was back inside and coming in low now. I reversed myself and parried again as he slid his entire body in to my right, dropping his blade’s point, reversing his grip, fanning my face with his left hand.
Too late I saw the right hand rising as the left slid behind my head.
Grayswandir’s pommel was headed straight for my jaw.
“You’re really…” I began, and then it connected. The last thing I remember seeing was the silver rose.
That’s life: Trust and you’re betrayed; don’t trust and you betray yourself. Like most moral paradoxes, it places you in an untenable position. And it was too late for my normal solution. I couldn’t walk away from the game.
I woke in a place of darkness. I woke wondering and wary. As usual when wondering and wary, I lay perfectly still and let my breathing continue its natural rhythm. And I listened.
Not a sound.
I opened my eyes slightly.
Disconcerting patterns. I closed them again.
I felt with my body for vibrations within the rocky surface upon which I was sprawled.
No vibes.
I opened my eyes entirely, fought back an impulse to close them. I raised myself onto my elbows, then gathered my knees beneath me, straightened my back, turned my head. Fascinating. I hadn’t been this disoriented since I’d gone drinking with Luke and the Cheshire Cat.
There was no color anywhere about me. Everything was black, white, or some shade of gray. It was as if I had entered a photographic negative. What I presumed to be a sun hung like a black hole several diameters above the horizon to my right. The sky was a very dark gray, and ebon clouds moved slowly within it. My skin was the color of ink. The rocky ground beneath me and about me shone an almost translucent bone-white, however. I rose slowly to my feet, taming. Yes. The ground seemed to glow, the sky was dark, and I was a shadow between them. I did not like the feeling at all.
The air was dry, cool. I stood in the foothills to an albino mountain range, so stark in appearance as to rouse comparison with the Antarctic. These stretched off and up to my left. To the right-low and rolling-toward what I guessed to be a morning sun, lay a black plain. Desert? I had to raise my hand and “shade’ against its . . what? Antiglow?
“Shit!” I tried saying, and I noticed two things immediately.
The first was that my word remained unvoiced. The second was that my jaw hurt where my father or his simulacrum had slugged me.
I repeated my silent observation and withdrew my Trumps. All bets were off when it came to messing with sendings. I shuffled out the Trump for the Ghostwheel and focused my attention upon it.
Nothing. It was completely dead to me. But, then, it was Ghost who’d told me to lie low, and maybe he was simply refusing to entertain my calf. I thumbed through the others. I paused at Flora’s. She was usually willing to help me out of a tight spot. I studied that lovely face, sent out my call to it....
Not a golden curl stirred. Not a degree’s drop in temperature. The card remained a card. I tried harder, even muttering an enhancement spell. But there was nobody home.
Mandor, then. I spent several minutes on his card with the same result. I tried Random’s. Ditto. Benedict’s, Julian’s. No and no. I tried for Fiona, Luke, and Bill Roth. Three more negatives. I even pulled a couple of the Trumps of Doom, but I couldn’t reach the Sphinx either, or a building of bones atop a green glass mountain.
I squared them, cased them, and put them away. It was the first time I had encountered a phenomenon of this sort since the Crystal Cave. Trumps can be blocked in any of a number of ways, however, and so far as I was concerned, the matter was, at the moment, academic. I was more concerned about removing myself to a more congenial environment. I could save the research for
Too late I saw the right hand rising as the left slid behind my head.
Grayswandir’s pommel was headed straight for my jaw.
“You’re really…” I began, and then it connected. The last thing I remember seeing was the silver rose.
That’s life: Trust and you’re betrayed; don’t trust and you betray yourself. Like most moral paradoxes, it places you in an untenable position. And it was too late for my normal solution. I couldn’t walk away from the game.
I woke in a place of darkness. I woke wondering and wary. As usual when wondering and wary, I lay perfectly still and let my breathing continue its natural rhythm. And I listened.
Not a sound.
I opened my eyes slightly.
Disconcerting patterns. I closed them again.
I felt with my body for vibrations within the rocky surface upon which I was sprawled.
No vibes.
I opened my eyes entirely, fought back an impulse to close them. I raised myself onto my elbows, then gathered my knees beneath me, straightened my back, turned my head. Fascinating. I hadn’t been this disoriented since I’d gone drinking with Luke and the Cheshire Cat.
There was no color anywhere about me. Everything was black, white, or some shade of gray. It was as if I had entered a photographic negative. What I presumed to be a sun hung like a black hole several diameters above the horizon to my right. The sky was a very dark gray, and ebon clouds moved slowly within it. My skin was the color of ink. The rocky ground beneath me and about me shone an almost translucent bone-white, however. I rose slowly to my feet, taming. Yes. The ground seemed to glow, the sky was dark, and I was a shadow between them. I did not like the feeling at all.
The air was dry, cool. I stood in the foothills to an albino mountain range, so stark in appearance as to rouse comparison with the Antarctic. These stretched off and up to my left. To the right-low and rolling-toward what I guessed to be a morning sun, lay a black plain. Desert? I had to raise my hand and “shade’ against its . . what? Antiglow?
“Shit!” I tried saying, and I noticed two things immediately.
The first was that my word remained unvoiced. The second was that my jaw hurt where my father or his simulacrum had slugged me.
I repeated my silent observation and withdrew my Trumps. All bets were off when it came to messing with sendings. I shuffled out the Trump for the Ghostwheel and focused my attention upon it.
Nothing. It was completely dead to me. But, then, it was Ghost who’d told me to lie low, and maybe he was simply refusing to entertain my calf. I thumbed through the others. I paused at Flora’s. She was usually willing to help me out of a tight spot. I studied that lovely face, sent out my call to it....
Not a golden curl stirred. Not a degree’s drop in temperature. The card remained a card. I tried harder, even muttering an enhancement spell. But there was nobody home.
Mandor, then. I spent several minutes on his card with the same result. I tried Random’s. Ditto. Benedict’s, Julian’s. No and no. I tried for Fiona, Luke, and Bill Roth. Three more negatives. I even pulled a couple of the Trumps of Doom, but I couldn’t reach the Sphinx either, or a building of bones atop a green glass mountain.
I squared them, cased them, and put them away. It was the first time I had encountered a phenomenon of this sort since the Crystal Cave. Trumps can be blocked in any of a number of ways, however, and so far as I was concerned, the matter was, at the moment, academic. I was more concerned about removing myself to a more congenial environment. I could save the research for
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