Read Wizard at Work for Free Online

to borrow a
horse," the wizard said, since the prince hadn't been smart enough to bring two. "Why?"
    The prince sucked in his stomach and patted his still perfect hair. "No special reason," he said. "Just wondering."

    It took the rest of that day and most of the next for them to reach the mountain where the dragon had taken the princess. The prince, leaning against his horse, was watching the wizard and looking bored.
    The wizard held a blue cloud in his left hand. He ran his right over the surface of the cloud, stretching it. But it didn't thin out; it became thicker even as it grew longer. The wizard moved his hand in the other direction, making the cloud taller.
    The prince stopped in midyawn to pay closer attention.
    The wizard pulled the cloud longer yet: left hand pushing upward, right hand off to the side. The cloud was as big as a whale—and the wizard kept working at it.
    "Ahm...," the prince said, and shifted his weight nervously.
    The wizard added curves, angles, a leg here, a spiked tail there.
    "A dragon," the prince finally said. "You're forming another dragon. Well, that makes sense. Why fight one when you can be fighting two?"
    "Shhh," the wizard said, adding extra detail to the scales.
    Maybe nobody had ever shushed the prince before. He ignored the wizard's request to be quiet and asked, "What's it going to do, fight the first one?"
    "It's only a cloud, an illusion."
    "Sounds like it'll be a lot of help."
    The wizard glanced up, thinking that maybe it wasn't too late to turn the prince into a toad. Instead, he explained, "Dragons are very territorial. I'll set this one up over there, to the west, and the one that has your princess will go over to investigate. Meanwhile, I'll transform myself into an eagle, fly to the top of the mountain, find the princess, then flash all of us back to the tower."
    "The horses, too," the prince reminded him. "Horses are expensive, you know. Don't forget them."
    The wizard thought,
If I forget any of us, it won't be the horses.
But he didn't say this; he only floated the dragon up to the distant mountain range where he wanted it.
    From above them came an enraged screech.
    Wizard and prince ducked as a large green dragon shot out of seemingly nowhere and took off in pursuit of the artificial dragon.
    The wizard stretched his arms, whispered a magic word, and felt feathers sprout. He leaped off the edge of the cliff, caught an updraft, and was halfway up the mountainside before he had to start beating his wings.
    The cave, which had been invisible from below, was easy to spot, and the wizard landed on the ledge that the dragon must use. He transformed back into a man before entering the cave—so as not to startle the princess, knowing princesses frequently were of a delicate constitution—and he walked inside.
    The princess was lying on a pile of pillows embroidered with gold thread and stuffed with gosling feathers. She had a big box of candies by her elbow and was just about to pop one into her mouth when she spotted the wizard. "Hello," she said, her hand stopped in midair. "What's this?"
    "I've come to rescue you."
    The princess pouted. "Father sent you, didn't he?"
    "No," the wizard explained, "actually it was the Prince of Talahandra."
    The princess tossed the candy into the air and caught it in her mouth. "Never heard of him."
    The wizard watched her chew. And chew. And chew. Then he watched her select another candy and pop
that
into her mouth. Usually rescues did not go like this. Finally he said, "Well?"
    "Well, what?"
    "Are you coming?"
    The princess asked, "Do you mean: Do I consent to be rescued?"
    "Yes."
    "No."
    "No?"
    "Yes."
    The wizard shook his head to sort this out. "What do you mean, no?"
    The princess picked up a golden plate and checked her reflection to make sure there was nothing caught between her teeth. She smiled at herself and patted her lovely blond hair. "I mean," she said, as though finally remembering him, "I'm perfectly happy here. The dragon