“We don’t know each other all that well,” Wroclaw said to him, “but I’ll admit I was taken with your good sense and judgment, as well as your plainly brilliant artistic abilities. Unfortunately, though, I see I was mistaken. For you to trust Arznaak Shaa enough to cast your lot with him -”
“You think I trust him?” said Favored, not removing his attention from his board. “What the hell kind of idiot you think I’ve turned into? I’ve got him where I want him.”
Wroclaw settled himself into one of the chairs; this promised to be a long haul. “You’re not the first one to think that about Arznaak. And he doesn’t trust you either, that goes without saying. So what mechanisms do you have in place to assure that neither of you stabs the other in the back? Just how far you think common interest is going to take you?”
“Far enough,” Favored said definitively. “You’ve gotta risk cracking eggs if you’re gonna have an omelet, am I right?”
“Crack you, would I,” muttered Haddo.
Wroclaw waved him down with a calming motion. “So you do have some strategy in mind for parting company with the Scapula?”
“Who do you think I am?” Favored said slyly. “You think I’m the kind of guy doesn’t have a backup drop-dead plan? Anyway, if the Scapula did manage to turn the tables on me, I could always go running to Max and you guys.” Wroclaw heard Haddo mumbling in his ongoing undertone, “If alive still you are,” while Favored went on with “I’ve got plenty to barter with.”
“Such as?” said Wroclaw.
“Well,” Favored drawled, “I just may know a method for pulling the plug on the gods feeding Arznaak his power. How about that, huh?”
“If I knew how to do that,” Wroclaw said severely, “I would have done it immediately. This situation is too dangerous to play games with.”
“That may be good enough for you, but we all know you’re a low-impact player, the supporting character type, right? That loyal subservient crap’s not for me. And hey, Arznaak’s doing exactly what we agreed, so far anyway. He’s wiping the slate clean of every other god in sight, and -”
“And then he intends to abdicate, I suppose? And neither of you cares who gets devastated in the process?”
Favored grinned. “Arznaak cares, all right. He likes to hurt people. And if a few humans get plowed under along the way, who’s gonna miss them, huh? Even this Emperor guy - especially the Emperor.”
“You want to destroy the structure of society?”
“You got it, buster. That’s the only chance for our folks to break out of the ghettos and straighten the deck. It’s about time we were on top for a change.”
“Of your mind out you are,” Haddo muttered accusingly.
Favored was being obnoxiously cheerful; something must be going right for him. “That may be, but whether I am or not there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. I can pump gas into the room where you are now, too, you know.”
“A pleasant offer,” Wroclaw told him. “Not terribly consistent with your plan to come begging to us if you get into trouble, and hopefully not indicative of the quality of your thought in general, but -”
“Now that’s interesting,” said Favored, examining something off to his left. “A lot of those caged gods are trying stuff, but there’s one of them in there working to destabilize the matrix who may actually be able to do it; seems like he really has some idea of what’s going on at the subcode level. Let me check the identity tracer. Huh.” He grimaced at the panel and fiddled with something at its base. “There we are, recalibrated I think. You know somebody called Iskendarian?” he said, still glowering and tweaking simultaneously.
“About what talking is Favored?” Haddo hissed at Wroclaw.
“He is seemingly the keeper of the Scapula’s trapped gods,” Wroclaw guessed. “The vampire’s apprentice, one might say.”
“Duh,” said Favored. “Wait a minute here... Well, can you believe that.”
“What?” said Haddo.
“This Iskendarian thing is disincarnate; it’s got no body. It’s just sitting out there subverting the network. It even looks like - yeah, it’s already cross-infected the Scapula’s lower-level functions. I wonder if he realizes it? His command effectuation is still within nominal but -”
“Excuse me,” said Wroclaw. “What are you babbling about? Are you saying that Iskendarian has somehow abandoned his body?”
“You do know this Iskendarian? He really did have a body?”
“To our misfortune and that of our associates, yes. Iskendarian was responsible for the destruction of the laboratory - you recall? You were there for a moment trying to put out the fire? - before you left to plot against us all again. Iskendarian is also answerable for the murder of Madame Karlini. And do I understand you correctly, that this disembodied Iskendarian is now trying to take over the Scapula?”
“Could be, yeah, sort of looks like it.” Favored began gnawing on a finger.
“All part of your plan, I’m sure,” Wroclaw said. “Of course, that’s all the world needs, Iskendarian in control of the Scapula’s power. It’s difficult to say which one of them would be worse. Or maybe they could join forces; we’d all like that, wouldn’t we. It’s clear you would. Weren’t you just arguing in favor of maximizing anarchy?”
Favored stared at his wildly gyrating instruments. “So if Iskendarian started out with a body, I wonder where the hell it is now?”
“I’m afraid I can help you with that one,” said a new voice.
“How the hell did you get in here?” demanded Favored, craning back over his neck with his hands still on his boards. One of the banks of equipment at the side rear of his control room had eased silently away from the wall, revealing behind it a camouflaged door, and within it a familiar figure. “Don’t move - you take one step and you’re toast.”
“Iskendarian?” Haddo croaked.
“Not anymore,” said the man, “which I suppose is one thing to be happy for. I -”
“Favored,” said Wroclaw, seeing that one’s teeth clench as he reached his decision and sent his hands reaching for a new configuration of controls, “I wouldn’t -”
Whereupon the newcomer - whether Iskendarian, Creeping Sword, nameless one, or something else entirely - spoke a single incomprehensible but immaculately uttered word; another sourceless voice that was plainly different but still strangely similar to his own answered; the lights on the boards around Favored’s controlling perch chattered and swam; and though Favored pounded incredulously on the keys in front of him absolutely nothing resulted; surely not the sentence of destruction he had obviously expected.
Favored abruptly gave off his efforts, directed a final stare at his machines, and then spun on his swiveling chair. “How the hell did you do that?” he spat.
“Well, you see,” said the man, “this stuff used to be mine. I’m sure you don’t think it all got here on its own.”
“Don’t make me laugh,” said Favored, not looking as though any outburst of the sort was close to hand. “This place’s been sitting here forever - if you built it where have you been all these years? How are you still alive?”
“I’ll grant you I have been indisposed, but -”