A heavy pot hanging near the oven tipped over with a reverberating clatter. Sasha and Thorin turned to look, but Wiglaf was still admiring the miracle.
"Wiglaf," said Sasha.
"This is how they fed all those people in the Year of Starving," he exulted.
"Wiglaf," said Sasha.
"Good-bye to hunger. Good-bye to famine."
"Wiglafl" shouted Thorin.
Wiglaf turned with a start.
"Son, it's still rising."
The doughy mass had pushed farther toward the ovens. Now it nearly covered the metal arm that had held Thorin's water pot over the fire. They whirled around. The monstrous loaf had increased to a full hand taller than the level of the baking table. When they held still, they could see it rising silently, inexorably, like flood waters up a riverbank.
"Well, let's get it out of here," said Wiglaf, and he sunk his arms into the mound up to his elbows. He pulled out a double handful of the goo. The impressions of his hands vanished in seconds as the dough expanded beyond them, and he could feel the sticky ball he held growing larger, inflating like a sheep's bladder. The pace was accelerating. He dropped his gargantuan biscuit into the broadening mass.
"Next idea?" Sasha raised one eyebrow.
"How long has this stuff been sitting here?" Thorin asked.
“Two, three hours? Why?" cried Wiglaf.
"How long before it stops rising?"
They stared with growing dread at the bread-mountain. It was easy to see its progress now. The dough was moving past the fire grate on the back wall at a slow, syrupy rate, pressing through the tines like soft cheese, headed toward the smoldering coals. In the other direction, against the baking table, the pile was nearly as tall as Sasha, patiently oozing over and around the table, pushing its way into every empty space.
"We've got to leave," she said. "While we still can."
They stepped gingerly around the growing goop, backing against oven doors that would soon be covered in dough, inching their way sideways toward the front counter area, thankfully still pristine for now. Like a witness to a carriage accident, Wiglaf had to fight a perverse fascination as he moved; he just couldn't take his eyes off the bizarre sight. Safely past the entrance to the baking area, they watched helplessly as the dough rose upward and outward, seeking the confines of whatever oddly shaped "pan" it was now in. It was taller than any of them now. It pushed toward the ceiling and out to the walls. It had thoroughly covered the fire coals and was rising up into the chimney. For the first time there was a faint smell of baking as the trio backed out the door.
"Self-baking bread! It hardly needs any heat!" Wiglaf sighed in amazement.
There were a few more people in the street now; Garadel had fetched the constabulary, and two night-shift officers were armed and ready to repel thieves. But before Wiglaf and the others could explain, a red, hissing coal fell from somewhere above and landed with a plop at Wiglaf's feet. He recoiled, ran into the street, and frantically mumbled at the flickering overnight torches, praying he'd remembered every syllable of one of the very first spells Fenzig had ever taught him.
Each time they are called upon to make their solemn decisions, the Fates weigh our lifelong understanding against our immediate need. Somehow, at this moment, the divine mathematics were on Wiglaf's side, for without a sound, a brilliant ball of continual light winked into existence, completely surrounding the bakery and turning darkness into daylight within a precisely defined sphere. It was as if the spectators in the street were watching a show whose star happened to be a building. Within the spell's range, the illumination was blinding, and Sasha and Thorin, tumbling out of the bakery and into the street, saw only spots for a brief moment. But for the others looking back, all was clear.
A woman in Garadel's doorstep screamed and pointed back at the bakery roof. Spotlit by Wiglaf's magical radiance, the impossible shape of a huge squared block of breadstuffs slowly pushed its way up out of the chimney, like sausage through a grinder, festooned with hot coals that trickled off the mass and ran down the roof's bricked incline into the street.
Back inside, the main sticky blob had insinuated its way into the front room and was headed for the door, its bulk loudly dragging pans and utensils against the wood floor in a weird imitation of a chain-clanking ghost. Two squared-off doughy arms proceeded out through the windows on either side of the bakery and oozed limply toward the ground, several neighborhood dogs barking and snapping at them. A family of mice scurried out the front door, the largest one shaking something cream-colored off its paws.
