David Brin - The Practice Effect

Dennis turned to see how Kremer was taking this. It would be great for something to stick in the tyrant’s imperturbable craw.

The Baron had let go of Linnora, who huddled against the wall, rubbing her bruised arms and weeping silently.

But unlike his men, Kremer did not appear frightened at all. Instead, a smile spread across his lips as he reached into his tunic.

“Oh,” Dennis said, realizing. “Oh, no you don’t, you son-of-a-bitch.”

He hurriedly unraveled his waistband as his guards cowered underneath the glowering shadow of the balloon. There was a thumping sound as two bags of sand exploded into spray nearby, sending men fleeing.

Dennis’s carefully selected stones popped into his hand. He ran toward the first parapet, stretching out his sash and praying he would be in time.

Kremer was savoring the moment, bless him, letting the crude aerostat approach as he fondled the Earthmade needler. Dennis measured out a length of waistband, dropped a stone into the fold, and began swinging the makeshift sling over his head.

Except for that evening at S.I.T., he hadn’t used a sling much since his Boy Scout days. If only he had been able to practice!

Kremer raised the needler and languidly aimed it at the great balloon just as Dennis cast loose.

The stone struck a parapet spike just in front of the Baron and ricocheted noisily into the night. Kremer jumped back in surprise. He looked about for a second, then saw Dennis in the lighted courtyard below, struggling to ready another stone.

Kremer grinned and aimed downward, at the Earthman. Dennis knew, in that telescoped moment, that there wasn’t time to get off another stone. He had barely begun his second swing when Kremer fired.

A hail of deadly slivers tore up the ground a few meters to Dennis’s right. Dennis blinked in surprise as he found himself alive. The reason was readily apparent. A small storm of blond hair and fingernails had struck the Baron, spoiling his aim a second time.

A little amazed but not yet counting his luck, Dennis swung the sling, looking for a clear shot. But now Linnora was in the way. The Princess was all over her captor, struggling to take the handgun from him.

Dennis’s arm was beginning to tire. If only she’d move aside now!

The balloon was directly overhead and moving fast. All the aeronauts needed was maybe another half minute to get away…

Kremer got a grip on Linnora’s arm and flung her down. There were scratch marks on his face, and at last he looked perturbed. Kremer cast Dennis a look that seemed to say his turn would come, and he lifted the needler to bear on the balloon.

Dennis’s guards must have caught on at last. He finished swinging even as he heard them running toward him. He felt a rightness as he let go of the second stone just in time.

The stone struck Kremer’s left temple at the same moment as the balloon reached the zenith, and several hundred pounds of guard tackled Dennis from behind.

As the ground came up to meet him, Dennis thought, I’ve got to stop meeting people like this.

It was getting monotonous, this waking up not knowing where you were, feeling like something dragged in from a refuse heap.

He could tell without even opening his eyes that he was back in the dungeon again. Sharp bits of straw stabbed his naked back, thwarted only where bandages covered his worst cuts and bruises.

Still, someone in authority apparently had decided to keep him alive for the present. That was something.

Strangely, in spite of the greater severity of his welts—and they seemed really to have worked him over this time— Dennis felt better than he had on the other occasions when he had been beaten up here on Tatir This time, at least, he had gotten his own licks in. The brief memory of Baron Kremer tipping over like a fallen tree seemed to lessen the pain.

He shivered and sat up slowly, wincing, and gingerly examined himself until he was fairly certain nothing had been permanently damaged.

Yet , he reminded himself.

From somewhere down the dank hallway he heard a faint “thunking” sound… like someone chopping something with a sharp object. Perhaps the headsman was practicing his ax.

Time passed, measurable only by his sparse meals, by his thoughts, and by punctuated screams from some poor devil down the hall.

Dennis passed some of the time wondering at his bandages, which seemed never to need changing. They breathed easily, remained clean, and were comfortable to wear. Of course, he realized, they were probably well practiced. No doubt the baron gave his people free emergency care during peacetime so the medicinal supplies would be up to par when war came along. Here in the castle the dispensary would have dressings hundreds of years old.

It was a peculiar thought.

Bandages were among the things he would bring home to Earth if he ever got the chance—not gemstone tools, or works of art that would presumably only decay once they were released from the field of the Practice Effect, but things whose properties could be analyzed and then duplicated by the making wizards of Earth.

In the dark hours he made lists of things to take back. To help pass the time, he rehearsed the report he would give to the dubious folks back home.

He concluded that even if he ever did escape this place, and somehow managed to fix the zievatron and get home, he had better bring back some pretty convincing novelties. Otherwise nobody would ever believe him.

They fed him a thin gruel at infrequent intervals. Dennis lost all track of time. For a day or so the screams from down the hall ceased. Then some unfortunate new victim seemed to have been recruited to practice certain specialized tools.

Dennis tried to do anomaly calculations in his head. He brought up long-untended memories of home. He listened hard for anything to relieve the monotony.

Once he heard the jailers talking excitedly out in the corridor.

“… first here, then high in the tower, then out in the yard, and now down here again! And nobody knows what it is!”

“It’s a monster is what ’tis!” the other retorted. “It’s the spawn of that great demon who struck down the Baron four nights ago. I tell you it’s unlucky to keep wizards and L’Toff under a roof! I can’t wait ’til the Baron’s recovered and makes a judgment…”

The voices passed down the hallway.

Dennis got up to grab the bars in his door’s tiny window. “Guard!” he called. “Guard! Did you say Kremer lives?”

The jailers had answered none of his questions before, but this pair sounded different. Perhaps they had just been rotated down to the dungeon.

They looked at each other in the flickering light from a wall cresset. One of the jailers shrugged and gave Dennis a snaggle-toothed grin. “Yeah, Wizard. No thanks to that demon you conjured up to drop rocks on his Lordship. Baron Kremer should be up an’ aroun’ in a few days. Til then Lord Hern’s in charge.”

Dennis nodded. So. He had figured that these cavemen never even invented the sling. It was a miracle they had bows and arrows. Probably no one but Kremer himself knew exactly what Dennis had done.

Everyone else quite correctly blamed him for the Baron’s condition, but for the wrong reason, thinking he had managed it by metaphysical means. They wouldn’t do anything further to him until Kremer was ready to choose an appropriate fate himself.

Dennis didn’t doubt it would include a protracted visit to the technicians down the hall.

He scratched his stubble and asked the guards if he could have a razor in order to shave.

They grinned at each other as if they had read his mind. “Naw, Wizard,” the snaggle-toothed one said, grinning. “Even Lord Hern don’t forgive incomp’tents who let a prisoner take the easy way out.”