“Very well,” I acknowledged. “But I want to see Coral first.”
“Your appearance could cause considerable delay,” he said, “because of explanations which may be required of you.”
“I don’t care,” I told him.
“All right. A moment then.”
He moved away and took down what appeared to be a sheathed wand from the wall, where it had hung suspended from a peg. He hung the sheath upon his belt, then crossed to a small cabinet and removed a flat leather-bound case from one of its drawers. It rattled with a faint metallic sound as he slipped it into a pocket. A small jewelry box vanished up a sleeve without any sound.
“Come this way,” he told me, approaching and taking my hand.
He turned me and led me toward the room’s darkest corner, where I had not noted that a tall, curiously framed mirror hung. It exhibited an odd reflective capacity in that it showed us and the room behind us with perfect clarity from a distance, but the closer we approached to its surface, the more indistinct all of its images became. I could see what was coming, coming. But I still tensed as Dworkin, a pace in advance of me by then, stepped through its foggy surface and jerked me after him.
I stumbled and regained my footing, coming to myself in the good half of the blasted royal suite in front of a decorative mirror. I reached back quickly and tapped it with my fingertips, but its surface remain solid. The short, stooped figure of Dworkin stood before me, and he still had hold of my right hand. Looking past that profile, which in some ways caricatured my own, I saw that the bed had been moved eastward, away from the broken corner and a large opening formerly occupied by a section of flooring. Random and Vialle stood on the near side of the bed, their backs to us. They were studying Coral, who was stretched out upon the counterpane and appeared to be unconscious. Mandor, seated in a heavy chair at they bed’s foot, observing operations, was the first to notice our presence, which he acknowledged with a nod.
“How… is she?” I asked.
“Concussion,” Mandor replied, “and damage to the right eye.”
Random turned. Whatever he was about to say to me died on his lips when he realized who stood beside me.
“Dworkin!” he said. “It’s been so long. I didn’t know whether you were still alive. Are you… all right?”
The dwarf chuckled.
“I read your meaning, and I’m rational,” he replied. “I would like to examine the lady now.”
“Of course,” Random answered, moving aside.
“Merlin,” Dworkin said, “see whether you can locate that Ghostwheel device of yours, and ask it to return the artifact it borrowed.”
“I understand,” I said, reaching for my Trumps.
Moments later I was reaching, reaching…
“I felt your intent several moments ago, Dad.”
“Well, do you have the Jewel or don’t you?”
“Yes, I just finished with it.”
“‘Finished’?”
“Finished utilizing it.”
“In what fashion did you… utilize it?”
“As I understood from you that passing one’s awareness through it would give some protection against the Pattern, I wondered whether it might work for an ideally synthesized being such as myself.”
“That’s a nice term, ‘ideally synthesized.’ Where’d it come from?”
“I coined it myself when seeking the most appropriate designation.”
“I’ve a hunch it’ll reject you.”
“It didn’t.”
“Oh. You actually got all the way through the thing?”
“I did.”
“What effect did it have upon you?”
“That’s a hard thing to assess. My perceptions are altered. It’s difficult to explain… It’s subtle, whatever it is.”
“Fascinating. Can you move your awareness into the stone from a distance now?”
“Yes.”
“When all of our present troubles have passed, I’m going to want to test you again.”
“I’m curious myself to know what’s changed.”
“In the meantime, there is a need for the Jewel here.”
“Coming through.”
The air shimmered before me.
Ghostwheel appeared as a silver circlet, the Jewel of Judgment at its center. I cupped my hand and collected it. I took it to Dworkin, who did not even glance at me as he received it. I looked down at Coral’s face and looked away quickly, wishing I hadn’t.
I moved back near Ghost.
“Where’s Nayda?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” he replied. “She asked me to leave her — there near the crystal cave — after I took the Jewel away from her.”
“What was she doing?”
“Crying.”
“Why?”
“I suppose because both of her missions in life have been frustrated. She was charged to guard you unless some wild chance brought her the opportunity of obtaining the Jewel, in which instance she was released from the first directive. This actually occurred; only I deprived her of the stone. Now she is bound to neither course.”
“You’d think she’d be happy to be free at last. She wasn’t on either job as a matter of choice. She can go back to doing whatever carefree demons do beyond the Rimwall.”
“Not exactly, Dad.”
“What do you mean?”
“She seems to be stuck in that body. Apparently she can’t simply abandon it the way she could others she’s used. It has something to do with there being no primary occupant.”
“Oh. I suppose she could, uh, terminate and get loose that way.”
“I suggested that, but she’s not sure it would work that way. It might just kill her along with the body, now that she’s bound to it the way she is.”
“So she’s still somewhere near the cave?”
“No. She retains her ty’iga powers, which make her something of a magical being. I believe she must simply have wandered off through Shadow while I was in the cave experimenting with the Jewel.”
“Why the cave?”
“That’s where you go to do clandestine things, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. So how come I could reach you there with the Trump?”
