The fat man in red, the one called “Hoss’k,” licked his lips nervously.
“We used our last pigeon to inform my lord Kremer that we had captured another alien wizard! How shall we get a message through, then?”
The officer shrugged. “I’ll send a dozen men in different directions after dark. All we need is for just one to get past ’em.…”
Brady crawled back around his tree and sat there a long moment, blinking. His comfortable theories dissolved around him, and he was left with a confusing, dangerous reality.
I didn’t want to come here in the first place! he complained silently to the universe.
He sighed. I should never have let Gabbie talk me into volunteering!
4
“My Lord, we have received a message from Deacon Hoss’k. He is on his way to North Pass now. He claims to have found—”
Baron Kremer turned and snarled, “Not now! Send word to the fool to stay where he is and not to get in the way of the northern force!”
The messenger bowed quickly and ducked out of the tent. Kremer turned back to his officers. “Proceed. Tell me what is being done to clear Ruddik Valley of the floating monsters.”
Kremer had only just arrived, as the new day dawned, by three-man glider. His head throbbed and he felt just a little sick. His subordinates sensed that he had a short fuse, and they hurried to comply.
“My Lord, we were stopped yesterday by the coming of night. But Count Feif-dei’s forces are now closing in upon the two monsters remaining on the southern rim of the canyon. We are going to provide heavy air support, assisted by the reinforcements you ordered sent from the other fronts.
“As soon as the last two southern monsters are eliminated, we’ll be able to assault the ridge beyond. It will be costly, but the L’Toff positions will then be untenable. They will have to fall back, and the remaining four monsters on the northern slope will then be surrounded. There will be nothing they can do.”
“And how many gliders will have been lost by then?” the Baron asked.
“Oh, not many, my Lord. Perhaps fifteen or twenty.”
Kremer slumped into a chair. “Not many …” He sighed. “My brave, lucky pilots … so many. A quarter, almost a third lost, and none at all left to support the northern force.”
“But your Majesty, the monsters will all be gone. And by now the L’Toff and the Scouts are fully engaged on all fronts. A breakthrough anywhere, and we shall have them! That is especially true here. If we cut through to the west today, it will split the enemy in half!”
Kremer looked up. He saw enthusiasm on the faces of his officers, and he began to feel it himself once again.
“Yes!” he said. “Have the reinforcements brought up. Let us go to the head of the Ruddik and watch this historic victory!”
5
When morning came, Dennis and Linnora lay side by side, wrapped in one of Surah Sigel’s blankets on the sandy bank, watching the sun rise over the bank of eastern clouds.
Dennis’s muscles felt like limp rags that had been all used up. Only here on Tatir a rag that was so thoroughly used wouldn’t be in as bad shape as he was. It would only be getting better at cleaning up.
Nearby he heard Arth doing his best to throw together a breakfast from the scraps left over from Surah’s larder.
Linnora sighed, resting her head on Dennis’s chest. He was content just to drift, semiconscious in the soft, sweet aroma of her hair. He knew they would have to start thinking about a way off of this plateau soon. But right now he was reluctant to break the peaceful feeling.
Arth coughed nearby. Dennis heard the fellow shuffle near the edge of the precipice, mutter unhappily for a moment, then walk back to the trees.
“Uh, Dennizz?”
Dennis did not lift the arm from over his face. “What is it, Arth?”
“Dennizz, I think you’d better have a look at somethin’.” Dennis uncovered his eyes. He saw that Arth was pointing to the west.
“Will you stop doing that?” Dennis asked as he and Linnora sat up. He couldn’t quite quash a feeling of irritation toward Arth’s penchant for pointing out bad news.
Arth was gesturing toward the ridge they had fallen from as dusk fell yesterday, with arrows slicing through the air around them. According to Dennis’s wrist-comp, it had been less than ten summer hours since they had plunged over that cliff, straight into the heart of the Practice Effect.
Dennis could hear faint sounds of fighting from that direction. A dust plume of battle rose from the ridgeline above them. The cloud seemed to be moving slowly, inexorably southward.
The L’Toff were clearly being pushed back.
But that wasn’t what concerned Arth. He pointed to a place just behind and below the dust of battle. Dennis looked carefully at the ridge face, illuminated by the rising sun. Then he saw them.
A small detachment of men had dropped away from the fighting on the heights. They were working their way downslope along the slash in the cliff that a spring waterfall had gradually made. They were descending carefully, belaying each other with ropes over the steeper parts.
So Kremer’s troops weren’t letting go yet. They knew how badly their Lord wanted the fugitives and had sent a contingent to chase them, even to this lonely plateau.
Dennis estimated they would be here in a little more than two hours, perhaps three.
Linnora touched his shoulder. Dennis turned around, and winced when he saw that she was pointing now, as well!
You too? He looked at her accusingly before following her gesture.
Off in the south, where she indicated, something bright moved against the sky. Several somethings. He envied Linnora her prodigious eyesight.
“What …?”
Then he knew. The bigger object was a balloon, drifting in the morning light. Its great gas bag was aflame, and several dark, malign objects darted and swooped about it, closing in for the kill.
