6

Well, maybe.

With Julia, I mean.

I sat alone in my room, thinking by candlelight.

Vinta had stirred a few sunken memories to the surface.

It was later on, when we weren’t seeing much of each other.  .  .  .

I’d met Julia first in a Computer Science course I was taking.  We’d started seeing each other occasionally, just coffee after class and like that, at first.  Then more and more frequently, and pretty soon it was serious.

Now it was ending as it had started, a little more each time.  .  .  .

I felt her hand on my shoulder as I was leaving the supermarket with a bag of groceries.  I knew it was her and I turned and there was no one there.  Seconds later, she hailed me from across the parking lot.  I went over and said hello, asked her if she were still working at the software place where she’d been.  She said that she wasn’t.  I recalled that she was wearing a small silver pentagram on a chain about her neck.  It could easily-and more likely should-have been hanging down inside her blouse.  But of course I wouldn’t have seen it then, and her body language indicated that she wanted me to see it.  So I ignored it while we exchanged a few generalities, and she turned me down on dinner and a movie, though I asked after several nights.

“What are you doing now?” I inquired.

“I’m studying a lot.”

“What?”

“Oh, just-different things.  I’ll surprise you one of these days.”

Again, I didn’t bite, though an over-friendly Irish setter approached us about then.  She placed her hand on its head and said, “Sit!” and it did.

It became still as a statue at her side, and remained when we left later.  For all I know, there’s a dog skeleton still crouched there, near the cart return area, like a piece of modern sculpture.

It didn’t really seem that important at the time.  But in retrospect, I wondered.  .  .  .

We had ridden that day, Vinta and I.  Seeing my growing exasperation of the morning, she must have felt a break was in order.  She was right.  Following a light lunch, when she made the suggestion that we take a ride about the estate, I agreed readily.  I had wanted a little more time in which to think before continuing our cross-examination and discourse game.  And the weather was good, the countryside attractive.

We made our way along a curling hail through arbors, which led at length into the northern hills from where we were afforded long views across the rugged and cross-hatched land down to the sun-filled sea.  The sky was full of winds and wisps of cloud, passing birds.  .  .  .  Vinta seemed to have no special destination in mind, which was all right with me.  As we rode, I recalled a visit to a Napa Valley winery, and the next time we drew rein to rest the horses I asked her, “Do you bottle the wine here at the estate? Or is that done in town? Or in Amber?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I thought you grew up here.”

“I never paid attention.”

I bit back a remark about patrician attitudes.  Unless she were joking, I couldn’t see how she’d fail to know something like that.

She caught my expression, though, and added immediately, “We’ve done it various ways at various times.  I’ve been living in town for several years now.  I’m not sure where the principal bottling has been done recently.”

Nice save, because I couldn’t fault it.  I hadn’t intended my question as any sort of trap, but I felt as if I had just touched on something.  Possibly from the fact that she didn’t let it go at that.  She went on to say that they shipped large casks all over the place and often sold them in that fashion.  On the other hand, there were smaller customers who wanted the product bottled.  .  .  .  I stopped listening after a time.  On the one hand, I could see it, coming horn a vintner’s daughter.  On the other, it was all stuff I could have made up myself on the spot.  There was no way for me to check on any of it.  I got the feeling that she was trying to snow me, to cover something.  But I couldn’t figure what.

“Thanks,” I said when she paused for breath, and she gave me a strange look but took the hint and did not continue.

“You have to speak English,” I said in that language, “if the things you told me earlier are true.”

“Everything I told you is true,” she replied, in unaccented English.

“Where’d you learn it?”

“On the shadow Earth where you went to school.”

“Would you care to tell me what you were doing there?”

“I was on a special mission.”

“For your father? For the Crown?”

“I’d rather not answer you at all than lie to you.”

“I appreciate that.  Of course, I must speculate.”

She shrugged.

“You said you were in Berkeley?” I asked.

A hesitation, then, “Yes.”

“I don’t remember ever seeing you around.”

Another shrug.  I wanted to grab her and shake her.  Instead, I said,

“You knew about Meg Devlin.  You said you were in New York-“

“I believe you’re getting ahead of me on questions.”

“I didn’t know we were playing the game again.  I thought we were just talking.”

“All right, then: Yes.”

“Tell me one more thing and perhaps I can help you.”

She smiled.  “I don’t need any help.  You’re the one with problems:”

“May I, anyway?”

“Go ahead and ask.  Every time you question me you tell me things I wish to know.”

“You knew about Luke’s mercenaries.  Did you visit New Mexico, too?”

“Yes, I’ve been there.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“You’ve come to some conclusion?”

“Perhaps.”

“Care to tell me what it is?”

I smiled and shook my head.

I left it at that.  A few oblique queries on her part as we rode on led me to believe that I had her wondering what I might have guessed or suddenly seen.  Good.  I was determined to let it smolder.  I needed something to balance her reticence on those points about which I was most curious, to lead hopefully to a full trade of information.  Besides, I had reached a peculiar conclusion concerning her.  It was not complete, but if it were correct I would require the rest of the answer sooner or later.  So it was not exactly as if I were setting up a bluff.

The afternoon was golden, orange, yellow, red about us, with an autumn-damp smell behind the cool nips of the breezes.  The sky was very blue, like certain stones.  .  .  .

Perhaps ten minutes later I asked her a more neutral question.  “Could you show me the road to Amber?”

“You don’t know it?”

I shook my head.  “I’ve never been this way before.  All I know is that there are overland routes coming through here that lead to the Eastern Gate.”

“Yes,” she said.  “A bit farther to the north, I believe.  Let’s go find it.”

She headed back to a road we had followed for a time earlier and we turned right on it, which seemed logical.  I did not remark on her vagueness, though I expected a comment from her before too long in that I had not elaborated on my plans and I’d a feeling she was hoping that I would.

Perhaps three quarters of a mile later we came to a crossroads.  There was a low stone marker at the far left corner giving the distance to Amber, the distance back to Baylesport, the distance to Baylecrest in the east and to a place called Murn, straight ahead.

“What’s Murn?” I asked.

“A little dairy village.”

No way I could check that, without traveling six leagues.

“You plan on riding back to Amber?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Why not just use a Trump?”

“I want to get to know the area better.  It’s my home.  I like it here.”

“But I explained to you about the danger.  The stones have marked you.  You can be tracked.”

“That doesn’t mean I will be tracked.  I doubt that whoever sent the ones I met last night would even be aware this soon that they’d found me and failed.  They’d still be lurking about if I hadn’t decided to go out for dinner.  I’m sure I have a few days’ grace in which to remove the markings you spoke of.”

She dismounted and let her horse nibble a few blades of grass.  I did the same.  Dismounted, that is.

“You’re probably right.  I just don’t like to see you taking any chances,” she said.  “When are you planning on heading back?”

“I don’t know.  I suppose that the longer I wait the more likely it is that the person behind last night’s business will get restless and maybe send more muscle.”

She took hold of my arm and turned, so that she was suddenly pressed against me.  I was somewhat surprised by the act, but my free arm automatically moved to hold the lady as it tends to on such occasions.

“You weren’t planning on leaving now, were you? Because if you are, I’m going with you.”

“No,” I answered truthfully.  Actually, I’d been thinking of departing the following morning, following a good night’s sleep.

“When, then? We still have a lot of things to talk about.”

“I think we’ve pushed the question-and-answer business about as far as you’re willing to let it go.”

“There are some things-“

“I know.”

Awkward, this.  Yes, she was desirable.  And no, I didn’t care to have anything to do with her that way.  Partly because I felt she wanted something else as well-what, I wasn’t sure-and partly because I was certain she possessed a peculiar power to which I did not wish to expose myself at intimate range.  As my Uncle Suhuy used to say, speaking technically as a sorcerer, “If you don’t understand it, don’t screw around with it.” And I had a feeling that anything beyond a friendly acquaintanceship with Vinta could well turn into a duel of energies.

So I kissed her quickly to stay friendly and disengaged myself.

“Maybe I’ll head back tomorrow,” I told her.

“Good.  I was hoping you’d spend the night.  Perhaps several.  I will protect you.”

“Yes, I’m still very tired,” I said.

“We’ll have to feed you a good meal and build up your strength.”

She brushed my cheek with her fingertips then, and I suddenly realized that I did know her from somewhere.  Where? I couldn’t say.  And that, too, frightened me.  More than a little.  As we mounted and headed back toward Arbor House I began making my plans for getting out of there that night.

So, sitting in my room, sipping a glass of my absent host’s wine (the red) and watching the candles flicker in the breeze from an opened window, I waited-first for the house to grow quiet (which it had), then for a goodly time to pass.  My door was latched.  I had mentioned how tired I felt several times during dinner, and then I had retired early.  I am not so egotistically male that I feel myself constantly lusted after, but Vinta had given indication that she might stop by and I wanted the excuse of heavy sleeping.  Least of all did I wish to offend her.  I had problems enough without turning my strange ally against me.

I wished I still had a good book about, but I’d left my last one at Bill’s place, and if I were to summon it now I did not know but that Vinta might sense the sending, just as Fiona had once known I was creating a Trump, and come pounding on the door to see what the hell was going on.

But no one came pounding, and I listened to the creakings of a quiet house and the night sounds without.  The candles shortened themselves and the shadows on the wall behind the bed ebbed and Howed like a dark tide beyond their swaying light.  I thought my thoughts and sipped my wine.  Pretty soon.

.  .  .

An imagining? Or had I just heard my name whispered from some undetectable place?

“Merle.  .  .  .”

Again.

Real, but

My vision seemed to swim for a moment, and then I realized it for what it was: a very weak Trump contact.

“Yes,” I said, opening and extending.  “Who is it?”

“Merle, baby.  .  .  .  Give me a hand or I’ve had it.  .  .  .”

Luke!

“Right here,” I said, reaching, reaching, as the image grew clear, solidified.

He was leaning, his back against a wall, shoulders slumped, head hanging.

“If this is a trick, Luke, I’m ready for it,” I told him.  I rose quickly and, crossing to the table where I had laid my blade, I drew it and held it ready.

“No trick.  Hurry! Get me out of here!”

He raised his left hand.  I extended my left hand and caught hold of it.

Immediately he slumped against me, and I staggered.  For an instant I thought it was an attack, but he was dead weight and I saw that there was blood all over him.  He still clutched a bloody blade in his right hand.  “Over here.  Come on.”

I steered him and supported him for several paces, then deposited him on the bed.  I pried the blade from his grip, then placed it along with mine on a nearby chair.

“What the hell happened to you?”

He coughed and shook his head weakly.  He drew several deep breaths, then, “Did I see a glass of wine,” he asked, “as we passed a table?”

“Yeah.  Hold on.”

I fetched it, brought it back, propped him and held it to his lips.  It was still over half full.  He sipped it slowly, pausing for deep breaths.

“Thanks,” he said when he’d finished, then his head turned to the side.

He was out.  I took his pulse.  It was fast but kind of weak.

“Damn you, Luke!” I said.  “You’ve got the worst timing.  .  .  .”

But he didn’t hear a word.  He just lay there and bled all over the place.

Several curses later I had him undressed and was going over him with a wet towel to find out where, under all that blood, the injuries lay.  There was a nasty chest wound on the right, which might have hit the lung.  His breathing was very shallow, though, and I couldn’t tell.  If so, I was hoping he’d inherited the regenerative abilities of Amber in full measure.  I put a compress on it and laid his arm on top to hold it in place while I checked elsewhere.  I suspected he had a couple of fractured ribs, also.  His left arm was broken above the elbow and I set it and splinted it, using loose slats from a chair I’d noticed in the back of the closet earlier, and I strapped it to him.  There were over a dozen lacerations and incisions of various degrees of severity on his thighs, right hip, right arm and shoulder, his back.  None of them, fortunately, involved arterial bleeding.  I cleaned all of these and bound them, which left him looking like an illustration in a firstaid handbook.  Then I checked his chest wound again and covered him up.

I wondered about some of the Logrus healing techniques I knew in theory but had never had a chance to practice.  He was looking pretty pale, so I decided I had better try them.  When I’d finished, some time later, it seemed as if his color had returned to his face.  I added my cloak to the blanket which covered him.  I took his pulse again and it felt stronger.  I cursed again, just to stay in practice, removed our blades from the chair and sat down on it.

A little later my conversation with Ghostwheel returned to trouble me.  Had Luke been trying to do a deal with my creation? He’d told me he wanted Ghost’s power, to prosecute his designs against Amber.  Then Ghost had asked me earlier today whether Luke was to be trusted, and my answer had been emphatically negative.

Had Ghost terminated negotiations with Luke in the fashion I saw before me?

I fetched forth my Trumps and shuffled out the bright circle of the Ghostwheel.  I focused on it, setting my mind for contact, reaching out, calling, summoning.

Twice I felt near to something-agitated-during the several minutes I devoted to the effort.  But it was as if we were separated by a sheet of glass.  Was Ghost occupied? Or just not inclined to talk with me?

I put my cards away.  But they had served to push my thoughts into another channel.

I gathered Luke’s gory clothing and did a quick search.  I turned up a set of Trumps in a side pocket, along with several blank cards and a penciland yes, they seemed to be rendered in the same style as the ones I had come to call the Trumps of Doom.  I added to the packet the one depicting myself, which Luke had been holding in his hand when he had trumped in.

His were a fascinating lot.  There was one of Jasra, and one of Victor Melman.  There was also one of Julia, and a partly completed one of Bleys.  There was one for the crystal cave, another for Luke’s old apartment.  There were several duplicated from the Trumps of Doom themselves, one for a palace I did not recognize, one for one of my old pads, one for a rugged-looking blond guy in green and black, another of a slim, russethaired man in brown and black, and one of a woman who resembled this man so closely it would seem they must be related.  These last two, strangely, were done in a different style; even by a different hand, I’d say.  The only unknown one I felt relatively certain about was the blond fellow, who, from his colors, I would assume to be Luke’s old friend Dalt, the mercenary.  There were also three separate attempts at something resembling Ghostwheel-none of them, I would guess, completely successful.

