Prince of Chaos

Chapter 9

Down, down into the pile, into the great slag heap, window onto the ends of time and space, where nothing is to be seen at the end, I went, between walls forever afire, never burnt down, walking in one of my bodies toward the sound of a voice reading from the Book of the Serpent Hung upon the Tree of Matter, and at length came into the grotto that backed upon blackness, widening semicircles of red-clad mourners facing the reader and the grand catafalque beside which he stood, Swayvill clearly in view within it, half-covered with red flowers dropped by mourners, red tapers flickering against the Pit, but a few paces behind them; across the rear of the chamber then, listening to Bances of Amblerash, High Priest of the Serpent, his words sounding as if spoken beside me, for the acoustics of Chaos are good; finding a seat in an otherwise empty arc, where anyone looking back would be certain to notice me; seeking familiar faces, finding Dara, Tubble, and Mandor seated in frontal positions that indicated they were to assist Bances in sliding the casket past the edge into forever when the time came; and in my divided heart I recalled the last funeral I had attended before this: Caine’s, back in Amber, beside the sea, and I thought again of Bloom and the way the mind wanders on these occasions.

I sought about me. Jurt was nowhere in sight. Gilva of Hendrake was only a couple of rows below me. I shifted my gaze to the deep blackness beyond the Rim. It was almost as if I were looking down, rather than out — if such terms had any real meaning in that place. Occasionally, I would perceive darting points of light or rolling masses. It served me as a kind of Rorschach for a time, and I half-dozed before the prospect of dark butterflies, clouds, pairs of faces —

I sat upright with a small start, wondering what had broken my reverie.

The silence, it was. Bances had stopped reading.

I was about to lean forward and whisper something to Gilva when Bances began the Consignment. I was startled to discover that I recalled all of the appropriate responses.

As the chanting swelled and focused, I saw Mandor get to his feet, and Dara, and Tubble. They moved forward, joining Bances about the casket — Dara and Mandor at its foot, Tubble and Bances at its head. Service assistants rose from their section and began snuffing candles, until only the large one, at the Rim, behind Bances, still flickered. At this point we all stood.

The ever-eerie light of flame mosaics, worked into the walls at either hand, granted additional illumination to the extent that I could detect the movement below when the chanting ceased.

The four figures stooped slightly, presumably taking hold of the casket’s handles. They straightened then and moved toward the Rim. An assistant advanced and stood beside the candle just as they passed it, ready to snuff the final flame as Swayvill’s remains were consigned to Chaos.

A half dozen paces remained… Three. Two… Bances and Tubble knelt at the verge, positioning the casket within a groove in the stone floor, Bances intoning a final bit of ritual the while, Dara and Mandor remaining standing.

The prayer finished, I heard a curse. Mandor seemed jerked forward. Dara stumbled away to the side. I heard a clank as the casket hit the floor. The assistant’s hand had already been moving, and the candle went out at that moment. There followed a skidding sound as the casket moved forward, more curses, a shadowy figure retreating from the Rim…

Then came a wail. A bulky outline fell and was gone. The wail diminished, diminished, diminished…

I raised my left fist, caused the spikard to create a globe of white light as a bubble pipe does a bubble. It was about three feet in diameter when I released it to drift overhead. Suddenly, the place was filled with babbling. Others of sorcerous background having exercised their favorite illumination spells at about the same time I had, the temple was now over-illuminated from dozens of point-sources.

Squinting, I saw Bances, Mandor, and Dara in converse near the Rim. Tubble and the remains of Swayvill were no longer with us.

My fellow mourners were already moving. I did, too, realizing that my time here was now extremely limited. I stepped down over the empty row, moved to the right, touched Gilva’s still humanized shoulder.

“Merlin!” she said, turning quickly. “Tubble — went over — didn’t he?”

“Sure looked that way,” I said.

“What will happen now?”

“I’ve got to leave,” I said, “fast!”

“Why?”

“Somebody’s going to start thinking about the succession in a few moments, and I’m going to be smothered with protection,” I told her. “I can’t have that, not just now.”

“Why not?”

“No time to go into that. But I’d wanted to talk to you. May I borrow you now?”

There were milling bodies all about us.

“Of course — sir,” she said, apparently having just thought about the succession.

“Cut that out,” I said, spikard spiraling the energies that caught us and took us away.

I brought us to the forest of metal trees, and Gilva kept hold of my arm and looked about her.

“Lord, what is this place?” she asked.

