Blood of Amber

Chapter 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 corner 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 flanked 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 — but 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 turned 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, and 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-a-stick 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…

Ten minutes later I had reached the port district and found my way over to Harbor Road, its lack of all but occasional globes supplemented by window spillage, a number of buckets of burning pitch and the glow of the now-risen moon. The smells of salt and sea-wrack were more intense here, the road more cluttered with trash, the passersby more colorfully garbed and noisier than any on the concourse, unless you counted Droppa. I made my way to the rear of the cove, where the sounds of the sea came to me more strongly: the rushing, building advances of waves, then their crashing and splashing out beyond the breakwater; the gentler falls and slopping withdrawals nearer at hand; the creaking of ships, the rattling of chains, the bumping of some smaller vessel at pier or moor post. I wondered where the Starburst, my old sailboat, might be now.

I followed the curve of the road over to the western shore of the harbor. A pair of rats chased a black cat across my path as I wandered briefly, checking several sidestreets for the one I sought. The smells of barf as well as solid and liquid human waste mingled with other odors here, and I heard the cries, crashes and thuds of a struggle from somewhere nearby, leading me to believe that I was in the proper neighborhood. From somewhere distant a buoy bell rattled; from somewhere nearby I heard an almost bored-sounding string of curses preceding a pair of sailors who rounded the nearest corner to my right, reeling, staggered on past me, grinning, and broke into song moments later, receding. I advanced and checked the sign on that corner. SEABREEZE LANE, it read.

That was it, the stretch commonly called Death Alley. I turned there. It was just a street like any other. I didn’t see any corpses or even collapsed drunks for the first fifty paces, though a man in a doorway tried to sell me a dagger and a mustachioed stock character offered to fix me up with something young and tight. I declined both, and learned from the latter that I wasn’t all that far from Bloody Bill’s. I walked on. My occasional glances showed me three dark-cloaked figures far to the rear which, I supposed, could be following me; I had seen them back on Harbor Road too. Also, they might not. In that I was not feeling particularly paranoid, I reflected that they could be anybody going anywhere and decided to ignore them. Nothing happened. They kept to themselves, and when I finally located Bloody Bill’s and entered they passed on by, crossing the street and going into a small bistro a little farther down along the way.

I turned and regarded Bill’s. The bar was to my right, tables to my left, suspicious-looking stains on the floor. A board on the wall suggested I give my order at the bar and say where I was sitting. The day’s catch was chalked beneath this.

So I went over and waited, collecting glances, until a heavy-set man with gray and amazingly shaggy brows came over and asked what I wanted. I told him the blue sea scut and pointed at an empty table to the rear. He nodded and shouted my order back through a hole in the wall, then asked me whether I wanted a bottle of Bayle’s Piss to go with it. I did, he got it for me, and a glass, uncorked it and passed it over. I paid up there, headed back to the table I had chosen and seated myself with my back to the wall.

Oil flames flickered through dirty chimneys in brackets all about the place. Three men — two young, one middle-aged — played cards at the corner table in the front and passed a bottle. An older man sat alone at the table to my left, eating. He had a nasty-looking scar running both above and below his left eye, and there was a long wicked blade about six inches out of its scabbard resting on the chair to his right. He, too, had his back to the wall. Men with musical instruments rested at another table: between numbers, I guessed. I poured some of the yellow wine into my glass and took a sip: a distinctive taste I remembered from across the years. It was okay for quaffing. Baron Bayle owned a number of vineyards about thirty miles to the east. He was the official vintner to the Court, and his red wines were generally excellent. He was less successful with the whites, though, and often wound up dumping a lot of second-rate stuff onto the local market. It bore his emblem and a picture of a dog — he liked dogs so it was sometimes called Dog Piss and sometimes Bayle’s Piss, depending on who you talked to. Dog lovers sometimes take offense at the former appellation.

