“Just how much do you know about the Game, anyway?” I asked.
“I’ve heard a lot. I’ve seen a lot. Everybody talked freely because they assumed I was a part of it. After a time, I almost got to feeling I was,” he reflected. “I know so much about it.”
And he proceeded to tell me the story of how a number of the proper people are attracted to the proper place in the proper year on a night in the lonesome October when the moon shines full on Halloween and the way may be opened for the return of the Elder Gods to Earth, and of how some of these people would assist in the opening of the way for them while others would strive to keep the way closed. For ages, the closers have won, often just barely, and there were stories of a shadowy man, half-mad, a killer, a wanderer, and his dog, who always showed up to attempt the closing. Some said that he was Cain himself, doomed to walk the Earth, marked; others said he’d a pact with one of the Elders who secretly wished to thwart the others; none really knew. And the people would acquire certain tools and other objects of power, meet together at the designated spot and attempt to work their wills. The winners walked away, the losers suffered for their presumption by a reaction from the cosmic principles involved in the attempt. Then he named the players and their tools, adding an awareness of the calculation, of divinations, of magical attacks and defenses.
“Bubo,” I said, “you have impressed me as few have impressed me, learning all that without giving yourself away.”
“Rats have strong survival instincts,” he said. “I needed to know it to stay safe in this area.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said. “You could have remained out of it and gone about your business. The deception itself was a lot more dangerous.”
“All right. I got curious about all these cryptic comments I kept hearing. Probably too curious for my own good. What it was, I think, is that I enjoyed pretending I was playing, too. I’d never done anything important before, and it felt good.”
“Come on,” I told him. “Get up on my back, and I’ll take you to see the Gipsies. Good music and all.”
We stayed late at the camp. I don’t have that many friends, and it was a good evening.
As I made my way to Dog’s Nest I came across another set of the huge, misshapen footprints at the hill’s base. There were some up on top, too. I wondered where the experiment man would go, now his home was destroyed.
I made a circuit of the hilltop, drawing my lines again, laying them out upon the land, excluding the ruined farmhouse to the southwest now, which moved things considerably northward, taking into account the two satellite graves, trying it both with and without Larry’s place in the formulation. With it, it came to another nothing wilderness spot. Without it, however, came a place already touched by the High Powers. I was standing upon it. It was here, Dog’s Nest, amid its broken circle of stone, where the final act would take place. Larry was just a friend of the court. I threw back my head and howled. The design was complete.
On the rock where our earlier adventure had begun the inscription flared briefly, as if in endorsement.
I departed quickly, skipping upon the hill.
Midnight.
“I’ve found it, Jack!” I said, and I told him Bubo’s story.
“. . . And subtracting the Good Doctor leaves us atop my hill,” I concluded.
“Of course the others will divine it within the next few days.”
“. . . And the word will be passed. True. I can only recall one time when no one figured it properly.”
“My, that was long ago. . . .”
“Yes, and we all sat down to dinner together, made a joke of it, and went our ways.”
“Such things are rare.”
“Indeed.”
“I think this will be a close one, Snuff.”
“So do I. And it’s been a strange one from the start. This quality may carry through.”