Knight of Shadows tcoa-9

by Roger Joseph Zelazny

  I don’t know what it is either, Frakir pulsed into my mind.

  Thanks, I thought strongly back at her, having decided against advising Jurt of her presence.

  Down. Down and around. Back. Back and forth. The temperature continued to decline. Snowflakes flitted. Arrays of rocks in the wall we now descended took on a bit of glitter.

  Oddly, I didn’t realize what it was until the first time I slipped.

  “Ice!” Jurt announced suddenly, half toppling and catching himself up against the stone.

  A distant sighing sound occurred, and it grew and grew, nearing us. It was not until it arrived, with a great buffeting gust, that we knew it to be a wind. And cold. It fled past like the breath of an ice age, and I raised my cloak against it. It followed us, softer thereafter, yet persistent, as we continued our descent.

  By the time we reached the bottom it was damn cold, and the steps were either fully frosted over or carved of ice. The wind blew a steady, mournful note, and flakes of snow or pellets of ice came and went.

  “Miserable climate!” Jurt growled, teeth chattering.

  “I didn’t think ghosts were susceptible to the mundane,” I said.

  “Ghost, hell!” he observed. “I feel the same as I always did. You’d think whatever sent me fully dressed to cross your trail might at least have provided for this eventuality.

  “And this place isn’t that mundane,” he added. “They want us somewhere, you’d think they might have provided a shortcut. As it is, we’ll be damaged merchandise by the time we get there.”

  “I don’t really believe that either the Pattern or the Logrus has that much power in this place,” I told him. “I’d just as soon they stayed out of our way entirely.”

  Our trail led outward across a gleaming plain — so flat and so gleaming that I feared it to consist entirely of ice. Nor was I incorrect.

  “Looks slippery,” Jurt said. “I’m going to shapeshift my feet, make them broader.”

  “It’ll destroy your boots and leave you with cold feet,” I said. “Why not just shift some of your weight downward, lower your center of gravity?”

  “Always got an answer,” he began sullenly. Then, “But this time you’re right,” he finished.

  We stood there for several minutes as he grew shorter, more squat.

  “Aren’t you going to shift yourself?” he asked.

  “I’ll take my chances holding my center. I can move faster this way,” I said.

  “You can fall on your ass that way, too.”

  “We’ll see.”

  We started out. We held our balance. The winds were stronger away from the wall we had descended… The surface of our icy trail, however, was not so slick as it had appeared on distant inspection. There were small ripples and ridges to it, adequate to provide some traction. The air burned its way into my lungs; flakes were beaten into swirling snow devil towers which fled like eccentric tops across out way. It was a bluish glow which emanated from the trail, tinting those flakes which came within its ambit. We hiked for perhaps a quarter mile before a new series of ghostly images began. The first appeared to be myself, sprawled across a heap of armor back at the chapel; the second was Deirdre beneath a lamppost, looking at her watch.

  “What?” Jurt asked, as they came and went in a matter of instants.

  “I didn’t know the first time I saw them, and I still don’t know,” I answered, “though I thought you might be one of them when we first began our race. They come and go — at random, it would seem — with no special reason that I can figure.”

  The next was what appeared to be a dining room, a bowl of flowers on the table. There were no people in the room. There and gone —

  No. Not entirely. It went away, but the flowers remained, there on the surface of the ice. I halted, then walked out toward them.

  Merle, I don’t know about leaving the trail…

  Oh, shit, I responded, moving toward a slab of ice which reminded me of the Stonehenge-like area back where I’d come aboard, incongruous flashes of color near its base.

  There were a number of them — roses of many sorts. I stooped and picked one up. Its color was almost silver…

  “What are you doing here, dear boy?” I heard a familiar voice say.

  I straightened immediately, to see that the tall dark figure which had emerged from behind the block of ice was not addressing me. He was nodding to Jurt, smiling.

  “A fool’s errand, I’m sure,” Jurt replied.

