“The way things have been going, it seems as if it could happen whether you tell me or not.”
He smiled faintly and took another drink.
“Parts of this thing are personal,” he said then, “and I don’t want anyone else involved.”
“I gather that your trying to kill me every spring for a while there was kind of personal, too,” I observed, “yet somehow I felt involved.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, slumping back and raising his right hand. “I told you I cut that out a long time ago.”
“But the attempts went on.”
“They weren’t my doing.”
Okay, I decided. Try it. “It was Jasra, wasn’t it?”
“What do you know about her?”
“I know she’s your mother, and I gather this is her war too.”
He nodded. “So you know. . . . All right. That makes it easier,” He paused to catch his breath. “She started me doing the April thirtieth stuff for practice. When I got to know you better and quit, she was mad.”
“So she continued it herself?”
He nodded.
“She wanted you to go after Caine,” I said.
“So did I.”
“But the others? She’s leaning on you about them, I’ll bet. And you’re not so sure they have it coming.”
Silence.
“Are you?” I said.
He shifted his gaze away from my own and I heard his teeth grind together.
“You’re off the hook,” he said at last. “I’ve no intention of hurting you. I won’t let her do it either.”
“And what about Bleys and Random and Fiona and Flora and Gerard and—”
He laughed, which cost him a wince and a quick clutch at his chest. “They’ve nothing to worry about from us,” he said, “right now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think,” he told me. “I could have trumped back to my old apartment, scared hell out of the new tenants and called an ambulance. I could be in an emergency room right now.”
“Why aren’t you?”
“I’ve been hurt worse than this, and I’ve made it. I’m here because I need your help.”
“Oh? For what?”
He looked at me, then looked away again. “She’s in bad trouble, and we’ve got to rescue her.”
“Who?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“My mother,” he replied.
I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t when I saw the expression on his face. It took real balls to ask me to help rescue the woman who’d tried to kill me—not once, but many times—and whose big aim in life seemed to be the destruction of my relatives. Balls, or—
“I’ve no one else left to turn to,” he said.
“If you talk me into this one, Luke, you’ll deserve the Salesman of the Year Award,” I said. “But I’m willing to listen.”
“Throat’s dry again,” he said.
I went and refilled the glass. As I returned with it, it seemed there was a small noise in the hall. I continued listening while I helped Luke to a few more sips.
He nodded when he was finished, but I had heard another sound by then. I raised my finger to my lips and glanced at the door. I put down the glass, rose and crossed the room, retrieving my blade as I did so.
Before I reached the door, however, there was a gentle knock.
“Yes?” I said, advancing to it.
“It’s me,” came Vinta’s voice. “I know that Luke is in there, and I want to see him.”
“So you can finish him off?” I asked.
“I told you before that that is not my intention.”
“Then you’re not human,” I said.
“I never claimed I was.”
“Then you’re not Vinta Bayle,” I said.
There followed a long silence, then, “Supposing I’m not?”
“Then tell me who you are.”
“I can’t.”
“Then meet me halfway,” I said, drawing upon all of my accumulated guesswork concerning her, “and tell me who you were.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. Pick one—any one. I don’t care.”
There was another silence, then, “I dragged you from the fire,” she said, “but I couldn’t control the horse. I died in the lake. You wrapped me in your cloak. . . . ”
That was not an answer I had anticipated. But it was good enough.
With the point of my weapon I raised the latch. She pushed the door open and glanced at the blade in my hand.
“Dramatic,” she remarked.
“You’ve impressed me,” I said, “by the perils with which I am beset.”
“Not sufficiently, it would seem.” She entered, smiling.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I didn’t hear you ask him anything about the blue stones and what he might have homing in on you as a consequence of your attunement.”
“You’ve been eavesdropping.”
“A lifetime habit,” she agreed.
I turned toward Luke and introduced her. “Luke, this is Vinta Bayle—sort of.”
Luke raised his right hand, his eyes never leaving her face. “I just want to know one thing,” he began.
“I’ll bet you do,” she replied. “Am I going to kill you or aren’t I? Keep wondering. I haven’t decided yet. Do you remember the time you were low on gas north of San Luis Obispo and you discovered your wallet was missing? You had to borrow money from your date to get back home. She had to ask you twice, too, before you paid her back.”
“How could you know that?” he whispered.
“You got in a fight with three bikers one day,” she went on. “You almost lost an eye when one of them wrapped a chain around your head. Seems to have healed up nicely. Can’t see the scar—”
“And I won,” he added.
“Yes. Not too many people can pick up a Harley and throw it like you did.”
“I have to know,” he said, “how you learned these things.”
“Maybe I’ll tell you that too, sometime,” she said. “I just mentioned them to keep you honest. Now I’m going to ask you some questions, and your life is going to depend on giving me honest answers. Understand—”
“Vinta,” I interrupted, “you told me that you weren’t interested in killing Luke.”
“It’s not at the top of my list,” she replied, “but if he’s in the way of what is, he goes.”
