The End of the Game (21 page)

“Having you ever sssseen ssssomeone bitten by a Basssilisssk?” This from the one between me and the false dagger, a fully lizard shape, a high crown of spines rising between its eyes, eyes as lucent and glorious as jewels fixed on me and me on them, on them, on them. I wrenched my face away, remembering almost too late that I could not look at them, at any one of them.

“I have heard the filth of a Basilisk’s bite is worse than a Harpy’s mouth,” I said, still trying to sound unafraid. I wanted them unthinking, if possible. Murzy had said—someone had said; Cat?—that they were not subtle. Someone had been fairly subtle here; more subtle than I. But, Cat had said, in beast shape they lost some of it. Oh, gods, let them not be subtle. “I had heard it comes from the filthy nature of the beast, whether in the shape of it or not.”

“And why did the idiot Dangle-wit come to steal?” she hissed, every sibilant drawn out in her serpent’s voice, long and ominous. “What would it try to do with the eidolon of Daggerhawk?

Dedrina didn’t know; they didn’t know.

It was the only advantage I had.

Still, there was no way at all that one slender girl could physically fight three giant Basilisks and come out victor, even with the Dagger of Daggerhawk Demesne hidden in one hand.

“Have you come to declare Game against usss?” She threw back her head and laughed, a kind of racking laughter, like hammers on flesh. We had never heard that laugh in Vorbold’s House. “Simpleton. Hawk bait. Dangle-wit!”

“I need not declare Game,” I said as firmly as possible, moving away from the chair so they wouldn’t start thinking about its laddery back. “Game was declared by your thalan, Porvius Bloster. And you declared Game against me, Dedrina-Lucir. The Game is yours. I need not declare.”

“Need not!” she spat at me. “Need not. Indeed, need not. Need not ever again, need not breathe, or move, or speak. Need not see or taste or hear. Need not live, Dangle-wit. Need not again.”

And then she began to change.

First the claws at the ends of her fingers came out, long and yellow as dirty ivory. The hands turned greeny brown, leathery and scaled, and this crept up her arms, the arms swelling and her clothing ripping to fall away. The eyes grew wider, rounder, moved out to the side of her head so that she turned it a little to keep me in sight, and those eyes burned, spoke, “Look at me, look at me.” I could feel the paralysis creeping. Her aunts hissed. “Yes, Jinian. Look at her, at us, at the Basilisks. Come to us, Jinian. Foolish child. Stupid girl.” Down in the forest I had been stirred into a little volition. Now I could feel the last of that small purpose leaving me.

And I was glad of the loss. It would be nice not to have to move. Not to worry that I had no Talent. Not to be concerned about the past, the future. Mother, Mendost, King Kelver—all. All would vanish in some venomed haze that would last only a moment and be gone. No more seeking answers that never came clear. No more frustration. No more senseless demands by curious creatures.

She should have kept still. I could not have opposed her. My will was gone, but still Dedrina went on speaking.

“First you, Dangle-wit. Then your friends from Xammer, the old women.” She laughed again. “My mother is not here. She has gone north for a time. She will regret missing our amussssement with you and your friends. A little bite to make the dying last, Dangle-wit. From Dangle-flight Demesne.”

I knew that voice well. I had heard it too often in the courtyard of Vorbold’s House, had heard too often that epithet thrown at me from behind my back. I had heard that same hiss in the fields outside Xammer. Her words recalled misery and loneliness, and I felt rage rising up, turning me away from those eyes. “No, ugly lizard,” I whispered with a thick tongue. “I will not look at you.”

Perhaps this infuriated her. She was not completely changed. Her head and upper body were changed, but the lower part of her was still shifting, the legs and tail were only partly there. Still, she fell belly down and came writhing across the floor at me, faster than I would have thought possible. If Dedrina had been able to see me in the fields outside Xammer, if she had moved like this then, I would not have lived to tell of it. Jaws were gaped wide behind a fog of venomed breath. I backed away from the carved table and drew the Dagger from my tunic, hiding it from her. With every movement, I grew angrier, for she would not stop hissing her vile words.

“Dangle-wit. A child without Talent? A girl without ability? You should have been born here, Dangle-wit. We sell your kind to the Magicians. They need no wits, there. Only soft young bodies. Betrothed to Dangle-fire, is it not? To some witless, deformed King? Who must betroth his wives young or will not get them at all. Loving sister of the foul Mendost, the foul, un-Gamely Mendost ...”

