Sign of the Unicorn

«Whose prisoner do you think he might have been?» I asked.

«One of us?»

«If he possessed knowledge which someone was willing to go to this length to suppress, what do you think? The same reason also served to put him where he was and keep him there.»

Her brows tightened.

«That does not make sense either. Why didn't they just kill him and be done with it?»

I shrugged.

«Must have had some use for him,» I said. «But there is really only one person who can answer that question adequately. When you find him, ask him.»

«Or her,» Julian said. «Sister, you seem possessed of a superabundance of naivete, suddenly.»

Her gaze locked with Julian's own, a pair of icebergs reflecting frigid infinities.

«As I recall,» she said, «you rose from your seat when they came through, turned to the left, rounded the desk, and stood slightly to Gerard's right. You leaned pretty far forward. I believe your hands were out of sight, below.»

«And as I recall,» he said, «you were within striking distance yourself, off to Gerard's left - and leaning forward.»

«I would have had to do it with my left hand - and I am right-handed.»

«Perhaps he owes what life he still possesses to that fact.»

«You seem awfully anxious, Julian, to find that it was someone else.»

«All right,» I said. «All right! You know this is self defeating. Only one of us did it, and this is not the way to smoke him out.»

«Or her,» Julian added.

Gerard rose, glowered, glared.

«I will not have you disturbing my patient,» he said. «And, Random, you said you were going to see to the fire.»

«Right away,» Random said, and moved to do it.

«Let us adjourn to the sitting room off the main hall,» I said, «downstairs. Gerard, I will post a couple of guards outside the door here.»

«No,» Gerard said. «I would rather that anyone who wishes to try it get this far. I will hand you his head in the morning.»

I nodded.

«Well, you can ring for anything you need - or call one of us on the Trumps. We will fill you in in the morning on anything that we learn.»

Gerard seated himself, grunted, and began eating. Random got the fire going and extinguished some lights. Brand's blanket rose and fell, slowly but regularly. We filed quietly from the room and headed for the stairway, leaving them there together with the flare and the crackle, the tubes and the bottles.

CHAPTER 7

Many are the times I have awakened, sometimes shaking, always afraid, from the dream that I occupied my old cell, blind once more, in the dungeons beneath Amber. It is not as if I were unfamiliar with the condition of imprisonment. I have been locked away on a number of occasions, for various periods of time. But solitary, plus blindness with small hope of recovery, made for a big charge at the sensory-deprivation counter in the department store of the mind. That, with the sense of finality to it all, had left its marks. I generally keep these memories safely tucked away during waking hours, but at night, sometimes, they come loose, dance down the aisles and frolic round the notions counter, one, two, three. Seeing Brand there in his cell had brought them out again, along with an unseasonal chill; and that final thrust served to establish a more or less permanent residence for them. Now, among my kin in the shield-hung sitting room, I could not avoid the thought that one or more of them had done unto Brand as Eric had done unto me. While this capacity was in itself hardly a surprising discovery, the matter of occupying the same room with the culprit and having no idea as to his identity was more than a little disturbing. My only consolation was that each of the others, according to his means, must be disturbed also. Including the guilty, now that the existence theorem had shown a positive. I knew then that I had been hoping all along that outsiders were entirely to blame. Now, though… On the one hand I felt even more restricted than usual in what I could say. On the other, it seemed a good time to press for information, with everyone in an abnormal state of mind. The desire to cooperate for purposes of dealing with the threat could prove helpful. And even the guilty party would want to behave the same as everyone else. Who knew but that he might slip up while making the effort?

«Well, have you any other interesting little experiments you would care to conduct?» Julian asked me, clasping his hands behind his head and leaning back in my favorite chair.

«Not at the moment,» I said.

«Pity,» he replied. «I was hoping you would suggest we go looking for Dad now in the same fashion. Then, if we are lucky, we find him and someone puts him out of the way with more certainty. After that, we could all play Russian roulette with those fine new weapons you've furnished - winner take all.»

«Your words are ill-considered,» I said.

«Not so. I considered every one of them,» he answered. «We spend so much time lying to one another that I decided it might be amusing to say what I really felt. Just to see whether anyone noticed.»