The Practice Effect

1

“Now, remember what I told you all!” Gath shouted at the other aeronauts. From the undercarriages of ten bobbing balloons came cries of assent.

Gath turned and gave thumbs up to Stivyung Sigel, riding the lead balloon of the south contingent. The big farmer nodded. He brought his hands to his mouth.

“Cast off!” There were two trumpet calls.

Axes split the tethers. Sandbags dropped. Hands spread fresh coals onto the smoldering fires beneath the open bags. One by one, the bright balloons rose past the tall trees and into the sky.

They had waited long for a favorable wind. At last one had come that blew the right way but that would not force them past the battle too soon.

Underneath rode a convoy of support troops ready to catch anchoring ropes when the time came to tether the lighter-than-air flotilla.

Gath was filled with excitement. To be aloft and in action was wonderful after all the waiting. It was a vindication of all the work he and Stivyung had put in with the L’Toff makers and practicers.

They drifted eastward with the wind. It felt like hours, but actually they were soon over the Ruddik heights, where the enemy had made their deepest penetration so far. Stivyung’s contingent floated over the south spur, rimming that side of the canyon. There his aeronauts dropped anchors to waiting men. The L’Toff soldiers below scampered over the rocks to seize the anchors and tie them down.

When Gath’s forces were over the north spur, they repeated the procedure.

The aeronauts had not had a chance to practice the technique. Fortunately, only one balloon from the south contingent drifted free, floating unanchored off to the east, rising rapidly.

That was a smaller loss than Gath had expected. They had planned to send one eastward anyway, with a report to the King of Coylia. Even Kremer’s gliders could not stop the message if the balloon gained enough altitude in time.

If the L’Toff on the ground cheered when the balloons hove into view, the enemy below stared up in dismay. Rumors had already spread of the great, round monster that had roared into Zuslik one night, months ago. And now here were ten of the behemoths, glaring down with fierce, painted faces. The attackers fell back nervously from the high redoubts and muttered nervously while their captains conferred over this new development.

Here, where the L’Toff had chosen to make their chief stand, the terrain was extremely rough. A series of deadly prearranged rockfalls would make any direct ground assault costly.

But all these defenses required that Kremer’s gliders be kept away so the L’Toff fighters on the heights could work unmolested.

That was the purpose for which the balloon detachment had been sent. The test was not long delayed.

“There!” One of the young bowmen in Gath’s gondola pointed.

Against the sunlit clouds, high in the noontime sky, at least two dozen black shapes were outlined. The gliders looked like hawks in the distance, and they stooped, suddenly, like great birds of prey.

“Get ready!” the captain of a neighboring gondola cried.

The enemy looked small and distant for what seemed the longest time. Then, in an instant, they were down upon them! All around Gath, his bowmen were shouting.

“There! Shoot!”

“They’re coming in too fast!”

“Quit complainin’, kid! Just stop em!”

The babble of voices was almost as unnerving as the wicked black wings that rushed amongst them.

“Yahoo! I got one!”

“Great! But don’t get cocky!”

“Watch out for those darts!”

There were screams of pain and cries of triumph, all in a matter of seconds. Then, almost as swiftly as they had come, the gliders were speeding away along the ridgetops toward carefully charted updrafts. They left behind three of their squadron, wrecked and scattered on the rubble below.

One more glider, unable to recover from a tear in its dragon wing, crashed directly into a cliff face as Gath watched. The defenders, both above and below, cheered.

“All right!” Gath yelled hoarsely as soon as he caught his breath. “They’ll be back, and it won’t be as easy to drive them off next time!

“Until they return, though, we concentrate on the enemy on the ground! Mark your targets, and make those arrows count!”

It would be difficult to get more ammunition. Resupply would be slow and chancy by bucket. And now the enemy’s ground commander would certainly throw everything he had at the points where the covering balloons were anchored. Already Gath could see the invaders marshaling their forces for an assault on the other slope of the crumbled canyon, where Stivyung Sigel’s four balloons were moored.

The attacks came, thereafter, at hourly intervals. The archers took a terrible toll of invaders on the ground: But each arrow lost was precious—in the making, in lost practice, and in the difficulty of hauling up supplies under fire.

And the defenders died in ones and twos as the battle went on. The L’Toff fighters on the surface fought to hold their ground and to defend the anchor points. The forces of the barons fought just as desperately to take those ridges.

