Mayer Alan Brenner - Spell of Intrigue

“This is a very bad time,” Sapriel snarled. “I am right in the midst of a delicate –”

“Your time is now not your own,” said Zhardann. “You have been called to account!”

“To account? For what ?”

“Step forward,” Zhardann called, “Soaf Pasook!”

Sapriel dropped his jaw, then closed it with a small snap. Pasook hadn’t actually stepped anywhere, since he was still standing on the cliff-side next to Zhardann and a bit below him, but he did raise his own arm to point at Sapriel, and in any case Zhardann’s histrionics were good theater. “Hear my charge, O Faithless One!” Pasook began. He rattled off a concise summary of the main points, then wrapped up with a “What say you?”

“I don’t have to answer to you or anyone else,” Sapriel growled.

“By the force of this assembly,” said Zhardann, “you do.”

Sapriel looked down and around him at the upturned faces as though the presence of the crowd hadn’t entirely registered before. “What is the problem here?” he said. “I had everything under control until you dragged me away. Yes, I heard that Pasook had this ring, and I hoped to acquire it for myself. I used the means that seemed necessary. Pasook persisted in resisting, unwisely, so, yes. I brought him to his knees. He was at my mercy – what’s wrong with that? Huh? I see a dozen of you out there who have done worse. Have we all suddenly found religion?”

He looked thoroughly disgusted. “What is the issue here, really? Even when I leaned on him, Pasook never had the grace to admit his defeat, which was ignominious and total.” He turned his scowl on Pasook. “You still tried to finesse me, you toad - I thought you were dead!”

“Yet another mistake,” Pasook told him. “Your torture was extreme and effective, but again you overestimated.”

“The issue here is not one of deicide, attempted or complete,” Zhardann said. “Sapriel, you are correct in saying that nothing prohibits you from eradicating whom you choose, except the bounds of good sense and the strength of your enemy’s connections; our code of conduct is, if anything, informal. That is not the concern. The true matter is your level of prudence, and your irresponsible and unrestrained conduct with the mortal world.”

All of a sudden Sapriel looked scared, he looked really scared. “Now wait a second here. Are you running a hearing or a lynch mob? What -”

Sapriel’s mouth was still working, but the volume of sound coming through abruptly dropped to a faint whisper. “Despite your protestations,” Zhardann continued, “your plots have not succeeded, so you cannot use the defense of justification of means by the desired ends. It may be true that the winner can make the rules; however, you are not the winner.” Zhardann raised his voice to address the whole crowd. “I submit the following for your consideration. If one of us cannot behave responsibly with his power, if one cannot restrain himself so as to avoid endangering the common good, one is not fit for one’s position. That is the true thesis here.

“You have heard testimony. You have seen Sapriel’s response. You understand the serious nature of the issue. Do you wish further discussion? Or is a decision of consensus before us now?”

Sapriel was still immobilized, with the sound-deadening field effectively gagging him as well, but he was flinging himself fruitlessly around his cage and clearly trying to yell at the top of his lungs, his face turning red and sweat running down it. For a projection of his image it was remarkably realistic. Zhardann must have deadened more than his voice, too - there had to be some inhibitor overriding Sapriel’s power or he’d have been using every last bit of it to escape. He could sense as well as anyone the expectant taste of blood in the air.

The pause lengthened, as each one present eyed their neighbors and wondered who would be the one to speak up and kick the thing over into action. Finally, a burnoose-wrapped fellow I hadn’t noticed before broke the silence. “Mortalization,” he said. “I call for mortalization.”

The first reaction was a stir that moved like a sudden breeze across the cloud, leaving behind it a murmur like the rustling of leaves, and a turning to and forth like the bending of branches and trunks. The tone was approving. The one who had spoken, though, had wrapped himself again in his burnoose and was holding himself aloof, withdrawn. A thought tickled its way into my mind. If the manifestations of the folks who surrounded me were only that, manifestations, artificial images, why couldn’t a single person create more than one of them at the same time? Could someone appear more than once at the same time in the same virtual environment? Could the guy in the burnoose be a ringer?

I made a quick circle through the confusion and approached the fellow from the rear. “Pardon me,” I said.

Beyond him in the background, I was able to view both Zhardann and Soaf Pasook. The man stirred as though he was coming awake and turned slowly toward me. “Yes?” he said.

“I don’t believe we’ve met.” I told him. “I applaud your resolute statement.”

“Thank you,” he said, his voice drifting away again. “There is a time for contemplation and a time for action.”

Zhardann had been casting his eagle eye across the cloud, waiting for the right moment to plunge back in. At the same time, he was talking to Jill, who had approached him from the crowd and was standing below him on the edge of the cliff. Soaf Pasook was ignoring the group in front of him and spending his own moment in contemplation, his face blank. The man in the burnoose pulled a length of its cloth lower over his face and seemed to go to sleep standing up. At the same moment, Pasook gathered his own attention again and said something to the woman at his side. As he did so, though, his gaze went out across the congregation and happened to meet my own. We spent a moment staring at each other.

Then the voice of Zhardann rolled over us again; I wondered if perhaps he was using a concealed megaphone. “I believe that the sense of this assembly is to mete out upon Sapriel a penalty both punitive and deterrent,” he said, “and to remove by this means a dangerous presence from our midst. Is there one who would challenge this?”

The silence had fallen again, the silence of bated breath. No one spoke, no one challenged. I did notice that the crowd seemed a bit smaller than before, as though people had started to slip out during the caucus.

“Is mortalization the decision of this assembly?” said Zhardann.

Again, no one spoke aloud, but an approving murmur rippled across the cloud as most everyone savored the moment. Most everyone, of course, with the prominent exception of Sapriel.

Zhardann paused once more for effect before proceeding. “Very well. I pronounce in the name of this assembly as its judgment the decree of mortalization upon Sapriel. I further declare that this sentence will be executed immediately. Is there one who would claim the responsibility of leading the infliction? Then I assert my aspect, my office, my power, I, Jardin, Administrator of Curses, Master of Dooms! By my office and my stature, I declare that it is my right, my privilege, my obligation to dispose of this matter speedily and forthwith.”

Now I remembered where I’d heard the name Jardin before - Max had mentioned it when we’d been talking about Shaa’s problems and the possibility of confronting the Curse Administrator directly. And now it turned out I’d been spending the last week hanging out with him. The way the world works can get to you sometimes. Maybe after this was finished I could bring that up with him, hah hah. Frankly, the way the world worked would be one of the last things on my mind. When we were finished here my first priority was going to be trying to deal with Zhardann and Pasook, and the question of where the ring was and what more did I know that I hadn’t been telling them. I could hear a sizzle as the hot water into which I would shortly be dumped was starting to boil.