by Lyndon Hardy
Farnel ignored Gerilac's reply and turned back to Jemidon. "Come, I will escort you to the harbor. It would not do you well to be found by one of Canthor's patrols."
"I have a proposition for you," Jemidon insisted.
"Not now." Farnel waved down the path. "Let us get to the harbor without delay. Gerilac has babbled at me all afternoon, and I do not care to hear more of his plans to bedazzle the high prince."
"Discussion of the relative value of your skills and mine does bring discomfort," Gerilac said. "Go ahead, take advantage of your excuse while you have it. Further conversation will not change your worth in the eyes of the other masters."
Farnel's face clouded. He whipped back to stare at Gerilac without saying a word. Gerilac flung his arm across his face; then, after a moment, he slowly lowered it to return the stare. Warily, the two sorcerers closed upon each other, the first words of enchantment rumbling from their lips.
As the masters engaged, Jemidon saw Erid and the other tyros exchanging hurried glances. With a sudden movement, Erid spun his way, but Jemidon guessed the intent. Quickly he stepped aside to avoid the push that would send him sprawling.
Erid staggered to a stop and waved the others to his side. "This one talks of dealing only with a master, but now we will see how well he likes the skill of a tyro."
Jemidon looked at Farnel and Gerilac circling one another, arms across their eyes and loudly shouting to drown out each other's charm. He would have to cope with the tyros himself. He took a half step backward; then, without warning, he reversed direction and drove his head into Erid's midsection. They crashed to the ground and began to roll down the trail in a tumble. He heard Erid gasp for breath as he locked arms around the tyro's back and began to squeeze. The sky and the ground rotated by in alternating streaks, but Jemidon kept his hold. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the sharp jabs from the small rocks that lay in their path.
One stone scraped against Jemidon's cheek; another scratched a ragged line along his bare arm. Then, with a jarring thud, his head cracked against the large boulder that blocked the path. Jemidon's eyes blurred. Involuntarily he loosened his grip.
Erid tore himself free. He grabbed for the branches of a scraggly bush and pulled himself to his feet. Jemidon groggily flung his arms out, trying to reestablish his hold, but Erid avoided the snares and pushed Jemidon to the ground. "And now the enchantment," he slowly panted. "Perhaps one that will engender a little more respect."
The other tyros ran down the slope and seized Jemidon by the arms as he struggled to stand. He shook his head, but they grabbed his ears and forced him to look in End's direction.
"As to the fee-" Erid pointed at Jemidon's chest. "The bauble of gold will do."
Jemidon struggled to free himself, but the tyros held him fast. His senses reeled. Erid's image danced in duplicate. "Seize the coin at your peril," he managed to gasp. "For fifteen years have I carried it, and even though I would have to track you to the northern wastes, I will have it back."
Erid looked into Jemidon's eyes and hesitated. The fire that smoldered there was not to be dismissed lightly. "Perhaps not worth the trouble of taking," he mumbled. "But if truly it carries with it the memories of when you were a boy, it will make the enchantment all the easier. Yes, that is it. Think of the coin, hapless one, while you look into my face."
Jemidon immediately slammed shut his eyes, but the tyros held him steady and forced his lids back open. Unable to avoid Erid's stare, he heard the beginnings of the sonorous chant that dulled his consciousness.
Jemidon tried to defocus Erid's face into the blur of sky behind, but his thoughts became sluggish and lumbered away on their own. Erid's eyes loomed larger and larger until they blotted out everything behind, finally engulfing Jemidon's will and swallowing it whole. He fell the events of the morning wash into indistinct nothingness and then the day and the week before. With accelerating quickness, all his travels folded and were tucked into small compartments of his mind that he could no longer reach. He was a youth of twenty, fifteen, and finally ten.
Jemidon felt the constraints which held him fall away and he took a step forward. The hillside shimmered and was gone…
He found himself in a dimly lighted hovel, still hot from the blazing sun and choking in slowly settling dust. He heard the weak cough from the cot and saw the strained look on his mother's face as she gently placed her palm on his sister's forehead.
