The End of the Game (20 page)

Question six had not been one of those I had thought to ask, though it had obsessed me since the killing of the pig.

“Seven,” said the Oracle, “is there only this one task for you to do, or are there other things, greater and more? I will answer that one for you. There is much more, Jinian. Much more indeed.” It giggled, a high, humorless sound rasping like a file.

My throat was full of tears. The thought of more of anything made me weep.

Oracle gave me an arch look. “Interesting questions, those,” it said. “Very interesting.” It hummed, did a little dance, turning around and around like a wheeling moth. “Have more bread, dear child. See, the bunwit likes it very much. I made the cheese myself. Would you credit it? With these very own soft, white fingers. Not at all what one was brought up to do, but then times change, times change.”

“Thank you.” I nodded, unable to move. We sat in muffled silence, the very air around me heavy with my own malady. The Oracle had fed me well, though it had eaten nothing itself. I did not wonder about that, being too busy wondering whether the Oracle was going to set me a price or not. Perhaps it was thinking about it. I began wondering whether the creature was male or female, and it gave me such a look!

“I thought better of you, dear child. Really I did.”

“I was just ...” I made an equivocal gesture. I didn’t care, really.

“Well! Whatever, whichever, no one cares but me and mine. Keep your mind decent and the rest of you will follow, so my Great-Grandma Acquackabby is said to have said.”

“Was she an Oracle, too?”

“No doubt,” it said, mouth twisted in amusement. “No doubt. Well. I’ve decided. I’m going to give you an answer. Not a freebie. You can owe me for it. I’ll think of a price later on when our heads are clearer. I’ve decided to answer question number six. That’s the one you care most about, child, and we both know it. Six is a lovely number. I have a passion for easily divisible numbers. So nice to deal with. Besides, it has been my experience that petitioners often know the answers to most questions before they ask, so I’ll answer the one question you can’t answer and trust you for payment. If I may say so, my dear, you do seem trustworthy.

“How can you assure that someone will love you without potion or spell? Well, you do that by letting him save your life a time or two. There is a problem with it, of course. It would be better to be sure you don’t get killed in the process. I see something nasty by way of groles or Ghouls in your future, perhaps both. Saving you will require a risk, and it might happen both of you will be lost. Or, it could happen”—and it looked at me here with that terrible sidelong glance which seemed to say things no ears should hear—“it might be he would be killed and you would be quite safe.”

It let me think about that, let the picture of it penetrate my disordered brain, let me begin to shudder at the thought. Even through the fog of depression, the thought of his death brought tears bubbling out of my eyes. I bit my lip as the Oracle went on, “You could guarantee his safety and your own, of course, if you had the Dagger of Daggerhawk Demesne in your possession.”

“What dagger is that?” I mumbled through the fog.

“I have a copy of it here,” the Oracle said, taking it from the same cupboard in which the bowls were stored. “It amused me to make the copy once when I thought of stealing the original. The people at Dagger-hawk had annoyed me. Dedrina Dreadeye, her sisters, her daughter. Bloster. Annoyed me greatly. All their power comes from the Dagger, and I thought that removing it without their knowledge might be a proper punishment. However, after a time I cooled.” It laughed, a high, tinkly laugh without amusement. “Here. Ugly, isn’t it?

The wings of an impaled hawk made up the guard, a coiled Basilisk the handle of the weapon. I took it cautiously in a hand that trembled beneath the weight. “Couldn’t I use this one to protect myself?”

“It’s only a copy, child. It has none of the powers of the real one.” The Oracle’s face swelled and receded, like a face in delirium, like a Festival balloon. I wanted to laugh but could not.

“Which are?”

“Death, death to the person touched by it in anger. Death to any creature touched by it in anger. A ghost raised from the grave would be returned therein by the Dagger of Daggerhawk.”

“A dangerous thing to handle,” I said.

“Not at all. It will not harm one to whom it is given, or one who steals it. Only one against whom it is used in anger, dear girl. On consideration, I decided I was not angry enough to use it for anything.” The Oracle laughed again. Perhaps it was not anger but some other dark emotion behind that laughter, something I did not care to examine more closely. Instinct told me to leave the place, then, at once, with no further conversation.

