«Frakir,» I asked, «are you sure it was really the Logrus that enhanced you this time and programmed you with all the instructions you're carrying?»
Yes.
«What makes you certain?»
It had the same feeling as our first encounter back within the Logrus, when I was enhanced initially.
«I see. Next question: Could the Unicorn and the Serpent we saw back in the chapel have been the same sort of things as the Oberon or Dworkin figures back at the cave?»
No. I'd have known. They weren't like them at all. They were terrible and powerful and very much what they seemed.
«Good,» I said. «I was worried this might be some elaborate charade on the part of the Ghostwheel.»
I see that in your mind. Though I fail to see why the reality of the Unicorn and the Serpent defeats the thesis. They could simply have entered the Ghost's construct to tell you to stop horsing around because they want to see this thing played out.
«I hadn't thought of that.»
And maybe the Ghost was able to locate and penetrate a place that is pretty much inaccessible to the Pattern and the Logrus.
«I suppose you've a point there. Unfortunately this pretty much puts me back where I started.»
No, because this place is not something Ghost put together. It's always been around. I learned that much from the Logrus.
«I suppose there's some small comfort in knowing that, but-»
I never completed the thought because a sudden movement called my attention to the opposite quadrant of the circle. There I beheld an altar I had not noted before, a female figure standing behind it, a man dappled in shadow and light lying, fund, upon it. They looked very similar to the first pair…
«No!» I cried. «Let it end!»
But the blade descended even as I moved in that direction. The ritual was repeated, and the altar collapsed, and everything again swirled away. When I reached t site, there was no indication that anything unusual had occurred upon it.
«What do you make of that one?» I asked Frakir.
Same forces as before, but somehow reversed.
«Why? What's going on?»
It is a gathering of powers. The Pattern and the Logrus both attempting to force their way into this place, for a little while. Sacrifices, such as those you just witnessed, help provide the openings they need.
«Why do they wish to manifest here?»
Neutral ground. Their ancient tension is shifting in subtle ways. You are expected in some fashion to tip the balance of power one way or another.
«I haven’t the faintest idea how to go about such thing.»
When the time comes, you will.
I returned to the trail and walked on.
«Did I pass by just as the sacrifices were due?» I said: «Or were the sacrifices due because I was passing by?»
They were marked to occur in your vicinity. You are a nexus.
«Then do you think I can expect-»
A figure stepped out from behind a stone to my left and chuckled softly. My hand went to my sword, but his hands were empty, and he moved slowly.
«Talking to yourself. Not a good sign,» he remarked.»
The man was a study in black, white, and gray In fact, from the cast of the darkness upon his right-hand side and the lay of the light on his left, he might have been the first wielder of the sacrificial dagger. I'd no real way of telling. Whoever or whatever he or it was, I'd no desire to become acquainted.
So I shrugged.
«The only sign I care about here has 'exit' written on it,» I told him as I brushed past him.
His hand fell upon my shoulder and turned me back easily in his direction.
Again the chuckle.
«You must be careful what you wish for in this place,» he told me in low and measured tones, «for wishes are sometimes granted here, and if the granter be depraved and read 'quietus' for your 'exit'-why, then, poof! You may cease to be. Up in smoke. Downward to the earth. Sideways to hell and gone.»
«I've already been there,» I answered, «and lots of points along the way.»
«What ho! Look! Your wish has been granted,» he remarked, his left eye catching a flash of light and reflecting it, tapetumlike, in my direction. No matter how I turned or squinted, however, could I find sight of his right eye. «Over there,» he finished, pointing.
I turned my head in the direction he indicated, and there upon the top stone of a dolmen shone an exit sign exactly like the one above the emergency door at a theater I used to frequent near campus.
«You're right,» I said.
«Will you go through it?»
«Will you?»
«No need,» he replied. «I already know what's there.»
«What?» I inquired.
«The other side.»
«How droll,» I answered.
«If one gets one's wish and spurns it, one might piss off the Powers,» he said then.
«You have firsthand knowledge of this?»
I heard a grinding, clicking noise then, and it was several moments before I realized he was gnashing his teeth. I walked away then toward the exit sign, wanting to inspect whatever it represented at nearer range.
There were two standing stones with a flat slab across the top. The gateway thus formed was large enough to walk through. It was shadowy, though…
You going through it, boss?
«Why not? This is one of the few times in my life that I feel indispensable to whoever is running the show.»
I wouldn't get too cocky… Frakir began, but I was already moving.
Three quick paces were all that it took, and I was looking outward across a circle of stones and sparkling grass past a black-and-white man toward another dolmen bearing an exit sign, a shadowy form within it. Halting, I took a step backward and turned. There was a black-and-white man regarding me, a dolmen to his rear, dark Form within it. I raised my right hand above my head. So did the shadowy figure. I turned back in the direction I had initially been headed. The shadowy figure across from me also had his hand upraised. I stepped on through.
«Small world,» I observed, «but I'd hate to paint it.»
The man laughed.
«Now you are reminded that your every exit is also an entrance,» he said.
«Seeing you here, I am reminded even more of a play by Sartre,» I responded.
«Unkind,» he answered, «but philosophically cogent. I have always found that hell is other people. Only I have done nothing to rouse your distrust, have I?»
«Were you or were you not the person I saw sacrifice a woman in this vicinity?» I asked.
«Even if I were, what is that to you? You were not involved.»
«I guess I have peculiar feelings about little things - like the value of life.»
«Indignation is cheap. Even Albert Schweitzer's reverence for life didn't include the tapeworm, the tsetse fly, the cancer cell.»
«You know what I mean. Did you or did you not sacrifice a woman on a stone altar a little while ago?»
«Show me the altar.»
«I can't. It's gone.»
«Show me the woman.»
«She is, too.»
