In Chaos there are no permanent edges.

	I mention this because human eyes are very good at 

picking out edges from disorder. The eye clings to order, 

sometimes fabricating it where it does not exist. In my 

birthplace, human eyes are deceived all too easily. A human 

infant born there would never learn to speak, is certainly 

doomed never to walk, probably never to stand, and unless 

possessed of unusual agility, will probably not learn to crawl. 

I was not born human, and thus I never encountered these 

problems.

	My childhood was relatively happy. Not particularly 

secure, but happy. I played among the Ways and the nearer 

shadows; my companions were imps and lesser demons. We gamboled 

and frisked about the outskirts of the Courts; always underfoot 

of the adults, yet always on the far side of their eventual 

wrath. I knew enough to keep out of the locked rooms and the 

conference chambers - the only time I had been caught inside 

one, I had been soundly thrashed. Since that incident, I was 

careful never to get caught.

	We played hide and seek through the winding corridors 

of House Twist, the family estate. The thoroughly non-Euclidean 

geometry has stayed with me ever since. I learned early on that 

the slightest whisper could be important in detecting the 

location of a companion hiding just around a corner - 

especially when the corner was at more than 360 degrees from 

you.

	On occasion one of my relatives would take me on a trip 

through shadow. Often as not, it was a hunting expedition - 

sometimes game, sometimes fowl, sometimes more intelligent 

prey. With Halfunderuncle Zamir, I practiced bow, crossbow and 

throwing sticks. From - well, I learned more than just weapons 

and tactics, but I most certainly learned those two. The 

education of a gentleman includes music, dancing, fighting and 

rhetoric; I did well enough at all four.

	My tutors were also my relatives and (often) my elders 

in rank. Growing up as the primary heir to House Twist, I was 

never selfconscious about the use of power. On one frustrating 

day, I ordered three of my playmates executed. Luckily, before 

I could find a servant to have the order carried out, Tripfeluncle

Suhuy asked what I was doing. As I recall, he was quite amused - after he 

canceled the order, he took me for my first visit to the Court, 

so that I could see the way Royal Orders were decided upon. I 

was quite impressed by the concepts of 'stays' and 'pardons', 

and resolved then and there that someday I would hold the 

position of Lord High Executive - oh, how his uniform demonform 

glittered in the skylight! Ever since, I have had no designs 

upon the Throne of Change itself, even though I realize that 

with sufficient cleverness, that too could be mine.

	About halfway through my first century, I realized what 

really set me apart from my elders. They had all negotiated 

with the Logrus; until I did likewise, I would be a child. 

Secretly I approached Xantibbus, who taught me battleaxe 

techniques and whom I knew held special seminars in shadow 

geometrics. He gently discouraged me from attempting the 

negotiation on my own, and as soon as I left his study, he 

called my father Madrox to report the incident.

	When I returned home, a servant relayed Madrox's desire 

to see me in his drawing room. Immediately.

	I was sure I was in trouble. Father kept his drawing 

room for formal occasions; his study was a much cosier place, 

filled with trinkets, souvenirs and his immediate library. 

House Twist has always been cluttered with books, and Father's 

study exemplified that situation.

	For the next three hours, Madrox reviewed every 

tutorial I had ever had, every lecture, every practicum and 

every seminar. And then he began his own lecture, this on the 

hazards and wonders of the Logrus, the Sign of Chaos which 

sustains the multiverse. That lasted another four or five 

hours. I had been forced to listen to longer, though.

	Some time into his lecture, Madrox paused, attempted to 

continue, and then stopped completely with the strangest 

expression on his face. Then he asked me if I felt up to 

negotiating the Logrus next yellowsky.



***



	We approached the Abyss from Tyr Cliff. All the glory 

of eternity spread out before me as I stood in the Chapel of 

the Worldsnake and received the Archpriest's blessing before 

the bleary-eyed morning people. I crossed the landbridge to the 

Isle Sign and stripped myself naked before the twisting mass of 

the Logrus.

	I took this behavior as a good sign, that the primary 

motions of the Sign were twists rather than shifts, jumps, 

waves, rotations, transitions or extensions. Was I not the heir 

to House Twist? Lastly I removed the signet ring Madrox had 

presented to me after my first duel. As I slipped it off, I 

felt a good deal of my calm slip away with it. Nevertheless, I 

stepped forward into the waiting arms of the Logrus with no 

outward show of nervousness. It would not do to have my father 

perceive such detail of my mind.

	As my foot stepped on the first tendril, I felt the 

very molecules of my body slipsliding uncontrollably. Rather 

than delay the inevitable - for I was now certain of my own 

death - I pushed forward into the seething mass, immersing my 

entire body.

	I could see the entire span of shadow now, all the way 

up to the Pattern at the end of time, yet my attention was 

rigidly focussed on the event of chaos which I followed with my 

essence. My feet became both clawed and cloven, to better my 

grip upon the fabric of existence. Lightning struck my body a 

dozen. a hundred, a thousand times - and my skin contorted 

inside itself, folding upon itself to become hard, black and 

crenellated. I was carried down a river of ice, gathering speed 

from the rush towards the waterfall, and somehow I maintained 

my grasp upon the shifting branch in my hands. Then we 

plummeted over the waterfall, and I was dashed to pieces on the 

sharp rocks below.

