“Really?” he said. “Then why are you at the cathedral rather than here at Thelbane?”
“Nobody told me I was supposed to be at Thelbane.”
“Odd,” he responded. “Your mother was supposed to have informed both you and Jurt that you were to be part of the procession.”
I shook my head and turned away.
“Jurt, did you know we were to be in the procession?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “On the one hand, it makes sense. On the other, there’s the black watch, which might recommend we maintain a low profile. Who’s telling you this?”
“Mandor. He says Dara was supposed to let us know.”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“You catch that?” I said to Mandor.
“Yes. It doesn’t matter now. Come on through, both of you.”
He extended his other hand.
“He wants us now,” I said to Jurt. “Damn!” Jurt mouthed, and came forward.
I reached out and clasped Mandor’s hand just as Jurt came up and caught hold of my shoulder. We both moved forward then — into the slick and gleaming interior of Thelbane’s main hall at ground level, a study in black, gray, mossy green, deep red, chandeliers like stalactites, fire sculptures about the walls, scaly hides hung behind them, drifting globes of water in the middle air, creatures swimming within them. The place was filled with notables, relatives, courtiers, stirring like a field of flame about the catafalque at the hall’s center. The gong sounded again just as Mandor said something to us.
He waited till the vibrations subsided, then spoke again: “I said Dara hasn’t arrived yet. Go pay your respects, and let Bances assign you places in the procession.”
Glancing toward the catafalque, I caught sight of both Tmer and Tubble in the vicinity. Tmer was talking to Bances, Tubble to someone who had his back turned this way. A horrible thought suddenly struck me.
“What,” I asked, “is the security situation for the procession?”
Mandor smiled.
“There are quite a few guardsmen mixed in with the group here,” he said, “and more spotted along the way. Someone will be watching you every second.”
I glanced at Jurt to see whether he’d heard, that. He nodded.
“Thanks.”
Keeping my litany of obscenities subvocal, I moved toward the casket, Jurt at my back. The only way I could think to produce a double would be to talk the Pattern into sending in a ghost of myself to take my place. But the Logrus would detect the ringer’s projected energies in no time. And if I just left, not only would my absence be noticed, but I’d probably be tracked — possibly by the Logrus itself once Dara called a conference. Then it would be learned that I’d gone off to thwart the Logrus’s attempt to rebalance order, and the headwaters of Shit Creek are a cruel and treacherous expanse. I would not make the mistake of fancying myself indispensable.
“How are we going to do this, Merlin?” Jurt said softly as we found our way to the end of the slowmoving line.
The gong sounded again, causing the chandeliers to vibrate.
“I don’t see how we can,” I answered. “I think the best I can hope for is to try getting a message through as I walk along.”
“It can’t be done by Trump from here,” he answered. “Well, maybe under perfect conditions,” he amended, “but not with all these distractions.”
I tried to think of some spell, some sending, some agent to serve me in this. Ghost would have been ideal. Of course; he’d drifted off to explore the spatial asymmetries of the Sculpture Hall. That could keep him occupied for a long while.
“I could get there pretty quickly,” Jurt volunteered, “and with the time differential I might make it back before anyone noticed.”
“And you know exactly two people in Kashfa you might tell,” I said. “Luke and Coral. They both met you in church, when we were trying to kill each other — and you stole Luke’s father’s sword. Offhand, I’d say he’d try to kill you on sight and she’d scream for help.”
The line advanced somewhat.
“So I don’t ask for help,” he said.
“Un-uh,” I told him. “I know you’re tough, but Hendrakes are pros. Also, you’d be faced with a very uncooperative rescue in Coral.”
“You’re a sorcerer,” Jurt said. “If we find out who the guards are, couldn’t you lay a spell on them so that they think they see us for this whole affair? Then we disappear and no one’s the wiser.”
“I’ve a hunch either Mom or our big brother has laid protective spells on the guards. At such an ideal time for an assassination, I would. I wouldn’t want anyone able to mess with my people’s heads if I were running security here.”
We shuffled a little farther along. By leaning to one side and stretching my neck I was able to get a few glimpses of the wasted demonic foam of old Swayvill, resplendently garbed, serpent of red-gold laid upon his breast, there in the flame-formed coffin, Oberon’s ancient nemesis, going to join him at last.
As I moved nearer, it occurred to me that there was more than one a roach to the problem. Perhaps I’d dwelled too long among the magically naive. I’d gotten out of the habit of thinking of magic against magic, of multiple mixed spells. So what if the guards were protected from any fiddling with their perceptions? Let it be. Find a way to work around it.
The gong sounded again. When the echoes died, Jurt leaned near.
“There’s more to it than everything I said,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Another reason I came to you back at Sawall was because I was scared,” he replied.
“Of what?”
“At least one of them — Mandor or Dara — wants more than a balance, wants a total victory for the Logrus, for Chaos. I really believe that. It’s not just that I don’t want to be party to it. I don’t want it to happen. Now that I can visit Shadow I don’t want to see it destroyed. I don’t want a victory for either side. Total control by the Pattern would probably be just as bad.”
“How can you be sure one of them really wants this?”
“They tried it before with Brand, didn’t they? He was out to destroy all order.”
“No,” I said. “He planned to destroy the old order, then replace it with his own. He was a revolutionary, not an anarchist. He was going to create a new Pattern within the Chaos he brought forth — his own, but still the real thing.”
“He was duped. He couldn’t have managed a thing like that.”
“No way of knowing till he tried, and he didn’t get the chance.”
“Either way, I’m afraid someone’s going to pull the plug on reality. If this kidnapping takes place, it’ll be a big step in that direction. If you can’t manage something to cover our absence, I think we should just go anyway and take our chances.”
“Not yet,” I said. “Hang on. I’m working something out. How’s this sound? I don’t locate the guards and hallucinate them. Instead, I do a transformation. I cause a couple of other people to look like us. You trump us out as soon as I do. That won’t be a hallucination for anyone. Everyone will see them as us; we can go about our business — and check back if we have to.”
“You do it and I’ll get us out of here.”
“Okay, I’ll do it to the two guys in front of us. As soon as I’ve finished I’ll gesture like this,” I said, lowering my left hand from shoulder-height to waist-level, “and we both stoop as if one of us had dropped something. Then you take us away.”
“I’ll be ready.”
The spikard made it easier than working out a transform spell. It was like a spell processor. I fed it the two end products, and it ran thousands of variations in a trice and handed me the finished products — a pair of spells it would have taken me a long while to work out along classical lines. I raised my hand as I hung them and accessed one of the many power sources the thing commanded off in Shadow. I fed juice into the constructs, watched the change commence, dropped my hand, and leaned forward.