“You tell me one more thing first.”
“What is it?”
“What military forces brought Luke to power?”
“Mercenaries.”
“Dalt’s?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Luke canceled his vendetta against the House of Amber,” I said. “He did this freely, following a conversation with Vialle, just the other night. It was then that she gave him the ring. At the time I thought it was to keep Julian from trying to kill him, as we were on our way down to Arden.”
“This was in response to Dalt’s so-called ultimatum regarding Luke and Jasra?”
“That’s right. It never occurred to me that the whole thing might be a setup — to get Luke and Dalt together so they could go off and pull a coup. That would mean that even that fight was staged, and now that I think of it, Luke did have a chance to talk with Dalt before it occurred.”
Random raised his hand.
“Wait,” he said. “Go back and tell me the thing from the beginning.”
“Right.”
And so I did. By the time I’d finished we had both paced the length of the studio countless times.
“You know,” he said then, “the whole business sounds like something Jasra might have set up before her career as a piece of furniture.”
“The thought had occurred to me,” I said, hoping he wasn’t about to pursue the matter of her present whereabouts. And the more I thought of it, recalling her reaction to the information about Luke following our raid on the Keep, the more I began to feel not only that she had been aware of what was going on but that she’d even been in touch with Luke more recently than I had at that time.
“It was pretty smoothly done,” he observed. “Dalt must have been operating under old orders. Not being certain how to collect Luke or locate Jasra for fresh instructions, he took a chance with that feint on Amber. Benedict might well have spitted him again, with equal skill and greater effect.”
“True. I guess you have to give the devil his due when it comes to guts. It also means that Luke must have done a lot of fast plotting and laid that fixed fight out during their brief conference in Arden. So he was really in control there, and he conned us into thinking he was a prisoner, which precluded his being the threat to Kashfa that he really was — if you want to look at it that way.”
“That other way is there to look at it?”
“Well, as you said yourself, his claim is not exactly without merit. What do you want to do?”
Random massaged his temples.
“Going after him, preventing the coronation, would be a very unpopular move,” he said. “First, though, I’m curious. You say this guy’s a great bullshitter. You were there. Did he con Vialle into placing him under her protection?”
“No, he didn’t,” I said. “He seemed as surprised as I was at her gesture. He called off the vendetta because he felt that honor had been satisfied, that he had to an extent been used by his mother, and out of friendship for me. He did it without any strings on it. I still think she gave him the ring so the vendetta would end there, so none of us would go gunning for him.”
“That is very like her,” Random said. “If I thought he’d taken advantage of that, I was going to go after him myself. The embarrassment for me is unintentional then, and I guess I can live with it. I prime Arkans for the throne, and then he’s shunted aside at the last minute by someone under my wife’s protection. Almost makes it look as if there’s a bit of divisiveness here at the center of things — and I’d hate to give that impression.”
“I’ve got a hunch Luke will be very conciliatory. I know him well enough to know he appreciates all of these nuances. I’d guess he’d be a very easy man for Amber to deal with, on any level.”
“I’ll bet he will. Why shouldn’t he?”
“No reason,” I said. “What’s going to happen to that treaty now?”
Random smiled.
“I’m off the hook. I never felt right about the Eregnor provisions. Now, if there’s to be a treaty at all, we go at it ab initio. I’m not even sure we need one, though. The hell with ’em.”
“I’ll bet Arkans is still alive,” I said.
“You think Luke’s holding him hostage, against my giving him Golden Circle status?”
I shrugged.
“How close are you to Arkans?”
“Well, I did set him up for this thing, and I feel I owe him. I don’t feel I owe him that much, though.”
“Understandable.”
“There would be loss of face for Amber even to approach a second-rate power like Kashfa directly at a time like this.”
“True,” I said, “and for that matter, Luke isn’t officially head of state yet.”
“Arkans would still be enjoying life at his villa if it weren’t for me, though, and Luke really does seem to be a friend of yours — a scheming friend, but a friend.”
“You would like me to mention this during a forthcoming discussion of Tony Price’s atomic sculpture?”
He nodded.
“I feel you should have your art discussion very soon. In fact, it would not be inappropriate for you to attend a friend’s coronation — as a private individual. Your dual heritage will serve us well here, and he will still be honored.”
“Even so, I’ll bet he wants that treaty.”
“Even if we were inclined to grant it, we would not guarantee him Eregnor.”
“I understand.”
“And you are not empowered to commit us to anything.”
“I understand that, too.”
“Then why don’t you clean up a bit and go talk to him about it? Your room is just around the abyss. You can leave through the hole in the wall and shinny down a beam I noticed was intact.”
“Okay, I will,” I answered, moving in that direction. “But one question first, completely off the subject.”
“Yes?”
“Has my father been back recently?”
“Not to my knowledge,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “We’re all pretty good at hiding our comings and goings if we wish, of course. But I think he’d have let me know if he were around.”
“Guess so,” I said, and I turned and exited through the wall, skirting the abyss.
Chapter 11
No.
I hung from the beam, swung, and let go. I landed almost gracefully in the middle of the hallway in an area that would have been located approximately midway between my two doors, save that the first door was missing, also the section of wall through which it had provided entrance (or exit, depending on which side you happened to be), not to mention my favorite chair and a display case which had held seashells I’d picked up from beaches around the world. Pity.
I rubbed my eyes and turned away, for even the prospect of my ruined apartment took second place just now. Hell, I’d had apartments ruined in the past. Usually around April 30…
As in “Niagara Falls,” slowly I turned…
No.
Yes. Across the hall from my rooms, where I had previously faced a blank wall, there was now a hallway running to the north. I’d gotten a glimpse up its sparkling length as I’d dropped from my rafter. Amazing. The gods had just uptempoed my background music yet again. I’d been in that hallway before, in one of its commoner locations up on the fourth floor, running east-west between a couple of storerooms. One of Castle Amber’s intriguing anomalies, the Corridor of Mirrors, in addition to seeming longer in one direction than the other, contained countless mirrors. Literally countless. Try counting them, and you never come up with the same total twice. Tapers flicker in high, standing holders, casting infinities of shadows. There are big mirrors, little mirrors, narrow mirrors, squat mirrors, tinted mirrors, distorting mirrors, mirrors with elaborate frames — cast or carved — plain, simply framed mirrors, and mirrors with no frames at all; there are mirrors in multitudes of sharp-angled geometric shapes, amorphous shapes, curved mirrors.