Emerald’s body looked up without his volition and said, “I will fight you Mordred. If I lose, let whomever wishes fight after me.”

Although he was seeing through its eyes and feeling through its senses, Emerald realized he wasn’t in control of the body. It felt vaguely like a nightmare, but not quite. Elders rarely slept by themselves, but might sleep and dream with a host who did so. This didn’t feel quite like that though. Was it instead a memory, or had some part of him remembered how to Travel and done so unexpectedly?

His viewpoint body stepped forward expectantly, saluting Mordred with a sword that felt too light to be real in his hand. What magic was this?

Mordred drew his own sword as well, wasting no more breath. Then the two clashed in an oddly silent battle. The ringing of swords against each other sounded oddly artificial, as if it did not come from the swords themselves. Judging from the speed of his movements, Mordred too held an unnaturally light sword. Neither arm was truly jarred when the swords crossed, yet both weapons pulled back immediately. Once or twice he saw one blade pass through another when the owner didn’t pull it back fast enough. Until it was recalled, it assumed a smoky aspect visually.

Suddenly he realized what he was experiencing, with a veil of illusion added to it. These were Probability Swords. The blades didn’t quite exist in the same universe as the duelers as physical objects. Yet they could kill all the same. A Probability Sword through the heart might have no immediate effect – yet the victim might suffer a mysterious heart attack a day or so later. A strike to the head might mean a mysterious brain stoke in a similar time frame. All sorts of weird accidents might befall a limb struck by a probability sword. And once Emerald the warrior had understood how they worked. No more.

And in this strange dream or vision, who knew what would happen to Emerald if this body received a fatal strike? He found he could not shift himself or his viewpoint, could not escape back to the world he had come from. It certainly didn’t feel like a dream.

Like the host he could no longer find, these creatures appeared to be human. Perhaps they were humans in another universe. Someone had supplied them with Probability Swords, yet they did not truly understand the tactics and strategy of the weapons. Already Emerald saw patterns in the fighting on both sides, that either of them could take advantage of to win the victory if only he knew how.

The body he was visiting had begun to falter, losing rhythm, and taking a couple of steps back. Soon it would be defeated. Emerald pushed his own fear into a corner of himself, willing himself to summon a timeless peace instantly, since he might have only instants left.

He reached desperately for the human mind controlling this body, but felt nothing. This did not prove that the human felt nothing from him. He tried to visualize the tricks that would destroy this Mordred.

There was no change in the movements of his borrowed body. Instead, the enemy’s sword found the gap where the helm met the armored torso, and ran through his neck.

Long ago Emerald had had a physical body. He had been wounded by a Probability Sword once, and knew the eerie chill he should now be feeling. Only he felt nothing. He saw his own body fall to the ground immobile, but somehow his kinetic senses insisted he was still standing.

Then the human reached to his head and pulled something off. Abruptly he was standing in a totally different room, with a rubber floor and walls padded with thick mats.

“Damn. The bastard killed me again.”

For a moment Emerald’s mind reeled in confusion, but then he understood. The whole world he had just seen had been an illusion, and his viewpoint had not been interacting with it as he had instinctively expected. The weapons were not Probability Swords, but visual illusions that could not clash or strike each other. The helmet this human had worn had covered both the eyes, enabling him to see an imaginary universe. But why?

Now that he knew a little more about his viewpoint human, he could sense its mind a little. This had been part of a giant game, an entertainment in which the human took part voluntarily. He tried to understand more, but woke up again instead, with his human host Joey.