“That can wait. And if nobody else cares enough to lay out a plan, you might as well hear mine. I had a meeting with Shaa.”
Sooner or later, Zalzyn Shaa thought to himself, he would have to finish all this dancing around, dropping suggestive hints and floating innuendoes, convincing those around him - by the evidence, fairly successfully - that he did know what he was doing, and was operating on the cryptic gyre of some master plan, and actually decide on such a plan. Truth be told, he was running on instinct more than conscious device. In the general order of things this was not recommended, since the major element separating the highly crafty from the brute of force was the multiplier of cunning. On the other hand, when dealing with Arznaak instinct was not necessarily such a bad idea.
His brother had been clearly showing himself to be at the top of his game, his preferred mode of operation - and the one that had been carrying him through his recent string of remarkable success - being his ability to anticipate the plans of his opponents, and to forcibly mutate these plans for use against them. Knowing one’s adversaries well enough to predict what they would do in any given situation was a tactic often given lip service but rarely practiced to its fullest extent; perhaps if he survived Shaa would write a treatise. Or perhaps Arznaak would. Knowing Arznaak subscribed to the family weakness for cheap theatrics he might as soon go for a ghost-written popular romance instead.
But at the moment that was scarcely the point. The question was what Arznaak would expect him to do, and what he could do in its place that would be both unexpected enough and at the same time useful. The way Arznaak had been playing him, he would probably assume Shaa to be paralyzed by ennui or wracked by irresolution of spirit; not far wrong, in fact, or at least not until the Running of the Squids and its aftermath. By now Arznaak must have learned of his escape. Would he conclude from that that Shaa had become newly energized? Probably. Would he postulate that Shaa would wait to put his preparations in order before striking back? For that matter, would he think that Shaa had finally overcome his hand-tied-behind-his-back scruples and try to strike back in the first place, or would he figure Shaa as still one to stay his blow and give action over to others? Would he conclude he had paralyzed their operations through instigating the imprisonment of Max? It was reasonably clear to Shaa that whatever counter his brother expected, Arznaak intended to nullify its effect by forging ahead and continually rearranging the board, causing any plans in the making to be rendered obsolete by the time they could be set into force.
The bottom line to all this was the demonstrated futility of making rigid plans at all for action against his brother. Letting loose as continual a barrage of skyrockets as possible with the goal of immediately sending the reserves through any breech was the ticket, trying to aim where Arznaak would be rather than where he had already showed himself. And for the moment, that came down as much as anything else to instinct.
How absurd.
Well, it wasn’t entirely just the intuition of guts or some brute dumb hunch, at that. There were things that were physically possible and things that weren’t, and even if Arznaak was now ferociously more powerful than any single entity had the right to be, transcendent or not, he still had to live in the physical world. Which meant in turn that for him to pull off major pyrotechnics at the Knitting he had to be somewhere in the vicinity, not off skulking in a hideout or reclining on a chaise lounge back at home.
Of course, as Shaa stood there at one of the sixty-five entrances to the grandstands, gazing around him at the assembled multitude - which appeared, from his present vantage point, to encompass a significant proportion of the population of the civilized world - he was considering the fact that he had not fully grasped just how big these Knittings really were. Even so, that shouldn’t make a major difference. Arznaak, the newly divine, would scarcely hide himself in the bleachers with the teeming hordes. It was almost as unlikely for him to be found among the elements of the Corpus milling like ants on the parade ground. There were exclusive levels, true, and rows of private boxes, and the possibility of a subterranean lair buried beneath the earthen buttress berm or beneath the field itself could scarcely be ruled out. Considering the likelihood of fireworks, an aerial conveyance - whether balloon, dirigible, tethered kite, or hypertrophic bird - would end up midway on the scale of probability. It was clear, though, that without some added intuition Shaa could scarcely run his brother to ground before he did whatever he was going to do to reveal himself; some added intuition, or a sudden cascade of luck, or -
“Here you are,” said a hissing voice at his shoulder.
“Yes,” Shaa confirmed, glancing over with a quick eye-dart, “just as we arranged.” Under the circumstances it would not do to point out that the others were late; the snarled traffic alone could more than account for the differential. “All three of you?”
“No,” said the cloaked Gashanatantra, with more than a trace of annoyance. “Jill wanted her own mission, and Jardin insisted on revenge at first-hand. We’ll see if he doesn’t fall over dead all on his own before that.”
The slumped figure of Jardin stirred. “There is always enough energy for revenge,” came his grim whisper.
At least the two of them had apparently come alone, without Jill’s legion of warrior priests or errant tagging acolytes. Even more importantly, they had tuned down their god-auras, not that Jardin had much of an aura left of any sort after his treatment at the hands of Arznaak. Except for ego, then, and a certain undisguisable lethality, there was nothing to stop them from blending into the mob. The fact that only Gashanatantra’s support was keeping the barely conscious Jardin from slumping to the ground was scarcely remarkable. Plenty of those thronging the stands had wounds or disabilities or stigmata; that was why they were here, hoping for the favorable benediction of the risen Emperor incarnate. Perhaps it had worked in past years, and had been more than legend; perhaps it would work tonight. Or perhaps -
“As long as he chose to be here, then, perhaps Jardin would be good enough to get to work,” suggested Shaa.
“If your friend Favored has, as you say, gone to ground,” Wroclaw protested, ‘‘then what are we doing up here?”
Ahead of him, Haddo was clinging - rather grimly, in Wroclaw’s estimation - to the neck of his other old friend, the colossal vulture, which had returned from its sojourn in the ancestral breeding grounds significantly invigorated and - if its current frisky banks, dives, and the barrel roll from which they were only now pulling out were any indication - ready for vigorous adventure. “Rather walk would you?” Haddo warbled.
“As a matter of fact, yes, I would.” The naturally greenish pallor of Wroclaw’s skin was serving him in good stead at the moment, saving him the trouble of turning the same color from conscious volition. “I’ve never enjoyed flying,” he added, “as you know.”
“Perfectly safe it is,” hollered Haddo, just as another dramatic maneuver from the bird flung his cloaked body straight outward from its neck. He squawked frantically at the bird, hanging on convulsively to a flapping wattle, the vulture cackled its own protesting squawk back, and then a billow of air washed over them as the creature luffed its wings and pulled up, punching Haddo back down into his perch. “See you?” Haddo demanded, just as the bird cast an evil glare back along its outstretched neck, goggled its bloodshot eye, yanked its wings in, and headed beak-first for the ground.