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."Perhaps 'the base drives awaythe good.' No matter.I count no more than a score of each.Thaumaturges andalchemists, try examples of your craft.Work more of your magics than they.The others assist as best you can."While the masters exercised their skills, Jemidon emptied the coins from thechanger into his palm.Quickly he sorted through the collection and reinsertedthem in the slit in top.He held his breath as he fingered his old wornbrandel last and saw it slip away.Working the five levers one by one, heemptied the sorted coins back into his hand.Jemidon felt the familiar tension of the parting rope and imagined the creakof the fibers as they strained to breaking.For a moment, the line groaned andtwisted, but then suddenly it was slack.Jemidon frowned as he reloaded the changer.There was resistance.As Ponzarhad said, metamagicians could struggle over the state of the coupling.Jemidoncast a hasty glance in the direction of the hilltop.It was too far to seemore than the Skyskirr's outline, but he felt his presence nonetheless.Jemidon grasped the changer tightly.He tried to visualize the rope againgrowing taut.Mentally, he tugged on the line, straining against a force hecould not quite comprehend.He placed his feet wide apart and arched342his back, swinging both fists to the side.Then he tried to bring himselferect, imagining the rope tied to his collar and tugging him from behind.Hismuscles tensed and then trembled from the effort.With eyes closed, obliviousto the noise and swirl of battle, he brought his arms forward and then hishead.In his mind he saw the rope spring tight and, with a snap, burst intwain."Look at that!" a thaumaturge exclaimed."The incantation works, the one thathas failed ever since the craft went away.I feel the prick in my own arm,just as I have stabbed the doll.""And sweetbalm," an alchemist said."Only a trace, but the healer of wounds,nonetheless."Jemidon turned to watch a wooden sword splinter on a downsweep.Farther away,a glob of tar solidified in midflight and bounced harmlessly from a shield.Agreat cry of confusion went up from the pressing rebels.The men-at-armsanswered with a cheer.With tired arms, they held back the attack, for an instant stopping theonrushing momentum.Jemidon smiled."Perhaps we should try for the other two crafts as well," hesaid.LIA simple ritual like the Neophyte's Cadence; and for sorcery we can use theSong of theShifting Sands, just as Canthor did.Send someone back to the dunes and "Jemidon stopped and clutched the changer.He felt the hint of a tug and then agrowing strain.He jammed his fingers under the levers, cradling the deviceclose to his chest.A dull pain shot through his head.He closed his eyes andsank to his knees, curling into a ball.Walls of force around his mind seemedto ripple and tear apart into sinuous tendons.Like stubby fingers in massivegloves, they probed his thoughts, sending numbing jabs into deep recesses ofPage 192ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlhis awareness.He felt his hands twitch on the changer and then, with aninvoluntary spasm, his left hand fell away, trembling with fatigue.In hismind he saw the coarse fingers surrounding him, fumbling with his own, pryingthem loose and pushing them aside.Almost in helpless fascination, his other hand hurled free.A shower of coinstumbled into his lap.Simulta-343neousty, he felt the laws decouple and accelerate away.With a rush, they spedto the next vertex in the lattice, back to where wooden swords and obnoxioustars held power, but they did not stop there.Like a peg counting score in acard game, the fabric of existence plowed onward, taking the laws several moresteps away."Catapults," Jemidon heard someone suddenly yell."They are using thesiegecraft.Hurling missiles on friend and foe alike."Jemidon shook himself out of a daze to see stones streaking across the sky.Ina heavy shower of gravel, colorful pebbles and rocks cascaded down upon theline of fighting.Like hailstones hitting a slanted roof, they bounced fromupraised shields and skittered across the ground.A few careened in Jemidon'sdirection and he saw the pale green of epidote crystals, not individual rocks,but conglomerates of smaller pebbles loosely held together by a sticky glue.Jemidon felt the laws recouple [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]