unhallowed aura about her pale bald head. Her face was cold, her gaze unkind; a great spoor of a diamond and an arrow combined jutted above her right eye. She was a dexter-a wit and fulgar in one. Instinctively, Rossamund began making a tally of the costly regimen of chemistry she would need to keep her collection of foreign and contrary organs from rebelling within and destroying her.
'Ah, that is Anaesthesia Myrrh,' Rookwood explained. 'She prefers spurning work to teratology. As much as I admire the lahzarine set, she truly frightens me…' Some distraction away to his left took his attention. 'Euse has achieved only one other seat,' he said after a moment's cryptic waving of fingers. 'Do you want it, young sir, or…'
The dexter looked sharply at Rossamund looking at her.
A hot flush in his cheeks and cold thrill of fright in his innards, the young factotum hastily turned his attention to his companion's question. 'No, no…,' he said quickly, not relishing being pinned in among all these fervid spectators.
'Well, how about you remain here,' Rookwood advised. 'We shall sit out the first half.' He shrugged. 'Then we shall meet here again to call it even, yes?'
Left to stand at the balcony, Rossamund crouched on his haunches and stared uneasily down through the posts at the blood-puddle becoming just one of the many stains in the swept earth of the pit, a rising apprehension pressing on his soul. The grieving threwd was so strong in that awful pit, it was almost audible. Can the people not feel it?
A clang of metal and a heavy man in a thick buff apron of bright blue stepped through the iron portal, raising a hand to the audience's renewed raptures. With him came two tractors leading a Greater Derehund of exceptional size. Its watery eyes full of death and hopelessness, the mighty dog snarled at the folk of the lowest stalls. The man in blue stopped before the canopied boxes and did honor to his patrons. At this Pater Maupin stood and, beholding the crowd, twirled a lace handkerchief in acknowledgment of their applause. He sat, and a fellow behind him in clerical black called down to the tractor, 'Scion of the Geiterwand; which champion do you bring before us to do goodly battle?'
'I bring befer ye Skarfithin, the Blackheart of Dere!' the thickset handler cried in his best in-public voice. 'Scion of the Geiterwand; winner o' thirteen full stouches and sixteen halves and as sure a wager as ever prowled the pit!'
More cheers.
'As you say, sir!' the clerical gent returned; then, twisting his attention to the stalls, he cried, 'Who dares bid unseen against this mighty friend of men? Do I have any takers? You, sir!' He pointed to some invisible soul well above Rossamund's vantage. 'You appear the all-a'glory kind; will you dare a posit against this fearsome specimen?' He swept his hand down to indicate the panting Derehund, Skarfithin.
A muffled, unintelligible cry from on high brought shouts of approbation and jeers of playful derision from many.
'Bravo to you, sir!' the clerk cried, and sat again.
Rossamund could see several similar clerical fellows moving among the stalls, listening intently to the wagering calls of the chancers, scribbling upon tiny folds of paper and exchanging monies.
Rossamund craned to see down over the lip of the balustrade to the access that he could just make out below, curious despite himself to see what tribe of dog the contender would be.
With a clunk and a sustained whining rumble the iron gutter now shifted. Rising out of the floor, it slowly became a metal curtain dividing the pit in two. The tractor released his anxious hound and quickly retreated, the beast ravening suddenly, chasing the fellow from the pit and giving Rossamund a sharp start, though much of the crowd seemed well used to such shocks.
Left on its own, Skarfithin paced before the iron fence, its dripping tongue lolling hungrily, sniffing at the small holes that stippled the iron sheet.
Rossamund held his breath. He looked up into the stalls to find Rookwood, but the fellow was intent on the beasts in the pit below and laughing and talking with great animation to Eusebus.
A thump and another clang! warned that the near door below him was opening.
With a collective gasp the entire audience went quiet.
What manner of tykehound was it that caused such corporate dismay?
Rossamund pressed his forehead against the struts of the balustrade till it hurt, to get a glimpse of the competing dog. When the beast stalked into view, right there, right below him, the young factotum's innards went frigid. It was not another dog Skarfithin was to fight. It was… a monster.
Out stalked a nicker of the most weird appearance, walking upright with strange angular flexings of ropy, footless legs. Instead of a head it had a long writhing tentacle, with a similar appendage at its posterior end too, its arms of exactly the same form as its legs. Its warty skin was an ashen green, with vivid rings of purple mottling the darker hide of its back, its limbs and tentacles.
This was worse than a dogfight. It was a hob-rousing set between selthounds and bogles. Here was the cause of the anguished threwd!
Rossamund's soul revolted. What have I found!
8
Sabrine adept(s) also called percerdieres, lehrechtlers or spathidrils; said to be the cousins of the sagaars, originating long ago in some foreign northern land. Revering swordplay as the sagaars revere the dance, some go so far as to almost worship their swords, ancient therimoirs of forgotten make, though they have no time for devotion to constant motion as the sagaars do.The best of them, those warranted to teach, are known as sabrine magists or master sword-players, and will gather about them a loose association of adepts, serving together for a common ideal.
'Goodly peoples,' the rouse-clerk cried into the stunned hush from his safe seat in the lowest stalls, 'I give you the Handsome Grackle!' He flung a dramatic gesture at the frighteningly alien and ungainly creature that awaited its doom in the rousing-pit. 'What be your stakes?'
At this the watchers burst with the dispute of wagers, numbered white pugs waving as results were speculated and amounts offered. In the din it was still clear: most seemed convinced of the Derehund's victory.
Fixing his attention on the creature dubbed the Handsome Grackle, Rossamund could well understand why, for the creature staggered in palsied jerks into the middle of the pit. Staying back from the perforated fence, it turned quickly from side to side, both tentacles reaching out and up, rippling as if they were testing the very air. Feeling a delicate flutter in his head like the gentlest sending of a talented wit, Rossamund knew the thing was looking, searching by means unknown to find an escape. There was something about its parched, knobbled skin and bizarre physiology that spoke more of the vinegary deeps than of the bosky dells or forsaken pastures. As the beast twisted, the young factotum could see in the center of its torso a weird, vertical mouth quivering, making great 'O's' as if it were gasping for breath.
Transfixed, Rossamund swallowed at the clench in his throat, his hand already grasping for a potive.
A shriek of clashing metal silenced the crowd.
With a penetrating boom! the iron curtain dropped and the foes were immediately confronted. In an instant Skarfithin was all hackles and maddened, shuddering growls. Saliva drooled from its gnashing fangs; its small red- shot maniac eyes rolled. Without a face the Handsome Grackle seemed little affected: its only reaction was to bend its tentacles and wave them slightly at its canine foe.
Without a backward crouch the selthound sprang, leaping the entire gap between it and the Grackle. There
