"You go drink that fizzy puppy-dog water, little boy," Bav Tchornoi advised. "I do not give up, me."

"I am go also," declared Mesq'r Zavune.

"Have you an alternative to recommend?" Girays inquired of his host.

"We do," Crinkle-beard told him. "Quite a good one, for those among you ready to avail yourselves of it."

"You sound as if you think we might not be ready," Luzelle hazarded.

"Possibly not. Hear me through, and then judge," the savant advised. "All of you are foreigners, but you probably recognize the double-headed dragon insignia that you see here today, and you know approximately what it means. You understand that my colleagues and I belong to a very old Lanthian organization devoted to the investigation of obscure phenomena. One such phenomenon encompa.s.ses the swift and precise conveyance of large objects from one point in s.p.a.ce to another. The room in which we now gather has belonged to one member of the Select or another, as long as the Mauranyza Dome has stood. The proof of our tenancy is both tangible and relevant."

What in the world is he on about? Luzelle wondered again. Luzelle wondered again.

"Come, and I will show you," Crinkle-beard answered the unspoken query. "Come with me." Rising from his chair, he made for the far side of the room, where a threadbare, almost colorless circular rug of ancient workmanship drably masked a section of floor. His listeners followed and watched with interest as the savant flipped the rug aside, uncovering a hexagonal slab of black gla.s.s. Beneath the polished surface thousands of golden flecks glittered like a galaxy, seeming by some trick of design to extend an immeasurable distance.

"You see before you an ancient gla.s.s of transference known as an ophelu," ophelu," explained their host. "The origin and history of the device need not concern you now-suffice it to say that the Select have guarded its secret for generations. By application of the discipline that we Lanthians call 'Cognition,' the ophelu may be stimulated to induce a negative-temporal shift of cargo." explained their host. "The origin and history of the device need not concern you now-suffice it to say that the Select have guarded its secret for generations. By application of the discipline that we Lanthians call 'Cognition,' the ophelu may be stimulated to induce a negative-temporal shift of cargo."

"Negative-temporal?" Girays prompted, intrigued.

"The object of transference," Crinkle-beard told him, "reaches its destination a moment or so before it sets off. This displacement is so slight and unnoticeable that it may be called negligible, but is interesting nonetheless."

"How do you know that such a displacement occurs? How have you measured its duration, and under what circ.u.mstances?" probed Girays. "What do you regard as negligible? What is the cause of this anomaly, and during its term, are we to a.s.sume that the object of transference exists simultaneously in two separate locations? Speaking of which, does the nature of the object-organic or inorganic, living or dead, insectile or human, et cetera-in any way affect the outcome, and if so-"

"Will you for once stop pushing pushing?" hissed Luzelle.

"I'm not pushing. Will you for once stop and think think-"

"Your questions might be answered, Master v'Alisante," the savant interrupted, "but only at the cost of some time, which you can ill afford. Will you consent to postpone the interrogation?"

Girays inclined his head.

"You say this send us to Hurba before we go?" inquired Mesq'r Zavune.

"Imagine-for a single shining instant-four of us!" Stesian Festinette elbowed his brother exuberantly.

"That beats the Demon Tax Collector stunt, Tref, I swear it does!"

"Not straight to Hurba, sir," Crinkle-beard answered Zavune's query. "The sundered half of this ophelu lies in a castle, well beyond the city limits of Lanthi Ume. Once you are there, one of our people will guide you across the Gravula Wasteland to a second gla.s.s, which will in turn transport you to the caverns of the Nazara Sin, whose inhabitants-traditional friends of the Select-will send you on to Hurba."

"Sounds complicated," observed Luzelle. "Are you sure it wouldn't be fastest for us simply to-"

"If all goes well, your entire group should reach your destination by sunset today."

"If?" demanded Trefian.

"We're not likely to pop up inside a cow or something, are we?" Stesian worried.

"I care nothing for the risks," Bav Tchornoi proclaimed. "I only ask-this thing, this gla.s.s here-it works?"

"It works," Crinkle-beard a.s.sured him.

"Then I will use it," Tchornoi announced. "These others may do as they please, but I will go."

"I also," said Zavune.

