The Practice Effect Part 18

A flickering blue flame popped audibly into place to meet it. The onlookers sighed. There was a long, stunned silence.

"The essence of fire. . . captured in a drink?" Dennis turned and saw that Hoss'k was goggle-eyed.

"A marvelous feat," Kremer agreed, quite calmly. "It is akin, perhaps, to the fashion in which the wizard's people enslave those tiny creatures within his little boxes. They have found a way to trap fire as well, it would seem. Wonderful."

"But. . .but. . ." Hoss'k spluttered. "Fire is one of the life essences!

Even the followers of the Old Belief agree with that. It is reserved for the G.o.ds who make and practice men! We may release the essence of fire from that which once lived. . . but we cannot trap it!"

Dennis couldn't help it. He laughed. Hoss'k was nervously licking his tips, and seeing the deacon squirm gave Dennis a moment's satisfaction. Here, at last, was some repayment for what the fellow had done to him.

"Did I not say it?" Kremer's laughter boomed. "Dennis Nuel knows how to trap anything within a tool! What wonders might we expect if he is but given our full support?"

The crowd applauded dutifully, but Dennis could tell they were cowed. Their faces were touched with superst.i.tion and uncertainty.

Dennis glanced to his left, still grinning over giving Hoss'k the shock of his life. Then he saw Linnora, her face a mask of concern and fear.

The Princess favored Dennis with a withering glance, then swept about in a flourish to leave the hall, followed by her maid.

Now he recalled what Hoss'k had said about "the Old Belief"

Apparently his little demonstration had reawakened her fear of those who abused life essences. Dennis cursed softly. Was there anything he could do here that wouldn't be misinterpreted by her?

It had been the Baron who declaimed on what Dennis had done, he realized, at last. Kremer had put his actions in a light that boxed him in a corner, insuring that Linnora would misunderstand.

He was outcla.s.sed by the man. He could not oppose that kind of manipulative skill. How could there be any choice but to go along?

He only hoped that someday Linnora, too, would, understand.

6 A bit foggyheaded from the party, Arth and Dennis were late reporting to the still the next morning. When they arrived, they found that the crew had had a celebration of their own and left the still a shambles in the process.

The prisoners groveled, terrified of the wizard's wrath.

Dennis just sighed, "Aw h.e.l.l," and set the men to work fixing the damage. Keeping busy helped him not think about his overall situation.

He had made progress in his plan to win influence over the warlord, Kremer. He still thought it the most logical plan- best for himself, for his friends, for Linnora, and even for the people of this land.

Yet the episode last night left him with a sour feeling. He worked hard, and tried to drive the memory away.

A little after noon, a bugle cried out from the front gate. The call was answered by trumpets on the castle tower. Troops in the yard hurried to fell into formation along a corridor from gate to castle.

Dennis looked at Arth, who shrugged. The little thief-c.u.m- moonshiner had no idea what was happening.

Down a ramp from the keep came Baron Kremer and his entourage, their bright, centuries-old robes almost painful to look at in the sunshine. The tall plumed helm of Kremer's cousin, Lord Hern, stood out in the crowd of courtiers.

They halted at a dais overlooking the ma.s.sed companies and watched as the outer gate swung back.

In rode a small procession on horseback.

"It's th' emba.s.sy from th' L'Toff!" Arth breathed.

They had been told such a party was coming. The L'Toff were searching for their missing Princess and no doubt suspected she was being kept here.

The rumors must have spread far and wide since the jailbreak, and especially since Zuslik's aristocracy were let in on it, Kremer was publicly feigning innocence until it suited his purposes to do otherwise. But apparently he was no longer worried about suspicions.

For all of his apparent good favor with the warlord, Dennis had not been invited to attend the meeting of the welcoming committee. It was another sign of Kremer's masterful insight into people. He clearly knew the foreign wizard was not trustworthy on the subject of the L'Toff Princess.

Dennis looked up at the third-level parapet, where he had often seen Linnora walk. She wasn't in sight, of course. Her guards would keep her well secluded during the brief visit by her kinfolk.

He walked over to the low fence enclosing his work area and put a foot up on one of the rough wooden rails. He and Arth watched the emba.s.sy pa.s.s the arrayed soldiers to approach Baron Kremer's platform.

There were five riders, all wearing soft cloaks in muted colors. They looked normal enough to Dennis's eyes, though all five wore beards, unfashionable among Coylians. They seemed a trifle more slender than the people of Zuslik, or Kremer's northmen. The five rode looking straight ahead, ignoring the xenophobic stares of the troops, until they came within a dozen yards of the dais where Kremer waited.

Two L'Toff held reins for the others as they dismounted and saluted the Baron.

