Sign of the Unicorn

Dead silence. For everyone had backed off, and then turned to stone. This was because there was blood on Brand, and it was dripping. And this was because there was a knife in his left side, to the rear. It had not been there moments before. Some one of us had just tried for his kidney and possibly succeeded. I was not heartened by the fact that the Random-Corwin Conjecture that it was One Of Us Behind It All had just received a significant boost. I had an instant during which to concentrate all my faculties in an attempt to mentally photograph everyone's position. Then the spell was broken. Gerard bore Brand to the couch and we drew aside; and we all knew that we all realized not only what had happened, but what it implied.

Gerard set Brand down in a prone position and tore away his filthy shirt.

«Get me clean water to bathe him,» he said. «And towels. Get me saline solution and glucose and something to hang them from. Get me a whole medical kit.»

Deirdre and Flora moved toward the door.

«My quarters are closest,» said Random. «One of you will find a medical kit there. But the only IV stuff is in the lab on the third floor. I'd better come and help.» They departed together.

We all had had medical training somewhere along the line, both here and abroad. That which we learned in Shadow, though, had to be modified in Amber. Most antibiotics from the shadow worlds, for example, were ineffectual here. On the other hand, our personal immunological processes appear to behave differently from those of any other peoples we have studied, so that it is much more difficult for us to become infected - and if infected we deal with it more expeditiously. Then, too, we possess profound regenerative abilities.

All of which is as it must be, of course, the ideal necessarily being superior to its shadows. And Amberites that we are, and aware of these facts from an early age, all of us obtained medical training relatively early in life. Basically, despite what is often said about being your own physician, it goes back to our not unjustified distrust of virtually everyone, and most particularly of those who might hold our lives in their hands. All of which partly explains why I did not rush to shoulder Gerard aside to undertake Brand's treatment myself, despite the fact that I had been through a med school on the shadow Earth within the past couple of generations. The other part of the explanation is that Gerard was not letting anyone else near Brand. Julian and Fiona had both moved forward, apparently with the same thing in mind, only to encounter Gerard's left arm like a gate at a railway crossing.

«No,» he had said. «I know that I did not do it, and that is all that I know. There will be no second chance for anyone else.»

With any one of us sustaining that sort of wound while in an otherwise sound condition, I would say that if he made it through the first half hour he would make it. Brand, though… The shape he was in… There was no telling.

When the others returned with the materials and equipment, Gerard cleaned Brand, sutured the wound, and dressed it. He hooked up the IV, broke off the manacles with a hammer and chisel Random had located, covered Brand with a sheet and a blanket, and took his pulse again.

«How is it?» I asked.

«Weak,» he said, and he drew up a chair and seated himself beside the couch. «Someone fetch me my blade - and a glass of wine. I didn't have any. Also, if there is any food left over there, I'm hungry.»

Llewella headed for the sideboard and Random got him his blade from the rack behind the door.

«Are you just going to camp there?» Random asked, passing him the weapon.

«I am.»

«What about moving Brand to a better bed?»

«He is all right where he is. I will decide when he can be moved. In the meantime, someone get a fire going. Then put out a few of those candles.»

Random nodded.

«I'll do it,» he said. Then he picked up the knife Gerard had drawn from Brand's side, a thin stiletto, its blade about seven inches in length. He held it across the palm of his hand.

«Does anyone recognize this?» he asked.

«Not I,» said Benedict.

«Nor I.» said Julian.

«No,» I said.

The girls shook their heads.

Random studied it.

«Easily concealed - up a sleeve, in a boot or bodice. It took real nerve to use it that way…»

«Desperation,» I said.

«…And a very accurate anticipation of our mob scene. Inspired, almost.»

«Could one of the guards have done it?» Julian asked. «Back in the cell?»

«No,» Gerard said. «None of them came near enough.»

«It looks to be decently balanced for throwing,» Deirdre said.

«It is,» said Random, shifting it about his fingertips. «Only none of them had a clear shot or the opportunity. I'm positive.»

Llewella returned, bearing a tray containing slabs of meat, half a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, and a goblet. I cleared a small table and set it beside Gerard's chair.

As Llewella deposited the tray, she asked, «But why? That only leaves us. Why would one of us want to do it?»

I sighed.