The Game of Love and Death(5)

“If you say so,” Death said.

The sun and all its light were gone. It would rise again, creating the illusion that the world had been remade, that the cycle was starting anew. But time was not a circle. It moved in one direction only, onward into the dark unknown. Feeling his spirits teeter, Love focused on the sound the water made as the boat sliced through it. A series of small kisses.

He looked into the heart of the gondolier and discovered the woman the man loved most. He cast that image overhead so that it might settle over the boat like a soft blanket. Surely Death would not object to that small comfort. The gondolier extinguished his cigarette in the canal and opened his mouth to sing. “ ’O Sole Mio.” My sun.

Love’s light spread overhead, and the darkening sky revealed a moon whittled to near nothingness. Reflections of human-made lights stretched across the water, beautiful fingers that stroked the slender boat as it passed, its captain singing of the glow of his heart’s sun on his lover’s face.

Love’s pulse steadied. He took Death’s hand so she could better see into his mind, and together, they looked at the city on the young edge of the world. Seattle. There was a wildness to it. Oceans of corruption, yes. But imagination and hope and wonder that attracted people who yearned to remake bigger and better lives. There were vast fortunes to be cut from forests and chipped from gold mines.

There was also opportunity for the poor to rise. The landscape itself reflected this. Still, deep lakes and frothing rivers. Snow-covered mountains whose beauty belied their explosive origins. If ever there were a place where the old might give way to the new, where Love could beat Death, it was here.

He wished he could see into Death’s mind the way she peered into his. He did not know the secret of it. The ride ended, and Love paid the gondolier extravagantly. Arm in arm, the two immortals glided off the boat, up the steps, and onto the arc of the Ponte dell’Accademia, their steps barely audible over the insistent slap of water.

“Paper?” She held out her hand.

Love tore a sheet from the book he always carried.

“You first,” she said.

Love pricked his finger and offered it to her. She lifted a tear from the corner of her eye and rubbed her fingertip against his. Love handed her the paper and the pen he’d purchased earlier. She dipped the metal tip into their strange ink and wrote two names. The ritual was quick, almost anticlimactic, but they’d performed it many times, and what’s more, knew each other well.

She blew on the ink. “This binds the players to the game. They live as long as this is intact. When the clock runs out, I’ll destroy the paper and claim my prize.”

“Only if you win,” Love said.

“When I win. And what constitutes victory?”

Love paused. In the past, he’d said a kiss. Or consummation. But neither seemed enough. “They must choose courage,” he said. “They must choose each other at the cost of everything else. When they do that, I win.”

“I do not even know what that means,” she said.

Love chose to show her with a picture painted in thought. He put his hands on Death’s cheeks and concentrated on the players. On the surface, they were an impossible pair. From two separate worlds. But Love knew something Death did not, at least when it came to hearts. Theirs were twins. He sent her an image of what it would look like when they locked on to each other. The light within them would burst out and rise, two columns of flame winding like the strands of matter that are the stuff of life itself. The image echoed both the creation of the universe in miniature and the elements of life on earth writ large. It was the source of everything, including Love and Death themselves.

If Love won, it would remake the world, at least for the players.

Death pulled her face away. “Don’t ever do that again.” She put a hand on her cheek. “We of course cannot tell the players about the Game.”

He nodded. To tell them would change everything. “And the stakes this time?”

Her answer was swift. “When I win, I claim the life of my player.”

“When I win,” Love said, “both players live on.”

She shrugged. Her powers were far greater than his, and the Game was only something she agreed to for the fun of it.

“Is there anything that isn’t allowed?” she asked.

He hated this question. He’d made the wrong choice many times. “The usual restrictions. Before time runs out, you cannot kill either player with a touch, just as I cannot instill love.”

“Unless.” Death held up a finger.

“Unless what?” She was a slippery opponent.

“Unless your player chooses me. Then I can kill him with a kiss.”

Love laughed. Henry would never choose death. Not over life. And certainly not over love. He’d been born for this. “As you wish. Have you chosen your guise?”

“You’re looking at it. At one of them, anyway.”

In the near darkness, Love studied Death’s face. Star-white skin. A smart, wavy black bob. Dark eyes. The wide, insolent mouth. He’d seen her face before, but where? She’d also undoubtedly appear as the black cat. How her guises would affect the players was ever a mystery.

“And now to determine the length of the Game,” Death said. “You have the dice, I trust.”

Love removed the dice from his pocket. The bones clacked against each other. “You first.”