“That,” he answered, gesturing toward the front of the bar.
I looked and I staggered back and I didn’t blame the Jabberwock a bit.
It was a twelve-foot Fire Angel that had just entered-russet-colored, with wings like stained-glass windows-and, along with intimations of mortality, it brought me recollections of a praying mantis, with a spiked collar and thornlike claws protruding through its short fur at every suggestion of an angle. One of these, in fact, caught on and unhinged a swinging door as it came inside. It was a Chaos beast-rare, deadly, and , highly intelligent. I hadn’t seen one in years, and I’d no desire to see one now; also, I’d no doubt that I was the reason it was here. For a moment I regretted having wasted my cardiac arrest spell on a mere Bandersnatch-until I recalled that Fire Angels have three hearts. I glanced quickly about as it spied me, gave voice to a brief hunting wail, and advanced.
“I’d like to have had some time to speak with you,” I told the artist. “I like your work. Unfortunately-“
“I understand.”
“So long.”
“Good luck. “
I stepped down into the rabbit hole and ran, bent far forward because of the low overhead. Luke made my passage particularly awkward, especially on the turns. I heard a scrabbling noise fat to the rear, with a repetition of the hunting wail. I was consoled; however, by the knowledge that the Fire Angel would actually have to enlarge sections of the tunnel in order to get by. The bad news was that it was capable of doing it. The creatures are incredibly strong and virtually indestructible.
I kept running till the floor dipped beneath my feet.
Then I began falling. I reached out with my free hand to watch myself, but there was nothing to catch hold of. The bottom had fallen out. Good. That was the way I’d hoped and half expected it would be. Luke uttered a single soft moan but did not stir.
We fell. Down, down, down, like the man said. It was a well, and either it was very deep or we were falling very slowly. There was twilight all about us, and I could not discern die walls of the shaft. My head cleared a bit further, and I knew that it would continue to do so for as long as I kept control of one variable: Luke. High in the air overhead I heard the hunting wail once again. It was followed immediately by a strange burbling sound. Frakir began pulsing softly upon my wrist again, not really telling me anything I didn’t already know. So I silenced her again.
Clearer yet. I began to remember… My assault on the Keep of the Four Worlds and my recovery of Luke’s mother, Jasra. The attack of the werebeast. My odd visit with Vinta Bayle, who wasn’t really what she seemed.
. My dinner in Death Alley… The Dweller, San Francisco, the crystal cave… Clearer and clearer.
… And louder and louder the hunting ,wail of the Fire Angel above me. It must have made it through the tunnel and be descending now. Unfortunately, it possessed wings, while all I could do was fall.
I glanced upward. Couldn’t make out its form, though. Things seemed darker up that way than down below. I hoped this was a sign that we were approaching something in the nature of a light at the end of the tunnel, as I couldn’t think of any other way out. It was too dark to view a Trump or to distinguish enough of the passing scene to commence a shadow shift.
I felt we were drifting now, rather than falling, at a rate that might permit us to land intact. Should it seem otherwise when we neared the bottom, then a possible means of further slowing our descent came to mind-an adaptation of one of the spells I still carried with me.
However, these considerations were not worth much should we be eaten on the way down-a distinct possibility, unless of course our pursuer were not all that hungry, in which case it might only dismember us. Consequently, it might become necessary to try speeding up to stay ahead of the beast-which of course would cause us to smash when we hit.