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

nothing about it, either then or now. If he had come to the castle, I now thought, he would have seen at once that his magic locks were gone from the north tower and would most certainly have held me to blame. That his manner now sometimes verged on friendly showed he did not yet know what had happened there. But sometime I was going to have to tel him.
    As I started across the draw bridge over the moat, I almost col ided with the queen coming out.
    "I'm so pleased you're back!" she cried with the smile that made my heart turn over. "The king told me to meet him in five minutes in the rose garden. I'm sure he'd like you to be there as wel . He said it was a magic surprise! The five minutes are almost up."
    I dismounted to walk with her. She was wearing a long white dress with a standing crimson col ar that framed her face, and her eyes flashed with delight at me from under an errant wave of hair.
    We stopped at the garden gate. "I'm here!" the queen cal ed. "And I've brought the Royal Wizard with me!"
    "Come on in!" came a faint cal , and we entered.
    Coming toward us between the rose bushes, his toes just brushing the grass, was King Haimeric. His face was so tight with concentration that he seemed not to see us. I could tel he wasn't even breathing. When he was within three feet of the queen, he lifted his eyes, took a sudden breath, and dropped to the ground. She steadied him with her strong young arms.

    "You were flying!" she cried. "When did you learn to fly? I know you said it would be a magic surprise, but I hadn't imagined it could be anything so wonderful!"
    The king winked at me over her head, a wink of triumph.
    He leaned on her arm as they walked toward the bench, and I fol owed behind.
    "I've been having the wizard teach me," he said.
    "And you've clearly been practicing on your own!" I added. "You've made much better progress than I would have expected. But you do have to remember to breathe."
    "I noticed that," he said, sitting down and breathing hard now. "But it seems to interrupt my concentration."
    "Al it needs is a little more practice."
    "I'd had no idea you were learning to fly," said the queen in admiration, and for one bad moment I was afraid she was going to ask me to teach her too. "When did you start learning?"
    "It was while you were at your parents'. Original y I was hoping to show you when you first got back, but I wasn't as quick a pupil as I'd hoped. Not that our wizard isn't a good teacher!"
    They both turned wide smiles on me. "One of the many, many things I like about having you here is that it makes me less dependent on Dominic. As you know, since my legs started to get weak I haven't always been able to walk as wel as I'd like, and he'd baby me unmerciful y. I thought that if I learned to fly, I'd be able to move around as I liked without him always hovering. The boy means wel , but . . ."
    He didn't finish the sentence. I was very pleased to see that I was not the only person in the castle referred to as a boy--especial y since Dominic was nearly twice my age.
    I was also pleased to see how much more cheerful the king had seemed since the queen came home. When I first arrived, he was looking back over his years as king as though they would shortly be coming to an end. Now he acted as though he were only in the middle of them. I began to wonder if the mysterious ailment that Dominic thought someone had given the king was nothing more than some stiffness in the knees combined with loneliness. If she had been my queen, I would certainly have been lonely when she was gone.
    We looked at the roses while the king finished catching his breath. Some of the bushes had already finished blooming for the season, though late roses stil bloomed defiantly on others.
    "You know," said the king, "it's been several years since I've been to the harvest carnival. Would you like to go?"
    "Oh, could we?" said the queen with that smile.
    "I'd be delighted," I said, since the question seemed to include me as wel