“Perhaps,” I mumbled.
“Please. I'd really like to see it.”
She seemed sincere. But my guess felt near-perfect.
Sufficient time had passed for that strange body-shifting spirit, which had dogged my trail in many forms, to have; located a new host and then to have zeroed in on me again and be insinuating itself into my good graces once more. Coral was perfect for the role, her arrival appropriately timed, her concern for my physical welfare manifest, her reflexes fast. I'd have liked to keep her around for questioning, but I knew that she would simply lie to me in the absence of proof or an emergency situation. And I did not trust her. So I reviewed the spell I had prepared and hung on my way home from Arbor House, a spell I had designed to expel a possessing entity from its host. I hesitated a moment, though. My feelings toward her were ambivalent. Even if she were the entity, I might be willing to put up with her if I just knew her motive.
So, “What is it that you want?” I asked.
“Just to see it. Honestly,” she answered.
“No, I mean that if you are what I think you really are, I'm asking the big question: Why?”
Frakir began to pulse upon my wrist.
Coral was silent for the space of an audible deep breath, then, “How could you tell?”
“You betrayed yourself in small ways discernible only to one who has recently become paranoid,” I responded.
“Magic,” she said. “Is that it?”
“It's about to be,” I replied. “I could almost miss you, but I can't trust you.”
I spoke the guide words to the spell, letting them draw my hands smoothly through the appropriate gestures. There followed two horrible shrieks, and then a third.
But they weren't hers. They came from around the corner in the passageway we had recently quitted.
“What-?” she began.
“-the hell! “ I finished; and I rushed past her and rounded the corner, drawing my blade as I went.
Backlighted by the distant cavemouth I beheld three
figures on the floor of the cave. Two of them were sprawled and unmoving. The third was seated and bent forward, , cursing. I advanced slowly, the point of my weapon directed toward the seated one. His shadowy head turned in my direction, and he climbed to his feet, still bent forward. He clutched his left hand with his right, and he backed away until he came into contact with the wall.
He halted there, muttering something I could not quite hear. I continued my cautious advance, all of my senses alert. I could hear Coral moving at my back, then I glimpsed her accompanying me on my left when the passage widened. She had drawn her dagger, and she held it low and near to her hip. No time now to speculate as to what my spell might have done to her.
I halted as I came to the first of the two fallen forms. I prodded it with the toe of my boot, ready to strike instantly should it spring into an attack. Nothing. It felt limp, lifeless. I used my foot to turn it over, and the head rolled back in the . direction of the cavemouth. In the light that then fell upon it I beheld a half-decayed human face My nose had already been informing me that this state was no mere illusion. I advanced upon the other one and turned him, also. He, too, bore the appearance of a decomposing corpse. While the first one clutched a dagger in his right hand, the second was weaponless. Then I noted another dagger-on the floor, near the live man's feet. I raised my eyes to him. This made no sense whatsoever. I'd have judged the two figures upon the floor to have been dead for several days, at least, and I had no idea as to what the standing man had been up to.
“Uh... Mind telling me what's going on?' I inquired.
“Damn you, Merlin!” he snarled, and I recognized the voice.
I moved in a slow arc, stepping over the fallen ones. Coral stayed near to my side, moving in a similar fashion. He turned his head to follow our progress, and when the
light finally fell upon his face, I saw that Jurt was glaring at me out of his one good eye-a patch covered the other-and I saw, too, that about half -of his hair was missing, the exposed scalp covered with welts or scars, his half-regrown ear-stub plainly visible. From this side I could also see that a bandana suitable for covering most Of this damage had slipped down around his neck. Blood was dripping from his left hand, and I suddenly realized that his little finger was missing.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“One of the zombies hit my hand with his dagger as he fell,” he said, “when you expelled the spirits that animated them.”
My spell-to evict a possessing spirit... They had been within range of it...
“Coral,” I asked, “are you all right?”
“Yes,” she replied. “But I don't understand...”
“Later,” I told her.
I did not ask him about, his head, as I recalled my struggle with the one-eyed werewolf in the wood to the east of Amber-the beast whose head I had forced into the campfire. I had suspected for some time that it had been Jurt in a shape-shifted form, even before Mandor had offered sufficient information to confirm it.
“Jurt,” I began, “I have been the occasion of many of your ills, but you must realize that you brought them on yourself. If you would not attack me, I would have no need to defend myself—”
There came a clicking, grinding sound. It took me several seconds to realize that it was a gnashing of teeth. “Miy adoption by your father meant nothing to me,” I said, “beyond the fact that he honored me by it. I was not even aware until recently that it had occurred.” “You lie!” he hissed. “You tricked him some way, to get ahead of us in the succession.”
“You've got to be kidding,” I said. “We're all so far down on the list that it doesn't matter.”
“Not for the Crown, you fool! For the House! Our father isn't all that well!”
“I'm sorry to hear that,” I said. “But I'd never even thought of it that way. And Mandor's ahead of all of us, anyhow.”
“And now you're second.”
“Not by choice. Come on! I'll never see the title. You know that!”
He drew himself upright, and when he moved I became aware of a faint prismatic nimbus that had been clinging to his outline.
“That isn't the real reason,” I continued. “You've never liked me, but you're not after me because of the succession. You're hiding something now. It's got to be something else, for all this activity on your pan. By the way, you did send the Fire Angel, didn't you?”
“It found you that fast?” he said. “I wasn't even sure I could count on that. I guess it was worth the price after all. But... What happened?”.
“It's dead.”
“You're very lucky. Too lucky,” he replied.”
“What is it that you want, Jurt? I'd like to settle this once and for all.”
“Me, too,” he answered. “You betrayed someone I love, and only your death will set things right.”
“Who are you talking about? I don't understand.”
He grinned suddenly.
“You will,” he said. “In the last moments of your life I'll let you know why.”
“I may have a long wait, then,” I answered. “You don't seem to be very good at this sort of thing: Why not just tell me now and save us both a lot of trouble?”
He laughed, and the prism effect increased, and it occurred to me in that instant what it was.
“Sooner than you think,” he said, “for shortly I will be more powerful than anything you ever met.”
“But no less clumsy,” I suggested, both to him and to whomever held his Tnimp, watching me through it, ready to snatch him away in an instant...
“That is you, Mask, isn't it?” I said. “Take him back. You don't have to send him again either and watch him screw up. I'll promote you on my list of priorities and come calling soon, if you'll just give me an assurance that it's really you.”