by Lyndon Hardy
The rumble of the cube bubbled and exploded against the barrier he began constructing in his mind. Methodically, one by one, he slowed his thoughts, just as they were about to break away, and brought them under control. Gradually, with steel bands of will, he caught and confined them all, pushing the terrors together and squeezing them out of existence.
He breathed again only when he was done. With a cold deliberateness, he examined the events that had led to his capture—all the images that surrounded Melizar in his camp upon the crest and each previous encounter that might give a clue how to proceed. He recalled all the detail of his last images before the lid slammed shut—Melizar walking down the hill, the manipulants, and the portal touching Ponzar’s lithon. As he had done for so many puzzles before, he pondered them one by one.
The minutes passed, but still Jemidon willed himself to remain in his passive state. He felt an elbow push painfully into his side and heard the incoherent babble of the magician rise to a deafening wail. One alchemist repeatedly pounded the walls, and the other had retreated into a terrified silence. Despite the growing panic about him, Jemidon examined all the alternatives that his imagination pumped into his awareness and made his decision. The chance of success was small. He did not know if it would really work, but at least it was calculated to the very end.
He shook himself out of his introspection and groped in the darkness for the crying magician. He slapped the master’s face sharply and grabbed his cheeks.
“Listen closely,” he said. “Your only hope now is to follow as I command. Remember the words of the archmage. To do otherwise is certain doom.”
The magician stopped his babble and did not resist as Jemidon stood him up and placed him in line next to the silent alchemist. He boxed the remaining master in the ears to attract his attention, then laid a hand on the master’s fist to stop the pounding.
“Now imitate me exactly,” Jemidon said, “while the cube is the proper size for what we must do.”
He crouched with his back against the wall. With a yell, he sprang across the volume and crashed into the metal plate near the lid. The cube shuddered from his impact and tipped slightly on the small platform that supported its base.
“All of us together! We can do it,” Jemidon shouted. “If we can topple the cube, then we will have a chance.”
The silent alchemist grunted, and then the other two masters nodded as well. With direction and hope, their own panic evidently began to dissolve away. As one, the four slammed into the side of the cube and felt it tumble forward onto the ground.
“And again,” Jemidon yelled. “Before Melizar returns. Before his manipulants deduce what we are trying to do.”
The masters squirmed and pressed together, shoulder to shoulder with Jemidon against the wall. Again they leaped to collide with the cube, rolling it forward another quarter turn.
“To what purpose?” the magician gasped. “We only make more unbearable the conditions at the end.”
“Just follow my commands,” Jemidon snapped back. “No, not that side. Now we have to change direction. There is need for explanation only if we succeed.”
The box shrank again, leaving barely enough room for the masters to maneuver according to Jemidon’s orders. They collided into the wall with a jolt that spun them over three times more.
As they struggled, the cube continued its contractions. They managed two additional rotations before it pinned their limbs in a tangle, so that they could no longer spring. One of the alchemists gasped with pain as the other tried to pull free a leg twisted to the side.
“Once more,” Jemidon said. “Rock back and forth where you are. I think I can hear the whine.”
Jemidon moved one foot from where it pushed against the magician’s stomach until it rested high on the rear wall. Twisting his torso so that both hands were more or less angled forward, he oscillated his hips back and forth above the masters. He felt the box rock in response to his motions, as if balanced precariously over a slight irregularity in the slope. With a savage lurch that sent stabs of pain into contorted wrists, he tipped the cube over for a final time. He hoped his memory had been accurate. There would be no chance to maneuver again if he had misjudged the distance or orientation.
As the cube tumbled, Jemidon heard the walls vibrate with an ear-piercing grate. With a shudder, the box groaned and contracted. Like children wrapped in a blanket, none of the occupants could any longer move. With a bone-jolting crash, they came to rest against hard and solid ground.
The magician again began his incoherent babble. One of the alchemists added a mournful cry. Jemidon slowly twisted his head, gasping for air between sandaled feet that raked across his cheek. There was no time left. Either his assumptions indeed were correct, or the next contraction would be one of bone-crushing pain. Almost afraid to find out, he held his breath and began to extend his foot past a fleshy resistance, searching for the smoothness of a metal wall. Finally he made contact and pushed with what little leverage he could muster. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a pop, the structure fell away, allowing everyone to tumble out. Jemidon collapsed onto unyielding rock, barely able to see a hand span in front of his face because of the toxic brown vapor that swirled everywhere.
“Where are we? What has happened?” one of the masters managed to cough. “By what glorious accident are we set free?”
“We are in Melizar’s universe, on Ponzar’s lithon,” Jemidon said. “And it is no accident that the box no longer works. See the red arch in the brown? There is the demon. We moved the cube through the opening. But more importantly, we moved it to where the law that contracts it does not have power. I could not be sure, but it was our only chance. Here it is a mere box of metal, unable to respond to the commands of Melizar’s manipulant.”
“Melizar’s universe,” the master gasped. “Then back through the arch and let us flee, before he returns and confines us again.”
