“Come on, Merle —”
“You’ve got a classic vendetta defense — a son avenging his father’s death.”
“I don’t know… Hey, you trying to get out of telling me the stuff you promised to?”
“No, but —”
“So you made it to the Keep of the Four Worlds. What did you learn there and how did you learn it?”
“Okay. You think about what I said, though,” I replied.
His expression remained unchanged.
Then, “There was an old hermit named Dave,” I began.
Luke fell asleep before I finished. I just let my voice trail off and sat there. After a time, I rose and located the wine bottle and poured a little into the glass, since Luke had drunk most of mine. I took it with me to the window and stared down and out across the patio, where the wind was rattling leaves. I wondered about what I’d said to Luke. It wasn’t a full picture I’d given him, partly because I hadn’t had time to go into it thoroughly, mainly because he hadn’t seemed interested. But even if Random did let him off the hook officially in the matter of Caine’s death, Julian or Gerard would probably be looking to kill him under the same vendetta code I’d been talking about. I didn’t really know what to do. I was obliged to tell Random about him, but I’d be damned if I’d do it yet. There were still too many things I had to learn from him, and getting at him might be a lot harder if he were a prisoner back in Amber. Why had he ever gotten himself born as Brand’s son, anyway?
I returned to the bedside seat, near which I had left our weapons and Luke’s Trumps. I moved these items across the room, to where I seated myself in the more comfortable chair I had occupied earlier. I studied his cards again. Amazing. A whole bunch of history in my hand…
When Oberon’s wife Rilga had shown less hardihood than many by aging rapidly and retiring to a reclusive life at a country shrine, he had gone off and remarried, somewhat to the chagrin of their children Caine, Julian and Gerard. But to confuse genealogists and sticklers for family legality, he had done it in a place where time flowed far more rapidly than in Amber. Interesting arguments both for and against the bigamous nature of his marriage to Harla may be made. I’m in no position to judge. I had the story from Flora years ago, and in that she’d never gotten along too well with Delwin and Sand, the offspring of that union, she was inclined to the pro-bigamy interpretation. I’d never seen pictures of Delwin or Sand until now. There weren’t any hanging around the palace, and they were seldom mentioned. But they had lived in Amber for the relatively short time Harla was queen there. Following her death, they grew unhappy with Oberon’s policies toward her homeland — which they visited often — and after a time they departed, vowing not to have anything to do with Amber again. At least that’s the way I’d heard it. There could easily have been all sorts of sibling politicking involved, too. I don’t know.
But here were two missing members of the royal family, and obviously Luke had leaed of them and approached them, hoping to revive old resentments and gain allies. He admitted that it hadn’t worked. Two centuries is a long time to hold a grudge at high pitch. That’s about how long it had been since their departure, as I understood it. I wondered fleetingly whether I should get in touch with them, just to say hello. If they weren’t interested in helping Luke I didn’t suppose they’d be interested in helping the other side either, now they were aware there was another side. It did seem proper that I should introduce myself and pay my respects, as a family member they’d never met. I decided that I would do it sometime, though the present moment was hardly appropriate. I added their Trumps to my own collection, along with good intentions.
And then there was Dalt a sworn enemy of Amber, I gathered. I studied his card again, and I wondered: If he were indeed such a good friend of Luke’s, perhaps I should let him know what had happened. He might even know of the circumstances involved and mention something I could use. In fact, the more I thought about it — recalling his recent presence at the Keep of the Four Worlds — the more tempting it became to try to reach him. It seemed possible I could even pick up something about what was now going on in that place.
I gnawed a knuckle. Should I or shouldn’t I? I couldn’t see any harm that could come of it. I wasn’t planning on giving anything away. Still; there were a few misgivings.
What the hell, I decided finally. Nothing ventured…
Hello, hello. Reaching out through the suddenly cold card…
A startled moment somewhere, and the sense of an Aha!
Like a portrait come to life, my vision stirred.
“Who are you?” the man asked, hand on hilt, blade half drawn.
“My name is Merlin,” I said, “and we’ve a mutual acquaintance named Rinaldo. I wanted to tell you that he’d been badly injured.”
By now, we both hovered between our two realities, solid and perfectly clear to each other. He was bigger than I’d thought from his representation, and he stood at the center of a stone-walled room, a window to his left showing a blue sky and a limb of cloud. His green eyes, at first wide, were now narrowed and the set of his jaw seemed a bit truculent.
“Where is he?” he inquired.
“Here. With me,” I answered.
“How fortunate,” he replied, and the blade was in his hand and he moved forward.
I Sipped the Trump away, which did not sever the contact. I had to summon the Logrus to do that — and it fell between us like the blade of a guillotine and jerked me back as if I had just touched a live wire. My only consolation was that Dalt had doubtless felt the same thing.
“Merle, what’s going on?” Luke’s voice came hoarsely. “I saw Dalt…”
“Uh, yeah. I just called him.”
He raised his head slightly. “Why?”
“To tell him about you. He’s your friend, isn’t he?”
“You asshole!” he said. “He’s the one that did this to me!”
Then he began coughing and I rushed to his side.
“Get me some water, huh?” he said.
“Coming up.”
I went off to the bathroom and fetched him a glass. I propped him and he sipped it for a time.
“Maybe I should have told you,” he said finally. “Didn’t think — you’d play games — that way, though — when you don’t know — what’s going on…”
He coughed again, drank more water.
“Hard to know what to tell you — and what not to,” he continued, a while later.
“Why not tell me everything?” I suggested.
He shook his head slightly. “Can’t. Probably get you killed. More likely both of us.”
“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.”