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this Castle; he felt a sense of responsibility and wanted his position made unambiguous. “I don’t really think that legality enters in here, you know. I . . . uh . . . gave the matter a good deal of thought before I asked the Magician of Rank to do this. And I’m satisfied in my own mind that what this represents is a kind of . . . uh . . . contest. That is, if the Magician of Rank was to perform a Transformation like this and paralyze just any old lady, say, just any old lady at all, why, that would . . . uh . . . be a different kind of thing. That would be illegal, I’d be obliged to agree. But not with the Granny here . . . She, uh, has her own magic, and as I said-”
    “Sit down!” said the Magician of Rank. “Delldon Mallard Smith the Second-shut up and sit down.”
    “Now I don’t see that there’s any call for you to speak to me like that,” began Delldon Mallard. And then he saw Lincoln Parradyne set one hand on the bedstead and stretch out the other toward him, and he sat down instantly and closed his mouth.
    “I believe,” said Lincoln Parradyne through clenched teeth, “that I had better explain this to you gentlemen just one more time before we leave for Castle Brightwater. You do not appear to me to have it straight in your minds. Not at all.”
    “Now, Linc-”
    “Be still!” thundered the Magician of Rank. “You listen to what I say, you listen with both ears for once! Do I have your attention?”
    The silence indicated that he did, and he went on.
    “It is true that the Granny has magic of her own, surely; you’d be in sorry shape if she didn’t. Your girls would be born and given names at hazard, the way it was done on Old Earth, if the Granny weren’t at hand to choose a Proper Name. Your crops would fail and your goats would go dry. There would be rot and mildew and dirt and vermin inside the Castle, and there’d be blight and ignorance and dirt and vermin outside it. There’d be nobody to heal your sick-I give you my word neither the Magicians nor the Magicians of Rank have time these days to see to your sniffles and your bellyaches. But as for there being a contest between us, between myself and Granny Gableframe . . . think of a contest between twelve grown men and one four-year-old boy, and you’ll have something to compare! The odds are about the same.”
    “Well,” said Delldon Mallard, tugging at his bottom lip, “I think we’d need an interpretation on that. I wouldn’t want anybody saying as how I wasn’t fair. It might could be that you know a few tricks the Grannys don’t, Lincoln, I’m willing to grant you that. But I do believe your ego has a tendency to run away with you.” He chuckled softly, all tolerance and indulgence, and his brothers echoed him; and the Granny lying helpless under the counterpane closed her eyes as if she could bear no more.
    Lincoln Parradyne stared at the man, oldest of the Smith boys, Master of Castle Smith, and wondered whether he could control himself. I keep your Mules flying, he thought. Without my help a Mule could no more fly than it could knit. I see to your weather, so that no rain falls except where it’s needed, and I control the snow and the wind and all things that have to do with the heat and the cold, with wet and with dry . . . Because of the Magicians of Rank you have never known a blizzard or a drought or an earthquake. Or a disease that lasts more than a week, and even those we could shorten to minutes if we didn’t feel that the week was good for your coddled little characters. We see to
    He stopped, suddenly, in the middle of his silent recital, feeling foolish. There was some question as to just who it was he was trying to convince, since nobody could hear him. And if anyone could have, he’d of been guilty of spreading knowledge allowed only to the other Magicians of Rank and that accursed girl at Brightwater.
    “No point in arguing with him,” said the handsome brother. “No point atall. Delldon sets his