Luke smiled.
“I know a good sales pitch when I hear it,” he said. “Narrow it down to a simple choice. Make them think it’s their own.”
Coral squeezed my shoulder. “We’re going,” I said.
“Very well,” said the Sign. “Tell me where you want to go, and I’ll send you all there.”
“Not all,” Luke said suddenly. “Just them.”
“I do not understand. What about you?”
He drew a dagger and slashed his palm. He advanced and stood beside me, extending his hand out over the Pattern, also.
“If we go, only three of us may arrive,” he said, “if that. I’ll stay here and keep you company while you deliver my friends.”
“How will you know I’ve done it in a satisfactory fashion?”
“Good question,” he said. “Merle, you got a set of Trumps on you?”
“Yes.”
I removed them and showed them to him.
“Still got one of me in there?”
“Last time I looked I did.”
“Then get it out and have it ready. Figure your next move before you take off. Stay in touch with me till you make it.”
“What about yourself, Luke? You can’t sit there forever as a bloody threat to Order. It’s only a temporary stalemate. You have to surrender your position sooner or later, and when you do —”
“Do you still have some odd cards in that deck?”
“What do you mean?”
“The ones you once referred to as the Trumps of Doom.”
I riffled through. They were mostly near the bottom. “Yes,” I said. “Beautifully executed. I wouldn’t have tossed them.”
“You really think so?”
“Yeah. Get together a bunch of stuff this good, and I’ll get you an exhibit back in Amber.”
“You serious? You’re not just saying that because —”
The Sign of the Pattern emitted a growling sound.
“Everybody’s a critic,” Luke observed. “Okay. Pull all the Trumps of Doom.”
I did this.
“Mix ’em up a little. Keep ’em face down, please.”
“All right.”
“Fan ’em.”
He leaned forward, took a card.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m in business. Whenever you’re ready, tell it where to take you. Stay in touch. Hey, Pattern, I want an iced tea of my own.”
A frosty glass appeared near his right foot. He stooped and took it up, sipped from it.
“Thanks.”
“Luke,” Nayda said, “I don’t understand what’s going on. What will happen to you?”
“Nothing much,” he replied. “Don’t cry for me, demon lady. I’ll see you later.”
He looked at me and quirked an eyebrow.
“Send us to Jidrash,” I said, “in Kashfa — to the open area between the palace and the church.”
I held Luke’s Trump in my moist left hand, near to a humming spikard. I felt the card grow cold just as Luke said, “You heard him.”
And the world swirled and unswirled, and it was a brisk, windy morning in Jidrash. I regarded Luke through his Trump. I opened channel after channel of the ring.
“Dalt, I might as well leave you here,” I said. “You, too, Nayda.”
“No,” the big man said, just as Nayda said, “Hold on a minute.”
“You’re both out of the picture now,” I explained. “Neither side wants you for anything. But I’ve got to get Coral someplace safe. Me, too.”
“You’re a focus of the action,” Nayda said, “and I can help Luke by helping you. Take me along.”
“I feel the same way about it,” Dalt said. “I still owe Luke a big one.”
“Okay,” I said. “Hey, Luke! You hear all that?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Better be about your business then. Shit! I spilled it —”
His Trump went black.
I didn’t wait for avenging angels, tongues of fire, lightning bolts, or an opening of the earth. I got us out of jurisdiction real quick.
I sprawled on the green grass beneath the big tree. Wisps of fog drifted by. Dad’s Pattern sparkled below me. Jurt was seated cross-legged on the hood of the car, blade across his knees. He hit the ground when we made our appearance. Corwin was nowhere in sight.
“What’s going on?” Jurt asked me.
“I am beat, bushed, and whacked-out. I am going to lie here and stare at the fog till my mind goes away,” I said. “Meet Coral, Nayda, and Dalt. Hear their story and tell them yours, Jurt. Don’t wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.”
