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Oliver was very frightened now. Nicolet no longer looked as if she regretted not playing.

And Haarm was becoming agitated. He kept looking over his shoulder as if expecting someone to arrive and put a stop to this vicious game.

I glanced at Messenger, wondering whether he had noticed Haarm’s distraction, but Messenger refused to meet my eyes and instead looked fixedly at Oliver. At what was now most of Oliver.

“I . . . ca . . . I . . .” Oliver was choking as his arms weakened.

“Are you choosing the letter I?” “Graciella” asked innocently.

“Chhh . . . chhggr . . . no . . . letter . . . P!”

And yes, as I had guessed, there was a P in the third slot.

H E P T _ R _ H _

It seemed obvious to me now, but then I had heard the word frequently since adopting my new duties as apprentice. It was not otherwise a common word, not a word Oliver was likely to have on the tip of his tongue.

That tongue now bulged between his lips. It had turned a dark red color. The muscles in his body strained to hold the choking weight.

With a supreme effort Oliver pulled himself up just enough to gasp, “B!”

His left leg now hung from the rest of him and kicked at the air, seeking something to rest upon. It hung just eight or ten inches above the platform. Too far for Oliver, and too heavy. The additional weight caused him to lose his grip on the noose and he swung, voiceless, airless, while the sand fell through the hourglass.

One more wrong letter and he would lose.

But he could not speak. His hands had been dropped to his side so that circulation could be restored, but I doubted he would have strength enough to rise for the last letters, the letters that might save him.

Yet I had underestimated the drug-dealing pimp, for he found a last reservoir of strength and managed to gasp, “C!”

H E P T _ R C H _

He had it now. I could see that he had it. There was desperate awareness in eyes now bulging out of his face above tongue turned black.

He saw the answer, but he saw it too late. He clawed madly at the noose, but the strength was gone from his fingers. He clawed, clawed, weaker, less focused. His eyes glazed over.

The sand ran out.

With one leg attached, the last of Oliver was no longer able to lift himself to speak.

“Heptarchy,” the Game Master said. And with that, the snake noose released its hold and Oliver fell to the platform in a heap.

But he was not dead. The game is never fatal, not really.

Oliver remained bent over on his hands and knees, gasping for air.

“The game has been lost,” the Master of the Game said.

“Yes,” Messenger agreed.

“Have I performed my duty, Messenger of Isthil?”

“You have,” Messenger said. “You may withdraw.”

Oliver was sent tumbling down the thirteen steps to land, still sucking desperately for air in a throat that was half-crushed.

The Master of the Game withdrew and took with him the gibbet and the snake and his vile simulacrum of Graciella, and faded into the mist.

“Oliver Benbury, you have lost the game,” Messenger said. “And now you will endure the Piercing to determine your punishment.”