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, for 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 Teamed.
“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?”
“It’s not your turn for a question,” she said. “You haven’t answered mine yet.”
“Okay, Fi and I came back to Amber after I left Meg’s place. The next day Random sent me on a mission, to turn off a machine I’d built called Ghostwheel. I failed in this but I ran into Luke along the way. He actually helped me out of a tight spot. Then, following a misunderstanding with my creation, I used a strange Trump to take both Luke and myself to safety. Luke subsequently imprisoned me in a crystal cave—”
“Aha!” she said.
“I should stop there?”
“No, go on.”
“I was a prisoner for a month or so, though it amounted to only a few days, Amber time. I was released by a couple of fellows working for a lady named Jasra, had an altercation with them and with the lady herself and trumped out to San Francisco, to Flora’s place. There, I revisited an apartment where a murder had occurred—”
“Julia’s place?”
“Yes. In it, I discovered a magical gateway which I was able to force open. I passed through it to a place called the Keep of the Four Worlds.
A battle was in progress there, the attackers probably being led by a fellow named Dalt, of some small notoriety hereabouts at one time. Later, I was pursued by a magical whirlwind and called names by a masked wizard. I trumped out and came home—yesterday.”
“And that’s everything?”
“In capsule form, yes.”
“Are you leaving out anything?”
“Sure. For instance, there was a Dweller on the threshold of the gateway, but I was able to get by.”
“No, that’s part of the package. Anything else?”
“Mm. Yes, there were two peculiar communications, ending in flowers.”
“Tell me about them.”
So I did.
She shook her head when I’d finished. “You’ve got me there,” she said.
I finished my coffee and the apple. She refilled my cup.
“Now it’s my turn,” I said. “What did you mean by that ‘Aha!’ when I mentioned the crystal cave?”
“It was blue crystal, wasn’t it? And it blocked your powers.”
“How’d you know?”
“It was the color of the stone in the ring you took from that man last night.”
“Yes.”
She got to her feet and moved around the table, stood a moment, then pointed to the vicinity of my left hip.
“Would you empty that pocket onto the table, please?”
I smiled. “Sure. How’d you know?”
She didn’t answer that one, but then it was a different question. I removed the assortment of blue stones from my pocket—the chips from the cave, the carved button I’d snatched, the ring—and placed them upon the table.
She picked up the button, studied it, then nodded.
“Yes, that’s one also,” she stated.
“One what?”
She ignored the query and dipped her right forefinger into a bit of spilled coffee within her saucer. She then used it to trace three circles around the massed stones, widdershins. Then she nodded again and returned to her seat. I’d summoned the vision in time to see her build a cage of force about them. Now, as I continued to watch, it seemed as if they were exhaling faint wisps of blue smoke that remained within the circle.
“I thought you said you weren’t a sorcerer.”
“I’m not,” she replied.
“I’ll save the question. But continue answering the last one. What is the significance of the blue stones?”
“They have an affinity for the cave, and for each other,” she told me. “A person with very little training could hold one of them and simply begin walking, following the slight psychic tugging. It would eventually lead him to the cave.”
“Through Shadow, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Intriguing, but I fail to see any great value to it.”
“But that is not all. Ignore the pull of the cave, and you will become aware of secondary tuggings. Learn to distinguish the signature of the proper stone, and you can follow its bearer anywhere.”
“That does sound a little more useful. Do you think that’s how those guys found me last night, because I had a pocket full of the things?”
“Probably, from a practical standpoint, they helped. Actually, though, in your case, they should not even have been necessary at this point.”
“Why not?”
“They have an additional effect. Anyone who has one in his possession for a time becomes attuned to the thing. Throw it away and the attunement remains. You can still be tracked then, just as if you had retained the stone. You would possess a signature of your own.”
“You mean that even now, without them, I’m marked?”
“Yes.”
“How long does it take to wear off?”
“I am not certain that it ever does.”
“There must be some means of deattunement.”
“I do not know for certain, but I can think of a couple of things that would probably do it.”
“Name them.”
“Walking the Pattern of Amber or negotiating the Logrus of Chaos. They seem almost to break a person apart and do a reassemblement into a purer form. They have been known to purge many strange conditions. As I recall, it was the Pattern that restored your father’s memory.”
