"Secret Of The Sixth Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hardy Lyndon)

CHAPTER SEVEN
The Vault in the Grotto

JEMIDON returned to the drab building at the foot of the Street of Vaults. He was satisfied with what he had done. Augusta's offer had been readily accepted by the magician's guild, just as she had said. He was even invited back in four days to monitor the next steps in the experimental ritual. If eventually the whole sequence worked, then tokens could be produced at a fifth the traditional effort. Augusta's investment would be returned twofold. She could expect an additional ten tokens every month thereafter.

"On this evening's tide. Another day I will not wait," a heavy voice boomed from the back room. "And if you do not comply, I will tell the others that you cannot because they are gone."

"I only point out that the hour is already late and the level is rising," Augusta shouted back. "You speak of risk, but choose to ignore true threat for the insignificant."

Jemidon passed through the doorway and saw Augusta scowling at the heavy-set man slumped in the chair. His sagging jowls gave him a bulldog look that the fine tailoring of his cape and collars could not hide. With watery, pale eyes he returned Augusta's stare.

"Tonight," he repeated. "You can have an oarsman light the way. After all, I would have no such trouble with any other vault along the street."

"Any other along the street would charge three times the fee to hold your tokens secure," Augusta said. "Their precious magic boxes do not come cheap." She stopped and looked in Jemidon's direction. "My newly indentured servant," she said. "And this is Trocolar, elected leader of the tradesmen."

"After the next polling, leader of the council as well," Trocolar said. He ran his eyes up and down Jemidon's frame. "Stocky enough, but I doubt he would last more than a day at the oars. No, tokens are my concern, Augusta, not flesh of questionable value. My tokens are what I want, and I want them now."

Jemidon bristled at Trocolar's rude manner, but he said nothing. Instead, he watched Augusta for the key to how he should behave.

Augusta worked her lips for something more to say, but no words came. After a moment, she sighed and slapped her hands to her sides. "Then let us get to the skiff at once. Because of the hour, you will have to pay my rowers double as it is. And you should accompany us, Jemidon. One more will make the loading proceed quicker."

Trocolar stood with majestic slowness, his face drawn in a slight smile. With a perfunctory nod as she passed, he followed Augusta through the front room and out onto the street. Jemidon came last. In a silent single file, they made their way down the hillside to the harbor's edge.

Soon they were gliding across the water in a narrow boat. Oarsmen front and back propelled them toward the smaller of the two islands in the center off the bay, the one of gnarled rock that was seemingly devoid of life.

Jemidon watched the weather-beaten rock loom larger and larger with each stroke. The sun, low in the west, hid most of one side in soft shadow; but even so, he could distinguish the deeper blacks that marked the entrances to the caves. The boat headed unerringly for one opening larger than the rest. Like the mouth of a large serpent, it opened directly on the water, sucking in each lapping wave and expelling it with the next breath.

The oarsmen maneuvered the boat into the entrance and paddled into the dark tunnel. The oars were secured. In an eerie quietness, the skiff coasted forward on the still water.

A long moment passed, and then they halted with a gentle bump. Jemidon heard a fumbling in the bow, the scrape of flint on steel, and finally a gentle whoosh as an oil cresset chiseled into the rock sprang to life. He saw their way barred by a heavy iron grating that protruded from the ceiling above and disappeared into the dark water. Augusta placed her palm on a small box next to the burning light; after it opened, she extracted a large brass key.

"You see, there is magic protecting the vault that resides in the grotto," she said as she worked the lock on the grating. "But only what is necessary to complete the security. For the large containers, we never had to pay."

"Holgon, my magician, would not be impressed by such items," Trocolar said. "And guarding a single entrance does not guarantee that others do not exist."

"Yet you have seen fit to leave a considerable treasure here," Augusta said. She motioned to the oarsmen. The one in front grabbed the protruding handle of a bolt and pulled it free. The other tugged at a circular chain draped nearby. With a rusty creaking, the grating slowly began to rise.

"A considerable treasure," she continued. "And none of your reasons for withdrawal carry much persuasion."

Trocolar grunted, but did not answer. Instead, he pointed to the red horizontal line painted on the wall.

"Yes." Augusta nodded. "In less than an hour, the tide will be too high. I warned you before we came. All your tokens will not save us if we are caught in the passage between the two pools."

The grating clanged against its upper stops. The two oarsmen rushed to get the skiff back into motion, while Augusta lighted a torch from the cresset. In its flickering light, Jemidon and the others glided deeper into the cave.

Immediately behind the grating, the ceiling and walls receded from view. As if traveling on calm seas under a starless night sky, the small boat slid through the water. Jemidon breathed still and fungal air, the only clue to his true surroundings. He tried to pierce the gloom, but saw nothing to aid in orientation. The rhythmic splash of the paddles wove complicated patterns with the rustle of Augusta's smoking flame. No one spoke. The feeling was oppressive.

