“Yes?” he said. “That you, Merle?” at about the same time as his image swam and altered, causing me to see him mounted and riding through a part-blasted, part-normal countryside.
“Yeah,” I answered. “I gather you're no longer in Kashfa.”
“Right,” he said. “Where're you?”
“Somewhere in Shadow. How's about yourself?”
“Damned if I know for sure,” he responded. “We've
been following this black path for days-and I can only say `somewhere in Shadow,' too.”
“0h, you located it?”
“Nayda did. I didn't see anything, but she just led me on. Eventually, the trail got clear to me. Hell of a tracker, that gal.”
“She's with you now?”
“That's right. She says we're gaining on them, too.”
“Better bring me through then.”
“Come ahead.”
He extended a hand. I reached forward, clasped it, took a step, released his hand, began walking beside him, a pack horse to the rear.
“Hi, Nayda!” I called, to where she rode at his other side. A grim figure was mounted upon a black horse ahead and to her right.
She smiled.
“Merlin,” she said. “Hello.”
“How about Merle?” I said.
“If you wish.”
The figure on the dark horse turned and regarded me.
I halted a death strike that ran from reflex to the spikard so fast that it scared me. The air between us was smudged and filled with a screeching note, as of a car grabbing pavement to avert collision.
He was a big, blond-haired son of a bitch, and he had on a yellow shirt and black trousers, black boots, lots of cutlery. The medallion of the Lion rending the Unicorn bounced upon his broad chest. Every time I'd seen or heard of the man, he'd been about something nasty, damn near killing Luke on one occasion. He was a mercenary, a Robin Hood figure out of Eregnor, and a sworn enemy of Amber-illegitimate son of her late liege Oberon. I believed there was a price on his head within the Golden Circle. On the other hand, he and Luke had been buddies for years, and Luke swore he wasn't all that bad. He was my uncle Dalt, and I'd a feeling that if he moved too quickly the flexing of his muscles would shred his shirt.
“...And you remember my military adviser, Dalt,” Luke said.
“I remember,” I stated.
Dalt stared at the black lines in the air that faded, smokelike, between us. He actually smiled then, a little.
“Merlin,” he said, “son of Amber, Prince of Chaos,
the man who dug my grave.”
“What's this?” Luke asked.
“A little conversational gambit,” I replied. “You've a good memory, Dalt-for faces.”
He chuckled.
“Hard to forget something like a grave opening itself,” he said. “But I've no quarrel with you, Merlin.”
“Nor I you-now,” I said.
He grunted then and I grunted back and considered us introduced. I turned back toward Luke.
“Is the path itself giving you any trouble?” I asked.
“No,” he replied. “It's nothing at all like those stories I'd heard about the Black Road. It looks a little bleak at times, but nothing's really threatened us.” He glanced downward and chuckled. “Of course it's only a few yards wide,” he added, “and this is the broadest it's been, so far.”
“Still,” I said, opening my senses and studying its emanations with my Logrus sight, “I'd think something might have threatened.”
“I guess we've been lucky,” he said.
Again, Nayda laughed, and I felt foolish. The presence of a ty' iga would count as surely as my own in offsetting the dire effects of a Chaos roadway in the realm of Order.
“Guess you had a little luck coming,” I said.
“You're going to need a horse, Merle,” he said then. “I suppose you're right,” I agreed.
I was afraid to use Logrus magic and call attention to my location. Still, I had already learned that the spikard could be used in a similar fashion, and I entered it with my will, extended, extended, made contact, summoned...
“It'll be along any minute,” I said. “Did you say something about our gaining on them?”
“That's what Nayda tells me,” he explained. “She has an amazing rapport with her sister-not to mention a high sensitivity to this pathway itself.
“Knows a lot about demons, too,” he added.
“Oh, are we likely to encounter any?” I asked her.
“It was demonformed warriors from the Courts who abducted Coral,” she said. “They seem headed toward a tower up ahead.”
“How far ahead?” I asked.
“Hard to say, since we're cutting through Shadow,” she answered.
T'he trail, which consisted of blackened grasses and which produced the same effect on any tree or shrub that so much as overhung it, wound its way through a hilly area now; and as I stepped onto and off of it I noted that it seemed brighter and warmer each time I departed. It had reached this point now after having been virtually undetectable in the vicinity of Kashfa-an index of how far we were into the realm of the Logrus.
A little past the next bending of the trail, I heard a whinny from off to the right.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Delivery time,” and I departed the trail and entered a grove of oval-leafed trees.
Snorting and stamping sounds reached me from
ahead, and I followed them down shaded ways.
“Wait up!” Luke called. “We shouldn't separate.”
But the wood was fairly dense, not at all easy going
for someone on horseback, so I hollered back, “Don't worry!” and plunged ahead.
... And that, of course, was why he was there.
Fully saddled and bridled, his reins tangled in the dense foliage, he was cursing in horse-talk, shaking his head from side to side, pawing at the earth. I halted stared.
I may have given the impression that I would rather pull on a pair of Adidas and jog through Shadow than plunge through on the back of a beast driven half-mad by the changes going on about it. Or ride a bicycle. Or hop through on a pogo stick.
Nor would this impression be incorrect. It is not that I don't know how to drive the things. It is just that I'd never been particularly fond of them. Admitted, I never had the use of one of those wonder horses, such as Julian's Morgenstern, Dad's Star, or Benedict's Glemdenning, which stood to mortal horses in terms of life span, strength, and endurance as did Amberites to the inhabitants of most shadows.
I looked all about, but could detect no injured rider...
“Merlin!” I heard Luke call, but my attention was nearer at hand. I advanced slowly, not wanting to upset him further. “Are you all right?”
I had simply put in an order for a horse. Any old hay burner would have served, for purposes of keeping up with my companions.
I found myself looking at an absolutely lovely animal-black and orange-striped like a tiger. In this, he resembled Glemdenning with his red and black striping. In that I didn't know where Benedict's mount came from either, I was glad to let it be the place of magic.
I advanced slowly.
“Merle! Anything wrong?”
I didn't want to shout back a reply and frighten the poor beast. I placed my hand gently upon his neck.
“It's okay,” I said. “I like you. I'll undo it and we'll be friends, all right?”
I took my time untangling the reins, using my other hand to massage his neck and shoulders. When he was free he did not pull away, but seemed to study me.
“Come on,” I said, taking up the reins, “this way.”
I led him back the way I had come, talking the while. I realized by the rime we emerged that I actually liked him. I met Luke about then, a blade in his hand.
“My God!” he said. “No wonder it took you so long! You stopped to paint it!”
“You like, huh?”
“You ever want to get rid of that one, I'll make you a good offer.”
“I don't think I'll be getting rid of him,” I said.
“What's his name?”
“Tiger,” I said without premeditation, and then I mounted.
We headed back to the trail, where even Dalt eyed my mount with something like pleasure. Nayda reached out and stroked the black and orange mane.