A Dark Traveling

by Roger Zelazny

Becky Wiley has a vision of someone threatening her father, Tom Wiley, in their transcomp room. She runs to the control room and finds blood on the floor. The transmission part of the transcomp is destroyed, but the receiving mechanism still works.

She waits for her brother, James, and their exchange-student Barry to return home. They theorize that Tom is attacked by an intruder. After a brief fight in which one of them is wounded, Tom escapes through the transcomp. The intruder damages the sending capability of the transcomp and leaves. The children think Tom is probably wounded, so they decide to find and help him. The controls on the transcomp suggest two possible bands for Tom's escape.

As a sorceress Becky has the ability to transport the boys to the bands in question without a transcomp. She sends them to the wrong worlds, however. Barry is sent to a deadband where he verifies that Tom is not there.

James arrives at night in a world with a full moon. He has his first transformation into a werewolf. His uncle George, a werewolf and shapeshifter, is the resident transcomp operator. He finds and cares for James. He expects James because Barry arrives earlier from the deadband.

Tom escapes to a darkband, a former lightband which is only partly controlled by the darkbanders. Forces from the lightbands including Tom and Agatha, James’ mother, are assisting a rebellion against the darkbanders. It is closely fought so darkbanders are attacking lightbander transcomps to stop armed lightbanders from entering the war.

Becky arrives later through her own magical means of travel to bands. Through sorceress to sorceress communication with Agatha, Becky discovers that the darkbanders are jamming the lightbanders’ transcomp on the battlefield with a special transmitter so that lightbander reinforcements can not pour in from their transcomps. Agatha is involved in a psychic battle with a darkbander sorcerer named Crow.

The children decide to go with Becky to the darkbander's camp and destroy the transmitter. They arrive in a wood at the edge of the camp. They identify a tent that they think houses the jamming transmitter. Through a spell Becky is able to make them invisible so that the darklanders in the camp can not see them. They reach the tent and although Becky senses danger, they enter. Crow, the blackbander sorcerer, confronts them in the tent. He disables Barry and focuses his attention on Becky, who engages him in psychic combat. Although the sorcerer is able to slow him down, James manages to push the transmitter off its table and break it. Uncle George follows the children and, in werewolf form, bounds into the tent and kills the sorcerer.

Without the jamming of their transcomp, the lightbanders bring in their reinforcements and eke out a victory. However, the margin of victory to so minute and of such world-changing significance a new darkbander world is created in which the darkbanders prevail. The children find Tom and Agatha. Tom is wounded superficially. They return to their Earth realizing that the darkbanders will have to be fought again and again.