My shoulder still pained me, and I had received quite a scare. I wondered if I would try that route again. I sighed, remembering the enthusiastic idealist who had swum out to Cramond Island. What had happened to change me so rapidly?
The reality of life, I told myself, tapping my staff on the floor. That staff seemed warm in my hand as if throbbing with a life of its own. Even the designs appeared to have altered, for they looked less abstract now as if they were forming a new pattern. I shook my head at the notion, wiped off some splashes of blood and walked back home.
* * *
When I looked up, I swear that the man in the mirror was examining me. It was not my face, but that of an older man with a prominent nose, although the features were so blurred that I could not recognise them. I st
