Secret of the Sixth Magic

by Lyndon Hardy

  But the frenzy of the fires was already greater. Licks of flame touched oiled paneling, bursting the wood into glowing splinters that started dozens of additional blazes where they landed. A storeroom of paints and canvas suddenly exploded, sending globs of incandescence throughout the interior. Far faster than one could believe possible, the entire hall was embraced in the beginnings of a fiery death.

  Jemidon saw the mirror that projected images from the well; reflected within was Delia’s frown of apprehension as she debated what to do. She might remain, struggling to continue until it was too late. He had to get to the well and help her escape. But the walkway she had taken was now engulfed in flame. He glanced to the side and then quickly dove through a low doorway as the expanding fire caught another tapestry that billowed in yellow and orange.

  Jemidon raced along the snaky corridor, trying to move in the direction of the stage, ducking at intervals into the boxes to see if they had another exit to shorten his path.

  He heard a rush of air like that from an anthanor and climbed a small ladder to peer over a wall. A wave of fire raced down both sides of the hall, exploding the tapestries along the way in globs of blazing anger. The stage curtain caught. To the rear, Jemidon heard the groan of a massive beam sagging as its supports began to burn.

  Jemidon saw Drandor appear from an aisle to the side, the imp buzzing free around his head. The trader swiped at the small table near the front of the stage and scooped up the bag of tokens as he ran.

  “It is all rightfully mine!” the small man shouted. He looked around once quickly before plunging down the stairs that led to the well. Jemidon heard Delia scream and then only the roar of the fire.

  Blistering air rolled past Jemidon’s face, forcing him below. He looked back the way he had come and saw it blocked. He touched the wall at his side, and it was hot to the touch. Acrid smoke billowed overhead, stinging his eyes and forcing him to his knees.

  Reaching the stage was no longer possible. He would have to get out as best he could. He closed his eyes to block the sting and began to grope along the floor. He felt the cold metal of a water pail and quickly doused it over his head. Pushing along the baseboard, he grasped the hinge of a door. But the metal was hot, burning his hand, and he crawled further down the aisle.

  He detected an opening to the left and scrambled into it, only to crack his head against a panel a few feet beyond. He flung his hand about and felt a wall on one side and open space on the other. The smoky air pushed lower. He choked as he gasped for breath. Flinging himself to the side, he proceeded another few feet before again bouncing off a wall directly ahead.

  Jemidon opened his eyes. The haze of gray and black was worse than before, but he saw high wooden panels of slick veneers. Like the first storey of a house of cards, the wooden walls zigged and zagged off into an unfathomable distance.

  “The Maze of Partitions,” Jemidon said aloud as he recognized where he was. He pondered for a moment on how to proceed and then grimly made up his mind. “It eventually leads to another entrance at the front of the hall. If the passages are simply connected, then I may have a chance.”

  He squinted his eyes shut and placed the palm of his left hand firmly on the panel. Moving slower than he had done before, he crawled on his knees along the boundary and into the Maze. The panel ran for a good distance before it finally ended, abutting another wall at a square angle, barring the way. Jemidon turned to the right with his hand still in front, guiding his movements, and continued on in the new direction.

  The air grew hotter. It hurt to take a deep breath. He heard the crackle of the fire funneled down the narrow passageway. With a burst of effort, he tried to crawl faster through the Maze.

  Time dissolved into a meaningless agony. Onward he crawled mindlessly, moving to the right when he ran into a barrier directly ahead, in the other direction when he felt his fingertips curve around a corner to a panel going to the left. He snaked into a spiral, back out again, and then along a narrow straightaway. He blindly climbed one set of stairs and descended another. He scrambled through a long traverse and then a set of convoluted aisles.

  For what seemed like the thousandth time, Jemidon reached the end of a panel. He slid his hand across rougher wood in front of him and then felt smoothness projecting back along the other side.

