The Practice Effect

by David Brin

  2

  Cavemen, Dennis reminded himself again and again as he walked to the banquet room.

  Remember, boy, they’re only cavemen.

  It was hard to keep it in mind. The grand hallway was lined with brilliant mirrors alternating with ornate tapestries. His boots and those of his escort clacked on a mosaic floor that reflected glistening highlights from sparkling chandeliers.

  Guards with sun-bright leather armor and gleaming halberds stood at even intervals, at rigid attention.

  Dennis wondered. Was this an ostentatious display, keeping these men here when even their leisure time was more valuably spent practicing things?

  Then it occurred to him that they were practicing something—this very hall. They were looking at the mirrors and hangings and each others’ uniforms, making them more beautiful by appreciating them. These guards, he realized, were undoubtedly selected less for their prowess than for their good taste!

  His escort glanced at him as he whistled appreciatively.

  As they approached two high, massive doors, Dennis tried to relax.

  If the local honcho expects a wizard, my best chance is to act like a wizard. Maybe this Baron Kremer isn’t unreasonable. Perhaps I can strike a deal with the fellow—freedom for myself and my friends, and aid in fixing the zievatron, in exchange for teaching one of the maker guilds the principle of the wheel?

  Dennis wondered if the nobleman would trade Princess Linnora for the “essence” of lighter-than-air flight.

  The great doors opened soundlessly as Dennis was ushered into a broad dining room with a vaulted, open-beamed ceiling. The center of the chamber was dominated by an ornate table carved from some impossibly beautiful dark wood. Subdued light came from three rich candelabras. The crystal on the embroidered tablecloth sparkled in the candlelight.

  Although four places were set, only servants were visible at the moment. One brought forth a tray with an assortment of beverages and offered Dennis his choice.

  He needed something to calm his nerves. It was hard to keep in mind that a savage—a caveman—owned all this. Everything in the room was meant to make the guest know his place in a stratified society. In a room such as this on Earth, Dennis would be about to meet royalty.

  He pointed to a bottle, and the servant poured the liquor into a crystal goblet the color of fire.

  Dennis took the glass and wandered about the room. If he were a thief and had a working zievatron within reach, he could retire on Earth on just what he could carry in his hands.

  Providing, of course, the things retained their current state when they left the ambience of the Practice Effect. Dennis smiled, imagining irate customers whose wonderful purchases slowly decayed before their eyes into the crude products of a kindergarten workshop!

  The lawsuits could go on for years.

  The sense of alienation was back again. It felt inexorable. And this time he wasn’t sure it wouldn’t be a help. He had to appear confident this evening, or risk losing whatever chance remained of ever getting home again.

  In a contemplative daze he passed through elegant French doors onto the balcony. He looked upon the starry night, with two small moons casting their light on the drifting cumulus clouds, and brought the goblet to his lips.

  The pensive spell was broken instantly as he gagged. He coughed and spat the stuff out onto the brilliant parquet floor. He wiped his lips on his lacy sleeve and stared in disbelief at the cup in his hand.

  Once again he had been trapped by his own assumptions. In this kind of lavish environment he had expected fine vintages, not elephant piss!

  From the shadows to his right there came musical, feminine laughter. He turned quickly and saw that someone else stood on the balcony with him; her hand briefly tried to cover a grin of amusement.

  Dennis felt blood rush to his cheeks.

  “I know how you feel,” the young woman hurried to say in sympathy. “Isn’t it awful? You can’t practice wine, and you can’t cook it. So these cretins put what they have in fancy bottles and are happy, unable to tell the difference.”

  From his brief glimpses and the stories he had heard about the L’Toff, Dennis had built in his mind an almost elfin image of Princess Linnora—as someone fragile and almost ethereal. Up close she was, indeed, beautiful, but much more human than his imagination had drawn her. She had dimples when she smiled, and her teeth, while white and brilliant, were slightly uneven. Though she was clearly a young woman, sorrow had already planted faint lines at the corners of her eyes.

