“When we had found out everything the Basilisk knew, we were going to let it loose, telling it we would act against it if any harm came to you, Jinian. However, when we arrived to turn it loose, we found it gone. It had dug its way out one end of the pit. Since the body they found had Basilisk bites on its hands and arms, we assume it was so enraged during the digging that it bit itself and died of its own venom—though Basilisks are somewhat immune to their own bites. When it was dead it must have changed back to human shape ...”
A sudden terror hit me, and I shivered. “No,” I said. “I think not.”
“I saw the body,” said Cat.
“Did you notice whether the third fingers were as long as the middle fingers?” I asked. “Dedrina had odd hands. I watched her enough to know.”
They looked at each other uncertainly.
“You might try to find out,” I said a little bitterly. “The body won’t have reached Daggerhawk yet. Is there an Elator among you?”
There wasn’t.
“There’s at least a possibility she’s still alive,” I said. “I feel she is, somehow. Who the dead woman is, I doubt we’ll ever know. Some trader, perhaps. Some pawn from the town. We could ask around, see if anyone is missing.” I had no real hope for this. People came and went all the time.
“Gamelords,” said Murzy. “If she’s still alive, she’s back at Daggerhawk by now, and she may know who we are and that we’re on to them. We won’t only have her to contend with, but her mother and aunts as well, and there’s a plague of them, you may be sure. Basilisks are clanny and poisonous. I don’t like this.”
“Be wary, Jinian,” said Cat. “Simply be wary. They are not particularly subtle Gamesmen, and in the beast form they lose intelligence, though they may fool you. It should be good enough simply to be very careful where you go.”
I had no intention of going anywhere. “I’d like to know what all this is about!”
“It’s difficult even to make a guess,” said Cat. “Of course, no one is supposed to enter Chimmerdong except the Keepers. No one ever does. They’ve circulated all kinds of stories about it to frighten people off. They don’t want anyone wandering around who has been in Chimmerdong. Not only have you gone in, but you’ve communicated with the forest and come out again. Oh, I don’t know how much that has to do with it, but it has some part. Of that I’m sure.”
I remembered then, and started to tell her; what Bloster had said to the Basilisk in the forest, but just then we drew up at the house in Xammer and Bets came running out to tell us that Tess was much worse. We all went to her bedroom, where Tess Tinder-my-hand was lying, looking very old and sleepy, though peaceful. “Ah, chile,” she whispered. “So you’re our seventh. I’m glad. I would look upon the pool once more.”
Murzy put her hand on my shoulder, keeping me from saying anything. All around the room the others were finding their fragments, digging them out of hems or out of boots. I took mine out of the neck of my tunic, laying it on the table as the others did. Tess leaned from her bed, trembling, to put her own there. She had been holding it in her hand.
Then each of the six pushed her fragment into alignment, points together, curved line on the outside. Together, they made a circle. When only one wedge was empty, I pushed mine in as well and the separate fragments suddenly became a pool, seeming as deep as the one in the cavern, as round though smaller, flicking with the same light and shadow. Murzy helped Tess out of bed and we knelt there, peering down into the pool where the lights and shadows swam.
“Still time,” old Tess murmured. “Not yet the shadow.”
“Not yet the shadow, Tess,” said Cat. “Why, see, there is light there yet, swimming in forever. Never fear, old friend. We’ll balance it yet, we Wize-ards.”
Then Tess shivered, cried out a little cry, and leaned back, her hand to her chest. They all rushed to help her, leaving me frozen over the little pool. Something had moved there, but I was the only one who saw. The only one who saw the shadow start at one edge of it and swim across the whole thing, black as char, deep as night, leaving at last only a thin, tiny edge of light. From inside that darkness, something flapped within the pool and seemed to look out at me.
I blinked, unsure of what I was seeing. The shadow flicked away. Then the dams were all around, picking up their pieces, putting them away, putting Tess’s fragment in her hand.
She died that night with the fragment held tight. When I went in to kiss her good-bye, I saw it was only a bit of metal, gray and dim, with neither light nor shadow in it. Without Tess, we were six again. None of us could look on the pool we carried until we were seven. We had been seven for a very short time.
There was no way to verify what I thought I had seen. I was sent back to classes. My study group had spent most of the time I had missed on Index review, and as I
