I nodded. It was just one damned thing after another.
I made my way through frozen lands and burning lands, under skies both wild and placid. Then at last, hours later, I saw the low range of dark hills, and aurora streaming upward from behind them. That was it. I needed but approach and pass through and I would see my goal beyond the last and most difficult barrier of all.
I moved ahead. It would be good to finish this job and get on with more important matters. I would trump back to Amber when I was finished there, rather than retracing my steps. I could not have trumped in to my destination, though, because the place could not be represented on a card.
In that I was jogging, I first thought that the vibrations were my own. I was disabused of this notion when small pebbles began to roll aimlessly about the ground before me. Why not?
I’d been hit with just about everything else. It was as if my strange nemesis were working down through a checklist and had just now come to “Earthquake.” All right. At least there was nothing high near at hand to fall on me.
“Enjoy yourself, you son of a bitch!” I called out. “One day real soon it won’t be so funny!”
As if in response the shaking grew more violent, and I had to halt or be thrown from my feet. As I watched; the ground began to subside in places, tilt in still others. I looked about quickly, trying to decide whether to advance, retreat, or stay put. Small fissures had begun to open, and now I could hear a growling, grinding sound.
The earth dropped abruptly beneath me-perhaps six inches-and the nearest crevices widened. I turned and began sprinting back the way I had come. The ground seemed less disturbed there.
A mistake perhaps. A particularly violent tremor followed, knocking me from my feet. Before I could rise a large crack appeared within reaching distance. It continued to widen even as I watched. I sprang to my feet, leapt across it, stumbled, rose again, and beheld another opening rift-widening more rapidly than the one I had been fleeing.
I sprang once more, onto a tilting tabletop of land. The ground seemed torn everywhere now with the dark lightning strokes of rifts, heaving themselves open widely to the accompaniment of awful groans and screechings. Big sections of ground slipped from sight into abysses. My small island was already going.
I leaped again, and again, trying to make it over to what appeared to be a more stable area.
I didn’t quite manage it. I missed my footing and fell. But I managed to catch hold of the edge. I dangled a moment then and began to draw myself upward. The edge began to crumble. I clawed at it and caught a fresh hold. Then I dangled again, coughing and cursing.
I sought for footholds in the clayey wall against which I hung. It yielded somewhat beneath the thrusting of my boots and I dug in, blinking dirt from my eyes, trying for a firmer hold overhead. I could feel Frakir loosening, tightening into a small loop, one end free and flowing over my knuckles, hopefully to locate something sufficiently firmset to serve as an anchor.
But no. My lefthand hold gave way again. I clung with my right and groped for another. Loose earth fell about me .as I failed, and my right hand was beginning to slip.
Dark shadow above me, through dust and swimming eyes.
My right hand fell loose. I thrust with my legs for another try.
My right wrist was clasped as it sped upward and forward once again. A big hand with a powerful grip held me. Moments later, it was joined by another and I was drawn upward, quickly, smoothly. I was over the edge and seeking my footing in an instant. My wrist was released. I wiped my eyes.
“Luke!”
He was dressed in green, and blades must not have bothered him the way they do me, for a good-sized one hung at his right side. He seemed to be using a rolled cloak for a backpack, and he wore its clasp like a decoration upon his left breast-an elaborate thing, a golden bird of some son.