The Search for Magic Part 10

"Yes. Sort of. Well, no," Franni answered, hunched over the ropes. "I can't untie them." He tugged at a loop and a tiller spun to the left. The ram swung toward the city wall. "I think we all better hop back off now."

The three of them hopped. The ram smashed into the wall and kept going. The walking sledgehammer, with monumental unconcern, stepped over the wall and began hammering public buildings. The siege engine rolled through the new gap in the wall, firing flaming arrows into thatch and wood, but it was clear that the machine was winding down. The great warehouse stood unharmed.

Sorter breathed a sigh of relief.

Franni chewed his lip. "You know, I thought that all of this would go better."

"We need to put out the fires," said Sorter. "Before they reach the warehouse." He pointed to the dam above the city. "If we can send some of that water down here-"

"What a wonderful idea!" Franni cried, and leaped to his feet. "Come with me."

He scampered toward the rolling ram. Sorter and Lila followed.

The ram hit a cobblestone and spun toward them. Franni used his hoopak to vault onto the ram. He leaned down, hand extended, and hauled Sorter and the excited Lila onboard the ram. Franni pulled at the half-tied rope on the manual controls, and the rolling ram changed direction, careened madly uphill.

"We're here!" shouted Franni, adding gleefully, "I can't stop it!"

Sorter grabbed Franni with one hand and Lila with the other and jumped for their lives.

The rolling ram plowed straight into the center of the earthen dam. A few drops of water leaked through the dirt. The drops became a trickle. The trickle became a stream, then two streams.

Sorter grabbed Lila's hand and Franni's hand and said briefly and succinctly, "Run. For the high ground."

"And miss this?" cried Franni.

Before Sorter could stop him, the kender was gone, das.h.i.+ng downhill and keeping three steps ahead of the mud.

Sorter and Lila sprinted uphill. Franni and the malfunctioning siege engine thundered down.

Turning around, Sorter was astonished to see how quickly the dirt had mixed with the mud, forming a slurry that bore down on the village like the blade of a shovel. The streets backed up with water, as if a sewer had overflowed. Sorter tried to keep sight of Franni. Water rose to the kender's knees, then his waist, then Franni vanished altogether, as did the warehouse.

The villagers stood on top of the hill and watched, dumbfounded.

The mudslide ceased. The water level stablized. Furniture and crates filled with trade goods floated past.

"What a mess," said Lila, awed.

Sorter paid no attention. "Franni?" He cupped his hands and bellowed. "Franni!"

"Over here!" Franni shouted, climbing on the tottering remains of the siege engine that was still staggering about the village, thumping and malleting whatever was still standing.

At that moment, the siege engine, its joints popping bolts right and left, collapsed with a groan and a crash directly on top of the kender.

"No!" Sorter cried and ran forward, heedless of the water that was knee deep. "Please, no."

Arriving at the twisted wreck of the tower, he heaved at broken beams and joists.

"Franni!" he cried desperately.

A hoopak rose to meet him.

Sorter grabbed it. His hand was muddy and the hoopak slid out of his grasp. The hoopak was braced against a cog and a beam, working as a lever and fulcrum.

This was technology. Sorter understood it. He seized a disconnected drive rod and braced against the beam, pus.h.i.+ng to dislodge it. Lila came running up to join him, helping him lift with all the strength given to her by years of toting trade.

The beam s.h.i.+fted. Franni popped out, muddy but unharmed, and tugged his hoopak free. He glanced around at the wrecked machinery.

"Isn't this great?" he said happily. "We did it." He gestured at the ruined walls and warehouses.

Lila looked back at the town and said again with frank disapproval, "It's a mess."

"It sure is," Franni said, and added with a grin, "but I'll bet you don't have to work for weeks. Months maybe." He looked around at the destruction, thoroughly satisfied. "Fire and water. This is even better than the other two."