“I’d already finished the experiment and departed. In fact, I was looking for her when you called.”
“I think you’d better go and look some more.”
“Why?”
“Because I owe her for favors past — even if my mother did set her on me.”
“Certainly. I’m not sure how successful I’ll be, though. Magical beings don’t track as readily as the more mundane sort.”
“Give it a shot anyway. I’d like to know where she’s gotten to and whether there’s anything I can do for her. Maybe your new orientation will be of help — somehow.”
“We’ll see,” he said, and he winked out.
I sagged. How was Orkuz going to take it? I wondered. One daughter injured and the other possessed of a demon and wandering, off in Shadow. I moved to the foot of the bed and leaned against Mandor’s chair. He reached up with his left hand and squeezed my arm.
“I don’t suppose you learned anything about bonesetting off on that shadow-world, did you?” he inquired.
“Afraid not,” I answered.
“Pity,” he replied. “I’ll just have to wait my turn.”
“We can Trump you somewhere and get it taken care of right away,” I said, reaching for my cards.
“No,” he said. “I want to see things played out here.”
While he was speaking, I noticed that Random seemed engaged in an intense Trump communication. Vialle stood nearby, as if shielding him from the opening in the wall and whatever might emerge therefrom. Dworkin continued to work upon Coral’s face, his body blocking sight of exactly what he was doing.
“Mandor,” I said, “did you know that my mother sent the ty’iga to take care of me?”
“Yes,” he replied. “It told me that when you stepped o
ut of the room. A part of the spell would not permit it to tell you this.”
“Was she just there to protect me, or was she spying on me, too?”
“That I couldn’t tell you. The matter didn’t come up. But it does seem her fears were warranted. You were in danger.”
“You think Dara knew about Jasra and Luke?”
He began to shrug, winced, thought better of it.
“Again, I don’t know for certain. If she did, I can’t answer the next one either: How did she know? Okay?”
“Okay.”
Random completed a conversation, covering a Trump. Then he turned and stared at Vialle for some time. He looked as if he were about to say something, thought better of it, looked away. He looked at me. About then I heard Coral moan, and I looked away, rising.
“A moment, Merlin,” Random said, “before you go rushing off.”
I met his gaze. Whether it was angry or merely curious, I could not tell. The tightening of the brows, the narrowing of the eyes could indicate either.
“Sir?” I said.
He approached, took me by the elbow, and turned me away from the bed, leading me off toward the doorway to the next room.
“Vialle, I’m borrowing your studio for a few moments,” he said.
“Surely,” she replied.
He led me inside and closed the door behind us. Across the room a bust of Gerard had fallen and broken. What appeared to be her current project — a multilimbed sea creature of a sort I’d never seen — occupied a work area at the studio’s far end.
Random turned on me suddenly and searched my face.
“Have you been following the Begma-Kashfa situation?” he asked.
“More or less,” I replied. “Bill briefed me on it the other night. Eregnor and all that.”
“Did he tell you that we were going to bring Kashfa into the Golden Circle and solve the Eregnor problem by recognizing Kashfa’s right to that piece of real estate?”
I didn’t like the way he’d asked that one, and I didn’t want to get Bill in trouble. It had seemed that that matter was still under wraps when we’d spoken. So, “I’m afraid I don’t recall all the details on this stuff,” I said.
“Well, that’s what I planned on doing,” Random told me. “We don’t usually make guarantees like that — the kind that will favor one treaty country at the expense of another — but Arkans, the Duke of Shadburne, kind of had us over a barrel. He was the best possible head of state for our purposes, and I’d paved the way for his taking the throne now that that red-haired bitch is out of the picture. He knew he could lean on me a bit, though — since he’d be taking a chance accepting the throne following a double break in the succession — and he asked for Eregnor, so I gave it to him.”
“I see,” I said, “everything except how this affects me.”
He turned his head and studied me through his left eye.
“The coronation was to be today. In fact, I was going to dress and Trump back for it in a little while…”
“You use the past tense,” I observed, to fill the silence he had left before me.
“So I do. So I do,” he muttered, turning away, pacing a few steps, resting his foot on a piece of broken statuary, turning back. “The good Duke is now either dead or imprisoned.”
“And there will be no coronation?” I said.
“Au contraire,” Random replied, still studying my face.
“I give up,” I said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“There was a coup, at dawn, this morning.”
“Palace?”
“Possibly that, too. But it was backed by external military force.”
“What was Benedict doing while this was going on?”
“I ordered him to pull the troops out yesterday, right before I came home myself. Things seemed stable, and it wouldn’t have looked good to have combat troops from Amber stationed there during the coronation.”
“True,” I said. “So somebody moved right in, almost as soon as Benedict moved out and did away with the man who would be king, without the local constabulary even suggesting that that was not nice?”
Random nodded slowly.
“That’s about the size of it,” he said. “Now why do you think that might be?”