Hesitantly he offered the coin in his hand back to his father. "But this brandel will pay for the alchemist's potion," Jemidon heard himself say. "It will make her well. I can take the examination next month or even next year, if need be."
"The next month or the next year we will still be here, Jemidon." His father waved an arm around the small room. "And no more sure of a coin of gold then than now. Take the payment for the testing. Even master Milton says you have a head for it; he remembers no one else in the village with your quickness." The old man's eyes widened and he looked off in the distance. "An apprentice thaumaturge. It is the first step to becoming a master. And then, after Milton passes on, you will be the one who nurtures the crops for lord Kenton and ensures his harvest. You will sit in honor at his table.
"And when you wear that robe, this will be but a memory for us all. There will be pursefuls of coins-why, even tokens from the islands! Go, Jemidon; your sister wishes it as fervently as I."
Jemidon looked to the cot and grimaced. His sister did not care about apprenticeships and fees of the master. She was too young to know. All she wanted was to get well, to play tag again, or to ride on his back and laugh. He was taking away the one sure chance she had for a cure, leaving her and gambling that the fever might break on its own accord.
But more important, when he finally succeeded, could he ever truly pay her back? Even as a master, could he compensate enough for the weeks of chills yet to come-or worse, the atrophied limbs that might result when it was all over? Was a robe of black worth so much that the choice was as easy as his father made it?
"Go, Jemidon. Milton gathers the applicants in the square before the sun passes its zenith. Being late is not an auspicious beginning."
Jemidon felt the upwelling doubt; but looking in his father's eyes, he could not find the courage to speak again. He clutched the coin, nodded silently, and turned for the door.
Then the imagery of the glamour blurred. Days passed in a heartbeat. No sooner had he left the hut than he seemed to have returned.
He was back outside his doorway, staring at the rough cloth which covered the entrance. How long he stood there he could not recall; the sun had set, and even the lights in the other shacks were long since extinguished.
"Jemidon, is that you?" His father's hand pushed aside the drapery and motioned him inside. "The four days of testing are done. You were to have returned by noon. Your mother could stand it no longer, and I was just going to look."
Reluctantly Jemidon entered the hut. A single candle cast slowly dancing shadows on the rough walls. He saw the rumpled covers and the empty cot, but felt no surprise. He had heard at noon, after Milton had discharged him in the square. Shyly he looked at his mother, kneading her hands in an endless pattern and staring into the darkness.
Jemidon's father followed his gaze and lowered his own eyes. "It was for the best," he said huskily. "For the rest of us all, in the long run, it was for the best."
Jemidon opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was dry. Numbly he followed the sweep of his father's hand to the small stool near the table.
"But do not dwell on that now," he heard his father say. "There will be time enough for tears. Tell us of your test. To which journeyman will you be assigned? Was it Aramac? They say he is the swiftest. Certainly Milton would pair the best with the best."
Jemidon shook his head and slowly unclenched his fist. He bit his lip as he looked down at the gold coin sparkling innocently in his palm. He saw his father's eyes widen in amazement and felt the beginnings of the sobs that would rack his body for
many hours to come…
"Canthor. It is Canthor!"
The yell cut through Jemidon's spelled memories. The image of glinting mail and stem faces suddenly mixed with the receding dark shadows of his father's hut.
"To the keep, take the intruder to the keep!" a voice bellowed above the rest.
Jemidon strained to separate the confusion, but he could not escape the charm. The last he remembered before collapsing into oblivion was choking the painful words to his father: "They collect no fee from those who fail."
The first rays of the rising sun slanted through the high window. Jemidon frowned and shielded his eyes. He rolled slowly on his side and stretched awake. The thin layer of straw had done little to soften the hard stone floor, and it seemed each muscle in his back protested the movement. Except for the one shaft of light, everything was in soft darkness. It took several minutes for him to see his surroundings.
