'Ocanar speaks with good judgment.' Pelinad put his hand on his sword hilt. 'There is no need for confrontation.'
Melizar hesitated. His deep cowl slowly scanned the line of Pelinad's men, all grasping weapons. Like cranked crossbows, they tensely waited the signal that would release their restraint. Ocanar's troop responded in kind.
For a long moment, no one moved. All eyes were on the leader to see what would happen next.
'A fight here in the foothills sheds none of Kenton's blood,' Melizar said at last. 'And it is not according to my plan. Perhaps I do agree, Ocanar. The battlefield is best. There is no need to test this so-called master now. Let him show his merits in the pass, and then all can judge the true prowess of his craft.'
Jemidon bit his tip. Melizar knew full well that nothing remained of sorcery. The stranger was maneuvering Canthor and Pelinad into a position from which they were bound to fail. But right now, he could say nothing. His own position was too tenuous. And it was just as well that Melizar did not recognize him as one who had disrupted Trocolar's scheme in the grotto. Later, when he knew more, he could formulate the best course of action.
Ocanar tugged on his beard, looked at Melizar, and then glanced across to where Canthor stood. 'Yes, tomorrow can be the judge. Pelinad, do you abide by it? The one of us whose power best decides the battle, then he is to lead us both.'
'What battle?' Pelinad asked. 'We do not yet have the strength to confront Kenton in his keep, even with both of us acting together. And soon he is to be fortified by a troop of the prince's own from Searoyal.'
'It is your good fortune that we have met,' Ocanar said. 'Your ignorance would otherwise prove quite costly.' He turned and forced a laugh that his men picked up in chorus. 'This troop from Searoyal. No doubt you have seen some trace?' He turned back to mock Pelinad. 'What would happen if they came upon you unaware?'
'In truth, we have seen nothing,' Pelinad said. 'We have been in these hills, planning for our successful raid.'
'You would have seen nothing, even if you had been on the plain!' Ocanar roared. 'They do not beat upriver for all to see, so that we can melt away.' He waved a fleshy palm to the east. 'No, they proceed by stealth in the next valley. Through Plowblade Pass they intend to come-to fall upon us in our lairs and thrash us from behind is their plan.'
Ocanar paused, sucking in his breath. 'But we are the ones who will stage the ambush. It is into our trap they will fall, not us into theirs. And after our victory, the plains will erupt with fire. Not a single man will hold back. Kenton and the others will be swept from the fields. It will be a true rebellion at last.' Ocanar gazed off into the distance, savoring his thoughts, then fixed Pelinad with a hard stare. 'You dispute my leadership, Pelinad. But by the laws, on what grounds? Certainly not your vision; you show as much imagination as an ambulator upon his mill.'
'It was I who found the truth,' Melizar said before Pelinad could reply. 'Nimrod has many friends in the royal garrisons. Let us keep the importance of my contributions firmly in focus, Ocanar. I have been deceived once by your kind. This time there is to be no misunderstanding.'
'Our agreement still stands,' Ocanar said. 'I see no reason to change it. You come with a dozen men in mail, fully trained fighters whom you offer to be my captains. And they have bullied my rabble into fighting shape, I do not deny it. Aid me in plucking Kenton from his keep, and what you ask shall be yours, even if I do not understand why you want it so.'
'You find it strange, do you not, that my lust is not for a manor and rows of humble servants? Those trappings, Ocanar, will all come in the proper time. For now, I desire only a halt of all thaumaturgy. After the unlocking, I will need nothing more. And what better way to achieve what I wish than the chaos of insurrection? Unlike sorcery and magic, the craft is too widespread for the contradiction to be effective any other way.'
Melizar paused, and his voice hardened. 'And in the end, we shall see whose fiefdom is the greater. A single valley is not enough to interest even the least able pilot, and among them I am the first.'
'As I have said, it is agreed.' Ocanar waved his arm in irritation. 'I have heard enough of your mumbled nonsense before. Just make sure that your rock rumblings and strange images are ready when they are needed.'
