I would have sworn I'd passed a horseman, racing in the other direction, dressed all in gray, collar turned high and head lowered against the rain.
Then the clouds broke themselves apart and we were riding along a seashore. The waves splashed high and enormous gulls swept low above them. The rain had stopped and I killed the lights and the wipers. Now the road was of macadam, but I didn't recognize the place at all. In the rear-view mirror there was no sign of the town we had just departed. My grip tightened upon the wheel as we passed by a sudden gallows where a skeleton was suspended by the neck, pushed from side to side by the wind.
Random just kept smoking and staring out of the window as our road turned away from the shore and curved round a hill. A grassy treeless plain swept away to our right and a row of hills climbed higher on our left. The sky by now was a dark but brilliant blue, like a deep, clear pool, sheltered and shaded. I did not recall having ever seen a sky like that before.
Random opened his window to throw away the butt, and an icy breeze came in and swirled around inside the car until he closed the window again. The breeze had a sea scent to it, salty and sharp.
All roads lead to Amber, he said, as though it were an axiom.
Then I recalled what Flora had said the day before. I didn't want to sound like a dunce or a withholder of crucial information, but I had to tell him, for my sake as well as his own, when I realized what her statements implied.
You know, I began, when you called the other day and I answered the phone because Flora was out, I've a strong feeling she was trying to make it to Amber, and that she found the way blocked.
At this, he laughed.
The woman has very little imagination, he replied. Of course it would be blocked at a time like this. Ultimately, we'll be reduced to walking, I'm sure, and it will doubtless take all of our strength and ingenuity to make it, if we make it at all. Did she think she could walk back like a princess in state, treading on flowers the whole way? She's a dumb bitch. She doesn't really deserve to live, but that's not for me to say, yet.
Turn right at the crossroads, he decided.
What was happening? I knew he was in some way responsible for the exotic changes going on about us, but I couldn't determine how he was doing it, where he was getting us to. I knew I had to learn his secret, but I couldn't just ask him or he'd know I didn't know. Then I'd be at his mercy. He seemed to do nothing but smoke and stare, but coming up out of a dip in the road we entered a blue desert and the sun was now pink above our heads within the shimmering sky. In the rear-view mirror, miles and miles of desert stretched out behind us, for as far as I could see. Neat trick, that.
Then the engine coughed, sputtered, steadied itself, repeated the performance.
The steering wheel changed shape beneath my hands.
It became a crescent; and the seat seemed further back, the car seemed closer to the road, and the windshield had more of a slant to it.
I said nothing, though, not even when the lavender sandstorm struck us.
But when it cleared away, I gasped.
There was a godawful line of cars all jammed up, about half a mile before us. They were all standing still and I could hear their horns.
Slow down, he said. It's the first obstacle.
I did. and another grist of sand swept over us.
Before I could switch on the lights, it was gone, and I blinked my eyes several times.
All the cars were gone and silent their horns. But the roadway sparkled now as the sidewalks had for a time, and I heard Random damning someone or something under his breath.
I'm sure I shifted just the way he wanted us to, whoever set up that block, he said. and it pisses me off that I did what he expected-the obvious.
Eric? I asked,
Probably. What do you think we should do? Stop and try it the hard way for a while, or go on and see if there are more blocks?
Let's go on a bit. After all, that was only the first,
Okay. he said, but added, who knows what the second will be?
The second was a thing-I don't know how else to describe it.
It was a thing that looked like a smelter with arms, squatting in the middle of the road, reaching down and picking up cars, eating them.
I hit the brakes.
What's the matter? Random asked. Keep going. How else can we get past them?
It shook me a bit, I said, and he gave me a strange, sidelong look as another dust storm came up.
It had been the wrong thing to say, I knew.
When the dust cleared away, we were racing along an empty road once more. And there were towers in the distance.
I think I've screwed him up. said Random. I combined several into one, and I think it may be one he hasn't anticipated. After all, no one can cover all roads to Amber.
True, I said, hoping to redeem myself from whatever faux pas had drawn that strange look.
I considered Random. A little, weak looking guy who could have died as easily as I on the previous evening. What was his power? And what was all this talk of Shadows? Something told me that whatever Shadows were, we moved among them even now. How? It was something Random was doing, and since he seemed at rest physically, his hands in plain sight, I decided it was something he did with his mind. Again, how?
Well, I'd heard him speak of adding and subtracting, as though the universe in which he moved were a big equation.
I decided-with a sudden certainty that he was somehow adding and subtracting items to and from the world that was visible about us to bring us into closer and closer alignment with that strange place, Amber, for which he was solving.
It was something I'd once known how to do. And the key to it, I knew in a flash, was remembering Amber. But I couldn't.
The road curved abruptly, the desert ended, to give way to fields of tall, blue, sharp-looking grass. After a while, the terrain became a bit hilly, and at the foot of the third hill the pavement ended and we entered upon a narrow dirt road. It was hard-packed, and it wound its way among greater hills upon which small shrubs and bayonet like thistle bushes now began to appear.
After about half an hour of this, the hills went away, and we entered a forest of squat, big-boled trees with diamond-shaped leaves of autumn orange and purple.
A light rain began to fall, and there were many shadows. Pale mists arose from mats of soggy leaves. Off to the right somewhere, I heard a howl.
The steering wheel changed shape three more times, its latest version being an octagonal wooden affair. The car was quite tall now, and we had somewhere acquired a hood ornament in the shape of a flamingo. I refrained from commenting on these things, but accommodated myself to whatever positions the seat assumed and new operating requirements the vehicle obtained. Random, however, glanced at the steering wheel just as another howl occurred, shook his head, and suddenly the trees were much higher, though festooned with hanging vines and something like a blue veiling of Spanish Moss, and the car was almost normal again. I glanced at the fuel gauge and saw that we had half a tank.
We're making headway, my brother remarked, and I nodded.
The road widened abruptly and acquired a concrete surface. There were canals on both sides, full of muddy water. Leaves, small branches, and colored feathers glided along their surfaces.
I suddenly became lightheaded and a bit dizzy, but Breathe slowly and deeply, said Random, before I could remark on it. We're taking a short cut, and the atmosphere and the gravitation will be a bit different for a time. I think we've been pretty lucky so far, and I want to push it for all it's worth-get as close as we can, as quickly as we can.
Good idea, I said.
Maybe, maybe not, he replied, but I think it's worth the garn Look out!
We were climbing a hill and a truck topped it and came barreling down toward us. It was on the wrong side of the road. I swerved to avoid it, but it swerved, too. At the very last instant, I had to go off the road, onto the soft shoulder to my left, and head close to the edge of the canal in order to avoid a collision.