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lingering scent. "And she's wearing the most delicious perfume."
Carialle noted the rise in his circulation and respiration and cleared her
throat impatiently.
"Keff! She's an indigenous inhabitant of a planet we happen to be studying.
Please disengage fifteen-year-old hormones and re-enable forty-five-year-old
brain. We need to figure out who they are so we can free my tail and get off
this planet."
"I can't compartmentalize as easily as you can," Keff grumbled. "Can I help it
if I appreciate an attractive lady?"
"I'm no more immune to beauty than you are," Carialle reminded him. "But if
she's responsible for our troubles, I
want to know why. I particularly want to know how\"
Across the field, some of the Noble Primitives had emerged from their burrow.
Stooping in postures indica-
tive of respect and healthy fear, they scurried toward the floating chairs,
halting some distance away. Keff noticed
Brannel among them, standing more erect than any of the others. Still defying
authority, Keff thought, with wry admiration.
"Do you want to ask him what's going on?" Carialle said through the implant.
"Remember what he said about being punished for curiosity," Keff reminded her.
'These are the people he's afraid of. If I single him out, he's in for it.
I'll catch him later for a private talk."
The elder, Alteis, approached and bowed low to the two chair-holders. They
ignored him, continuing to circle at ten meters, calling out at one another.
"I knew I could not trust you to wait for Nokias to lead us here, Asedow,"
Potria shouted angrily. "One day, your eagerness to thrust out your hand for
power will result in having it cut off at the shoulder."
"You taunt me for breaking the rules when you also didn't wait," Asedow
retorted. "Where s Nokias, then?"
"I couldn't let you claim by default," Potria said, "so your action forced me
to follow at once. Now that I am here, I
restate that I should possess the silver cylinder and the being inside. I will
use it with greater responsibility than you."
'The Ancient Ones would laugh at your disingenuous-
ness, Potria," Asedow said, scornfully. "You want them just to keep them from
me. I declare," he shouted to the skies, "that I am the legitimate keeper of
these artifacts sent down through the ages to me, and by my hope of promo-
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tion, I will use them wisely and well."
Potria circled Asedow, trying to get nearer to the great cylinder, but he cut
her off again and again. She directed her chair to fly up and over him. He
veered upward in a flash, cackling maddeningly. She hated him, hated him for
thwarting her. At one time they had been friends, even toyed with the idea of
becoming lovers. She had hoped that they could have been allies, taking power
from Nokias and that bitch Iranika and ruling the South between them despite
the fact that the first laws of the First Mages said only one might lead. She
and Asedow could never agree on who that would be. As now, he wouldn't support
her claim, and she wouldn't support his. So they were forced to follow archaic
laws whose reasoning was laid down thousands of years ago and might never be
changed. The two of them were set against one another like mad vermin in a
too-small cage. She or Asedow must conquer, must be the clear winner in the
final contest. Potria had determined in her deepest heart that she would be
the victor.
The rustle in her mystic hearing told her that Asedow was gathering power from
the ley lines for an attack. He had but to chase her away or knock her
unconscious, and the contest was his. Killing was unnecessary and would only
serve to make High Mage Nokias angry by depriving him of a strong subject and
ally. Potria began to wind in the threads of power between her fingers,
gathering and gath-
ering until she had a web large enough to throw over him.
It would contain the force of Asedow s spell and knock him out.
'That one is unworthy," she heard Asedow call out. "Let me win, not her!"
Stretching the smothering web on her thumbs, she spread out her arms wide in
the prayer sign, hands upright and palms properly turned in toward her to
contain the blessing.
"In the name ofUreth, the Mother World of Paradise, I
call all powers to serve me in this battle," she chanted.
Asedow flashed past her in his chariot, throwing his spell. Raising herself,
Potria dropped her spread counter-
spell on top of him and laughed as his own blast of power caught him. His
chair wobbled unsteadily to a halt a hun-
dred meters distant. His cursing was audible and he was very angry. He
switched his chair about on its axis. She saw his face, dark with blood as a
thundercloud. He panted heavily.
'Thought you would have an easy win, did you?" Potria called, tauntingly. She
began to ready an attack other own.
Something not fatal but appropriate.
She felt disturbances in the ether. More mages were coming, probably attracted
by the buildup of power in this barren, uninteresting place. Potria changed
the character of the cantrip she was molding. If she was to have an audi-
ence, she would give a good show and make a proper fool of Asedow.
By now, her opponent hovered invisible in a spell-
cloud of dark green smoke that roiled and rumbled.
Potria fancied she even saw miniature lightnings flash within its depths. He,
too, had observed the arrival of more of their magical brethren, and it made
him impa-
tient. He struck while his spell was still insufficiently prepared. Potria
laughed and raised a single, slim hand, fingers spread. The force bounced off
the globe of pro-
tection she had wrought about herself, rushed outward, and exploded on contact
with the nearest solid object, a tree, setting it ablaze. Some of it rebounded
upon Ase-
dow, shaking his chariot so hard that he nearly lost control of it.
Having warded offAsedow's pathetic attack, Potria stole a swift look at the
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newly arrived mages. They were all minor lights from the East, probably upset
that she and
Asedow had crossed the border into their putative realm.
By convention, they were bound to stay out of the middle of a fairly joined
battle, and so they hovered on the side-
lines, swearing about me invasion by southern mages. So long as they kept out
of her way until she won, she didn't care what they thought other.
Keff saw the five new arrivals blink into existence, well beyond the
battleground. The first two came to such a screeching halt that he wondered if
they had hurried to the scene at a dead run and were having trouble braking.
The others proceeded with more caution toward the circling combatants.
'The first arrivals remind me of something," Keff said, "but I can't put my
finger on what. Great effect, that sud-
den stop!"
"It looked like Singularity Drive," Carialle said, critically.
"Interesting that they've duplicated the effect unprotected and in
atmosphere."
'That's big magic," Keff said.
The new five were no sooner at the edge of the field than the magiman and
magiwoman let off their latest vol-
ley at each other.
Smoke exploded in a plume from the green storm cloud. It was shot along its
expanse with lightning and booms of thunder. Enwrapping the magiwoman in its
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