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.
“Having you ever sssseen ssssomeone bitten by a Basssilisssk?” This from the one between me and the false dagger, a fully lizard shape, a high crown of spines rising between its eyes, eyes as lucent and glorious as jewels fixed on me and me on them, on them, on them. I wrenched my face away, remembering almost too late that I could not look at them, at any one of them.
“I have heard the filth of a Basilisk’s bite is worse than a Harpy’s mouth,” I said, still trying to sound unafraid. I wanted them unthinking, if possible. Murzy had said—someone had said; Cat?—that they were not subtle. Someone had been fairly subtle here; more subtle than I. But, Cat had said, in beast shape they lost some of it. Oh, gods, let them not be subtle. “I had heard it comes from the filthy nature of the beast, whether in the shape of it or not.”
“And why did the idiot Dangle-wit come to steal?” she hissed, every sibilant drawn out in her serpent’s voice, long and ominous. “What would it try to do with the eidolon of Daggerhawk?
Dedrina didn’t know; they didn’t know.
It was the only advantage I had.
Still, there was no way at all that one slender girl could physically fight three giant Basilisks and come out victor, even with the Dagger of Daggerhawk Demesne hidden in one hand.
“Have you come to declare Game against usss?” She threw back her head and laughed, a kind of racking laughter, like hammers on flesh. We had never heard that laugh in Vorbold’s House. “Simpleton. Hawk bait. Dangle-wit!”
“I need not declare Game,” I said as firmly as possible, moving away from the chair so they wouldn’t start thinking about its laddery back. “Game was declared by your thalan, Porvius Bloster. And you declared Game against me, Dedrina-Lucir. The Game is yours. I need not declare.”
“Need not!” she spat at me. “Need not. Indeed, need not. Need not ever again, need not breathe, or move, or speak. Need not see or taste or hear. Need not live, Dangle-wit. Need not again.”
And then she began to change.
First the claws at the ends of her fingers came out, long and yellow as dirty ivory. The hands turned greeny brown, leathery and scaled, and this crept up her arms, the arms swelling and her clothing ripping to fall away. The eyes grew wider, rounder, moved out to the side of her head so that she turned it a little to keep me in sight, and those eyes burned, spoke, “Look at me, look at me.” I could feel the paralysis creeping. Her aunts hissed. “Yes, Jinian. Look at her, at us, at the Basilisks. Come to us, Jinian. Foolish child. Stupid girl.” Down in the forest I had been stirred into a little volition. Now I could feel the last of that small purpose leaving me.
And I was glad of the loss. It would be nice not to have to move. Not to worry that I had no Talent. Not to be concerned about the past, the future. Mother, Mendost, King Kelver—all. All would vanish in some venomed haze that would last only a moment and be gone. No more seeking answers that never came clear. No more frustration. No more senseless demands by curious creatures.
She should have kept still. I could not have opposed her. My will was gone, but still Dedrina went on speaking.
“First you, Dangle-wit. Then your friends from Xammer, the old women.” She laughed again. “My mother is not here. She has gone north for a time. She will regret missing our amussssement with you and your friends. A little bite to make the dying last, Dangle-wit. From Dangle-flight Demesne.”
I knew that voice well. I had heard it too often in the courtyard of Vorbold’s House, had heard too often that epithet thrown at me from behind my back. I had heard that same hiss in the fields outside Xammer. Her words recalled misery and loneliness, and I felt rage rising up, turning me away from those eyes. “No, ugly lizard,” I whispered with a thick tongue. “I will not look at you.”
Perhaps this infuriated her. She was not completely changed. Her head and upper body were changed, but the lower part of her was still shifting, the legs and tail were only partly there. Still, she fell belly down and came writhing across the floor at me, faster than I would have thought possible. If Dedrina had been able to see me in the fields outside Xammer, if she had moved like this then, I would not have lived to tell of it. Jaws were gaped wide behind a fog of venomed breath. I backed away from the carved table and drew the Dagger from my tunic, hiding it from her. With every movement, I grew angrier, for she would not stop hissing her vile words.
“Dangle-wit. A child without Talent? A girl without ability? You should have been born here, Dangle-wit. We sell your kind to the Magicians. They need no wits, there. Only soft young bodies. Betrothed to Dangle-fire, is it not? To some