I heard Luke growl something, and I saw that his eyes were open and darting.

“Take it easy,” I said.  “You’re safe.”

He nodded and closed his eyes.  A few moments later, he opened them again.

“Hey! My cards,” he said weakly.

I smiled.  “Nice work,” I remarked.  “Who did them?”

“Me,” he answered.  “Who else?”

“Where’d you learn?”

“My dad.  He was real good at it.”

“If you can do them, you must have walked the Pattern.”

He nodded.

“Where?”

He studied me a moment, then performed a weak shrug and winced.  “Tir-na Nog’th.”

“Your father took you, saw you through it?” Again, a nod.

Why not push it, since I seemed to be on a roll? I picked up a card.

“And here’s Dalt,” I said.  “You used to be Cub Scouts together, didn’t you?”

He did not reply.  When I looked up I saw narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow.

“I’ve never met him;” I added.  “But I recognize the colors, and I know he’s from out your way-around Kashfa.”

Luke smiled.  “You always did your homework back in school, too,” he said.

“And usually on time;” I agreed.  “But with you I’ve been running late.  Luke, I can’t find a Trump for the Keep of the Four Worlds.  And here’s someone I don’t know.”

I picked up the slim lady’s card and waved it at him.

He smiled.  “Gettin’ weak and losin’ my breath again,” he said.  “You been to the Keep?”

“Yep.”

“Recently?”

I nodded.

“Tell you what,” he said at last.  “Tell me what you saw at the Keep and how you learned some of that stuff about me and I’ll tell you who she is.”

I thought quickly.  I could say things so that I probably wouldn’t be telling him anything he didn’t already know.

So, “The other way around,” I said.

“Okay.  The lady,” he stated, “is Sand.”

I stared so hard that I felt the beginnings of a contact.  I smothered it.

“The long-lost,” he added.

I raised the card depicting the man who resembled her.  “Then this must be Delwin,” I said.

“Right.”

“You didn’t do these two cards.  They’re not your style, and you probably wouldn’t have known what they looked like to begin with.”

“Perceptive.  My father drew them, back in the time of the troubles-for all the good it did him.  They wouldn’t help him either.”

“Either?”

“They weren’t interested in helping me, despite their disaffection with this place.  Count them as out of the game.”

“This place?” I said.  “Where do you think you are, Luke?”

His eyes widened.  He cast his gaze about the room.  “The camp of the enemy,” he answered.  “I had no choice.  These are your quarters in Amber, right?”

“Wrong,” I replied.

“Don’t bait me, Merle.  You’ve got me.  I’m your prisoner.  Where am I?”

“Do you know who Vinta Bayle is?”

“No.  “

“She was Caine’s mistress.  This is her family’s place, way out in the country.  She’s just up the hall somewhere.  Might even stop by.  I think she’s got a crush on me.”

“Uh-oh.  She a tough lady?”

“Very.”

“What you doing making out with her this soon after the funeral? That’s hardly decent.”

“Huh! If it weren’t for you there wouldn’t have been any funeral.”

“Don’t give me that indignation crap, Merle.  If it had been your dad, Corwin, he’d killed, wouldn’t you have gone after him?”

“That’s not fair.  My father wouldn’t have done all those things Brand did.”

“Maybe, maybe not.  But supposing he had? Even then.  Wouldn’t you have gone after Caine?”

I turned away.  “I don’t know,” I said finally.  “It’s too damned hypothetical.”

“You’d have done it.  I know you, Merle.  I’m sure you would have.”

I sighed.  “Maybe,” I said.  “Well, okay.  Maybe I might have.  But I would have stopped there.  I wouldn’t have gone after the others too.  I don’t want to make you feel any worse than you do about it, but your old man was psycho; you must know that.  And you’re not.  I know you as well as you know me.  I’ve been thinking about this for some time.  You know, Amber recognizes the personal vendetta.  You’ve got an arguable case there for one.  And the death didn’t even occur within Amber, if Random were really looking for an out for you.”

“Why should he be?”

“Because I’d be vouching for your integrity in other matters.”

“Come on, Merle-“

“You’ve got a classic vendetta defense - a son avenging his father’s death.”

“I don’t know.  .  .  .  Hey, you trying to get out of telling me the stuff you promised to?”

“No, but “

“So you made it to the Keep of the Four Worlds.  What did you learn there and how did you learn it?”

“Okay.  You think about what I said, though,” I replied.

His expression remained unchanged.

Then, “There was an old hermit named Dave,” I began.

Luke fell asleep before I finished.  I just let my voice trail off and sat there.  After a time, I rose and located the wine bottle and poured a little into the glass, since Luke had drunk most of mine.  I took it with me to the window and stared down and out across the patio, where the wind was rattling leaves.  I wondered about what I’d said to Luke.  It wasn’t a full picture I’d given him, partly because I hadn’t had time to go into it thoroughly, mainly because he hadn’t seemed interested.  But even if Random did let him off the hook officially in the matter of Caine’s death, Julian or Gerard would probably be looking to kill him under the same vendetta code I’d been talking about.  I didn’t really know what to do.  I was obliged to tell Random about him, but I’d be damned if I’d do it yet.  There were still too many things I had to learn from him, and getting at him might be a lot harder if he were a prisoner back in Amber.  Why had he ever gotten himself born as Brand’s son, anyway?

I returned to the bedside seat, near which I had left our weapons and Luke’s Trumps.  I moved these items across the room, to where I seated myself in the more comfortable chair I had occupied earlier.  I studied his cards again.  Amazing.  A whole bunch of history in my hand.  .  .  .

When Oberon’s wife Rilga had shown less hardihood than many by aging rapidly and retiring to a reclusive life at a country shrine, he had gone off and remarried, somewhat to the chagrin of their children-Caine, Julian and Gerard.  But to confuse genealogists and sticklers for family legality, he had done it in a place where time flowed far more rapidly than in Amber.  Interesting arguments both for and against the bigamous nature of his marriage to Harla may be made.  I’m in no position to judge.  I had the story from Flora years ago, and in that she’d never gotten along too well with Delwin and Sand, the offspring of that union, she was inclined to the pro-bigamy interpretation.  I’d never seen pictures of Delwin or Sand until now.  There weren’t any hanging around the palace, and they were seldom mentioned.  But they had lived in Amber for the relatively short time Harla was queen there.  Following her death, they grew unhappy with Oberon’s policies toward her homeland-which they visited often-and after a time they departed, vowing not to have anything to do with Amber again.  At least that’s the way I’d heard it.  There could easily have been all sorts of sibling politicking involved, too.  I don’t know.

But here were two missing members of the royal family, and obviously Luke had teamed of them and approached them, hoping to revive old resentments and gain allies.  He admitted that it hadn’t worked.  Two centuries is a long time to hold a grudge at high pitch.  That’s about how long it had been since their departure, as I understood it.  I wondered fleetingly whether I should get in touch with them, just to say hello.  If they weren’t interested in helping Luke I didn’t suppose they’d be interested in helping the other side either, now they were aware there was another side.  It did seem proper that I should introduce myself and pay my respects, as a family member they’d never met.  I decided that I would do it sometime, though the present moment was hardly appropriate.  I added their Trumps to my own collection, along with good intentions.

And then there was Dalt a sworn enemy of Amber, I gathered.  I studied his card again, and I wondered: If he were indeed such a good friend of Luke’s, perhaps I should let him know what had happened.  He might even know of the circumstances involved and mention something I could use.  In fact, the more I thought about it-recalling his recent presence at the Keep of the Four Worlds-the more tempting it became to try to reach him.  It seemed possible I could even pick up something about what was now going on in that place.

I gnawed a knuckle.  Should I or shouldn’t I? I couldn’t see any harm that could come of it.  I wasn’t planning on giving anything away.  Still; there were a few misgivings.

What the hell, I decided finally.  Nothing ventured.  .  : .

Hello, hello.  Reaching out through the suddenly cold card.  .  .  .

A startled moment somewhere, and the sense of an Aha!

Like a portrait come to life, my vision stirred.

“Who are you?” the man asked, hand on hilt, blade half drawn.

“My name is Merlin,” I said, “and we’ve a mutual acquaintance named Rinaldo.  I wanted to tell you that he’d been badly injured.”

By now, we both hovered between our two realities, solid and perfectly clear to each other.  He was bigger than I’d thought from his representation, and he stood at the center of a stone-walled room, a window to his left showing a blue sky and a limb of cloud.  His green eyes, at first wide, were now narrowed and the set of his jaw seemed a bit truculent.

“Where is he?” he inquired.

“Here.  With me,” I answered.

“How fortunate,” he replied, and the blade was in his hand and he moved forward.

I Sipped the Trump away, which did not sever the contact.  I had to summon the Logrus to do that—and it fell between us like the blade of a guillotine and jerked me back as if I had just touched a live wire.  My only consolation was that Dalt had doubtless felt the same thing.

“Merle, what’s going on?” Luke’s voice came hoarsely.  “I saw Dalt.  .  . .”

“Uh, yeah.  I just called him.”

He raised his head slightly.  “Why?”

“To tell him about you.  He’s your friend, isn’t he?”

“You asshole!” he said.  “He’s the one that did this to me!”

Then he began coughing and I rushed to his side.

“Get me some water, huh?” he said.

“Coming up.”

I went off to the bathroom and fetched him a glass.  I propped him and he sipped it for a time.

“Maybe I should have told you,” he said finally.  “Didn’t think-you’d play games-that way, though-when you don’t know-what’s going on....”

He coughed again, drank more water.

“Hard to know what to tell you-and what not to,” he continued, a while later.

“Why not tell me everything?” I suggested.

He shook his head slightly.  “Can’t.  Probably get you killed.  More likely both of us.”

“The way things have been going, it seems as if it could happen whether you tell me or not.”

He smiled faintly and took another drink.

“Parts of this thing are personal,” he said then, “and I don’t want anyone else involved.”

“I gather that your trying to kill me every spring for a while there was kind of personal, too,” I observed, “yet somehow I felt involved.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, slumping back and raising his right hand.  “I told you I cut that out a long time ago.”

“But the attempts went on.”

“They weren’t my doing.”

Okay, I decided.  Try it.  “It was Jasra, wasn’t it?”

“What do you know about her?”

“I know she’s your mother, and I gather this is her war too.”

He nodded.  “So you know.  .  .  .  All right.  That makes it easier,” He paused to catch his breath.  “She started me doing the April thirtieth stuff for practice.  When I got to know you better and quit, she was mad.”

“So she continued it herself?”

He nodded.

“She wanted you to go after Caine,” I said.

“So did I.”

“But the others? She’s leaning on you about them, I’ll bet.  And you’re not so sure they have it coming.”

Silence.

“Are you?” I said.

He shifted his gaze away from my own and I heard his teeth grind together.

“You’re off the hook,” he said at last.  “I’ve no intention of hurting you.  I won’t let her do it either.”

“And what about Bleys and Random and Fiona and Flora and Gerard and-“ He laughed, which cost him a wince and a quick clutch at his chest.

“They’ve nothing to worry about from us,” he said, “right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think,” he told me.  “I could have trumped back to my old apartment, scared hell out of the new tenants and called an ambulance.  I could be in an emergency room right now.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“I’ve been hurt worse than this, and I’ve made it.  I’m here because I need your help.”

“Oh? For what?”

He looked at me, then looked away again.  “She’s in bad trouble, and we’ve got to rescue her.”

“Who?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“My mother,” he replied.

I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t when I saw the expression on his face.  It took real balls to ask me to help rescue the woman who’d tried to kill me-not once, but many times-and whose big aim in life seemed to be the destruction of my relatives.  Balls, or-

“I’ve no one else left to turn to,” he said.

“If you talk me into this one, Luke, you’ll deserve the Salesman of the Year Award,” I said.  “But I’m willing to listen.”

“Throat’s dry again,” he said.

I went and refilled the glass.  As I returned with it, it seemed there was a small noise in the hall.  I continued listening while I helped Luke to a few more sips.

He nodded when he was finished, but I had heard another sound by then.  I raised my finger to my lips and glanced at the door.  I put down the glass, rose and crossed the room, retrieving my blade as I did so.

Before I reached the door, however, there was a gentle knock.

“Yes?” I said, advancing to it.

“It’s me,” came Vinta’s voice.  “I know that Luke is in there, and I want to see him.”

“So you can finish him off?” I asked.

“I told you before that that is not my intention.”

“Then you’re not human,” I said.

“I never claimed I was.”

“Then you’re not Vinta Bayle,” I said.

There followed a long silence, then, “Supposing I’m not?”

“Then tell me who you are.”

“I can’t.”

“Then meet me halfway,” I said, drawing upon all of my accumulated guesswork concerning her, “and tell me who you were.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.  Pick one-any one.  I don’t care.”

There was another silence, then, “I dragged you from the fire,” she said, “but I couldn’t control the horse..I died in the lake.  You wrapped me in your cloak.  .  .  .”

That was not an answer I had anticipated.  But it was good enough.

With the point of my weapon I raised the latch.  She pushed the door open and glanced at the blade in my hand.

“Dramatic,” she remarked.

“You’ve impressed me,” I said, “by the perils with which I am beset.”

“Not sufficiently, it would seem.” She entered, smiling.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I didn’t hear you ask him anything about the blue stones and what he might have homing in on you as a consequence of your attunement.”

“You’ve been eavesdropping.”

“A lifetime habit,” she agreed.

I turned toward Luke and introduced her.  “Luke, this is Vinta Bayle-sort of.”

