PRINCE OF CHAOS (22 page)

“I’m pretty sure the Pattern knows what it’s doing, and that it can take care of itself.”

He raised a pair of crossed fingers.

“I’d’ve argued against it,” he said, “save that I need my double.”

When they returned, a deejay’s baritone suddenly rolled forth, saying,

“It all goes to show, timing is everything.
 
Road conditions are fine.
 
It is a good day for travel.” Immediately, there followed a drum solo I’d have sworn was something I once heard Random play.

“You’re on duty as of now,” Rinaldo said to Jurt.
 
To us, he nodded.

“Anytime.”

I caught us up with the spikard and spun us back to Kashfa, bringing us into Jidrash near twilight, to the same wall-top vantage I had enjoyed earlier with my brother.

“And so at last,” Rinaldo said, looking out over the town.

“Yes,” Luke replied.
 
“It’s all yours-for a time.” Then, “Merle, how’s about jumping us to my apartment?”

I turned to the west where clouds had gone orange, glanced upward to where several hung purple.

“Before we do that, Luke,” I said, “I’d like to use what daylight’s left for a look at that black trail.”

He nodded.

“Good idea.
 
Okay, take us over there.”

His gesture indicated a hilly area to the southwest.
 
I caught us up and spikarded us to it, creating a verb for which I felt a need in the same act.

Such is the power of Chaos.

Arriving on a small hilltop, we followed Luke down its far side.

“Over this way,” he said.

Long shadows lay all about us, but there is a difference between their dimness and the blackness of a travel-thread from the Courts.

“It was right here,” Luke finally said when we came to a place between a pair of boulders.

I moved forward into the area but I felt nothing special.

“You sure this is the place?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I advanced another ten paces, twenty.

“If this is really where it was, it’s gone now,” I told him.
 
“Of course ...
 
I wonder how long we’ve been ‘ away?”

Luke snapped his fingers.

“Timing,” he observed.
 
“Take us back to my apartments.”

We kissed the day good-bye as I sent forth a lead and opened our way through the wall of dark.
 
We stepped through into the room I had occupied earlier with Coral.

“Close enough?” I asked.
 
“I’m not sure where your rooms are.”

“Come on,” he said, taking us out, to the left and down the stair.

“Time to consult the resident expert.
 
Merle, do something about this guy’s appearance.
 
Too much of a good thing might cause comment.”

It was easy, and the first time I’d made anyone look like the big portrait of Oberon back home.

Luke knocked on a door before entering.
 
Somewhere beyond it, a familiar voice spoke his name.

“I have some friends with me,” he said.

“Bring them in,” came her reply.

He opened the door and did so.

“Both of you know Nayda,” Luke announced.
 
“Nayda, this is my double.
 
Let’s call him Rinaldo and me Luke while we’re together.
 
He’s going to run things for me here while Merle and I are off looking for your sister.”

I changed Rinaldo back then, in response to her puzzled look.

She had on black trousers and an emerald blouse, her hair bound back by a matching green scarf.
 
She smiled as she greeted us, and when she regarded me she touched her lips lightly, almost casually, with a fingertip.
 
I nodded immediately.

“I trust you are recovered from any misadventures in Amber,” I said.
 
“You were, of course, there at a bad time.”

“Of course,” she responded.
 
“Fully recovered, thank you.
 
Kind of you to ask.
 
Thanks, too, for the recent directions.
 
It was you, I take it, who spirited Luke away these two days past?”

“It’s really been that long?” I said.

“It has, sir.”

“Sorry about that, my dear,” Luke said, squeezing her hand and looking long into her eyes.

“That explains why the trail’s faded,” I said.

Rinaldo seized her hand and kissed it, while executing an elaborate bow.

“Amazing how much you’ve changed from the girl I knew,” he stated.

“Oh?”

“I share Luke’s memories as well as his appearance,” he explained.

“‘I could tell there was something not quite human about you,” she remarked.
 
“I see you as a man whose very blood is fire.”

“And how might you see that?” he inquired.

“She has her means,” Luke said, “though I thought it only a psychic bond with her sister.
 
Apparently it goes somewhat further.”

She nodded.

“Speaking of which, I hope you can use it to help us track her,” he continued.
 
“With the trail gone and a drug or a spell barring a Trump call, we’ll be needing assistance.”

“Yes,” she answered, “though she is in no danger at the moment.”

“Good,” he said.
 
“In that case, I’ll order us all food and set to briefing this good-looking fellow on what’s going on in Kashfa these days.”

“Luke,” I said.
 
“It sounds like an ideal time for me to head back to the Courts for the rest of the funeral.”

“How long would you be gone, Merle?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Back by morning, I trust?”

“Me, too.
 
What if I’m not, though?”

“I’ve a feeling I should go looking without you.”

“Try reaching me first, though.”

“Sure.
 
See you later.”

I drew my cloak of space about me, shrugging Kashfa away.
 
When I opened it again I was back in Jurt’s quarters at Sawall.

.I stretched, I yawned.
 
I did a quick turn about the room, making certain I was alone.
 
I unfastened my cloak and tossed it upon the bed.
 
