David Brin - The Practice Effect

“Well, I’m the son of a blue-nosed gopher…”

“Dennzz! Give me back th’ box! I gotta know if Mish got that rat Perth!”

Arth tugged at his trouser leg, Dennis shook free, focusing the monocular.

What finally moved out from behind the roof vent had changed subtly since the last time Dennis had seen it, on a highway late one dark night. It had turned a paler shade, blending well with the color of the buildings. Its sampling arms and cameras scanned the crowd below as it moved.

On its back it carried a passenger.

“Pix!” Dennis cursed. The little animal voyeur had found the perfect accomplice for its favorite activity, sidewalk superintending. It was riding Dennis’s Sahara Tech exploration ’bot like its own personal mount!

The multiple coincidences and irony were overwhelming. All Dennis knew was that the robot was the key to everything…to rescuing his friends and the Princess, to getting out of Zuslik, to repairing the zeivatron…to everything !

What couldn’t a man who knew what he was doing accomplish, simply by using the Practice Effect on a sophisticated little machine like that? It could help him build more machines, even a new return mechanism!

He needed that ’bot!

“Pix!” Dennis shouted. “Robot! Come to me and report! At once! Do you hear me? Right away!”

Arth grabbed furiously at his arm. In the street below people were looking up curiously.

The strange pair on the far roof seemed to pause briefly and turn his way.

“Prior orders are overridden!” he screamed again. “Come to me right now !”

He would have shouted more, but then Dennis was knocked down as Arth took him behind the knees in a powerful tackle. The little thief was wiry and strong. By the time Dennis managed to pull free to look again, the robot and pixolet had disappeared from sight.

Arth was cursing at him soundly. Dennis shook his head as he sat up, rubbing his temple. His attack of tunnel vision had evaporated, almost as suddenly as it had come on. But it might already be too late.

Oh, boy, he realized. What I just did.

“All right,” he told Arth. “Let me go! Let’s get out of here. We can go now.”

But moments later, when soldiers climbed onto the roof, Dennis realized that he was wrong again.

On the morning after the evening of his second imprisonment, Dennis awoke with a crick in his neck, straw in his ear, and the sound of voices in the corridor outside his cell.

He tried to sit up, and winced as movement prodded his bruises. He sank back into the straw and sighed.

“Argh,” he said concisely.

It was surprisingly easy to recognize his surroundings. Although he had never been in a dungeon before, he had visited countless examples in stories and movies. He looked this one over, impressed with the verisimilitude.

Apparently it had been well practiced as a dungeon. It was dank, cold, and apparently lice-infested. Dennis scratched.

It even sounded like a dungeon, from the slow, monotonous, drip-dripping of wall seepage, to the hollow clacking of passing boots in the corridor and the gravelly voices of the guards.

“…don’t know why they had to bring in a strange-looking foreigner to help us down here. Even if he does come wit’ hoity-toity references,” he heard one voice say.

“Yeah,” another agreed. “We was doin’ just fine…a little torture, a few convenient accidents, light practice. But this place sure has been lousy since Yngvi arrived…”

The voices faded as the footsteps receded down the corridor.

Dennis sat up and shivered. He was stark naked—they weren’t about to make for a second time the mistake of leaving a wizard with his own property. He felt around for the one filthy blanket his captors had given him.

He found it wrapped around his cellmate. Dennis nudged the fellow with his foot. “Arth. Arth! You’ve got two blankets now! Give me back mine!”

The little thief s eyelids opened, and he stared at Dennis blankly for a moment before focusing. He smacked his lips.

“Why should I? It’s ’cause of you I’m here. I shoulda said good-bye an’ let you go your own way right after we got out of th’ stockade.”

Dennis winced. Arth was right, of course. He had been in a confused state when he screamed at the pixolet and the robot. It wasn’t the sort of thing a storybook adventurer would do.

But Dennis was a man. He was susceptible to the psychological pressures of his unusual and highly dangerous situation. He might think he’d adjusted to being stranded in a strange world with strange rules, sought by enemies for reasons he barely understood—then a disaster shook his equilibrium, making him disoriented, estranged, lightheaded.

But he couldn’t explain this to Arth. Not while he was freezing. Anyway, if they were to have any chance, they would have to cooperate. That meant making Arth respect his rights.

“I’m sorry about this mess, Arth. You have my wizard’s vow that I’ll make it up to you someday. Now, give my blanket back, or I’ll turn you into a frog and take both of them for myself.”

He said it so evenly, so calmly that Arth’s eyes widened in reaction. No doubt his opinion of Dennis had plummeted since the episode on the rooftop. Still, he remembered tricks the foreigner had pulled in the past.

Arth snorted in disgust and tossed Dennis the blanket. “Wake me when breakfast comes, Dennzz. Then see if you can turn it into somethin’ edible!” He rolled over the other way under his blanket.

Dennis wrapped himself as well as he could and tried to practice the blanket while he waited for Baron Kremer to decide his fate.

Time passed slowly. The tedium was punctuated by the occasional pacings of the jailers up and down the halls. The guards muttered constantly under their breath. Eventually Dennis was able to make out that they were repeating over and over a dolorous evaluation of the condition of their clients.

“Sure is dank an’ gloomy in here,” Guard One commented as he passed.

“Yep. Dank. Gloomy,” the other responded.

“Sure wouldn’t want ta be a prisoner. It’s awful down here.”

“Sure is. Awful.”

“Will you stop repeatin’ what I say? Do I have to do all th’ work? It’s really irritatin’!”

“Uh-huh. Irritating. Sure is…”

Anyway, it solved one mystery. The way they kept the dungeon in practice was by having cycles of jailers constantly comment on how terrible it was down here. Presumably the prisoners were too distracted to put up much resistance. Perhaps Kremer even hired local masochists to come down and enjoy themselves.

It was an unsavory corner of the Practice Effect Dennis wished he’d never learned about.

They finally came for him a couple of days later, after the evening swill. Dennis stood up as the wooden bolt was raised and the door swung wide. Arth watched moodily from the corner.

An officer in a severely elegant uniform casually entered the cell. Behind him stood two tall soldiers, whose conical bearskin headgear brushed the hallway ceiling.

The tall aristocrat looked familiar. Dennis finally remembered seeing him on the street on the day they were captured, arguing with the betrayer, Perth.

“I am Lord Hern,” the officer announced. “Which one of you is the wizard?”

Neither of them replied.

Lord Hern glanced at Arth, then made a decision. With a bored motion he indicated for Dennis to follow him.

“Good luck, Arth,” Dennis said. “I’ll be seeing you.” The little thief merely rolled his eyes and sighed.

The sun was setting behind the western mountains as they emerged on one of the lower parapets. Dennis shaded his eyes, so long had he been in the dimness belowground.