Luke yawned. “I’ll tell you about the blue stones,” he muttered. “I don’t have anybody on a blue-stone detail after Merle now.”
“Might Jasra have someone tracking him that way?”
“Possible. I just don’t know.”
“What about the ones who attacked him in Amber last night?”
“First I’ve heard of it,” he said, and he closed his eyes.
“Look at this,” she ordered, removing the blue button from her pocket.
He opened his eyes and squinted at it.
“Recognize it?”
“Nope,” he said, and closed his eyes again.
“And you don’t mean Merle any harm now?”
“That’s right,” he answered, his voice drifting off.
She opened her mouth again and I said, “Let him sleep. He’s not going anywhere.”
She gave me an almost angry look, then nodded. “You’re right,” she said.
“So what are you going to do now—kill him while he’s out?”
“No,” she replied. “He was telling the truth.”
“And does it make a difference?”
“Yes,” she told me, “for now.”
Chapter 7
I actually did get a fairly decent night’s sleep despite everything, including a distant dogfight and a lot of howling. Vinta had been disinclined to continue at questions and answers, and I hadn’t wanted her bothering Luke anymore. I persuaded her to leave and let us rest. I sacked out on the comfortable chair, with my feet propped on the other one. I was hopin
g to continue my conversation with Luke in private. I remember chuckling right before I fell asleep as I tried to decide which of them I distrusted less.
I was awakened by the first brightening of the sky and a few arguments of birds. I stretched several times then and made my way to the bathroom. Half an ablution later I heard Luke cough and then whisper my name.
“Unless you’re hemorrhaging, wait a minute,” I replied, and I dried myself off. “Need some water?” I asked while I was doing it.
“Yeah. Bring some.”
I threw the towel over my shoulder and took him a drink.
“Is she still around?” he asked me.
“No.”
“Give me the glass and go check the hall, will you? I’ll manage.”
I nodded and passed it to him. I kept it quiet as I eased the door open. I stepped out into the hall, walked up to the corner. There was no one in sight.
“All clear,” I whispered as I came back into the room.
Luke was gone. A moment later I heard him in the bathroom.
“Damn! I’d have helped you!” I said.
“I can still take a leak by myself,” he replied, staggering back into the room, his good hand on the wall. “Had to see whether I could negotiate,” he added, lowering himself to the edge of the bed. He put his hand against his rib cage and panted. “Shit! that smarts!”
“Let me help you lie back.”
“Okay. Listen, don’t let her know I can do even that much.”
“Okay,” I said. “Take it easy now. Rest.”
He shook his head. “I want to tell you as much as I can before she comes busting back in here,” he said, “and she will, too—believe me.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“Yes. She’s not human, and she’s more attuned to both of us than any blue stone ever was. I don’t understand your style of magic, but I’ve got my own and I know what it tells me. It was your question about who she was that got me to working on the problem, though. Have you figured her out yet?”
“Not completely, no.”
“Well, I know she can switch bodies like changing clothes—and she can travel through Shadow.”
“Do the names Meg Devlin or George Hansen mean anything to you?” I asked.
“No. Should they?”
“Didn’t think so. But she was both of them, I’m sure.”
I’d left out Dan Martinez, not because he’d shot it out with Luke and telling Luke would raise his distrust of her even further, but because I didn’t want him to know that I was aware of the New Mexico guerrilla operation—and I could see that it might lead in that direction.
“She was also Gail Lampron.”
“Your old girlfriend, back in school?” I said.
“Yes. I thought there was something familiar about her immediately. But it didn’t hit me till later. She has all of Gail’s little mannerisms—the way she turns her head, the way she uses her hands and eyes when she’s talking. Then she mentioned two events to which there had only been a single common witness—Gail.”
“It sounds as if she wanted you to know.”
“I believe she did,” he agreed.
“Why didn’t she just come out and say it then, I wonder?”
“I don’t think she can. There’s something could be a spell on her, only it’s hard to judge, her not being human and all.” He glanced furtively at the door as he said this. Then, “Check again,” he added.
“Still clear,” I said. “Now what about—”
“Another time,” he said. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“I can see your wanting to get away from her—” I began.
He shook his head. “That’s not it,” he said. “I’ve got to hit the Keep of the Four Worlds—soon.”
“The shape you’re in—”
“That’s it. That’s what I mean. I’ve got to get out of here so I can be in shape soon. I think old Sharu Garrul’s gotten loose. That’s the only way I can figure what happened.”
“What did happen?”
“I got a distress call from my mother. She’d gone back to the Keep after I’d gotten her away from you.”
“Why?”
“Why, what?”
“Why’d she head for the Keep?”
“Well, the place is a power center. The way the four worlds come together there releases an awful lot of free power, which an adept can tap into—”
“Four worlds actually do come together there? You mean you’re in a different shadow depending on the direction you might take off in?”
He studied me for a moment. “Yes,” he finally said, “but I’ll never get this thing told if you want all the little details.”
