Back braced against the port gunwale, rocked gently by the swells, I let my head nod. Through half-closed eyes I saw the dark blot she had indicated upon my white shirtfront. Blood. Yes, blood…
“First blood!” Despil had cried. “Which is sufficient! Have you satisfaction?
“No!” Jurt had shouted. “I barely scratched him!” and he spun on his stone and waved the triple claws of his trisp in my direction as he prepared to have at me again.
The blood oozed from the incision in my left forearm and formed itself into beads which rose into the air and drifted away from me like a handful of scattered rubies. I raised my fandon into a high guard position and lowered my trisp, which I held far out to the right and angled forward. I bent my left knee and rotated my stone 90 degrees on our mutual axis. Jurt corrected his own position immediately and dropped a half-dozen feet. I turned another 90 degrees, so that each of us seemed to be hanging upside down in relation to the other.
“Bastard son of Amber!” he cried, and the triple lances of light raked toward me from his weapon, to be shattered into bright, mothlike fragments by the sweep of my fandon, to fall, swirling, downward into the Abyss of Chaos above which we rode.
“Up yours,” I replied, and squeezed the haft of my trisp, triggering the pulsed beams from its three hair-fine blades. I extended my arm above my head as I did so, slashing at his shins.
He swept the beams away with his fandon, at almost the full extent of their eight-foot effective range. There is about a three-second recharge pause on a trisliver, but I feinted a dead cut toward his face, before which he raised fand reflexively, and I triggered the trisp for a swirl cut at his knees. He broke the one-second pulse in low fand, triggered a thrust at my face and spun over backward through a full 360, counting on the recharge time to save his back and coming up, fandon high, to cut at my shoulder.
But I was gone, circling him, dropping and rotating erect. I cut at his own exposed shoulder but was out of range. Despil, on his beachball-sized stone, was circling also, far to my right, while my own second — Mandor high above, was dropping quickly. We clung to our small stones with shapeshifted feet, there on an outer current of Chaos, drifting, as at the whirlpool’s rim. Jurt rotated to follow me, keeping his left forearm — to which the fandon is attached, elbow and wrist — horizontal, and executing a slow circular movement with it. Its three-foot length of filmy mesh, mord-weighted at the bottom, glittered in the balefire glow, which occurred at random intervals from many directions. He held his trisp in middle attack position, and he showed his teeth but was not smiling as I moved and he moved at opposite ends of the diameter of a ten-foot circle which we described over and over, looking for an opening.
I tilted the plane of my orbit and he adjusted his own immediately to keep me company. I did it again, and so did he. Then I did the dive — 90 degrees forward, fandon raised and extended — and I turned my wrist and dropped my elbow, angling my raking cut upward beneath his guard.
He cursed and cut, but I scattered his light, and three dark lines appeared upon his left thigh. The trisliver only cuts to a depth of about three quarters of an inch through flesh, which is why the throat, eyes, temples, inner wrists and femoral arteries are particularly favored targets in a serious encounter. Still, enough cuts anywhere and you eventually wave goodbye to your opponent as he spins downward in a swarm of red bubbles into that place from whence no traveler returns.
“Blood!” Mandor cried, as the beads formed upon Jurt’s leg and drifted. “Is there satisfaction, gentlemen?”
“I’m satisfied,” I answered.
“I’m not!” Jurt replied, turning to face me as I drifted to his left and rotated to my right. “Ask me again after I’ve cut his throat!”
Jurt had hated me from sometime before he had learned to walk, for reasons entirely his own. While I did not hate Jurt, liking him was totally beyond my ability. I had always gotten along reasonably well with Despil, though he tended to take Jurt’s side more often than my own. But that was understandable. They were full brothers, and Jurt was the baby.
Jurt’s trisp flashed and I broke the light and riposted. He scattered my beams and spun off to the side. I followed. Our trisps flared simultaneously, and the air between us was filled with flakes of brilliance as both attacks were shattered. I struck again, this time low, as soon as I had recharge. His came in high, and again both attacks died in fand. We drifted nearer.
“Jurt,” I said, “if either of us kills the other, the survivor will be outcast. Call it off.”
“It will be worth it,” he said. “Don’t you think I’ve thought about it?” Then he slashed an attack at my face. I raised both arms reflexively, fandon and trisp, and triggered an attack as shattered light showered before me. I heard him scream.
When I lowered my fandon to eye level I saw that he was bent forward, and his trisp was drifting away. So was his left ear, trailing a red filament that quickly beaded itself and broke apart. A flap of scalp had also come loose, and he was trying to press it back into place.
Mandor and Despil were already spiraling in.
“We declare the duel ended!” they were shouting, and I twisted the head of my trisp into a safety-lock position.
“How bad is it?” Despil asked me.
“I don’t know.”
Jurt let him close enough to check, and a little later Despil said, “He’ll be all right. But Mother is going to be mad.”
I nodded. “It was his idea,” I said.
“I know. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
He helped Jurt steer toward an outcropping of the Rim, fandon trailing like a broken wing. I lingered behind. Sawall’s son Mandor, my stepbrother, put his hand on my shoulder.