“I’d rather not say,” I replied, “for reasons that will become apparent in a moment. I only had one question for you the last time I spoke with you. But now I have two, and this place figures in one of them, in a way, besides being fairly deserted most of the time.”

“Ask,” she said, moving to face me. “I’ll try to help. If it’s important, though, I may not be the best person —”

“Yes, it’s important. But I haven’t time to make an appointment with Belissa. It concerns my father, Corwin.”

“Yes?”

“It was he who slew Borel of Hendrake in the war at Patternfall.”

“So I understand,” she said.

“After the war, he joined the royal party that came here to the Courts to work out the Treaty.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know that.”

“He disappeared shortly thereafter, and no one seemed to know where he’d gotten off to. For a time, I thought he might be dead. Later, however, I received indications that he was not, but rather was imprisoned somewhere. Can you tell me anything about this?”

She turned away suddenly.

“I am offended,” she said, “by what I believe you imply.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I had to ask.”

“Ours is an honorable House,” she said. “We accept the fortunes of war. When the fighting is ended, we put it all behind us.”

“I apologize,” I said. “We’re even related, you know, on my mother’s side.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, turning away. “Will that be all, Prince Merlin?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Where shall I send you?”

She was silent for a moment, then, “You said there were two questions,” she stated.

“Forget it. I changed my mind about the second one.”

She turned back.

“Why? Why should I forget it? Because I maintain my family’s honor?”

“No, because I believe you.”

“And?”

“I’ll trouble someone else for an opinion.”

“Do you mean it’s dangerous, and you’ve decided against asking me?”

“I don’t understand it, so it could be dangerous.”

“Do you want to offend me again?”

“Heaven forbid!”

“Ask me your question.”

“I’ll have to show you.”

“Do it.”

“Even if it means climbing a tree?”

“Whatever it means.”

“Follow me.”

So I led her to the tree and climbed it, an enormously simple feat in my present form. She was right behind me.

“There’s a way up here,” I said. “I’m about to let it take me. Give me a few seconds to move aside.”

I moved a little farther upward and was transported. Stepping aside, I surveyed the chapel quickly. Nothing seemed changed.

Then Gilva was at my side. I heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Oh, my!” she said.

“I know what I’m looking at,” I said, “but I don’t know what I’m seeing, if you follow me.”

“It is a shrine,” she said, “dedicated to the spirit of a member of the royal house of Amber.”

“Yes, it’s my father Corwin,” I agreed. “That’s what I’m looking at. But what am I seeing? Why should there be such a thing here in the Courts, anyway?”

She moved forward slowly, studying Dad’s altar.

“I might as well tell you,” I added, “that this is not the only such shrine I’ve seen since my return.”

She reached out and touched the hilt of Grayswandir. Searching beneath the altar, she found a supply of candles. Removing a silver one and screwing it into the socket of one of a number of holders, she lit it from one of the others and placed it near Grayswandir. She muttered something while she was about it, but I did not make out the words.

When she turned back to me again she was smiling. “We both grew up here,” I said. “How is it that you seem to know all about this when I don’t?”

“The answer is fairly simple, Lord,” she told me. “You departed right after the war, to seek an education in other lands. This is a sign of something that came to pass in your absence.”

She reached out, took hold of my arm, led me to a bench.

“Nobody thought we would actually lose that war,” she said, “though it had long been argued that Amber would be a formidable adversary.” We seated ourselves. “Afterward, there was considerable unrest,” she continued, “over the policies that had led to it and the treaty that followed it. No single house or grouping could hope for a deposition against the royal coalition, though. You know the conservatism of the Rim Lords. It would take much, much more to unite a majority against the Crown. Instead, their discontent took another form. There grew up a brisk trade in Amber memorabilia from the war. People became fascinated by our conquerors. Biographical studies of Amber’s royal family sold very well. Something like a cult began to take shape. Private chapels such as this began to appear, dedicated to a particular Amberite whose virtues appealed to someone.”

She paused, studying my face.

“It smacked too much of a religion,” she went on then, “and for time out of mind the Way of the Serpent had been the only significant religion in the Courts. So Swayvill outlawed the Amber cult as heretical, for obvious political reasons. That proved a mistake. Had he done nothing it might have passed quickly. I don’t really know, of course. But outlawing it drove it underground, made people take it more seriously as a rebellious thing. I’ve no idea how many cult chapels there are among the Houses, but that’s obviously what this is.”