“Yes—and I won’t even ask you how you know about the Logrus—you may well be right. As with so much else in life, it seems enough of a pain in the ass to be good for me. So, you think they could be zeroing in on me right now, with or without the stones?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
“I can sense it—and that’s an extra question. But I’ll give you a free one in the interests of expedition.”
“Thanks. I guess it’s your turn now.”
“Julia was seeing an occultist named Victor Melman before she died. Do you know why?”
“She was studying with him, looking for some sort of development—at least, that’s what I was told by a guy who knew her at the time. This was after we broke up.”
“That is not exactly what I meant,” she said. “Do you know why she desired this development?”
“Sounds like an extra question to me, but maybe I owe you one. The fellow I’d spoken with told me that I had scared her, that I’d given her to believe that I possessed unusual abilities, and that she was looking for some of her own in self-defense.”
“Finish it,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“That’s not a complete answer. Did you actually give her cause to believe that and to be afraid of you?”
“Well, I guess I did. Now my question: How could you possibly know anything about Julia in the first place?”
“I was there,” she answered. “I knew her.”
“Go ahead.”
“That’s it. Now it’s my turn.”
“That’s hardly complete.”
“But it’s all you’re getting on that one. Take it or leave it.”
“According to our agreement I can call it quits over that.”
“True. Will you?”
“What do you want to know next?”
“Did Julia develop the abilities she sought?”
“I told you that we’d stopped seeing each other before she got involved in that sort of thing. So I have no way of knowing.”
“You located the portal in her apartment from which the beast that slew her had presumably emerged. Two questions now—not for you to answer for me, just for you to think over: Why would anyone want her dead in the first place? And does it not seem a very peculiar way to have gone about it? I can think of a lot simpler ways of disposing of a person.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “A weapon is a hell of a lot easier to manage than magic any day. As for why, I can only speculate. I had assumed it was a trap for me, and that she had been sacrificed as part of the package—my annual April thirtieth present. Do you know about them, too?”
“Let’s save that business for later. You are obviously aware that sorcerers have styles, the same as painters, writers, musicians. When you succeeded in locating that gateway in Julia’s apartment, was there anything about it which we might refer to as the author’s signature?”
“Nothing special that I can recall. Of course, I was in a hurry to force it. I wasn’t there to admire the aesthetics of the thing. But no, I can’t associate it with anyone with whose work I am familiar. What are you getting at?”
“I just wondered whether it were possible that she might have developed some abilities of her own along these lines, and in the course of things opened that gateway herself and suffered those consequences.”
“Preposterous!”
“All right. I am just trying to turn up some reasons. I take it then that you never saw any indication that she might possess latent abilities for sorcery?”
“No, I can’t recall any instances.”
I finished my coffee, poured a refill.
“If you don’t think Luke is after me now, why not?” I asked h
er then.
“He set up some apparent accidents for you, years ago.”
“Yes. He admitted that recently. He also told me that he quit doing it after the first few times.”
“That is correct.”
“You know, it’s maddening—not knowing what you know and what you do not.”
“That is why we’re talking, isn’t it? It was your idea to go about it this way.”
“It was not! You suggested this trade-off!”
“This morning, yes. But the idea was originally yours, some time ago. I am thinking of a certain telephone conversation, at Mr. Roth’s place—”
“You? That disguised voice on the phone? How could that be?”
“Would you rather hear about that or about Luke?”
“That! No, Luke! Both, damn it!”
“So it would seem there is a certain wisdom in keeping to the format we’ve agreed upon. There is much to be said for orderliness.”
“Okay, you’ve made another point. Go on about Luke.”
“It seemed to me, as an observer, that he quit that business as soon as he got to know you better.”
“You mean back about the time we became friendly—that wasn’t just an act?”
“I couldn’t tell for sure then—and he certainly countenanced the years of attacks on you—but I believe that he actually sabotaged some of them.”
“Who was behind them after he quit?”
“A red-haired lady with whom he seemed to be associated.”
“Jasra?”
“Yes, that was her name—and I still don’t know as much about her as I’d like to. Do you have anything there?”
“I think I’ll save that for a big one,” I said.
For the first time, she directed a narrow-eyed, teeth-clenched expression toward me.
The Chronicles of Amber Page 114
