Lysander had definitely come out ahead in this encounter. The Chief had used two more forms to his one, and still had the onus. And—Lysander had done it on a bluff, for this was neither basilisk nor magic salamander, but an ordinary one, harmless to anything larger than a fly.
As the Chief was about to realize. The hawk was coming back, and it would make short work of the salamander. One snap of its beak—
Lysander burrowed down into the grass, trying to hide. If he could remain clear for another thirty seconds—
The hawk came to the ground, and changed. Lysander couldn’t see the change, but he knew it had occurred, because a bird on land did not make that slithering sound. That was either a lizard, or—
The head of a snake loomed over him. It struck down—as Lysander became a mongoose.
He spun about to face the snake. It was a simple black racer, not venomous to man but deadly enough to a salamander. But the mongoose was able to kill even the most deadly snakes. Lysander had the onus now. He dived in—
The snake became a wolf. The wolf’s jaws snapped at the mongoose—
Lysander became a giant serpent. The serpent’s jaws opened to take in the wolf.
The wolf became a bear. A bear was a lot tougher animal than many supposed; it could handle just about any other animal its size, and anything smaller. It swiped at the serpent’s head.
Lysander became a rhinoceros. He swung his nose-horn viciously at the bear—who became a monstrous roc, a bird capable of catching up a rhino in its talons and carrying it away. Indeed, those talons closed on the rhino’s body, and the great wings spread. In a moment he would be lifted up. He could be carried high and dropped; any fall over five or six feet might kill him.
But he didn’t change. He let the bird haul him into the air. The roc carried him over a nearby rocky region, and let him go.
But as he fell, he became a sparrow. Of course he had nothing to fear from being dropped! Not as long as he could change to another flying form. Now the Chief had used up his largest and second largest flying forms—the roc and the dragon—and would not be able to use them again. Lysander had both those forms in reserve. He was still gaining.
But it would be foolish to let any opportunity pass. He needed to try for the quick victory, lest the Chief catch him first. He remembered seeing chess games where one player had pieces all over the board, but the other had the victory because of the position. Pieces were only part of it.
The sparrow looped and flew in at the roc. The roc’s beak snapped down, but the sparrow was swifter at close quarters, and got by. It came up against the roc’s fur-feathered leg—and became a cobra. By the definition of the game, a poisonous bite affected any other creature, even another of its kind, if it scored well. Lysander opened his mouth and struck at the flesh of the leg.
The roc became a gnat and zipped away; the cobra’s jaws snapped on nothing. And now he was in trouble, for he was in the air and falling.
He became a hawk. The Chief’s hawk had been used before, and it could not return, and there were few other birds that could catch a hawk. But the onus was on Lysander; he had to do the catching, and this was no form for gnat-hunting!
He pondered. The Chief would surely outwait him if he didn’t find a quick way to catch that gnat. A toad could do it—but the gnat would be flying high up, out of reach of a landbound creature. This was a problem!
Then he had it. He became not a dragon, but a dragonfly. Dragonflies hunted smaller insects on the wing, and were strong flyers and efficient predators. He looped around and spied the gnat, who hadn’t gone far. Indeed, a gnat couldn’t get far in a few seconds, compared to a dragonfly.
He revved up his four wings and zoomed in for the kill. But the gnat became a toad in midair, its mouth opening. Lysander realized that though the toad would fall to the ground, it would get the dragonfly first, and win; the fall didn’t matter.
Caught by surprise, he found his mind blank. The toad’s sticky tongue came out, rooted at the front, catapulting toward him. He would be caught before he—
In desperation he became another toad; he couldn’t think of anything else.
The two loads collided in the air, and fell together.
Lysander still had the onus. He had only seconds: should he assume a form to crunch the other toad, or wait for the Chief to change, so the Chief would be committed, and Lysander could immediately counter the form? The latter seemed better.
But the Chief seemed to have the same idea. They continued to fall. What would happen if they both splatted into the ground? They were playing a game of chicken!
Probably if they both persisted, it would be declared a draw, and they would have to play another game. Lysander was ahead in this game; he didn’t want to start another.
That decided him. So what if he went splat immediately after; he should grasp the victory first.
He became a weasel, which was more than enough to dispose of even the illest-tasting toad. He twisted around in the air and snapped at—
The Chief became a hippopotamous—and he was just above the weasel! He would land and squash the weasel flat! He would die himself—but after the weasel. This was the strategy of suicide.
Lysander became a horsefly and zoomed away. Such a change would not have been safe while the toad remained, but no hippo could nab a fly in the air.
And the Chief became a dragonfly, borrowing from Lysander’s prior strategy, and winged swiftly after him. The onus was on the Chief, but he was playing with greater savvy now. Lysander was on the run—or in flight, in this case.
He didn’t want to waste a good predatory form that would be immediately countered; he wanted to force the Chief to use up more of his forms, until he was starved for variety at the end and subject to a power play. He saw water below, and had a notion. He plunged toward it, the dragonfly gaining but not yet in range.
He plunged in, becoming a fish.
The Chief plunged after, becoming a pelican.
Trouble! Lysander became an alligator just as the pelican’s beak closed on the fish. The beak closed instead on the hide of the alligator.
Lysander whipped his toothy snout around to snap up the bird, and the bird became a giant sea serpent whose much larger toothy snout whipped around to snap up the alligator. Lysander was having trouble matching change for change, and couldn’t think of a good rejoinder on the spot, so became an elephant.
The sea serpent stared. An elephant?
But the water was not deep, and the elephant was only halfway submerged. It wrapped its trunk around the head of the serpent, tying its jaws closed, and pushed the head under the water. Drowning was as good as being bitten to death. Lysander had found a good predator form after all.
The serpent became a fish and slid away. Lysander waited, knowing that no fish could hurt him here; the water was too shallow for any really big one. Nothing much could hurt an elephant. But the Chief had the onus, and would have to try.
Then he spied something sliding through the water. It wasn’t a fish, but more like an eel.
Oops—an electric eel! Again by definition, the shock would stun any other creature. Lysander became a frog and leaped out of the water.
So it went, change and counterchange, and the assortment of animals was depleted on both sides. But Lysander’s strategy of forcing the Chief to change more often was pacing off, and it came to the point where Lysander had several top predators left and the Chief was reduced to his next to last form: a sheep. Lysander became a roc and pounced on the sheep, forcing the Chief to take his last form: a mouse.
Lysander became a dragon, and inhaled. He would send a blast of fire that burned out the entire region, the mouse with it.
But the mouse, astonishingly, did not flee. Instead it jumped onto the dragon’s nose and clung there.