So. In spite of a brief, peaceful respite, the battle still raged around them on many fronts. It would be best to get off this mesa before Kremer’s rangers made it down here. It might also be desirable to see what their little band of adventurers could do to help the good guys.
And Dennis thought he just might have a way.
He drew out the sharp, hundred-year-old knife Surah Sigel had given him, and turned to Linnora and Arth.
“I want both of you to find me a big piece of sturdy wood, about so thick by so long.” He indicated with his hands.
When Arth started to ask questions, Dennis merely shrugged. “I want to do some carving,” was all he would say.
Linnora and Arth looked at each other. More magic, they thought, nodding. They turned without another word, and hurried into the brush to look for what the wizard wanted.
When they returned they found the Earthman deep in conversation … partly with himself and partly with his metal demon. He had pulled the glider to within a few feet of the edge of the cliff and installed the robot underneath it once again. A pile of gear lay on the sand beside the craft.
“We found a stick,” Arth announced.
“And it looks like what you asked for,” Linnora finished for him.
Dennis nodded. He took the five-foot branch and immediately started whittling it, chopping away loose bark and shaving slivers away in long, curved arcs. He mumbled to himself distractedly. Neither Linnora nor Arth dared interrupt him.
The pixolet arose out of its slumber within the cart/glider and clambered up onto the windshield to watch.
Linnora frowned in concentration. “I think he wants to take off again,” she whispered to Arth. She could tell, for instance, that he had already started emptying the craft to lighten it. “Come and help me,” she told the thief, and started tugging at the chair and bench to tear them out of the glider.
Only once in a while did they look up to see the progress Kremer’s rangers had made in moving steadily downslope. They were getting closer all the time.
Arth and Linnora had just about completed thei
r task when Dennis finished his.
Linnora had thought herself long past surprise at anything the wizard would ever do. But then Dennis stopped carving, admired his handiwork for a second, then reached under the glider to give the stick to the robot!
“Here,” he told it. “Take it firmly in the middle with your center manipulator arm. Yeah. Now spin it clockwise. No, I want a rotary motion along the axis of that arm. That’s right!
“Don’t strain yourself at first, but spin it as fast as you can. Your purpose,” he emphasized, “is to cause a breeze to blow back toward us, and generate forward lift.”
He turned back to the others and smiled. When they only stared back at him, he tried to explain. But all they really were able to get down was the name of the new tool … a propeller, he called it.
The stick turned faster and faster. Soon it was only a blur, and they began to feel a stiff wind.
Dennis asked Arth to stay on the ground, holding onto the rear of the craft to keep it from moving. Linnora climbed aboard and took her accustomed position.
Dennis picked up the Krenegee, who whimpered slightly in exhaustion. “Come on, Pix. You’ve still got a job to do.” He climbed in front of Linnora and nodded for her to begin the practice trance.
“Propeller.” Linnora mouthed the new word to memorize it. She picked up her klasmodion and strummed.
On Tatir, sometimes even people benefited from practice. The four of them slipped into another felthesh trance as if they had been born to it. It was nowhere near as intense as the powerful storm of change they had wrought so desperately the day before. But soon there was a familiar shimmering to the air near the front of the glider, and they knew alterations were taking place.
Now it was a gamble against time.
6
The last of the balloons on the south spur floated away just after sunrise as the defenders of its anchor rope fell before the dawn onslaught. These aeronauts, at least, had learned from prior disasters. Immediately they dumped overboard all of their sandbags, weapons, clothes, anything that could be cast loose. The balloon shot up into the sky, past the waiting, vulturelike gliders. The ligher-than-air craft caught a fast air current to the east and relative safety.
Gath watched it happen and hoped that balloon was the one with his friend Stivyung aboard.
Well, at least they had managed to bold off the inevitable for an entire day. During the night the smoldering glow of the balloon maws had been a reminder to the troops below that Kremer wasn’t having everything his own way.
“The gliders will now be free to attack our forces on that ridge,” a L’Toff bowman in the gondola with him said. “They’ll sweep the southern spur, enabling invader troops to follow and enfilade our forces in the valley.”
Gath had to agree. “We need reinforcements!”
“Alas, our reserves have all been pulled back to stay the thrust from the northern front.”
Gath cursed. If only he had been able to come up with a way to drive balloons against the wind. Then they might have been of some use in the northern fight as well. Then they would not have been sitting ducks for those damned gliders!
“Here they come again!” one man shouted.
Gath looked up. Another stoop of the damned dragon-winged devils was on the way. Where had they all come from? Kremer must have brought in every one he owned to finish them off.
He picked up his bow and made ready.
7
Arth struggled to maintain his grip on the tail of the cart-glider. His heels skidded in the powdery sand. The blowing air was filled with floating grit.
“I can’t hold it back!”
“Just hold on a little longer!” Dennis urged over the backwash. The wind from the whirling stick was now a roar, blowing their hair about wildly. The cart kept bucking and heaving as the rushing air made the wings strain and hum.
Linnora leaned into the brakes, her long, blond hair whipping around her.
Arth shouted again, “I can feel it slippin’!”
