saturday night. Back in those days, Witches’ Sabbaths were the primeval form of nightclub.