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nowhere
and . . .
Easy, Walter.
Andy was guiding us toward Ehvenor by magic; Ahira was looking into the fog,
at least a little way farther than I could, protecting us from sudden attack.
Tennetty, Jason, and I were useless, and a third of that really bothered the
hell out of me.
"Just a little farther," Andrea said, off in the mist, just a shape, nothing
more.
The fog rolled up to my knees, and then to my belly, and it was all I could do
to see my hand in front of my face.
"Here," Andy said, "take a sharp right, and step forward. No, not the rest of
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you. Just Ahira. Okay, Walter, you're next."
I turned right and took a step forward, out of the fog, and found myself
standing next to Ahira in the morning light and thick mud of a narrow Ehvenor
street.
* * *
I wanted to run, I started to run, but the mud sucked at my boots. It would be
like trying to run, well, through mud.
Besides, there was no reason to run. I had just been in dense fog, and now
Ahira and I stood in clear light on a narrow street, surrounded by two-story
wattle-and-daub buildings, up to our ankles in soft, brown mud. It could have
been any street in any city, except for the way that faerie lights, bright
even in the daylight, hovered motionless overhead, seemingly frozen in place.
Andy's voice was far away, but I couldn't tell in what direction. "Jason goes
next," she said. "Right here.
Yes, go right, right here."
And suddenly Jason, and then Tennetty, and finally Andrea herself were beside
us.
I forced a smile. "Nicely done. I didn't know you could teleport."
Andy smiled; then reached over and gave me a peck on the cheek. "Thank you for
the compliment, but true teleportation takes power and control that's only
theoretically possible. For anything mortal," she added.
If that wasn't teleportation, I'd like to know what it is.
I guess the question showed on my face, because she shrugged and answered.
"It's not teleportation.
Teleportation is when you go from point A to noncontiguous point B, skipping
the points between. This just happened to be right next to where we were, if
you knew where to look."
The air was warmer than it should have been for this time of the morning; I'd
expected it to warm up some, but not this much. Cold mornings are better. Give
a hot sun a while to work on the typical city street, and it'll smell like
it's been paved in well-aged horseshit. Which it has, come to think of it.
"Waddling Way," Andrea said, nodding to herself, beckoning us to follow her. A
twisty street, lined by
two-story wattle-and-daub buildings, it curved off sharply maybe a hundred
feet behind us, and less in front. The buildings were too tall and we were too
close to see much over them, except for the distant glow of the Faerie dome to
the north.
It was all quiet, and empty, except for the mud, and the buildings, and the
faerie lights.
"Is quiet," I said. "Too quiet, kemo sabe."
Ahira chuckled. "Shut up," he said, not meaning it, as we walked after Andy.
"Take it while you can get it."
Tennetty turned about slowly, like a camera panning in a full three-sixty,
which I guess she was, at least in a sense. I didn't blame her for wanting to
take it all in it was so ordinary, not at all what I'd expected
Ehvenor to be. Where was the flickering? The street we were standing on was as
ordinary and solid as any street I'd ever seen.
I was going to be the straight man, but Jason beat me to it.
"Where's all the flickers? Why is it all so stable?" he asked.
Andrea didn't turn around. "The flickering was from indeterminacy. Ehvenor is
never really sure what it is, and the uncertainty has been growing. But
whatever it is, we're here, and that's determinate. We're in only one time and
place."
I had my usual reaction to explanations about magic:
"Oh."
There's three theories about how to make your way down a street in hostile
territory. My favorite theory is to avoid it in the first place; you very
rarely can get killed in places you aren't. Second best is to split the party
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in two, each group staying on one side, covering the other. It limits the
field of fire of anybody hiding in buildings on either side.
Another theory is that you walk square down the middle of the street; the idea
is that gives you time to react before anybody or anything can reach you.
I don't much like that one, so I moved away, toward the raised wooden sidewalk
that skirted the alley.
"No," Andrea said, without turning around. "Don't. You might get lost. Can't
afford that."
Lost? Look I'm not the kind who gets lost. I don't have a perfect sense of
direction, but nobody's going to lose me on the streets of a city, not without
a whole lot of trying.
Right, Walter, so where's the fog bank that was up to your nose?
I stayed close.
Waddling Way twisted and turned for maybe a quarter of a mile until it forked
around a vest-pocket park, the left road leading up a cobbled street, the
right one down into more muck.
I bent my head toward Ahira's. "Want to bet which way we go here?"
"Right here," Andy said, clopping down into the deeper muck, sinking in almost
to her calves.
"It rained hard here, and recently," Ahira said, his eyes never stopping
moving.
"No shit, Sherlock."
We followed her down into the muck, our boots making horrible sucking sounds
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