The room was shaped like a piece of pie with the central tip bitten off. The gently curved outer wall contained the only window. Descending sunlight illuminated dancing motes of dust and splashed on the rough flagstones of the floor that was held together by crumbling mortar. An iron grating prevented exit to a corridor to the interior. In the dark shadow beyond was the outline of a spiral staircase that led to other levels of the keep. Across the cell, hands resting on intertwined legs, sat the master sorcerer Farnel.
"Any enchantment broken in the middle can produce undesired effects," the sorcerer said. "Even one that tries to make you act as you once were. I decided to come and watch you through the night to see that you recovered well."
Jemidon shook his head to clear it of the cobwebs of memory. He rose to sitting and centered the coin on his chest. Grimly he pushed the old images away, back to where they had been safely hidden. He did not need their vividness to remind him of the debt he had to pay. For one gold brandel, somehow, he yet would become a master.
Jemidon turned his attention to Farnel, who was patiently watching. With a final deep sigh, he focused his thoughts on the present and what he had to do.
"Perhaps it is just as well that events transpired as they did," he said. "Your attention is what I sought, and now it looks as if I might have it."
"Do not bore me with your proposition, whatever it is." Farnel raised his hand. "I am content with my surroundings. I do not care for some reckless adventure for a lord from across the sea, regardless of the number of tokens dangled my way."
"Yet you have not won any prize in the competition for a decade," Jemidon said, "nor even bothered to enter in the last three."
"A worthless exercise," Farnel snorted. "A mere shadow of what it once meant. Before the high prince assumed his regency, the supreme accolade and the rest of the prizes were decided on merit, artistic merit. The old king may have ruled with too light a hand, but he could distinguish between a vision of true depth and a shallow thrill."
"The high prince is not the only judge," Jemidon said. "Do not all the master sorcerers vote on the compositions of their peers as well?"
"Swayed by the easy coin, every one," Farnel said. "Once the visits of twenty lords were enough. They appreciated the images that we placed in their minds and paid fairiy for the entertainments we gave them. It was not much, but we lived in adequate style."
Farnel rose to his feet and began to pace slowly about the cell. "But then, on some idle thought, the high prince and his followers came one year to see what transpired in this corner of the kingdom and left in one visit more gold than we received from all the rest combined. And with his bulging purse, he placed in our heads images as sharp as any of us could have formed with our craft: robes of smooth linen; soft beds; and not one tyro, but a dozen to do our bidding. Now none has the strength to vote his conscience. They all fear what would happen if this one small group were displeasured. The lesser lords, the bondsmen who accompany them, the principles of artistic composition-they do not matter as long as the high prince continues to add hundreds of tokens to the prize sack for the supreme accolade."
Jemidon nodded and chose his next words carefully. "The works of Farnei have remained cast in the traditional forms; this is well known," he said. "But is it because of this steadfastness alone that they are now held in such low esteem?"
Farnei stopped and scowled at Jemidon. "You have received an ample portion of my good nature. Do not presume it gives you license to judge."
"But I do know something of sorcery and the artistic images you make with your craft," Jemidon said. "The Antique Pastoral, Calm Sea in Winter, Mountain Sunlight, and many more."
Farnei stared at Jemidon. "My works of a decade ago," he said slowly. "I see you have not sought me out unprepared."
The sorcerer closed his eyes and ran his tongue across his lips, savoring the memories. For a moment there was silence, but then Farnel snapped back and waved the thoughts away. "But they won no prizes. The drift to shallow forms and empty expression had already begun."
"I know also of what the others said of your works," Jemidon rushed on. "Bold in principle and mood, but flawed in historical or geographic fact. Incorrect costuming of the period, a jutting sandbar in the wrong place, reflections from an impossible direction."
"Excuses, all of them," Farnel said. "The works of Gerilac were the new sensation in the eyes of the prince."
''But had yours not been built on error, what then?" Jemidon persisted. "Without the nagging irritants, how might the artistic education of the high prince have proceeded? And who now might wear the robe of velvet?"
