Sign of chaos tcoa-8

by Roger Joseph Zelazny

As I was about to replace Luke’s Trump, square the deck, and case it, I glimpsed the next lower card and a lightning chain of recollections and speculations flashed through my mind. I removed the card and focused on it. I reached…

  “Yes, Merlin?” he said moments later, seated at a small table on a terrace — evening skyline of a city behind him — lowering what appeared to be a cup of espresso to a tiny white saucer.

  “Right now. Hurry,” I said. “Come to me.”

  Nayda had begun to make a low growling sound just as the contact occurred, and she was on her feet and moving toward me, her eyes fixed upon the Trump, just as Mandor took my hand and stepped through. She halted when the tall, black-garbed figure appeared before her. They regarded each other without expression for a moment, and then she took a long sliding step toward him, her hands beginning to rise. Immediately, from the depth of some inner cloak pocket where his right hand was thrust, there came a single, sharp, metallic click.

  Nayda froze.

  “Interesting,” Mandor said, raising his left hand and passing it in front of her face. Her eyes did not follow it. “This is the one you told me about earlier — Vinta, I believe, you called her?”

  “Yes, only now she’s Nayda.”

  He produced a small, dark metal ball from somewhere and held it upon the palm of his left hand, which he extended before her. Slowly, the ball began to move, describing a counterclockwise circle. Nayda emitted a single sound, something halfway between a cry and a gasp, and she dropped forward to her hands and knees, head lowered. From where I stood I could see saliva dripping from her mouth.

  He said something very fast, in an archaic form of Thari which I could not follow. She responded in the affirmative.

  “I believe I’ve solved your mystery,” he said then. “Do you recall your lessons on Respondances and High Compellings?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “Academically, I was never exactly swept away by the subject.”

  “Unfortunate,” he stated. “You should report back to Suhuy for a postgraduate course sometime.”

  “Are you trying to tell me…?”

  “The creature you see before you, inhabiting a not unattractive human form, is a ty’iga,” he explained.

  I stared. The ty’iga were a normally bodiless race of demons that dwelled in the blackness beyond the Rim. I recalled being told that they were very powerful and very difficult to control.

  “Uh… can you make this one stop slobbering on my carpet?” I said.

  “Of course,” he replied, and he released the sphere, which fell to the floor before her. It did not bounce, but began immediately to roll, describing a rapid circuit about her.

  “Stand up,” he said, “and stop releasing bodily fluids upon the floor.”

  She did as he ordered, climbing to her feet, her expression vacant.

  “Seat yourself in that chair,” he directed, indicating the one she had occupied but minutes earlier.

  She complied, and the rolling ball adjusted itself to her progress and continued its circle, about the chair now.

  “It cannot vacate that body,” he said then, “unless I release it. And I can cause it any amount of torment within my sphere of power. I can get you your answers now. Tell me what the questions are.”

  “Can she hear us right now?”

  “Yes, but it cannot speak unless I permit it.”

  “Well, there’s no point to causing unnecessary pain. The threat itself may be sufficient. I want to know why she’s been following me about.”

  “Very well,” he said. “That is the question, ty’iga. Answer it!”

  “I follow him to protect him,” she said, her voice flat.

  “I’ve already heard that one,” I said. “I want to know why.”

  “Why?” Mandor repeated.

  “I must,” she answered.

  “Why must you?” he asked.

  “I…” Her teeth raked her lower lip and the blood began to flow again.

  “Why?”

  Her face grew flushed and beads of perspiration appeared upon her brow. Her eyes were still unfocused, but they brimmed with tears. A thin line of blood trickled down her chin. Mandor extended a clenched fist and pened it, revealing another metal ball. He held this one about ten inches before her brow, then released it. It hung in the air.

  “Let the doors of pain be opened,” he said, and he flicked it lightly with a fingertip.

  Immediately, the small sphere began to move. It passed about her head in a slow ellipse, coming close to her temples on each orbit. She began to wail.

  “Silence!” he said. “Suffer in silence!”

  The tears ran down her cheeks, the blood ran down her chin…

  “Stop it!” I said.

  “Very well.” He reached over and squeezed the ball for a moment between the thumb and middle finger of his left hand. When he released it, it remained stationary, a small distance before her right ear. “Now you may answer the question,” he said. “That was but the smallest sample of what I can do to you. I can push this to your total destruction.”

  She opened her mouth but no words came forth. Only a gagging sound.

  “I think we may be going about this wrong,” I said. “Can you just have her speak normally, rather than this question-and-answer business?”

  “You heard him,” Mandor said. “It is my will, also.”

  She gasped, then said, “My hands… Please free them.”

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “They are freed,” Mandor stated.

  She flexed her fingers.

  “A handkerchief, a towel…” she said softly.

  I drew open a drawer in a nearby dresser, took out a handkerchief. As I moved to pass it to her, Mandor seized my wrist and took it from me. He tossed it to her and she caught it.

  “Don’t reach within my sphere,” he told me.

