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along, I became aware of a pain in my right ankle-product of all the hiking and climbing I had done, I
supposed. It began increasing with each step. It was hot and soon grew to be quite terrible. Had I
somehow torn a ligament? Had I-
Of course. I could smell the burning leather now.
I plunged my hand into the sheath area of my boot and withdrew the Chaos dagger. It was radiating
heat. This proximity to the Pattern was affecting it. I couldn't keep it about me any longer.
I drew my arm back and cast the weapon across the Pattern in the direction I was facing, toward
the end of the room where the doorway was situated. Automatically my gaze followed its passage. There
was a small movement in the shadows toward which it flew. A man was standing there, watching me. The
dagger struck the wall and fell to the floor. He leaned over and picked it up. I heard a chuckle. He made
a sudden movement, and the dagger came arcing back across the Pattern in my direction.
It landed ahead and to the right of me. As soon as it made contact with the Pattern, a fountain of
blue flame engulfed it, rising well above the level of my head, splattering, sizzling. I flinched and I slowed,
though I knew it would do me no permanent harm, and I kept walking. I had reached the long frontal arc
where the going was slow.
"Stay on the line," I yelled to Jurt. "Don't worry about things like that."
"I understand," he said. "Who's that guy?"
"Damned if I know."
I pushed ahead. I was nearer to the circle of flame now. I wondered what thety'iga would think of
my present predicament. I made my way around another turn and was able to see back over a
considerable section of my trail. It was glowing evenly, and Jurt was coming on strongly, moving as I had,
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the flames rising above his ankles now. They were almost up to my knees. From the corner of my eye I
saw a movement from that area of the chamber where the stranger stood.
The man moved forth from his shadowy alcove, slowly carefully, flowing along the far wall. At least
he did not seem interested in walking the Pattern. He moved to a point almost directly opposite its
beginning.
I had no choice but to continue my course, which took me through curves and turns that removed
him from my sight. I came to another break in the Pattern and felt it knit as I crossed it. A barely audible
music seemed to occur as I did so. The tempo of the flux within the lighted area seemed to increase also,
as it flowed into the lines, etching a sharp, bright trail behind me. I called an occasional piece of advice to
Jurt, who was several laps back, though his course sometimes brought him abreast of me and close
enough to touch had there been any reason to.
The blue fires were higher now, reaching up to midthigh, and my hair was rising. I began a slow
series of turns. Above the crackling and the music, I asked,How're you doing, Frakir? There was no
reply.
I turned, kept moving through an area of high impedance, emerged from it, beholding the fiery wall
of Coral's prison there at the Pattern's center. As I took my way around it, the opposite side of the
Pattern slowly came into view.
The stranger stood waiting, the collar of his cloak turned high. Within the shadows which lay upon
his face, I could see that his teeth were bared in a grin. I was startled by the fact that he stood in the
midst of the Pattern itself-watching my advance, apparently waiting for me-until I realized that he had
entered by way of a break in the design which I was headed to repair.
"You are going to have to get out of my way," I called out. "I can't stop, and I can't let you stop me!"
He didn't stir, and I recalled my father's telling me of a fight which had occurred on the primal
Pattern. I slapped the hilt of Grayswandir.
"I'm coming through," I said.
The blue-white fires came up even higher with my next step, and in their light I saw his face. It was
my own.
"No," I said.
"Yes," he said.
"You are the last of the Logrus-ghosts to confront me."
"Indeed," he replied.
I took another step.
"Yet," I observed, "if you are a reconstruction of myself from the time I made it through the Logrus,
why should you oppose me here? The self I recall being in those days wouldn t have taken a job like
this."
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His grin went away
"I am not you in that sense," he stated. "The only way to make this happen as it must, as I
understand it, was to synthesize my personality in some fashion."
"So you're me with a lobotomy and orders to kill."
"Don't say that," he replied. "It makes it sound wrong, and what I'm doing is right. We even have
many of the same memories."
"Let me through and I'll talk to you afterward. I think the Logrus may have screwed itself by trying
this stunt. You don't want to kill yourself, and neither do I. Together we could win this game, and there's
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