I called up my Logrus sight, and I was able to make out a dark glow surrounding the stone. This was connected by a long, straight, steady stream of light of the same general hue, extending from a high rear tower of the Keep. Fascinating. I would have given a lot for a view of the interior of that place.
Then, born with a sigh, maturing to a whistle, a whirlwind rose from the disputed area, growing, graying, swaying, to advance suddenly toward me like the swung proboscis of some cloudy, sky-high elephant. I turned and climbed higher, weaving my way amid rocks and around the shoulders of hillsides. The thing pursued, as if there were an intelligence guiding its movements. And the way it hung together while traversing that irregular terrain indicated an artificial nature, which in this place most likely meant magic.
It takes some time to determine an appropriate magical defense, and even more time to bring it into being. Unfortunately, I was only about a minute ahead of the posse, and that margin was probably dwindling.
When I spotted the long narrow crevice beyond the next turning, jagged as a limb of lightning, I paused only an instant to peer into its depth, and then I was descending, my tattered garments lashed about me, the windy tower a rumbling presence at my back. . . .
The way ran deep and so did I, following its jogs, its twistings. The rumble rose to a roar, and I coughed at the cloud of dust that engulfed me. A hailstorm of gravel assailed me. I threw myself Bat then, about eight feet below the surface of the land, and covered my head with my arms, for I believed that the thing was about to pass directly above me.
I muttered warding spells as I lay there, despite their minuscule parrying effect at this distance against such an energy-intensive manifestation. I did not jump up when the silence came. It could be that the tornado's driver had withdrawn support and collapsed the funnel on seeing that I might be out of reach. It could also be the eye of the storm, with more to come, by and by.
While I did not jump up, I did look up, because I hate to miss educational opportunities.
And there was the face-or, rather, the mask-at the center of the storm, regarding me. It was a projection, of course, larger than life and not fully substantial. The head was cowled; the mask was full and cobalt bright and strongly reminiscent of the sort worn by goalies in ice hockey; there were two vertical breathing slits from which pale smoke emerged-a touch too theatrical For my taste; a lower series of random punctures was designed to give the impression of a sardonically lopsided mouth. A distorted sound of laughter came down to me from it.
"Aren't you overdoing it a bit?" I said, coming up into a crouch and raising the Logrus between us. "For a kid on Halloween, yes. But we're all adults here, aren't we? A simple domino would probably serve-"
"You moved my stone!" it said.
"I've a certain academic interest in such matters," I offered, easing myself into the extensions. "Nothing to get upset about. Is that you, Jasra? I-"
The rumbling began again, softly at first, then building once more.
"I'll make a deal," I said. "You call off the storm, and I'll promise not to move any more markers."
Again, the laughter as the storm sounds rose.
"Too late," came the reply. "Too late for you. Unless you're a lot tougher than you look."
What the hell! The battle is not always to the strong, and nice guys tend to win because they're the ones who get to write their memoirs. I'd been fiddling with the Logrus projections against the insubstantiality of the mask until I found the link, the opening leading back to its source. I stabbed through it-a thing on the order of an electrical discharge-at whatever lay behind.
There came a scream. The mask collapsed, the storm collapsed, and I was on my feet and running again. When whatever I'd hit recovered I did not want to be in the same place I had been because that place might be subject to sudden disintegration.
I had a choice of cutting off into Shadow or seeking an even faster path of retreat. If a sorcerer were to tag me as I started shadow-slipping I could be followed. So I dug out my Trumps and shuffled forth Random's. I rounded the next fuming of the way then, and I would have had to halt there anyway, I saw, because it narrowed to a width impossible for me to pass. I raised the card and reached with my mind.
There followed contact, almost immediately. But even as the images solidified I felt a probe. I was certain that it was my blue-masked nemesis seeking me once more.
But Random came clear, seated before a drum set, sticks in hand. He set aside the drumsticks and rose.
"It's about time," he said, and he extended his hand.
Even as I reached I felt something rushing toward me. As our fingers touched and I stepped forward, they burst about me like a giant wave.
