before us and below us increased, and after another ten steps, I could make out the source:
There was a pillar rising to the right. At its top was something globe-like and glowing. Perhaps fifteen steps lower, another such formation occurred to the left. Beyond that, it seemed there was another one on the right, and so on.
When we entered the vicinity of the thing, the waters grew warmer and the stairway itself became clear: it was white, shot through with pink and green, and resembled marble but was not slippery despite the water. It was perhaps fifty feet in width, and there was a wide banister of the same substance on either side.
Fishes swam past us as we walked it. When I looked back over my shoulder, there seemed to be no sign of pursuit.
It became brighter. We entered the vicinity of the first light, and it wasn't a globe on the top of a pillar. My mind must have added that touch to the phenomenon, to try to rationalize it at least a bit. It appeared to be a flame, about two feet in height, dancing there, as atop a huge torch. I decided to ask about it later, and saved my-if you'll excuse the expression-breath, for the rapid descent we were making.
After we had entered the alley of light and had passed six more of the torches, Random said, “They're after us,” and I looked back again and saw distant figures descending, four of them on horseback.
It is a strange feeling to laugh under water and hear yourself.
“Let them,” I said, and I touched the hilt of my blade, “for now we have made it this far, I feel a power upon me!”
We hurried though, and off to our left and to our right the water grew black as ink. Only the stairway was illuminated, in our mad flight down it, and distantly I saw what appeared to be a mighty arch.
Deirdre was leaping down the stairs two at a time, and there came a vibration now, from the staccato beat of the horses' hooves behind us.
The band of armed men-filling the way from banister to banister-was far behind and above. But the four horsemen had gained on us. We followed Deirdre as she rushed downward, and my hand stayed upon my blade.
Three, four, five. We passed that many lights before I looked back again and saw that the horsemen were perhaps fifty feet above us. The footmen were now almost out of sight. The archway loomed ahead, perhaps two hundred feet distant. Big, shining like alabaster, and carved with Tritons, sea nymphs, mermaids, and dolphins, it was. And there seemed to be people on the other side of it.
“They must wonder why we have come there,” said Random.
“It will be an academic point if we don't make it,” I replied, hurrying, as another glance revealed that the horsemen had gained ten feet on us.
I drew my blade then, and It flashed in the torchlight. Random followed suit.
After another twenty steps or so, the vibrations were terrible within the green and we turned, so as not to be cut down as we ran.
They were almost upon us. The gates lay a hundred feet to our back, and it might have been a hundred miles, unless we could take the four horsemen.
I crouched, as the man who was headed toward me swung his blade. There was another rider to his right and slightly to his rear, so naturally I moved to his left, near to the rail. This required that he strike cross-body, as he held his blade in his right hand.
When he struck, I parried in quarte and riposted.
He was leaning far forward in the saddle, and the point of my blade entered his neck on the right side.
A great billow of blood, like crimson smoke, arose and swirled within the greenish light. Crazily, I wished Van Gogh were there to see it.
The horse continued past, and I leaped at the second rider from the rear.
He turned to parry the stroke, succeeded. But the force of his speed through the water and the strength of my blow removed him from the saddle. As he fell, I kicked, and he drifted. I struck at him, hovering there above me, and he parried again, but this carried him beyond the rail. I heard him scream as the pressure of the waters came upon him. Then he was silent.
I turned my attention then to Random, who had slain both a horse and a man and was dueling with a second man on foot. By the time I reached them, he had slain the man and was laughing. The blood billowed above them, and I suddenely realized that I had known mad, sad, bad Vincent Van Gogh, and it was really too bad that he couldn't have painted this.
The footmen were perhaps a hundred feet behind us, and we turned and headed toward the arches. Deirdre had already passed through them.
We ran and we made it. There were many swords at our sides, and the footmen turned back. Then we sheathed our blades, and Random said, “I've had it,” and we moved to join with the band of people who had stood to defend us.
Random was immediately ordered to surrender his blade, and he shrugged and handed it over. Then two men came and stood on either side of him and a third at his back, and we continued on down the stair.
I lost all sense of time in that watery place, but I feel that we walked for somewhere between a quarter of an hour and half an hour before we reached our destination.
The golden gates of Rebma stood before us. We passed through them. We entered the city.
Everything was to be seen through a green haze. There were buildings, all of them fragile and most of them high, grouped in patterns and standing in colors that entered my eyes and tore through my mind, seeking after remembrance. They failed, the sole result of their digging being the now familiar ache that accompanies the half recalled, the unrecalled. I had walked these streets before, however, that I knew, or ones very much like them.
Random had not said a single word since he had been taken into custody. Deirdre's only conversation had been to inquire after our sister Llewella. She had been informed that Liewella was in Rebma.
I examined our escort. They were men with green hair, purple hair, and black hair, and all of them had eyes of green, save for one fellow whose were of a hazel color. All wore only scaled trunks and cloaks, cross-braces on their breasts, and short swords depending from sea-shell belts. All were pretty much lacking in body hair. None of them spoke to me, though some stared and some glared, I was allowed to keep my weapon.
Inside the city, we were conducted up a wide avenue, lighted by pillar flames set at even closer intervals than on Faiella-bionin, and people stared out at us from behind octagonal, tinted windows, and bright-bellied fishes swam by. There came a cool current, like a breeze, as we turned a corner; and after a few steps, a warm one, like a wind.
We were taken to the palace in the center of the city, and I knew it as my hand knew the glove in my belt. It was an image of the palace of Amber, obscured only by the green and confused by the many strangely placed mirrors which had been set within its walls, inside and out. A woman sat upon the throne in the glassite room I almost recalled, and her hair was green, though streaked with silver, and her eyes were round as moons of jade and her brows rose like the wings of olive gulls. Her mouth was small, her chin was small; her cheeks were high and wide and rounded. A circlet of white gold crossed her brow and there was a crystal necklace about her neck. At its tip there flashed a sapphire between her sweet bare breasts, whose nipples were also a pale green. She wore scaled trunks of blue and a silver belt, and she held a scepter of pink coral in her right hand and had a ring upon every finger, and each ring had a stone of a different blue within it. She did not smile as she spoke:
“What seek you here, outcasts of Amber?” she asked, and her voice was a lisping, soft, flowing thing.
Deirdre spoke in reply, saying: “We flee the wrath of the prince who sits in the true city-Eric! To be frank, we wish to work his downfall. If he is loved here, we are lost, and we have delivered ourselves into the hands of our enemies. But I feel he is not loved here. So we come asking aid, gentle Moire-”
“I will not give you troops to assault Amber.” she replied. “As you know, the chaos would be reflected within my own realm.”
“That is not what we would have of you, dear Moire,” Deirdre continued, “but only a small thing, to be achieved at no pain or cost to yourself or your subjects.”
“Name it! For as you know, Eric is almost as disliked here as this recreant who stands at your left hand,” and with this she gestured at my brother, who stared at her in frank and insolent appraisal, a small smile playing about the corners of his lips.
If he was going to pay-whatever the price-for whatever he had done, I could see that he would pay it like a