“Perhaps they were not totally displeased with the new state of affairs.”
Random smiled and snapped his fingers.
“Inspired,” he said. “One could almost think you knew what was going on.”
“One would be wrong,” I said.
“Today your former classmate Lukas Raynard becomes Rinaldo I, King of Kashfa.”
“I’ll be damned,” I said. “I’d no idea he really wanted that job. What are you going to do about it?”
“I think I’ll skip the coronation.
“I mean, over a slightly longer term.”
Random sighed and turned away, kicking at the rubble.
“You mean, am I going to send Benedict back, to depose him?”
“In a word, yes.”
“That would make us look pretty bad. What Luke just did is not above the Graustarkian politics that prevail in the area. We’d moved in and helped straighten out something that was fast becoming a political shambles. We could go back and do it again, too, if it were just some half assed coup by a crazy general or some noble with delusions of grandeur. But Luke’s got a legitimate claim, and it actually is stronger than Shadburne’s. Also, he’s popular. He’s young, and he makes a good appearance. We’d have a lot less justification for going back than we had for going in initially. Even so, I was almost willing to risk being called an aggressor to keep that bitch’s homicidal son off the throne. Then my man in Kashfa tells me that he’s under Vialle’s protection. So I asked her about it. She says that it’s true and that you were present when it happened. She said she’d tell me about it after the operation Dworkin’s doing now, in case he needs her empathic abilities. But I can’t wait. Tell me what happened.”
“You tell me one more thing first.”
“What is it?”
“What military forces brought Luke to power?”
“Mercenaries.”
“Dalt’s?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Luke canceled his vendetta against the House of Amber,” I said. “He did this freely, following a conversation with Vialle, just the other night. It was then that she gave him the ring. At the time I thought it was to keep Julian from trying to kill him, as we were on our way down to Arden.”
“This was in response to Dalt’s so-called ultimatum regarding Luke and Jasra?”
“That’s right. It never occurred to me that the whole thing might be a setup — to get Luke and Dalt together so they could go off and pull a coup. That would mean that even that fight was staged, and now that I think of it, Luke did have a chance to talk with Dalt before it occurred.”
Random raised his hand.
“Wait,” he said. “Go back and tell me the thing from the beginning.”
“Right.”
And so I did. By the time I’d finished we had both paced the length of the studio countless times.
“You know,” he said then, “the whole business sounds like something Jasra might have set up before her career as a piece of furniture.”
“The thought had occurred to me,” I said, hoping he wasn’t about to pursue the matter of her present whereabouts. And the more I thought of it, recalling her reaction to the information about Luke following our raid on the Keep, the more I began to feel not only that she had been aware of what was going on but that she’d even been in touch with Luke more recently than I had at that time.
“It was pretty smoothly done,” he observed. “Dalt must have been operating under old orders. Not being certain how to collect Luke or locate Jasra for fresh instructions, he took a chance with that feint on Amber. Benedict might well have spitted him again, with equal skill and greater effect.”
“True. I guess you have to give the devil his due when it
comes to guts. It also means that Luke must have done a lot of fast plotting and laid that fixed fight out during their brief conference in Arden. So he was really in control there, and he conned us into thinking he was a prisoner, which precluded his being the threat to Kashfa that he really was — if you want to look at it that way.”
“That other way is there to look at it?”
“Well, as you said yourself, his claim is not exactly without merit. What do you want to do?”
Random massaged his temples.
“Going after him, preventing the coronation, would be a very unpopular move,” he said. “First, though, I’m curious. You say this guy’s a great bullshitter. You were there. Did he con Vialle into placing him under her protection?”
“No, he didn’t,” I said. “He seemed as surprised as I was at her gesture. He called off the vendetta because he felt that honor had been satisfied, that he had to an extent been used by his mother, and out of friendship for me. He did it without any strings on it. I still think she gave him the ring so the vendetta would end there, so none of us would go gunning for him.”
“That is very like her,” Random said. “If I thought he’d taken advantage of that, I was going to go after him myself. The embarrassment for me is unintentional then, and I guess I can live with it. I prime Arkans for the throne, and then he’s shunted aside at the last minute by someone under my wife’s protection. Almost makes it look as if there’s a bit of divisiveness here at the center of things — and I’d hate to give that impression.”
“I’ve got a hunch Luke will be very conciliatory. I know him well enough to know he appreciates all of these nuances. I’d guess he’d be a very easy man for Amber to deal with, on any level.”
“I’ll bet he will. Why shouldn’t he?”
“No reason,” I said. “What’s going to happen to that treaty now?”
Random smiled.
“I’m off the hook. I never felt right about the Eregnor provisions. Now, if there’s to be a treaty at all, we go at it ab initio. I’m not even sure we need one, though. The hell with ’em.”
“I’ll bet Arkans is still alive,” I said.
“You think Luke’s holding him hostage, against my giving him Golden Circle status?”
I shrugged.
“How close are you to Arkans?”
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