PRINCE OF CHAOS (20 page)

“How can you be sure one of them really wants this?”

“They tried it before with Brand, didn’t they? He was out to destroy all order.”

“No,” I said.
 
“He planned to destroy the old order, then replace it with his own.
 
He was a revolutionary, not an anarchist.
 
He was going to create a new Pattern within the Chaos he brought forth-his own, but still the real thing.”

“He was duped.
 
He couldn’t have managed a thing like that.”

“No way of knowing till he tried, and he didn’t get the chance.”

“Either way, I’m afraid someone’s going to pull the plug on reality.
 
If this kidnapping takes place, it’ll be a big step in that direction.
 
If you can’t manage something to cover our absence, I think we should just go anyway and take our chances.”

“Not yet,” I said.
 
“Hang on.
 
I’m working something out.
 
How’s this sound? I don’t locate the guards and hallucinate them.
 
Instead, I do a transformation.
 
I cause a couple of other people to look like us.
 
You trump us out as soon as I do.
 
That won’t be a hallucination for anyone.
 
Everyone will see them as us; we can go about our business-and check back if we have to.”

“You do it and I’ll get us out of here.”

“Okay, I’ll do it to the two guys in front of us.
 
As soon as I’ve finished I’ll gesture like this,” I said, lowering my left hand from shoulder-height to waist-level, “and we both stoop as if one of us had dropped something.
 
Then you take us away.”

“I’ll be ready.”

The spikard made it easier than working out a transform spell.
 
It was like a spell processor.
 
I fed it the two end products, and it ran thousands of variations in a trice and handed me the finished products-a pair of spells it would have taken me a long while to work out along classical lines.
 
I raised my hand as I hung them and accessed one of the many power sources the thing commanded off in Shadow.
 
I fed juice into the constructs, watched the change commence, dropped my hand, and leaned forward.

There followed a moment’s vertigo, and when I straightened we were back in Jurt’s apartment.
 
I laughed and he slapped my shoulder.

Immediately then, we were changing back into our human forms and garments.
 
As soon as that was done, he caught hold of my arm again and trumped us to Fire Gate.
 
A moment later, and he’d jumped us again, this time to a mountaintop overlooking a blue valley beneath a green sky.
 
Then again, to the middle of a high bridge above a deep gorge, the sky putting away stars or taking them on.

“Okay, now,” he said, and we stood atop a gray stone wall damp with dew, possibly even the remains of a v storm.
 
Clouds were taking fire in the east.
 
There was a light breeze out of the south.

This was the wall that surrounded the innermost zone of Jidrash, Luke’s capital in Kashfa.
 
There were four huge buildings below us-including the palace and the Temple of the Unicorn directly across the Plaza from it-as well as a number of smaller buildings.
 
Diagonally across the way from where we stood was the wing of the palace from which Gryll had fetched me (how long ago?) from my rendezvous with the queen.
 
I could even make out the broken shutter of our window amid an expanse of ivy.

“Over there,” I said, gesturing.
 
“That’s where I last saw her.”

An eyeblink later we stood within the chamber, its only inhabitants.

The place had been straightened, the bed made up.
 
I withdrew my Trumps and shuffled out Coral’s.
 
Staring then till it grew cold, I felt her presence and reached for it.

She was there yet she wasn’t.
 
It was the disjointed sense of presence one encounters in dream or stupor.
 
I passed my hand over the card and ended our tenuous contact.

“What happened?” Jurt asked.

“I think she’s drugged,” I replied.

“Then it would seem they’ve already got her,” he said.
 
“Any way you can trace her in that state?”

“She could also be in the next building, on medication,” I said.
 
“She wasn’t well when I left.”

“What now?”

“Either way, we’ve got to talk to Luke,” I said, searching for his card.

I reached him in an instant on uncovering it.
 
“Merlin! Where the hell are you?” he asked.
 

“If you’re in the palace, I’m next door,” I said.

He rose to his feet from what I now realized to be the edge of a bedstead, and he picked up a long-sleeved green shirt and drew it on, covering his collection of scars.
 
I thought that I glimpsed someone in the bed behind him.
 
He muttered something in that direction, but I could not overhear it.

“We’ve got to talk,” he said, running his hand through his rusty hair.

“Bring me through.”

“Okay,” I said.
 
“But first, you’d better know that my brother Jurt is here.”

“Has he got my dad’s sword?”

“Uh-No.”

“Guess I won’t kill him right now,” he said, tucking his shirt into his waistband.

Abruptly, he extended his hand.
 
I clasped it.
 
He stepped forward and joined us.

Luke grinned at me, scowled at Jurt.

“Where’ve you been, anyway?” he asked.

“The Courts of Chaos,” I replied.
 
“I was summoned from here at the death of Swayvill.
 
The funeral’s in progress right now.
 
We sneaked away when I learned that Coral was in danger.”

“I know that-now,” Luke said.
 
“She’s gone.
 
Kidnapped, I think.”

“When did it happen?”

“Night before last, I’d judge.
 
What do you know of it?”

I glanced at Jurt.
 
“Time differential,” he said.

“She represented a chance to pick up a few points,” I explained, “in the ongoing game between the Pattern and the Logrus.
 