“Fascinating sociological phenomenon,” I said, “and your cult figure is Benedict.”

She laughed.

“That wouldn’t have been hard to guess,” she said.

“Actually, I had the chapel described to me by my brother Mandor. He claimed to have wandered into it at a party at Hendrake, not knowing what it was.”

She chuckled.

“He must have been testing you,” she said. “The practice has been common knowledge for a long while. And I happen to know he’s a cultist himself.”

“Really? How do you know this?”

“He made no secret of it in the old days, before the general proscription.”

“And who might his personal patron be?” I said.

“The Princess Fiona,” she replied.

Curiouser and curiouser…

“You’ve actually seen his chapel to her?” I asked.

“Yes. Before the ban it was not uncommon to have your friends over for a service whenever you were feeling particularly disgruntled with royal policy.”

“And after the ban?”

“Everyone claimed publicly that their shrines had been destroyed. Many were simply relocated, I think, up hidden ways.”

“And the business of having friends over for services?”

“I’d guess it would depend on how good a friend you’re talking about. I don’t really know how organized the Amber cult is.” She gestured widely. “A place like this is illegal, though. Good thing I don’t know where we are.”

“I guess so,” I said. “What about the relationship between the cult figure and the real thing? I’d say that Mandor really does have a thing about Fiona. He’s met her, you know, and I’ve been present and seen it. Someone else I know stole something belonging to his — patron? — and keeps it in his shrine. And that” — I rose, crossed the altar, and picked up Corwin’s sword — is the real thing. I’d seen Grayswandir close-up, touched it, held it. This is it. But what I’m getting at is that my father is missing, and the last time I saw him he was wearing that blade. Would it be in keeping with the tenets of this cult to keep your patron prisoner?”

“I never heard of such a thing,” she said. “But I don’t see why not. It is really the spirit of the person that is being venerated. There is no reason the person could not be imprisoned.”

“Or dead?”

“Or dead,” she agreed.

“Then fascinating as all this is,” I said, turning away from the altar, “it doesn’t really help me to find my father.”

I moved back to her, across what must have been a representation of Amber, stylized as the pattern on a Caucasian rug, there in the dark and light tile, the Chaotic one far off to my right.

“You would have to ask the person responsible for his blade’s being there,” she said, rising.

“I already asked the person I believed responsible. The response was not satisfactory.”

I took her arm to steer her back toward the way to the tree, and she was suddenly standing very close.

“I would like to serve our next king any way I might,” she said. “Though I may not normally speak for our House, I am certain Hendrake would agree to help you bring pressure upon the person responsible.”

“Thanks,” I said as we embraced. Her scales were cool. Her fangs would have shredded my human ear, but it was only a nibble in demonform. “I will talk to you again if I need help along those lines.”

“Talk to me again, anyway.”

It was good to hold and be held for a time, and that is what we did, till I saw a shadow move in the vicinity of the way.

“Masster Merlin.”

“Glait!”

“Yess. I ssaw you come thiss way. Manform, demonform, grown or ssmall, I know you.”

“Merlin, what is it?” Gilva asked.

“An old friend,” I told her. “Glait, meet Gilva. And vice versa.”

“Pleassed. I came to warn you that ssomeone approachess.”

“Who?”

“Princess Dara.”

“Oh, dear!” Gilva remarked.

“You suspect where we are,” I said to her. “Keep it to yourself.”

“I value my head, Lord. What do we do now?”

“Glait, to me,” I said, kneeling and extending an arm. She flowed up it and made herself comfortable. I rose and caught hold of Gilva with the other. I sent my will into the spikard.

Then I hesitated.

I didn’t know where the hell we were — really, physically, in terms of geography. A way can deliver you next door, or somewhere thousands of miles distant from its point of origin, or somewhere off in Shadow. It would take a while to have the spikard figure where we were and then work out the way back, if we were going to bypass the way. Too long, I was certain.

I could simply use it to render us invisible. But I feared my mother’s sorcerous sensitivity would be sufficient to detect our presence at levels beyond the visual.

I faced the nearest wall and extended my senses past it on a line of the spikard’s force. We were not underwater or drifting on a sea of lava or quicksand. We seemed to be in a wooded spot.

So I walked toward the wall and passed us through it when we got there.

Several paces later, in the midst of a shaded glade, I looked back and beheld a grassy hillside, with no singing coming from beneath it. We stood under a blue sky, orange sun nearing its top. There were bird and insect sounds about us.

