Secret of the Sixth Magic

by Lyndon Hardy

  “Our interests in a successful harvest are mutual,” Wilmad said. “The mood throughout the kingdom would grow more ugly if it fails, I do not deny that. But the whole does not necessarily follow from one of the parts. The crude humor of a misplaced melon peel does not compare with the experiences one can feel on Morgana.”

  “Yet what will you do next season, my prince?” Kenton smiled. “The rumors have it that sorcery is no more. Perhaps it is time now to cultivate new tastes.”

  With a wave of his hand, he signaled to the far corner of the room. Jemidon turned to see the ambulator stand up and begin to pace on the treadmill. With a fluid kick, the man picked up speed, pushing the planks under his feet faster and faster. The creak of the boards as they rounded the axles added to the noise drowning out the prince’s reply. Jemidon tensed. He knew the ambulators were one of the ways for providing the energy to an incantation. Kenton would not have started one running unless he intended to exercise the art.

  “And now let me see,” the lord boomed. “Who is in most need of stretching his legs to relieve the tedium of the feast?”

  A sudden blur of motion streaked by Jemidon’s side. He turned just in time to see Anton fall to the floor, his chair tumbling back to the wall.

  “Ah, you always were the alert one.” Kenton laughed as the miller struggled to regain his feet. The buzz of conversation transformed into a chorus of laughter as Anton stomped on his new cape and fell again to the ground. Jemidon glanced back at the ambulator and confirmed his suspicion. The man now panted heavily, trying to rebuild the treadmill’s speed. And where was the simulation? Jemidon scanned the hall for something that would be related to the chair. When he saw the small model held in Kenton’s fingertips, he stopped and nodded. A trivial case of thaumaturgy, but an exercise of the art nonetheless.

  “In the wheatlands, it is polite to help one’s cousin.” Kenton caught Jemidon’s eyes. With a deft motion, the lord flicked another model chair with his thumb. Jemidon felt his own seat scoot away. He grabbed for the tablecloth as he fell and crashed to the floor in a pile of plates, flagons, and spilled food. The laughter increased, and even the tapestries could not muffle the roar.

  “Two chairs. They account for two of the treadmills,” Kenton continued. “But with four ambulators in the hall, there must be additional bindings.”

  As Jemidon struggled upward, he saw a wine cup across the way suddenly jump from the table, splashing its contents down the front of a woman’s dress. A turkey thigh rose from a platter and plunged into the beard of a grainkeeper on her right. For several minutes, the laughter continued as Kenton manipulated the objects, dashing the chairs into anyone who lost track of where they were, bouncing the cup off heads and elbows, and thrusting the turkey leg into mouths not discreetly shut when it passed by.

  “Enough,” the lord said finally. Jemidon saw the ambulators collapse to sitting, their chests heaving from their effort and their treadmills still. The laughter died away.

  “Release the bindings,” Kenton ordered, and the thaumaturges started to sing as they had done earlier in the day. The lord turned to the prince. “This is just a sample of what the other arts can do to amuse one nobly born.”

  “It is little different from last year’s,” Wilmad said. “And a few minutes’ entertainment at that. You presume too much, Kenton. Guide your masters in the production of wheat. In that, you have shown much skill. But leave true art to those who have the sense to judge the subtle from the mundane.”

  “But the goblet,” Kenton protested. “Have you no idea the difficulty involved in fashioning a replica on such a small scale?”

  “The craft of your masters is well regarded, even in Searoyal,” Wilmad said. “The candles that they carefully build, taking a full day for each layer, are used throughout the plains.”

  “You waste time in debating the merit of foolish games when you should be attending to the responsibilities of being lords,” Jemidon suddenly interrupted. The snickers and the hot gravy soaking down his legs as he tried to blot the wine from his tunic had proved to be too much. He had come to tell the high prince of an impending danger, not to be the butt of a baron’s jokes.

  Jemidon’s outburst brought the hall to silence. He immediately realized what he had done, but there was no way to turn aside the look that began to etch itself on Kenton’s face. A growing sense of apprehension began to mingle with his flash of anger. Boldly, he plunged on before the lord could speak.

