And there was the face-or, rather, the mask-at the center of the storm, regarding me. It was a projection, of course, larger than life and not fully substantial. The head was cowled; the mask was full and cobalt bright and strongly reminiscent of the sort worn by goalies in ice hockey; there were two vertical breathing slits from which pale smoke emerged-a touch too theatrical For my taste; a lower series of random punctures was designed to give the impression of a sardonically lopsided mouth. A distorted sound of laughter came down to me from it.
“Aren't you overdoing it a bit?” I said, coming up into a crouch and raising the Logrus between us. “For a kid on Halloween, yes. But we're all adults here, aren't we? A simple domino would probably serve—”
“You moved my stone!” it said.
“I've a certain academic interest in such matters,” I offered, easing myself into the extensions. “Nothing to get upset about. Is that you, Jasra? I—”
The rumbling began again, softly at first, then building once more.
“I'll make a deal,” I said. “You call off the storm, and I'll promise not to move any more markers.”
Again, the laughter as the storm sounds rose.
“Too late,” came the reply. “Too late for you. Unless you're a lot tougher than you look.”
What the hell! The battle is not always to the strong, and nice guys tend to win because they're the ones who get to write their memoirs. I'd been fiddling with the Logrus projections against the insubstantiality of the mask until I found the link, the opening leading back to its source. I stabbed through it-a thing on the order of an electrical discharge-at whatever lay behind.
There came a scream. The mask collapsed, the storm collapsed, and I was on my feet and running again. When whatever I'd hit recovered I did not want to be in the same place I had been because that place might be subject to sudden disintegration.
I had a choice of cutting off into Shadow or seeking an even faster path of retreat. If a sorcerer were to tag me as I started shadow-slipping I could be followed. So I dug out my Trumps and shuffled forth Random's. I rounded the next fuming of the way then, and I would have had to halt there anyway, I saw, because it narrowed to a width impossible for me to pass. I raised the card and reached with my mind.
There followed contact, almost immediately. But even as the images solidified I felt a probe. I was certain that it was my blue-masked nemesis seeking me once more.
But Random came clear, seated before a drum set, sticks in hand. He set aside the drumsticks and rose.
“It's about time,” he said, and he extended his hand.
Even as I reached I felt something rushing toward me. As our fingers touched and I stepped forward, they burst about me like a giant wave.
I passed through into the music room in Amber. Random had opened his mouth to speak again when the cascade of flowers fell upon us.
Brushing violets from his shirtfront, he regarded me.
“I'd rather you said it with words,” he remarked.
4
Portrait of the artists, purposes crossed, temperature falling,..
Sunny afternoon, and walking through small park following light lunch, us, prolonged silences and monosyllabic responses to conversational sallies indicating all's not well at other end of communication's taut line. Upon bench, seated then, facing flower beds, souls catch up with bodies, words with thoughts...
“Okay, Merle. What's the score?” she asks.
“I don't know what game you're talking about, Julia.”
“Don't get cute. All I want's a straight answer.”
“What's the question?”
“That place you took me, from the beach, that night... Where was it?”
“It was-sort of a dream.”
“Bullshit!” She turns sideways to face me fully, and I must meet those flashing eyes without my face giving anything away. “I've been back there, several times, looking for the way we took, There is no cave. There's nothing! What happened to it? What's going on?”
“Maybe the tide came in and—”
“Merle! What kind of an idiot do you take me for? That walk we took isn't on the maps. Nobody around here's ever heard of anything like those places. It was geographically impossible. The times of day and the seasons kept shifting. The only explanation is supernatural or paranormal-whatever you want to call it, What happened? You owe me an answer and you know it. What happened? Where were you?”
I look away, past my feet, past the flowers. “I-can't say.”
“Why not?”
“I—” What could I say? It was not only that telling her of Shadow would disturb, perhaps destroy, her view of reality. At the heart of my problem lay the realization that it would also require telling her how I knew this, which would mean telling her who I am, where I am from, what I am-and I was afraid to give her this knowledge. I told myself that it would end our relationship as surely as telling her nothing would; and if it must end either way, I would rather we parted without her possessing this knowledge. Later, much later, I was to see this for the rationalization it was; my real reason for denying her the answers she desired was that I was not ready to trust her, or anyone, so close to me as I really am. Had I known her longer, better – another year, say – I might have answered her. I don't know. We never used the word “love,” though it must have run through her mind on occasion, as it did through mine. It was, I suppose, that I didn't love her enough to trust her, and then it was too late. So, “I can't tell you;” were my words.
“You have some power that you will not share.”
“Call it that, then.”
“I would do whatever you say, promise whatever you want promised.”
“There is a reason, Julia.”
She is on her feet, arms akimbo. “And you won't even share that.”
I shake my head.
“It must be a lonely world you inhabit, magician, if even those who love you are barred from it.”
At that moment it seems she is simply trying her last trick for getting an answer from me. I screw my resolve yet tighter. “I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to. It is your silence that tells me, If you know the road to Hell too, why not head that way? Good-bye!”
“Julia. Don't...”
She chooses not to hear me. Still life with flowers...
Awakening, Night. Autumn wind beyond my window. Dreams. Blood of life without the body..., swirling..., I swung my feet out of bed and sat rubbing my eyes, my temples. It had been sunny and afternoon when I'd finished telling Random my story, and he'd sent me to get some shuteye afterward. I was suffering from shadow lag and felt completely turned around at the moment, though I was not certain exactly what the hour might be.
I stretched, got up, repaired myself and donned fresh clothing. I knew that I would not be able to get back to sleep; also, I was feeling hungry. I took a warm cloak with me as I departed my quarters. I felt like going out rather than raiding the larder. I was in the mood for some walking, and I hadn' been outside the palace and into town in years, I guessed. I made my way downstairs, then cut through a few chambers and a big hall, connecting up at the rear with a corridor I could have followed all the way from the stair if I'd cared to, but then I'd have missed a couple of tapestries I'd wanted to say hello to: an idyllic sylvan scene, with a couple making out following a picnic lunch; and a hunting scene of dogs and men pursuing a magnificent stag, which looks as if it might yet have a chance of getting away, if it will dare a stupendous leap that lies ahead...
I passed through and made my way up the corridor to a postern, where a bored-looking guard named Jordy suddenly strove to seem attentive when he heard me coming. I stopped to pass the time with him and learned that he didn't get off duty till midnight, which was almost two hours away.