“Wolfgang—shut up! Just shut up about your damned asylum! You mean to tell me you stood there and watched the whole thing? And didn’t do anything? You lousy bastard!”
The male voice sounded aggrieved. “Didn’t do anything? That’s crazy! If you’ll pardon the expression. Didn’t I come out and finish the job?”
“Not until I was already cut and for all you knew dead from those damned poisoned blades!”
“Nonsense. It was obvious the Fangs were trying to capture you alive. To put you to The Question, don’t you know? Better to be dead, of course. But if they’d been an assassination team they’d have been wearing green cockades. Green for gangrene, you know? They’re really quite maniacal, the Fangs, in a horribly sane sort of way.”
“You mean they weren’t trying to kill me? It sure seemed that way! No sooner did I knock on the door than they came piling out of the death house. Didn’t say a word, just started stabbing at me right away.”
“Yes, yes, I know. As I said, a lot of maniacs. They’ve gotten it into their heads that Zulkeh’s meddling with the King’s dream would stir up awful things. You should have heard them carrying on in here. They came in not six hours ago. Absolutely furious that they’d missed the wizard. Ransacked the whole place. A frightful scene! There’s nothing here except a lot of old bones, of course. The wizard took all his stuff with him when he left. I watched the whole thing from my hideout.” Mad cackling. “Amazing! Such disrespect for the dead from such paragons of piety! Crypts dumped, bones scattered, urns shattered! I’m afraid that by the time you knocked on the door they’d worked themselves up into quite the devout frenzy. You should have heard them pouring out of the catacombs and racing up to the main level.”
“What if I’d been an innocent bystander?” demanded the woman.
Absolutely insane and hysterical laughter followed this question.
“What’s so damned funny?”
“My dear Gwendolyn! Are you such a naïf? What a question—and coming from you! Gwendolyn Greyboar! The Terror of Theocracy! The Lady of the Lowlife! The Nabobs’ Nemesis! Dumb as a schoolgirl!” Suddenly the mad voice was tinged with anger. “When has anyone been an innocent bystander in the eyes of the Godferrets?”
“All right, all right,” grumbled the woman. “But I’d still like to know why you didn’t come out sooner.”
“Well, actually, I was about to take the plunge when this marvelous young man came along. Such a hero! And so young and handsome! The coup with the tripod! Brilliant! And what an exquisite backstab he’s got. You were probably too busy to notice, dear. A pity, really. Best backstab I’ve seen in years. Skewered two of them in a trice. And then! When the Fangs turned to face him! The low blows! Oh, marvelous! Marvelous! That kind of treacherous swordwork’s a lost art, nowadays. Haven’t seen such cunning bladesmanship since Rodrigo Sfondrati-Piccolomini. It was—”
“My uncle,” I mumbled. I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t.
“He’s waking up!” exclaimed the woman.
“What a silly goose you are. He’s been awake for some time. Now he’s regaining consciousness.” Clucking sounds. “Really should require you sane people to take courses in psychology. Won’t find a lunatic who can’t tell the difference between being awake and being conscious. It’s the key to the whole thing, you know? Insanity, I mean. The head psychiatrist at the asylum wrote a wonderful—”
“Wolfgang! You mean he’s been listening to us talk?”
“Well, not exactly. More accurate to say he’s been hearing us talk. ‘Listening’ implies consciousness, you see. And I was just explaining that in his article the—”
“Shut up! You idiot! He’s heard too much!”
The sound of motion, somehow ominous. Then the man’s voice: “Gwendolyn!”
I opened my eyes. The woman—yes, it was she, the lioness—stood crouched above me, her great knife upraised for a death blow, her eyes blazing.
“Perfect!” I cried. “Right there! Don’t move! My brushes! My paints!” I tried to move, couldn’t.
The woman frowned. Her frown had to be seen to be believed. I began weeping with frustration. A masterpiece it would have been! Goddess In Judgement.