The long afternoon passed like a slow agony, punctuated by moments of sheer terror Within a few hours, the tactical picture began to emerge.

Here on the northern spur, the defense was going well, for now. Gath’s archers took a heavy toll of attackers trying to climb the slopes and beat back three separate glider sorties.

But on the southern spur things had begun to go badly.

Before the sun passed beyond the highest peaks, two of Sigel’s southern balloons were lost, one when its bag was pierced. It settled slowly to the ground. The other one drifted off over the eastern plains when its anchor point was taken. It was too slow at ascending and finally fell under a rain of darts as Kremer’s gliders converged from all around, like wolves upon a wounded lamb.

Gath wondered if Stivyung could hold out until nightfall. The two remaining southern balloons couldn’t give each other much support.

Gath watched helplessly as enemy reinforcements arrived late in the afternoon…including a dozen fresh gliders. Kremer seemed to have an endless supply of them! Either that or his generals were stripping the other fronts of air support to handle this sticky spot in the center.

As the afternoon wore on, Gath watched as the entire flock of gliders swooped down on the two balloons on the lonely slope. And there was nothing he could do to help!

2

“Slow down! Slow down!”

Dennis realized that both Arth and Linnora had taken up his chant. The practice resonance was fully upon them.

Silvery fire seemed to dance around the body of the cart, and their acceleration down the tumbled slope did, in fact, seem to be slackening. But that didn’t keep them from moving inexorably toward the cliff. It loomed ahead ten meters, five meters, two meters away.

At the very last minute the robot’s whirling treads took hold and brought them to a stop in a boiling cloud of dust, teetering at the edge of the precipice.

Arth grabbed the narrow trunk of a shattered sapling that had partly broken the cart’s momentum. The little thief held on for dear life.

Dennis wiped floating grit from his eyes and purposely avoided looking down. He tried to clear his throat of dust so he could politely ask the robot to redouble its efforts to back them away from the cliff edge. But the cart chose that moment to settle forward a few more inches. It dropped with a thump, leaving the robot’s treads hanging out over open space.

“Okay,” Dennis sang, a little bit upset by this time. “Linnora? Arth? You folks all right? I’ve got an idea. Let’s all sidle backward, nice and easy.” He felt Linnora begin to loosen her strap. She obviously had the same notion. It was time to get the hell out of here.

Something whizzed past Dennis’s head. At first he thought it was some huge insect, but as he turned he glimpsed a second arrow passing through the space his ear had just occupied a second before.

“Hey!” Arth howled. An arrow quivered in the sapling’s trunk inches from his fingers.

Up the talus slope Dennis saw at least a dozen of Baron Kremer’s gray-clad archers working their way cautiously downward, getting into position to administer the coup de grace. Capture, apparently, was no longer an option at this point.

They didn’t really have to bother, Dennis realized. Arth was visibly weakening and soon would have to let go of either the tree or the glider. He and Linnora could never slide back quickly enough to make a difference.

Is this it? Dennis looked around for some way out—while arrows zinged past them or stuck, humming, to the sides of the cart.

Linnora was fumbling for her knife. Dennis wondered what she was trying to do. Then it hit him.

The glider! If we can only detach it from the cart in time, we might be able to escape on it!

But first the wings would have to be let down. They were being held up—vertically, like sails on a boat—by a stout length of rope. Linnora was going for it with her knife.

It took almost half a second for it to occur to him to remember the amount of tension that was in that cable. He cried out in dismay, “No! Linnora, don’t!”

It was too late. She sliced the rope. The wings snapped down violently, knocking two deadly arrows out of the air.

Perhaps it was a rational decision, but Arth was never able to explain why he let go of the tree and not the cart. But when the little wagon bucked suddenly, like a mad stallion, Arth tumbled into the back of the cart behind the great wings. Linnora and Dennis were whipped around to face forward as their strange vehicle teetered dangerously, rocking unstably on the edge.

The pixolet had hopped onto Dennis’s lap from the floor. The little creature had the expression of one who by this time had had quite enough. This trip was no longer fun.

About to abandon us again? Dennis thought at the thing, unable to do anything else.

The Krenegee shrugged, as if it understood. It flexed its wing membranes in preparation to depart. Then, for the first time, it took a good look over the rim of the cart into the canyon below.

