Wizard at Work

by Vivian Vande Velde

  "What makes you say that?" the wizard asked.

  Jack got that this-wizard-is-an-idiot look again and said, "Because they won all my money."

  The wizard didn't point out that maybe they were just better cardplayers. Jack seemed to be the sort who liked to blame other people for his troubles.

  Jack asked, "Do you think my mother would believe me if I told her I was robbed at knifepoint?"

  "As mayor," the wizard pointed out, "she'd feel responsible for protecting the village from armed bandits, so she'd have to investigate a report like that."

  "How about a freak windstorm?" Jack asked. "Freak windstorms aren't a mayor's responsibility. I could say the money was whipped out of my hand before I could put it safely away."

  "You could tell the truth," the wizard suggested.

  "I could," Jack mused. "Or, how about: I came across a poor, starving, diseased orphan child and I thought, 'We have so much more than he does,' so I gave the money away?"

  The wizard would have left Jack to remain there feeling sorry for himself, but he hated to inflict the lad on Enid. "Maybe if you helped me find and control the unicorns, your mother would forgive you."

  "What would you pay me?" Jack asked.

  "Nothing," the wizard said.

  "Oh, well, that's not such a wonderful deal, then," Jack said.

  I definitely should have left him alone and asked somebody else, the wizard thought, getting to his feet.

  But Jack got up also. "All right, I'll help you," he said. "Maybe if I get killed, then my mother will forgive me."

  The unicorns, Jack told the wizard, were probably in Farmer Seymour's north field. They liked to bother Farmer Seymour because his face turned such an interesting shade of purple when he got angry.

  As the wizard and Jack approached the north field, they could smell the enticing aroma of roasting meat.

  "Uh-oh," Jack said. "Smells like they got another of Farmer Seymour's pigs."

  The wizard sniffed. Not pork, he decided. Beef. The unicorns were behaving worse and worse. Unstopped, they would develop a craving for dragon meat. The dragons would be understandably irritated and would wage war on the unicorns—dragon flame against unicorn magic. That would be the end of any farmland—or farmer—caught between the two factions.

  And the worst unicorns eventually went after the most challenging game of all: humans.

  But for the moment, these unicorns had turned their attention to Farmer Seymour's shed, which had an easy-to-climb-onto roof. The males were taking turns daring one another to jump off it to impress the females.

  As Jack and the wizard got to the pit where the unicorns were roasting their cow, all six unicorns stepped in front of the fire as though worried that the wizard would try to take their carnivore-style meal away from them. They started to whistle and jeer. "Hey, Jack," they called out, "who's your old friend?"

  And the wizard didn't even have his old-man disguise on.

  The wizard was relieved to see that Enid had been right: These were immature unicorns. They would probably settle down with age, if they didn't provoke interspecies war before then.

  The wizard told them, "Why don't you go home and leave the people of this village alone? Surely your parents are missing you."

  "Surely nobody's missing you," one of the unicorns sneered. The other unicorns laughed as though this were incredibly clever.

  If the wizard had known where the parents of these unicorns were, he could have used his transporting spell to send them there. The parents would no doubt be able to tell exactly how much fermented fruit their offspring had been consuming, and the wizard doubted these unicorns would be allowed out unsupervised for a good long time.

  But because the wizard didn't know where the parents were, that wouldn't work.

  He could simply transport them away from the village of Saint Wayne the Stutterer, but that would just be passing the problem on to someone else.

  "Why don't you use your energy to do something good?" he suggested.

  "Oh, sure," one of the females said in a singsong voice. "Let's all go and pick some pretty flowers." She gave such a braying laugh that the wizard wondered if she realized she sounded just like a donkey.

  "Jack, your friend is boring," the unicorns said. "Come and eat some roast cow with us."

  Jack looked ready to join them, but he stopped when he saw a harness on the ground with a name painted on it.

  "Bessie!" he cried.

  "Uh-oh," one of the unicorns said, picking his teeth with the point of a rib bone, "another friend of yours?"