"What's all this, then?"
Another group of excited and curious townspeople had been drawn by the magical light, and Wiglaf was dismayed to see Angrod Swordthumper among them, dinner napkin still bibbed in place under his chin.
"Wiggy! So this is yer big recipe?" he bellowed. "I was to be pickin' up tomorrow's breakfast rolls… but it looks like one'\ be enough!" The crowd broke its stunned silence with a titter of nervous laughter. Angrod grabbed an overnight torch and sauntered over toward the bakery. He tapped with the torch at the growing claylike fountain oozing from the window. "I'll have this one!" Relieved of its tension, the crowd laughed louder.
"Get away, man!" Sasha warned.
"I can handle Wiggy's breakfast, missy," Angrod sneered.
But suddenly, as he poked at the dough, his torch went inside it, through the membrane of a mammoth air pocket. The torn bubble popped and splattered him with dough, and the crowd went wild. Livid and embarrassed, Angrod began to club at his gooey tormentor with the torch, but each time he struck the lump, more air popped out, more dough spat on him, and he only became a bigger mess.
Wiglaf heard other popping sounds; he turned to see air pockets in the dough bursting and splattering in all directions as it squeezed out of the tight confines of the bakery, covering the yipping dogs and anyone else who happened to be too close. Then the horrible sight vanished-for it was at that precise instant that Wiglaf's spell exhausted itself and the magical illumination winked back to normal. There was only popping, splat-ting, clanging, barking, and screaming while everyone's eyes adjusted to torchlight.
"Get the light back!" yelled Sasha.
"It's supposed to be permanent! I don't know what went wrong!" Wiglaf cried, desperately thinking of a substitute. He wildly gesticulated, chanted from memory, reached an emphatic finish, and extended his arms in a flourish. The torches and hot coals, every fire in the street, burst into superluminance; their light was as bright as the noonday sun, and revealed a panicked group of people who looked like the losers in a pie fight-including his own father. Wiglaf felt the magical flame's warmth and perversely wanted to bask in it, but then came a shout from Angrod.
"I can't move me legs!" the big smith bellowed. In the dark, Angrod had stumbled farther into the mountain of gook, and now he was trapped waist-deep in it, flailing with his torch, surrounded by dough. The crowd stared in gooey stupefaction.
"Hold on," screamed Sasha, and ran to Angrod, careful to stay out of the stuff herself. She grabbed both hands and yanked with all her strength.
"Ooooowf Angrod screamed. "Me mitt! Leave us be!" He left her grip and massaged his right arm and shoulder, still smarting from arm wrestling. The mass was rising yet, well past his hips, headed toward his chest and head.
"No! If that stuff gets to your face, you'll smother!" Sasha shouted.
Wiglaf was suddenly there, reaching under Angrod's left shoulder to help. They pulled as hard as they could, but Angrod was stuck tight, and getting trapped deeper by the second. The already gargantuan lump was growing so steadily that it looked instead as if Angrod was receding into it. The dough had risen past his belly button and was still moving.
“Too late, Wiggy," Angrod sobbed. "Save yerself."
"Thanks, you big goon, but there's one last chance," Wiglaf said. "Only I've never tried this on a person before. Okay with you?"
“Try it, laddie," Angrod said grimly.
Wigla
f produced a piece of pork rind from his robe and chanted softly but quickly. "One more time, Sasha."
They anchored their arms under Angrod's shoulders and pulled, causing lances of pain to shoot up the big man's right arm. There was a little resistance at first. Then he started to move out of the goop, and once they established some momentum, Angrod slid out of the dough like a sword from its sheath, with a long wet sucking sound. The expanding dough wrapped itself around Wiglaf's right foot, but he kicked it free.
"Ye did it, lad!" he cried. "Ye saved me!"
"Wiglaf, how?" Sasha asked in astonishment.
Angrod pushed to his knees and tried to stand, but his feet slipped out from under him and he fell flat. He got to all fours and failed at a few sliding strides before sitting down with a plop.
"I greased you," said Wiglaf.
