“Peeping Tom—a voyeur!” she said.
“No,” he said. “I think you’re a really nice-looking lady, and I like watching you. That’s all.”
“There are many legitimate ways by which you could have gained an introduction,” she said.
“True, but that way might have led to horrible complications in my life.”
“Oh, you’re married.”
“Worse than that,” he said.
“What, then?”
“No time now. I can feel its approach,” he said.
“What’s approach?”
“The guisel,” he said. “I sent one to slay another sorcerer, but he disposed of it and sent one of his own after me. Didn’t know he was that good. I don’t know how to dispose of the things, and it will be oozing through that mirror in a matter of minutes, to destroy us all most nastily. So, this place being Amber and all, is there some hero available who might be anxious to earn another merit badge?”
“I think not,” she replied. “Sorry.”
Just then the mirror began to darken.
“Oh, it’s coming!” he cried.
I had felt the menace it exuded some time before. But then, that is my job.
Now I got a glimpse of the thing. It was big, and wormlike, eyeless, but possessed of a shark-like mouth, a multitude of short legs, and vestigial wings. It was twice again the length of a human, and black, having crisscrossing red and yellow stripes. It slithered across our reflected room, rearing as it came on.
“You imply,” Flora said, “in your quest for a hero, that it will make it through that interface and attack us?”
“In a word,” said the strange little man, “yes.”
When it does, I said to Flora, throw me at it. Wherever I hit I’ll stick—and I’ll go for the throat.
“All right,” she said, “and there’s one other thing.”
What’s that?, I asked.
“Help! Help!” she cried.
It began crawling out through the silver, flower-bordered mirror. Flora unwound me from her ankle and threw me at the thing. It had no real neck, but I wrapped myself about its upper extremity below the mouth and began tightening immediately.
Flora continued to call out, and from somewhere up the hall I heard the sound of heavy footfalls.
I tightened my grip, but the creature’s neck was like rubber.
The sorcerer was moving to exit the room when the door burst open and the tall and husky, red-haired form of Luke entered.
“Flora!” he said, and then he saw the guisel and drew his blade.
On my recent journey with Merlin in the space between shadows I had gained the ability to converse at complex levels. My perceptions—which seem quite different—also became more acute. They showed me nothing special about Luke, the sorcerer, or the guisel, but Werewindle now burned of an entirely different light. I realized then that it was not merely a blade.
As Luke moved to position himself between Flora and the guisel, I heard the sorcerer say, “What is that blade?”
“‘Tis called Werewindle,” Luke replied.
“And you are…?”
“Rinaldo, King of Kashfa,” Luke said.
“Your father—who was he?”
“Brand—Prince of Amber.”
“Of course,” the sorcerer said, moving again toward the door. “You can destroy that thing with it. Command it to draw energy while you’re using it. It has a virtually limitless supply to draw upon.”
“Why?” Luke asked.
“Because it isn’t really a sword.”
“What is it then?”
“Sorry,” the sorcerer said, regarding the guisel, which was now moving toward us. “Out of time. Got to find another mirror.”
I could tell that he was, unaware of my presence, really teasing Luke, because I had figured it out for myself and knew it would take only a moment to tell him, if one could speak.
Then I was disengaging and dropping as fast as I could, for Luke was swinging Werewindle, and I’d no desire to be severed. I really did not know what would happen if this were to occur—if both segments would wind up as wise, witty, and conscious as myself; or, perhaps, whether I would be destroyed in the process. And having no desire to learn this information firsthand, flight seemed most prudent.
I hit the floor before the blow fell. A section of the guisel’s head also dropped, still writhing. I squirmed toward Luke’s nearest ankle. Flora picked up a heavy chair and brought it down on the thing’s back with considerable force, despite her broken fingernail. And she swung it a couple of more times, with some effect, while Luke was in the process of cutting it in half.