“Your pieces are scattered, janja,” he said. “Shall we throw for time?”

She knelt on an ancient hide, the coarse wool of her skirt falling across the rounds of her thighs in stiff folds. Her face had thinned also and that which was mortal and human had grown more tenuous. The Dweller-within showed through the smoky flesh, stern and wild and tenderly terrible, without the sheen of Reike’s smiles to temper its extravagance.

“Time does not exist. There is only now.”

The corners of his mouth curled up. “Granted, Great One.” There was wry laughter in his dark eyes, a touch of mockery in his voice. “I would offer you another now to put your pieces on the board.” His hand closed tightly about the cup. “You’re losing the janja, Indweller. You give me an edge you might not want to concede, not having her touch with detail.”

Reiki smoothed the yellowed ivory of her braids. “You’re an impudent rascal, my Noris.” Under their white brows her brown-green eyes twinkled at him.

He lifted the ivory cup as if he toasted her. “Are you displeased, Janja?”

“You know more than you should, my Noris. Surprising for Soдreh’s get.”

He shrugged, distaste on his lean face. “I use Soдreh, I don’t follow him,” he said impatiently. “Shall we throw for time?”

“No. I am permitted a warning, Ser Noris. Consider carefully the consequences of each move. You have the dice. Throw.”

The gameboard sat on a granite slab which thrust through shag and soil like a bone through broken flesh and fell away a stride or two behind the man, a thousand feet straight down to a broad valley white and silent under heavy, moonlit snow. The board was a replica in miniature of the world below them, complete to the placement of trees and structures but empty for the moment of moving forms.