VII
I delivered us into that eerie hall that had always been old Sawall's chief delight in the maze. It was a sculpture garden, with no outside light sources and small base lighting only about the huge pieces, making it several times darker than my favorite lounge. The floor was uneven-concave, convex, stepped, ridged-with concavity being the dominant curve. It was difficult to guess at its dimensions, for it seemed of different size and contour depending upon where one stood. Gramble, Lord Sawall, had caused it to be constructed without any plane surfaces-and I believe the job involved some unique shadowmastery.
I stood beside what appeared to be a complicated rigging in the absence of its ship-that, or an elaborate musical instrument fit to be strummed by Titans-and the light turned the lines to silver, running like life from darkness to darkness within some half seen frame. Other pieces jutted from walls and hung like stalactites. As I strolled, what had seemed walls became floor to me. The pieces that had seemed floored now jutted or depended.
The room changed shape as I went, and a breeze blew through it, causing sighs, hums, buzzes, chimes. Gramble, my stepfather, had taken a certain delight in this hall, whereas for me it had long represented an exercise in intrepidity to venture beyond its threshold. As I grew older, however, I, too, came to enjoy it, partly for the occasional frisson it provided my adolescence. Now, though-Now I just wanted to wander it a few moments, for old times' sake, as I sorted through my thoughts. There were so damned many of them. Things that had tantalized me for much of my adult life seemed near to explanation now. I was not happy with all of the possibilities that tumbled through my mind. Still, no matter which ones came out on top, it would beat ignorance.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“What is this place, anyway?” Ghost asked.
“It's a part of the big art collection here at the Ways of Sawall,” I explained. “People come from all over the Courts and nearby Shadow to see it. It was a passion with my stepfather. I spent a lot of time wandering these halls when I was a kid. There are many hidden ways in this place.”
“And this particular room? There's something wrong with it.”
“Yes and no,” I said. “I guess it depends on what you mean by `wrong. ' “
“My perceptions are strangely affected just now.”
“That is because the space itself is folded in here, like some odd origami figure. The hall is much larger than it seems. You can wander through many times and witness a different array of displays on each occasion. There may even be some internal movement involved. I was never sure. Only Sawall knew for certain.”
“I was right. Something's wrong with it.”
“I rather like it this way.”
I seated myself on a silver stump beside a sprawled silver tree.
“I want to see how it folds,” he said at last.
“Go ahead.”
As he drifted off, I thought of my recent interview with my mother. I was reminded of everything Mandor had said or implied, of the conflict between the Pattern and the Logrus, of my father as the champion of the Pattern and intended king in Amber. Had she known this, known it as fact rather than speculation? I imagined she could have, for she seemed to enjoy a special relationship with the Logrus, and it would surely have been aware of its adversary's more prominent decisions. She'd admitted that she did not love the man. It seemed
as if she had sought him for whatever genetic material had so impressed the Pattern. Had she really been trying to breed a champion for the Logrus?
I chuckled as I considered the result. She had seen me trained well in arms, but I was nowhere near Dad's league. I'd preferred sorcery, but sorcerers were a dime a dozen in the Courts. Finally, she'd shipped me off to college on that Shadow Earth the Amberites favor. But a degree in Computer Science from Berkeley didn't much qualify me to uphold the banner of Chaos against the forces of Order either. I must have been a disappointment to her.
I thought back to my childhood, to some of the strange adventures for which this place had served as a point of departure. Gryll and I would come here, Glait slithering at our feet, coiled about a limb or riding somewhere amid my garments. I would give that odd ululant cry I had learned in a dream, and sometimes Kergma would join us, come skittering down the . folds of darkness, out some frayed area of twisted space. I was never sure exactly what Kergma was, or even of what gender, for Kergma was a shapeshifter and flew, crawled, hopped, or ran in a succession of interesting forms.
On an impulse, I voiced that ancient call. Nothing, of course, happened, and I saw it moments later for what it was: a cry after a vanished childhood, when I had at least felt wanted. Now, now I was nothing-neither Amberite nor Chaosite, and certainly a disappointment to my relatives on both sides. I was a failed experiment. I'd never been wanted for myself, but as something that might come to pass. Suddenly my eyes were moist, and I held back a sob. And I'll never know what sort of mood I might have worked myself into because I was distracted then.
There came a flare of red light from a point high on the wall to my left. It was in the form of a small circle about the feet of a human figure.
“Merlin!” called a voice from that direction, and the flames leapt higher. By their light, I saw that familiar face, reminding me a bit of my own, and I was pleased with the meaning it had just given to my life, even if that meaning was death.
I raised my left hand above my head and willed a flash of blue light from the spikard.
“Over here, Jurt!” I called, rising to my feet. I began forming the ball of light that was to be his distraction while I readied the strike that would electrocute him. On reflection, it had seemed the surest way of taking him out. I'd lost count of the number of attempts he'd made on my life, and I'd resolved to take the initiative the next time he came calling. Frying his nervous system seemed the surest way to ice him, despite what the Fountain had done for him. “Over here, Jurt!”
“Merlin! I want to talk!”
“I don't. I've tried it too often, and I've nothing left to say. Come on over and let's get this done-weapons, hands, magic. I don't care.”
He raised both hands, palms outward.
“Truce!” he cried. “It wouldn't be right to do it here in Sawall.”
“Don't give me that scruples shit, brother! “ I cried, but even as I said it I realized there might be something to it. I could remember how much the old man's ap-proval had meant to him, and I realized that he'd hate to do anything to antagonize Dara here on the premises. “What do you want, anyway?”
f “To talk. I mean it,” he said. “What do I have to do?”
“Meet me over there,” I said, casting my ball of light to shine above a familiar object that looked like a giant house of cards made of glass and aluminum, bouncing light from hundreds of planes.
“All right,” came the reply.
I began walking in that direction. I saw him approaching from his, and I angled my course so that our paths would not intersect. Also, I increased my pace so as to arrive ahead of him.
“No tricks,” he called out. “And if we do decide we can only take it to the end, let's go outside.”
“Okay.”
I entered the structure at a point around the corner from his approach. Immediately, I encountered six images of myself.
“Why here?” came his voice from somewhere near at hand.
“I don't suppose you ever saw a movie called Lady from Shanghai?”
No.
“It occurred to me that we could wander around in
here and talk, and the place would do a lot to keep us from hurting each other.”
I turned a corner. There were more of me in different places. A few moments later, I heard a sharp intake of breath from somewhere near at hand. It was followed almost immediately by a chuckle.
“I begin to understand,” I heard him say.