After several minutes, the pace of the paddling quickened. Jemidon sensed the tenseness in the oarsman behind. He looked around and saw the walls again coming into view. Like a crumpled funnel, they converged on the skiff, defining a narrow passage where there had been none before.

Jemidon watched the undulating surfaces resolve into distinguishable textures, dry swaths with large crystals of pegmatite, glistening walls of fine-grained granite, areas of gas-smoothed slickness, and jagged fissures that trickled with rainwater seeping from above. Closer and closer converged the walls. Jemidon felt himself breathe deeply to stave off the instinctive fear of confinement. A boat length away and then barely two arm lengths apart, the rock pushed in from either side.

Augusta lowered her torch. Jemidon looked ahead to see the ceiling crushing inward like the walls. The oarsman in front ducked to the side to avoid a low-hanging projection, and it whizzed past Jemidon's ear. Augusta set the base of the torch on the keelboard and experimented with huddling low at its side.

"We probably will have to extinguish our light on the way back," she said. "There will be just enough clearance for the skiff itself to squeeze by."

"How high does the tide rise?" Jemidon asked.

"Above the ceiling at the narrowest point," Augusta answered. "The vault is shaped like a carnival man's barbell, with this passage the only connection between two large chambers on either end. And for most of the day, the inner chamber is completely sealed off. There is no way to get through. Only at lowest tides, when the water level is under the red line, can one attempt a passage. And even then, the margin of safety is none too great." Jemidon copied the others, hunching over and then squirming even lower when a sharp outcrop skittered across the top of his head. He heard the rower behind give up trying to paddle the water. Instead, the oar was pushed against the side of the passage to propel them along. The skiff scraped and splintered against one wall and then bounced off to rub along the other. Jemidon felt the unyielding rock press him still lower and then heard a sickening grating as both sides of the boat caught at once. For a second they stopped, jammed against the walls, but the oarsmen rocked back and forth, and the inflowing tide pushed them free.

Jemidon tensed, waiting for the next constriction, but he felt instead the pressure on his back gradually lessen and then abruptly fall away. He watched Augusta stretch and extend the torch as she had done before. Once again, the walls receded to provide an easy passage.

"We are in the inner chamber," Augusta said. "And now to the vault itself. It is a small, separate cavity that took some fifteen years to suck dry, even with pumps of magic. The ledge above it does not provide enough space for the treasures."

As she pointed out the direction, the skiff sailed across the bowl of water. When they reached the wall, one oarsman secured the boat to some iron rings. The second rower sprang onto a rope ladder suspended from above. Jemidon and the others followed. In a moment, they climbed onto a wide ledge twice the height of a man above the level of the water. Augusta's torch lighted several cressets, and Jemidon blinked at the sudden increase in light.

The shelf cut back into the overhanging rock for a sizable distance, creating a pocket far larger than the size of Augusta's rooms back on shore. Sand and planking made the irregular floor more or less level. A single table supported heavy ledgers, and a collection of scrolls was crammed into the cracks and crevices in the walls. Blooms of mold followed the trickle of water down the sloping surfaces, and Jemidon saw splotches of growth peppering the more exposed parchments. Billowed soot covered one portion of the low-hanging roof where a fire evidently had been tried long ago. Charred stumps mingled with small bones and discarded refuse on the floor. Two spots of blackness led off further into the interior, A heavy cauldron lid covered a jagged hole in the rear from which dank smells rose to taint the air.

"The two side tunnels lead back to smaller caverns," Augusta explained to Jemidon. "And the lid covers a shaft that leads down to the vault itself. All of it is natural; the magic pumps and the lock on the entrance grating are the only indebtedness to the guilds."

An oarsman pushed the lid aside and threw another ladder down the tube. Looking over the edge before he placed his foot in the opening, Jemidon saw a narrow vertical tunnel, knobby and twisted, about five times the height of a man. The shuffle of hands and feet echoed along the shaft, making conversation impossible as Jemidon descended; but as he went lower, he heard the drips and gurgles of running water and then the suck and push of throbbing pumps.

Jemidon's foot hit bottom, splashing in a small, stagnant pool. A glow of imp light caught his attention on the right. From bottles fastened to a semicircular wall, the dim, blue glow bathed lumbering complexes of wheels and levers that pushed water up a tube and out of sight. Behind them was an array of chests, neatly ordered in precise rows and columns into a great square. Splashes of soft greens and yellows covered the tops and side plankings. Long tendrils of oozing growth stretched to the wet and rocky floor. The far walls could barely be seen. The volume was larger than the hold of Arcadia's biggest grainship. Jemidon calculated how much he had climbed and descended as he made room for the others following. Yes, bigger than a galleon's hold and three man heights beneath the level of the sea.

