A Night in the Lonesome October Part 16

"Graymalk, daughter," he answered. "h.e.l.lo. Rise, please."

She did, saying, "I believe that I felt your presence at the time of an Elder One's wrath. Thank you."

"Yes. I have been watching for all of your month," he said. "You know why."

"I do."

He turned his head, antique yellow eyes meeting my own. I lowered my head out of respect for his venerability, and because Graymalk obviously regarded him as someone of great importance.

"You come in the company of a dog."

"Snuff is my friend," she said. "He pulled me out of a well, cast me back from the Elder One's lightning."

"Yes, I saw him move you when it fell, right before I decided to call you here. He is welcome. h.e.l.lo, Snuff."

"h.e.l.lo -- sir," I answered.

Slowly, the old cat rose to his feet, arched his back, stretched low, righted himself.

"Times," he said, "are complicated just now. You have entered an unusual design. Come walk with me, daughter, that I may impart a small wisdom concerning the final day. For some things seem too small for the Great Ones' regard, and a cat may know that which the Elder G.o.ds do not."

She glanced at me, and since few can tell when I am smiling, I nodded my head.

They strolled along into the temple itself, and I wondered whether, somewhere, an ancient wolf in a high, craggy place were watching us, always alert, his only message, "Keep watching, Snuff, always." I could almost hear his timeless growl from the places beneath thought.

I sniffed about, waiting. It was hard to tell how long they were gone in a place without time. But it followed that it should not seem to take long. Nor did it.

When I saw them emerge, I wondered again at the strangeness which had paired me in friendship with an opener. And a cat, at that.

Coming up to me, I saw that Graymalk was almost disturbed, or at least puzzled, by the way she raised her right paw and regarded it.

"This way now," the old one stated, and he looked at me as he said it, so I knew that I was included in the invitation.

He led us up an alleyway beside the Palace of Seventy Delights, where fluted dustbins of umber, aquamarine, and russet, their sides inscribed with delicate traceries of black and silver, handles of malachite, jade, porphyry, and chrysoberyl stood, holding forgotten mysteries of the temple. Purple rats fled our approach, and a single lid shivered, emitting a bell-like tone which echoed from the rose-crystal wall.

"In here," he told us, and we followed him into a darkened recess which held a temple postern. Beside it, a less substantial door quivered upon the crystal wall -- a churning milkiness beginning within its suddenly apparent rectangle there as we approached.

When we came up before it, he turned to me.

"As you have been a friend of one of my own," he said, "I would give you a boon of knowledge. Ask me anything."

"What does tomorrow hold for me?" I said.

He blinked once.

Then, "Blood," he said. "Seas and messes of it all around you. And you will lose a friend. Go now through the gate."

Graymalk stepped into the rectangle, was gone.

"Thanks, I guess," I said.

"Carpe baculum!" he added as I followed, somehow knowing that I recalled a bit of my Latin, and doubtless getting some obscure cat-laugh out of telling me to fetch a stick in a cla.s.sical language. You get used to little digs from cats about being a dog, though I'd thought their boss might be above that sort of thing. Still, he is a cat, and he probably hadn't seen a dog in a long time and just couldn't resist.

"Et c.u.m spiritu tuo," I replied, moving forward and entering.

"Benedicte," I heard his distant response as I drifted again in that place between worlds.

"What was all that business at the end?" Graymalk called back to me.

"He gave me a quick quiz on my Virgil."

"Why?"

"d.a.m.ned if I know. He's inscrutable, remember?"

Suddenly, she wavered within another rectangle. It was odd, watching her go two-dimensional and ripple that way. Then she turned into a horizontal line, and its ends collapsed upon its middle and she was gone. When my turn came it didn't feel that complicated, though. I joined her atop Dog's Nest before the block of stone, which was again just a stone with some scratches on it. The sun was far into the west, but the storm was over.

I turned in a circle. No one was sneaking up from any direction.

"There's still enough light to check out that spot you located," she said.

"Let's save it for tomorrow. I'm late making my rounds," I told her.

"All right."

We headed homeward. I thought about the old cat's boon, but that wasn't till tomorrow.

"Dognappery's a lot less lush than Celephais," I said, as we walked.

"What's it like?" she asked.

"I'm back in a primal wood with an old wolf named Growler. He teaches me things."

"If there are any Zoogs about," she said, "we pa.s.sed over your wood to the west of the River Shai. It's below the Gate of Deeper Slumber."

"Maybe," I said, thinking of the small brown creatures who lived in the oaks and fed on the fungi, except when there were people about. Growler laughed at them as he did at most things.