  "Bessie was our cow!" Jack cried. "I just sold her at the market this morning."

  "Uh-oh," the unicorn repeated. "We just stole her from the market this afternoon. Want her back?" He offered the rib bone to Jack "Some assembly required."

  "Enough of this," the wizard commanded. "Go home now or I'll be forced to take drastic measures."

  "Like what?" another of the unicorns demanded. "Make an ugly face like this?" He tipped his head back, bugged his eyes, dilated his nostrils, and stuck his tongue out.

  "Oooo," the other five cried, "we're scared!"

  Reason would get him nowhere, the wizard realized. He flung a spell at the adolescent unicorns to make them grow up and be more mature.

  The unicorns, being magical creatures, felt the tingle of magic the moment it left the wizard's fingertips, and the two most alert instantly wove an enchanted barrier to protect all six of them from the wizard.

  Spell hit counterspell not a handspan from the unicorns' noses, and a shower of silvery stars fell like dying fireworks onto the farmer's field.

  The wizard cast the spell again, this time high up in the air, so that it would come down on the unicorns' heads, but the same two raised the shield above their group, and a third—not knowing what, exactly, the wizard's spell was meant to do—let healing energy pour out from her horn.

  This time golden fireworks stars drifted toward the ground.

  "Jack," the wizard muttered out of the side of his mouth, "distract them."

  "Ahmmm," Jack said. "Look out behind you, unicorns. Here comes Farmer Seymour."

  "How dumb do you think we are?" the unicorns asked.

  The wizard cast a spell beyond the unicorns onto the fire that was roasting the unfortunate Bessie. He caused the fire to take the shape of Farmer Seymour, and he caused the crackling of the flames to sound like Farmer Seymour's voice. The voice seemed to say, "I don't know how dumb you are, but I'd guess very."

  Startled, the unicorns turned around, and the wizard hit them again with his spell to make them instantly grow a year older.

  In the blink of a moment, they grew just a bit taller and lost the last traces of baby-fat roundness. They stood tall and proud rather than slouching.

  One of the female unicorns said to the males, "You guys are, like, so immature."

  "Actually," one of the males said in a new, deeper voice, "not anymore."

  Another of the females said, "This meat thing freaks me out."

  "Me, too," another of the males said. "Like, what have we got to prove to each other?"

  Everybody agreed that they had nothing to prove, and that it was very irresponsible of them to be away from their families without having said where they were going, and that the adult thing to do would be to go home. "Good-bye, Jack," they called as they left. "Sorry about your cow and all."

  The wizard went to that spot in the field where the three magics had met: wizardly grow-up spell, unicorn shield spell, and unicorn healing spell. Almost all of the golden stars had fizzled out before actually hitting the ground, but there was a slight sparkle on the grass that indicated some residual magic had taken physical form.

  The wizard picked up the sparkling bits. There were three of them, each one smooth and no bigger than a bean.

  "Can I have those?" Jack asked. "For helping you?"

  But the magic must have been evaporating, for the golden sparkle disappeared, leaving three small, dirt-brow
n something-or-others in the wizard's palm.

  "Oh," Jack said. "Never mind."

  The wizard doubted there was any more magic in them at all, but he stuck the objects in his pocket just in case and headed back toward the village.

  Jack ran to catch up. "I can't even bring the beef home to my mother—it's all burnt. She is absolutely going to kill me. Do you think she'd believe me if I told her the unicorns stole Bessie from me before I had a chance to sell her at the market, and that's why I don't have any money?"

  The wizard considered casting a grow-up spell on Jack, but that was more dangerous with people than with animals. Besides, Enid might take it amiss if Jack came home suddenly having to shave every day.

  "Have you ever considered telling the truth?" the wizard said. "Admit your mistake? Apologize? And determine that you'll never act so foolishly again? I think that if your mother saw you'd learned a lesson, she'd be willing to forgive you."

