The Practice Effect (26 page)

The wind rose again. Dennis had to fight down a wave of uncertainty as he looked out upon the rough, dimly perceived terrain. The spires of Zuslik town lurked against the hulking mountains beyond. The twisting, moonlit river glistened. Jagged outlines told of ship masts by the docks.

He looked back at his passengers. The pixolet purred and Linnora’s eyes now shone with a confidence he could not understand, though it felt good.

Somewhere below, a captain with a shrill voice was haranguing his men for a charge. It was definitely time to go.

“All right,” he told Arth and Linnora, “now I want you all to think
up
very hard, lean the way I lean, and jump with me when I say the magic word—‘Geronimo!’ ”

The very instant they were airborne, Dennis was filled with a not unreasonable wish he could go back and try to think of something else.

“Dennizz! Watch out for that spire!”

A high tower appeared out of the darkness, directly in their path. Dennis swung his weight leftward in the hanging saddle. “Lean hard!” he shouted, hoping Arth and Linnora would try to mimic his actions.

The glider tipped slowly. The top story of one of Zuslik’s higher buildings passed a scant two meters to their right. Through a brightly lit window Dennis glimpsed a scene of merriment. Some sort of celebration was in progress. There was a brief sound of high laughter. None of the partiers noticed a dark, swift shape whistle past their window.

Dennis fought to realign the glider. The bank had dropped them into a layer of turbulence. The craft bucked and fluttered as it followed the hillside down to the city proper.

Behind them the castle was in an uproar. Searchlamps cast sharp beams from every peak and parapet. Dennis didn’t dare look back, but he did hope the robot had managed to scuttle away at the end.

Zuslik’s wedding cake towers passed swiftly below them. The outer wall of the town lay less than a mile ahead, and beyond it the river. They were still losing altitude. It would be close.

Behind him Dennis could hear Arth’s teeth chattering. But Linnora’s grip on his waist was firm. Good girl. She wasn’t even trembling!

The glider surged as they passed through a pocket of warm air rising from a chimney. By the time Dennis regained control the town’s outer wall was coming toward them fast.

“Come on!” he urged the glider. “Come on, baby! Lift!”

He was talking to his craft, as almost every other pilot had.
But in this case the entreaties might actually do some good. Any additional practice the glider got couldn’t hurt.

The pixolet gripped his shoulder with its front claws and spread its wing membranes wide so its hind legs trailed behind. Was the darned thing actually trying to
help
for a change? It grinned, watching Dennis’s every move as the neophyte glider pilot threaded the higher towers toward the wall.

Hey! I’m not so bad at this
! Dennis thought, grinning as the glider swooped around the steeple of a Coylian temple. A
fellow could get to enjoy this
.

A minute later he changed his mind.
We’re not going to make it
.

Zuslik was a maze of twisting streets and pointed structures. In the darkness there was no way he could pilot the glider to a safe landing down there. He had brought them all to this predicament. Now it looked as if only the pixolet, with its built-in parachute, would escape catastrophe.

Suddenly the streets opened up, and the city wall loomed. It was at least a couple hundred yards ahead and now only a few meters below, waiting to flick them out of the air.

He glanced at Arth and Linnora. The little thief grinned back. In his adrenaline rush he looked like he was having the time of his life, totally confident in Dennis’s magical abilities.

Linnora’s eyes were closed, a peaceful expression on her face as she whispered quietly. Though her face was hardly a foot from his own, Dennis could not make out the words over the rushing wind.

Her chant seemed to resonate with the purring of the tiny animal on Dennis’s shoulder. For an instant she opened her eyes. She smiled at Dennis happily.

The pixolet purred louder.

Dennis piloted the glider past the last obstacle, and the stretch before the wall was ahead.

“Come on!” he urged the flying machine.

The ground swept past. Linnora’s chant and Pixolet’s purring seemed to meld with Dennis’s concentration. Reality seemed to shimmer around him. The struts and cables shuddered with a faint, musical thrill, almost as if the glider were
changing
under his very fingers. It felt familiar, somehow.

