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and forced their extensions farther downward.   The resistance was even greater there, and the throbbing passed up my arms and into the very center of my being.   I paused and rested, then raised the force to an even higher level of intensity.   The Logrus writhed again and I pushed both hands all the way to the floor, then knelt there panting before I began working my way along the bottom.   The portal was obviously meant never to be opened again.   There was no artistry for this, only brute force.
    When my forces met in the middle, I withdrew and regarded the work.   To the right, to the left and along the bottom, the fine red lines had now become broad fiery ribbons.   I could feel their pulsation across the distance that separated us.
    I stood and raised my arms.   I began to work along the top, starting at the corners, moving inward.   It was easier than it had been earlier.   The forces from the opened areas seemed to add a certain pressure, and my hands just flowed to the middle.   When they met I seemed to hear something like a soft sighing sound.   I dropped them and considered my work.   The entire outline flared now.   But more than that.   It seemed almost as if the bright line were flowing, around and around.   .   .   .
    I stood there for several minutes, regrouping, relaxing, settling.   Working up my nerve.   All I knew was that the door would lead to a different shadow.   That could mean anything.   When I opened it something could, I suppose, leap out and attack me.   But then, it had been sealed for some time.   More probably any trap would be of a different sort.   Most likely, I would open it and nothing would happen.   I would then have a choice of merely looking around from where I stood or entering.   And there probably wouldn’t be very much to see, just standing there, looking.   .   .   .
    So I extended my Logus members once again, taking hold of the door at either side, and I pushed.   A yielding occurred on the side to my right, so I released my hold on the left.   I continued my pressure on the right and the whole thing suddenly swung inward and away.   .   .   .
    I was looking down a pearly tunnel, which appeared to widen after a few paces.   Beyond that was a ripple effect, as of distant heat patterns above the road on a hot summer day.   Patches of redness and indeterminate dark shapes swam within it.   I waited for perhaps half a minute, but nothing approached.
    I prepared Frakir for trouble.   I maintained my Logrus connection.   I advanced, extending probes before me.   I passed within.
    A sudden change in the pressure gradient at my back caused me to cast a quick glance in that direction.   The doorway had closed and dwindled, now appearing to me in the distance as a tiny red cube.   My several steps could, of course, have borne me a great distance also, should the rules of this space so operate.
    I continued, and a hot wind flowed toward me, engulfed me, stayed with me.   The sides of my passageway receded, the prospect before me continued to shimmer and dance, and my pace became more labored, as if I were suddenly walking uphill.   I heard something like a grunt from beyond the place where my vision misbehaved, and my left Logrus probe encountered something that it jolted slightly.   Frakir began to throb simultaneous with my sensing an aura of menace through the probe.   I sighed.   I hadn’t expected this was going to be easy.   If I’d been running the show I wouldn’t have let things go with just sealing the door.
    “All right, asshole! Hold it right there!” a voice boomed from ahead.   I continued to trudge forward.
    It came again.   “I said halt!”
    Things began to swim into place as I advanced, and suddenly there were rough walls to my right and left and a roof overhead, narrowing, converging
    A huge rotund figure barred my way, looking like a purple Buddha with bat ears.   Details resolved themselves as I drew nearer: