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Beyond, a great plain, pinking into evening . . .
    Forward, over pale grasses . . . The smell of fresh earth . . . Mountains or dark clouds far ahead . . . A rush of stars from my left . . . A quick spray of moisture . . . A blue moon leaps into the sky . . . Flickerings among the dark masses . . . Memories and a rumbling noise . . . Stormsmell and rushing air . . .
    A strong wind . . . Clouds across the stars . . . A bright fork spearing a shattered tree to my right, turning it to flame . . . A tingling sensation . . . The smell of ozone . . . Sheets of water upon me . . . A row of lights to my left . . .
    Clattering down a cobbled street . . . A strange vehicle approaching . . . Cylindrical, chugging . . . We avoid one another . . . A shout pursues me . . . Through a lighted window the face of a child . . .
    Clattering . . . Splashing . . . Storefronts and homes . . . The rain lets up, dies down, is gone . . . A fog blows by, lingers, deepens, is pearled by a growing light to my left...
    The terrain softens, grows red . . . The light within the mist brightens . . . A new wind, from behind, a growing warmth . . . The air breaks apart . . .
    Sky of pale lemon . . . Orange sun rushing toward noon . . .
    A shudder! A thing not of my doing, totally unanticipated . . . The ground moves beneath us, but there is more to it than that. The new sky, the new sun, the rusty desert I have just now entered-all of them expand and contract, fade and return. There comes a cracking sound, and with each fading I find Star and myself alone, amid a white nothingness-characters without a setting. We tread upon nothing. The light comes from everywhere and illuminates only ourselves. A steady cracking noise, as of the spring thaw come upon a Russian river I had once ridden beside, fills my ears. Star, who has paced many shadows, emits a frightened sound.
    I look all about me. Blurred outlines appear, sharpen, grow clear. My environment is restored, though with a somewhat washed-out look to it. A bit of the pigment has been drained from the world.
    We wheel to the left, racing for a low hill, mounting it, halting finally at its summit.
    The black road. It too seems denatured-but even more so than the rest. It ripples beneath my gaze, almost seems to undulate as I watch. The cracking noise continues, grows louder. . . .
    A wind comes out of the north, gentle at first but increasing in force. Looking in that direction, I see a mass of dark clouds building.
    I know that I must move as I have never moved before. Ultimates of destruction and creation are occurring at the place I visited-When? No matter. The waves move outward from Amber and this, too, may pass away-and me along with it. If Dad cannot put it all back together again. I shake the reins. We race southward.
    A plain . . . Trees . . . Some broken buildings . . . Faster. . .
    The smoke of a forest afire . . . A wall of flame . . . Gone . . .
    Yellow sky, blue clouds . . . An armada of dirigibles crossing . . .
    Faster. . .
    The sun drops like a piece of hot iron into a bucket of water, stars become streaks . . . A pale light upon a straight trail . . . Sounds dopplered from dark smears, the wailing . . . Brighter the light, fainter the prospect . . . Gray, to my right, my left. . . Brighter now . . . Nothing but the trail my eyes to ride . . . The wailing heightens to a shriek . . . Forms run together . . . We race through a tunnel of Shadow . . . It begins to revolve. . . .
    Turning, turning . . . Only the road is real . . . The worlds go by . . . I have released my control of the sets and ride now the thrust of the power itself, aimed only to remove me from Amber and hurl me toward Chaos . . . There is wind upon me and the cry in my ears . . . Never before have I pushed my power over Shadow to its limit . . . The tunnel grows as slick and seamless as glass . . . I feel I am riding down a vortex, a maelstrom, the heart of a tornado . . . Star and I are drenched with sweat . . . There is a wild