Lyndon Hardy - Secret Of The Sixth Magic

"And when you wear that robe, this will be but a memory for us all. There will be pursefuls of coins-why, even tokens from the islands! Go, Jemidon; your sister wishes it as fervently as I."

Jemidon looked to the cot and grimaced. His sister did not care about apprenticeships and fees of the master. She was too young to know. All she wanted was to get well, to play tag again, or to ride on his back and laugh. He was taking away the one sure chance she had for a cure, leaving her and gambling that the fever might break on its own accord.

But more important, when he finally succeeded, could he ever truly pay her back? Even as a master, could he compensate enough for the weeks of chills yet to come-or worse, the atrophied limbs that might result when it was all over? Was a robe of black worth so much that the choice was as easy as his father made it?

"Go, Jemidon. Milton gathers the applicants in the square before the sun passes its zenith. Being late is not an auspicious beginning."

Jemidon felt the upwelling doubt; but looking in his father's eyes, he could not find the courage to speak again. He clutched the coin, nodded silently, and turned for the door.

Then the imagery of the glamour blurred. Days passed in a heartbeat. No sooner had he left the hut than he seemed to have returned.

He was back outside his doorway, staring at the rough cloth which covered the entrance. How long he stood there he could not recall; the sun had set, and even the lights in the other shacks were long since extinguished.

"Jemidon, is that you?" His father's hand pushed aside the drapery and motioned him inside. "The four days of testing are done. You were to have returned by noon. Your mother could stand it no longer, and I was just going to look."

Reluctantly Jemidon entered the hut. A single candle cast slowly dancing shadows on the rough walls. He saw the rumpled covers and the empty cot, but felt no surprise. He had heard at noon, after Milton had discharged him in the square. Shyly he looked at his mother, kneading her hands in an endless pattern and staring into the darkness.

Jemidon's father followed his gaze and lowered his own eyes. "It was for the best," he said huskily. "For the rest of us all, in the long run, it was for the best."

Jemidon opened his mouth to speak, but his throat was dry. Numbly he followed the sweep of his father's hand to the small stool near the table.

"But do not dwell on that now," he heard his father say. "There will be time enough for tears. Tell us of your test. To which journeyman will you be assigned? Was it Aramac? They say he is the swiftest. Certainly Milton would pair the best with the best."

Jemidon shook his head and slowly unclenched his fist. He bit his lip as he looked down at the gold coin sparkling innocently in his palm. He saw his father's eyes widen in amazement and felt the beginnings of the sobs that would rack his body for many hours to come…

"Canthor. It is Canthor!"

The yell cut through Jemidon's spelled memories. The image of glinting mail and stem faces suddenly mixed with the receding dark shadows of his father's hut.

"To the keep, take the intruder to the keep!" a voice bellowed above the rest.

Jemidon strained to separate the confusion, but he could not escape the charm. The last he remembered before collapsing into oblivion was choking the painful words to his father: "They collect no fee from those who fail."

The first rays of the rising sun slanted through the high window. Jemidon frowned and shielded his eyes. He rolled slowly on his side and stretched awake. The thin layer of straw had done little to soften the hard stone floor, and it seemed each muscle in his back protested the movement. Except for the one shaft of light, everything was in soft darkness. It took several minutes for him to see his surroundings.

The room was shaped like a piece of pie with the central tip bitten off. The gently curved outer wall contained the only window. Descending sunlight illuminated dancing motes of dust and splashed on the rough flagstones of the floor that was held together by crumbling mortar. An iron grating prevented exit to a corridor to the interior. In the dark shadow beyond was the outline of a spiral staircase that led to other levels of the keep. Across the cell, hands resting on intertwined legs, sat the master sorcerer Farnel.

"Any enchantment broken in the middle can produce undesired effects," the sorcerer said. "Even one that tries to make you act as you once were. I decided to come and watch you through the night to see that you recovered well."

Jemidon shook his head to clear it of the cobwebs of memory. He rose to sitting and centered the coin on his chest. Grimly he pushed the old images away, back to where they had been safely hidden. He did not need their vividness to remind him of the debt he had to pay. For one gold brandel, somehow, he yet would become a master.

Jemidon turned his attention to Farnel, who was patiently watching. With a final deep sigh, he focused his thoughts on the present and what he had to do.

"Perhaps it is just as well that events transpired as they did," he said. "Your attention is what I sought, and now it looks as if I might have it."

"Do not bore me with your proposition, whatever it is." Farnel raised his hand. "I am content with my surroundings. I do not care for some reckless adventure for a lord from across the sea, regardless of the number of tokens dangled my way."

"Yet you have not won any prize in the competition for a decade," Jemidon said, "nor even bothered to enter in the last three."

"A worthless exercise," Farnel snorted. "A mere shadow of what it once meant. Before the high prince assumed his regency, the supreme accolade and the rest of the prizes were decided on merit, artistic merit. The old king may have ruled with too light a hand, but he could distinguish between a vision of true depth and a shallow thrill."

"The high prince is not the only judge," Jemidon said. "Do not all the master sorcerers vote on the compositions of their peers as well?"

"Swayed by the easy coin, every one," Farnel said. "Once the visits of twenty lords were enough. They appreciated the images that we placed in their minds and paid fairiy for the entertainments we gave them. It was not much, but we lived in adequate style."

Farnel rose to his feet and began to pace slowly about the cell. "But then, on some idle thought, the high prince and his followers came one year to see what transpired in this corner of the kingdom and left in one visit more gold than we received from all the rest combined. And with his bulging purse, he placed in our heads images as sharp as any of us could have formed with our craft: robes of smooth linen; soft beds; and not one tyro, but a dozen to do our bidding. Now none has the strength to vote his conscience. They all fear what would happen if this one small group were displeasured. The lesser lords, the bondsmen who accompany them, the principles of artistic composition-they do not matter as long as the high prince continues to add hundreds of tokens to the prize sack for the supreme accolade."

Jemidon nodded and chose his next words carefully. "The works of Farnei have remained cast in the traditional forms; this is well known," he said. "But is it because of this steadfastness alone that they are now held in such low esteem?"

Farnei stopped and scowled at Jemidon. "You have received an ample portion of my good nature. Do not presume it gives you license to judge."

"But I do know something of sorcery and the artistic images you make with your craft," Jemidon said. "The Antique Pastoral, Calm Sea in Winter, Mountain Sunlight, and many more."

Farnei stared at Jemidon. "My works of a decade ago," he said slowly. "I see you have not sought me out unprepared."