Read A Bad Spell in Yurt - Wizard of Yurt - 1 for Free Online

want.
    He planted his solid body in a chair by the window, set his elbow firmly on the arm, and leaned his chin on a massive fist. "I've come to talk to you about your duties."
    This was it. I knew my problem wasn't the rain or the lack of crul ers. I had spent two days on vacation, but now I was going to have to start work on projects I didn't think I could do. I tried to look intel igent and alert.
    Surprisingly, he hesitated for a moment before beginning. "You're an outsider," he said at last--something I already knew!--"and maybe I shouldn't prejudice your mind with too many details. But you have to know one thing now. The king is under a spel ."

    This was not at al what I had expected. "Under a spel ? What sort? I talked to him in the rose garden yesterday afternoon, and he never said anything about it."
    "He wouldn't have, of course. He doesn't realize it himself. But the spel was one of the major reasons we decided to hire you."
    He didn't say who we were. He looked at me from under heavy lids, waiting for my answer. "But what sort of spel ? Do you know the source?"
    "The king is growing old and feeble. This can only be the result of enchantment. We don't know the source of the spel , but we want you to overcome it."
    "But that's sil y!" I protested. "Of course he's getting weaker as he gets older. And besides," thinking that the chaplain should hear me now, "wizardry can't reverse natural aging."
    "The king isn't as old as you may think. When he married the queen, only four years ago, no one thought of them as an extremely il -matched couple."
    A sudden vision flashed into my mind of a girl married to a much older man, excited at first at the power of being queen, but soon made irritable when she discovered she was not supposed to have a mind of her own, but only be the king's pliant companion. It shouldn't be hard for her, on one of her trips to the City, to find an unscrupulous wizard wil ing to sel her a powder or spel to sicken her husband.
    "It must be the queen, then," I said. "She has bewitched him somehow."
    A low rumble began somewhere in his barrel chest and emerged in an angry, "No! It's not the queen. It couldn't be anyone at court. It must be a malignant influence from outside."
    I modified my vision to have the queen and the royal heir secretly in love, plotting to have the king die so that they could rule together. But I stopped myself. This made no sense. If Dominic were partial y responsible for putting an evil spel on the king, he certainly wouldn't tel me about it.
    "Thank you for this warning," I said in a deep voice. "The power of magic to conceal itself is often great, but the skil of the forewarned wizard is potent indeed."
    To my surprise, he treated this statement perfectly seriously. "Good. I knew we had done wel to hire you." He started to rise.
    "But how about my other duties? The king's talked to me about a telephone system, the constable's said you need more magic lights--"
    He waved these away with his broad hand. I was fascinated by the ruby ring on his second finger. Its setting was a gold snake supporting the jewel on its coils. It looked like a perfect ring for a wizard, and I coveted it for myself. "Those are a facade for your real work." He pul ed his coat back on, picked up his umbrel a, and left without saying Goodbye.
    I stood by the open door, looking across the rain-drenched courtyard. The paint and the flowers were bright in spite of the dark sky. Could there actual y be dark powers at work here in such a perfect little castle?
    I closed my eyes, probing past the closed doors and shuttered windows. There were plenty of minds there, most of which I did not know wel enough to recognize, though I could tel the king and Gwen. Oddly, I didn't find the chaplain. I stayed wel outside their minds, slipping by so lightly they wouldn't even feel me there. I found no powerful evil presence.
    But when I opened my eyes a sense of foreboding lingered. Dominic might be right. If not the