  Dennis felt his voice catch in his throat. He essayed a clumsy bow as he tried to think of something to say.

  “In my country, Lady, we would save such vintages as this one for periods of penance.”

  “Such penance.” She seemed impressed with the implied asceticism.

  “Right now,” Dennis went on, “I’d trade this rare goblet and all the Baron’s wealth for a good Cabernet from my homeland—so I could raise it to your beauty, and the help you gave me once.”

  She acknowledged with a curtsy and a smile. “A convoluted compliment, but I think I like it. I admit, Sir Wizard, that I expected never to see you again. Was my help so poor?”

  Dennis joined her at the rail. “No, Lady. Your help made our escape from the jailyard below possible. Didn’t you hear the commotion you indirectly caused that night?”

  Linnora’s lips pursed and she turned away slightly, obviously trying not to laugh undemurely out loud at the memory.

  “The look on my lord host’s face that night repaid any debt you owed. I only wish his net had remained empty this time.”

  Dennis had it in his mind to say something stylishly gallant such as, “I could not stay away but had to return to you, my Lady.” But the openness in her gray eyes made it seem verbose and inappropriate. He looked down.

  “Well, uh,” he said instead. “I guess even a wizard can get a little clumsy once in a while.”

  Her warm smile told him he had given the right answer. “Then we shall have to hope for another opportunity, shall we not?” she asked.

  Dennis felt unaccountably warm. “We can hope,” he agreed.

  They stood quietly for a while, looking at the reflections of the moonlight from the River Fingal.

  “When Baron Kremer showed me your possessions for the first time,” she said at last, “I was convinced that someone strange had come into the world. They were obviously tools of great power, though I could feel almost no Pr’fett in them.”

  Dennis shrugged. “In my land they were common implements, your Highness.”

  She looked at him closely. Dennis was surprised to notice that she seemed nervous. Her voice was subdued, almost hushed. “Are you then from the place of miracles? The land of our ancestors?”

  Dennis blinked. Land of our ancestors?

  “Your tools had so little Pr’fett,” Linnora went on. “Yet their essences were strong, like nothing else in the world. Only once before have I encountered the like—in the wilderness shortly before I was captured.”

  Dennis stared at her. Could so many threads come together all at once? He took a step closer to Linnora. But before he could speak, another voice cut in.

  “I, too, would be interested in learning about the wizard’s homeland. That, and many other things, as well.”

  They both turned. A large shadow blocked part of the light from the banquet hall. For a brief instant Dennis had a sudden joyful impression he was seeing Stivyung Sigel.

  But the man stepped forward.

  “I am Baron Kremer,” he said.

  The warlord had a powerful cleft jaw to complement his broad shoulders. His silvery-blond hair was cut just below the ears. His eyes remained in shadows as he motioned toward the glittering table within.

  “Shall we dine? Then perhaps we’ll have a chance to discuss such matters as different types of essence … and other worlds.”

  3

  Deacon Hoss’k spread his arms in an expansive gesture, barely missing a glitte
ring candelabrum in the process.

  “So you see, Wizard, nonliving things were compensated for the advantages the gods gave to the living. A tree may grow and prosper and spread its seeds, but it is also doomed to die, while a river is not. A man may think and act and move about, but he is fated to grow old and decrepit with time. The tools he uses, on the other hand—the nonliving slaves that serve him all his life—only get better with use.”

  The deacon’s exposition was a strange mixture of theology, teleology, and fairy tale. Dennis tried not to look too amused. The roast fowl on his plate was a definite improvement on his dungeon diet, and he wasn’t about to risk going back to prison fare by grinning at the ramblings of his host’s resident sage.

  At the head of the table, Baron Kremer listened quietly to Hoss’k’s pedantic presentation, occasionally serving Dennis with a long, appraising gaze.

  “Thusly, within all inanimate objects—including even that which once lived, such as hide or wood—the gods imbued the potential to become something greater than itself … something useful. This is the way the gods chose to make plenty inevitable for their people.…”

  The portly scholar was dressed in an elegant white evening coat. As he gestured, the sleeves fluttered, displaying a glimpse of a bright red garment underneath.

