The Practice Effect Part 24

Since their exodus during the reign of Good King Foss't, they had lived pretty much to themselves in their mountain retreat. After the fall of the old Duke, their last strong protector in the west, the only Coylians who had regular contact with them were a few traders and the Scouts.

When the Baron's men took Stivyung away, Surah suddenly found herself behaving as she never had imagined before. She ran to her sister's and told her to pick up Tomosh. Then she threw together a pack and headed west with no definite plan in mind, thinking only to find some of Stivyung's former comrades and beseech their help.

She did not recall much about her journey into the mountains, except being frightened most of the time. Though she had grown up on the edge of the wilderness, she had never spent nights alone under the trees before. It was an experience she would never forget.

The first sign she was in L'Toff country came when she encountered a small patrol of stern, fierce men, whose spears had the burnished look of deadly practice. They were agitated and questioned her closely. But eventually they let her proceed. Only later, when she pa.s.sed through the outer hamlets and finally came to the main village of the L'Toff, did she learn that Princess Linnora had disappeared.

That explained the anxiety of the border guards, certainly. Surah began to realize that her own problems were small eddies of a larger storm brewing.

Linnora's father, Prince Linsee, ruled a virtually independent realm, answerable only to the King of Coylia. himself. This irritated the great lords and the temples. But like the isolation of their mountain home, it was for the tribe's protection.

In return, the crown monopolized the trade in rare treasures whose Pr'fett had been "frozen" into a permanent state of practice. Each item generally cost some L'Toff a measure of his vital force-a week, month, or a year out of his or her life. The frozen goods were very rare-and coveted greedily.

Relations between the L'Toff and the great n.o.bles had grown worse since the demise of the old Duke, and especially as Baron Kremer's cabal of gentry and guilds prepared to confront the King.

Obviously the aristocrats would be well served if they had a lever on the L'Toff, the King's strongest allies in the west. If they had a hostage to ensure Prince Linsee's neutrality, they could turn their attention fully to investing the cities of the east, with their royalist, antiguild rabble.

Fate had delivered Kremer his hostage against the L'Toff the very same day that soldiers had come to take Surah's husband away.

When Surah arrived in the mountains, the L'Toff were searching far and wide for their beloved Princess. Linnora had slipped away from her maids and escort nearly two weeks before, claiming in a cryptic note that she had sensed "something different" come into the world.

While everyone respected Linnora's fey powers, Prince Linsee had feared the results of his daughter's impetuousness. He suspected she had fallen into the Baron's hands.

So, too, thought Demsen, the tall, homely leader of a detachment of Royal Scouts that had arrived just before Surah. Demsen was sure that Kremer was holding Linnora in secret, until a hostage was needed to keep the L'Toff pa.s.sive at his rear.

Surah found out all of this because she was right there in the thick of it. Since she knew something of the situation in Zuslik, Surah was invited to sit at table with Linsee and Demsen and the captains and elders, all of whom attentively listened as she nervously answered their questions.

At the a.s.sembly, young Prince Proll had demanded permission to storm Zuslik and rescue Linnora by force of arms. Proll's courage and charisma influenced many. The younger L'Toff could think of nothing but their beautiful Princess languishing in prison.

But Linsee knew that Kremer's forces were more than a match for his own in open battle, especially since the perfection of the Baron's terrifying glider corps. It would take years of dangerous experimentation to duplicate that accomplishment. Long before then, the war would begin.

Linsee had sent a delegation, led by the Chief of the Council of Elders, and Prince Proll, to visit Kremer and inquire. It would probably accomplish nothing, but it was all he could do. Reluctantly, he ordered the defenses strengthened, such as they were.

Surah listened to all of this and came to a numb realization that she would find no help here for her own, personal crisis. If the L'Toff and the Royal Scouts could do nothing to save Linnora, what could they do about a simple farmer-even a retired scout sergeant-whom Baron Kremer had seized on a whim?

Prince Linsee gave her a donkey and some provisions and wished her well. Except for the border guards, no one even noticed when she left.

She returned to find the countryside in an uproar. Preparations for war were well under way, and the area was being scoured for important fugitives.

Life had to go on, whatever the magnitude of great affairs around her. She retrieved her son from her sister's house and headed home to keep up the farm as best she could, against the hope that Stivyung would someday return to her.

And at home she found the fugitives hiding in her own bedroom.

Surah Sigel sighed and refilled Dennis's cup with hot thah.

"I've not had a big voice in th' happnin's of the time," she said in conclusion. "I'm just a farmwife, for all of Stivyung's teachin' me to read an' all.

"Still, it does seem to me that I'll have witnessed an' had a small part in the events." She looked up at Dennis with an idea. She spoke a little timidly, as if speaking an idea she was afraid he would laugh at.

"Y'know, maybe someday I'll write a book about what I saw an' tell about all the people I met before th' war began.

"Now, wouldn't that be somethin'!"

Dennis nodded in agreement. "It would at that."

She sighed and turned to stir the coals.

3 It had been years since Dennis had done any useful carpentry, and the tools he used now were unfamiliar. Nevertheless, he started work early the next morning.