"What miserable storage," Trocolar sneered as he followed Augusta back to the chests. "Look at this dampness, the cracks in the walls. Even a gentle shift in the earth, and the trickle would become a flood. It is worth the fee to have my tokens reside in a dry, clean vault, rather than in this slimy mess."

"The cloth and oak may rot," Augusta said, "but for tokens, it does not matter. Never will they alter."

"Nonetheless, mine will be gone," Trocolar said. Jemidon saw the trader's eyes glisten as a chest lid was flung back and the subtle glow of the tokens added to the imp light. Trocolar turned to Augusta and pulled his jowls into a slight smile.

"And do not profess that it is of no concern," he said. "The loss of my fees just before the election will give you a smaller vote. I plan to persuade other traders to withdraw their holdings as well. Altogether, it will make a considerable difference."

"The issue is in doubt." Augusta shrugged. "Neither your faction nor mine has sufficient wealth to win on the first round."

"But there will be the subsequent ones," Trocolar said. "And, in a contest between the vaultholders and the traders, what do you think the outcome will be?"

"The vaultholders have governed Pluton fair and well for two decades," Augusta replied. "Indeed, your trading has never prospered better."

"But not as well as it might," Trocoiar snapped as he waved his arm over the chests. "I have not forgotten the innocent-faced girl who charmed a debtholding from me all those years ago."

"I paid you a premium for the writ," Augusta said. "You received more than you were due and a year early besides. You have no cause for complaint."

"No, no cause for complaint," Trocolar spat out. "No cause for complaint. I am reminded of it each time the others ask me again to tell the tale. No cause for complaint, because I did not ask why you wanted the writ. This vault should have been mine, Augusta, not the prize of some barefoot mainland girl who chanced upon it first!"

"You were greedy enough for immediate gain," Augusta shot back. "I took the gamble that months later the vaultholders would not be able to pay. And we have been over the same story many times before. You keep your treasures here for the same reasons as the others. Despite how you feel about who earns the fees, you are eager enough to take advantage of the fact that they are less."

"This time there is a difference," Trocolar said. "This time I am close enough that my faction may win." The trader stopped and grabbed Augusta by the shoulders. "I have paid the divulgents, and they have told me what I needed to know, Augusta. I have learned from what you taught me as well. Your only indebtedness is for the pumps that keep this pit from washing away. Periodic payments to the guild that made them will continue for many years. But you are aggressive, Augusta, always hungry for more, speculating to the limit and holding back barely enough to transfer the sums when they are due."

Trocolar sucked in his breath and raced on. "Know that I am your new debtholder, Augusta. I paid a premium for the writ, just as you had done with me. And if I win control of the council, their first act will be to change the laws governing magical items procured by the vaults. Those are too precious to be so capriciously obtained from the guilds. A proper vault should have title to its items of security free and dear. Someone who places his treasures for safekeeping should expect no less. Yes, there will be a change to the laws so that such liens immediately will be due and payable.

"Think of it, Augusta-in a few days it might all be over. In less than a week, you may be a true debtor, unable to pay. Everything you have, including your life, could be mine to do with as I will."

Trocolar tilted back his head and laughed, his voice bouncing off the walls in booming echoes. Then, with a swirl of his cape, he turned and headed back for the ladder. "I will count them in the skiff after they are loaded," he called back. "Holgon, my magician, has found a potential partner who thinks a few hundred is an impressive sum. Wait until he sees me with some eight thousand more."

In the gloom, Jemidon saw Augusta's shoulders sag and he ran to her side. "How serious is his threat?" he asked. "Can you not pay him from one of the other chests thai are here?"

"The total number of tokens on Pluton is known." Augusta shook her head. "And for every credit to an account, there must be a debit elsewhere. These chests are not mine to do with as I please. They belong to many others. And Trocolar's knowledge is accurate. The total of what I owe on the pumps exceeds all that I personally have on account."

"Then a new partner. A share in future profits for someone to pay what will be due."

"If Trocolar controls the council, none would dare thwart his intent." Augusta shook her head again. "No, now my hope will have to be that Rosimar succeeds sooner than expected. When we return to shore, you must go to him immediately and tell him the increased importance of his endeavors."

Augusta started to smile bravely at Jemidon, but then stopped abruptly. For a moment she looked away. Finally she turned back and lightly placed her hand on his arm. "I am sorry," she said softly. "You should not be involved. For a single token, it is too much to risk."

"I will help you if I can," Jemidon said, "although my knowledge probably will be of little value."

