"01 - A Difficulty With Dwarves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Craig Shaw)

A Difficulty With Dwarves
Verse the First in The Ballad of Wuntvor
Craig Shaw Gardner




ONE

'Even wizards sometimes have bad days. I shall give you an all-too-common example:

'The magician, about to begin a spell of great importance, discovers that all his duckwort has gone bad and he is completely out of eye of newt. And it gets no better! The sorcerer quickly dons his walking robes and strolls down to the corner alchemist, only to discover they've had duckwort back ordered for months, and what newt eyes they have in stock are far too small and altogether of the wrong color.

'Well, the good magician is far too resourceful to let a couple of missing ingredients spoil a perfectly good spell. The mage quickly returns to his eyrie, and attempts some prudent substitutions, say batwing and dried salamander's blood, with perhaps some chives tossed in to give the whole thing color. And the potion looks correct at last! The sorcerer begins to chant the spell that will bring his day's work to fruition. But wait! The pot is burbling when it should be boiling! What could be wrong? (See footnote)

'The mage quickly checks a nearby reference work, perhaps the forty-six volume Universal Guide to Magic, or my own much more concise When Bad

Footnote: The apt student would have known instantly that our sorcerer should have used parsley instead of chives for coloration.



Spells Happen to Good Wizards. There, to his horror, the magician sees that, through an almost infinitesimal error, he has transformed a simple weather-predicting spell into a conjuration that will destroy himself, his loved ones, and every other living thing in this hemisphere!

'The wizard somehow manages to stop the spell in time, but ruins a perfectly good pair of boots in the process. By now the wise magician will have faced up to one inevitable conclusion: That this day will be one of misfortune, not only for the wizard, but for all those with whom he comes in contact.

'But the resourceful mage should not despair that the fates conspire against him! Rather, the prudent sorcerer should take what small advantage of the situation still remains available, and spend the remainder of the day visiting one's mother-in-law or insisting upon an immediate audit by the royal tax collectors.'

-Ebenezum, greatest magician in all the

Western Kingdoms,

MAGIC FOR THE MILLIONS:

A HOME STUDY COURSE

(fourth edition), General Introduction

It seemed like everybody was sneezing.

'Oh, Wuntvor,' Norei whispered. Her beautiful green eyes looked deep into mine. 'Isn't it terrible?'

The sound echoed through the Great Hall in which we stood, perhaps a hundred different wizards sneezing as one; high sneezes, low sneezes, short little shushing sounds, and

3

huge, long nasal blasts. As difficult as it was to tear my eyes away from the beautiful young witch by my side, this true love that I had found at last, the nasal avalanche was far too overwhelming. With great trepidation I turned away from my beloved and looked down to the far end of the hall.

My worst fears were confirmed. The great oak door, behind which the wizards had conferred in order to find a cure for my master Ebenezum, had been flung open. The sorcerers, so noble and grand when they had entered that room some hours before, now staggered out of it one by one, their once-fine robes askew and torn.

But wait! One man strode through the wizard's ragged ranks, a look of grim determination on his dark-skinned face. Two arms clad in brilliant silver rose above the sneezing mass as this magnificent wizard, this mage among mages, cried 'Enough!'