  “Another dead end,” he mumbled as he turned around and continued back in the direction he had come. He winced at the intensity of the heat and coughed with the choking smoke that now filled every breath. Faltering, he pushed himself another step onward.

  Jemidon opened his mouth to lick his lips and then quickly snapped it shut again. He steeled himself to slide another half step into the heat, but he could not find the strength. He had to follow the left-hand wall all around the Maze. It was like solving a complex puzzle on paper, horribly inefficient but the only way that was sure. Only then could he be certain of finding the doorway that led back out to the front of the hall.

  Doorway, his thoughts dimly lumbered as he laid his head down on the ground. Doorway to the outside. Visions of the Maze, the presentation hall, and the swirling smoke tumbled in his head. He remembered Delia’s puzzle, familiar and yet somehow a little strange.

  Jemidon felt a blistering pulse of heat course across his hand and he pulled it back. The fire now danced on his clothes. He sprang to his feet and whirled in desperation in the other direction. He clawed frantically at the wall until he felt the wood of the door. With a last effort, he pulled it open and saw daylight ten paces away. He tumbled forward into the brightness, trying to snuff out the flames as he rolled.

  Jemidon stretched himself awake and took a deep breath. Vaguely he remembered the helping hands that smothered the fire and then the application of the sleep-inducing salve. Its caressing aroma still lingered. With surprising ease, he managed to sit up on the hard flagstones and look at what remained of the presentation hall.

  Only a few charred timbers still stood. The rest smoldered under the collapsed roof and piles of charcoal debris. The onshore breeze had not yet blown away all the smoke and haze. A few of the masters directed their tyros to douse the remaining spots of fire. Others wandered aimlessly around the perimeter, eyes clouded in a daze. A shadow blocked out the sun, now low in the western sky. Jemidon looked up to see Farnel kneel down and touch his arm.

  “I can get more,” the sorcerer said. “Canthor puts great store in the salve, but if a second application is required, it does not matter.”

  Jemidon struggled to his feet and shook his head. “It heals burns as well.” He waved his arm at the others still sprawled on the entry way.

  “I have provided for them all,” Farnel said. “Even if there are no tokens to go with the honor, I will not be regarded the same as tight-fisted Gerilac after he has won an accolade.”

  “Then the spell worked!” Jemidon exclaimed.

  “Better than the others.” Another master approached and solemnly gripped Farnel’s arm. “Better than the others. With what we saw, there was no other choice. Gerilac failed totally. Not one image came to my mind when he was done. And the trader’s technique was amusing, but nothing compared with the shock that you produced, Farnel. The effect caught me totally by surprise. I expected mountaintops and clouds; with the words I heard, there could be no other. And then to view the sea—a masterstroke. The image was not strong; it remained entirely on the stage, rather than surrounding my senses as any good illusion should.

  “But such difficulty you must have had to make the charm sound so like the other! A little weakness in execution can easily be overlooked. Something only a master could appreciate, it is true. But within our craft, it is a spell that will become a classic. A pity that we were interrupted before you proceeded further.”

  The sorcerer looked over his shoulder at the ruins and then shook his head. “No, not a new technique from which to build next year’s productions to the high prince. But with the work of a dozen generations burned away in a morning, it is unclear that
that is very important.”

  “We must proceed.” Farnel straightened to ramrod stiffness. “For the next year, we must make the start of a new hall and a new direction in our craft as well—charms that challenge the mind, rather than cater to its weakest desires.”

  “Yes, to plunge onward is best.” The sorcerer managed a weak smile. “That is why we went ahead with the vote, to salvage as much as we could of our tradition. By eleven to ten, Farnel, you are the winner of the supreme accolade. And perhaps there is even something of value in what you have wrought. You must teach me the technique when I feel I am able.”

  “Instructing you might prove to be a disappointment.” Farnel coughed. “It is perhaps best to wait until the excitement of this day is mostly forgotten. And besides, I have my part of a bargain to honor first. A just payment for favors rendered.” He looked at Jemidon and smiled. “No small part of my success today is due to my tyro here. He has helped me to the prize, and in return I must give him the knowledge it takes to become a master.”

