The Practice Effect

by David Brin

  Arth nodded curtly and hurried away.

  Between heaves Dennis glanced up at the needle grin that told him the pixolet was still there, watching their struggle. Enjoy, he wished at the creature and joined in another push.

  The log groaned, this time really loud. There came a yell from the compound behind them—a commotion of shadows back at the barracks. Then there were screams and shouts coming from almost everywhere.

  “Hard!” he urged. They all knew they had very little time left.

  Mishwa Qan bawled and battered against the barrier between himself and freedom. Gath and Dennis were thrown aside.

  Flames flickered in the barracks shed. Arth’s distraction had begun. Shadows moved in front of the fire. Clubs were raised high as guards and frantic prisoners struggled. High above, in the castle, an alarm gong started clanging. Out of the shadows the thieves, Arth and Perth, appeared suddenly. The small man panted. “I bought us maybe two hunnerd heartbeats, Denniz. No more.”

  The log moaned again, like some animal dying, as it tipped another ten degrees. “Make that one hunnerd beats,” Arth said dryly.

  Sigel hunched over and the saw sang an even higher tune. The man seemed enveloped in turbulence, and flakes of light fell from the floss cable.

  Mishwa Qan stepped back about twenty feet, scuffed his feet, and let out a fierce ululation as he charged the teetering log. It toppled with a crash, and suddenly there was an opening before them. The sound carried through the night. There was no mistaking the reaction of the guards. They turned from the fire and riot and shouted to each other, pointing toward Dennis and his comrades.

  Sigel stared in exhaustion at his handiwork, his hands fallen limply to his sides. The man looked spent, but his eyes were exalted.

  Three guards charged out of the flickering light from the sheds, truncheons high. Suddenly a shadow on the ground rose up slightly, just high enough to trip one of them. Arth snagged the left foot of another running guard, sending that one, too, sprawling.

  The third came at Dennis, uttering a fierce battle yell.

  “Aw, hell,” Dennis sighed. He caught the upraised club arm and punched the guard in the nose. The soldier’s feet flew out from under him and he landed flat on his back, knocking the wind from him.

  More guards were coming. Dennis felt a whipping breeze as Arth sped past him.

  “Let’s go!” Dennis shouted at Sigel and dragged the farmer toward the narrow portal to freedom.

  A spear thunked into the wall near them. Stivyung shook himself, then grinned at Dennis and nodded. Together they scrambled through the opening and out into the night.

  As they made their escape, Dennis caught a glimpse of something that glittered, like a necklace of diamonds in the starlight, half protruding from under the fallen log.

  They did not tarry, though, and soon he and Sigel were dodging through the alleys of Zuslik, their pursuers behind them.

  6

  Ballon d’Essai

  1

  Lantern-semaphore signals flashed from the castle to all gates. Guard details were doubled, and every person trying to leave the city was thoroughly searched. High overhead, members of the overlord’s aerial patrol scoured the surrounding area until dark, when they had to land.

  “The Baron never put up a fuss like this before when someone got away from him. Not that he ever took it gracefully, but why the big manhunt this time?”

  The one-eyed thief, Perth, looked out from an upper-story window in one of Zuslik’s newer—and hence shabbier—high-rises. He was disturbed by the flashing lights and the passing troops of marching northmen in their high, bearskin helmets.

  Arth, the small bandit leader, motioned his associate away from the window. “They’ll never find us here. Since when ’ave Kremer’s northers ever picked out a single one of our hidey holes? Close the shutters an’ sit down, Perth.”

  Perth complied, but he cast a sidelong look at the other fugitives, who sat talking at a table near the kitchen while Arth’s wife prepared dinner. “You and I know who they’re lookin’ for,” he told Arth. “The Baron don’t like losin’ one of his best practicers. An’ even worse, he don’t like losin’ a wizard.”

  Arth couldn’t help but agree. “I’ll bet Baron Kremer regrets lettin’ Denniz sit in the jailyard for so long. He probably figured he had all the time in the world to get around to torturin’ him.”

