The Practice Effect

by David Brin

  “Yes, it is, Arth.” Dennis ushered Linnora inside and pulled Arth along when the man lingered to stare.

  Linnora was glad to get inside, away from the glint of bright lenses. Although she had watched the robot in action in the dark hallways, helping Dennis overcome two more pairs of guards on their way here, she still glanced at the machine nervously.

  She had begun wondering what kind of man kept such strange familiars. Never before had she encountered anything that reeked so of both Pr’fett and essence as this “robot.” It felt like a thing … yet it moved and acted as if it were alive!

  Dennis ordered the robot to keep watch outside and closed the door.

  The room was a clutter of bits of wood and leather and cord—piles of lumber and rough cloth, and flimsy contraptions that would have done a kindergartner on Earth proud.

  “Hey, Dennizz,” Arth said, pouring three cups of brandy from a brown bottle, “I’ve been tryin’ my hand at makin’, like you do! Can I show you some of my projects? I think I’ve figured out a real good way to trap mice, for instance.”

  “Umm, I don’t think we have the time, Arth. The alarm should be out any time now.”

  Linnora coughed. Her cheeks flushed and she stared at the cup in her hand. She sniffed at the liquor, then attempted another sip.

  The thief nodded. “I suppose you’ll want to see the glider, then.”

  Dennis had been afraid to ask. “You did it! I knew you could!”

  “Aw, t’wasn’t no big thing.” Arth reddened. “Th’ slippery oil made it a snap. It’s over here under this pile of rubbish. They let out quite a fuss when they found it missing. But with the Baron out of action they never got a good search together.”

  Dennis helped him pull the debris off. Soon a neatly folded roll of silky fabric and slender wooden struts came into view. “It’s a good thing you made it up here tonight,” Arth mused critically. “Another couple of weeks an’ the thing would have lapsed back into being a kite. I guess you won’t have any trouble flyin’ it now, though.”

  From your mouth to my ear, Dennis thought as he helped Arth carry the heavy, two-man glider out the doorway and up to the palace roof.

  Dennis had to reassemble the thing almost by himself in the moonlight. The others tried to help, but Linnora was frightened by the great, flapping wings, and Arth kept making irrelevant suggestions and needlessly urging him to hurry.

  The rising wind pulled at the fabric, frequently tugging it almost out of Dennis’s hands. He managed to get the glider’s wings extended and was searching for the locking mechanism when the alarm finally sounded below. It began in one corner of the castle, down near the bottom story, and spread until the night was filled with a chaos of bells, shouts, and running feet.

  They must have found one of the sets of guards he and the robot had knocked out.

  He found the latch at last. The cloth wings, which had been flapping in the stiff breeze, suddenly snapped taut with a loud report.

  From two parapets below Dennis heard worried queries. Of course Arth’s guard failed to answer. Soon there were footsteps not far below.

  “No time for experimentation,” he muttered. “Arth! Slip into the rear saddle to anchor it down!”

  The big glider bucked and hopped until Arth had settled in. Even then it would not stay still. Dennis motioned for the robot to come. He knelt, still holding the edge of one flapping wing.

  “Instructions!” he told the little automaton. “Go below and delay those who are approaching until we are gone. After that, attempt to survive and follow however you can. We’ll try to head west by southwest!”

  The ’bot’s green acceptance light flashed. It swiveled and sped away, swiftly negotiating the plank ramp they had used to climb onto the roof.

  Dennis heard booted footsteps on the stairwells below this level. They didn’t have much time.

  Arth was in his place in the strap saddle, as Dennis had showed him. Arth looked completely confident. He had seen the “balloon” soaring through the night and knew now that Dennis could manage flying things. The distinction between a balloon and a glider was inconsequential to him.

  “This is a two-man glider,” Dennis said, “but you two don’t weigh much more than one big man. Linnora can ride with Arth on the rear seat. All we have to do is make it out of town, anyway.”

  But Linnora clutched her cloak around her, staring at the great flapping wings. She looked at Dennis, all her doubts brought back at once.