Luke raised his right hand, his eyes never leaving her face.  “I just want to know one thing,” he began.

“I’ll bet you do;” she replied.  “Am I going to kill you or aren’t I? Keep wondering.  I haven’t decided yet.  Do you remember the time you were low on gas north of San Luis Obispo and you discovered your wallet was missing? You had to borrow money from your date to get back home.  She had to ask you twice, too, before you paid her back.”

“How could you know that?” he whispered.

“You got in a fight with three bikers one day,” she went on.  “You almost lost an eye when one of them wrapped a chain around your head.  Seems to have healed up nicely.  Can’t see the scar-“

“And I won,” he added.

“Yes.  Not too many people can pick up a Harley and throw it like you did.”

“I have to know,” he said, “how you learned these things.”

“Maybe I’ll tell you that too, sometime,” she said.  “I just mentioned them to keep you honest.  Now I’m going to ask you some questions, and your life is going to depend on giving me honest answers.  Understand-“

“Vinta,” I interrupted, “you told me that you weren’t interested in killing Luke.”

“It’s not at the top of my list,” she replied, “but if he’s in the way of what is, he goes.”

Luke yawned.  “I’ll tell you about the blue stones,” he muttered.  “I don’t have anybody on a blue-stone detail after Merle now.”

“Might Jasra have someone tracking him that way?”

“Possible.  I just don’t know.”

“What about the ones who attacked him in Amber last night?”

“First I’ve heard of it,” he said, and he closed his eyes.

“Look at this,” she ordered, removing the blue button from her pocket.

He opened his eyes and squinted at it.

“Recognize it?”

“Nope,” he said, and closed his eyes again.

“And you don’t mean Merle any harm now?”

“That’s right,” he answered, his voice drifting off.

She opened her mouth again and I said, “Let him sleep.  He’s not going anywhere.”

She gave me an almost angry look, then nodded.  “You’re right,” she said.

“So what are you going to do now kill him while he’s out?”

“No;” she replied.  “He was telling the truth.”

“And does it make a difference?”

“Yes,” she told me, “for now.”

7

I actually did get a fairly decent night’s sleep despite everything, including a distant dogfight and a lot of howling.  Vinta had been disinclined to continue at questions and answers, and I hadn’t wanted her bothering Luke any more.  I persuaded her to leave and let us rest.  I sacked out on the comfortable chair, with my feet propped on the other one.  I was hoping to continue my conversation with Luke in private.  I remember chuckling right before I fell asleep as I tried to decide which of them I distrusted less.

I was awakened by the first brightening of the sky and a few arguments of birds.  I stretched several times then and made my way to the bathroom.  Half an ablution later I heard Luke cough and then whisper my name.

“Unless you’re hemorrhaging, wait a minute,” I replied, and I dried myself off.  “Need some water?” I asked while I was doing it.

“Yeah.  Bring some.”

I threw the towel over my shoulder and took him a drink.

“Is she still around?” he asked me.

“No.”

“Give me the glass and go check the hall, will you? I’ll manage.”

I nodded and passed it to him.  I kept it quiet as I eased the door open.  I stepped out into the hall, walked up to the corner.  There was no one in sight.

“All clear,” I whispered as I came back into the room.

Luke was gone.  A moment later I heard him in the bathroom.

“Damn! I’d have helped you!” I said.

“I can still take a leak by myself,” he replied, staggering back into the room, his good hand on the wall.  “Had to see whether I could negotiate,” he added, lowering himself to the edge of the bed.  He put his hand against his rib cage and panted.  “Shit! That smarts!”

“Let me help you lie back.”

“Okay.  Listen, don’t let her know I can do even that much.”

“Okay,” I said.  “Take it easy now.  Rest.”

He shook his head.  “I want to tell you as much as I can before she comes busting back in here,” he said, “and she will, too-believe me.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“Yes.  She’s not human, and she’s more attuned to both of us than any blue stone ever was.  I don’t understand your style of magic, but I’ve got my own and I know what it tells me.  It was your question about who she was that got me to working on the problem, though.  Have you figured her out yet?”

“Not completely, no.”

“Well, I know she can switch bodies like changing clothes-and she can travel through Shadow.”

“Do the names Meg Devlin or George Hansen mean anything to you?” I asked.

“No.  Should they?”

“Didn’t think so.  But she was both of them, I’m sure.”

I’d left out Dan Martinez, not because he’d shot it out with Luke and telling Luke would raise his distrust of her even further, but because I didn’t want him to know that I was aware of the New Mexico guerrilla operation-and I could see that it might lead in that direction.

“She was also Gail Lampron.”

“Your old girlfriend, back in school?” I said.

“Yes.  I thought there was something familiar about her immediately.  But it didn’t hit me till later.  She has all of Gail’s little mannerisms-the way she turns her head, the way she uses her hands and eyes when she’s talking.  Then she mentioned two events to which there had only been a single common witness-Gail.”

“It sounds as if she wanted you to know.”

“I believe she did,” he agreed.

“Why didn’t she just come out and say it then, I wonder?”

“I don’t think she can.  There’s something could be a spell on her, only it’s hard to judge, her not being human and all.” He glanced furtively at the door as he said this.  Then, “Check again,” he added.

“Still clear,” I said.  “Now what about “

“Another time,” he said.  “I’ve got to get out of here.”

“I can see your wanting to get away from her-“ I began.

He shook his head.  “That’s not it,” he said.  “I’ve got to hit the Keep of the Four Worlds-soon.”

“The shape you’re in-“

“That’s it.  That’s what I mean.  I’ve got to get out of here so I can be in shape soon.  I think old Sharu Garrul’s gotten loose.  That’s the only way I can figure what happened.”

“What did happen?”

“I got a distress call from my mother.  She’d gone back to the Keep after I’d gotten her away from you.”

“Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why’d she head for the Keep?”

“Well, the place is a power center.  The way the four worlds come together there releases an awful lot of free power, which an adept can tap into-“

“Four worlds actually do come together there? You mean you’re in a different shadow depending on the direction you might take off in?”

He studied me for a moment.  “Yes,” he finally said, “but I’ll never get this thing told if you want all the little details.”

“And I won’t understand it if too much gets left out.  So she went to the Keep to raise some power and got in trouble instead.  She called you to come help her.  What did she want that power for, anyway?”

“Mm.  Well, I’d been having trouble with Ghostwheel.  I thought I almost had him talked into coming over to our side, but she probably thought I wasn’t making progress fast enough and apparently decided to try binding him with a massive spell after-“

“Wait a minute.  You were talking to Ghost? How did you get in touch?  Those Trumps you drew are no good.”

“I know.  I went in.”

“How’d you manage it?”

“In scuba gear.  I wore a wet suit and oxygen tanks.”

“Son of a gun.  That’s an interesting approach.”

“I wasn’t Grand D’s top salesman for nothing.  I almost had him convinced, too.  But she’d learned where I’d stashed you, and she decided to try expediting matters by putting you under control, then using you to clinch the deal-as if you’d come over to our side.  Anyhow, when that plan fell through and I had to go and get her away from you, we split up again.  I thought she was headed for Kashfa, but she went to the Keep instead.  Like I said, I think it was to try a massive working against Ghostwheel.  I believe something that she did there inadvertently freed Sharu, and he took the place over again and captured her.  Anyhow, I got this frantic sending from her, so-“

“Uh, this old wizard,” I said, “had been locked up there for-how long?”

Luke began to shrug, thought better of it.  “Hell, I don’t know.  Who cares? He’s been a cloak rack since I was a boy.”

“A cloak rack?”

“Yeah.  He lost a sorcerous duel.  I don’t really know whether she beat him or whether it was Dad.  Whoever it was, though, caught him in mid-invocation, arms outspread and all.  Froze him like that, stiff as a board.  He got moved to a place near an entranceway later.  People would hang cloaks and hats on him.  The servants would dust him occasionally.  I even carved my name on his leg when I was little, like on a tree.  I’d always thought of him as furniture.  But I learned later that he’d been considered pretty good in his day.”

“Did this guy ever wear a blue mask when he worked?”

“You’ve got me.  I don’t know anything about his style.  Say, let’s not get academic or she’ll be here before I finish.  In fact, maybe we ought to go now, and I can tell you the rest later.”

“Un-uh,” I said.  “You are, as you noted last night, my prisoner.  I’d be nuts to let you go anywhere without knowing a hell of a lot more than I do.  You’re a threat to Amber.  That bomb you tossed at the funeral was pretty damn real.  You think I want to give you another shot at us?”

He smiled, then lost it.  “Why’d you have to be born Corwin’s son, anyway?” he said.  Then, “Can I give you my parole on this?” he asked.

“I don’t know.  I’m going to be in a lot of trouble if they find out I had you and didn’t bring you in.  What terms are you talking? Will you swear off your war against Amber?”

He gnawed his lower lip.  “There’s no way I can do that, Merle.”

“There are things you’re not telling me, aren’t there?”

He nodded.  Then he grinned suddenly.  “But I’ll make you a deal you can’t refuse.”

“Luke, don’t give me that hard-sell crap.”

“]ust give me a minute, okay? And you’ll see why you can’t afford to pass this one up.”

“Luke, I’m not biting.”

“Only one minute.  Sixty seconds.  You’re free to say no when I’m done.”

“All right,” I said.  “Tell me.”

“Okay.  I’ve got a piece of information vital to the security of Amber, and I’m certain nobody there has an inkling of it.  I’ll give it to you, after you’ve helped me.”

“Why should you want to give us something like that? It sounds kind of self-defeating.”

“I don’t, and it is.  But it’s all I’ve got to offer.  Help me get out of here to a place I have in mind where the time flow is so much faster that I’ll be healed up in a day or so in terms of local time at the Keep.”

“Or here, for that matter, I’d guess.”

“True.  Then-uh-oh!”

He sprawled on the bed, clutched at his chest with his good hand and began to moan.

“Lukel”

He raised his head, winked at me, glanced at the door and commenced moaning again.

Shortly, there came a knocking.

“Come in,” I said.

Vinta entered and studied us both.  For a moment, there seemed to be a look of genuine concern on her face as she regarded Luke.  Then she advanced to the bed and placed her hands upon his shoulders.  She stood there for about half a minute, then announced, “You’re going to live.”

“At the moment,” Luke replied, “I don’t know whether that’s a blessing or a curse.” Then he slipped his good arm around her, drew her to him suddenly and kissed her.  “Hi, Gail,” he said.  “It’s been a long time.”

She drew away with less haste than she might have.  “You seem improved already,” she observed, “and I can see that Merle’s worked something to help you along.” She smiled faintly for an instant, then said, “Yes, it has been, you dumb jock.  You still like your eggs sunny-side up?”

“Right,” he acknowledged.  “But not half a dozen.  Maybe just two today.  I’m out of sorts.”

“All right,” she said.  “Come on, Merle.  I’ll need you to supervise.”

Luke gave me a funny look, doubtless certain she wanted to talk with me about him.  And for that matter, I wasn’t certain I wanted to leave him alone even though I had all of his Trumps in my pocket.  I was still uncertain as to the extent of his abilities, and I knew a lot less concerning his intentions.  So I hung back.

“Maybe someone should stay with the invalid,” I told her.

“He’ll be all right,” she said, “and I might need your help if I can’t scare up a servant.”

On the other hand, maybe she had something interesting to tell me....

I found my shirt and drew it on.  I ran a hand through my hair.

“Okay,” I said.  “See you in a bit, Luke.”

“Hey,” he responded, “see if you can turn up a walking stick for me, or cut me a staff or something.”

“Isn’t that rushing things a bit?” Vinta asked.

“Never can tell,” Luke replied.

So I fetched my blade and took it along.  As I followed Vinta out and down the stairs, it occurred to me that when any two of us got together we would probably have something to say about the third.

As soon as we were out of earshot, Vinta remarked, “He took a chance, coming to you.”

“Yes, he did.”

“So things must be going badly for him, if he felt you were the only one he could turn to.”

“I’d say that’s true.”

“Also, I’m sure he wants something besides a place to recover.”

“Probably so.”

“Probably,’ hell! He must have asked by now.”

“Perhaps.”

“Either he did or he didn’t.”

“Vinta, obviously you’ve told me everything you intend to tell me,” I said.  “Well, vice versa.  We’re even.  I don’t owe you explanations.  If I feel like trusting Luke, I will.  Anyhow, I haven’t decided yet.”

“So he has made you a pitch.  I might be able to help you decide if you’ll let me know what it is.”

“No, thanks.  You’re as bad as he is.”

“It’s your welfare I’m concerned with.  Don’t be so quick to spurn an ally.”

“I’m not,” I said.  “But if you stop to think about it, I know a lot more about Luke than I do about you.  I think I know the things on which I shouldn’t trust him as well as I do the safe ones.”

“I hope you’re not betting your life on it.”

I smiled.  “That’s a matter on which I tend to be conservative.”

We entered the kitchen, where she spoke with a woman I hadn’t met yet who seemed in charge there.  She left our breakfast orders with her and led me out the side door and onto the patio.  From there, she indicated a stand of trees off to the east.

“You ought to be able to find a good sapling in there,” she said, “for Luke’s staff.”

“Probably so,” I replied, and we began walking in that direction.  “So you really were Gail Lampron,” I said suddenly.

“Yes.  “

“I don’t understand this body-changing bit at all.”

“And I’m not about to tell you.”

“Care to tell me why not?”

“Nope.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t,” she said.

“But if I already know something, would you be willing to add a bit!”

“Maybe.  Try me.”

“When you were Dan Martinet you took a shot at one of us.  Which one was it?”

“Luke,” she replied.

“Why?”

“I’d become convinced that he was not the one-that is, that he represented a threat to you-“

“-and you just wanted to protect me,” I finished.

“Exactly.”

“What did you mean ‘that he was not the one’?”

