“Arznaak? I doubt it. There’s no telling what all he has in mind, but I’d be surprised if this was it. He might take some time to consolidate his position, I suppose.”
“Is that the way you’d bet?”
“Not on your life,” said Shaa, “so to speak. And with the Knitting ceremony still on for tonight - it is still on, I assume? - Arznaak would have an excellent grand forum for something. But -”
“Just a second here,” said the Creeping Sword, from the reclining position he had assumed on a comfortable-looking settee. Judging by the careful shallow pattern of his breathing, Shaa thought a tentative diagnosis of broken ribs could be added to his more visible and stigmatic other wounds. “If my understanding of this whole thing between Conservationist gods and Abdicationists is up-to-date, wouldn’t what your brother did kick the balance of power all to hell? And then wouldn’t anyone going after him with the idea of knocking him back down make things even worse?”
“I would not put it past him to have incorporated this into his plan.”
“It sounds like all he does all day is lurk around and plot,” the Sword muttered.
“That’s about the size of it,” Shaa agreed. “You should have seen him as a child.”
“No, thanks.”
“While Jill is out of the room,” said Gashanatantra, “what is your true assessment of Jardin’s present state?”
“I doubt he’ll be of any use,” Shaa told him, “or my brother wouldn’t have left him alive. As you may have noticed, my brother is not exactly a paragon of chivalry. On the other hand, he has been known to make mistakes. Regardless, trying to locate Jardin and save him was an obvious path, and even if my brother had intended I follow it there were potential spinoffs he might not have anticipated. Finding you so quickly, for example.”
“Finding me?” Gash repeated. “Why would you want to do that?”
“My brother is using that ring to power his Transcendence. You trapped Pod Dall in the ring. You could set him loose.”
Shaa watched Gashanatantra consider him. “Neither point is quite that simple. It is an intriguing counterstroke you present, though. An unleashed Pod Dall at the Scapula’s throat would give him something to think about.”
“And the sooner it happened the less prepared he’d be to counteract it,” Shaa pointed out. “If my brother hasn’t been able to consolidate his position and secure other sources of power -”
Gash raised his hand. “Enough. If you have another point to present that will clinch your argument, say it; if not, be content that I take the proposal under advisement.”
Shaa shrugged. “You’re the god.”
“How did you know Gash would turn up here?” asked the Sword. “With all the scheming he and Jill have been aiming at each other?”
“Who knew?” Shaa said. “It was a reasonable possibility, that’s all. There were six other plausible means of reaching him. Encountering you so quickly was an unexpected pleasure,” he added, directly to Gashanatantra.
“You waste your pleasantries on me,” said Gashanatantra. “I am above flattery.”
“No one is above flattery,” said Shaa, “especially when it is the same as a statement of fact. For example, I respect your prudence.”
“Prudence?”
“Prudence lies in planning ahead,” Shaa observed. “It appears you took the precaution of compiling dossiers on the players you might have reason to encounter as long as you were involved with our enigmatic associate here.”
“And you, I suppose, have done the same?”
“Well, I’ve had time on my hands. But you see, flattery is a harmless parlor game for even the highest. You find yourself doing it without half a thought.”
With a crash, the door was flung open again, this time encountering the tipped-over bush and causing it to roll slowly onto an embroidered rug, spilling wet dirt and mulch behind it. “I can’t detect him,” Jill said, stalking back into the room. “He’s completely dropped off the net. Can you do anything else to find him or do I have to wait for my priests to spread out in the streets?”
“As you know,” said Gashanatantra, “I still work without an infrastructure. You’re the one who’s been closest to him; you would know his signature if anyone would. I’d scarcely have the resolution to locate him where you cannot.”
Jill swung around. “You,” she said, addressing the Sword. “You actually are what you originally purported to be, a detective? And nothing else?”
“Well,” said the one in question, “I guess the answer to that is yes and no. ‘Yes’ to the detective, ‘not exactly’ to the nothing else. If you’re asking me as a detective, though, I’d say the best chance you’ve got is to turn your forces loose and blanket the neighborhood around the Scapula’s place, or wherever else Shaa here was actually held, and hope the Scapula was telling the truth when he said they were just going to dump Jardin in the street. If you want something more active I’d suggest a confrontation with the Scapula himself. You’re powerful, which Jardin was too, but you’ve been warned, which he wasn’t, and you’re also smarter than Jardin, too. If you’re careful you might not have much to worry about. Oh, and don’t even think about the police or the civil authorities. After all, the Scapula isn’t just some guy, he’s some guy somewhere at the top of their chain of command.”
“Yes,” Jill said. “Whatever else you may or may not be, you did seem to have a reasonable claim to competence as a detective. I assume the answer to what you really are, and how much you are merely my ex-husband’s puppet, lies with him. Does it not, my dear?”
Shaa thought the drop in temperature was not simply one of atmospherics. This could be an interesting one to witness; even more interesting if they all survived. “I came here to mend the fences between us,” Gashanatantra told Jill.
“I see,” she said. “And why just now, pray tell? Just how much do you want from me?”
Gashanatantra clearly was doing his best not to hesitate, to project his most forthright and agreeable persona while banishing all thought of trickiness. He’s good, Shaa observed, he is very, very good. But then Jill-tang, as his wife, had presumably lived with him. Even if she’d been an idiot she’d have had to pick up something. “It is true,” he said, “we have both been the object of each other’s plots. It is true I have employed this singular gentleman as a tool-of-opportunity in an attempt to elude your grasp and deflect your aim. It is true we have been in competition for certain of the same prizes and goals. But this sport of ours has always been just that - a sport, a game, a luxury. There is a time when that is good and fine, and a time when it is merely dangerous indulgence.”
Jill glared at him. “So what is so different now? This Scapula person may be a murderous nuisance but how extraordinary a danger could he present?”
“The Scapula is only the latest in a series of hazards that together have a geometrically confounding effect. This gentleman whom you spent no little time with is another.”
“Him? Your puppet? Or what is he really, your catamite?”
“That sort of remark is beneath you,” Gash said severely. “He is a victim of the Spell of Namelessness.”
“Is that why you made certain he’d encounter Jardin? To get Jardin’s recognition of who he was?”
“That was one reason, yes. Jardin was - is - the leading practitioner of that spell, after all. But not the only one. And in fact this man’s curse was apparently not the casting of Jardin.”
“So whose was it, since you’ve obviously taken such an interest in determining his identity?”