I proceeded to do as I had promised, to the tune of a fading guitar and the distant voice of Sara K. The grass was wondrous soft. The fog swirled through my brain. Fade to black.
And then, and then… And then, sir…
Walking. I was walking, almost drifting, through a California shopping mall I used to frequent. Knots of kids, couples with infants, women with parcels, passed, words smothered by sounds from a music store speaker. Potted oases sheltered, deli smells drifted, sale signs promised.
Walking. Past the drugstore. Past the shoe store. Past the candy store…
Narrow corridor to the left. I’d never noticed it. Must turn…
Odd there should be a carpet — and candles in high holders, and sconces, and candelabra atop narrow chests. The walls glittered with their reflection.
I turned back.
There was no back. The mall was gone. The corridor ended in that direction at a wall. A small tapestry hung upon it, depicting nine figures who looked back at me. I shrugged and turned again.
“Still something left to your spell, Uncle,” I remarked. “Let’s be about it then.”
Walking. In silence now. Ahead. To the place where the mirrors glittered. I had seen this place long ago, I recalled, though its disposition — I suddenly realized — was not peculiar to Amber Castle. It was right there, on the tip of memory — my younger self passing this way, not unaccompanied — but the price of that recollection would be loss of control here, I knew. Reluctantly, I released the image and turned my attention to the small oval mirror to my left.
I smiled. So did my image. I stuck out my tongue and was so saluted in return.
I moved on. Only after several paces did I realize that the image had been my demonformed self, while my person had not.
A soft throat-clearing sound occurred to my right. Turning in that direction, I beheld my brother Mandor within a black-framed lozenge.
“Dear boy,” he stated, “the king is dead. Long live your august personage as soon as you have assumed the throne. You had best make haste to return for a crowning at the End of the World, with or without the bride of the Jewel.”
“We ran into a few small problems,” I said.
“Nothing worth resolving just now. Your presence in the Courts is far more important.”
“No, my friends are,” I said.
A momentary smile touched his lips.
“You will be in an ideal position to protect your friends,” he said, “and to do as you would with your enemies.”
“I will be back,” I said, “soon. But not to be crowned.”
“As you would, Merlin. It is your presence that is desired.”
“I promise nothing,” I said.
He chuckled, and the mirror was emptied.
I turned away. I walked on.
More laughter. From the left. My mother’s.
From within a red frame of carved flowers, she stared at me, a look of vast amusement upon her features. “Seek him in the Pit!” she said. “Seek him in the Pit!”
I passed, and her laughter continued at my back for a time.
“Hsst!” To my right, a long, narrow mirror bordered in green. “Masster Merlin,” she said. “I have ssought, but the ghosst-light hass not passsed my way.”
“Thanks, Glait. Keep looking, please.”
“Yess. We musst ssit together in a warm place
by night once again and drink milk and talk of the old dayss.”
“That would be nice. Yes, we must. If we are not eaten by something bigger.”
“S-s-s-s-s!”
Could that be laughter?
“Good hunting, Glait.”
“Yess. S-s-s!”
… And on. Walking.
“Son of Amber. Wearer of the spikard” — this from within a shadowy niche to my left.
I halted and stared. The frame was white, the glass was gray. Within was a man I had never met. His shirt was black and opened at the neck. He wore a brown leather vest, his hair dark blond, eyes perhaps green. “Yes?”
“A spikard was hidden in Amber,” he stated, “for you to find. It conveys great powers. It also bears a series of spells that will cause its wearer to act in certain ways under certain circumstances.”
“I suspected this,” I said. “What is it set to do?”
“Formerly worn by Swayvill, King of Chaos, it will force the chosen successor to take the throne, behave in a certain fashion, and be amenable to the suggestions of certain persons.”
“These being?”
“The woman who laughed and cried, ‘Seek him in the Pit. ’ The man in black, who desires your return.”
“Dara and Mandor. They laid these spells upon it?”
“Just so. And the man left it for you to find.”
