if you turned out to be no better than the rest?'
Jemidon's anger melted. Beneath the exterior barrier, there was feeling for him after all. He reached out tentatively, but halted before he touched her arm. 'I thought that no one's burden was greater than my own,' he said softly. 'I have spent my life reaching for an elusive goal. But perhaps it is worse to be running away from a past that can never be changed.'
Delia took his outstretched hand and pressed it to her cheek. 'Your insight pierces more than the interior of lifeless puzzles,' she said with a small smile. 'You are right, Jemidon. I have used you as I have many others; and even now I came to use you still.'
Delia placed her finger across Jemidon's lips. 'No, say no more. There is too little time left to be so ill met. I wish to try again. But first I must think of a gift, a gift freely given without any obligations attached.'
After a moment, Delia dropped her hand. The passion ebbed away. Jemidon took a deep breath and then joined her in a chorus of coughs. The air had a distinctively metallic taste, with hints of sulfur, like the breath of the djinn which had transported them here between the universes. He tried to think of something more to say, but the words would not come. In silence, they stood facing each other, with the foul wind whistling between them and tugging at their clothes.
After a few moments more, Jemidon felt a tap on his shoulder. He whirled to see Ponzar and two others standing in a row.
'Yes,' Jemidon snapped. 'What do you want? If it is our bones, you have come too soon. We are not ready yet to give ourselves up.'
'It is the matter of Utothaz's final peace.' Ponzar ignored the tone. 'It seems that the removal of the ribs gives him some pain. And at the convergence, you had mentioned a Foam of Wellbeing.'
'The law is not operative here,' Jemidon said. 'I would produce only a minor explosion as before.'
'But if there were an unlocking,' Ponzar said, 'and you attempted the formula within the confines of Utothaz's palms.'
Jemidon frowned for a moment and then nodded in understanding. 'With the laws uncoupled, it might be a least contradiction. We are far away from any other lithon, so the effects of the others will be quite small. It might work at that.' He glanced at Delia, then looked down at his coinchanger and tugged the brandel around his neck. 'And I might just as well while away the time with one puzzle as with the next. Yes, lead on. I will run through the formula once again.'
Ponzar and the others turned and headed back toward the pit with the tablestone. Jemidon started to follow, then hesitated and looked back at Delia, She held her head downward, avoiding his glance. 'Get out of the wind,' he said thickly. 'I will work on a seal when I am done with the alchemy.'
Jemidon looked down at the pilot lying on the table-stone and tried to hide his revulsion. Both of the Skyskirr's legs dangled over the edge of the rock like limp rags. The hands were folded across the stomach in a tangle of pliant fingers. The chest spread over the stone far wider than natural proportions would allow. Beneath the skin, Jemidon could see the weak throb of the heart. Crowded behind the pilot was the entire population of Ponzar's lithon. Manipulants, weavers, smiths, and scribes all waited respectfully to see Utothaz's last.
'How can he lay on his hands,' Jemidon asked, 'let alone work the pyramid to perform the decoupling?'
'A manipulant will assist,' Ponzar said. 'Signal when you are ready.'
Jemidon checked off the materials at his feet. Ponzar had produced a larger flask of vinegar than before. Following Jemidon's instructions, he had even rummaged and found a purer sack of soda. Jemidon fingered the sharp piece of charcoal for writing the formula and brushed his knuckles over a finely tanned hide on which to make the symbols. Mentally, he ran through the symbology just to make sure that it was all still fresh in his mind.
'Ready.' He nodded to Ponzar. 'When he has performed the decoupling, I will add the ingredients together.'
Ponzar nodded to Utothaz, and the metamagician chittered instructions to the manipulant at his side. The fleshy fingers were pressed against the pyramid, and the vertices slowly turned. Jemidon felt an increase in tension, like a rope stretched by a great weight, and then a snapping release. He was adrift as before, feeling the wandering of the universe among the lattice of the laws. All eyes turned to him, expecting the flourish of the formula.
