Sneel snorted and grabbed the sheet. He made a big show of turning the figures rightside up. “Hmm, a trifling amount, if I may say so. And you cobbler, you and ten other people live on this much?”
“Yes, Sire, for three months or more, but not very well.”
The magickian sighed and handed the paper back. “Learn to figure, my good man. And then you will know how much you will make from all these shoes. You’d best keep the whole amount.”
The villagemen left with profound gratitude for the generosity of the Lord Magickian. Alone again in the tower, Sneel frowned. He’d have to rethink his finances; in fact, he had never given thought to such things, assuming he’d be the Magick Advisor until his death by natural causes or in battle with other wizards. Apparently there wasn’t much money to be made in shoes: his share of the cobbler’s sales wouldn’t have been enough even to pay Marmet, let alone his dozen other acolytes and the servants and their families. He sighed. Magick had never failed him; he would yet prevail.
As he watched from the tower window, the two villagers were heading toward town on an ox-driven cart that squeaked and jolted viciously on the rocky trail leading the miles back down the mountainside. Maybe, just maybe, if he couldn’t earn sufficient income making shoes, he could find some other type of manufacture that he could enhance. Preferably one that already had all the component parts built and ready for assembly. In the distance, the cart disappeared behind an outcropping of rock. Something about the jostling, bumping cart gnawed at his mind…
He spoke to his stone walls. “Hmm, now how many parts does a cart have anyway?”
The walls answered softly—as he had magicked them to do, so many years before that he had almost forgotten they were still enchanted: “Twenty-three, on average, Sire, if you count the wheels as separate sub-assemblies. On the other hand, if you count each of the individual piece-parts that are fabricated individually by the wheelwright, plus the blacksmith’s contributions of rivets, pins and plates, plus the separate leather ox control straps, leashes, and so forth the total can be as high as three hundred.” The magician stared at the morphic stone mouth that was stating these figures matter-of-factly. “Of course, if you want yokes, brakes, and a differential mechanism, there can be thousands—”
“Enough!” Sneel shouted. “I understand quite sufficiently! Lots and lots of parts!”
“Sire, if you wish to take into account the so-called ‘train-wagons’ of Far Cathee, with their human-powered assisting drives, then—” Sneel sighed and magicked the walls off. If memory served, he hadn’t spoken to them in a dozen years, so naturally the poor things were eager to exercise their voice and their Magicked talents. But, Holy Hephaestos, were they overbearing!
Dawn had not yet lit the skies as Sneel trundled across the lowered drawbridge, heading for the village. He yelled back to Marmet, “And you’d better have those numbers for me tonight, or you will be the first casualty of the peace, apprentice!” From somewhere in the darkened castle came the boy’s weak affirmation.
The Cartwright’s establishment, it turned out, was far on the other side of the Imperial Palace estates. It was a tired and foot-weary Sneel who settled down, cross-legged, under the shade of the spreading branches of an ancient, gnarled oak in front of the place. The manufactory comprised a crude hovel, a lean-to shed for the storage of rough-sawn lumber, and several outbuildings of equally crude construction. A dozen or more men went about their noisy tasks, hauling boards over their shoulders, sawing with large manual string-saws, hammering pegs, assembling parts into near-carts and unfinished wagons of several varieties. Off to the side, two wheelwrights were rolling their handiworks in for assembly into vehicles.
The odors, as usual, were not those of the rare and perfect parfums of the palace, or even of the enchanting workaday incenses of Sneel’s more modest castle. These were the mustiness of sawdust, the smell of curing leather—for suspension and brakes, Sneel knew, courtesy of his talkative but all-knowing Sanctorum walls—and the pungency of lubricating greases and wood-treating potions. The cacophony and the symphony of odors, however, were strangely pleasant in their effect, as if a well-oiled device were humming along according to its intended Magicked animation spell.
As three men rolled out a finished wagon, complete with tongue and yokes in place, Sneel arose and walked over to inspect the vehicle. The men stopped their forward progress, bowing toward the Lord Magickian and backing off to a proper distance. One of them left to enter the nearest hovel of the manufactory. The satisfying feel of the finished wood, the smell of the many treatments of oak and leather, and the obvious pride of the workmen in their accomplishment suflused the magickian with a sense of pride in his fellow citizens of the Empire. Strange that he had never taken the time to appreciate the beauty of the synthesis of raw materials into useful things. Soon a coarsely-dressed, bent-over old mortal, whom Sneel took to be the operator of the manufactory, came out bearing a battered silver goblet brimming with aged mead. Nodding in thanks, the magickian said, between sips, “I have come to offer my services, good Cartwright, in the furtherance of your profitability.”
The old man jerked straight upright, the hump in his back disappearing. “My Lord Magickian,” he began, nervously smoothing out the greasy creases in his broadcloth breeches, “Of course I welcome your assistance, but to what do I owe such an honor?” The man’s gaze turned toward the palace walls and spires in the distance. “One of the Nobility, a Lord Wizard—the Lord Wizard, if my old memory serves me, Lord Sneel—deigning to work in the mud, with wood and grease and iron?”
Sneel arose, handing back the goblet to the carter. “Well, my good wagon-maker, not iron, if you please!” The wizard’s gorge rose when he thought of all the evil iron had wrought, with its strange attractions and anti-spell fields. “You mortals are best with that. But the other materials—” he held out callused hands, palms up, to illustrate his point. “—they are well known to me. We who work with Magick have vast experience with all the minerals and materials of this world.
“And of others,” he whispered knowingly.
The carter invited Sneel inside, and there they schemed.
“This time, Marmet, it worked according to my plan.” Sneel was smiling broadly, pretending to audit the stack of parchments the apprentice was handing him, one sheet at a time.
“I am pleased to hear that, my lord.”
“Yes, old Cartwright and I, we went over every step of the assembly of just one wagon. We discussed the fact that the old man already had every single part for the task, on hand and ready. I personally counted every wheel subassembly, every wooden peg, every single flat board and lathe-turned piece, every leather strap and down into the vials of oils, ointments and vaporous substances with which the wagon-makers treat their fabricated items.”
Marmet stopped shuffling the parchment, fascinated by the working of the great wizard’s mind. This was apprenticeship at its best—receiving wisdom straight from the mouth of the master. No loathsome toads to dissect, no slimy, wriggling newts to hold while you pulled out their eyes with suction devices, and no wringing of bat wings from screeching, biting aerial varmints!
“Cartwright had his crew of laborers and craftsmen lay out all those dozens of parts in his wagon yard,” Sneel went on, satisfaction and relief evident in his relaxed voice, “according to the steps of the process that they traditionally follow. The wheels out at the edges of the yard, the chassis boards and lumbers near the center, the tongue and yokes off to the front, the tail gate to the back, and the axles near to the center. I even sketched up a ‘layout’ drawing of the diverse parts to enhance the assembly spell’s efficacy.”