  Arth rubbed the plush arms of his recliner. Once a day, one of the free members of the band had sat in it to keep it in practice for him. Arth was pleased because it showed they had believed he would get out eventually. “Anyway,” he told Perth, “we owe those three our freedom, so let’s not begrudge ’em the Baron’s wrath.”

  Perth nodded but wasn’t mollified. Mishwa Qan and most of the other thieves were out now, scouring the city for the items Dennis Nuel had asked for. Perth didn’t like having a foreigner boss Zuslik thieves around—wizard or no.

  Gath looked from Dennis’s drawings to the Earthman. The boy could barely restrain his excitement. “So the bag won’t have any flying essence until the hot air is put inside it? Will it really fly then? Like a bird, or a kite, or one of th’ dragons of legend?”

  “We’ll find out as soon as the Lady Aren returns with the first bag, Gath. We’ll experiment with a model and see how much practice improves it overnight.”

  Gath smiled at mention of the old seamstress. Clearly the youth did not think much of Lady Aren and her strange delusion. The old woman lived down the hall, making a paltry living as a seamstress. Yet she maintained high manners and insisted on being addressed as she had been as a young courtier in the days of the old Duke.

  Right now their entire plan depended on the skill of one crazy old lady.

  Stivyung Sigel sat beside Gath, puffing slowly on a pipe, content to listen and voice an occasional question. He seemed fully recovered from the effects of his felthesh trance. In fact, he had held off on his initial idea—trying to climb the city walls—only on Dennis’s assurance that there was a better way to get out of town and look for his wife.

  Arth and Perth joined the three of them at the table. Dennis and Gath cleared the drawings away as Arth’s wife, Maggin, brought out a roast fowl and mugs of ale.

  Arth ripped off a drumstick and proceeded to make his beard greasy with it, apparently feeding himself as an accidental side effect. The others took their turns stabbing the bird after the host, as courtesy demanded. Maggin brought a steaming bowl of boiled vegetables and joined them.

  Arth spoke with his mouth full. “We had a messenger from th’ boys while you were so intent on makin’ those drawings, Dennis.”

  Dennis looked up hopefully. “Did they find my backpack?”

  Arth shook his head, mumbling around his food. “Ye weren’t too awfully specific, Dennzz. I mean, there’re a lotta buildings near th’ west gate, and some of ’em use their parapets as balconies an’ gardens, in which case your pack’s been picked up by now.”

  “No leads at all? No rumors?”

  Arth took a drink, letting red, foamy ale run around the mug and into his beard. He obviously relished home cooking after his time in jail. He wiped his mouth on his cuff. Dennis noted that Arth’s shirts all seemed to have gradually developed built-in sponges on their left sleeves.

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Dennzz, there are some strange rumors going about. They say someone’s seen a Krenegee beast sneakin’ around town. Others say they’ve seen the ghost of the old Duke come to take revenge on Baron Kremer.

  “There’s even a story about a strange critter what doesn’t eat at all, but spies on people from their windows and moves faster than lightning … somethin’ nobody’s ever seen before, with five eyes.” Arth spread his open hand on the top of his head, fingers up, and rotated it, making a whistling sound. Perth coughed in his ale and guffawed. Maggin and Gath laughed out loud.

  “But my backpack …?”

  Arth spread his hands to indicate he had heard nothing.

  Denni
s nodded glumly. He had hoped the thieves would recover the pack intact. Or, barring that, they might hear about pieces of his “alien” property in the underworld grapevine. Perhaps one or two items might turn up on sale in the bazaar.

  More likely, the pack was in Baron Kremer’s hands already. Dennis wondered if even now Kremer was shaking his campstove or his shaving kit under the pretty nose of the L’Toff Princess, Linnora, demanding to know what they were for.

  For all their reputation for mystery, the L’Toff would be as perplexed by Dennis’s goods as anyone else on Tatir. Linnora wouldn’t be able to help Kremer. Dennis hoped he hadn’t somehow helped make her incarceration any worse than it already was by angering her captor.

  There came a faint knock on the door. The men tensed until they heard it repeat five times, then two, in the proper sequence.

