Mayer Alan Brenner - Spell of Intrigue

“I will want to hear from Sapriel his version of these facts,” the floating sphere-creature said, somewhat metallically, as the generalized reaction began to quiet down. “Yet I am troubled. Is there one who will speak for Sapriel?” The interlocking spheres whirred as they tracked around, examining the audience, but when no one piped up, it went on. “I am troubled. We maintain a world of harmony, of equilibrium, working our will with care and prudence. One who is engaged in business with those who inhabit the world has certain responsibilities, for continuity, respectability, predictability. If we are thought of as arbitrary, as flighty, that climate for dealing will worsen.”

“Yeah,” said a person-sized palm tree whose roots were lost somewhere below the surface of the cloud: its voice was surprisingly conventional, if a bit raspy, although it did seem to emanate from the vicinity of its thick trunk. “They get pushed too far, people may get more inclined to figure out ways of living their lives that don’t include us. They may not have power, but they’re not dumb. The last thing we want is to start losing our power base or, gods forbid, our legitimacy with the ground-huggers.”

The palm’s use of that particular imprecation brought a smattering of chuckles from around the area, but it was the sort of nervous snickering that meant a nerve had been touched. “Why should we fear them ?” said a woman I couldn’t spot. “We rule, they serve. They’d better just accept that.”

“I don’t know you,” the palm said, idly bouncing a small coconut up and down on the outstretched end of its longest frond. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you about the social contract theory? They stay within certain bounds if they know what’s good for themselves, but so do we. Neither side escalates without a lot of careful thought.”

“But power -”

“You haven’t heard about the threat of power being greater than its exercise, either, have you?” The palm rustled its leaves disapprovingly. A different coconut fell off its trunk and vanished into the cloud. “Will somebody please tutor this girl? Does anybody else question what we’re doing here? That it’s important to keep any single idiot from spoiling the happy hunting grounds for everybody else? Sounds to me like Sapriel has gone seriously out of line.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions yet, shall we?” said the ocelot. “I agree that purely on the evidence we’ve already presented, of a bank raid that has caused a political struggle and the flaunting or breakdown of the rule of the law in Oolsmouth, an unwise activity is in process. I frown on those who call too much attention to themselves, especially while engaged in plotting and scheming. It goes without argument that much of our mystique emanates merely from being mysterious, unknowable. The more mortals get to see us in action, the more knowable we become. It’s difficult to be known and not be tarnished to some degree, since let’s face it, we often operate much like excessively endowed people ourselves. If the mortals really understood this, the aura of godliness would melt and people would think that the only thing that differentiated them from gods was their level of power.”

Listening to him, it occurred to me that, in fact, this was the attitude I’d gotten used to from Max et al . Excessive familiarity with the ways of the gods had bred in them, if not contempt, at least a realism of appraisal.

There was more back-and-forthing in this vein, and then they got onto the subject of fraternization. It wasn’t uncommon for gods to grant personal favors to mortals or to interact with them in one way or another. There was general agreement that adopting a protégé or a human pawn, though, should be done carefully. A grouper the size of a cow which had been circulating without apparent concern in the air, breathing freely without an aquarium in sight, stated, as though it was a maxim, that the wrong human could drag the best god into the worst mess. Someone else agreed with the fish, adding that along with the hauled god, of course, came his or hers (or its) commitments, alliances, and entanglements, and before you knew what was happening there went the whole neighborhood.

It wasn’t a one-way street, either: not only could gods drag people into their affairs, people could get gods wrapped up in their messes as well. As a god, if you weren’t careful who you made promises or binding covenants to, you might find yourself embroiled in an entirely different situation than the one you thought was going on. “Once in, it can be difficult for even one of us to pull out,” said an eight-foot guy with a another couple of feet of flowing white hair on top and a few of matching beard dangling down his middle; he had an edge to his voice that smacked of personal familiarity with the problem.

“Even if you do manage to pull out,” a woman said, “you do that at the risk of losing your personal credibility or your power, at the least.”

Obviously, being a god wasn’t the straightforward enterprise I’d always vaguely assumed. I shouldn’t have been surprised; after all, I did have a personal (if limited) experience with Gashanatantra, and there were the shenanigans of the last few days to boot.

That wasn’t the first thought I’d had of Gashanatantra lately, either. I’d been wondering if he was around. The only one present who looked like Gash was Zhardann, but that was old news and in any case it meant nothing. I had to assume everyone I saw was in disguise. I thought I still might recognize Gash if I saw him, but on the other hand how much did I know, really? The honest answer was “Not very much.” With that in mind, there was an equal chance that I’d been shaking Gash’s hand and having hors d’oeuvres with him without the slightest idea of who he actually was. Unfortunately, he surely didn’t have the same handicap.

With the number of games these guys played, lethal and less so, they clearly made an art of disguise and misdirection. Of course, that meant there had to be an art to piercing disguise, as well. If so -

“Is the view of this assembly, therefore, that Sapriel be summoned and brought before us?” Zhardann said, using his position as chair to move things along. “I declare that this is the assembly’s will. I now call for volunteers to assist in performing the summons as an example of our united decree.”

He picked five, including the palm, then raised his hands again. “Sapriel!” he called, and as he repeated the name the others joined him. “SAPRIEL! SAPRIEL!” The hanging ball sprang back to life, vibrating, shuddering, shaking beneath the combined ring of the interwoven sounds.

Again, the ball filled with ink. “Go away !” said the same deep voice. “I’m right in the middle of -”

“You are summoned!” Zhardann declared. “Come to us now!” His fingers swam through another joint-popping contortion, and the ball began to expand, like the inflation of a balloon. Like a balloon, yes, but if so like one being blown up underwater, against some significant resistance, against a force that was simultaneously trying to crush it. The ball strained outward, power flowing into it from the five volunteers through the modulation of Zhardann, jerking ever larger in a popping series of small wrenches, as a deep-toned howl echoed out of it into the air. A spread-eagled human form took shape inside. The form was full-sized, and the ball had grown large enough to contain it. Then the form was no mere outline, but a dark-bearded man.

Sapriel was thrashing like a freshly-harpooned fish hauled abruptly onto a trawler deck, his hands and feet fixed in stationary globs of what appeared to be shimmering putty but his limbs and body remaining free to lash back and forth in utter futility. I presumed that this was not the flesh-and-blood Sapriel, to speak a tad speculatively about the physiology of a god, since of course I didn’t know if they really were flesh and blood or something else entirely. Rather, it had to be another simulacrum such as the rest of us were using in this artificial environment. The difference between Sapriel and the rest of us was the element of compulsion, and the fact that Zhardann had undoubtedly done something that equally immobilized Sapriel’s physical body wherever it happened to be. Just watching Sapriel writhe made me feel a bit giddy myself, as though someone was dragging me around against my will, too.