“Marrow!” Glait exclaimed, unwound herself from my arm and vanished into the grasses.

“Don’t stay away long!” I hissed, trying to keep my voice low; and I led Gilva away from the hill.

“Merlin,” she said, “I’m frightened at what I’ve learned.”

“I won’t tell anyone if you won’t,” I said. “If you’d like, I can even remove these memories before I send you back to the funeral.”

“No, let me keep them. I can even wish there were more.”

“I’ll figure our location and get you back before you’re missed.”

“I’ll wait with you while your friend hunts.”

I half expected her to continue, “…in case I never see you again,” what with the near skateboarding of Tmer and Tubble off this ever-mortal helix. But no, she was a demure and well-bred battle-maid — with over thirty notches on the haft of her broadsword, I later learned — and she was above stating the distasteful obvious in the presence of her possible future liege.

When Glait returned after an appropriate time, I said, “Thanks, Gilva. I’m going to send you back to the funeral now. If anyone saw us together and wants to know where I am, tell them I said I was going into hiding.”

“If you do need a place to hide…”

“Talk to you sometime later perhaps,” I said, and I sent her back to the temple at the edge of everything.

“Good vermin,” Glait remarked, as I commenced my shift humanward. (It’s always easier that way for me than the demon-shift.)

“I’d like to send you back to Sawall’s sculpture garden,” I said.

“Why there, Masster Merlin?”

“To wait for a time, to see whether you behold a sentient circle of light. And if you do, to address it as Ghostwheel and tell it to come to me.”

“Where shall I tell it to sseek you?”

“That I do not know, but it is good at that sort of thing.”

“Then ssend me. And if you are not eaten by ssomething bigger, come tell me your sstory one night.”

“I shall.”

It was the work of but a moment to hang the serpent back in her tree. I’ve never been sure when she’s joking, reptilian humor being more than a little strange.

I summoned fresh garments and garbed myself in gray and purple. Fetched me blades long and short then, also. I wondered what my mother might have been up to in her chapel, but decided against trying to spy on her. I raised the spikard and regarded it for a moment, then lowered it. It seemed possibly counterproductive to transport myself to Kashfa when I was uncertain how much time had passed and whether Luke was actually still there. I took out my Trumps, which I had had along in my mourning garb, uncased them.

I located Luke’s, focused upon it. Before too long it went cold and I felt Luke’s presence.

“Yes?” he said.

“That you, Merle?” at about the same time as his image swam and altered, causing me to see him mounted and riding through a part-blasted, part-normal countryside.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I gather you’re no longer in Kashfa.”

“Right,” he said. “Where’re you?”

“Somewhere in Shadow. How’s about yourself?”

“Damned if I know for sure,” he responded. “We’ve been following this black path for days — and I can only say ‘somewhere in Shadow,’ too.”

“Oh, you located it?”

“Nayda did. I didn’t see anything, but she just led me on. Eventually, the trail got clear to me. Hell of a tracker, that gal.”

“She’s with you now?”

“That’s right. She says we’re gaining on them, too.”

“Better bring me through then.”

“Come ahead.”

He extended a hand. I reached forward, clasped it, took a step, released his hand, began walking beside him, a pack horse to the rear.

“Hi, Nayda!” I called, to where she rode at his other side. A grim figure was mounted upon a black horse ahead and to her right.

She smiled.

“Merlin,” she said. “Hello.”

“How about Merle?” I said.

“If you wish.”

The figure on the dark horse turned and regarded me.

I halted a death strike that ran from reflex to the spikard so fast that it scared me. The air between us was smudged and filled with a screeching note, as of a car grabbing pavement to avert collision.

He was a big, blond-haired son of a bitch, and he had on a yellow shirt and black trousers, black boots, lots of cutlery. The medallion of the Lion rending the Unicorn bounced upon his broad chest. Every time I’d seen or heard of the man, he’d been about something nasty, damn near killing Luke on one occasion. He was a mercenary, a Robin Hood figure out of Eregnor, and a sworn enemy of Amber — illegitimate son of her late liege Oberon. I believed there was a price on his head within the Golden Circle. On the other hand, he and Luke had been buddies for years, and Luke swore he wasn’t all that bad. He was my uncle Dalt, and I’d a feeling that if he moved too quickly the flexing of his muscles would shred his shirt.

“…And you remember my military adviser, Dalt,” Luke said.

“I remember,” I stated.

Dalt stared at the black lines in the air that faded, smokelike, between us. He actually smiled then, a little.

