Spell of Catastrophe by Mayer Alan Brenner
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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 o