“Slip of the tongue.  That looks like a good tree over there.”

I chuckled.  “Too thick.  Okay, be that way.”

I headed on into the grove.  There were a number of possibilities off to the right.

As I moved through the morning-lanced interstices, damp leaves and dew adhering to my boots, I became aware of some unusual scuffing along the way, a series of marks leading off farther to the right, where

“What’s that?” I said, kind of rhetorically, since I didn’t think Vinta would know either, as I headed toward a dark mass at the shady foot of an old tree.

I reached it ahead of her.  It was one of the Bayle dogs, a big brown fellow.  Its throat had been torn open.  The blood was dark and congealed.  A few insects were crawling on it.  Off farther to the right I saw the remains of a smaller dog.  It had been disemboweled.

I studied the area about the remains.The marks of very large paws were imprinted in the damp earth.  At least they were not the three-toed prints of the deadly doglike creatures I had encountered in the past.  They seemed simply to be those of a very large dog.

“This must be what I heard last night,” I remarked.  “I thought it sounded like a dogfight.”

“When was that?” she asked.

“Some time after you left.  I was drowsing.”

Then she did a strange thing.  She knelt, leaned and sniffed the track.

When she recovered there was a slightly puzzled expression on her face.

“What did you find?” I asked.

She shook her head, then stared off to the northeast.  “I’m not sure,” she finally said, “but it went that way.”

I studied the ground further, rising and finally moving along the trail it had left.  It did run off in that direction, though I lost it after several hundred feet when it departed the grove.  Finally, I turned away.

“One of the dogs attacked the others, I guess,” I observed.  “We’d better find that stick and head back if we want our breakfasts warm.”

Inside, I learned that Luke’s breakfast had been sent up to him.  I was torn.  I wanted to take mine upstairs, to join him and continue our conversation.  If I did, though, Vinta would accompany me and the conversation would not be continued.  Nor could I talk further with her under those circumstances.  So I would have to join her down here, which meant leaving Luke alone for longer than I liked.

So I went along with her when she said, “We will eat in here,” and led me into a large hall.  I guessed she had chosen it because my room with its open window was above the patio, and Luke could have heard us talking if we ate out there.

We sat at the end of a long darkwood table, where we were served.

When we were alone again, she asked, “What are you going to do now?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, sipping some grape juice.

She glanced upward.  “With him,” she said.  “Take him back to Amber?”

“It would seem the logical thing to do,” I replied.

“Good,” she said.  “You should probably transport him soon.  They have decent medical facilities at the palace.”

I nodded.  “Yes, they do.”

We ate a few mouthfuls, then she asked, “That is what you intend doing, isn’t it?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because anything else would be absolutely foolish, and obviously he is not going to want to do it.  Therefore, he will try to talk you into something else, something that will give him some measure of freedom while he recovers.  You know what a line of shit he has.  He’ll make it sound like a great idea, whatever it is.  You must remember that he is an enemy of Amber, and when he is ready to move again you will be in the way.”

“It makes sense,” I said.

“I’m not finished.”

“Oh?”

She smiled and ate a few more bites, to keep me wondering.  Finally, “He came to you for a reason,” she continued.  “He could have crawled off to any of a number of places to lick his wounds.  But he came to you because he wants something.  He’s gambling, but it’s a calculated thing.  Don’t go for it, Merle.  You don’t owe him anything.”

“I don’t know why you think me incapable of taking care of myself,” I replied.

“I never said that,” she responded.  “But some decisions are finely balanced things.  A little extra weight this way or that sometimes makes the difference.  You know Luke, but so do I.  This is not a time to be giving him any breaks.”

“You have a point there,” I said.

“So you have decided to give him what he wants!”

I smiled and drank some coffee.  “Hell, he hasn’t been conscious long enough to give me the pitch,” I said.  “I’ve thought of these things, and I want to know what he’s got in mind too.”

“I never said you shouldn’t find out as much as you can.  I just wanted to remind you that talking with Luke can sometimes be like conversing with a dragon.”

“Yeah,” I acknowledged.  “I know.”

“And the longer you wait the harder it’s going to be,” she added.

I took a gulp of coffee; then, “Did you like him?” I asked.

“Like?” she said.  “Yes, I did.  And I still do.  That is not material at this point, though.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“You wouldn’t harm him without good reason.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“He is no threat to me at the moment.”

“He does not seem to be.”

“Supposing I were to leave him here in your care while I went off to Amber to walk the Pattern and to prepare them for the news?”

She shook her head vigorously.  “No,” she stated.  “I will not-I cannot take that responsibility at this time.”

“Why not?”

She hesitated.

“And please don’t say again that you cannot tell me;’ I went on.  “Find a way to tell me as much as you can.”

She spoke slowly then, as if choosing her words very carefully.

“Because it is more important for me to watch you than Luke.  There is still danger for you which I do not understand, even though it no longer seems to be proceeding from him.  Guarding you against this unknown peril is of higher priority than keeping an eye on him.  Therefore, I cannot remain here.  If you are returning to Amber, so am I”

“I appreciate your concern,” I said, “but I will not have you dogging my footsteps.”

“Neither of us has a choice.”

“Supposing I simply trump out of here to some distant shadow?”

“I will be obliged to follow you.”

“In this form, or another?”

She looked away.  She poked at her food.

“You’ve already admitted that you can be other persons.  You locate me in some arcane fashion, then you take possession of someone in my vicinity.”

She took a drink of coffee.

“Perhaps something prevents you from saying it;’ I continued, “but that’s the case.  I know it.”

She nodded once, curtly, and resumed eating.

“Supposing I did trump out right now;’ I said, “and you followed after in your peculiar fashion.” I thought back to my telephone conversations with Meg Devlin and Mrs.Hansen.  “Then the real Vinta Bayle would wake up in her own body with a gap in her memory, right?”

“Yes,” she answered softly.

“And that would leave Luke here in the company of a woman who would be happy to destroy him if she had any inkling who he really is.”

She smiled faintly.  “Just so,” she said.

We ate in silence for a time.  She had attempted to foreclose all my choices, to force me to trump back to Amber and take Luke with me.  I do not like being manipulated or coerced.  My reflexive attempt to do something other than what is desired of me then feels forced also.

I refilled our coffee cups when I had finished eating.  I regarded a collection of dog portraits that hung on the wall across from me.  I sipped and savored.  I did not speak because I could think of nothing further to say.

Finally, she did.  “So what are you going to do?” she asked me.

I finished my coffee and rose.  “I am going to take Luke his stick,” I said.

I pushed my chair back into place and headed for the corner of the room where I had leaned the stick.

“And then?” she said.  “What will you do?”

I glanced back at her as I hefted the staff.  She sat very erect, her hands palms down on the table.  The Nemesis look overlay her features once again, and I could almost feel electricity in the air.

“Whatever I must,” I replied, and I headed for the door.

I increased my pace as soon as I was out of sight.  When I hit the stairs and saw that she was not following, I took the steps two at a time.  On the way up, I withdrew my cards and located the proper one.

When I entered the room I saw that Luke was resting, his back against the bed’s pillows.  His breakfast tray was on the smaller chair, beside the bed.  I dropped the latch on the door.

“What’s the matter, man? We under attack or something?” Luke asked.

“Start getting up,” I said.

I picked up his weapon then and crossed to the bed.  I gave him a hand sitting up, thrust the staff and the blade at him.

“My hand has been forced,” I said, “and I’m not about to turn you over to Random.”

“That’s a comfort,” he observed.

“But we have to clear out-now.”

“That’s all right by me.”

He leaned on the staff, got slowly to his feet.  I heard a noise in the hall, but it was already too late.  I’d raised the card and was concentrating.  There came a pounding on the door.

“You’re up to something and I think it’s the wrong thing,” Vinta called out.

I did not reply.  The vision was already coming clear.

The doorframe splintered from the force of a tremendous kick, and the latch was torn loose.  There was a look of apprehension on Luke’s face as I reached out and took hold of his arm.

“Come on,” I said.

Vinta burst into the room as I led Luke forward, her eyes flashing, her hands extended, reaching.  Her cry of “Fool!” seemed to change into a wail as she was washed by the spectrum, rippled and faded.

We stood in a patch of grass, and Luke let out a deep breath he had been holding.

“You believe in cutting things close, buddy-boy,” he remarked, and then he looked around and recognized the place.

He smiled crookedly.

“What do you know;’ he said.  “A crystal cave.”

“From my own experience,” I said, “the time flow here should be about what you were asking for.”

He nodded and we began moving slowly toward the high blue hill.  “Still plenty of rations,” I added, “and the sleeping bag should be where I left it.”

“It will serve,” he acknowledged.

He halted, panting, before we reached the foot.  I saw his gaze drift toward a number of strewn bones off to our left.  It would have been months since the pair who had removed the boulder had fallen there, long enough for scavengers to have done a thorough job.  Luke shrugged, advanced a little, leaned against blue stone.  He lowered himself slowly into a sitting position.

“Going to have to wait before I can climb,” he said, “even with you helping.”

“Sure,” I said.  “We can finish our conversation.  As I recall, you were going to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.  I was to bring you to a place like this, where you could recover fast vis-a-vis the time flow at the Keep.  You, in turn, had a piece of information vital to the security of Amber.”

“Right;’ he agreed, “and you didn’t hear the rest of my story either.  They go together.”

I hunkered across from him.  “You told me that your mother had fled to the Keep, apparently gotten into trouble there and called to you for help.”

“Yes,” he acknowledged.  “So I dropped the business with Ghostwheel and tried to help her.  I got in touch with Dalt, and he agreed to come and attack the Keep.”

“It’s always good to know a band of mercenaries you can get hold of in a hurry,” I said.

He gave me a quick, strange look but I was able to maintain an innocent expression.

“So we led them through Shadow and we attacked the place,” he said then.  “It had to be us that you saw when you were there.”

I nodded slowly.  “It looked as if you made it over the wall.  What went wrong?”

“I still don’t know,” he said.  “We were doing all right.  Their defense was crumbling and we were pushing right along, when suddenly Dalt turned on me.  We’d been separated for a time; then he appeared again and attacked me.  At first I thought he’d made a mistake-we were all grimy and bloody-and I shouted to him that it was me.  But he just kept coming.  That’s how he was able to do a job like this on me.  For a while I didn’t want to strike back because I thought it was a misunderstanding and he’d realize his mistake in a few seconds.”

“Do you think he sold you out? Or that it was something he’d been planning for a long time? Some grudge?”

“I don’t like to think that.”

“Magic, then?”

“Maybe.  I don’t know.”

A peculiar thought occurred to me.  “Did he know you’d killed Caine?” I asked.

“No, I make it a point never to tell anybody everything I’m about.”

“You wouldn’t kid me, would you?”

He laughed, moved as if to clap me on the shoulder, winced and thought better of it.

“Why do you ask?” he said then.

“I don’t know.  Just curious.”

“Sure,” he said.  Then, “What say you give me a hand up and inside, so I can see what kind of supplies you’ve left me?”

“Why?” I got to my feet and helped him to his.  We moved around to the right to the slope of easiest ascent, and I guided him slowly to the top.

Once we’d achieved the summit he leaned on his staff and stared down into the opening.

“No really easy way down in,” he said, “for me.  At first I was thinking you could roll up a barrel from the larder, and I could get down to it and then down to the floor.  But now I look at it, it’s an even bigger drop than I remembered.  I’d tear something open, sure.”

“Mm-hm,” I said.  “Hang on.  I’ve got an idea.”

I fumed away from him and climbed back down.  Then I made my way along the base of the blue rise to my right until I had rounded two shiny shoulders and was completely out of Luke’s line of sight.

I did not care to use the Logrus in his presence if I did not have to.  I did not wish for him to see how I went about things, and I did not want to give him any idea as to what I could or could not do.  I’m not that comfortable letting people know too much about me, either.

The Logrus appeared at my summons, and I reached into it, extended through it.  My desire was framed, became the aim.  My sending extending sought the thought.  Far, far.  .  .  .

I kept extending for the damnedest long time.  We really had to be out in the Shadow boonies.  .  .  .

Contact.

I did not jerk, but rather exerted a slow and steady pressure.  I felt it move toward me across the shadows.

“Hey, Merle! Everything okay?” I heard Luke call.

“Yeah,” I answered, and I did not elaborate.

Closer, closer.  .  .  .

There!

I staggered when it arrived, because it came to me too near to one end.  The far end bounced on the ground.  So I moved to the middle and took a new grip.  I hefted it and carried it back.

I set it against a steep area of the rise a bit in advance of Luke’s position and I mounted quickly.  I began drawing it up behind me then.

“Okay, where’d you get the ladder?” he asked.

“Found it,” I said.

“Looks like wet paint on the side there.”

“Maybe someone lost it just recently.”

I began lowering it into the opening.  Several feet protruded after it reached the bottom.  I adjusted it for stability,

“I’ll start down first,” I said, “and stay right under you.”

“Take my stick and my blade down first, will you?”

“Sure.’.

I did that thing.  By the time I climbed back he had caught hold and gotten onto it, had begun his descent.

“You’ll have to teach me that trick one of these days,” he said, breathing heavily.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I answered.

He descended slowly, pausing to rest at each rung, and he was flushed and panting when he reached the bottom.  He slumped to the floor immediately, pressing his right palm against his lower rib cage.  After a time, he inched backward a bit and rested against the wall.

“You okay?” I asked.

He nodded.  “Will be,” he said, “in a few minutes.  Being stabbed takes a lot out of you.”

“Want a blanket?”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, you rest here and I’ll go check the larder and see whether anything’s gotten at the supplies.  Want me to bring you anything?”

“Some water,” he said.

The supplies proved to be in good order, and the sleeping bag was still where I’d left it.  I returned with a drink for Luke and a few ironic memories of the occasion when he’d done the same for me.

