KNIGHT OF SHADOWS (31 page)

“Well, well, well,” I heard Dara say, and looking that way, I saw that she also held a knife and fork.
 
“What’s a bastard like you doing in a nice place like this?”

“Keeping the last of the predators at bay, it would seem,” replied the voice which had once told me a very long story containing multiple versions of an auto accident and a number of genealogical gaffes.

She lunged at me, but he stooped, caught me beneath the shoulders, and snatched me out of her way.
 
Then his great black cloak swirled like a matador’s, covering her.
 
As she had done with Coral and Julia, she herself seemed to melt into the earth beneath it.
 
He set me on my feet, stooped then, raised the cloak, and brushed it off.
 
As he refastened it with a silver rose of a clasp, I studied him for fangs or at least cutlery.

“Four out of five,” I said, brushing myself off: “No matter how real this seems, I’m sure it’s only analogically or anagogically true.
 
So how come you’re not cannibalistically inclined in this place?”

“On the other hand,” he said, drawing on a silver gauntlet, “I was never a real father to you.
 
It’s kind of difficult when you don’t even know the kid exists.
 
So I didn’t really want anything from you either.”

“That sure looks like Grayswandir you’re wearing,” I said.

He nodded.

“It seems to have served you, too.”

“I suppose I should thank you for that.
 
I also suppose you’re the wrong...person to ask whether you really bore me from that cave to the land between shadows.”

“Oh, it was me all right.”

“Of course, you’d say that.”

“I don’t know why I should if I didn’t.
 
Look out! The wall!”

One quick glance showed me that another big section of wall was falling toward us.
 
Then he pushed me, and I sprawled across the pentagram again.
 
I heard the stone; crashing behind me, and I half rose and threw myself even farther forward.

Something struck the side of my head.

I woke up in the Corridor of Mirrors.
 
I was lying facedownward, my head resting on my right forearm, a rectangular piece of stone clutched in my hand, the aromas of the candles drifting about me.
 
When I began to rise, I felt pains in both shoulders and in my left thigh.
 
A quick investigation showed me that I bore cuts; in all three of those places.
 
Though there wasn’t much I could do now to help demonstrate the veracity of my recent adventure beyond this, it wasn’t something I felt like shrugging off either.

I got to my feet and limped back to the corridor that ran past my rooms.

“Where’d you go?” Random called down to me.

“Huh? What do you mean?” I responded.

“You walked back up the hall, but there’s nothing there.”

“How long was I gone?”

“Half a minute maybe,” he answered.
 
I waved the stone I still carried.

“Saw this lying on the floor.
 
Couldn’t figure what it was,” I said.

“Probably blown there when the Powers met,” he said, “from one of the walls.
 
There were a number of arches edged with stones like that at one time.
 
Mostly plastered over on your floor now.”

“Oh,” I said.
 
“See you in a bit, before I take off.”

“Do that,” he replied, and I turned and found my way through one of the day’s many broken walls and on into my room.

The far wall had also been blasted, I noticed, creating a large opening into Brand’s dusty chambers.
 
I paused and studied it.
 
Synchronicity, I decided.
 
It appeared there had once been an archway connecting those rooms with these.
 
I moved forward and examined the exposed curve along its left side.
 
Yes, it had been rendered from stones similar to the one I held.
 
In fact-

I brushed away plaster and slid mine into a broken area.
 
It fitted perfectly. In fact, when I gave it a small tug, it refused to be removed.
 
Had I really brought it back from the sinister father-mother-brother-lovers ritual dream beyond the mirror? Or had I half-consciously picked it up on my return, from wherever it had been blasted during the recent architectural distress?

I turned away, removing my cloak, stripping off my shirt.
 
Yes.
 
There were punctures like fork marks on my right shoulder, something like an animal bite on my left.
 
Also, there was dried blood on my left trouser leg in the area of a tear beyond which my thigh was tender.
 
I washed up and brushed my teeth and combed my hair, and I put a dressing on my leg and left shoulder.
 
The family metabolism would see me healed in a day, but I didn’t want some exertion tearing them open and getting fresh garments gory.

Speaking of which...

The armoire was undamaged and I thought I’d wear my other colors, to give Luke a happy memory or two for his coronation: the golden shirt and royal blue trousers I’d found which approximated Berkeley’s colors almost exactly; a leather vest dyed to match the pants; matching cloak with gold trim; black sword belt, black gloves tucked behind it, reminding me I needed a new blade.
 
Dagger, too, for that matter.
 
I was wondering about a hat when a series of sounds caught my attention.
 
I turned.

Through a fresh screen of dust I now had a symmetrical view into Brand’s quarters; rather than a jagged opening in the wall the archway stood perfect and entire, the wall intact at either hand and above.
 
The wall to my right also seemed less damaged than it had been earlier.

I moved forward and ran my hand along the curve of stones.
 
I inspected adjacent plastered areas, looking for cracks.
 
There were none.
 
All right.
 
The stone had borne an enchantment.
 
To what end?

I strode through the archway and looked around.
 
The room was dark, and I summoned the Logrus sight reflexively.
 
It came and served me, as usual.
 
Perhaps the Logrus had decided against holding a grudge.

At this level I could see the residue of many magical experiments as well as a number of standing spells.
 