Dennis could see Kremer's face better than he could the emissaries'. He couldn't hear what was said, but Kremer's answer was obvious. The warlord smiled with unctuous sympathy. He raised his hands and shook his head.

"Next he'll say he's had scouts out scourin' the countryside far an'

wide for their Princess," Arth said.

Sure enough, Kremer waved an arm at his troops and at a squad of mounted hors.e.m.e.n. Then he pointed to the gliders circling patiently in the updraft over the castle.

"The two L'Toff on the right aren't buyin' it," Arth commented.

"They'd like to take th' castle apart, startin' with th' Baron hisself."

The gray-bearded leader of the emba.s.sy tried to stifle one of his companions, a brown-haired youth in dark-brown body armor, who shrugged off restraint and shouted hotly at the Baron. Kremer's guards muttered angrily and shifted weight, poised for a nodded command from their Lord.

The young L'Toff looked contemptuously at the tense guards and spat on the ground.

Arth chewed on a gra.s.s stem speculatively. "I've heard it used to be the L'Toff were pacifists. But they've had to become fighters the past two hunnerd years or so, in spite of the protection o' th' King and the old Duke. Some of 'em are said to be about as good as th' King's own scouts."

Arth pointed to the tall, angry young L'Toff. "That one may make it hard for the amba.s.sador to get outta here without a fight."

Arth sounded like he was handicapping horses. From what Dennis had heard, one of the major spectator sports here in Coylia seemed to be watching men hack each other to bits and betting on the outcome.

The Baron did not rise to the young man's challenge. Instead he grinned and whispered to one of his aides, who sped away.

Kremer waved forward trays of refreshment, which he diplomatically sampled first. He had seats brought for his guests as the troops stepped back to create a broad aisle from the dais to the courtyard wall.

The L'Toff looked suspicious, but they could hardly refuse. They sat nervously near their host. As they turned his way, Dennis thought he saw, in the face of the angry young man, a family resemblance to Linnora.

He wondered if her fey sensitivity had informed the Princess that relatives were only a few hundred meters away.

Dennis had finally become convinced Linnora really had such a gift.

Over a month ago the power had led her to the zievatron, where she was captured. It had enabled her to know him in the dark prison yard weeks later.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to keep her from falling under the spell of Hoss'k's fallacious logic, or to let her see through Kremer's manipulative explanations.

In any event, her talent was apparently intermittent and quite rare even among the L'Toff. Kremer didn't seem afraid of it Arth clutched Dennis's shoulder and gasped. Dennis followed his pointing finger.

A cl.u.s.ter of guards were dragging a prisoner from one of the castle's lower gates. Dust rose from the struggle, for the captive was very big and very angry.

Dennis suddenly realized it was Mishwa Qan, the giant whose strength had been key to their breakout from jail. Mishwa bellowed and heaved against his bonds. When he saw they were leading him to a scarred, upright post, the battle became furious.

But the guards had been chosen carefully to be almost his equal in size. Dennis saw his old nemesis, Sergeant Gil'm, pulling a rope tied to Mishwa's neck.

Kremer motioned the scholar Hoss'k forward from his entourage.

Hoss'k bowed to the dignitaries and brought forth items to show them, one at a time. Dennis stirred when he saw that the first was his camp-watch alarm.

As the L'Toff stared at the lights on the screen, Dennis wondered what changes practice had wrought in the tiny machine since the last time he had seen it.

No doubt Hoss'k was pointing out how difficult it would now be for an enemy to approach the castle undetected.

Then he demonstrated Dennis's monocular, showing the L'Toff how to use it, pointing out various objects. When the amba.s.sador put the scope down he was visibly shaken.

Dennis felt a slow burning rise within him-a combination of shame and deep anger. In spite of the strategy he had chosen, for very good reasons, his natural sympathies were with the L'Toff.

Dennis didn't like it one bit when Hoss'k turned and pointed directly at him. Kremer smiled and bowed slightly to his wizard. The Baron's well-rehea.r.s.ed personal guard shouted Dennis's name in unison.

He scowled. If only there were some way of communicating with the L'Toff privately!

By now Mishwa Qan had been dragged to the post and tied into place. Dennis had already figured out that they planned to execute the man. He had witnessed many executions during the past week, and there was nothing at all he could do. Arth knew that as well and stood almost rock-still.

The guard, Gil'm, marched up to the overlord and bowed. Kremer drew something small from his robe and handed it to the trooper, who bowed again and turned to march back down the dais toward the prisoner.

Realization struck Dennis. "No!" he cried aloud.

Gil'm marched halfway to the target post. Mishwa Qan glared back at him, hands flexing uselessly under his bonds. The big thief shouted a challenge at Gil'm which everyone in the yard could hear, offering to take the trooper on blindfolded, with any choice of weapons.

