'Most interesting,' Astron said. 'I even have difficulty holding my mouth shut when I listen to you speak.'
'You saw the battle before Prydwin shifted the view to this isolated node.' Nimbia's voice rather than increasing in strength grew still more faint. 'This realm is one of violence; we must be away.'
'But the reason for our quest,' Astron said. 'It has not yet been completed.'
Kestrel looked again at the unfamiliar desolation and felt a sense of strangeness and dread far more intense than what he had first experienced in the realm of the fey. 'Let us heed Nimbia's words and begone before we encounter something we cannot handle.'
'I have no answer to the riddle,' Astron persisted. Struggling against Nimbia's resistance, he pulled himself to a sitting position. 'As far as I can tell, the words of the high king about reality and bubbles have little to do with a flame in the realm of daemon. How can they save my prince from Gaspar's attacks?'
'Then tell it to the other, the one you call Palodad,' Kestrel said. He pointed at the rucksack at this side. Phoebe's arm jerked in response. 'Perhaps the one who reckons can analyze some hidden meaning, once you have paid him with the pollen.'
'Palodad.' Astron shuddered. He stopped speaking as membranes flicked over his eyes. 'I had hoped to seek out my prince directly,' he said after a moment, 'but your logic is correct. It is to the decrepit one that we must turn for aid and succor. Yes, Palodad first and then, with what he will hopefully add to the answer, search for the hiding place of my prince.'
He looked across the oasis at Phoebe and Nimbia. 'A fire, wizards,' he said. 'Break down the barrier between the realms and contact the one that we must.'
'I do not have the strength.' Nimbia rocked back and forth like a rag doll. 'Certainly not the firmness of will that is needed. Let the human female try. She has been most eager to prove her worth.'
Despite the difficulty in moving, Phoebe managed to smile. Fumbling with the pockets in her cape, she retrieved several matches but they tumbled out of her grasp onto the ground. She bent forward to pick them up but clutched only empty sand several handspans from where they fell.
For a moment Phoebe bent over awkwardly, deciding what to do next. 'There is much resistance,' she growled as she wrenched her head upward. 'With what little kindling I have in my cape it is not such a small task as one might believe.'
'It is the force of the symmetries,' Nimbia said. 'If you were broken free you could act alone.'
Kestrel saw the demon look about the hexagon of trees and his nose wrinkle in thought.
'Yes, I believe it is the fact that we four are paired at opposite vertices,' Astron said after a moment. 'Kestrel, if you can move to another while Phoebe remains where she is, then the symmetry will be broken. All of us should then be free to act independently.'
Kestrel quickly rose and turned toward the tree on his left but Phoebe's gasp of breath stopped him short. He looked in her direction and saw her body wrenched to the side, preparing to pace to the next vertex around the periphery just the same as he.
'No, not so fast,' Astron said. 'Relax your muscles and let Phoebe get situated first, perhaps with her arms wrapped about the tree. Nimbia can help her resist and then you can move away.'
Kestrel breathed out slowly. He did not quite understand what Astron had in mind, but clearly they had to try something other than what first sprang to mind. As he let the tension out of his limbs, he felt insistent tugs that turned him back toward the tree. He let the forces wash over him and, without resisting, stepped up to the coarse bark. His arms rose from his sides and extended about the trunk. With a tight grip, his hands clasped together on the other side. Across the pond, he saw that Phoebe was also hugging her tree in the same relative position as he.
Then Astron rose and approached the trunk from the opposite direction. The demon's arms widened into a semicircle. On the other side of the oasis, Kestrel saw Nimbia extend her arms around Phoebe's tree and grasp her hands together behind the wizard's back. At the last possible moment, however, Astron brought his hands sharply downward. Rather then intertwining behind Kestrel, the demon's fingers dug into the bark at his sides.
'Now,' Astron said. 'Gently release your grip and step away. With Nimbia's help, Phoebe might be able to resist following.'