“You didn’t even mean him that much,” he said.
“I know.”
I nodded and bit my lip. Despil had been right about the Lady Dara, our mother, though. She favored Jurt, and somehow he’d have her believing this whole thing was my fault. I sometimes felt she liked both of her sons by Sawall, the old Rim Duke she’d finally married after giving up on Dad, better than me. I’d once overheard it said that I reminded her of my father, whom I’d been told I resembled more than a little. I wondered again about Amber and about other places, out in Shadow, and felt my customary twinge of fear as this recalled to me the writhing Logrus, which I knew to be my ticket to other lands. I knew that I was going to try it sooner than I had originally intended.
“Let’s go see Suhuy,” I said to Mandor, as we rose up out of the Abyss together. “There are more things I want to ask him.”
When I finally went off to college I did not spend a lot of time writing home.
“… home,” Vinta was saying, “pretty soon now. Have a drink of water,” and she passed me a flask.
I took several long swallows and handed it back. “Thanks.”
I stretched my cramped muscles and breathed the cold sea air. I looked for the moon and it was way back behind my shoulder.
“You were really out,” she said.
“Do I talk in my sleep?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Bad dreams?”
I shrugged. “Could be worse.”
“Maybe you made a little noise, right before I woke you.”
“Oh.”
Far ahead I saw a small light at the end of a dark promontory. She gestured toward it.
“When we’ve passed the point,” she said, “we will come into sight of the harbor at Baylesport. We’ll find breakfast there, and horses.”
“How far is it from Arbor House?”
“About a league,” she replied. “An easy ride.”
She stayed by me in silence for a while, watching the coastline and the sea. It was the first time we had simply sat together, my hands unoccupied and my mind free. And my sorcerer’s sense was stirred in that interval. I felt as if I were in the presence of magic. Not some simple spell or the aura of some charmed object she might be bearing, but some
thing very subtle. I summoned my vision and turned it upon her. There was nothing immediately obvious, but prudence suggested I check further. I extended my inquiry through the Logrus…
“Please don’t do that,” she said.
I had just committed a faux pas. It is generally considered somewhat gauche to probe a fellow practitioner in such a fashion.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize you were a student of the Art.”
“I am not,” she answered, “but I am sensitive to its operations.”
“In that case, you would probably make a good one.”
“My interests lie elsewhere,” she said.
“I thought perhaps someone had laid a spell upon you,” I stated. “I was only trying to —”
“Whatever you saw,” she said, “belongs. Let it be.”
“As you would. Sorry.”
She must have known I couldn’t let it rest at that, though, when unknown magic represents possible danger. So she went on, “It is nothing that can do you harm, I assure you. Quite the contrary.”
I waited, but she did not have anything further to say on the matter. So I had to let it drop, for the moment. I shifted my gaze back to the lighthouse. What was I getting into with her, anyhow? How had she even known that I was back in town, let alone that I would visit Death Alley when I did? She must have known that the question would occur to me, and if there was to be good faith on both our parts she should be willing to explain it.
I turned back toward her, and she was smiling again.
“The wind changes in the lee of the light,” she said, and she rose.
“Excuse me. I’ve work to do.”
“May I give you a hand?”
“In a bit. I’ll call you when I need you.”
I watched her move away, and as I did I had the eerie feeling that she was watching me also, no matter where she was looking. I realized, too, that this feeling had been with me for some time, like the sea.
By the time we had docked and put everything in order and headed up a hill along a wide cobbled way toward an inn with smoke snaking from its chimney, the sky was growing pale in the east. After a hearty breakfast, morning’s light lay full upon the world. We walked then to a livery stable where three quiet mounts were obtained for the ride to her father’s estate:
It was one of those clear crisp autumn days which become rarer and dearer as the year winds down. I finally felt somewhat rested, and the inn had had coffee — which is not that common in Amber, outside the palace — and I enjoy my morning cup. It was good to move through the countryside at a leisurely pace and to smell the land, to watch the moisture fade from sparkling fields and turning leaves, to feel the wind, to hear and watch a flock of birds southbound for the Isles of the Sun. We rode in silence, and nothing happened to break my mood. Memories of sorrow, betrayal, suffering and violence are strong but they do fade, whereas interludes such as this, when I close my eyes and regard the calendar of my days, somehow outlast them, as I see myself riding with Vinta Bayle under morning skies where the houses and fences are stone and stray seabirds call, there in the wine country to the east of Amber, and the scythe of Time has no power in this corner of the heart.
When we arrived at Arbor House we gave the horses into the care of Bayle’s grooms, who would see to their eventual return to town. Drew departed for his own quarters then, and I walked with Vinta to the huge hilltop manor house. It commanded far views of rocky valleys and hillsides where the grapes were grown. A great number of dogs approached and tried to be friendly as we made our way to the house, and once we had entered their voices still reached us on occasion. Wood and wrought iron, gray flagged floors, high beamed ceilings, clerestory windows, family portraits, a couple of small tapestries of salmon, brown, ivory and blue, a collection of old weapons showing a few touches of oxidation, soot smudges on the gray stone about the hearth… We passed through the big front hall and up a stair.