He trimmed two long, stout poles from a pair of half-practiced hoes he had found on the porch, then he cut out several flat planks from one of the hay cribs. When Mrs. Sigel returned from her sister's farm with better tools, Dennis drilled four holes in the sides of a light- framed watering trough, and slid the poles through the holes.

Perched on a stack of hay, her feet swathed in white bandages, Linnora worked on a leather harness. She deftly used an awl to punch holes in straps of hide, in places where Dennis had made marks, then fastened them together with thongs. She hummed softly and smiled at Dennis whenever he looked up from his work. Dennis grinned back. It was hard to feel tired when encouraged like that.

Arth puffed into the barn, carrying a small chair Surah Sigel had donated to the project. He put the chair down and examined the contraption Dennis was building.

"I get it!" The little thief snapped his fingers. "We put the chair in the tub an' the Princess rides inside. Then we grab those poles an' lift!

I heard of those things. They call 'em 'litters.' When the Emperor from across the big sea came to visit our King's father years back, I hear he was carried aroun' in somethin' like that. A couple of our big n.o.bles tried to copy the idea an' almost had riots on their hands before they gave up."

Dennis just smiled and kept working. Using a beautiful saw with a serrated gemstone edge, he cut four identical round disks from a flat slab of wood. They were about a meter diameter and an inch thick.

Arth thought for a minute, then frowned. "But we'd need four men to carry this thing! There's just you an' me an' the L'Toff donkey Surah's given us! Who's gonna support the fourth side?" He scratched his head. "I guess I still don't get it."

Dennis used a sharp-bitted drill carefully to cut a small circular hole out of the center of each disk.

"Come on, Arth," he said when he had finished. "Help me with this, will you?"

Under Dennis's direction, the bandit leader lifted one of the poles penetrating the sides of the trough. Dennis slid one of his disks over the end, then removed it to trim the center hole a little wider. When he tried again, it wedged into place a few inches down the shaft. He pounded it farther with a cloth-m.u.f.fled hammer.

Arth lowered the tub. It lay canted at an odd angle, propped up at one corner by the upended disk. Linnora put down her work and edged forward on the hay to watch.

"What is it, Dennis?" she asked.

"It's called a wheel," he replied. "With four of these in place and with the help of Surah's donkey, we should be able to carry you out of here tomorrow night almost as fast as if you could walk. Of course, it'll force us to use the roads at first, but there's no helping that. The road's the only way over the pa.s.s, anyway."

Dennis directed Arth to lift one corner at a time. He pounded a wheel onto each.

"This whole device is called a cart. Back in my homeland, this crude thing wouldn't last more than a few hours, at best. I imagine at first it'll sc.r.a.pe along little better than if we were dragging the trough on its belly. There's no bearing between the axles and the holes in the body, for one thing. That'll play h.e.l.l with the rolling friction coefficient. Of course, with practice we can expect a lubrication effect to come into play eventually. . . ."

Arth and Linnora glanced at each other. The wizard was getting opaque again. They had grown used to it by now.

"I could've made a better starter," Dennis said as he drove the last wheel firmly into place. "But there's no time. Right now they're ranging all over the countryside looking for us, but once the sniffers find our trail, they'll concentrate. We'd better be well into the mountains by that time.

"We're going to have to count on the Practice Effect to fix this wagon up. Tonight Arth and I will take turns pulling it around the farmyard. By tomorrow maybe. . ."

Dennis stepped back and looked at the cart. He saw bewilderment on Arth's face. But Linnora wore an expression of deep concentration.

Her eyes were narrowed and she moved her hand as if trying to visualize something she had never seen before.

Suddenly she clapped her hands and laughed out loud.

"Push it! Oh, Dennis, push it and make it move!"

Dennis grinned. Linnora did not have the mind of a caveman. Her ability to envision the way things worked was just short of amazing, considering her background.

He lifted his foot and gave the back of the cart a shove.

Groaning loudly, it rattled and rolled down the gravel path and out the barn doorway.

Someone shrieked, and there was a loud thump outside. Dennis hurried out and found Surah Sigel seated on the ground, staring wide- eyed at the contraption. It had rolled to a stop a few feet away. Beside her a cloth bag of provisions lay open, its contents half scattered.

"I thought it was alive when it came out at me like that!" She blinked at the cart.

"It's just a machine," Dennis rea.s.sured her as he helped her up.

"It's what we're going to use to carry the Princess. . . ."

"I can see that!" Surah brushed his hands away and straightened her clothes stiffly. She started gathering the provisions- dried meats, fruit, and sacks of cornmeal-and shooed Dennis away when he tried to help.

"Tomosh just came back with word from my cousins down the road," she said. 'They've been quartering four of the Baron's troopers for a week. And now the soldiers are saying they're going to move out the day after tomorrow. They won't say where, but my cousin thinks its westward."

Dennis cursed softly. He and the others had to be through the pa.s.s before the troops entered the mountains. If they waited until tomorrow night they would still be on the road when the main force reached the gap!

"Tonight, then," he said. "We've got to go tonight."

Tomosh came running out of the house. He stopped and stared at the little wagon.