I passed through into the music room in Amber. Random had opened his mouth to speak again when the cascade of flowers fell upon us.
Brushing violets from his shirtfront, he regarded me.
"I'd rather you said it with words," he remarked.
4
Portrait of the artists, purposes crossed, temperature falling, . . .
Sunny afternoon, and walking through small park following light lunch, us, prolonged silences and monosyllabic responses to conversational sallies indicating all's not well at other end of communication's taut line. Upon bench, seated then, facing flower beds, souls catch up with bodies, words with thoughts...
"Okay, Merle. What's the score?" she asks.
"I don't know what game you're talking about, Julia."
"Don't get cute. All I want's a straight answer."
"What's the question?"
"That place you took me, from the beach, that night. . . . Where was it?"
"It was-sort of a dream."
"Bullshit!" She turns sideways to face me fully, and I must meet those flashing eyes without my face giving anything away. "I've been back there, several times, looking for the way we took, There is no cave. There's nothing! What happened to it? What's going on?"
"Maybe the tide came in and-"
"Merle! What kind of an idiot do you take me for? That walk we took isn't on the maps. Nobody around here's ever heard of anything like those places. It was geographically impossible. The times of day and the seasons kept shifting. The only explanation is supernatural or paranormal-whatever you want to call it, What happened? You owe me an answer and you know it. What happened? Where were you?"
I look away, past my feet, past the flowers. "I-can't say."
"Why not?"
"I-" What could I say? It was not only that telling her of Shadow would disturb, perhaps destroy, her view of reality. At the heart of my problem lay the realization that it would also require telling her how I knew this, which would mean telling her who I am, where I am from, what I am-and I was afraid to give her this knowledge. I told myself that it would end our relationship as surely as telling her nothing would; and if it must end either way, I would rather we parted without her possessing this knowledge. Later, much later, I was to see this for the rationalization it was; my real reason for denying her the answers she desired was that I was not ready to trust her, or anyone, so close to me as I really am. Had I known her longer, better - another year, say - I might have answered her. I don't know. We never used the word "love," though it must have run through her mind on occasion, as it did through mine. It was, I suppose, that I didn't love her enough to trust her, and then it was too late. So, "I can't tell you;" were my words.
"You have some power that you will not share."
"Call it that, then."
"I would do whatever you say, promise whatever you want promised."
"There is a reason, Julia."
She is on her feet, arms akimbo. "And you won't even share that."
I shake my head.
"It must be a lonely world you inhabit, magician, if even those who love you are barred from it."
At that moment it seems she is simply trying her last trick for getting an answer from me. I screw my resolve yet tighter. "I didn't say that."
"
You didn't have to. It is your silence that tells me, If you know the road to Hell too, why not head that way? Good-bye!"
"Julia. Don't. . . ."
She chooses not to hear me. Still life with flowers. . . .
Awakening, Night. Autumn wind beyond my window. Dreams. Blood of life without the body..., swirling..., I swung my feet out of bed and sat rubbing my eyes, my temples. It had been sunny and afternoon when I'd finished telling Random my story, and he'd sent me to get some shuteye afterward. I was suffering from shadow lag and felt completely turned around at the moment, though I was not certain exactly what the hour might be.
I stretched, got up, repaired myself and donned fresh clothing. I knew that I would not be able to get back to sleep; also, I was feeling hungry. I took a warm cloak with me as I departed my quarters. I felt like going out rather than raiding the larder. I was in the mood for some walking, and I hadn' been outside the palace and into town in years, I guessed. I made my way downstairs, then cut through a few chambers and a big hall, connecting up at the rear with a corridor I could have followed all the way from the stair if I'd cared to, but then I'd have missed a couple of tapestries I'd wanted to say hello to: an idyllic sylvan scene, with a couple making out following a picnic lunch; and a hunting scene of dogs and men pursuing a magnificent stag, which looks as if it might yet have a chance of getting away, if it will dare a stupendous leap that lies ahead. . . .
