Blood of Amber

A sudden change in the pressure gradient at my back caused me to cast a quick glance in that direction. The doorway had closed and dwindled, now appearing to me in the distance as a tiny red cube. My several steps could, of course, have borne me a great distance also, should the rules of this space so operate.

I continued, and a hot wind flowed toward me, engulfed me, stayed with me. The sides of my passageway receded, the prospect before me continued to shimmer and dance, and my pace became more labored, as if I were suddenly walking uphill. I heard something like a grunt from beyond the place where my vision misbehaved, and my left Logrus probe encountered something that it jolted slightly. Frakir began to throb simultaneous with my sensing an aura of menace through the probe. I sighed. I hadn't expected this was going to be easy. If I'd been running the show I wouldn't have let things go with just sealing the door.

«All right, asshole! Hold it right there!» a voice boomed from ahead. I continued to trudge forward.

It came again. «I said halt!»

Things began to swim into place as I advanced, and suddenly there were rough walls to my right and left and a roof overhead, narrowing, converging

A huge rotund figure barred my way, looking like a purple Buddha with bat ears. Details resolved themselves as I drew nearer: protruding fangs, yellow eyes that seemed to be lidless, long red claws on its great hands and feet. It was seated in the middle of the tunnel and made no effort to rise. It wore no clothing, but its great swollen belly rested upon its knees, concealing its sex. Its voice had been gruffly masculine, however, and its odor generically foul.

«Hi,» I said. «Nice day, wasn't it?»

It growled and the temperature seemed to rise slightly. Frakir had grown frantic and I calmed her mentally.

The creature leaned forward and with one bright nail inscribed a smoking line in the stone of the floor. I halted before it.

«Cross that line, sorcerer, and you've had it,» it said.

«Why?» I asked.

«Because I said so.»

«If you're collecting tolls,» I suggested, «name the price.»

It shook its head. «You can't buy your way past me.»

«Uh - what makes you think I'm a sorcerer?»

It opened the dingy cavern of its face, displaying even more lurking teeth than I'd suspected, and it did something like the rattling of a tin sheet way down deep in back.

«I felt that little probe of yours,» it said. «It's a sorcerer's trick. Besides, nobody but a sorcerer could have gotten to the place where you're standing.»

«You do not seem to possess a great deal of respect for the profession.»

«I eat sorcerers,» it told me.

I made a face, thinking back over some of the old farts I've known in the business.

«To each, his, her or its own, I guess,» I told it. «So what's the deal? A passage is no good unless you can get through it. How do I get by here?»

«You don't.»

«Not even if I answer a riddle?»

«That won't do it for me,» it said. But a small gleam came into its eye. «Just for the hell of it, though, what's green and red and goes round and round and round?» it asked.

«You know the sphinx!»

«Shit!» it said. «You've heard it.»

I shrugged. «I get around.»

«Not here you don't.»

I studied it. It had to have some special defense against magical attacks if it were set to stop sorcerers. As for physical defense it was fairly imposing. I wondered how fast it was. Could I just dive past and start running? I decided that I did not wish to experiment along that line.

«I really do have to get through,» I tried. «It's an emergency.»

«Tough.»

«Look, what do you get out of this, anyway? It seems like a pretty crummy job, sitting here in the middle of a tunnel.»

«I love my work. I was created for it.»

«How come you let the sphinx come and go?»

«Magical beings don't count.»

«Hm.»

«And don't try to tell me you're really a magical being, and then pull some sorcerous illusion. I can see right through that stuff.»

«I believe you. What's your name, anyhow?»

It snorted. «You can call me Scrof, for conversational purposes. Yourself?»

«Call me Corey.»

«Okay, Corey. I don't mind sitting here bullshitting with you, because that's covered by the rules. It's allowed. You've got three choices and one of them would be real stupid. You can turn around and go back the way you came and be none the worse for wear. You can also camp right where you are for as long as you like and I won't lift a finger so long as you behave. The dumb thing to do would be to cross this line I've drawn. Then I'd terminate you. This is the Threshold and I am the Dweller on it. I don't let anybody get by.»

«I appreciate your making it clear.»

«It's part of the job. So what'll it be?»

I raised my hands and the lines of force twisted like knives at each fingertip. Frakir dangled from my wrist and began to swing in an elaborate pattern.

Scrof smiled. «I not only eat sorcerers, I eat their magic, too. Only a being torn from the primal Chaos can make that claim. So come ahead, if you think you can face that.»

«Chaos, eh? Torn from the primal Chaos?»