Gil'm simply grinned. He lifted a small black shape.

Dennis felt a purple outrage. "No!" he screamed.

He vaulted the fence and ran toward the execution aisle, dodging one set of guards, then plowed through two more who ran to cut him off. He flattened one with a round house. Those on the dais turned to look at the commotion as one of Dennis's own guards tackled him from behind. At that moment Gil'm aimed Dennis's needler and pulled the trigger.

In the confusion only a few people were actually looking at the prisoner when the burst of tiny metal needles struck at hypersonic velocity. But everyone heard the explosion. Dennis heard Arth's astonished gasp.

Fighting partway free of a pile of guardsmen, Dennis struggled up far enough to see a b.l.o.o.d.y stump where the target post had been sheared in half. Beyond that lay a gaping hole in the wooden wall.

The needler had, indeed, been getting practice. Gil'm grinned and held the weapon up to the sun.

A wave of revulsion and shame overwhelmed Dennis. He snarled and flailed at those around him, biting at one hand that grabbed near his face. Then a heavy object struck him from behind and turned off the lights.

7 Linnora stared at the little creatures that arranged themselves in such orderly rows on the face of the little box. At the far right they shifted and reformed with great rapidity, hopping into new positions almost faster than she could follow with her eyes. The group next to the left shifted their formations more slowly, and so on. At the far left, the tiny bugs were patient, and seemed to take about half a day to make their next move.

The little box wasn't much more than four times the size of the first digit of her thumb. On each side it had two straps, one of which ended in little metal pieces whose purpose she had yet to divine.

Hesitantly, Linnora tried pressing a few of the many little nubs that protruded from the half of the box where no bugs danced. The bugs hopped into new patterns every time she touched one of the nubs.

A part of her wanted to laugh at the antics the little creatures went through-there was an urge to play and make them dance some more.

No. She put the little box down and withdrew her hand. She would not experiment with living things. Not without knowing what she was doing and having a clear idea of her purpose. That was one of the oldest credos of the Old Belief, handed down from parent to child from the earliest days of the L'Toff.

Only a deep conviction that they needed to be within the box to survive kept Linnora from breaking it to set the little slaves free.

That and a lingering uncertainty that they really were slaves.

The ordered patterns had a feeling to them. . .not joy exactly, but pride, perhaps. She sensed that very much had gone into the making of the little box and its tiny occupants.

There was more complexity here than she had ever encountered before one month ago.

If only I could know for certain, she sighed silently.

Deacon Hoss'k had made such a consistent and logical case! The wizard's people must have used ruthless means to accomplish such wonders. . .especially to freeze the state of practice in each of these amazing tools. The lives of many of the equivalent of the L'Toff in Dennis Nuel's homeland must have been sacrificed so these things would remain in unchanged perfection.

Or must they? Linnora shook her head, confused.

Could the whole logic of making and practicing be different somewhere else?

Once upon a time it had not been the same here on Tatir, according to the Old Belief. In ancient days, before the fall, it was life that had been perfectible, and tools had no powers at all.

That was what the stories said.

Resting her elbows on the dressing table, she let her face fall into her hands. Hope had been fragile since that day when Hoss'k's men boiled out of the forest near the wizard's mysterious little house. Now, with Kremer pressing his demands harder than ever, with the L'Toff searchers come and gone without contact, she felt more desperate than ever.

If only there were a way to believe in the wizard! If only he were the kind of man she had originally felt him to be, instead of serving Kremer and living high-in his plush new rooms with his pretty serving wench-proving himself a complacent sycophant to Kremer's rising star like all the others!

She wiped her eyes, determined not to weep again. On the table before her the little bugs continued their mysterious dance, whirling on the right, shifting slowly on the left. Marking time.

8 Dennis woke up feeling as if his body had been used to practice baseball bats. The first few times he tried to move, he only managed to rock from side to side a bit. He hurt all over.

At last he succeeded in rolling to one side and got his eyes blearily open.

Well, he wasn't in the luxurious quarters he had been a.s.signed before. Still, he wasn't in the dungeon either. The room had the rough-hewn, half-finished look of the newer, higher parts of the castle.

Guards stood by the door-two of Kremer's northland clansmen.

When they saw that he had awakened, one of them stepped out into the hall and spoke a few words.

Dennis sat up in the cot, groaning aloud just a little at the twinges.

His throat was sore and dry, so he reached over to the rickety bedstand to pour himself a cup of water from an earthenware jar. His cut lip stung as he drank.

He put down the cup and settled back against the rough pillow, watching the clansmen watch him. He said nothing to the guards and expected no words from them.