About the time my food arrived I noticed that two young men near the front of the bar were glancing in my direction more than occasionally, exchanging a few indistinguishable words and laughing and smiling a lot. I ignored them and turned my attention to my meal. A little later the scarred man at the next table said softly, without leaning or looking toward me, his lips barely moving, “Free advice. I think those two guys at the bar noticed you’re not wearing a blade, and they’ve marked you for trouble.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Well… I was not overly concerned about my ability to deal with them, but given a choice I’d rather avoid the occasion entirely. If all that it required was a visible blade, that was easily remedied.

A moment’s meditation and the Logrus danced before me. Shortly thereafter, I was reaching through it in search of the proper weapon neither too long nor too heavy, properly balanced, with a comfortable grip with a wide dark belt and scabbard. It took me close to three minutes, partly because I was so fussy about it, I suppose — but hell, if prudence required one, I wanted comfort and partly because it is harder reaching through Shadow in the vicinity of Amber than it is almost anywhere else.

When it came into my hands I sighed and mopped my brow. Then I brought it up slowly from beneath the table, belt and all, drew it about half a foot from its scabbard, to follow a good example, and placed it on the seat to my right. The two guys at the bar caught the performance and I grinned back at them. They had a quick consultation, and this time they weren’t laughing. I poured myself a fresh glass of wine and drank it off at a single draught. Then I returned to my fish, about which Jordy had been right. The food here was very good.

“Neat trick, that,” the man at the next table said. “I don’t suppose it’s an easy one to learn?”

“Nope.”

“It figures. Most good things aren’t, or everybody’d do ’em. They may still go after you, though, seeing as you’re alone. Depends on how much they drink and how reckless they get. You worried?”

“Nope.”

“Didn’t think so. But they’ll hit someone tonight.”

“How can you tell?”

He looked at me for the first time and grinned a nasty grin. “They’re generic, like wind-up toys. See you around.”

He tossed a coin onto the table, stood, buckled on his sword belt, picked up a dark, feathered hat and headed for the door.

“Take care.” I nodded.

“Night.” As he passed out of the place the two guys began whispering again, this time glancing after him rather than at me. Some decision reached, they rose and departed quickly. For a moment I was tempted to follow, but something restrained me. A little later, I heard the sounds of a scuffle from up the street. Not too long after that, a figure appeared in the doorway, hovered a moment, then fell forward. It was one of the two drinkers. His throat had been cut.

Andy shook his head and dispatched his waiter to inform the local constabulary. Then he took hold of the body by the heels and dragged it outside, so as not to impede the flow of customers.

Later, when I was ordering another fish, I asked Andy about the occurrence. He smiled grimly.

“It is not good to mess with an emissary of the Crown,” he said. “They tend to pick them tough.”

“That guy who was sitting next to me works for Random?”

He studied my face, then nodded. “Old John worked for Oberon, too. Whenever he passes through he eats here.”

“I wonder what sort of mission he was on?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? But he paid me in Kashfan currency, and I know he ain’t from Kashfa.”

As I worked on my second platter I pondered that one. Whatever it was that Random had wanted from Kashfa was probably on its way to the castle right now, unless of course it was unavailable. It would almost have to concern Luke and Jasra. I wondered what it was, and of what benefit it might be.

I sat there for a long while after that, thinking, and the place was a lot less noisy than it had been for most of an hour, even when the musicians began a fresh set. Had it been John the guys had been watching all along, with both of us misinterpreting their gazes as directed toward me? Or had they simply decided to go after the first person who left alone? I realized from these reflections that I was beginning to think like an Amberite again — seeking plots everywhere — and I hadn’t been back all that long.

Something in the atmosphere, I guessed. Probably it was a good thing that my mind was moving along these lines once more, since I was involved in so much already and it seemed an investment in self-preservation.

I finished my glass of wine and left the bottle on the table with a few drinks still in it. It occurred to me that I shouldn’t be fogging my senses any further, all things considered. I rose and buckled on my sword belt.

As I passed the bar Andy nodded. “If you run into anyone from the palace,” he said softly, “you might mention that I didn’t know that was going to happen.”

“You knew them?”

