Sign of the unicorn (18 page)

I laughed. It hurt, but I couldn’t help it.

“I’ll be damned!” I said. “Things are starting to make sense.”

Bill just stared at me for a moment. Then, “Really?” he said.

“Yes, I think so. It may well have been worth getting stabbed and coming back for what I learned today.”

“You put the two in peculiar order,” he said, massaging his chin.

“Yes, I do. But I am beginning to see some order where I had seen nothing before. This one may have been worth the price of admission, all unintended.”

“All because of a guy on a white horse?”

“Partly, partly . . . Bill, I am going to be leaving here soon.”

“You are not going anywhere for a while.”

“Just the same-those papers you mentioned . . . I think I had better get them signed today.”

“All right. I’ll get them over this afternoon. But I don’t want you doing anything foolish.”

“I grow more cautious by the moment,” I said, “believe me.”

“I hope so,” he said, snapping his briefcase shut and rising. “Well, get your rest. I’ll clear things up with the doctor and have those papers sent over today.”

“Thanks again.” I shook his hand.

“By the way,” he said, “you did agree to answer a question.”

“I did, didn’t I? What is it?”

“Are you human?” he asked, still gripping my hand, no special expression on his face.

I started in on a grin, then threw it away.

“I don’t know. I-I like to think so. But I don’t really-Of course I am! That’s a silly . . . Oh hell! You really mean it, don’t you? And I said I’d be honest. . . .”

I chewed my lip and thought for a moment. Then, “I don’t think so,” I said.

“Neither do I,” he said, and he smiled. “It doesn’t make any real difference to me, but I thought it might to you-to know that someone knows you are different and doesn’t care.”

“I’ll remember that, too,” I said.

“Well. . . see you around.”

“Right.”

It was just after the state patrolman left . . . Late afternoon. I was lying there feeling better, and feeling better that I felt better. Lying there, reflecting on the hazards involved in living in Amber. Brand and I were both laid up by means of the family’s favorite weapon. I wondered who had gotten it worse. Probably he had. It might have reached his kidney, and he was in poor condition to begin with.

I had stumbled across the room and back again twice before Bill’s clerk came over with the papers for me to sign. It was necessary that I know my limits. It always is. Since I tended to heal several times faster than those about me in that shadow, I felt that I ought to be able to stand and walk some, to perform in the same fashion as one of these after, say, a day and a half, maybe two. I established that I could. It did hurt, and I was dizzy the first time, less dizzy the second. That was something, anyway. So I lay there feeling better.

I had fanned the Trumps dozens of times, dealt private solitaires, read ambiguous fortunes among familiar faces. And each time I had restrained myself, suppressing my desire to contact Random, to tell him what had happened, to inquire after new developments. Later, I kept telling myself. Each additional hour they sleep is two and a half for you, here. Each two and a half for you, here, is the equivalent of seven or eight for some lesser mortal, here. Abide. Think. Regenerate.

And so it came to pass that a little after dinnertime, just as the sky was darkening again, I was beaten to the punch. I had already told a well-starched young member of the State Patrol evelything that I was going to tell him. I have no idea whether he believed me, but he was polite and he did not stay long. In fact, it was only moments after he left that things began to happen.

Lying there, feeling better, I was waiting for Dr. Bailey to stop by and check whether I was still oriented. Lying there, assessing all of the things Bill had told me, trying to fit them together with other things that I knew or had guessed at... .

Contact! I had been anticipated. Someone in Amber was an early riser. “Corwin!” It was Random, agitated.

“Corwin! Get up! Open the door! Brand’s come around, and he’s asking for you.”

“Have you been pounding on that door, trying to get me up?”

“That’s right.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I am not inside. You have reached me in Shadow.”

“I do not understand.”

“Neither do I. I am hurt, but I will live. I will give you the story later. Tell me about Brand.”

“He woke up just a little while ago. Told Gerard he had to talk to you right away. Gerard rang up a servant, sent him to your room. When he couldn’t rouse you, he came to me. I just sent him back to tell Gerard I’d be bringing you along shortly.”

“I see,” I said, stretching slowly and sitting up. “Get in some place where you can’t be seen, and I’ll come through. I will need a robe or something. I am missing some clothes.”

“It could probably be best if I went back to my rooms, then.”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“A minute, then.”

And silence.

I moved my legs slowly. I sat on the edge of the bed. I gathered up my Trumps and replaced them in their case. I felt it important that I mask my injury back in Amber. Even in normal times one never advertises one’s vulnerability.

I took a deep breath and stood, holding on to the bed frame. My practice had paid off. I breathed normally and relaxed my grip. Not bad, if I moved slowly, if I did not exert myself beyond the barest essentials required for appearances’ sake . . . I might be able to carry it until my strength really returned.

Just then I heard a footfall, and a friendly nurse was framed in the doorway, crisp, symmetrical, differing from a snowflake mainly in that they are all of them alike.

“Get back in that bed, Mr. Corey! You are not supposed to be up!”

“Madam,” I said, “it is quite necessary that I be up. I have to go.”

“You could have rung for a pan,” she said, entering the room and advancing.

I gave my head a weary shake just as Random’s presence reached me once more. I wondered how she would report this one-and if she would mention my prismatic afterimage as I trumped out. Another entry, I suppose, for the growing record of folklore I tend to leave behind.

“Think of it this way, my dear,” I told her. “Ours has been a purely physical relationship all along. There will be others. . . many others. Adieu!”

I bowed and blew her a kiss as I stepped forward into Amber, leaving her to clutch at rainbows as I caught hold of Random’s shoulder and staggered.