  “I wouldn’t hurt him,” she said, as she wiped her eyes, her cheeks, her chin. “I told you, I mean only to protect him.”

  “We require more information than that,” Mandor said, as he reached for the sphere again.

  “Wait,” I said. Then, to her, “Can you at least tell me why you can’t tell me?”

  “No,” she answered. “It would amount to the same thing.”

  Suddenly I saw it as a strange sort of programming problem; and I decided to try a different tack.

  “You must protect me at all costs?” I said. “That is your primary function?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are not supposed to tell me who set you this task, or why?”

  “Yes.”

  “Supposing the only way you could protect me would be by telling me these things?”

  Her brow furrowed.

  “I…” she said. “I don’t… The only way?”

  She closed her eyes and raised her hands to her face. “I… Then I would have to tell you.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said. “You would be willing to violate the secondary order in order to carry out the primary one?”

  “Yes, but what you have described is not a real situation,” she said.

  “I see one that is,” Mandor said suddenly. “You cannot follow that order if you cease to exist. Therefore, you would be violating it if you permit yourself to be destroyed. I will destroy you unless you answer those questions.”

  She smiled.

  “I don’t think so,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “Ask Merlin what the diplomatic situation would be if a daughter of the Begman prime minister were found dead in his room under mysterious circumstances — especially when he’s already responsible for the disappearance of her sister.”

  Mandor frowned and looked at me.

  “I don’t understand what that’s all about,” he said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “She’s lying. If something happens to her, the real Nayda simply returns. I saw it happen with George Hansen, Meg Devlin, and Vinta Bayle.”

  �
��That is what would normally occur,” she said, “except for one thing. They were all alive when I took possession of their bodies. But Nayda had just died, following a severe illness. She was exactly what I needed, though, so I took possession and healed the body. She is not here anymore. If I depart, you’ll be left either with a corpse or a human vegetable.”

  “You’re bluffing,” I said, but I remembered Vialle’s saying that Nayda had been ill.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “Mandor,” I said, turning to him, “you said you can keep her from vacating that body and following me?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “Okay, Nayda,” I said. “I am going somewhere and I am going to be in extreme danger there. I am not going to permit you to follow me and carry out your orders.”

  “Don’t,” she answered.

  “You give me no choice but to keep you pent while I go about my business.”

  She sighed.

  “So you’ve found a way to get me to violate one order in order to get me to carry out the other. Very clever.”

  “Then you’ll tell me what I want to know?”

  She shook her head.

  “I am physically unable to tell you,” she said. “It is not a matter of will. But… I think I’ve found a way around it.”

  “What is that?”

  “I believe I could confide in a third party who also desires your safety.”

  “You mean — ”

  “If you will leave the room for a time, I will try to tell your brother those things I may not explain to you.”

  My eyes met Mandor’s. Then, “I’ll step out in the hall for a bit,” I said.

  And I did. A lot of things bothered me as I studied a tapestry on the wall, not the least being that I had never told her that Mandor was my brother.

  When my door opened after a long while, Mandor looked in both directions. He raised his hand when I began to move toward him. I halted, and he stepped outside and came toward me. He continued to glance about as he advanced.

  “This is Amber palace?” he inquired.

  “Yes. Not the most fashionable wing, perhaps, but I call it home.”

  “I’d like to see it under more relaxed circumstances,” he said.

  I nodded. “It’s a date. So tell me, what happened in there?”

  He looked away, discovered the tapestry, studied it.

  “It’s very peculiar,” he said. “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You still trust me, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then trust me in this. I’ve a good reason for not telling you what I learned.”

  “Come on, Mandor! What the hell’s going on?”

  “The ty’iga is not a danger to you. It really does care about your welfare.”

  “So what else is new? I want to know why.”

  “Leave it,” he said, “for now. It’s better that way.”

  I shook my head. I made a fist and looked around for something to hit.

  “I know how you feel, but I’m asking you to drop it,” he said.

  “You mean the knowledge would hurt me in some way?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Or do you mean that you’re afraid to tell me?”

  “Drop it,” he said.

  I turned away and got control of myself.

  “You must have a good reason,” I finally decided.

  “I do.”

  “I’m not going to give up on this,” I told him. “But I haven’t the time to pursue it further against this kind of resistance. Okay, you have your reasons and I have pressing business elsewhere.”

  “She mentioned Jurt and Mask and the Keep where Brand gained his powers,” he said.

  “Yes, that’s where I’ll be heading.”

  “She expects to accompany you.”

  “She is wrong.”

  “I would counsel against taking her, too.”

  “You’ll keep her for me until I’ve taken care of things?”

  “No,” he said, “because I’m coming with you. I’ll put her into a very deep trance, though, before we depart.”

  “But you don’t know what’s been going on since our dinner. A lot has happened, and I just haven’t the time to bring you up to date.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I know that it involves an unfriendly sorcerer, Jurt, and a dangerous place. That’s enough. I’ll come along and give you a hand.”

  “But that may not be enough,” I countered. “We may not be enough.”