“!!” it peeped out loud and shivered. Its little glider membranes were never meant for true flight. They wouldn’t keep it from being smashed to jelly after a fall like that! Dennis almost laughed as the smug little thing at last showed consternation.

All of this took about one second of telescoped time as the cart rocked, and then slid over the edge. A flight of arrows missed them by inches as their trusty machine toppled over the precipice. The pixolet wailed. Arth cried out. Dennis held on as the canyon opened up below them.

At that moment it was Linnora who saved them.

She started to sing.

The first, high note was of such startling clarity, that it seized their attention away from the hypnotizing view of the onrushing canyon floor. As a practice team, they had worked together for a long time. Her call served as a focus. Out of habit—quicker than volition—the felthesh trance snapped into being all around them.

Dennis felt Linnora’s mind touch brush against his own. Then he felt Arth, and even the Krenegee beast—taking this all seriously for the first time since he had known the smug little thing. Space around them seemed to flash and burn with energy. The power was there, and the desperate will to change reality.

Unfortunately, there was no focus. One had to be using something for the Practice Effect to operate!

Dennis’s conscious mind was in no condition to provide an answer. It was a good thing, then, when his unconscious stepped in and took over. In that instant, with the ground rushing up at them, Dennis seemed to feel time contract all around him. In a haze of chaotic energy that felt strangely like the field around a zievatron, he blinked once, twice, then closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he found himself sitting next to a dark-haired young man with a thick, waxed moustache. The fellow wore a white leather coat that flapped in the stiff breeze, and a pair of old-fashioned flight goggles over his eyes.

They sat together in a strange contraption of white canvas and wooden struts, laced together by piano wire. Although air rushed past them, the hazy-edged reality that surrounded them seemed entirely gray and motionless.

“You know, we had the most bully awful time getting the proper approach to warping the wings,” the fellow explained over the rush and roar. He had to shout to be heard. “Langley never really understood, you see. He rushed ahead without testing his designs in a proper artificial wind tunnel, as Wilbur and I did…”

Dennis blinked in “surprise. And in the time it took to close his eyes and open them, his surroundings changed.

“… so I had to test the X-10 personally, get it? The engine took up over half the damned thing’s length! Busted the first few props we tried to smithereens! They called it a flying bomb! Couldn’t ask anyone else to take it up, see?”

The man with the handlebars and goggles was gone, replaced by a fellow with a thin moustache, a sardonic expression, and a floppy fedora hat. He shook his head and laughed.

“Hard work is what it took. Sure, I had inherited money and got to stand on the shoulders of giants. I admit it! But I sweated blood straight into each of my designs.”

The space around them was still that hazy, half real shimmering, like the boundaries of a dream. But the flimsy array of wood and canvas had been replaced by a thrumming cocoon of riveted metal and glass, vibrating with the power of a thousand horses.

“And don’t think I don’t already feel the shoes of later inventors sometimes,” the pilot of the monoplane grinned, “right here.” He patted his own shoulder and laughed.

The fellow looked familiar, though he couldn’t place him—like someone he had read about in a history book somewhere. Dennis blinked again, and when he reopened his eyes the dreamlike scene had shifted again. The dark-haired man and the cramped cockpit were gone.

It was only a brief glimpse, this time. The engine roar had muted somewhat. There was the scent of chrysanthemums, and for the moment his eyes were open he saw a woman wearing a straw hat and a bright, pink scarf. She smiled at him from her controls, and winked. Through the cockpit window he saw water, all the way to the horizon. Then the transition happened again.

Now he was seated at the copilot’s station in a huge twin-engined airplane—a bomber, from the looks of it. There was the smell of gasoline and rubber. In his hands a wheel vibrated with a powerful rhythm. A balding man in a khaki uniform smiled at him from the other set of controls.

“Progress,” the gangly fellow grinned. “Boy, you sure are doing it the easy way, fella. It took us old-timers years and plenty of sweat to get this far, I’ll tell you!”

For the first time in this crazy dream, Dennis thought he understood what someone was talking about. He recognized this man’s face. “Uh, I know. I guess you really could have used the Practice Effect back in your day, Colonel.”

The officer shook his head. “Naw. It was a whole lot more fun doing it for ourselves, even if it was slower. I only ask that the universe be fair, not that it grant me any special favors.”

“I understand.”