Sasha guffawed as Angrod slipped before even rising to his knees.
"Don't worry. It won't last much longer."
"Wigg-" Angrod started, then thought better. "Excuse me, Wiglaf. I don't care how ye done it, laddie. I'd have been a goner but for you. Maybe you do have magic inside ye, after all." He extended his hand, and Wiglaf and Sasha helped the big man to his feet. "Thanks be to ye, lad. I-what's that smell?"
Wiglaf sniffed. It smelled like baking bread, everywhere. The remnants of dough on Angrod's legs were definitely hardening; they could pull it off in little strips. But there was another scent in the air too.
Smoke.
The torches!
It seemed as if the rate of growth of the dough pouring out of the bakery might have finally slowed. But now the large mass was pushing up and out, against the nearest supercharged overnight torches. The onlookers could all see a faint brownish cast on the surface of the dough mound-and at the very edges, unmistakable traces of carbon. Smoke began to waft upward and overpower the lovely self-baking smell. In the nearby stables, horses whinnied and kicked in terror. Wiglaf groaned. The largest loaf of bread in history, and now it was burning.
"You've got to turn them off!" Thorin shouted.
Wiglaf gave it some panicked thought. He mumbled and gestured toward the torches with a sweep of his hand. At the end of his movement, a fine streak flew from his pointing finger into the night sky a few yards above the bakery, and with a low roar, a fireball detonated.
"NO!" screamed Sasha.
The wave of heat was almost solid as it raced downward toward the near-bakery-sized lump of dough, crisping the outer surface. The bricks on the roof drank in the heat and began baking the dough's underside. The blackened burning areas spread, and huge billows of smoke cascaded into the street and caused spasms of hacking in the onlookers' throats. Wiglaf was drenched in sweat. The dough had apparently stopped rising. Wonderful. Now everyone would simply die of suffocation.
Then, a miracle happened.
The columns of smoke changed course and blew over the heads of the coughing crowd. The breeze pushed a pair of low-lying clouds together in front of the bright moon, and they darkened in seconds into impressive thunderheads. A fat, heavy drop of water splat-ted on Wiglafs head, and was joined by thousands more just instants later. The magnificent cloudburst sizzled out the torches and coals and drenched the suddenly jubilant people in the street. The sticky dough was wiping off easily in the cleansing rainstorm, and the goopy mass that moments ago had threatened Angrod's life was quickly turning into the world's biggest dumpling.
A gaunt, berobed figure in the middle of the street dropped his arms and ran his hands through a head of wet, snow-white hair before replacing his cowl.
Not a miracle at all. This storm had been manmade.
"Fenzig! Whe-, wha-, hoo-" sputtered Wiglaf when he reached his master's side.
"Spare me the hyperventilation," the mage sniffed in a voice too low for others to hear. "You actually thought I would let you out of my sight for an entire week? Though I must admit, I did underestimate you." He frowned at the street scene. "I didn't think such a level of disaster could possibly be created in a single day."
"I didn't mean-"
"Silence. I know what you meant. I've been watching you the entire time. You know just enough to be dangerous, lad, and precious little else. If you had applied yourself during our language classes, you would have been able to read the entire inscription on the parchment. That, youngling, was your undoing."
"But the Year of Plenty-"
"Achieved with your magic dough, yes, but the rest of that piece fed multitudes!"
"The other half?"
"It is written perfectly plainly in Thorass," Fenzig hissed. "One sprinkled pinch is sufficient to make the oversized loaves that ended that famine of antiquity. I could throttle you for causing this mess. And you're going to make amends. But now I have to put on the public face."
Against all reason, Fenzig put his arms around Wiglaf and walked him back toward the crowd, speaking at stage volume. "Thank you, Wiglaf, for extinguishing the fires," he intoned, "and what a grand gesture, giving the jar you found to your father in payment for his inconvenience."
"Fenzig, have you gone mad?" Wiglaf spoke out of the side of his mouth.
"No, son," his master spoke softly, "but I never cause my students ridicule in public. Bad for the professional image. Don't worry, you'll be doing plenty of penance when we get back home."