"Other two what?" Sorter asked, a horrible suspicion forming in his mind. "You don't mean-"

Franni shrugged and looked Sorter in the eye. "Children should have time to play."

"What's 'play?' " Lila asked.

"You'll get the hang of it," said Franni, patting her shoulder.

She smiled suddenly and radiantly, then ran off to where a group of her friends were splas.h.i.+ng around in the muddy puddles.

Franni looked at the ruined town, then at the villagers who had been on the hill but who weren't anymore. Indeed, they were coming toward the gnome and the kender, and they didn't appear particularly pleased.

"I think our work here is done," said Franni. "I know that the grateful populace will probably want to give some sort of reward, but we didn't do this for the money, did we?"

"No, we didn't," said Sorter.

"So I think we should leave," Franni hinted. The villagers were getting up speed. "Now."

It is an unfortunate fact, however, that the legs of gnomes and the legs of kender are shorter than the legs of humans.

Elder Cammion caught both of them before they'd taken much more than twenty steps.

Cammion stood in front of the wreckage and chewed his beard. "I see your machinery works."

"Indeed it does," said Sorter. He looked at the faces of the crowd and would have chewed his own beard if he'd had one. "I grieve for the destruction of your town."

Elder Cammion waved a hand dismissively. "The knowledge you brought us is cheap at any price. In fact, we owe you money."

"You do?" Sorter was astounded.

The elder poured steel coins into a bag and added more, coin by coin. "Plus, we are prepared to augment this payment with a construction grant."

"A grant?" Sorter repeated, stunned. "But we haven't filed the proper paperwork with the Committee on GrantsLoansHereTodayGoneTomorrow-"

"You were the only applicant we considered," said Elder Cammion hastily. "Your construction talents are unique. We want you to continue to exercise them. Besides," he added, "there are still the villages of Bomar, Comar, and Formar, guided by the Elders Nammion, Pammion, Tammion . . ." He pa.s.sed the kender the bag of coins. "We owe it to my brothers- to our brothers in trade to share your technical expertise."

"You want me to do for these villages what I've done for yours?" Franni asked.

"Indubitably," said the elder. "We are on a trade route. Compet.i.tion-"

"Is fierce," Sorter agreed. "Yes, I've heard."

Elder Cammion raised his palm in warning. "This grant has two conditions. One is that you visit only villages other than ours."

Franni nodded.

The Elder pointed at Sorter. "The other is that you take the gnome with you."

Franni glanced unhappily at Sorter and shrugged. "Well, that's that, then. He has to go back to his library. Overdue books. Thanks anyway." The kender muttered to himself, "All those kids . . ."

Sorter looked at the kender, then at the ruined town, then at the wrecked machinery on the plain.

He turned to Elder Cammion and handed him the books. "The next time you leave on your trading, will you take these to Mount Nevermind? Mention that Sorter will not be coming back."

The gnome took a few of Franni's coins and dropped them into the man's hand. On impulse, he added two more. "Thank Stacker for his kindness, and tell him I will send a design or two his way."

Sorter turned to Franni. "Time to go. Have we forgotten anything?"

"But how are we going to build anything?" Franni wailed. "You sent away our plans!"

Sorter took a sketch out of his pack. "Bear in mind that this is a preliminary."

Franni looked reverently at the sketch. "That's wonderful, Mr. Sorter. All those sharp blades going every which way."

Sorter nodded, pleased. "I call it the Solamnic Army Knife."

"I'd make it ten times bigger," Franni suggested.

"And add wheels. And a motor."

"Perfect," Sorter said fervently.

"Then we'll add a rotary saw with sharp teeth on a swinging arm at the front."

"Great." Sorter unrolled a blank piece of parchment and began sketching. "Now we're getting somewhere."

A few moments later, walking southward, they surely were.

Go With The Floe

PAUL B. THOMPSON.