  “When a maker later converts the potential of an object into essence,” Hoss’k continued, “the thing may then be practiced. In this way the gods preordained not only our life-style but our blessed social order as well.”

  Across from Dennis Princess Linnora picked at her meal. She looked bored, and perhaps a bit angry over what Hoss’k had to say.

  “There are those,” she said, “who believe that living things have potential, too. They, also, may rise above what they are and become greater than they have been.”

  Hoss’k favored Linnora with a patronizing smile. “A quaint notion left over from ancient superstitions taken seriously only by a few obscure tribes such as your own, my Lady, and by some of the rabble in the east. It manifests a primitive wish that people, families, and even species can be improved. But look around you! Do the rabbits, or rickels, or horses get better with each passing year? Does mankind?

  “No, clearly man himself cannot be improved. It is only the inanimate that may, with man’s intervention, be practiced to perfection.” Hoss’k smiled and took a sip of wine.

  Dennis couldn’t escape a vague feeling that had nagged him for an hour, that he had encountered the man before and that there was some cause for enmity between them.

  “Okay,” he said, “you’ve explained why inanimate tools improve with use … because the gods decreed that it be so. But how does a piece of flint, for instance, become an ax simply by being used?”

  “Ah! A good question!” Hoss’k paused to belch good-naturedly. Across the table from Dennis, Linnora rolled her eyes, but Hoss’k did not notice.

  “You see, Wizard, scholars have long known that eventual fate of this ax you mention is partly determined by the essence of making imbued into it by an anointed master of the stonechoppers’ guild. The essence that is put into an object at its beginning is just as important as the Pr’fett, which the owner invests through practice.

  “By this I mean that practice is important, but it is useless without the proper essence at the beginning. Try as he might, a peasant cannot practice a sled into a hoe, or a kite into a cup. An implement must start out at least a little bit useful in its designated task to be made better through practice. Only master makers have this skill.

  “This is something not well enough appreciated by the masses, particularly lately, with all of this intemperate grumbling against the guilds. The rabble-rousers chant about ‘value added’ and the ‘importance of practice labor.’ But it’s all ignorant foolishness!”

  Dennis had already realized that Hoss’k was the type of intellectual who’d dismiss an urgent and unstoppable change in his society, blithely ignoring the forces that pulled all about him. His kind always fiddled while Rome burned, all the while explaining away the ashes with their own brand of logic.

  Hoss’k sipped his wine and beamed at Dennis. “Of course, I don’t have to explain to a man such as yourself why it is so necessary to control the lower orders.”

  “I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about,” Dennis answered coolly.

  “Now, now, Wizard, you need not dissemble. From inspecting the items you have so kindly, er, lent us, I can tell so very much about you!” With an indulgent smile the man bit into a pulpy dessert fruit.

  Dennis decided to say nothing. He had eaten slowly and spoken little this evening, aware that the Baron was watching his reactions closely. He had barely touched his wine.

  Dennis and Linnora had shared glances as they dared. Once, when the Baron was speaking to the butler and while the scholar addressed the ceiling expansively, the Princess puffed her cheeks and mouthed a nattering mimicry of Hoss’k. Dennis had had to struggle not to laugh out loud.

  When Kremer had looked at them curiously, Dennis tried to keep a straight face. Linnora assumed a mask of attentive innocence.

  Dennis realized that he was well on his way toward falling in love.

  “I am curious, Deacon,” Kremer said. “What can you divine about out guest’s homeland from only his tools and his demeanor?”

  The Baron lounged back on his plush, thronelike chair. He seemed filled with a restless energy, carefully, calculatedly restrained. It showed from time to time as he crushed nuts in his bare hands.

  Hoss’k wiped his mouth on his napkin-sleeve. He bowed his head. “As you wish, my Lord. First, would you tell me which of Dennis Nuel’s tools are of most interest to you?”