  “First sorcery, then magic. Can you not see that even thaumaturgy might be next? How will you harvest all of these ripening fields if the art gives you no aid?”

  “The last incantation of ripening has been performed,” Kenton said in a surprisingly quiet voice. “The thaumaturges stood in the village square in exactly the same geometric pattern as that of the fields upon the plain. The crops will mature, each field one day after the next in lock step, just as the representative stalks did in the square.” The lord glowered at Jemidon. “All that remains is to ensure that the labor for the reaping is properly applied to the task.”

  “Not the cages again,” another voice on Kenton’s left interrupted. The man stood and faced the prince with his palms spread wide. He looked like the senior master of a guild instructing a first class of neophytes; a ring of white hair circled a completely bald crown. Burst veins of blue netted his cheeks, and flesh hung limply from slender arms. “The freetoilers work to their limit as it is. Another fetter will drive them directly into the brigands’ hands. Instead of eleven bushels where you used to have ten, you will have none at all.”

  “I have eleven where you have only six, Burdon. Eleven to your six because I know better what effort the freetoilers are capable of exerting. If it is the cages that will increase this year’s yield to the desires of the high prince, then cages I shall use.” Kenton waved his hand in Jemidon’s direction. “And for every one that I can fill with legal cause, it is one less that the freetoilers must elect to enter by choice.”

  “I do not care to interfere with your methods,” Wilmad interjected. “As long as the grain is produced in sufficient quantity and my house gets its rightful share, the means are not my concern.” The high prince paused for a second, eyeing Kenton down the length of his nose. “They are not my concern, as long as Arcadia remains at peace with itself and I do not have to explain to my doddering father why the royal garrison must be pulled from the coast to the inland plains. One company from Searoyal is quite enough, Kenton. Do not overstep the bounds, so that next year I again must shout apologies about a vassal’s conduct to the rabble in the village square.”

  “The chance of rebellion is not to be lightly dismissed, my liege,” Burdon said. “Each day the brigands add one or two more to their cause—one or two more cursing Kenton’s abuses of the art.”

  “Abuses!” Kenton snorted. “A weak excuse for those unwilling to toil as they should. Why, of the five arts, thaumaturgy is the least sinister; it has the smallest potential for true harm. There is no opening of a channel to the frightening power of the demons with which the wizards toy. Nor the possibility of lifelong enchantment that can come from a sorcerer’s gaze. No awesome weapons, like those from a magician’s guild. No salves or philters of evil intent from an alchemist’s anthanor. No, just two simple principles to aid in the production of our crops.”

  Kenton paused for breath, but then raced on before Burdon or the prince could speak again. “Even I understand their intent, if not the incantations that invoke their uses. The Principle of Sympathy, or ‘like produces like.’ Because of it, when I move the model chair, the one in the room responds in kind. A whole field ripens as does a single stalk.

  “And the Principle of Contagion, or ‘once together, always together.’ Both the full-size chair and its model were made from the same log. The wheat maturing in the square is coupled to the field from which it came and no other. These two concepts, plus the binding of a bit of energy to make it all come about, span the full scope of the art.
It is so simple that, as I have said, no great harm can result.

  “And look at what we have accomplished by dutifully applying the craft to our fields year after year: seeds placed in straight rows to equal depth merely by inserting one; germination in unison of all that is sown; accelerated growth, as if each plant were nurtured in the finest of fertilized soils; and an entire field ripening at once, while its neighbor is delayed for a day, so our limited tools can be used for each at the optimal time.”

  “The harvest incantations occur in my villages, as well as in yours,” Burdon said. “We all understand that each layer of candle wax was made a single day before the one underneath, and hence lives one more sunset from birth to death, and that each field’s ripening is bound to a layer, so that it matures in the same sequence. All of that is not the point. You see no abuse, yet it is all around you, Kenton. What of those misshapen ambulators? Their thighs are as big as their waists, and they are of no use other than to provide the energies that your incantations demand. If by some chance the art were to go away, to what other craft could they be employed?

