I headed for the main hall. A dozen steps along the way, a lopsided gridwork of light appeared before me. I forced myself to continue, and it receded as I advanced, changing shape as it did so.
“Merle, come on!” Luke’s voice, Luke himself nowhere in sight.
“Where?” I called out, not slowing.
No answer, but the gridwork split down the middle and its two halves swung away from me like a pair of shutters. They opened onto a nearblinding light; within it, I thought I glimpsed a rabbit. Then, abruptly, the vision was gone, and the only thing that saved me from believing everything was normal again was several seconds’ worth of Luke’s sourceless laughter.
I ran. Was it really Luke who was the enemy, as I had been warned repeatedly? Had I somehow been manipulated through everything which had happened recently, solely for the purpose of freeing his mother from the Keep of the Four Worlds? And now that she was safe had he the temerity to invade Amber herself and summon me to a sorcerous duel the terms of which I did not even understand?
No, I could not believe it. I was certain he did not possess that sort of power. But even if he did, he wouldn’t dare try it — not with Jasra my hostage.
As I rushed along I heard him again — from everywhere, from nowhere. This time he was singing. He had a powerful baritone voice, and the song was “Auld Lang Syne.” What sort of irony did this represent?
I burst into the main hall. Martin and Bors had departed. I saw their empty glasses on the sideboard near which they had been standing. And near the other door —? Yes, near the other door Jasra remained, erect, unchanged, still holding my cloak.
“Okay, Luke! Let’s have it out!” I cried. “Cut the crap and let’s settle this business!”
“Huh?”
The singing stopped abruptly.
I crossed slowly to Jasra, studying her as I went. Completely unchanged, save for a hat someone had added to her other hand. From somewhere else in the palace, I heard a shout. Maybe it was Droppa still alaruming.
“Luke, wherever you are,” I said, “if you can hear me, if you can see me, take a good look and listen: I’ve got her here. See? Whatever you’re planning, bear that in mind.”
The room rippled violently, as if I were standing in the midst of an unframed painting someone had just decided to give a shake, to crinkle and then draw taut.
“Well?”
Nothing.
Then, a chuckle.
“My mother the hat rack… Well, well. Hey, thanks, buddy. Good show. Couldn’t reach you earlier. Didn’t know you’d gone in. They slaughtered us. Took some mercs in on hang gliders, rode the thermals. They were ready, though. Took us out. Don’t remember exactly then… Hurts!”
“You okay?”
There came something like a sob, just as Random and Droppa entered the hall, the lank form of Benedict silent as death at their back.
“Merle!” Random called to me. “What’s going on?”
I shook my head. “Don’t know,” I said.
“Sure, I’ll buy you a drink,” Luke’s voice came very faintly.
A fiery blizzard swept through the center of the hall. It lasted only a moment, and then a large rectangle appeared in its place.
“You’re the sorcerer,” Random said. “Do something!”
“I don’t know what the hell it is,” I replied. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like magic gone wild.”
An outline began to appear within the rectangle, human. Its form settled and took on features, garments… It was a Trump a giant Trump — hanging in the middle of the air, solidifying. It was Me. I regarded my own features and they looked back at me. I noted that I was smiling.
“C’mon, Merle. Join the party,” I heard Luke say, and the Trump began to rotate slowly upon its vertical axis.
Sounds, as of glass bells, filled the hall.
The huge card turned until I viewed it edge-on, a black slash. Then the dark line widened with a ripple, like parting curtains, and I saw colored patches of intense light sliding beyond it. I also saw the caterpillar, puffing on a hookah, and fat umbrellas and a bright, shiny rail —
A hand emerged from the slit. “Right this way.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath from Random.
Benedict’s blade was suddenly pointed at the tableau. But Random laid his hand on his shoulder and said, “No.”
There was a strange, disconnected sort of music hanging in the air now; it seemed somehow appropriate.
“C’mon, Merle.”
“You coming or going?” I asked.
“Both.”
“You made me a promise, Luke: a piece of information for your mother’s rescue,” I said. “Well, I’ve got her here. What’s the secret?”
“Something vital to your well-being?” he asked slowly.
“Vital to the safety of Amber is what you’d said.”
“Oh, that secret.”
“I’d be glad to have the other one too.”
“Sorry. One secret is all I’m selling. Which will it be?”
“The safety of Amber,” I answered.
“Dalt,” he replied.
“What of him?”
“Deela the Desacratrix was his mother —”
“I already know that.”
“— and she’d been Oberon’s prisoner nine months before he was born. He raped her. That’s why Dalt’s got it in for you guys.”
“Bullshit!” I said.
“That’s what I told him when I’d heard the story one time too many. I dared him to walk the Pattern in the sky then.”
“And?”
“He did.”
“Oh.”
“I just learned that story recently,” Random said, “from an emissary I’d sent to Kashfa. I didn’t know about his taking the Pattern, though.”
“If you knew, I still owe you,” Luke said slowly, almost distractedly. “Okay, here’s more: Dalt visited me on the shadow Earth after that. He’s the one who raided my warehouse, stole a stock of weapons and special ammo. Burnt the place after that to cover the theft. I found witnesses, though. He’ll be along — any time. Who knows when?”
“Another relative coming to visit,” Random said. “Why couldn’t I have been an only child?”
“Make what you will of it,” Luke added. “We’re square now. Give me a hand!”
“You coming through?”
He laughed, and the whole hall seemed to lurch. The opening in the air hung before me and the hand clasped my own. Something felt very wrong.
I tried to draw him to me, but felt myself drawn toward him instead.
There was a mad power I could not fight, and the universe seemed to twist as it took hold of me. Constellations parted before me and I saw the bright railing again. Luke’s booted foot rested upon it.
From some distant point to the rear I heard Random shouting, “B-twelve! B-twelve! And out!”
…And then I couldn’t recall what the problem had been. It seemed a wonderful place. Silly of me to have mistaken the mushrooms for umbrellas, though…
I put my own foot up on the rail as the Hatter poured me a drink and topped off Luke’s. Luke gestured to his left and the March Hare got a refill too. Humpty was fine, balanced there near the end of things. Tweedledum, Tweedledee, the Dodo and the Frog Footman kept the music moving. And the Caterpillar just kept puffing away.
Luke clapped me on the shoulder, and there was something I wanted to remember but it kept slipping out of sight.
“I’m okay now,” Luke said. “Everything’s okay.”
“No, there’s something… I can’t recall…”
He raised his tankard, clanked it against my own. “Enjoy!” he said. “Life is a cabaret, old chum!”
The cat on the stool beside me just kept grinning.
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