Instead, I heard myself asking, “Where’s the real one?”

“On the wall of the council hall of Daggerhawk Demesne. Where any good thief could have it down in a minute. And most of the power of the Basilisks with it.”

“And you say it would protect me—me and the one I love—if need be?” To which the creature only smiled.

And I lost track, then, of what was said. It went away, I think. When next I looked about me it was gone, though I held the false dagger still in my hand. Some of the bread and cheese remained upon the table, but the place was empty and echoing otherwise. I would have preferred, somehow, that the Oracle remain in one place. The thought of it roaming the forest in its own or some other guise was disquieting. Enervating. I crawled out upon the doorstep to sit in the sun. All that talk had been to no purpose. I would not have energy to steal anything at all, even to save my own life.

When night came, I built a fire and curled up beside it, retreating into sleep from forest and flitchhawk, from duty and desire, from endless expectations, hoping, I think, not to waken. For a time the fiery core of life and hope burned low.

Bodies are stubborn. Minds are stubborn, too. Came morning and my own mind and body sat up once more, burning with purpose once more, full of a dream in which I fed branches to a fire, brimming with hectic initiative.

I would steal the Dagger from Daggerhawk Demesne. I would clear the slime from the edge of the forest. I would do both at once, with fire. By feeding branches to the fire.

The day went by in a rush of effort, dragging branches into a pile that grew into a hill just inside the screen of forest. Above, Daggerhawk Demesne squatted on its cliff, glaring down from malign sunset eyes, red and furious. Then dark came, the eyes shut, and somehow the small mountain of wood was moved out onto the gray. Just there the gray was thin, worn away, not as choking or burning as elsewhere. Perhaps the Basilisks had walked there often enough to scatter the gray dust. Perhaps there had never been as much of it in that spot. Whatever the cause, we were able to work there without dying. Once I was moving, it was easier to go on moving than to decide to quit, even as my forcefulness gradually left me.

“Yes,” something whispered to me, “but what will you do when the pile is moved? Then you’ll have to run, leap, exert yourself. You’re too tired. Too exhausted from trapping the centipig. Better lie down now, Jinian. Get some rest.” I heard the voice but disregarded it. It was no different from the voice I had heard sometimes in Vorbold’s House, selling despair, selling loneliness.

The voice made it easier to work up a little anger. I would lie down when I felt like it. Until then, I would pile wood.

We began the pile at the edge of the healthy forest, dead wood, fallen branches, bits of dried brush, all in a long, heaped line across the gray. It was dark, but I kept catching glimpses of things I couldn’t identify, twiggy things, mossy things, besides plain tree rats and more bunwits and something that looked very much like a long green dragon. I didn’t ask questions. I was too busy. Purpose had long since begun to fail. I did not want to do any of this. I wanted only to lie down and stop being. Nonetheless, I went on. We had to have the pile in place by dawn.

When the false light appeared along the edge of the sky, we stuffed dried grasses in all the chinks along the bottom. It would have to go up all at once, before Daggerhawk could come put it out. Still, they would have to try. With what little time remained, we built a few more lines of dried wood out into the gray, among the fungusy trees. Though there was probably a Sentinel on watch, he might be asleep. Once we lit the pile it must still be dark enough for the fire to show up, yet late enough that someone would be awake and sure to see it. Finally, there was no time to wait longer.

Then I lighted a dozen torches with my firelighter and gave all but one to the bunwits, who took them nervously. They are not accustomed to using fire. We set out along both sides of the long pile, lighting the fuses of grass. Then the bunwits scampered back into the forest, and I scrambled into the half-dark of the dawn, straight up the hill toward the squatting toad of Daggerhawk.

I wanted to turn around and watch the fire but didn’t dare. When Daggerhawk saw it, I had to be nearby. Close. So close I could see who went and who stayed. As it was, I almost didn’t make it.

