The gate to the fence was closed and flanked by two guards. Several paces beyond it was a removable wooden bridge, reinforced with metal strapping, in place across the ditch. There were large eye bolts at its corners, and there was a winch built into the wall above the gate; the winch bore four chains terminating in hooks. I wondered how heavy the bridge was. The door to the citadel was recessed about three feet into the stone wall, and it was high, wide and plated, looking as if it could withstand a battering ram’s pounding for a good long while.
I approached the gate to the fence and studied it. No lock on it — just a simple hand-operated latching mechanism. I could open it, run through, dash across the span and be at the big door before the guards had any idea as to what might be going on. On the other hand, considering the nature of the place, they might well have had some instruction as to the possibility of an unnatural attack. If so, it would not be necessary for them to see me if they responded quickly and cornered me in the alcove. And I’d a feeling the heavy door inside was not unlocked.
I mused for several moments, sorting through my spells. I also checked again on the position of the six or eight other people in the yard. None were too near, none moving in this direction…
I advanced upon the guards quietly and placed Frakir on the shoulder of the man to my left with an order for a quick choke. Three rapid steps to the right, then, and I struck the other guard on the left side of his neck with the edge of my hand. I caught him beneath the armpits, to prevent the rattling a fall would produce, and lowered him to his rump, back against the fence, to the right of the gate. Behind me, though, I heard the clatter of the other man’s scabbard against the fence as he slumped, clutching at his throat. I hurried to him, guided him the rest of the way to the ground and removed Frakir. A quick glance about showed me that two other men across the courtyard were now looking in this direction. Damn.
I unlatched the gate, slipped within, closed it and latched it behind me. I hurried across the bridge then and looked back. The two men I had noticed were now headed in this direction. Therefore, I was immediately presented with another choice. I decided to see how arduous the more strategically sound one might be.
Squatting, I caught hold of the nearest corner of the bridge — to my right. The ditch it spanned seemed something like twelve feet in depth, and it was almost twice that in width.
I began straightening my legs. Damned heavy, but the thing creaked and my corner rose several inches. I held it there for a moment, got control of my breathing and tried again. More creaking and a few more inches. Again… My hands hurt where the edges pressed into them. My arms felt as if they were being slowly wrenched from their sockets. As I straightened my legs and strained upward with even greater exertion, I wondered how many people fail in robust undertakings because of sudden lower back problems. I guess they’re the ones you don’t hear about. I could feel my heart pounding as if it filled my entire chest. My corner was now about a foot above the ground, but the edge to my left was still touching. I strained again, feeling the perspiration appear as if by magic across my brow and under my arms. Breathe… Up!
It went to knee level, then above. The corner to my left was finally raised. I heard the voices of the two approaching men — loud, excited — they were hurrying now. I began edging to my left, dragging the whole structure with me. The corner directly across from me moved outward as I did so. Good. I kept moving. The corner to my left was now a couple of feet out over the chasm. I felt fiery pains all the way up my arms and into my shoulders and neck. Farther…
The men were at the gate now, but they paused to examine the fallen guards. Good, again. I still wasn’t certain that the bridge might not catch and hold if I were to drop it. It had to slip into the chasm, or I was making myself a candidate for disk surgery for nothing. Left…
It began swaying in my grip, tipping to the right. I could tell that it was going to slip from my control in a few moments. Left again, left… almost… The men had turned their attention from the fallen guards to the moving bridge now and were fumbling at the latch. Two more were rushing to join them from across the way, and I heard a series of shouts. Another step. The thing was really slipping now. I wasn’t going to be able to hold it… One more step…
Let go and get back!
My corner crashed against the edge of the chasm, but the wood splintered and the edge gave way and I kept retreating. The span flopped over as it fell, struck against the far side twice and hit the bottom with a terrific crash. My arms hung at my sides, useless for the moment.
I turned and headed for the doorway. My spell was still holding, so at least I was not a target for any hurled missiles from the other side of the moat.
When I got to the door it took all that I had of effort to raise my arms to the big ring on the right-hand side and catch hold of it. But nothing happened when I pulled. The thing was secured. I had expected that, though, and was prepared. I’d had to try first, however. I do not spend my spells lightly.
I spoke the words, three of them this time — less elegant because it was a sloppy spell, though it possessed immense force.
My entire body shook as the door exploded inward as if kicked by a giant wearing a steel-toed boot. I entered immediately and was immediately confused as my eyes adjusted to the dimness. I was in a two-story high hall. Stairways rose to the right and the left ahead of me, curving inward toward a railed landing, the terminus of a second-floor hallway. There was another hallway below it, directly across from me. Two stairways also headed downward, to the rear of those which ascended. Decisions, decisions…
In the center of the room was a black stone fountain, spraying flamesnot water into the air; the fire descended into the font’s basin, where it swirled and danced. The flames were red and orange in the air, white and yellow below, rippling. A feeling of power filled the chamber. Anyone who could control the forces loose in this place would be a formidable opponent indeed. With luck, I might not have to discover how formidable.
