In many of those windows, I glimpsed Juniper and the army camp that surrounded it.
They’re spying on us, I realized. No wonder someone knew to send Ivinius to kill me. They see everything that happens.
Suddenly everything in the tower grew flat, muted, distant. The colors washed out; the world around me began pulling back like a sudden outrushing tide. The tower of skulls—this world of strange geometries—receding into darkness—
Abruptly I found myself back in my body. It was a shock, like leaping into an icy lake, and I gasped.
“Drink…” a voice commanded.
I sat up, sputtering, liquid fire in my mouth and throat.
“What—” I tried to say. It came out as a muffled “Waaa.”
Opening bleary eyes, I found Dworkin crouched over me. He held a small silver cup, which he pressed to my lips. This time when he poured, I tasted brandy, old and smooth.
What had he done to me?
My whole body ached and refused to obey my commands. My hands shook. When I tried to push him away and sit up, I flailed like a fish out of water.
“Taine…” I gasped.
Dworkin jerked, spilling the brandy all over us both.
“What?” he demanded. “What did you say?”
I took a deep breath and summoned my strength. Raising one hand, I pushed him away. My limbs felt numb and weak, like all the blood had drained from my body and been replaced with lead. Rolling over onto my hands and knees took intense effort, but I managed it.
The room swayed dangerously. Grasping the edge of the closest table, I stood.
“Where… ?” I tried to ask. It came out more or less right.
“Give yourself time to recover, my boy,” he said. “You went through a difficult test.”
I frowned. “Yes… I… remember.”
As I sat on the edge of the table, trying to recover my sense of balance, he pressed the cup into my hands. Gingerly I took another sip.
“I know what I did was… difficult for you. But it had to be done.”
“What… had to be done?” I levered myself up on my elbows, sick and dizzy inside.
“I looked within you, within your essence. Turned you inside out, saw what needed to be seen, then put you back together.”
“My head hurts.” Groaning a little, I pressed my eyes shut and rubbed them. What felt like thousands of little needles piercing my skull resolved itself into the sort of headache I’d only had after a night of cheap rot-gut and too many women.
“Oberon…” He hesitated.
I forced open my eyes and gazed blearily up at him.
“You said something just now. It sounded like a name.”
“Taine,” I said, remembering my dream.
“What about him?”
“He’s hurt.”
“Where?”
“It was just a nightmare.” I shook my head. “I can barely recall it.”
“Try,” he urged. “Taine… you saw him?”
“Yes… in—in a tower made of bones, I think.” I frowned, trying to recall the details. “I heard a voice… a serpent’s voice. They had Taine on an altar.”
“They? Who are they?”
“The guards… hell-creatures… but not like the ones in Ilerium…”
“And Taine was alive? You are sure of it?”
“Yes. I think… they needed his blood for something… it dripped up!”
“Go on.” He spoke softly. “What were they doing with his blood?”
“I don’t know…”
“Think! It is important! Try to remember!”
I half closed my eyes, trying to see the tower in my mind’s eye, blood dripping into the air. “They were looking for us, I believe. I saw Juniper in a window made of blood… I think.”
I shook my head, the dream-images slipping away, elusive as will-o’-the-wisps. In another minute they would be gone.
Dworkin sank back on his heels. “Blood drips toward the sky in the Courts of Chaos,” he said numbly. “You have never been there. You could not possibly know…”
“It couldn’t have been real,” I said.
“I think it was. And if you saw Taine… then he is alive! That is good news. I had given up hope.”
“Better off dead, from the look of him.”
“All the children of Chaos heal fast and well. If we can find him… if we can rescue him—”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“I will see.”
“And the Logrus!” I said, levering myself up with my elbows. I felt a rising sense of excitement at the prospect of traversing it. “How soon can we go there?”
He hesitated.
“What is it?” I demanded. “You said it was my birthright. You said King Uthor couldn’t deny me my chance to go through it.”
“Oberon… the news is bad. You cannot use the Logrus. Not now. Not ever.”
“No!” Anger and outrage surged through me. I’d spent my whole life being denied. Denied a father. Denied a family. Denied all that should have been mine. I had no intention of missing out again. I would master the Logrus, even if I had to borrow one of Aber’s magical Trumps and go to the Courts of Chaos on my own.
“Listen to me,” he said urgently. “The pattern within you is wrong, somehow. It is more distorted than mine… so crooked, I almost did not recognize it.”
“So?” I said. His news meant nothing to me.
“You cannot enter the Logrus. It would destroy you, as it destroyed my brother, as it almost destroyed Freda and me. You would die, Oberon.”
I looked away. My headache returned with a vengeance, little knives piercing the inside my skull.
“So that’s it, then?” I said. I felt like he had kicked my legs out from under me. “There’s nothing you can do? No way you can fix it, somehow? Make it work?”
“I am sorry, my boy.” His eyes grew distant, thoughtful. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” I demanded. If he had any idea, any plan that might help me, I would have seized upon it.
But Dworkin simply sighed and shook his head. “No. It was a crazy thought, best left unspoken. You must be content with who and what you are. If nothing else, that may keep you alive. I know it gives you small comfort now, but perhaps it is a blessing in disguise. Put all thoughts of the Logrus behind you. There is nothing else we can do for now.”
For now. That still hinted of plans for the future, I thought. Plans which, it seemed, he had no intention of sharing with me. At least, not yet.
“Very well,” I said. I had a blinding pain behind both of my eyes, like twin needles pushing into my brain. I didn’t feel up to fighting with him about the Logrus. There would be time enough for that later.
Let him think I’d given up. I’d ask Aber about it later. My new-found brother seemed eager to volunteer information. If another way existed to get to the Logrus, or to have it imprinted on my mind, he might well know of it. Too many of Dworkin’s lies had been exposed for me to blindly trust him now, when he said the Logrus would kill me. For all I knew, he’d made it up to keep his control over me.
I considered the evidence. First, my childhood face-changing game… no one else I knew had been able to do that. And what about my great strength? I was two or three times stronger than any normal man. Or the speed of my reflexes—the quickness with which I healed—? If the pattern inside me came out so distorted, why had I been able to do all these things?
No, I thought, everything added up to more than Dworkin wanted to admit. I already had a measure of power over the Logrus—small as it was compared to everyone else’s. Judging from all these little signs, the Logrus within me worked just fine.