He walked slowly in among the green landscapes and the moving clouds, passing through the wires of the framework underneath as if they were not there. That part always gave me a shudder. How could a person walk through solid gold wire?

He stopped with his hand over dim, green Wales. “This is the real problem. I’m going to have to fetch the weather from Ireland without letting this lot drift in across us. That’s really appalling weather there in Wales at the moment. I shall have to try to get it to move away north and out to sea. Let’s see how the bigger currents are going.”

Up to his waist in moving, misty map, he gestured. The whole picture humped up a little and moved away sideways, first to show a curve of heaving gray ocean, ribbed like a tabby cat with strips of whitish cloud, and then, giddily, going the other way to show green-brown views of the Low Countries and the French kingdoms and more stripes of cloud there.

“Hmm,” my father said again. “Not as bad as I feared. Everything is setting northward, but only very slowly. I shall have to speed things up.”

He set to work, rather as a baker might roll dough along a board, pushing and kneading at clumps of cloud, steering ocean wisps with the flat of his hands, and shoving mightily at the weathers over Ireland and Wales. The dimness over Wales broke apart a little to show more green, but it didn’t move away. My father surveyed it with one hand to his chin.

“Sorry, everyone,” he said. “The only way with this is a well-placed wind.”

We watched him moving around, sometimes up to his shoulders in land and cloud, creating winds. Most of them he made by blowing more or less softly, or even just opening his mouth and breathing, and they were never quite where you thought they ought to be. “It’s a little like sailing a boat,” he explained, seeing Grundo frowning. “The wind has to come sideways onto the canvas to make a boat move, and it’s the same here, except that weather always comes in swirls, so I have to be careful to set up a lighter breeze going the opposite way. There.” He set everything moving with a sharp breath that was almost a whistle and stood back out of the table to time it.

After a few minutes of looking from his big, complicated watch to the movements on the table, he walked away and picked up his robe. Weather working is harder than it looks. Dad’s face was streaming with sweat, and he was panting slightly as he fetched his portable far-speaker out of a pocket in the robe. He thought a moment, to remember that day’s codes, and punched in the one for the Waymaster Royal’s office.

“Daniel Hyde here,” he told the official who answered. “The rain will stop at twelve-oh-two, but I can’t promise any sunlight until one o’clock.... Yes … Almost exactly, but it couldn’t be done without a wind, I’m afraid. Warn His Majesty that there may be half a gale blowing between eleven-thirty and midday. It’ll drop to a light wind around half past. … Yes, we should have fine weather for some days after this.”

He put the speaker away and smiled at us while he put on his robe. “Fancy a visit to the Petty Viands bus?” he asked. “I could do with a cup of something hot and maybe a sticky cake or two.”

ONE

WILL YOU ALL BE QUIET!” snapped High Chancellor Querida. She pouched up her eyes and glared around the table.

“I was only trying to say—” a king, an emperor, and several wizards began.

“At once,” said Querida, “or the next person to speak spends the rest of his life as a snake!”

This shut most of the University Emergency Committee up. Querida was the most powerful wizard in the world, and she had a special feeling for snakes. She looked like a snake herself, small and glossy-skinned and greenish, and very, very old. Nobody doubted she meant what she said. But two people went on talking, anyway. Gloomy King Luther murmured from the end of the table, “Being a snake might be a relief.” And when Querida’s eyes darted around at him, he stared glumly back, daring her to do it.

And Wizard Barnabas, who was vice chancellor of the University, simply went on talking.

“… trying to say, Querida, that you don’t understand what it’s like. You’re a woman. You only have to be the Glamorous Enchantress. Mr. Chesney won’t let women do the Dark Lord.” Querida’s eyes snapped around at him with no effect at all. Barnabas gave her a cheerful smile and puffed a little. His face seemed designed for good humor. His hair and beard romped around his face in gray curls. He looked into Querida’s pouched eyes with his blue, bloodshot ones and added, “We’re all worn out, the lot of us.”

“Hear, hear!” a number of people around the table muttered cautiously.

“I know that!” Querida snapped. “And if you’d listen, instead of all complaining at once, you’d hear me saying that I’ve called this meeting to discuss how to put a stop to Mr. Chesney’s Pilgrim Parties for good.”

This produced an astonished silence.

A bitter little smile put folds in Querida’s cheeks. “Yes,” she said. “I’m well aware that you elected me high chancellor because you thought I was the only person ruthless enough to oppose Mr. Chesney and that you’ve all been very disappointed when I didn’t immediately leap at his throat. I have, of course, been studying the situation. It is not easy to plan a campaign against a man who lives in another world and organizes his tours from there.” Her small green-white hands moved to the piles of paper, bark, and parchment in front of her, and she began stacking them in new heaps, with little dry, rustling movements. “But it is clear to me,” she said, “that things have gone from bad, to intolerable, to crisis point, and that something must be done. Here I have forty-six petitions from all the male wizards attached to the University and twenty-two from other male magic users, each pleading chronic overwork. This pile is three letters signed by over a hundred female wizards, who claim they are being denied equal rights. They are accurate. Mr. Chesney does not think females can be wizards.” Her hands moved on to a mighty stack of parchments with large red seals dangling off them. “This,” she said, “is from the kings. Every monarch in the world has written to me at least once protesting at what the tours do to their kingdoms. It is probably only necessary to quote from one. King Luther, perhaps you would care to give us the gist of the letter I receive from you once a month?”

“Yes, I would,” said King Luther. He leaned forward and gripped the table with powerful blue-knuckled hands. “My kingdom is being ravaged,” he said. “I have been selected as Evil King fifteen times in the last twenty years, with the result that I have a tour through there once a week, invading my court and trying to kill me or my courtiers. My wife has left me and taken the children with her for safety. The towns and countryside are being devastated. If the army of the Dark Lord doesn’t march through and sack my city, then the Forces of Good do it next time. I admit I’m being paid quite well for this, but the money I earn is so urgently needed to repair the capital for the next Pilgrim Party that there is almost none to spare for helping the farmers. They hardly grow anything these days. You must be aware, High Chancellor—”

Querida’s hand went to the next pile, which was of paper, in various shapes and sizes. “I am aware, thank you, Your Majesty. These letters are a selection of those I get from farmers and ordinary citizens. They all state that what with magical weather conditions, armies marching over crops, soldiers rustling cattle, fires set by the Dark Lord’s minions, and other hazards, they are likely to starve for the foreseeable future.” She picked up another smallish pile of paper. “Almost the only people who seem to be prospering are the innkeepers, and they complain that the lack of barley is making it hard to brew sufficient ale.”