The Colonel nodded. “Well, each of us does what we have to do. Say, do you want to hang around here for a little while? We just took off from the Hornet, and we’re on our way to have a little fun.”

“Uh, I think I’d better be getting back to my friends, sir. But thanks, anyway. It was a pleasure to meet you and the others.”

“Think nothing of it. It’s only a shame you couldn’t stick around to meet some of the jet jockeys and astronauts. Talk about pilots!” The Colonel whistled. “Ah, well. Just remember, my boy. Nothing substitutes for hard work!”

Dennis nodded. He closed his eyes once more as the wind roared and the dream unraveled around him like fog melting in the dawn.

Seconds that had seemed telescoped into years evaporated, and as the crystalline shimmer at last parted, Dennis found himself flying!

He wasn’t exactly sure how much time had passed, but a powerful lot of changes had been made in the cart-and-glider combination—as evidenced by the fact that they were still alive.

Even as he looked around, a pale, shimmering light was leaving the struts and fabric of the wings—now anchored firmly to the wagon-fuselage, sweeping rakishly outward and back like those of a swift. The cart itself seemed to have lengthened and grown a nubby tail. Its narrow nose aimed proudly upward, into the rising thermal in which they slowly climbed.

It must have been one of the most powerful felthesh trances in Tatir history. The pixolet slumped exhausted on his lap, breathing hard and staring about in disbelief. Dennis was still tentative enough in his control of the glider not to be willing to turn around, but he’d be willing to wager Arth and Linnora were in similar shape.

His dream still lingered at the fringes of Dennis’s mind. He could almost smell, again, the gasoline and oil, and feel humming metal.

If the dream had gone on, no doubt he would have met more of the heroes of aviation, called up by his unconscious to provide a focus for the intense practice trance. But it had lasted long enough, and it left him with a vague feeling of pride. Such men and women were the heritage of Earth. By pluck and ingenuity they had carved miracles out of reality— the hard way.

Dennis leaned out over the side to look. The updraft was petering out. It wouldn’t take them back to the level of the mountain road they had fallen from. He would have to find another place to land within gliding range.

There was a plateau nearby, a spur jutting eastward out from the mountains. Cautiously, Dennis leaned left and sent their craft into a gentle bank. He had seen a flat spot on the mesa. It would have to do. Beyond that was only a tumbled plain of boulders as far as the eye could see.

Still, they couldn’t stay up here forever.

Dennis wished there was some way to get the robot up in the cockpit with them. He didn’t want it damaged in the landing. But it would just have to take its chances. He called down for the machine to prepare as best it could.

The precaution was probably unnecessary, he realized. The rugged little thing could well be the only one of them to survive their encounter with the ground.

He used up some height gliding far out over the plain. It took a while to reach a position along what he hoped was a gently appropriate glide path, then bank around and begin his approach. It had to be just right, because they weren’t going to get another chance.

While he got ready, he spared a moment to glance back at the others. Arth was soaked in sweat but gave the thumbs-up sign. Linnora simply looked exalted_> as if she could ask no more than to have experienced what they had just gone through. She leaned forward slightly and pressed her cheek against his. Dennis smiled hopefully and turned back to make ready for the landing.

“All right, everybody. We’re going in!”

The “flat spot” that rushed up at them was actually a sandy bank with at least a ten-degree slope from left to right, only a dozen meters from the plateau’s northern rim. A crosswind came from twenty degrees left of the nose. Dennis steadied the balance so the wings compensated as well as possible. He felt Linnora’s hands grip rightly around his chest. At the last moment he brought up his knees and braced himself.

The fabric wings luffed slightly as the glider swooped in like an albatross and touched down gently on the soft sand. One wingtip briefly touched ground, slewing them around slightly as they jounced along the embankment. Gravel flew up behind them as Arth put all his weight into the brakes and the robot’s treads spun furiously.

Dust was everywhere! Blinded, Dennis steered entirely by instinct.

At last they rolled to a stop. When the sand had settled and tears had washed some of the dry powder from his eyes, Dennis looked out to see that the glider had halted close to the edge of the mesa. Another jumbled drop of about fifty meters lay only six feet away.

One by one—first Arth, then Linnora, and finally Dennis— they loosened their straps and stepped out. Barely able to keep to their feet, they stumbled to a thin patch of grass under the sparse trees.