For a moment, Jemidon hesitated. He peered through the haze, trying to spot the opening to where Delia must be lying beneath the surface of the lithon. But then he clenched his fist and looked back toward the djinn. “No,” he said, more to himself than to the others. “First it will be the tent,” he commanded. “That is the pathway to the solution.”
Jemidon did not waste any thought on how close had been his escape. He tugged at an alchemist’s sleeve and whipped him through the portal. Like dazed sheep, the two other masters followed as he ran toward the flopping canvas.
When he drew close, Jemidon grabbed the faded panels in both hands. With a burst of strength, he ripped them away from the poles and rigging. Running around the structure, he exposed the contents to the air, kicking the tatters of cloth aside.
“Unpack all the crates and examine what they contain,” he yelled. “Make ready to use whatever you find the most familiar.”
Jemidon glanced at a realgar boulder and saw Melizar’s three manipulants lounging sluggishly, awaiting the pilot’s return. He looked down the slope over the bodies of the fallen masters and men-at-arms. He saw the metamagician and the remains of his retinue, about a dozen men-at-arms, all walking with majestic slowness to confront the Arcadian king.
“Duel!” Jemidon cupped his hands and shouted. “Duel of the metamagicians! Flee only if you are fearful of the outcome. Let us see the extent of your power, Melizar, when it is evenly contested.”
Melizar stopped and slowly turned. He looked up the slope and waved his arms in annoyance. The warriors reversed their march. At a trot, they started back up the hill.
“Tambourines and knotted ropes,” the magician called out from a nearby trunk. “Not like those for any ritual I know, but somehow similar, nonetheless.”
“And potions and powders,” an alchemist shouted. “Condensing columns, grimoires with arcane symbols, none like any I have ever seen.”
“Get them all out and look for more,” Jemidon called over his shoulder. “But do not manipulate any until I have given the command. Wait until Meli
zar begins his decoupling and I appear to resist. I am betting that he will try to handle things quickly with the realgar. He cannot ignore us while we are here. The threat is too great that I might attempt the same.”
Jemidon nodded as he saw the metamagician reach for his decoupling cube and wave his arms to signal his manipulants. The pilot’s followers stirred from their rest and began to move some of the smaller pieces of the rock in helical trajectories. Jemidon looked for the pile of keys that Melizar had collected from the other metamagicians when they passed through the portal to surrender. He saw the twisted remains of his changer lying on top. He ran over to where it lay and hefted the hunk of flattened metal that could hold coins no more.
And as he did, he felt the snapping jolt of a decoupling. While Melizar’s men-at-arms rushed forward with swords drawn, the metamagician’s laughter carried over their heads on the stirring of a breeze. Jemidon grabbed the battered changer and concentrated on resisting the unlocking, but he never had a chance to start. He felt the fury of Melizar’s power knocking his own feeble strength aside as if it were a leaf in the wind. The metamagician’s rage, caused by his continual annoyance, bubbled in Jemidon’s mind. The laws decoupled with a burst, not gradually drifting, but vibrating with the energy of the pilot’s frustration.
“Now,” Jemidon shouted to the magician. “As many elements of ritual as you can. Better and faster than you have ever enacted them before.”
The magician reacted swiftly to Jemidon’s words. He grabbed a tambourine and flung three cuttings of rope onto its flat surface, dancing them about with a tap of his hand. Immediately Jemidon felt the laws pause in mid-shudder and a gentle acceleration away from the node of the lattice.
“And now the alchemy,” Jemidon shouted. “It does not matter what, as long as there is enough.”
The alchemists responded by dumping a sackful of sparkling powder into an uncorked bottle of some fuming liquid. Sparks flew from the mixture, rising into the sky.
Jemidon looked at the manipulants struggling with the realgar. They still moved sluggishly, and their precise motions were not enough. The laws were drifting in a direction different from the one Melizar had intended. But the metamagician sensed what was happening as well. He waved his arms and his attendants quickened their pace, hurling showers of rocks simultaneously over the crest and down the slope in ragged sprays.
The laws kept drifting in the direction of the new magic and alchemy. Jemidon saw Melizar stop in his climb and huddle into a tight knot, the imp light above his head suddenly alive. For a moment, the drift continued uncontested, but then Melizar suddenly stood erect.
Jemidon felt the metamagician reassert his strength, this time attempting to relock the laws where they had just been anchored. The metamagician had decided that working with the magic and alchemy he had was better than giving them up, even in the hopes of activating the realgar. Again Jemidon offered resistance, grasping the changer and straining to force the fabric of existence farther from its mooring and increase the rate of drift.
But Melizar was far stronger. Jemidon felt the current begin to slow and then finally reverse direction, heading back to the node of the lattice from which it had sprung. He sensed the laws gaining momentum, tugged by Melizar’s desire to complete the locking, overwhelming any tendency to wander away.
“Now, stop the ritual and the formula,” Jemidon commanded. “Start others that are completely different. Use more exotic wares. Quickly, before Melizar completes the relocking!”
The magician dropped the tambourine and reached deep into another crate. He brought forth a collection of silken handkerchiefs and an empty tube into which he proceeded to stuff the squares, one by one. The alchemists broke the bottle of brewing chemicals, letting its purple stain soak into the ground. They began picking apart delicately preserved spider webs and pressing each of the strands onto some sticky paper that unwound from a bulky roll nearby.