  “No, the issue is not the principles of thaumaturgy,” Burdon continued, “but the degree to which magic robs our people of their will. Now the freetoiler has little choice. He must volunteer to man the cages in step with the bondsman so that his own field yields as much as yours. If you have your way, ultimately he will be little more than a machine, locked in a grotesque dance that stomps the stems and separates the chaff with jerking steps precisely placed.”

  “My masters have not yet perfected their craft, it is true.” Kenton smiled. “But it is a goal well worth striving for, nonetheless. The cage that you show so much concern about is no more than the logical extension of what we have been doing for years. And the freetoilers need not employ it. As long as they can get eleven bushels from each acre, where last year they harvested ten, how they accomplish the task I do not question.”

  “Yes, eleven bushels.” Kenton turned his attention back to Jemidon. “For one of the miller’s trade, it will be a grand experiment. It is the form by which you will accept the punishment for your impertinence. Eleven days in the cage. Let us see if you are as skillful as the rest when you are done.”

  Kenton smiled but said no more. He rang a small bell at his side; from somewhere in the castle, a huge gong sounded. He motioned to his thaumaturges and ambulators. The treading resumed. The words of a binding incantation again filled the air. A squad of men-at-arms marched into the feasting hall, carrying shackles and chains.

  Jemidon turned to meet the new arrivals. His apprehension was well founded. In the hallway behind the men, he glimpsed iron bars and a steel plate. He heard the rumble of wooden wheels on stone. What they were he knew he was soon to learn.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Fugitive’s Choice

  JEMIDON gasped when the cold water hit his face, snapping him awake. Squinting into the dawn sun, he saw that he was outside Kenton’s castle at the edge of a field of wheat. A steel belt and chains fettered him to the sides of a large metal cage. He was the only occupant, although the volume could have accommodated many more. Straining as far as his bounds would allow, he came nowhere near to touching one of the walls. Bars were spaced a handspan apart on all four sides. A steel plate formed the ceiling, its underneath side bracketed with tools, gears, screens, and other machinery that Jemidon did not immediately recognize. The bottom was open; he stood on the rough ground. And all of the bars were attached only at the top, like the teeth of a giant comb. In each of the four corners, large wooden wheels pressed into the damp earth. Identical cells formed a precise line staggered into the distance, each one placed a cage length behind the one in front and offset half a width to the right.

  The man-at-arms who had splashed Jemidon awake continued down the row, waking others who hung slumped in their bonds. A sergeant followed behind, tapping each cage with a baton and barking the order to make ready. He stopped at Jemidon’s cell and pointed at the scythe attached just within arm’s reach to a bracket on the ceiling.

  “You must cut it all,” he said. “If any tickles the touch-plate in back, the flagella will whirl. And get rid of the cape. It will merely get in your way.”

  Jemidon did not reply. Only with great restraint had he not resisted being seized the night before. It had saved him from certain injury. He had been thrust into the cage in such a hurry that he was still dressed for the feast. In silence, he watched the sergeant look at the gently waving stalks and then turn a crank that led into the top of the cage. As the handle spun, a coarse screen lowered from the ceiling to about waist level, directly behind Jemidon. Twisting to look over his shoulder, he saw a cylindrical drum mounted above the screen, with its axis parallel to the back of the cage. Long strips of leather coiled around the drum, and sharp metal brads covered the loose ends that dangled in the air.

  The sergeant looked a second time at the grain, made a small adjustment with the crank, and then nodded to himself in satisfaction. He tapped his baton once more on the metal bars and turned his attention to the next in line.

  As the sky brightened, Jemidon gazed across the field down the long lines of tall grain. In the distance, he could see more treadmills like those of the feasting hall, but built on a larger scale, with ambulators four abreast.