Dennis yelled back, “I’ve got the robot running its treads in reverse. In just a minute you can hop aboard, Linnora can release the brakes, and I’ll tell the robot to take off!”
“You’ll tell the what to what?” Arth was straining as hard as he could.
“I said,” Dennis shouted, “I said I’ll tell the robot to let go! Then you can—”
He never finished his sentence. There was a sudden shift in the whine below them as the treads stopped whirling in reverse and immediately slammed into forward gear.
“No! I didn’t mean now!” Dennis was whipped back against Linnora as the craft bolted forward like a racehorse released at the gate.
Caught in a spray of sand, Arth let go just in time. He sprawled face first to the ground, inches from the cliff edge. “Hey!” He coughed and spat and sat up, complaining. “Hey! Wait for me!”
But the “cart” had already leaped out of earshot. It was out over the boulder canyon, doing cartwheels in the air.
Arth watched, enthralled, as the flying machine zoomed high, stalled, fell into a steep careen, then recovered into a series of powered loop-the-loops.
The maneuvers certainly were amazing, Arth thought. The wizard must be showing off for his sweetheart. And who could blame him? Arth’s heart soared with the wild, capering dance of the airplane.
Still, for one brief moment he thought he heard a loud, foul-tempered curse as the machine flew past the plateau.
He watched, amazed, until a noise reminded Arth about Kremer’s soldiers. A hurried look around a small bluff told him the party of rangers had finally arrived. Arth decided then that he had better go about finding himself a hiding place.
Linnora was laughing again. And once again, it was hardly a help.
Dennis’s pulse pounded and he gasped for breath. The Princess clung so tightly to him that it was hard to breathe!
He tugged at one of the strings he had attached to the robot so he could control the crude airplane by hand and not have to shout all of his commands. He pulled gently, so as not to overcompensate, having learned that lesson the hard way. Several times he had almost stalled the little craft, or sent it into uncontrollable spins.
Finally, the damned thing steadied down. The robot spun the propeller at an even rate, and Dennis got the contraption flying smoothly away from the vicinity of cliffs, rock walls, and downdrafts. He set the plane into a slow climb, then sagged back against Linnora’s soft, strong embrace, hoping he wasn’t about to be sick.
Linnora laughed richly, and hugged him out of sheer exhilaration.
“Oh, my Wizard,” she sighed. “That was marvelous! What a great lord you must be in your homeland. And what a land of wonders it must be!”
Dennis felt his breath returning. In spite of that period of panic and almost disaster, things had turned out pretty much as he had planned this time. It looked like he was getting the hang of the Practice Effect!
He couldn’t help feeling happy, sitting back as she rubbed the muscles of his neck and played happy nuzzle games with his ear. He controlled the plane with gentle nudges, letting it gain practice with use.
The pixolet peered over the side, bright-eyed with amazement as they cruised leisurely across the sky.
Although he was content to rest there in her arms for the moment, Dennis realized he would have to set Linnora straight about one thing quite soon. She had altogether too much confidence in him. No doubt about it. She frequently had the habit of assuming he knew what he was up to when all he was doing was improvising to survive!
The forests and plains of Coylia stretched out below them, a sea of ambers, greens, and blues. Soft white clouds arrayed in drifting columns as far as the eye could see.
Dennis ran his hand along the laminar smooth side of the craft they flew … handiwork he had created, helped by his comrades, in only two days’ time! He marveled at the wonderful adaptations that had converted a rickety little hand-carved cart into a sleek flying machine.
> True, the thing would not normally have been possible, even here. It had taken a combination of his own inventiveness and the rare practice resonance—derived from the melding of man, L’Toff, and Krenegee. But still …
Pix hopped up onto his lap. Apparently it had decided to forgive him. The creature settled in for a long purr. Dennis stroked its soft fur. He looked up at Linnora, remembering her last remarks, and smiled.
“No, love. My world is no more wonderful than this one, where nature’s so kind. It’s usually been a hard life there. And if it’s become anything but brutal and futile in the past few generations, it’s thanks to the sweat and hard work of millions. Given the chance, any man or woman of Earth would choose to live here instead.”
He looked out over the plains and realized that he had made a surprising decision. He would remain here on Tatir.
Oh, he might return to Earth temporarily. He owed the land of his birth any help he could give it from what he had learned here. But Coylia would be his home. Here was where Linnora was, for one thing. And his friends …
“Arth!” He sat up suddenly. The plane rocked.
“Oh, my, yes!” Linnora cried. “We must go back!”
Dennis nodded as he gently turned the plane around.
And then there was the war, too. That madness had to be dealt with before he thought any more about settling down in this land and living happily forever after.
From his hiding place under a fallen tree, Arth heard the cries of the soldiers. For a long time they stood out on the plateau while he listened to their amazed exclamations. They were clearly more than a little surprised by what they had seen. He heard superstitious mutterings and the Old Tongue word “dragon” repeated over and over.
The minutes passed. Then there came more excited shouting. Arth heard a terrifying roar, followed by sounds of panicked flight. The sequence was repeated several times. Each time the roar seemed louder and the frightened yells sounded farther away.
Finally, he crawled out of his hole and cautiously emerged to look around.