A Gathering Of Stones

10

He woke, startled out of sleep so suddenly he sat up confused, slammed his head into something hard and cold. He swore, moved more cautiously. He was in a stone cage, granite by the look of it, squat, heavy, ugly. It sat inside a pentacle in a domed room without windows or any apparent doorways. No one about. He ran his hands over the stone, there wasn’t a crack in it, not even where stone joined stone. “No doors in this thing, how’d they get us in here?”

*C’vee mir,* Ahzurdan phasma said, detached appraisal in his insect voice.

Danny was briefly amused, as he suspected he was meant to be. “What’s that?” he said aloud.

*Cage. Meant to hold magic wielders. Us.*

“Not good, you mean?”

*Not good.

“What’s going on?”

*I suspect we’ll find out soon enough.*

“You don’t know?”

*Like Lio Laux, I’ve avoided this place. There was no reason to seek it out. They don’t welcome stray sorcerors here, no matter how high the rank.*

“They don’t welcome stray anybody. Any law against unregistered sorcerors?”

*None that I know of.*

“Gods, I haven’t been here long enough to bruise a rule, let alone break one. What do they think I did? Spit in their canal?”

*There’ll be something. Unless Arfon intervenes.*

“I think we can forget about that. This cage carved out or patterned?”

*You mean, can I unmake it.*

“Yeh.”

*I can’t. You can.*

“What a hope.” Both his sires had learned whatever they needed to learn as easily as breathing; Danny Blue had assumed he could relearn Ahzurdan’s sorcery in much the same way. After all, he didn’t have to do the original work, only shift the WORDS and gestures to match his new psyche. Two problems with that. First, he wasn’t given the time he needed; he’d spent the past ten years in an artificial coma. Second, he kept slamming into Daniel Akamarino’s bone-deep disbelief in magic. In short, he discovered the truth in the aphorism: Sorcery requires will and the proper application of will requires belief. In those first months after the battle with Settsimaksimin when Danny was confined within the starship body of the Chained God, before the god caught him plotting, he’d worked harder than he could remember in either of his lives to rebuild a full range of WORD, IMAGE and gesture, though it was like fighting a tiderace to overcome the Daniel phasma’s resistance, his unconscious rejection-and the Ahzurdan phasma’s jealousy. Danny recovered some small confidence in his skills, though he was frustratingly unable to move among the realities, his half-sire clutched that ability to his insubstantial chest and wouldn’t let Danny near it. Danny got far enough along to contrive a way of shorting out of the shipbrain, but the god woke up and time ran out on him. The Ahzurdan phasma might harbor illusions of competence; Danny Blue knew better. His hold on fire and wind was deft enough; he could play what games he wanted with the unTalented, but until he could make free with his realities again, put him against a fumble-fingered apprentice and he’d go down smoking. The phasma was right, he could dissolve that cage, he knew that after some tentative exploration, but he couldn’t do it without making such a noise that the cage-maker would come running. Annoyed at the waste of his work, no doubt he’d impose a nastier sort of coercion. Best leave things as they were and see what happened.

*Be ready, the Ahzurdan phasma said, tension sharpening his gnat’s voice. *If there is a challenge, you need to be prepared. Search my memories. Now!*

Danny Blue paid no attention to his half-sire’s agitation; there simply wasn’t time to acquire skills he didn’t already have. He floated his fingertips across the stone, seeking to

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read the status of the sorceror who made it, and tasted the air around him to pick up ghost images of past events in this unlovely chamber, a psychometric survey that even the Daniel phasma believed in since it mimicked the activity of electronic sniffers.

From the air he got: Images of dark-robed men, of menacing faces looming over him. A fog of fear and cringing, rage, outrage and helplessness swirling about him. Voices booming words that never quite took specific shape. A sense of death and desolation and dissolution. Trials without defense where the verdict was given before the questions were asked.

From the cage, the c’vee mu, he got: Arrogance and malevolence, prissiness and paranoia. And a name. Braspa Pawbool.

There was a burst of insect laughter from the Ahzurdan phasma. Too Boo,* he squealed. *Poo the Boob, he couldn’t scratch his way out of a spiderweb. * A moment’s silence; Danny waited. But he can talk, Danny, oh can he talk, I remember once he talked me into… mmh, never mind that. I can see how he tickled the Brin Ystaffel into hiring him. He’s a water man, Danny. Fire makes him piss his pants. If it comes to a crunch, throw some salamandri at him and see if we can snap out of here before Arfon interferes.*

“I can’t touch the realities, you forgot? Even if I could, we’re inside this pentacle; I throw a salamander, it bounces back on me and whoosh, we’re all gone.”

The Ahzurdan phasma refused to hear what he didn’t want to know. He ignored the first part of the statement. *A pentacle of Poo’s making. Cobwebs. Breathe on it and it breaks. *

Danny Blue worked his body around until he was lying on his stomach. He reached through the cage, edged his fingertips to the nearest of the glimmering lines.

A nip, pain in his hand, like putting his finger in a live socket-the image slipped in from the Daniel phasma who was watching with cool skepticism. It wasn’t as bad as his memories forecasted. He touched it again, let the pain flow round him and slip away without bite or afterbite. He tasted it, savored the flavors, got to know it, learned the WORD to dismiss it, translated that WORD into his own framework. He drew his hand back. “Yes,” he said aloud. “One-two and it’s through.”

*Yess^qs.*

The satisfied vibrato tickled through Danny, made him smile. He crossed his arms, dropped his head onto his forearm and settled himself to wait for events to unfold. After half an hour when nothing happened, nothing changed, he slept.