Then Arth and Linnora fell to the ground, dizzily, and laughed. This time Dennis collapsed with them and joined in.

Several minutes later, the pixolet raised its head from the well of the craft. It still twitched and shook, from fright and from the power of the trance it had been forced to take part in. For a long while it simply stared at the crazy humans.

Finally, as the sun settled behind the western peaks, it sniffed disgustedly and dropped back down beside the gently humming robot to fall instantly to sleep.

3

In spite of their leisurely pace, Bernald Brady was saddle-sore well before the stout character in the red robes called a halt for the night.

It was the first time Brady had ever ridden a horse. If ever he got a chance to decline further invitations, he was certain it would also be his last. He dismounted clumsily. A guard came over arid loosened his bound hands, motioning him to hobble over and sit beneath a tall tree by the campsite.

Soon there was a fire, and the smell of trail cooking wafted through the air.

One of the soldiers scooped a thick dollop of stew and came over to hand Brady a beautiful, feather-light ceramic bowl. The Earthman ate as he marveled at the bowl. He had never seen anything like it before. It helped him justify the theory he had come up with.

Although his “captors” played a good game at this business of acting like primitives, they couldn’t hide their true nature. Things like this beautiful, high-tech bowl gave their game away.

These people clearly came from an advanced culture. One look at the road, and the wonderful self-lubricating sleds, told him that. There was only one explanation for what was going on here.

Obviously Nuel had spent the last three months living among the locals. And all that time he had been plotting, knowing that if he only waited long enough Flaster would surely send him, Brady, over to try one more time to fix the zievatron. In all that time Nuel had no doubt ingratiated himself with these people, perhaps promising them rich trading rights with Earth! In return, all they would have to do would be to help him pull one great big practical joke!

It sounded like Nuel’s way of setting up priorities!

No doubt members of an advanced civilization would have plenty of leisure time on their hands. Brady had witnessed “midaevalists” on Earth, who liked to ride horses and play with old-fashioned weapons. Nuel must have hired a troupe of history-nuts like those to help him pull a fast one on the next guy to come through the zievatron!

These fellows played pretty rough. They had really put a scare into him for a while, especially when the fat boy kept questioning him about every piece of his gear.

Brady sniffed. That had been carrying it too far! Imagine, people who could make swords out of gemstones being perplexed over his rifle and his porta-microwave!

Oh, these people knew Nuel, all right. Whenever he mentioned the fellow’s name the big “priest” got a funny look on his face. The “soldiers” clearly knew exactly who he meant, though they never admitted a word.

Yeah, Brady nodded, by now convinced, They were all in it together. Nuel was having his revenge on him for switching those chips on the replacement circuit boards.

Well enough was enough! It was going to stop here! The game had gotten altogether too rough. His hands were chafing and he had been battered and bruised…Brady decided it was time to stand up for his rights. With his jaw set he put down the now-empty bowl and started to get up.

At that moment one of the “soldiers” screamed.

Brady blinked as he saw one of the men stagger about the campsite with an arrow protruding through his throat. Suddenly, everyone else was diving for cover!

This was carrying realism just a bit too far! Brady watched the stricken soldier gurgle and die, choking on his own blood.

He swallowed and had the uneasy feeling that maybe his theory might need some amending.

He heard someone shout, “Guerillas! Sneakin’ aroun’ behind our lines!”

One of the “officers” barked an order. A detachment of men hurried off eastward into the trees beside the road. There was a long wait, followed by a series of loud noises— clangings and loud screams. Then, a little while later, a messenger came running back into camp.

The courier hurried over to the fat man in red, who was taking no chances, huddled beside a tree nearby.

Brady crawled to the edge of his own tree where he could listen.

“…ambush coverin’ a turn in th’ road. I guess one of ’em musta got impatient, waitin’ for us, and sprang th’ trap early. That was a lucky break for us. But we’re still stuck here until we can get word to our army.”

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, well 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 their 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.

He saw Kremer’s rangers running for their ropes, trying desperately to escape the plateau as if the devil himself were after them.

Even he flinched at first as the large, roaring form swooped down toward him from the clouds. Then he saw two small shapes wave at him from the cockpit of the plane.

Arth could understand the soldiers’ flight. His own heartbeat sped as he watched the thing, and he knew what it was!