  I don’t blame her, Dennis thought. She’s a savvy lady, but she’s not prepared for this.

  All three of them could die in this attempt. Some might say that what Kremer had in store for her would be worse than death. But while one lived there was always a chance.

  She held her klasmodion to her breast as the gusty wind tugged at the great kite, almost dragging Dennis and Arth along the roof. The glider was like a powerful bird, straining at a tether—eager to be airborne.

  Suddenly there were thuds and dismayed shouts from the landing below. The robot was making its stand at the head of the stairs.

  Dennis looked at the L’Toff Princess, and her eyes met his. He could tell she wanted to trust him. But this was all too sudden, too alien for her.

  He couldn’t drag her along by force. But neither could he bring himself to leave her behind.

  Linnora caught sight of it first, when the small figure appeared clambering over the ledge. She gasped and stared to the left. Dennis swiveled quickly and saw a tiny face—a pair of small green eyes and two rows of grinning, sharp teeth.

  “A Krenegee!” Linnora said with a sigh.

  The pixolet grinned. It scrambled onto the roof, then launched itself into the breeze. With outspread wing membranes it sailed lazily to Dennis and landed on his shoulder. Tiny claws bit into his cloak and jabbed his skin underneath.

  Dennis had to struggle with his skidding feet, grappling with the bucking glider, cursing the wind and the stupid, irritating creature purring by his ear.

  But Arth stared with superstitious awe, and when Linnora spoke, Dennis could barely hear her over the wind.

  “The Krenegee chooses whom it will—and those whom it chooses make the world …” she said.

  It sounded like a litany. Perhaps the pixolet’s species was some sort of totem for her people. Maybe Pix might do some good for somebody after all!

  He held out his hand to Linnora, and this time she stepped forward and took it readily, as if in a daze. He guided her into the rear saddle, in front of Arth, and told the thief to hold on to her as he would his life.

  There came a series of screams and loud crashes from below as another group assaulted the head of the stairs.

  He felt a little guilty leaving the robot to face all that alone. It was only a machine, of course. But here on Tatir, that only wasn’t as easy an excuse as on Earth.

  The soldiers were getting organized. Dennis heard officers shouting and what had to be entire platoons trooping quickly up the stairs. It wouldn’t be long now.

  The wind rose again. Dennis had to fight down a wave of uncertainty as he looked out upon the rough, dimly perceived terrain. The spires of Zuslik town lurked against the hulking mountains beyond. The twisting, moonlit river glistened. Jagged outlines told of ship masts by the docks.

  He looked back at his passengers. The pixolet purred and Linnora’s eyes now shone with a confidence he could not understand, though it felt good.

  Somewhere below, a captain with a shrill voice was haranguing his men for a charge. It was definitely time to go.

  “All right,” he told Arth and Linnora, “now I want you all to think up very hard, lean the way I lean, and jump with me when I say the magic word—‘Geronimo!’ ”

  4

  The very instant they were airborne, Dennis was filled with a not unreasonable wish he could go back and try to think of something else.

  “Dennizz! Watch out for that spire!”

  A high tower appeared out of the darkness, direct
ly in their path. Dennis swung his weight leftward in the hanging saddle. “Lean hard!” he shouted, hoping Arth and Linnora would try to mimic his actions.

  The glider tipped slowly. The top story of one of Zuslik’s higher buildings passed a scant two meters to their right. Through a brightly lit window Dennis glimpsed a scene of merriment. Some sort of celebration was in progress. There was a brief sound of high laughter. None of the partiers noticed a dark, swift shape whistle past their window.

  Dennis fought to realign the glider. The bank had dropped them into a layer of turbulence. The craft bucked and fluttered as it followed the hillside down to the city proper.

  Behind them the castle was in an uproar. Searchlamps cast sharp beams from every peak and parapet. Dennis didn’t dare look back, but he did hope the robot had managed to scuttle away at the end.

  Zuslik’s wedding cake towers passed swiftly below them. The outer wall of the town lay less than a mile ahead, and beyond it the river. They were still losing altitude. It would be close.

