PRINCE OF CHAOS (15 page)

I climbed higher, resisting the force of the way until I’d brought both feet to the same level.
 
Then I relaxed into the tugging and let it take me through. I extended both hands, too, in case the surface was uneven.
 
But it wasn’t.
 
The floor was beautifully tiled in black, silver, gray, and white.
 
To the right was a geometric design, to the left a representation of the Pit of Chaos.

My eyes were directed downward for only a few moments, though.

“Good Lord!” I said.

“Wass I right? It iss important?” Glait said.

“It is important,” I replied.

There were candles all about the chapel, many of them as tall as I am, and nearly as big around.
 
Some were silver, some were gray; a few were white, a few black.
 
They stood at various heights, in artful disposition, on banks, ledges, pattern points on the floor.
 
They did not provide the main illumination, however.
 
This obtained from overhead, and I first assumed it to proceed from a skylight.
 
When I glanced upward to gauge the height of the vault, though, I saw that the light emanated from a large blue-white globe confined behind a dark metal grate.

I took a step forward.
 
The nearest candle flame flickered.

I faced a stone altar that filled a niche across the way.
 
Black candles burned at either hand before it, smaller silver ones upon it.
 
For a moment, I simply regarded it.

“Lookss like you,” Glait remarked.

“I thought your eyes didn’t register two-dimensional representations.”

“I’ve lived a long time in a musseum.
 
Why hide your picture up a ssecret way?”

I moved forward, my gaze on the painting.

“It’s not me,” I said.
 
“It’s my father, Corwin of Amber.”

A silver rose stood within a bud vase before the portrait.
 
Whether it was a real rose or the product of art or magic, I could not tell.

And Grayswandir lay there before it, drawn a few inches from the scabbard.
 
I’d a feeling this was the real thing, that the version worn by the Pattern ghost of my father was itself a reconstruction.

I reached forward, raised it, drew it.

There was a feeling of power as I held it, swung it, struck an en garde, lunged, advanced.
 
The spikard came alive, center of a web of forces.

I looked down, suddenly self-conscious.

“ .
 
And this is my father’s blade,” I said, returning to the altar, where I sheathed it.
 
Reluctantly, I left it there.

As I backed away, Glait asked, “Thiss iss important?”

“Very,” I said as the way caught hold of me and sent me back to the treetop.

“What now, Masster Merlin?”

“I must get on to lunch with my mother.”

“In that case, you’d besst drop me here.”

“I could return you to the vase.”

“No.
 
I haven’t lurked in a tree for a time.
 
Thiss will be fine.”

I extended my arm.
 
She unwound herself and flowed away across gleaming branches.

“Good luck, Merlin.
 
Vissit me.”

And I was down the tree, snagging my trousers only once, and off up the corridor at a quick pace.

Two turns later I came to a way to the main hall and decided I’d better take it.
 
I popped through beside the massive fireplace-high flames braiding themselves within it-and turned slowly to survey the huge chamber, trying to seem as if I had been there a long while, waiting.

I seemed the only person present.
 
Which, on reflection, struck me as a bit odd, with the fire roaring that way.
 
I adjusted my shirtfront, brushed myself off, ran my comb through my hair.
 
I was inspecting my fingernails when I became aware of a flash of movement at the head of the great staircase to my left.

She was a blizzard within a ten-foot tower.
 
Lightnings danced at its center, crackling; particles of ice clicked and rattled upon the stair; the banister grew frosted where she passed.
 
My mother.
 
She seemed to see me at about the same time I saw her, for she halted.
 
Then she made the turn onto the stair and began her descent.

As she descended, she shifted smoothly, her appearance changing almost from step to step.
 
As soon as I realized what was occurring I relaxed my own efforts and reversed their small effects.
 
I had commenced changing the moment I had seen her, and presumably she had done the same on viewing me.
 
I hadn’t thought she’d go to that extent to humor me, a second time, here on her own turf.

The shift was completed just as she reached the bottommost stair, becoming a lovely woman in black trousers and red shirt with flared sleeves.
 
She looked at me again and smiled, moved toward me, embraced me.

It would have been gauche to say that I’d intended shifting but had forgotten.
 
Or any other remark on the matter.

She pushed me out to arm’s distance, lowered her gaze and raised it, shook her head.

“Do you sleep in your clothes before or after violent exercise?” she asked me.

“That’s unkind,” I said.
 
“I stopped to sightsee on the way over and ran into a few problems.” ‘

“That is why you are late?”

“No.
 
I’m late because I stopped in our gallery and took longer than I’d intended.
 
And I’m not very late.” She took hold of my arm and turned me.

“I will forgive you,” she said, steering me toward the rose and green and gold-flecked pillar of ways, set in the mirrored alcove across the room to the right.

I didn’t feel that called for a response, so I didn’t make one.
 
I watched with interest as we entered the alcove, to see whether she would conduct me in a clock- wise direction or its opposite about the pillar.

