We were relying on our feet to give us some kind of decision but the danse macabre went on and we span together until I tried the first throw and timed it right and he lurched and pitched sideways and took me with him, a shoulder smashing against something and my right foot finding an instant's purchase and letting me thrust hard away from him but the wire was there and it didn't slacken and what happened was that his body was flung out feet-first with my trapped forearm as the pivot and a screaming began and glass smashed, the mirror, the fragments cascading to the floor as we lay there still locked by the wire.
Fatigue setting in now, and I didn't like the noise, didn't know what it was because conscious thought had blanked out and there was a dangerous degree of disorientation clouding the mind as the screaming went on and the dragon's breath blew hot against my face, imagination bringing me a flash from a fable. We lay on the floor among the shards of mirror glass like drunks, or lovers, each of us just this side of death and each knowing it, while the screaming Stopped. Hand-drier, yes, I'd hit something with my shoulder as we'd gone pitching down.
I didn't know what he was thinking. Our heads were close together but that was alclass="underline" there was no transference, no communication. The infinitely complex process of conscious thought was going on inside the skull, brilliant with the flash of synaptic interchange, presenting images, projections, options and alternatives while far distant in the organism was the grosser interplay of emotions, the urge to survive overriding the contemplation of extinction.
Who are you, Kishnar, where were you born, how old are you, my brother under the skin, being of this earthly clime and of similar mould with a head and a face and hands and feet, and how was it through the course of our complicated lives we came finally to lie here on the floor of a lavatory whose doorway would allow only one of us exit?
I suppose he didn't want to let go of the wire because it was the weapon he was used to. That was a weakness in him; it's the same thing when a man carries a gun: he begins to rely on it and feels naked without it, lost, vulnerable; it's why I prefer my hands: you can't forget them or leave them somewhere, and at close quarters they can be just as deadly. If this man, Kishnar, let go of the wire he'd have both hands free and that would give him a critical advantage because I could use only one: the nerve in the right arm was paralysed and I couldn't feel my fingers on that side; the fist was bunched against my forehead and that was all I knew.
But he wouldn't let go. I wasn't going to persuade him.
The fatigue was setting in because we couldn't take this appalling tension off: there was no respite. We weren't like boxers who could punch and relax, punch and relax; we were locked together like those two iguanas in a monumental exercise in isometrics, the muscles beginning to tremble now and the sweat trickling, while the left brain went through a thousand potential moves and the right brain drifted into the imagery of potential death, the passing over of one of these two souls to a new dimension, and the overall sense of loss, of having failed the challenge and been found wanting.
Voices.
Oh Christ I wasn't ready for that – he'd jerked the wire upwards and down again in the hope of my arm falling away and leaving the throat exposed but it didn't work and I felt an explosion of rage and used my free hand, driving an eye-gouge against his face again and again and he jerked his head away every time, no go, so I drove a half-fist against him, lower, targeting the neck, the carotid artery, but he twisted clear and light flashed under my eyelids, the first warning of exhaustion, listen, something will have to be done, and soon, because if he brings his cultural mysticism into play, shifting into the zone where fatigue is controlled and overcome for as long as life demands, I shan't have an answer, well yes, but not as arcane as his, not as practised, and not enough to tip the balance.
Voices outside, one of them saying they thought they'd heard glass breaking somewhere.
He moved again and I reacted and the tails thrashed and the heads swung, shaking, the scales flashing in the hot sun as I sat watching from the rock, my interest caught because it was a contest to the death, and if they Watch it, you 're on the edge of hallucinating, watch it, for Christ's sake.
Dehydration taking its toll, a progressive lack of electrolytes – I'd been thirsty before I'd even got here and now it was fire in the mouth.
They were outside now, talking about the glass breaking, might come in here, but what could they do, throw water over us?
He'd kill ten men, Kishnar, if they got in his way.
We were lying on our sides and my free hand moved over the shards of mirror glass, feeling them for size, for sharpness, as careful as the hand of a jeweller assessing the angularity of a diamond's facets, for there were gems here more priceless, offering more than profit or loss in the marketplace or the envy of a duchess at the opera, feeling them tenderly, the fingertips appraising while under the eyelids the light flashed to the pulsing of my blood.
His knee came up and I blocked it with my thigh and the pain burst, swelled and diminished to numbness: he was very strong, well-trained, not your thug from the dusty streets with throats to cut for a penny.
I want his head, do you understand?
Bitch! I used my own knee and insisted, presenting strike after strike and going beyond the matter of physical force and adding the strength of zen and two or three times his breath was caught in his throat and I knew I'd given pain and perhaps with any luck had found a nerve, the femoral or the rectus femoris, inducing paralysis, but the effort had been appalling because of the tension already there in the muscles and I brought it down, dangerously, to the point where I could recover a small measure of the strength I'd need when the final effort had to be made, a half-second or a minute from now, no later than a minute because fatigue moves into a steepening curve towards the point of total exhaustion.
The voices had gone away; there was just the music of the dripping tap, each drop worth a diamond in my mouth but each one wasted.
I listened for sounds from him, from Kishnar, for a loss of controlled breathing, for a slackening of the muscles, however slight, that would tell me that if I could exert and endure this amount of tension I might yet prevail. But there was no sign from him that he was weakening. I would have said at this stage that his game plan was simply to wear me out, to tire me to the point where I could no longer parry a blow from the knee, where pain so ferocious could be induced that the whole organism would be paralysed if only for a second, giving him time to lift the wire and smash my arm aside and come in again to the throat.
I think that was his game plan, and the decision was close now.
A longing for water, for peace, for the sinews to grow slack and lie quiet, a longing for cessation, for a conclusion, one way or another, even for death, and a rose for Moira.
Then he brought his knee up and smashed it into the thigh-bone and the light burst in the dark and I twisted to avoid a second strike but he connected again and the breath blocked in my throat and something drove through my spirit like a cold wind and that frightened me because I wasn't ready yet to go but he struck again and I twisted again but this was as far as I could move, struck again and I rolled, sliding my leg downwards and trying to find his neck in the half-light, his throat, but I was losing strength and he sensed it and came in for the kill, hurling away the wire and rearing for an instant and then plunging with both hands for my neck as I turned just enough to do the only thing I could do while everything slowed down again and I saw my left hand moving an inch, two inches until the shard of mirror glass was correctly placed so that as he came down against me it went into his throat, and for a moment it seemed that nothing was happening, until his hands began closing on my neck, strong hands reaching confidently for my death, and they would have found it but for the sliver of glass – it had pierced his windpipe and begun to weaken him as he sucked in air, once, twice, before he began sucking on blood, his hands leaving me and reaching up to try to do something; but there is nothing to be done when the breath of life itself is compromised, and I lay waiting; just this side of consciousness, as his blood began trickling onto me, onto my face, its hot touch bringing me back to full awareness and reminding me that it was now honoured, the unspoken pact between us that one or the other should come to see his life vouchsafed or vanquished, so be it, let it now abide.