“Does Rastov drink like that every day?” I asked.
“No,” Quicklime replied. “He only started on Moon-death Eve.”
“Has Linda Enderby visited him?”
“Yes. They had a long talk about poetry and someone named Pushkin.”
“Do you know whether she got a look at the Alhazred Icon?”
“So you know we have it. . . . No, drunk or sober, he wouldn’t show it to anybody till the time of its need.”
“When I was looking for you earlier, I saw him holding what looked like an icon. Is it on wood, about three inches high, nine inches long?”
“Yes, and he did have it out from its hiding place today. Whenever he feels particularly depressed he says that it cheers him up to ‘go to the shores of Hali and consider the enactments of ruin’ and then to contemplate the uses he has for it all.”
“That could almost be taken as a closer’s statement,” I said.
“I sometimes think you’re a closer, Snuff.”
Our eyes met, and I halted. At some point, you have to take a chance.
“I am,” I said.
“Damn! We’re not alone then!”
“Let’s keep it quiet,” I said. “In fact, let’s not speak of it again.”
“But you can at least tell me whether you know if any of the others are.”
“I don’t,” I said.
I started forward again. A small plunge taken, a small victory grasped. We passed a pair of cows, heads down, munching. A small roll of thunder came from the Good Doctor’s direction. Looking left, I could make out my hill, which I’d named Dog’s Nest.
“Is this one farther south than the other?” I asked, as we turned onto a lane which led in that direction.
“Yes,” he hissed.
I kept trying to visualize the pattern tugged in new directions by these new foci of residence. It was irritating to keep finding and losing candidates for center. It seemed almost as if the forces were playing games with me. And it was especially difficult to keep surrendering ones that seemed eminently appropriate.
At last our way took us to what seemed like somebody’s family plot. Only, the family it belonged to was long gone. A collapsed building lay upon a nearby hilltop. Barely a foundation, really, was what remained. And I saw that the remains of the family had been adopted, when Quicklime led me into the overgrown graveyard, all but the eastern side of its fence fallen, and that side atilt.
He led me among tall grasses to a great stone slab. There were signs of recent digging about the perimeter it had covered, and the stone had been raised and offset to the side, leaving a narrow opening through which I knew I must squeeze.
I stuck my nose inside and sniffed. Dust.
“Want me to check it out?” Quicklime said.
“Let’s both go down,” I replied. “After this walk, I at least want a look.”
I went through and descended a series of uneven steps. There was a puddle at the bottom and I stepped over it. There were others about, too, and I couldn’t avoid them all. It was dark, but eventually I made out an opened casket set up in a raised area. Another had been moved aside to make room for it.
I approached to sniff about the thing. What odors I might have sought, I’m not sure. The Count had been scentless on the night we had met, a very disconcerting thing to one of my temperament and olfactory equipment. As I drew nearer and my vision cleared, I wondered why he had left the lid open. It seemed most inappropriate for one of his persuasion.
Rearing up, I placed a forepaw on the casket’s side and looked down into the interior.
Quicklime, nearby, said, “What is it?” and I realized that I had made a small woofing sound.
“The Game has grown more serious,” I answered.
He climbed up to the ledge, then mounted the end of the casket where he hovered, looking like Pharaoh’s headdress.
“Oh my!” he said then.
A skeleton lay within, atop a long black cloak. It still had on a suit of dark garments, somewhat in disarray now, opened in front. Splitting the sternum was a large wooden stake, angled slightly, passing far down, missing the backbone to the left. There was considerable dry dust within and without.