'I begin my preparations for tomorrow now,' Melizar said, motioning back to the hill over which he had come. 'It is somewhat paradoxical that ihe power of thaumaturgy, which makes the transition so difficult, also greatly mitigates the unlocking.'
'Your cozy tent provides the catalyst for much grumbling among the men,' Ocanar said. 'You should sleep on the ground like my men.'
'Warmth?' Melizar said. 'Rest? It is not for those that the Maxim of Perturbations was vitalized in the grotto. Which would you rather? Push a pack train along these trails, or have a single minion effortlessly guide my possessions as they are guided now?'
Ocanar did not respond. Jeminod looked to the crest-line and saw a large tent float over the rise. It was Drandor's, the one that had caught his eye in the bazaar on Morgana, its faded canvas hung in loose folds; coarse stitching bound swaths of different colors together in jagged seams. But, unlike the structure on the island, no guy ropes or stakes were to be seen. The bottom side panels gently rippled over the rock and scrubby plants, like the hem of a woman's dress. All the cloth danced and wavered as the whole structure bobbed along. A single man- at-arms held the end of a rope that ran to a ring attached above an entrance flap. He tugged the structure along without effort into a quickening morning breeze.
'Perturbations,' Melizar repeated. 'Perhaps not as dramatic as a dance which crashes open fissures in the earth, but guidance of small swirls of air at the right place and time can produce buoyant effects as good as the largest balloon.'
With a soft whoosh of the tent, the men-at-arms halted a short distance behind Ocanar's line of men. Melizar glided into the opening and returned shortly with the drums and weights that Jemidon had seen briefly in the interior of the tent when Drandor had shown him around.
Drandor's tent. Drandor. Drandor and Delia. Jemidon's thoughts took another sudden turn. He ran his tongue over his teeth, trying to recapture the taste of his thoughts before Ocanar's band had arrived. The slave girl still felt important, as important as the lattice and the rest. But he was no closer to understanding the other pieces of the puzzle than he was to why she held such an allure.
'These will be used for our common benefit.' Melizar waved the drums in Pelinad's direction. 'Simple devices that aid me in my craft. Hold your men silent, so that I may receive all that they tell.' He looked at Canthor. 'If your master has any preparations to make as well, then gladly will Ocanar's legion return the favor.'
Pelinad glanced at Canthor and then scowled. He flung his arm to the side in acquiescence and prepared to watch with the rest.
Jemidon tried to concentrate on what Melizar was doing as the cold one set the drums up in a row between the two lines of men and adjusted the tension in the heads, one by one. But the surge of his thoughts increased rather than subsided. He felt wispy tendrils in his mind, tantalizing glimmers of some insight that eluded his grasp. Deep inside, there seemed to be a tiny box whose lid was slowly beginning to open, oozing out marvels that had never been suspected, but which were nonetheless true.
Jemidon stared at Melizar. Even the proximity of the stranger was suddenly unsettling. Before, he had been mysterious. But now his every motion seemed to have an effect on Jemidon's thoughts. Each precise flick of the long, thin fingers crashed the images about in Jemidon's head. He felt the muscles tighten in his back. His mouth grew dry. A hint of queasiness floated up from his stomach. Something unpleasant was about to happen. For whatever the reason, now he wanted nothing to do with this stranger, nothing at all. Cautiously, Jemidon slumped to the ground and tightened his arms about his chest.
'Seven drums,' Melizar said to Ocanar. 'Seven drums, one for each of the laws.'
'I am a fighter, not a practitioner of the arts,' Ocanar responded impatiently. 'The details of your craft are not my concern.'
'Perhaps it is a weakness,' Melizar said. 'It gives me a perverse pleasure to display my workings for all to see and have none understand the slightest glimmer of what truths they mirror. Well spoken, Ocanar. It is the blind devotion to the narrow perspective of your kind that gives me the greatest assurance that a pilot and his manipulants shall succeed.'
Melizar selected a small weight that was not wired to a drumhead and gently placed it in the center of the first tight membrane. The tare barely dimpled the surface. 'The new sorcery,' Melizar said. 'And there are no
