ogress of an undine across the roof! Maybe magic was working again.

Bork turned back from the sight of his former companions. His face was
sick, but he managed to grin at Hanson. "Dave Hanson, to whom nothing is
impossible," he said.

Hanson had located Nema finally as she approached. He caught her hand
and grabbed Bork's arm. Like his own, it was trembling with fatigue and
reaction.

"Come on," he said. "Let's find some place where we can see whether it's
impossible now for you to magic up a decent meal. And a drink strong
enough to scare away the sylphs."

The sylph that found them wasn't scared by the Scotch, but there was
enough for all of them.

X

Three days can work magic--in a world where magic works. The planets
swung along their paths again and the sun was in the most favorable
house for conjuration. The universe was stable again.

There was food for all, and houses had been conjured hastily to shelter
the people. The plagues were gone. Now the strange commerce and industry
of this world were humming again. Those who had survived and those who
could be revived were busily rebuilding. Some were missing, of course.
Those who had risen and--hatched--were beyond recall, but no one spoke
of them. If any Sons of the Egg survived, they were quiet in their
defeat.

Hanson had been busy during most of the time. It had been taken for
granted that he would tend to the orrery, setting it for the most
favorable conditions when some special major work of magic required it,
and he had taken the orders and moved the controls as they wanted them.
The orrery was housed temporarily in the reconstituted hall of the
Satheri in the capital city. They were building a new hall for it, to be
constructed only of natural materials and hand labor, but that was a
project that would take long months still.

Now the immediate pressure was gone, and Hanson was relaxing with Bork
and Nema.

"Another week," Bork was saying. "Maybe less. And then gangs of the
warlocks can spread out to fix up all the rest of the world--and to take
over control of their slaves again. Are you happy with your victory,
Dave Hanson?"

Hanson shrugged. He wasn't entirely sure, now. There was something in
the looks of the Sather who gave him orders for new settings that
bothered him. And some of the developments he watched were hardly what
he would have preferred. The warlocks had good memories, it seemed, and
there had been manifold offenses a