The Practice Effect (21 page)

Kappun Thsee’s eyes shone with ill-concealed greed. “The guild that gains the license to this art—”

Baron Kremer laughed out loud. “And why should this wonderful new secret be given to any of the present guilds? What, my friend, does chopping stone have to do with creating liquor with the flavor of fire?”

Kappun Thsee flushed.

Dennis had been trying to keep track of Linnora’s progress through the crowd. He quickly turned back as Kremer put his arm over his shoulder.

“No, magnate Thsee,” Kremer said, grinning. “The new essences brought to us by our wizard
might
be divided up among the present guilds. Then again, perhaps each should have its own, new guild. And who better to be guildmaster than he who brought these secrets to us?”

One of the women gasped. The other aristocrats stared.

In the silent moment Dennis suddenly saw with perfect clarity what was going on.

Kremer was manipulating them beautifully! Holding out the possibility of access to a whole set of new “essences,” he was accompanying the carrot with an implied stick. He already had the monopolistic guilds on his side. Now they’d positively be baying to do his will.

At the same time, Dennis realized that Kremer had just offered him more wealth and power than he had ever imagined.

He saw that even the ebullient Hoss’k was subdued, as if he were seeing Dennis in a new light—less as his own personal discovery and more, perhaps, as a dangerous rival.

That suited Dennis fine. The man had been the direct cause of stranding him on this crazy world. He had already promised himself to teach Hoss’k a lesson.

Dennis noticed that Linnora had come closer but was avoiding approaching the area where the baron stood. He turned to Kremer. “Your Grace, some may think that my brandy is nothing but a more potent form of wine. May I perform a demonstration to prove that it is, indeed, something truly different?”

Kremer nodded, betraying a faint smile.

Dennis called for a brandy-filled goblet and a small table to lay it on. Then he reached into the folds of one of his fancy sleeves and pulled out a bundle of small sticks, each painted at one end with a blob of crusty paste.

It had taken him days to hunt down and purify the right materials to perform this demonstration. It would be just the sort of thing to solidify his reputation.

“Baron Kremer spoke of the flavor of fire. From the way some of our local notables are weaving about the hall, it certainly seems that the blood in their veins has grown more than a little warm.”

The crowd laughed. Indeed, several magnates had already become tipsy, falling prey to other players of the gift-giving game. Their servants were stumbling under quantities of fine, ancient things that would ruin their masters in expensive practice time.

Dennis noticed that Linnora watched from a nearby pillar. She had smiled at the reference to the foolish guildsmasters.

Encouraged, Dennis went on.

“In this evening of marvelous gift-giving, I, a poor wizard, have little to offer. But to Baron Kremer I now offer the essence of … fire!”

He struck two of the little sticks together. At once the two ends erupted into flame.

The crowd moaned and pulled back in awe. They were rather crude matches, smoking and stinking of sulfur and nitrates, but that only made the display more impressive.

Dennis had seen the firemakers they used here. They were efficient but used that ancient principle of a rotating friction stick. Nothing in Coylia could do what he had just done.

“And now,” he added dramatically, waving the matches for effect, “the
flavor
of
fire
!”

He brought one of the matches down to the goblet.

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 gods 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 lips, 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 superstition 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 outclassed 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.

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 hell,” 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 fall into formation along a corridor from gate to castle.

Dennis looked at Arth, who shrugged. The little thief-cum-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 massed companies and watched as the outer gate swung back.

In rode a small procession on horseback.

“It’s th’ embassy 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 embassy pass 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 horsemen. 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 embassy 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 grass 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 ambassador 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 cluster 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 ambassador 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-rehearsed 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.