Mayer Alan Brenner - Spell of Apocalypse

“But if Arznaak, I don’t know, overthrows him too, won’t that give him so much power that -”

“What it would give Arznaak is no shortage of new trouble.” No, the heap was merely dirt and mud and dung. The only living things it contained were small and invertebrate. “The power of the Emperor is overrated, anyway.”

“Trouble? What trouble? Managing all the new troops and resources he’d have at his disposal? Deciding who to launch Peridol into war against?”

“Not at all. By trampling the compact, he’d bring down on his head the obligated wrath of the other gods. Whoever he might be allied with, they couldn’t overlook a blatantly prohibited power grab like that.”

“What if he isn’t allied with anyone? What if it’s just him?”

“Hmm,” said Shaa. His brother clearly had enough gall. Of his nerve there was no doubt. Could this be his plan? To run full-tilt through gods and humans, bowling them over through a mixture of bravado and accumulated momentum?

But what other choice did he have? Being Arznaak, he wouldn’t just stop now. And if he moved rapidly enough, even the gods might not realize what was happening until it was too late. On the other hand...

If Arznaak was on a course of wiping out the gods, how was that different from what Max kept saying he wanted to do? The difference, of course, was Arznaak himself. Arznaak would want one god left, certainly, and possibly others to serve him. Yes, that was a significant difference. At least when there were a bunch of gods, they had to operate within strictures, under a balance of power. If there was only one there would be nothing to stop him from whatever he wanted. “Very well,” Shaa declared. “Luck is where luck usually is, somewhere else, making the enterprise of this search futile. Before we proceed to the next step, I must ask you - are you with me? Do you have any thought of siding with my brother in the hope you will avert his wrath?”

“After he kidnapped me off the street and threw me in his dungeon?”

“With no lasting harm that can be seen,” observed Shaa. “You will have noticed that my brother is a master of second-order plots.”

“Are you implying I’m the same?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t been acquainted long. Are you?”

“There’s nothing I could say that would convince you one way or the other,” said Leen. “Is there? But right now you don’t have much to lose and we both have a lot to gain. What do you propose to do? Do you intend to stop your brother and rescue Max?”

Shaa eyed the Archivist. His question had been more misdirection; Arznaak wasn’t that charming, especially after you’d seen his other side, as she had quite recently. No, the problem would be her feelings for Max. Well, perhaps she could resolve them before the question became too important, although if she could successfully resolve her relationship with Max in a mutually acceptable manner that would stand the test of time she’d be the first one. Damn that Maximillian, anyway.

“Both of these are my eventual hope,” Shaa told her. Along with whatever else might need doing as a result.

“What is your plan, then?”

“I am making this up,” Shaa said, also with less than total candor, “as I go.”

“I don’t believe you,” Leen said immediately. “But if that’s the line you want to take I’m willing to play along with you for the time being. What are you making up for the next move, then?”

Why were people never willing to just play their assigned role? “You and I must part. There is more that needs doing than a single person can oversee without destroying its time value. I would ask you to recruit your brother.”

“To find Jardin?”

“Unless the Crawfish already has him in claw, don’t bother. I will handle that. You find out what’s become of Max - but please, if he is in no immediate danger, don’t run after him to pull him out. Okay? Thank you. Also, perhaps your brother, who is, after all, my sister Eden’s principal agent in town, would be good enough to relay the news to her in Yenemsvelt.”

“If the curse is lifted from her too, do you want her to join you in the city?”

“What I want is likely immaterial. If the subject comes up, though, I’d recommend she drop from sight. This also would be good advice for you.”

“I’ll have Lemon to watch my back. He knows his way around these things, but if we just try to hide, sooner or later Arznaak will be back.”

“This has not escaped my contemplation. Especially since whatever my brother wants from your Archives he has yet to obtain. You might also consider what that might be. Ah - you know what it is? You are looking at me in a more than casually speculative manner.”

“You made me think of something else. At least I think it’s something else. How well do you know those ancient languages Max seemed so adept with?”

“I can get by. There are others who are better than me, a particular cult here in the city; the worshipers of what they choose to think of as the One true God. Why?”

“Ah, I think it had better wait until later.”

“With the way events have been evolving,” Shaa pointed out, “there may not be a ‘later,’ at least for some of us.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little histrionic?”

“Do you?”

“I - well, maybe not,” Leen allowed. “Very well. I uncovered an ancient device, Pre-Dislocation, hidden in the depths of the Archives. It is still active, although its activity is cryptic. I showed it to Max - don’t ask me for the full story now, okay? - and it responded when he spoke to it in one of the old languages. Then it seemed to ask for something Max couldn’t give it - a password of some sort, I expect - and closed itself down.”

This is not the first ancient association recently to arise, Shaa noted. Perhaps the Iskendarian papers recovered by Max from their hiding place and now in the capable hands of Ronibet Karlini could be brought to bear on this topic as well. The One God cultists had already been consulted on the Iskendarian material, or to be more precise, Jurtan Mont had been dispatched on this errand yesterday morning and had not yet to Shaa’s knowledge reported back. It would be nice to get Max’s assessment of the thing, but in the phrase of the ancients, that was clearly easier said than done. “Did Max say what he thought this instrument was? What about you - what do you think it is?”

Leen’s mouth twisted. “Max was being mysterious, and at the same moment he discovered he had to run out the door to attend to something else, which I now suspect was related to his scheme with Jardin.”

“Yes, that’s Max, all right,” Shaa murmured. “And your opinion?”

“I think it’s a computer,” she said. “From the fragmentary sources I’ve read, I’ve never been entirely sure what a computer was or what they were used for. I’ve always thought these computers end up sounding too omnipresent and all-encompassing to be more than myth, or metaphor perhaps; something like djinni trapped incarnate in mechanical shells. But the thing in the basement does seem to fit many of the physical descriptions: flat glowing lights in regular patterns, an oracular voice speaking a lost tongue, more high-grade metal than I’ve ever seen in one place -”

“And buried in the Archives,” added Shaa. “A place of prodigious and seamless memory.”

“Scarcely seamless, but yes. I’ve read about these computer things being repositories of ancient wisdom too. What do you think? Have you ever seen one of them?”

“A computer?” Shaa said. “No. Something matching the description you specify? No. However, in the course of my experiences with Maximillian, and my own escapades over the years, I know better than to assume that anything described in association with the ancients is merely myth. Their tricksterism was legion. So beware of this thing you’ve unearthed. Its lethality most likely goes in direct proportion to its significance. Contact the One God people.” He gave her instructions. “Also - this may ultimately be a better reason to extract Max than anything else. But please don’t be precipitate. Please? Wait for me.”