And so, while Fenzig and Sasha passed the time with Wiglafs parents, Wiglaf himself spent the rest of his Calimport vacation on janitorial duty. He emptied the bakery with rakes and shovels, and on hands and knees scrubbed it clean again from top to bottom-a job made even more difficult after just about every bird in Cal-imshan discovered the mammoth feast; a few judicious grease spells when nobody was looking helped the process immensely.
The bakers enjoyed a temporary holiday while Wiglaf cleaned up, and spent the days lounging in the sun and at the seashore.
"I'm sorry, Father," Wiglaf said on the third day, when Thorin brought him a lunch basket from home. "I'm sorry you had to close down."
"Don't worry, son," the baker said, looking around. "This place has never looked so clean before. And Fen-zig has shown me exactly how to use that jar of starter, so I should make up for the lost business in no time. In fact, this could turn out to be my most profitable season ever. And I owe that to you, son."
Wiglaf hugged his father for a long time. Things were right again. Things were normal again in Calim-port.
Except.
Those who were close enough to hear said the screams from the pasha's palace continued for many days thereafter.
Interlude
Wes began looking for something more to read. He had learned so much in this room, more than most of the monks knew, he was willing to wager. As his gaze traversed the room, his attention was caught by a thin, leather-bound tome, wedged behind a bookshelf. He hadn't noticed it before, but it seemed to be calling to him, begging him to pick it up and read.
His curiosity aroused, Wes carefully extracted the book from its unusual place and took it to the table. The book began with a history of when and why the library was built, and why here at Candlekeep.
The library was housed in a large stone edifice near the edge of the cliffs overlooking the Sea of Swords. The cliff-top position made the library easy to defend in its early days, when any kind of building was assumed to be a fortification. Indeed, parts of the library gave the appearance of a noble's castle.
Baldur's Gate lay a little over one hundred miles to the north, and there wasn't much of anything else close by. This was how the monks who ran the library preferred it. Study, meditation, and the copying of written works were not pursuits that leant themselves to the hustle and bustle of a busy city.
After a few pages of this dry history, Wes put the strange, slim tome aside and searched for another book. He discovered a tale from long before Candlekeep. In the ancient days of Netheril, there were floating cities, propelled by enormous magics, and defended by mages riding griffons…
Now, this looked interesting.
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When Even Sky Cities Fall
J. Robert King
Peregrin rose beside the thunderhead. The sun glinted from his eagle eyes and shone warmly in his flashing feathers. His leonine body cast a darting shadow up the wall of cloud before him. With each surge of his wings, the griffon climbed, prying loose the covetous fingers of Faerun.
His rider hunched, light and expert, in the saddle.
Josiah was a mage, as were all the green-robed griffon riders of Tith Tilendrothael. Only a mage could be mind-bonded to a griffon. Josiah had been mind-bonded to Peregrin for eleven of the man's twenty-five years. He rode with the balance and grace of experience. His long black hair lashed in the wind.
Just a little higher, Peregrin.
Through Josiah's eyes, the mind-bonded griffon saw the rest of the cavalry-four hundred bird-lions and their riders-topping the gray-black wall of cloud above.
Peregrin responded with a lunging rush of wings and fresh speed. He watched as the hind claws of the last ranks disappeared over the cloud ridge. In three more wing beats, Peregrin followed, vaulting the coiling squall line of the storm.
A broad skyscape opened before him. The top of the thunderhead dipped slowly away into a great black sea that stretched to the horizon. Against that toiling expanse, the other griffons glinted in formation like ships in a golden regatta. The creatures looked tiny and fragile upon the angry cloud.
For Tith Tilendrothael, pledged Josiah.
His black hair whipped around him as he took one final look back at the floating city whence they had come. Tith Tilendrothael was barely visible through a dark valley, its ivory towers and golden streets glittering in sunshine.
Peregrin meanwhile focused his attention ahead. What are we looking for, he asked, this? He sent an image of lightning leaping jaggedly across a misty cauldron below. Or this? His vision shifted to where the vaporous sea curved into a black vortex. Or-this?
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