I passed through and made my way up the corridor to a postern, where a bored-looking guard named Jordy suddenly strove to seem attentive when he heard me coming. I stopped to pass the time with him and learned that he didn't get off duty till midnight, which was almost two hours away.
"I'm heading down into town," I said. "Where's a good place to eat this time of night?"
"What've you got a taste for?"
"Seafood," I decided.
"Well, Fiddler's Green - about two thirds of the way down the Main Concourse - is very good for seafood. It's a fancy place. . . ."
I shook my head. "I don't want a fancy place," I said.
"The Net's still supposed to be good-down near the comer of the Smiths and Ironmongers Street. It's not real fancy."
"But you wouldn't go there yourself?"
"Used to," he replied. "But a number of the nobles and big merchants discovered it recently. I'd feel kind of uncomfortable there these days. It's gotten sort of clubby."
"Hell! I don't want conversation or atmosphere. I just want some nice fresh fish. Where would you go for the best?"
"Well, it's a long walk. But if you go all the way down to the docks, at the back of the cove, it's a little to the west. . . . But maybe you shouldn't. It's kind of late, and that isn't the best neighborhood after dark."
"Is that by any chance Death Alley?"
"They do sometimes call it that, sir, as bodies are occasionally found there of a morning. Maybe you'd better go to the Net, seeing as you're alone."
"Gerard took me through that area once, during the day. I think I could find my way around it, all right. What's the name of the place?"
"Uh, Bloody Bill's."
"Thanks. I'll say hi to Bill for you."
He shook his head. "Can't. It was renamed after the manner of his demise. His cousin Andy runs it now."
"Oh. What was it called before?"
"Bloody Sam's," he said.
Well, what the hell. I bade him a good night and set out walking. I took the path to the short stairway down the slope, which led to the walkway through a garden and over to a side gate, where another guard let me out. It was a cool night with the breezed smells of autumn burning down the world about me. I drew it into my lungs and sighed it out again as I headed for the Main Concourse, the distant, almost-forgotten, slow clopping sounds of hoofs on cobbles coming to me like something out of dream or memory. The night was moonless but filled with stars, and the concourse below Banked by globes of phosphorescent liquid set atop high poles, long-tailed mountain moths darting about them.
When I reached the avenue I strolled. A few closed carriages rolled by as I passed along the way. An old man walking a tiny green dragon on a chain leash touched his hat to me as I passed and said, "Good evening." He had seen the direction from which I had come, though I was sure he did not recognize me. My face is not that well-known about town. My spirits loosened a bit after a time, and I felt a spring come into my step.
Random had not been as angry as I'd thought he might. Since Ghostwheel had not been stirring up any trouble, he had not charged me to go after it immediately and try again for a shutdown. He had merely told me to think about it and come up with the best course of action we might pursue. And Flora had been in touch earlier and told him who Luke was-a thing that seemed to have eased his mind somehow, knowing the identity of the enemy. Though I'd asked, he would not tell me what plans he might have formulated for dealing with him. He did allude to the recent dispatch of an agent to Kashfa, though, to obtain certain unspecified information. The thing that seemed to trouble him the most, actually, was the possibility that the outlaw Dalt was still to be numbered among the living.
"Something about that man . . ." Random began.
"What?" I'd asked.
"For one thing, I saw Benedict run him through. That generally tends to terminate a person's career."
"Tough son of a bitch," I said. "Or damn lucky. Or both."
"If he is the same man, he's the son of the Desacratrix. You've heard of her?"
"Deela," I said. "Wasn't that her name? Some sort of religious fanatic? Militant?"
Random nodded. "She caused a lot of trouble out around the periphery of the Golden Circle-mostly near Begma. You ever been there?"
"No."
