Secret of the Sixth Magic

by Lyndon Hardy

  “All of this is irrelevant.” Gerilac deepened his frown. “We are not here to ponder the empty words of someone who is not even a member of our council. Let us be done with his business and proceed with our traditions.”

  “Our tradition is one of openness to all forms of expression and judgment on merit alone.” Farnel rose suddenly to his feet. “Something we masters seem to have a hard time remembering. Yes, that is it. This offer presents an opportunity.” He pointed across the table to Gerilac. “Is that the mold in which we shape the thoughts of our tyros who will someday follow? Are they to emulate a sorcerer who fears the challenge of one who is not even a master?”

  “I do not fear this tradesman,” Gerilac snapped. “His spinning mirrors or whatever would bore us all in a moment. It is an idle exercise not worthy of any of our time.”

  “Not even worth an additional five hundred tokens?” Farnel asked. He looked around the council room. “It is true that my reaction is one of principle. But additional tokens brought to the island from the outside are eventually of benefit to us all, no matter who is the first recipient.”

  Jemidon saw a few of the masters nod and then the one nearest Canthor turn his palm upward in agreement with the trader’s offer. “Five hundred tokens more,” he said. “As if the high prince visited not once this year but twice instead.”

  Like a rippling wave, the others around the table agreed, one after another, until only Gerilac remained. All eyes turned to the master, and for a moment there was silence. Gerilac looked quickly around the chamber and finally stared at Farnel.

  “You do this just for spite,” he spat. “But very well. It appears we choose to defend the accolade against this preposterous challenge. Let it be tomorrow morning in the hall. There is no need to wait any longer.”

  Jemidon struggled to think through his weariness. Dimly he recognized another presentation in the hall, and open to an outsider at that, as a chance to bind Farnel to his bargain. Impulsively he spoke again, not waiting to reason the consequences all the way through. “If there is to be another competition, then it need not be limited to two,” he said. “The other masters should have their chance as well.”

  “What is the point?” Gerilac asked. “The competition among the masters has already been held. Only the best need perform again.”

  “You have not seen the work of master Farnel,” Jemidon said. “This gives him the chance to compete when he is not ill-disposed.”

  “Enough!” Farnel rose and pushed Jemidon back, his eyes wide at what his tyro had said. “One day is insufficient time. My cause cannot be aided by another hasty preparation.”

  Gerilac watched Farnel’s reaction for a moment, and then the deep furrows in his forehead relaxed. “Insufficient preparation, did I hear you say, Farnel? How could that be if your theories are correct?” He shrugged slightly and beamed a broad smile, his discomfort of a moment before totally gone. “I am a fair man, even though you perpetrate these petty spites. If you wish to present an example of what you define as art with only a day of thought, then let it be so. It is not my intent to bar any glamour so vigorously extolled by its creator. And it is not secret that my production will be the other one the masters will be seeing. Perhaps the contrast will be amusing.”

  “I do not wish to present.” Farnel slammed his fist on the table. “For no such permission did I ask.”

  “Permission!” Gerilac shot back. “Permission! I do not think this any longer is a matter of pampering your idle whims. You have forced me to recite again. Very well, if I am to dance to your manipulations, then so should you to mine. Present your art in the hall tomorrow. Present it so the rest can compare and then judge the relative merit for themselves. Perhaps when it is all over, you will be silent at last.”

  Gerilac did not wait for Farnel’s reply, but turned to the other masters for their agreement. Farnel started to say more, then clamped shut his mouth as the first few indicated assent. The master watched silently as, one by one, they nodded. With a deep scowl, he slumped back in his chair.

  “Wait, there is no need for any other,” Drandor said. “We already have agreed on the elements of the wager.”

  Gerilac frowned at the trader. He looked again at Jemidon and his eyes narrowed. For a moment, he studied the imp bottle and lattice and then shook his head. Finally he ran his eyes over Delia’s gown. “Make her part of the prize,” he said finally. “As long as you inconvenience the masters of Morgana, you must offer more as your share. And as to what Farnel has to submit, it can only be this outspoken tyro. But then he will be enough. Erid and the others have the need for an experimental subject, and this one already has some practice.”