  Jemidon watched the ambulators start the treadmills in motion and expectantly waited for what the thaumaturgical effect would be. Almost immediately, a strange rustling shimmered throughout the grainstalks. Thin tendrils of vapor snaked into the morning air. Triggered by the incantation the day before, the crop had matured and was ready to harvest. His cage lurched and began to rumble forward toward the high-standing grain. Jemidon looked forward and back and saw the rest of the staggered line move in unison. Somewhere, a thaumaturge was guiding a small toy to which all these were bound. He stumbled on a rock and missed a step, but the cage continued forward, pulling him by the fetters tied to his waist.

  Jemidon saw the man in the cage directly ahead enter the field and grab his scythe. With a practiced stroke, the prisoner felled the stalks that filtered through the vertical bars in front. His path was such that the left edge of his swath matched the right of the prisoner who preceded him. Jemidon grunted understanding as he saw what was happening. The cages were large enough to give each man room to swing, yet they were grouped in such a way that, once they had all passed over the field, no grain would remain standing.

  Jemidon watched the uncut grain dance into his cage as he reached the field. But his anger of the previous night still lingered. Nurturing a spark of defiance, he folded his arms and stomped on the grain as it came underfoot, letting the growth on either side pass by untouched. He looked over his shoulder, to see it spring back to nearly full height, almost as if he had not gone by at all.

  He saw the tall stalks poke through the screen that the sergeant had lowered into place. As the first tassel passed through the grid, one of the gear trains on the ceiling began to creak. A lever pulled a pawl from a ratchet, and suddenly the disk at Jemidon’s back whirled into motion. The leather thongs uncoiled and whipped from their resting place, striking his back with a barrage of the sharp metal tips. Hot bursts of pain exploded across his shoulders and neck, staggering Jemidon almost to his knees.

  The sergeant’s words suddenly had meaning. Jemidon grabbed the scythe as quickly as he could. With a slashing abandon, he hacked at the grain that continued to pour through the bars of the cage, toppling all the stalks before they slipped past him to be detected by the screen. The swinging blade tangled in his cape. With a rip of his free hand, he flung the garment to the ground. He looked again at the methodical sweep of the other prisoners’ scythes in front and tried to imitate their economy of motion. He felt his own cage pick up speed and fell into a rhythm to keep up with the pace.

  The rate of progress increased two more times before Jemidon reached the end of the row. With leaden arms and gasping lungs, he mowed the last few lengths. He was not used t
o the hard labor. Already he felt his coordination deteriorate from the fatigue. He dropped the scythe to the ground, then thought better of it and barely managed to retrieve the blade as the cage continued to trundle along its predetermined track.

  Jemidon was led to a second field adjacent to the first and placed into another staggered line. While the last of the cages were finishing their swaths and being moved into position, a small, hinged door opened from the ceiling and a cup of dirty water descended on the end of a long rod. Jemidon grabbed the offered liquid and drank deeply, thankful for a moment of rest.

  On the first field, another row of prisoners had begun to move across the mowed ground. Their cages were different, with deep wooden bins hanging along the interior walls on both sides. Through a complex of linkages and springs, the suspended hoppers were connected to a circular disk, faced with two rotating pointers like the hands of a clock. One seemed to circle of its own volition, revolving at a steady but fairly rapid rate. The other bounced and jerked, moving forward through short arcs only whenever another armful of shorn stalks was dumped into one of the hoppers to increase the weight it contained.

  Most of the time, the weight indicator led the other, but occasionally it would be passed and lag behind. And whenever it did, the drum in back of the occupant of the cage whirled into life, lashing out with the barbs of sharp metal. Snatching and scooping in a fury, the harvesters made sure that little of what had been mowed was left on the ground.

  Without warning, Jemidon’s line began to move again. The cup retreated back into the ceiling. In an instant, his cage lumbered into more uncut grain. Again he was late to stop the screen behind his back from being touched, and again he felt the incentive to leave no stalk uncut. Grimly he swung the scythe and tried to take his mind off anything more than ensuring that his task was perfectly done. Before the sun had reached its zenith, Jemidon had cut six more rows of wheat. By dusk, he had lost track of the number.