“I, Oracle.”
“You pity me, girl?”
“I pity you, Oracle.” I didn’t know what I said. It was too late for anything but truth, and truth is what I told.
Then came light in those painted eyes. Oh, Gamelords and all the old gods. Light in those eyes. An evil joy. A monstrous peace. And I knew why, for the Dagger seemed to tremble in my hands. The Daggerhawk blade, which would kill by a touch only when used in anger. And I had no anger left against this thing. Only Pity. Impotent pity. Which could do nothing with the Dagger, nothing at all.
It came toward me. Behind it the others, a shuffling multitude of them. Behind me, below me in the city, softened by distance, I heard the cries of the workmen struggling to hang the Bell. Hang it and ring it in order that all might be restored. I could hold these pathetic monsters off perhaps a minute or two, pretending an anger I did not feel, but my heart was lost in me. The light we had spun into the lamp of the Tower would be the world’s light, but not our own. Not Peter’s and mine. The effort we had put into the Bell would be the world’s cure, perhaps, but not ours.
“Have you thought,” I called to the Oracle, “that even now it is not too late?”
“Too late? Why, human girl, Dervish Daughter, it is not early enough. I should have killed you there in the Forest of Chimmerdong, long and long ago. I should have taken you myself and fed you to the monstrous Pig.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because we foresaw this end, Footseer. Foresaw the Dagger in your hand and you unable to use it. Because we thought it unnecessary. All your kind are so useless! We knew in the end it would come to this. More fun to play the Game out, you see. More fun to let it go on. . . .”
“But didn’t you also see the world’s death? And the death of all? Of every one of you? Of all your Brotherhood?”
Silence. As though I had uttered a curse upon them. Silence, with the Oracle dancing from side to side, laughing at me, the laugh a hollow one which the others did not echo, falling into silence as it became aware of their silence.
“We will not die!” The cry came from behind the Oracle, from that close pack that shuffled toward me. “You lie, Footseer. We will not die.”
I wanted to laugh, to laugh and cry all at the same time. “Oh, foolish children,” I called, forgetting they were not my children. “You will die. All the Brotherhood will die. I, too, perhaps, but you certainly. This, too, has been Seen!”
A wailing, then, like an angered ghost. Among those who shuffled along after the Oracle an eddy moved, a circling, as though some within that throng chose to move another way. Looking down on them, I was reminded of water as it breaks over a submerged stone, whirling darkly and without visible purpose. The Oracle had been at the front of this mob, but now it seemed to be behind the foremost rank, pulled sideways as though caught by that strange undertow.
“The Riddler told us the world died but that we would live, masters of all!” It was the same voice, complaining bitterly. “Our bao would conquer everything!”
Pity again. So foolish, so childish, so damned. “What did you think you would do to live when the world died? When the world was only a sphere of cold stone? When there were no seas, no plants? How did you think you would live?” I called out to them, receiving no answer. “And since you have no bao, how would it conquer?” The mob was pushing against the stone I stood upon, and it rocked. I turned to leap to the safety of the hill behind me, only to find a tentacle of the throng had moved between me and that place. They pushed, and I rocked once more, staggering to keep my balance.
“You did not say we would die!” the voice was crying. Somewhere in that mass of ribboned forms, the Oracle was moving. I could not tell where. “Riddler, you did not say we would die.”
The stone heaved, twisted, and I dropped to all fours, frantically snatching at the stone, dropping the Dagger as I did it, heedless, unthinking. It flew from my hands like a spark from the fire, gems glittering upon its hilt and at the top of the blade. The silvery wings shone, sparkling, drawing eyes upward. It ricocheted from the stone I teetered on, flashing outward above the mob. A hand reached up to snatch it from the air.
Ah, I said to myself. So it was you, Jinian, meant to die by the Dagger all along. You meant to die at the anger of these rebellious stars. And I crouched there, waiting, remembering how the Basilisks had died, some long ago, one only recently, almost it had seemed without pain, and I was thankful for that. Since that time upon the battlement at the fortress of Zale, I had wakened sometimes in the night, mouth dry, fearing pain. So I crouched, eyes not shut but not watching, mouth dry still, merely waiting. In a moment the Dagger would touch me, and that would be an end to it all. At the end, I would think of Peter. He might never know of it, but it would comfort me at least.
So I waited, seeing without seeing how the Dagger spun into the mob, as though it lived, as though it flew by those carved wings.
Within that throng came a clearing. A vacancy. A troubled space where the shifting bodies of the Brotherhood had twirled away. At the edge of this space the Dagger spun. I could see it in the hands of one of them. Which one? The Oracle itself? I thought at first yes, then no, for the
