childhood stories of magic he had learned. Finally his lips whispered
the simplest order he could find. "Rumpelstilsken, repair yourself!"

There was a whirring and scraping inside the mechanism, and Hanson let
out a yell. He got only a hasty glimpse of gears that seemed to be back
on their tracks before Sather Karf was beside him, driving the cranks
with desperate speed.

"We have less than a minute!" the old voice gasped.

The Sather's fingers spun on the controls. Then he straightened, moving
his hands toward the orrery in passes too rapid to be seen. There was a
string of obvious ritual commands in their sacred language. Then a
single word rang out, a string of sounds that should have come from no
human vocal chords.

There was a wrench and twist through every atom of Hanson's body. The
universe seemed to cry out. Over the horizon, a great burning disc rose
and leaped toward the heavens as the sun went back to its place in the
sky. The big bits of sky-stuff around also jerked upwards, revealing
themselves by the wind they whipped up and by the holes they ripped
through the roof of the building. Hanson clutched at the scrap he had
pocketed, but it showed no sign of leaving, and the tiny blob of
sun-stuff remained fixed to the awl.

Through the diamond lens, Hanson could see the model of the world in the
orrery changing. There were clouds apparently painted on it where no
clouds had been. And there was an indication of movement in the green of
the forests and the blue of the oceans, as if trees were whipping in the
wind and waves lapping the shores.

When he jerked his eyes upward, all seemed serene in the sky. Sunlight
shone normally on the world, and from under the roof he could see the
gaudy blue of sky, complete, with the cracks in it smoothing out as he
watched.

The battle outside had stopped with the rising of the sun. Half the
warlocks were lying motionless, and the other half had clustered
together, close to the building where Hanson and Sather Karf stood. The
Sons of the Egg seemed to have suffered less, since they greatly
out-numbered the others, but they were obviously more shocked by the
rising of the sun and the healing of the sky.

Then Malok's voice rang out sharply. "It isn't stable yet! Destroy the
machine! The egg must hatch!"

He leaped forward, brandishing his knife, while the Sons of the Egg fell
in behind him. The warlocks began to close ranks, falling back to make a
stand under the j