I’d had half a thought of mingling for a bit and then clearing out just before the Scapula made his spiel, but apparently I’d dawdled a little too long with Gash before setting out, for I had barely reached the sideboard when Shaa’s brother, resplendent in his usual jet outfit, emerged from the midst of the palm grove and stood there waiting to be noticed. Or perhaps that wasn’t what he was waiting for. With a ripple of fronds, all the palms simultaneously cast down their coconuts. At the large thud/thwock of several hundred coconuts demolishing themselves against the floor, every head swiveled toward the trees, and even those attendees wearing aspects that lacked heads (and in several extreme cases, eyes as well) gave the impression of shifting their attention to that end of the assembly. Then the grove said, in the echoing single voice of the Protector of Nature, “Nice to see you all here.”
She went into a typical welcome-guys, hope-you’re-having-a-good-time spiel and then moved smoothly on to the introduction of the new kid in their midst. The onlookers projected a mostly pleasant air of patient forbearance, although I did notice a few nervous glances and incredulously raised eyebrows, but when Protector of Nature made the rapid segue to describe how the former Scapula had fulfilled the requirements of her search committee for the god-among-gods a buzz broke out, rapidly ascending to a hubbub of heated debate. For some reason the whole thing was making me feel more than a little creepy, as though ants were marching through my head and down my back, not at all the sort of reaction I would have expected from myself but then what was I supposed to expect by now, anyway?
Maybe my uneasy feeling came from watching the Scapula himself. He had yet to say a word on his own, yet the gaze he was casting across the assembly owed only the barest nod to humility or a sense of place or gratitude to the benefactors sponsoring him in his latest enterprise. For a moment I considered the idea that this was the reserve of someone thrust into a unfamiliar social situation. But no, he had the expression I imagined was typical for him, the look of I-am-lord-of-creation holiest-of-holies biggest-of-cheeses; an expression designed to emphasize that the only things in sight were things he owned, or things he ran. Now that I thought about it, this probably wasn’t too unfamiliar a social setting for him either, other than a few details of place and players and odd ambience effects. Before his Transcendence he had already been, after all, at the very summit of the political hierarchy of the greatest empire anyone had ever seen. You didn’t get there by nepotism, either. You had to -
I suddenly began to suspect that I wasn’t the only one watching who was having that same crawly sensation. Several celebrants in humanoid guise were scratching their necks or patting their hair, over near the edge of the magma lake a dwarf rhinoceros was surreptitiously brushing itself against the side of a coffee table, and even a few of the palm trees were rattling their fronds with somewhat excess vigor. When you thought about it, this was extremely odd, since no one was actually physically present in this place. Even the place wasn’t physically real. And all these people were getting itchy? At the same moment?
It was time to leave, I decided, and even as I had the thought I moved it to execution by invoking a quick-disconnect mechanism that had just floated to mind.
At least I thought I’d tripped that mechanism. I subvocalized the trigger-word again.
Okay, so Iskendarian was playing games, so I was still where I’d been. There was still the traditional way to disengage and withdraw. All I had to do was terminate the wideband communications link and the reality field would collapse. I knew how to do that -
I was doing it right. So why was nothing happening? Why -
I looked around. At least a half-dozen other attendees were muttering to themselves, their eyes screwed shut in concentration and fingers making fluttery contortionist passes. I swung back to face the Scapula. Across the assembly, his smirk was wide and triumphant. As I glared at him, he raised his hand and began for the first time to speak.
“Thank you,” he declaimed, interrupting the discussion between Protector of Nature and a trio of furies who had been yelling back at her palm grove with a single voice that jumped back and forth between the three of them in the midst of sentences and between words. It had been an amusing effect; I figured the three bodies were animated by one puppeteer splitting his or her attention between them. But it wasn’t amusing now - nothing was amusing now. “Thank you, my partners, for such a laudatory introduction, so glowing and yet so trusting.”
A new fusillade of speed-streaked coconuts appeared from the midst of the grove and converged on the Scapula. Instead of splattering his projected figure or beating it to the artificial ground, though, they spun into orbit around him, a brown fuzzy blur making the sound of a small tornado, then faded from sight and vanished. The Scapula was revealed again holding a tall glass of coconut milk, from which he took a deliberate sip, then pressed milk and glass into nothingness between his palms. “As you have been discovering,” he went on, “this is scarcely a typical proclamation. Indeed, you have all become my prisoners.”
CHAPTER 13
“Just what is the problem with your brother, anyway?” Jurtan Mont asked suddenly. “Why is he the way he is?”
“You’re not the first to bring that up,” said Zalzyn Shaa. Having reached a consensus, albeit a forced one, it had seemed prudent to hit the road again while Karlini and the remains of Dortonn worked their whiles. Since the consensus had been somewhat forced, however, he had enlisted the watchful Svin to keep them focused on the task at hand. And Haddo and Wroclaw, and Haddo’s newly-revealed friend Favored-of-the-Gods? - well, it was an unfortunate fact that there were too many players on the scene, and not enough trust to go around. Maybe they could all be sent on the certainly suicidal mission of trying to free Max. Even if sent, of course, they would scarcely go, but with the attempt would surely go any residual measure of good will.
There were things to be said for catatonia as a style of life.
But even if there were, his brother Arznaak would scarcely be the one saying them. “I believe Arznaak’s behavior stems from roots innate,” Shaa continued. “Nurtured by the indulgence of my parents, to be sure, and especially by our father’s particular myopia. I suppose you might say as well as anything that my brother lacks an appreciation for magic.”
“He seems to be pretty effective using magic as a weapon,” commented Tildamire. “Wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s not the sort of magic I was thinking about. There’s magic as a utilitarian tool, which is the one you were thinking of, and then there’s magic as a state of mind, a metaphorical descriptor for an attitude toward the world. Arznaak is thoroughly utilitarian. It’s the esthetic appreciation of things as they are that has always eluded him. You appear to be wondering what I’m talking about.”
“Are you talking about the beauty of nature?” said Jurtan.
“It’s true that a humanizing effect is often associated with stopping to smell flowers or leisurely watching the sun set, and it is equally true that my brother has never had the slightest interest in these things. There is a danger in being too resolutely goal-directed. That’s probably more a symptom than a root cause, to be sure, but it is also part of a syndrome. A constellation of symptoms often seen in association,” Shaa added.