Sliding… To a cobalt beach beside a still copper sea… Twilight without stars… Faint glow everywhere… Dead, dead this place… Blue rocks… Broken statues of inhuman beings… Nothing stirring…
Stop. I drew a magic circle about me in the sand and invested it with the forces of Chaos. I spread my new cloak then at its center, stretched out and went to sleep. I dreamed that the waters rose up to wash away a portion of the circle, and that a green, scaly being with purple hair and sharp teeth crept out of the sea and came to me to drink my blood.
When I awoke, I saw that the circle was broken and a green, scaly being with purple hair and sharp teeth lay dead upon the beach a half dozen yards from me, Frakir knotted tightly about its throat and the sand disturbed all around. I must have slept very deeply.
I retrieved my strangling cord and crossed another bridge over infinity.
On the next leg of my journey I was nearly caught up in a flash flood the first time I paused to rest. I was no longer unwary, however, and I kept ahead of it long enough to shift away. I received another warning - in burning letters on the face of an obsidian mountain - suggesting I withdraw, retire, go home. My shouted invitation to a conference was ignored.
I traveled till it was time to sleep again, and I camped then in the Blackened Lands - still, gray, musty, and foggy. I found myself an easily defended cleft, warded it against magic and slept.
Later - how much later, I am uncertain I was awakened from a dreamless slumber by the pulsing of Frakir upon my wrist. I was instantly awake, and then I wondered why. I heard nothing and I saw nothing untoward within my limited field of vision. But Frakir - who is not 100 percent perfect always has a reason when she does give an alarm. I waited, and I recalled my image of the Logrus while I did so. When it was fully before me I fitted my hand within it as if it were a glove and I reached…
I seldom carry a blade above the length of a middle-sized dagger. It's too damned cumbersome having several feet of steel hanging at my side, bumping into me, catching onto bushes, and occasionally even tripping me up. My father, and most of the others in Amber and the Courts, swear by the heavy, awkward things, but they are probably made of sterner stuff than myself. I've nothing against them in principle. I love fencing, and I've had a lot of training in their use. I just find carrying one all the time to be a nuisance. The belt even rubs a raw place on my hip after a while. Normally, I prefer Frakir and improvisation. However…
This, I was willing to admit, might be a good time to be holding one. For now I heard bellowslike hissing sounds and scrambling noises from somewhere outside and to my left.
I extended through Shadow, seeking a blade. I extended, I extended…
Damn. I had come far from any metalworking culture of the appropriate anatomy and at the proper phase in its historical development.
I continued to reach, sweat suddenly beading my brow. Far, very far. And the sounds came nearer, louder, faster. There came rattling, stamping and spitting noises. A roar. Contact!
I felt the haft of the weapon in my hand. Seize and summon! I called it to me, and I was thrown against the wall by the force of its delivery. I hung there a moment before I could draw it from the sheath in which it was still encased. In that moment, things grew silent outside.
I waited ten seconds. Fifteen. Half a minute… Nothing now.
I wiped my palms on my trousers. I continued to listen. Finally, I advanced.
There was nothing immediately before the opening save a light fog, and as the peripheral lines of sight opened there was still nothing to behold.
Another step… No.
Another. I was right at the threshold now. I leaned forward and darted a quick glance in either direction.
Yes. There was something off to the left - dark, low, unmoving, half masked by the fog. Crouched? Ready to spring at me?
Whatever it was, it did not stir and it kept total silence. I did the same. After a time, I noticed another dark form of the same general outline beyond it - and possibly a third even farther away. None of them showed any inclination to raise the sort of hell I had been listening to but minutes before.
I continued my vigil.
Several minutes must have passed before I stepped outside. Nothing was roused by my movement. I took another step and waited. Then another.
Finally, moving slowly, I approached the first form. An ugly brute, covered with scales the color of dried blood. A couple of hundred pounds' worth of creature, long and sinuous… Nasty teeth, too, I noted, when I opened its mouth with the point of my weapon. I knew it was safe to do this, because its head was almost completely severed from the rest of it. A very clean cut. A yellow-orange liquid still flowed from the wound.
And I could see from where I stood that the other two forms were creatures of the same sort. In all ways. They were dead, too. The second one I examined had been run through several times and was missing one leg. The third had been hacked to pieces. All of them oozed, and they smelled faintly of cloves.
I inspected the well-trampled area. Mixed in with that strange blood and the dew were what seemed to be the partial impressions of a boot, human-scale. I sought farther and I came across one intact footprint. It was pointed back in the direction from which I had come.
My pursuer? S, perhaps? The one who had called off the dogs? Coming to my aid?
I shook my head. I was tired of looking for sense where there wasn't any. I continued to search, but there were no more full tracks. I returned to the cleft then and picked up my blade's sheathe. I fitted the weapon into it and hung it from my belt. I fastened it over my shoulders so that it hung down my back. The hilt would protrude just above my backpack once I'd shouldered that item. I couldn't see how I could jog with it at my side.
I ate some bread and the rest of the meat. Drank some water, too, and a mouthful of wine. I resumed my journey.
I ran much of the next day - though «day» is something of a misnomer beneath unchanging stippled skies, checkered skies, skies lit by perpetual pinwheels and fountains of light. I ran until I was tired, and I rested and ate and ran some more. I rationed my food, for I'd a feeling I'd have to send far for more and such an act places its own energy demands upon the body. I eschewed shortcuts, for flashy shadows spanning hellruns also have their price and I did not want to be all whacked out when I arrived. I checked behind me often. Usually, I saw nothing suspicious. Occasionally, though, I thought that I glimpsed distant pursuit. Other explanations were possible, however; considering some of the tricks the shadows can play.
I ran until I knew that. I was finally nearing my destination. There came no new disaster followed by an order to turn back. I wondered fleetingly whether this was a good sign, or if the worst were yet to come. Either way, I knew that one more sleep and a little more journeying would put me where I wanted to be. Add a little caution and a few precautions and there might even be reason for optimism.
I ran through a vast, forestlike stand of crystalline shapes. Whether they were truly living things or represented some geological phenomenon; I did not know. They distorted perspectives and made shifting difficult. However, I saw no signs of living things in that glossy, glassy place, which led me to consider making my final campsite there.
I brake off a number of the limbs and drove them into the pink ground, which had the consistency of partly set putty. I constructed a circular palisade standing to about shoulder-height, myself at its center. I unwound Frakir from my wrist then voiced the necessary instructions as I paced her atop my rough and shining wall.
Frakir elongated, stretching herself as thin as a thread and twining among the shardlike branches. I felt safe. I did not believe anything could cross that barrier without Frakir's springing loose and twining herself to deathly tightness about it.
I spread my cloak, lay down, and slept. For how long, I am not certain. And I recall no dreams. There were no disturbances either.
When I woke I moved my head to reorient it, but the view was the same. In every direction but down the view was filled with interwoven crystal branches. I climbed slowly to my feet and pressed against them. Solid. They had become a glass cage.
Although I was able to break off some lesser branches, these were mainly from overhead, and it did nothing to work my release. Those which I had planted initially had thickened considerably, having apparently rooted themselves solidly. They would not yield to my strongest kicks.
The damned thing infuriated me. I swung my blade and glassy chips flew all about. I muffled my face with