“Looks as if you’re in business,” I told him.  “There’s still plenty of stuff.”

“You didn’t drink all the wine, did you?” he asked between sips.

“No.

“Good.  “

“Now, you said you have a piece of information vital to the interests of Amber,” I said.  “Care to tell me about it?”

He smiled.  “Not yet,” he said.

“I thought that was our deal.”

“You didn’t hear the whole thing.  We were interrupted.”

I shook my head.  But, “All right, we were interrupted,” I acknowledged.  “Tell me the rest.”

“I’ve got to get back on my feet, so I can take the Keep and free my mother.  .  .  .”

I nodded.

“The information is yours after we rescue her.”

“Hey! Wait a minute! You’re asking a hell of a lot!”

“Not for what I’m paying.”

“Sounds like I’m buying a pig in a poke.”

“Yes, I guess you are.  But believe me, it’ll be worth knowing.”

“What if it becomes worth knowing while I’m waiting?”

“No, I’ve figured the timing on this.  My recovery is only going to take a couple of days, Amber time.  I can’t see the matter coming up that fast.”

“Luke, this is starting to sound like some sort of trick.”

“It is,” he said, “but it will benefit Amber as well as myself.”

“That’s another thing.  I can’t see you giving something like this away to the enemy.”

He sighed.  “It might even be enough to get me off the hook,” he added.

“You’re thinking of calling off your feud?”

“I don’t know.  But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and if I did decide to go that route it would make for a real good opener.”

“And if you decided not to, you’d be screwing yourself.  Wouldn’t you?”

“I could live with it, though.  It might make my job harder, but not impossible.”

“I don’t know,” I said.  “If word of this gets out and I’ve got nothing to show for letting you get away like this, I’ll be in real hot water.”

“I won’t tell anybody if you won’t.”

“There’s Vinta.”

“And she keeps insisting that her big aim in life is to protect you.  Besides, she won’t be there if you go back.  Or rather, there will be the real Vinta, having awakened as from a troubled sleep.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because you’ve left.  She’s probably already off seeking you.”

“Do you know what she really is?”

“No, but I’ll help you speculate sometime.”

“Not now?”

“No, I’ve got to sleep some more.  It’s catching up with me again.”

“Then let’s go over this deal one more time.  What are you going to do, how do you intend to do it and what are you promising me?”

He yawned.  “I stay here till I’m back in shape,” he said.  “Then when I’m ready to attack the Keep I get in touch with you.  Which reminds me, you still have my Trumps.”

“I know.  Keep talking.  How do you intend taking the Keep?”

“I’m working on it.  I’ll let you know that too.  Anyhow, you can help us or not at that point, as you see fit.  I wouldn’t mind having another sorcerer with me, though.  Once we’re in and she’s freed, I’ll tell you what I promised and you can take it back to Amber.”

“What if you lose?” I asked.

He looked away.  “I guess there’s always that possibility,” he finally agreed.  “Okay, how’s this? I’ll write the whole thing out and keep it with me.  I’ll give it to you-by Trump or in person-before we attack.  Win or lose, I’ll have paid my way with you.”

He extended his good hand and I clasped it.

“Okay,” I said.

“Then let me have my Trumps back, and I’ll be talking to you as soon as I get moving again.”

I hesitated.  Finally, I drew out my pack, which was now grown quite thick.  I shuffled out my own then along with a number of his and passed him what remained.

“What about the rest?”

“I want to study them, Luke.  Okay?”

He shrugged weakly.  “I can always make more.  But give me back my mother’s.”

“Here.”

He accepted it, then said, “I don’t know what you’ve got in mind, but I’ll give you a piece of advice: Don’t screw around with Dalt.  He’s not the nicest of guys when he’s normal, and I think there’s something wrong with him right now.  Keep away from him.”

I nodded, then got to my feet.

“You’re going now?” he asked.

“Right.”

“Leave me the ladder.”

“It’s all yours.”

“What are you going to tell them back in Amber?”

“Nothing-yet,” I said.  “Hey, you want me to bring some food up here before I go? Save you a trip.”

“Yeah.  Good idea.  Bring me a bottle of wine, too.”

I went back and got him a load of provisions.  I dragged in the sleeping bag also.

I started up the ladder, then paused.  “You don’t know your own mind on this yet,” I said, “do you?”

He smiled.  “Don’t be too sure of that.”

When I got to the top I stared at the big boulder that had once sealed me in.  Earlier, I’d thought of returning the favor.  I could keep track of the time, come get him when he was back on his feet.  That way, he couldn’t pull a disappearing act on me.  I had decided against it, though, not only because I was the only one who knew he was here and if something happened to me he’d be dead.  Mainly, it was because he wouldn’t be able to reach me with my Trump when he was ready to move, if I kept him fully confined.  That’s what I told myself, anyhow.

I stooped and caught hold of the boulder, anyway, and pushed it nearer the opening.

“Merle! What are you doing?”from below.

“Looking for fishing bait,” I answered.

“Hey, come on! Don’t.  .  .  .”

I laughed and pushed it a little nearer.

“Merle!”

“Thought you might want the door closed, in case it rains,” I said.  “But it’s too damned heavy.  Forget it.  Take it easy.”

I turned and jumped.  I thought the extra adrenaline might do him some good.

8

When I hit the ground I kept going, back to the place from which I had conjured the ladder, out of sight from several directions.

I withdrew one of the blank cards.  Time was running.

When I fished out the pencil, I discovered that its point had broken.  I unsheathed my blade, which was about the length of my arm.  I’d found another use for the thing.

A minute or so later I had the card before me on a Bat rock, and I was sketching my room back at the Arbor House, the forces of the Logrus moving through my hands.  I had to work deliberately, getting the proper feeling of the place into the drawing.  Finally, when it was finished, I stood.  It was right, it was ready.  I opened my mind and regarded my work until it became reality.  Then I walked forward into the room.  Just as I did I thought of something I wanted to ask Luke, but it was too late.

Beyond the window, the shadows of the trees were stretching into the east.  I had obviously been gone for most of the day.

When I turned I saw a sheet of paper upon the now made-up bed, secured against breezes by the edge of a pillow.  I crossed to it and picked it up, removing the small blue button which lay atop it before I did so.

The writing was in English.  It said.  PUT THE BUTTON IN A SAFE PLACE TILL YOU NEED IT.  I WOULDN’T CARRY IT AROUND TOO MUCH.  I HOPE YOU DID THE RIGHT THING.  I GUESS I’LL FIND OUT PRETTY SOON.  SEE YOU AROUND.

It was unsigned.

Safe or not, I couldn’t just leave it there.  So I wrapped the button in the note and put it in my pocket.  Then I fetched my cloak from the closet and slung it over my arm.

I departed the room.  The latch being broken, I left the door standing wide.  I stopped in the hallway and listened, but I heard no voices, no sounds of movement.

I made my way to the stairs and headed down.  I was almost to the bottom before I noticed her, so still did she sit, there beside the window to my right, a tray of bread and cheese, a bottle and a goblet on a small table at her side.

“Merlin!” she said suddenly, half rising.  “The servants said you were here, but when I looked I couldn’t find you.”

“I was called away,” I said, descending the final stair and advancing.

“How are you feeling?”

“How do you-what do you know about me?” she asked.

“You probably don’t remember anything that happened during the past couple of days,” I replied.

“You are right,” she said.  “Won’t you sit down?”

She gestured at the empty chair at the other side of the small table.

“Please join me.” She indicated the tray.  “And let me get you some wine.”

“That’s all right,” I said, seeing that she was drinking the white.

She rose and crossed the room to a cabinet, opened it and took out another goblet.  When she returned she poured a healthy slug of Bayle’s Piss into it and set it near my hand.  I guessed it was possible they kept the good stuff for themselves.

“What can you tell me about my blackout?” she asked.  “I’d been in Amber, and the next thing I knew I was back here and several days had gone by.”

“Yes,” I said, taking up a cracker and a bit of cheese.  “About what time did you become yourself again?”

“This morning.”

“It’s nothing to worry about-now,” I answered.  “There shouldn’t be a recurrence.

“But what was it?”

“Just something that’s been going around,” I said, trying the wine.

“It seems more like magic than the flu.”

“Perhaps there was a touch of that too,” I agreed.  “You never know what might blow in out of Shadow.  But almost everyone I know who’s had it is okay now.”

She furrowed her brow.  “It was very strange.”

I had a few more crackers and sips of the wine.  They did keep the good stuff for themselves.

“There is absolutely nothing to worry about,” I repeated.

She smiled and nodded.  “I believe you.  What are you doing here, anyhow?”

“Stopover.  I’m on my way back to Amber,” I said, “from elsewhere.  Which reminds me-may I borrow a horse?”

“Certainly,” she replied.  “How soon will you be leaving?”

“As soon as I get the horse,” I said.

She got to her feet.  “I didn’t realize you were in a hurry.  I’ll take you over to the stables now.”

“Thanks.”

I grabbed two more crackers and another piece of cheese on the way out and tossed off the rest of the wine.  I wondered where the blue fog might be drifting now. When I’d located a good horse, which she told me I could have delivered to their stable in Amber, I saddled him and fitted his bridle.  He was a gray, named Smoke.  I donned my cloak then and clasped Vinta’s hands. 

“Thanks for the hospitality,” I said, “even if you don’t recall it.”

“Don’t say good-bye yet,” she told me.  “Ride around to the kitchen door off the patio, and I’ll give you a water bottle and some food for the road.  We didn’t have a mad affair that I don’t remember, did we?”

“A gentleman never tells,” I said.

She laughed and slapped my shoulder.  “Come see me sometime when I’m in Amber,” she told me, “and refresh my memory.”

I grabbed a set of saddlebags, a bag of chow for Smoke and a longish tethering rope.  I led him outside as Vinta headed back to the house.  I mounted then and rode slowly after her, a few dogs capering about me.  I circled the manor, taking the long way around, drew rein and dismounted near the kitchen.  I considered the patio, wishing I had one just like it where I could sit and take coffee in the morning.  Or had it just been the company?

After a time, the door opened and Vinta came out and passed me a bundle and a flask.  As I was securing them, she said, “Let my father know that I’ll be back in a few days, will you? Tell him that I came to the country because I wasn’t feeling well, but that I’m all right now.”

“Glad to,” I said.

“I don’t really know why you were here,” she said.  “But if it involves politics or intrigue I don’t want to know.”

“Okay,” I said.

“If a servant took a meal to a big red-haired man who seemed to be pretty badly injured, this would be better forgotten?”

“I’d say.”

“It will be, then.  But one of these days I’d like the story.”

“Me too,” I said.  “We’ll see what we can do.”

“So, have a good journey.”

“Thanks.  I’ll try.”

I clasped her hand, turned away and mounted.

“So long.”

“See you in Amber,” she said.

I mounted and continued my circuit of the house until I was back near the stables again.  I headed past them then to a trail we had ridden that led off in the direction I wanted.  Back toward the house, a dog began to howl and another joined it moments later.  There was a breeze out of the south, and it carried a few leaves past me.  I wanted to be on the road, far away and alone.  I value my solitude because that is when I seem to do my best thinking, and right now I had many things to think over.

I rode to the northwest.  About ten minutes later I came to a dirt road we had crossed the other day.  This time I followed it westward, and it finally took me to the crossroads with the marker indicating that Amber lay straight ahead.  I rode on.

It was a yellow dirt road that I traveled, showing the impress of many wagon wheels.  It followed the contours of the land, passing between fallow fields bordered by low stone fences, a few trees at either hand.  I could see the stark outlines of mountains far ahead, standing above the forested area I was soon to encounter.  We moved along at an easy gait, and I let my mind drift over the events of the past few days.

That I had an enemy I did not doubt.  Luke had assured me that it was no longer him, and I had found him to be more than a little persuasive.  He need not have come to me to be patched up, as both he and Vinta had pointed out.  And he could have found his own way to the crystal cave or some other sanctuary.  And the business about my helping him to rescue Jasra could have waited.  I was more than half convinced that he was trying to get back on better terms with me again quickly because I was his only contact with the Court of Amber, and his fortunes had taken a turn for the worse.  I had a feeling that what he really wanted was an official determination as to his status with Amber, and that he had mentioned the piece of important information he would be willing to surrender both as a sign of good faith and as a bargaining chip.  I was not at all certain that I, personally, would be very crucial to any plan he might have for rescuing Jasra.  Not when he knew the Keep inside and out, was some kind of sorcerer himself and had a band of mercs he could transport from the shadow Earth.  For all I knew, that fancy ammo of his would work there as well as in Amber.  And whether that was true or not, why couldn’t he just trump his attack force into the place? He wouldn’t even really have to win a battle-just get in, grab Jasra and get out.  No, I did not feel that I was really necessary to whatever operation he finally decided upon.  I’d a feeling he’d waved a red herring at me, hoping that when the air cleared we would simply consider what he had and what he wanted and make him an offer.

I’d a feeling, too, that he might be willing to call it quits on the vendetta now that Caine was out of the way and family honor satisfied.  And I’d a notion that Jasra was the stumbling block on his side.  While I’d no idea what hold she might have over him, it had occurred to me that the piece of information to which he’d referred might represent some means of neutralizing her.  If he got it to us quietly and it seemed to come from our side, he could save face with her as well as buying peace with us.  Tantalizing.  My problem now was to find the best way to present this at court without looking like a traitor for having let him go.  Which meant I had to show that the profit would be worth the investment.

There were more trees at the roadside now, and the forest itself was nearer.  I crossed a wooden bridge above a clear stream, and the gentle splashing sounds followed me for a time.  There were brown fields and distant hams to my left, a wagon with a broken axle off to my right.  .  .  .

