The Practice Effect

by David Brin

  Dennis turned and looked to the northwest. Out there, a couple of days’ foot march north of the main highway, lay his “little metal house.”

  If he could be at all sure he could pull it off—slap together a new zievatron and practice it up sufficiently in time—he would be willing to take the gamble. He would offer to take Linnora and Arth away from this violent madness, to a world where everything was difficult, but sensible.

  But there was no time, and anyway they had other obligations. With a heavy sigh he took the donkey’s bridle and led it onto the southward trail. “All right. We have another big climb ahead of us and another pass to get through. Let’s make tracks.”

  The highland vale dropped behind them satisfactorily. Under Linnora’s gentle urging, with Arth’s and Dennis’s help, the little cart had begun to turn itself into something really quite useful. The axles spun in narrow grooves in the body of the wagon, apparently lubricating themselves much as the runners of the Coylian sleds did in the native roads. The leather straps Dennis had contrived for Linnora to pull seemed to grow better and better at steering the front wheels around tight switchbacks behind the donkey, as Dennis and Arth pushed.

  They were only a mile or so from the verge of the higher southern pass when Arth touched Dennis’s shoulder.

  “Look,” the small man said, pointing behind them.

  Below, and about two miles back, a column of dark shapes moved quickly on the trail under the trees. Dennis squinted, wishing for his monocular.

  “They are runners,” Linnora told them, rising in her seat to bring her sharp eyes to a level with theirs. “They wear the gray of Kremer’s northmen.”

  “Can they catch up with us?”

  Linnora shook her head, indicating uncertainty. “Dennis, these are the troops with which Kremer’s father defeated the old Duke. They run tirelessly, and they are professionals.”

  Though Linnora clearly admired Dennis for his exploits, among other things, she also clearly knew he had his limits. These were not peasants, to be frightened with stones and a little noise.

  She stepped out of the cart. “I think I had better walk now.”

  “You can’t! Your feet will start swelling again!”

  Linnora smiled. “Climbing uphill, you all cannot pull me as quickly as I can hobble. It is time I started doing my own part.” She took Dennis’s arm.

  Arth clucked at the donkey, who pulled gamely at the lightened cart.

  Dennis glanced back at the line of dark figures behind and below. They seemed larger already. The soldiers jogged on, and sunglints flashed from their weapons.

  The fugitives turned and continued their climb toward the heights of the southern pass.

  Both pursuers and pursued slowed as they approached the crest.

  Now that Linnora was walking after a fashion, Dennis considered cutting loose the cart, or at least abandoning the little glider that lay bundled in the back. But although it would lighten their burden, for some reason he relented. A lot of practice had been invested in those things. They still might be useful.

  The limit to their speed was Linnora’s pace, anyway. She knew this. Her face grew hard as she forced herself onward. Dennis dared not interfere or force her to rest. They needed every moment.

  His own legs hurt, and his lungs complained in the thinner air. The ordeal dragged on for what felt like hours.

  It took them by surprise when, suddenly, a new vista opened before them to the south—a new watershed. Worn out, finally they slumped to the ground at the crest of the high pass.

  Linnora looked out over the chain of mountains, like stalwart giants glowering in an arc to the south. This side of the peaks lay in shadows as the afternoon sun sank slowly to their right.

  “There,” she said, pointing to a series of glacier-girdled peaks. “That is my home.”

  To Dennis, the mountainous realm of the L’Toff looked like they might as well be as far away as the gentle hillsides of Mediterranea, back on Earth. How could they ever make it that far, pursued as they were?

  Dennis stood in contemplation for a moment, catching his breath as Arth and Linnora sipped from one of the canteens Surah Sigel had provided.

  Dennis looked at the twisting road that fell away before them to the south, along the flanks of the mountain. He turned and looked at the little cart that had served them so well so far. He whistled a faint tune as he felt an idea begin to emerge.

  Could it work? It would be a desperate gamble, for sure. Probably it would get them all killed in a short time.