For a moment he hesitated, exploring in his mind the feeling that was no longer strange. He clutched the brandel about his neck, running his thumb and forefinger over the smooth surface. He visualized the mysterious box that spilled out secrets tipping on its side, the top flopping open, and all the contents pouring out to diffuse through the rest of his thoughts. He reached for the snaky tendrils as they floated past, fraying their strands into finer and finer threads, searching for the answer to the last of the puzzles. He grabbed at one knot of significance as it drifted past, some fact, some observation that was more important than the rest. But it squirmed from his grasp, hovering just out of reach with what he most wanted to know.
'The alchemy,' Ponzar said softly in his ear. 'You must hurry. Utothaz must also unlock for the succession testing, and there is very little time.'
Jemidon coughed in response and wrinkled his nose. The smell was tangibly worse. He heard one or two of the others wheeze as well. He shook himself alert and carefully set aside the charcoal and leather. Cupping his hand, he dug into the sack of soda, snagging a nail on the burlap side. Again he dug, but stumped his fingertips against a solidified clump. When he retracted his arm, he lost half the load against the flap that fell in the way.
Jemidon reached for the flask with his other hand and frowned in annoyance. The stopper was stuck fast, even though he had tested it moments before. For an instant he fumbled; then one of the manipulants boldly reached from where he crouched and pulled the cork with a deft motion. Jemidon tipped his hand containing the soda toward the opening and watched most of the powder blow away, pushed by the wind. But before he could react, the manipulant plunged his arms into the sack and dumped two heaving portions into the flask. With a flourish, the Skyskirr pushed shut the seal.
Jemidon frowned, then shrugged as he saw the others paying no attention to his bumbling, but waiting instead for the scripting of the formula. He retrieved the small piece of charcoal between Fingers suddenly numb and cold. Touching it to the hide, he started to draw the first swirl. Or was it a swirl? The second had a serif that curled into the third. The fourth was a simple triangle, or perhaps one with a dot where the altitudes crossed. Jemidon knitted his brow. This was nonsense. He had known it all just moments before. And success or failure did not matter. Utothaz would soon pass, conscious of pain or not. This was no examination for the master's robe. He gritted his teeth and tried to remember the formula. But with each passing second, it faded farther and farther away.
Jemidon closed his eyes and felt sweat form on his forehead. The icy wind cooled the droplets to become freezing pain. A chorus of chittering forced his attention back to the flask. He blinked at what he saw. At the last possible moment, he hurled it away to explode harmlessly downwind.
'It might not have succeeded anyhow,' he said quickly before Ponzar could speak. 'Perhaps some other contradiction forced it away.'
The captain closed his eyes and did not respond. After a moment, he stood to full height in the wind and pounded the handle of his shovel for attention. He pointed at Utothaz, still managing to labor on the table, and motioned all the Skyskirr who were not manipulants to form into a line.
'We will use the decoupling instead for the testing.' Ponzar turned to Jemidon and explained. 'It is unfortunate that the last moments of the pilot will not be without some pain.' He paused and spoke in a whisper that Jemidon could barely hear. 'And I think it is best that you try for possession of the key as well.'
Jeraidon shrugged and kicked at the sack of soda at his feet. 'Why not?' he agreed. 'I can perform none of my own domain's crafts. Perhaps my skill lies in the simple manipulation of the stones.'
He said no more. In a foul mood, he pulled himself along the safety rope to the rear of the line. From the way the queue snaked around the uneven surface of the lithosoar, he had an unobstructed view of the tablestone. The procedure was simple enough. The first in line reverently swung down into the pit and listened to Utothaz's hoarse commands. Starling with brown cairngorm on predetermined marks, the Skyskirr moved the stones over calibrated trajectories chiseled into the rock and then he was done. For each one who tried, the sequence was slightly different. Some traced out hyperbolas, and others looped the stones in ellipses or circles about a common focus. But all apparently were able to do as directed. Ponzar indicated success by dipping his shovel after each had