The opposite, it turned out.
 
Interesting.

We were reflected and re-reflected from the three sides.
 
So was the room we had quitted.
 
And with each circuit we made of the pillar it became a different room.

I watched it change, kaleidoscopically, until she halted me before the crystal grotto beside the underground sea.
 
“It’s been a long time since I thought of this place,”

I said, stepping forth upon the pure white sand into the crystal-cast light, variously reminiscent of bonfires, solar reflections, candelabra, and LED displays, functions of size and distancing perhaps, laying occasional pieces of rainbow upon the shore, the walls, the black water.

She took my hand and led me toward a raised and railed platform some small distance off to the right.
 
A table stood full set upon it.
 
A collection of covered trays occupied a larger serving table inland of it.
 
We mounted a small stair, and I seated her and moved to check out the goodies next door.

“Do sit down, Merlin,” she said.
 
“I’ll serve you.”

“That’s all right,” I answered, raising a lid.
 
“I’m already here.
 
I’ll do the first round.”

She was on her feet.

“Buffet style then,” she said.

“Sure.”

We filled our plates and moved to the table.
 
Seconds after we had seated ourselves a brilliant flash of light came to us across the water, illuminating the arching dome of the cavern vault like the ribbed interior of some massive beast that was digesting us.

“You needn’t look so apprehensive.
 
You know they can’t come in this far.”

“Waiting for a thunderclap puts my appetite on hold,” I said.

She laughed just as a distant roll of thunder reached us.

“And that makes everything all right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied, raising my fork.

“Strange, the relatives life gives us,” she said.

I looked at her, tried to read her expression, couldn’t.

So, “Yes,” I said.

She studied me for a moment, but I wasn’t giving anything away either.

So, “When you were a child you went monosyllabic as a sign of petulance,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

We began eating.
 
There were more flashes out over the still, dark sea.

By light of the last one I thought I caught sight of a distant ship, black sails full-rigged and bellied.

“You kept your engagement with Mandor earlier?”

“Yes.”

“How is he?”

“Fine.”

“Something bothering you, Merlin?”

“Many things.”

“Tell Mother?”

“What if she’s a part of it?”

“I would be disappointed if I were not.
 
Still, how long will you hold the business of the ty’iga against me? I did what I thought was right.
 
I still think it was.”

I nodded and continued chewing.
 
After a time, “You made that clear last cycle,” I said.

The waters gave a small sloshing sound.
 
A spectrum drifted across our table, her face.

“Is there something else?” she asked.

“Why don’t you tell me?” I said.

I felt her gaze.
 
I met it.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she answered.

“Are you aware that the Logrus is sentient? And the Pattern?” I said.

“Did Mandor tell you that?” she asked.

“Yes.
 
But I already knew it before he did.”

“How?”

“We’ve been in touch.”

“You and the Pattern? You and the Logrus?”

“Both.”

“To what end?”

“Manipulation, I’d say.
 
They’re engaged in a power struggle.
 
They were asking me to choose sides.”

“Which did you choose?”

“Neither.
 
Why?”

“You should have told me.”

“Why?”

“For counsel.
 
Possibly for assistance.”

“Against the Powers of the universe? How well connected are you, Mother?”

She smiled.

“It is possible that one such as myself may possess special knowledge of their workings.”

“One such as yourself...
 
?”

“A sorceress of my skills.”

“Just how good are you, Mother?”

“I don’t think they come much better, Merlin.”

“Family is always the last to know, I guess.
 
So why didn’t you train me yourself, instead of sending me off to Suhuy?”

“I’m not a good teacher.
 
I dislike training people.”

“You trained Jasra.”

She tilted her head to the right and narrowed her eyes.

“Did Mandor tell you that, also?” she asked.

“No.

“Who, then?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Considerable,” she replied.
 
“Because I don’t believe you knew it the last time we met.”

I recalled suddenly that she had said something about Jasra back at Suhuy’s, something implying her familiarity with her, something to which I would ordinarily have risen save that I was driving a load of animus in a different direction at the time and heading downhill in a thunderstorm with the brakes making funny noises.
 
I was about to ask her why it mattered when I learned it, when I realized that she was really asking from whom I’d learned it, because she was concerned with whom I might have been speaking on such matters since last we’d met.
 
Mentioning Luke’s Pattern ghost did not seem politic, so, “Okay, Mandor let it slip,” I said, “and then asked me to forget it.”

“In other words,” she said, “he expected it to get back to me.
 
Why did he do it just that way? I wonder.
 
The man is damnably subtle.”

“Maybe he did just let it slip.”

“Mandor lets nothing slip.
 
Never make him an enemy, son.”

“Are we talking about the same person?”

She snapped her fingers.

“Of course,” she said.
 
“It was only as a child that you knew him.
 
You went away after that.
 
You have seen him but a few times since.
 
Yes, he is subtle, insidious, dangerous.”