I almost wasted a special attack when I became aware of the two figures in the corner, off to my right. But they hadn’t stirred at all. They were unnaturally still. Statues, of course…
I was trying to decide whether to go up, go down or move straight ahead, and I’d just about decided to descend, on the theory that there is some sort of instinct to imprison enemies in dank, below-ground quarters, when something about the two statues drew my attention again. My vision having adjusted somewhat, I could now make out that one was a white-haired man, the other a dark-haired woman. I rubbed my eyes, not realizing for several seconds that I had seen the outline of my hand. My invisibility spell was dissipating…
I moved toward the figures. The fact that the old man was holding a couple of cloaks and hats should have been the tipoff. But I raised the skirt of his dark blue robe anyway. In the suddenly brighter light from the fountain I saw where the name RINALDO had been carved into his right leg. Nasty little kid, that.
The woman at his side was Jasra, saving me the problem of seeking her amid rodents below. Her arms were also outstretched, as in a warding gesture, and someone had hung a pale blue umbrella upon the left and a light gray London Fog raincoat upon the right; the matching rain hat was on her head, at a lopsided angle. Her face had been painted like a clown’s and someone had pinned a pair of yellow tassels to the front of her green blouse.
The light behind me flared even more brightly, and I turned to see what was going on. The fountain, it turned out, was now spewing its liquid-like fires a full twenty feet into the air. They descended to overflow the basin and spread outward across the flagged floor. A major rivulet was headed in my direction. At that point, a soft chuckle caused me to look upward.
Wearing a dark robe, cowl and gauntlets, the wizard of the cobalt mask stood on the landing above me, one hand on the railing, the other pointed toward the fountain. In that I had anticipated our meeting on this expedition, I was not unprepared for the encounter. As the flames leaped even higher, fo
rming a great bright tower that almost immediately began to bend and then topple toward me, I raised my arms in a wide gesture and spoke the word for the most appropriate of the three defensive spells I had hung earlier.
Air currents began to stir, powered by the Logrus, almost immediately achieving gale force and sending the flames back away from me. I adjusted my position then so that they were blown toward the wizard upstairs. Instantly, he gestured, and the flames fell back within the fountain, subsiding to the barest glowing trickle.
Okay. A draw. I had not come here to have it out with this guy. I had come to finesse Luke by rescuing Jasra on my own. Once she was my prisoner, Amber would sure as hell be safe from anything Luke had in mind. I found myself wondering, though, about this wizard, as my winds died down and the chuckle came again: Was he using spells, as I was? Or, living in the midst of a power source such as this, was he able to control the forces directly and shape them as he chose? If it were the latter, which I suspected, then he had a virtually inexhaustible source of tricks up his sleeve, so that in any full-scale competition on his turf I would eventually be reduced to flight or to calling in the nukes — that is, summoning Chaos itself to utterly reduce everything in the area — and this was a thing I was not about to do, destroying all the mysteries, including that of the wizard’s identity, rather than solving them for answers that might be essential to Amber’s well-being.
A shining metallic spear materialized in midair before the wizard, hung a moment, then flashed toward me. I used my second defensive spell, summoning a shield that turned it aside.
The only alternative I could see to my dueling with spells or blasting the place with Chaos would be for me to learn to control the forces here myself and try beating this guy at his own game. No time for practice now, though; I’d a job to do as soon as I could buy a few moments in which to get it done. Sooner or later, however, it seemed that we would have to have a full confrontation — since he seemed to have it in for me, and may well even have been the motive force behind the attack by the clumsy werewolf in the woods.
And I was not hot on taking chances to explore the power here further at this point — not if Jasra had been good enough to beat the original master of this place, Sharu Garrul, and then this guy had been good enough to beat Jasra. I’d give a lot, though, to know why he had it in for me…
So, “What do you want, anyway?” I called out.
Immediately, that metallic voice replied, “Your blood, your soul, your mind and your body.”
“What about my stamp collection?” I hollered back. “Do I get to keep the First Day Covers?”
I moved over beside Jasra and threw my right arm about her shoulders.
“What do you want with that one, funny man?” the wizard asked. “She is the most worthless property in this place.”
“Then why should you object to my taking her off your hands?”
“You collect stamps. I collect presumptuous sorcerers. She’s mine, and you’re next.”
I felt the power rising against me again even as I shouted, “What have you got against your brothers and sisters in the Art?”
There was no reply, but the air about me was suddenly filled with sharp, spinning shapes — knives, ax blades, throwing stars, broken bottles. I spoke the word for my final defense, the Curtain of Chaos, raising a chittering, smoky screen about us. The sharp items hurtling in our direction were instantly reduced to cosmic dust on coming into contact with it.
Above the din of this engagement I cried out: “By what name shall I call you?”
“Mask!” was the wizard’s immediate reply — not very original, I thought. I’d half expected a John D. MacDonald appellation — Nightmare Mauve or Cobalt Casque, perhaps. Oh, well.
I had just used my last defensive spell. I had also just raised my left arm so that that portion of my sleeve bearing the Amber Trump now hung within my field of vision. I had cut things a bit fine, but I had not yet played my full hand. So far, I had run a completely defensive show, and I was rather proud of the spell I had kept in reserve.