  Kremer smiled indulgently. “The far-killing hand weapon, the far-seeing glass box, and the box that shows shining insects moving as dots.”

  Hoss’k nodded. “And what do all of these things have in common?”

  “You tell us.”

  “Very well, my Lord. Clearly these implements contain essences wholly unknown here in Coylia. Our lady of the L’Toff”—Hoss’k inclined his head to Linnora—“has confirmed this fact for us.

  “Although he has endeavored to hide the details of his origins, our wizard’s plain ignorance of some of the most basic facts about our way of life indicates that he comes from a distant land, easily beyond the Great Desert beyond the mountains—a land where the study of essence has developed along radically different lines than it has here.

  “Perhaps essence itself is different there, such that the tools they practice are constrained to develop in totally divergent ways.” Hoss’k smiled, as if he knew he were making a daring speculation.

  Dennis sat up in his chair. Perhaps this fellow is no dolt after all, he thought.

  “The box of lights, in particular, tells me much,” Hoss’k went on, confidently. “The tiny trained insects it contains behind its clear cover are unknown in these parts. They are smaller than the tiniest firefly. What are they called, Wizard?”

  Dennis sat back in his chair again, almost sighing aloud in disappointment. Cavemen, he reminded himself.

  “They are called pixel array elements,” he answered. “They are made up of things called liquid crystals, which—”

  “Living crystal elementals!” Hoss’k interrupted Dennis. “Imagine that! Well, I feared at first that the little creatures were dying under my care. After a time they grew dim, and I could find no airholes nor any way to supply them with food. Finally I learned—almost by accident, I will confess—that they recovered quite nicely when fed sunlight!”

  Dennis couldn’t help reacting with a raised eyebrow. Hoss’k took note and grinned in triumph.

  “Ah, yes, Wizard. We are not bumpkins or fools here. This discovery was particularly pleasing to my Lord Baron. Until that time his new weapon, the small “needle-caster” you so graciously provided, had stopped functioning. Now, of course, that tool is also fed its fill of sunlight every day as it is practiced.”

 
The portly scholar beamed as Baron Kremer acknowledged this coup with a faint smile and nod. Kremer obviously had plans for the needler. Dennis frowned but remained silent.

  “Like the bugs in the wonder box,” Hoss’k continued. “Something inside the weapon must at intervals eat from the sun. Indeed, when the weapon is used one can hear the faint scamperings of captive animals inside it.

  “I did find a little food door on that machine. And now we provide the creatures inside with the metal they apparently require besides sunlight.

  “These demons of yours have expensive tastes, Wizard. My Lord has used up the price of several serfs just keeping the weapon in practice!”

  Dennis kept his face impassive. The fellow was clever, but his deductions were diverging more and more from reality. Dennis tried not to think about how Kremer might be “practicing” his needier.

  “And just what does all this tell you about my homeland?” he asked.

  Hoss’k grinned. “Well, first off we have seen that part of your magic is in taking the essence of living things and imbuing them into tools before practice even begins. This suggests to me a society with less regard for the dignity of life than we have here in Coylia.”

  Dennis couldn’t help smirking sardonically. Of all the fatuous conclusions to reach! He glanced at Linnora to share his feelings in a secret glance but was shaken by the look she gave him. She obviously didn’t think much of Hoss’k, but his latest deduction obviously disturbed her. She fingered her napkin nervously.

  Couldn’t she tell that the scholar was only flailing around blindly?

  Hoss’k went on. “Some time ago I took some of the items Dennis Nuel brought with him from his homeland—those that my Lord Baron did not require for other purposes—and put them in a dark closet, where they received neither light nor practice. I wished to observe them as they reverted to their original forms and find out what principles of essence were at the heart of each.

  “To my shock I found that, after a few days, the tools stopped devolving altogether! Left in a dark room, his knife remains sharp as it was a week ago. Some of this may be due to the fact that it is made of a prince’s ransom in iron, but the fastenings on his clothing and backpack also remained frozen in intricate shapes that could have been made by no craftsman alive.”