"It is more than your knowledge that is bound in my plight," Augusta said. "Your writ of indenture was recorded with the rest of the transactions of the day. And such bindings cannot be revoked, regardless of the sum. For the next week, you are one of my assets, Jemidon, part of what I must surrender to a creditor if I cannot pay," She stroked his arm and finally completed her smile. "You see, I will have company if Trocolar manages to send me to the cube. It is to your benefit as well as mine to speed Rosimar along the way."

Jemidon's late evening message to the guild had first been met with resistance. Rosimar had wanted to proceed at his own cautious and methodical pace. But the threat to Augusta had eventually won him over. The preparations for the next phase of the ritual were ready in three days, rather than four.

When Jemidon returned on the third day to monitor the progress, he did so with more than passing interest. Before the trip to the grotto, Augusta's investment in Rosimar's guild had been an idle curiosity-something to stir up old memories of when he was a neophyte, far removed from his pursuit of the sorcerer's robe. But now his focus had been diverted. He could not pursue one art without success in the other. If the remaining errors in the new ritual could be corrected soon enough, Augusta's fortunes would receive a much needed boost. A hundred tokens returned with another hundred as well would more than compensate for Trocolar's missing fees. Her faction might even win the election after all, and then he would have earned his own token and be free to track down Drandor and Delia.

Jemidon looked up and down the length of the huge rectangular hall called the ceremonium that dominated the grounds of the guild. Scattered everywhere was a clutter of apparatus large and small, giant presses, arrays of pulleys and cogs, cascades of vats and piping, cages of exotic beasts, clockworks, balances, and beams. The roof of the structure arched to a giddy height. Through carefully fitted isinglass panels, the morning sunlight flooded the parqueted floor.

Directly in front of where he stood, Jemidon saw the neophytes straining against the huge lever of a ballista and heard the ratchet click another notch. The twisted leather rope grated from the effort. At the far end of the ceremonium was the target, a row of whirling saw blades with teeth sparkling from the diamond dust freshly applied. Behind them were the grindstones, each the width of a barrel and twice the height of a man.

"Much more impressive than delicate tongs and tinkling finger cymbals, is it not?" The lean man next to Jemidon waved at the equipment while the final adjustments were being made. His nose was pinched between close-set eyes. Bony forearms dangled from a robe two sizes too small. Although his face was smooth, his shoulders slumped forward with the posture of an older man. "The larger guilds boast of innovation, but none of them have dared to take the chance," he said.

"And if the plate of steel can be split into strips by hurling it against the blades, what then, Rosimar?" Jemidon asked. "How soon until Augusta receives her return?"

"The mistress of the grotto." Rosimar's eyes narrowed. "I am surprised that you would bother again to curry her favor. She uses men like honeypods, discarding the husk after she has sucked them dry."

"My fate is intertwined with hers," Jemidon tried to say casually. "The more that her wealth increases, then the greater is the chance that she will be able to pay me my wage when it is due."

"One does not have to be a divulgent to know what is at stake," Rosimar said. "And she needs the aid of a master magician, not one who failed to garner even an initiate's robe. Many saw Trocolar march off under guard to another vault yesterday evening. The trader's factors align; he has her positioned where she has never been before."

Rosimar paused and stared at Jemidon. "And understand that that is the only reason. Understand it well. If Augusta asks for help, I will give my consent. Even if it means a trip through that tiny hellhole to the vault itself. If it is for our future business together, to influence the tally when the leading factions gather for the vote, not to recapture what has gone before." Rosimar hesitated a second time. "Besides, she can have no more than a passing interest in you, in any event."

Jemidon blinked at the sudden tension hiding behind the precisely enunciated words. Evidently Rosimar's feelings for Augusta were still strong. The magician might yet prove to be competition, if he were to succeed with his ritual. Jemidon grimaced as he tried to sort out his thoughts. Augusta and Rosimar. Did that really matter? What of Delia, who still had to be freed? He felt guilty that the image of her golden curls, the sound of her voice, the sense of her brave spirit, all were fading next to the sharpness of Augusta's presence. In the end, which did he want? It was a tangle he could not resolve. Better for now, he decided, to keep the conversation on safer ground.

"Augusta has mentioned that this time the polling will be in the grotto," Jemidon said. "On the ledge above the vault. Why not have it instead in some neutral place?"

"No place is neutral on Pluton," Rosimar said. "Each is owned by someone who charges for its use. By tradition, the site is rotated among the leading factions, those strong enough to ensure there is no interruption while the counting is going on."

The magician looked off into the distance for a moment and then shook his head rapidly from side to side. Exhaling deeply, he turned to direct two initiates entering the ceremonium, tugging at the end of a large, woven hose, "Attach it to the flute at the left," he said. "The rest are already connected to the bellows in the outer chamber."

