he did in griffins.
Already four frames lay scattered about under the cover of the trees,
complete except for their covering. The covering had arrived this morning,
borne by griffins from the hold of the Mid-Northeastern Dwarves of the
Southern Forest Range. The bolts of spider silk had been accompanied by a
letter from King Tosig complaining about the expense, but Glandurg had
barely glanced at that. It was just like his quasi-uncle to be preoccupied
with such trifling details.
Glandurg moved among his companions, instructing them, pointing out
defects and in general making a nuisance of himself as the other dwarves
fitted and tied the pieces together. He paused to inspect the hide glue
soaking in a cooking pot off to one side of the clearing and for the
twentieth time that morning congratulated himself on his plan.
“Brilliant,” he said to no one in particular. “They will never expect us
to attack from the air!”
“Bloody good reason for that,” muttered one of the dwarves as he bound a
rib to a wing spar. The leader glared at him but he did not raise his head
to meet Glandurg’s eyes.
For several hours after their return, Wiz and Moira moped about their
apartment. It was like going on a picnic and being rained out, Wiz thought
glumly.
“Look at this,” Moira said ruefully, “I have stains on my gown.”
She held the garment up for Wiz to see. Sure enough, the back and one of
the sleeves were stained with the red wine that had slopped out of her
goblet.
“Looks like a job for a cleaning spell,” Wiz said.
“Alas, the gown itself is magical.”
“I wondered how that thing stayed up.”
She smiled roguishly. “Men are supposed to wonder, my Lord.” Then she
looked down and sighed. “But the magic of this gown interferes with the
spells we use to clean clothes. My Lord, do you know any cleaning spells?”
Wiz considered. For the mightiest wizard in all the world his repertoire
of magic was rather limited. He could think of a dozen ways to incinerate
the gown, but offhand he didn’t know a single one to clean it.
“Well, I haven’t been looking for one.” He stopped and snapped his
fingers. “Wait a minute, I know what you need. A detergent!”
“What does it deter?” Moira asked blankly.
“Not a deterrent, a detergent. Something that will lock onto the particles
of stain and bind them to water so they will rinse away. I’ll need to talk
to Danny and Jerry. But we should be able to whip something up.”
In a few minutes of quick conversation and some scribbles on the
ever-present slates the three programmers had worked out a spell to make a
detergent.
“We need something to mix it in.” Wiz started toward the kitchen.
“You are not experimenting in one of my pots,” Moira said, stepping in
front of him.
“How about a bucket?” Danny suggested. “There’s one out in the hall.”
“One of the maids must have left it there,” Moira said. “Honestly, I think
they become more slovenly every day.”
“In this case it’s a good thing,” Wiz said as he made for the door.
The bucket was half-full of dirty water, but that didn’t bother Wiz.
“After all, when we get done with the spell it won’t be water,” he
explained to the others.
A few quickly done spells, a quick call for an Emac and the spell was
under way.
“You know, this gets easier all the time,” Jerry said. “I don’t ever
remember being able to whip up programs this fast back in California.”
Wiz shrugged. “Superior tools.”
Jerry looked unconvinced.
“I think the system is actually helping us,” Danny said. “Sometimes when
I’m putting a spell together it’s like the magic is reading my mind.”
“In your case that’s scary,” Wiz said. “Whoops. Here’s the operating
demon.”
The demon was small but muscular. It was clad in a white T-shirt and
tight-fitting pants. Its eyebrows were white, its head was shaved and a
gold earring dangled from one pointed ear.
“This is like watching old television commercials,” Jerry said.
“Just be glad it wasn’t a big arm punching out of the bucket,” Wiz said.