“R-r-r-r.”
“Left-hand pocket?”
“R-r-r-r.”
“OK. . . right. . . swallow. . .”
They stared at one another for a moment.
The Bursar sagged.
“M-m-much better now, Archchancellor, thank you.”
“Something's definitely happening. Bursar. I can feel it in my water.”
“Anything you say, Archchancellor.”
“Bursar?”
“Yes, Archchancellor?”
“You ain't a member of some secret society or somethin', are you?”
he weather was different. People said that, if it started to rain, it always began to fall inside the circle a few seconds after it had started outside, as if the rain was coming from further away. If clouds crossed the sun, it'd be a moment or two before the light faded inside the circle.
William Scrope is going to die in a couple of minutes. It has to be said that he shouldn't have been hunting deer out of season, and especially not the fine stag he was tracking, and certainly not a fine stag of the Ramtop Red species, which is officially endangered although not as endangered, right now, as William Scrope.
It was ahead of him, pushing through the bracken, making so much noise that a blind man could have tracked it.
Scrope waded through after it.
Mist was still hanging around the stones, not in a blanket but in long raggedy strings.
The stag reached the circle now, and stopped. It trotted back and forth once or twice, and then looked up at Scrope.
He raised the crossbow.
The stag turned, and leapt between the stones.
There were only confused impressions from then on. The first was of-
-distance. The circle was a few yards across, it shouldn't suddenly appear to contain so much distance.
And the next was of-
-speed. Something was coming out of the circle, a white dot growing bigger and bigger.
He knew he'd aimed the bow. But it was whirled out of his hands as the thing struck, and suddenly there was only the sensation of-
-peace.
And the brief remembrance of pain.
William Scrope died.
William Scrope looked through his hands at the crushed bracken. The reason that it was crushed was that his own body was sprawled upon it.
His newly deceased eyes surveyed the landscape.