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propped them on one knee. "Put your foot here-that's good. Now, reach for it.
Up you go."
Brannel grabbed the edge of the opening and heaved himself into it. Once he
was up, he helped pull Mage
Keff into a room crowded with boxes. They had to climb down from a high shelf
with great care. When Brannel and Keff were inside, the opening in the wall
closed.
The female voice of the tower spoke in its strange tongue.
"Aha," it said. "Come on through."
"Come with me," Keff said, in Ozran.
They walked down a short corridor. Two figures sat together in front of the
great pictures of the outside. One of them rose and stared at him in horror
and surprise.
The feeling was mutual.
"Magess Plennafrey!" Brannel, with one fearful glance at Keff, dropped to his
knees and stared at the floor.
"It's okay, Brannel," Keff said, reassuringly, plucking at the worker males
upper arm. "We're all working together here."
"Hush, everyone," the other magess said in the towers voice. "Here comes our
diversion. I don't want die spies to pick up any sound from in here."
Carialle turned on a magnetic field in the airlock, strong enough to disable
the spy-eyes, should any be bold enough
to try to pass inside, but not enough to stop the servo. She slid the door
upward. The low-slung robot rumbled imper-
turbably up the ramp and through the arch. In one slim, black, metal hand it
held very carefully a single marsh flower.
Immediately, the spy-eyes thought they had their op-
portunity to storm the tower and zoomed after the servo.
One hit the field before the others and clanked noisily to the ground,,
disabled. The over-the-air chatter became ex-
cited, and the other spheres reversed course at once, speeding away.
'That'll make them crazy," Carialle said. The first spy sphere rolled halfway
down the ramp before its owner, on the other side of the continent, was able
to take charge of it once again. As soon as it was airborne, it flitted off.
"Good riddance," Carialle said, and returned her atten-
tion to the situation inside the cabin.
Keff stood between Plennafrey and Brannel with his hands out. Brannel was on
his feet, with his mutilated hands balled into fists by his sides. Plenna had
both her long-fingered hands planted protectively on her belt buckle. The
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Ozrans were glaring at each other.
"Now, now," Keff said. "I need you both. Please, lets make peace here."
"You intend to explain to a worker what we are doing?"
Plenna asked, appealing to Keff. 'This one only has four fingers! You can give
them directions, but they cannot understand detailed instructions or
complicated situ-
ations."
Brannel, following the secondary dialect with evident difficulty, replied
haltingly in that language, which sur-
prised the magiwoman as much as his daring to speak out in her presence. "I
can understand. Mage Keff has agreed to give me a chance to help. I will do
whatever Mage Keff wants," he said staunchly.
Carialle made her image step forward. "Lady Plenna-
frey, you are suffering from a preconceived notion that all the people who
have had the finger amputation are stupid.
Brannel is the exception to almost any rule you can think of. He has superior
intelligence for someone brought up with the hardships he suffered. I think
he's far smarter than the favored few who live in the mountains with you
mages. You're not that different. You belong to the same species," she said,
reaching for an example, "like . . . like
Keffandldo."
"You?" Plennafrey asked.
Almost amazed that such a thought had come from her own speakers, Carialle had
to pause to consider die change
of attitude she had undergone. Much of it was due to see-
ing the division of a single people on this world into masters and slaves. She
now realized that it was counter-
productive to separate herself from her parent community.
Yes, she was different, but compared with everything else she and Keff
encountered, the similarities were more important. Acknowledging her humanity
at last felt right and proper. In spite of the way she always pictured
herself, she knew inside the metal shell and the carefully protected nerve
center was a human being. She felt warmed by the perception.
"Yes," she said, simply. "Me."
Keff beamed at her pillar. Her Lady Fair image beamed happily back at him.
Plennafrey fumed visibly at the inter-
play. If Carialle was human, then the Ozran had a genuine rival. This,
combined with her lovers liberal attitude toward the lower class, obviously
dismayed the young woman. As she had proved before, she was resilient and
adaptable. Plenna seemed to be considering Keffs point of view, but she
thoroughly disapproved of Keff having another woman in his life. To disarm the
magiwoman, Carialle made her image step back onto the wall. Plenna-
frey relaxed visibly.
"So I think you should understand that Brannel deserves an explanation if he
is to help us."
"Well..." Plennafrey said.
"I heard that some of the mages are descended from
Brannel's kind of people," Keff said persuasively. "Isn't
Asedow's mother one like that? I heard Potria call her a dray-face."
'That's true," Plenna said, nodding. "And he is intelli-
gent. Not good at dunking things dirough, but intelligent."
She smiled ruefully at Keff. "I don't wish to make things harder for my people
or for myself. I will cooperate."
"For what am I risking myself?" Brannel asked hoarsely, looking from one mage
to another.
"For a sheaf of papers," Keff said. "I need to see them.
Magess Plenna will describe them, and Carialle will create an image for you to
see."
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Brannel seemed unsatisfied. "And for me? For what am
I risking myself?" he repeated.
"Ah," Keff said, enlightened. "Well, what's your price?
What do you want?"
Plennafrey, losing her newfound liberalism, drew her-
self up in outrage. "You dare ask for a reward? Do the mages not give you food
and shelter? This is just anodier task we have given you."
"We have those things, Magess, but we want knowl-
edge, too!" Brannel said. Having begun, he was determined to put his case,
even in the face of disapproval from an angry overlord, though somehow he was
begging now. "Mage Keff, I... I want to be a mage, too. For a tiny, small item
of power I will help you. It does not need to be big, or very powerful, but I
know I could be a good mage. I
will earn my way along. That is all I have ever desired: to leam. Give me
diat, and I will give you my life." Keff saw die passion in the Noble
Primitives eye and was prepared to agree.
'To give a four-finger power? No!" Plenna protested, cutting him off.
"Not good for you, Brannel," Carialle said, emphatically, siding unexpectedly
with Plennafrey. "Look what a mess your mages have made of this place using
unlimited power.
How about a better home, or an opportunity for a real education, instead?"
"What about redressing the balance of power. Can?"
Keff asked under his breath.
"It doesn't need redressing, it needs de-escalating,"
Carialle replied through her brawns mastoid implant.
"Could this planet really cope with one more resentful mage wielding a wand?
We still don't know what the power was for originally."
Brannels long face wore a mulish expression. Carialle could picture him with
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