approach with an uncommon swiftness, and I halted for some while to regard its performance.
The disposition of the city seemed slightly different than the last time I had studied it from this vantage,
though my mind was troubled and the fog moved too quickly for me to be certain of anything. For with
fog I could see her again with the eyes of memory, Annie, dream child, dream girl, dream lady, Annie,
she whose existence I had counted over the years as some recurrent fantasy, a child's imaginary
playmate who had, somehow, grown up along with him, who, somehow, summoned me, or I her, to
realms of hysterical vision, usually upon a seashore, Annie, my dear hallucination, my lady of the
fog. . . .
And that was all. For what more could she be—my secret aberration, dream companion, somehow friend
or even more . . . ?
Annie. Not real. Of course not. All those times we had met, no more substantial than the fog I now
considered. Or so I'd thought. Until the day before yesterday when my world was broken.
I had been walking in the town, prompting digestion following dinner. Then as now a bit of fog had
drifted on the sea breeze through lengthening shadows. Autumn matched the sea with a dampness of its
own. Storefronts mixed darkness with reflections. A patient spaniel awaited his master before a public
house. Dust glistened on the roadway. Several dark birds passed seaward, uttering raucous notes. At this,
I was overtaken by a great feeling of uneasiness. Moments later, I heard the cry.
That seems the best way to put it, though upon reflection it does not seem I actually could have heard
her just then. For the coach was not yet even in sight. It was more that there was a cry and I
apprehended her presence.
A moment later the coach careered around the corner—a tall, black affair—springs protesting, horses all
lathered, its swart driver wrestling with the reins, lips curled back in something near to a snarl. The
vehicle swayed dangerously, straightened, and plunged ahead, passing me in a swirl of dust. But I saw
her face at its window—Annie. Our gazes met for but the briefest of moments, and she started and I
heard her cry out again, though I was not certain that her lips had moved, nor did any of the several other
pedestrians near me show any signs of having heard.
"Annie!" I shouted back, and then she was by me and gone away down that street that took her to the sea.
I turned and I began running. The dog barked a few times. Someone shouted something I could not
understand and followed it with a laugh. The coach rumbled on its way, gaining on me, and I found
myself racing through a cloud of dust.
I began to cough before I reached the corner, and my eyes were brimming, I moved back to the side of
the road as the coach pulled away, regaining the boarded walk I had departed. I continued to follow,
though at a slower pace, concerned more with keeping track of the coach than catching up with it
immediately. I was, in this fashion, able to keep it in sight for some while, increasing my pace as the
dust settled. When it turned, I ran again, to the corner in question, and I caught sight of it once more.
Eddie, I seemed to hear her say. Help me. I fear that I have been drugged. I believe they mean me
harm. . . .
I began another dash, this time downhill. The coach seemed headed toward the harbor, was almost there,
actually. I ran on, oblivious to everything but the plight of a woman whose very existence had been a
thing of ambiguity to me but moments before. My lady of dreams and shadows, of beaches and mists,
was somehow trapped in the real world, confined to a coach rushing toward the docks. She needed my
help and I'd some fear as to my ability to reach her in time to provide it.
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Nieuwe%20map/Zelazny,%20Ro...20Fred%20-%20The%20Black%20Throne/0743435796___1.htm (8 of 10)6-1-2007 13:29:31