once, just this one time control the dice!"

She looked at me, and now I could read nothing in her expression.

"I'll control the dice," she said tonelessly.

We went back in, and I was sweating in terror and anguish when I picked up the dice. One of us was to be destroyed utterly on that roll, and only Dori could decide which one. Would she destroy Odaan? Or me?

I rolled the dice out on the table, and I don't think anyone in the room breathed, except Dori. One of them fell almost solid. A five.

The other die spun and tumbled. A two would ruin me. A one would ruin Odaan. Anything else would just postpone the inevitable.

The die slowed, bouncing.

"Take it, Dori!" I prayed silently. And Dori took it.

The die had almost settled when it was nudged, almost as by a physical push. It rolled over slowly—to the two! It teetered on the farther edge of the two, it appeared about to settle back ... and it rolled on over to the one.

A five and a one lay there on the dice. A single black dot and a five on the white dice. A six. I had won!

"A six," I said. "Odaan, you're a guest in my house."

Odaan sat there as if hypnotized, unable to take his eyes from the little black and white cubes.

"They ... they rolled like loaded dice!" he exclaimed in a voice that was barely audible.

"They're your dice, Odaan," I said.

Odaan got up and made a great, sweeping gesture, a gesture of defeat. He stumbled away through the crowd.

Dori stood looking at me with tragic eyes, and I looked up into her white, child-like face. I knew then that I loved Dori, that I never would love another woman.

Britt sat silent, staring into the flickering fire.

"Mrs. Britt ... has passed on since then?" suggested Peache sympathetically.

Britt tapped the ash from the tip of his half-smoked cigar.

 Prev. P 14/15 next