Lyndon Hardy - Secret Of The Sixth Magic

Augusta let out a long sigh and patted Jemidon's hand on her shoulder. "It has been too long," she whispered. "Rosimar was the practical one, but his back rubs could never compare with yours."

"Rosimar!" Jemidon stopped. "Are the two of you still-"

"A child's entanglement, no more enduring than our own." Augusta laughed. She wiggled her shoulders for him to continue.

As simple as that, Jemidon thought as he resumed kneading. Rosimar was dismissed with a few words. And he and Augusta were chatting and sharing pleasures together as if they had never been apart-as if there had been no deep hurt, no searing wound that left him so disillusioned. He pushed his thumbs along her spine and arched her shoulders back, digging for the feelings of what had been.

The frustration, the despair, the helplessness had brought him to tears; he remembered them, yes, but now only as abstractions, mere labels for an event which marked his passage into manhood. The fire, the intensity, the overwhelming flood of emotion that had consumed his thoughts-those were hollow voices that spoke no more. And beneath them, the delicate whispers of his first love and the unfolding of his innermost self to share with another were trampled and torn gossamers hidden away in a box as strong as Benedict's. Could he dare to open it again, to hear the broken murmurs and try to make them whole? Jemidon flexed Augusta's shoulders in larger oscillations, watching her gown fall slack and then pull tight across her breasts. And yes, the passion-could that again be as sweet?

"You were going to tell me of your adventures." Augusta cut through Jemidon's reverie. "What made you decide to seek me out at last?"

Jemidon hesitated. He was on Pluton for a different reason entirely. Seeing Augusta was only a means to an end.

He wrenched his mind back to why he had come. "I need an assay, an assay so that I can barter with a divulgent. I had hoped that you might help me for less than others would charge."

Augusta stiffened. She abruptly stood and turned to face Jemidon. "So practical," she said. "Now, so practical and blunt. You have changed, my dreaming one, you have changed indeed." She looked at him intently. "No matter, do not apologize." She laughed. "My vanity has withstood stronger affronts. Besides, there is no reason to rush. I am in such a position now that I do not need to seize the first opportunity that presents itself."

"About your position," Jemidon said. "The vault in the grotto-what role do you play?"

"I am the vault," Augusta said. "Those who held it previously were foolish where I was wise. Or perhaps it was the luck in speculating in the exchanges. It does not matter. In the end, their choice was to surrender title to me or accompany the mercenaries and their contracting cube. It is not a bad result for one who once thought trailing the robe hem of a master magician would be enough."

"I saw the cube in the courtyard today," Jemidon said quietly. "For what sort of crime would something such as that be used?"

"For debt," Augusta replied. "For inability to pay. On Pluton, tokens and life are the same. Without one you cannot have the other."

"But why the obsession?" Jemidon asked. "On none of the other islands is there so much focus on one's wealth."

"Because here it truly can be measured. There are no ambiguities or changes other than those of your own making."

Jemidon frowned in puzzlement. Augusta smiled and reached for a small bag piled with many others on a cluttered desk. "It is because of the token," she said, flinging him the sack. "You were a neophyte in magic. You know the properties of something created by the craft."

Jemidon nodded as he reached into the pouch and extracted one of the gleaming disks. He held it in his palm and felt the strong tingling that coursed up his arm. Mirror-flat and unblemished by a single scratch, it vibrated with the magical forces that gave it life. The coin was a geometric perfection that would last forever, long after all around it had returned to dust.

"Yes, 'perfection is eternal.' " Augusta watched his eyes as he fondled the cold smoothness. "A token illustrates so well the Maxim of Persistence upon which all magic is based. At first the small guild on the island made them as curiosities, a training ritual for the initiates and nothing more. They were sold as souvenirs to the traders who stopped on their journeys across the sea.

"But the tingle is addictive. Gradually, as more and more people coveted them, the token's true value came to be realized. They are small, lightweight, indestructible, and impossible to counterfeit. The flutter in your palm is unmistakable. Once you have handled a token, nothing else can ever be mistaken for one. And since Pluton saw goods and moneys from many lands, tokens became the standard by which all else was measured. Even more reliable than gold, they are the medium of exchange. With them are balanced the transactions between Arcadia, Procolon, and the other kingdoms."

Jemidon replaced the coin in the sack and tossed it back on the desk. "Brandels or brass," he said, "it is all the same. The cutpurse or the marauder can take away in a trice what a lifetime has carefully built."

"And so it was on Pluton," Augusta agreed, "until the guilds again exercised their arts, building strongholds both large and small, impregnable havens for the coveted tokens that only a true owner could unlock. With a standard that was unimpeachable and a mechanism that made the possession of wealth secure, Pluton blossomed as a trading center. There is none like it anywhere on all the shores of the great sea."

"And the obsession?" Jemidon asked.

"As in any land, wealth is a measure of power." Augusta shrugged. "But, unlike elsewhere, on Pluton there is nothing else. The stacks of coins hidden away in the vaults are true treasures and forever secure. There is no force that can take that basis of power away. The measure of a man is the size of his assay, not the circumference of his bicep."

"And hence the price on everything?"

"And hence the price. We have no hereditary rulers in any of our guilds. All is decided by election, with each one's vote proportional to the tokens he has on account, even for the ruling council. In a few days we will determine who is to lead us for the next three years. And hence everyone strives to increase his assay by whatever means he can. Why, even information brings a fee; the divulgents scramble to accumulate wealth the same as anyone else. And for those already owning treasures, there are the gambles of the exchange by which they trade back and forth their riches."

"I need to find a trader who has come to Pluton," Jemidon said. "How much will it cost?"

"If you must know immediately, prepare to pay a full token," Augusta said. "All divulgents will profess already to know, but they must spend large sums to ferret out the facts."

"A full token," Jemidon repeated. "Why, I know that even a slave girl can be purchased for fifteen. My purse is not flat, but after I paid for my passage from Morgana, neither does it bulge. It would take me quite a while writing scholarly scrolls to amass the value equivalent to a full token."

"That is the rate, nonetheless," Augusta said. "They are skilled in their trade and will learn far quicker than you would yourself. But without a purse that gleams, then from the divulgents you will gain little."

"A full token." Jemidon repeated once more. "And that fee might be the first of many. Perhaps it would be quicker to take a chance with the exchanges."

Augusta paused in thought. She looked at Jemidon and slowly ran her tongue over her lips. Tilting her head to one side, she smiled and casually motioned him to sit again.

"No, Jemidon, not the exchanges or the slow drudgery of the scholar," she said softly. "I can better help you with your needs. The vault will offer you a token in exchange for-for a week's indenture to my service."