  "I suppose," Jack agreed sullenly. But then he seemed to cheer up. He put his arm around the wizard's shoulder. "You know," he said, "that's good advice. I'm indebted to you."

  The wizard was surprised and gratified that his words had had such a deep effect on the lad, and he carried that good feeling all the way back to Mayor Enid's house, where he found Enid in the yard, shaking out the kitchen rug.

  "The unicorns have gone home," the wizard told her. Then, because Jack had had such a change of heart, he added, "Jack helped me."

  "Thank you," Enid said to the wizard. And to Jack she remarked, "That's a surprise." Then she asked him, "Did you get a good price for the cow?"

  "Well, it's an interesting thing about the cow...," Jack said as he led his mother inside.

  The wizard lingered for a moment, hoping to hear Enid's reaction to Jack's confession, hoping he'd given Jack the right advice.

  From inside the house, Enid's voice rose in indignant anger. "Magic beans?" she cried. "Magic beans? What in the world are you talking about—magic beans in exchange for a cow?"

  The wizard clapped his hand to his pocket and found it empty. Jack picked my pocket! he thought crossly.

  Three tiny objects came flying out of the kitchen window, narrowly missing the wizard's head. For a moment, they seemed to glitter, but the wizard convinced himself that it was just an optical illusion, the effect of the setting sun.

  He could have scrabbled around in the dirt in the bad light, looking for them, but what was the use? The magic had to be all out of them by now, and surely they couldn't get Jack or his mother in any sort of trouble.

  So he said his transporting spell and went home.

  To Rescue a Princess

  The wizard was sitting in the storeroom of his tower home, trying to figure out where he could put all the broccoli he'd grown in his garden during the summer. In fact, it had suddenly occurred to him that he didn't even like broccoli very much, and he was wondering why he had planted any at all—other than because it was easy to grow—when he happened to glance out the window.

  Someone was coming.

  The wizard watched the stranger pick his way up the steep mountain path. A prince, he decided, because the young man rode a horse, and peasants generally walked. As soon as the youth got closer, the wizard could make out his rich clothes, satin and silk. Yes, he thought, a prince. Closer still, and he could see the face with its look of haughty self-assurance. Yes, he thought, most certainly a prince.

  The wizard hated unexpected visits, and he hated unexpected visits from royalty most of all. He ducked below the windowsill, just barely peeking over the edge, determined to pretend he wasn't home.

  Below him, the prince took out his sword and checked his reflection in the bright blade. Then he used its hilt to rap on the door.

  The wizard winced for the just-painted woodwork.

  "Yo!" the prince called out. "Open up! I'm here on urgent business."

  "They always are," the wizard sighed to himself as the prince knocked more paint off the door with the hilt of his sword. The wizard seriously considered dumping something—preferably something cold, wet, and extremely slimy—onto the prince's head.

  From behind the wizard a voice hissed, "Pssst! Stupid! Get your head down before he sees you." It was his magic mirror, an ancient thing for which he had paid a year's service to a bad-tempered duke who had insisted it had an illustrious history, which the duke had never revealed, and great power, also unspecified. So far, the wizard had found the mirror generally unhelpful and always insulting, and the only thing it seemed good for was to periodically announce—without being asked—that some lady or other was the fairest in the land.

  Even now, the mirror's warning was more trouble than benefit, for the prince heard it and looked up, directly at the wizard. "You. Boy. Open this door, then go fetch your master. I am the Prince of Talahandra, and I'm in a hurry."

  The wizard considered ignoring him, but his door was at risk. And if he changed the prince into a toad, somebody was sure to come looking for him: more unwelcome interruptions. "Thanks a lot," he muttered to the mirror.

  He walked down the stairs and unbarred the door.

  The Prince of Talahandra swept past him and surveyed the entrance hall with obvious disdain. He glanced at his reflection in an ornamental suit of armor that the wizard kept as a coatrack and patted his already perfect hair. "Well," he said, "where's this wizard of yours?"

  The wizard gave a smile that was not especially meant to look friendly. "I'm the wizard."

