Mayer Alan Brenner - Spell of Catastrophe

It had been a lousy case. I’d sort of liked Glinko. I thought I would have liked Skargool, too.

Wroclaw began clearing the dishes. “Thunda-tenchon dropped by the house about a year ago,” said Ronibet, Karlini’s wife, spearing the last floret of broccoli and handing her plate to Wroclaw. “Stayed for a month eating up all our food, but we did manage to make some good progress with him while he was around. I heard he went off and gave a presentation on our results at a conference down on the coast. ‘Manifold Processing in Stabilization of Third-Order Aura-Linked Matrices’ - isn’t that what we called it, dear?”

“Huh?” said Karlini. He had spent the meal alternately muttering to himself and staring darkly at the walls. It was highly uncharacteristic behavior for Karlini, whom Max often thought was the most manic talker he’d ever met. Karlini’s gaze wandered off again.

“I haven’t gone to a conference in years,” Max said, wiping the remains of a fruit rind from his clean-shaven lip. His tunic, which he had loosened for comfort, was open at the neck, revealing a small amulet covered with a delicate filigree of microscopic runes, several dust-speck jewels scattered through the curls. “Haven’t wanted to waste the time. Nobody ever says anything important at those things anyway; all the good stuff they always want to save for themselves. Not that I blame them, mind you.”

Wroclaw appeared again with a cigar box. Karlini stirred and reached for it but, at a sharp glance from Ronibet, slumped back into his chair. Max took a cigar, bit the tip off, stuck the other end in his mouth, and, waving off Wroclaw’s long flaming match, snapped two fingers in front of the cigar. The end of the cigar sparked red and a small cloud of smoke arose.

“Always showing off, aren’t you,” Ronibet said.

Max turned his hand over, revealing a miniature striking pad and flint affixed to the end of his thumb and third finger. Max grinned at her, then slipped the device off and returned it to a pocket. “So how’s that animalcule stuff you were up to?”

“It’s coming along,” Ronibet said. “Remember that cell theory we talked about? All living matter can be subdivided into other microscopic living units down to a certain level? It’s now clear that the theory is substantiated. Not only that, I think I’ve identified those food-to-magic conversion organelles you postulated.”

Max puffed thoughtfully on the cigar. “Good work,” he said. “Better than good, important. If you can figure out exactly how magical essence gets produced, down inside these cells of yours, then the Plan becomes more than just a mad pipe dream.”

“You and your Plan,” Karlini muttered. “As long as I’ve known you, there’s always been the Plan. And what good has it ever done you? What good has it done for any of us? Just a lot of fool dreaming, that’s all it is. We’ll never be rid of the gods, there’s no use even talking about it.”

“What’s eating the Great one?” Max said to Roni. “I thought he wanted to quit being dominated as much as any of us. Don’t I remember him going on and on about getting his free will back?”

“I’ve changed my mind. There’s no such thing as free will,” said Karlini. “If it’s not the gods it’ll be something else. Politics, economic forces, bad weather, there’s always some force running your life.”

“Yeah, fine, then,” Max said. “The force that’s running my life at the moment is you, you nincompoop, so there. You planning to tell me what I’m doing here and why you’re in such a crabby mood or am I supposed to keep dragging it out of you chunk by chunk?”

“He’s right, dear,” Roni said. “Knowing Max, I think he’s been very patient with you.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Max said, “the very soul of patience. So will you tell me about this curse, already? You can’t leave the castle, you said. Does that mean the invisible wall of molasses, the endless maze, the -”

“His heart stopped,” Ronibet said.

Max looked at her, looked at Karlini, uncrossed his arms and leaned forward, then sank back in his chair. “Hmm.” Max examined his cigar absently, stuck it back in his mouth. A large cloud of smoke rose. Max followed it upward with his eyes until it grew together, all at once, and coalesced into a compact ball. “You walked out the door and keeled over?”

“That’s about the size of it, Max,” Karlini said.

