Compleat Traveller in Black Read Online Free PDF Page B

you to a city. And whatever you do, do not speak with a woman in clothing the color of blood. Otherwise I cannot answer for the outcome.”
    “What nonsense!” thought Bernard to himself. But since he had no choice he thanked the other in a civil fashion and went on circumspectly down the lane.
     
    The alder trees poked up, white and gnarled, from the grass of the promised meadow, like the fingers of a skeleton. Bernard hesitated, looking around. He knew he would feel foolish if he acted as he had been advised. Still, so far as he could tell no one was watching, and the logic of common sense had long ago enabled him to conclude that he was not at present in a region where common sense was greatly prized.
    He was troubled, though, that he could discern no sign at all of a road beyond this point, so that unless he did what he had been told, and it – ah – worked, he would have to retrace his steps, with the concomitant prospect of a second encounter with Jorkas. For that he had no stomach. Accordingly, he bowed his head three times, rather as he an unbeliever might have done in church, and was taken aback to find he was suddenly standing on a well-defined path. Which, he instantly noticed, led nowhere save around the alders.
    Well, the black-clad man had said he should take the path which led around them. He turned to his left and resolutely made three circuits, hopeful of getting somewhere else eventually.
    Starting his third turn, when he was feeling distinctly embarrassed by his own silliness, he glanced towards the trees again and saw a slender woman standing among them. She had a face of perfect oval shape, skin like mother-of-pearl, and hair blacker than the midnight sky. But she was gowned from shoulders to ankles in a dress as red as blood.
    She spoke to him in a musical voice, sarcastically. “And where do you think your circumambulations will carry you, my foolish friend? Did no one ever warn you that if you walk in circles you’ll get nowhere? Why not head onward? See!”
    She raised an arm on which golden bracelets jangled, and when Bernard followed her pointing finger he saw a city of black houses clustered round a lofty tower, whose top resembled onyx and whose shaft resembled agate.
    A strange sort of city! Yet at least a zone of habitation, not a further stretch of deserted countryside. He was half minded to make towards it with all haste, yet felt a vague foreboding. There was a sense of menace in the air …
    He spoke aloud, but to himself, not the woman in red, and said, “The man who saved me from Jorkas advised me not to speak with a woman in a dress the color of blood. I assume this advice extends to not following any suggestion she may make.”
    Doggedly he completed his rotatory progress, while the woman’s laughter tinkled irritatingly in his ears, and was rewarded on his final circuit to see that she had gone. Somewhere. Somehow.
    Moreover, another city was in sight, and this was not so disturbing. Its towers were of gold and silver, and although the sky about it was of an electrical blue shade that seemed to presage nothing less familiar than the advent of a storm.
    “There, perhaps,” reasoned Bernard, “I may escape this conglomeration of cryptic nonmeaningful events, and may even track down someone who can tell me how to get home.”
    He struck out across the meadow, and shortly came to a wide though dusty road, which led straight towards the city with the gold and silver towers. Determined to reach it in the least possible time, he thrust the road behind him with feet that now began to ache more than a little.
     
    “So!” said the enchanter Manuus, leaning back in his chair with a chuckle. “So!” he said again, dropping the cover – made of bat’s skin as fine and supple as silk – over his scrying-glass. “Well, well, well, well, well !”
     
    V
     
    At the head of the council table – which, because the weather was oppressive, he had caused to be set out under the