“Listen, Snuff, the boss doesn’t tell me everything, and Nightwind said, just a day or two back, that there are divinatory ways for discovering whether someone’s an opener or a closer. Is that true?”
“He’s right,” I said. “But they’re unreliable before the death of the moon. You really have to have some juice to make them work.”
“How soon after?”
“Several days.”
“So people could be finding out everyone’s status pretty soon?”
“Yes, they will. They always do. That’s why it’s important to finish any mutual business before then. Once the lines are drawn, your former partners may be your new enemies.”
“I don’t like the idea of having you or Nightwind for an enemy.”
“It doesn’t follow that we have to kill each other before the big event. In fact, I’ve always looked on such undertakings as a sign of weakness.”
“But there’s always _some_ killing.”
“So I’ve heard. Seems a waste of energy, though, when such things will be taken care of at the end, anyhow.”
“. . . And half of us will die in the backlash from the other half’s winning.”
“It’s seldom a fifty-fifty split of openers and closers. You never know what the disposition will be, or who will finally show up. I heard there was once an attempt where everyone withdrew on the last day. Nobody showed. Which was wrong, too. Think of it. Any one of them with guts enough could have had it his own way.”
“How soon till the word gets out, Snuff?”
“Pretty soon. I suppose someone could be working on it right now.”
“Do _you_ know?”
“No. I’ll know soon enough. I don’t like knowing till I have to.”
He crawled up onto an old tree stump. I sat down on the ground beside him.
“For one thing,” I said, “it would interfere in my asking you to do something just now.”
“What,” he said, “is it?”
“I want you to come back with me to the crypt and check it out. I want to know whether the Count’s still there.”
He was silent, turning in the sunlight, scales shimmering.
“No,” he said then. “We don’t have to go.”
“Why not?”
“I already know that he’s not there.”
“How do you know this?”
“I was out last night,” he said, “and I hung myself in a plum tree I’d learned Needle frequents when he feeds. When he came by I said, ‘Good evening, Needle.’
“‘Quicklime, is that you?’ he answered.
“‘Indeed,’ I replied, ‘and how go your farings?’
“‘Well. Well,’ he said. ‘And your own twisting ways?’
“‘Oh, capital,’ I answered. ‘I take it you have come to feed?’
“‘Yes. I always come here last, for these plums are my favorites and put a fine end to a harvesting of bugs. I prefer saving the best for last.’
“‘As it should be,’ I said, ‘with all endeavors. Tell me’, for I was wise in these ways now, having lived with Rastov, ‘have you ever sampled the long-fallen plums, those which look wrinkled, ruined, and unappetizing?’
“‘No,’ he replied, ‘that would be silly, when so many good ones still hang upon the tree.’
“‘Ah,’ I told him, ‘but looks may be deceptive, and “good” is certainly a relative term.’
“‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
“‘I, too, enjoy the fruits,’ I said, ‘and I have learned their secret. Those over yonder on the ground are far better than those which hang yet upon the limbs.’
“‘How can that be?’ he said.
“‘The secret is that as they lie there, cut off forever from the source of their existence, they draw upon their remaining life to continue a new kind of growth. True, the effects wither them, but they ferment from their own beings a new and special elixir, superior to the simple juices of those upon the tree.’
” They taste a lot better?’
“‘No. They do not. This goes beyond mere taste. It is a thing of the spirit.’
“‘I guess I ought to try it, then.’
“‘You will not be disappointed. I recommend it highly.’
“So he descended to the earth, came upon one of those I had indicated, and bit into it.
“‘Agh!’ he exclaimed. ‘These are no good! Overripe and… ‘