KNIGHT OF SHADOWS (27 page)

Just then a crackly voice, shifting in pitch and gender from syllable to syllable, emerged from the red tunnel.
 
“Return the Eye of Chaos,” it said.
 
“The Unicorn took it from the Serpent when they fought, in the beginning.
 
It was stolen.
 
Return it.
 
Return it.”

The blue face I had seen above the Pattern did not materialize, but the voice I’d heard at that time responded, “It was paid for with blood and pain.
 
Title passed.”

“The Jewel of Judgment and the Eye of Chaos or Eye of the Serpent are different names for the same stone?” I said.

“Yes,” Dworkin replied.

“What happens if the Serpent gets its eye back?” I inquired.

“The universe will probably come to an end.”

“Oh,” I observed.

“What am I bid for the thing?” Ghost asked.

“Impetuous construct,” the voice of the Pattern intoned.

“Rash artifact,” wailed the Logrus.

“Save the compliments,” Ghost said, “and give me something I want.”

“I could tear it from you,” the Pattern responded.

“I could have you apart and it away in an instant,” stated the Logrus.

“But neither of you will do it,” Ghost answered, “because such a focusing of your attention and energies would leave either of you vulnerable to the other.”

In my mind, I heard Dworkin chuckle.

“Tell me why this confrontation need take place at all,” Ghost went on, “after all this time.”

“The balance was tipped against me by recent actions of this turncoat,” the Logrus replied-a burst of fire occurring above my head, presumably to demonstrate the identity of the turncoat in question.

I smelled burning hair, and I warded the flame.

“Just a minute!” I cried.
 
“I wasn’t given much choice in the matter!”

“But there was a choice,” wailed the Logrus, “and you made it.”

“Indeed, he did,” responded the Pattern.
 
“But it served only to redress the balance you’d tipped in your own favor.”

“Redress? You overcompensated! Now it’s tipped in your favor! Besides, it was accidentally tipped my way, by the traitor’s father.” Another fireball followed, and I warded again.
 
“It was not my doing.”

“You probably inspired it.”

“If you can get the Jewel to me,” Dworkin said, “I can put it out of reach of both of them until this matter is settled.”

“I don’t know whether I can get hold of it,” I said, “but I’ll remember that.”

“Give it to me,” the Logrus said to Ghost, “and I will take you with me as First Servant.”

“You are a processor of data,” said the Pattern.
 
“I will give you knowledge such as none in all of Shadow possess.”

“I will give you power,” said the Logrus.

“Not interested,” said Ghost, and the cylinder spun and vanished.

The girl, the Jewel, and everything were gone.

The Logrus wailed, the Pattern growled, and the Signs of both Powers rushed to meet, somewhere near Bleys’s nearer room.

I raised every protective spell that I could.
 
Behind me I could feel Mandor doing the same.
 
I covered my head, I drew up my knees, I-

I was falling.
 
Through a bright, soundless concussion.
 
Bits of debris struck me.
 
From several directions.
 
I’d a hunch that I had just bought the farm and that I was about to die without opportunity to reveal my insight into the nature of reality: The Pattern did not care about the children of Amber any more than the Logrus did about those of the Courts of Chaos.
 
The Powers cared, perhaps, about themselves, about each other, about heavy cosmic principles, about the Unicorn and the Serpent, of which they were very probably but geometric manifestations They did not care about me, about Coral, about Mandor, probably not even about Oberon or Dworkin himself.
 
We were totally insignificant or at most tools or sometimes annoyances, to be employed or destroyed as the occasion warranted-

“Give me your hand,” Dworkin said, and I saw him, as in a Trump contact.
 
I reached and-

fell hard at his feet upon a colorful rug spread over a stone floor, in a windowless chamber my father had once described to me, filled with books and exotic artifacts, lit by bowls of light which hung without visible means of support high in the air.

“Thanks,” I said, rising slowly, brushing myself off, massaging a sore spot in my left thigh.

“Caught a whiff of your thoughts,” he said “There’s more to it.”

“I’m sure.
 
But sometimes I enjoy being bleak-minded.
 
How much of that crap the Powers were arguing about was true?”

“Oh, all of it,” Dworkin said, “by their lights The biggest bar to understanding is the interpretation they put on each other’s doings.
 
That, and the fact that everything can always be pushed another step backward - such as the break in the Pattern having strengthened the Logrus and the possibility that the Logrus actively influenced Brand into doing it.
 
But then the Logrus might claim this was in retaliation for the Day of the Broken Branches several centuries ago.”

“I haven’t heard about that one,” I said.

He shrugged.

“I’m not surprised.
 
It wasn’t all that important a matter, except to them.
 
What I’m saying is that to argue as they do is to head into an infinite regression-back to first causes, which are always untrustworthy.”

“So what’s the answer?”

“Answer? This isn’t a classroom There are no answers that would matter, except to a philosopher-that is, none with any practical applications.”

He poured a small cup of green liquid from a silver flask and passed it to me.

“Drink this,” he said.

“It’s a little early in the day for me.”

“It’s not refreshment.
 
It’s medication,” he explained.
 
“You’re in a state of near shock, whether you’ve noticed or not.”

I tossed the thing off, and it burned like a liquor but didn’t seem to be one.
 
I did feet myself beginning to relax during the next few minutes, in places I had not even realized I was tense.

“Coral, Mandor.
 
