I was wondering what new menace was approaching, when a horse and rider burst into view through the gap in the fiery wall. The rider drew back the reins, but the horse—a chestnut—was not too happy at the nearness of the flames it bared its teeth, biting at the bit, and tried several times to rear.
“Hurry! Behind me!” the rider cried, and I rushed to mount.
The rider was a dark-haired woman. I caught only a glimpse of her features. She managed to turn the horse back in the direction from which she had come, and she shook the reins. The chestnut started forward, and suddenly it reared. I managed to hang on.
When its front hooves struck the ground, the beast wheeled and tore off toward the light. It was almost into the flames when it wheeled again.
“Damn!” I heard the rider say, as she worked almost frantically with the reins.
The horse turned again, neighing loudly. Bloody spittle dripped from its mouth. And by then the circle was closed, the smoke was heavy and the flames very near. I was in no position to help, beyond giving it a pair of sharp kicks in the flanks when it began moving in a straight line again.
It plunged into the flames to our left, almost screaming as it went. I had no idea how wide the band of fire was at that point. I could feel a searing along my legs, though, and I smelled burning hair.
Then the beast was roaring again, the rider was screaming back at it, and I found that I could no longer hold on. I felt myself sliding backward just as we broke through the ring of fire and into a charred, smoldering area where the flames had already passed. I fell amid hot black clumps; ashes rose about me. I rolled frantically to my left, and I coughed and squeezed my eyes shut against the cloud of ashes that assailed my face.
I heard the woman scream and I scrambled to my feet, rubbing my eyes. My vision came clear in time for me to see the chestnut rising from where he had apparently fallen atop his rider. The horse immediately tore off, to be lost among clouds of smoke. The woman lay very still and I rushed to her side. Kneeling, I brushed sparks from her clothing and checked for breathing and a pulse. Her eyes opened while I was doing this.
“Back’s—broken I think,” she said, coughing. “Don’t feel—much. . . . Escape—if you can. . . . Leave me. I’ll die—anyway.”
“No way,” I said. “But I’ve got to move you. There’s a lake nearby, if I remember right.”
I removed my cloak where it was tied about my waist and I spread it out beside her. I inched her onto it as carefully as I could, folded it over her to protect her against the flames and began dragging her in what I hoped was the proper direction.
We made it through a shifting patchwork of fire and smoke. My throat was raw, my eyes watering steadily and my trousers on fire when I took a big step backward and felt my heel squish downward into mud. I kept going.
Finally, I was waist deep in the water and supporting her there. I leaned forward, pushed a flap of the cloak back from her face. Her eyes were still open, but they looked unfocused and there was no movement. Before I could feel for a carotid pulse, however, she made a hissing noise, then she spoke my name.
“Merlin,” she said hoarsely, “I’m—sorry—”
“You helped me and I couldn’t help you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry I didn’t last—longer,” she continued. “No good—with horses. They’re—following you.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Called off—the dogs, though. But the—fire—is someone—else’s. Don’t know—whose.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I splashed a little water onto her cheeks to cool them. Between the soot and her singed, disheveled hair it was difficult to judge her appearance.
“Someone—behind—you,” she said, her voice growing fainter. Someone—ahead—too. Didn’t—know—about that one. Sorry.”
“Who?” I asked again. “And who are you? How do you know me? Why—” She smiled faintly. “. . . Sleep with you. Can’t now. Going . . .” Her eyes closed.
“No!” I cried.
Her face contorted and she sucked in a final breath. She expelled it then, using it to form the whispered words.
“Just—let me—sink here. G’bye . . .”
A cloud of smoke blew across her face. I held my breath and shut my eyes as a larger billow followed, engulfing us. When the air finally cleared again, I studied her. Her breathing had ceased and there was no pulse, no heartbeat. There was no non-burning, non-marshy area available for even an attempt at CPR. She was gone. She’d known she was going.
I wrapped my cloak about her carefully, turning it into a shroud. Last of all, I folded a flap over her face. I fixed everything into place with the clasp I’d used to close it at my neck when I’d worn it. Then I waded out into deeper water.
“Just let me sink here.” Sometimes the dead sink quickly, sometimes they float . . .
“Good-bye, lady,” I said. “Wish I knew your name. Thanks again.”
I released my hold upon her. The waters swirled. She was gone. After a time, I looked away then moved away. Too many questions and no answers.
Somewhere, a maddened horse was screaming . . .
9
Several hours and many shadows later I rested again, in a place with a clear sky and not much tinder about. I bathed in a shallow stream and afterward summoned fresh clothing out of Shadow. Clean and dry then, I rested on the bank and made myself a meal.
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 . . . Wind among rainbow stones, singing, Aeolian music . . .
Garments lashed by gales . . . Purple to lavender above . . . Sharp cries within the strains of sound . . . Earth cracking . . .
Faster. I am giant. Same landscape; infinitesimal now . . . Cyclopean, I grind the glowing stones beneath my feet . . . Dust of rainbows upon my boots, puffs of cloud about my shoulders . . .
Atmosphere thickening, thickening; almost to liquid, and green . . . Swirling . . . Slow motion, my best efforts . . . Swimming in it . . . Castles fit for aquaria drift by. . . . Bright missiles like fireflies assail me . . . I feel nothing . . .
Green to blue . . . Thinning, thinning . . . Blue smoke and air like incense . . . The reverberation of a million invisible gongs, incessant . . . I clench my teeth.
Faster. Blue to pink, spark-shot . . . A catlick of fire . . . Another . . . Heatless flames dance like sea plants . . . Higher, rising higher . . . Walls of fire buckle and crackle . . .
Footfalls at my back.
Don’t look. Shift.
Sky split down the middle, by sun a comet streaking . . . Here and gone . . . Again. Agai
n. Three days in as many heartbeats . . . I breathe the air—spicy . . . Swirl the fires, descend to purple earth . . . Prism in the sky . . . I race the course of a glowing river across a field of fungus color of blood, spongy . . . Spores that turn to jewels, fall like bullets . . .
Night on a plain of brass, footfalls echoing to eternity . . . Knobbed machinelike plants clanking, metal flowers retracting back to metal stalks, stalks to consoles . . . Clank, clank, sigh . . . 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 . . .
There is no sun, only pale light . . . There is no earth . . . Only thin bridges and islands in the air . . . The world is crystal matrix . . .
Up, down, around . . . Through a hole in the air and down a chute . . .
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 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.
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, forest-like stand of crystalline shapes. Whether they were truly living things or represented some geol
ogical 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 broke 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 shard-like 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 my cloak then and swung several times more. Then I noticed that my hand felt wet. When I looked at it, I saw that it was running with blood. Some of those splinters were very sharp. I desisted with the blade and returned to kicking at my enclosure. The walls creaked occasionally and made chiming noises, but they held.
I am not normally claustrophobic and my life was not in imminent peril, but something about this shining prison annoyed me out of all proportion to the situation itself. I raged for perhaps ten minutes before I forced myself to sufficient calmness that I might think clearly.
I studied the tangle until I discerned the uniform color and texture of Frakir running through it. I placed my fingertips upon her and spoke an order. Her brightness increased and she ran through the spectrum and settled into a red glow The first creaking sound occurred a few seconds later.
The Great Book of Amber - Chronicles 1-10 Page 103