  “It is not a contest of equal risks,” Drandor blurted; he paused and snapped shut his mouth. For a moment he was silent and then he smiled. “But neither is it one of equal chance. Very well, the girl is part of the final award.” He looked at Jemidon. “Melizar will replace my pets with others. They, too, will need amusements.”

  Jemidon ignored the threat and slumped back against the wall. Now that Farnel was back in the competition, he had somehow to figure a way for them to win. Indeed, his very freedom now depended upon it. But the events of the last day were taking their toll. Jemidon’s thoughts were fuzzy and dissolving in a muddle. Fatigue pressed down on him like a great stone. He needed sleep before he could be of much use to anyone.

  “Then it is settled.” Canthor slapped the table for attention. “These two properties to the trader at once, for which he agrees to mention the incident no further. And all the rest to be decided after a meal or two to repair yesterday’s excesses.” He waited a moment and looked at each master, but no one protested. With a nod to his men, he left; one by one, the others silently followed. In a moment, only Farnel, Jemidon, and Delia remained in the chamber.

  “And what is the rest of your plan, quick-witted one?” Farnel growled. “We have done nothing on the battle scene since we abandoned it. There is hardly time to pull it together now.”

  Jemidon opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. It was probably best if he said no more. In a groggy haze, he followed Farnel and Delia back to the hut.

  Jemidon blinked open his eyes. It was evening. He had struggled to keep alert and be of some help when they reached the sorcerer’s lair, but finally had succumbed to a deep sleep that had lasted for hours.

  He stretched tentatively and then with greater force. He still felt somewhat groggy, but better than before. Slowly he rose to sitting and readjusted the tatters of his tunic over his shoulder. He centered the brandel on his chest and pushed aside his torn cape, which had been balled into a pillow in the corner of the littered floor. Delia saw him stir and stepped between the helmets and maces to his side. She touched his shoulder, radiating concern.

  “The swelling is much less,” she called out to Farnel, who sat atop a stool on the other side of the hut. “The sweetbalm, despite its age, has done well.”

  Jemidon reached for Delia’s softness, but she gently pushed him away. “There is little time. Even if master Farnel instructs me through the night, we may not be ready.” She smiled and slid away. “But he says that I am an attentive pupil, and I think even his spirits rise as we progress.”

  “Attentiveness is only a part of it,” Farnel said. “She has a natural aptitude—an ability for recall as well as enunciation. I have heard of other instances, but never met such a talent before.”

  “I am the tyro.” Jemidon struggled to his feet and tried to shake the last bit of fuzziness out of his head. “Just a few moments more and I will be able to assist.”

  “No, it is to be Delia.” Farnel’s voice was firm. “With her, we just might have a chance after all. Oh, to be ten years younger, lass, with a tyro such as you.” He beamed as Delia positioned herself back in the middle of the room. “Gerilac and his followers never would have a chance. Now quickly; the next phrase is but a copy of the previous one with the middle syllables borrowed from the very beginning. Can yo
u feel how it goes?”

  Jemidon frowned and tried to figure out what had happened during his sleep. While he pondered, Delia began to rattle off a long string of melody, her voice crisp and pure, like the notes of a harp. Jemidon listened only half attentively at first; then, as she continued, he sagged back to the ground, surprised by what he heard. Most of the charm fragment was familiar, but other parts were new, totally new, phrases that he had never learned in all the months he had studied. Wide-eyed, he looked with respect at the slender form in the center of the room.

  “Perfect, perfect,” Farnel said. “You know all of the parts. Now we can begin the practice of the complete glamour. Start with Dark Clouds and then slide into Clinton’s Granite Spires.” He turned and looked at Jemidon. “She even handles the transition without a flaw. It is a rare talent indeed.”

