A ball of fire rolled upward from the tower of flames and arched out over the city. The ball was leaving a dying trail behind it in swooping, looping curls, and the trail only emphasized its path: toward the river, toward the Palace of the Venerance, toward the Lion and the watching Kaar. The ball swelled in their vision and took on added detail.
“Sorcery, damn it,” snapped the Lion. “There’s always sorcery, I hate -”
“Look,” Kaar said, “if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon you kill me before that thing gets here. I’d rather face a sword.”
Jurtan’s father scowled down at him. Kaar didn’t seem half the oaf he remembered. If he was telling the truth, it sounded like he’d learned something from his experiences. The old Venerance was gone now, and the place still needed somebody in charge. Maybe Kaar wouldn’t be a bad choice after all.
On the other hand, he’d kept the Lion penned up in the dungeon for days. The Lion raised his sword.
“That’s strange,” Kaar said. “It seems to be stopping.”
The Lion looked back up. Kaar was right. The ball of flame, now over the river channel between the docks and their position, had bent around in a tight circle low above the surface of the water. It cast a sullen red light across the river swells. The window glass rattled in its frame. A low wind began to rise.
“Look, fellow,” said the man who burned down buildings, “you’ve got to get away from here. This whole neighborhood could go up.”
Shaa, lying full-length on the ground with one hand pressed to his chest, his head propped up against the base of a wall, was breathing with difficulty through his open mouth. He opened one eye, looked up at the arsonist, and nodded. He reached up an arm and the arsonist pulled him to his feet. The entrance to an alley was visible just to the west along the street. They began to stumble toward it.
“What’s the matter with you, anyway?” the arsonist said.
“We receive the dooms we know,” Shaa said testily. His ankles felt boggy,
“What dooms? What are you talking about?”
“When I conjure.” Three words, Shaa thought, and I’m out of breath. What a mortifying condition. He started again. “When I conjure, I am inflicted, with a backlash. Proportional to the, magnitude, of the work.” He put a hand against the building wall at the entrance to the alley, leaned over, and panted. “Unfortunately,” he managed, “that isn’t, the whole curse.”
The arsonist was already almost lost in the shadows deeper in the alley, but Shaa could see him pause and turn his head. “What do you mean, that’s not the whole curse?”
“There’s a part, that involves, my sister.”
“ZALZYN SHAA!!”
The voice came out of the empty air over the arsonist’s head in a powerful hollow echo. The arsonist clapped his arms over his head and fell over into a pile of trash. A flight of pigeons behind Shaa in the street floppered into the air. Aargh, Shaa thought. What timing, what wonderful timing.
“What is that?” wailed the arsonist.
Shaa sagged to the ground, propping his back up against the corner of the building. “Eden. My sister.”
“ZALZYN SHAA!!” A cornice cracked and dropped to the cobblestones, shattering into dust and shards of chunky plaster,
“Uh, thanks for getting us out of there and everything,” muttered the man who burned down buildings, struggling to his feet. “but I’m gonna take off now.” He broke into a run and vanished down the alley.
“WAS THAT A FRIEND OF YOURS?”
“Purely a matter of, circumstance,” Shaa gasped. “How’s the family?”
“THEY ASK ABOUT YOU,” Eden said, “WHEN THEY WANT TO ANNOY ME.” A row of windows overhead exploded out in a liquid cloud of twinkling firepoints.
Shaa waited for the crashing and tinkling to settle themselves out against the roar of the spreading fire down the block. He took a deep breath. let it out slowly around the giant hand in his chest. “If you keep this up, Roosing Oolvaya may sue you, for renovation costs.”
“THEY’RE WELCOME TO TRY. BY THE LOOKS OF THINGS YOU’RE DOING PRETTY WELL IN THAT LINE YOURSELF .
“There’s no need, to act so implacable. Why not sit down, have a drink, or a bowl of hot soup, or something.” In a sudden gust, a flurry of leaves from the street and a cloud of ash blew past Shaa into the alley. ‘That’s curious,” Shaa mumbled. The leaves were going in the wrong direction. Things emanate out of the contact point, he thought, they don’t blow into it. Then he realized that the gust was not due to Eden, it was a new, different wind starting to come up.
“FEELING RATHER POORLY, AREN’T YOU.”
“You know the curse.”
“YES,” said Eden, “I DO INDEED. WHAT MADE YOU DO IT THIS TIME?” The voice thundered along the narrow confined space. Houses on either side of the alley lurched against each other, sending pieces of fractured facade crashing down onto the piles of trash. The wall jerked at Shaa’s back and shoved him sprawling into the street. Behind him, the wind was growing into a actual howl.
“That isn’t your wind, is it?” Shaa said.
Eden paused. “NO,” she said, “IT’S NOT. JUST WHAT IS GOING ON THERE?”
“A mad god. I think we’re about to see, what he’s going to do next.” Shaa took another breath. “Look, Eden, you’d better get on with it, if you still want to have a live victim to harass.” Linked to the curse that incapacitated Shaa whenever he used magic was an additional kicker. Shaa and his sister were cursed to being enemies, and to mounting raids on each other whenever feasible. It wasn’t usually feasible. Eden could only detect Shaa when Shaa had activated his power for some conjuration, and when she couldn’t detect him she generally couldn’t attack. On the other hand, that also meant that Eden was able to pounce on Shaa when he was at his weakest. He had never been quite this weak before, either.
It was a fine arrangement, for families who liked such things; in the society where they’d grown up, infighting and internecine discord were the glue of basic social interaction. For Eden and Zalzyn Shaa, though, there was one problem. They’d always liked each other.
“CONTACT IS SLIPPING. CRZK GRZZ INTERFERENCE! KNKK ZGRZT TAKE THSTZZ!” What was Eden trying? They had found loopholes before, but the Curse Administrator was very sticky about letting curse-parties get away with anything; he was fairly implacable himself. Lightning crashed in the direction of the river. A seagull screeched overhead, then swooped down out of the darkness and landed next to Shaa. It waddled up to his face and eyed him. Shaa eyed it back. Eden’s voice at the contact zone said something completely unintelligible. Then a globule of milky white looped unexpectedly out of the contact-point, dropped toward Shaa, and burst.
“What’s that?” Jurtan said suddenly.
“What’s what?” said Tildamire. She dropped her end of the final Guard trooper they were dragging into a storeroom and straightened up. The man’s head fell back and thudded onto the stone floor. Jurtan had an arm out, supporting himself against the doorframe, and was staring with a blank look into space. His mouth was sagging.
“It’s the music, it was going along kind of hopeful and zingy and then out of nowhere it picks up these low deep shuddery organ chords, oom, oom, oom, oom, ooom, Just getting lower and lower and slower and slower. I mean - I mean the music’s mostly shaking, it’s too low to even hear right, more like an earthquake with rhythm than music with notes.