  Perth went to unlatch the bolt, and an old woman in an elegant black gown entered. She set down a large sack as the men rose and bowed to her politely.

  “My lords,” the old lady said and curtsied. “The global tapestry you asked for is finished. As you requested, I embroidered only the faintest outlines of clouds and birds on the sides. You may practice the scene to perfection on your own. If this small globe is to your satisfaction, I will commence on the larger version as soon as you bring me the materials.”

  Arth picked up the sewn arrangement of frail velvet sheets and pretended to inspect it briefly. Then he handed it to Dennis, who took it eagerly. Arth bowed to Lady Aren.

  “Your Ladyship is too gracious,” he said, his speech suddenly almost aristocratic. “We’ll not sully your hands with paper money or amber. But our gratitude will not be denied. May we contribute to the upkeep of your manse, as we have in th’ past?”

  The old woman grimaced in feigned distaste. “One imagines it would not be too unseemly if it were handled thus.”

  Tomorrow a basket of food would appear outside her door, as if by magic. The pretense would be maintained.

  Dennis did not observe the transaction. He was marveling at the “global tapestry.”

  Coylians did possess a few respectable technologies. There were certain things that had to be usable from the day they were “made” and could not be practiced without ruining them. Paper was an example. A piece of paper might have to sit and wait in a drawer for weeks or months until it was needed for a note or letter. Then it had to have all of its “paperness” instantly ready for use. Once written upon, then, it might be stored for years before being needed for reference. It should not degrade, as happened here to abandoned things whose qualities existed purely because of practice.

  No wonder they used paper money here and no one complained. The stuff had intrinsic value almost as great as amber or metal.

  With papermaking came felting. Dennis had asked the thieves to “acquire” a dozen square yards of the finest felt they could find. If the experiment worked, they would want to follow that up by stealing virtually the entire supply of this small metropolis.

  Dennis was mildly surprised at how little guilt he felt over being an accessory to a major heist. It was all part of his general reaction to this world, he realized with just a touch of bitterness. Earthlings had had to struggle and experiment for thousands of years to reach a level of comfort these people achieved almost without thinking. He could easily rationalize taking what he needed from them.

  Anyway, the chief paper merchant of Zuslik was a close crony of the Baron. His monopoly and his flaunted wealth made certain few in the lower town would feel sorry for him.

  The “global tapestry” was a sewn sphere of paper-light cloth with one open end. Its sides were vaguely embroidered with clouds and birds. The stitching was really rather uneven, though Lady Aren obviously thought herself an artiste.

  Eventually, if practiced long enough by appreciative eyes, the figures would seem to come alive. Besides science, Dennis realized, art, too, had been stunted by this beneficent Practice Effect.

  Dennis and Sigel and Gath waited while Lady Aren gossiped with Arth and Maggin. Sigel gave Gath a sharp look when the boy started drumming his fingers on the table. The wait seemed interminable. And Arth appeared in no hurry to end it. The little thief actually seemed to be enjoying himself!

  Dennis forced himself to relax. He’d probably enjoy a little gossip, too, if he’d just returned home after a long imprisonment. He found himself longing to know who had been doing what to whom back at old Sahara Tech.

  Idly, he wondered if Bernald Brady had had any luck winning the heart of fair Gabriella. He raised his cup and drank a toast to Brady’s luck in the venture.

  Finally the old lady departed. “All right,” Dennis said, “let’s finish it.”

  He spread the limp globe out on the table. Gath and Sigel took several soft tallow candles and began rubbing them carefully against the felt paper, laying down a thin coating of wax. Meanwhile, Dennis carefully tied a small gondola of string and bark to the open end. By the time he had affixed a candle to the tiny basket the others announced they were finished. Arth and Perth and Maggin watched, puzzlement on their faces.

  Dennis and Gath carried the contraption to a corner, where a rough wooden frame had been prepared.

  “It’s called a balloon,” Dennis said as he laid the fabric over the frame.

  “You told us that much,” Perth said a little snidely. “And you said it would fly. A made thing would fly … and indoors where there’s no wind …” He obviously didn’t believe it. In the here and now there was one way to fly—by building, and slowly practicing, a great tethered kite.

