by Lyndon Hardy
Jemidon blinked at the sudden tension hiding behind the precisely enunciated words. Evidently Rosimar’s feelings for Augusta were still strong. The magician might yet prove to be competition, if he were to succeed with his ritual. Jemidon grimaced as he tried to sort out his thoughts. Augusta and Rosimar. Did that really matter? What of Delia, who still had to be freed? He felt guilty that the image of her golden curls, the sound of her voice, the sense of her brave spirit, all were fading next to the sharpness of Augusta’s presence. In the end, which did he want? It was a tangle he could not resolve. Better for now, he decided, to keep the conversation on safer ground.
“Augusta has mentioned that this time the polling will be in the grotto,” Jemidon said. “On the ledge above the vault. Why not have it instead in some neutral place?”
“No place is neutral on Pluton,” Rosimar said. “Each is owned by someone who charges for its use. By tradition, the site is rotated among the leading factions, those strong enough to ensure there is no interruption while the counting is going on.”
The magician looked off into the distance for a moment and then shook his head rapidly from side to side. Exhaling deeply, he turned to direct two initiates entering the ceremonium, tugging at the end of a large, woven hose. “Attach it to the flute at the left,” he said. “The rest are already connected to the bellows in the outer chamber.”
Jemidon watched the initiates screw tight the flange that bound the hose to the large, hollowed log running by his feet. The whole end of the room was crowded with giant caricatures of musical instruments, triangles thrice the height of a man, harps with strings like hawsers, and double reeds as thick as tabletops. From each device that was powered by air snaked a hose through a doorway to the rear.
“It is a matter of scale.” Rosimar followed Jemidon’s gaze. “The casual travelers think that the magic guilds must be the focus of Pluton’s power, because from them come the tokens upon which all else is based. But they do not know the number of steps it takes to make even a single perfect disk, an intricate ritual requiring months and consuming exotic ingredients besides. And with the competition from all who know the secret, and the many mouths to feed between the steps, the profit is small, barely enough to make the whole effort worthwhile. When considered from the standpoint of outlay and return, the boxes and vaults are far more efficient in producing wealth. It is better to receive tokens already made than to struggle to form more with the painstaking steps of our art.”
“And yet you experiment with the giant apparatus here,” Jemidon said, “and have taken Augusta’s writ to buy all these hoses, saws, and weapons of war.”
“It is a matter of scale, as I have said,” Rosimar repeated. “Why labor to produce a single disk when hundreds can be made with the same steps? Why gong a petite triangle to fill a small volume with sound when the entire hall can resonate from one hundreds of times as large? Instead of cutting each sheet of steel into strips a careful stroke at a time, we will attempt to cleave many at once by firing the plate at the whirling saws and playing the music at a tempo to keep in step.
“The grinding will be done by the big wheels rather than by hand-held files. And all the rest has been proved. If today the cleaving can be made to proceed in concert with what the ritual demands for perfection, then the entire process will work, without a doubt.”
Jemidon looked down at the whirling row of saw blades and back at the ballista, as the neophytes lined up the sheet of gleaming steel in the carriage that would hurl it forward. “And yet the scale and weights are normal-sized.”
“They control the timing,” Rosimar explained. “Now the scale is perfectly balanced with seven weights on either side. When one is removed from the left, the right pan swings to the ground and signals the ritual to start. After the triangle sounds, two are removed from the right, and the scale will move in the opposite direction to pace the next step. Alternately, the balance pans will be unloaded. The rigor of the ritual demands it to be so. And when the last is removed and the scale returns to level, the ballista will be fired. The plate will be ripped into nine strips, each one ready to be stamped with the outline of a row of disks.”
Rosimar looked around the ceremonium and smiled. “In fact, all is in readiness, and we will soon know the result. You there, Grogan, I want you to remove the weights while I and the other masters attend to the bellows in the antechamber.”
