Sign of chaos

«How can you say that when you've walked it?»

«Walking it and liking it are two different things.»«

«I'd just thought that if it were in you to walk it, you'd feel some affinity, some deep resonant kinship with it.»

I laughed, and the sounds echoed about us.

«Oh, while I was walking it I knew it was in me to do it,» I said. «I didn't feel it beforehand, though. I was just scared then. And I never liked it.»

«Strange.»

«Not really. It's like the sea or the night sky. It's big' and it's powerful and it's beautiful and it's there. It's a natural force and you make of it what you will.»

She looked back along the passageway leading inward.

«I'd like to see it,» she said.

«I wouldn't try to find my way to it from here,» I told her. «Why do you want to see it, anyhow?» '

«Just to see how I'd respond to something like that»

«You're strange,» I said.

«Will you take me when. we go back? Will you show it to me?»

This was not going at all the way I'd thought it would: If she were what I thought, I didn't understand the request. I was half tempted to take her to it, to find out what she had in mind. However, I was operating under a system of priorities, and I'd a feeling she represented one concerning which I'd made myself a promise and some elaborate preparations.

«Perhaps,» I mumbled.

«Please. I'd really like to see it.»

She seemed sincere. But my guess felt near-perfect.

Sufficient time had passed for that strange body-shifting spirit, which had dogged my trail in many forms, to have; located a new host and then to have zeroed in on me again and be insinuating itself into my good graces once more. Coral was perfect for the role, her arrival appropriately timed, her concern for my physical welfare manifest, her reflexes fast. I'd have liked to keep her around for questioning, but I knew that she would simply lie to me in the absence of proof or an emergency situation. And I did not trust her. So I reviewed the spell I had prepared and hung on my way home from Arbor House, a spell I had designed to expel a possessing entity from its host. I hesitated a moment, though. My feelings toward her were ambivalent. Even if she were the entity, I might be willing to put up with her if I just knew her motive.

So, «What is it that you want?» I asked.

«Just to see it. Honestly,» she answered.

«No, I mean that if you are what I think you really are, I'm asking the big question: Why?»

Frakir began to pulse upon my wrist.

Coral was silent for the space of an audible deep breath, then, «How could you tell?»

«You betrayed yourself in small ways discernible only to one who has recently become paranoid,» I responded.

«Magic,» she said. «Is that it?»

«It's about to be,» I replied. «I could almost miss you, but I can't trust you.»

I spoke the guide words to the spell, letting them draw my hands smoothly through the appropriate gestures. There followed two horrible shrieks, and then a third.

But they weren't hers. They came from around the corner in the passageway we had recently quitted.

«What-?» she began.

«-the hell!» I finished; and I rushed past her and rounded the corner, drawing my blade as I went.

Backlighted by the distant cavemouth I beheld three figures on the floor of the cave. Two of them were sprawled and unmoving. The third was seated and bent forward,, cursing. I advanced slowly, the point of my weapon directed toward the seated one. His shadowy head turned in my direction, and he climbed to his feet, still bent forward. He clutched his left hand with his right, and he backed away until he came into contact with the wall.

He halted there, muttering something I could not quite hear. I continued my cautious advance, all of my senses alert. I could hear Coral moving at my back, then I glimpsed her accompanying me on my left when the passage widened. She had drawn her dagger, and she held it low and near to her hip. No time now to speculate as to what my spell might have done to her.

I halted as I came to the first of the two fallen forms. I prodded it with the toe of my boot, ready to strike instantly should it spring into an attack. Nothing. It felt limp, lifeless. I used my foot to turn it over, and the head rolled back in the direction of the cavemouth. In the light that then fell upon it I beheld a half-decayed human face. My nose had already been informing me that this state was no mere illusion. I advanced upon the other one and turned him, also. He, too, bore the appearance of a decomposing corpse. While the first one clutched a dagger in his right hand, the second was weaponless. Then I noted another dagger - on the floor, near the live man's feet. I raised my eyes to him. This made no sense whatsoever. I'd have judged the two figures upon the floor to have been dead for several days, at least, and I had no idea as to what the standing man had been up to.

«Uh… Mind telling me what's going on?» I inquired.

«Damn you, Merlin!» he snarled, and I recognized the voice.