Spell of Apocalypse by Mayer Alan Brenner

Author:Mayer Alan Brenner
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: ManyBooks.net

CHAPTER 16

ZALZYN SHAA HAD NEVER BEEN FOND of conventions. Even a family reunion was edging over the line, but then with his family any rational observer would feel that that part of his attitude, at least, was perfectly understandable. So when he considered the fact that he was at least partially responsible for the present congregation of disreputable characters spread out along the street - could even be defined, in fact, as co-host - it was enough to make a new identity and a turn to the open road seem of more than merely passing appeal. But lurking around on the other hand was the matter of responsibility. Who knew what this gaggle of loons would do left to their own devices if he headed off into the sunset?

Still, matters had clearly passed smoothly through the absurd and were charging unwaveringly into the preposterous. Where would it all end? An old phrase Max had picked up from one of his researches came to mind, "the heat-death of the universe." Max had spent a few years tossing out this remark as his contribution whenever a situation became completely unintelligible, as an illustration of incomprehensibility that might only be resolved by one with unknowable knowledge or an unachievable vantage-station from which to exercise their point of view. It was clear the ancients had meant something by this mysterious "heat-death", but for all Max's exertions it had remained only a string of cryptic words.

So as Shaa stood there, surveying his rabble of compatriots and wondering where and whether all this would end, reflecting that by now it might take an apocalypse of legendary proportions to achieve resolution by the sheer expedient of sweeping all of them and perhaps even the rest of Peridol with them into the sea, he felt his thoughts turning philosophically to -

Someone gave him a hard slap on the back. Someone? No, that was a smack he recognized. "I am also pleased to see you, my sister," Shaa said, raising an eyebrow.

"Not a very good time to sink into reverie, wouldn't you say?" said Eden pointedly.

"Yes, I suppose you're right." Shaa considered the problem. "It would be better to find a small coffee shop and sit on its veranda swapping reminiscences and recapitulating hardy moments from the recent pitched battle. Or, considering how many invitations would need to go out to ensure the attendance of everyone appropriate, perhaps a ballroom would be better instead, even if a tea-lounge would be more atmospheric. Shall I call the caterer?"

"You've been on the road too long," Eden told him. "You've finally up and lost your mind."

"Certainly I've been doing something too long," agreed Shaa, putting his hands in his pockets. "Probably slithering in and out of plots. But I suppose that's still the leading matter on the table now, to sit down and brew up our next wily scheme, leaving the rest cure in the country for a later date."

"I've been on a rest cure in the country for the last - well, you know how long - and trust me, it doesn't solve a thing.

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