Lyndon Hardy - Secret Of The Sixth Magic

Melizar tipped back his head and laughed. With a flourish, he pointed to one of his manipulants, and the lid of the box suddenly rotated on its hinges. With a swoosh, it slammed onto Jemidon's head and began to push him down into the inside.

He looked about quickly, savoring the last sights, whatever they might be. The masters and men-at-arms who had followed him up the hill were all scattered in bloody disarray on the slope. Melizar was turning to march triumphantly down the hillside. The pillage continued in the royal tents. Manipulants were slumped to one side of the cube, exhausted from the heat. The portal on the other side opened onto Ponzar's lithon, and Delia was just a small distance away. Heavy brown vapors spewed through and contaminated the air.

With a gasp, Jemidon released his grip and fell to the bottom of the cube as the lid slammed shut. In the sudden darkness, he felt the vibration that meant the start of the contractions.

JEMIDON'S thoughts exploded in tatters. All parts of his mind shrieked at once. The cube rumbled and shook, pushing against his back and thrusting him into the others. The cube, the cube! There was so little time before it would crush everything together. Nothing would be left, only a pulpy ooze that drained away in the end.

Think, he told himself. Reverse the spell. Escape.

Yes, escape from the box, but escape to what? Outside, victory was within Melizar's grasp. The archmage had been right. Merely having the power of a metamagician did not ensure success. He had failed again. Despite the boasts, he was not a serious threat at all. Melizar had brushed him aside as an unimportant perturbation to his plan.

The walls vibrated and contracted another step. Jemidon's forehead beaded with sweat. He bumped into one of the alchemists and smelled his fear. Jemidon had to get free of the cube and confront Melizar once again. And this time he would show him, this time would be different, this time he would-

Even in his panic, Jemidon's thoughts lumbered to a halt. He remembered what the archmage had said about how he would be tested. He recalled Delia's sharp words about rushing forward without any real idea of what he was to do.

Jemidon gritted his teeth and forced himself to draw a long, deep breath. Delia, he thought. She still had to be saved. And what did she care about struggling metamagicians in a stylistic battle that would be a tale for the sagas? By whatever means the rescue, she would not care.

Confronting Melizar on his own terms was not the way to do it. Jemidon did not have the aptitude, let alone the experience. He would have to use his strengths, rather than continue to flog away in a manner not really attuned to his innermost self. He must somehow pose the problem in a way that he could puzzle it out.

Puzzle! That was it! He must view the whole thing as just another puzzle. That was his strength, the solving of puzzles; that was his skill, the essence of his true interests and desires. He had the ability to deduce the underlying principle from observation, to jump to the answer from fragments of clues. He must use his natural capabilties to find the total solution, a solution beyond an escape from the cube, a solution that stretched all the way to the end. Savagely he pulled his arms around his chest and squeezed against the panic, forcing the chaos of his thoughts into a smaller volume.

The rumble of the cube bubbled and exploded against the barrier he began constructing in his mind. Methodically, one by one, he slowed his thoughts, just as they were about to break away, and brought them under control. Gradually, with steel bands of will, he caught and confined them all, pushing the terrors together and squeezing them out of existence.

He breathed again only when he was done. With a cold deliberateness, he examined the events that had led to his capture-all the images that surrounded Melizar in his camp upon the crest and each previous encounter that might give a clue how to proceed. He recalled all the detail of his last images before the lid slammed shut-Melizar walking down the hill, the manipulants, and the portal touching Ponzar's lithon. As he had done for so many puzzles before, he pondered them one by one.

The minutes passed, but still Jemidon willed himself to remain in his passive state. He felt an elbow push painfully into his side and heard the incoherent babble of the magician rise to a deafening wail. One alchemist repeatedly pounded the walls, and the other had retreated into a terrified silence. Despite the growing panic about him, Jemidon examined all the alternatives that his imagination pumped into his awareness and made his decision. The chance of success was small. He did not know if it would really work, but at least it was calculated to the very end.

He shook himself out of his introspection and groped in the darkness for the crying magician. He slapped the master's face sharply and grabbed his cheeks.

"Listen closely," he said. "Your only hope now is to follow as I command. Remember the words of the archmage. To do otherwise is certain doom."

The magician stopped his babble and did not resist as Jemidon stood him up and placed him in line next to the silent alchemist. He boxed the remaining master in the ears to attract his attention, then laid a hand on the master's fist to stop the pounding.

"Now imitate me exactly," Jemidon said, "while the cube is the proper size for what we must do."

He crouched with his back against the wall. With a yell, he sprang across the volume and crashed into the metal plate near the lid. The cube shuddered from his impact and tipped slightly on the small platform that supported its base.

"All of us together! We can do it," Jemidon shouted. "If we can topple the cube, then we will have a chance."

The silent alchemist grunted, and then the other two masters nodded as well. With direction and hope, their own panic evidently began to dissolve away. As one, the four slammed into the side of the cube and felt it tumble forward onto the ground.

"And again," Jemidon yelled. "Before Melizar returns. Before his manipulants deduce what we are trying to do."

The masters squirmed and pressed together, shoulder to shoulder with Jemidon against the wall. Again they leaped to collide with the cube, rolling it forward another quarter turn.

"To what purpose?" the magician gasped. "We only make more unbearable the conditions at the end."

"Just follow my commands," Jemidon snapped back. "No, not that side. Now we have to change direction. There is need for explanation only if we succeed."

The box shrank again, leaving barely enough room for the masters to maneuver according to Jemidon's orders. They collided into the wall with a jolt that spun them over three times more.

As they struggled, the cube continued its contractions. They managed two additional rotations before it pinned their limbs in a tangle, so that they could no longer spring. One of the alchemists gasped with pain as the other tried to pull free a leg twisted to the side.

"Once more," Jemidon said. "Rock back and forth where you are. I think I can hear the whine."

Jemidon moved one foot from where it pushed against the magician's stomach until it rested high on the rear wall. Twisting his torso so that both hands were more or less angled forward, he oscillated his hips back and forth above the masters. He felt the box rock in response to his motions, as if balanced precariously over a slight irregularity in the slope. With a savage lurch that sent stabs of pain into contorted wrists, he tipped the cube over for a final time. He hoped his memory had been accurate. There would be no chance to maneuver again if he had misjudged the distance or orientation.

As the cube tumbled, Jemidon heard the walls vibrate with an ear-piercing grate. With a shudder, the box groaned and contracted. Like children wrapped in a blanket, none of the occupants could any longer move. With a bone-jolting crash, they came to rest against hard and solid ground.