Jemidon watched the initiates screw tight the flange that bound the hose to the large, hollowed log running by his feet. The whole end of the room was crowded with giant caricatures of musical instruments, triangles thrice the height of a man, harps with strings like hawsers, and double reeds as thick as tabletops. From each device that was powered by air snaked a hose through a doorway lo the rear.

"It is a matter of scale." Rosimar followed Jemidon's gaze. "The casual travelers think that the magic guilds must be the focus of Pluton's power, because from them come the tokens upon which all else is based. But they do not know the number of steps it takes to make even a single perfect disk, an intricate ritual requiring months and consuming exotic ingredients besides. And with the competition from all who know the secret, and the many mouths to feed between the steps, the profit is small, barely enough to make the whole effort worthwhile. When considered from the standpoint of outlay and return, the boxes and vaults are far more efficient in producing wealth. It is better to receive tokens already made than to struggle to form more with the painstaking steps of our art."

"And yet you experiment with the giant apparatus here," Jemidon said, "and have taken Augusta's writ to buy all these hoses, saws, and weapons of war."

"It is a matter of scale, as I have said," Rosimar repeated. "Why labor to produce a single disk when hundreds can be made with the same steps? Why gong a petite triangle to fill a small volume with sound when the entire hall can resonate from one hundreds of times as large? Instead of cutting each sheet of steel into strips a careful stroke at a time, we will attempt to cleave many at once by firing the plate at the whirling saws and playing the music at a tempo to keep in step.

"The grinding will be done by the big wheels rather than by hand-held files. And all the rest has been proved. If today the cleaving can be made to proceed in concert with what the ritual demands for perfection, then the entire process will work, without a doubt."

Jemidon looked down at the whirling row of saw blades and back at the ballista, as the neophytes lined up the sheet of gleaming steel in the carriage that would hurl it forward. "And yet the scale and weights are normal-sized."

"They control the timing," Rosimar explained. "Now the scale is perfectly balanced with seven weights on either side. When one is removed from the left, the right pan swings to the ground and signals the ritual to start. After the triangle sounds, two are removed from the right, and the scale will move in the opposite direction to pace the next step. Alternately, the balance pans will be unloaded. The rigor of the ritual demands it to be so. And when the last is removed and the scale returns to level, the ballista will be fired. The plate will be ripped into nine strips, each one ready to be stamped with the outline of a row of disks."

Rosimar looked around the ceremonium and smiled. "In fact, all is in readiness, and we will soon know the result. You there, Grogan, I want you to remove the weights while I and the other masters attend to the bellows in the antechamber."

The neophyte sprang to his feet and clutched his hands together. "Not me, master," he said. "The whirling blades and creaking wheels give me a fright. My ears ached last night when the flutes were sounded in the seventh step."

"Your hand is steady," Rosimar said. "It is an opportunity to show what you have learned while all the masters are watching."

The neophyte extended his hands palms upward. Rosimar scowled at the blur they made with their shaking. "Crandel, then," he said. "You probably can do it as well."

The second neophyte did not respond. Together, the two of them raced from the hall without looking back.

"A moment." Rosimar's scowl deepened. "They are young and the task is unexpected. I will have to go to the head master and get permission to use one of the initiates. And if it is not granted, then we will have to wait until tomorrow."

"But if the process is proven, can we have new tokens today?" Jemidon asked.

"Within the hour," Rosimar said. "We could use the very strips produced by the test."

"I was a neophyte at the inland guild," Jemidon said. "You remember that. I would rather not delay. Tell me what I should do."

Rosimar looked out through the isinglass to the bay. "I remember your skill, Jemidon," he remarked. "I remember it all too well."

"I was much younger many years ago," Jemidon said. "And here I have no stake in trying to impress a master." Rosimar looked at the still swinging doors through which the neophytes had run. "Oh, very well," he said. "The task is simple enough. Just remove the weights in the sequence I have indicated. Make each step clean and sure. Watch for my signal. When all else is ready, I will indicate when to begin."

Without saying more, Rosimar hurried out the doorway. Jemidon watched his departure for a moment and then turned to study the scale more intently. Besides the two pans, each carrying the ornate metal cylinders, he could see an array of springs and switches clustered around the balance arm. From them, ropes, pipes, and pulleys led to other apparatus in the ceremonium. He looked back at Rosimar and saw the magician wave his arm to begin.

A hush fell onto the big hall. All of the other activity had ceased, except for the whirl of the saws. Jemidon was alone to set the ritual into motion. He took a step toward the scale, extending his arm to grab a weight from the top of the stack.

