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barely grunt out words through the pain, and the next, all the aches were
gone.
Even the scrape I'd taken on my left hip had healed, and the clothing over it.
Stall, Walter, stall."Just wait a minute," I said. "This is too easy for you.
Give yourself a handicap. Don't just look like me. Reduce your strength and
speed to mine. Make it a fair contest." If Boioardo had a weakness, it was his
arrogance although who could call him on it? Incredibly powerful,
invulnerable, able to assume any form he chose. I would rather have been in
Philadelphia.
He cocked his head to one side. "Fair, no; I do not care to lose. Less unfair,
certainly. That will make you better sport."
He eyed me carefully, then closed his eyes and concentrated. His form seemed
to flow for a moment, then stop flowing, until he looked like me, again.
Boioardo took one step forward. "I'm only twice as strong as you, and but half
again as fast." He blocked my punch and backhanded me back, lights flashing on
the edge of my vision. "That ought to do."
If you practice something often enough, it becomes part of your muscle memory.
Maybe the basic block-and-strike was like that.
He took a punch at me, and I had blocked it, moved in and brought my knee up
quick as all hell.
The only trouble for me was that he was already blocking down, and hard.
The only trouble for him is that I'd finally slipped one of my throwing knives
into my left blocking hand and slipped that in between his ribs. He staggered
back, in pain. Not enough pain, but he'd taken on not just enough of my form,
but enough of the reality of being human, to hurt.
I would have finished him off, but I'd been through that before with him when
he was playing wolf. The best I could do the best I hoped to do was to fight
him to a stalemate while the others did their thing.
And the best way to do that was to run.
I ran, down the street, and into
* * *
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a forest of huge trees, the canopy of leaves arcing fifty feet above my head.
Low brush clawed at my ankles and calves as I ran, my feet crashing through
the dry leaves littering the floor. Above, tiny green lizards in the trees
sang in easy counterpoint to the rhythm of my steps.
I was tripped, sent sprawling; I rolled to my feet, barely avoiding an immense
projecting root, one of the huge trees at my back.
Boioardo moved his cloak aside as he faced off against me.
The only plan that occurred to me was to stall for a moment, just a moment,
while I readied a knife.
Maybe this one would hit something vital, knock him dead before he could
regenerate himself.
"The Place Where One Speaks Only Truth," he said. "Just the outskirts of it.
Shall we end it here?"
"No, I'd rather stall as long as I can," I said, truthfully, fingers clawing
surreptitiously for a throwing knife.
"And I'm going to try to stab you "
Shit, shit, shit . . .
I ran up the root toward the trunk of the tree and leaped for another root, my
next leap carrying me beyond the tree, toward a path. His footsteps crashed
behind me as I scampered down the path through a bend, to where it intersected
with another path, and leaped through
* * *
Andrea turned to Jason. "Quickly, hand me your knife," she said.
Jason didn't move; Ahira shoved him aside, hard, snatching at his belt for the
knife, flipping it easily, hilt-first, to Andrea.
She raised the knife and tossed it toward the open door, just as the other
Andrea, dressed in black leather, flicked into being in the doorframe.
Ahira's breath caught in his throat.
* * *
into darkness. I tripped, and fell backward, into water and slime, then
forced myself to my feet, all wet and cold. I could barely stand without
bumping my head on the roof of the tunnel; I steadied myself with my hands
against the side. The walls of the tunnel were warm and soft to the touch, the
fleshy feel of it broken every ten feet or so by hard rings of something white
and bony beneath the surface.
There was light ahead, farther along in the tunnel. I staggered along, as
quickly as I could. There was a juncture up ahead, barely visible.
Footsteps thundered behind me as I reached the junction and dashed through
* * *
into the next passage of the tunnel.
Sometimes, even in Ehvenor, a corner is just a corner.
I ran on, my feet making awful sucking noises in the muck, and into
* * *
Ahira's breath caught in his throat.
"
No.
" It had to have been Andrea, but it couldn't have been Andrea. Andrea
wouldn't try to kill her earlier self, but Ahira had just given whoever this
was a knife.
The blade twisted through the air, barely passing over the new Andrea's
shoulder, only to bury itself in an outstretched hairy arm.
Ahira smiled. By God, he had been right. White Andrea was his old friend.
White Andrea grabbed Black Andrea's arm and pulled her to one side as the
thing staggered inside, all hair and muscle and stink.
It closed with Ahira, hairy hands fastening on his throat as it lifted the
dwarf bodily from the floor, ignoring the knife still stuck in its arm. The
new Andrea, the younger one, raised her hand, but the one in white batted it
aside.
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"No. We have to go.
Now.
This is where we abandon them. We don't have much time."
Over her protests, the white Andrea pulled the other one out through the door,
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