Random explored a cupboard in the corner, produced a bottle and a pair of goblets. He filled them and brought me one, then returned to his chair. We drank a silent toast to futility.
“Well,” he said, “plotting is the number-one pastime around here, and everyone has had plenty of time, you know. We are both too young to remember brothers Osric and Finndo, who died for the good of Amber. But the impression I get from talking with Benedict —”
“Yes,” I said, “— that they had done more than wishful thinking about the throne, and it became necessary that they die bravely for Amber. I’ve heard that, too. Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll never know for sure. Still… Yes, the point is well taken, though almost unnecessary. I do not doubt that it has been tried before. I do not put it past a number of us. Who, though? We will be operating under a severe handicap until we find out. Any move that we make externally will probably only be directed against a limb of the beast. Come up with an idea.”
“Corwin,” he said, “to be frank about it, I could make a case for it being anyone here — even myself, prisoner status and all. In fact, something like that would be a great blind for it. I would have taken genuine delight in looking helpless while actually pulling the strings that made all the others dance. Any of us would, though. We all have our motives, our ambitions. And over the years we all have had time and opportunity to lay a lot of groundwork. No, that is the wrong way to go about it, looking for suspects. Everyone here falls into that category. Let us decide instead what it is that would distinguish such an individual, aside from motives, apart from opportunities. I would say, let’s look at the methods involved.”
“All right. Then you start.”
“Some one of us knows more than the rest of us about the workings of Shadow — the ins and the outs, the whys and the hows. He also has allies, obtained from somewhere fairly far afield. This is the combination he has brought to bear upon Amber. Now, we have no way of looking at a person and telling whether he possesses such special knowledge and skills. But let us consider where he could have obtained them. It could be that he simply learned something off in Shadow somewhere, on his own. Or he could have been studying all along, here, while Dworkin was still alive and willing to give lessons.”
I stared down into my glass. Dworkin could still be living. He had provided my means of escape from the dungeons of Amber — how long ago? I had told no one this, and was not about to. For one thing, Dworkin was quite mad — which was apparently why Dad had had him locked away. For another, he had demonstrated powers I did not understand, which convinced me he could be quite dangerous. Still, he had been kindly disposed toward me after a minimum of flattery and reminiscence. If he were still around, I suspected that with a bit of patience I might be able to handle him. So I had kept the whole business locked away in my mind as a possible secret weapon. I saw no reason for changing that decision at this point.
“Brand did hang around him a lot,” I acknowledged, finally seeing what he was getting at. “He was interested in things of that sort.”
“Exactly,” Random replied. “And he obviously knew more than the rest of us, to be able to send me that message without a Trump.”
“You think he made a deal with outsiders, opened the way for them, then discovered that they no longer needed him when they hung him out to dry?”
“Not necessarily. Though I suppose that is possible, too. My thinking runs more like this — and I don’t deny my prejudice in his favor: I think he had learned enough about the subject so that he was able to detect it when someone did something peculiar involving the Trumps, the Pattern, or that area of Shadow most adjacent to Amber. Then he slipped up. Perhaps he underestimated the culprit and confronted him directly, rather than going to Dad or Dworkin. What then? The guilty party subdued him and imprisoned him in that tower. Either he thought enough of him not to want to kill him if he did not have to, or he had some later use of him in mind.”
“You make that sound plausible, too,” I said, and I would have added, “and it fits your story nicely” and watched his poker face again, except for one thing. Back when I was with Bleys, before our attack on Amber, I had had a momentary contact with Brand while fooling with the Trumps. He had indicated distress, imprisonment, and then the contact had been broken. Random’s story did fit, to that extent. So, instead, I said, “If he can point the finger, we have got to get him back and set him to pointing.”
“I was hoping you would say that,” Random replied. “I hate to leave a bit of business like that unfinished.”
I went and fetched the bottle, refilled our glasses. I sipped. I lit another cigarette.
“Before we get into that, though,” I said, “I have to decide on the best way of breaking the news about Caine. Where is Flora, anyway?”
“Down in town, I think. She was here this morning. I can find her for you. I’m pretty sure.”
“Do it, then. She is the only other one I know of who has seen one of these guys, back when they broke into her place in Westchester. We might as well have her handy for that much corroboration as to their nastiness. Besides, I have some other things I want to ask her.”
He swallowed his drink and rose.
“All right. I’ll go do that now. Where should I bring her?”
“My quarters. If I’m not there, wait.” He nodded.
I rose and accompanied him into the hall.
“Have you got the key to this room?” I asked.
“It’s on a hook inside.”
“Better get it and lock up. We wouldn’t want a premature unveiling.”
He did that and gave me the key. I walked with him as far as the first landing and saw him on his way.
From my safe, I removed the Jewel of Judgment, a ruby pendant which had given Dad and Eric control over the weather in the vicinity of Amber. Before he died, Eric had told me the procedure to be followed in tuning it to my own use. I had not had time to do it, though, and did not really have the time now. But during my conversation with Random I had decided that I was going to have to take the time. I had located Dworkin’s notes, beneath a stone near Eric’s fireplace. He had given me that much information also, that last time. I would have liked to know where he had come across the notes in the first place, though, for they were incomplete. I fetched them from the rear of the safe and regarded them once again. They did agree with Eric’s explanation as to how the attunement was to be managed.
But they also indicated that the stone had other uses, that the control of meteorological phenomena was almost an incidental, though spectacular, demonstration of a complex of principles which underlay the Pattern, the Trumps, and the physical integrity of Amber herself, apart from Shadow. Unfortunately, the details were lacking. Still, the more I searched my memory, the more something along these lines did seem indicated. Only rarely had Dad produced the stone; and though he had spoken of it as a weather changer, the weather had not always been especially altered on those occasions when he had sported it. And he had often taken it along with him on his little trips. So I was ready to believe that there was more to it than that. Eric had probably reasoned the same way, but he had not been able to dope out its other uses either. He had simply taken advantage of its obvious powers when Bleys and I had attacked Amber; and he had used it the same way this past week when the creatures had made their assault from the black road. It had served him well on both occasions, even if it had not been sufficient to save his life. So I had better get hold of its power myself, I decided, now. Any extra edge was important. And it would be good to be seen wearing the thing, too, I judged. Especially now.