Blood of Amber (6 page)

She raised her purse and began to open it.
 
“No.
 
Thanks.
 
Why do you have it, anyway?”

She smiled.
 
“I always carry them in this shadow.
 
They sometimes come in handy.
 
But okay, I’ll go wait.”

She kissed me lightly on the cheek and turned away.

“And try to get hold of Fiona,” I said, “if I don’t show.
 
Tell her the whole story, too.
 
She might have a different angle on this.”

She nodded and departed.
 
I waited until I heard the door close, then focused my attention fully upon the bright rectangle.
 
Its outline seemed fairly uniform, with only a few slightly thicker, brighter areas and a few finer, dimmer ones.
 
I traced the lines slowly with the palm of my right hand at a height of about an inch above the wall’s surface.
 
I felt a small prickling, a heatlike sensation as I did this.
 
Predictably, it was greater above the brighter areas.
 
I took this as an indication that the seal was slightly less perfect in these spots.
 
Very well.
 
I would soon discover whether the thing could be forced, and these would be my points of attack.

I twisted my hands deeper into the Logrus until I wore the limbs I desired as fine-fingered gauntlets, stronger than metals, more sensitive than tongues in the places of their power.
 
I moved my right hand to the point nearest it, on a level with my hip.
 
I felt the pulse of an old spell when I touched that spot of greater brightness.
 
I narrowed my extension as I pushed, making it finer and finer until it slipped through.
 
The pulsing then became a steady thing.
 
I repeated the exercise on a higher area to my left.

I stood there, feeling the force that had sealed it, my fine filament extensions throbbing within its matrix.
 
I tried moving them, first upward, then down.
 
The right one slid a little farther than the left, in both directions, before a tightness and resistance halted it.
 
I summoned more force from the body of the Logrus, which swam specterlike within and before me, and I poured this energy into the gauntlets, the pattern of the Logrus changing form again as I did so.
 
When I tried once more to move it, the right one slid downward for perhaps a foot before the throbbing trapped it; when I pushed it upward it rose nearly to the top.
 
I tried again on the left.
 
It moved all the way to the top, but it only passed perhaps six inches below the starting point when I drew it downward.

I breathed deeply and felt myself beginning to perspire.
 
I pumped more power into the gauntlets and forced their extensions farther downward.
 
The resistance was even greater there, and the throbbing passed up my arms and into the very center of my being.
 
I paused and rested, then raised the force to an even higher level of intensity.
 
The Logrus writhed again and I pushed both hands all the way to the floor, then knelt there panting before I began working my way along the bottom.
 
The portal was obviously meant never to be opened again.
 
There was no artistry for this, only brute force.

When my forces met in the middle, I withdrew and regarded the work.
 
To the right, to the left and along the bottom, the fine red lines had now become broad fiery ribbons.
 
I could feel their pulsation across the distance that separated us.

I stood and raised my arms.
 
I began to work along the top, starting at the corners, moving inward.
 
It was easier than it had been earlier.
 
The forces from the opened areas seemed to add a certain pressure, and my hands just flowed to the middle.
 
When they met I seemed to hear something like a soft sighing sound.
 
I dropped them and considered my work.
 
The entire outline flared now.
 
But more than that.
 
It seemed almost as if the bright line were flowing, around and around.
 
.
 
.
 
.

I stood there for several minutes, regrouping, relaxing, settling.
 
Working up my nerve.
 
All I knew was that the door would lead to a different shadow.
 
That could mean anything.
 
When I opened it something could, I suppose, leap out and attack me.
 
But then, it had been sealed for some time.
 
More probably any trap would be of a different sort.
 
Most likely, I would open it and nothing would happen.
 
I would then have a choice of merely looking around from where I stood or entering.
 
And there probably wouldn’t be very much to see, just standing there, looking.
 
.
 
.
 
.

So I extended my Logus members once again, taking hold of the door at either side, and I pushed.
 
A yielding occurred on the side to my right, so I released my hold on the left.
 
I continued my pressure on the right and the whole thing suddenly swung inward and away.
 
.
 
.
 
.

I was looking down a pearly tunnel, which appeared to widen after a few paces.
 
Beyond that was a ripple effect, as of distant heat patterns above the road on a hot summer day.
 
Patches of redness and indeterminate dark shapes swam within it.
 
I waited for perhaps half a minute, but nothing approached.

I prepared Frakir for trouble.
 
I maintained my Logrus connection.
 
I advanced, extending probes before me.
 
I passed within.

A sudden change in the pressure gradient at my back caused me to cast a quick glance in that direction.
 
The doorway had closed and dwindled, now appearing to me in the distance as a tiny red cube.
 
My several steps could, of course, have borne me a great distance also, should the rules of this space so operate.

I continued, and a hot wind flowed toward me, engulfed me, stayed with me.
 
The sides of my passageway receded, the prospect before me continued to shimmer and dance, and my pace became more labored, as if I were suddenly walking uphill.
 
I heard something like a grunt from beyond the place where my vision misbehaved, and my left Logrus probe encountered something that it jolted slightly.
 
Frakir began to throb simultaneous with my sensing an aura of menace through the probe.
 
I sighed.
 
I hadn’t expected this was going to be easy.
 
If I’d been running the show I wouldn’t have let things go with just sealing the door.

“All right, asshole! Hold it right there!” a voice boomed from ahead.
 
I continued to trudge forward.

It came again.
 
“I said halt!”

Things began to swim into place as I advanced, and suddenly there were rough walls to my right and left and a roof overhead, narrowing, converging

A huge rotund figure barred my way, looking like a purple Buddha with bat ears.
 
Details resolved themselves as I drew nearer: protruding fangs, yellow eyes that seemed to be lidless, long red claws on its great hands and feet.
 
It was seated in the middle of the tunnel and made no effort to rise.
 
It wore no clothing, but its great swollen belly rested upon its knees, concealing its sex.
 
Its voice had been gruffly masculine, however, and its odor generically foul.

“Hi,” I said.
 
“Nice day, wasn’t it?”

It growled and the temperature seemed to rise slightly.
 
Frakir had grown frantic and I calmed her mentally.

The creature leaned forward and with one bright nail inscribed a smoking line in the stone of the floor.
 
I halted before it.

“Cross that line, sorcerer, and you’ve had it,” it said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I said so.”

“If you’re collecting tolls,” I suggested, “name the price.”

It shook its head.
 
“You can’t buy your way past me.”

“Uh-what makes you think I’m a sorcerer?”

It opened the dingy cavern of its face, displaying even more lurking teeth than I’d suspected, and it did something like the rattling of a tin sheet way down deep in back.

“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.