But as he did, without warning, he tripped and stumbled, falling to the ground. Surprised, Jemidon shook his head and looked around for what had gotten in his way, but he saw only smooth planking all about his feet.

Jemidon rose to standing and took a deep breath. Old memories began to stir in their hiding places.

"Away, away!" Rosimar stormed back through the door. "It is just as I remembered. You never had a talent for magic, Jemidon, even for the simplest of neophyte tasks. It is no wonder that Augusta forsook you for my attentions instead."

Jemidon looked back at the master. The contempt in Rosimar's face was sharp and clear. "A moment's spasm," he shot back. "And it has passed. I will do as I have said. You need not summon back one of the neophytes too afraid to be less than perfect."

"I will perform the ritual myself," Rosimar declared. "One side, and observe how it is done."

Jemidon's chest constricted in anger. He whirled from where he stood to face the scale. With a swipe of his hand, he reached for the topmost weight to flick it aside. But as he did, he felt his arm streak off in an uncontrolled arc. His hand crashed into the scale. With a clatter, the weights bounced off onto the floor.

Jemidon lunged for the falling weights, but he managed only to trip over the scale and spin around. His feet tangled in the ropes and levers; with snaps and twangs, they jerked free of their moorings. He heard the giant triangle gong three times and then a sharp crack as the ballista released its charge. The sheet of metal arced across the room, tumbling while it sped, and struck the row of saws broadside rather than on end,

With an ear-piercing shriek, the plate exploded into shrapnel that flew back across the room. One piece bounded beside Jemidon's leg and another grazed his ear, knocking him again to the ground. The bellows started pumping, and the flutes and horns blasted monotones in a giant dissonance.

"A resonance!" Jemidon heard Rosimar's shout mingle with the noise. "There is a flaw in the ritual-a resonance that feeds on itself. Stop the bellows and saws. Shut it all down!"

But the shrieking grew louder. Isinglass buckled from the ceiling and crashed to the floor. The bounding shrapnel continued to carom off the walls and apparatus. A large chunk hit the nearest flute in midsection, smashing a hole in its side. The hot air blasting forth caught Jemidon in the chest and flung him down just as he started to rise. He struggled to stand, but the pressure forced him backward toward the spinning blades. Disoriented, he turned to the side to move crosswind, bvit Xhet't suddenly frou in place. In the confusion, he heard one of the giant grindstones, freed from its mooring, lumber by to crash into the opposite wall.

Instinctively he fell prone to the dusty floor and held his breath. As the crash of breaking wood and the whiz of hurling projectiles continued unabated, he dug his fingers into the flooring and waited for the tumult to pass. After a long while-how long he could not tell-the instruments, the hurling debris, the runaway equipment all came to rest. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and rose to his feet. He dusted himself off, blinking at what had happened.

The hall was in complete disarray. Two grindstones were tumbled among the wreckage of the musical instruments. One had crashed through to the chamber beyond. The complicated array of ropes and linkages was a tangle of broken beams and knotted loops. It looked like a huge version of Drandor's lattice dashed against a rock. The saws had stopped spinning; one end of the shaft was out of its bushing and leaning against the floor.

"You can tell your mistress that you have performed your mission well." Rosimar glared at Jemidon from across the room. "It will not be from this guild that she will get the tokens to save her fair skin."

Jemidon was stunned. What had caused him to lash out so inaccurately with his arm? And how could such a small error cause all the damage that he saw around him?

"I don't know what spoiled my coordination." Jemidon shook his head. "It should have been simple enough to move weights about the scale. And in any event, a resonance, as you say, is highly unlikely."

Rosimar's face contorted even further. "Out!" he commanded. "Out! There is no time left for excuses!"

Jemidon started to say more; but before he could, one of the oarsmen from the day before raced into the room. "Master Rosimar," he cried, "master Rosimar, come quickly to my mistress' bidding! She will pay you ample fee!"

"What has happened?" Jemidon asked, trying to block out his thoughts about what he had caused to occur. The feeling was all too familiar, and he did not want to wallow in it again.

"Most unexpected," the oarsman replied, "and yet most welcome news indeed. Trocolar the trader has changed his mind. He will redeposit his holdings into the grotto and with even more tokens besides. Augusta will earn her fee and a larger one than before."

"She asks for me?" Rosimar shook himself away from surveying the wreckage. "Augusta asked specifically for me?"

"Trocolar brings with him his magician, Holgon, to ensure that all is secure. The mistress wants to be represented properly as well."

Rosimar straightened and pushed out his chest. He glared at Jemidon a final time. "An opportunity," he said. "An opportunity despite the hellhole. An opportunity for her to realize who is her better choice."

"My original treasure plus hundreds more," Trocolar said. "You may deduct the storage fee from what is there."

