Lyndon Hardy
Secret Of The Sixth Magic

PART ONE
Robe of the Master
CHAPTER ONE
A Matter of Style

JEMIDON'S pulse quickened as he stepped from the creaking gangplank onto the firmness of the pier. Finally, he had arrived at Morgana, the isle of sorcery. He must have scanned a hundred scrolls to make ready, but he felt as uncomfortable as if he were totally unprepared. And this time, unprepared he dared not be.

As the other passengers disembarked from the skiff and jostled past, Jemidon drew his scholar's cape tight against the onshore breeze. His hair was raven-black, combed back straight above a square and unlined face. With deep-set green eyes, he scrutinized whatever he saw, seeming to bore beneath the surface to discover the secret of what lay within. He had the broad shoulders of a smith, but pale skin and smooth palms marked him as one who did not toil in the sun. Although the purse at his belt bulged with a respectable thickness, his brown jerkin and leggings were threadbare and plain. Around his neck on a leather thong hung a smooth disk of gold, the features of the old king long since worn away.

At the end of the planking, Jemidon saw a brightly painted gatehouse, guarded by two men-at-arms who collected a copper from each one who passed. On either side, all around the small harbor, rough-beamed buildings crowded the shoreline and extended precariously over the water on makeshift piers. Warehouses and property barns, canvas mills and costume shops, tackle forges and mirror silveries, and all the services for both the sea and the inland mingled in disarray.

In the bay, three ships lay at anchor; from each, a procession of small boats shuttled men and cargo to the shore. The land rose sharply behind the harbor, first to a wide ledge and then into a jumble of heavily vegetated hills and valleys that Jemidon knew hid the lairs of the sorcerers. He dug into his purse for a coin. With a mixture of reluctance and anticipation, he joined the end of the line paying the landing fee.

"Which path to the hut of Farnel the master?" he asked the guards as he dropped his coppper into the pot. "I see there are many trails up into the interior, and he is the one whom I must find."

The guard on the left shook out of his bored lethargy. "All visitors are confined to the shorelands," he said, "lord and bondsman alike. Stay among the houses of the harbor or on the path that runs from the bazaar to the keep. The hills are for the masters and tyros only." He paused and stared at Jemidon. "For your own protection, they are forbidden."

Jemidon frowned back and clutched at the coin around his neck, running his thumb and fingers over the smooth surfaces. Too much was at stake to be impeded by petty restrictions. Too many years already had been wasted.

"Then how does one meet a master?" he asked carefully, trying to remove all emotion from his voice. Somehow it was important that no one else knew the significance of what he sought. If, by some unthinkable chance, he failed once again, failed for the final time, he wanted no mocking smiles and whispered sniggers when he returned to the harbor to sail away. "How do I engage Farnel in conversation? Talk to him long enough so that I might present a proposition that is to our mutual benefit?"

The second guard looked up from his tally sheet and laughed. "To come eye to eye with a sorcerer other than in the presentation hall is not something that most would wish."

Jemidon tightened the grip on his coin.'"Nevertheless, I must," he said.

"Then wait near the entrance to the hall." The guard shrugged. "Wait in the hope that Farnel decides to come out of the hills this year and give a performance. He is less likely than most, but it would be your only chance with safety. Along the shore, all of the masters have sworn to cast their illusions from the stage and nowhere else."

"But it is for the very fact that he has stopped entering the competitions that I have chosen Farnel," Jemidon said. "If he presents alone, then he might have no need for what I can offer as a tyro."

Another skiff banged into the pier, and the guards' faces warped in annoyance. One returned his attention to completing the tally sheet and the other motioned Jemidon on through the gate before the onset of the next arrivals.

Jemidon started to ask more, but then thought better of it. He turned to follow the rest of his landing party through the gatehouse and onto the beach. In a slow-moving queue, he crossed the narrow stretch of sand and climbed the wooden steps placed in the hillside. Several tedious minutes later, he reached the broad ledge, some ten times the height of a man above the level of the sea.

The native rock of the ledge was covered with a bed of crushed white stone that led away in two directions. To the south, the path angled around the bend of the island to where Jemidon knew the keep and presentation hall for the lords stood. To the north, the trail ended abruptly against a cliff of granite that thrust into the still waters of the bay.

On the beach at its foot stood the bondsman bazaar. Two wavy rows of tents stretched across the sand. Some were grandiose and gaudy with panels of bright colors supported by three or four poles, but others were no more than awnings covering rough podiums, counters, and simple frames. The path between the tents was deserted and the cries of the hawkers silent. Nightfall was still six hours away. In the distance, beyond the bazaar, the hazy outline of mainland Arcadia could just barely be seen.