The neophyte sprang to his feet and clutched his hands together. “Not me, master,” he said. “The whirling blades and creaking wheels give me a fright. My ears ached last night when the flutes were sounded in the seventh step.”
“Your hand is steady,” Rosimar said. “It is an opportunity to show what you have learned while all the masters are watching.”
The neophyte extended his hands palms upward. Rosimar scowled at the blur they made with their shaking. “Crandel, then,” he said. “You probably can do it as well.”
The second neophyte did not respond. Together, the two of them raced from the hall without looking back.
“A moment.” Rosimar’s scowl deepened. “They are young and the task is unexpected. I will have to go to the head master and get permission to use one of the initiates. And if it is not granted, then we will have to wait until tomorrow.”
“But if the process is proven, can we have new tokens today?” Jemidon asked.
“Within the hour,” Rosimar said. “We could use the very strips produced by the test.”
“I was a neophyte at the inland guild,” Jemidon said. “You remember that. I would rather not delay. Tell me what I should do.”
Rosimar looked out through the isinglass to the bay. “I remember your skill, Jemidon,” he remarked. “I remember it all too well.”
“I was much younger many years ago,” Jemidon said. “And here I have no stake in trying to impress a master.” Rosimar looked at the still swinging doors through which the neophytes had run. “Oh, very well,” he said. “The task is simple enough. Just remove the weights in the sequence I have indicated. Make each step clean and sure. Watch for my signal. When all else is ready, I will indicate when to begin.”
Without saying more, Rosimar hurried out the doorway. Jemidon watched his departure for a moment and then turned to study the scale more intently. Besides the two pans, each carrying the ornate metal cylinders, he could see an array of springs and switches clustered around the balance arm. From them, ropes, pipes, and pulleys led to other apparatus in the ceremonium. He looked back at Rosimar and saw the magician wave his arm to begin.
A hush fell onto the big hall. All of the other activity had ceased, except for the whirl of the saws. Jemidon was alone to set the ritual into motion. He took a step toward the scale, extending his arm to grab a weight from the top of the stack.
But as he did, without warning, he tripped and stumbled, falling to the ground. Surprised, Jemidon shook his head and looked around for what had gotten in his way, but he saw only smooth planking all about his feet.
Jemidon rose to standing and took a deep breath. Old memories began to stir in their hiding places.
“Away, away!” Rosimar stormed back through the door. “It is just as I remembered. You never had a talent for magic, Jemidon, even for the simplest of neophyte tasks. It is no wonder that Augusta forsook you for my attentions instead.”
Jemidon looked back at the master. The contempt in Rosimar’s face was sharp and clear. “A moment’s spasm,” he shot back. “And it has passed. I will do as I have said. You need not summon back one of the neophytes too afraid to be less than perfect.”
“I will perform the ritual myself,” Rosimar declared. “One side, and observe how it is done.”
Jemidon’s chest constricted in anger. He whirled from where he stood to face the scale. With a swipe of his hand, he reached for the topmost weight to flick it aside. But as he did, he felt his arm streak off in an uncontrolled arc. His hand crashed into the scale. With a clatter, the weights bounced off onto the floor.
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sp; Jemidon lunged for the falling weights, but he managed only to trip over the scale and spin around. His feet tangled in the ropes and levers; with snaps and twangs, they jerked free of their moorings. He heard the giant triangle gong three times and then a sharp crack as the ballista released its charge. The sheet of metal arced across the room, tumbling while it sped, and struck the row of saws broadside rather than on end.
With an ear-piercing shriek, the plate exploded into shrapnel that flew back across the room. One piece bounded beside Jemidon’s leg and another grazed his ear, knocking him again to the ground. The bellows started pumping, and the flutes and horns blasted monotones in a giant dissonance.
“A resonance!” Jemidon heard Rosimar’s shout mingle with the noise. “There is a flaw in the ritual—a resonance that feeds on itself. Stop the bellows and saws. Shut it all down!”