"Your tongue is glib. I grant you that," Farnel said, "but the sands have already been cast. What is done is done. It is a matter of style, and our craft suffers because of it."
"I am a scholar," Jemidon said. "Between my attempts for what I must achieve, I have earned my bread in the libraries of the lords and the great cities, reading the old scrolls, tracking down obscure facts, finding the answer to ancient riddles so that one baron can show the power of his intellect to another. And in the course of all of this, I have learned many things that can serve you well."
Jemidon paused for a moment, then rushed on. "Two centuries ago, the capes of the lords hung only to their waists and their faces were clean-shaven. The sandbar in the Bay of Cloves is covered by the high tide. In the morning, when one is looking down into the valley beyond Plowblade Pass, the shadows are on the left."
Farnel looked at Jemidon in silence for a long while. He ran his hand over the back of his neck but said nothing.
"Knowledge," Jemidon said, breaking the silence at last. "Knowledge to remove the inconsistencies from your works, the imperfections that seem to bother the other masters so. All that I have learned in my wanderings I will share." He touched the coin on his chest. "That and one brandel more if you take me as your tyro and lead me to mastership of sorcery."
"And so it is as simple as that." Farnel laughed. "But one must start with a young mind, smooth and pliable, not a mind already filled with the lessons that gave one his manhood. If you must dabble in the arts, seek some other, such as thaumaturgy. You are too old to begin any other."
"No!" Jemidon shouted. "It is to be sorcery." He stopped suddenly, embarrassed by the outburst that echoed off the stone walls. "I am aware of the difficulties," he continued after a moment in a softer tone. "That is why I have come to you. I know that none of the other masters would choose to take me because of my age. But then, none of the others might feel so keenly about winning the supreme accolade in order to reestablish the standards for the art."
"And the one gold brandel?" Farnel asked.
Jemidon breathed deeply, almost choking on the words. "It is the most important of all. You see it around my neck on a simple loop, but somehow it is more intricately intertwined with my innermost being. It is for no ordinary barter; I can give it up only when the debt it was meant for has been fully paid."
Jemidon started to say more, but the jangle of a key in the lock distracted Farnel's attention.
"Canthor, y
ou come half a day early," the master said, rising to his feet. "I thought the penalty for wandering in the hills ran at least from sun to sun."
Jemidon slowed the rush of his thoughts and looked at the figure swinging open the grating. The bailiff wore leggings and a sleeveless tunic. The skin of his arms was smooth and taut. Short bristles of hair, struggling back from a daily shaving, covered a shiny head. Only his face showed any aging; his eyes swam in a sea of wrinkles from a perpetual squint.
"The crude pranks of Gerilac's tyros are punishment for any man." Canthor laughed. "I dare wager that this lad will no longer take our warnings so lightly. No, now is the time to depart. Before Erid and the others think of coming here and sneaking in more practice."
He waved Jemidon to the corridor with one hand and grabbed Farnel by the arm with the other. "And as for you, my rough and unbending friend, far less bother would there be for me in the first place if the masters set decent examples for the tyros to follow. Gerilac told me of what you were attempting when I was summoned."
Farnel shrugged. "If what he built had some merit, it would not matter."
"A soldier is measured by his most recent battle," Canthor said, "no matter how glorious were the ones that came before. If you wish to challenge Gerilac's ascendancy, it must be in the presentation hall, not with hot words shouted outside its walls."
"Sage advice from one who has not raised a sword in true anger in many a year!" Farnel snorted. "If that is so, why are you here instead of taking a side in the growing unrest in the northern plateau of the mainland? The high prince has need of men-at-arms."
"The difference is that I am content with my lot," Can-thor replied. "As long as there is sufficient bread on my table and pulling masters apart does not occur too often, I do not care what the others may say behind my back."
Farnel frowned and began to pace the room. "It is too late in the season," he muttered, "and for too long have I not dabbled with the themes and forms."