The two at the sides closed in. Dedrina came toward the table that separated us, reptilian head high to peer across it. I knew she would drop that head to slither beneath when the others had come close enough, thrusting her way among the chairs. I was backed against the window, nowhere to go, no time to do anything ... anything but ... Her head went down.

“Mothwings Go Spinning,” I said, laying the Dagger upon one palm. It was heavy. Heavier than anything I had ever moved. “Eutras,” I murmured, making a quick gesture with my left hand. “Bintomar. Sheilsas. Favian. Up. Up. Touch all. Mothwings Go Spinning!” And I bent all my intention on it, moved by the swelling anger the Basilisk’s words kept burning.

The Dagger trembled on my hand, trembled, shook, rose, began to spin. Oh, so slowly, rocking unsteadily upon the air. Seeing the Dagger, the Basilisks to either side had begun to scramble, their hard nails slipping on the polished floor, panting like fustigars, mouths gaped wide. “Mothwings,” I gasped, “Go Spinning!” It moved faster, whirling, circling, moving out. I moved away from the wall to give it more room as it circled out and around me, tilted my left hand to guide it down, and out, and down. High behind me, low in front, tilting, whirling.

Still she was not silent. Still she went on invoking Mendost’s name, the foul, un-Gamely Mendost.

Mendost was foul and dishonorable, and perhaps Eller was no better, but it had nothing to do with me save to infuriate me. I had not designed either one of them nor clung to them from affection. The Dagger, sensing my rage, spun faster. “Mothwings Go Spinning,” I cried, widening the gesture. “Eutras. Bintomar. Sheilsas!” I realized they were names I was calling. Names of what? Who? Did it matter? “Favian! Up. Up. Touch all!”

And the spinning Dagger touched the Basilisk to my left. It did not scream. Came a hiss like some great engine under pressure, a howling hiss, gargling in the throat as from something already dead, but it stayed where it was, the eyes glazing over, still erect, jaws wide, as though it yet lived. Across the wide-flared nostrils lay a little line of blood, like a thread. That is all, one threadlike line.

From my right a scream as the second lizard saw what had happened to the first. Oh, they were not subtle. I would have retreated, but it did not. It came on as I tilted my hand to the right, sending the Dagger down on that side like a toy whirled on a string. It crossed the Basilisk’s eyes, only touching them. Only touching, yes, but I was red with rage. Again the howling hiss, again the creature frozen in place with dull eyes. And now was only Dedrina-Lucir before me, beneath the table. The Dagger could not reach her, but neither could she see what had happened.

“Now, my mother’s sistersss,” she was saying, “we will ssslowly take this Dangle-wit, this stupid girl. Ssslowly, ssslowly.” And she moved out from beneath the table.

My eyes dropped and were caught by the deadly net of the Basilisk’s gaze, feebly struggling as a fly struggles. She licked her mouth with a horrid anticipation and moved toward me as the Dagger, released from my spell, fell onto the floor between us. She looked down for an instant, surprised at the clatter, more surprised to see what lay there. Her head came around to look up at the wall where the false dagger hung.

It was all the time I had, all that I needed.

“Eutras, Favian,” I mumbled through a dry throat. “Touch all.” The dagger lifted from the floor, only briefly, wobbling in its flight.

It was enough. She was not subtle; she did not think; she put out a great taloned paw to catch it and the point spun across the scales, cutting them. She had time to turn that head toward me again for one glance of horrible comprehension, and then was frozen in place.

I was left alone among the bodies of these great beasts. Among the bodies of these women.

One of them was tall and muscular and not beautiful, though young. So, all the beauty had been Beguilement, the Basilisk’s Talent. As tall and well-muscled were the other two, but their hair was gray. All the lizard eyes were dull and dead. My eyes were as dull. I could feel the rage dwindling, the anger departing, the shadowy blankness coming back again. What was to be done now?

If I were to go on living, I would want to keep this Dagger for reasons of my own, I told myself, not caring whether it would happen or not.

And yet, if Bloster or his kin found these bodies, so little wounded, scarcely scratched, all dead—he would know. He would come hunting with others of the kindred, and they would find me soon enough, for my little rage had burned out and I could not move at all. And they would find the dams, for they knew about the dams. These I had killed were not the only Basilisks of Daggerhawk Demesne. Dedrina Dreadeye had not been here. She was elsewhere, alive. Soon she would be full of vindictive anger.

I did not care what happened to me, not then, but I did not want Murzy to suffer. Nor Margaret.