And if I had read Luke wrong? Was there some way I might be able to pressure him and make my interpretation come out right anyway? A small idea began to form.  I was not overjoyed with it, but I considered it nevertheless.  Risk and speed were what it involved.  It had its merits, though.  I pushed it as far as I could, then put it aside and returned to my original train of thought.

Somewhere, there was an enemy.  And if it wasn’t Luke, who was it?

Jasra seemed the most obvious candidate.  She had made her feelings to ward me pretty clear on the occasions of our two meetings.  She could well be the one who had dispatched the assassins I had encountered in Death Alley.  In that case, I was probably safe for a time-with her a prisoner back at the Keep-unless, of course, she had sent along a few more before she had been captured.  That would have been redundant, though.  Why waste all that manpower on me? I had only been a minor figure in the event she sought to avenge, and the men who came after me had been almost sufficient for the task.

And if it wasn’t Jasra? Then I was still in jeopardy.  The wizard in the blue mask, whom I assumed to be Sharu Gariul, had caused me to be pursued by a tornado, which seemed a far less friendly overture than the flowers that had followed.  This latter, of course, identified him with the individual behind my peculiar experience at Flora’s apartment back in San Francisco.  In that instance, he had initiated the encounter, which meant that he had some designs on me.  What was it he’d said? Something about the possibility of us being at cross-purposes at some future time.  How interesting, in retrospect.  For I could now see the possibility of such a situation’s occurring.

But was it really Sharu Garrul who had sent the assassins? Despite his familiarity with the power of the blue stone that had guided them-as evidenced by the blue button in my pocket-it didn’t seem to follow.  For one thing, our purposes were not yet crossed.  For another, it did not seem the proper style for a cryptic, flower-throwing master of elements.  I could be dead wrong there, of course, but I expected something more in the nature of a sorcerous duel with that one.

The fields gave way to wilderness as I approached the verge of the forest.  Something of twilight had already entered its bright-leafed domain.  It did not seem a dense, ancient wood like Arden, however; from the distance I had seen numerous gaps within its higher reaches.  The road continued wide and well-kept.  I drew my cloak more fully about me as I entered the shadowed coolness.  It seemed an easy ride, if it were all to be like this.  And I was in no hung.  I had too many thoughts that wanted thinking.  .  .  .

If only I had been able to learn more from that strange, nameless entity who had, for a time, controlled Vinta.  What her true nature might be, I still had no idea.  “Her,” yes.  I somehow felt the entity to be more feminine than masculine in nature, despite its having controlled George Hansen and Dan Martinez.  Perhaps this was only because I had made love to her as Meg Devlin.  Difficult to say.  But I had known Gail for some time, and the Lady in the Lake had seemed a real lady.  .  .  .

Enough.  I’d decided on my pronoun.  Other matters of greater importance were involved.  Like, whatever she was, why was she following me about insisting that she wanted to protect me? While I appreciated the sentiment, I still had no insight into her motivation.

But there was something far more important to me than her motivation.  Why she saw fit to guard me could remain her own business.  The big question was: Against what did she feel I needed protection? She must have had a definite threat in mind, and she had not given me the slightest hint as to what it was.

Was this, then, the enemy? The real enemy? Vinta’s adversary?

I tried reviewing everything I knew or had guessed about her.

There is a strange creature who sometimes takes the form of a small blue mist.  She is capable of finding her way to me through Shadow.  She possesses the power to take control of a human body, completely suppressing its natural ego.  She hung around in my vicinity for a number of years without my becoming aware of her.  Her earliest incarnation that I know of was as Luke’s former girlfriend, Gail.

Why Gail? If she were guarding me, why go around with Luke? Why not become one of the women I’d dated? Why not be Julia? But no.  She had decided upon Gail.  Was that because Luke was the threat, and she’d wanted to keep a close watch on him? But she’d actually let Luke get away with a few attempts on my life.  And then Jasra.  She’d admitted that she’d known Jasra was behind the later ones.  Why hadn’t she simply removed them? She could have taken over Luke’s body, stepped in front of a speeding car, drifted away from the remains, then gone and done the same with Jasra.  She wasn’t afraid to die in a host body.  I’d seen her do it twice.

Unless she’d somehow known that all their attempts on my life would fail.  Could she have sabotaged the letter bomb? Could she, in some way, have been behind my premonition on the morning of the opened gas jets? And perhaps something else with each of the others? Still, it would seem a lot simpler to go to the source and remove the problem itself.  I knew that she had no compunction about killing.  She’d ordered the slaying of my final assailant in Death Alley.

What, then?

Two possibilities came to mind immediately.  One was that she’d actually come to like Luke and that she’d simply found ways to neutralize him without destroying him.  But then I thought of her as Martinez, and it fell apart.  She’d actually been shooting that night in Santa Fe.  Okay.  Then there was the other possibility: Luke was not the real threat, and she’d liked him enough to let him go on living once he’d quit the April 30 games and she saw that we’d gotten friendly.  Something happened in New Mexico that made her change her mind.  As to what it was, I had no idea.  She had followed me to New York, then, and been George Hansen and Meg Devlin in quick succession.  Luke was, by that time, out of the t picture, following his disappearing act on the mountain.  He no longer represented a threat, yet she was almost frantic in her efforts to get in touch with me.  Was something else impending? The real threat?

I racked my brains, but I could not figure what that threat might have been.  Was I following a completely false trail with this line of reasoning?

She certainly was not omniscient.  Her reason for spiriting me to Arbor House was as much to pump me for information as it was to remove me from the scene of the attack.  And some of the things she’d wanted to know were as interesting as some of the things she knew.

My mind did a backward flip.  What was the first question she had asked me?

Landing adroitly on my mental feet, back at Bill Roth’s place, I heard the question several times.  As George Hansen she had asked it casually and I had lied; as a voice on the telephone she had asked it and been denied; as Meg Devlin, in bed, she had finally gotten me to answer it honestly: What was your mother’s name?

When I’d told her that my mother was named Dara she had finally begun speaking freely.  She had warned me against Luke.  It seemed that she might have been willing to tell me more then, too, save that the arrival of the real Meg’s husband had cut short our conversation.

To what was this the key? It placed my origin in the Courts of Chaos, to which she had at no time referred.  Yet it had to be important, somehow.

I had a feeling that I already had the answer but that I would be unable to realize it until I had formulated the proper question.

Enough.  I could go no further.  Knowing that she was aware of my connection with the Courts still told me nothing.  She was also obviously aware of my connection with Amber, and I could not see how that figured in the pattern of events either.

So I would leave it at that point and come back to it later.  I had plenty of other things to think about.  At Least, I now had lots of new questions to ask her the next time we met, and I was certain that we would meet again.

Then something else occurred to me.  If she’d done any real protecting of me at all, it had taken place offstage.  She had given me a lot of information, which I thought was probably correct but which I had had no opportunity to verify, From her phoning and lurking back in New York to her killing of my one possible source of information in Death Alley, she had really been more a bother than a help.  It was conceivable that she could actually show up and encumber me with aid again, at exactly the wrong moment.

So instead of working on my opening argument for Random, I spent the next hour or so considering the nature of a being capable of moving into a person and taking over the controls.  There seemed only a certain number of ways it might be done, and I narrowed the field quickly, considering what I knew of her nature, by means of the technical exercises my uncle had taught me.  When I thought I had it worked out I backtracked and mused over the forces that would have to be involved.

From the forces I worked my way through the tonic vibrations of their aspects.  The use of raw power, while flashy, is wasteful and very fatiguing for the operator, not to mention aesthetically barbaric.  Better to be prepared.

I lined up the spoken signatures and edited them into a spell.  Suhuy would probably have gotten it down even shorter, but there is a point of diminishing returns on these things, and I had mine figured to where it should work if my main guesses were correct.  So I collated it and assembled it.  It was fairly long-too long to rattle off in its entirety if I were in the hurry I probably would be.  Studying it, I saw that three linchpins would probably hold it, though four would be better.

I summoned the Logrus and extended my tongue into its moving pattern.  Then I spoke the spell, slowly and clearly, leaving out the four key words I had chosen to omit.  The woods grew absolutely still about me as the words rang out.  The spell hung before me like a crippled butterfly of sound and color, trapped within the synesthetic web of my personal vision of the Logrus, to come again when I summoned it, to be released when I uttered the four omitted words.

I banished the vision and felt my tongue relax.  Now she was not the only one capable of troublesome surprises.

I halted for a drink of water.  The sky had grown darker and the small noises of the forest returned.  I wondered whether Fiona or Bleys had been in touch, and how Bill was doing back in town.  I listened to the rattling of branches.  Suddenly, I had the feeling I was being watched-not the cold scrutiny of a Trump touch, but simply the sensation that there was a pair of eyes fixed upon me.  I shivered.  All those thoughts about enemies.  .  .  .

I loosened my blade and rode on.  The night was young, and there were more miles ahead than behind.

Riding through the evening I kept alert, but I neither heard nor saw anything untoward.  Had I been wrong about Jasra, Sharu or even Luke? And was there a party of assassins at my back right now? Periodically, I drew rein and sat listening for a short while.  But I heard nothing unusual on these occasions, nothing that could be taken as sounds of pursuit.  I became acutely aware of the blue button in my pocket.  Was it acting as a beacon for some sinister sending of the wizard’s? I was loath to get rid of the thing because I could foresee a number of possible uses for it.  Besides, if it had already attuned me-which it probably had-I could see no benefit in disposing of it now.  I would secrete it someplace safe before I made my attempt to lose its vibes.  Until such a time, I could see no percentage in doing anything else with it.

The sky continued to darken, and a number of stars had put in hesitant appearances.  Smoke and I slowed even more in our course, but the road remained good and its pale surface stayed sufficiently visible to present no hazard.  I heard the call of an owl from off to the right and moments later saw its dark shape rush at middle height among the trees.  It would have been a pleasant night to be riding if I were not creating my own ghosts and haunting myself with them.  I love the smells of autumn and the forest, and I resolved to bum a few leaves in my campfire later on for that pungency unlike any other I know.

The air was clean and cool.  Hoof sounds, our breathing and the wind seemed to be the only noises in the neighborhood until we flushed a deer a bit later and heard the diminishing crashes of its retreat for some time afterward.  We crossed a small but sturdy wooden bridge a little later, but no trolls were taking tolls.  The road took a turn upward, and we wound our way slowly but steadily to a higher elevation.  Now there were numerous stars visible through the weave of the branches, but no clouds that I could see.  The deciduous trees grew barer as we gained a bit of altitude, and more evergreens began to occur.  I felt the breezes more strongly now.

I began pausing more frequently, to rest Smoke, to listen, to nibble at my supplies.  I resolved to keep going at least until moonrise-which I tried to calculate from its occurrence the other night, following my departure from Amber.  If I made it to that point before I camped, the rest of the ride into Amber tomorrow morning would be pretty easy.

Frakir pulsed once, lightly, upon my wrist.  But hell, that had often happened in traffic when I’d cut someone off.  A hungry fox could have just passed, regarded me and wished itself a bear.  Still, I waited there longer than I had intended, prepared for an attack and trying not to appear so.

But nothing happened, the warning was not repeated and after a time I rode on.  I returned to my idea for putting the screws to Luke-and, for that matter, Jasra.  I couldn’t call it a plan yet, because it was lacking in almost all particulars.  The more I thought of it, the crazier it seemed.  For one thing, it was extremely tempting, as it held the potential for resolving a lot of problems.  I wondered then why I had never created a Trump for Bill Roth.  I felt a sudden need to talk to a good attorney.  I might well want someone to argue my case before this was done.  Too dark now to do any drawing, though .  .  , and not really necessary yet.  Actually, I just wanted to talk with him, bring him up to date, get the views of someone not directly involved.

Frakir issued no further warnings during the next hour.  We commenced a slightly downward course then, soon passing into a somewhat more sheltered area where the smell of pines came heavy.  I mused on-about wizards and flowers, Ghostwheel and his problems, and the name of the entity who had recently occupied Vinta.  There were lots of other musings, too, some of which went a long way back.  .  .  .

Many stops later, with a bit of moonlight trickling through the branches behind me, I decided to call it quits and look for a place to bed down.  I gave Smoke a brief drink at the next stream.  About a quarter hour afterward, I thought I glimpsed what might be a promising spot off to the right, so I left the road and headed that way.

It turned out not to be as good a place as I’d thought, and I continued farther into the wood until I came across a small clear area that seemed adequate.  I dismounted, unsaddled Smoke and tethered him, rubbed him down with his blanket and gave him something to eat.  Then I scraped clear a small area of ground with my blade, dug a pit at its center and built a fire there.  I used a spell to ignite it because I was feeling lazy, and I threw on several clumps of leaves as I recalled my earlier reflections.

I seated myself on my cloak, my back against the bole of a middle-sized tree, and ate a cheese sandwich and sipped water while I worked up the ambition to pull my boots off.  My blade lay upon the ground at my side.

My muscles began to unkink.  The smell of the fire was a nostalgic thing.  I toasted my next sandwich over it.

I sat and thought of nothing for a long while.  Gradually, in barely perceptible stages, I felt the gentle disengagements lassitude brings to the extremities.  I had meant to gather firewood before I took my ease.  But I didn’t really need it.  It wasn’t all that cold.  I’d wanted the fire mainly for company.

However.  .  .  .  I dragged myself to my feet and moved off into the woods.  I did a long, slow reconnaissance about the area once I got moving.  Though to be honest, my main reason for getting up had been to go arid relieve myself.  I halted in my circuit when I thought that I detected a small flicker of light far off to the northeast.  Another campfire? Moonlight on water? A torch? There had been only a glimpse and I could not locate it again, though I moved my head about, retraced my most recent few paces and even struck off a small distance in that direction.

