While I waited and wondered I watched the others, a fruitless yet inevitable exercise. Simple curiosity, more than suspicion even, required that I search these faces for reactions, clues, indications — the faces that I knew better than any others, to the limits of my understanding such things. And of course they told me nothing. Perhaps it is true that you really only look at a person the first time you see him, and after that you do a quick bit of mental shorthand each time you recognize him. My brain is lazy enough to give that its likelihood, using its abstracting powers and a presumption of regularity to avoid work whenever possible. This time I forced myself to see, though, and it still did not help. Julian maintained his slightly bored, slightly amused mask. Gerard appeared alternately surprised, angry, and wistful. Benedict just looked bleak and suspicious. Llewella seemed as sad and inscrutable as ever. Deirdre looked distracted. Flora acquiescent, and Fiona was studying everyone else, myself included, assembling her own catalog of reactions.
The only thing that I could tell, after some time, was that Random was making an impression. While no one betrayed himself, I saw the boredom vanish, the old suspicion abate, the new suspicion come to life. Interest rose among my kin. Fascination, almost. Then everyone had questions. At first a few, then a barrage.
“Wait,” I finally interrupted. “Let him finish. The whole thing. Some of these will answer themselves. Get the others afterward.”
There were nods and growls, and Random proceeded through to the real end. That is, he carried it on to our fight with the beastmen at Flora’s, indicating that they were of the same ilk as the one who had slain Caine. Flora endorsed this part.
Then, when the questions came, I watched them carefully. So long as they dealt with the matter of Random’s story, they were all to the good. But I wanted to cut things short of speculation as to the possibility of one of us being behind it all. As soon as that came out, talk of me and the smell of red herrings would also drift in. This could lead to ugly words and the emergence of a mood I was not anxious to engender. Better to go for the proof first, save on later recriminations, corner the culprit right now if possible, and consolidate my position on the spot.
So I watched and waited. When I felt that the vital moment had ticked its way too near I stopped the clock.
“None of this discussion, this speculation, would be necessary,” I said, “if we had all of the facts right now. And there may be a way to get them — right now. That is why you are here.”
That did it. I had them. Attentive. Ready. Maybe even willing.
“I propose we attempt to reach Brand and bring him home,” I said, “now.”
“How?” Benedict asked me.
“The Trumps.”
“It has been tried,” said Julian. “He cannot be reached that way. No response.”
“I was not referring to the ordinary usage.” I said. “I asked you all to bring full sets of Trumps with you. I trust that you have them?”
There were nods.
“Good,” I said. “Let us shuffle out Brand’s Trump now. I propose that all nine of us attempt to contact him simultaneously.”
“An interesting thought,” Benedict said.
“Yes,” Julian agreed, producing his deck and riffling through it. “Worth trying, at least. It may generate additional power. I do not really know.”
I located Brand’s Trump. I waited until all the others had found it. Then, “Let us coordinate things,” I said. “Is everyone ready?”
Eight assents were spoken. “Then go ahead. Try. Now.”
I studied my card. Brand’s features were similar to my own, but he was shorter and slenderer. His hair was like Fiona’s. He wore a green riding suit. He rode a white horse. How long ago? How long ago was that? I wondered. Something of a dreamer, a mystic, a poet, Brand was always disillusioned or elated, cynical or wholly trusting. His feelings never seemed to find a middle ground. Manic-depressive is too facile a term for his complex character, yet it might serve to indicate a direction of departure, multitudes of qualifications lining the roadway thereafter. Pursuant to this state of affairs, I must admit that there were times when I found him so charming, considerate, and loyal that I valued him above all my other kin. Other times, however, he could be so bitter, sarcastic, and downright savage that I tried to avoid his company for fear that I might do him harm. Summing up, the last time I had seen him had been one of the latter occasions, just a bit before Eric and I had had the falling out that led to my exile from Amber.
…And those were my thoughts and feelings as I studied his Trump, reaching out to him with my mind, my will, opening the vacant place I sought him to fill. About me, the others shuffled their own memories and did the same.
Slowly the card took on a dream-dust quality and acquired the illusion of depth. There followed that familiar blurring, with the sense of movement which heralds contact with the subject. The Trump grew colder beneath my fingertips, and then things flowed and formed, achieving a sudden verity of vision, persistent, dramatic, full.
He seemed to be in a cell. There was a stone wall behind him. There was straw on the floor. He was manacled, and his chain ran back through a huge ring bolt set in the wall above and behind him. It was a fairly long chain, providing sufficient slack for movement, and at the moment he was taking advantage of this fact, lying sprawled on a heap of straw and rags off in the corner. His hair and beard were quite long, his face thinner than I had ever before seen it. His clothes were tattered and filthy. He seemed to be sleeping. My mind went back to my own imprisonment — the smells, the cold, the wretched fare, the dampness, the loneliness, the madness that came and went. At least he still had his eyes, for they flickered and I saw them when several of us spoke his name; green they were, with a flat, vacant look.
Was he drugged? Or did he believe himself to be hallucinating?
But suddenly his spirit returned. He raised himself. He extended his hand.
“Brothers!” he said. “Sisters…”
“I’m coming!” came a shout that shook the room.
Gerard had leaped to his feet, knocking over his chair. He dashed across the room and snatched a great battle ax from its pegs on the wall. He slung it at his wrist, holding the Trump in that same hand. For a moment he froze, studying the card. Then he extended his free hand and suddenly he was there, clasping Brand, who chose that moment to pass out again. The image wavered. The contact was broken.
Cursing, I sought through the pack after Gerard’s own Trump. Several of the others seemed to be doing the same thing. Locating it, I moved for contact. Slowly, the melting, the turning, the re-forming occurred. There!
Gerard had drawn the chain taut across the stones of the wall and was attacking it with the ax. It was a heavy thing, however, and resisted his powerful blows for a long while. Eventually several of the links were mashed and scarred, but by then he had been at it for almost two minutes, and the ringing, chopping sounds had alerted the jailers.