  “And this must be the fool,” the other responded, “plucking that damnable flower. Silver rose of Amber — Lord Corwin’s, I believe. Hello, Merlin. Looking for your father?”

  I removed one of the spare clasp pins I keep pinned to the inside of my cloak. I used it to fasten the rose at my left breast. The speaker was Lord Borel, a duke of the royal House of Swayvill and reputedly one of my mother’s lovers of long ago. He was also deemed to be one of the deadliest swordsmen in the Courts. Killing my father or Benedict or Eric had been an obsession with him for years. Unfortunately it had been Corwin whom he’d met, at a time when Dad was in a hurry — and they’d never crossed blades. Dad had suckered him instead and killed him in what I supposed was technically a somewhat less than fair fight. Which is okay. I’d never much liked the guy.

  “You’re dead, Borel. You know that?” I told him. “You’re just a ghost of the man you were the day you took the Logrus. Out in the real world there is no Lord Borel anymore. You want to know why? Because Corwin killed you the day of the Patternfall War.”

  “You lie, you little shit!” he told me.

  “Uh, no,” Jurt offered. “You’re dead all right. Run through, I heard. Didn’t know it was Corwin did it, though.”

  “It was,” I said.

  He looked away, and I saw his jaw muscles bunching and relaxing, bunching and relaxing.

  “And this place is some sort of afterlife?” he asked a little later, still not looking back at us.

  “I suppose you could call it that,” I said.

  “Can we die yet again here?”

  “I think so,” I told him.

  “What is that?”

  His gaze had suddenly dropped, and I followed it. Something lay upon the ice nearby, and I took a step toward it.

  “An arm,” I replied. “It appears to be a human arm.”

  “What’s it doing there?” Jurt asked, walking over and kicking it.

  It moved in a fashion which showed us that it was not simply lying there but rather was extended up out of the ice. In fact, it twitched and continued to flex spasmodically for several seconds after Jurt kicked it. Then I noted another, some distance away, and what appeared to be a leg. Farther on, a shoulder, arm attached, a hand…

  “Some cannibal’s deep freeze,” I suggested.

  Jurt chuckled.

  “Then you’re dead, too,” Borel stated.

  “Nope,” I replied. “I’m the real thing. Just passing through, on my way to a far, far better place.”

  “What of Jurt?”

  “Jurt’s an interesting problem, both physically and theologically,” I explained. “He’s enjoying a peculiar kind of bilocation.”

  “I’d hardly say I’m enjoying it,” Jurt observed. “But considering the alternative, I suppose I’m glad I’m here.”

  “That’s the sort of positive thinking that’s worked so many wonders for the Courts over the years,” I said.

  Jurt chuckled again.

  I heard that metallic sighing sound one does not easily forget. I knew that I could not possibly draw my blade, turn, and parry in time if Borel wished to run me through from the rear. On the other hand, he took great pride in observing every punctilio when it came to killing people. He always played fair because he was so damned good that he never lost anyway. Might as well go for the reputation, too. I immediately raised both hands, to irritate him by acting as if he had just threatened me from the rear.

  Stay invisible, Frakir. When I turn and snap my wrist, let go.
Stick to him when you hit, find your way to the throat. You know what to do when you get there.

  Right, boss, she replied.

  “Draw your blade and turn, Merle.”

  “Doesn’t sound too sporting to me, Borel,” I replied.

  “You dare to accuse me of anything less than propriety?” he said.

  “Hard to tell when I can’t see what you’re up to,” I answered.

  “Then draw your weapon and turn around.”

  “I’m turning,” I said. “But I’m not touching the thing.”

  I turned quickly, snapping my left wrist, feeling Frakir depart. As I did, my feet went out from under me. I’d moved too fast on a very smooth patch of ice. Catching myself, I felt a shadow drift into place before me. When I looked up, I beheld the point of Borel’s blade, about six inches from my right eye.