“I hate to surrender the thing just now,” I said, “when it’s proving so useful. Is there a way to lift these spells?”
“Of course. But it should not matter to you.”
“Why not?”
“The ring you wear is not the one of which I speak.”
“I do not understand.”
“But you will. Never fear.”
“Who are you, sir?”
“My name is Delwin, and we may never actually meet — unless certain ancient powers come loose.”
He raised his hand, and I saw that he, too, wore a spikard. He moved it toward me.
“Touch your ring to mine,” he commanded. “Then it can be ordered to bring you to me.”
I raised mine and moved it toward the glass. At the moment they seemed to touch, there was a flash of light and Delwin was gone.
I let my arm fall. I walked on. On an impulse, I stopped before a chest and opened its drawer.
I stared. There was no way to one — up this place, it seemed. The drawer contained a miniature, scaled-down representation of my father’s chapel — tiny colored tiles, diminutive burning tapers, even a doll-sized Grayswandir upon the altar.
“The answer lies before you, dear friend,” came a throaty voice I knew yet did not know.
I raised my gaze to a lavender-bordered mirror I had not realized hung above the chest. The lady within had long, coal-black hair and eyes so dark I could not tell where the pupils left off and the irises began. Her complexion was very pale, emphasized perhaps by her pink eye shadow and lip coloring. Those eyes… “Rhanda!” I said.
“You remember! You do remember me!”
“…And the days of our bonedance games,” I said. “Grown and lovely. I thought of you but recently.”
“And I felt the touch of your regard as I slept, my Merlin. I am sorry we parted so, but my parents —”
“I understand,” I said. “They thought me demon or vampire.”
“Yes.” She extended her pale hand through the mirror, took hold of my own, drew it toward her. Within the looking glass, she pressed it to her lips. They were cold. “They would rather I cultivated the acquaintance of the sons and daughters of men and women, than of our own kind.”
When she smiled I beheld her fangs. They had not been apparent in her childhood.
“Gods! You look human!” she said. “Come visit me in Wildwood one day!”
Impulsively, I leaned forward. Our lips met within the mirror. Whatever she was, we had been friends.
“The answer,” she repeated, “lies before you. Come see me!”
The mirror turned red and she was gone. The chapel stood unchanged within the drawer. I closed it and turned away.
Walking. Mirrors to the left. Mirrors to the right. Only myself within them.
Then “Well, well, nephew. Confused?”
“As usual.”
“Can’t say as I blame you.”
His eyes were mocking and wise, his hair red as his sister Fiona’s or his late brother Brand’s. Or Luke’s, for that matter.
“Bleys,” I said, “what the hell is going on?”
“I’ve the rest of Delwin’s message,” he said, reaching into his pocket and extending his hand. “Here.”
I reached into the mirror and accepted it. It was yet another spikard, like the one I wore.
“It is the one of which Delwin spoke,” he said. “You must never wear it.”
I studied it for several moments.
“What am I to do with it?” I asked.
“Put it in your pocket. A use may suggest itself at some point.”
“How did you come by it?”
“I switched it after Mandor left it, for the one you wear now.”
“How many are there, anyway?”
“Nine,” he replied.
“I suppose you know all about them.”
“More than most.”
“That wouldn’t be hard. I don’t suppose you know where my father is?”
“No. But you do. Your lady friend with the sanguinary tastes told you.”
“Riddles,” I said.
“Always preferable to no answer at all,” he responded.
Then he was gone and I walked again. After a while, this was gone, too.
Drifting. Black. Good. So good…
A bit of light found its way through my eyelashes. I shut it out again. But the thunder rolled, and after a time the light leaked in once again.
Dark lines in brown, great horny ridges, ferny forests…
A little later the faculty that evaluates perceptions awoke and pointed out that I was lying on my side staring at the cracked earth between a pair of roots from the tree, clumps of grass dotted here and there across the prospect.