Arth understood that it would be dangerous to try another landing on the sloping, sandy embankment. The chance wasn’t worth taking while there was still a lost war to be won. He was only grateful Dennis and Linnora had taken the time to drive the rangers away before moving on to more important matters.

Arth waved farewell to his friends, and watched as the flying machine accelerated away to the south. He shaded his eyes and followed it as it headed toward the line of battle, far down the line of mountains.

Finally, when it had become a mere dot on the horizon, he went over to the pile of supplies Linnora had emptied onto the gravel bank. There he also found several backpacks, dropped in panic by the departing soldiers.

He sighed as he picked through the detritus. There was enough here to live off of for quite some time.

I’ll give them a couple days to win th’ war and come to get me, he thought. If they don’t come back by then, maybe I’ll try to build one of them flyin things myself!

He hummed softly as he fixed himself a meal and imagined soaring in the sky, no slave to the winds.

8

The battle was going badly. About noon, Gath ordered every spare implement cast overboard in preparation for a desperate bid at escape.

It did little good. The next flight of gliders to attack sent a hail of darts tearing through the canopy. Fewer arrows than ever rose to meet the black shapes. The great gas bag began to sag as heated air escaped.

Another of the bowmen was killed in the onslaught. The body had to be cast overboard without ceremony. There was no time to do otherwise.

Below, the men guarding the tethers were hard pressed. All knew that it was only a matter of time until the forces holding the south rim fell back under pressure from the air, leaving their flank unguarded.

Kremer had obviously seen the opportunity his salient up the Ruddik offered. He had drawn reinforcements away from the northern front, where Demsen’s Royal Scouts had been putting up stiff resistance. Gath had seen several contingents of mercenaries arrive, along with companies of Kremer’s gray-clad northmen, only minutes before the most recent glider sortie. The final assault on the salient would not be long delayed. And once they broke through here, the heartland of the L’Toff would lie open.

Their balloon was leaking steadily now. Gath couldn’t even estimate how long it would stay aloft, practice notwithstanding.

Then, as if all that weren’t enough, one of his men grabbed his shoulder and pointed, asking, “What’s that?”

Gath squinted. At first he thought it was another damned glider. In the bright afternoon light something new seemed to have entered the sky battle…a large winged thing, with a span greater than the biggest of Kremer’s aerodynes.

This thing growled, and it flew as no glider he had ever seen. There was something powerful about the way it prowled across the sky.

Gath’s men muttered fearfully. If Kremer had added another element to the fray...

But no! As they watched, the growling thing rose high, then dove into the updraft at the canyon mouth to attack the slowly rising column of gliders there!

Gath stared in amazement. The intruder swooped about the lumbering wings, disturbing the smooth air they depended upon. The turbulence of its passage sent them out of control. One after another, the black shapes shook, tumbled, and fell!

Most of the glidermen ultimately regained control of their bucking craft, but not in time to reach another updraft. The skilled pilots desperately sought flat areas and had to settle for crash landings on the rough slopes.

Angry airmen stumped or hobbled out of their wrecked flying machines to stare up at the buzzing thing that had brought them down like a hand swatting down flies.

A few of Kremer’s gliders managed to stay in the updraft. They escaped on the first pass of the growling monster, struggled for altitude, and then dove on the intruder.

But the hawk-winged shape easily maneuvered out of reach of the deadly darts. Then it turned nimbly and pursued its pursuers, hounding them out over the arid plain. Each time the inevitable result was another glider wrecked or stranded on the tumbled prairie.

In a matter of minutes, the sky was clear! The L’Toff stared, unable to believe what had happened. Then a cheer rose from the defenders’ lines. The attackers—even the gray-clad professionals—drew back in superstition and awe as the droning thing came around to fly high over the canyon.

As if that weren’t enough, at that moment there came a peal of horns that echoed resoundingly down the rocky vale. Emerging from the heights overlooking the canyon, a detachment of armored men appeared. As a breeze stiffened, they unfurled the royal pennant of Coylia. A great dragon, its broad, sweeping wings outlined in bright green piping, flapped in the wind and grinned down at the combatants.

Gath knew that a bare dozen Royal Scouts had been hiding on the slopes above, to make a big show at some appropriate time. The tacticians had been counting on the Scouts’ reputation to slow the enemy at some crucial moment.