After looking about for a moment to get their bearings, most of the landing party headed south, carrying goods and trinkets. The rest soon disappeared around the curve to the north, chattering excitedly about last year's glamours and what had caught the fancy of the high prince. Jemidon paused for a moment, deciding which way to go, then finally started in the direction of the presentation hall, but more slowly than those who preceded him.

The advice of the guard was not at all what he had wanted to hear. Waiting for Farnel could take the rest of the season, if the man came down from the hills at all. Convincing the sorcerer to accept him as tyro immediately had been what Jemidon had hoped to accomplish.

As tyro to a sorcerer, he would study cantrips and enchantments rather than incantations, formulas, ritual, or flame. And then, when the instruction was complete, he would become at last a master, to fulfill what had to be his destiny, to make amends to his dead sister, and finally to cleanse away his guilt-to end at last the quest that had started almost as far back as he could remember.

Jemidon's thoughts tumbled as the rock crunched beneath his tread with a hypnotic cadence. He had been precocious as a child, solver of riddles, puzzle maker, and lightning-fast at sums. He would have a choice of crafts, his father had boasted, possibly even give the archmage a challenge or two. He was the gleam of hope for the family, the way out from the oppressive toil of the wheat-lands to lives of their own.

But when the time for testing had come, he had failed at thaumaturgy, the most straightforward and least complex of the arts. And the less remembered about his trials the better.

Then, four years later, when a traveling apothecary came through the village, he had a chance to see if alchemy was his match. For thirty-two months he toiled, scrubbing glassware, digging roots, and grinding powders, just for the chance to try a simple formula from a common grimoire.

There was always an element of chance with alchemy, as everyone knew. No activation could be expected to succeed at each and every attempt. But after a dozen failures with a formula that usually worked nine times out of ten, he was booted out in a shower of hard words about wasted materials and improper preparation.

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."

"My dealings are with master Farnel," Jemidon said. "A tyro will not do."

"You should have heeded the warnings and stayed within the confines of the harbor," Erid said. "Here in the hills, we practice glamours of our own choosing." His smile broadened. "Even if you have a taste for art, you might find the experience somewhat, shall we say, disconcerting."

Laughter raced across the line, and menacing smiles settled on the tyros' faces. Jemidon squared his shoulders and straightened to full height. He was five years older than any of the youths, but several stood a full head higher.

"My intent is not to provoke," he said slowly. "And I did not come to be the subject of your experimentation."

"Then your prowess is remarkable indeed," another of the tyros said. "Tell us how you plan not to look one of us in the eye or keep your ears always protected against a whisper."

"Enough. Leave him be," Farnel cut in. "You do your master no credit and waste what is most precious besides. Your talent should be channeled toward pleasing the moneyed lord, not baiting a bondsman who wanders away from the bazaar."

"I am no bondsman," Jemidon said. "I am free to study what I choose. And my knowledge of the lore of Arcadia, the sagas of Procolon across the sea, and the chants of the savage northmen can be of great value to you. Let me speak more of my merit and you will be convinced."

"I am indeed the master you seek," Farnel said. "But I see not merit but folly in one who wanders here alone. It is true that all the masters of Morgana strive to dispel the reputation of fear that sorcery enjoys elsewhere. Indeed, the livelihood of our small island depends upon it. The lords of the mainland would not come and pay good gold for our entertainments if there was a hint of greater risk involved. But our craft must be experimentally manipulated as well. Only near the harbor have we forsworn all glamours; only in the presentation hall do we enchant with consent. Here in our private retreats, one can rely only on the good judgment of whomever he encounters. The tyros cannot be kept under constant watch to ensure that they stay within the bounds of prudence.

"And your luck today was not the best." Farnel turned and cast a frown back at his peer. "You may be noted for your prizes, Gerilac, but your students in particular set no standards by their conduct."

"An easy thought for one who has no tyros of his own." Gerilac flicked some dust from his rich velvet. "Although with no accolades in a decade, not even a minor mark of merit, one can understand why there would be none."

Farnel ignored Gerilac's reply and turned back to Jemidon. "Come, I will escort you to the harbor. It would not do you well to be found by one of Canthor's patrols."

"I have a proposition for you," Jemidon insisted.

"Not now." Farnel waved down the path. "Let us get to the harbor without delay. Gerilac has babbled at me all afternoon, and I do not care to hear more of his plans to bedazzle the high prince."

"Discussion of the relative value of your skills and mine does bring discomfort," Gerilac said. "Go ahead, take advantage of your excuse while you have it. Further conversation will not change your worth in the eyes of the other masters."

Farnel's face clouded. He whipped back to stare at Gerilac without saying a word. Gerilac flung his arm across his face; then, after a moment, he slowly lowered it to return the stare. Warily, the two sorcerers closed upon each other, the first words of enchantment rumbling from their lips.

