“I felt that little probe of yours,” it said. “It’s a sorcerer’s trick. Besides, nobody but a sorcerer could have gotten to the place where you’re standing.”
“You do not seem to possess a great deal of respect for the profession.”
“I eat sorcerers,” it told me.
I made a face, thinking back over some of the old farts I’ve known in the business.
“To each, his, her or its own, I guess,” I told it. “So what’s the deal? A passage is no good unless you can get through it. How do I get by here?”
“You don’t.”
“Not even if I answer a riddle?”
“That won’t do it for me,” it said. But a small gleam came into its eye. “Just for the hell of it, though, what’s green and red and goes round and round and round?” it asked.
“You know the sphinx!”
“Shit!” it said. “You’ve heard it.”
I shrugged. “I get around.”
“Not here you don’t.”
I studied it. It had to have some special defense against magical attacks if it were set to stop sorcerers. As for physical defense it was fairly imposing. I wondered how fast it was. Could I just dive past and start running? I decided that I did not wish to experiment along that line.
“I really do have to get through,” I tried. “It’s an emergency.”
“Tough.”
“Look, what do you get out of this, anyway? It seems like a pretty crummy job, sitting here in the middle of a tunnel.”
“I love my work. I was created for it.”
“How come you let the sphinx come and go?”
“Magical beings don’t count.”
“Hm.”
“And don’t try to tell me you’re really a magical being, and then pull some sorcerous illusion. I can see right through that stuff.”
“I believe you. What’s your name, anyhow?”
It snorted. “You can call me Scrof, for conversational purposes. Yourself?”
“Call me Corey.”
“Okay, Corey. I don’t mind sitting here bullshitting with you, because that’s covered by the rules. It’s allowed. You’ve got three choices and one of them would be real stupid. You can turn around and go back the way you came and be none the worse for wear. You can also camp right where you are for as long as you like and I won’t lift a finger so long as you behave. The dumb thing to do would be to cross this line I’ve drawn. Then I’d terminate you. This is the Threshold and I am the Dweller on it. I don’t let anybody get by.”
“I appreciate your making it clear.”
“It’s part of the job. So what’ll it be?”
I raised my hands and the lines of force twisted like knives at each fingertip. Frakir dangled from my wrist and began to swing in an elaborate pattern.
Scrof smiled. “I not only eat sorcerers, I eat their magic, too. Only a being torn from the primal Chaos can make that claim. So come ahead, if you think you can face that.”
“Chaos, eh? Torn from the primal Chaos?”
“Yep. There’s not much can stand against it.”
“Except maybe a Lord of Chaos,” I replied, as I shifted my awareness to various points within my body. Rough work. The faster you do it the more painful it is.
Again, the rattling of the tin sheet.
“You know what the odds are against a Chaos Lord coming this far to go two out of three with a Dweller?” Scrof said.
My arms began to lengthen and I felt my shirt tear across my back as I leaned forward. The bones in my face shifted about and my chest expanded and expanded…
“One out of one should be enough,” I replied, when the transformation was complete.
“Shit,” Scrof said as I crossed the line.
Chapter 3
I stood just within the mouth of the cave for some time, my left shoulder hinting and my right leg sore also. If I could get the pain under control before I retransformed myself there was a chance that much of it would fade during the anatomical reshuffling. The process itself would probably leave me pretty tired, however. It takes a lot of energy, and switching twice this close together could be somewhat prostrating, following my bout with the Dweller. So I rested within the cave into which the pearly tunnel had eventually debouched, and I regarded the prospect before me.
Far down and to my left was a bright blue and very troubled body of water. White-crested waves expired in kamikaze attacks on the gray rocks of the shore; a strong wind scattered their spray and a piece of rainbow hung within the mist.
Before me and below me was a pocked, cracked and steaming land which trembled periodically, as it swept for well over a mile toward the high dark walls of an amazingly huge and complex structure, which I immediately christened Gormenghast. It was a hodgepodge of architectural styles, bigger even than the palace at Amber and somber as all hell. Also, it was under attack.
There were quite a few troops in the field before the walls, most of them in a distant nonscorched area of more normal terrain and some vegetation, though the grasses were well trampled and many trees shattered. The besiegers were equipped with scaling ladders and a battering ram; but the ram was idle at the moment and the ladders were on the ground. What appeared to have been an entire village of outbuildings smoldered darkly at the wall’s base. Numerous sprawled figures were, I assumed, casualties.
Moving my gaze even farther to the right, I encountered an area of brilliant whiteness beyond that great citadel. It looked to be the projecting edge of a massive glacier, and gusts of snow or ice crystals were whipped about it in a fashion similar to the sea mists far to my left.
The wind seemed a constant traveler through these parts. I heard it cry out high above me. When I finally stepped outside to look upward, I found that I was only about halfway up a massive stony hillside — or low mountainside, depending on how one regards such matters — and the whining note of the wind came down even more loudly from those broken heights. There was also a thump at my back, and when I turned I could no longer locate the cave mouth. My journey along the route from the fiery door had been completed once I exited the cave, and its spell had apparently clamped down and closed the way immediately. I supposed that I could locate the outline upon the steep wall if I wanted to, but at the moment I had no such desire. I made a little pile of stones before it, and then I looked about again, studying details.
A narrow trail curved off to my right and back among some standing stones. I headed in that direction. I smelled smoke. Whether it was from the battle site or the area of vulcanism below I could not tell. The sky was a patchwork of cloud and light above me. When I halted between two of the stones and turned to regard the scene below once again, I saw that the attackers had formed themselves into new groups and that the ladders were being home toward the walls. I also saw what looked like a tornado rise on the far side of the citadel and begin a slow counterclockwise movement about the walls. If it continued on its route it would eventually reach the attackers. Neat trick. Fortunately it was their problem and not mine.
I worked my way back into a stony declivity and settled myself upon a low ledge. I began the troublesome shapeshifting work, which I paced to take me half an hour or so. Changing from something nominally human to something rare and strange — perhaps monstrous to some, perhaps frightening — and then back again is a concept some may find repugnant. They shouldn’t. We all of us do it every day in many different ways, don’t we?
When the transformation was completed I lay back, breathing deeply, and listened to the wind. I was sheltered from its force by the stones and only its song came down to me. I felt vibrations from distant tremors of the earth and chose to take them as a gentle massage, soothing… My clothes were in tatters, and for the moment I was too tired to summon a fresh outfit. My shoulder seemed to have lost its pain, and there was only the slightest twinge in my leg, fading, fading… I closed my eyes for a few moments.