  Behind him Dennis could hear Arth’s teeth chattering. But Linnora’s grip on his waist was firm. Good girl. She wasn’t even trembling!

  The glider surged as they passed through a pocket of warm air rising from a chimney. By the time Dennis regained control the town’s outer wall was coming toward them fast.

  “Come on!” he urged the glider. “Come on, baby! Lift!”

  He was talking to his craft, as almost every other pilot had. But in this case the entreaties might actually do some good. Any additional practice the glider got couldn’t hurt.

  The pixolet gripped his shoulder with its front claws and spread its wing membranes wide so its hind legs trailed behind. Was the darned thing actually trying to help for a change? It grinned, watching Dennis’s every move as the neophyte glider pilot threaded the higher towers toward the wall.

  Hey! I’m not so bad at this! Dennis thought, grinning as the glider swooped around the steeple of a Coylian temple. A fellow could get to enjoy this.

  A minute later he changed his mind. We’re not going to make it.

  Zuslik was a maze of twisting streets and pointed structures. In the darkness there was no way he could pilot the glider to a safe landing down there. He had brought them all to this predicament. Now it looked as if only the pixolet, with its built-in parachute, would escape catastrophe.

  Suddenly the streets opened up, and the city wall loomed. It was at least a couple hundred yards ahead and now only a few meters below, waiting to flick them out of the air.

  He glanced at Arth and Linnora. The little thief grinned back. In his adrenaline rush he looked like he was having the time of his life, totally confident in Dennis’s magical abilities.

  Linnora’s eyes were closed, a peaceful expression on her face as she whispered quietly. Though her face was hardly a foot from his own, Dennis could not make out the words over the rushing wind.

  Her chant seemed to resonate with the purring of the tiny animal on Dennis’s shoulder. For an instant she opened her eyes. She smiled at Dennis happily.

  The pixolet purred louder.

  Dennis piloted the glider past the last obstacle, and the stretch before the wall was ahead.

  “Come on!” he urged the flying machine.

  The ground swept past. Linnora’s chant and Pixolet’s purring seemed to meld with Dennis’s concentration. Reality seemed to shimmer around him. The struts and cables shuddered with a faint, musical thrill, almost as if the glider were changing under his very fingers. It felt familiar, somehow.

  Dennis blinked. The wall was only twenty yards away now. Soldiers walked along the parapet carrying torches, their attention on the ground below.

  Maybe … Dennis began to hope.

  The glider seemed to hum excitedly. From the L’Toff Princess there streamed a feeling of power. And a great amplified echo seemed to come from the creature on his shoulder!

  The glider felt electric under his hands, and the faintest shimmering light seemed to run along its cables. The taut fabric rippled with only the faintest luffing as the wall passed a bare man’s height below them. One guard stared up, slack-jawed. Then the wall was behind them, swallowed by the night.

  Suddenly they were over the river. Faint starlight reflected from its surface.

  The brief felthesh trance was fading. It had gotten them over the wall alive. But Dennis realized that no miracle of practice could get them across the water. Limited to a glider’s essence, their craft could only fall in the cool air, no matter how efficient it became.

  To the left were the cluttered masts of the docks. He doubted they could clear them and get to the farmland beyond.

  “Can everybody swim?” he asked. “I sure hope so, ’cause we’re going in.”

  The wharves were dark. Only a rare light gleamed through a window here and there. “Cut loose your straps!” he told Arth. “Drop when I tell you to!”

  The thief obeyed at once, his knife slashing the leather harness. Linnora wrapped her klasmodion in her cloak and nodded that she was ready.

  Dennis tried to angle their descent parallel to the docks. The water swept past only two meters below, a blur under their feet.

  “Now! Let go!”

  Linnora gave Dennis a quick smile, then she and Arth jumped. The glider jounced and Dennis fought with it. It had been practiced to carry more weight, and the center of mass had shifted.

  Centroid, Dennis reminded himself as he pushed backward. Where’s your centroid now? He heard two splashes behind him, then he was busy trying to negotiate his own landing.