So agents of Chaos were sent for her.
 
They wanted her intact, though.
 
She should be okay.”

“What do they want her for?”

“Seems they feel she’s specially suited to be queen in Thelbane, what with the Jewel of Judgment as a piece of her anatomy and all.”

“Who’s going to be the new king?”

My face felt warm of a sudden.

“Well, the people who came for her had me in mind for the job,” I replied.

“Hey, congratulations!” he said.
 
“Now I don’t have to be the only one having all this fun.”

“What do you mean?”

“This king business ain’t worth shit, man.
 
I wish I’d never gotten sucked into the deal in the first place.
 
Everybody’s got a piece of your time, and when they don’t someone still has to know where you are.”

“Hell, you were just crowned.
 
Give it a chance to shake down.”

“ ‘Just’? It’s been over a month!”

“Time differential,” Jurt repeated.

“Come on.
 
I’ll buy you a cup of coffee,” Luke said.

“You’ve got coffee here?”

“I require it, man.
 
This way.” He led us out the door, turned left, headed down a stair.

“I had a funny thought,” he said, “while you were talking back there-about you reigning, and Coral a desirable queen.
 
I could get the marriage annulled pretty damn quick, since I’m in charge here.
 
Now, you want her for your queen and I want that Golden Circle Treaty with Amber.
 
I think I see a way to make everybody happy.”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that, Luke.
 
I don’t want the job, and it would be very bad for us if my kinsmen back in the Courts got custody of Coral.
 
I’ve learned a lot of things recently.”

“Such as?” Luke said, opening a postern that let upon a walkway to the rear of the palace.

I glanced back at Jurt.

“He’s scared, too,” I said.
 
“That’s why we’re a little more cordial these days.”

Jurt nodded.

“It’s possible Brand could have been partly victim of a plan originated in the Courts,” he said, “part of an idea that’s still alive there.”

“We’d better go for the whole breakfast,” Luke said.
 
“Let’s swing around back and take it in the kitchen.” We followed him down a garden path.

And so we ate and talked as the day brightened about us.
 
Luke insisted I try Coral’s Trump again, which I did with the same result.
 
Then he cursed, nodded, and said,’ “Your timing’s actually pretty good.
 
The guys who grabbed her were reported to have taken off along a black trail into the west.”

“It figures,” I said.

“I’ve reason to believe they didn’t make it back to the Courts with her.”

“Oh?”

“I understand these black thoroughfares you guys use are dangerous to outsiders,” he observed.
 
“But I can show you what’s left of this one-it’s a black pathway now, actually.
 
I’d like to follow it, but I don’t know that I can, get away for long.
 
Also, is there a way to protect me from the trail itself?”

“Just being in our company would keep you from harm as we traveled it,” Jurt said.

I stood.
 
The cook and two dishwashers glanced in our direction.

“There is somebody you have to meet, Luke,” I told him.
 
“Right now.”

“Why not?” he said, rising.
 
“Where is he?”

“Let’s take a walk,” I said.

“Sure.”

We got to our feet, headed back to the servants’ door.
 
“So, whether she was a willing accomplice or a magical time bomb, Mom might have conned Dad into his efforts to take over in Amber-and, ultimately, to change the world,” Luke said.

“Well, I gather he didn’t exactly come to her with clean hands,” I said.

“True, but I wonder how elaborate his plans really were, to begin with,” Luke mused.
 
“This is the most cheerful thing I’ve heard all month.”

We exited into the little covered walkway that ran along the side of the palace.
 
Luke halted and looked around.

“Where is he?” he asked.

“Not here,” I said.
 
“I just needed a point of departure with no witnesses to say I’d kidnapped the king.”

“Where are we going, Merlin?” Jurt asked, as I swirled a spiral from the center of the spikard, drawing upon sixteen different power sources.

“Good idea.
 
Kidnap away,” Luke was saying as he was caught up along with Jurt.

I used it as I had when I’d transported myself from Amber to Kashfa, forming the target from memory rather than discovered vision.
 
Only this time there were three of us and a long, long way to go.

“Have I got a deal for you,” I said.

It was like stepping into a kaleidoscope, and passing through about 120 degrees of cubist fragmentation and reassembly, before emerging on the other side beneath a towering tree, its top lost in the fog, in the vicinity of a red and white ‘57 Chevy, its radio playing Renbourn’s “Nine Maidens.”

Luke’s ghost emerged from the front seat and stared at the original.

Luke stared back.

“Hi,” I said.
 
“Meet each other.
 
You hardly need an introduction, though.
 
You have so much in common.” Jurt stared at the Pattern.

“That’s my dad’s edition,” I said.

“I could have guessed that,” Jurt told me.
 
“But what are we doing here?”

“An idea I had.
 
But I thought Corwin would be here, and I might discuss it with him.”

“He came back, and he left again,” said the resident Luke, overhearing me.

“Did he leave a forwarding address, or say when he might return?”

“Nope.”

“Damn! Look, something that got said just a little while ago gave me the idea that you Lukes might want to change places for a time-if this Pattern could be persuaded to approve some leave.”

Luke, whom I decided to continue calling Luke when his ghost was around, brightened suddenly.
 
I resolved to think of his double as Rinaldo, to keep things sorted.