Max wanted to cross his arms, put a world-beating scowl on his face, and sulk. Or better yet, get out on the street and start taking an active part in events. He could wield powers from the second quantum level, after all, or he could if he wasn’t under all this shielding, and even if he couldn’t wield them he could still deploy his brain. But here he was instead, not even able to do that much, what with the interference from that diabolical mind-scrambling shrieker, and a lack of enough facts from the outside world.
Was it time for the Knitting yet? There was no day or night here in this basement cell, of course, but in the outside world it must be getting on into evening, at least. Between wails from his personal torture system Max had been reviewing the few facts at his disposal, and his much wider knowledge of the Scapula’s past history and predilections. He would have happily given more consideration to the question of the Creeping Sword and Iskendarian as well, and whatever might be happening with the Karlinis and the lab, if his old friend Phlinn had bothered to give him some actual useful information on the subjects rather than a gratuitous half-turn of additional tension on his current rack of mental cruciation. Even so, the Iskendarian connection could be figured into the equation. In particular, the foremost issue that had been occupying Max’s attention was that of synchronicity. Why had all these separate threads taken the same moment to come to a head? Did that mean that the establishing postulate itself should be reexamined - the idea that the threads were indeed separate? The Scapula was surpassingly clever, that much was surely a given, but was even he all-encompassing enough to have orchestrated half the known world?
That was likely taking things a bit far. Nevertheless, the Scapula’s timing was rarely less than impeccable. Since he had chosen the day of the Knitting to make his move, one could scarcely imagine that correspondence to be a coincidence.
So what did he have planned for the Knitting?
Again Max heard the abrupt clank from the doorway, then felt the rush of air from the swing of the thick door itself. Again Phlinn Arol hove into his line of sight. This time, though, Phlinn wasn’t stalking confidently toward Max, he was virtually backing into the room, or so his contorted posture from craning back over his shoulder and trying to make forward progress at the same time made it appear. “What’s the matter now,” said Max, “haunted by your evil ways? I think I’ve spent more time with you and accomplished less in the last day than in -”
“Shut up, Max,” Phlinn Arol snapped. “I -”
Okay, so Phlinn was nervous. But Max was pretty annoyed, too. “You here for me to help you vent your soul again? You want me to do anything but glower, you can start by telling me the rest of the story behind this Iskendarian bit.”
“That doesn’t matter now,” said Phlinn Arol. “He is out of the picture. He has been captured by the Scapula.”
“It doesn’t surprise me that the Scapula is capturing people, but why him?”
“Him and most everyone else. Something quite terrible has occurred. Now sweep that chip off your shoulder and listen.”
“I -” Then Max took another look at the expression on Phlinn Arol’s face. Phlinn wasn’t just nervous, he was barely one side of panic, and which side was difficult right at the moment to tell. “I’m listening.”
Phlinn Arol was running the hand on his less injured arm through his hair. If the disarray inside the head matched the rat’s-nest on it, Phlinn was in a very bad way indeed. “I don’t understand how he could have managed it,” said Phlinn. “They can’t break out of the conclave. None of them. They’re all trapped.”
“The Scapula’s got everyone who was at the conclave trapped?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. He’s worse than a menace, he’s - he’s -”
“He never works small when he can help it, that’s for sure,” Max said. “I take it you weren’t in attendance? You -” The noisemaker behind his head let loose with another bloodcurdling caterwauling fit. “Look, you want to turn that thing off, so we can maybe hear each other speak?”
“What? Oh, yes, of course.”
While Phlinn tinkered with the device, Max’s mind was still rolling. “You decided not to go?” he went on. “What about the Emperor, is he trapped too? And if you weren’t there how did you find out what had happened?”
“No, I didn’t go, and yes, I’ll give you some credit, I did take your advice, although I was inclined in that direction to start with. The Emperor-designate was a more difficult matter. He is of the command-from-the-front school. The more potential danger the Scapula was advertised as presenting, the more the Emperor desired to confront him directly to make his own assessment. But no, he was not in the event present for the Scapula’s triumph.”
“How did you work that?”
“A sleeping draught,” admitted Phlinn. “I was running out of time and ideas. He was determined, but he was wrong.”
“Might have served him right,” Max suggested.
“Do you really think so? He may make a good Emperor, once his impetuous and pigheaded streaks are brought under control, but whatever his qualities I submit that throwing the succession into confusion would only accelerate the current slide toward anarchy. I don’t know that the Scapula would have taken him hostage too, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have had some provision for the Emperor in his plan.”
“Neither would I. The Scapula’s been riding full-tilt across every convention and treaty the gods have lived by. And not only the gods - which covenant does the Emperor figure most directly in himself?”
“Just so. But do you think even the Scapula would dare to proclaim himself Emperor? A god-king incarnate violates every -”
“It sure does,” said Max. “I don’t know if he really would or not, but he sure isn’t sparing much effort to make us think he would. I suppose it’s still too much to ask to call off the Knitting; like you said you’ve got a pigheaded beneficiary and additional destabilization to worry about.”
“I’m not convinced I wouldn’t trade this Emperor for a broken Scapula at this point, but yes. There. This device that’s been annoying you is deactivated forever. Don’t bother to thank -”
“Huh. Just how many of you-all did escape Arznaak’s trap?”
“Not many,” Phlinn Arol said grimly. “He still has a standing broadcast on the network inviting others to the conclave, but I don’t think he’ll snare anyone else; the alert has gone out as well.” Phlinn shook his head vigorously, as though trying to dislodge a colony of moths. “I still don’t understand how he could have accomplished all this.”
“You got to look at the infrastructure that allows your telepresence conferencing; somehow he got into that and poisoned it. Look - these god meetings don’t just happen - there’s some underlying carrier mechanism. Right?”
“I - I suppose so,” Phlinn said. “I’ve never really thought about it.”
“You and most of those other dopes you call gods, you bet. They just figure it’s there, so you use it. But somebody thought about how that system works, all right. I bet it’s not the only thing they’ve thought about, either. The intergod communications network? You’d better consider that compromised too. Maybe he can’t lock you up the same way, but you’d better assume he can overhear anything you’re saying. And let’s see, what other little toys do you guys use? How about -”
“Enough for now, Max, please.”
“It’s not enough,” Max said, “there’s more - there’s another part of the answer to your question; the ‘how did he do this?’ one. Arznaak’s not a deep technical thinker. He’s a master schemer, no doubt about it, but this kind of guts-of-the-world engineering just isn’t the way his mind works. He either found some old reference that describes how to do these things or he’s got a confederate. Who might be able to do the legwork who’s unaccounted for?”