A sort of demilitarized zone?
No, it is not a matter of truce. It is simply that it is extremely difficult for either of them to manifest here at all. This is why the place is pretty much unchanging.
This is a place they can’t reach?
That’s about the size of it.
How come I never heard of it before?
Probably because no one else can reach it too readily either.
So what’s the message?
Basically, that you not try calling upon the Logrus again while you’re here. The place represents such a distorting medium that there’s no assurance how any projected energy might manifest outside some convenient vessel. It could be dangerous for you.
I massaged my throbbing temples. At least it got my mind off my sore jaw.
All right, I agreed. Any hints as to what I’m supposed to be doing here?
Yes, this is a trial. Of what, I can’t say.
Do I have a choice?
What do you mean?
May I refuse to participate?
I suppose. But then I don’t know how you get out of here.
So I do get released from this place at the end, if I play?
If you’re still living, yes. Even if you’re not, I’d imagine.
Then I really have no choice.
There will be a choice.
When?
Somewhere along the way. I don’t know where.
Why don’t you just repeat all of your instructions to me?
Can’t. I don’t know what all is here. It will surface only in response to a question or a situation.
Will any of this interfere with your strangling function?
It shouldn’t.
That’s something, anyway. Very well. Have you any idea what I’m supposed to do next?
Yes. You should begin climbing the highest hill to your left.
Which- Okay, I guess that’s the one, I decided, my gaze settling upon a broken fang of blazing white stone.
And so I walked toward it, up a gradually steepening slope. The black sun mounted higher into the grayness. The eerie silence continued.
Uh, do you know exactly what we will find whenever we get to wherever we’re going? I tried to say in Frakir’s direction.
I am certain that the information is present, came the reply, but I do not believe that it will be available until we reach the appropriate locale.
I hope you’re right.
Me, too.
The way continued to steepen. While I had no way to measure the time exactly, it seemed that more than an hour passed before I left the foothills and was climbing the white mountain itself. While I observed no footprints nor saw any other sign of life, I did, on several occasions, encounter long stretches of natural-seeming trail, shelflike, leading up that high bleached face. Several more hours must have passed as I negotiated this, the dark sun riding to mid-heaven and beginning its descent toward a west that lay beyond this peak. It was annoying not to be able to curse aloud.
How can I be sure we’re on the proper side of the thing? Or heading for the right area? I asked.
You’re still going in the proper direction, Frakir answered.
But you don’t know how much farther it’ll be?
Nope. I’ll know when I see it, though.
The sun is going to slip behind the mountain fairly soon. Will you be able to see it to know it then?
I believe the sky actually brightens here when the sun goes away. Negative space is funny that way, Whatever, something is always bright here and something is always dark. There’ll be the wherewithal for detection.
Any idea what we’re actually doing?
One of those damned quest-things, I think.
Vision? Or practical?
It was my understanding that they all partake of both, though I feel this one is heavily weighted toward the latter. On the other wrist, anything you encounter between shadows is likely to partake of the allegorical, the emblematic-all that crap people bury in the non-conscious parts of their beings.
In other words, you don’t know either:
Not for sure, but I make my living as a sensitive guesser.
I reached high, grabbed handholds, drew myself up to another ledge. I followed it for a time, climbed again. At length the sun went away, and it made no difference in my ability to see. Darkness and light changed places.