The laws lurched again, heading in a new direction unlike the one before. Jemidon saw Melizar fidget with his cube, apparently puzzled by what his adversary was trying to do.
“Now again, the knots and mixing chemicals,” Jemidon said. “Only this time, twice the activity of before.”
The magician grabbed two tambourines, maneuvering one deftly in each hand. The alchemists scooped powder from the sack into a waiting row of vials. The laws spun, heading back in the direction they had been traveling, but with a speed twice what it was before.
“And again the silks and spider webs,” Jemidon said. “More intensity. You must make it more.”
The masters responded with precision. Like puppets with two sets of strings, they alternated between the rituals and formulas, sending the laws first one way and then the other, soaring past the original node with ever-increasing speed. And with each pass, the tug of Melizar’s attempt to relock fed more energy into the system. The amplitudes of the oscillations became greater and greater.
Upward rushed Melizar’s soldiers. Wider became the undulations. Jemidon felt the fabric of existence overshoot the next node of the lattice in one direction and then roar past two more as it came tearing back. He sensed Melizar exerting his maximum power to grab at the laws as they swung past, but the effort was not enough. The momentum could not be checked. With one final filling of the vials, the laws plowed through the lattice, past all the nodes that were recorded, into a region that Melizar had not explored before.
Jemidon saw the imp lights wink out, one by one, from around Melizar’s hood. He turned to see that the arching djinn stood on the hillcrest no more.
“What have you done?” Melizar strained his voice above the trample of the onrushing men-at-arms. “The laws, the laws, they are new and strange. No one knows what their manipulations might be.”
“It is as I planned,” Jemidon shouted back. “Now the three who serve you will have no advantage over mine. We are equal in the crafts that we can command.”
For a moment Melizar was silent. With twitching spasms, he ran a hand over his cube. Impulsively he knelt, but then immediately stood again when there was no buzz of imps. He looked at his men-at-arms closing the distance to the crest and laughed.
“Yes, equal,” he said, “equal for the moment. Soon the balance of manipulants will be three to none.”
Jemidon did not reply. He turned back to look at the puzzled masters. “Vinegar and oil of vitrol, whatever you can find. Do not bother about the alchemy. Toss everything you can.”
The masters hesitated and frowned. Jemidon ran into their midst and pointed to two flasks at random. One of the alchemists nodded. He mixed the contents and then hurled the containers at the men-at-arms. The first shattered harmlessly off an upraised shield, but the second hit the ground and brewed a minute longer before exploding into knifelets of glass. Two men yelled in surprise and tumbled to their knees with dozens of tiny cuts oozing blood.
The alchemists waved for the magician to join them. With inspired abandon, they concocted the remaining ingredients of the tent. Some became simple missiles that clattered off blade and mail; others, deadly grenades that cut into flesh. A bottle of oil, splattered against the middle of the advancing men, with a flaming torch thrown after, sent an explosion of fire along the line. One by one, the remaining soldiers went down, until only two were left.
Jemidon looped behind the masters. He tightened his grip on the changer. The outcome had to be exactly right for his plan to succeed. He looked among the tumbled crates for some more of the ingredients that had produced the smokiest reaction. Just as the warriors rushed upon the masters, he threw the chemicals into their midst.
One alchemist went down from the slash of a blade, but the other circled behind and felled the man-at-arms with a blow to the head. The smoke billowed from the mixing brew, dimming what anyone could see. Jemidon rushed into the opaqueness and aimed a swift kick where the soldier’s groin should be. He heard a gasp of pain and then a dull thud as another of the alchemist’s blows struck home.
Jemidon backed out of the smolder and saw the masters staggering after. He grabbed one by the collar of his robe and banged his head into the forehead of the other. Like sleeping Skyskirr, they slumped to the ground.
Jemidon took another step backward and held his breath, waiting for the reaction to run its course and the fumes to clear. When they had dissipated enough for him to see Melizar down the slope, he stepped slowly forward, shoulders slumped and with a dragging step.
For a moment, the metamagician did not react. He stood frozen, looking at Jemidon up the length of the slope. Then the pilot threw back his head and his laugh rang across the hillside, the loudest that Jemidon had ever heard.
“You did give me pause,” the metamagician shouted. “A closer contest than I would have thought. But in the end, the result is the same. Your manipulants fail and you have no more resources, while I still have three in this universe and three more guiding the storms in the ’hedron beyond. It will take some time to probe and find where you have spun the laws, but you are powerless to stop my search. Eventually I will restore things to the way they were. You may as well come forward now and hand me your key as token of surrender. All you can do is wait and watch the enveloping of your fate.”
Jemidon continued his cautious motion forward. He scanned down the hillside at the remains of the battle still in progress, but saw that Melizar took no notice. The metamagician had not moved. He waited with arms crossed, chuckling with his soft laughter.
Slowly Jemidon walked down the slope, moving with the gait of a man going to the gallows. With each step, he tightened his grip on the changer, holding it close to his chest, not wanting to give Melizar any reason to do other than stand and wait.