“Merlin,” he said, “son of Amber, Prince of Chaos, the man who dug my grave.”

“What’s this?” Luke asked.

“A little conversational gambit,” I replied. “You’ve a good memory, Dalt — for faces.”

He chuckled.

“Hard to forget something like a grave opening itself,” he said. “But I’ve no quarrel with you, Merlin.”

“Nor I you — now,” I said.

He grunted then and I grunted back and considered us introduced. I turned back toward Luke.

“Is the path itself giving you any trouble?” I asked.

“No,” he replied. “It’s nothing at all like those stories I’d heard about the Black Road. It looks a little bleak at times, but nothing’s really threatened us.” He glanced downward and chuckled. “Of course it’s only a few yards wide,” he added, “and this is the broadest it’s been, so far.”

“Still,” I said, opening my senses and studying its emanations with my Logrus sight, “I’d think something might have threatened.”

“I guess we’ve been lucky,” he said.

Again, Nayda laughed, and I felt foolish. The presence of a ty’iga would count as surely as my own in offsetting the dire effects of a Chaos roadway in the realm of Order.

“Guess you had a little luck coming,” I said.

“You’re going to need a horse, Merle,” he said then.

“I suppose you’re right,” I agreed.

I was afraid to use Logrus magic and call attention to my location. Still, I had already learned that the spikard could be used in a similar fashion, and I entered it with my will, extended, extended, made contact, summoned…

“It’ll be along any minute,” I said. “Did you say something about our gaining on them?”

“That’s what Nayda tells me,” he explained. “She has an amazing rapport with her sister — not to mention a high sensitivity to this pathway itself.

“Knows a lot about demons, too,” he added.

“Oh, are we likely to encounter any?” I asked her.

“It was demonformed warriors from the Courts who abducted Coral,” she said. “They seem headed toward a tower up ahead.”

“How far ahead?” I asked.

“Hard to say, since we’re cutting through Shadow,” she answered.

The trail, which consisted of blackened grasses and which produced the same effect on any tree or shrub that so much as overhung it, wound its way through a hilly area now; and as I stepped onto and off of it I noted that it seemed brighter and warmer each time I departed. It had reached this point now after having been virtually undetectable in the vicinity of Kashfa — an index of how far we were into the realm of the Logrus.

A little past the next bending of the trail, I heard a whinny from off to the right.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Delivery time,” and I departed the trail and entered a grove of oval-leafed trees.

Snorting and stamping sounds reached me from ahead, and I followed them down shaded ways.

“Wait up!” Luke called. “We shouldn’t separate.”

But the wood was fairly dense, not at all easy going for someone on horseback, so I hollered back, “Don’t worry!” and plunged ahead.

… And that, of course, was why he was there.

Fully saddled and bridled, his reins tangled in the dense foliage, he was cursing in horse-talk, shaking his head from side to side, pawing at the earth. I halted stared.

I may have given the impression that I would rather pull on a pair of Adidas and jog through Shadow than plunge through on the back of a beast driven half-mad by the changes going on about it. Or ride a bicycle. Or hop through on a pogo stick.

Nor would this impression be incorrect. It is not that I don’t know how to drive the things. It is just that I’d never been particularly fond of them. Admitted, I never had the use of one of those wonder horses, such as Julian’s Morgenstern, Dad’s Star, or Benedict’s Glemdenning, which stood to mortal horses in terms of life span, strength, and endurance as did Amberites to the inhabitants of most shadows.

I looked all about, but could detect no injured rider…

“Merlin!” I heard Luke call, but my attention was nearer at hand. I advanced slowly, not wanting to upset him further. “Are you all right?”

I had simply put in an order for a horse. Any old hay burner would have served, for purposes of keeping up with my companions.

I found myself looking at an absolutely lovely animal — black and orange — striped like a tiger. In this, he resembled Glemdenning with his red and black striping. In that I didn’t know where Benedict’s mount came from either, I was glad to let it be the place of magic.

I advanced slowly.

“Merle! Anything wrong?”

I didn’t want to shout back a reply and frighten the poor beast. I placed my hand gently upon his neck.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I like you. I’ll undo it and we’ll be friends, all right?”

I took my time untangling the reins, using my other hand to massage his neck and shoulders. When he was free he did not pull away, but seemed to study me.

“Come on,” I said, taking up the reins, “this way.”

I led him back the way I had come, talking the while. I realized by the time we emerged that I actually liked him. I met Luke about then, a blade in his hand.

