Jemidon stared back into the blackness. 'Drandor,' he said. 'We still must flee. He cannot be far behind.'
'And the lattice and the bottle,' Delia answered.
Jemidon grunted and gathered his remaining energy. He ran to fetch the array of wires and beads. 'Wrap the imp in what remains of my cape,' he called back. 'The trader probably knows these trails less well than I.'
'Where do we go?'
Jemidon began a shrug and then stopped with the reminder of pain. The cuts in his shoulder were not deep, but they would have to be attended to. And the fight with the hounds had been exhausting. He had no more ideas. 'To the hut of Farnel, the master sorcerer,' he said as he started to jog down the path, one arm dangling at his side. 'We can hope he is already back from the feast.' He stopped for a moment while she caught up with him. 'I guess I will have to ask for additional favors sooner than I thought,' he said.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sorcerer's Gamble
JEMIDON pounded wearily on the rough-hewn door. The rain had stopped. Dawn was breaking over the high hills to the east. Now, with the light, they needed a shelter in which to hide. Because of Jemidon's injury, they had had to move slowly, and Drandor had remained fairly close behind.
'Away with the summons,' Jemidon heard Farnel growl from behind the door. Indeed, the master had already returned. 'The presentation is not until noon. And I need not rush. The loose tongues of the other masters made clear how their votes would be cast. I have seen enough tokens bestowed on Gerilac. One more time will hardly matter.'
'It is your tyro!' Jemidon shouted. 'And I have a problem-something that your experience with the ways of the island may be able to resolve!'
The door creaked open. A bleary-eyed Farnel in a rumpled nightshirt squinted out into the growing brightness, He grunted recognition and motioned Jemidon inside. With a second wave, he indicated the fruit on a side table and lumbered back toward the bed.
'Jemidon offered me aid when I was most needy,' Delia said without moving. 'I hope the kindness of a master will be even greater.'
Farnel turned back, rubbed his eyes, and looked closer at Delia. He shook himself suddenly awake. 'Speak again,' he said slowly.
'I ask for your help,' Delia replied.
'And more, something that gives difficulty to the tongue.' A hint of excitement crept into Farnel's voice. In an instant, he was transformed from a groggy-headed old man into a straight-backed master of sorcery, dancing eyes hinting at the dart of thought suddenly alive within.
Delia paused, then spoke again, puzzled. 'Do you mean things like fresh cheese or six sick sheep?'
'The voice is a pure one.' Farnel looked at Jemidon, rubbing his hands in satisfaction. 'Perhaps you have been of some value after all.'
'Her delights do not matter,' Jemidon said. 'That is not why I have brought her here.' He was still exhausted from the struggle. The pain in his arm was now a constant throb.
'Nor are they my interest,' Farnef snapped. 'Can you not hear how she speaks? Are you so intertwined with theories that practicalities of the art totally escape you? That voice! No one on the island, tyro or master, has one that comes close to its purity. Wrapped around a charm, it would be perfection. My peers would offer much of their learning in order to cast a cantrip or glamour with such clarity.' He stopped and thought. 'Yes, we must try it. It is worth the effort. Far better than debating the virtues of Gerilac's style or struggling with meaningless competitions. If the others hear the value of faultless words, then convincing them of the purity of my art will follow easily. How could anyone resist the truth of what I always have maintained, if it is so perfectly spoken?'
Farnel glanced around his hut and scowled in annoyance at the disarray. 'Come in. Come in and make yourself comfortable, lass. I am most curious as to how you will repeat what I will tell you.'
'But that is not why we are here,' Delia said as she and Jemidon passed through the doorway. She looked around the rough furnishings and eventually sat in the only uncluttered chair. 'Drandor may have been close enough to see us enter. I do not care to confront unprepared anything else he might fetch from his tent.'
'To aid in some petty squabble is not why I have asked you in.' Farnel waved away the words. 'We will select the charm before anything else.'
'Then make it a Wall of Impedance.' Jemidon grimaced as he lowered the lattice to the floor. Farnel's flying off on some diversion of the art was not something he wished even to contemplate. And he was annoyed with himself for not recognizing the potential of Delia's voice as had the master. 'A Wall of Impedance, some sort of chant to block the hurt.'
Farnel noted Jemidon's pained expression, and then his eyebrows rose in question marks as he saw the bloodstained sleeve. 'End?' he asked.
'Later.' Jemidon shook his head. 'After I have some rest.'
Farnel frowned and looked about the hut. 'I have some sweetbalm here,' he said. 'Payment by an alchemist who wanted a private glamour two seasons back. It is old and stale and, as a side effect, it sometimes produces a great desire to sleep. But it might aid until a charm is cast.'
Farnel rummaged through a box at the foot of his bed and then tossed Jemidon a small tube of salve. Jemidon grunted thanks, removed his tunic, and applied the balm to the cuts in his shoulder. Almost instantly, the throb diminished and the swelling began to subside.
Farnel watched the red begin to fade from the wounds and turned his attention back to Delia. 'Each of the other arts has its place, I suppose,' he said. He smiled at Delia as he approached. 'Now the Wall of Impedance. Yes, just the thing to teach the lass. Simple enough that it is one of the first instructed to the tyro, but with enough potency that the enunciation must be exact.'
The sorcerer took the imp bottle from Delia and set it on a table. 'Pay attention to the beginning,' he commanded. 'The last few syllables are not quite the same, and that makes all the difference.'
'The help I seek is not one of instruction.' Delia shook her head slightly and looked out a small window facing the trail. 'But if I can remain hidden long enough, perhaps the trader will give up the search and sail on to Pluton, as he had planned before I fled.'
'Pluton,' Farnel said. 'A trader will find little to barter there. Fortunes are measured by sums and abstractions on paper, not by trinkets from faraway lands. Why, even the common gossip of the day must be bought, rather than freely received.'
Delia ignored the comment. 'Will you provide the shelter and more active aid, if that is what I need?'
'Will you attempt the charm?'
Delia looked once more out the window. She touched the iron around her wrist, and her shoulders sagged. 'Oh, if you must, tell me the beginning,' she said. 'It is far less than what I would otherwise have to pay.'
Farnel rubbed his hands together like a small boy anticipating a new toy. Jemidon settled down onto the floor beside the lattice and tried to make himself comfortable. He was still aware of the wound in his shoulder, although the pain was much reduced. And now, without its distraction, Farnel's interest in Delia began to grate as an irritant. Perhaps it was the fatigue and tomorrow he would think more clearly; but, by the laws, he was the master's tyro, not someone of only a few moments acquaintance. If there was to be instruction, he was the one who should receive it. And with no previous exposure, it would take Delia considerable time to grasp all the subtle shades of intonation.
For the Wall of Impedance, he had required more than two hours, practicing each syllable over and over until it was spoken correctly. The effort had been such a drudgery that he had not even bothered to string them together and try the complete charm when he was done. None of them had he practiced. Once one was explained to the end, his interest had waned. Far more intriguing was how the next cantrip or glamour was begun.
As Farnel droned on and Delia echoed, Jemidon idly fingered the coin about his neck and tried to recapture his feelings when Drandor had projected his images on the beach. He looked at the lattice and frowned as he struggled to understand its structure. Near his arm, the basic pattern was highly symmetrical. Nodes spaced