But the shrieking grew louder. Isinglass buckled from the ceiling and crashed to the floor. The bounding shrapnel continued to carom off the walls and apparatus. A large chunk hit the nearest flute in midsection, smashing a hole in its side. The hot air blasting forth caught Jemidon in the chest and flung him down just as he started to rise. He struggled to stand, but the pressure forced him backward toward the spinning blades. Disoriented, he turned to the side to move crosswind, but then suddenly froze in place. In the confusion, he heard one of the giant grindstones, freed from its mooring, lumber by to crash into the opposite wall.
Instinctively he fell prone to the dusty floor and held his breath. As the crash of breaking wood and the whiz of hurling projectiles continued unabated, he dug his fingers into the flooring and waited for the tumult to pass.
After a long while—how long he could not tell—the instruments, the hurling debris, the runaway equipment all came to rest. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and rose to his feet. He dusted himself off, blinking at what had happened.
The hall was in complete disarray. Two grindstones were tumbled among the wreckage of the musical instruments. One had crashed through to the chamber beyond. The complicated array of ropes and linkages was a tangle of broken beams and knotted loops. It looked like a huge version of Drandor’s lattice dashed against a rock. The saws had stopped spinning; one end of the shaft was out of its bushing and leaning against the floor.
“You can tell your mistress that you have performed your mission well.” Rosimar glared at Jemidon from across the room. “It will not be from this guild that she will get the tokens to save her fair skin.”
Jemidon was stunned. What had caused him to lash out so inaccurately with his arm? And how could such a small error cause all the damage that he saw around him?
“I don’t know what spoiled my coordination.” Jemidon shook his head. “It should have been simple enough to move weights about the scale. And in any event, a resonance, as you say, is highly unlikely.”
Rosimar’s face contorted even further. “Out!” he commanded. “Out! There is no time left for excuses!”
Jemidon started to say more; but before he could, one of the oarsmen from the day before raced into the room. “Master Rosimar,” he cried, “master Rosimar, come quickly to my mistress’ bidding! She will pay you ample fee!”
“What has happened?” Jemidon asked, trying to block out his thoughts about what he had caused to occur. The feeling was all too familiar, and he did not want to wallow in it again.
“Most unexpected,” the oarsman replied, “and yet most welcome news indeed. Trocolar the trader has changed his mind. He will redeposit his holdings into the grotto and with even more tokens besides. Augusta will earn her fee and a larger one than before.”
“She asks for me?” Rosimar shook himself away from surveying the wreckage. “Augusta asked specifically for me?”
“Trocolar brings with him his magician, Holgon, to ensure that all is secure. The mistress wants to be represented properly as well.”
Rosimar straightened and pushed out his chest. He glared at Jemidon a final time. “An opportunity,” he said. “An opportunity despite the hellhole. An opportunity for her to realize who is her better choice.”
“My original treasure plus hundreds more,” Trocolar said. “You may deduct the storage fee from what is there.”
“Why the sudden reversal?” Augusta asked.
Even in the dim imp light, Jemidon could see the suspicion in her eyes. They were all huddled together around the chests in the vault, their voices echoing from the walls above the beat of the pumps and the drip of seeping water. Trocolar had already been there when he and Rosimar had arrived. There had been no time to tell her what had happened at the guild—not that he could explain the events in a manner that would keep Rosimar’s look of contempt from spreading to Augusta’s face.
“Why the reversal?” Trocolar shrugged. “It is because of my new partner, the one whom Holgon found. He has presented to me a plan that is greatly to my benefit. For my part of the bargain, all I have to do is carry out a few simple steps, like redepositing my tokens here, along with his more modest amount. He was furious when he learned that I had made a withdrawal. So many tokens in one spot, he said. Far more than he could quickly assemble himself, each the result of an independent act of ritual, none of them shielded by a magic vault. And the more there are, the easier is Holgon’s task.”
“What has Holgon to do with this?” Augusta asked.