"Why the sudden reversal?" Augusta asked. Even in the dim imp light, Jemidon could see the suspicion in her eyes. They were all huddled together around the chests in the vault, their voices echoing from the walls above the beat of the pumps and the drip of seeping water. Trocolar had already been there when he and Rosimar had arrived. There had been no time to tell her what had happened at the guild-not that he could explain the events in a manner that would keep Rosimar's look of contempt from spreading to Augusta's face.

"Why the reversal?" Trocolar shrugged. "It is because of my new partner, the one whom Holgon found. He has presented to me a plan that is greatly to my benefit. For my part of the bargain, all I have to do is carry out a few simple steps, like redepositing my tokens here, along with his more modest amount. He was furious when he learned that I had made a withdrawal. So many tokens in one spot, he said. Far more than he could quickly assemble himself, each the result of an independent act of ritual, none of them shielded by a magic vault. And the more there are, the easier is Holgon's task."

"What has Holgon to do with this?" Augusta asked.

"He arrives shortly," Trocolar said. "As long as he can perform his ritual of safekeeping here, then these treasures are again yours to guard."

"Other than the pumps and the tokens themselves, there is no magic needed here," Augusta said. "It is the tide alone that keeps the vault in the grotto secure. You know that as well as I."

"Nevertheless, my partner insists," Trocolar replied. "He has prescribed the ritual himself. And you can use your Rosimar here to ensure that nothing goes amiss."

"I am no bondsman to Augusta," Rosimar said weakly. He pushed himself from where he sagged against the slimy wall and tried to fill his lungs. Jemidon saw the color return to his cheeks.

"I serve her for a fee," Rosimar continued, "and because-because that is what I choose."

"Dear Rosimar." Augusta stroked the magician's arm. "Your fear of small places has not gotten any better. I would have asked another master, but you are the one I trust the most in such affairs as these."

"No matter." Rosimar swallowed. "My strength is already returning. And I am as curious as the rest about what this ritual of safekeeping might be. At Cantor Guild we have heard of nothing like it."

"Nor has any other on the island," a voice rang out from the shaft leading to the landing above. A magician, robed in black like Rosimar, splashed down onto the vault floor. Heavy-framed and balding, his eyes were deep-set and burned with some hidden hunger. "It is an example of a new departure. Like none you have seen before."

"So say they all, Holgon, so say they all," Rosimar replied, "But somehow, on close examination, the new rituals turn out to be mere variations on what has worked before."

Holgon ignored the remark and turned to direct a neophyte struggling down the shaft with the magician's gear. "Your partner arrived with me, expert Trocolar," he called over his shoulder, "and he says that we may begin. He would join you down here in the vault, except that the air circulates too little for his needs. The landing above is as close as he chooses to come."

"But it was to be this very place," Trocolar protested. "He explained that no other would do."

"He assures that all is well," Hoigon said. "Once the tokens are securely hidden in their chests and the pumps are stopped, then I can proceed."

"Stop the pumps?" Augusta exclaimed. "But then the vault will begin to fill!"

"Only for the duration of my ritual, so that there is no distraction," Holgon said. "It will be short enough so that little additional seepage will occur."

Jemidon saw Augusta look at Rosimar and the magician shrug indifference. She signaled an attendant by the pumps, and soon the deep, rhythmic throbbing stopped.

Holgon bowed slightly to Augusta and moved to where his neophyte had erected two tripods in front of an uncluttered stretch of wall. On each was a small box, colored in bright blue with a red sash running around the edges and yellow, five-pointed stars in the middle of each face.

Holgon pushed the tripods closer together and then lifted one of the boxes from its stand. With exaggerated flourishes, he unhinged each side of the box from the top. Holding it in his hand, he slowly scanned it in front of the group. The magician replaced it on its stand and repeated the procedure with the other.

"Street conjuring," Rosimar snorted. "No ritual of true magic has such gaudy display."

Holgon did not seem to notice the comment. With his face frozen in a blank smile, he produced a small dove from the sleeve of his robe and pointed at a jeweled collar around its neck. "A bracelet of teleportation," he said. "Completed except for the final step."

Then he placed the dove in the box on the left and snapped shut the sides and lid. He showed the one on the right a second time and closed it up as well.

"And now we wait a moment until the conditions are right," Holgon said. With a flourish, he drew his arms inside opposite sleeves and stood staring straight ahead.

For a moment, everyone was silent, and nothing happened. Then Jemidon felt a sudden jerk from somewhere deep inside. His feeling on Morgana-the one on the top of the cliff, watching Drandor's projections-swelled up within him, only this time more intense. Again he felt cast loose, as if a tug of the tide had parted a mooring rope and set him adrift. He pressed his hands to his sides and squared his feet on the slippery ground. Inwardly, he drifted, gathering speed, joining an invisible current that was sweeping him away.