As the masters engaged, Jemidon saw Erid and the other tyros exchanging hurried glances. With a sudden movement, Erid spun his way, but Jemidon guessed the intent. Quickly he stepped aside to avoid the push that would send him sprawling.

Erid staggered to a stop and waved the others to his side. "This one talks of dealing only with a master, but now we will see how well he likes the skill of a tyro."

Jemidon looked at Farnel and Gerilac circling one another, arms across their eyes and loudly shouting to drown out each other's charm. He would have to cope with the tyros himself. He took a half step backward; then, without warning, he reversed direction and drove his head into Erid's midsection. They crashed to the ground and began to roll down the trail in a tumble. He heard Erid gasp for breath as he locked arms around the tyro's back and began to squeeze. The sky and the ground rotated by in alternating streaks, but Jemidon kept his hold. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the sharp jabs from the small rocks that lay in their path.

One stone scraped against Jemidon's cheek; another scratched a ragged line along his bare arm. Then, with a jarring thud, his head cracked against the large boulder that blocked the path. Jemidon's eyes blurred. Involuntarily he loosened his grip.

Erid tore himself free. He grabbed for the branches of a scraggly bush and pulled himself to his feet. Jemidon groggily flung his arms out, trying to reestablish his hold, but Erid avoided the snares and pushed Jemidon to the ground. "And now the enchantment," he slowly panted. "Perhaps one that will engender a little more respect."

The other tyros ran down the slope and seized Jemidon by the arms as he struggled to stand. He shook his head, but they grabbed his ears and forced him to look in End's direction.

"As to the fee-" Erid pointed at Jemidon's chest. "The bauble of gold will do."

Jemidon struggled to free himself, but the tyros held him fast. His senses reeled. Erid's image danced in duplicate. "Seize the coin at your peril," he managed to gasp. "For fifteen years have I carried it, and even though I would have to track you to the northern wastes, I will have it back."

Erid looked into Jemidon's eyes and hesitated. The fire that smoldered there was not to be dismissed lightly. "Perhaps not worth the trouble of taking," he mumbled. "But if truly it carries with it the memories of when you were a boy, it will make the enchantment all the easier. Yes, that is it. Think of the coin, hapless one, while you look into my face."

Jemidon immediately slammed shut his eyes, but the tyros held him steady and forced his lids back open. Unable to avoid Erid's stare, he heard the beginnings of the sonorous chant that dulled his consciousness.

Jemidon tried to defocus Erid's face into the blur of sky behind, but his thoughts became sluggish and lumbered away on their own. Erid's eyes loomed larger and larger until they blotted out everything behind, finally engulfing Jemidon's will and swallowing it whole. He fell the events of the morning wash into indistinct nothingness and then the day and the week before. With accelerating quickness, all his travels folded and were tucked into small compartments of his mind that he could no longer reach. He was a youth of twenty, fifteen, and finally ten.

Jemidon felt the constraints which held him fall away and he took a step forward. The hillside shimmered and was gone…

He found himself in a dimly lighted hovel, still hot from the blazing sun and choking in slowly settling dust. He heard the weak cough from the cot and saw the strained look on his mother's face as she gently placed her palm on his sister's forehead.

Hesitantly he offered the coin in his hand back to his father. "But this brandel will pay for the alchemist's potion," Jemidon heard himself say. "It will make her well. I can take the examination next month or even next year, if need be."

"The next month or the next year we will still be here, Jemidon." His father waved an arm around the small room. "And no more sure of a coin of gold then than now. Take the payment for the testing. Even master Milton says you have a head for it; he remembers no one else in the village with your quickness." The old man's eyes widened and he looked off in the distance. "An apprentice thaumaturge. It is the first step to becoming a master. And then, after Milton passes on, you will be the one who nurtures the crops for lord Kenton and ensures his harvest. You will sit in honor at his table.

"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."

The sorcerer closed his eyes and ran his tongue across his lips, savoring the memories. For a moment there was silence, but then Farnel snapped back and waved the thoughts away. "But they won no prizes. The drift to shallow forms and empty expression had already begun."

"I know also of what the others said of your works," Jemidon rushed on. "Bold in principle and mood, but flawed in historical or geographic fact. Incorrect costuming of the period, a jutting sandbar in the wrong place, reflections from an impossible direction."

"Excuses, all of them," Farnel said. "The works of Gerilac were the new sensation in the eyes of the prince."

''But had yours not been built on error, what then?" Jemidon persisted. "Without the nagging irritants, how might the artistic education of the high prince have proceeded? And who now might wear the robe of velvet?"

"Your tongue is glib. I grant you that," Farnel said, "but the sands have already been cast. What is done is done. It is a matter of style, and our craft suffers because of it."

"I am a scholar," Jemidon said. "Between my attempts for what I must achieve, I have earned my bread in the libraries of the lords and the great cities, reading the old scrolls, tracking down obscure facts, finding the answer to ancient riddles so that one baron can show the power of his intellect to another. And in the course of all of this, I have learned many things that can serve you well."