  He glanced at his compatriots. They appeared almost done in. They certainly couldn’t outmarch the troopers who were only a little way behind them.

  “Arth,” he said, “go keep a lookout.”

  The little thief groaned. But he got up and limped back up the road a piece.

  Dennis poked under the nearby trees until he found a pair of stout sticks. He cut some rope from a coil Surah had given them and set to work attaching the sticks to the cart, along the railing just above and ahead of the rear wheels. He had hardly finished when there was a cry.

  “Dennizz!”

  Arth waved frantically from the northern edge of the pass. “Dennizz! They’re almost here!”

  Dennis cursed. He had hoped for just a little more time. The Baron’s northerners were certainly fine troops. They must be pushing their human limits to maintain such a pace.

  He helped Linnora into the cart even as Arth tumbled back to them. Arth began tugging at the exhausted donkey’s tether, shouting imprecations as the animal became stubborn.

  “Leave it alone,” Dennis told him. He went over and cut the tethers, setting the creature free. Arth stared in surprise.

  “Get in, Arth, there in back,” Dennis told him. “From here on, we all ride.”

  8

  The commander of the Blue Griffin company of the Zuslik garrison puffed alongside his troops. An ache tore at his side, where his laboring lungs complained in agony. The commander clamped down hard. He was determined not to be left behind by his men, most of whom were young volunteers from noble families, few over the age of twenty.

  At age thirty-two, he knew he was getting too old for this. Perhaps, he thought as he wiped away the sweat clouding his eyes, perhaps he should arrange a transfer to the cavalry.

  He spared a moment to glance at his men. Their faces were strained and sweaty, too. At least a dozen of his two score had fallen out already and were lying, gasping, by the side of the road all the way down the mountain.

  The commander allowed himself a faint smile even as he fought for every new breath of thin air.

  Maybe he would put off that transfer for a little while yet.

  The minutes of agony seemed to crawl by. Then, at last, the pass crested under them. His feet felt feather-light as the slope flattened. He almost collided with the man ahead of him, who slowed down and pointed.

  “There …! Just … ahead …!”

  The commander felt jubilant. Baron Kremer would be generous to the one who reclaimed the foreign wizard and the L’Toff Princess. His reputation would be made!

  At the summit a clump of his soldiers, hands on their knees, were breathing raggedly and staring downhill. The commander, too, stopped there and blinked in surprise when he came into view of the southern slope.

  Only a few yards away a little donkey grazed contentedly, leather straps hanging loosely from its harness.

  Down the road, only a hundred yards or so, three people sat closely together inside a little box. He could tell at once that they were the fugitives he was after. They appeared to be just sitting there, helplessly waiting to be captured!

  Then the commander noticed that the box was moving! No animal was pulling it, yet it moved!

  How …?

  He realized suddenly it had to be the wizard’s work. “After them!” He tried to shout but managed only a croak. “Up! Get up and after them!”

  About half of his men got raggedly to their feet and staggered aft
er him down the road.

  But the little box was only speeding up. The commander saw the smallest fugitive—the little thief he had heard was instrumental in the escape from the castle—glance backward and flash them a sudden, malicious grin.

  The box swung swiftly around a bend and out of sight.

  9

  “Watch out for that turn!”

  “I am watching out for the damned turn! You just pay attention to the brakes!”

  “Breaks? The cart’s broken? Where!”

  “No! Brakes! Those two sticks … When we’re coming near a turn … twist those sticks so they rub against the rear wheels!”

  “Dennis, I seem to remember a very tight turn just ahead—”

  “What did you say, Linnora? Where? Oh, no! Hold on!”

  “Dennizz!”

  “Dennis!”

  “Lean hard! No! The other way! Princess, I can’t see! Get your hands off of my eyes!”

  With a shuddering hum that vibrated their very bones, the cart squealed around the hairpin, then shuddered and swept on down the sloping highway. Rough scrub bushes and scraggly trees whizzed by them.