"The journey begins." A muffled voice snaked down the shaft. "Set the example so that it can be properly completed."

Holgon grunted and resumed his ritual. He produced a small wand from his sleeve and sent it through a rapid series of gyrations.

Jemidon no longer had any interest in following the ritual. He looked at the others, but none showed any sign of discomfort. All were watching what the magician was doing.

Holgon tapped the box on the left, and the sides unlatched and fell open. It was empty, and the dove was gone. Then he put the wand away and carefully cradled the box on the right to his chest. Opening the top, he reached inside and produced the bird wearing the collar. The magician waved the dove back and forth; with a small bow, he hid it back in the container.

Without waiting for comment, Holgon rapidly repeated the steps he had just performed. When he was done, he showed the right-hand box to be empty and the dove to occupy the left. A murmur of impatience ran through the watching assemblage, but Holgon paid no attention. Again he enacted the ritual and yet again.

"And thus it is finished," Holgon shouted out finally after the ninth performance. "The fortunes and futures of expert Trocolar are now well secured."

Jemidon suddenly felt the drifting feeling stop and things anchor as firmly as they were before. In an instant, there was not even a glimmer remaining of what he had felt. As quickly as it had come, the sensation faded away. He shook his head in annoyance, then released the tension in his arms and legs. He could move about as he always had done. There was no feeling of danger that he might leave the ground and float away.

"That is no ritual of magic," Rosimar said. "And the wand patterns were as ill-formed as those of a neophyte. No circles closed, and the cadence was off by at least half a beat. It takes perfection to perform magic, Holgon. I am surprised that your technique shows such a lack of grace. Is that what becomes of one who indentures himself to a trader instead of working in the security of a guild? Does he become a performer of street tricks that mimic magic and waste the watcher's time?"

"And I am still puzzled as well," Augusta said. "You speak of fortunes and futures, but Trocolar's desires are not enhanced if you give me a greater fee rather than none at all."

"Yes, it would seem to be a conundrum for you, Augusta," Trocolar agreed, "a conundrum to be explained in its own due time. But as for me, it is quite simple. If my partner speaks false, then his tokens are forfeited to me. If his words are truth, ah, then, my scheming one, you will indeed have to worry about the cube."

Augusta's eyes widened, but Trocolar did not explain further. He motioned for Holgon to follow and pushed through the others to the ladder leading upward.

"Send this one following after." Rosimar pointed at Jemidon immediately after the trader's party had climbed to the top of the shaft. "He deliberately sabotaged what has taken us months to assemble. Your investment is jeopardized and also my guild's."

Augusta's face contorted in deep furrows. She rubbed her forehead while squinting her eyes closed. "No, Rosimar, no more for today. Trocolar's threats are enough. For the moment, I wish only to think of the fact that his tokens are back and his fees as well. Perhaps this whole exercise is some elaborate charade just for my discomfort. Possibly his chance in the election is nothing but bluster, and he can do no more than torment me with his words."

"You need a steady hand and experience to guide you through the next few days," Rosimar said, "not an incompetent who cannot perform the simplest magics."

"You stated yourself that the ritual had a flaw," Jemidon said. "And your neophytes were none too eager to perform in my place."

Jemidon drew a deep breath to say more, but Augusta placed her fingers across his lips. "Hush, my dreamer. Do not bother to add your words to Rosimar's din. For now, let me be away so that I can rest. If you truly want to help, then try to understand what lies behind Trocolar's words. Does Holgon's pretty display have any real meaning, or is it merely a fantasy of the mind?"

She looked back at Rosimar. "And with Trocolar's fee, we are better positioned than before. There will be time enough to plan for additional funding for your guild-time enough after the elections are over and we have won."

Without saying more, Augusta glided past all who remained and began to climb the ladder.

Rosimar looked at Jemidon, grunted, and made his way to the tripods. "If it provides her with reassurance, then it will be worth the effort," he said.

Jemidon sighed with relief. His latest failure need not matter. He again could focus on tracking Drandor and Delia. He tried pushing the events of the morning out of his consciousness, back to the deep pit of memory where he hid the rest of the similar occurrences. With a shake of his head to clear his thoughts, he joined the magician in taking apart the tripods.

For over two hours, Jemidon and the magician examined the two boxes and their stands, looking for some trace of true magic, but finding only hidden latches and sliding panels.

"You were right," Jemidon said at last. "It is no more than a conjuring trick from the mainland."

Rosimar started to reply, but the pump attendant approached and pulled at his sleeve. "Master, I need assistance. I have tried all the variations that I know. The pumps! I cannot get them to restart!"