  Jemidon smiled back. His plan had worked exactly as he had hoped. There had been no sorcery involved at all. Delia had failed, just as she had the night before. But her words were so perfectly uttered that the masters could not bring themselves to believe that a charm was not cast. And so, guided by the stage props Jemidon had designed, they saw a sea scene, somehow formed with the words that should dictate mountains and clouds. Of course it had been weak. But, they would have reasoned, what more could one expect with a charm so inappropriate for what was produced?

  And from here on, there could be no more stumbles. Despite how it was accomplished, Farnel had achieved what he wanted. Now the others would listen to the sorcerer with more respect. And this time, Jemidon thought, he would study diligently and master each charm along the way before he proceeded to the next. This time he would learn the Power of Suggestion so that it would never be forgotten. This time—His thoughts suddenly faltered and then stopped. He knew the Power of Suggestion. Effortlessly, he could recall the simple glamour and many more. That was not the problem. He ticked off his own failures, Delia’s, Farnel’s, and now even Gerilac’s. He remembered his deduction in Farnel’s hut, his conviction on how to proceed to win the prize. Sadly he shook his head. As preposterous as it seemed, there could be no other answer.

  “Has any one of you tried to cast a charm since your celebration after the high prince left?” Jemidon asked.

  “We were all too indisposed from the revelry,” the master answered, “although several did attempt something simple to steady themselves after the fire.”

  “And the result?”

  “Miscast, every one.” The sorcerer shrugged. “It is still too soon, and the events of this morning could only make one more upset. And whatever the disturbance is, it will wear off soon enough. We often rest for months after a season to recuperate our powers. When it comes time to prepare for the next, we will all be ready.”

  “But if the charms continue not to work, what then?” Jemidon persisted.

  The sorcerer cast a worried look at the remains of the hall and ran a hand across the nape of his neck. “Then we will be forced to act like all the others. Deep enchantments, cantrips of far seeing, curses, and ensorcellments. All life-draining and making us feared by everyone.”

  “And if they, too, have lost their power? If the basic law of sorcery, ‘thrice spoken, once fulfilled,’ is now no more than a rhyme of nonsense?”

  “A law no more? Impossible,” Farnel scoffed. “A charm is sometimes misremembered or forgotten; that has happened. Or even a master discovers that he can cast no more. But the law applies to all charms and all men, on Procolon as well as Morgana, on the seas, under the ground, and on the stars at the very limits of the sky. Stopping the law from working is the same as suddenly preventing every tossed rock from returning to earth. What mechanism could possibly cause such to happen? How could you even conceive of such a thing?”

  “I do not know,” Jemidon said, “but for me, the evidence is compelling. Since the night of the presentation to the high prince, there is no charm that has been completed successfully. The simple and the complex, joined or unrelated, they all do not work. What else can it mean but that the law no longer functions?”

  “But there was Farnel’s charm this morning,” the sorcerer protested. “And even, in a peculiar way, the moving illusions on the trader’s screen.”

  “Drandor!” Jemidon cried. “After his ritual on the night of the celebration, there were no more working charms. Yes, somehow the trader is connected!” He wrinkled his brow, trying to piece the events together: the presentation on the screen in the hall; before that, the more primitive enactment at the bazaar; and at the first, the tent with the objects from far away.

  “Delia!” Jemidon suddenly blurted aloud. His struggle to reach the chanting well jarred into memory. “What happened to her? Was everyone rescued from the hall?”

  “I was backstage directing the change of scene when I heard her falter,” Farnel said. “But the curtain was in flames before I was able to come to her aid. And I have talked to other masters who were closer. They babble about the imp shielding the trader from the heat as he dragged her away and of something else that met them at the rear door, dark and shadowy—a presence black and cold that directed both Drandor and the imp. But then their burns were bad, and the sweetbalm had not yet begun to work.”