“She’ll do you no good, that one,” Mask said, as both our spells subsided and he prepared to strike again.
“Have a nice day, anyway,” I said, and I rotated my wrists, pointed my fingers to direct the flow and spoke the word that beat him to the punch. “An eye for an eye!” I called out, as the contents of an entire florist shop fell upon Mask, completely burying him in the biggest damned bouquet I’d ever seen. Smelled nice, too.
There was silence and a subsidence of forces as I regarded the Trump, reached through it. Just as the contact was achieved there was a disturbance in the floral display and Mask rose through it, like the Allegory of Spring.
I was probably already fading from his view as he said, “I’ll have you yet.”
“And sweets to the sweet,” I replied, then spoke the word that completed the spell, dropping a load of manure upon him.
I stepped through into the main hall of Amber, bearing Jasra with me. Martin stood near a sideboard, a glass of wine in his hand, talking with Bors, the falconer. He grew silent at Bors’s wide-eyed stare in my direction, then turned and stared himself.
I set Jasra on her feet beside the doorway. I was not about to screw around with the spell on her right now — and I was not at all sure what I’d do with her if I released her from it. So I hung my cloak on her, went over to the sideboard and poured myself a glass of wine, nodding to Bors and Martin as I passed.
I drained the glass, put it down, then said to them, “Whatever you do, don’t carve your initials on her.” Then I went and found a sofa in a room to the east, stretched out on it and closed my eyes. Like a bridge over troubled waters. Some days are diamonds. Where have all the flowers gone?
Something like that.
Chapter 12
There was a lot of smoke, a giant worm and many flashes of colored light. Every sound was born into form, blazed to its peak, faded as it waned. Lightninglike stabs of existence, these — called from, returning to, Shadow. The worm went on forever. The dog-headed flowers snapped at me but later wagged their leaves. The flowing smoke halted before a skyhooked traffic light. The worm — no, caterpillar — smiled. A slow, blinding rain began, and all the drifting drops were faceted…
What is wrong with this picture? something within me asked.
I gave up, because I couldn’t be sure. Though I’d a vague feeling the occasional landscape shouldn’t be Rowing the way that it did…
“Oh, man! Merle…”
What did Luke want now? Why wouldn’t he get off my case? Always a new problem.
“Look at that, will you?”
I watched where a series of bright bounding balls — or maybe they were comets — wove a tapestry of light. It fell upon the forest of umbrellas.
“Luke —” I began, but one of the dog-headed flowers bit a hand I’d forgotten about, and everything nearby cracked as if it were painted on glass through which a shot had just passed. There was a rainbow beyond —
“Merle! Merle!”
It was Droppa shaking my shoulder, my suddenly opened eyes showed me. And there was a damp place on the sofa where my head was resting. I propped myself on an elbow. I rubbed my eyes.
“Droppa… What —?”
“I don’t know,” he told me.
“What don’t you know? I mean… Hell! What happened?”
“I was sitting in that chair,” he said, with a gesture, “waiting for you to wake up. Martin had told me you were here. I was just going to tell you that Random wanted to see you when you got back.”
I nodded, then noticed that my hand was oozing blood — from the place where the flower had bitten me.
“How long was I out?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe.”
I swung my feet to the floor, sat up. “So why’d you decide to wake me?”
“You were trumping out,” he said.
“Trumping out? While I was asleep? It doesn’t work that way. Are you sure?”<
br />
“I am, unfortunately, sober at the moment,” he said. “You got that rainbow glow and you started to soften around the edges and fade. Thought I’d better wake you then and ask if that’s what you really had in mind. What’ve you been drinking, spot remover?”
“No,” I said.
“I tried it on my dog once…”
“Dreams,” I said, massaging my temples, which had begun throbbing. “That’s all. Dreams.”
“The kind other people can see, too? Like DTs á deux?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“We’d better go see Random.” He started to turn toward the doorway.
I shook my head. “Not yet. I’m just going to sit here and collect myself. Something’s wrong.”
When I glanced at him I saw that his eyes were wide, and he was staring past me. I turned.
The wall at my back seemed to be melting, as if it were cast of wax and had been set too near a fire.
“It appears to be alarums and excursions time,” Droppa remarked. “Help!” And he was across the room and out of the door, screaming.
Three eyeblinks later the wall was normal again in every way, but I was trembling. What the hell was going on? Had Mask managed to lay a spell on me before I’d cut out? If so, where was it headed?
I rose to my feet and turned in a slow circle. Everything seemed to be in place now. I knew that it could not have been anything as simple as hallucination born of all my recent stresses, since Droppa had seen it too. So I was not cracking up. This was something else — and whatever it was, I felt that it was still lurking nearby. There was a certain unnatural clarity to the air now, and every object seemed unusually vivid within it.
I made a quick circuit of the room, not knowing what I was really seeking. Not surprisingly, therefore, I did not find it. I stepped outside then. Whatever the problem, could it spring from something I had brought back with me? Might Jasra, stiff and gaudy, have been a Trojan horse?
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