Luke was studying her now, and he nodded.
“You can keep morality out of it,” Julia said.
“No, you can’t,” Luke responded.
“I disagree,” she said.
Luke shrugged.
“She’s right,” Gail said suddenly. “I don’t see that duty and morality are the same thing.”
“Well, if you’ve got a duty,” Luke said, “something you absolutely must do—a matter of honor, say—then that becomes your morality.”
Julia looked at Luke, looked at Gail. “Does that mean we just agreed on something?” she asked.
“No,” Luke said, “I don’t think so.”
Gail took a drink. “You’re talking about a personal code that need not have anything to do with conventional morality.”
“Right,” Luke said.
“Then it’s not really morality. You’re just talking duty,” she said.
“You’re right on the duty,” Luke answered. “But it’s still morality.”
“Morality is the values of a civilization,” she said.
“There is no such thing as civilization,” Luke replied. “The word just means the art of living in cities.”
“All right, then. Of a culture,” she said.
“Cultural values are relative things,” Luke said, smiling, “and mine say I’m right.”
“Where do yours come from?” Gail asked, studying him carefully.
“Let’s keep this pure and philosophical, huh?” he said.
“Then maybe we should drop the term entirely,” Gail said, “and just stick with duty.”
“What happened to power?” Julia asked.
“It’s in there somewhere,” I said.
Suddenly Gail looked perplexed, as if our discussion were not something which had been repeated a thousand times in different forms, as if it had actually given rise to some new turn of thought.
“If they are two different things,” she said slowly, “which one is more important?
“They’re not,” Luke said. “They’re the same.”
“I don’t think so,” Julia told him. “But duties tend to be clear-cut, and it sounds as if you can choose your own morality. So if I had to have one I’d go with the morality.”
“I like things that are clear-cut,” Gail said.
Luke chugged his beer, belched lightly. “Shit!” he said. “Philosophy class isn’t till Tuesday. This is the weekend. Who gets the next round, Merle?”
I placed my left elbow on the tabletop and opened my hand.
While we pushed together, the tension building and building between us, he said through clenched teeth, “I was right, wasn’t I?”
“You were right,” I said, just before I forced his arm all the way down.
* * *
Power.
I removed my mail from the little locked box in the hallway and carried it upstairs to my apartment. There were two bills, some circulars and something thick and first class without a return address on it.
I closed the door behind me, pocketed my keys and dropped my briefcase onto a nearby chair. I had started toward the sofa when the telephone in the kitchen rang.
Tossing the mail toward the coffee table, I turned and started for the kitchen. The blast that occurred behind me might or might not have been strong enough to knock me over. I don’t know, because I dove forward of my own volition as soon as it occurred. I hit my head on the leg of the kitchen table. It dazed me somewhat, but I was otherwise undamaged. All the damage was in the other room. By the time I got to my feet the phone had stopped ringing.
I already knew there were lots of easier ways to dispose of junk mail, but I wondered for a long time afterward who it was that had been on the telephone.
I sometimes remembered the first of the series, too, the truck that had come rushing toward me. I had only caught a glimpse of the driver’s face before I’d moved—inert, he was completely expressionless, as if he were dead, hypnotized, drugged or somehow possessed. Choose any of the above, I decided, and maybe more than one.
And then there was the night of the muggers. They had attacked me without a word. When it was all over and I was heading away, I had glanced back once. I thought I’d glimpsed a shadowy figure draw back into a doorway up the street—a smart precaution, I’d say, in light of what had been going on. But of course it could have been someone connected with the attack, too. I was torn. The person was too far off to have been able to give a good description of me. If I went back and it turned out to be an innocent bystander, there would then be a witness capable of identifying me. Not that I didn’t think it was an open-and-shut case of self-defense, but there’d be a lot of hassle. So I said the hell with it, and I walked on. Another interesting April 30.
The day of the rifle. There had been two shots as I’d hurried down the street. They’d both missed me before I’d realized what was going on, chipping brickbats from the side of the building to my left. There was no third shot, but there was a thud and a splintering sound from the building across the street. A third-floor window stood wide open.
I hurried over. It was an old apartment house and the front door was locked, but I didn’t slow down for niceties. I located the stair and mounted it. When I came to what I thought was the proper room, I decided to try the door the old-fashioned way and it worked. It was unlocked.
I stood to the side and pushed it open and saw that the place was unfurnished and empty. Unoccupied, too, it seemed. Could I have been wrong? But then I saw that the window facing the street stood wide and I saw what lay upon the floor. I entered and closed the door behind me.
A broken rifle lay in the corner. From markings on the stock I guessed that it had been swung with great force against a nearby radiator before it had been cast aside. Then I saw something else on the floor, something wet and red. Not much. Just a few drops.
I searched the place quickly. It was small. The one window in its single bedroom also stood open and I went to it. There was a fire escape beyond it, and I decided that it might be a good way for me to make my exit, too.