"Well, Begma's the nearest point on the circle to Kashfa, which is what makes your story particularly interesting. She'd raided a lot in Begma and they couldn't handle her by themselves. They finally reminded us of the protection alliance we have with almost all the Circle kingdoms-and Dad decided to go in personally and teach her a lesson. She'd burned one Unicorn shrine too many. He took a small force, defeated her troops, took her prisoner and hanged a bunch of her men. She escaped, though, and a couple of years later when she was all but forgotten she came back with a Fresh force and started the same crap all over. Begma screamed again, but Dad was busy. He sent Bleys in with a larger force. There were several inconclusive engagements-they were raiders, not a regular army-hut Bleys finally cornered them and wiped them out. She died that day, leading her troops."
"And Dalt's her son?"
"That's the story, and it makes some sense, because he did everything he could to harass us for a long time. He was after revenge, pure and simple, for his mother's death. Finally, he put together a fairly impressive fighting force and tried to raid Amber. Got a lot farther than you'd think, right up to Kolvir. But Benedict was waiting, his pet regiment at his back. Benedict cut them to pieces, and it sure looked as if he'd wounded Dalt mortally. A few of his men were able to carry him off the field, so we never saw the body. But hell! Who cared?"
"And you think he could be the same guy who was Luke's friend when he was a kid - and later?"
"Well, the age is about right and he seems to hail from that same general area. I suppose it's possible."
I mused as I strolled. Jasra hadn't really liked the guy, according to the hermit. So what was his part in things now? Too many unknowns, I decided. It would take knowledge rather than reasoning to answer that one. So let it ride and go enjoy dinner. . . .
I continued on down the concourse. Near to its farther end I heard laughter and saw where some hardy drinkers still occupied a few tables at a sidewalk cafe. One of them was Droppa, but he didn't spot me and I passed on. I did not feel like being amused. I fumed onto Weavers Street, which would take me over to where West Vine wound its way up from the harbor district. A tall masked lady in a silver cloak hurried by and into a waiting carriage. She glanced back once and smiled beneath her domino. I was certain that I didn't know her, a
nd I found myself wishing I did. It was a pretty smile. Then a gust of wind brought me the smokesmell of someone's fireplace and rattled a few dead leaves as it went by. I wondered where my father was.
Down along the street then and left on West Vine... Narrower here than the concourse, but still wide; a greater distance between lights, but still sufficiently illuminated for night travelers. A pair of horsemen clopped slowly by, singing a song I did not recognize. Something large and dark passed overhead a bit later, to settle upon a roof across the street. A few scratching noises came from that direction, then silence. I followed a curve to the right, then another to the left, entering what I knew to be a long series of switchbacks. My way grew gradually steeper. A harbor breeze came up at some point a little later, bearing me my first salt sea smells of the evening. A short while afterward-two turns, I believe-and I had a view of the sea itself, far below; bobbing lights on a sparkling, swelling slickness over black, pent by the curving line of bright dots, Harbor Road. To the east the sky was powdered slightly. A hint of horizon appeared at the edge of the world. I thought I caught a glimpse of the distant light of Cabra minutes later, then lost it again with another turning of the way.
A puddle of light like spilled milk pulsed on the street to my right, outlining a ghostly gridwork of cobbles at its farthest downhill reach; the stippled pole above it might advertise some spectral barbershop; the cracked globe at its top still showed a faint phosphorescence, skull-on-astick style, reminding me of a game we used to play as kids back in the Courts. A few lighted footprints proceeded downhill away from it, faint, fainter, gone. I passed on, and across the distance I heard the cries of sea birds. Autumn's smells were submerged in ocean's. The powdered light beyond my left shoulder rose higher about the water, drifted forward across the wrinkled face of the deep. Soon. . . .
My appetite grew as I walked. Ahead, I beheld another dark-cloaked stroller on the other side of the street, a slight glowing at the edges of the boots. I thought of the fish I would soon be eating and hurried, breasting the figure and passing. A cat in a doorway paused at licking her asshole to watch me go by, hind leg held vertical the while. Another horseman passed, this one headed up the hill. I heard the fringes of an argument between a man and a woman from upstairs in one of the darkened buildings. Another turning and the shoulder of the moon came into sight like some magnificent beast surfacing, shrugging droplets From bright bathic grottoes. . . .
Zelazny, Roger - Amber - 07 - Blood of Amber Page 6