Sea, sky, and Raegel's face were almost the same color, a flat green-gray, relieved only by white-caps, pale shredded clouds, and, in Raegel's case, a shock of carrot-colored hair. Raegel mumbled something to Mixun about being seasick, but Mixun knew better. They'd been at sea long enough to get over being seasick. Raegel was just plain scared.

He had reason to be afraid. Both young men lay on their sides, facing each other. The deck rolled gently beneath them. They were twenty-two days out of Port o' Call, twenty-two days as prisoners of a man they had sought to cheat of five hundred steel pieces. Most of the voyage had been spent in the s.h.i.+p's rope locker, unable to see where they were going. Last night, after eating their once-daily ration of beans, the pair had fallen into a deep sleep. Some soporific had been added to the meal. When they woke, it was gray, cold morning, and they found themselves on deck, with their hands and feet tightly tied.

Balic Persayer, captain of the caravel Seahorse, emerged from his cabin. He was heavily swathed with scarves and wore a thick woolen coat and peaked hat. Very little of his face showed save for his piggish eyes, red-rimmed and veined with blood, the broad tip of his nose, and his ruddy cheeks, all of which glowed in the raw wind like a trio of ripe crabapples.

"Let's have them up," Balic said. Sailors in rough cloaks and fleece jackets hauled the two men to their feet. Only then did Mixun get a clear view of where they were. His previously stubborn spirits sank.

Lying off Seahorse's starboard rail was a high, rugged coastline, sheathed in ice and snow. Wind, steady as a flowing river, blew off the ice and over the bobbing s.h.i.+p, chilling everything it touched.

Icewall. Captain Persayer had brought them to the frozen end of the world.

"Well, gents, I hope you had a pleasant voyage," the captain said genially. Mixun told him what he could do with his pleasant voyage. Balic promptly boxed the young man's ear. He had a fist like a tackle block, and the blow drove Mixun to the deck. Laughing, the sailors dragged him upright again.

"What's this about?" quavered Raegel. "Do you mean to kill us?"

Balic chuckled unpleasantly. "By my beard, no! If that's all I wanted, I could have cut your throats back in Port o'Call."

"Yeah, but murder's a crime there," Mixun said.

"So it is, and I am a respectable s.h.i.+p's master." Balic gestured, and the sailors behind Raegel and Mixun cut the bonds around their ankles. Their hands were left tied.

Instinctively the two men moved apart. "What are you doing, then?" Raegel asked anxiously.

"Dispensing justice," said Balic. "Prepare the longboat."

"What does he mean?" murmured Raegel.

"We're being marooned," answered Mixun. "The good captain is putting us ash.o.r.e on the worst land in the world."

Two sailors with drawn cutla.s.ses prodded Raegel and Mixun to the rail. As they watched, the s.h.i.+p's longboat was rigged and lowered over the side.

"Call it what you will, you're murdering us," Mixun said as he watched the preparations.

"No sir, I am not," said Balic, sounding quite cheerful. "You shall leave this vessel alive and breathing. What happens to you afterward is between you and the G.o.ds who still live."

"No!" cried Raegel. "Please, good captain, don't do this! It's all a misunderstanding! We never meant to cheat you-"

Balic crossed the deck in two strides and took hold of Raegel's flimsy s.h.i.+rt. "Of course not! You didn't know the casks of fine pearls you sold me were filled with old oyster sh.e.l.ls, eh?"

"No, we didn't! Our supplier from Schallsea duped us!"

"Enough lies!" Balic backhanded the frightened man. "Get this sc.u.m off my s.h.i.+p!"

Struggling and protesting, Mixun and Raegel were herded to the gap in the rail at swordpoint. With their hands tied in front of them, they were able to hold a rope as they descended the hull cleats to the longboat. Six oarsmen and the bo'sun, a quarter-elf named Tamaro, were waiting for them. Mixun missed a step near the bottom and fell into the boat. Raegel made his last step, then toppled over as a vigorous wave dashed the longboat against the caravel's hull.