PART!” Oscar cried.
“Perhaps, but do not believe for a moment it was due to luck or skill on your part. The corridor was rigged so all flagstones would collapse if the necessity arose.”
“The necessity?”
“Indeed. Lest guests displayed displeasure and decided to leave. This anticipation was in the end, quite warranted, it seems.”
Oscar was lost for words.
“The Castle of Ruen is ancient,” Sedervitz said. “And as robust as its design might be, age brings fragility. It is unfortunate that in the end, so many flagstones were triggered simultaneously, as the foundations have clearly not held.” He leant closer and hissed, “So do not think it any ingenuity on your part, cat.”
Spluttering through dust, Oscar was bereft of words—until the Dervy appeared uncertainly from the shadows. With a surge of hope, he tried for distraction so she could approach.
“Your breath really is appallingly fishy, Sedervitz,” he said. “What do you floss with? Used fishing line?”
The cat’s eyes narrowed. “Your attempts at riling me hardly matter, Dooven. What will be, will be, because nothing can shake the paw of fate.”
The phrase sounded silly, and Oscar scoffed. “Shouldn’t that be stave?”
“What?”
“I think you’ll find the expression is stave the paw of fate. Not shake it. That just sounds silly, uneducated and pretentious.”
“You dare defy me?”
“That would imply there was something in you worthy of defying. I find you amusing, Sedervitz. Nothing more. And your ranting is only curious because of its stupidity.”
“Stupidity? Have you seen what I have created?”
Oscar blinked at him. “What—mess? And yes, you are stupid. Quite abysmally so. Why in fluff would you be shaking fate’s paw, anyway? Are you fate’s friend or something?”
“Actually, I am—and more than you could ever know. I understand fate to underpin the inevitable. As a consequence, I am free of the shackles binding those who look to others for validity. I am my own master.”
“That sounds like clever rubbish to me.”
“You wouldn’t understand what I know to be true.”
“That’s because I am not stupid,” said Oscar. “Anyway, a fat lot of good it’s done you, because it appears your little operation of Purge has all but fallen apart. One would hope you’d have thought things through a little better. But you’re stupid. I’m surprised you got this far, frankly.”
With a whirl, Sedervitz grabbed Oscar’s paw, twisted it and pointed the scissors at his throat. “In a second I could render you pawless, you dishevelled little runt,” he snarled. “How dare you hit me! How dare you interfere with the turning arc of fate! I should have finished you when I had the chance!”
Struggling for breath, Oscar gurgled something about a misunderstanding.
“I shall crush your paws,” Sedervitz growled. “And then insert them into your head to return some balance to your ridiculous shape. Oh, the nausea of your hideous form!”
With a strangled mew, Oscar struggled to gape at the Dervy. But when she stepped from the shadows, it was deliberate, and made no attempt to take advantage of surprise. In fact, she sidled up to Sedervitz as though he were holding an empty paper bag that had contained nothing more than another bag.
“Did you create this?” she whispered, staring at the weapons.
Surprised, Sedervitz turned to her.
Still besotted by the scale of engineering, she said, “Never would I have conceived of such scale. Such extrapolation of fermentation. This is quite extraordinary! This is quite brilliant!”
Sedervitz dropped Oscar like a used tissue containing something nasty.
“Did my work lead to this?” she asked.
He raised his whiskers and nodded.
“What insight you have, Sedervitz! What genius must have been implemented to calculate even the pressure scaling of canisters such as these!”
To Oscar’s astonishment, she began skipping around the one beside them and pointing at it.
“Despite everything, Sedervitz—despite it all—this is beautiful!”
Because she didn’t lisp once, Oscar lost all will. Surrendering, he slumped to the ground, uttered an apology to the Loud Purr and waited for the end.
Sedervitz glanced at him. “Just so we’re clear, my ignoring you is pointed insult rather than careless distraction. She may have betrayed me, but I know well that the Dervy recognises brilliance.”
“How, Sedervitz?” she cried, bounding to him and taking his paw as a younger sister might her elder brother. “How did you manage? Where did you start?”
He spoke then to her only. Had his paws been dirty, the only attention he’d have given Oscar would be as something to wipe them on. “Is it not obvious? I simply extrapolated your mechanics of Constrained Fermentation.”
“But how, Sedervitz. And where upon this scale?”
15
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SEDERVITZ smiled, pitying her attempts at comprehending his genius. “The bowels of this castle are heated pits of hardened lava,” he said. “A perfect cauldron in which to brew.” He pointed at the steaming canister above. “These are simply double-conduited four-chambered Pari-berths fitted with barometric timers in Siscon Field couplets.”
“Four-chambered?” said the Dervy. “Don’t you have to be terribly careful with asymmetrical turbulence induction?”
With a scoff, he said, “The chambers are not quadrants, the Dervy. They are in centred thirds, with the fourth being an epi-pressured circumferential chamber housing one half the pressure. Its stability renders turbulence induction highly symmetrical.”