David Brin - The Practice Effect

They stood quietly for a while, looking at the reflections of the moonlight from the River Fingal.

“When Baron Kremer showed me your possessions for the first time,” she said at last, “I was convinced that someone strange had come into the world. They were obviously tools of great power, though I could feel almost no Pr’fett in them.”

Dennis shrugged. “In my land they were common implements, your Highness.”

She looked at him closely. Dennis was surprised to notice that she seemed nervous. Her voice was subdued, almost hushed. “Are you then from the place of miracles? The land of our ancestors?”

Dennis blinked. Land of our ancestors?

“Your tools had so little Pr’fett,” Linnora went on. “Yet their essences were strong, like nothing else in the world. Only once before have I encountered the like—in the wilderness shortly before I was captured.”

Dennis stared at her. Could so many threads come together all at once? He took a step closer to Linnora. But before he could speak, another voice cut in.

“I, too, would be interested in learning about the wizard’s homeland. That, and many other things, as well.”

They both turned. A large shadow blocked part of the light from the banquet hall. For a brief instant Dennis had a sudden joyful impression he was seeing Stivyung Sigel.

But the man stepped forward.

“I am Baron Kremer,” he said.

The warlord had a powerful cleft jaw to complement his broad shoulders. His silvery-blond hair was cut just below the ears. His eyes remained in shadows as he motioned toward the glittering table within.

“Shall we dine? Then perhaps we’ll have a chance to discuss such matters as different types of essence… and other worlds.”

Deacon Hoss’k spread his arms in an expansive gesture, barely missing a glittering candelabrum in the process.

“So you see, Wizard, nonliving things were compensated for the advantages the gods gave to the living. A tree may grow and prosper and spread its seeds, but it is also doomed to die, while a river is not. A man may think and act and move about, but he is fated to grow old and decrepit with time. The tools he uses, on the other hand—the nonliving slaves that serve him all his life—only get better with use.”

The deacon’s exposition was a strange mixture of theology, teleology, and fairy tale. Dennis tried not to look too amused.

The roast fowl on his plate was a definite improvement on his dungeon diet, and he wasn’t about to risk going back to prison fare by grinning at the ramblings of his host’s resident sage.

At the head of the table, Baron Kremer listened quietly to Hoss’k’s pedantic presentation, occasionally serving Dennis with a long, appraising gaze.

“Thusly, within all inanimate objects—including even that which once lived, such as hide or wood—the gods imbued the potential to become something greater than itself…something useful. This is the way the gods chose to make plenty inevitable for their people…”

The portly, scholar was dressed in an elegant white evening coat. As he gestured, the sleeves fluttered, displaying a glimpse of a bright red garment underneath.

“When a maker later converts the potential of an object into essence” Hoss’k continued, “the thing may then be practiced. In this way the gods preordained not only our life-style but our blessed social order as well.”

Across from Dennis Princess Linnora picked at her meal. She looked bored, and perhaps a bit angry over what Hoss’k had to say.

“There are those,” she said, “who believe that living things have potential, too. They, also, may rise above what they are and become greater than they have been.”

Hoss’k favored Linnora with a patronizing smile. “A quaint notion left over from ancient superstitions taken seriously only by a few obscure tribes such as your own, my Lady, and by some of the rabble in the east. It manifests a primitive wish that people, families, and even species can be improved. But look around you! Do the rabbits, or rickels, or horses get better with each passing year? Does mankind?

“No, clearly man himself cannot be improved. It is only the inanimate that may, with man’s intervention, be practiced to perfection.” Hoss’k smiled and took a sip of wine.

Dennis couldn’t escape a vague feeling that had nagged him for an hour, that he had encountered the man before and that there was some cause for enmity between them.

“Okay,” he said, “you’ve explained why inanimate tools improve with use… because the gods decreed that it be so.

But how does a piece of flint, for instance, become an ax simply by being used?”

“Ah! A good question!” Hoss’k paused to belch good-naturedly. Across the table from Dennis, Linnora rolled her eyes, but Hoss’k did not notice.

“You see, Wizard, scholars have long known that eventual fate of this ax you mention is partly determined by the essence of making, imbued into it by an anointed master of the stonechoppers’ guild. The essence that is put into an object at its beginning is just as important as the Pr’fett, which the owner invests through practice.

“By this I mean that practice is important, but it is useless without the proper essence at the beginning. Try as he might, a peasant cannot practice a sled into a hoe, or a kite into a cup. An implement must start out at least a little bit useful in its designated task to be made better through practice. Only master makers have this skill.

“This is something not well enough appreciated by the masses, particularly lately, with all of this intemperate grumbling against the guilds. The rabble-rousers chant about ‘value added’ and the ‘importance of practice labor’ But it’s all ignorant foolishness!”

Dennis had already realized that Hoss’k was the type of intellectual who’d dismiss an urgent and unstoppable change in his society, blithely ignoring the forces that pulled all about him. His kind always fiddled while Rome burned, all the while explaining away the ashes with their own brand of logic.

Hoss’k sipped his wine and beamed at Dennis. “Of course, I don’t have to explain to a man such as yourself why it is so necessary to control the lower orders.”

“I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about,” Dennis answered coolly.

“Now, now, Wizard, you need not dissemble. From inspecting the items you have so kindly, er, lent us, I can tell so very much about you!” With an indulgent smile the man bit into a pulpy dessert fruit.

Dennis decided to say nothing., He had eaten slowly and spoken little this evening, aware that the Baron was watching his reactions closely. He had barely touched his wine.

Dennis and Linnora had shared glances as they dared.

Once, when the Baron was speaking to the butler and while the scholar addressed the ceiling expansively, the Princess puffed her cheeks and mouthed a nattering mimicry of Hoss’k. Dennis had had to struggle not to laugh out loud.

When Kreflner had looked at them curiously, Dennis tried to keep a straight face. Linnora assumed a mask of attentive innocence.

Dennis realized that he was well on his way toward falling in love.

“I am curious, Deacon,” Kremer said. “What can you divine about out guest’s homeland from only his tools and his demeanor?”

The Baron lounged back on his plush, thronelike chair. He seemed filled with a restless energy, carefully, calculatedly restrained. It showed from time to time as he crushed nuts in his bare hands.

Hoss’k wiped his mouth on his napkin-sleeve. He bowed his head. “As you wish, my Lord. First, would you tell me which of Dennis Nuel’s tools are of most interest to you?”