David Brin - The Practice Effect

They halted at a dais overlooking the massed companies and watched as the outer gate swung back.

In rode a small procession on horseback.

“It’s th’ embassy from th’ L’Toff!” Arth breathed.

They had been told such a party was coming. The L’Toff were searching for their missing Princess and no doubt suspected she was being kept here.

The rumors must have spread far and wide since the jailbreak, and especially since Zuslik’s aristocracy were let in on it, Kremer was publicly feigning innocence until it suited his purposes to do otherwise. But apparently he was no longer worried about suspicions.

For all of his apparent good favor with the warlord, Dennis had not been invited to attend the meeting of the welcoming committee. It was another sign of Kremer’s masterful insight into people. He clearly knew the foreign wizard was not trustworthy on the subject of the L’Toff Princess.

Dennis looked up at the third-level parapet, where he had often seen Linnora walk. She wasn’t in sight, of course. Her guards would keep her well secluded during the brief visit by her kinfolk.

He walked over to the low fence enclosing his work area and put a foot up on one of the rough wooden rails. He and Arth watched the embassy pass the arrayed soldiers to approach Baron Kremer’s platform.

There were five riders, all wearing soft cloaks in muted colors. They looked normal enough to Dennis’s eyes, though all five wore beards, unfashionable among Coylians. They seemed a trifle more slender than the people of Zuslik, or Kremer’s northmen. The five rode looking straight ahead, ignoring the xenophobic stares of the troops, until they came within a dozen yards of the dais where Kremer waited.

Two L’Toff held reins for the others as they dismounted and saluted the Baron.

Dennis could see Kremer’s face better than he could the emissaries’. He couldn’t hear what was said, but Kremer’s answer was obvious. The warlord smiled with unctuous sympathy. He raised his hands and shook his head.

“Next he’ll say he’s had scouts out scourin’ the countryside far an’ wide for their Princess,” Arth said.

Sure enough, Kremer waved an arm at his troops and at a squad of mounted horsemen. Then he pointed to the gliders circling patiently in the updraft over the castle.

“The two L’Toff on the right aren’t buyin’ it,” Arth commented. “They’d like to take th’ castle apart, startin’ with th’ Baron hisself.”

The gray-bearded leader of the embassy tried to stifle one of his companions, a brown-haired youth in dark-brown body armor, who shrugged off restraint and shouted hotly at the Baron. Kremer’s guards muttered angrily and shifted weight, poised for a nodded command from their Lord.

The young L’Toff looked contemptuously at the tense guards and spat on the ground.

Arth chewed on a grass stem speculatively. “I’ve heard it used to be the L’Toff were pacifists. But they’ve had to become fighters the past two hunnerd years or so, in spite of the protection o’ th’ King and the old Duke. Some of ’em are said to be about as good as th’ King’s own scouts.”

Arth pointed to the tall, angry young L’Toff. “That one may make it hard for the ambassador to get outta here without a fight.”

Arth sounded like he was handicapping horses. From what Dennis had heard, one of the major spectator sports here in Coylia seemed to be watching men hack each other to bits and betting on the outcome.

The Baron did not rise to the young man’s challenge. Instead he grinned and whispered to one of his aides, who sped away.

Kremer waved forward trays of refreshment, which he diplomatically sampled first. He had seats brought for his guests as the troops stepped back to create a broad aisle from the dais to the courtyard wall.

The L’Toff looked suspicious, but they could hardly refuse. They sat nervously near their host. As they turned his way, Dennis thought he saw, in the face of the angry young man, a family resemblance to Linnora.

He wondered if her fey sensitivity had informed the Princess that relatives were only a few hundred meters away.

Dennis had finally become convinced Linnora really had such a gift. Over a month ago the power had led her to the zievatron, where she was captured. It had enabled her to know him in the dark prison yard weeks later.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep her from falling under the spell of Hoss’k’s fallacious logic, or to let her see through Kremer’s manipulative explanations.

In any event, her talent was apparently intermittent and quite rare even among the L’Toff. Kremer didn’t seem afraid of it.

Arth clutched Dennis’s shoulder and gasped. Dennis followed his pointing finger.

A cluster of guards were dragging a prisoner from one of the castle’s lower gates. Dust rose from the struggle, for the captive was very big and very angry.

Dennis suddenly realized it was Mishwa Qan, the giant whose strength had been key to their breakout from jail. Mishwa bellowed and heaved against his bonds. When he saw they were leading him to a scarred, upright post, the battle became furious.

But the guards had been chosen carefully to be almost his equal in size. Dennis saw his old nemesis, Sergeant Gil’m, pulling a rope tied to Mishwa’s neck.

Kremer motioned the scholar Hoss’k forward from his entourage. Hoss’k bowed to the dignitaries and brought forth items to show them, one at a time. Dennis stirred when he saw that the first was his camp-watch alarm.

As the L’Toff stared at the lights on the screen, Dennis wondered what changes practice had wrought in the tiny machine since the last time he had seen it.

No doubt Hoss’k was pointing out how difficult it would now be for an enemy to approach the castle undetected.

Then he demonstrated Dennis’s monocular, showing the L’Toff how to use it, pointing out various objects. When the ambassador put the scope down he was visibly shaken.

Dennis felt a slow burning rise within him—a combination of shame and deep anger. In spite of the strategy he had chosen, for very good reasons, his natural sympathies were with the L’Toff.

Dennis didn’t like it one bit when Hoss’k turned and pointed directly at him. Kremer smiled and bowed slightly to his wizard. The Baron’s well-rehearsed personal guard shouted Dennis’s name in unison.

He scowled. If only there were some way of communicating with the L’Toff privately!

By now Mishwa Qan had been dragged to the post and tied into place. Dennis had already figured out that they planned to execute the man. He had witnessed many executions during the past week, and there was nothing at all he could do. Arth knew that as well and stood almost rock-still.

The guard, Gil’m, marched up to the overlord and bowed. Kremer drew something small from his robe and handed it to the trooper, who bowed again and turned to march back down the dais toward the prisoner.

Realization struck Dennis. “No!” he cried aloud.

Gil’m marched halfway to the target post. Mishwa Qan glared back at him, hands flexing uselessly under his bonds. The big thief shouted a challenge at Gil’m which everyone in the yard could hear, offering to take the trooper on blindfolded, with any choice of weapons.

Gil’m simply grinned. He lifted a small black shape.

Dennis felt a purple outrage. “ No!” he screamed.

He vaulted the fence and ran toward the execution aisle, dodging one set of guards, then plowed through two more who ran to cut him off. He flattened one with a round house. Those on the dais turned to look at the commotion as one of Dennis’s own guards tackled him from behind. At that moment Gil’m aimed Dennis’s needler and pulled the trigger.