Blood of Amber (18 page)

So, sitting in my room, sipping a glass of my absent host’s wine (the red) and watching the candles flicker in the breeze from an opened window, I waited-first for the house to grow quiet (which it had), then for a goodly time to pass.
 
My door was latched.
 
I had mentioned how tired I felt several times during dinner, and then I had retired early.
 
I am not so egotistically male that I feel myself constantly lusted after, but Vinta had given indication that she might stop by and I wanted the excuse of heavy sleeping.
 
Least of all did I wish to offend her.
 
I had problems enough without turning my strange ally against me.

I wished I still had a good book about, but I’d left my last one at Bill’s place, and if I were to summon it now I did not know but that Vinta might sense the sending, just as Fiona had once known I was creating a Trump, and come pounding on the door to see what the hell was going on.

But no one came pounding, and I listened to the creakings of a quiet house and the night sounds without.
 
The candles shortened themselves and the shadows on the wall behind the bed ebbed and Howed like a dark tide beyond their swaying light.
 
I thought my thoughts and sipped my wine.
 
Pretty soon.

.
 
.
 
.

An imagining? Or had I just heard my name whispered from some undetectable place?

“Merle.
 
.
 
.
 
.”

Again.

Real, but

My vision seemed to swim for a moment, and then I realized it for what it was: a very weak Trump contact.

“Yes,” I said, opening and extending.
 
“Who is it?”

“Merle, baby.
 
.
 
.
 
.
 
Give me a hand or I’ve had it.
 
.
 
.
 
.”

Luke!

“Right here,” I said, reaching, reaching, as the image grew clear, solidified.

He was leaning, his back against a wall, shoulders slumped, head hanging.

“If this is a trick, Luke, I’m ready for it,” I told him.
 
I rose quickly and, crossing to the table where I had laid my blade, I drew it and held it ready.

“No trick.
 
Hurry! Get me out of here!”

He raised his left hand.
 
I extended my left hand and caught hold of it.

Immediately he slumped against me, and I staggered.
 
For an instant I thought it was an attack, but he was dead weight and I saw that there was blood all over him.
 
He still clutched a bloody blade in his right hand.
 
“Over here.
 
Come on.”

I steered him and supported him for several paces, then deposited him on the bed.
 
I pried the blade from his grip, then placed it along with mine on a nearby chair.

“What the hell happened to you?”

He coughed and shook his head weakly.
 
He drew several deep breaths, then, “Did I see a glass of wine,” he asked, “as we passed a table?”

“Yeah.
 
Hold on.”

I fetched it, brought it back, propped him and held it to his lips.
 
It was still over half full.
 
He sipped it slowly, pausing for deep breaths.

“Thanks,” he said when he’d finished, then his head turned to the side.

He was out.
 
I took his pulse.
 
It was fast but kind of weak.

“Damn you, Luke!” I said.
 
“You’ve got the worst timing.
 
.
 
.
 
.”

But he didn’t hear a word.
 
He just lay there and bled all over the place.

Several curses later I had him undressed and was going over him with a wet towel to find out where, under all that blood, the injuries lay.
 
There was a nasty chest wound on the right, which might have hit the lung.
 
His breathing was very shallow, though, and I couldn’t tell.
 
If so, I was hoping he’d inherited the regenerative abilities of Amber in full measure.
 
I put a compress on it and laid his arm on top to hold it in place while I checked elsewhere.
 
I suspected he had a couple of fractured ribs, also.
 
His left arm was broken above the elbow and I set it and splinted it, using loose slats from a chair I’d noticed in the back of the closet earlier, and I strapped it to him.
 
There were over a dozen lacerations and incisions of various degrees of severity on his thighs, right hip, right arm and shoulder, his back.
 
None of them, fortunately, involved arterial bleeding.
 
I cleaned all of these and bound them, which left him looking like an illustration in a firstaid handbook.
 
Then I checked his chest wound again and covered him up.

I wondered about some of the Logrus healing techniques I knew in theory but had never had a chance to practice.
 
He was looking pretty pale, so I decided I had better try them.
 
When I’d finished, some time later, it seemed as if his color had returned to his face.
 
I added my cloak to the blanket which covered him.
 
I took his pulse again and it felt stronger.
 
I cursed again, just to stay in practice, removed our blades from the chair and sat down on it.

A little later my conversation with Ghostwheel returned to trouble me.
 
Had Luke been trying to do a deal with my creation? He’d told me he wanted Ghost’s power, to prosecute his designs against Amber.
 
Then Ghost had asked me earlier today whether Luke was to be trusted, and my answer had been emphatically negative.

Had Ghost terminated negotiations with Luke in the fashion I saw before me?

I fetched forth my Trumps and shuffled out the bright circle of the Ghostwheel.
 
I focused on it, setting my mind for contact, reaching out, calling, summoning.

Twice I felt near to something-agitated-during the several minutes I devoted to the effort.
 
But it was as if we were separated by a sheet of glass.
 
Was Ghost occupied? Or just not inclined to talk with me?

I put my cards away.
 
But they had served to push my thoughts into another channel.

I gathered Luke’s gory clothing and did a quick search.
 
