“It can't be done by Trump from here,” he answered. “Well, maybe under perfect conditions,” he amended, “but not with all these distractions.”
I tried to think of some spell, some sending, some agent to serve me in this. Ghost would have been ideal. Of course; he'd drifted off to explore the spatial asymmetries of the Sculpture Hall. That could keep him occupied for a long while.
“I could get there pretty quickly,” Jurt volunteered, “and with the time differential I might make it back before anyone noticed.”
“And you know exactly two people in Kashfa you might tell,” I said. “Luke and Coral. They both met you in church, when we were trying to kill each otherand you stole Luke's father's sword. Offhand, I'd say he'd try to kill you on sight and she'd scream for help.”
The line advanced somewhat.
“So I don't ask for help,” he said.
“Un-uh,” I told him. “I know you're tough, but Hendrakes are pros. Also, you'd be faced with a very uncooperative rescuee in Coral.”
“You're a sorcerer,” Jurt said. “If we find out who the guards are, couldn't you lay a spell on them so that they think they see us for this whole affair? Then we disappear and no one's the wiser.”
“I've a hunch either Mom or our big brother has laid protective spells on the guards. At such an ideal time for an assassination, I would. I wouldn't want anyone able to mess with my people's heads if I were running security here.”
We shuffled a little farther along. By leaning to one side and stretching my neck I was able to get a few glimpses of the wasted demonic foam of old Swayvill, resplendently garbed, serpent of red-gold laid upon his breast, there in the flame-formed coffin, Oberon's ancient nemesis, going to join him at last.
As I moved nearer, it occurred to me that there was more than one a roach to the problem. Perhaps I'd dwelled too long among the magically naive. I'd gotten out of the habit of thinking of magic against magic, of multiple mixed spells. So what if the guards were protected from any fiddling with their perceptions? Let it be. Find a way to work around it.
The gong sounded again. When the echoes died, Jurt leaned near.
“There's more to it than everything I said,” he whispered.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Another reason I came to you back at Sawall was because I was scared,” he replied.
“Of what?”
“At least one of them-Mandor or Dara-wants more than a balance, wants a total victory for the Logrus, for Chaos. I really believe that. It's not just that I don't want to be patty to it. I don't want it to happen. Now that I can visit Shadow I don't want to see it destroyed. I don't want a victory for either side. Total control by
' the Pattern would probably be just as bad.”
“How can you be sure one of them really wants this?”
“They tried it before with Brand, didn't they? He was out to destroy all order.”
“No,” I said. “He planned to destroy the old order, then replace it with his own. He was a revolutionary, not an anarchist. He was going to create a new Pattern within the Chaos he brought forth-his own, but still the real thing.”
“He was duped. He couldn't have managed a thing like that.”
“No way of knowing till he tried, and he didn't get the chance.”
“Either way, I'm afraid someone's going to pull the plug on reality. If this kidnapping takes place, it'll be a big step in that direction. If you can't manage something to cover our absence, I think we should just go anyway and take our chances.”
“Not yet,” I said. “Hang on. I'm working something out. How's this sound? I don't locate the guards and hallucinate them. Instead, I do a transformation. I cause a couple of other people to look like us. You trump us out as soon as I do. That won't be a hallucination for anyone. Everyone will see them as us; we can go about our business-and check back if we have to.”
“You do it and I'll get us out of here.”
“Okay, I'll do it to the two guys in front of us. As soon as I've finished I'll gesture like this,” I said, lowering my left hand from shoulder-height to waist-level, “and we both stoop as if one of us had dropped something. Then you take us away.”
“I'll be ready.”
The spikard made it easier than working out a transform spell. It was like a spell processor. I fed it the two end products, and it ran thousands of variations in a trice and handed me the finished products-a pair of spells it would have taken me a long while to work out along classical lines. I raised my hand as I hung them and accessed one of the many power sources the thing commanded off in Shadow. I fed juice into the constructs, watched the change commence, dropped my hand, and leaned forward.
There followed a moment's vertigo, and when I straightened we were back in Jurt's apartment. I laughed and he slapped my shoulder.
Immediately then, we were changing back into our human forms and garments. As soon as that was done, he caught hold of my arm again and trumped us to Fire Gate. A moment later, and he'd jumped us again, this time to a mountaintop overlooking a blue valley beneath a green sky. Then again, to the middle of a high bridge above a deep gorge, the sky putting away stars or taking them on.
“Okay, now,” he said, and we stood atop a gray stone wall damp with dew, possibly even the remains of a v storm. Clouds were taking fire in the east. There was a light breeze out of the south.
This was the wall that surrounded the innermost zone of Jidrash, Luke's capital in Kashfa. There were four huge buildings below us-including the palace and the Temple of the Unicorn directly across the Plaza from it-as well as a number of smaller buildings. Diagonally across the way from where we stood was the wing of the palace from which Gryll had fetched me (how long ago?) from my rendezvous with the queen. I could even make out the broken shutter of our window amid an expanse of ivy.
“Over there,” I said, gesturing. “That's where I last saw her.”
An eyeblink later we stood within the chamber, its only inhabitants. The place had been straightened, the bed made up. I withdrew my Trumps and shuffled out Coral's. Staring then till it grew cold, I felt her presence and reached for it.
She was there yet she wasn't. It was the disjointed sense of presence one encounters in dream or stupor. I passed my hand over the card and ended our tenuous contact.
“What happened?” Jurt asked.
“I think she's drugged,” I replied.
“Then it would seem they've already got her,” he said. “Any way you can trace her in that state?”
“She could also be in the next building, on medication,” I said. “She wasn't well when I left.”
“What now?”
“Either way, we've got to talk to Luke,” I said, searching for his card.
I reached him in an instant on uncovering it. “Merlin! Where the hell are you?” he asked. “If you're in the palace, I'm next door,” I said.
He rose to his feet from what I now realized to be the edge of a bedstead, and he picked up a long-sleeved green shirt and drew it on, covering his collection of scars. I thought that I glimpsed someone in the bed behind him. He muttered something in that direction, but I could not overhear it.
“We've got to talk,” he said, running his hand through his rusty hair. “Bring me through.”
“Okay,” I said. “But first, you'd better know that my brother Jurt is here.”
“Has he got my dad's sword?”
“Uh-No.”
“Guess I won't kill him right now,” he said, tucking his shirt into his waistband.
Abruptly, he extended his hand. I clasped it. He stepped forward and joined us.
VIII
Luke grinned at me, scowled at Jurt.
“Where've you been, anyway?” he asked.
“The Courts of Chaos,” I replied. “I was summoned from here at the death of Swayvill. The funeral's in progress right now. We sneaked away when I learned that Coral was in danger.”