“My God!” he said. “No wonder it took you so long! You stopped to paint it!”

“You like, huh?”

“You ever want to get rid of that one, I’ll make you a good offer.”

“I don’t think I’ll be getting rid of him,” I said.

“What’s his name?”

“Tiger,” I said without premeditation, and then I mounted.

We headed back to the trail, where even Dalt eyed my mount with something like pleasure. Nayda reached out and stroked the black and orange mane.

“Now we may be able to make it in time,” she said, “if we hurry.”

I mounted, and I guided Tiger over onto the trail. I anticipated all manner of reactions to the trail, as I recalled from my father’s story the possibly intimidating effects of the thing upon animals. It didn’t seem to bother him, though, and I released the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“In time for what?” I asked as we found a formation — Luke in the lead, Dalt behind him and to the right, Nayda to the left of the trail, rear, me to her right and somewhat back.

“I cannot tell for certain,” she said, “because she is still sedated. However, I do know that she is no longer being moved; and I have the impression that her abductors have taken refuge in the tower, where the trail is much wider.”

“Hm,” I said. “You wouldn’t have happened to notice the rate of change in width per unit of distance traveled on this trail, would you?”

“I was in liberal arts,” she said, smiling. “Remember.”

She turned suddenly then, glancing in Luke’s direction. He was still an entire horse’s length ahead, eyes front — though he had looked back moments before.

“Damn you!” she said softly. “Being with you both this way gets me to thinking about school. Then I start talking that way —”

“In English,” I said.

“Did I say that in English?”

“Yes.”

“Shit! Help me if you catch me at it, will you?”

“Of course,” I said. “It seems to show you’d enjoyed it somewhat, despite its being a job Dara’d laid on you. And you’re probably the only ty’iga with a degree from Berkeley.”

“Yes, I enjoyed it — confused as I was over which of you was which. Those were the happiest days in my life, with you and Luke, back in school. For years I tried to learn your mothers’ names so I’d know who I was supposed to be protecting. You were both so cagey, though.”

“It’s in the genes, I guess,” I observed. “I enjoyed your company as Vinta Bayle — appreciated your protection as others, too.”

“I suffered,” she said, “when Luke began his yearly attempts on your life. If he were the son of Dara I was supposed to protect, it shouldn’t have mattered. But it did. I was already very fond of both of you. All I could tell was that you were both of the blood of Amber. I didn’t want either of you harmed. The hardest thing was when you went away, and I was sure Luke had lured you into the mountains of New Mexico to kill you. By then, I suspected very strongly that you were the one, but I was not certain. I was in love with Luke, I had taken over the body of Dan Martinez, and I was carrying a pistol. I followed you everywhere I could, knowing that if he tried to harm you the geas I was under would force me to shoot the man I loved.”

“You shot first, though. We were just standing talking, by the side of the road. He shot back in selfdefense.”

“I know. But everything seemed to indicate that you were in peril. He’d taken you to a perfect spot for an execution, at an ideal time —”

“No,” I said. “Your shot went wide, and you left yourself open for what followed.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“You solved the problem of possibly having to shoot Luke by setting up a situation where he shot you.”

“I couldn’t do that, under a geas.”

“Maybe not consciously,” I said. “So something stronger than the geas found a way.”

“You really believe that?”

“Yes, and it’s all right for you to admit it now. You’re released from the geas. My mother told me. You told me — I think.”

She nodded. “I don’t know exactly when it came undone, or how,” she said. “But it’s gone — though I’d still try to protect you if something threatened. It’s good that you and Luke are really friends, and —”

“So why the secret?” I interrupted. “Why not just tell him you were Gail? Surprise the hell out of him pleasantly.”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “He broke up with me, remember? Now I’ve another chance. It’s like it was, all over again. He — likes me a lot. I’m afraid to say, ‘I’m really the girl you once broke up with.’ It might get him to thinking of all the reasons why, and make him decide he was right the first time.”

“That’s silly,” I said. “I don’t know what reasons he gave. He never told me about it. Just said there’d been an argument. But I’m sure they were specious. I know he liked you. I’m sure he really broke up with you because he was a son of Amber about to come home on some very nasty business, and there was no room for what he thought was a normal shadow girl in the picture. You’d played your part too well.”

“Is that why you broke up with Julia?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Sorry.”

I noticed the black trail had widened about a foot since we’d begun talking. I was in the market for a mathematical problem just then.