  It was too late to jump. He had to ride it out. He fumbled with his own strap and got it loose just as his feet began dragging through the water.

  As he raised his legs he realized the pixolet was gone. Somehow it didn’t surprise him at all.

  Suddenly his knees were plowing furrows in the river. The glider settled around him as the water pulled him into a wet embrace.

  5

  “Dennizz!”

  Arth rowed as quietly as he could. He had muffled the oars of the skiff they had stolen. Even so, he hated having to row out into the open river. Search parties had already sallied forth from the castle—horsemen and infantry patrols would soon be scouring the countryside.

  “Can you see him?”

  Linnora peered into the darkness. “Not yet. But he must be out this way! Keep rowing!”

  Her clothes were plastered to her body, and the valley winds blew along the water. But her only thoughts were on the river and her rescuer.

  “Wizard!” she called. “Are you out there? Wizard! Answer me!”

  There was only the soft squeaking of the oars and, in the distance, the shouts of the Baron’s troops.

  Arth rowed.

  Linnora’s voice cracked. “Dennis Nuel! You cannot die! Guide us to you!”

  They paused to listen, barely breathing. Then out of the darkness came a faint sound. That way!” She grabbed Arth’s shoulder and pointed. He grunted and pulled at the oars.

  “Dennis!” she cried. She heard faint coughing somewhere ahead. Then a rough voice called back.

  “The terrestrial has sblashed dowd … fortunately, my ship floats. Are you guys the local Goast Guard?”

  Linnora sighed. She didn’t understand more than a word or two of what he had said, but that was all right. Wizards were supposed to be inscrutable.

  “I’b gonna have to find a way to phode hobe,” the voice in the darkness muttered. Then a loud sneeze echoed over the water.

  Dennis clutched the floating frame. A great bubble of air kept the glider afloat, though it was leaking out quickly. Onshore the search parties were getting closer. Against the distant flicker of lanterns he finally made out the moving shadow of the rowboat.

  When Arth pulled up alongside all he could see of the little thief was his grin. But he couldn’t mistake Linnora’s outline as she bent to reach for his hand. In spite of his situation, Dennis had to appreciate what the water had done to her g
own.

  He shivered as he clambered into the boat. She wrapped some sailcloth around him. But as Arth moved back to the oars, Dennis stopped him.

  “Let’s try to salvage the glider,” he said, trying to overcome his stopped-up sinuses. “It’d be best if they wered’t completely sure how we got away. I’d rather they suspected it was magic.”

  Linnora smiled. Her hand was on his arm.

  “You have an amazing way with words, Dennis Nuel. Who in the world would think that what we have just been through was anything but magic?”

  9

  Discus Jestus

  1

  The farm had begun to deteriorate.

  From the open gate Dennis looked down the walk to Stivyung Sigel’s house. The home that had looked so comfortably lived-in a couple of months back now had the appearance of a place long abandoned to the elements.

  “I think the coast is clear,” he told the others. He helped Linnora lean against the fence post so she could take her arm off of his shoulder. The girl smiled bravely, but Dennis could tell she was almost done in.

  He motioned for Arth to keep watch, then hurried across the yard to look into the house through one of the yellowing windowpanes.

  Dust had settled over everything. The fine old furniture within had begun to take on a rough-edged look. The decay was sad, but it meant the farm was deserted. The soldiers combing the countryside for them hadn’t set up an outpost here.

  He returned to the gate and helped Linnora while Arth carried the disassembled glider. Together they slumped exhausted on the steps of the house. For a while the only sound other than their breathing was the hum of the insects.

  The last time Dennis had sat on this porch, he had been bemused by a row of tools that seemed partly out of Buck Rogers and partly out of the late Stone Age. Now Dennis saw that more than half of the implements were missing from the rack by the door … the better half, he noted. The wonderful tools that Stivyung Sigel had practiced to perfection were probably with young Tomosh at his aunt’s and uncle’s, along with the Sigels’ better household possessions.