  Long ago, some Coylian genius who hated getting wet had invented an umbrella—now a common item owned by nearly everybody. Later, after a freak windstorm had caused a large umbrella to rise up with the wind, carrying its owner on a brief, harrowing ride, someone had a second conceptual leap. It was the birth of kites on Tatir. Furious practice led thereafter to the development of tethered wings, carrying men high above the surface to look at the ground below.

  Those kites had helped Baron Kremer’s father, a minor nobleman from the northern hill country, to defeat the old Duke and force the King of Coylia to grant him domain over the upper valley of the Fingal.

  Only in the past few years had the step to true gliders been taken—this time by Kremer himself. Though other armed forces now had kites, at the moment he, and only he, possessed a true air force. It was a major tactical advantage in his current conflict with royal authority.

  Dennis wondered why no one else had ever developed gliders. Perhaps it had something to do with the imagery that took place when a person practiced an object. One had to have an idea of what one wanted in mind. Perhaps no one could conceive of an untethered kite as anything but fatal to the rider, and so they always were until Kremer made his breakthrough.

  Dennis arranged the candle directly below the opening in the bottom of the trial balloon. He smiled with assurance. “You’ll see, Perth. Just make sure those buckets of water are handy in case we have an accident.”

  He acted confident, but he was less than entirely certain. In a science-fiction story he had read as a boy, another Earthling had, just like himself, been transported to another world where the physical laws were also different. In the story, magic had worked, but the hero’s gunpowder and matches had all failed!

  Dennis suspected that the Tatir Practice Effect merely supplemented the physics he knew, rather than supplanted it. He certainly hoped so.

  Clear smoke rose from the candle, entering the balloon through the hole at the bottom.

  Arth offered Dennis and Stivyung his best loungers and pulled out a few string-and-stick chairs that “needed a lot of work anyway,” he insisted. He gave Dennis and Stivyung two very nice pipes and happily puffed away on a hollowed twig and corncob contraption—working it slowly toward perfection, or at least staving off a decline to uselessness.

  Dennis shook his head. The Practice Effect took a lot of getting used to.

  “Will someone explain
to me just what Baron Kremer is trying to pull?” Dennis asked as they waited for the bag to fill. “I take it he’s defying the central authority … the King?”

  Stivyung Sigel puffed moodily at his pipe before answering.

  “I was in the Royal Scouts, Dennis, until I married and retired. The Baron has been hard on us royal settlers out on the western frontier. He doesn’t care to have me and my kind around, whose loyalty he can’t count on.

  “The Baron’s supported by the maker guilds. The guilds don’t like homesteaders setting up too far from the towns. We make our own starters—chip our own flint, tan our own hides and ropes, weave our own cloth. Lately we’ve even found out how to start makin’ our own paper, if the truth be told.”

  Arth and Perth looked up, their interest piqued. Gath blinked in surprise. “But the paper guild’s the most secret of the lot! How did you learn …?” He snapped his fingers. “Of course! The L’Toff!”

  Sigel merely puffed on his pipe. He said nothing until he noticed that all eyes were on him and he was clearly expected to go on.

  “The Baron knows now,” he said, shrugging. “And so do the guilds. Common folk might as well find out, too. What’s happening out here is the sharp edge of something big that’s shaping up back in the estates an’ cities to the east, too. People are getting tired of the guilds, and churchmen, and petty barons pushing them around. The King’s popularity has gone way up ever since he cut the property requirement to vote for selectmen and since he’s been calling an Assembly every spring instead of one year in ten.”

  Dennis nodded. “Let me guess. Kremer’s a leader in the cause for barons’ rights.” It was a story he had heard before.

  Sigel nodded. “And it looks like they’ve got the muscle. The King’s scouts and guards are the best troops, of course, but the feudal levies outnumber them six or seven to one.

  “And now Kremer’s got these free-flying kites to carry scouts wherever he wants. They scare the daylights out of the opposition, and the churches are spreading word that they’re the ancient dragons returned to Tatir again … proof that Kremer’s favored by the gods.