The clouds purpled in the west and our paws grew damp from the gra.s.ses. Blood and messes. . . . Perhaps I could use a review.

Tonight Growler and I would ramble, till we fought and I was beat.

October 23.

Up in the morning, out on the job. I ha.s.sled the Things, then checked around outside. A black feather lay near our front door. Could be one of Nightwind's. Could be openers on a nasty spell. Could just be a stray feather. I carried it across the road to the field and p.i.s.sed on it.

Graymalk wasn't about, so I walked over to Larry's place. He let me in and I told him everything that had happened since I'd last seen him.

"We ought to check that hillside," he said. "Could be there'd been a chapel there in the old days."

"True. Want to walk over now?"

"Let's."

I studied his plants while he went for a jacket. There were certainly some exotic ones. I hadn't told him yet about Linda Enderby, perhaps because he'd revealed in pa.s.sing that all they'd spoken of was botany. Perhaps the Great Detective really was interested in plants.

He returned with his jacket and we went out. It was somewhat bl.u.s.tery when we reached the open fields. At one point we came across a trail of huge misshapen footprints leading off in the direction of the Good Doctor's farmhouse of the perpetual storm. I sniffed at them: Death.

"The big man's been out again," I remarked.

"I haven't been over that way to say h.e.l.lo," Larry said. "I'm beginning to wonder now whether he isn't a rather famous man I've already met, seeking to further his work."

He did not elaborate, as we came upon a crossbow bolt about then, stuck in the bole of a tree.

"What about Vicar Roberts?" I said.

"Ambitious man. I wouldn't be surprised if his aim is to be the only one left standing at the end, sole beneficiary of the opening."

"What about Lynette? This doesn't require a human sacrifice, you know. It just sort of greases the wheels."

"I've been thinking about her," he said. "Perhaps, on the way back, we could go by the vicarage and you could show me which room is hers."

"I don't know that myself. But I'll get Graymalk to show me. Then I'll show you."

"Do that."

We walked on, coming at last to the slopes of the small hill I had determined to be the center.

"So this is the place?" he remarked.

"More or less. Give or take a little, every which way. I don't usually work with maps the way most do."

We wandered a bit then.

"Just your average hillside," he finally said. "Nothing special about it, unless those trees are the remains of a sacred grove."

"But they're saplings. They look like new growth to me."

"Yes. Me, too. I've a funny feeling you're still missing something in the equation. I'm in this version?"

"Yes."

"We've discussed this before. If you take me out of it, where does that move it to?"

"The other side of the hill and farther south and east. Roughly the same distance as from your place to a point across the road from Owen's."

"Let's take a look."

We climbed the hill and climbed back down the other side. Then we walked southeastward.

Finally, we came to a marshy area, where I halted.

"Over that way," I said. "Maybe fifty or sixty paces. I don't see any point in mucking around in it when we can see it from here. It all looks the same."

"Yes. Unpromising." He scanned the area for a time. "Either way, then," he finally said, "you must still be leaving something out."

"A mystery player?" I asked. "Someone who's been lying low all this time?"

"It seems as if there must be. Hasn't it ever happened before?"

I thought hard, recalling Games gone by.

"It's been tried," I said then. "But the others always found him out."

"Why?"

"Things like this," I said. "Pieces that don't fit any other way."

"Well?"

"This is fairly late in the game. It's never gone this long. Everyone's always known everyone else by this time -- with only about a week to go."

"In those situations where someone was hiding out, how did you go about discovering him?"

"We usually all know by the Death of the Moon. If something seems wrong afterward that can only be accounted for by the presence of another player, the power is then present to do a divinatory operation to determine the person's ident.i.ty or location."

"Don't you think it might be worth giving it a try?"

"Yes. You're right. Of course, it's not really my specialty. Even though I know something about all of the operations, I'm a watcher and I'm a calculator. I'll get someone else to give it a try, though."

"Who?"

"I don't know yet. I'll have to find out who's good at it, and then suggest it formally, so that I get to share the results. I'll share them with you then, of course."

"What if it's someone you can't stand?"

"Doesn't matter. There are rules, even if you're trying to kill each other. If you don't follow them, you don't last long. I may have something that that person will want -- like the ability to do an odd calculation, say, for something other than the center."

"Such as?"

"Oh, the place where a body will be found. The place where a certain herb can be located. The store that carries a particular ingredient."

"Really? I never knew about those secondary calculations. How hard are they to perform?"

"Some are very hard. Some are easy."