SIGN OF CHAOS (2 page)

The Cat cast a quick glance toward the wall and phased into and out of existence several times in quick succession.
 
Ignoring this, Luke remarked, “I was just thinking of the Tenniel illustration.”

The Cat materialized at the far end of the bar, downed the Hatter’s drink, and said, “I hear the burbling, and eyes of flame are drifting to the left.”

I glanced at the mural, and I, too, saw the fiery eyes and heard a peculiar sound.

“It could be any of a number of things,” Luke remarked.

The Cat moved to a rack behind the bar and reached high up on the wall to where a strange weapon hung, shimmering and shifting in shadow.
 
He lowered the thing and slid it along the bar; it came to rest before Luke.

“Better have the Vorpal Sword in hand, that’s all I can say.”

Luke laughed, but I stared fascinated at the device which looked as if it were made of moth wings and folded moonlight.

Then I heard the burbling again.

“Don’t just stand there in uffish thought!” said the Cat, draining Humpty’s glass and vanishing again.

Still chuckling, Luke held out his tankard for a refill.
 
I stood there in uffish thought: The spell I had used to destroy the Bandersnatch had altered my thinking in a peculiar fashion.
 
It seemed for a small moment in its aftermath that things were beginning to come clear in my head.
 
I attributed this to the image of the Logrus which I had regarded briefly.
 
And so I summoned it again.

The Sign rose before me, hovered.
 
I held it there.
 
I looked upon it.
 
It seemed as if a cold wind began to blow through my mind.
 
Drifting bits of memory were drawn together, assembled themselves into an entire fabric, were informed with understanding.
 
Of course...

The burbling grew louder and I saw the shadow of the Jabberwock gliding among distant trees, eyes like landing lights, lots of sharp edges for biting and catching...

And it didn’t matter a bit.
 
For I realized now what was going on, who was responsible, how and why.

I bent over, leaning far forward, so that my knuckles just grazed the toe of my right boot.

“Luke,” I said, “we’ve got a problem.”

He turned away from the bar and glanced down at me.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

Those of the blood of Amber are capable of terrific exertions.
 
We are also able to sustain some pretty awful beatings.
 
So, among ourselves, these things tend to cancel out to some degree.
 
Therefore, one must go about such matters just right if one is to attend to them at all...

I brought my fist up off the floor with everything I had behind it, and I caught Lake on the side of the jaw with a blow that lifted him above the ground as it turned him and sent him sprawling across a table which collapsed, to continue sliding backward the length of the entire serving area where he finally came to a crumpled halt at the feet of the quiet Victorian-looking gentleman-who had dropped his paintbrush and stepped away quickly when Luke came skidding toward him.
 
I raised my tankard with my left hand and poured its contents over my right fist, which felt as if I had just driven it against a mountainside.
 
As I did this the lights grew dim and there was a moment of utter silence.

Then I slammed the mug back onto the bartop.
 
The entire place chose that moment in which to shudder, as if from an earth tremor.
 
Two bottles fell from a shelf; a lamp swayed, the burbling grew fainter.
 
I glanced to my left and saw that the eerie shadow of the Jabberwock had retreated somewhat within the tulgey wood.
 
Not only that, the painted section of the prospect now extended a good deal farther into what had seemed normal space, and it looked to be continuing its advance in that direction, freezing that corner of the world into flat immobility.
 
It became apparent from whiffle to whiffle that the Jabberwock was now moving away, to the left, hurrying ahead of the flatness.
 
Tweedledum, Tweedledee, the Dodo, and the Frog began packing their instruments.

I started across the bar toward Luke’s sprawled form.
 
The Caterpillar was disassembling his hookah, and I saw that his mushroom was tilted at an odd angle.
 
The White Rabbit beat it down a hole to the rear, and I head Humpty muttering curses as he swayed atop the bar stool he had just succeeded in mounting.

I saluted the gentleman with the palette as I approached.

“Sorry to disturb you,” I said.
 
“But believe me, this is for the better.”

I raised Luke’s limp form and slung him over my shoulder.
 
A flock of playing cards flew by me.
 
I dew away from them in their rapid passage.

“Goodness! It’s frightened the Jabberwock!” the man remarked, looking past me.

“What has?” I asked, not really certain that I wished to know.

“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.

Decisions, decisions.

Luke stirred slightly upon my shoulder.
 
I hoped he wasn’t about to come around, as I didn’t have time to mess with a sleep-spell and I wasn’t really in a good position to slug him again.
 
That pretty much left Frakir.

But if he were borderline, then choking might serve to rouse him rather than send him back-and I did want him in decent shape.
 
He knew too many things I didn’t, things I now needed.

We passed through a slightly brighter area, and I was able to distinguish the walls of the shaft for the first time and to note that they were covered with graffiti in a language that I did not understand.
 
I was reminded of a strange short story by Jamaica Kincaid, but it bore me no clues for deliverance.
 
Immediately following our passage through that band of illumination, I distinguished a small spot of light far below.
 
At almost the same moment’ I heard the wail once again, this time very near.

I looked up in time to behold the Fire Angel passing through the glow.

But there was another shape close behind it, and it wore a vest and burbled.
 
The Jabberwock was also on the way down, and it seemed to be making the best time of any of us.
 
The question of its purpose was immediately prominent; as it gained, the circle of light grew and Luke stirred again.
 
This question was quickly answered; however, as it caught up with the Fire Angel and attacked.

The whiffling, the wailing, and the burbling suddenly echoed down the shaft, along with hissing, scraping, and occasional snarls.
 
The two beasts came together and tore at each other, eyes like dying suns, claws like bayonets, forming a hellish mandala in the pale light which now reached them from below.
 
While this produced a round of activity too near at hand for me to feel entirely at ease, it did serve to slow them to the point where I felt I need not risk an ill-suited spell and an awkward maneuver to emerge from the tunnel in one piece.

“Argh!” Luke remarked, turning suddenly within my grasp.

“I agree,” I said.
 
“But lie still, will you? We’re about to crash-“

“-and burn,” he stated, twisting his head upward to regard the combatant monsters, then downward when he realized that we were falling, too.
 
“What kind of trip is this?”

“A bad one,” I answered, and then it hit me: That was exactly what it was.

The opening was even larger now, and our velocity sufficient for a bearable landing.
 
Our reaction to the spell that I called the Giant’s Slap would probably slow us to a standstill or even propel us backward.
 
Better to collect a few bruises than become a traffic obstruction at this point.

A bad trip indeed.
 
I was thinking of Random’s words as we passed through the opening at a crazy angle, hit dirt, and rolled.

We had come to rest within a cave, near to its mouth.
 
Tunnels ran off to the right and the left.
 
The cave mouth was at my back.
 
A quick glance showed it as opening upon a bright, possibly lush, and more than a little out of focus valley.
 
Luke was sprawled unmoving beside me.
 
I got to my feet immediately and caught hold of him beneath the armpits.
 
I began dragging him back away from the dark opening from which we had just emerged.
 
The sounds of the monstrous conflict were very near now.