Dennis blinked. The wall was only twenty yards away now. Soldiers walked along the parapet carrying torches, their attention on the ground below.

Maybe
 … Dennis began to hope.

The glider seemed to hum excitedly. From the L’Toff Princess there streamed a feeling of power. And a great amplified echo seemed to come from the creature on his shoulder!

The glider felt electric under his hands, and the faintest shimmering light seemed to run along its cables. The taut fabric rippled with only the faintest luffing as the wall passed a bare man’s height below them. One guard stared up, slack-jawed. Then the wall was behind them, swallowed by the night.

Suddenly they were over the river. Faint starlight reflected from its surface.

The brief
felthesh
trance was fading. It had gotten them over the wall alive. But Dennis realized that no miracle of practice could get them across the water. Limited to a glider’s essence, their craft could only fall in the cool air, no matter how efficient it became.

To the left were the cluttered masts of the docks. He doubted they could clear them and get to the farmland beyond.

“Can everybody swim?” he asked. “I sure hope so, ’cause we’re going in.”

The wharves were dark. Only a rare light gleamed through a window here and there. “Cut loose your straps!” he told Arth. “Drop when I tell you to!”

The thief obeyed at once, his knife slashing the leather harness. Linnora wrapped her klasmodion in her cloak and nodded that she was ready.

Dennis tried to angle their descent parallel to the docks. The water swept past only two meters below, a blur under their feet.

“Now! Let go!”

Linnora gave Dennis a quick smile, then she and Arth jumped. The glider jounced and Dennis fought with it. It had been practiced to carry more weight, and the center of mass had shifted.

Centroid, Dennis reminded himself as he pushed backward.
Where’s your centroid now? He heard two splashes behind him, then he was busy trying to negotiate his own landing.

It was too late to jump. He had to ride it out. He fumbled with his own strap and got it loose just as his feet began dragging through the water.

As he raised his legs he realized the pixolet was gone. Somehow it didn’t surprise him at all.

Suddenly his knees were plowing furrows in the river. The glider settled around him as the water pulled him into a wet embrace.

“Dennizz!”

Arth rowed as quietly as he could. He had muffled the oars of the skiff they had stolen. Even so, he hated having to row out into the open river. Search parties had already sallied forth from the castle—horsemen and infantry patrols would soon be scouring the countryside.

“Can you see him?”

Linnora peered into the darkness. “Not yet. But he must be out this way! Keep rowing!”

Her clothes were plastered to her body, and the valley winds blew along the water. But her only thoughts were on the river and her rescuer.

“Wizard!” she called. “Are you out there? Wizard! Answer me!”

There was only the soft squeaking of the oars and, in the distance, the shouts of the Baron’s troops.

Arth rowed.

Linnora’s voice cracked. “Dennis Nuel! You cannot die! Guide us to you!”

They paused to listen, barely breathing. Then out of the darkness came a faint sound. That way!” She grabbed Arth’s shoulder and pointed. He grunted and pulled at the oars.

“Dennis!” she cried. She heard faint coughing somewhere ahead. Then a rough voice called back.

“The terrestrial has sblashed dowd … fortunately, my ship floats. Are you guys the local Goast Guard?”

Linnora sighed. She didn’t understand more than a word or two of what he had said, but that was all right. Wizards were supposed to be inscrutable.

“I’b gonna
have
to find a way to phode hobe,” the voice in the darkness muttered. Then a loud sneeze echoed over the water.

Dennis clutched the floating frame. A great bubble of air kept the glider afloat, though it was leaking out quickly. Onshore the search parties were getting closer. Against the distant flicker of lanterns he finally made out the moving shadow of the rowboat.

When Arth pulled up alongside all he could see of the little thief was his grin. But he couldn’t mistake Linnora’s outline as she bent to reach for his hand. In spite of his situation, Dennis had to appreciate what the water had done to her gown.

He shivered as he clambered into the boat. She wrapped some sailcloth around him. But as Arth moved back to the oars, Dennis stopped him.

“Let’s try to salvage the glider,” he said, trying to overcome his stopped-up sinuses. “It’d be best if they wered’t completely sure how we got away. I’d rather they suspected it was magic.”