“Yeah. Sailors. Their ship came in a couple of days ago. They’ve been in trouble here before. Blow their pay fast, then look for some more the quick way.”

“Do you think they might be professionals at — removing people?”

“Because of John’s being what he is, you mean? No. They got caught once too often, mainly for being stupid. Sooner or later they were bound to run into someone who knew what he was doing and end up this way. I don’t know anyone who’d hire them for something serious.”

“Oh, he got the other one too?”

“Yep. Up the street a way. So you might mention that they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

I stared at him and he winked.

“I saw you down here with Gerard, several years ago. I make it a point never to forget a face that might be worth remembering.”

I nodded. “Thanks. You serve a good meal.”

Outside, it was cooler than it had been earlier. The moon hung higher and the sea was noisier. The street was deserted in my immediate vicinity. Loud music poured from one of the places back toward Harbor Street, with accompanying sounds of laughter. I glanced within as I passed it and saw where a tired-looking woman on a small stage appeared to be giving herself a gynecological examination. From somewhere nearby I heard a sound of breaking glass. A drunk reeled toward me from between two buildings, one hand outstretched. I walked on. The wind sighed amid masts in the harbor, and I found myself wishing Luke were at my sidelike in the old days, before things got complicated — someone of my own age and cast of mind to talk to. All my relatives here had too many centuries of cynicism or wisdom for us to see things and feel them in much the same way.

Ten paces later, Frakir pulsed wildly upon my wrist. In that there was no one anywhere near me at that moment, I did not even draw my new blade. I threw myself flat, then rolled toward the shadows to my right. Simultaneous with this, I heard a thunk from the side of the building across the street. The first glance I could spare in that direction showed me an arrow protruding from a wall, its height and position such that had I not taken the dive it might well have hit me. Its angle also indicated that I had just cast myself in the direction from which it had been discharged.

I raised myself enough to draw my blade and looked to my right. There were no opened windows or doors in the immediately adjacent building, a darkened place, its front wall only about six feet away now. But there was a gap between it and the buildings on either side, and geometry told me that the arrow had come from the open area ahead of me.

I rolled again, bringing myself up beside the low, roofed porch which ran the full width of the place. I scrambled up onto it before I rose fully. Staying near the wall I advanced, cursing the slowness silence demanded. I was almost near enough to the opening to be able to rush any archer who might step out, before he could release another arrow. The possibility of his circling and catching me from behind did pass through my mind, though, and I flattened myself against the wall, blade extended forward, and cast quick glances behind as I moved. Frakir writhed into my left hand and hung ready.

If I reached the corner and no one emerged I was uncertain what I would do next. The situation seemed to demand a magical offensive. But unless the spells were already hung — and I’d been remiss in this — one can seldom spare the attention it requires in life-and-death situations. I halted. I controlled my breathing. I listened…

He was being careful, but I heard faint sounds of movement from the roof, coming forward. But this did not preclude another, or even several, being around the corner. I had no idea how many persons might be involved in this ambush, though it was beginning to strike me as a little too sophisticated for a simple robbery. In such a case, I doubted there would be only one. And their forces might be split several ways. I held my position, my mind racing. When the attack came, it would be concerted, I was certain of that. I imagined an archer around the corner, arrow pocked, waiting for a signal. The one on the roof would most likely have a blade. I guessed at blades for any others, too…

I pushed aside any questions as to who might be after me and how they had located me here — if it were indeed me, personally, whom they were after. Such considerations made no difference at this point. I would be just as dead were they random thugs seeking my purse as I would be if they were assassins, should they succeed in the present enterprise.

Again. A sound from above. Someone was directly overhead. Any moment now…

With a shuffling noise and a great cry a man leaped from the roof to the street before me. His shout was apparently the signal to the archer, also, for there was immediate movement at the corner of the building, accompanied by the sounds of rapid footfalls from the building’s other corner, to my rear.

Before his feet even struck the ground I had cast Frakir at the man from the roof with a command to kill. And I was rushing the archer before he had even rounded the corner completely, my blade already swinging. My cut passed through his bow, his arm and his lower abdomen. On the minus side, there was a man with a drawn blade right behind him and someone was running toward me along the porch.