Kestrel grunted in understanding and began to uncoil his fingers from one another. He felt the same strong resistance to his efforts and heard Phoebe gasp in exasperation as her hands also became unjoined. Kestrel stepped backward and saw Phoebe arch in response, her feet moving from the base of the tree while Nimbia struggled to hold her firm.
Kestrel took another step and then, more quickly, another. He felt as if he were walking upstream in a swift current. But each step was easier than the one before and finally, midway between the trees, the force vanished altogether; in complete freedom he turned and walked to the next vertex of the hexagon.
Kestrel saw Phoebe slide to the ground, oozing out of Nimbia's grip. Tentatively, the wizard waved her arm and then shook her entire body. The smile returned to her face for an instant, and then she sobered into a serious expression. Busily, she retrieved her scattered matches. Reaching into her cape, she brought forth some small twigs and parchment and built them into a small papered cone at her feet. She returned to the tree which Nimbia still clasped and ripped several sheets of loose bark away from the trunk.
Pulling her robe about her, Phoebe kneeled by her assemblage of materials and struck a match against one of the scraps of wood. The head of the match skittered against the rough surface but did not light. Phoebe cursed softly and tried with a second matchstick, this time bearing down harder and paying strict attention to what she was about.
Halfway through her swing, however, the match broke in two. Frowning, she gathered five of the sticks together in a tight grouping and tried again. Even from where Kestrel stood, he could see the force of her stroke. The grate of the yellow-tipped heads growled far out into the featureless expanse of the desert.
But again no sparks resulted from the swipe. Phoebe's scowl deepened. Moving quickly, she clasped the matches with both hands and ground the cluster a second time against the surface of the bark. Again nothing happened and she began stroking repeatedly, each time more intensely than before, hardly pausing between swipes and ignoring the splinters of matchwood that spewed away from where she worked. In an instant, they were all destroyed, with not even the tiniest glow to show for her effort.
Phoebe looked over at Kestrel, crestfallen. She kicked at her mound of kindling and sent it flying. 'The wizards of my council,' she said sourly. 'They were right after all. When it came time to do my part, even make the simplest of flames, I choked like a doxy from the sagas.' She reached for her cape and flung it to the ground. 'Even with the mantle of the master, I must turn to another to get the simplest job done.'
'My apologies but I am still too weak.' Nimbia shook her head. 'The struggle at the tree took away whatever remaining reserves that I had.' She looked slowly out into the desert, scanning the horizon. 'It is your powers that we must use, wizard. Get us away before it is too late.'
Kestrel looked up into the tree under which he stood and spied a cluster of pear-shaped fruits. 'Perhaps we are proceeding a bit too hastily,' he said. 'We have just been through a great deal. Let us eat first. Then one of you can try again.'
To Kestrel's surprise, Phoebe shook her head violently and then sagged to the ground. For a long moment, she stared at the splinters in her hand and did not try to speak. 'I have failed us all,' she said after the longest while, 'failed us all and precisely when it was needed most. Evidently, my words in the chamber of the archimage were no more than bluster. I failed in my cabin with the anvilwood and now a second time here.'
'It is not so serious, Phoebe, just the strangeness of this realm. With a bit of food-'
'Do you not understand?' Phoebe's voice strained with a hollow sharpness. She waved at the refuse strewn about her. 'I cannot start a fire here, Kestrel. I know. I can feel it. Perhaps it is within the ability of one truly worthy of the logo, but I cannot, regardless of the kindling.'
'Then later, after we have all had a chance to rest.'
'You are not listening,' Phoebe exploded. Frustration and anger shot from her eyes. She clasped her fists tightly and beat them against her arms. 'It is not a matter of demon control,' she said. 'I did not even get that far. It is just as pompous Maspanar and the others chided. Experimentation with tiny imps in the confines of one's own cabin is one thing. The measure of a true wizard is quite another-that which is accomplished when the consequences of failure are more than the loss of a fee.
'Not a spark. Not even a single spark. It is not merely a matter of new surroundings. It goes far deeper than