	Yet on the bleak shores of that strange cascade, my 

flesh crawled towards itself, and absorbed that gnarled branch, 

which my claws still clenched, moving it inwards. I stood 

transformed, as I co-opted the Logrus as my spine.

	I walked forwards, following the line of darkest 

despair which revealed itself to me. A purple griffin swooped 

from the changeling sky, ripping flesh from my arms and 

shoulders. Twice I assaulted it to no avail. Then I grew taller 

and thinner, contorting into a mass of spines. Into the sky I 

soared, and impaled the carrion-bird through its blackly 

beating heart. I fell through a cloud of acid, and again the 

lightning assailed me. Every motion was intensely painful, each 

heartbeat threatened to rip apart my body and mind. I thrust 

forward through the cloud, and slammed into solid ground. I 

spent no time recovering, only rolling to escape the hooves of 

a herd of cattle. Ten thousand head trampled me, forty thousand 

separate tears to my self-concept. I arose and knew that this 

was a good sign, that I was destined to walk the many paths of 

Chaos.

	I walked forwards, and my path lead me to a granite 

spire. Glowing lines of force twisted around this narrow 

needle, illuminating the hellish landscape beneath. My path lay 

up this rock, and my body flowed to a new form. Ropy masses of 

muscle on my new forearms sunk black talons into the grey of 

the rock, and I moved with all the speed I could muster up this 

vertical face. Space danced around me, and I was climbing 

downwards, headfirst, then hanging from the ceiling of the 

universe.

	In vain I sought a firmer grip in the rock. The solid 

granite melted above me, and I fell in a deluge of magma. My 

skin resisted, and again the lightning came. Strike! Strike! 

The third shock remained in my body, and I was an electrical 

beast, as charges of incredible power rushed around my internal 

organs, alternately charring and electrocuting me.

	With a sickening crunch I landed on the rocky shore, 

grounding my body and providing a path for the lightning to 

exit. A fraction of a second later, the molten granite buried 

me. In agony and desperation, I swam to the top. I stood on top 

of a small planetoid, in the approximate center of a chaotic 

sphere. I could not find the tendril that I had been following; 

I could not locate myself in space or shadow; I no longer knew 

who I was.

	The sphere I inhabited was painted in all the glorious 

colors of infinity, shifting like the Logrus itself. Alone, I 

stood on a rock in a prison of chaotic reality for an 

immeasurable time. I changed, and the changing sky drove me 

insane, as I matched its movements. Through decades of

imprisonment, I identified with the sky, embraced the rock and 

called it my enemy. My form remained inconstant, though there 

was no longer any physical resistance to my motion. It was a 

mental battle that I fought then, and it was a battle I lost.

	I do not know how long I spent on that rock in the 

skysphere. I did not hope for escape or rescue; I knew that 

there is no succor for those who have offended the Logrus. Time 

ceased to exist for me; I took neither nourishment nor sleep.

	And at some instant of duration, my shattered psyche 

reintegrated itself. In this flash of realization, I was 

enlightened.

	I reached for the Logrus inside myself and let it guide 

my actions. One infinitesimal flicker of movement caught my 

attention, and then I knew. *There* was the filament which had 

guided my way.

	I reached toward the sky and the skysphere descended in

a sudden rush towards me. I was crushed to a point, a singularity

of nothingness, and at the same time I expanded to fill the void.

	The Logrus expelled me, and I lay gasping on the edge 

of the Abyss. After a time I stood.



***



	When I recovered my sanity, several months later, I was

acclaimed by a banquet in House Twist. Madrox reformalized my

acceptance as heir-designate to the House in front of the whole

Court, at the feet of King Swayvil. 

	For the next several hundred years I sought my own 

education in shadow. I returned home for advice frequently at 

first, but the interval between returns grew steadily longer. I 

attended several famous colleges, universities and schools in 

various shadow realms, learning mathematics and folklore, 

medicine and law and literature. I rose to prominence as a sage 

in more than one shadow; in others I generally took a more 

sedate stance. I went adventuring; I took part in Quests and 

Sagas and Researches.

	I found myself peculiarly drawn to a few shadows. I 

studied history, law and computers in a rather quiet 

university. Just twelve thousand students in which to hide 

myself. But the shadow seemed to me to have rather more substance

than is usual; it was possessed of that strange attribute we 

call reality.

	Another favorite haunt was a more exciting shadow, with 

magic and psi-powers and also a fairly high technology level, 

coupled with low literacy. It was there, in a city hight 

Laszlo, that I discovered my avatar form. In a city named 

Onomakapisay, I commissioned my sword Grimalkin, or GreyMalkin 

as some have called it. Later I returned with my weapon to a 

forge on the edge of the Abyss, whence I quenched the molten 

sword in the Logrus itself, infiltrating the very molecules of 

the weapon with the power to shapeshift and the damage of the 

finest magical edge in all of shadow. This weapon never now 

leaves my side, and I daresay that he who would wield Grimalkin 

without my permission would sooner shake hands with the Logrus 

itself.