I turned up a set of Trumps in a side pocket, along with several blank cards and a penciland yes, they seemed to be rendered in the same style as the ones I had come to call the Trumps of Doom.
 
I added to the packet the one depicting myself, which Luke had been holding in his hand when he had trumped in.

His were a fascinating lot.
 
There was one of Jasra, and one of Victor Melman.
 
There was also one of Julia, and a partly completed one of Bleys.
 
There was one for the crystal cave, another for Luke’s old apartment.
 
There were several duplicated from the Trumps of Doom themselves, one for a palace I did not recognize, one for one of my old pads, one for a rugged-looking blond guy in green and black, another of a slim, russethaired man in brown and black, and one of a woman who resembled this man so closely it would seem they must be related.
 
These last two, strangely, were done in a different style; even by a different hand, I’d say.
 
The only unknown one I felt relatively certain about was the blond fellow, who, from his colors, I would assume to be Luke’s old friend Dalt, the mercenary.
 
There were also three separate attempts at something resembling Ghostwheel-none of them, I would guess, completely successful.

I heard Luke growl something, and I saw that his eyes were open and darting.

“Take it easy,” I said.
 
“You’re safe.”

He nodded and closed his eyes.
 
A few moments later, he opened them again.

“Hey! My cards,” he said weakly.

I smiled.
 
“Nice work,” I remarked.
 
“Who did them?”

“Me,” he answered.
 
“Who else?”

“Where’d you learn?”

“My dad.
 
He was real good at it.”

“If you can do them, you must have walked the Pattern.”

He nodded.

“Where?”

He studied me a moment, then performed a weak shrug and winced.
 
“Tir-na Nog’th.”

“Your father took you, saw you through it?” Again, a nod.

Why not push it, since I seemed to be on a roll? I picked up a card.

“And here’s Dalt,” I said.
 
“You used to be Cub Scouts together, didn’t you?”

He did not reply.
 
When I looked up I saw narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow.

“I’ve never met him;” I added.
 
“But I recognize the colors, and I know he’s from out your way-around Kashfa.”

Luke smiled.
 
“You always did your homework back in school, too,” he said.

“And usually on time;” I agreed.
 
“But with you I’ve been running late.
 
Luke, I can’t find a Trump for the Keep of the Four Worlds.
 
And here’s someone I don’t know.”

I picked up the slim lady’s card and waved it at him.

He smiled.
 
“Gettin’ weak and losin’ my breath again,” he said.
 
“You been to the Keep?”

“Yep.”

“Recently?”

I nodded.

“Tell you what,” he said at last.
 
“Tell me what you saw at the Keep and how you learned some of that stuff about me and I’ll tell you who she is.”

I thought quickly.
 
I could say things so that I probably wouldn’t be telling him anything he didn’t already know.

So, “The other way around,” I said.

“Okay.
 
The lady,” he stated, “is Sand.”

I stared so hard that I felt the beginnings of a contact.
 
I smothered it.

“The long-lost,” he added.

I raised the card depicting the man who resembled her.
 
“Then this must be Delwin,” I said.

“Right.”

“You didn’t do these two cards.
 
They’re not your style, and you probably wouldn’t have known what they looked like to begin with.”

“Perceptive.
 
My father drew them, back in the time of the troubles-for all the good it did him.
 
They wouldn’t help him either.”

“Either?”

“They weren’t interested in helping me, despite their disaffection with this place.
 
Count them as out of the game.”

“This place?” I said.
 
“Where do you think you are, Luke?”

His eyes widened.
 
He cast his gaze about the room.
 
“The camp of the enemy,” he answered.
 
“I had no choice.
 
These are your quarters in Amber, right?”

“Wrong,” I replied.

“Don’t bait me, Merle.
 
You’ve got me.
 
I’m your prisoner.
 
Where am I?”

“Do you know who Vinta Bayle is?”

“No.
 
“

“She was Caine’s mistress.
 
This is her family’s place, way out in the country.
 
She’s just up the hall somewhere.
 
Might even stop by.
 
I think she’s got a crush on me.”

“Uh-oh.
 
She a tough lady?”

“Very.”

“What you doing making out with her this soon after the funeral? That’s hardly decent.”

“Huh! If it weren’t for you there wouldn’t have been any funeral.”

“Don’t give me that indignation crap, Merle.
 
If it had been your dad, Corwin, he’d killed, wouldn’t you have gone after him?”

“That’s not fair.
 
My father wouldn’t have done all those things Brand did.”

“Maybe, maybe not.
 
But supposing he had? Even then.
 
Wouldn’t you have gone after Caine?”

I turned away.
 
“I don’t know,” I said finally.
 
“It’s too damned hypothetical.”

“You’d have done it.
 
I know you, Merle.
 
I’m sure you would have.”

I sighed.
 
“Maybe,” I said.
 
“Well, okay.
 
Maybe I might have.
 
But I would have stopped there.
 
I wouldn’t have gone after the others too.
 
I don’t want to make you feel any worse than you do about it, but your old man was psycho; you must know that.
 
And you’re not.
 
I know you as well as you know me.
 
I’ve been thinking about this for some time.
 
You know, Amber recognizes the personal vendetta.
 
You’ve got an arguable case there for one.
 
And the death didn’t even occur within Amber, if Random were really looking for an out for you.”