The common-floor of the Bilious Gnome might have been mistaken for a hospital sickroom, what with the number of bruised, smashed, splinted, and wrapped people in attendance. Few people in sickrooms, though, could tear through a freshly roasted side of beef with the abandon of Maximillian the Vaguely Disreputable, who, beneath a liberal swath of bandages, looked as though he had just come off a three-month stretch of dedicated dieting. Attempting to match him bite-for-bite from across the large table, and falling further and further behind, was the Great Karlini. “Watch out with that gravy, dear,” said Ronibet, wiping a small brownish glob from her sleeve,
“It’s all Max’s fault, anyway,” Karlini said, pausing in mid-chew and sliding the words out the side of his mouth.
Max pointed a knife at him. “Don’t forget who wandered into a castle that didn’t belong to him in the first place.”
Karlini said something else around his mouthful of food that this time was totally unintelligible. “You’d better not repeat that,” Max said.
Wroclaw had produced a damp cloth and was devoting his professional attention to the gravy spot. He bent to scrutinize his handiwork, lowering his mouth to the level of Roni’s ear. “Master Maximillian’s level of agitation is still uncommonly high,” he said in a low voice.
“It’s Shaa,” Roni murmured. “He’s worried about Shaa.” Wroclaw glanced casually toward the end of the table.
“With some justification, it would appear.”
Shaa was reclining in a large mud-encrusted chair that was covered by a fairly clean sheet, his legs elevated and outstretched along a bench. He had a flagon balanced on the chair’s armrest. “Thank you, no,” Shaa said to Jurtan Mont, who was reaching toward the flagon with the refill pitcher. “I am suspicious enough of this beverage as it is.” Shaa sniffed ostentatiously at his cup, then broke into a sudden paroxysm of wet coughing.
Max looked sharply up. He gazed down the table at Shaa, his face blank. Shaa indicated the flagon, “Noxious emanations,” he said. “It is possible that water has inadvertently been substituted for the requested ale. Could I interest you in a verifying taste?”
“I’ve had enough water in the last few days to hold me for the next five years,” Max said. “Try it on your poison tester, there.”
Jurtan Mont, who was of course the individual to whom Max had alluded, opened his mouth to try a rejoinder. His sister Tildamire kicked him under the table. “A wise woman,” Shaa murmured approvingly to her. “Responding to Max can often lead to complications. Would you appropriate the asparagus?”
Max’s attention had already wandered. Recuperation from a bad spell-drain ordinarily left his mind part vegetable, and that part mostly onion, garlic, and other roots known for their nasty temperament. The major thing on which he had focused his limited concentration was indeed the problem of Shaa. Shaa had insisted on making it in from the street under his own power, but the effort had left him breathless and drenched in sweat; his face was still white and his breathing difficult now, almost two hours later. It was graphic confirmation of his state. Shaa had told Max earlier that in his professional opinion as a physician, he might last six months. On the other hand, medical science being as imprecise as it was, the time could be closer to six weeks. Or, he had added, a miracle could occur. With Shaa’s resistance to magic-based cures, though, fixing him would be a knotty problem. Of course, Max did have some ideas. It was about time to rid Shaa of those damn curses anyway.
The only sounds for a moment were those related to eating; the man now calling himself the Creeping Sword had just finished his story and everyone was digesting as much of it as they chose to. Karlini wiped his plate with a chunk of bread. “One thing I don’t understand,” he said, chewing thoughtfully on the crust. “I still don’t know how I got decoupled from the castle. Max had something in mind but he didn’t know exactly how he was going to work it. That was while he was awake – but when it came to it, he wasn’t even awake, he was unconscious.”
“Then why did you jump?” said the Creeping Sword. Karlini shrugged. “I felt something all of a sudden, like … like indigestion all over my body, maybe.” Karlini glanced at the empty bowl that had held the potatoes. Karlini was quite fond of potatoes, and had figured large in the bowl’s demise. “I figured that was it, Max pulling me loose, and it was, but anyway I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t want to ride the castle where it was going; it was already coming apart and I didn’t know if it would survive the jump. I doubt it did, by the way. I thought I might have destabilized things enough on my own for me to pull away without stopping my heart again, and if I jumped I was betting Haddo would catch me.”
“Again to rescue comes faithful servant,” Haddo said, a carrot disappearing into the dark void inside his hood.
“Yes, thank you again, Haddo,” Karlini said.
“Lots of us thank you,” said the Creeping Sword. “Like me. You pulled me out of that whirlpool.”
“Good are thanks,” Haddo said, “also for faithful bird. Welcome gives bird, welcome give I. But thanks, everything is not. When extreme is danger, demonstrated is value of faithful servant, so also perhaps would not mind faithful servant particular recognition.”
“What recognition?” Karlini said. “What are you talking about, Haddo? Everybody knows what you did, everybody’s thanked you.”
“Am talking bonus,” said Haddo. Wroclaw’s ears perked up.
“You want a what?” Karlini said.
“Simple is word. Also, is pertinent other topic, of contract to renegotiate, of status to elevate. Great may Karlini be, better not to also be cheap.”
Karlini looked at his plate, then at the dramatically shrunken carcass dominating the table’s center. “Roni, how did that old heartburn recipe go?”
“Calm down, dear. Haddo, we’ll discuss this later.”
“Wise is mistress,” Haddo said, bowing his hood demurely. “Always obedient, is faithful servant.”
Karlini made a rude sound. “Quiet,” Roni said, “ dear. Then maybe you’ll get an answer to your question. Max?”
“Well,” Max said, “magic isn’t always strictly deterministic, you know. The way the Sword describes it, something happens when he goes into this spell-mode. What it is exactly, I don’t know; some kind of resonance effect against his metabolic link, maybe. It sounds like he can say what he wants a spell to do, but he doesn’t have to go through the work of actually designing the spell and setting it up. He just says, ‘Do this,’ and the spell-field tries to figure out something that’s close to what he wants. That sound plausible to you, Sword?”
“I guess,” said the Creeping Sword. “But I don’t care. I’m getting rid of it as soon as I can. I don’t want to cast spells. I tried it three times and it only worked right once.”
“You got the results you wanted every time, didn’t you?” Max said. “In my book that record’s pretty strong. Anyway, in this case, the Sword’s spell-mode decided the best way to ‘Help Karlini’ was to get me to help Karlini, even if I wasn’t conscious, so it went in and dug something out of my mind. I wish I could remember what it was it found.”
“That’s not a very neat answer,” said Jurtan Mont. “What about -”
“In a mess like this you’re lucky if you get one neat answer out of the whole thing. Results are usually more important than answers, anyway.”
Shaa looked at Max; Roni and Karlini looked at Max too, then looked at each other. “Is that the same Max we know who Just said that?” Karlini whispered. “Who said answers aren’t important?”
“I think so -”
Results, Jurtan Mont thought. Well, okay; I found out some new stuff about myself, stuff that doesn’t look half bad, Tildy’s free, Dad’s square with Kaar, Kaar’s getting square with the city, and it looks like Dad may even be willing to take another look at me, too. I guess when you look at it that way, it’s really not bad, not bad at all.