  A hint of envy crept into Jemidon’s amazement. Farnel had given him no such praise, even after the best of his training sessions. “Why spend time now in instruction?” Jemidon asked. “Should not the master be the one to rehearse for the final performance?”

  “My head and stomach are not yet clear,” Farnel said. “But it does not matter. With Delia’s talent, I am sure she will be able to conduct a winning presentation. And enough of interruptions. Tend to your mending and we will pay attention to the sorcery. After all, I doubt you care to become chattel to either Gerilac or this trader Drandor. It is in your best interest as well that we succeed.”

  Jemidon started to reply; but before he could, Delia began the charm. Almost involuntarily, he closed his eyes and concentrated on her voice, following the flow, hearing the firm command she gave to the words and phrases. His own chanting, the little vocalizing of fragments he had done, was technically correct, but it was the drone of a scribe compared with the beauty of her song. Even though his eyes were shut, Jemidon felt himself being drawn into the enticing web that she wove with her words. Farnel was right; she was the one who had the talent to achieve their goal. Even if he could perform all that he knew with confidence, his glamours would be pale shadows next to the richness that sprang from Delia’s lips.

  “How is the effect?” Delia asked when she finished. “I felt none of the increasing resistance that you warned me of. It was no different the third time than it was the first.”

  “You must have made some small error, as Jemidon did this morning.” Farnel frowned. “I detected no fault, but I see no clouds and mountains.” He stopped and rubbed his chin. “Perhaps we have proceeded a bit too rapidly. Let me cast the beginning. I think that the churning in my stomach can take on something as simple as that. Listen for a difference, and when I am done, you can continue with the rest.”

  Farnel climbed down from the stool, Delia replaced him, and the glamour was begun again. Jemidon heard the same words rumble from Farnel’s throat, heavy with the assurance of a master. But the sorcerer took twice as long to complete the charm, slowing the tempo near the end rather than finishing with a burst of speed. As he said the concluding syllable, a look of puzzlement started to grow on the master’s face.

  “Strange, I would have expected more resistance,” he muttered, “especially with the way I feel.” He waved his arm at the far wall. “But at any rate, that is the way the scene opens, and you have heard how it is done. Now, with the setting in place, you can begin to bring in the characters and their emotions.”

  “I am supposed to see a background on the wall?” Delia asked. “It is the same clutter as before.”

  “What? Impossible!” Farnel exclaimed. “I have not miscast since I was a tyro. One does not become a master with sloppy technique.”

  “I see nothing,” Delia repeated. “If I squint, then some of Jemidon’s scrawls resemble a small ship, but that is all.”

  “It is the joining.” Farnel turned to Jemidon. “Your little theory of patching together the charmlets has a flaw. We must go back to Alaraic’s Foreboding and Magneton’s Walls of Closure, as I first suggested.”

  “There is no flaw,” Jemidon said. “My analogy with the curves was only a means to see which charmlets to couple together. Once that is determined, the transition proceeds in a standard fashion.”

  “Then the casting, after all,” Farnel said. “The ale has addled my senses more than I thought. I have misremembered some syllable and taught it incorrectly to Delia as well.”

  “But the charm I tried in the morning was a different one,” Jemidon said slowly. “Yet it did not complete either.” He frowned and rose to standing, clutching at the coin around his neck and reaching for tendrils of thought that danced just beyond his grasp. There was a puzzle here. He could sense it. And as with Delia’s trinket in Drandor’s tent, he felt a tantalizing tug, a lure to explore all the facts, to turn them this way and that, and to find the common thread that explained them all.

  “No, something else is wrong,” he said after a moment. “I can feel it. Somehow, someway, something more basic is at fault. The failures, all of them, are deeply connected. It is not just from lack of precision alone.”

  He closed his eyes and strained, trying to piece things together, but only incomplete images would form. Miscast spells, whispered commands on a rainy beach, competitions for a thousand tokens, an imp in a bottle, and lattices with shiny beads.