  “Rise slowly,” he said, and I did. “Draw your weapon now,” he ordered.

  “And if I refuse?” I inquired, trying to buy time.

  “You will prove yourself unworthy to be considered a gentleman, and I will act accordingly.”

  “By attacking me anyway?” I asked.

  “The rules permit this,” he said.

  “Shove your rules,” I replied, crossing my right foot behind my left and springing backward as I drew my blade and let it fall into a guard position.

  He was on me in an instant. I continued my retreat, backing past the big slab of ice from behind which he had appeared. I had no desire to stand and trade techniques with him, especially now that I could see the speed of those attacks. Parrying them took a lot less effort while I was backing off. My blade did not feel quite right, however, and as I scanned it quickly I saw why. It was not my weapon.

  In the glittering light from the trail, bounced off the ice, I saw the swirling inlay along part of the blade. There was only one weapon like this that I knew of, and I had only just seen it recently, in what might have been my father’s hand. It was Grayswandir that moved before me. I felt myself smile at the irony. This was the weapon which had slain the real Lord Borel.

  “You smile at your own cowardice?” he asked. “Stand and fight, bastard!”

  As if in answer to his suggestion, I felt my rearward movement arrested. I was not run through when I ventured a quick downward glance, however, for I realized from his expression that something similar had happened to my attacker.

  Our ankles had been seized by several of those hands which extended up through the ice, holding us firmly in place. And this made it Borel’s turn to smile, for though he could not lunge, I could no longer retreat. Which meant —

  His blade flashed forward, and I parried in quarte, attacked in sixte. He parried and feinted. Then quarte again, and the next attack. Riposte. Parry sixte — No, that was a feint. Catch him in four. Feint. Feint again. Hit —

  Something white and hard passed over his shoulder and struck my forehead. I fell back, though the grasping hands kept me from collapsing completely. Good thing I sagged, actually, or his thrust might have punctured my liver. My reflexes or some touch of the magic I’ve heard may dwell in Grayswandir threw my arm forward as my knees buckled. I felt the blade strike something, though I was not even looking in that direction, and I heard Borel grunt surprisedly, then utter an oath. I heard Jurt mouthing an oath of his own about then, too. He was out of my line of sight.

  Then came a bright flash, even as I flexed my legs, stabilizing, parried a head cut, and began rising. I saw then that I had succeeded in cutting Borel’s forearm, and fire spurted fountainlike from the wound. His body began to glow, his lower outline to blur.

  “It was by no skill you bested me!” he cried.

  I shrugged.

  “It isn’t the Winter Olympics either,” I told him.

  He changed his grip on his blade, drew back his arm, and hurled the weapon at me — right before he dissolved into a tower of sparks and was drawn upward and vanished above.

  I parried the blade, and it passed me to the left, buried itself partway in the ice and stood vibrating there, like something in a Scandinavian’s version of Arthurian legend. Jurt rushed toward me, kicked at the hands which held my ankles until they released me, and squinted at my brow.

  I felt something fall upon me.

  Sorry, boss. I hit around his knee, By the time I reached his throat he was already on fire, Frakir said.

  All’s well that ends well, I replied. You weren’t singed, were you?

  Didn’t even feel the heat.

  “Sorry I hit you with that piece of ice,” Jurt said. “I was aiming at Borel.”

  I moved away from the plain of hands, heading toward the trail.

  “Indirectly it helped,” I said, but I didn’t feel like thanking him. How could I know where he’d really been, aiming? I glanced back once, and several of the hands Jurt had kicked were giving us the finger.

  Why had I been wearing Grayswandir? Would another weapon have affected a Logrus-ghost as strongly? Had it really been my father, then, who had brought me here? And had he felt I might need the extra edge his weapon could provide? I wanted to think so, to believe that he had been more than a Pattern-ghost. And if he was, I wondered at his part in the entire affair. What might he know about all this? And which side might he be on?

