I muttered warding spells as I lay there, despite their minuscule parrying effect at this distance against such an energy-intensive manifestation. I did not jump up when the silence came. It could be that the tornado’s driver had withdrawn support and collapsed the funnel on seeing that I might be out of reach. It could also be the eye of the storm, with more to come, by and by.
While I did not jump up, I did look up, because I hate to miss educational opportunities.
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.”