“Now that,” Max said, watching the smoke ball roll along the ceiling, “is very interesting indeed. Was it a spell or a curse, I wonder. I assume you had your life-protectives running? What am I saying, of course you did. Could this thing have keyed off them?”

“I thought of that,” Karlini said. “I haven’t just been sitting around here doing nothing but mope. I’ve come up with a lot of possibilities, and none of them have been any help at all.”

“Don’t get testy again,” said Max. “Settle down, I was just thinking out loud. You brought me here so I could figure out a way to get you out of this, you don’t have to get sharp at me. There’s no way around it – better go back to the beginning and give me the whole story.” He raised an eyebrow and eyed Karlini.

Karlini ran a hand through his hair and absently ruffled it further. Ronibet looked at the hair and sighed. “All right, Max,” said Karlini, staring off at a line of brightly colored pennons dangling from the mezzanine balcony. “This is how it started. We’re sitting at home, the place on the cape by the ocean, you remember it. Nice morning, clear sky, no portents, nothing, so we’re having breakfast outside on the terrace for a change, when all of a sudden a whirlwind starts to blow up. I reached for the napkins -”

“Stick to the facts,” Max said.

“Huh?” said Karlini.

“You’ve never reached for a napkin in your life, pal.”

Karlini looked over at Ronibet. “This is supposed to be a friend?” he said.

“Yes, dear,” Ronibet said, “and not just any friend, one of your very best friends. That’s why you’re going to ask him to risk his life for you, and why he’s going to do it.”

Max grabbed his cigar out of his mouth and leaned forward. “Now just a second there -”

“Hear the whole thing first, Max,” Roni said.

“… Yeah,” Max said. “Just remind me to stop making friends, all right, Karlini?”

“Okay,” Karlini said, “Roni went for the napkins, and … where was I?”

“The gong,” Ronibet said.

“Right, okay,” Karlini said. “So we’re looking off the terrace into this whirlwind, which seems to be centered about half-a-mile from the house just uphill from the beach where the scrub starts. The wind has kicked up something fierce even where we’re sitting, but because of the dust and flying grass and shrubs we can tell that the thing is a lot more intense at the center, so intense that it’s starting to form a funnel and stretch up into a tower. Then, all of a sudden, the sky rings.”

“The sky?” Max said. “Rings, with sound?”

“That’s right, like we’re sitting under a solid metal dome, and someone’s just hit it with a rod about ten miles long. Dull metallic boom, just massive, the sky reverberates, the house, the ground, us, everything - it’s like an earthquake with sound. All the dishes bounce off the table. I’m barely able to keep from bouncing off the terrace, but my insides feel like goo in an eggbeater. And then, right in the middle of the whirlwind, this castle starts to materialize.”

“This castle,” Roni said.

“By now giant bolts of lightning are running up and down the wall of the funnel cloud. As we watch, the lightning sparks begin to light up a ghostly image of a castle. At first all it looks likes is an image, a mirage or some strange optical effect, since it’s transparent and parts of the castle don’t appear to be there at all. The lightning keeps flashing, and as the image of the castle gets more distinct, we can see that it’s rotating slowly in the same direction as the funnel, hanging in mid-air a couple hundred feet off the ground. Then we get a really sharp bolt on the far side, and before I finish squinting from the flash the castle starts to solidify in earnest and drop down toward the ground at the same time. The wind starts to die. The castle drops faster, still turning, and then it hits the ground. Everything shakes again and the earth jumps all over the place, about what you’d expect if a small mountain suddenly came out of nowhere and fell in your backyard, one last bolt of lightning strikes one of the towers, and then the lightning’s gone. The castle digs itself into the ground like a corkscrew, slows, and stops. The funnel pulls up into the air, the wind dying, and all of a sudden it’s gone, too. Everything’s quiet and peaceful. Just like it was about thirty seconds before, except the only difference is that now there’s this castle sitting at the edge of the beach, chunks of dirt torn up all around it, what’s left of a grove of trees sticking out from under the right side, and a small cloud turning slowly overhead and pouffing out in little streams of vapor.”