  “There is not time for another abstract theory,” Farnel said after Jemidon did not speak again. “I must recompose the beginning of the presentation and then teach the lass yet another glamour to replace the one that failed.”

  “No, wait,” Jemidon said as a bizarre thought popped into his head. He licked his lips and moved to the center of the room, not quite believing where his logic was leading him. “There is something important here, and it is easy enough to test its limits. Try the first charmlet without the connection. See if it works by itself.”

  Farnel scowled, then shrugged his shoulders. He turned to face Delia and quickly ran through Dark Clouds. “Well,” he said when he was done. “Surely there was no mistake in such a short glamour. Even a beginning tyro can do it.”

  “Nothing still,” Delia said.

  “Then the error is in the first,” Farnel declared. “Clinton’s Granite Spires is the one I remember correctly.”

  “Cast it as well,” Jemidon said. He felt no surprise at the failure. Instead, a cement of conviction began to connect the framework of his ideas.

  Farnel twisted his frown even tighter, but carefully recited the glamour. He paused at the finish, as Delia slowly shook her head.

  “By the laws, two misremembered!” Farnel pounded his fist against the wall. “Somehow it is Gerilac’s doing. He has contrived the whole competition just to get another chance to display his craft against mine.”

  “Gerilac did not know of Delia and Drandor until this morning.” Jemidon shook his head. “No, the explanation lies somewhere else.”

  “In any case, I must recompose the beginning with some substitutions,” Farnel growled. “Do not waste what time remains with irrelevant suggestions.”

  “And what of the rest?” Jemidon asked with slow deliberateness, emphasizing every word, his doubts tossed aside. “What of the rest? If the first two have failed, what can you say of the chances of the others?”

  “Would you that we fail again? Another prize for Gerilac and more whispers that I can no longer cast a charm?” Farnel snarled in frustration and scooped a dagger from the floor. With a savage fling, he hurled it above Jemidon’s head and sent it crashing into the wall. “The hour grows late,” he growled, “and it is your glib tongue that has placed us here. By the laws, it is your burden as well to avert the result that surely encloses us in its snares. Stop throwing barriers in the way. If not by charms, then by whatever else shall we enchant the masters?”

  “We have a compact,” Jemidon said. “I stand by my part of the agreement still. I will help to win the competition, and you will instruct me in sorcery in return.” He matched Farnel’s angry stare, looking him deeply in the eye. For a long moment, no one mov
ed. Finally the sorcerer turned his glance away, flinging out his arms in disgust.

  “And we will accomplish nothing by blind thrashing,” Jemidon said. “If we cannot depend upon our charms working, then we must conceive a production that does not use them. We have no choice but to work with what we have.”

  “A production with no glamours? Impossible!” Farnel snorted.

  Jemidon did not reply. His spirits had lifted. He was back in the center of things, part of the solution rather than a hapless bystander, watching others try to unravel problems he had created. If they were to win the competition and save themselves from Drandor or Gerilac, if Farnel were to gain his measure of respect at last, it would be because Jemidon found the key to the puzzle, the means to the end, the plan for their salvation. He was in his element, working with what he enjoyed the best.

  Already he had had one flash of insight. Surely another would come soon as well. Slowly he scanned the room, looking for some clue to the way out of their plight. He saw the pikes and long swords stacked in the corner, Delia sitting on the stool in the middle of the room, and, behind her, the walls covered with the outline of their original design. “You said my writing reminded you of a ship,” he said to break the tension.

  “Over there.” Delia pointed. “The one on the left.”

  “So it does,” Jemidon agreed. “But it is quite out of place with the effect we are trying to achieve.”

  “And an accidental sketch is hardly of sufficient quality for a presentation designed for a high prince,” Farnel muttered.

  “Although this time it will be for the masters only,” Jemidon said. “And they also will know by heart the words that will be—” He stopped suddenly and studied the rough pen strokes that hinted at a galleon on the high seas. Then he smiled. The way to proceed was floating gently in his mind.