… And I continued to stare, and there was a sudden brightness as of a lightning flash followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder. The earth seemed to shudder with it. I heard the pattering of drops upon the leaves of a tree, the hood of a car. I continued to stare at the largest crack that traversed the valley of my regard.
… And I realized that I knew.
It was the numb knowledge of awakening. The sources of emotion still dozed in the distance, I could hear familiar voices in soft converse. I could also hear the sounds of cutlery against china. My stomach would awaken in a bit, I knew, and I would join them. For now, it was so very pleasant to lie here wrapped in my cloak, hearing the gentle rain and knowing…
I returned to my micro-world and its dark canyon… The ground shook again, this time without benefit of lightning or thunder. And it kept on shaking. This irritated me, for it disturbed my friends and relatives, causing them to raise their voices in something like alarm. Also, it stirred a dormant California reflex at a time when I just wanted to loll and savor my fresh-acquired knowledge.
“Merlin, are you awake?”
“Yes,” I said, sitting up suddenly, giving my eyes a quick rub, and running my hands through my hair.
It was the ghost of my father that knelt beside me, having just shaken my shoulder. “We seem to have a problem,” he said, “with rather extreme ramifications.”
Jurt, standing behind him, nodded several times. The ground shook once again, twigs and leaves fell about us, pebbles bounced, dust rose, the fogs were agitated. I heard a dish break in the vicinity of the heavy red and white cloth about which Luke, Dalt, Coral, and Nayda sat eating.
I untangled my cloak and rose to my feet, realizing then that someone had removed my boots while I slept. I drew them back on. There came another tremor, and I leaned against the tree for support.
“This is the pro
blem?” I said. “Or is something bigger about to eat it?”
He gave me a puzzled look. Then, “Back when I drew the Pattern,” he said, “I’d no way of knowing that this area was faulted, or that something like this would one day occur. If these shocks should crack the Pattern, we’ve had it — in more ways than one. As I understand it, that spikard you wear can draw upon enormous sources of energy. Is there some way you could use it to defuse this thing?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. “I never tried anything like it.”
“Find out fast, okay?” he said.
But I was already spinning my mind about the circle of tines, touching each one to life. Then I seized upon the one possessed of the most juice, drew hard upon it, filled myself, body and mind, with its energy. Ignition completed and engine idling, with me in the driver’s seat, I shifted into gear then, extending a line of force from the spikard down into the ground.
I reached for a long while, seeking a conversion metaphor to the subjective for anything I might discover.
… Wading out from the beach into the oceanwaves tickling my stomach, my chest — feeling with my toes the rocks, the strands of sea-weed… Sometimes a rock would turn, slip, bump against another, slide…
I couldn’t see to the bottom with my eyes. But I saw the rocks, the wrack, in their disposition and movement, just the same, beheld them as clearly as if the bottom were fully illuminated.
Feeling, feeling my way now, down through the strata, single toe soft as a flashlight’s beam running along rocky surfaces, testing the pressures of one upon another, isostatic kisses of mountains beneath the earth, orogenic erogenies of slow movement, flesh caressing mineral in the darkest of secret places —
Slip! The rock slides off. My body follows…
I dive for it, following the sliding passage. I race ahead, pouring forth heat, cracking rock, splintering new pathways, outward, outward… It was coming this way. I broke through a wall of stone, another. Another. I was not certain this was the way to divert it, but it was the only one I knew to try. Go that way! Damn it! That way! I accessed two more channels, a third, a fourth —
There was a slight vibration within the ground. I opened another channel. Within my metaphor the rocks grew stable beneath the waters. Shortly thereafter, the ground ceased its vibration.
I returned to the place where I had first felt the slide begin, stable now, yet still stressed. Feel it, feel it carefully. Describe a vector. Follow. Follow it to the point of original pressure. But no. This point is but a confluence of vectors. Trace them.
Prince of chaos tcoa-10 Page 19
