Jurtan Mont had his face contorted, a sign often noted when he was trying to follow Shaa through some unnecessarily abstruse argument. “Wait a minute,” he said. “The Scapula’s a villain, right? He’s evil. Isn’t that all the explanation you need? He tortured you and Eden when you were kids, now he made himself a god because he wants to run the world - I mean, that makes him evil. Doesn’t it?”
“You idiot,” said his sister. “That’s way too simplistic. He doesn’t think of himself as a bad guy, does he?, and evil’s just a label. Isn’t it?”
Shaa thought that Svin, the new-born philosopher, should really be at hand for this. “You tell me,” Shaa temporized. “Arznaak enjoys causing pain. He enjoys depriving people of what they love best, using them as tools, imposing on them the fates he chooses; exercising his will as a lash. That is the way he is. Does that make him evil, whatever that is? If he is evil, then that probably makes me evil as well, since I failed to annihilate him when I might have had the chance.” Shaa shrugged. “I don’t know about labels. What I do know is that now he’s gone too far and he has to be stopped. He’s no longer restricting his wrath to the family, where it was our business how we handled him.”
“But isn’t it too late?” said Jurtan. “Now he’s so powerful, and he seems to be such a master of magic. I don’t know,” he went on wistfully. “Maybe there’s some piece of forgotten technology out there that could bring him down.”
“Could be,” said Shaa. “More likely you’re falling into the trap of a romantic mindset. Magic is practical, everyday stuff, with nothing mystical or sentimental about it; just another tool. Technology, on the other hand, makes people go gooey-eyed and misty-brained with that forbidden allure and images of an enchanting better world. The fallacy of that thinking is that if technology weren’t proscribed it would just be another tool too. Tools aren’t sentimental. People use them all just the same way.”
“But -”
Shaa held up a finger. “We have arrived.” He inverted the hand and spread his fingers to indicate the street ahead. The block held an unusual gloom in the declining sun; the gaslines to the wide-spaced streetlights had obviously been breached, or more hopefully turned off due to the damage to the neighborhood. The smell of burning was still intense, and wisps of smoke were still rising from the charred ash-heaps of the several ruined buildings.
Tildamire had begun to weave from side to side on her feet. Shaa grasped her shoulder with a steadying grip. “I’m fine,” she said quaveringly. “I was just visualizing -”
“Yes,” said Shaa. An incendiary consumption of living flesh. And surprisingly enough, one that was difficult to tie to his brother.
“Couldn’t she be alive?” Tildamire added plaintively. “I didn’t actually see her burn -” she gulped – “I mean, I saw Roni, and I saw the fireball, but I don’t think I really saw the fireball hit her. Couldn’t she have had some last-minute defense, something that shielded her long enough for her to get away?”
Interesting, Shaa thought. That was not quite exactly the story as he had been hearing it. Sometimes these minor differences could be significant. “Ronibet surely had her personal protection field, but likely it was overwhelmed by the force of the blast; Iskendarian is a heavyweight. But this argument has a flaw of logic. If she escaped, where is she now? Why hasn’t she made herself known?”
“Then couldn’t she have teleported herself or transferred her mind or - or something? Something that would make her unreachable for a while?”
“I suppose anything is possible,” Shaa said reluctantly. “But I wouldn’t try to console myself by convincing myself it was likely, or had actually happened. Shall we accomplish what we came here to do, then, which is to say evaluate what is unfortunately a much greater and a much less pleasant probability?”
“... All right,” whispered Tildamire. “All right, yes, Shaa, let’s do that.”
“Right,” said Shaa. “Now, you were assisting her on this, so you should be able to remember the recognition signatures of those organisms she was creating. The destruct beacons to track them down if any got loose? Those.”
“I guess so. Maybe. But I’ve never run a probe on my own.”
“I will assist you. And Jurtan? - perhaps you would be good enough to re-extend your particular talents as well.”
“Yeah, okay, but what am I trying to find?”
“Anything that might have escaped the destruction, and be flourishing, in preparation to march out and eat the rest of the city. Is that enough to start with?”
If his paralysis had been caused by a drug, Fradjikan had noted, it would most likely be wearing off by now, or he would be dead. But if he was afflicted by a drug, it was not one he was familiar with, and he had thought he had known them all, down to the rarest trace alkaloid. Sorcerous delivery methods for traditional poisons were scarcely unknown either, of course, and since the Scapula was clearly the master of magic he, Fradjikan, was not, their employment was obviously within his grasp. Still, when all the evidence had been considered it appeared that his downfall had been accomplished through entirely wizardly means.
Fradi had been considering the evidence at hand. Without question, pondering the etiology of his doom was a morose way of passing what likely were his last moments extant, but he hadn’t exactly been in the mood for pleasant reminiscences. And perhaps he could still think of something useful.
Without any need to invoke the paralysis, his injuries by themselves had been increasingly sapping his strength. Fradi suspected he had gone through periods of stupor, and if his speech mechanisms had been operational it was likely episodes of delirium would have revealed themselves as well. On top of that, he was in need of sustenance - he was hungry, and thirsty, and could probably use a blood transfusion for good measure too. Perhaps if the Scapula bothered to take note of him again he would bring it up.
Fradjikan had also been watching the Scapula and Vladimir, for lack of anything more productive to do. They had been lying placidly on their divans, until for some reason, in the last several minutes, the Lord of Storms had begun writhing and thrashing feebly within his cocoon of fog. Perhaps he has just encountered the Scapula I know, Fradi was thinking, when the desperado in question abruptly stripped his mantle of cloud from around his form, stretched, and sat up. “Ahh,” he said. “That was most invigorating.”
At first Fradi thought his eyes might be finally growing dysfunctional now too. But, no, the Scapula was glowing. In fact, he was positively luminescent. Could it be that his plans had reached fruition? Perhaps the contingency for which he, Fradjikan, had been preserved was no longer prime to be invoked. Perhaps the Scapula would merely leave the room and advance to other pursuits. There, now he was getting to his feet ...
And now he was walking unambiguously in Fradi’s direction.
Once their course had been resolved, it was clearly prudent to move fast. Initially reluctant, Dortonn had allowed himself to be convinced that the gambit might as well be tried. The upside for him was substantial; a grateful and sated Pod Dall could heal his wounds and shower him with garlands and return him to the frozen north, safe at last from these southern maniacs. If things went sour again he could always give up and die. In the meantime, Shaa had come through with a nerve block and the soothing salve made it less appalling to walk around, so why not try?