The greenness was now turning steadily into a liquid, a rushing torrent of liquid that was hot and cold at the same time. It chilled parts of Blade's body, scalded others, filled his nostrils with fumes that had no odor and yet choked him, stabbed at his joints and groin with piercing daggers of icy cold, tormented him in a hundred ways. It carried him along as it did so, as if it wished to prolong the torment. It carried him on at a steadily increasing speed, until he felt that he was being whirled along like a log through rapids in flood.
Blade wondered when the rapids would sweep him over the falls to be smashed to pieces on the rocks at the bottom.
Chapter 3
Suddenly there was no more heat around Blade, only cold. What roared past him as loudly as ever was not liquid but air. He was still moving, but more slowly. As he rolled over and over, something solid struck him, now in the chest, now in the knee, now in the head.
Blade threw out his arms and legs to stop himself. They slammed against something solid and cold and rough as sandpaper. He could feel patches of skin vanishing from his fingers and toes. Then he rolled over the edge of something, fell with a thud, and stopped dead. He took several deep breaths and opened his eyes.
He realized then that his eyes had actually been open for some time. It was just that this time he'd landed in Dimension X on a pitch-black night. As his senses cleared further, he realized that the roaring coldness around him was a strong wind. It had blown him across the face of the land like a dry leaf, into the shallow depression where he now lay. He shifted position, ready to sit up. As he did, he felt the pressure of the belt around his waist and the sheathed knife against his thigh.