“And I won’t understand it if too much gets left out. So she went to the Keep to raise some power and got in trouble instead. She called you to come help her. What did she want that power for, anyway?”
“Mm. Well, I’d been having trouble with Ghostwheel. I thought I almost had him talked into coming over to our side, but she probably thought I wasn’t making progress fast enough and apparently decided to try binding him with a massive spell after—”
“Wait a minute. You were talking to Ghost? How did you get in touch? Those Trumps you drew are no good.”
“I know. I went in.”
“How’d you manage it?”
“In scuba gear. I wore a wet suit and oxygen tanks.”
“Son of a gun. That’s an interesting approach.”
“I wasn’t Grand D’s top salesman for nothing. I almost had him convinced, too. But she’d learned where I’d stashed you, and she decided to try expediting matters by putting you under control, then using you to clinch the deal—as if you’d come over to our side. Anyhow, when that plan fell through and I had to go and get her away from you, we split up again. I thought she was headed for Kashfa, but she went to the Keep instead. Like I said, I think it was to try a massive working against Ghostwheel. I believe something that she did there inadvertently freed Sharu, and he took the place over again and captured her. Anyhow, I got this frantic sending from her, so—”
“Uh, this old wizard,” I said, “had been locked up there for—how long?”
Luke began to shrug, thought better of it. “Hell, I don’t know. Who cares? He’s been a cloak rack since I was a boy.”
“A cloak rack?”
“Yeah. He lost a sorcerous duel. I don’t really know whether she beat him or whether it was Dad. Whoever it was, though, caught him in mid-invocation, arms outspread and all. Froze him like that, stiff as a board. He got moved to a place near an entranceway later. People would hang cloaks and hats on him. The servants would dust him occasionally. I even carved my name on his leg when I was little, like on a tree. I’d always thought of him as furniture. But I learned later that he’d been considered pretty good in his day.”
“Did this guy ever wear a blue mask when he worked?”
“You’ve got me. I don’t know anything about his style. Say, let’s not get academic or she’ll be here before I finish. In fact, maybe we ought to go now, and I can tell you the rest later.”
“Un-uh,” I said. “You are, as you noted last night, my prisoner. I’d be nuts to let you go anywhere without knowing a hell of a lot more than I do. You’re a threat to Amber. That bomb you tossed at the funeral was pretty damn real. You think I want to give you another shot at us?”
He smiled, then lost it. “Why’d you have to be born Corwin’s son, anyway?” he said. Then, “Can I give you my parole on this?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’m going to be in a lot of trouble if they ever out I had you and didn’t bring you in. What terms are you talking? Will you swear off your war against Amber?”
He gnawed his lower lip. “There’s no way I can do that, Merle.”
“There are things you’re not telling me, aren’t there?”
He nodded. Then he grinned suddenly. “But I’ll make you a deal you can’t refuse.”
“Luke, don
’t give me that hard-sell crap.”
“Just give me a minute, okay? And you’ll see why you can’t afford to pass this one up.”
“Luke, I’m not biting.”
“Only one minute. Sixty seconds. You’re free to say no when I’m done.”
“All right,” I said. “Tell me.”
“Okay. I’ve got a piece of information vital to the security of Amber, and I’m certain nobody there has an inkling of it. I’ll give it to you, after you’ve helped me.”
“Why should you want to give us something like that? It sounds kind of self-defeating.”
“I don’t, and it is. But it’s all I’ve got to offer. Help me get out of here to a place I have in mind where the time flow is so much faster that I’ll be healed up in a day or so in terms of local time at the Keep.”
“Or here, for that matter, I’d guess.”
“True. Then—uh-oh!”
He sprawled on the bed, clutched at his chest with his good hand and began to moan.
“Luke!”
He raised his head, winked at me, glanced at the door and commenced moaning again.
Shortly, there came a knocking.
“Come in,” I said.
Vinta entered and studied us both. For a moment, there seemed to be a look of genuine concern on her face as she regarded Luke. Then she advanced to the bed and placed her hands upon his shoulders. She stood there for about half a minute, then announced, “You’re going to live.”
“At the moment,” Luke replied, “I don’t know whether that’s a blessing or a curse.” Then he slipped his good arm around her, drew her to him suddenly and kissed her. “Hi, Gail,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”
She drew away with less haste than she might have. “You seem improved already,” she observed, “and I can see that Merle’s worked something to help you along.” She smiled faintly for an instant, then said, “Yes, it has been, you dumb jock. You still like your eggs sunny-side up?”
“Right,” he acknowledged. “But not half a dozen. Maybe just two today. I’m out of sorts.”
“All right,” she said. “Come on, Merle. I’ll need you to supervise.”
Luke gave me a funny look, doubtless certain she wanted to talk with me about him. And for that matter, I wasn’t certain I wanted to leave him alone even though I had all of his Trumps in my pocket. I was still uncertain as to the extent of his abilities, and I knew a lot less concerning his intentions. So I hung back.
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