A Bad Spell in Yurt - Wizard of Yurt - 1 by C. Dale Brittain

time there was no problem at al . I threw open the windows and opened the door to my bedroom, where I had taken my predecessor's magic lights so they wouldn't come on and break my concentration.
    The spel s had taken al morning. I tucked the oval of glass under my arm, planning to show the constable at lunch. I would let him find a way to attach it to the ceiling in the staircase. My predecessor might have been able to make his lamps hang suspended in the air, but at this point I thought glue would work just as wel .
    As I pul ed my door shut and attached the lock, I wondered again why my spel had not worked at first. Had I just said one of the many words wrong in setting up the spel , or had an outside magical force broken it for me?

    The seating arrangement at dinner the first night was maintained, and I ate every noon and evening between Dominic and the Lady Maria. Occasional y Dominic would be away in the middle of the day, but she and her golden curls were always at my right. The Lady Maria seemed, if possible, to be growing younger. She liked to engage me in lively conversation, punctuated with girlish laughter. If I tired of her laughter, I had only to look across the table to meet the chaplain's completely sober eyes.
    But in fact I started to like the Lady Maria. As long as I could keep her off the topic of how young and charming she stil was, she had a lively mind that was hungry for new ideas and information. She repeatedly pressed me for details on the dragon in the wizards' school cel ars. I decided to have her help me with the telephones.
    During the two days that the armorer was making steel plates for my lights, I set to work trying to derive the right spel s. I decided that the first step would be to make it possible for two telephones in the castle to talk to each other; if that worked, then maybe I could start on the much more complicated task of starting communication with telephones elsewhere.
    The king seemed stiff and said nothing more about learning to fly, and Dominic asked no questions about malignant spel s, so I devoted ful time to the telephones. It occurred to me that I was becoming obsessed with them, but at least at every meal the others al asked me interested questions about how I was coming and seemed, I thought, to be drawing comparisons between the old wizard and myself with the comparison favorable to me. I tried not to think what they would say when I gave up the project in despair.
    At first nothing worked at al . With one telephone in my study, I put the other out in the courtyard and had the Lady Maria listen while I tried to communicate. The knights and ladies, the boys who were being trained as knights, and the servants tended to flock from al over the castle to watch my latest attempt. At least they weren't laughing at me, yet.
    "Did you hear anything?" I'd yel from the door of my chambers.
    "Nothing that time," she would cal back in what were meant to be encouraging tones.
    Then my steel ovals were ready, and I had an excuse to put the glass telephones back up on the shelf while I worked the spel s of light. Since I had to do each individual y, it took al day, and it took another day for the servants to attach them inside to the ceiling of the stairway. But on Sunday, in time for service, they were ready.
    I had Gwen wake me early and was at the bottom of the stairs before anyone else. "On," I said in my deepest voice, and al the lights blazed on. The glass light inside the door was the brightest of al , but the steel plates gave a rich and somber light that I thought most appropriate. I stood modestly outside the stairwel , letting everyone else precede me, smiling in spite of myself when I heard their admiring comments.
    But the telephones continued to elude me. After two more days of studying my books, I thought I had found the spel , and again set the Lady Maria in the courtyard with one instrument while I talked into the other. "Al powers of earth and air must obey the spel s