From my new angle of view and by the faint rainbow halo that now surrounded her I finally saw the lady's face. It was Jasra, who had damn near killed me with a bite back in Melman's apartment. In a moment she would be gone, taking with her my chance of obtaining some answers on which my life might depend.
“Jasra!” I cried, trying to break her concentration.
It didn't work, but Frakir did. My strangling cord, glowing silver now, caught her about the throat, whipping out with a free end to lash tightly about the branch that hung near, to Jasra's left.
The lady began to fade, apparently not realizing that it was too late. She couldn't trump out without decapitating herself.
She learned it quickly. I heard her gurgling cry as she stepped back, grew solid, lost her halo, dropped her Trump and clawed at the cord encircling her throat.
I came up beside her, to lay my hand upon Frakir, who uncoiled one end from the tree limb and rewound it about my wrist.
“Good evening, Jasra,” I said, jerking her head back. “Try the poison bite again and you'll need a neck brace. You understand?”
She tried to talk but couldn't. She nodded.
“I'm going to loosen my cord a bit,” I said, “so you can answer my questions.”
I eased Frakir's grip upon her throat. She began coughing, then, and gave me a look that would have turned sand to glass. Her magical construct had faded completely, so I let the Logrus slip away also.
“Why are you after me?” I asked. “What am I to you?”
“Son of perdition!” she said, and she tried to spit at me but her mouth must have been too dry.
I jerked lightly on Frakir and she coughed again. “Wrong answer,” I said. “Try again.”
But she smiled then, her gaze shifting to a point beyond me. I kept the slack out of Frakir and chanced a glance. The air was beginning to shimmer, behind me and to the right, in obvious preparation to someone's trumping in.
I did not feel ready to take on an additional threat at this time, and so I dipped my free hand into my pocket and withdrew a handful of my own Trumps. Flora's was on top. Fine. She'd do.
I pushed my mind toward her, through the feeble light, beyond the face of the card. I felt her distracted attention, followed by a sudden alertness. Then, Yes... ?
“Bring me through! Hurry!” I said.
“Is it an emergency?” she asked.
“You'd better believe it,” I told her.
“Uh-okay. Come on.”
I had an image of her in bed. It grew clearer, clearer. She extended her hand.
I reached out and took it. I moved forward just as I heard Luke's voice ring out, crying, “Stop!”
I continued on through, dragging Jasra after me. She tried to draw back and succeeded in halting me as I stumbled against the side of the bed. It was then I noted the dark-haired, bearded man regarding me with wide eyes from the bed's farther side.
“Who-? What-?” he began as I smiled bleakly and regained my balance.
Luke's shadowy form came into view beyond my prisoner. He reached forward and seized Jasra's arm, drawing her back away from me. She made a gurgling noise as the movement drew Frakir more tightly about her throat.
Damn! What now?
Flora rose suddenly, her face contorted, the scented lavender sheet falling away as she drove a fist forward with surprising speed.
“You bitch!” she cried. “Remember me?”
The blow fell upon Jasra's jaw, and I barely managed to free Frakir in time to keep from being dragged backward with her into Luke's waiting arms.
Both of them faded, and the shimmer was gone.
The dark-haired guy in the meantime had scrambled out of the bed and was snatching up articles of clothing. Once he had them all in his grasp he did not bother to don any, but simply held them in front of him and backed quickly toward the door.
“Ron! Where are you going?” Flora asked.
“Away!” he answered, and he opened the door and passed through it. “Hey! Wait!”
“No way!” came the reply from the next room.
“Damn!” she said, glaring at me. “You have a way of messing up a person's life.” Then, “Ron! What about dinner?” she called.
“I have to see my analyst,” came his voice, followed shortly by the slamming of another door.
“I hope you realize what a beautiful thing you just destroyed,” Flora told me.
I sighed. “When did you meet him?” I asked.
She frowned. “Well, yesterday,” she replied. “Go ahead and smirk. These things are not always a mere function of time. I could tell right away that it was going to be something special. Trust someone crass like you or your father to cheapen a beautiful—”
“I'm sorry,” I said. “Thanks for pulling me through. Of course he'll be back. We just scared the hell out of him. But how could he fail to return once he's known you?”
She smiled. “Yes, you are like Corwin,” she said. “Crass, but perceptive.”
She rose and crossed to the closet, took out a lavender robe and donned it.
“What,” she said, belting it about her, “was that all about?”
“It's a long story—”
“Then I'd better hear it over lunch. Are you hungry?” she asked.
I grinned.
“It figures. Come on.”
She led me out through a French Provincial living room and into a large country kitchen full of tiles and copper. I offered to help her, but she pointed at a chair beside the table and told me to sit.
As she was removing numerous goodies from the refrigerator, I said, “First “
“Yes?”
“Where are we?”
“San Francisco,” she replied.
“Why have you set up housekeeping here?”
“After I finished that business of Random's I decided to stay on. The town looked good to me again.”
I snapped my fingers. I'd forgotten she'd been sent to determine the ownership of the warehouse where Victor Melman had had his apartment and studio, and where Brutus Storage had a supply of ammo that would Ere in Amber.
“So who owned the warehouse?” I asked.
“Brutus Storage,” she replied. “Melman rented from them.”
“And who owns Brutes Storage?”
“J. B. Rand, Inc.”
“Address?”
“An office in Sausalito. It was vacated a couple of months ago.”
“Did the people who owned the place have a home address for the renter?”
“Just a post office box. It's been abandoned too.”
I nodded. “I'd a feeling it would be something like that,” I said. “Now tell me about Jasra. Obviously you know the lady.”
She sniffed. “No lady,” she said. “A royal whore is what she was when I knew her.”
“Where?”
“In Kashfa.”
“Where's that?”
“An interesting little shadow kingdom, a bit over the edge of the Golden Circle of those with which Amber has commerce. Shabby barbaric splendor and all that. It's kind of a cultural backwater.”
“How is it you know it at all, then?”
She paused a moment in stirring something in a bowl.
“Oh, I used to keep company with a Kashfan nobleman I'd met in a wood one day. He was out hawking and I happened to have twisted my ankle—”
“Uh,” I interjected, lest we be diverted by details. “And Jasra?”
“She was consort to the old king Menillan. Had him wrapped around her finger.”
“What have you got against her?”
“She stole Jasrick while I was out of town.”
“Jasrick?”
“My nobleman. Earl of Kronklef.”
“What did His Highness Menillan think of these goings-on?”
“He never knew. He was on his deathbed at the time. Succumbed shortly thereafter. In fact, that's why she really wanted Jasrick. He was chief of the palace guard and his brother was a general. She used them to pull off a coup when Menillan expired. Last I heard, she was queen in Kashfa and she'd ditched Jasrick. Served him proper, I'd say. I think he had his eye on the throne, but she didn't care to share it. She had him and his brother executed for treason of one sort or another. He was really a handsome fellow... Not too bright, though.”