Lyndon Hardy - Secret Of The Sixth Magic

"But the chance may be better back in my own universe," he shouted over the roaring wind. "There, wizardry and alchemy might provide some weapon better than attracting stones. I must help Delia conjure her passage back, to get to the archmage as we originally intended." He gagged and spat bitterness from his mouth, trying to shake the taste from his tongue.

"No, no, your duty is here." Ponzar shook his head. "You are the pilot and must act for the Skyskirr."

Jemidon tore himself free and pushed against the wind, back in the direction of Delia's cavern. His vision began to swim and his knees felt rubbery. He wanted to breathe deeply, but held his chest tight, hoping to reach the pocket before his senses slid away.

The roar of the air increased to a blistering intensity. The cold stung his lips. His knuckles turned white from their grip upon the rope. Hand over hand, in one strength- draining tug after another, Jemidon pulled toward the opening that loomed just ahead. Deep browns enveloped him completely and made it hard to see more than a few feet in front of his face.

He shut his eyes to keep out the sting. From memory, he crawled the last few paces. With a gasp, he tumbled into the entrance and squinted open his eyes to see how Delia fared. She was curled in a tight ball in the far corner of the cavern. Her skin was pale and her breath came in short pants. He touched the coldness of her flesh and recoiled from the clammy feel. She smiled weakly and, with jerky movements, pointed across the chamber.

Jemidon saw a dance of light in the brown cloud that flowed in after him and sputtered in the last embers of a flame. A small, squeaky voice sounded somewhere above the roar.

"Better make it snappy, bub. I can only manage one, and my master said that it was to be you."

"No, you are to transport Delia," Jemidon choked.

"In another minute, it will be nobody at all," the imp squeaked. "I am not sure I can manage one of your size as it is, and that excuse for a flame doesn't give me much room to maneuver."

"Pilot, your duty," Jemidon heard Ponzar call from outside. "You will serve the Skyskirr, even if I must carry you to the table myself."

Jemidon looked at the darkening sky and back at Delia's crumpled form. He saw Ponzar enter the cavern with a drawn sword. "Delia and quickly," he commanded the imp.

"No, I said it is to be Jemidon," Delia managed to croak.

"I shall follow my master's orders, bub," the sprite said. "There is no other way. A gift, she said. A gift unfettered, with no obligation to repay. One free passage to the archmage in the domain of men. Now give me a finger and cut the chatter. It's going to be a tight squeeze."

THE passage through the flames was a confusion that Jemidon could not understand. When they parted, he struggled to pull his senses back into focus on patterns that his mind comprehended. In the distance, he saw morning-blue sky with pink on the horizon. To his right stood rows of tents behind emblazoned standards; on the left, squads of armored men were converging into formations. Directly in front, about a dozen startled men-at-arms scrambled to their feet as he emerged from their breakfast fire. Evidently he had arrived in the camp of the archmage on a day of battle.

"Take me to the archmage and quickly," Jemidon said. "He must send a large djinn to the place whence I came." His heart raced with urgency. There was so little time.

"It looks human enough," the sergeant said to his men, after a moment of shock. "And the little imp with him has already disappeared. Surround him carefully. If he resists, we will see if he is full of blood or green ichor."

"The archmage," Jemidon growled. "There is no time for petty debate. What I have to tell him of Melizar will be well worth his time."

Jemidon felt a sudden prick of pain at the nape of his neck. He saw the drawn blades close in from all sides.

"Yes, the archmage it will be," the sergeant said. "He has a standing order to report anything out of the ordinary, even if it occurs just before the rebels attack."

One of the men brought forth hinged bracelets of iron with a short chain in between. For a moment, Jemidon tensed, but then he forcefully emptied his lungs. "Anything to speed the process," he said, thrusting out his arms. "Travel behind the flame is but the least of what I have to tell."

In a moment, in the middle of a cluster of six, Jemidon was hurrying across the campground toward the group of silken tents with high pennons snapping in the morning breeze. He darted his eyes to either side as they trotted along. To his left, expanding almost as far as he could see, men-at-arms were dousing the last of their morning fires, slipping on their byrnies, and adjusting swords at their sides. Sergeants barked orders. Horse-borne pages waving standards called for where each group was to position itself in line. The faces of the men were grim. Tight-lipped, they did not engage in easy banter. When the eyes of their comrades were not watching, they cast furtive glances toward the hill to the north.

Jemidon looked out over the gently rising landscape. The foreground was empty. Cracked branches and trampled greenery indicated where the army must have marched the day before. Farther up the slopes was a motley of colors and glints of flashing metal that ran to the summit and stretched far to either side. It was the rebel army, packed shoulder to shoulder and marching in lockstep down the hillside. Jemidon tried to estimate the number, but gave up after he counted more than a dozen rows, He squinted to see the ragged end of the line on the east and saw that oceanside cliffs defined the other edge.

Behind the slowly moving wave, at the very top of the hill, were the smoldering ruins of Searoyal, a pile of jumbled rubble, where once had stood a walled city that could be seen leagues out to sea. Among the tumbled stones flapped the shabby canvas of the metamagician's tent. The sun glinted painfully from huge cubes of metal scattered to its left. Their covers gaped open into featureless interiors, like empty crates tipped on their sides. The tops of unneeded siegecraft were just visible over the crestline.

Jemidon glanced back at the men-at-arms. They all wore mail and carried shields of gleaming steel. Besides the standards of Arcadia, he saw the pennants of Procolon across the sea and even those of the southern kingdoms mingled with the rest. Barely two rows thick, the royal forces formed up, their thin line stretching to match the length of the one that approached.

On his right, Jemidon saw richly surcoated nobles emerge from their tents, testing the weight of their armor and slashing broadswords through the air. Squires tightened the girths on nervous horses and added the final polish to shiny helms. Behind the line of canvas, Jemidon could hear the pounding of the surf. He smelled the salt in the air. The royal forces were making a last stand; they had their backs to the sea.

In the center of the row, at the entrance to a modest tent beside the pavilion flying the royal colors of Arcadia, the sergeant pushed Jemidon's shoulder to duck and enter. Inside, along the opposite wall, had been erected a crude table of crates and planks. Along one side of the makeshift structure was a queue of pages that snaked through another opening at the rear. Seated behind the boards was a slight man in a robe of deep purple. His face was narrow and topped by fine yellow-brown hair. Wrinkles crept from the sides of eyes that had not known sleep for many hours. The furrows of concentration above the nose were no longer shallow with the smoothness of youth. Jemidon grunted as he looked at the robe. Along one sleeve were the logos of all five of the crafts.

"To Standall." The seated master set down his pen and ripped the parchment from the roil. "He is to use the ticklesprites only if lord Feston's elite guards falter. We call too much upon the demon world, as it is."