Knight of Shadows

«Well, he's trying them in sequence, so I don't know that you could say it's indiscriminate. So far all of the doors he's tried have been to rooms which are empty. He should reach yours in another minute or so.»

I crossed to my door, unlocked it, opened it, and stepped out into the hallway.

Sure enough, there was a short guy moving along the hallway. He looked in my direction at the opening of my door, and his teeth showed within his beard as he smiled and headed toward me.

It quickly became apparent that he was a hunchback.

«My God!» I said. «You're Dworkin, aren’t you? The real Dworkin!»

«I believe so,» he replied in a not unpleasant voice. «And I do hope that you are Corwin's son, Merlin.»

«I am,» I said. «This is an unusual pleasure, coming at an unusual time.»

«It is not a social call,» he stated, drawing near and clasping my hand and shoulder. «Ah! These are your quarters!»

«Yes. Won't you come in?»

«Thank you.»

I led him in. Ghost did a fly-on-the-wall imitation, became about a half inch in diameter, and took up residence on the armoire as if the result of a stray sunbeam. Dworkin did a quick turn about the sitting room, glanced into the bedroom, stared at Nayda for a time, muttered, «Always let sleeping demons lie,» touched the Jewel as he passed me on his return, shook his head forebodingly, and sank into the chair I'd been afraid I'd go to sleep in.

«Would you care for a glass of wine?» I asked him. He shook his head.

«No, thank you,» he replied. «It was you who repaired the nearest Broken Pattern in Shadow, was it not?»

«Yes, it was.»

«Why did you do it?»

«I didn't have much choice in the matter.»

«You had better tell me all about it,» the old man said, tugging at his grisly, irregular beard. His hair was long and could have used a trim also. Still, there seemed nothing of madness in his gaze or his words.

«It is not a simple story, and if I am to stay awake long enough to tell it, I am going to need some coffee,» I said.

He spread his hands, and a small, white-clothed table appeared between us, bearing service for two and a steaming silvery carafe set above a squat candle. There was also a tray of biscuits. I couldn't have summoned it all that fast. I wondered whether Mandor could.

«In that case, I will join you,» Dworkin said.

I sighed and poured. I raised the Jewel of Judgment.

«Perhaps I'd better return this thing before I start,» I told him. «It may save me a lot of trouble. later.»

He shook his head as I began to rise.

«I think not,» he stated. «If you take is off now, you will probably die.»

I sat down again.

«Cream and sugar?» I asked him.

IX

I came around slowly. That familiar blueness was a lake of prebeing in which I drifted. Oh, yes, I was here because… I was here, as the song said. I turned over onto my other side within my sleeping bag, drew my knees up to my chest, and went back to sleep.

The next time I came around and gave it a quick glance the world was still a blue place. Fine: There is much to be said for the tried, the true. Then I recalled that Luke might be by at any time to kill me, and my lingers wrapped themselves around the hilt of the weapon beside me, and I strained my hearing after signs of anything's approach.

Would I spend the day chipping at the wall of my crystal cave? I wondered. Or would Jasra come and try again to kill me?

Again? Something was wrong. There'd bees an awful lot of business involving Jurt and Coral and Luke and Mandor, and even Julia. Had it all been a dream?

The moment of panic came and went, and then my wandering spirit returned, bringing along the rest of my memories, and I yawned and everything was all right again.

I stretched. I sat up. I knuckled my eyes.

Yes, I was back in the crystal cave. No, everything that had happened since Luke imprisoned me had not been a dream. I had returned here by choice (a) because a good night's sleep in this time line amounted to only a brief span back in Amber, (b) because nobody could bother me here with a Trump contact, and (c) because it was possible that even the Pattern and the Logrus couldn't track me down here.

I brushed my hair out of my eyes, rose, and headed back to the john. It had been a good idea, having Ghost` transport me here following my colloquy with Dworkin. I was certain I had slept for something like twelve hours - deep, undisturbed stuff, the best kind. I drained a quart water bottle. I washed my face with more of the stuff.

Later, after I had dressed and stowed the bedclothes in the storeroom, I walked to the entrance chamber and stood in the light beneath the overhead adit. What I could see of the sky through it was clear. I could still hear Luke's words the day he had imprisoned me here and I'd learned we were related.

I drew the Jewel of Judgment up from within my shirt, removed it, held it high so that the light shone from behind it, stared into its depths. No messages this time.