“Take this room,” she said, opening a darkwood door, and I nodded as I entered and looked about. It was spacious, with big windows looking out over the valley to the south. Most of the servants were at the Baron’s place in town for the season. “There is a bath in the next room,” she told me, indicating a door to my left.
“Great. Thanks. Just what I need.”
“So repair yourself as you would.” She crossed to the window and looked downward. “I’ll meet you on that terrace in about an hour, if that is agreeable.”
I went over and looked down upon a large flagged area, well shaded by ancient trees — their leaves now yellow, red and brown, many of them dotting the patio — the place bordered by flower beds, vacant now, a number of tables and chairs arranged upon it, a collection of potted shrubs well disposed among them.
“Fine.”
She turned toward me. “Is there anything special you would like?”
“If there is any coffee about, I wouldn’t mind another cup or two when I meet you out there.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She smiled and seemed to sway slightly toward me for a moment. It almost seemed in that instant as if she wanted me to embrace her. But if she did not, it could be slightly awkward. And under the circumstances I wanted no familiarity with her anyway, having no idea as to the sort of game she was playing. So I returned her smile, reached out and squeezed her arm, said, “Thank you,” and stepped away. “I guess I’ll see about that bath now.”
I saw her to the door and let her out.
It was good to get my boots off. It was far better to soak, fox a long, warm time.
Later, in fresh-conjured attire, I made my way downstairs and located a side door that let of the kitchen onto the patio. Vinta, also scrubbed and refitted, in brown riding pants and a loose tan blouse, sat beside a table at the east end of the patio. Two places were set upon it, and I saw a coffeepot and a tray of fruit and cheeses. I crossed over, leaves crunching beneath my feet, and sat down.
“Did you find everything to your satisfaction?” she asked me.
“Entirely,” I replied.
“And you’ve notified Amber of your whereabouts?”
I nodded. Random had been a bit irritated at my taking off without letting him know, but then he had never told me not to. He was less irritated, however, when he Learned that I hadn’t gone all that far, and he even acknowledged finally that perhaps I had done a prudent thing in disappearing following such a peculiar attack. “Keep your eyes open and keep me posted,” were his final words.
“Good. Coffee?”
“Please.”
She poured and gestured toward the tray. I took an apple and took a bite.
“Things have begun happening,” she said ambiguously, as she filled her own cup.
“I can’t deny it,” I acknowledged.
“And your troubles have been manifold.”
“True.”
She took a sip of coffee. “Would you care to tell me about them?” she finally said.
“They’re a little too manifold,” I replied. “You said something last night about your story being a long one, too.”
She smiled faintly. “You must feel you have no reason to trust me more than necessary at this point,” she said. “I can see that. Why trust anyone you don’t have to when something dangerous is afoot, something you do not completely understand? Right?”
“It does strike me as a sound policy.”
“Yet I assure you that your welfare is of the highest concern to me.”
“Do you think I may represent a means of getting at Caine’s killer?”
“Yes,” she said, “and insofar as they may become your killers I would like to get at them.”
“Are you trying to tell me that revenge is not your main objective?”
“That’s right. I would rather protect the living than avenge the dead.”
“But that part becomes academic if it’s the same individual in both cases. Do you think it is?”
“I am not certain,” she said, �
�that it was Luke who sent those men after you last night.”
I placed my apple beside my cup and took a long drink of coffee. “Luke?” I said.
“Luke who? What do you know of any Luke?”
“Lucas Raynard,” she said steadily, “who trained a band of mercenaries in the Pecos Wilderness in northern New Mexico, issued them supplies of a special ammunition that will detonate in Amber, and sent them all home with it to await his orders to muster and be transported here — to attempt something your father once tried years ago.”
“Holy shit!” I said.
That would explain a lot — like Luke’s showing up in fatigues back at the Hilton in Santa Fe, with his story about liking to hike around in the Pecos, with that round of peculiar ammunition I’d found in his pocket; and all the other trips he’d been making there — more, actually, than seemed absolutely necessary on his sales route… That angle had never occurred to me, but it made a lot of sense in light of everything I’d since learned.
“Okay,” I acknowledged, “I guess you know Luke Raynard. Mind telling me how you came by this?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, I mind. I’m afraid I’m going to have to play this game your way and trade you information a piece at a time. Now that I think of it, it will probably make me feel more comfortable too. How does that sound to you?”
“Either one of us can call it quits at any time?”
“Which stops the trading, unless we can negotiate it.”
“All right.”
“So you owe me one. You just returned to Amber the other day. Where had you been?”
I sighed and took another bite of the apple. “You’re fishing,” I said finally. “That’s a big question. I’ve been to a lot of places. It all depends on how far back you want to go.”
“Let’s take it from Meg Devlin’s apartment to yesterday,” she said.
I choked on a piece of apple. “Okay, you’ve made the point — you have some damn good sources of information,” I observed. “But it has to be Fiona for that one. You’re in league with her some way, aren’t you?”
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