“Corwin! What the hell-“

“If blood be the price of admiralty, I’ve just bought me a naval commission,” I said. “Give me something to wear.”

He draped a long, heavy cloak about my shoulders-and I fumbled to clasp it at my throat. “All set,” I said. “Take me to him.”

He led me out the door, into the hall, toward the stair. I leaned on him heavily as we went.

“How bad is it?” he asked me.

“Knife,” I said, and laid my hand on the spot. “Someone attacked me in my room last night.”

“Who?”

“Well, it couldn’t have been you, because I had just left you,” I said, “and Gerard was up in the library with Brand. Subtract the three of you from the rest and start guessing. That is the best-“

“Julian,” he said.

“His stock is definitely bearish,” I said. “Fiona was just running him down for me the other night, and of course it is no secret that he is not my favorite.”

“Corwin, he’s gone. He cut out during the night. The servant who came to get me told me that Julian had departed. What does that look like to you?”

We reached the stair. I kept one hand on Random and rested there briefly.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It can sometimes be just as bad to extend the benefit of the doubt too far as not to grant it at all. But it does occur to me that if he thought he had disposed of me, he would look a lot better by staying here and acting surprised to learn of it than by getting the hell out. That does look suspicious. I am inclined to think he might have departed because he was afraid of what Brand would have to say when he came around.”

“But you lived, Corwin. You got away from whoever attacked you, and he could not be certain he had done you in. If it were me, I would be worlds away by now.”

“There is that,” I acknowledged, and we started on down again. “Yes, you might well be right. Let us leave it academic for now. And no one is to know I have been injured.”

He nodded.

“As you say. Silence beats a chamber pot in Amber.”

“How’s that?”

“ ‘Tis gilt, m’lord, like a royal flush.”

“Your wit pains both wounded and unwounded parts, Random. Spend some figuring how the assailant entered my room.”

“Your panel?”

“It secures from the inside. I keep it that way now. And the door’s lock is a new one. Tricky.”

“All right, I have it. My answer requires that it be a family member, too.”

“Tell me.”

“Someone was willing to psyche himself up and tough it through the Pattern again for a shot at you. He went below, walked it, projected himself into your room, and attacked you.”

“That would be perfect except for one thing. We all left at pretty much the same time. The attack did not occur later on in the evening. It happened immediately on my entering. I do not believe there was sufficient time for one of us to get down to the chamber, let alone negotiate the Pattern. The attacker was already waiting. So if it was one of us, he had gotten in by some other means.”

“Then he picked your lock, tricks and all.”

“Possibly,” I said as we reached the landing and continued on. “We will rest at the comer so that I can go on into the library unassisted.”

“Sure thing.”

We did that. I composed myself, drew the cloak completely about me, squared my shoulders, advanced, and knocked on the door.

“Just a minute.” Gerard’s voice. Footsteps approaching the door ...

“Who is it?”

“Corwin,” I said. “Random’s with me.”

I heard him call back, “You want Random, too?” and I heard a soft “No” in reply.

The door opened.

“Just you. Corwin,” Gerard said.

I nodded and turned to Random.

“Later,” I told him.

He returned my nod and headed back in the direction from which we had come. I entered the library.

“Open your cloak, Corwin,” Gerard ordered.

“That is not necessary,” Brand said, and I looked over and saw that he was propped up by a number of cushions and showing a yellow-toothed smile.

“Sorry, I am not as trusting as Brand,” Gerard said, “and I will not have my work wasted. Let’s have a look.”

“I said that it is not necessary,” Brand repeated. “He is not the one who stabbed me.”

Gerard turned quickly.

“How do you know he isn’t?” he asked.

“Because I know who did, of course. Don’t be an ass, Gerard. I wouldn’t have asked for him if I had reason to fear him.”

“You were unconscious when I brought you through. You couldn’t know who did it.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“Well. . . Why didn’t you tell me, then?”

“I have my reasons, and they are valid ones. I want to speak with Corwin alone now.”

Gerard lowered his head. .

“You had better not be delirious,” he said. He stepped to the door, opened it again. “I’ll be within hailing distance,” he added, and closed it behind him.

I moved nearer. Brand reached up and I clasped his hand.

“Good to see that you made it back,” he said.

“Vice versa,” I said, and then I took Gerard’s chair, trying not to collapse into it.

“How do you feel now?” I asked.

“Rotten, in one sense. But better than I have in years, in another. It’s all relative.”

“Most things are.”

“Not Amber.”

I sighed.

“All right. I wasn’t getting technical. What the hell happened?”

His gaze was most intense. He was studying me, looking for something. What? Knowledge, I’d guess. Or, more correctly, ignorance. Negatives being harder to gauge, his mind had to be moving fast, must have been from the moment he had come around. Knowing him, he was more interested in what I did not know than in what I knew. He wasn’t going to give away anything if he could help it. He wanted to know the minimum enlightenment he need shed in order to get what he wanted. Not a watt more would he willingly spend. For this was his way, and of course he wanted something. Unless . . . More strongly in recent years than ever before I have tried to convince myself that people do change, that the passage of time does not serve merely to accentuate that which is already there, that qualitative changes do sometimes occur in people because of things they have done, seen, thought, and felt. It would provide some small solace in times such as these when everything else seems to be going wrong, not to mention pepping up my mundane philosophy no end. And Brand had probably been responsible for saving my life and my memory, whatever his reasons. Very well, I resolved to give him the doubt’s benefit without exposing my back. A small concession here, my move against the simple psychology of humors which generally governs the openings of our games.