I heard the alarm sound while climbing the last little bit of rock to the north of the main gate. There’s a cleft in the rock there, full of dark. They must have had a Herald on the ramparts, because he let go full voice, “Let all give ear; let all give ear; fire. Fire. Fire.” It was an efficient alarm. Lights went on in every window, and the uproar started right away. Everyone was looking down at the forest. No one was looking at the gate.

The portcullis was down. It didn’t matter. It would have stopped a man on horseback, I suppose, but not a skinny girl. Slender. Queen Vorbold says we must refer to ourselves as slender. Slender, then. The bars were no barrier, nor was the door of the little room where the rope that draws the portcullis winds around its machine. What do they call it? Capstan? Or is that on a ship?

Whatever they called it, someone came at it very quickly, half-dressed and dragging on his trousers. He set to work hauling up the gate, never glancing into the shadowy corner of the ceiling where I was crouched on a beam. When the gate was up, he locked the roller down with a lever and went running back the way he had come, leaving the door for my spy post. They all went by me, not one manheight away, Bloster and the Pursuivant and dozens of men and women, all carrying buckets and flails. Buckets and flails would not help them much. We had built a pile that would burn fast and hot as tinder, and there was no stream nearby. Still, let them try, let them try. Let them get out of there.

And at last the ones I’d been watching for. A group of women, all of whom looked much like Dedrina-Lucir, all with that same reptilian grace. Dedrina herself, I thought, and mother and aunts, slouching across the courtyard as though they did not care who might be watching. When they had gone after the others I waited only a little longer. Surely the place was empty. I ran across the courtyard. The central keep was off to the left a little, located long since from a treetop in the forest. If it was like most such places, the way to it would not be direct. We all try to make our home places confusing for invaders—Elators, for instance. If they cannot see where they are going, it makes it more difficult for them to get in.

So I cast about, finding my way. If everyone was not at the fire, those left behind were at windows where they could see the fire. I saw no one except a bare-bottomed baby lying in a basket on my way to the great flight of stairs with the heavy door at the top of them.

Quickly then, puffing a little, for it had been a long climb, I found the council hall. Found it. Stared into it in dismay.

The room was huge, square, and lofty. Across from the door, two high windows looked out onto nothingness, a wide gulf of air above the forested valley. On the right-hand wall was a fireplace with a monstrous, carved mantel high on the wall, and above that the Dagger hanging in lonely significance, a tiny dot upon that stone. To either side was an arras, which may have covered other doors. To my left was a dais with a table, two doors behind it, and down the center of the room between me and the windows another long, heavy table with a line of chairs down either side.

It would have taken an Armiger to reach the Dagger.

Or a dragon. Or a bird. I despaired, biting my lip, feeling the tears gather. Then I saw that the high chairs beside the table had ladder backs higher than my head. They were not so heavy that I could not walk one of them over to the hearth. Then I could scurry up the back, climb onto the mantel, take the Dagger, and hide it under my cape while substituting the false one the Oracle had given me.

It was done almost as quickly as thought of; I came down the chair and walked it back to its place by the table. It was a chair from the end nearest the hearth, the side nearest the windows. It slid beneath the table with a silken, hissing sound, a sound infinitely prolonged, a sound that I only gradually realized came not from the chair but from the doorway through which I had entered, a sound I had heard before in the dark night outside Xammer. The Basilisk’s sound.

In the doorway stood Dedrina-Lucir. Not dead. Not even injured. The Demesne had not been empty after all. Those who had gone had done so only to trick me.

“When we ssssaw the fire in the foressst, we knew it wasss a trick,” she hissed at me. “My auntsss and I.”

Gods. One of the doors on the dais swung open as a blunt reptilian head came through it. Across the room an arras moved, and the sound of slithering came from behind that. Had they been here when I came in? Or had they only now arrived? Did they know? Oh, gods, if they already knew I had the Dagger, they would give me no chance. Only if they thought ...

“I came for that, Dedrina,” I said, trying to sneer, trying to sound cocky, moving toward the dagger on the wall.

“You may not have that,” hissed a voice from behind the arras, the heavy body thrashing across the floor to get between me and the hearth. There were three of them. Was that all? I stepped away toward the window to see the whole room. There were only the three. Between me and the way out.