  “Even so, I think the ty’iga could turn into a hindrance.”

  “I wasn’t referring to her. I was thinking about the stiff lady near the door.”

  “I’d meant to ask you about her. Some enemy you’re punishing?”

  “She had been an enemy, yes. And she’s nasty, untrustworthy, and has a poisonous bite. She’s also a deposed queen. I didn’t freeze her, though. The sorcerer who’s after me did it. She’s the mother of a friend, and I rescued her and brought her back here for safekeeping. I had no reason for releasing her, until now.”

  “Ah, as an ally against her old enemy.”

  “Exactly. She’s well acquainted with the place I’m going. But she doesn’t like me and she’s not easy to deal with — and I don’t really know whether her son gave me enough ammunition to make her trustworthy.”

  “Do you feel she’d be a real asset?”

  “Yes. I’d like to have all of that animus on my side. And I understand she’s an accomplished sorceress.”

  “If additional persuading is needed, there are only threats and bribes. I’ve a few private hells I’ve designed and furnished — for purely esthetic reasons. She might find a quick tour very impressive. On the other hand, I could send for a pot of jewels.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Her motivations are somewhat complex. Let me handle this, as far as I’m able.”

  “Of course. Those were only suggestions.”

  “As I see it, the next order of business is to rouse her, put the proposition to her, and attempt to judge her response.”

  “There is no one else you might bring along, from among your kinsmen here?”

  “I’m afraid to let any of them know I’m going. It could easily result in an order not to, until Random gets back. I haven’t the time to wait around.”

  “I might summon some reinforcement from the Courts.”

  “Here? To Amber? I’d really be up shit creek if Random ever got wind of that. He might start suspecting subversion.”

  He smiled.

  “This place reminds me a bit of home,” he remarked, turning back toward my door.

  When we entered, I saw that Nayda was still seated, her hands upon her knees, staring at a metal ball that hovered about a foot before her. The other continued its slow circuit down on the floor.

  Seeing the direction of my gaze, Mandor remarked, “Very light trance state. She can hear us. You can rouse her in an instant if you wish.”

  I nodded and turned away. Now it was Jasra’s turn.

  I removed all of the garments I’d hung upon her and placed them on a chair across the room. Then I fetched a cloth and the basin and washed the clown makeup off her face.

  “Am I forgetting anything?” I said, half to myself.

  “A glass of water and a mirror,” Mandor stated.

  “What for?”

  “She may be thirsty,” he replied, “and I can just tell she’ll want to look at herself.”

  “You may have a point there,” I said, drawing up a small table. I placed a pitcher and a goblet upon it; also, a hand mirror.

  “I’d also suggest you support her, in case she collapses when the spell is removed.”

  “True.”

  I placed my left arm about her shoulders, thought of her deadly bite, stepped back, and held her at arm’s distance with the one hand.

  “If she bites me, it will kno
ck me out almost instantly,” I said. “Be ready to defend yourself quickly if this occurs.”

  Mandor tossed another metal ball into the air. It hung there for an unnaturally long moment at the top of its arc, then dropped back to his hand.

  “All right,” I said, and then I spoke the words that raised the spell.

  Nothing as dramatic as I’d feared ensued. She slumped and I supported her. “You’re safe,” I said, and added, “Rinaldo knows you’re here,” to invoke the most familiar. “Here’s a chair. Do you want some water?”

  “Yes,” she replied, and I poured some and passed it to her.

  Her eyes were darting, taking in everything as she drank. I wondered whether she’d recovered instantly and might not now be stalling for time as she sipped, her mind racing, spells dancing at her fingertips. Her eyes returned more than once to Mandor, appraising, though she gave Nayda a long, hard stare.

  Finally, she lowered the goblet and smiled.

  “I take it, Merlin, that I am your prisoner,” she said, choking slightly. She took another sip.

  “Guest,” I replied.

  “Oh? How did this come about? Accepting the invitation escapes my mind.”

  “I brought you here from the citadel at the Keep of the Four Worlds in a somewhat cataleptic condition,” I said.

  “And where might ‘here’ be?”

  “My apartment in the Palace of Amber.”

  “Prisoner, then,” she stated.

  “Guest,” I repeated.

  “In that case, I should be introduced, should I not?”

  “Excuse me. Mandor, I introduce Her Highness Jasra, Queen of Kashfa.” (I intentionally omitted the “Most Royal” part.) “Your Majesty, I request leave to present my brother, Lord Mandor.”

  She inclined her head, and Mandor approached, dropped to one knee, and raised her hand to his lips. He’s better at such courtly gestures than I am, not even sniffing the back of her hand for the scent of bitter almonds. I could tell that she liked his manner — and she continued to study him afterward.

  “I was not aware,” she observed, “that the royal house here contained an individual named Mandor.”

  “Mandor is heir to the dukedom of Sawall in the Courts of Chaos,” I replied. Her eyes widened.

  “And you say he is your brother?”

  “Indeed.”

  “You’ve succeeded in surprising me,” she stated. “I had forgotten your double lineage.”