Lyndon Hardy - Secret Of The Sixth Magic

"Then make it a Wall of Impedance." Jemidon grimaced as he lowered the lattice to the floor. Farnel's flying off on some diversion of the art was not something he wished even to contemplate. And he was annoyed with himself for not recognizing the potential of Delia's voice as had the master. "A Wall of Impedance, some sort of chant to block the hurt."

Farnel noted Jemidon's pained expression, and then his eyebrows rose in question marks as he saw the bloodstained sleeve. "End?" he asked.

"Later." Jemidon shook his head. "After I have some rest."

Farnel frowned and looked about the hut. "I have some sweetbalm here," he said. "Payment by an alchemist who wanted a private glamour two seasons back. It is old and stale and, as a side effect, it sometimes produces a great desire to sleep. But it might aid until a charm is cast."

Farnel rummaged through a box at the foot of his bed and then tossed Jemidon a small tube of salve. Jemidon grunted thanks, removed his tunic, and applied the balm to the cuts in his shoulder. Almost instantly, the throb diminished and the swelling began to subside.

Farnel watched the red begin to fade from the wounds and turned his attention back to Delia. "Each of the other arts has its place, I suppose," he said. He smiled at Delia as he approached. "Now the Wall of Impedance. Yes, just the thing to teach the lass. Simple enough that it is one of the first instructed to the tyro, but with enough potency that the enunciation must be exact."

The sorcerer took the imp bottle from Delia and set it on a table. "Pay attention to the beginning," he commanded. "The last few syllables are not quite the same, and that makes all the difference."

"The help I seek is not one of instruction." Delia shook her head slightly and looked out a small window facing the trail. "But if I can remain hidden long enough, perhaps the trader will give up the search and sail on to Pluton, as he had planned before I fled."

"Pluton," Farnel said. "A trader will find little to barter there. Fortunes are measured by sums and abstractions on paper, not by trinkets from faraway lands. Why, even the common gossip of the day must be bought, rather than freely received."

Delia ignored the comment. "Will you provide the shelter and more active aid, if that is what I need?"

"Will you attempt the charm?"

Delia looked once more out the window. She touched the iron around her wrist, and her shoulders sagged. "Oh, if you must, tell me the beginning," she said. "It is far less than what I would otherwise have to pay."

Farnel rubbed his hands together like a small boy anticipating a new toy. Jemidon settled down onto the floor beside the lattice and tried to make himself comfortable. He was still aware of the wound in his shoulder, although the pain was much reduced. And now, without its distraction, Farnel's interest in Delia began to grate as an irritant. Perhaps it was the fatigue and tomorrow he would think more clearly; but, by the laws, he was the master's tyro, not someone of only a few moments acquaintance. If there was to be instruction, he was the one who should receive it. And with no previous exposure, it would take Delia considerable time to grasp all the subtle shades of intonation.

For the Wall of Impedance, he had required more than two hours, practicing each syllable over and over until it was spoken correctly. The effort had been such a drudgery that he had not even bothered to string them together and try the complete charm when he was done. None of them had he practiced. Once one was explained to the end, his interest had waned. Far more intriguing was how the next cantrip or glamour was begun.

As Farnel droned on and Delia echoed, Jemidon idly fingered the coin about his neck and tried to recapture his feelings when Drandor had projected his images on the beach. He looked at the lattice and frowned as he struggled to understand its structure. Near his arm, the basic pattern was highly symmetrical. Nodes spaced themselves evenly in a cubic array. Connecting vertical struts were red; the horizontal ones were blue in one direction and yellow in the other. Most of the vertices connected only to their regularly spaced neighbors; but along one row, additional green wires stuck out at an odd angle, extending to nodes isolated from all the others.

In other regions of the lattice, orange wires branched in yet another direction; elsewhere there were lines of purple and black. Jemidon followed the progression of wires and saw regions in which green, purple, and orange formed the regular cubic array and the red and yellow connected the outliers. In the dense center, all seven colors competed to catch the eye in some unifying pattern that one could not fathom in a single glance.

Near the edges, the lattice was thin and sparse. Long tendrils of a single color rayed away from the center, like a mine following a vein of ore. At the regularly spaced intervals, stubs of unit length branched off like exploratory shafts, occasionally sprouting little sublattices that ran on other courses for two or three units more.

"Why seven directions, each with its own color?" Jemidon mused aloud as he reached for a bead that clung to one of the nodes.

"The Postulate of Invariance." The imp in the bottle sprang to life. "The Postulate of Invariance. Seven exactly. There can be no more. It is Melizar's, and you must not touch."

"Quiet," Farnel snapped. "I am in the midst of instruction."

"Seven exactly." The imp's eyes gyrated in uncoordinated circles. "Nor can one force there to be any less."

"Cease the provocation so it will be silent." Farnel scowled at Jemidon. "At the very least, you understand how important it is that I not be misheard."

"As you said, the sweetbalm is old," Jemidon answered, "The pain is not totally gone. And an idle wait for several hours to learn a spell I already know is not something I would freely choose."

"An example recital of the completed charm would speed the process, I admit," Farnel said, "but the ale from last night makes me slow enough that I dare not try it myself." He watched Jemidon cautiously test the mobility of his arm. "But perhaps necessity will be a better motivator than a master," he said, rubbing his chin in thought. "Show us what you have learned. Speak the charm for yourself."

Surprisingly, Jemidon felt a spark of excitement through his fatigue. The sense of dread which had accompanied all the other opportunities somehow was totally gone. He felt no confusion, no doubt that he might fail. Instead, it was an opportunity to redeem himself in Farnel's eyes. He glanced at Delia, who was looking at him expectantly. He searched through his memory to see if he still could recall the beginning and found that the first words were there, sharp and firm. Quickly he rose and walked to the mirror.

Jemidon licked his lips and rattled through the first few syllables in a rush. He paused briefly, expecting the nauseating backlash of a miscast charm, but he felt none. He saw Farnel's reflection nodding approval. Encouraged, he concentrated on the next grouping.

Again the words sprang from his lips with crispness. He caught the cadence of the chant and, with rising confidence, completed the first recital. Jemidon smiled as he began the repetition. Each charm had to be spoken three times to be enacted, and the difficulty increased with each enunciation. But his words remained clean and firm, projecting forth without effort, as if he had cast them a thousand times before.

He raced into the final recital like a boulder crashing downhill. The words tripped from his tongue unfailingly. His voice rose from a whisper to a booming shout. Hands on hips like a great orator, he mouthed the last phrases at his reflection. With a flashy bow, he concluded the charm and turned to receive Farnel's reaction.