I parried the blade, and it passed me to the left, buried itself partway in the ice and stood vibrating there, like something in a Scandinavian’s version of Arthurian legend. Jurt rushed toward me, kicked at the hands which held my ankles until they released me, and squinted at my brow.
I felt something fall upon me.
Sorry, boss. I hit around his knee, By the time I reached his throat he was already on fire, Frakir said.
All’s well that ends well, I replied. You weren’t singed, were you?
Didn’t even feel the heat.
“Sorry I hit you with that piece of ice,” Jurt said. “I was aiming at Borel.”
I moved away from the plain of hands, heading toward the trail.
“Indirectly it helped,” I said, but I didn’t feel like thanking him.
How could I know where he’d really been, aiming? I glanced back once, and several of the hands Jurt had kicked were giving us the finger.
Why had I been wearing Grayswandir? Would another weapon have affected a Logrus-ghost as strongly? Had it really been my father, then, who had brought me here? And had he felt I might need the extra edge his weapon could provide? I wanted to think so, to believe that he had been more than a Pattern-ghost. And if he was, I wondered at his part in the entire affair. What might he know about all this? And which side might he be on?
The winds died down as we moved along the trail, and the only arms we saw extended above the ice bore torches which brightened our way for a great distance-to the foot of the far escarpment, actually. Nothing untoward occurred as we crossed that frozen place.
“From what you’ve told me and what I’ve seen,” Jurt said, “I get the impression it’s the Pattern that’s sponsoring this trip and the Logrus that’s trying to punch your ticket.”
Just then the ice cracked in a number of places. Fracture lines rushed toward us from several directions, both sides. They slowed, however, as they neared our trail, causing me to notice for the first time that it had risen above the general level of the plain. We now occupied something of a causeway, and the ice shattered itself harmlessly along its sides.
“Like that,” Jurt observed with a gesture. “How’d you get into this mess anyway?”
“It all started on April thirtieth,” I began.