I paused to catch my breath.

“It's such an arcane matter that I don't even feel qualified to speculate on it. I thought maybe you'd come equipped with ready-made answers for things like that-some sort of preternatural awareness of your limits and abilities.”

“Afraid not. Unless you'd call a hunch preternatural.”

“I suppose I would if you were right often enough.”

“Shit. It's too soon to tell.”

“Shit. You're right.”

Soon we'd climbed above the line of haze from which the flakes seemed to fall. A little farther, and the winds died to breezes. Farther still, and these subsided to nothing. The rim was in sight by then, and shortly thereafter we achieved it.

I turned and looked back down. All I could see was a bit of glitter through the mist. In the other direction our trail ran on in a zigzag fashion, here and there looking like a series of Morse dashes-regular interruptions, possibly rock formations. We followed it to the right until it turned left.

I reserved some attention for Jurt, looking for signs of recognition at any feature of the terrain. A talk is only words, and he was still some version of the Jurt I'd grown up with. And if he became responsible for my falling into any sort of trap, I was going to pass Grayswandir through his personal space as soon as I became aware of it.

Flicker...

Formation to the left, cavelike, as if the hole in the rock opened into another reality. An oddly shaped car driving up a steep city street...

“Wlhat..?” Jurt began.

“I still don't know their significance. A whole mess of sequences like this were with me earlier, though. In fact, at first I thought you were one of them.”

“Looks real enough to walk into.”

“Maybe it is.”

“It might be our way out of here.”

“Somehow that just seems a little too easy.”

“Well, let's give it a try,”

“Go ahead,” I told him.

We departed the trail, advanced upon the reality window, and kept going. In a moment he was on the side walk next to the street up which the car was passing. He turned and waved. I saw his mouth working, but no words came to me.

If I could brush snow off the red Chevy, why couldn't I enter entirely into one of these sequences? And if I could; do that, mightn't it be possible that I could shadow-walk from there, wending my way to some more congenial spot, leaving this dark world behind? I moved forward.

Suddenly I was there, and the sound had been turned: on for me. I looked about at the buildings, at the sharply inclined street. I listened to the traffic sounds, and I sniffed the air. This place could almost be one of San Francisco's shadows. I hurried to catch up with Jurt, who was moving toward the corner.

I reached him quickly, fell into step beside him. We came to the corner. We turned. We froze.

There was nothing there. We faced a wall of blackness. That is, not just darkness but an absolute emptiness, from which we immediately drew back.

I put my hand forth slowly. A tingling began as it neared the blackness, then a chill, followed by a fear. I drew back. Jurt reached for it, did the same. Abruptly he stopped, picked up the bottom of a broken bottle from the gutter, turned, and hurled it through a nearby window. Immediately he began running in that direction.

I followed. I joined him before the broken pane, stared within.

Again the blackness. There was nothing at all on the other side of the window.

“Kind of spooky,” I remarked.

“Uh-huh,” Jurt said. “It's as if we're being granted extremely limited access to various shadows. What do you make of it?”

“I'm beginning to wonder whether there isn't something we're supposed to be looking for in one of these places,” I said.

Suddenly the blackness beyond the window was gone, and a candle flickered on a small table beyond it. I began to reach through the broken glass toward it. Immediately it vanished. Again there was only blackness.

“I'd take that as an affirmative response to your question,” Jurt said.

“I believe you're right. But we can't be looking for something in every one of these things we pass.”

“I think maybe something's just been trying to get your attention, to get you to realize that you should be watching what appears, that something probably will be presented once you begin noticing. °

Brightness. A whole tableful of candles now blazed beyond the window.

“Okay,” I hollered. “If that's all you want, I'II do it. Is there anything else I should be looking for here?”

The darkness came. It crept around the corner and moved slowly toward us. The candles vanished, and it flowed from the window. The buildings across the street disappeared behind an ebon wall.

“I take it the answer is no,” I cried. Then I turned and beat it back along our narrowing black tunnel toward the trail. Jurt was right behind me.

“Good thinking,” I told him when we stood back on the glowing way, watching that rising street get squeezed out of existence beside us. “Do you think it was just pulling these sequences at random till I finally entered one?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I think it has more control in those places and could respond to your questions more readily in one of them.”

“`It' being the Pattern?”

“Probably. “

“Okay. The next one it opens to me, I'm going in. I'll do whatever it wants there if it means I get out of here sooner.”

“We, brother. We.”

“Of course,” I answered.

We commenced walking again. Nothing new and intriguing appeared beside us, though. The road zigged and zagged, and we walked along it, and I got to wondering whom we might meet next. If I were indeed on the Pattern's turf and on the verge of doing something it wanted, then it seemed that the Logrus might send along someone I knew to attempt to dissuade me. No one appeared at all, though, and we took the final turn, followed a trail suddenly grown straight for some time, then saw it end abruptly within a dark mass far ahead.

Continuing, I saw that it plunged on into a great, dark, mountainous mass. I felt vaguely claustrophobic; just considering the implications, and I heard Jurt mutter an obscenity as we trudged toward it. Before we reached it, there came a flickering to my right. Turning, I beheld Random and Vialle's bedroom, back in Amber. I was looking from the southern side of the room, between the sofa and a bedside table, past a chair, across the rug and the cushions toward the fireplace, the windows which flanked it admitting a soft daylight. No one was present in the bed or occupying any other piece of furniture, and the logs on the grate had burned themselves down to red embers, smoking fitfully.

“What now?” Jurt asked.

“This is it,” I replied “It has to be, don't you see? Once I got the message as to what was going on, it presented the real thing. I've got to act fast, too, I think-as soon as I figure just what-”

One of the stones beside the fireplace began to glow redly. It increased in intensity as I watched. There was no way that those embers could be doing it. Therefore...

I rushed forward under the influence of a powerful imperative. I heard Jurt shout something behind me, but his voice was cut off as I entered the room. I caught a whiff of Vialle's favorite perfume as I passed beside the bed. This was really Amber, I was certain, not just some shadowy facsimile thereof. I moved quickly to the right of the fireplace.

Jurt burst into the room behind me.

“Better come out fighting!” he cried.

I whirled to face him, shouted, “Shut up!” then raised a finger to my lips.

He crossed to my side, caught hold of my arm, and whispered hoarsely, “Borel's trying to materialize again! He might be solid and waiting by the time you leave!”

From the sitting room I heard Vialle's voice. “Is someone there?” she called.

I jerked my arm free of Jurt's grasp, knelt upon the hearth, and seized hold of the glowing stone. It appeared to be mortared in place but came loose easily when I drew upon it.