I placed my left foot upon the folding archer’s chest and propelled him backward into the man behind him. I used the recoiling momentum from the push to spin, my blade sweeping through a wide, wild pang, which I had to adjust immediately to stop a head cut from the man who had crossed the porch. As I riposted to his chest and had my own cut parried I became peripherally aware of the one from the roof kneeling now in the street and tearing at his throat, in evidence that Frakir was doing her job.

The man somewhere to my rear made my back feel very exposed. I had to do something fast or his blade would be in me within seconds. So… Rather than riposting, I pretended to stumble, actually gathering my weight, positioning myself.

He lunged, cutting downward. I sprang to the side and thrust with a twisting movement of my body. If he were able to adjust the angle of that cut as I moved I would feel it in seconds. Dangerous, but I couldn’t see any other choice.

Even as my blade entered his chest I did not know whether he had connected with me. Not that it mattered now. Either he had or he hadn’t. I had to keep moving until I stopped or was stopped.

I used my blade like a lever, turning him as I continued my counterclockwise movement, him at its center, hoping to position him between that fourth man and myself.

The maneuver was partly successful. It was too late to interpose my skewered and sagging adversary fully, but in time at least to cause a small collision between him and the other. Time enough, I hoped, as the other stumbled to the side, stepping down from the porch. All I needed do now was wrench my blade free, and it would be one-on-one.

I yanked at it…

Damn, damn, damn. The thing was wedged into bone and wouldn’t come free. And the other man had regained his footing. I kept turning the body to keep it between us while with my left hand I tried to free my most recent adversary’s own blade from his still-clenched right fist.

Ditto the damns. It was locked in a death grip, his lingers like metal cables about the haft.

The man in the street gave me a nasty smile while moving his blade about, looking for an opening. It was then that I caught the flash of the blue-stone ring he wore, answering my question as to whether it was me in particular who had been sought, here, tonight.

I bent my knees as I moved and positioned my hands low upon the dead man’s body.

Situations such as this are, for me, sometimes videotaped into memory — a total absence of conscious thought and a great mass of instant perceptions — timeless, yet only subject to serial review when the mind indulges in later replay.

There were cries from various places along the street, from within and without. I could hear people rushing in my direction. There was blood on the boards all around me, and I recall cautioning myself not to slip on it. I could see the archer and his bow, both of them broken, on the ground past the far edge of the porch. The garroted swordsman was sprawled in the street, off to the right of the man who menaced me now. The body I steered and positioned had become dead weight. To my small relief I saw that no more attackers had emerged from anywhere to join the final man I faced. And that man was sidestepping and feinting, getting ready to make his rush.

Okay. Time.

I propelled the corpse toward my attacker with all my strength and did not wait to observe the result of my action. The risk I was about to take granted me no time for such indulgence.

I dove into the street and did a shoulder roll past the supine figure, who had dropped his blade in trying to use his hands against Frakir. As I moved I heard the sound of some impact followed by a grunt from above and somewhere to the rear, indicating that I had been at least partly on target when I’d pushed the dead man toward the other. How effectively this would serve me still remained to be seen.

My right hand snaked out as I went by, catching the hilt of the fallen man’s blade. I rolled to my feet, facing back in the direction from which I had come, extending the blade, crossing my legs and springing backward…

Barely in time. He was upon me with a strong series of attacks, and I backed away fast, parrying wildly. He was still smiling, but my first riposte slowed his advance and my second one stopped it.

I settled and stood my ground. He was strong, but I could see that I was faster. There were people near at hand now, watching us. A few shouts of useless advice reached me. To which of us it was directed, I could not say. It didn’t matter, though. He stood for a few moments as I began to press my attack, and then he began to give ground, slowly, and I was sure that I could take him.

I wanted him alive, though, which would make things a little more difficult. That blue-stoned ring flashing and retreating before me held a mystery to which he had the answer, and I needed that answer. Therefore, I had to keep pressing him, to wear him down…

I tried turning him, a little at a time, as subtly as I could. I was hoping to press him into stumbling over the dead man to his rear. It almost worked, too.

