«You leave the rest to me,» Chaumel said. He snapped his fingers and a servitor appeared bearing a tray holding a wine bottle and a glass. He poured out a measure of amber liquid and offered it to Keff. The brawn shook his head and resumed pacing. With a shrug, Chaumel drank the wine himself.
«All clear and ready to go,» Carialle said through Keff's implant.
«Receiving,» Keff said, testing his lingual transmitter, and let it broadcast to the others.
«I have pinpointed the frequencies of all of Chaumel's and Plennafrey's items of power, including their chariots. They're all within a very narrow wave band. Will you ask Plenna to try manipulating something, preferably not dangerous or breakable?»
Plenna, grateful for something to do to interrupt the waiting, was happy to oblige.
«I shall use my belt to make my shoe float,» Plenna said, taking off her dainty primrose slipper and holding it aloft. She stepped away, leaving it in place in midair.
«But you're not touching the belt,» Keff said. «I've noticed the others do that, too.»
Plenna laughed, a little thinly, showing that she, too, was nervous about the coming confrontation. «For such a small thing, concentrating is enough.»
«Here goes,» Carialle said.
Without fanfare, the shoe dropped to the ground.
«Hurrah!» Keff cheered.
«That is impossible,» Plenna said. She picked it up and replaced it, this time with her hand under her long sash.
«Do it again, Cari!»
Carialle needed a slightly more emphatic burst of static along the frequency, but it broke the spell. The shoe tumbled to the floor. Plennafrey put it back on her foot.
«No answerback, no power,» Carialle said simply, in Keff's ear. «Now all I have to do is be open to monitor the next magiman's power signals and I can interrupt his spells, too. I'm only afraid that with such narrow parameters, there might be spillover to another item I don't want to shut off. I'm tightening up tolerances as much as I can.»
«Good job, Cari,» Keff said. He smacked his palms together and rubbed them.
«You are very cheerful about the fall of a shoe,» Chaumel said.
«It may be the solution to any problems with dissenters,» Keff said.
A flash of gold against the dark sky drew their attention to the broad balcony visible through the tall doors. Nokias materialized alone above Chaumel's residence and alighted in the nearest spot to the door. As their message had bidden him, he had arrived discreetly, without an entourage. Chaumel rose from his easy chair and strode out to greet his distinguished guest.
«Great Mage Nokias! You honor my poor home. How kind of you to take the trouble to visit. I regret if my message struck you as anything but a humble request.»
Nokias's reply was inaudible. Chaumel continued in the same loud voice, heaping compliments on the Mage of the South. Keff and Plenna hid behind the curtained doors and listened. Plenna suppressed a giggle.
«Laying it on thick, isn't he?» Keff whispered. The girl had to cover her mouth with both hands not to let out a trill of amusement.
Nokias mellowed under Chaumel's rain of praise and entered the great hall in expansive good humor.
«Why the insistence on secrecy, old friend?» the high mage asked, slapping Chaumel on the back with one of his huge hands.
«There was a matter that I could discuss only with you, Nokias,» Chaumel said. He beckoned toward the others' place of concealment.
Keff stepped out from the curtains, pulling Plenna with him.
«Good evening, High Mage,» he said, bowing low. Nokias's narrow face darkened with anger.
«What are they doing here?» Nokias demanded.
Chaumel lost not a beat in his smooth delivery of compliments.
«Keff has a tale to tell you, high one,» Chaumel said. «About our ancestors.»
Carialle, alone on the night-draped plain a hundred klicks to the east, monitored the conversation through Keff's aural and visual implants. Chaumel was good. Every move, every gesture, was intended to bring his listeners closer to his point of view. If Chaumel ever chose to leave Ozran, he had a place in the Diplomatic Service any time he cared to apply.
She kept one eye on him while running through her archives. Her job was to produce, on cue, the images Chaumel wanted. Certain parameters needed to be met. The selection of holographic video must make their point to a hostile audience. And hostile Nokias would be when Chaumel got to the bottom line.
«You are no doubt curious why I should ask you here, when we spent all day yesterday and all morning together, High Mage,» Chaumel said, jovially, «but an important matter has come up and you were the very first person I thought of asking to aid me.»
«I?» Nokias asked, clearly flattered. «But what is this matter?»
«Ah,» Chaumel said, and spoke to the air. «Carialle, if you please?»
«Carialle?» Nokias asked, looking first at Plennafrey, then at Keff. «Has he two names, then?»
«No, high one. But Keff does come from whence our ancestors came, and his silver tower has another person in it. She cannot come out to see you, but she has many talents.»
That was the first signal. Using video effects she cadged from a 3-D program she and Keff watched in port, she spun the image up from the holo-table as a complicated spiral, widening it until it resolved itself as the globe of Ozran, present day.
Nokias was impressed by Keff's 'magic,' according him a respectful glance before studying the picture before him. Chaumel led him through a discussion of current farming techniques.
At the next cue, Carialle introduced the image of Ozran as it had been in their distant past.
». . . If more attention were paid to farming and conservation,» Chaumel's smooth voice continued.
Maybe a little video of a close-up look at the farms run by the four-fingers would be helpful. Pity the images taken through Keff's contact button were 2-D, but she could coax a pseudo-holograph out of the stereoscopic view from his eye implants. She found the image from the dog-peoples commune, and cropped out images of the six- packs hauling a clothful of small roots.
». . . Higher yield . . . water usage . . . native vegetation . . . advantage in trade . . .»
In the seat of honor, Nokias sat up straighter. Chaumel's sally regarding superior trading power among the regions had struck a chord in the southern magiman's mind.
«My people farm the tropical zone,» Nokias noted, nodding toward Plennafrey, who was all large eyes watching her senior. «We harvest a good deal of soft fruit.» Chaumel reacted with polite interest as if it were the first time he'd heard that fact. «If the climate were warmer and more humid, I could see a greater yield from my orchards. That does interest me, friend Chaumel.»
«I am most honored. High Mage,» the silver magiman said smoothly, with a half-bow. «As you see, there has been a deterioration . . .»
Keeping the holo playing, Carialle ran through the datafile, looking for specific images relating to yield. With some amusement, she discovered the video from her servos search for the marsh flower. Globe-frogs clunked into one another getting out of the low-slung robots way. They gestured indignantly at the servo for scaring them.
«Help us save Ozran,» Chaumel was saying, using both gesture and word to emphasize his concept. «Help us to stay the destruction of our world by our own hand.»
«Help,» Carialle repeated to herself, translating the sign language Chaumel used.
«It would also be good to cease dosing the workers with forget-drugs so they will be smart enough to aid us in saving our world,» Plennafrey spoke up, timidly.
«That I am not sure I would do,» Nokias said.
«Oh, but consider it,» Plenna begged. 'They are part of our people. With less power, you will need more aid from them. All it would take is giving them the ability to take more responsibility for their tasks. Help us,» she said, also making the gesture.
Carialle played the video of the first landing, including the encounters with the Old Ones. Nokias was deeply