"Include me," requested Luzelle. Really, there was no choice. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Girays shoot her a quelling glance, but she ignored him. He ought to know by now that she was hardly one to fear unconventional methods of travel. Let him back down himself, if he thought it so dangerous.

"I'll go," said Girays without enthusiasm.

The Festinettes traded glances, and bobbed their heads in unison.

"Excellent." Crinkle-beard nodded. "The larger the illicit exodus, the greater the affront to the Grewzians. But the ophelu cannot bear all of you at once. Your group of six must split in half."

"I go first," declared Tchornoi, glaring a challenge that was superfluous, for n.o.body opposed him. "Who comes also I do not care, but I go first. When do you send me?"

"Now."

"Good. What do I do?"

"Step onto the gla.s.s slab."

Tchornoi complied. Smiling as if they imagined themselves about to embark on a pleasure jaunt, the Festinette twins joined him. When all three stood upon the ophelu, one of Crinkle-beard's colleagues produced a tiny jar full of white crystalline matter, depositing small heaps of the stuff at the vertices of the hexagon.

"What is this?" Tchornoi squinted suspiciously. He received no answer.

Crinkle-beard bowed his head and spoke. As the rhythmic syllables flew from his lips, the six powdery mounds ignited. Flames leapt and circled the ophelu. Ghostly vapors arose. The savant spoke on, and the vapors thickened, paled, and whirled in crazy spirals.

Cognition. The real thing. Lips parted in wonder, Luzelle watched. Lips parted in wonder, Luzelle watched.

Tchornoi and the Festinettes were invisible now, lost in the roiling mists; their cries, if any, drowned in the roar of a Cognitive hurricane. Luzelle pressed her hands to her ears, straining her eyes in vain to pierce the white blindness. She could see nothing, hear nothing intelligible, but sensed the psychic a.s.sault of vast forces.

And then it was over, the white hurricane abruptly stilled, the surging alien energy exhausted. The riotous mists vanished in an instant to reveal an ophelu shining and empty. Tchornoi and the Festinettes were gone.

n.o.body stirred, n.o.body said a word.

"They are safe." Crinkle-beard finally broke the staring silence. No reaction from the stunned Ellipsoids, and he added, "They stand beneath the roof of Castle Io Wesha, some leagues beyond the city limits. Come, are you dazed? Surely you had some idea what to expect." No reply, and he inquired at last, "Are the three of you still willing to follow them?"

Wordlessly Mesq'r Zavune stepped onto the hexagonal slab. In silence Luzelle and Girays joined him. She wished that Girays would hold her hand, but would have died rather than let him know it. She stole a glance at his profile, noting the grim set of the jaw, and wondered if it would be the last look-wondered if the two of them stood within moments of uncanny annihilation.

What if we simply vanish? Forever? Her mouth was dry, which was a pity, for there were many things she wanted to say to him, she realized belatedly, and perhaps there would never be another chance. Her mouth was dry, which was a pity, for there were many things she wanted to say to him, she realized belatedly, and perhaps there would never be another chance.

Too late.

One of the black-robed figures was already replenishing the mounds of crystalline matter at the vertices of the slab. Crinkle-beard bowed his head and he was speaking again, chanting rhythmic syllables that she couldn't quite distinguish, but knew on instinct she would never understand.

The mounds ignited and the white vapors swirled back into being. Unthinkingly Luzelle seized Girays's arm and felt rather than saw his eyes turn toward her. Her own eyes remained fixed on Crinkle-beard, all but obscured by the mists, but still incomprehensibly audible. And now another sound was audible as well, some sort of purely mundane commotion on the landing outside the bowl-shaped chamber-a clatter of footfalls, a vocal clamor, an imperative pounding of fists on the door.

The door gave way and a squad of Grewzian soldiers burst into the room, revolvers in hand. The Lanthians shrank back and one of them, not of the Select, made a desperate dash for the exit. Three or four revolvers spoke simultaneously, and the fugitive dropped in his tracks. A couple of shots flew wide of the mark to strike the walls, marring the gla.s.s of the Mauranyza Dome with a complex network of new cracks.