The effect was magnified far beyond what Demsen and Prince Linsee had hoped for. The association between the unknown flying thing and the dragons of legend was unmistakable. In the armies below there were, doubtless, sudden foxhole conversions to the Old Belief.

That was when the great growling monster above chose to swoop upon the army of plainsmen.

No arrows rose to meet it, for although it dropped nothing lethal, its bass moaning struck terror in the invaders’ hearts. They dropped weapons and fled their positions” without looking back.

Gath breathed easily for the first time in days. He had very little doubt who the pilot of that noisy, dragon-like glider had to be.

9

“Your Majesty! All is lost!” The gray-cloaked rider swerved in front of his liege lord.

Kremer reined up his horse. “What? What are you talking about? I was told we had them in our grasp!”

Then he looked up and saw the rout in progress. Like a flash flood, the green, red, and gray uniforms cascaded unstoppably down the canyon, only a little way behind the-mounted messenger.

The warlord and his aides were caught in the flood of panicked troops. It quickly became apparent that shouting and bearing at the men with their swords would not rally them. It was all Kremer and his officers could do to spur their nervous animals over to high ground at the side of the canyon, out of the tide of fleeing soldiery.

Clearly something had gone desperately wrong. Kremer looked up, searching for his chief weapon, but not one of his gliders was in the sky!

Then he turned at a faint noise and saw an unfamiliar shape flying low down the canyon, chasing his men! From long experience, he knew that no glider could fly that way, ignoring the tricky little niceties of air rise and rate of fall. It screamed like a great, angry bird of prey, and around it shimmered the faint lambience of felthesh.

The troops that fled before it had clearly had enough of surprises this campaign. First those nasty, bobbing, floating “balloon” monsters—and now this!

The warlord muttered angrily. As the thing approached, Kremer touched the butt of the needler he wore on his hip. If only it would come close enough. If he could shoot it down, it might restore heart to his men!

But the monster did not cooperate. Its task apparently accomplished, it rose and turned about northward. Kremer had no doubt it was headed toward the battle in the northern passes.

In his mind’s eye he saw it all—the foreign wizard had done this, and there was no way to stop it.

He couldn’t fight this new thing—not now, at least. His battle plan had relied too heavily on his gliders, and they were no match for the monster.

Of course, once news of this disaster reached the east, the great lords would flock to King Hymiel. Within days there would be armies heading west, competing for a price on his head.

Kremer turned to his aides. “Hurry to the semaphore station. Order a complete retreat, both here and in the north. Have my hillmen gather in the Valley of the Tall Trees, in our ancestral highlands of Flemmig. The ancient redoubts there are strong. There we shall not have anything to fear from either armies or the wizard’s flying monsters.”

“Your Majesty?” The officers stared at him in disbelief. One moment ago they were serving the clear and certain future ruler of all the lands from the mountains to the sea. Now he was telling them that they were to live as their grandfathers had, in the northern wilds!

Kremer understood that few men could see the lay of things as quickly and clearly as he. He couldn’t blame them for being stunned. But neither would he countenance slowness to obey.

“Move!” he shouted. He touched the bolstered needler at his side and saw them quail.

“I want word to go out at once. When that is done we shall message our garrison in Zuslik. They will strip the town of wealth and food…We will need it during the months and years ahead.”

10

It was late, even for a Tatir summer day, when the miracle “dragon” returned to the heartland of the L’Toff. The welcoming party on the ground had to follow in zigs and zags until both they and the pilot of the flying machine found a clearing large enough. By then, it seemed, half of the population— those not still harrying the retreating armies—had gathered to greet their saviors.

The craft swooped in low, a glistening shape that shone in the golden twilight. It touched down lightly and finally rolled, to a stop not far from a stand of tall oak trees.

The crowd virtually exploded in joy when they saw the slim form of their Princess stand from the body of the flying craft. They gathered around, cheering, and some even tried to lift her up and carry her off on their shoulders.

But she would have none of it. She motioned them all back and turned to help another person stand. A tall man for an outlander, he was dark-haired and bearded, and he looked very tired.

But the biggest surprise came when they saw the thing that sat upon the man’s shoulder—a little creature with two green eyes shining and an impish grin. The Krenegee purred as the people stepped back and fell into a hushed, reverent silence.

Then the L’Toff sighed, almost as one, as the foreign wizard took their Princess into his arms and kissed her for a very long time.