Most sorcerers leave a certain amount of not normally visible magical clutter about, but Brand seemed to have been a real slob, though of course, he might have been rushed quite a bit near the end there when he was trying to take over control of the universe.
 
It’s not the sort of occupation wherein neatness counts the way it might in other endeavors.
 
I passed on along my tour of inspection.
 
There were mysteries here, unfinished bits of business and indications that he had gone farther along some magical routes than I had ever wished to go.
 
Still, there was nothing here that I felt I could not handle and nothing representing grave and immediate danger.
 
It was just possible, now I’d finally had an opportunity to inspect them, that I might want to leave the archway intact and add Brand’s quarters to my own.

On the way out I decided to check Brand’s armoire to see whether he had a hat to go with what I was wearing.
 
I opened it and discovered a dark three-cornered one with a golden feather, which fitted me perfectly.
 
The color was a little off, but I suddenly recalled a spell which altered it.
 
As I was about to turn away, something to the rear of that top shelf which held the hats glinted for a moment within my Logrus vision.
 
I reached in and withdrew it.

It was a long and lovely gold-chased sheath of dark green, and the hilt of the blade which protruded from it appeared to be goldplated, with an enormous emerald set in its pommel.
 
I took hold of it and drew it partway, half expecting it to wail like a demon on whom one has dropped a balloon filled with holy water.
 
Instead, it merely hissed and smoked a little.
 
And there was a bright design worked into the metal of its blade-almost recognizable.
 
Yes, a section of the Pattern.
 
Only this excerpting was from the Pattern’s end, whereas Grayswandir’s was from a point near the beginning.

I sheathed it, and on an impulse I hung it from my belt.
 
His old man’s sword would make a neat coronation present for Luke, I decided.
 
So I’d take it along for him.
 
I let myself out into the side corridor then, made my way over a small section of collapsed wall from Gerard’s quarters and back past Fiona’s door to my dad’s rooms.
 
There was one thing more I wanted to check, and the sword had reminded me.
 
I fished in my pocket for the key I’d transferred from my bloody trousers.
 
Then I decided I’d better knock.
 
What if...

I knocked and waited, knocked again and waited again.
 
In that nothing but silence ensued I unlocked the door and entered.
 
I went no farther than that first place.
 
I’d just wanted to check the rack.

Grayswandir was gone from the peg where I’d hung it.
 
I backed out, closing and locking the door.
 
The fact that the row of pegs had been empty was an instance of obtaining the knowledge one wanted and still not being certain what one had proved thereby.
 
Yet it had been something I’d wished to know, and it did make me feel that final knowledge was nearer than it had been....

I walked back, past Fiona’s rooms.
 
I reentered Brand’s rooms through the door I had left ajar.
 
I hunted around till I spotted a key in a nearby ashtray.
 
I locked the door and pocketed the key; that was almost silly because anyone could walk in from my room now and my room was missing a wall.
 
Still...

I hesitated before crossing back to my sitting room with its Tabriz stained with ty’iga spit and partly covered by fallen wall.
 
There was something almost restful about Brand’s quarters, a kind of peaceful quality I hadn’t really noticed before.
 
I wandered a bit, opening drawers and looking inside magic boxes, studying a folder of the man’s drawings.
 
The Logrus sight showed me that something small and potent and magical was secreted in a bedpost, radiating lines of force every which way.
 
I unscrewed the knob, found the compartment within it.
 
It contained a small velvet bag which bore a ring.
 
The band was wide, possibly of platinum.
 
It bore a wheellike device of some reddish metal, with countless tiny spokes, many of them hair-fine.
 
And each of these spokes extended a line of power leading off somewhere, quite possibly into Shadow, where some power cache of spell source lay.
 
Perhaps Luke would rather have the ring than the sword.
 
When I slipped it on, it seemed to extend roots to the very center of my body.
 
I could feel my way back along them to the ring and then out along those connections.
 
I was impressed by the variety of energies it reached and controlled-from simple chthonic forces to sophisticated constructs of High Magic, from elementals to things that seemed like lobotomized gods.
 
I wondered why he hadn’t been wearing it on the day of the Patternfall battle.
 
If he had, I’d a feeling he might have been truly invincible.
 
We could all have been living on Brandenberg in Castle Brand.
 
I wondered, too, why Fiona, in the next room over, had not felt its presence and come looking for it.
 
On the other hand, I hadn’t.
 
For what it was, it didn’t register well at all, beyond a few feet.
 
It was amazing the treasures this place contained.
 
Was it something about the private universe effect said to obtain in some of these rooms? The ring was a beautiful alternative to Pattern Power or Logrus Power, hooked in as it was with so many sources.
 
It must have taken centuries to empower the thing.
 
Whatever Brand had wanted it for, it had not been part of a short-range plan.
 
I decided I could not surrender the thing to Luke-or to anyone with any familiarity with the Arts.
 
I didn’t even think I should trust a nonmagician with it.
 
And I certainly didn’t feel like returning it to the bedpost.
 
What was that throbbing at my wrist? Oh, yes, Frakir.
 
It had been going on for some small while, and I’d barely noticed.

“Sorry you lost your voice, old girl,” I said, stroking her as I explored the room for threats both psychic and physical.
 
“I can’t find a damned thing here that I should be worried about.”

Immediately she spiraled down from my wrist and tried to remove the ring from my finger.