Blood of Amber (9 page)

“That’s true,” I agreed.

“How’d you get here anyway, Merle?” he asked quickly, as if to get my mind off the subject of his loot.

“Walked,” I said.

“That don’t sound right.
 
Nobody comes here willingly.”

“I didn’t know I was coming here.
 
Don’t think I’ll be staying long either,” I said, as I saw him take up the small knife and begin toying with it.
 
“No sense going below and begging after hospitality at a time like this.”

“That’s true,” he remarked.

Was the old coot actually thinking of attacking me, to protect his cache? He could be more than a little mad by now, living up here alone in his stinking cave, pretending to be a saint.

“Would you be interested in returning to Kashfa,” I said, “if I could set you on the right trail?”

He gave me a crafty look.
 
“You don’t know that much about Kashfa,” he said, “or you wouldn’t have been asking me all those questions.
 
Now you say you can send me home?”

“I take it you’re not interested?”

He sighed.
 
“Not really, not any more.
 
It’s too late now.
 
This is my home.
 
I enjoy being a hermit.”

I shrugged.
 
“Well, thanks for feeding me, and thanks for all the news.”

I got to my feet.

“Where are you going now?” he asked.

“I think I’ll look around some, then head for home.” I backed away from that small lunatic glow in his eyes.

He raised the knife, his grip tightened on it.
 
Then he lowered it and cut another piece of cheese.

“Here, you can take some of the cheese with you if you want,” he said.

“No, that’s okay.
 
Thanks.”

“Just trying to save you some money.
 
Have a good trip.”

“Right.
 
Take it easy.”

I heard his chuckling all the way back to the trail.
 
Then the wind drowned it.

I spent the next several hours reconnoitering.
 
I moved around in the hills.
 
I descended into the steaming, quaking lands.
 
I walked along the seashore.
 
I passed through the rear of the normal-seeming area and crossed the neck of the ice field.
 
In all of this, I stayed as far from the Keep itself as possible.
 
I wanted to fix the place as firmly in mind as I could, so that I could End my way back through Shadow rather than crossing a threshold the hard way.
 
I saw several packs of wild dogs on my journey, but they were more intent upon the battle’s corpses than anything that moved.

There were oddly inscribed boundary stones at each topographical border, and I found myself wondering whether they were mapmakers’ aids or something more.
 
Finally, I wrestled one from the burning land over about fifteen feet into a region of ice and snow.
 
I was knocked down almost immediately by a heavy tremor; I was able to scramble away in time, however, from the opening of a crevice and the spewing of geysers.
 
The hot area claimed that small slice of the cold land in less than half an hour.
 
Fortunately, I moved quickly to get out of the way of any further turmoil, and I observed the balance of these phenomena from a distance.
 
But there was more to come.

I crouched back among the rocks, having reached the foothills of the range from which I had started by crossing through a section of the volcanic area.
 
There, I rested and watched for a time while that small segment of terrain rearranged itself and the wind smeared smoke and steam across the land.
 
Rocks bounced and rolled; dark carrion birds went out of their way to avoid what had to be some interesting thermals.

Then I beheld a movement which I first assumed to be seismic in origin.
 
The boundary stone I had shifted rose slightly and jogged to the side.
 
A moment later, however, and it was elevated even farther, appearing almost as if it had been levitated slightly above the ground.
 
Then it drifted across the blasted area, moving in a straight line at a uniform speed, until -as nearly as I could judge-it had recovered its earlier position.
 
And there it settled.
 
Moments later the turmoil recommenced, and this time it was a jolting shrug of the ice sheet, jerking back, reclaiming the invaded area.

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.

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.