Mayer Alan Brenner - Spell of Intrigue

“No hands, no arms, no appendages of any sort.”

“Well, that is what we expected,” reflected Shaa. “Any further thoughts about just mooring in the river and sending a scout down ahead in the skiff, or even overland?”

“Still sounds like overkill to me.”

“Hmm,” Shaa said. “I agree. Among the lot of us there shouldn’t be much we can’t handle. However, one does like to stack the deck.”

“It probably wasn’t an omen at all,” Karlini reasoned, “and it probably wasn’t an attack either, and even if it was it probably wasn’t directed at us.”

“It certainly seemed like an attack at the time. What are you trying to do, spoil all the fun? As much fun as one can get from anticipating calamity, that is.”

“You are in a good mood, aren’t you.”

“I’m always in a good mood,” Shaa stated. “My family is known for our equal temperament. Since you haven’t found out anything about the ice-apparition itself, I presume you’ve been gathering intelligence about doings in Oolsmouth? It would appear prudent to do that , at least, as long as the intelligence collection has a justifiably parsimonious overhead of its own. Judicious employment of that aerial surveillance probe of yours, perhaps?”

Karlini squinted at Shaa across the top of the remaining section of sandwich, a protruding anchovy drooping tail-first down past his cheek. “You haven’t been peeking in at me from the hall, have you?”

With a theatrical flourish, Shaa shielded his eyes with one hand. “By your answer, I take it that you have, in fact, been operating said probe in the vicinity of Oolsmouth. I will further predict that you found things to be perfectly normal. Shall I proceed to my next feat?”

“No,” Karlini said sourly, “that one’s quite enough, thank you. Why did I even bother to take the time in the first place if you already knew what I was going to find?”

“Well, it is axiomatic that aerial reconnaissance is most useful after a natural disaster, or from our point of view an unnatural one, or when one happens to be looking for an army lost somewhere in the woods, say. It takes a lot to disrupt the normal functioning of a city to the degree where it’s visible from the air. On the other hand, getting down to the person-to-person level is tedious and time-consuming, chews up energy, and leaves one open to counterforce retaliation by anti-scrutiny countermeasure shields. You are good at this, I know, and you’ve spent a lot of time and effort advancing your methods as well, so don’t feel I’m being critical; not in the least. The world just imposes certain constraints. As you know perfectly well. You knew as fully as I what your effort would probably yield.”

“Yes,” said Karlini, “well. I tried to locate Groot, but he’s not to be found. His house and warehouses are locked up, and under guard, too. And before you start to pester me again, yes, I checked the prisons, but they’re search-screened as a matter of routine, so, all right, yes, I was just being thorough.”

“Isn’t there some way of getting hold of Groot or his people directly?” Shaa said, looking thoughtfully at the beams of the low ceiling. “Doesn’t he have some kind of magician on his staff?”

“I think he does. In fact, I know he does. One of the usual mercantile specialists keeps in touch with his trading parties and ships and all those far-flung kind of things.”

“Ships?”

They adjourned from Karlini’s workroom, which also served as a sail-locker, and proceeded toward the bridge. While they were making their way across the main deck through the maze of lashed-down trade goods, Tildamire suddenly appeared from behind the mainmast, an exercise book in hand. “Hi,” she said. “You guys come up with anything good yet?”

“Are you deliberately dogging my steps,” Shaa grumbled, “or is this constant serendipity the pure result of a malign fate?” He held up his hand. “No, don’t tell me; mystery is an endangered resource as it is. Dog away, if you must.”

Not that she needs encouragement , thought Shaa. Perhaps if he threatened to deliver a lecture she would go away. “We are hoping to contact Groot’s communications mediator,” he added.

“That sounds interesting,” Tildy said cautiously.

“Actually, it’s not,” said Shaa. “Communications mediator is a fairly tedious job and not without its wearing aspects, since many things can interfere with messages and focusing them becomes much harder the farther they have to go; the usual radiative inverse-square laws apply here.” Ostentatiously pedantic, he began to count off his points on his fingers. “Like most other spell-work, the throughput is low because you usually need to rest up for awhile after arbitrating significant message traffic. It’s a specialized skill requiring a lot of higher math. There’s also the problem of contacting the communicator, since his or her expertise is designed around contacting you ; outgoing requires different protocols than incoming. You see? Not flashy at all.”

Karlini preceded them up onto the quarterdeck, where the captain was staring with a sage seaman’s expression down the river ahead of the ship. River traffic had been picking up over the past few hours, indicating (if any of them were in doubt) that they were fast approaching the Oolsmouth district. “A key?” the captain said, echoing Karlini’s question. “Aye, a key I’ve got, and a key I’ve been using, too. Waste of time it’s been. Gazoont, that’s his name, Meester Groot’s facilitator; not a clever sort like your lot, don’t you know, but he’s been regular enough in the past.”

Karlini exchanged a “hmm” with Shaa. Tildamire appeared on the verge of joining them, but after a glance at Shaa she thought better of it. “We could give Gazoont the benefit of the doubt and say he’s on vacation,” suggested Karlini.

“Too much coincidence,” Shaa said to Tildy. “Far too much.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you, Dr. Shaa,” the captain stated. “I don’t know whether this Gazoont fellow is dead, or whether he’s left Meester Groot’s service, or what-all else might be afoot -”

“Communications could be jammed at the source,” Karlini said dubiously, “although I didn’t pick up the kind of hash in the carrier medium you expect with that.”

“Next you’ll be talking about atmospheric conditions being inconclusive,” said Shaa. “Which is to say, it’s all smoke. The important fact is that Gazoont is not answering. I find that unhappily suggestive. I would treat it as a priority to get some hard news about what is awaiting us up ahead.”

“Perhaps you don’t have long to wait,” said the captain. He gestured with his pipe, pointing the stem out beyond the port bow. A barge was floating upriver toward them, taking advantage through its sail of the breeze at its back. “Outbound from Oolsmouth within the last day,” he added. “She’ll come within hailing distance in a moment.”

“What was that key stuff you were talking about?” Tildy asked Shaa in a low voice.

Shaa crossed his arms and leaned on the rail guarding the drop from bridge to main deck. “If you need to contact a communicator, you generally have to have their address, which is to say their aura recognition pattern. The communicator can publish this address by imprinting it on some small object, the ‘key,’ which for the sake of convenience is usually a token of some sort. Creation of a usable key isn’t easy, so a particular communicator usually doesn’t produce too many of them. They can be fairly dangerous in the wrong hands, too, since releasing a key detailed enough for someone to contact you with can also let a properly trained person locate you in return, or even mount his own attack; this is another reason that not too many folks become communicators. Captain, does Oolsmouth have a public communicator that you know of?”