Linnora smiled. Her hand was on his arm.

“You have an amazing way with words, Dennis Nuel. Who in the world would think that what we have just been through was anything
but
magic?”

The farm had begun to deteriorate.

From the open gate Dennis looked down the walk to Stivyung Sigel’s house. The home that had looked so comfortably lived-in a couple of months back now had the appearance of a place long abandoned to the elements.

“I think the coast is clear,” he told the others. He helped Linnora lean against the fence post so she could take her arm off of his shoulder. The girl smiled bravely, but Dennis could tell she was almost done in.

He motioned for Arth to keep watch, then hurried across the yard to look into the house through one of the yellowing windowpanes.

Dust had settled over everything. The fine old furniture within had begun to take on a rough-edged look. The decay was sad, but it meant the farm was deserted. The soldiers combing the countryside for them hadn’t set up an outpost here.

He returned to the gate and helped Linnora while Arth carried the disassembled glider. Together they slumped exhausted on the steps of the house. For a while the only sound other than their breathing was the hum of the insects.

The last time Dennis had sat on this porch, he had been bemused by a row of tools that seemed partly out of Buck Rogers and partly out of the late Stone Age. Now Dennis saw that more than half of the implements were missing from the rack by the door … the better half, he noted. The wonderful
tools that Stivyung Sigel had practiced to perfection were probably with young Tomosh at his aunt’s and uncle’s, along with the Sigels’ better household possessions.

The remaining tools on the rack had been left because they couldn’t be kept employed. Most had begun to look like props from a low-budget Hollywood caveman feature.

Arth lay back on the porch, hands clasped across his chest, snoring.

Linnora painfully removed her shoes. In spite of the intense practice of the past two days, they still weren’t appropriate for rough country. She had picked up several terrible blisters, and for the last day she had been limping on a twisted ankle. She had to be in great pain, but she never mentioned it to either of her companions.

Dennis heavily got up to his feet. He shuffled around the corner of the house to the well, and dropped the bucket in. There was a delayed splash. He pulled the bucket out, untied the cinch, and carried it, sloshing and leaking, back to the porch.

Arth roused himself long enough to take a deep drink, then sagged back again. Linnora drank sparingly, but dampened her kerchief and dabbed at the dust streaks on her face.

As gently as he could, Dennis bathed her feet to wipe away the dried blood. She winced but did not let out a sound. When he finished and sat down next to her on the dusty porch, Linnora rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

They had been dodging patrols for almost three days, eating small birds Dennis brought down with a makeshift sling, and fish scooped from small streams by Linnora’s quick hands. Twice they had almost been spotted—by men on horseback one time, and again by a swift, nearly silent glider. The Baron, or his regent, certainly had the countryside in an uproar looking for them.

Linnora nestled comfortably below his chin. Dennis breathed in the sweet aroma of her hair, knotted as it was from three days in the wilderness. For a short time they were at peace.

“We can’t stay here, Dennizz.” Arth spoke without moving or opening his eyes.

On the evening of the escape, he had wanted to hang around the outskirts of Zuslik until it was safe to sneak back
into town. Arth wasn’t comfortable out in the open. But the fuss that was being raised and the thoroughness of the search had persuaded him at last to go along with Dennis and Linnora—to try for the land of the L’Toff.

“I know we can’t, Arth. I’m sure the Baron’s men have been here already. And they’ll be back.

“But Linnora’s feet are bleeding, and her ankle’s swollen. We had to go somewhere for her to rest up, and this was the only place I could think of. It’s deserted and it’s in the direction we wanted to go.”

“Dennis, I can go on. Really.” Linnora sat up, but her slender body began to sway almost at once. “I think I ca—” Her eyes rolled upward and Dennis caught her.

“Give a yell if the army comes,” he told Arth as he gathered her into his arms. He stood up unsteadily and managed to nudge the door open with his foot. It creaked loudly.

Dust was everywhere inside the house. Dennis could almost feel the love and taste Stivyung Sigel and his wife had practiced into this home, and now it was well on its way to reverting to a hovel of sticks and thatch and paper.