  “Hooeee! Izzit over yet? Can I leggo these broken stick things? I don’t feel so good.…”

  “How about you, Linnora? Are you all right?”

  “I think so, Dennis. But did you see how close we came to that precipice?”

  “Uh, fortunately no. Look, will you check on Arth, please? I think he fainted.”

  The road ran straight for a little while. Dennis managed to get the cart running stably.

  “Umm … Arth is coming around now, Dennis, though I think he looks a little green.”

  “Well, slap him awake if you have to! We’re starting to speed up again, and I want him riding those brakes. You’d better help him by practicing them as well as you can!”

  “I’ll try, Dennis.”

  Dennis fought the bucking cart around the mountainside. Just in time, he felt Arth back on the brakes. The little thief was cursing foully, indicating a return to health.

  “Thanks, your Highness,” Dennis sighed.

  “You’re welcome, Dennis. But I ought to tell you … I think there is another switchback just ahead.”

  “Wonderful! Is it as bad as that last one?”

  “Umm, worse, I think.”

  “Oh, lord, you’re right! Hold on!”

  When the downgrade finally ended they nevertheless coasted several hundred yards, and even climbed a little way up the opposite slope. By now the wagon’s bearings were practiced to almost frictionlessness—a small blessing during that downhill careen.

  They finally rolled to a stop in the middle of a narrow mountain vale—a summer pasturage. An abandoned shepherd’s shack stood not far from the roadside. Momentum carried the little cart to within a few meters of its door.

  Arth set the brakes securely, to lock the cart in place. Then he leaped out and fell to the ground, laughing.

  Linnora followed, a little less nimble but just as delirious. She, too, collapsed to the lush grass, holding her sides as her bell-like laughter rolled. Tears streamed from her eyes.

  Dennis sat at the front of the cart, quivering, his hands still wrapped in the biting thongs with which he had steered for ten or twenty of the most terrifying miles of his life. He cast a withering sidelong glance at Arth and Linnora. Though they were his friends and comrades, it was just as well he didn’t have the energy or balance to get up, walk over to where they lay, and strangle them right there!

  Like children, they whooped it up, making zooming motions with their hands. They had been like that ever since those first terrifying moments on the downslope. Once they realized that the “wizard” had done it again, it never even occurred to them to be frightened.

  Their joyful shrieks had almost made him lose control a half-dozen times, nearly sending them over razor-edged cliffs!

  Slowly, carefully, Dennis unwrapped the steering thongs. Returning circulation brought on a wave of intense pain. The “cart sickness” that had almost overwhelmed him during the wild ride came back. He stood up unsteadily, and stepped carefully out of the crazy little contraption, holding onto its side.

  “Oh, Dennis.” Linnora limped over to grab his arm. She had barely stopped laughing. “Oh, my Lord Wizard, you made such fools of them. And we flew faster than the very wind! You are wonderful!”

  Dennis looked into her gray eyes, seeing in them the love and admiration he had often longed to find there—and came suddenly to realize that there were priorities that came before even a dream come true.

  “Uh.” He gulped and swayed. “Hold that thought.”

  He pulled away from her then, and stumbled quickly over behind a clump of bushes to become very sick.

  10

  Sic Biscuitus Disintegratum

  1

  It was an evening demonstration, performed by moonlight and the flickering luminence of a hundred bright torches. The noble observers watched with growing nervousness as preparations were made. Rank upon rank of troops filed into place in the parade yard. Then the rumbling drums fell silent.

  There was a long pause, then the sudden quiet was split by a loud, terrifying sound. The crashing explosion was followed by another silence as the guests stared in stunned amazement at what had happened. Then a thousand men let out a single, bloodthirsty roar of approval.

  Sergeant Gil’m turned and marched smartly back toward the dais. Out on the parade ground, at the end of the execution aisle, there was a new hole in the outer wall. A bloody stump stood where only moments before a defiant L’Toff prisoner had shouted epithets at Baron Kremer and his noble guests.