There were a few more drops of blood on the black metal, but that was it. No one was in sight below, or in either direction.
* * *
Power.
To kill. To preserve. Luke, Jasra, Gail. Who was responsible for what?
The more I thought of it, the more it seemed possible that there might have been a telephone call on the morning of the open gas jets, too. Could that be what had roused me to an awareness of danger? Each time I thought of these matters there seemed to be a slight shifting of emphasis. Things stood in a different light. According to Luke and the pseudo Vinta, I was not in great danger in the later episodes, but it seemed that any of those things could have taken me out. Who was I to blame? The perpetrator? Or the savior who barely saved? And who was which? I remembered how my father’s story had been complicated by that damned auto accident which played like Last Year at Marienbad—though his had seemed simple compared to everything that was coming down on me. At least he knew what he had to do most of the time. Could I be the inheritor of a family curse involving complicated plotting?
* * *
Power.
I remembered Uncle Suhuy’s final lesson. He had spent some time following my completion of the Logrus in teaching me things I could not have learned before then. There came a time when I thought I was finished. I had been confirmed in the Art and dismissed. It seemed I had covered all the basics and anything more would be mere elaboration. I began making preparations for my journey to the shadow Earth. Then one morning Suhuy sent for me. I assumed that he just wanted to say good-bye and give me a few friendly words of advice.
His hair is white, he is somewhat stooped and there are days when he carries a staff. This was one of them. He had on his yellow caftan, which I had always thought of as a working garment rather than a social one.
“Are you ready for a short trip?” he asked me.
“Actually, it’s going to be a lon
g one,” I said. “But I’m almost ready.”
“No,” he said. “That was not the journey I meant.”
“Oh. You mean you want to go somewhere right now?”
“Come,” he said.
So I followed him, and the shadows parted before us. We moved through increasing bleakness, passing at last into places that bore no sign of life whatsoever. Dark, sterile rock lay all about us, stark in the brassy light of a dim and ancient sun. This final place was chill and dry, and when we halted and I looked about, I shivered.
I waited, to see what he had in mind. But it was a long while before he spoke. He seemed oblivious of my presence for a time, simply staring out across the bleak landscape.
Finally, “I have taught you the ways of Shadow,” he said slowly, “and the composition of spells and their working.”
I said nothing. His statement did not seem to require a reply.
“So you know something of the ways of power,” he continued. “You draw it from the Sign of Chaos, the Logrus, and you invest it in various ways.”
He glanced at me at last, and I nodded.
“I understand that those who bear the Pattern, the Sign of Order, may do similar things in ways that may or may not be similar,” he went on. “I do not know for certain, for I am not an initiate of the Pattern. I doubt the spirit could stand the strain of knowing the ways of both. But you should understand that there is another way of power, antithetical to our own.”
“I understand,” I said, for he seemed to be expecting an answer.
“But you have a resource available to you,” he said, “which those of Amber do not. Watch!”
His final word did not mean that I should simply observe as he leaned his staff against the side of a boulder and raised his hands before him. It meant that I should have the Logrus before me so I could see what he was doing at that level. So I summoned my vision and watched him through it.
Now the vision that hung before him seemed a continuation of my own, stretched and twisting. I saw and felt it as he joined his hands with it and extended a pair of its jagged limbs outward across the distance to touch upon a boulder that lay downhill of us.
“Enter the Logrus now yourself,” he said, “remaining passive. Stay with me through what I am about to do. Do not, at any time, attempt to interfere.”
“I understand,” I said.
I moved my hands into my vision, shifting them about, feeling after congruity, until they became a part of it.
“Good,” he said, when I had settled them into place. “Now all you need do is observe, on all levels.”
Something pulsed along the limbs he controlled, passing down to the boulder. I was not prepared for what came after.
The image of the Logrus turned black before me, becoming a seething blot of inky turmoil. An awful feeling of disruptive power surged through me, an enormous destructive force that threatened to overwhelm me, to carry me into the blissful nothingness of ultimate disorder. A part of me seemed to desire this, while another part was screaming wordlessly for it to cease. But Suhuy maintained control of the phenomenon, and I could see how he was doing it, just as I had seen how he had brought it into being in the first place.
The boulder became one with the turmoil, joined it and was gone. There was no explosion, no implosion, only the sensation of great cold winds and cacophonous sounds. Then my uncle moved his hands slowly apart, and the lines of seething blackness followed them, flowing out in both directions from that area of chaos which had been the boulder, producing a long dark trench wherein I beheld the paradox of both nothingness and activity.
Then he stood still, arresting it at that point. Moments later, he spoke. “I could simply release it,” he stated, “letting it run wild. Or I could give it a direction and then release it.”
As he did not continue, I asked, “What would happen then? Would it simply continue until it had devastated the entire shadow?”
“No,” he replied. “There are limiting factors. The resistance of Order to Chaos would build as it extended itself. There would come a point of containment.”
