Trumps of Doom (26 page)

It seemed as if every day were now an April 30.
 
It seemed as if everyone I met knew me, and as if everyone were playing an elaborate double-game.
 
People were dying all about me and disasters were becoming a common occurrence.
 
I was beginning to feel like a figure in a video game.
 
What would be next? I wondered.
 
A meteor shower?

There had to be a key.
 
The nameless lady who had given her life to pull me out of the fire had said that someone was following me and that there was someone ahead of me, also.
 
What did that mean? Should I wait for my pursuer to catch up and simply ask him, her, or it what the hell was going on? Or should I push on fast, hopefully catch the other party and make inquiry there? Would either give me the same answer? Or were there two different answers involved? Would a duel satisfy someone’s honor? I’d fight it, then.
 
Or a bribe.

I’d pay it.
 
All I wanted was an answer followed by a little peace and quiet.
 
I chuckled.
 
That sounded like a description of death-though I wasn’t that sure about the answer part.

“Shit!” I commented, to no one in particular, and I tossed a stone into the stream.

I got to my feet and crossed the water.
 
Written in the sand on its opposite shore were the words GO BACK.
 
I stepped on them and broke into a run.

The world spun about me as I touched the shadows.
 
Vegetation fell away.

The rocks grew into boulders, lightening, taking on a sparkle .
 
.

I ran through a valley of prisms beneath an awesome purple sky .
 
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Wind among rainbow stones, singing, Aeolian music .
 
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Garments lashed by gales .
 
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Purple to lavender above .
 
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Sharp cries within the strains of sound .
 
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Earth cracking...

Faster.
 
I am giant.
 
Same landscape; infinitesimal now .
 
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Cyclopean, I grind the glowing stones beneath my feet .
 
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Dust of rainbows upon my boots, puffs of cloud about my shoutders .
 
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Atmosphere thickening, thickening; almost to liquid, and green .
 
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Swirling .
 
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Slow motion, my best efforts .
 
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Swimming in it .
 
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Castles fit for aquaria drift by .
 
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y: Bright missiles like fireflies assail me .
 
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I feel nothing .
 
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Green to blue .
 
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Thinning, thinning .
 
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Blue smoke and air like incense .
 
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The reverberation of a million invisible gongs, incessant .
 
.-.
 
I clench my teeth.

Faster.
 
Blue to pink, spark-shot .
 
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A catlick of fire .
 
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Another .
 
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Heatless flames dance like sea plants : .
 
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Higher, rising higher .
 
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Walls of fire buckle and crackle .
 
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Footfalls at my back.

Don’t look.
 
Shift.

Sky split down the middle, by sun a comet streaking .
 
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Here and gone

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Again: Again.
 
Three days in as many heartbeats .
 
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I breathe the air spicy .
 
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Swirl the fires, descend to purple earth .
 
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Prism in the sky .
 
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I race the course of a glowing river across a field of fungus color of blood, spongy .
 
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Spores that turn to jewels, fall like bullets .
 
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Night on a plain of brass, footfalls echoing to eternity .
 
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Knobbed machinelike plants clanking, metal flowers retracting back to metal stalks, stalks to consoles .
 
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Clank, clank, sigh .
 
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Echoes only, at my back?

I spin once.

Was that a dark figure ducking behind a windmill tree? Or only the dance of shadows in my shadow-shifting eyes? Forward.
 
Through glass and sandpaper, orange ice, landscape of pale flesh .
 
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There is no sun, only pale light .
 
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There is no earth .
 
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Only thin bridges and islands in the air .
 
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The world is crystal matrix .
 
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Up, down, around .
 
: .
 
Through a hole in the air and down a chute .
 
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Sliding .
 
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To a cobalt beach beside a still copper sea .
 
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Twilight without stars .
 
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Faint glow everywhere .
 
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Dead, dead this place .
 
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Blue rocks .
 
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Broken statues of inhuman beings .
 
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Nothing stirring .
 
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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 bellows-like 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.