But I did not wish to chase after some will-o’-the-wisp and spend my night beating the bushes.  I checked various lines of sight back to my camp.  My small fire was barely visible even from this distance.  I circled my camp, entered and sprawled again.  The fire was already dying and I decided to let it burn out.  I wrapped my cloak about me and listened to the soft sounds of the wind.

I fell asleep quickly.  For how long I slept, I do not know.  There were no dreams that I can recall.

I was awakened by Frakir’s frantic pulsing.  I opened my eyes the barest slits and tossed, as if in sleep, so that my right hand fell near the haft of my blade.  I maintained my slow breathing pattern.  I heard and felt that the wind had risen, and I saw that it had fanned the embers to the point where my fire flared once again.  I saw no one before me, however.  I strained my hearing after any sounds, but all I heard was the wind and the popping of the fire.

It seemed as foolish to spring to my feet into a guard position when I did not know from which direction the danger was approaching as it did to remain a target.  On the other hand, I had intentionally cast my cloak so that I lay with a large, low-limbed pine at my back.  It would have been very difficult for someone to have approached me from the rear, let alone to have done so quietly.  So it did not seem I was in danger of an imminent attack from that direction.

I turned my head slightly and studied Smoke, who had begun to seem a little uneasy.  Frakir continued her now distracting warning till I willed her to be still.

Smoke was twitching his ears and moving his head about, nostrils dilated.  As I watched, I saw that his attention seemed directed toward my right.  He began edging his way across the camp, his long tether snaking behind him.

I heard a sound then, beyond the noise of Smoke’s retreat, as of something advancing from the right.  It was not repeated for a time, and then I heard it again.  It was not a footfall, but a sound as of a body brushing against a branch which suddenly issued a weak protest.

I visualized the disposition of trees and shrubs in that direction and decided to let the lurker draw nearer before I made my move.  I dismissed the notion of summoning the Logrus and preparing a magical attack.  It would take a bit more time than I thought I had remaining.  Also, from Smoke’s behavior and from what I had heard, it seemed that there was only a single individual approaching.  I resolved, though, to lay in a decent supply of spells the first chance I got, both offensive and defensive, on the order of the one I had primed against my guardian entity.  The trouble is that it can take several days of solitude to work a really decent array of them out properly, enact them and rehearse their releases to the point where you can spring them at a moment’s notice-and then they have a tendency to start decaying after a week or so.  Sometimes they last longer and sometimes less long, depending both on the amount of energy you’re willing to invest in them and on the magical climate of the particular shadow in which you’re functioning.  It’s a lot of bother unless you’re sure you’re going to need them within a certain period of time.  On the other hand, a good sorcerer should have one attack, one defense and one escape spell hanging around at all times.  But I’m generally somewhat lazy, not to mention pretty easygoing, and I didn’t see any need for that sort of setup until recently.  And recently, I hadn’t had much time to be about it.

So any use I might make of the Logrus now, were I to summon it and situate myself within its ambit, would pretty much amount to blasting away with raw power-which is very draining on the operator.

Let him come a little nearer, that’s all, and it would be cold steel and a strangling cord that he would face.

I could feel the presence advancing now, hear the soft stirring of pine needles.  A few more feet, enemy.  .  .  .  Come on.  That’s all I need.  Come into range.  .  .  .

He halted.  I could hear a steady, soft breathing.

Then, “You must be aware of me by now, Magus,” came a low whisper, “for we all have our little tricks, and I know the source of yours.”

“Who are you?” I asked, as I clasped the haft of my blade and rolled into a crouch, facing the darkness, the point of my weapon describing a small circle.

“I am the enemy,” was the reply.  “The one you thought would never come.”

9

Power.

I remembered the day I had stood atop a rocky prominence.

Fiona—dressed in lavender, belted with silverstood in a higher place before me and somewhat to my right.  She held a silver mirror in her right hand, and she looked downward through the haze to the place where the great tree towered.  There was a total stillness about us, and even our own small sounds came muffled.  The upper portions of the tree disappeared into a low-hanging fog bank.  The light that filtered through limned it starkly against another pile of fog which hung at its back, rising to join with the one overhead.  A bright, seemingly self-illuminated line was etched into the ground near the base of the tree, curving off to vanish within the fog.  Far to my left, a brief arc of a similar intensity was also visible, emerging from and returning to the billowing white wall.

“What is it, Fiona?” I asked.  “Why did you bring me to this place?”

“You’ve heard of it;’ she replied.  “I wanted you to see it.”

I shook my head.  “I’ve never heard of it.  I’ve no idea what I’m looking at.”

“Come,” she said, and she began to descend.

She disdained my hand, moving quickly and gracefully, and we came down from the rocks and moved nearer to the tree.  There was something vaguely familiar there, but I could not place it.

“From your father,” she said at last.  “He spent a long time telling you his story.  Surely he did not omit this part.”

I halted as understanding presented itself, tentatively at first.

“That tree,” I said.

“Corwin planted his staff when he commenced the creation of the new Pattern,” she said.  “It was fresh.  It took root.”

I seemed to feel a faint vibration in the ground.

Fiona turned her back on the prospect, raised the mirror she carried and angled it so that she regarded the scene over her right shoulder.

“Yes,” she said, after several moments.  Then she extended the mirror to me.  “Take a look,” she told me, “as I just did.” I accepted it, held it, adjusted it and stared.

The view in the minor was not the same as that which had presented itself to my unaided scrutiny.  I was able to see beyond the tree now, through the fog, to discern most of the strange Pattern which twisted its bright way about the ground, working its passages inward to its off-center terminus, the only spot still concealed by an unmoving tower of white, within which tiny lights like stars seemed to bum.

“It doesn’t look like the Pattern back in Amber,” I said.

“No,” she answered.  “Is it anything like the Logrus?”

“Not really. The Logrus actually alters itself somewhat, constantly.  Still, it’s more angular, whereas this is mostly curves and bends.”

I studied it a little longer, then returned her looking glass.

“Interesting spell on the mirror,” I commented, for I had been studying this also, while I held it.”

“And much more difficult than you’d think,” she responded, “for there’s more than fog in there.  Watch.”

She advanced to the beginning of the Pattern, near the great tree, where she moved as if to set her foot upon the bright trail.  Before it arrived, however, a small electrical discharge crackled upward and made contact with her shoe.  She jerked her foot back quickly.

“It rejects me,” she said.  “I can’t set foot on it.  Try it.”

There was something in her gaze I did not like, but I moved forward to where she had been standing.

“Why couldn’t your mirror penetrate all the way to the center of the thing?” I asked suddenly.

“The resistance seems to go up the farther you go in.  It is greatest there,” she replied.  “But as to why,I do not know.”

I hesitated a moment longer.  “Has anyone tried it other than yourself?”

I brought Bleys here,” she answered.  “It rejected him too.”

“And he’s the only other one who’s seen it?”

“No, I brought Random.  But he declined to try.  Said he didn’t care to screw around with it right then.”

“Prudent, perhaps.  Was he wearing the Jewel at the time?”

“No.  Why?”

“Just curious.”

“See what it does for you.”

“All right.”

I raised my right foot and lowered it slowly toward the line.  About a foot above it, I stopped.

“Something seems to be holding me back,” I said.

“Strange.  There is no electrical discharge for you.”

“Small blessing,” I responded, and I pushed my foot a couple of inches farther downward.  Finally, I sighed.  “Nope, Fi.  I can’t.”

I read the disappointment in her features.

“I was hoping,” she said as I drew back, “that someone other than Corwin might be able to walk it.  His son seemed the most likely choice.”

“Why is it so important that someone walk it? Just because it’s there?”

“I think it’s a menace,” she said.  “It has to be explored and dealt with.”

“A menace? Why?”

“Amber and Chaos are the two poles of existence, as we understand it,” she said, “housing as they do the Pattern and the Logrus.  For ages there has been something of an equilibrium between them.  Now, I believe, this bastard Pattern of your father’s is undermining their balance.”

“In what fashion?”

“There have always been wavelike exchanges between Amber and Chaos.  This seems to be setting up some interference.”

“It sounds more like tossing an extra ice cube into a drink,” I said.  “It should settle down after a while.”

She shook her head.  “Things are not settling.  There have been far more shadow-storms since this thing was created.  They rend the fabric of Shadow.  They affect the nature of reality itself.”

“No good,” I said.  “Another event a lot more important along these lines occurred at the same time.  The original Pattern in Amber was damaged and Oberon repaired it.  The wave of Chaos which came out of that swept through all of Shadow.  Everything was affected.  But the Pattern held and things settled again.  I’d be more inclined to think of all those extra shadow-storms as being in the nature of aftershocks.”

“It’s a good argument,” she said.  “But what if it’s wrong?”

“I don’t think it is.”

“Merle, there’s some kind of power here - an immense amount of power.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“It has always been our way to keep an eye on power, to try to understand it, to control it.  Because one day it might become a threat.  Did Corwin tell you anything, anything at all, as to exactly what this represents and how we might get a handle on it?”

“No,” I said.  “Nothing beyond the fact that he made it in a hurry to replace the old one, which he’d figured Oberon might not have succeeded in repairing.”

“If only we could find him.”

“There still hasn’t been any word?”

“Droppa claims that he saw him at the Sands, back on the shadow Earth you both favor.  He said he was in the company of an attractive woman, and they were both having a drink and listening to a music group.  He waved and headed toward them through a crowd, and he thought that Corwin saw him.  When he got to their table, though, they were gone.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“That’s not much.”

“I know.  If he’s the only one who can walk this damned thing, though, and if it is a menace, we could be in big trouble one day.”

“I think you’re being an alarmist, Aunty.”

“I hope you’re right, Merle.  Come on, I’ll take you home.”

I studied the place once more, for details as well as feeling, because I wanted to be able to construct a Trump for it.  I never told anyone that there had been no resistance as I had lowered my foot, because once you set foot into the Pattern or the Logrus there is no turning back.  You either proceed to the end or are destroyed by it.  And as much as I love mysteries, my break was at its end and I had to get back to class.

Power.

We were together in a wood within the Black Zone, that area of Shadow with which Chaos holds commerce.  We were hunting zhind, which are horned, short, black, fierce and carnivorous.  I do not much like hunting because I do not much like killing things I don’t really have to.  However, it was Jurt’s idea, and since it was possibly also my last chance to work some reconciliation with my brother before I departed, I had decided to take him up on the offer.  Neither of us was that great an archer, and zhind are pretty fast.  So with any luck at all nothing would get dead and we’d have some chance to talk and perhaps come away on better terms at the end of the hunt.

On one occasion when we’d lost the trail and were resting, we talked for a long time about archery, court politics, Shadow and the weather.  He had been much more civil to me of late, which I took for a good sign.  He’d let his hair grow in such a fashion as to cover the area of his missing left ear.  Ears are hard to regenerate.  We did not speak of our duel, or of the argument that had led up to it.  Because I would soon be out of his life, I felt perhaps he wished to close this chapter of his existence in a relatively friendly fashion, with both of us going our ways with a memory we could feel good about.  I was half right, anyway.

Later, when we had halted for a cold hail lunch, he asked me, “So, what does it feel like?”

“What?” I said.

“The power,” he answered.  “The Logrus power-to walk in Shadow, to work with a higher order of magic than the mundane.”

I didn’t really want to go into detail, because I knew he’d prepared himself to traverse the Logrus on three different occasions and had backed down at the last moment each time, when he’d looked into it.  Perhaps the skeletons of failures that Suhuy keeps around had troubled him also.  I don’t think Jurt was aware that I knew about the last two times he’d changed his mind.  So I decided to downplay my accomplishment.

“Oh, you don’t really feel any different,” I said, “until you’re actually using it.  Then it’s hard to describe.”

“I’m thinking of doing it soon myself,” he said.  “It would be good to see something of Shadow, maybe even find a kingdom for myself somewhere.  Can you give me any advice?”

I nodded.  “Don’t look back,” I said.  “Don’t stop to think.  Just keep going.”

He laughed.  “Sounds like orders to an army,” he said.

“I suppose there is a similarity.”

He laughed again.  “Let’s go kill us a zhind,” he said.

That afternoon, we lost a trail in a thicket full of fallen branches.

We’d heard the zhind crash through it, but it was not immediately apparent which way it had gone.  I had my back to Jurt and was facing the forward edge of the place, searching for some sign, when F’rakir constricted tightly about my wrist, then came loose and fell to the ground.

I bent over to retrieve her, wondering what had happened, when I heard a thank from overhead.  Glancing upward, I saw an arrow protruding from the bole of the tree before me.  Its height above the ground was such that had I remained standing it would have entered my back.

I tamed quickly toward Jurt, not even straightening from my crouch.  He was fitting another arrow to his bow.

He said, “Don’t look back.  Don’t stop to think.  Just keep going,” and he laughed.

I dove toward him as he raised the weapon.  A better archer would probably have killed me.  I think when I moved he panicked and released the arrow prematurely, though, because it caught in the side of my leather vest and I didn’t feel any pain.

I clipped him above the knees, and he dropped the bow as he fell over backward.  He drew his hunting knife, rolled to the side and swung the a weapon toward my throat.  I caught his wrist with my left hand and was cast onto my back by the force of his momentum.  I struck at his face with my right fist while holding the blade away from me.  He blocked the punch and kneed me in the balls.

The point of the blade dropped to within inches of my throat as this blow collapsed a big piece of my resistance.  Still aching, I was able to turn my hip to prevent another ball-buster, simultaneous with casting my right forearm beneath his wrist and cutting my hand in the process.  Then I pushed with my right, pulled with my left and rolled to the left with the force of the turn.  His arm was jerked free from my still-weakened grasp, and he rolled off to the side and I tried to recover-and then I heard him scream.

Coming up onto my knees, I saw that he lay upon his left side where he had come to a stop and the knife was several feet beyond him, caught in a tangle of broken branches.  Both hands were raised to his face, and his cries were wordless, animal-like bleats.