When his rear foot fell upon the arm of the sprawled man, he shifted his weight forward to maintain his balance. In one of those instants of inspiration on which one must act immediately without thinking, he turned this movement into a rush, seeing that my blade was out of line in preparation for the heavy rush I was about to give him as he stumbled. Wrong of me to have anticipated that much, I guess.

He beat my blade cross-body with a heavy swing, throwing his own weapon way out of line also and bringing us corps à corps, with him turning in the same direction I was facing and unfortunately providing him with the opportunity to drive his left fist into my right kidney with the full force of his momentum.

Immediately, his left foot shot out to trip me, and the impact of the blow as we came together showed me that he was going to succeed. The best thing I could manage was to catch hold of my cloak with my left hand, spinning it out and dragging it back, entangling both our blades as we fell, while I tried hard to turn on the way down, so as to land on top of him. I did not succeed in falling upon him. We came down side by side, still facing each other, and the guard of someone’s blade — my own, I think — hit me hard in the ribs on my left side.

My right hand was caught beneath me and my left was still tangled in my cloak. His left was free, though, and high. He clawed at my face with it, and I bit his hand but couldn’t hold it. In the meantime, I finally managed to drag my own left hand free and I thrust it into his face. He turned his head away, tried to knee me and hit my hip, then thrust stiff fingers toward my eyes. I caught his wrist and held it. Both of our right hands were still pinned and our weights seemed about equal. So all that I had to do was squeeze.

The bones of his wrist crunched within my grip, and for the first time he cried out. Then I simply pushed him away, rolled into a kneeling position and started to rise, dragging him up along with me. End of the game. I had won.

He slumped suddenly against me. For a moment, I thought it a final trick, and then I saw the blade protruding from his back, the hand of the grim-faced man who had put it there already tightening to pull it out again.

“You son of a bitch!” I cried in English — though I’m sure the meaning came through — and I dropped my burden and drove my fist into the stranger’s face, knocking him over backward, his blade remaining in place. “I needed him!”

I caught hold of my former adversary and raised him into the most comfortable position I could manage.

“Who sent you?” I asked him. “How did you find me?”

He grinned weakly and dribbled blood. “No freebies here,” he said. “Ask somebody else,” and he slumped forward and got blood on my shirtfront.

I drew the ring from his finger and added it to my collection of goddamned blue stones. Then I rose and glared at the man who had stabbed him. Two other figures were helping him to his feet.

“Just what the hell did you do that for?” I asked, advancing upon them.

“I saved your damn life,” the man growled.

“The hell you did! You might have just cost me it! I needed that man alive!”

Then the figure to his left spoke, and I recognized the voice. She placed her hand lightly upon the arm I did not even realize I had raised to strike the man again.

“He did it on my orders,” she said. “I feared for your life, and I did not understand that you wanted him prisoner.”

I stared at her pale proud features within the dark cloak’s raised cowl. It was Vinta Bayle, Caine’s lady, whom I had last seen at the funeral. She was also the third daughter of the Baron Bayle, to whom Amber owed many a bibulous night.

I realized that I was shaking slightly. I drew a deep breath and caught control of myself.

“I see,” I said at last. “Thank you.”

“I am sorry,” she told me.

I shook my head. “You didn’t know. What’s done is done. I’m grateful to anybody who tries to help me.”

“I can still help you,” she said. “I might have misread this one, but I believe you may still be in danger. Let’s get away from here.”

I nodded. “A moment, please.”

I went and retrieved Frakir from about the neck of the other dead man. She disappeared quickly into my left sleeve. The blade I had been using fit my scabbard after a fashion, so I pushed it home and adjusted the belt, which had pulled around toward the rear.

“Let’s go,” I said to her.

The four of us strode back toward Harbor Street. Interested bystanders got out of our way quickly. Someone was probably already robbing the dead behind us. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. But what the hell, it’s home.