  The prince's nostrils quivered in distaste. "I see." He pursed his lips. "I have a task that needs doing."

  "Things to do," the wizard said, "places to go, people to see."

  The prince eyed him suspiciously, no doubt suspecting—and rightly so—that the wizard didn't take him seriously. Still, he said, "Yes. Well. This would fit in under 'places to go, things to do,' I suppose. There's a princess who needs rescuing."

  The wizard thought that he should have known. But he didn't say so. He said: "From?"

  "A dragon."

  The wizard tried not to think how terrified the poor girl had to be. He asked, "Do you know the name?"

  "Princess Gilbertina of Mustigia."

  The wizard sighed. "I meant of the dragon."

  "Oh." The prince shrugged. "Do dragons have names?"

  The wizard didn't bother to answer. "Do you know if it's a magic dragon?"

  Again the prince shrugged. "It breathes fire."

  "All dragons breathe fire."

  "Oh. Well, I don't see what difference it makes."

  "It makes a big difference to whoever's going to rescue the princess."

  "I see," said the prince in a tone that hinted he might, but if he did, he didn't care. "She's very beautiful, you know."

  "The dragon?"

  "The princess. I'm told she's the most beautiful woman in the land."

  From upstairs, the mirror's voice called out, "Second most beautiful. The most beautiful is the milkmaid Aspasia on Farmer Seymour's homestead."

  The prince craned his neck to look up the staircase. "Beg your pardon?" he said.

  "Never mind that," the wizard interrupted. "What do you mean, you're told she's the most beautiful? Don't you know her?"

  The prince shook his head.

  "Then what, exactly, is your involvement?"

  "Her father has promised her hand in marriage and half his kingdom to whoever rescues her."

  "But you're asking me to rescue her," the wizard pointed out.

  "Well. Yes."

  "As a special favor to you, on account of our long-standing friendship?"

  The prince pouted. "You see, I did try. But this dragon lives on a mountain peak that can't be reached except by flying."

  "Let me see if I've got this straight. You want me to risk my life and limb for you, a total stranger, to rescue a princess, whom I also do not know, so that you can marry her and win half her father's kingdom."

  "Yes, that's it."

  "And I'd be doing this for what?
Personal glory?"

  "Well, no, actually, it wouldn't do for us to publicize that you did the work for me. Then there wouldn't be any sense in my marrying the princess and inheriting the kingdom, would there?"

  The wizard closed his eyes. "Exactly. So why should I help you?"

  "For the personal satisfaction of saving the princess's life?"

  Why did they always end up saying something like that? The wizard couldn't get rid of the mental picture of a fierce dragon menacing a poor, frightened princess. "What's the name?"

  The prince looked at him uneasily. "Dragon, I don't know. Princess, Gilbertina," he reminded.

  The wizard sighed. "The mountain peak."

  "Oh, the mountain peak. No, I don't know the name of that, either. I can take you there, though."

  The wizard had been hoping to transport himself by magical means rather than travel a bumpy road on the bony back of Farmer Seymour's horse. He sighed again, wishing—as he often did—that his magic wasn't so limited. "Then we'd best get started immediately," he said.

  But before he could make a move, the magic mirror shouted out, "Hey, Wizard! I hope you made out a will. I don't want to spend the next five years in a dusty attic while the lawyers sort out your estate."

  "Nasty fellow you've got up there," the prince whispered to the wizard. "He doesn't make very much sense, does he? Most beautiful women and all." He looked at the hill that stood between the wizard's property and the village of Saint Wayne the Stutterer. "We wouldn't happen to be near this Farmer Seymour's farm, would we?" he asked.

  "That's where we're going for me to borrow a horse," the wizard said, since the prince hadn't been smart enough to bring two. "Why?"

  The prince sucked in his stomach and patted his still perfect hair. "No special reason," he said. "Just wondering."

  It took the rest of that day and most of the next for them to reach the mountain where the dragon had taken the princess. The prince, leaning against his horse, was watching the wizard and looking bored.