Jemidon paused for a moment, then rushed on. "Two centuries ago, the capes of the lords hung only to their waists and their faces were clean-shaven. The sandbar in the Bay of Cloves is covered by the high tide. In the morning, when one is looking down into the valley beyond Plowblade Pass, the shadows are on the left."

Farnel looked at Jemidon in silence for a long while. He ran his hand over the back of his neck but said nothing.

"Knowledge," Jemidon said, breaking the silence at last. "Knowledge to remove the inconsistencies from your works, the imperfections that seem to bother the other masters so. All that I have learned in my wanderings I will share." He touched the coin on his chest. "That and one brandel more if you take me as your tyro and lead me to mastership of sorcery."

"And so it is as simple as that." Farnel laughed. "But one must start with a young mind, smooth and pliable, not a mind already filled with the lessons that gave one his manhood. If you must dabble in the arts, seek some other, such as thaumaturgy. You are too old to begin any other."

"No!" Jemidon shouted. "It is to be sorcery." He stopped suddenly, embarrassed by the outburst that echoed off the stone walls. "I am aware of the difficulties," he continued after a moment in a softer tone. "That is why I have come to you. I know that none of the other masters would choose to take me because of my age. But then, none of the others might feel so keenly about winning the supreme accolade in order to reestablish the standards for the art."

"And the one gold brandel?" Farnel asked.

Jemidon breathed deeply, almost choking on the words. "It is the most important of all. You see it around my neck on a simple loop, but somehow it is more intricately intertwined with my innermost being. It is for no ordinary barter; I can give it up only when the debt it was meant for has been fully paid."

Jemidon started to say more, but the jangle of a key in the lock distracted Farnel's attention.

"Canthor, you come half a day early," the master said, rising to his feet. "I thought the penalty for wandering in the hills ran at least from sun to sun."

Jemidon slowed the rush of his thoughts and looked at the figure swinging open the grating. The bailiff wore leggings and a sleeveless tunic. The skin of his arms was smooth and taut. Short bristles of hair, struggling back from a daily shaving, covered a shiny head. Only his face showed any aging; his eyes swam in a sea of wrinkles from a perpetual squint.

"The crude pranks of Gerilac's tyros are punishment for any man." Canthor laughed. "I dare wager that this lad will no longer take our warnings so lightly. No, now is the time to depart. Before Erid and the others think of coming here and sneaking in more practice."

He waved Jemidon to the corridor with one hand and grabbed Farnel by the arm with the other. "And as for you, my rough and unbending friend, far less bother would there be for me in the first place if the masters set decent examples for the tyros to follow. Gerilac told me of what you were attempting when I was summoned."

Farnel shrugged. "If what he built had some merit, it would not matter."

"A soldier is measured by his most recent battle," Canthor said, "no matter how glorious were the ones that came before. If you wish to challenge Gerilac's ascendancy, it must be in the presentation hall, not with hot words shouted outside its walls."

"Sage advice from one who has not raised a sword in true anger in many a year!" Farnel snorted. "If that is so, why are you here instead of taking a side in the growing unrest in the northern plateau of the mainland? The high prince has need of men-at-arms."

"The difference is that I am content with my lot," Can-thor replied. "As long as there is sufficient bread on my table and pulling masters apart does not occur too often, I do not care what the others may say behind my back."

Farnel frowned and began to pace the room. "It is too late in the season," he muttered, "and for too long have I not dabbled with the themes and forms."

"Spend time in the bazaar," Canthor said. "Listen to the bondsmen prattie about their lords' latest fancies. You know that pandering to the popular tastes is how Gerilac achieves his successes. You could learn in a few nights what Gerilac guesses at for the entire year."

"Yes, yes, I have thought of that idea often enough myself. But masters do not thread their way among the hawkers and imitation delights," Farnel said. "That is a job for a tyro, and there is none who would care to accept my tutorage."

The master stopped suddenly and his eyes narrowed in thought. He looked at Jemidon and shrugged. "I suppose an alchemist would say that some of the random factors have aligned," he said. "Very well; as Canthor says, it would be better than mouthing more words of protest that the others pay attention to less and less. I accept your proposition. I will begin your instruction as you desire. In exchange, you will spend part of each day in the bazaar, befriending the bondsmen and learning the latest gossips and popularities of the mainland. We will work together for a presentation to the high prince."

Jemidon felt some of the pent-up emotion dissolve away. For once, things were going well. Perhaps this time there finally would be success. "And after the prize is awarded, how long then until I can have my own robe with the logo of the staring eye?"

Farnel placed a hand on Jemidorfs shoulder. "The agreement is that I will teach. I can promise no more. It is up to you to marshal the talents within that will make you a master."