All of this Luzelle glimpsed imperfectly through the thickening mists. She saw one of the black-robed savants gesture in a manner that must have struck the soldiers as threatening or annoying, for they shot him down at once. And she saw that Crinkle-beard, wholly absorbed in his Cognitive endeavor, appeared unaware of the Grewzian presence. His chanting syllables flowed forth smoothly, and the blast of gunfire never so much as shook his rhythm.

"Cognizance Oerlo Farni of the Select," the Grewzian sergeant, leader of the squadron, addressed the preoccupied Crinkle-beard, "I arrest you and your fellow enemies of the state in the name of the Grewzian Imperium."

Crinkle-beard, or Cognizance Oerlo Farni, seemed deaf. His voice flowed, and the vapors whirling about the ophelu waxed in solidity and velocity. A distant wailing of arcane winds ghosted upon the mists.

"Hands atop your head, and keep them there," commanded the sergeant. "Turn slowly and face me."

Farni spoke on. The ghostly wail drew nigh and the white mists funneled intensely above the hexagonal gla.s.s.

"Silence. Turn. Now." The sergeant c.o.c.ked his gun.

If Oerlo Farni heard the command, he ignored it. The syllables gushed, the wail of the wind rose to a howl, and the sergeant fired.

Luzelle heard the report echoing under the domed ceiling and dimly discerned the bearded victim's body falling, but the vapors veiled the scene. The mists shuddered and convulsed, for one moment fading to the verge of invisibility, and in that moment she saw the savant, p.r.o.ne in a puddle of blood. Her shocked eyes rose to meet those of the Grewzian sergeant.

"You three-" he began.

His words drowned in the renewed roar of the Cognitive storm. Oerlo Farni lived yet, mind and will intact for a final moment.

The room and all its furnishing seemed to shiver, and then Luzelle felt herself s.n.a.t.c.hed up and hurled headlong into wild white chaos.

6.

SHE WAS TUMBLING HELPLESSLY, as if caught in a breaking wave; overwhelmed and overpowered. Her white-blinded eyes snapped shut, and her cry of alarm lost itself in the roar of the supernatural gale. Then it was over, and she was set down brusquely in a different place.

Luzelle opened her eyes. She stood on a hexagonal slab of black gla.s.s set into the floor of a quiet stone chamber. A mild, fresh breeze blowing in through the open window carried the scent of open s.p.a.ces. She was still clutching her valise in one hand, and Girays v'Alisante's arm in the other. She released him at once. Beside them stood Mesq'r Zavune, a little disheveled, but upright and seemingly confident as ever.

The stone room was well populated. Bav Tchornoi was there along with the Festinette boys, all manifestly whole and sound. With them stood a brace of strangers, one young and the other middle aged, both female, both arrayed in the dark robes with double-headed dragon insignia. Both appeared troubled, even alarmed.

"Something happened," the elder stated without preamble and without doubt. "What was it?"

The three on the ophelu hesitated, and the younger, almost girlish-looking savant added, "The transference was disrupted in midprocess and nearly aborted. So severe a disturbance suggests trouble, perhaps an accident or sudden illness."

"Was Cognizance-was our colleague at Mauranyza Dome injured or otherwise distracted?" the first speaker demanded.

"Shot by the Grewzians, even as he transported us. Severely wounded or dead," Girays reported. "And he wasn't the only one. I am sorry."

The shock showed on both the women's faces, but neither gave way to emotion, and the elder requested simply, "Explain."

Girays obeyed, describing the arrival of the Grewzian soldiers, the gunfire, and its consequences, in terms clear and economical. Luzelle listened in surprise, for he was not only reliably factual, as she would have expected, but diplomatic as well. The Girays she had known years ago would probably have told them exactly where their confreres back in the Mauranyza Dome had gone strategically wrong, and exactly what should be done to forestall future repet.i.tion of the disaster. Or maybe he wouldn't have really, maybe moldy indignation clouded her memory.

"...two of your friends left alive in the hands of the Grewzians," Girays was concluding, "which I fear may jeopardize both of you Cognizances, together with other members of your organization."

"The prisoners will reveal nothing," the older woman stated. He started to protest, and she silenced him with a gesture. "It is not your concern. You have informed us, there is nothing more you can do. And we of the Select possess ample means of self-defense."

