"Do you think I'm stupid, Flora?" I asked. "Do you think I came here just for purposes of waiting around for you to hand me over to Erie? Whatever you ran into, it served you right."
"All right I don't play in your league! But you're in exile, too! That shows you weren't so smart!"
Somehow her words burned and I knew they were wrong.
"Like hell I am!" I said.
She laughed again.
"I knew that would get a rise out of you," she said. "All right, you walk in the Shadows on purpose then. You're crazy."
I shrugged.
She said, "What do you want? Why did you really come here?"
"I was curious what you were up to," I said. "That's all. You can't keep me here if I don't want to stay. Even Eric couldn't do that. Maybe I really did just want to visit with you. Maybe I'm getting sentimental in my old age. Whatever, I'm going to stay a little longer now, and then probably go away for good. If you hadn't been so quick to see what you could get for me, you might have profited a lot more, lady. You asked me to remember you one day, if a certain thing occurred...."
It took several seconds for what I thought I was implying to sink in.
Then she said, "You're going to try! You're really going to try!"
"You're goddamn right I'm going to try," I said, knowing that I would, whatever it was, "and you can tell that to Eric if you want, but remember that I might make it. Bear in mind that if I do, it might be nice to be my friend."
I sure wished I knew what the hell I was talking about, but I'd picked up enough terms and felt the importance attached to them, so that I could use them properly without knowing what they meant. But they felt right, so very right... .
Suddenly, she was kissing me.
"I won't tell him. Really, I won't, Corwin! I think you can do it. Bleys will be difficult, but Gerard would probably help you, and maybe Benedict. Then Caine would swing over, when he saw what was happening—"
"I can do my own planning," I said.
Then she drew away. She poured two glasses of wine and handed one to me.
"To the future," she said.
"I'll always drink to that."
And we did.
Then she refilled mine and studied me.
"It had to be Eric, Bleys, or you," she said. "You're the only ones with any guts or brains. But you'd removed yourself from the picture for so long that I'd counted you out of the running."
"It just goes to show you never can tell."
I sipped my drink and hoped she'd shut up for just a minute. It seemed to me she was being a bit too obvious in trying to play on every side available. There was something bothering me, and I wanted to think about it.
How old was I?
That question, I knew, was a part of the answer to the terrible sense of distance and removal that I felt from all the persons depicted on the playing cards. I was older than I appeared to be. (Thirtyish, I'd seemed when I looked at me in the mirror—but now I knew that it was because the shadows would lie for me.) I was far, far older, and it had been a very long time since I had seen my brothers and my sisters, all together and friendly, existing side by side as they did on the cards, with no tension, no friction among them.
We heard the sound of the bell, and Carmella moving to answer the door.
"That would be brother Random," I said, knowing I was right. "He's under my protection."
Her eyes widened, then she smiled, as though she appreciated some clever thing I had done.
I hadn't, of course. but I was glad to let her think so.
It made me feel safer.
Chapter 4
I felt safe for perhaps all of three minutes. I beat Carmella to the door and flung It open.
He staggered in and immediately pushed the door shut behind himself and shot the bolt. There were lines under those light eyes and he wasn't wearing a bright doublet and long hose. He needed a shave and he had on a brown wool suit. He carried a gabardine overcoat over one arm and wore dark suede shoes. But he was Random, all right-the Random I had seen on the card-only the laughing mouth looked tired and there was dirt beneath his fingernails.
"Corwin!" he said, and embraced me.
I squeezed his shoulder. "You look as if you could use a drink," I said.
"Yes. Yes. Yes...." he agreed, and I steered him toward the library.
About three minutes later. after he had seated himself, with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, he
said to me, "They're after me. They'll be here soon."
Flora let out a little shriek, which we both ignored.
"Who?" I asked.
"People out of the shadows," he said. "I don't know who they are, or who sent them. There are four or five though, maybe even six. They were on the plane with me. I took a jet. They occurred around Denver. I moved the plane several times to subtract them. but it didn't work-and I didn't want to get too far off the track. I shook them in Manhattan, but it's only a matter of time. I think they'll be here soon."
"And you've no idea at all who sent them?"
He stalled for an instant.
"Well, I guess we'd he safe in limiting it to the family. Maybe Bleys, maybe Julian, maybe Caine. Maybe even you, to get me here. Hope not, though. You didn't, did you?"
"'Fraid not," I said. "How tough do they look?"
He shrugged. "If it were only two or three, I'd have tried to pull an ambush. But not with that whole crowd."
He was a little guy, maybe five-six in height, weighing perhaps one thirty-five. But he sounded as if he meant it when he said he'd take on two or three bruisers, single-handed. I wondered suddenly about my own physical strength, being his brother. I felt comfortably strong. I knew I'd be willing to take on any one man in a fair fight without any special fears. How strong was I?
Suddenly, I knew I would have a chance to find out.
There came a knocking at the front door.
"What shall we do?" asked Flora.
Random laughed, undid his necktie, tossed it atop his coat on the desk. He stripped off his suit jacket then and looked about the room. His eyes fell upon the saber and he was across the room in an instant and had it in his hand. I felt the weight of the .32 within my jacket pocket and thumbed off the safety catch.
"Do?" Random asked. "There exists a probability that they will gain entrance," he said. "Therefore, they will enter. When is the last time you stood to battle, sister?"
"It has been too long," she replied.
"Then you had better start remembering fast," he told her, "because it is only a matter of small time. They are guided, I can tell you. But there are three of us and at most only twice as many of them. Why worry?"
"We don't know what they are," she said.
The knocking came again.
"What does it matter?"
"Nothing," I said. "Shall I go and let them in?" They both blanched slightly.
"We might as well wait"
"I might call the cops." I said.
They both laughed, almost hysterically. "Or Eric," I said, suddenly looking at her. But she shook her head.
"We just don't have the time. We have the Trump, but by the time he could respond-if he chose to-it would be too late."
"And this might even be his doing, eh?" said Random.