SIGN OF CHAOS (5 page)

I stood at the edge of the world and looked down into a bottomless rift full of stars.
 
My mountain did not seem to grace the surface of a planet.
 
However, there was a bridge to my left, leading outward to a dark, star-occluding .
 
shape-another floating mountain, perhaps.
 
I strolled over and stepped out onto the span.
 
Problems involving atmosphere, gravitation, temperature, meant nothing here, where I could, in a sense, make up reality as I went along.
 
I walked out onto the bridge, and for a moment the angle was right and I caught a glimpse of another bridge on the far side of the dark mass, leading off to some other darkness.

I halted in the middle, able to see along it for a great distance in either direction.
 
It seemed a safe and appropriate spot.
 
I withdrew my packet of Trumps and riffled through them until I located one I hadn’t used in a long, long time.

I held it before me and put the others away, studying the blue eyes and the young, hard, slightly sharp features beneath a mass of pure white hair.
 
He was dressed all in black, save for a bit of white collar and sleeve showing beneath the glossy tight-fitting jacket.
 
He held three dark steel balls in his gloved hand.

Sometimes it’s hard to reach all the way to Chaos, so I focused and extended, carefully, strongly.
 
The contact came almost immediately.
 
He was seated on a balcony beneath a crazily stippled sky, the Shifting Mountains sliding to his left.
 
His feet were propped on a small floating table and he was reading a book.
 
He lowered it and smiled faintly.

“Merlin,” he said softly.
 
“You look tired.”

I nodded.

“You look rested,” I said.

“True,” he answered, as he closed the book and set it on the table.

Then, “There is trouble?” he asked.

“There is trouble, Mandor.”

He rose to his feet.

“You wish to come through?”

I shook my head.
 
“If you have any Trumps handy for getting back, I’d rather you came to me.”

He extended his hand.

“All right,” he said.

I reached forward, our hands clasped; he took a single step and stood beside me on the bridge.
 
We embraced for a moment and then he turned and looked out and down into the rift.

“There is some danger here?” he asked.

“No.
 
I chose this place because it seems very safe.”

“Scenic, too,” he replied.
 
“What’s been happening to you?”

“For years I was merely a student, and then a designer of certain sorts of specialized machinery,” I told him.
 
“Things were pretty uneventful until fairly recently.
 
Then all hell broke loose-but most of it I understand, and much of it seems under control.
 
That part’s complicated and not really worth your concern.”

He rested a hand on the bridge’s side-piece: “And the other part?” he asked.

“My enemies up until this point had been from the environs of Amber.
 
But suddenly, when it seemed that most of that business was on its way to being settled, someone put a Fire Angel on my trail.
 
I succeeded in destroying it just a little while ago.
 
I’ve no idea why, and it’s certainly not an Amber trick.”

He made a clicking noise with his lips as he turned away, paced a few steps, and turned back.

“You’re right, of course,” he said.
 
“I’d no idea it had come anywhere near this, or I’d have spoken with you some time ago.
 
But let me differ with you as to orders of importance before I indulge in certain speculations on your behalf.
 
I want to hear your entire story.”

“Why?”

“Because you are sometimes appallingly naive, little brother, and I do not yet trust your judgment as to what is truly important.”

“I may starve to death before I finish,” I answered.
 
Smiling crookedly, my step-brother Mandor raised his arms.
 
While Jurt and Despil are my half brothers, borne by my mother, Dara, to Prince Sawall the Rim Lord, Mandor was Sawall’s son by an earlier marriage.
 
Mandor is considerably older than I, and as a result he reminds me much of my relatives back in Amber.
 
I’d always felt a bit of an outsider among the children of Dara and Sawall.
 
In that Mandor was-in a more stable sense-not part of that particular grouping either, we’d had something in common.
 
But whatever the impulse behind his early attentions, we’d hit it off and become closer, I sometimes think, than full blood brothers.
 
He had taught me a lot of practical things over the years, and we had had many good times together.

The air was distorted between us, and when Mandor lowered his arms a dinner table covered with embroidered white linen came into sudden view between us, soundlessly, followed a moment later by a pair of facing chairs.
 
The table bore numerous covered dishes, fine china, crystal, silverware; there was even a gleaming ice bucket with a dark twisted bottle within it.

“I am impressed,” I stated.

“I’ve devoted considerable time to gourmet magic in recent years,” he said.
 
“Pray, be seated.”

We made ourselves comfortable there on the bridge between two darknesses.
 
I muttered appreciatively as I tasted, and it was some minutes before I could begin a summary of the events that had brought me to this place of starlight and silence.

Mandor listened to my entire tale without interruption, and when I’d finished he nodded and said, “Would you care for another serving of dessert?”

“Yes,” I agreed.
 
“It’s quite nice.”

When I glanced up a few moments later, I saw that he was smiling.

“What’s funny?” I asked.

“You,” he replied.
 
“If you recall, I told you before you left for that place to be discriminating when it came to giving your trust.”

“Well? I told no one my story.
 
If you’re going to lecture me on being friendly with Luke without learning his, I’ve already heard it.”

“And what of Julia?”

“What do you mean? She never learned...”

