«What do you mean, how many sides does it have?» Abruptly, Abivard regretted doubting Bozorg. «It has to have two sides, the same as it did before.»
«Does it?» Panteles' smile was mild, benign. «Show me with your finger, eminent sir, if you'd be so kind.»
With the air of someone humoring a madman, Abivard ran his finger around the outside of the strap. A moment later, he would run it around the inside, and a moment after that he would give Panteles what he deserved for making him the butt of what had to be a foolish joke.
But in tracing the length of leather with his finger, he somehow found himself back where he'd begun after having touched every finger's breadth of it. «Wait a moment,» he said sharply. «Let me try that again.» This time he paid closer attention to his work. But paying closer attention didn't seem to matter. Again he traced the entire length of leather and returned to his starting point.
«Do you see, eminent sir?» Panteles said as Abivard stared down at his own finger as if it had betrayed him. «Voimios' strap-that's the name it took on at the Sorcerers' Collegium- has only one side, not two.»
«That's impossible,» Abivard said. Then he looked at his finger again. It looked as if it knew better.
«You just made a continuous line from your starting point back to your starting point,» Panteles said politely. «How could you do that if you went from one side to another? You just got there backward and were taken by surprise.»
As Panteles had doubtless meant them to, the words hung in the air. «Wait,» Abivard said. «Let me think. You're trying to tell me Maniakes' wizards have turned the canal into a strap of Voimios-is that what you called it?»
«Close enough, eminent sir,» Panteles said.
«Drivel!» Bozorg said. He snatched the leather strap out of Panteles' hand and threw it to the ground. «It's a fraud, a fake, a trick. There's no magic whatever to it, only deception.»
«What do you have to say to that?» Abivard asked Panteles.
«Eminent sir, I never claimed there was any magic in Voimios' strap,» the Videssian wizard answered. «I offered it as analogy, not proof. Besides-» He stooped and picked up the length of leather Bozorg had thrown down. «-this is a flat thing. To twist it so it has only one side, all you need do is this.» He gave it the deft half twist that turned it baffling. «But if you were going to make it so that something with length and width and height turned back on itself the same way, the only twist I can imagine to do such a thing is a magical one.»
Trying again and again to cross the canal and failing had already done more strange things to Abivard's imagination than he'd ever wanted. He turned to Bozorg. «Have you got a different idea how the Videssians could have turned us back on ourselves?»
«No, lord,» Bozorg admitted. «But the one this Videssian puts forward is ridiculous on the face of it. His precious Voimios probably got some of his horse's harness on poorly, then spent the next twenty years cadging cups of wine on the strength of it.»
«Are you denying what Panteles says is true, or are you only disparaging it?» Abivard asked pointedly.
The question had sharp teeth. Bozorg might have been furious, but he was no fool. He said, «What he said about the strap may be true, I suppose, no matter how absurd it sounds. But how could anyone take seriously this nonsense about twisting a canal back on itself?»
«I'd say some thousands of soldiers take the notion seriously, or would if they heard it,» Panteles shot back. «It happened to them, after all.»
«So it did,» Abivard said. «I was one of them, and thinking of it still makes me shiver.» He looked from Panteles to Bozorg and back again. «Do you think the two of you, working together-» He put special stress on those words. «-can find out whether what happened to the canal is the magical equivalent of a Voimios strap?»
Panteles nodded. A moment later, more grudgingly, Bozorg did, too. Panteles said, «Making a magic of this sort cannot have been easy for Maniakes' wizards. If the traces of the sorcery linger on this plane, we shall find them.»
«And if you do?» Abivard asked. «What then?»
«Untwisting the canal should be easier for us than twisting it was for them-if that's what they did,» Panteles answered. «Restoring a natural condition takes far less sorcery than changing away from what is natural.»
«Mm, I can see the sense in that,» Abivard said. «How soon will you be able to find out if Maniakes has turned the canal into a strap of Voimios?»
Bozorg stirred. Abivard looked his way. He said, «Lord, do you feel easy about using a Videssian to fight the Videssians?»
Abivard had been wrestling with that question since he had realized magic was holding him away from Maniakes' army. He'd worried about it less since Panteles had started his elaborate theoretical explanation: any man dedicated enough to put so much effort into figuring out what might have gone into a spell wouldn't be content unless he could have a hand in unraveling it, too… would he?
«How say you, Panteles?» Abivard asked. «Eminent sir, I say I never imagined turning a Voimios strap from an amusement into a piece of creative sorcery,» Panteles answered. «To understand how that's done and then to figure out a spell to counter it-I'm lucky to be living in such exciting times, when anything seems possible.»
His eyes gleamed. Abivard recognized the expression on his pinched, narrow face. Soldiers with that exalted look would ride to their deaths without flinching; minstrels who had it crafted songs that lived for generations. Panteles would go where knowledge and energy and inspiration took him and would pursue his target with the eagerness of a bridegroom going to his bride. «I think it will be all right,» Abivard said to Bozorg. «And if it isn't all right, I trust your skill to hold disaster away from us.»
«Lord, you may honor me beyond my worth,» the Makuraner mage murmured.
«I don't think so,» Abivard said heartily. «And as I've told you, I expect you to work with him. If his idea turns out to be wrong-headed after all, I'll need to hear that from you so we can figure out what to try next.»
He hoped with all his heart that Panteles and Bozorg would be able to find a way around-or through-Maniakes' magic. If they could, the sorcery would be a one-time wonder: if not, every time Makuraners tried to clash with Videssians, they would find themselves going back the way from which they had come. That would be a worse disaster than defeat in battle.
«What one mage has done, another may undo,» Panteles declared. To that Bozorg assented with a cautious nod.
«Finding out what the mage has done can be interesting, though,» Abivard remarked.
«Truth, eminent sir. I do not know if I have proposed the correct explanation, either,» Panteles said. «One of the many things I need to learn-»
«Don't just stand there.» Abivard realized he was being unfair, but urgency counted for more. «Go find out what you can by whatever means you can. I intend to send riders up and down the canal-provided they don't think they're riding north when they're riding south or the other way around. If we can force a crossing somewhere else-»
«Then the notion of the Voimios strap becomes moot,» Panteles interrupted.
Abivard shook his head. «Not quite. Oh, we might be able to get around it this one time, but it would keep on being a trick Maniakes has and we don't. He could use it again, say, in a mountain pass where we didn't have any choice about how we tried to get at him. If we can, I want us to have a way to beat this spell so it doesn't stay in the Avtokrator's arsenal, if you take my meaning.»
Both Panteles and Bozorg bowed as if to say they not only understood but agreed. Abivard waved them off to begin their investigation. At his shouted orders, horsemen did gather to ride off up and down the canal. But before they set out, one of them asked, «Uh, lord, how are we to know whether the spell still holds?»