“He arrives shortly,” Trocolar said. “As long as he can perform his ritual of safekeeping here, then these treasures are again yours to guard.”
“Other than the pumps and the tokens themselves, there is no magic needed here,” Augusta said. “It is the tide alone that keeps the vault in the grotto secure. You know that as well as I.”
“Nevertheless, my partner insists,” Trocolar replied. “He has prescribed the ritual himself. And you can use your Rosimar here to ensure that nothing goes amiss.”
“I am no bondsman to Augusta,” Rosimar said weakly. He pushed himself from where he sagged against the slimy wall and tried to fill his lungs. Jemidon saw the color return to his cheeks.
“I serve her for a fee,” Rosimar continued, “and because—because that is what I choose.”
“Dear Rosimar.” Augusta stroked the magician’s arm. “Your fear of small places has not gotten any better. I would have asked another master, but you are the one I trust the most in such affairs as these.”
“No matter.” Rosimar swallowed. “My strength is already returning. And I am as curious as the rest about what this ritual of safekeeping might be. At Cantor Guild we have heard of nothing like it.”
“Nor has any other on the island,” a voice rang out from the shaft leading to the landing above. A magician, robed in black like Rosimar, splashed down onto the vault floor. Heavy-framed and balding, his eyes were deep-set and burned with some hidden hunger. “It is an example of a new departure. Like none you have seen before.”
“So say they all, Holgon, so say they all,” Rosimar replied. “But somehow, on close examination, the new rituals turn out to be mere variations on what has worked before.”
Holgon ignored the remark and turned to direct a neophyte struggling down the shaft with the magician’s gear. “Your partner arrived with me, expert Trocolar,” he called over his shoulder, “and he says that we may begin. He would join you down here in the vault, except that the air circulates too little for his needs. The landing above is as close as he chooses to come.”
“But it was to be this very place,” Trocolar protested. “He explained that no other would do.”
“He assures that all is well,” Holgon said. “Once the tokens are securely hidden in their chests and the pumps are stopped, then I can proceed.”
“Stop the pumps?” Augusta exclaimed. “But then the vault will begin to fill!”
“Only for the duration of my ritual, so that there is no distraction,” Holgon said. “It will be short enough so that little additional seepage will occur.”
Jemidon saw Augusta look at Rosimar and the magician s
hrug indifference. She signaled an attendant by the pumps, and soon the deep, rhythmic throbbing stopped.
Holgon bowed slightly to Augusta and moved to where his neophyte had erected two tripods in front of an uncluttered stretch of wall. On each was a small box, colored in bright blue with a red sash running around the edges and yellow, five-pointed stars in the middle of each face.
Holgon pushed the tripods closer together and then lifted one of the boxes from its stand. With exaggerated flourishes, he unhinged each side of the box from the top. Holding it in his hand, he slowly scanned it in front of the group. The magician replaced it on its stand and repeated the procedure with the other.
“Street conjuring,” Rosimar snorted. “No ritual of true magic has such gaudy display.”
Holgon did not seem to notice the comment. With his face frozen in a blank smile, he produced a small dove from the sleeve of his robe and pointed at a jeweled collar around its neck. “A bracelet of teleportation,” he said. “Completed except for the final step.”
Then he placed the dove in the box on the left and snapped shut the sides and lid. He showed the one on the right a second time and closed it up as well.
“And now we wait a moment until the conditions are right,” Holgon said. With a flourish, he drew his arms inside opposite sleeves and stood staring straight ahead.
For a moment, everyone was silent, and nothing happened. Then Jemidon felt a sudden jerk from somewhere deep inside. His feeling on Morgana—the one on the top of the cliff, watching Drandor’s projections—swelled up within him, only this time more intense. Again he felt cast loose, as if a tug of the tide had parted a mooring rope and set him adrift. He pressed his hands to his sides and squared his feet on the slippery ground. Inwardly, he drifted, gathering speed, joining an invisible current that was sweeping him away.