There was a window at the side of the room. It looked out over sheer walls to the valley beyond. If I leaned from it a little, I could see the line of fire and tiny black figures battling it. Mostly, however, it looked out upon air.

In a kind of dull, fatalistic haze, I opened my belt pouch and took from it those things needed for a summoning, laid them out upon the wide sill while I mumbled the powering words. There was no power in me, only in the words I had learned, but such is the efficacy of those words that they carry their own power.

Then I said, “Flitchhawk; numen of the skies, enter this place to take up a burden, for it is your burden more than mine.”

I stood waiting in the window, head down.

Nothing.

The tiny black forms in the valley were giving up in disgust. Already some of them were halfway back up the hill. Were there oubliettes, dungeons where bodies could be hidden? I thought of dragging them there, giving up the notion in the instant. One, perhaps. Not three. I thought vaguely of stabbing them all again to make it appear they had died from more serious wounds.

Then at last, when I had given up expectation—never having felt hope—the sound of wings. The window was large but scarcely large enough. His mighty talons gripped the sill, and his beak jutted in as he spoke.

“Well, Jinian Footseer. Have you summoned me for the boon I promised you?”

“No, flitchhawk. Not for a boon for myself. For you and the forest, perhaps. Here is the Dagger of Dagger-hawk.” I held it so he could look upon it, so he could see it clearly. When he saw the image of the hawk impaled upon it, something went hard and icy in his eyes.

I went on wearily, “If these bodies are found here, flitchhawk, they will come for me. And for the forest. And perhaps for you. I cannot carry them away. I cannot carry myself.”

“A boon for me indeed,” the bird whispered, a high, keening whistle that set my hair on end. “And what of you, Jinian? Do you still refuse to be dangled?”

“I will be dangled,” I whispered, hearing shouts from the courtyard below. “There is no time for anything else.”

So, I was dangled once again. Only as far as the bottom of the hill, behind a stony scarp, where we could not be seen. Then the hawk was away, the corpses of Dedrina-Lucir and her aunts tucked up beneath him in one mighty foot like bunwits in the talons of an owl. The thought did not bear following to its logical conclusion, so I thought of nothing as I hid the evil Dagger away and trudged down into the gray, thence into the green, thence along the edge of the forest to the place we had set the fire.

It was still burning, spreading into the surrounding gray, which smoked with a sullen, creeping glow, like charcoal, stinking as it smoldered. The forest had drawn its skirts, away from the fire. A tree pulled up its roots and walked back among its fellows, three bushes and a clump of silver-bells following its example.

“Perhaps it will burn forever,” I said to myself in a dull, lifeless voice, not recognizing it as my own when I heard it.

“Oh, dear child,” said the Oracle from behind me, “I shouldn’t be at all surprised if it did. What a stench. Not that one wouldn’t have done it, even knowing what a smell it would cause.” It was standing under the shelter of the trees, leaning against one of them, its fantastic face shadowed by the leaves. “Do you have news for me, dear girl? Oh, I so hope so.”

I shivered. “Yes.” There seemed no point in saying more than that. Undoubtedly the Oracle already knew. I took the thing from my tunic and displayed it, only briefly. “I will not put it into your hands. I will not tempt you with it.”

“Oh, my dear girl, how sensitive of you. But then, the heroine type would be, wouldn’t she. Better you keep it, dear child. To protect yourself with. You and your love ... if it should come to that .. .”

The voice faded back into the trees. The feeling was strong even then that I hadn’t heard the last of it, though it was some time before I saw the Oracle again.

17

The grayness burned and went on burning as though it had contained some volatile material that could not be extinguished. Though it rained in the night, on the morning the grayness continued to smoke, sending long, ugly coils of black into the air to be blown away toward the east. I thought of those in Xammer, looking to the west only to see all these smelly vapors.

I could not get near the place we had put the woodpile. There was too much smoke and ash. So while the fire burned itself farther away on either side, east and west, bunwit, tree rat, and I wandered about, doing nothing, with me sometimes spending long hours sitting at the foot of trees, believing I was thinking. Looking back, there was no thinking going on. It was a mere, mushy grayness in my head, no whit different from the plague of Chimmerdong. It surrounded me and held me in. I had not the wits to know it. Once tree rat chivied me up the ladder tree to spy upon Daggerhawk. A mounted party rode out in the mid-morning, returning late that afternoon. There seemed to be some shouting going on. Near evening, I saw Porvius Bloster come down the road from the fortress, the Pursuivant at his side. Tree rat and I went down, he headfirst, I less ebulliently. We hid in a copse and listened.