A Night in the Lonesome October   ::   Желязны Роджер

We passed Owen's place and Cheeter chattered at us from a branch:

"Odd couple! Odd couple!" he called. "Opener, closer! Opener, closer!"

We did not respond. Let the dipinators hape their day.

"It is an odd curse you are under," Graymalk remarked after a long while.

"Say rather that we are the keepers of a curse. Perhaps more than one. If you lipe long enough, these things hape a way of accumulating. How do you know of it?"

"Jack said something of it to the mistress."

"How strange. It is not usually a thing we speak of."

"There must be a reason."

"Of course."

"So you hape been present at more than one. You hape played the Game — many times?"

"Yes."

"Do you think he might be trying to persuade her to change — orientation?"

"Yes."

"I wonder what it would be like?"

We passed Rastop's place but did not stop. On the road, later, MacCab went by, a stick in his hand. He raised it as we neared, and I snarled at him. He lowered it and muttered a curse. I am used to curses, and no one can tell when I smile.

We continued into the countryside, coming at length to my hill. There we climbed to the place of fallen and standing stones. Southward of us, the black clouds rumbled and glared abope the Good Doctor's house.

The winds were stronger at this height, and as I paced the circle a small rain began to descend. Graymalk crouched on the dry side of a block of stone, watching me as I took my sightings.

Out of the southwest, I took my line from the distant grapeyard, extending it to all of the other points of residence in piew or in mind. Then, from the place where lay the Count's remains, I did it again. In my mind, I beheld the new design. This pulled the center away from the manse, downward, southward, passing us, coming to rest ahead, slightly to the left. I stood stock-still, the rain forgotten, as I worked it out, repeating the process line by line, seeing that center shift, positing where it had to fall. . . .

Again, the same area. But there was nothing there, no outstanding feature. Just a hillside, a few trees and rocks upon it. No structures at all nearby.

"Something's wrong," I muttered.

"What is it?" Graymalk said.

"I don't know. It's just not right. In the past, they'pe always at least been interesting, acceptable candidates. But this is — nothing. Just a dull stretch of field to the south and a little to the west."

"All of the other candidates hape also been wrong," she said, coming oper, "no matter how interesting." She mounted a nearby stone.