David Grace - The Accidental Magician

Grantin noticed that Chom had also completed his demon, but one of a wildly different sort: a hazy bluish six-foot mound of plastic ooze. From its upper portions a myriad of hand-tipped pseudopods flashed from its bulk, whipped the air with crazy strangling motions, and then retracted again.

Castor finished his creation last. It was as different from the others as they were from each other. Where Grantin's monster had two arms and Chord's hundreds, Castor's had none at all. Instead he created a snake fifteen feet long and four in diameter, with a massive head, twin foot-long poison fangs, and a gigantic hinged jaw which could easily swallow a man whole.

Grantin's demon, the first to be created, now exhibited the most lifelike movements, even down to the nervous whipping of its long, thin tail.

"Grantin, you seem to be the most practiced of us. Perhaps your monster should go first."

Grantin directed his attention to the beast and maneuvered it several quick bounds forward toward the mountain. Suddenly it slowed and stopped. "What's the matter?" Castor asked.

"I don't know. It is becoming harder to control, almost as if it has a life of its own." As if to demonstrate the accuracy of Grantin's report, the creature turned back toward the copse, raised both claws high, and emitted a bone-chilling growl.

"I can't control it! It's getting away from me. It's angry with me for bringing it here; I can feel its hatred. The beast wants to kill us all," Grantin screamed as the monster began a purposeful stride toward the small grove.

Another shape flashed behind Grantin's creature. Just as the beast broke into a loping trot hundreds of translucent blue tentacles wrapped themselves around its body. The two demons rolled in epic battle, steel-tipped claws slashing deep into the putty-like structure of Chom's creation while the Fanist's monster sought to extrude itself into a wide thin shape which might enfold and presumably digest the beast.

Castor by now was also losing control of his creation. The snake exhibited signs of extreme excitement at the sight of the writhing blue and red masses. At last, unable to be restrained any longer. Castor's demon slithered forward, opened its jaws to their fullest extent, and attempted to swallow both combatants whole. More pseudopods shot out of the blue mass. Before the writhing bundle could be swallowed completely, the tentacles extended themselves to their farthest limit. They whipped around and around the snake's great head, tying its jaws together with translucent blue cable. The snake found itself unable either to regurgitate its meal or maneuver it into its stomach. Wildly disconcerted by this state of affairs, the demons whipped wildly back and forth and fled headlong across the basin.

With equal parts of terror and fatigue, a sweating, weak-kneed Grantin slumped to the ground, to be joined there shortly by his two comrades.

"What happened? Did Hazar turn our creations against us?"

"No, I do not think so," Chom replied. "We are not experienced at this sort of thing. We made our monsters too real. We called them up as if they were alive and visualized them having minds of their own. We created them with all the ferocity, savageness, and intelligence which we imagined a real creature of that sort would possess. They could do no less than become as we imagined them."

"Perhaps," Castor suggested, "the solution lies in imagining something without a mind at all-for example, a wall of flame which would travel through the tunnel engulfing all it passed."

"And what if there's something flammable in there?" Grantin protested. "What if they put Mara in the tunnel as a hostage? All they need do is stand back out of the way until the flames have passed and then attack us when we enter. No, it must be something which stops them and also protects us. A spell of some sort that doesn't necessarily kill."

"Perhaps Castor had the right idea in reverse. I propose that we surround ourselves with a wall of ice which will freeze anyone who attempts to penetrate it."

"Good, Chom-but not a wall of ice, a cloud, a transparent cloud. It should be a light mist so that we can see through it. Something so thin and delicate that Hazar's men will blunder into it unafraid. Something that does not kill but stiffens the victim, knots up his arms and legs, and numbs his brain."

"It is as good a suggestion as any. Castor, what do you think?"

"If you and Grantin think it will work, I am willing to try."

"Very well, then. We must work together. Let us all visualize the same thing. Grantin, you are the most familiar with what this field should resemble. Describe it as you see it."

"It's a mist, a light, pale white mist the color of steam as it first begins to rise from a bubbling kettle. I see it as a shell, a sphere around us, penetrating the rock fifteen feet over our heads and ten feet on either side as we walk abreast. The field moves as we move, turns as we turn, and as long as we stay together it cannot touch us. I see a Gogol soldier running toward us. He walks through the field and is instantly frozen stiff. He turns and falls, his arms and legs still bent in the positions they held as he penetrated its edge."

"I see it!" Castor suddenly exclaimed. "Another soldier comes toward us. He has seen his comrade fall, but he does not understand the field and he extends his arm into it. The arm stiffens and becomes as immobile as a piece of iron. He stares at the member in horror, then, he turns and runs from us, screaming."

"I see it, too," Chom declared. "A band of Gogols waits in a side passage, hoping to catch us from behind. We sense them and break into a run. The edge of the bubble races forward keeping pace with us. Our shield penetrates the solid rock and swirls over them, freezing them like statues. One of them has managed to fall backward out of the way and is unhurt. Grantin stands to my left and, seeing the soldier, he moves a few feet away from me. The bubble bulges in the direction that Grantin has moved, catching the Gogol in its grip."

Grantin, Chom, and Castor opened their eyes. Around them they beheld a shimmering sphere exactly as they had imagined it.

"Well, we seem to have done it."

"Yes, Grantin, it would appear so."

"What are we waiting for?" Castor asked.

Grantin ruefully shook his head and for the last time examined the sunny afternoon meadow and the sheer walls of Grog Cup Lake. "How do I get myself involved in these things?" he asked himself as the three advanced on the black crevice which led to the bloodstone mine.

The chamber was abuzz with activity. From the tunnels behind Hazar's counting table emerged a constant stream of laborers. Clothing tattered, soiled, or nonexistent, the Gogol criminals and Hartford slaves trundled ore carts to a gigantic pile of fractured stone.

Around the edges of the mound bustled a second group of slaves. These latter workers, less vigorous, composed mostly of females, older men, and a few Ajaj, picked over the shards at the base of the pile, culling out the fragments which might contain crystals of powerstone. These pieces were carted to a semicircular table behind Hazar where twelve Ajaj carefully fragmented the rock with geologists' hammers. The Grays deposited the worthless scraps in another set of ore carts behind them while the occasional bloodstone crystal was retained in a small bin affixed to the side of each Ajaj's chair. To eliminate any possibilities of smuggling the Ajaj were naked and the rubble in the carts behind them examined by Gogol supervisors before being disposed of.

In front of Hazar a hole five feet in diameter was bored through the floor. Under the watchful eyes of Zaco's minions, the tailings were dumped into the pit.

Though, none of the miners knew the terminus of the shaft, few who labored there were desperate enough to throw themselves down its maw in hopes of escape. In point of fact the opening was a garbage-disposal chute. The first section was a sheer drop to a point below the floor of the lake. There it bent at a forty-five-degree angle, eventually to protrude from the side of Grog Cup Mountain some two hundred feet above the meadow. Day after day boulders, chunks of rock, stones, gravel, and occasionally a suicidal, infirm, or recalcitrant laborer roared from the garbage-chute exit to crash to the ground below.