Lyndon Hardy: Secret Of The Sixth Magic

For two years more he wandered the inland seas, finally taking up a neophyte position at a small magic guild.

The precision and symbolism of magic ritual appealed to the bent of his mind. But after he tripped over a tripod and hit a gong one time too many, the masters shunned his aid in the costly and time-consuming rituals that provided the guild its wealth. Without the practice, he languished while others moved with certainty into the deeper mysteries of the art.

He ventured to the south, hunting for a wizard and the secrets that held sprites and devils in thrall. But after a year of defocusing his eyes on a flame, trying to penetrate a barrier that was tissue-thin, he gave up in disgust.

For each of the arts he had tried, he had been sure that he had the aptitude. He had been quick to learn and he found the theory easy, easier than to many others who had started much earlier than he. Each time, hope had blossomed anew that he had at last attained his craft. But somehow the practice escaped him; when it came time to perform the spells, to implement what he had learned, he had been strangely clumsy and unsure. With a string of mumbled incantations, formulas that went awry, imprecise rituals, and missed connections through the flame, he found he could not exercise any of the four crafts. For none was he suited.

And now he sought to try sorcery, the craft that required the greatest understanding of one's inherent capabilities and limitations. Sorcery was the only art that was left-his last chance to become a master.

If one wanted to study sorcery, then Morgana was obviously where he should come. Nowhere else was the craft of illusion practiced so freely. Nowhere else could Jemidon receive so much instruction in so little time. And by looking through the popular broadsides as well as the arcane scrolls, he had deduced which master more than any other would need what he had to offer-if only he could get to Farnel before it was too late to prepare for this year's competition.

Jemidon stopped his slow pacing. The pathway was totally quiet. Those up ahead were not to be seen. Evidently all of the skiffload behind him had gone to the bazaar. No one else was on the trail, and the flanks of the hills cut the gatehouse from his line of sight. He looked at the beckoning dirt path directly to the left of where he had stopped, a path that wandered away from the bed of crushed stone up into the notch between two cliffs.

"Without risk, there is little reward," he muttered aloud as he made up his mind. "Master Farnel will have a visitor, even if he chooses to spend the entire season away from the hall," Without looking back, he clambered up the path.

The stubby shadows of midday grew into the slender spires of evening while Jemidon followed the random patchwork of paths through the hills. He encountered no one, and the signposts were few and well weathered. It took him many hours to find the one that pointed in the direction of Farnel's hut.

The sun slid toward the jagged horizon as Jemidon climbed the last few lengths to his goal. As he did, he gradually became aware of angry voices from some point farther up the trail. His view in front was blocked by a boulder tumbled onto the path and resting in a litter of smaller stones and snapped branches. The scruffy underbrush on the hill face to the left bore a slashing vertical scar that marked the huge rock's passage. The rise on the right was not nearly as steep, but the vegetation was sparser, with stunted trunks and tiny leaves growing from fissures in a monolithic slab of rock.

Cautiously, Jemidon approached the barrier and squeezed between the dislodged boulder and the adjacent hillside. As he peeked up the trail, he saw a group of youths surrounding two older and taller men who alternately waved their arms and pounded their fists to emphasize the words they were hurling at each other.

The encircling band all wore simple robes of brown, the mark of the tyro, and the two they surrounded were dressed in master's black. On one of the masters, the logo of the sorcerer's eye was old and faded. The other's emblem sparkled with embroidered gold. Behind them all stood a small structure of rough-hewn planks. Thin sheets of mica filled lopsided window frames, and a curl of smoke snaked from the top of a mud-brick chimney on the side.

Farnel's hut, Jemidon thought excitedly, and the master is probably one of the two who are arguing in front. He had done far better than waiting at the hall. Slowly he crept closer to determine the best moment to speak out. As he did, the others paid him no heed; they were totally engrossed in the loud conversation.

The more plainly dressed master growled with a husky voice. His face was rough and deeply wrinkled, like crumpled paper. A fringe of white circled his bald crown. Age should have bent his back and stooped his shoulders, but he stood straight as a lance, refusing to yield as a matter of principle.

"Simple thrills and no more," he snorted. ''Pockmarked monsters, bared bosoms, spurting gore. Your productions are all alike, Gerilac. A moment of sudden shock and then they are done. Hardly anything of substance to add to the legacy of the craft."

"Like your renditions, I suppose," Gerilac answered. "With colors so mute that even the tyros fall asleep." He stroked his precisely trimmed goatee and smoothed his shoulder-length hair into place. On the mainland he could have walked in the company of the lords and none would have noticed. "By the laws, Farnel, it is well that the rest pay your antiquated theories only polite notice. If all were to follow your lead, the rich purses from the mainland would have stopped coming long ago. No one chooses to pay a sorcerer who is a bore."

"But it is not art," Farnel shot back. "We do only cartoons of what was performed a decade ago. In another, stick figures jerking around the hall will capture the accolade."

"And how valuable is this art of yours?" Gerilac fingered Farnel's robe. "Sewing your own mends. Rationing your meals between the private charms in the off season and the charities of your peers. Compare that with the elegance of my chambers and the number of tyros at my beck and call. I have won the supreme accolade for the last three years running, while you enter no productions at all. Is it because you choose not to compete, or perhaps because you cannot, even if you tried?"

"I was first among the masters of Morgana long before you earned your robe," Farnel growled. "If you doubt it, look me in the eye. I will stand with you in the chanting well in any season."

"Strike out again and Canthor and his men-at-arms will see that you spend more than a single night in the keep." Gerilac hastily flung his arm across his face. "You know the agreement among the masters. And lack of control is bad for the reputation of the island and the traffic from the mainland that rides with it."

"Drop your arm, Gerilac. Another few nights on a cold slab just might be worth it."

"Farnel, Master Farnel!" Jemidon called out suddenly. "You are the one I seek."

The sorcerers stopped abruptly. All eyes turned to see who was responsible for the interruption. One of the tyros, older than the rest, tugged another on the sleeve.

"Get Canthor," he said.

The second nodded and bolted from the circle. In an instant, he disappeared around the next bend in the trail. Jemidon watched him go, pushing away the upwelling of last-minute doubt. He set his jaw and stepped forward boldly. Speaking to Farnel without a large audience would have been better, but he must seize the opportunity when it presented itself.

For a moment the others watched him advance. Then the ring of brown robes dissolved and regrouped in a line between him and the sorcerers.

"I am Erid, lead tyro of master Gerilac." The one in the center pointed a thumb to his chest. "And my master does not take kindly to interruption." He paused for a moment and then leered a crooked smile. "For my own part, however, I welcome the opportunity, before the bailiff comes to snatch you away."