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"Okay." he said, but added, "who knows what the second will be?"
The second was a thing-I don't know how else to describe it.
It was a thing that looked like a smelter with arms, squatting in the middle of the road, reaching down
and
picking up cars, eating them.
I hit the brakes.
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"What's the matter?" Random asked. "Keep going. How else can we get past them?"
"It shook me a bit," I said, and he gave me a strange, sidelong look as another dust storm came up.
It had been the wrong thing to say, I knew.
When the dust cleared away, we were racing along an empty road once more. And there were towers
in the
distance.
"I think I've screwed him up." said Random. "I combined several into one, and I think it may be one he
hasn't anticipated. After all, no one can cover all roads to Amber."
"True," I said, hoping to redeem myself from whatever faux pas had drawn that strange look.
I considered Random. A little, weak looking guy who could have died as easily as I on the previous
evening.
What was his power? And what was all this talk of Shadows? Something told me that whatever
Shadows were, we
moved among them even now. How? It was something Random was doing, and since he seemed at rest
physically, his hands in plain sight, I decided it was something he did with his mind. Again, how?
Well, I'd heard him speak of "adding" and "subtracting," as though the universe in which he moved
were a
big equation.
I decided-with a sudden certainty- that he was somehow adding and subtracting items to and from the
world that was visible about us to bring us into closer and closer alignment with that strange place,
Amber, for which
he was solving.
It was something I'd once known how to do. And the key to it, I knew in a flash, was remembering
Amber. But I couldn't.
The road curved abruptly, the desert ended, to give way to fields of tall, blue, sharp-looking grass.
After a while, the terrain became a bit hilly, and at the foot of the third hill the pavement ended and we
entered upon a narrow dirt road. It was hard-packed, and it wound its way among greater hills upon
which small shrubs and bayonet like thistle bushes now began to appear.
After about half an hour of this, the hills went away, and we entered a forest of squat, big-boled trees
with
diamond-shaped leaves of autumn orange and purple.
A light rain began to fall, and there were many shadows. Pale mists arose from mats of soggy leaves.
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Off to
the right somewhere, I heard a howl.
The steering wheel changed shape three more times, its latest version being an octagonal wooden
affair. The car was quite tall now, and we had somewhere acquired a hood ornament in the shape of a
flamingo. I refrained
from commenting on these things, but accommodated myself to whatever positions the seat assumed and
new operating requirements the vehicle obtained. Random, however, glanced at the steering wheel just as
another howl occurred, shook his head, and suddenly the trees were much higher, though festooned with
hanging vines and something like a blue veiling of Spanish Moss, and the car was almost normal again. I
glanced at the fuel gauge and saw that we had half a tank.
"We're making headway," my brother remarked, and I nodded.
The road widened abruptly and acquired a concrete surface. There were canals on both sides, full of
muddy water. Leaves, small branches, and colored feathers glided along their surfaces.
I suddenly became lightheaded and a bit dizzy, but "Breathe slowly and deeply," said Random, before
I could
remark on it. "We're taking a short cut, and the atmosphere and the gravitation will be a bit different for
a
time. I think we've been pretty lucky so far, and I want to push it for all it's worth-get as close as we
can, as quickly as we can."
"Good idea," I said.
"Maybe, maybe not," he replied, "but I think it's worth the garn- Look out!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]