Mayer Alan Brenner - Spell of Intrigue

“Torture, you said,” stated Zhardann.

“Yes, there was that,” Pasook admitted with a bit of embarrassment. “It was not, shall we say, an overly pleasant experience. I had not been keeping up my personal protection as well as I might, but then who would expect one of us to break with normal practice so violently? These things just aren’t done.”

“No,” said Zhardann, “no, they are certainly not. Shocking. All the more reason to put him in line. We are all together on this?”

We were. “We must confer further,” Zhardann continued, “but I, for one, would like to take a break.” He pushed himself out of the depths of the armchair cushions and turned solicitously to Pasook. Pasook, though, had managed to rise from his own chair, if a bit gingerly. He walked carefully toward the door. Then, as he came abreast of my position, he paused and gazed at me, which was only fair since I had been gazing at him. He approached me a few steps and stuck out his right hand. I looked at him, and it, and then extended my own. As our palms met, I felt an electric tingle in my knuckles followed immediately by a sharp lancing pain in my palm, as though a large nail had suddenly been pounded through the center of my hand. Blue sparks arced out from between our fingers. I thought I heard a low sizzle, too, but before I could even jerk my hand away Pasook had closed his own fingers in a tight grasp around my wrist. Before I could get out a yelp, either, the pain was gone as abruptly as it had descended.

Zhardann was talking with Jill over by the doorway, their faces averted. They appeared to have noticed nothing. Soaf Pasook was grinning at me, but it was a different, craftier grin than he had showed us before. He pumped my hand once, then released it. “We must speak,” Pasook said, “my old friend.” He turned to the door and was gone.

My hand wasn’t smoking. The skin over my palm appeared completely normal - no scorch marks, no holes, no rush of blood. I felt exhausted, as though I’d just finished running down from Roosing Oolvaya carrying the horse on my back, say. The odd part was that, in a strange way and at the same time, I seemed to be more energetic, as though the zap had sent a transfusion of lightning through my heart and off into my limbs. Long hours, poor eating habits, and maybe the raw power of the burst itself; I couldn’t imagine what else it could be. I’d never experienced anything like it before.

I squared my shoulders and headed for the door myself. At least Pasook had sounded interested in talking to me. For some reason, though, the thought seemed to have lost some of its appeal. Life is just dangerous, I guess, unless perhaps you’re somebody like an accountant. No, that wasn’t right, either: Julio was the next thing over from an accountant, and he was in a mess, too. At least I had now had a better idea of how to help him and Groot, and of where matters were going.

It was sure going to be interesting if Sapriel actually did have the ring.

“Mind that skiff, now!” called Shaa.

“Aye,” said the mate, apparently paying not the slightest attention to him. The coxswain continued to pound his drum at the front of the quarterdeck, the crew kept time with their oars, with surprising gusto, Shaa was happy to see; in short, everything was as it should be, even with the wind gone and the ship now moving across the current as it headed through the maze of ships toward the main public dock of Oolsmouth. They cleared the skiff Shaa had mentioned in his warning with a tidy expanse of empty water to spare and headed in the direction of a barge plodding slowly at a right angle to their path, on a converging course. While Shaa was considering the appropriate instruction for that situation, Tildamire appeared at the head of the stairs, followed by Roni. They were both wearing cloaks with hoods.

“These things should be banned,” Roni muttered, flapping a long sleeve out of her way.

“Are you acquiring a particular taste for fashion, after all these years?” Shaa asked, diverting his attention from the needs of the ship. The crew, ably led by the new mate, could obviously take care of themselves for a moment or two.

“Don’t give me that ‘all these years’ nonsense,” she told him. “The most ridiculous part of these carryings-on has always been the disguises. I mean, look at you.”

“Yes, don’t you like it?” Shaa took off his cap, polished a dust speck off the insignia on the sleeve of his jacket, and replaced it, with perhaps the barest inclination toward a rakish tilt. “Just a slightly different way of viewing truth.”

“Are you sure you should be doing this?” said Tildy. “Your heart ...”

It was time to nip this in the bud. That was what Roni was supposed to be there for, but she had turned away, ignoring them; he would have to do it all himself. “Are we married?” Shaa asked.

“What are you talking about? Of course we’re not -”

“Are we betrothed? Do we have a relationship other than that of two people who happen to be on the same boat at the same time?”

“Why are you -”

“Look,” said Shaa. “You’re a nice girl, a very nice girl. I like you - you’re a nice girl. I don’t want to be rude, but if that’s the way you take it, then my conscience will just have to determine an appropriate way for me to do penance. Nevertheless, there it is.”

“There what is?”

“My business, my choices, my freedom of action, however limited, on the one side, and your solicitous-bordering-on-meddlesome attitude on the other. By which I mean to say, if you need to hear it another way, thank you for your interest but please leave me alone. Hmm?”

“All I was doing was -”

“ I know what you were doing,” Shaa told her. “Do you?”

“But what if things get out of control? It could kill you, couldn’t it?”

“You are persistent, I’ll give you that, but the last time I checked, persistence was not one of the cardinal virtues. As far as for dying, well, everyone dies eventually. Well, almost everyone,” amended Shaa. The mate gave him an are-you-crazy-or-do-you-just-sound-that-way look over his shoulder, the space on his jaw where until very recently a tidy beard had rooted showing fish-belly pale against the weather-beaten leather of the rest of his countenance. “As you were,” Shaa said to him. The mate shook his head and examined the sky, but then shrugged himself and turned back to his steerage.

“When you say you like me,” Tildy said slowly, “just what do you mean by that? What do you mean I’m a ‘nice girl’?”

She seemed to be lagging a sentence or two behind him, Shaa noted. Yet another case of bad timing. “Why are you interested?”

“Well, there’s your curse ... I mean my brother told me you, ah, well, you said that it said you’d, ah, fall, ah, in love while on some adventure, and, well, I was, ah, wondering ...”

So, yes, it was as he’d suspected. Shaa had known he would rue the day he had identified Jurtan Mont as someone in need of his help. Actually, he recalled, he had known it immediately, a knowledge that hadn’t let up on him yet. “Let me give you a piece of advice, for a change. Don’t get mixed up with a curse. Don’t get mixed up with anybody with a curse; don’t even think about it. It’s bad for your health, and it could be bad for their health.” Shaa deliberately stared out ahead, at the sailing vessel that was crossing their bow, at the dock beyond it. “Let’s do this smartly, now, men,” he called to the crew.

“Urr,” said the mate.

Tildy had grabbed his arm. “Now wait just a second, you! Why are you always pushing people off, you with your cute turns of phrase and your changing the subject and your, your attitude ?” Her comprehension had apparently caught up with Shaa’s warning of impending rudeness. “What is it - your curse, right? You’re just going to blame everything on this curse?”