Knight of Shadows

«I never stopped,» I said. «It's just that you came on too strong all of a sudden. You wanted more of me than I was willing to give just then.»

«You lie,» she said, «because I hold your life in my hand.»

«I could think of a lot worse reasons for lying,» I said. «But, unfortunately, I'm telling the truth.»

There came another familiar voice then, from off to my right.

«It was too early for us to speak of such things,» she said, «but I begrudge her your affection.»

Turning my head, I saw that this figure, too, now faced inward, and it was Coral and her right eye was covered by a black patch and she, too, held a knife in her right hand. Then I saw what was in her left hand, and I shot a glance back at Julia. Yes, they both held forks as well as knives.

«Et tu,» I said.

«I told you I don't speak English,» Coral replied.

«Et by two,» Julia responded, raising her utensils. «Who says I don't have a sense of humor?»

They spit at each other across me, some of the spittle not quite going the distance.

Luke, it occurred to me, might have tried settling matters by proposing to both of them on the spot. I'd a feeling it wouldn't work for me, so I didn't.

«This is an objectification of marriage neurosis,» I said. «It's a projective experience. It's a vivid dream. It,s-»

Julia dropped to one knee, and her right hand flashed downward. I felt the blade enter my left thigh.

My scream was interrupted when Coral drove her fork into my right shoulder.

«This is ridiculous!» I cried as the other utensils flashed in their hands and I felt fresh stabs of pain.

Then the figure at the star's point near my right foot turned slowly, gracefully. She was wrapped in a dark brown cloak with a yellow border, her arms crossed before her holding it closed up to her eye level.

«Stop, you bitches!» she ordered, flinging the garment wide and resembling nothing so much as a mourning cloak butterfly. It was, of course, Dara, my mother.

Julia and Coral had already raised their forks to their mouths and were chewing. There was a tiny bead of blood beside Julia's lip. The cloak continued to flow outward from my mother's fingertips as if it were alive, as if it were a part of her. Its wings blocked Julia and Coral completely from my sight, falling upon them as she continued to spread her arms, covering them, bearing them over backward to become body-size lumps upon the ground, growing smaller and smaller until the garment simply hung naturally and they were gone from their points of the star.

There came a slow, delicate clapping sound then, followed by a hoarse laugh from my left.

«Extremely well executed,» came that painfully familiar voice, «but then you always liked him best.»

«Better,» she corrected.

«Isn't poor Despil even in the running?» Jurt said.

«You're being unfair,» she told him.

«You liked that mad Prince of Amber more than you ever cared for our father, who was a decent man,» he told her, «That's why Merlin was always your pet, isn't it?»

«That's just not true, Jurt, and you know it,» she said.

He laughed again. «We all summoned him because we all want him,» he said, «for different reasons. But in the end our desires all come to this, do they not?»

I heard the growl, and I turned my head just in time to see his face slide along the projective curve wolfward, muzzle descending, fangs flashing as he fell to all fours and slashed at my left shoulder, gaining himself a gory taste of my person.

«Stop that!» she cried. «You little beast!»

He threw back his muzzle and howled, and it came out the way a coyote's cry does, as a kind of mad laughter.

A black boot struck his shoulder, knocking him over backward and sending him crashing into the uncollapsed section of wall behind him, which promptly collapsed upon him. He uttered but a brief whimper before being covered over completely by the falling rubble.

«Well, well, well,» I heard Dara say, and looking that way, I saw that she also held a knife and fork. «What's a bastard like you doing in a nice place like this?»

«Keeping the last of the predators at bay, it would seem,» replied the voice which had once told me a very long story containing multiple versions of an auto accident and a number of genealogical gaffes.

She lunged at me, but he stooped, caught me beneath the shoulders, and snatched me out of her way. Then his great black cloak swirled like a matador's, covering her. As she had done with Coral and Julia, she herself seemed to melt into the earth beneath it. He set me on my feet, stooped then, raised the cloak, and brushed it off. As he refastened it with a silver rose of a clasp, I studied him for fangs or at least cutlery.

«Four out of five,» I said, brushing myself off: «No matter how real this seems, I'm sure it's only analogically or anagogically true. So how come you're not cannibalistically inclined in this place?»