  “Where are they now?” Jemidon asked.

  “A harbor pilot says that Drandor sailed on the tide for Pluton even before the blaze was fully controlled.” Farnel shrugged. “Like the tokens, of the trader and the slave girl there is no sign.”

  “And the one who hurled torches and oil from the second-level box, starting the fire?”

  “No trace, either,” Farnel said. “Perhaps whoever it was worked with Drandor as well, creating a distraction when it appeared that the trader might lose the competition. But that is all speculation. We cannot be sure.

  “In any event, Jemidon, forget all this irrelevant thinking. The important thing is the rebuilding of our craft. If there is some sort of blockage in our abilities, it will pass with time. We will be back at full strength well before the next season.” He stopped and looked at the ruins. “We must. There is no other way.”

  Jemidon nodded slowly, digesting Farnel’s words. Perhaps the master was right. How the charms stopped working probably did not matter. They could regain their potency again just as abruptly. And he would be ready with a full arsenal of glamours—enough to hold his own with Erid and advance quickly to the robe of the master. It was why he had come to Morgana. His plan would be successful at last, despite the twists along the way. He would become a master, with no fumbling failures like his first time in the well.

  He thought of his first time in the well. He recalled the growing panic as the words slithered away from his grasp, the choking throat that would not respond, and the looks of the masters when he trudged back up the stairs. Jemidon shuddered at the memory and then felt an icy wave of doubt wash over his body.

  That was before the night of the storm, he realized, before the final presentations to the prince, before the law stopped working, and before his tongue became so glib. Suppose the law were restored? What then would his abilities be? Would the practice be enough, would the phrases remain firm? Could he spout the Wall of Impedance as quickly as he had in Farnel’s hut?

  And would the powers really return unbidden? If Drandor’s rituals were involved, was there not forethought behind what had happened—forethought coupled with some mechanism that shifted the very fabric of existence, as Farnel had said, throughout the world and encompassing the stars beyond? What a puzzle it was! Yes, a puzzle far grander than any he had worked before. Jemidon licked his lips as he stretched his mind, savoring how he would proceed to find out more, to reach for the insight that hinted at the first exciting clue.

  But how could he devote any thought at all to such a mystery while he studied in drudgery under Farnel,
perhaps to no avail? Indeed, what was the surest way to the robe of the master? Instinctively Jemidon grasped the coin around his neck to steady his racing thoughts.

  “And if the laws do not ever come back of their own volition?” Jemidon broke out of his reverie. “Suppose it takes a positive action to restore things as they were before?”

  “What you speak of cannot come to pass,” Farnel said. “It is only a matter of time.”

  “If our livelihood is taken away, by whatever means, and then someone through his own efforts restores it,” the sorcerer beside Farnel replied, “then at the very least he would receive the master’s robe without question—regardless of his station or his ability to cast a single charm.”

  The sorcerer looked back at the smoldering embers. “Yes, if by the slightest chance what you say were so, no honor would be too great.”

  Jemidon’s eyebrows lifted. Another path to the robe! And one far more to his liking. It would not depend on innate resonance with sorcery that he might or might not have, but just the solution to a puzzle, a complex one perhaps, but in principle no different from the ones he had solved so many times before.

  “And Delia as well,” he said aloud in a rush. “The goals are intertwined.” His thoughts were still in a tumble, but deep inside, he knew what he must do—track Drandor to unravel his mysteries. At the same time he could also free Delia from the trader’s grip. Yes, somehow, he knew he could. And the second time, her gratitude might be worth more than a kiss. Or better yet, he could turn his back and walk away when it was done so that she would know he was made of finer clay. He paused as he remembered their last time together. How did he really feel about her anyhow? But then he brushed the thought aside. That could be decided later, after he had accomplished his new plan.

  “Yes, I must go to the harbor,” he said excitedly. “I must book passage and sail for Pluton with the next tide.”