I made my way over to him to see what had happened, with Frakir held ready to wrap about his throat in case it were some sort of trick he was playing.

But it was not.  When I reached him I saw that a sharp limb of a fallen branch had pierced his right eye.  There was blood on his cheek and the side of his nose.

“Stop jerking around!” I said.  “You’ll make it worse.  Let me get it out.”

“Keep your damn hands off me!” he cried.

Then, clenching his teeth and grimacing horribly, he caught hold of the limb with his right hand and drew his head back.  I had to look away.  He made a whimpering noise several moments later and collapsed, unconscious.  I ripped off my left shirt sleeve, tore a strip from it, folded it into a pad and placed it over his damaged eye.  With another strip, I tied it into place there.  Frakir found her way back about my wrist, as usual.

Then I dug out the Trump that would take us home and raised him in my arms.  Mom wasn’t going to like this.

Power.

It was a Saturday.  Luke and I had been hang gliding all morning.  Then we met Julia and Gail for lunch, and afterward we took the Starburst out and sailed all afternoon.  Later, we’d hit the bar and grill at the marina where I bought the beers while we waited for steaks, because Luke had slammed my right arm flat against the tabletop when we’d wrist wrestled to see who paid for drinks.

Someone at the next table said, “If I had a million dollars, tax free, I’d ...” and Julia had laughed as she listened.

“What’s funny?” I asked her.

“His wish list,” she said.  “I’d want a closet full of designer dresses and some elegant jewelry to go with them.  Put the closet in a really nice house, and put the house someplace where I’d be important.  .  .  .”

Luke smiled.  “I detect a shift from money to power,” he said.

“Maybe so,” she replied.  “But what’s the difference, really?”

“Money buys things,” Luke said.  “Power makes things happen.  If you ever have a choice, take the power.”

Gail’s usual faint smile had faded, and she wore a very serious expression.

“I don’t believe power should be an end in itself,” she said.  “One has it only to use it in certain ways.”

Julia laughed.  “What’s wrong with a power trip?” she asked.  “It sounds like fun to me.”

“Only till you run into a greater power,” Luke said.

“Then you have to think big,” Julia answered.

“That’s not right,” Gail said.  “One has duties and they come first.”

Luke was studying her now, and he nodded.

“You can keep morality out of it,” Julia said.

“No, you can’t,” Luke responded.

“I disagree,” she said.

Luke shrugged.

“She’s right,” Gail said suddenly.  “I don’t see that duty and morality are the same thing.”

“Well, if you’ve got a duty,” Luke said, “something you absolutely must do- a matter of honor, say-then that becomes your morality.”

Julia looked at Luke, looked at Gail.  “Does that mean we just agreed on something?” she asked.

“No,” Luke said, “I don’t think so.”

Gail took a drink.  “You’re talking about a personal code that need not have anything to do with conventional morality.”

“Right,” Luke said.

“Then it’s not really morality.  You’re just talking duty,” she said.

“You’re right on the duty,” Luke answered.  “But it’s still morality.”

“Morality is the values of a civilization;” she said.

“There is no such thing as civilization,” Luke replied.  “The word just means the art of living in cities.”

“All right, then.  Of a culture,” she said.

“Cultural values are relative things,” Luke said, smiling, “and mine say I’m right.”

“Where do yours come from?” Gail asked, studying him carefully.

“Let’s keep this pure and philosophical, huh?” he said.

“Then maybe we should drop the term entirely,” Gail said, “and just stick with duty.”

“What happened to power?” Julia asked.

“It’s in there somewhere,” I said.

Suddenly Gail looked perplexed, as if our discussion were not something which had been repeated a thousand times in different forms, as if it had actually given rise to some new turn of thought.

“If they are two different things,” she said slowly, “which one is more important?

“They’re not;” Luke said.  “They’re the same.”

“I don’t think so,” Julia told him.  “But duties tend to be clear-cut, and it sounds as if you can choose your own morality.  So if I had to have one I’d go with the morality.”

“I like things that are clear-cut,” Gail said.

Luke chugged his beer, belched lightly.  “Shit!” he said.  “Philosophy class isn’t till Tuesday.  This is the weekend.  Who gets the next round, Merle?”

I placed my left elbow on the tabletop and opened my hand.

While we pushed together, the tension building and building between us, he said through clenched teeth, “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“You were right,” I said, just before I forced his arm all the way down.

Power.

I removed my mail from the little locked box in the hallway and carried it upstairs to my apartment.  There were two bills, some circulars and something thick and first class without a return address on it.

I closed the door behind me, pocketed my keys and dropped my briefcase onto a nearby chair.  I had started toward the sofa when the telephone in the kitchen rang.

Tossing the mail toward the coffee table, I turned and started for the kitchen.  The blast that occurred behind me might or might not have been strong enough to knock me over.  I don’t know, because I dove forward of my own volition as soon as it occurred.  I hit my head on the leg of the kitchen table.  It dazed me somewhat, but I was otherwise undamaged.  All the damage was in the other room.  By the time I got to my feet the phone had stopped ringing.

I already knew there were lots of easier ways to dispose of junk mail, but I wondered for a long time afterward who it was that had been on the telephone.

I sometimes remembered the first of the series, too, the truck that had come rushing toward me.  I had only caught a glimpse of the driver’s face before I’d moved-inert, he was completely expressionless, as if he were dead, hypnotized, drugged or somehow possessed.  Choose any of the above, I decided, and maybe more than one.

And then there was the night of the muggers.  They had attacked me without a word.  When it was all over and I was heading away, I had glanced back once.  I thought I’d glimpsed a shadowy figure draw back into a doorway up the street-a smart precaution, I’d say, in light of what had been going on.  But of course it could have been someone connected with the attack, too.  I was tom.  The person was too far off to have been able to give a good description of me.  If I went back and it turned out to be an innocent bystander, there would then be a witness capable of identifying me.  Not that I didn’t think it was an open-and-shut case of self-defense, but there’d be a lot of hassle.  So I said the hell with it, and I walked on.  Another interesting April 30.

The day of the rifle.  There had been two shots as I’d hurried down the street.  They’d both missed me before I’d realized what was going on, chipping brickbats From the side of the building to my left.  There was no third shot, but there was a thud and a splintering sound from the building across the street.  A third-floor window stood wide open.

I hurried over.  It was an old apartment house and the front door was locked, but I didn’t slow down for niceties.  I located the stair and mounted it.  When I came to what I thought was the proper room, I decided to try the door the old-fashioned way and it worked.  It was unlocked.

I stood to the side and pushed it open and saw that the place was unfurnished and empty.  Unoccupied, too, it seemed.  Could I have been wrong? But then I saw that the window facing the street stood wide and I saw what lay upon the floor.  I entered and closed the door behind me.

A broken rifle lay in the comer.  From markings on the stock I guessed that it had been swung with great force against a nearby radiator before it had been cast aside.  Then I saw something else on the floor, something wet and red.  Not much.  Just a few drops.

I searched the place quickly.  It was small.  The one window in its single bedroom also stood open and I went to it.  There was a fire escape beyond it, and I decided that it might be a good way for me to make my exit, too.

There were a few more drops of blood on the black metal, but that was it.  No one was in sight below, or in either direction.

Power.

To kill.  To preserve.  Luke, Jasra, Gail.  Who was responsible for what?

The more I thought of it, the more it seemed possible that there might have been a telephone call on the morning of the open gas jets, too.  Could that be what had roused me to an awareness of danger? Each time I thought of these matters there seemed to be a slight shifting of emphasis.  Things stood in a different light.  According to Luke and the pseudo-Vinta,I was not in great danger in the later episodes, but it seemed that any of those things could have taken me out.  Who was I to blame? The perpetrator? Or the savior who barely saved? And who was which? I remembered how my father’s story had been complicated by that damned auto accident which played like Last Year at Marienbad-though his had seemed simple compared to everything that was coming down on me.  At least he knew what he had to do most of the time.  Could I be the inheritor of a family curse involving complicated plotting?

Power.

I remembered Uncle Suhuy’s final lesson.  He had spent some time following my completion of the Logrus in teaching me things I could not have learned before then.  There came a time when I thought I was finished.  I had been confirmed in the Art and dismissed.  It seemed I had covered all the basics and anything more would be mere elaboration.  I began making preparations for my journey to the shadow Earth.  Then one morning Suhuy sent for me.  I assumed that he just wanted to say good-bye and give me a few friendly words of advice.

His hair is white, he is somewhat stooped and there are days when he carries a staff.  This was one of them.  He had on his yellow caftan, which I had always thought of as a working garment rather than a social one.

“Are you ready for a short trip?” he asked me.

“Actually, it’s going to be a long one,” I said.  “But I’m almost ready.”

“No,” he said.  “That was not the journey I meant.”

“Oh.  You mean you want to go somewhere right now?”

“Come,” he said.

So I followed him, and the shadows parted before us.  We moved through increasing bleakness, passing at last into places that bore no sign of life whatsoever.  Dark, sterile rock lay all about us, stark in the brassy light of a dim and ancient sun.  This final place was chill and dry, and when we halted and I looked about, I shivered.

I waited, to see what he had in mind.  But it was a long while before he spoke.  He seemed oblivious of my presence for a time, simply staring out across the bleak landscape.

Finally, “I have taught you the ways of Shadow,” he said slowly, “and the composition of spells and their working.”

I said nothing.  His statement did not seem to require a reply.

“So you know something of the ways of power,” he continued.  “You draw it from the Sign of Chaos, the Logrus, and you invest it in various ways.”

He glanced at me at last, and I nodded.

“I understand that those who bear the Pattern, the Sign of Order, may do similar things in ways that may or may not be similar,” he went on.  “I do not know for certain, for I am not an initiate of the Pattern.  I doubt the spirit could stand the strain of knowing the ways of both.  But you should understand that there is another way of power, antithetical to our own.”

“I understand,” I said, for he seemed to be expecting an answer.

“But you have a resource available to you,” he said, “which those of Amber do not.  Watch!”

His final word did not mean that I should simply observe as he leaned his staff against the side of a boulder and raised his hands before him.  It meant that I should have the Logrus before me so I could see what he was doing at that level.  So I summoned my vision and watched him through it.

Now the vision that hung before him seemed a continuation of my own, stretched and twisting.  I saw and felt it as he joined his hands with it and extended a pair of its jagged limbs outward across the distance to touch upon a boulder that lay downhill of us.

“Enter the Logrus now yourself,” he said, “remaining passive.  Stay with me through what I am about to do.  Do not, at any time, attempt to interfere.”

“I understand,” I said.

I moved my hands into my vision, shifting them about, feeling after congruity, until they became a part of it.

“Good,” he said, when I had settled them into place.  “Now all you need do is observe, on all levels.”

Something pulsed along the limbs he controlled, passing down to the boulder.  I was not prepared for what came after.

The image of the Logrus turned black before me, becoming a seething blot of inky turmoil.  An awful feeling of disruptive power surged through me, an enormous destructive force that threatened to overwhelm me, to carry me into the blissful nothingness of ultimate disorder.  A part of me seemed to desire this, while another part was screaming wordlessly for it to cease.  But Suhuy maintained control of the phenomenon, and I could see how he was doing it, just as I had seen how he had brought it into being in the first place.

The boulder became one with the turmoil, joined it and was gone.  There was no explosion, no implosion, only the sensation of great cold winds and cacophonous sounds.  Then my uncle moved his hands slowly apart, and the lines of seething blackness followed them, flowing out in both directions from that area of chaos which had been the boulder, producing a long dark trench wherein I beheld the paradox of both nothingness and activity.

Then he stood still, arresting it at that point.  Moments later, he spoke.  “I could simply release it,” he stated, “letting it run wild.  Or I could give it a direction and then release it.”

As he did not continue, I asked, “What would happen then? Would it simply continue until it had devastated the entire shadow?”

“No,” he replied.  “There are limiting factors.  The resistance of Order to Chaos would build as it extended itself.  There would come a point of containment.”

“And if you remained as you are, and kept summoning more?”

“One would do a great deal of damage.”

“And if we combined our efforts?”

“More extensive damage.  But that is not the lesson I had in mind.  I will remain passive now while you control it.”

So I took over the Sign of the Logrus and ran the line of disruption back upon itself in a great circle, like a dark moat surrounding us.

“Banish it now,” he said, and I did.

Still, the winds and the sounds continued to rage, and I could not see beyond the dark wall which seemed to be advancing slowly upon us from all sides.

“Obviously, the limiting factor has yet to be achieved,” I observed.

He chuckled.  “You’re right.  Even though you stopped, you exceeded a certain critical limit, so that it is now running wild.”

“Oh,” I said.  “How long till those natural limitations you mentioned dampen it?”

“Sometime after it has completely annihilated the area on which we stand,” he said.

“It is receding in all directions as well as heading this way?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting.  What is the critical mass?”

“I’ll have to show you.  But we’d better find a new place first.  This one is going away.  Take my hand.”

I did, and he conducted me to another shadow.  This time I summoned the Chaos and conducted the operations while he observed.  This time I did not let it run wild.

When I had finished and I stood, shaken, staring into a small crater I had caused, he placed his hand on my shoulder and told me, “As you knew in theory, that is the ultimate power behind your spells.  Chaos itself.  To work with it directly is dangerous.  But, as you have seen, it can be done.  Now you know it, your training is complete.”

It was more than impressive.  It was awesome.  And for most situations I could visualize it was rather like using nukes for skeet shooting.  Offhand, I couldn’t think of any circumstances under which I would care to employ the technique, until Victor Melman really pissed me off.

Power, in its many shapes, varieties, sizes and styles, continues to fascinate me.  It has been so much a part of my life for so long that I feel very familiar with it, though I doubt that I will ever understand it fully.