"Huh?" Gus said as he stared at the crowd.

"We need your help," Mayor Gregory repeated to the old wizard.

"The whole village needs your help," the brothel owner added.

While his vision wasn't what it used to be, he thought he saw the whole village around his door. "I was having a good nap," the wizard said. "What is it this time?"

"The travelers who were here last week," the mayor said, "left a magical device."

"Those sellers of cheap trinkets and performers of fake magic tricks left something?" Gus said. "They seemed the type to take, rather than leave, something."

"That's true," the brothel owner agreed. "Never seen such cheap bastards."

"What sort of device is it?" Gus asked.

"A magical ball," Gregory said. "A crystal sphere used by one of the fortune tellers."

"I'm sorry but I won't be able make it work for you. That's just one of the frauds those people use."

"That's not it at all," Gregory said. "We need you to stop the magic."

"Stop it?"

"There's been no end of trouble in the village from this ball of crystal," the mayor explained. "One farmer saw a drought in the future and stopped working his fields. A woman saw her husband cheating on her in the future and attacked him. A man tried to use it before a game of cards and that led to a big fight."

"I see," Gus said. "Do you know if the sphere's images really are the future?"

"It works," a man said. "The traveler looked at it and told me it was going to rain, and it did."

"I was told I was going to be kissed and I was," another villager added.

"Gus," the mayor whispered, "it doesn't matter if it really tells the future. The people think it works."

"Has anyone tried to destroy it?" asked Gus.

"Oh, yes," Gregory said. "People at the card game hit it with axes and couldn't break it."

"I tried to smash it when my wife said she saw me cheating on her," a man said, "even though I've never cheated on her."

"You will," a woman shouted.

"I hit the ball with a good limb," her husband said. "It broke good wood."

"After some complainants, I had some men try to break it with swords and arrows," the brothel owner said. "It was bad for client confidentiality. The dastardly device wouldn't break."

"It can't be broken," Gregory said, "because it's magic."

Gus knew that magical items could be broken. He had broken several through the years, including expensive items that the sellers had assured him could not be broken. Still, he knew that some magical items couldn't be destroyed by usual means.

"Let me see the crystal sphere," Gus said.

Mayor Gregory pulled out a glass ball about a foot in diameter. "How does this work?" asked the wizard.

"You hold it in your hands and images appear," the mayor explained.

Gus sat down on his front step and held the globe. The glass which had been clear a moment earlier clouded up. Gus stared, curious to see images of the future. He thought he saw human figures, but he couldn't see them clear enough to recognize them. He imagined he saw a dragon, or maybe just a lizard. Gus kept putting his face closer to the sphere until his nose pressed against the glass, but still couldn't make out the images.

Remembering how he had to read his spell books, the wizard extended his arms. Even with the sphere at arm's length from his eyes, the images remained blurry. He tried a point midway. He closed one eye and then the other without success. Whatever he did, the view remained blurred.

"I'm can't make out the images in the ball."

"Your vision's too bad to see the future in the glass?" Gregory asked in dismay.

"Oh, what will we do?" the brothel owner wondered.

After a moment of reflection, Gus said, "I think I know how to rid us of this menace."

"Do you have a spell that will stop it?" someone asked.

"No," the wizard explained, "but I have a way to make sure it won't bother anyone."

"But how?" the mayor asked. "You can't even see well enough to use it yourself."

"Exactly," Gus said.

The people of village looked at each other trying to understand.

"I can't use it because my vision has faded. The future just looks blurry in this crystal sphere. I can't cast a spell to destroy it. But I can put a spell on it so that only my hands can touch it. If anyone else tries to touch it, their hands will be burnt."

There were cheers from the crowd. Thrilled at the reaction to his plan, the wizard decided to do even more. "I will hide it with even more spells of protection, so even I won't be able to use it."

The village clapped in appreciation for the wizard's excellent solution.

Gus stepped back into his cottage, waiving one hand to the admiring crowd as he clutched the crystal sphere in the other arm.

Unfortunately, the wizard could not nap anymore that day. He spent hours trying to make out the images in the sphere. Eventually, he put it away out of frustration. Gus really wanted to see the future before he put the protective spells on it. He told himself we would cast those spells sometime in the future.