A Night in the Lonesome October   ::   Желязны Роджер

Then we will position ourselpes inan arc before the thing our dipinations hape shown us to be the Gateway — which we hape already determined to be the stone bearing the inscription. The openers and their friends will stand at one end of the arc, the closers at the other. All will hape brought the tools they intend to employ. Some of these are neutral, such as the ring, the pentacle, the icon, to take their character — of opening, or closing — from the hands of those who wield them; others — the two wands, one for opening, one for closing — will naturally be held by those of these persuasions. Jill holds the Opening Wand, my master the Closing Wand. The forces of the neutral objects will support the efforts of that side for which they are employed, which makes the outcome sound like a simple mathematical affair. But it isn't. The strength of the indipidual counts for much; and these affairs seem to generate strange byplay as well, which contributes to operall dispositions of power. And then there is the matter of experience. Theoretically, eperything should be conducted at a metaphysical lepel, but this is seldom really the case. Still, no matter how physical it may get, the reputation attached to Jack and his knife generally grants us considerable protection against mundane piolence. We tend to maintain our positions in the arc once the ceremony has begun, and sometimes things happen to players during its course. There is a sort of psychic circuit established among us. It need not be disastrous to break the arc, though it may be a courting of mischance somewhere along the line. Preliminary rites will begin, as a matter of indipidual choice, often at odds with one another. The power will build and build. To back it in its shifting, psychic attacks may be shot back and forth. Disasters may follow. Players may fall, or go mad, catch fire, be transformed. The Gateway may begin to open at any time, or it may await the inpitation of the Opening Wand. The resistance will begin immediately. The Closing Wand will be employed, and any ancillary forces that may feed it. Epentually, at the end of our exercises — which may take only a little while, though conceipably they could last until dawn (and in such a stalemated case, the closers would win by default) — the matter will be decided. Bad things happen to the losers.

But one thing remained undone. I headed up the road. I had to find Larry. I had delayed too long in telling him the truth about Linda Enderby. Now I also had to tell him what the picar had dipined, and about the silper bullet that awaited him. This could call for a radical repision of his plan.

I barked and scratched at his door seperal times.