the tops of the bottom row of books. I recognized the tome as one of several that I had brought back from the house of Bristal Baxandall, the ambitious thaumaturge who had originally summoned my demonic colleague to this realm. Baxandall had no further use for them, having expired while attempting to alter his own form, a process in which the compelled and reluctant demon had seized his opportunity for revenge.
"I thought there might be something useful in this," the integrator said, its fingers flicking through the heavy vellum pages while its golden eyes scanned from side to side.
It was yet another unsettling sight in a day that had already offered too many. "Put that away," I said. "I looked through it and others like it when I was a young man. It is a lot of flippydedoo about so-called magic."
But the integrator continued to peruse Baxandall's book. "I thought, under the circumstances," it said, "that we might drop the 'so-called' and accept the reality of my predicament."
I blew out air between scarcely opened lips. The creature's narrow catlike face sharpened and it said, "Do you have a better argument than that? If not, I will accept your concession."
While it was true that I must accept the concept that rationalism was fated to give way to magic, even that the cusp of the transition had arrived, I was not prepared to dignify a book of spells with my confidence. I blew the same amount of air as before, but this time let my lips vibrate, producing a sound that conveyed both brave defiance and majestic ridicule.
My assistant finished scanning the tome, slammed its covers together and said, "We must settle this."
"No," I said, "we must rescue Turgut Therobar from incarceration."
"You are assuming that he is blameless."
I applied insight to the matter. The part of me that dwelled in the rear of my mind, the part that intuitively grasped complex issues in a flash of neurons, supported my assumption, though not completely.
"Therobar is innocent," I reported. "Probably."
"I was also innocent of any urge to become a gurgling bag of flesh and bones," said the integrator. "What has happened to me must also be resolved."
"First the one, then the other," I said.
"Is that a promise?"
"I am not accustomed to having to make promises to my own integrator," I said.
"Yet you expect me to put up with this," it said, pointing at itself with both small hands, fingers spread, a gesture that put me in mind of an indignant old man.
"Sometimes our expectations may require adjustment," I said.
I turned to the demon's portal to seek his views, but the entity had taken the opportunity to depart.
"Perhaps he has found another peepshow," I said.
Thurloyn Vale was an unpretentious transportation nexus at the edge of the great desolation that was Dimpfen Moor. Its dun colored, low-rise shops and houses radiated in a series of arrondissements from a broad hub on which sat the airship terminal that was the place's reason for being. In former times, the entire town had been ringed by a high, smooth wall, now mostly tumbled in ruins. The barrier had been built to keep out the large and predatory social insects known as neropts that nested on the moor, but eventually an escalating series of clashes, culminating in a determined punitive expedition, led to a treaty. Now any neropt that came within sight of Thurloyn Vale, including flying nymphs and drones in their season, was legitimately a hunter's trophy; any persons, human or ultraterrene, who ventured out onto the moor need not expect rescue if they were carried off to work the insects' subterranean fungi beds or, more usually, if they were efficiently reduced to their constituent parts and borne back to the hive to feed the ever hungry grubs.
Wan Water sat atop an unambitious hill only a short aircar flight into Dimpfen Moor, above a slough of peat-brown water that gave the estate its name. It was a smallish demesne, with only a meager agricultural surround, since little would grow
"I thought there might be something useful in this," the integrator said, its fingers flicking through the heavy vellum pages while its golden eyes scanned from side to side.
It was yet another unsettling sight in a day that had already offered too many. "Put that away," I said. "I looked through it and others like it when I was a young man. It is a lot of flippydedoo about so-called magic."
But the integrator continued to peruse Baxandall's book. "I thought, under the circumstances," it said, "that we might drop the 'so-called' and accept the reality of my predicament."
I blew out air between scarcely opened lips. The creature's narrow catlike face sharpened and it said, "Do you have a better argument than that? If not, I will accept your concession."
While it was true that I must accept the concept that rationalism was fated to give way to magic, even that the cusp of the transition had arrived, I was not prepared to dignify a book of spells with my confidence. I blew the same amount of air as before, but this time let my lips vibrate, producing a sound that conveyed both brave defiance and majestic ridicule.
My assistant finished scanning the tome, slammed its covers together and said, "We must settle this."
"No," I said, "we must rescue Turgut Therobar from incarceration."
"You are assuming that he is blameless."
I applied insight to the matter. The part of me that dwelled in the rear of my mind, the part that intuitively grasped complex issues in a flash of neurons, supported my assumption, though not completely.
"Therobar is innocent," I reported. "Probably."
"I was also innocent of any urge to become a gurgling bag of flesh and bones," said the integrator. "What has happened to me must also be resolved."
"First the one, then the other," I said.
"Is that a promise?"
"I am not accustomed to having to make promises to my own integrator," I said.
"Yet you expect me to put up with this," it said, pointing at itself with both small hands, fingers spread, a gesture that put me in mind of an indignant old man.
"Sometimes our expectations may require adjustment," I said.
I turned to the demon's portal to seek his views, but the entity had taken the opportunity to depart.
"Perhaps he has found another peepshow," I said.
Thurloyn Vale was an unpretentious transportation nexus at the edge of the great desolation that was Dimpfen Moor. Its dun colored, low-rise shops and houses radiated in a series of arrondissements from a broad hub on which sat the airship terminal that was the place's reason for being. In former times, the entire town had been ringed by a high, smooth wall, now mostly tumbled in ruins. The barrier had been built to keep out the large and predatory social insects known as neropts that nested on the moor, but eventually an escalating series of clashes, culminating in a determined punitive expedition, led to a treaty. Now any neropt that came within sight of Thurloyn Vale, including flying nymphs and drones in their season, was legitimately a hunter's trophy; any persons, human or ultraterrene, who ventured out onto the moor need not expect rescue if they were carried off to work the insects' subterranean fungi beds or, more usually, if they were efficiently reduced to their constituent parts and borne back to the hive to feed the ever hungry grubs.
Wan Water sat atop an unambitious hill only a short aircar flight into Dimpfen Moor, above a slough of peat-brown water that gave the estate its name. It was a smallish demesne, with only a meager agricultural surround, since little would grow
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