Arth supported Linnora as she hobbled over to take her seat in the cart. She laughed as Arth and the boy pushed it slowly about the farmyard.

Dennis shook his head. The little red wagon I had as a child would be more useful, he thought, than that creaky thing will be on its first day.

They started out soon after nightfall, while the moons were still down. The donkey snorted uncomfortably as it pulled the rickety cart.

When it stopped at the gate and threatened to balk, Linnora strummed her klasmodion and sang to the restive animal.

The donkey's ears moved, its breathing slowly settled as the girl's melody calmed it. Finally, it responded to Arth's gentle tugs and pulled at its awkward burden. Dennis helped push until they were out onto the road proper. There they stopped to bid the Sigels farewell.

Linnora whispered to Tomosh while Dennis shook hands with Mrs.

Sigel, "Good luck to y'all," Surah said. "Tell Stivyung we're fine if you see him." Surah looked at the motley party dubiously. Dennis had to admit that they didn't look like much of a force to take on Kremer's patrols.

"We'll do that," Dennis said, nodding.

"You'll be back ag'in, Dennizz!" Tomosh promised as he whacked the Earthman on the thigh affectionately. "You 'n my pop an' the Royal Scouts'll come back an' fix old Kremer once and for all!"

Dennis tousled the boy's hair. "Maybe so, Tomosh/1 Arth clucked to the donkey. The crude cart squeaked up the dark, sloping road. Dennis had to push for an uphill stretch. When he looked back, Surah and her son were gone.

Except for the narrow, mirror-focused beam of their small oil lantern, the night was black all around them. The wind brushed through the trees lining the highway. Even on the smooth, super resilient highway, the cart thumped and b.u.mped and shook. Linnora bore it bravely. She plucked her klasmodion softly, with a dreamy, distant expression on her face.

She was already hard at work, using her L'Toff talents to help the cart practice.

On Earth the rickety contraption could be expected to fall apart anytime from a few minutes to a few hours after construction. Here, though, it was a race between wear and practice. If only it lasted long enough, the thing would get better. Maybe.

Dennis pushed the noisy cart, wishing the pixolet was around to help.

4 Murris Demsen, commander of the Green Lion company of the Royal Scouts, poured another cup of winter wine for Prince Linsee, then looked to see if anyone else wanted a refill.

The boy from Zuslik, young Gath, nodded and grinned. The winter wine of the L'Toff was about the best thing he had ever tasted. He was already well on his way toward getting tipsy.

Stivyung Sigel held his hand over his goblet. He knew the potency of the stuff from his days in the Scouts.

"The latest word is that Kremer's patrols have been applying pressure all along the border," Demsen said. The gangly scout commander put down the beautiful, ancient decanter and pulled a sheaf of notes from a folder. "There are also reports that the baronies of Tarlee and Trabool are mobilizing, and setting up outposts in L'Toff territory. Even Baron Feif-dei appears to be getting ready for war"

"That is indeed bad news," Prince Linsee said. "I had counted him a friend."

Stivyung Sigel stood slowly. He bowed to Prince Linsee, to Demsen, and to Linsee's son, the brown-haired Prince Proll.

"Sirs, I must ask once again for permission to return to my home.

You say my wife is no longer here. Therefore I must go to her and my son. And once I see that they are safe, there are friends I must try to help, who at this moment languish in the tyrant's dungeons."

Prince Linsee looked to Demsen, then back at Sigel. He sighed.

"Stivyung, have you heard nothing? The border is closed! Any day now we expect to be under attack! You can't make it over the pa.s.s while it's choked with troops!"

Demsen agreed. "Sit down, Stivyung. Your place is here. I need you, Prince Linsee needs you, your King needs you. We can't let you throw your life away."

At the end of the table Prince Proll slammed his own goblet down.

"And why stop him?" the young man demanded. "Why should you stand in his way?"

"My son. . ." Linsee began.

"He, at least, is willing to take chances-to dare all to rescue those he cares for! Meanwhile, we let Linnora suffer in the clutches of that amoral sp.a.w.n of tree lizards, Kremer! Tell me, what good will waiting do when the forces of all the baronies west of the Fingal march on us?

Oh, for the G.o.ds' sakes, let Sigel go! And let me strike while they can still be taken one at a time!"

Linsee and Demsen shared a look of exasperation. They had been through this too many times of late.

"We shall strike, my son," Linsee said at last. "But first we must prepare. Stivyung and Gath have brought us this 'balloon' device of the alien wizard's-"

"Which is nothing compared with the weapons the alien has given Kremer! What good is it, anyway? It was ripped to uselessness when Sigel landed!"

"It was damaged, yes, Prince,' Demsen said. "But it is almost repaired. Duplicates are being made and practiced. Why, this may be the very thing we have been looking for-a way to counter Kremer's gliders! I will grant that I do not yet see how it will be used, but what we most need is time. My scouts and your companies must buy Prince Linsee time!

"Meanwhile, young Gath and Sigel, my old comrade-in-arms, must do their part in supervising the making of more balloons-"

"Making! What can you accomplish by making?" The young prince turned and spat on the fire. He sank back into his chair.