Mayer Alan Brenner - Spell of Apocalypse

Beyond the skittering of the rats in the hall and the drip of water, there was heard unexpectedly a soft click of metal. From, perhaps, the next cell? The click was followed by a creak, as of a reluctant door carefully eased, and then a shadow that moved across the grill in Shaa’s own cell. Subtlety had it, then, although perhaps the opportunity for pyrotechnics would still present itself. Shaa finished divesting himself of the remaining chains and slid to the door. “May I help you?” he inquired.

“I think I’ve almost got it,” hissed Leen from the other side.

Skill in the magical was, of course, part of her job. Shaa held his hand above the lock to feel her work. “Very adroit,” Shaa murmured. “Quite deft.”

“Thank you,” said Leen, as this door made its own click. With a louder clack, she swung back the bolt.

Shaa joined her in the hall. She was looking down the corridor away from the door through which they had been brought. “You don’t think there’s some secret exit from this place, do you?”

“A dungeon is typically constructed with as few outlets as possible,” Shaa reminded her.

“I suppose you’re right. What do we do, then?”

The first thing ahead was obvious. That is, the first thing after escaping the dungeon and reaching the street. But perhaps he was getting a bit ahead of himself. “I don’t particularly feel like overpowering guards and engaging in armed combat right at the moment. What about you?”

“Well, I’d rather not, but what else can we do? We’ve got to get out of here! Don’t we?”

“Oh, certainly we do. Have you done any cloaking work? Misdirection spells?”

“In school, but that was a long time ago. Now I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Hold still, then,” Shaa instructed. “You are about to become a housecat.” Leen grasped his arm. “Wait - doesn’t your curse keep you from doing spell-work? What if you die - I don’t want -”

“Things,” said Shaa, “appear to have changed. I wouldn’t mind your keeping that to yourself, though, if you wouldn’t mind?”

“Changed? Oh! Yes, right, of course.”

“Just so. Let’s return to the holding still, then, shall we?” His control over the side-lobe emissions from the energies involved would be somewhat tricky, since Arznaak did have magic-release detectors out among his other alarms, and since Shaa’s practical skills were sure to be reasonably rusty after the years of occupying the sidelines. Shaa had always been the family’s real sorcery whiz, though, he didn’t mind acknowledging, and this wasn’t the first time he’d had to deal with this style of work from his brother, either. And the work involved was thoroughly trivial to boot...

“There we are,” Shaa announced.

“Already?” said Leen. “I didn’t even think you’d started.”

“Transforming us into cats would have taken time.” Actually, even doing this to a first-caliber level would have taken time. His quick probe of the building above having revealed a low count of guards and retainers hanging about, though, a full-scale job shouldn’t be necessary. Accordingly, he’d been more concerned about someone popping around a corner unexpectedly and looking right at them. “Just think of yourself as wearing a cat-shaped throw rug, and remember that to anyone more than a foot away you look to be no more than about six inches high off the ground. Now, since there’s no one just beyond the door at the end of this hall, perhaps you’d be good enough to open it and we’ll be on our way.”

It all proved far too easy, but sometimes that’s just the way things go. In the event they met no one at all on the way through the building. Of course, legions of retainers were immaterial to a god, especially one as sneaky as his brother doubtless intended to be. They did have to wait in an alcove for a trio of guards possibly on the way to lunch to pass through the garden before making their final sprint for the door in the back wall; that passage too, however, was accomplished with further incident. They were down the alley and around the corner and another block away before Shaa called Leen to a halt. “I’m not used to this,” was the first thing she said, “so I’m not going to argue with whatever you say. Just tell me what to do now.”

“I will welcome your input wherever you wish to make it available,” Shaa said judiciously. His heart had developed a pound from the sprinting and dashing, but no more than the level to which he had become accustomed. Still, physical exertion would need to be planned judiciously.

Which was not the same as avoiding exertion altogether. “Let’s take a quick stroll around the neighborhood,” suggested Shaa. “Shall we?”

“I, ah, stroll?”

“The most important thing to do right at the moment is to try to find Jardin, wouldn’t you say? The former Curse Administrator? Presumably, he’s been dumped somewhere in an alley, and from the look of that fellow my brother sent off to do the job I’d suspect he didn’t take him far.”

Actually, Shaa reflected, he was not being entirely straightforward with the Archivist. Short of combing the gutters how would they accomplish this search? Even within a four-block range there could easily be enough alleys and hiding places to keep them busy the rest of the afternoon. Jardin’s god-signature was probably gone at the moment, too, which would leave them nothing useful to home in on either. In any case, running up and down blocks clawing through garbage promised to benefit no one but Shaa’s washerwoman.

There was, of course, a more attractive alternative to the wielding of their own fine-tooth comb. It did present its own hazards, which were of a different caliber than those posed by a quest through rubbish. The perils of rubbish were those of an esthetic and public health nature, rather than immediately those of life, limb, and sanity. Shaa would choose the risk to sanity any day. With some judicious footwork it should even be possible to keep secret Max’s involvement, whatever it had been.

But that could wait a few moments. There were a few things that needed to be aired with the Archivist while he had her preoccupied, hence this entire exercise.

“What do you think your brother’s likely to do next?” Leen asked, following him.

“The fact that I’m still alive - that we’re still alive, pardon me - implies any number of things, all of them nasty and any of them probably quite big. As you heard him say, he does like an audience.”

“Aren’t you worried that he’ll…”

“What, reach out and smite us? That remains a distinct, if somewhat remote, possibility. Resting in one position paralyzed with fear, however, seems like more a strategy to assure that outcome than one calculated to fend it off. If he wanted to kill us straight out, well, he’s already had years. He’s trying to be more diabolical than that, clearly.”

“But you’re his brother. Don’t you have any more insight than that?”

“If I were him,” Shaa said, “I’d either be consolidating my position or using the element of surprise to propel my next stage of attacks. He’s more rash than I am, so he may very likely have overrun a few more gods since he left us. Perhaps the Emperor too, for that matter.”

“You think Arznaak’s going after the Emperor?”

Shaa raised an eyebrow as they turned another corner into another major street. No bodies were obvious in the ruts, although what about that sizable mound of dirt? He led them ambling toward it. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I’m rather inclined to let him.”

“Surely you’d at least warn the Emperor. Wouldn’t you?”

“He’s a big boy, or at least he’s supposed to be. In any case, he’s no particular friend of mine.”