  The winds died down as we moved along the trail, and the only arms we saw extended above the ice bore torches which brightened our way for a great distance — to the foot of the far escarpment, actually. Nothing untoward occurred as we crossed that frozen place.

  “From what you’ve told me and what I’ve seen,” Jurt said, “I get the impression it’s the Pattern that’s sponsoring this trip and the Logrus that’s trying to punch your ticket.”

  Just then the ice cracked in a number of places. Fracture lines rushed toward us from several directions, both sides. They slowed, however, as they neared our trail, causing me to notice for the first time that it had risen above the general level of the plain. We now occupied something of a causeway, and the ice shattered itself harmlessly along its sides.

  “Like that,” Jurt observed with a gesture. “How’d you get into this mess anyway?”

  “It all started on April thirtieth,” I began.

  Chapter 7

  Some of the arms seemed to be waving good-bye to us as we commenced our climb after reaching the wall. Jurt thumbed his nose at them.

  “Can you blame me for wanting to escape this place?” he asked.

  “Not in the least,” I replied.

  “If that transfusion you gave me really placed me beyond control of the Logrus, then I might dwell here for some indefinite period of time.”

  “Sounds possible.”

  “That’s why you must realize I threw the ice at Borel, not you. Besides the fact that you’re smarter than he was and might be able to find a way out of here, he was a creature of the Logrus, too, and wouldn’t have had enough fire if the need arose.”

  “That had occurred to me also,” I said, withholding a possible out I’d guessed at, to keep myself indispensable. “But what are you getting at?”

  “I’m trying to say that I’ll give you any kind of help you need, just so you don’t leave me behind when you go. I know we never got along before, but I’m willing to put that aside if you are.”

  “I always was,” I said. “You were the one who started all our fights and kept me in trouble.”

  He smiled.

  “I never did, and I won’t do it again,” he said. “Yeah, okay, you’re right. I didn’t like you, and maybe I still don’t. But I won’t mess you up when we need each other this way.”

  “The way I see it, you need me a hell of a lot more than I need you.”

  “I can’t argue with that, and I can’t make you trust me,” he said. “Wish I could.” We climbed a little more before he continued, and I fancied the air had already grown a trifle warmer. Then, “But look at it this way,” he finally continued, “I resemble your brother Jurt, and I come close to representing something
he once was — close, but not a perfect fit. I began diverging from his model beginning with our race. My circumstances are uniquely my own, and I’ve been thinking steadily since I gained my autonomy. The real Jurt knows things I do not and has powers I don’t possess. But I have his memories up through his taking the Logrus, and I’m the second greatest authority there is on the way he thinks. Now, if he’s become such a threat as you’ve indicated, you might find me more than a little useful when it comes to second-guessing him.”

  “You have a point,” I acknowledged. “Unless, of course, the two of you were to throw in together.”

  He shook his head.

  “He wouldn’t trust me,” he said, “and I wouldn’t trust him. We’d both know better. A matter of introspection. See what I mean?”

  “It means neither one of you is trustworthy.” His brow furrowed; then he nodded.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” he said.

  “So why should I trust you?”

  “Right now because you’ve got me by the balls. Later on because I’ll be so damn useful.”

  After several more minutes ascending, I told him; “The thing that bothers me the most about you is that its was not all that long ago that Jurt took the Logrus. You are not an older, milder version of my least favorite relative. You are a very recent model. As for your divergence from the original, I can’t see this short while as making that much difference.”

  He shrugged.

  “What can I say that I haven’t said already?” he asked. “Let’s just deal in terms of power and self-interest then.”

  I smiled. We both knew that that was the way it was anyway. The conversation helped pass the time, though. A thought came to me as we climbed.

  “Do you think you could walk through Shadow?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know,” he answered after a time. “My last memory from before I came to this place was of completing the Logrus. I guess the recording was completed at that time, too. So I have no recollection of Suhuy instructing me in shadow-walking, no memory of trying it. I’d guess I could do it, wouldn’t you think?”