Realms of the Arcane - Brian M. Thomsen [34]
"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 splatted 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