“And if you remained as you are, and kept summoning more?”
“One would do a great deal of damage.”
“And if we combined our efforts?”
“More extensive damage. But that is not the lesson I had in mind. I will remain passive now while you control it.”
So I took over the Sign of the Logrus and ran the line of disruption back upon itself in a great circle, like a dark moat surrounding us.
“Banish it now,” he said, and I did.
Still, the winds and the sounds continued to rage, and I could not see beyond the dark wall which seemed to be advancing slowly upon us from all sides.
“Obviously, the limiting factor has yet to be achieved,” I observed.
He chuckled. “You’re right. Even though you stopped, you exceeded a certain critical limit, so that it is now running wild.”
“Oh,” I said. “How long till those natural limitations you mentioned dampen it?”
“Sometime after it has completely annihilated the area on which we stand,” he said.
“It is receding in all directions as well as heading this way?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting. What is the critical mass?”
“I’ll have to show you. But we’d better find a new place first. This one is going away. Take my hand.”
I did, and he conducted me to another shadow. This time I summoned the Chaos and conducted the operations while he observed. This time I did not let it run wild.
When I had finished and I stood, shaken, staring into a small crater I had caused, he placed his hand on my shoulder and told me, “As you knew in theory, that is the ultimate power behind your spells. Chaos itself. To work with it directly is dangerous. But, as you have seen, it can be done. Now you know it, your training is complete.”
It was more than impressive. It was awesome. And for most situations I could visualize it was rather like using nukes for skeet shooting. Offhand, I couldn’t think of any circumstances under which I would care to employ the technique, until Victor Melman really pissed me off.
Power, in its many shapes, varieties, sizes and styles, continues to fascinate me. It has been so much a part of my life for so long that I feel very familiar with it, though I doubt that I will ever understand it fully.
Chapter 10
“It’s about time,” I said, to whatever lurked in the shadows. The sound that followed was not human. It was a low snarl. I wondered what manner of beast I confronted. I was certain an attack was imminent, but it did not come. Instead the growl died down, and whatever it was spoke again.
“Feel your fear,” came the whisper.
“Feel your own,” I said, “while you still can.”
The sounds of its breathing came heavy. The flames danced at my back. Smoke had drawn as far away across the campsite as his lengthy tether permitted.
“I could have killed you while you slept,” it said slowly.
“Foolish of you not to,” I said. “It will cost you.”
“I want to look at you, Merlin,” it stated. “I want to see you puzzled. I want to see your fear. I want to see your anguish before I see your blood.”
“Then I take it this is a personal rather than a business matter?”
There came a strange noise which it took me several moments to interpret as an inhuman throat trying to manage a chuckle.
Then, “Let us say that, magician,” it responded. “Summon your Sign and your concentration will waver. I will know it and will rend you before you can employ it.”
“Kind of you to warn me.”
“I just wanted to foreclose that option in your thinking. The thing wound about your left wrist will not help you in time either.”
“You have good vision.”
“In these matters, yes.”
“You wish perhaps to discuss the philosophy of revenge with me now?”
“I am
waiting for you to break and do something foolish, to increase my pleasure. I have limited your actions to the physical, so you are doomed.”
“Keep waiting, then,” I said.
There was a sound of movement within the brush as something drew nearer. I still could not see it, though. I took a step to my left then, to allow firelight to reach that darkened area. At that, something shone, low. The light was reflected, yellow, from a single glaring eye.
I lowered the point of my weapon, directing it toward the eye. What the hell. Every creature I know of tries to protect its eyes.
“Banzai!” I cried, as I lunged. The conversation seemed to have stagnated, and I was anxious to get on to other matters.
It rose instantly and with great power and speed rushed toward me, avoiding my thrust. It was a large, black, lop-eared wolf, and it slipped past a frantic slash I managed and went straight for my throat.
My left forearm came up automatically and I thrust it forward into the open jaws. At the same time, I brought the hilt of my blade across and slammed it against the side of its head. At this, the clamping force of the bite loosened even as I was home over backward, but the grip remained, penetrating shirt and flesh. And I was turning and pulling before I hit the ground, wanting to land on top, knowing I wouldn’t.
I landed on my left side, attempting to continue the roll, and added another belt of the pommel to the side of the beast’s skull. It was then that fortune favored me, for a change, when I realized that we lay near the lip of my fire pit and were still turning in that direction. I dropped my weapon and sought its throat with my right hand. It was heavily muscled, and there was no chance of crushing the windpipe in time. But that was not what I was after.
My hand went up high and back beneath the lower jaw, where I commenced squeezing with all my strength. I scrabbled with my feet until I found purchase and then pushed with my legs as well as my arms. Our movement continued the short distance necessary to push its snarling head back into the fire.
For a moment nothing happened save the steady trickle of blood from my forearm into its mouth and out again. The grip of its jaws was still strong and painful.
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