do.'
The masters squirmed and pressed together, shoulder to shoulder with Jemidon against the wall. Again they leaped to collide with the cube, rolling it forward another quarter turn.
'To what purpose?' the magician gasped. 'We only make more unbearable the conditions at the end.'
'Just follow my commands,' Jemidon snapped back. 'No, not that side. Now we have to change direction. There is need for explanation only if we succeed.'
The box shrank again, leaving barely enough room for the masters to maneuver according to Jemidon's orders. They collided into the wall with a jolt that spun them over three times more.
As they struggled, the cube continued its contractions. They managed two additional rotations before it pinned their limbs in a tangle, so that they could no longer spring. One of the alchemists gasped with pain as the other tried to pull free a leg twisted to the side.
'Once more,' Jemidon said. 'Rock back and forth where you are. I think I can hear the whine.'
Jemidon moved one foot from where it pushed against the magician's stomach until it rested high on the rear wall. Twisting his torso so that both hands were more or less angled forward, he oscillated his hips back and forth above the masters. He felt the box rock in response to his motions, as if balanced precariously over a slight irregularity in the slope. With a savage lurch that sent stabs of pain into contorted wrists, he tipped the cube over for a final time. He hoped his memory had been accurate. There would be no chance to maneuver again if he had misjudged the distance or orientation.
As the cube tumbled, Jemidon heard the walls vibrate with an ear-piercing grate. With a shudder, the box groaned and contracted. Like children wrapped in a blanket, none of the occupants could any longer move. With a bone-jolting crash, they came to rest against hard and solid ground.
The magician again began his incoherent babble. One of the alchemists added a mournful cry. Jemidon slowly twisted his head, gasping for air between sandaled feet that raked across his cheek. There was no time left. Either his assumptions indeed were correct, or the next contraction would be one of bone-crushing pain. Almost afraid to find out, he held his breath and began to extend his foot past a fleshy resistance, searching for the smoothness of a metal wall. Finally he made contact and pushed with what little leverage he could muster. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a pop, the structure fell away, allowing everyone to tumble out. Jemidon collapsed onto unyielding rock, barely able to see a hand span in front of his face because of the toxic brown vapor that swirled everywhere.
'Where are we? What has happened?' one of the masters managed to cough. 'By what glorious accident are we set free?'
'We are in Melizar's universe, on Ponzar's lithon,' Jemidon said. 'And it is no accident that the box no longer works. See the red arch in the brown? There is the demon. We moved the cube through the opening. But more importantly, we moved it to where the law that contracts it does not have power. I could not be sure, but it was our only chance. Here it is a mere box of metal, unable to respond to the commands of Melizar's manipulant.'
'Melizar's universe,' the master gasped. 'Then back through the arch and let us flee, before he returns and confines us again.'
For a moment, Jemidon hesitated. He peered through the haze, trying lo spot the opening to where Delia must be lying beneath the surface of the lithon. But then he clenched his fist and looked back toward the djinn. 'No,' he said, more to himself than to the others. 'First it will be the tent,' he commanded. 'That is the pathway to the solution.'
Jemidon did not waste any thought on how close had been his escape. He tugged at an alchemist's sleeve and whipped him through the portal. Like dazed sheep, the two other masters followed as he ran toward the flopping canvas.
When he drew close, Jemidon grabbed the faded panels in both hands. With a burst of strength, he ripped them away from the poles and rigging. Running around the structure, he exposed the contents to the air, kicking the tatters of cloth aside.
'Unpack all the crates and examine what they contain,' he yelled. 'Make ready to use whatever you find the most familiar.'
Jemidon glanced at a realgar boulder and saw Melizar's three manipulants lounging sluggishly, awaiting the pilot's return: He looked down the slope over the bodies of the fallen masters and men-at-arms. He saw the metamagician and the remains of his retinue, about a dozen men-at-arms, all walking with majestic slowness to confront the Arcadian king.
'Duel!' Jemidon cupped his hands and shouted. 'Duel of the metamagicians! Flee only if you are fearful of the outcome. Let us see the extent of your power, Melizar, when it is evenly contested.'
Melizar stopped and slowly turned. He looked up the slope and waved his arms in annoyance. The warriors reversed their march. At a trot, they started back up the hill.
'Tambourines and knotted ropes,' the magician called out from a nearby trunk. 'Not like those for any ritual I know, but somehow similar, nonetheless.'
'And potions and powders,' an alchemist shouted. 'Condensing columns, grimoires with arcane symbols, none like any I have ever seen.'
'Get them all out and look for more,' Jemidon called over his shoulder. 'But do not manipulate any until I have given the command. Wait until Melizar begins his decoupling and I appear to resist. I am betting that he will try to handle things quickly with the realgar. He cannot ignore us while we are here. The threat is too great that I might attempt the same.'
Jemidon nodded as he saw the metamagician reach for his decoupling cube and wave his arms to signal his manipulants. The pilot's followers stirred from their rest and began to move some of the smaller pieces of the rock in helical trajectories. Jemidon looked for the pile of keys that Melizar had collected from the other metamagicians when they passed through the portal to surrender. He saw the twisted remains of his changer lying on top. He ran over to where it lay and hefted the hunk of flattened metal that could hold coins no more.
And as he did, he felt the snapping jolt of a decoupling. While Melizar's men-at-arms rushed forward with swords drawn, the metamagician's laughter carried over their heads on the stirring of a breeze. Jemidon grabbed the battered changer and concentrated on resisting the unlocking, but he never had a chance to start. He felt the fury of Melizar's power knocking his own feeble strength aside as if it were a leaf in the wind. The metamagician's rage, caused by his continual annoyance, bubbled in Jemidon's mind. The laws decoupled with a burst, not gradually drifting, but vibrating with the energy of the pilot's frustration.
'Now,' Jemidon shouted to the magician. 'As many elements of ritual as you can. Better and faster than you have ever enacted them before.'
The magician reacted swiftly to Jemidon's words. He grabbed a tambourine and flung three cuttings of rope onto its flat surface, dancing them about with a tap of his hand. Immediately Jemidon felt the laws pause in mid- shudder and a gentle acceleration away from the node of the lattice.
'And now the alchemy,' Jemidon shouted. 'It does not matter what, as long as there is enough.'
The alchemists responded by dumping a sackful of sparkling powder into an uncorked bottle of some fuming liquid. Sparks flew from the mixture, rising into the sky.
Jemidon looked at the manipulants struggling with the realgar. They still moved sluggishly, and their precise motions were not enough. The laws were drifting in a direction different from the one Melizar had intended. But the metamagician sensed what was happening as well. He waved his arms and his attendants quickened their pace, hurling showers of rocks simultaneously over the crest and down the slope in ragged sprays.
The laws kept drifting in the direction of the new magic and alchemy. Jemidon saw Melizar stop in his climb and huddle into a tight knot, the imp light above his head suddenly alive. For a moment, the drift continued uncontested, but then Melizar suddenly stood erect.
Jemidon felt the metamagician reassert his strength, this time attempting to relock the laws where they had just been anchored. The metamagician had decided that working with the magic and alchemy he had was better than giving them up, even in the hopes of activating the realgar. Again Jemidon offered resistance, grasping the changer and straining to force the fabric of existence farther from its mooring and increase the rate of drift.
But Melizar was far stronger. Jemidon felt the current begin to slow and then finally reverse direction, heading back to the node of the lattice from which it had sprung. He sensed the laws gaining momentum, tugged by Melizar's desire to complete the locking, overwhelming any tendency to wander away.
'Now, stop the ritual and the formula,' Jemidon commanded. 'Start others that are completely different. Use