.
 
.” I said.

He gestured, and a glowing globe descended, drew nearer.
 
He signed the air with a half familiar gesture, and something like the Logrus Sign without the Logrus came over me.
 
A picture formed within the globe.

That long section of hallway where the encounter had occurred had been destroyed, along with the stairs, Benedict’s apartment, and possibly Gerard’s as well.
 
Also, Bleys’s rooms, portions of my own, the sitting room I had been occupying but a short time before, and the northeast corner of the library were missing, as were the floor and ceiling.
 
Below, I could see that sections of the kitchen and armory had been hit, and possibly more across the way Looking upward-magic globes being wondrous accommodating-I could see sky, which meant that the blast had gone through the third and fourth floors, possibly damaging the royal suite along with the upper stairways and maybe the laboratory-and who knew what all else.

Standing on the edge of the abyss near what had been a section of Bleys’s or Gerard’s quarters was Mandor, his right arm apparently broken, hand tucked in behind his wide black belt.
 
Coral leaned heavily upon his left shoulder, and there was blood on her face.
 
I am not sure that she was fully conscious.
 
Mandor held her about the waist with his left arm, and a metal ball circled the two of them.
 
Diagonally across the abyss, Random stood on a heavy crossbeam near the opening to the library.
 
I believe Martin was standing atop a short stack, below and to the rear.
 
He was still holding his sax.
 
Random appeared more than a little agitated and seemed to be shouting.

“Voice! Voice!’ I said.
 
Dworkin waved.

“-ucking Lord of Chaos blowing up my palace!” Random was saying.

“The lady is injured, Your Highness,” Mandor said.
 
Random passed a hand across his face.
 
Then he looked upward.

“If there’s an easy way to get her to my quarters, Vialle is very skilled in certain areas of medicine,” he said in a softer voice.
 
“So am I, for that matter.”

“Just where is that, Your Highness?”

Random leaned to his side and pointed upward.
 
“Looks as if you won’t need the door to get in, but I can’t tell whether there’s enough stairway left to get up there or where you might cross to it if there is.”

“I’ll make it,” Mandor said, and two more of the balls came rushing to him and set themselves into eccentric orbits about him and Coral.
 
Shortly thereafter they were levitated and drifted slowly toward the opening Random had indicated.

“I’ll be along shortly,” Random called after them.
 
He looked as if he were about to add something, but then regarded the devastation, lowered his head, and turned away.
 
I did the same thing.

Dworkin was offering me another dose of the green medicine, and I took it.
 
Some sort of trank, it seemed, in addition to whatever else it did.

“I have to go to her,” I told him.
 
“I like that lady, and I want to be sure she’s all right.”

“I can certainly send you there,” Dworkin said, “though I cannot think of anything you could do for her which will not be done well by others.
 
Perhaps the time were more profitably spent in pursuit of that errant construct of yours the Ghostwheel.
 
It must be persuaded to return the Jewel of Judgment.”

“Very well,” I acknowledged.
 
“But I want to see Coral first.”

“Your appearance could cause considerable delay,” he said, “because of explanations which may be required of you.”

“I don’t care,” I told him.

“All right.
 
A moment then.”

He moved away and took down what appeared to be a sheathed wand from the wall, where it had hung suspended from a peg.
 
He hung the sheath upon his belt, then crossed to a small cabinet and removed a flat leather-bound case from one of its drawers.
 
It rattled with a faint metallic sound as he slipped it into a pocket.
 
A small jewelry box vanished up a sleeve without any sound.

“Come this way,” he told me, approaching and taking my hand.

He turned me and led me toward the room’s darkest corner, where I had not noted that a tall, curiously framed mirror hung.
 
It exhibited an odd reflective capacity in that it showed us and the room behind us with perfect clarity from a distance, but the closer we approached to its surface, the more indistinct all of its images became.
 
I could see what was coming, coming.
 
But I still tensed as Dworkin, a pace in advance of me by then, stepped through its foggy surface and jerked me after him.

I stumbled and regained my footing, coming to myself in the good half of the blasted royal suite in front of a decorative mirror.
 
I reached back quickly and tapped it with my fingertips, but its surface remain solid.
 
The short, stooped figure of Dworkin stood before me, and he still had hold of my right hand.
 
Looking past that profile, which in some ways caricatured my own, I saw that the bed had been moved eastward, away from the broken corner and a large opening formerly occupied by a section of flooring.
 
Random and Vialle stood on the near side of the bed, their backs to us.
 
They were studying Coral, who was stretched out upon the counterpane and appeared to be unconscious.
 
Mandor, seated in a heavy chair at they bed’s foot, observing operations, was the first to notice our presence, which he acknowledged with a nod.

“How...is she?” I asked.

“Concussion,” Mandor replied, “and damage to the right eye.”

Random turned.
 
Whatever he was about to say to me died on his lips when he realized who stood beside me.

“Dworkin!” he said.
 
“It’s been so long.
 
I didn’t know whether you were still alive.
 
Are you...all right?”

The dwarf chuckled.

“I read your meaning, and I’m rational,” he replied.
 
“I would like to examine the lady now.”

“Of course,” Random answered, moving aside.

“Merlin,” Dworkin said; “see whether you can locate that Ghostwheel device of yours, and ask it to return the artifact it borrowed.”

“I understand,” I said, reaching for my Trumps.