  Kremer accepted the needler from his sergeant. He turned back to his peers, the great lords of the west, who had gathered to discuss the final alliance against the King’s authority.

  The counts and barons were pale. A couple looked like they just might be ill. Yes, Kremer thought, the demonstration has been effective.

  “Well, my lords? You have seen my aerial corps in action. I have shown you my far-warning box. And now you know what my most precious new weapon can accomplish. Are there any now among you who doubt my plan?”

  The Duke of Bas-Tyra frowned and shook his head. “We cannot but be impressed, my Lord Kremer … although it would be good actually to meet this foreign wizard who created these wonders for you, and of which so much is rumored.”

  He looked at Kremer expectantly. But the Lord of Zuslik merely waited, saying nothing, watching under darkly hooded brows.

  “Ah, well,” the Duke continued, “we are certainly in agreement that our Lord King Hymiel must needs be taught a lesson in the rights of his vassals. Still, some of the methods you propose …”

  “You still seem not to perceive the true situation,” Kremer said with a sigh. “You will have to be shown.”

  He turned to his cousin, Lord Hern. “Have them bring out the special prisoners,” he commanded.

  Lord Hern passed on the order.

  The great lords muttered among themselves. Clearly they were deeply disturbed. This was getting to be more than they had bargained for. A few eyed Baron Kremer nervously, as if they had begun to suspect what he had in mind.

  Lord Hern’s messenger arrived at the postern, and soon a chain of bound men were led out into the courtyard, their guards yanking on their tethers.

  There was a gasp from the assembled notables.

  “Those are Royal Scouts!”

  “Indeed. So it is war, like it or not!”

  “And look! A Kingsman!”

  Amid the chain of Scouts was a man wearing the blue and gold of a royal commissioner—a Kingsman—who had the power of royal writ.

  “Kremer!” the man shouted. “You dare to treat the very body of the King in this way? I came out here as an emissary of peace! When my royal Lord hears of this he will have your—”

  “He will have my fist!” Kremer roared, interrupting the commissioner’s defiance. His troops, as one, shouted a chee
r.

  Kremer turned back to the assembled noblemen. He gestured to the prisoners.

  “Hang them,” he said.

  The stunned Duke of Bas-Tyra said, “Us? You want us to hang royal messengers? Personally?”

  Kremer nodded. “Right now.”

  The nobles looked at each other. Kremer saw a few eyes drift to glance at the gliders circling overhead in the torchlight, at the thousand disciplined troops—a fraction of his might—and at the needler in his hand. He saw the light dawn on them.

  One by one, they bowed.

  “As you wish … your Majesty.”

  One by one, they moved to obey. Kremer watched them descend, each to take a doomed man in tow.

  That left only the mercenary captains on the dais with him. He turned and regarded them—six hardened veterans of dozens of scrappy little wars. These ones had no lands or property to think of. Able to have their forces simply melt away under threat, they had far less to fear from gliders and magical weapons. If in doubt, they would simply move on.

  Kremer needed them if he was to put under siege the cities of the east and their “democratic-royalist” rabble.

  And to keep them over a long campaign, he would need money.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “would any of you care for some more brandy?”

  2

  “Dennis?”

  “Hmmph? Wha—what is it, Linnora?” Dennis lifted his head. He had to rub his eyes to see. It was still dark outside. Across the floor of the little shepherd’s cabin, Arth snored softly.

  Linnora had slept curled next to Dennis, under the same blanket. Now she sat up, gray eyes blinking in the pale moonlight.

  “Dennis, I just felt it again.”

  “Felt what?”

  “That sense that someone or something has come into the world. Like the time I knew your little metal house had arrived, many months ago … and when I felt you, as well, arrive on Tatir.”

  Dennis shook his head to clear it. “You mean someone’s using the zievatron?”

  Linnora didn’t understand. She merely stared into the night.