“Exactly.
 
And she seems like one you could have trusted.
 
Instead, you turned her against you.”

“All right! Maybe I used bad judgment there, too.”

“You designed a remarkable machine, and it never occurred to you it might also become a potent weapon.
 
Random saw that right away.
 
So did Luke.
 
You might have been saved from disaster on that front only by the fact that it became sentient and didn’t care to be dictated to.”

“You’re right.
 
I was more concerned with solving technical problems.
 
I didn’t think through all the consequences.

He sighed.

“What am I going to do with you, Merlin? You take risks when you don’t even know you’re taking risks.”

“I didn’t trust Vinta,” I volunteered.

“I think you could have gotten more information out of her,” he said; “if you hadn’t been so quick to save Luke, who already appeared to be out of danger.
 
She seemed to be loosening up considerably at the end of your dialogue.”

“Perhaps I should have called you.”

“If you encounter her again, do it, and I’ll deal with her.”

I stared.
 
He seemed to mean it.

“You know what she is?”

“I’ll unriddle her,” he said, swirling the bright orange beverage in his glass.
 
“But I’ve a proposal for you, elegant in its simplicity.
 
I’ve a new country place, quite secluded, with all the amenities.
 
Why not return to the Courts with me rather than bouncing around from hazard to hazard? Lie low for a couple of years, enjoy the good life, catch up on your reading.
 
I’ll see that you’re well protected.
 
Let everything blow over, then go about your business in a more peaceful climate.”

I took a small sip of the fiery drink.

“No,” I said.
 
“What happened to those things you indicated earlier that you knew and I didn’t?”

“Hardly important, if you accept my offer.
 
“

“Even if I were to accept, I’d want to know.”

“Bag of worms,” he said.

“You listened to my story.
 
I’ll listen to yours.”

He shrugged and leaned back in his chair, looked up at stars.

“Swayvill is dying,” he said.

“He’s been doing that for years.”

“True, but he’s gotten much worse.
 
Some think it has, to do with the death curse of Eric of Amber.
 
Whatever; I really believe he hasn’t much longer.”

“I begin to see...”

“Yes, the struggle for the succession has become more intense.
 
People have been falling over left and righ-tpoison, duels, assassinations, peculiar accidents, dubious suicides.
 
A great number have also departed for points unknown.
 
Or so it would seem.”

“I understand, but I don’t see where it concerns me.”

“One time it would not have.”

“But?”

“You are not aware that Sawall adopted you, formally, after your departure?”

“What?”

“Yes.
 
I was never certain as to his exact motives.
 
But you are a legitimate heir.
 
You follow me but take precedence over Jurt and Despil.”

“That would still leave me way in hell down on the list.”

“True,” he said slowly.
 
“Most of the interest lies at the top ...”

“You say ‘most.’ “

“There are always exceptions,” he answered.
 
“You must realize that a time such as this is also a fine occasion for the paying off of old debts.
 
One death more or less hardly rouses an eyebrow the way it would have in more placid times.
 
Even in relatively high places.”

I shook my head as I met his eyes.

“It really doesn’t make sense in my case,” I said.
 
He continued to stare until I felt uncomfortable.
 
“Does it?” I finally asked.

“Well ...” he said.
 
“Give it some thought.”

I did.
 
And just as the notion came to me, Mandor nodded as if he viewed the contents of my mind.
 
“Jurt,” he said, “met the changing times with a mixture of delight and fear.
 
He was constantly talking of the latest deaths and of the elegance and apparent ease with which some of them were accomplished.
 
Hushed tones interspersed with a few giggles.
 
His fear and his desire to increase his own capacity for mischief finally reached a point where they became greater than his other fear-“

“The Logrus...”

“Yes.
 
He finally tried the Logrus, and he made it through.”

“He should be feeling very good about that.
 
Proud.
 
It was something he’d wanted for years.”

“Oh, yes,” Mandor answered.
 
“And I’m sure he felt a great number of other things as well.”

“Freedom,” I suggested.
 
“Power,” and as I studied his half amused expression, I was forced to add, “and the ability to play the game himself.”

“There may be hope for you,” he said.
 
“Now, would you care to carry that through to its logical conclusion?”

“Okay,” I responded, thinking of Jurt’s left ear as I floated away following my cut, a swarm of blood-bead: spreading about it.
 
“You think Jurt sent the Fire Angel.”

“Most likely,” he replied.
 
“But would you care to pursue that a little further?”

I thought of the broken branch piercing Jurt’s eyeball as we wrestled in the glade...

“All right,” I said.
 
“He’s after me.
 
It could be a part of the succession game, because I’m slightly ahead of him; on that front, or just plain dislike and revenge-or both.”

“It doesn’t really matter which,” Mandor said, “in terms of results.
 
But I was thinking of that crop-eared wolf that attacked you.
 
Only had one eye, too, it seemed...”

“Yes,” I said.
 
“What does Jurt look like these days?”

“Oh, he’s grown about half the ear back.
 
It’s pretty ragged and ugly-looking.
 
Generally, his hair covers it.
 
The eyeball is regenerated, but he can’t see out of it yet.
 
He usually wears a patch.”