Spell of Catastrophe

Spell of Catastrophe
By Mayer Alan Brenner
1. MAX ON THE ROAD
THE AIR WAS THICK and the heat oppressive. Outside the flap of
canvas that covered the doorway, a vast range of beige desert overlaid
by a scattering of scrub ran to the horizon. The line of dust raised by
the approach of the caravan hung motionless in the air, stretching south
from the oasis into a cluster of low hills. Max dropped the flap, turned,
and descended the short flight of steps, his eyes still smarting from the
desert sun. Each stair had the solidity of rough board, reassuring after
the sands of the past few days, except for the bottom one, which
yielded under Max's foot in a very unstairlike fashion. He rocked back
and squinted down. The stair shifted in the gloom and became a man
dressed in loose dark clothes sprawled out on the floor, burbling
pleasantly from somewhere in a comprehensive stupor. By the look of
him, he might be burbling still when the caravan passed through the
next time, heading south again at the end of its run. That probably
meant the local rotgut was either very tasty or very dangerous. Max
stepped across the man and proceeded across the room.
At the other end of the room was a bar, on which Max rested an elbow.
The room itself occupied a natural gully in the rock next to the oasis,
covered over with a heavy canvas tent. Cables ran from eyebolts driven
into the rocks up to timbers that supported the canvas roof.
Another caravan had been parked at the oasis when Max had arrived,
but most of its crew had not been in evidence. They were certainly
missing no longer. Gently reeling forms were propped in chairs and on
tables, and piled in low mounds on the rock floor. An arm wrestling
match was in process at one side, deep in the shifting green haze from a
half-dozen guttering candles. The bartender emerged from a shadow
behind the counter and pushed a mug at Max. "You know any good

ruins around here?" Max said to him. A hefty growl from the other end
of the bar drowned out any reply. The man behind the growl, Max
discovered as he turned to eye him, was about seven feet tall, and
waving a trestle table over his head with one massively corded arm.
"You want another drink?" Max said. "I'll buy you another drink."
The guy growled and hefted the table. "Okay," Max said, "no drink." It
was just as well, as the bartender had managed to conveniently
disappear from sight. Behind the counter, framed by several large
boulders, was a cave containing stacks of large kegs. The upper lip of
the cave formed a narrow ledge overhead. Dangling in front of the
ledge over the bar was a line of additional kegs, lashed together in
threes and suspended by cables from pulleys. The cables ran down to a
rack of marlinspikes in the rock at the end of the bar, just on the other
side of the counter from Max, in fact. The giant swung the table again
and took a bead on Max.
"Don't be ridiculous," Max said. "It's too hot for this kind of nonsense."
The man reared up with the table. "All right, then," said Max, "have it
your way." Max leaned over the counter, selected one cable, grasped it
firmly with his right hand, and sharply cocked his right wrist. A blade
sprung out of his sleeve below his palm and slashed the rope. Max rose
swiftly into the air as the trio of lashed kegs at the other end of the bar
equally swiftly descended. The kegs struck the waving table, the table
overbalanced as its wielder lost his grip, and with one loud thud and a
trio of lesser thuds the table hit the giant's head and the kegs again hit
the table. All collapsed in a clatter and small cloud of dust.
A final two shards fell to the floor, there was a moment of silence, and
then the unmistakable sound of a contented snore arose from deep
within the heap.
Max swung from the rope onto the ledge over the bar and seated
himself. He sipped at his drink, which he had retained in his left hand,
and slid the knife back into its spring-loaded sheath. "Fortunately for
you," he said down at the pile of wreckage, "it is far too hellish out here
to get involved in serious exertion." After another week at the outside
the caravan would be clear of the desert, he thought, and then it was a

straight shot across the plains to Drest Klaaver, where at last report
Shaa was hiding out. He was looking forward to seeing Shaa again. If