Didn't seem to work so well for the Cognizant Oerlo Farni. Or for Preeminence Cezineen, Luzelle thought, but said nothing aloud. She caught Girays's eye for an instant, and sensed that the same thought was pa.s.sing through his mind. Sometimes with him, she just knew.

"Send us on our way, then, and we kick Grewzian a.s.s around the Grand Ellipse for you," Bav Tchornoi suggested. "We make those chitterling-sucking b.a.s.t.a.r.ds look like s.h.i.t."

Tchornoi might lack a certain polish, Luzelle reflected, but he possessed a real talent for cutting straight to essentials.

Their hostesses seemed to agree.

"Come with us," the senior ordered. "Everything is prepared to speed you from this place."

Everything? What now-another white whirlwind? But Luzelle ventured no comment, following meekly as the black-robed women led the Ellipsoids from the chamber of the ophelu, down the stairs, and through the great hall to emerge from the castle into blinding afternoon sunlight. Standing in the courtyard was a sizable, st.u.r.dy carriage, drawn by four strong-looking horses. The driver waited in the box. The conveyance was almost disappointingly mundane. But Luzelle ventured no comment, following meekly as the black-robed women led the Ellipsoids from the chamber of the ophelu, down the stairs, and through the great hall to emerge from the castle into blinding afternoon sunlight. Standing in the courtyard was a sizable, st.u.r.dy carriage, drawn by four strong-looking horses. The driver waited in the box. The conveyance was almost disappointingly mundane.

"Are we not to carry on by way of that perfectly smashing hither-and-yon magical thingamajig that brought us here?" Stesian Festinette wanted to know.

"Seems a bit faster," Trefian opined.

"The two sundered halves of the gla.s.s that brought you are capable of transporting cargo back and forth between Mauranyza Dome and Castle Io Wesha, nothing more," the senior savant informed him.

"Cargo?" Stesian sniffed. Stesian sniffed.

"Castle Io Wesha," Luzelle echoed. "I can't help but worry about the risks you run on our account. Do the Grewzians know-"

"The Grewzians know that this structure has been owned or occupied by members of my family since it was erected, over seven centuries ago," the other informed her. "They also know of my family's traditional connection to the Select of Lanthi Ume, but that is all they know, and it is not enough to do them much good."

"But it's not as if they needed actual proof to-"

"As for the risks we run," the savant cut her off, "be a.s.sured it is not on your account." She turned to the Festinettes, whose pretty brown heads were c.o.c.ked at identical angles. "And you, gentlemen, take heart-your confinement to the carriage will be brief. The device that carried you here is not the only such to be found in this land."

"Oh, outstanding," Trefian comprehended. "You mean that we are being taken to-"

"I mean that it is more than time for you to go." The flick of a finger urged the Ellipsoids on toward the carriage.

Who's the driver? Luzelle wondered. Luzelle wondered. Can she be trusted? I just hate having to depend on people I don't know, and somehow it seems to happen so often! Can she be trusted? I just hate having to depend on people I don't know, and somehow it seems to happen so often!

She entered the carriage and the other five climbed in behind her, squeezing themselves carefully into the small s.p.a.ce. Luzelle found herself trapped between the window and Bav Tchornoi, who sat with his ma.s.sive thighs spread indolently wide, forcing her to flatten herself against the carriage wall in order to avoid contact. She thought about speaking up, to order him out of her s.p.a.ce, but could not find the nerve to do it.

Only a few hours, she a.s.sured herself. Only a little while to put up with this gigantic, hairy, smelly, crude, rude Rhazaullean drunkard, and then it'll be over- Only a little while to put up with this gigantic, hairy, smelly, crude, rude Rhazaullean drunkard, and then it'll be over- Why didn't Girays have the decency to sit next to me?

How could he know that I'd want him to?

She stole a glance at Girays. He had his head out the open window, and he was optimistically attempting a last exchange with the impenetrable savants.

"Cognizances, if I might request a final kindness, please tell us where we-"

"There will be guides," the older woman told him. "They are allies. Try not to fear them."

"Why would-"