I think you might still be in danger of being struck by lightning.
The lightning did not follow, but my reflection did. The imaging effect continued for much longer than any of the previous beside-the-road sequences I’d witnessed. I was about to dismiss it, to ignore it completely, when my reflection put on a burst of speed and shot ahead of me.
Uh-oh,
“Yeah,” I agreed, stepping up my own pace to close the gap with and match the stride of that dark other.
We were parallel for no more than a few meters after I caught up. Then it began to pull ahead again. I stepped up my pace and caught up once more. Then, on an impulse I sucked air, bore down, and moved ahead.
My double noted it after a time, moved faster, began to gain. I pushed harder, held my lead. What the hell were we racing for anyway?
I looked ahead. In the distance I could see an area where the trail widened. There appeared to be a tape stretched across it at that point. Okay. Whatever the significance, I decided to go for it.
I held my lead for perhaps a hundred meters before my shadow began to gain on me again. I leaned into it and was able to hold that shortened distance for a time. Then it moved again, coming up on me at a pace I suspected might be hard to hold the rest of the way to the tape. Still, it was not the sort of thing one waited around to find out. I poured it on. I ran all out.
The son of a bitch gained on me, kept gaining, caught me, drew ahead, faltered for an instant. I was back beside it in that instant. But the thing did not flag again. It held the terrible pace at which we were now moving, and I had no intention of stopping unless my heart exploded.
We ran on, damn near side by side. I didn’t know whether I had a finishing spurt in me or not. I couldn’t tell whether I was slightly ahead, just abreast, or slightly to the rear of the other. We pounded our parallel gleaming trails toward the line of brightness when abruptly the sensation of a glass interface vanished. The two narrow-seeming trails became one wide one. The other’s arms and legs were moving differently from my own.
We drew closer and closer together as we entered the final stretch-close enough, finally, for recognition. It was not an image of myself that I was running against, for its hair streamed back and I saw that its left ear was missing.
I found a final burst of speed. So did the other. We were awfully close together when we came to the tape. I think that I hit it first, but I could not be certain.
We went on through and collapsed, gasping. I rolled quickly, to keep him under surveillance, but he just lay there, panting. I rested my right hand on the hilt of my weapon and listened to the sound of my blood in my ears.
When I’d caught my breath somewhat, I remarked, “Didn’t know you could run a race like that, Jurt.”
He gave a brief laugh.
“There’re a lot of things you don’t know about me, brother.”
“I’m sure,” I said.
Then he wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and I noted that the finger he’d lost in the caves of Kolvir was back in place. Either this was the Jurt of a different time line or-
“So how’s Julia?” I asked him. “Is she going to be all right?”
“Julia?” he said. “Who’s that?”
“Sorry,” I said. “You’re the wrong Jurt.”
“Now what else does that mean?” he asked, propping himself on an elbow and glaring at me with his good eye.
“The real Jurt was never anywhere near the Pattern of Amber-”
“I am the real Jurt!”
“You’ve got all your fingers. He lost one very recently. I was there.”
He looked away suddenly
“You must be a Logrus-ghost,” I continued. “It must pull the same stunt the Pattern does-recording those who make it through it.”