Garth's smile became a little less bitter; the man was amusing. "Did you say that you find this village dull? What of the dragon, then? Does it not provide enough excitement for you?"
"Oh, the dragon..." The man shrugged, as if the legendary monster were beneath his notice. "I meant that doing nothing for myself was dull, not that there had been no excitement in my life. I like to keep my hands busy when the dragon is not about, my hands and my mind." He gestured, wiggling his fingers to show that they were still agile.
Garth decided that he liked this fellow. "Have you children yourself?" he asked.
"Oh, all long since grown, like your own, my lord; even my grandchildren are married now, some of them." He glanced at the shop window. "Tell me," he said, "which do you like the best?"
Garth turned back and studied the collection; his gaze wandered over ships and horses, men and castles, women and machines. The swordsman had run down, frozen in midstroke with his sword thrust out before him.
"I cannot say," Garth replied. "I have not seen them all run. Some are not displayed to their best advantage here."
"Come inside, then, and I will show you more closely any that interest you." The toymaker grinned and beckoned, and Garth followed him.
The building's interior was dim and smelled strongly of metal and oil and herbs. A narrow passage led between two great tables that held the two window displays; beyond, a fair-sized room contained a fireplace and oven, a table, a few chairs, and a workbench. The last was cluttered with gears and wheels and snippets of copper, chisels and scissors and knives, powders and pastes, jars and vials, a potter's wheel, and a pedal-driven lathe. At the rear, another door stood slightly ajar.
Garth looked over the two tables; dozens of toys were displayed, perhaps a hundred or more. The toymaker wound up a spider that danced in circles as the cauldron-stirring witch ground to a halt.
Everything was a maze of arms and legs and wheels, plaster faces staring in the waxed-paper windows of wooden castles, and Garth could not imagine picking a single favorite from the muddle. He let his eyes roam, and found himself staring at a glistening copper shape that gleamed in one corner.
"What's that?" he asked, pointing. The object stood out because of its smooth, curving surface, unbroken by flailing arms or whirling gears.
The old man followed his pointing finger and fetched the object in question out into the light that poured through the window. It was a copper sea gull; two eyes of smoky quartz stared unseeingly from its tapered metal head, and its wings were polished to mirror brightness. "Ah, my lord," the old man said, "you have excellent taste."
"What does it do?" Garth asked.
"Why, what else would a bird do but fly?" He pulled a silver key from somewhere, inserted it in an opening in the mechanical gull's back, then gestured for Garth to follow him back outside. "Let me show you."
The overman followed and watched as the toymaker turned the key. With a small click, the key stopped; the old man pulled it out and, with a proud smile, cast the gull away.
Garth instinctively reached out to catch it, to keep its graceful curves from being scarred or broken by its fall, but it did not drop into his waiting hands. Instead, its metal wings caught the breeze and flapped once, twice, lazily, with the languid grace of a living sea gull, and it swooped away. Riding the wind, it glided upward, then looped back and circled slowly overhead. Garth gaped in astonishment.
For several long minutes the gull soared overhead, flapping smoothly now and then, gleaming golden in the morning sun; then, gradually, it settled lower and lower, until at last, with a rueful smile, the toymaker reached up and plucked it out of the sky.
Garth heard a click and a final soft whirr, and the gull was still.
Garth stared at the man with deep respect. "It is very beautiful," he said. "I was not aware that such things could be built of mere metal."
The toymaker looked down, obviously embarrassed. "Well, actually," he admitted, "they can't. I cheat. It's not just clockwork."
"It's not?"
"No. I use magic."
"Oh," Garth said knowingly. He had seen magic before, more of it than he liked. At least, he thought, this magic was harmless.
"I didn't originally-at least, I don't think I did. I started off using just clockwork when I was an apprentice, but I found right from the first that I could make machines that no one else could understand, things that worked when by all rights they should not have. Even when I built my clocks and toys in the usual ways, mine would run far longer and more smoothly than any of the others. I got better and better at it, too, until I was doing things that were plainly impossible to do with just clockwork. I had no idea how I did what I did back then; it simply came to me, as naturally as breathing, without my ever thinking about it. When I realized what was happening, I studied sorcery briefly; even though my teacher said I had a real talent, I didn't care for it. It seemed too dangerous, too uncertain. I went back to clockwork, but now I know a bit more about what I'm doing. I even use spells intentionally now, though I still make them up, rather than follow the old formulae. As I said, I have the knack for it. A fellow who came through here last year, fleeing from Sland, a wizard by the name of Karag, told me that it wasn't anything to be concerned about. He said that there are a lot of minor magical talents like mine scattered about; probably one of my ancestors back in the Twelfth Age, when magic was widespread, was a wizard of some sort, and I inherited a bit of his lingering power without knowing it."
"I had no idea it could work that way," Garth said.
"Neither did I when I was young, but it seems that's just how it does work. That gull wouldn't fly if anyone else had made it. I've shown other tinkers and craftsmen how to make flying toys, and they've done them just as I do, but theirs don't fly at all, they just fall."
Garth reached out, took the gull from the toymaker's hands, and turned it over, studying it. "Magic or not, it's a beautiful thing," he said.
"Yes, it is," the toymaker agreed.
"Do you wish to sell it?"
"Of course; I have no use for it. Besides, I have others and I can always make more. Would you like it?"
"Yes, I think I would; it's a wondrous device, whether clockwork or magic. What is your price?"
The man named a figure; Garth declined politely. After a brief and mild bout of bargaining, a price was settled upon as fair to both parties.
"Will you take it with you now, then?" the toymaker asked.
"No," Garth answered, handing it back, "I think not. I am seeking after the dragon at present; were I to take the gull, I fear that it might be broken in the fight. I will stop here and buy it on my way back, at the price agreed upon, if that will suit you." After a second's pause, he added, "Assuming, of course, that I come back; the stories I have heard of the dragon imply that I may not."
"The dragon?" Surprise and concern were plain in the toymaker's face. "You've come to slay the dragon? Oh, dear. That's most unfortunate."
"Is it?" Garth asked as he moved to mount his warbeast. "It may prove unfortunate for the dragon; it has never faced an overman before."
"Well, that's true," the old man admitted, "but still..." He fell into a confused silence and stood watching, the metal bird in his hands, as Garth rode on past him and out of the village.