missy, as befits a Castle rolling in its wealth!”
My grandmother was furious, that was quite clear without her slamming the door behind her and making all the crests hanging about rattle on their hooks. I hadn’t expected warmth here, but this exceeded my expectations; I was amazed. And where was her husband, her own sixth cousin with the utterly prosaic name and the utterly prosaic manner? The most boring of all the Guthries? Ordinarily he would at least have been mentioned, if not present for our little altercation ... where was James John Guthrie the 17 th in the midst of my welcome?
“A man’s name is chosen for euphony,” I said aloud, “and James John Guthrie is not euphonious. It sounds like three rocks landing on a pavement, and the third one bouncing.”
Whereupon something replied, after a fashion. Considering what I had said, “Shame, shame, shame, you wicked chiiiiiiild!” did not really follow.
I topped it.
“Three times six is eighteen,” I told the thing, and then there were eighteen of them, and I was glad I hadn’t decided to say nine times nine.
“Really!”
“Shame, shame, shame, you wicked chiiiiiuiiiiild!” they all said in chorus. Eighteen giant seagulls, four feet tall and a wingspread to match, standing round my bed flopping those wings and ordering me in perfect harmony to be ashamed of my wickedness.
If they’d been real I’d have turned all eighteen into fleas and deposited them neatly in the high collar of Michael Stepforth’s cape, perhaps, but I was far too miserable to waste my time working Transformations on fakes. I closed my eyes instead and let the pseudobirds do their chant while I tried hard not to breathe, and after ten, eleven repetitions their creator finally appeared in my doorway—not bothering to knock—and came striding in, walking through one of his birds to reach my side.
“Look up, please,” he said crisply.
“Why? To view your little flock? No, thank you. I don’t care for squawkers.”
“Seagulls.”
“They look like squawkers to me,” I said. “Might could be your Spells are faulty.”
(I wished! I tried to imagine a faulty Spell worked up by Crimson of Airy, and found the thought ridiculous.)
“You look up here or I’ll put all the gulls in bed with you,” he said placidly. “And you wouldn’t like that; they’re awfully dirty.”
It was a pain as bad as the pain in my ribs to have to put up with his sass; on the other hand, I wasn’t about to give in to the temptation to do magic beyond my permitted level under this one’s nose. Much as some old-fashioned staple along the lines of turning him into a reptile would have done me good, much as I longed for the tiny satisfaction of maybe just snapping one of his perfect fingerbones, I was not that foolish. Even if I could have managed something like that with all my supplies packed away in a wardrobe and three of my ribs broken, there was no sense to giving him any further smallest advantage. I lay still, and I looked up.
Hmmmmm. Structural Description ... Structural Change ... Coreferential Indexes. All properly formal and not a fingertip out of place. The double-barred arrow appeared in the air; glowing gold, quivering slightly, and the pain faded away as the arrow did. Perhaps ninety seconds total time. I was impressed. It always takes longer to undo things than to do them, and more formal operations are required. He was as good as my grandmother said he was. I grinned at him.
“Ask me no fool questions,” he said grimly, “and don’t offer me any more of your uncalled-for and unappreciated assessments of my person. Just thank me, please, and show you have some breeding.”
“Thank you kindly. Magician of Rank Michael Stepforth Guthrie the 11 th ,” I said promptly. “You are certainly handy at your work, and I intend to mention it everywhere I go.” And I batted my lashes at him, and crossed my hands over my breasts.
“Your Attendant will be along soon,” he
My grandmother was furious, that was quite clear without her slamming the door behind her and making all the crests hanging about rattle on their hooks. I hadn’t expected warmth here, but this exceeded my expectations; I was amazed. And where was her husband, her own sixth cousin with the utterly prosaic name and the utterly prosaic manner? The most boring of all the Guthries? Ordinarily he would at least have been mentioned, if not present for our little altercation ... where was James John Guthrie the 17 th in the midst of my welcome?
“A man’s name is chosen for euphony,” I said aloud, “and James John Guthrie is not euphonious. It sounds like three rocks landing on a pavement, and the third one bouncing.”
Whereupon something replied, after a fashion. Considering what I had said, “Shame, shame, shame, you wicked chiiiiiiild!” did not really follow.
I topped it.
“Three times six is eighteen,” I told the thing, and then there were eighteen of them, and I was glad I hadn’t decided to say nine times nine.
“Really!”
“Shame, shame, shame, you wicked chiiiiiuiiiiild!” they all said in chorus. Eighteen giant seagulls, four feet tall and a wingspread to match, standing round my bed flopping those wings and ordering me in perfect harmony to be ashamed of my wickedness.
If they’d been real I’d have turned all eighteen into fleas and deposited them neatly in the high collar of Michael Stepforth’s cape, perhaps, but I was far too miserable to waste my time working Transformations on fakes. I closed my eyes instead and let the pseudobirds do their chant while I tried hard not to breathe, and after ten, eleven repetitions their creator finally appeared in my doorway—not bothering to knock—and came striding in, walking through one of his birds to reach my side.
“Look up, please,” he said crisply.
“Why? To view your little flock? No, thank you. I don’t care for squawkers.”
“Seagulls.”
“They look like squawkers to me,” I said. “Might could be your Spells are faulty.”
(I wished! I tried to imagine a faulty Spell worked up by Crimson of Airy, and found the thought ridiculous.)
“You look up here or I’ll put all the gulls in bed with you,” he said placidly. “And you wouldn’t like that; they’re awfully dirty.”
It was a pain as bad as the pain in my ribs to have to put up with his sass; on the other hand, I wasn’t about to give in to the temptation to do magic beyond my permitted level under this one’s nose. Much as some old-fashioned staple along the lines of turning him into a reptile would have done me good, much as I longed for the tiny satisfaction of maybe just snapping one of his perfect fingerbones, I was not that foolish. Even if I could have managed something like that with all my supplies packed away in a wardrobe and three of my ribs broken, there was no sense to giving him any further smallest advantage. I lay still, and I looked up.
Hmmmmm. Structural Description ... Structural Change ... Coreferential Indexes. All properly formal and not a fingertip out of place. The double-barred arrow appeared in the air; glowing gold, quivering slightly, and the pain faded away as the arrow did. Perhaps ninety seconds total time. I was impressed. It always takes longer to undo things than to do them, and more formal operations are required. He was as good as my grandmother said he was. I grinned at him.
“Ask me no fool questions,” he said grimly, “and don’t offer me any more of your uncalled-for and unappreciated assessments of my person. Just thank me, please, and show you have some breeding.”
“Thank you kindly. Magician of Rank Michael Stepforth Guthrie the 11 th ,” I said promptly. “You are certainly handy at your work, and I intend to mention it everywhere I go.” And I batted my lashes at him, and crossed my hands over my breasts.
“Your Attendant will be along soon,” he
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