I paced as I unbuttoned my shirt.

Halt.
 
What was it? Also, where?

I retraced a few paces.
 
I had never spent a great deal of time in my younger brother’s rooms, but I would have recalled what I was feeling.

There was a chair and table in the corner formed by the wall and an armoire of dark, almost black wood.
 
Kneeling on the chair and reaching over the table, I could feel it-the presence of a way, not quite strong enough for transport, though.
 
Ergo...

I moved off to my right, opened the armoire.
 
It had to be inside, of course.
 
I wondered how recently he had installed it.
 
I also felt slightly funny about poking about in his quarters this way.
 
Still, he owed me for a lot of misery and inconvenience.
 
A few confidences and a little cooperation hardly cleaned the slate.
 
I hadn’t learned to trust him yet, and it was possible he was setting me up for something.
 
Good manners, I decided, would have to be sacrificed to prudence.

I pushed garments aside, making a way clear to the back of the thing.
 
I could feel it strongly.
 
A final shove at the garments, a quick shuffle to the rear, and I was at the focus.
 
I let it take me away.

Once there was a forward yielding, the pressure of the garments at my back gave me a small push.
 
That, plus the fact that someone (Jurt, himself?) had done a sloppy shadowmastering job resulting in mismatched floor levels, sent me sprawling as I achieved destination.

At least, I didn’t land in a pit full of sharpened stakes or acid.
 
Or the lair of some half-starved beast.
 
No, it was a green-tiled floor, and I caught myself as I fell.
 
And from the flickering light all about me I guessed there was a mess of candles burning.

Even before I looked up I was sure they’d all be green.

Nor was I incorrect.
 
About that or anything else.
 
The setup was similar to that of my father, with a groined vault containing a light source superior to the candles.
 
Only there was no painting above this altar.
 
This one featured a stained-glass window, lots of green in it, and a little red.

Its principal was Brand.

I rose and crossed to it.
 
Lying upon it, drawn a few inches from its sheath, was Werewindle.

I reached out and took hold of it, my first impulse being to bear it away with me for eventual restoration to Luke.
 
Then I hesitated.
 
It wasn’t something I could wear to a funeral.
 
If I took it now I’d have to hide it somewhere, and it was already well-hidden right here.
 
I let my hand rest upon it, though, as I thought.
 
It contained a similar feeling of power to that which Grayswandir bore, only somehow brighter, less tragedy-touched and brooding.
 
Ironic.
 
It seemed an ideal blade for a hero.

I looked about.
 
There was a book on a reading stand off to my left, a pentagram upon the floor behind me, worked in different shades of green, a smell-as of a recent wood fire-hung in the air.
 
Idly, I wondered what I might find if I were to knock a hole in the wall.
 
Was this chapel located upon a mountaintop? Beneath a lake? Underground? Was it drifting somewhere in the heavens?

What did it represent? It looked to be religious in nature.
 
And Benedict, Corwin, and Brand were the three I knew about.
 
Were they admired, respected-venerated-by certain of my countrymen and relatives? Or were these hidden chapels somehow more sinister?

I removed my hand from Werewindle, stepped to the vicinity of the pentagram.

My Logrus vision revealed nothing untoward, but an intense scan with the spikard detected the residue of a long-removed magical operation.
 
The traces were too faint to tell me anything of its nature, however.
 
While it seemed possible I might probe further after this and come up with a clearer picture, I also realized I hadn’t the time such an operation would require.

Reluctantly, I retreated to the vicinity of the way.
 
Could these places have been used to try to influence the individuals involved?

I shook my head.
 
This was something I would have to save for another day.
 
I located the way and gave myself to it.

I stumbled on my return, also.

Catching hold of the frame with one hand, I seized a garment with another, kept myself upright, straightened, and stepped out.
 
Then I shifted the clothing back into place and shut the doors.

I stripped quickly, altering my form as I was about it, and I donned my mourning garb once again.
 
I felt some activity in the vicinity of the spikard, and for the first time I caught it drawing upon one of the many sources it commanded to alter its shape, accommodating the changing size of my finger.
 
It had obviously done this several times before, though this was the first time I had noted the process.
 
This was interesting, in that it showed the device capable of acting independent of my will.

I didn’t really know what the thing was, what its origin might have been.
 
I kept it because it represented a considerable source of power, an acceptable substitute for the use of the Logrus, which I now feared.
 
But as I watched it change shape to remain snug upon my changing finger, I wondered.
 
What if it were somehow boobytrapped to turn upon me at exactly the wrong moment?

I turned it a couple of times upon my finger.
 
I moved into it with my mind, knowing this to be an exercise in futility.
 
It would take ages for me to run down each line to its source, to check out hidden spells along the way.
 
It was like taking a trip through a Swiss watch-custom-made.
 
I was impressed both with the beauty of its design, and with the enormous amount of work that had gone into its creation.
 
It could easily possess hidden imperatives that would only respond to special sets of circumstances.
 
Yet It had done nothing untoward, yet.
 
And the alternative was the Logrus.
 
It struck me as a genuine instance of the preferability of the devil one didn’t know.