“I can imagine. Can’t you cure him? I’d think an
anti-inebriation spell would be fairly simple and straight-
forward.”
“It is a vicious circle, my boy. Were I not so sick I
could do so, but as it stands I cannot concentrate. Past two
hundred the mind loses some of its resilience. I tried just
that last week. All those methyl ethyl bethels in the spell
are difficult enough to get straight when you’re at the top
of your form. Sick as I was, I must have transposed an -yl
somewhere. Made him throw up for three days. Cured his
drinking, but made him so ill the only way he could cure
himself was by getting falling-down-drunk again.
“I must have that medicine, lad, so that I can function
properly again. Otherwise I’m liable to try some complex
spell, slip an incantation, and end up with something
dangerous in my pentagram. It’s hard enough making sure
that idiot in there passes me the proper powders. Once he
substituted lettuce for liverwort, and I ended up with a
ten-foot-tall saber-toothed rabbit. Took me two hasty re-
traction spells to bunny it down.”
“Why don’t you just conjure the stuff up?”
“I do not possess the necessary ingredients,” Clothahump
8
Alan Dean Foster
explained patiently. “If I did, I could just take them, now,
couldn’t I?”
“Beats me. I’ve seen you make chocolate out of garbage.”
“Medicine is rather more specific in its requirements.
Everything must be so precise. You can make milk choco-
late, bittersweet chocolate, white chocolate, semisweet
chocolate: it’s still all chocolate. Alter the composition of