“It was wearing one of your blue stones.”
“Yes. And its mate was on the collar of the beast you slew — and she opened the way for it to come through.”
“Why? And why all that business with the Dweller on the Threshold as well?”
“Red herring of the first water. Victor thought I’d killed her, and I thought he had. He assumed I’d opened a way from the Keep and sent the heating beast after her. I guessed he’d done it, and I was irritated he’d hidden his rapid development from me. Such things seldom bode well.”
I nodded.
“You breed those creatures around here?”
“Yes,” she replied, “and I show them, too, in several adjacent shadows. I’ve a number who’ve taken blue ribbons.”
“I’ll stick with pit bulls,” I said. “They’re a lot cuter and better behaved. So, she left a body and a hidden corridor to this place, and you thought Victor had done her in and was setting things up for a raid on your sanctum sanctorum.”
“More or less.”
“And he thought she’d become sufficiently dangerous to you — as with the corridor — that you’d killed her?”
“I don’t really know that he ever found the corridor. It was fairly well hidden, as you learned. Either way, neither of us was aware of what she’d really done.”
“That being?”
“She’d also planted a piece of tragolith on me. Later, after the initiation, she used its mate to track me through Shadow to Begma.”
“Begma? What the hell were you doing there?”
“Nothing important,” she said. “I mention it only to show her subtlety. She did not approach me at that time. I know of it, in fact, only because she told me of it later. She trailed me then from the perimeter of the Golden Circle back here to the Citadel. The rest you know.
“I’m not sure that I do.”
“She had designs on this place. When she surprised me, I was surprised indeed. It was how I became a coatrack.”
“And she took over here, donning a goalie mask for public relations purposes. She dwelled here for a time, building her powers, increasing her skills, hanging umbrellas on you —”
Jasra growled softly, and I remembered that her bite was worse. I hastened into a fresh area of speculation. “I still don’t understand why she spied on me on occasion and sometimes threw flowers.”
“Men are exasperating,” Jasra said, raising her wineglass and draining it. “You’ve managed to understand everything but her motive.”
“She was on a power trip,” I said. “What’s to understand past that? I even recall a long discussion we once had concerning power.”
I heard Mandor chuckle. When I glanced at him, he looked away, shaking his head.
“Obviously,” Jasra said, “she still cared about you. Most likely, a great deal. She was playing games with you. She wanted to rouse your curiosity. She wanted you to come after her, to find her, and she probably wanted to try her power against your own. She wanted to show you that she was worthy of all those things you’d denied her when you denied her your confidence.”
“So you know about that, too.”
“There were times when she spoke freely to me.”
“So she cared for me so well that she sent men with tragoliths to track me to Amber and try to slay me. They almost succeeded, too.”
Jasra looked away, coughed. Mandor immediately rose, circled the table, and refilled her goblet, interposing himself between us. At that time, while she was wholly blocked from my sight, I heard her say softly, “Well, not exactly. The assassins were… mine. Rinaldo wasn’t around to warn you, as I’d guessed he was doing, and I thought I’d have one more shot at you.”
“Oh,” I observed. “Any more wandering around out there?”
“They were the last,” she said.
“That’s a comfort.”
“I’m not apologizing. I’m just explaining, to clear our differences. Are you willing to cancel this account, too? I’ve got to know.”
“I already said I was willing to call things even. It still goes. Where does Jurt come into all this? I don’t understand how they got together and what they are to each other.”
Mandor added a touch of wine to my own glass before returning to his seat. Jasra met my eyes.
“I don’t know,” she said. “She had no allies when we fought. It had to have happened while I was rigid.”
“Have you any idea where she and Jurt might have fled?”
“No.”
I glanced at Mandor, and he shook his head.
“Neither have I,” he said. “However, a peculiar thought has occurred to me.”
“Yes?”
“Besides the fact that he has negotiated the Logrus and come into his powers, is it necessary for me to point out that Jurt — apart from his scars and missing pieces bears you a strong resemblance?”
“Jurt? Me? You’ve got to be kidding!”
He glanced at Jasra.
“He is right,” she said. “It’s obvious that the two of you are related.”
I put down my fork and shook my head.
“Preposterous,” I said, more in self-defense than as a matter of certainty. “I never noticed.”
Mandor shrugged, very slightly.
“You want a lecture on the psychology of denial?” Jasra asked me.
“No,” I said. “I want a little while in which to let this sink in.”
“Time for another course anyway,” Mandor announced, and he gestured widely and it was delivered.
“Will you be in trouble with your relatives for having released me?” Jasra asked after a while.
“By the time they realize you’re gone, I hope to have a good story ready,” I answered.
“In other words, you will be,” she said.
“Maybe a little.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t like to be obligated to anyone,” she said, “and you’ve done more for me than I have for you in this. If I come upon a means of turning their wrath away from you, I’ll employ it.”
“What could you possibly have in mind?”
“Let it go at that. Sometimes it’s better not to know too much.”
“I don’t like the sound of this at all.”
“An excellent reason for changing the subject,” she said. “How great an enemy has Jurt become?”
“To me?” I asked. “Or are you wondering whether he’ll be returning here for second helpings?”
“Both, when you put it that way.”
“I believe he’ll kill me if he can,” I said, glancing at Mandor, who nodded.
“I fear that is so,” he stated.
“As for whether he’ll be back here for more of whatever it is that he got,” I continued, “you’re the best judge. How close did he seem to be to possessing the full powers one might gain from that ritual at the Fountain?”
“It’s hard to say exactly,” she said, “as he was testing them under very chaotic conditions. Fifty percent, maybe. Just a guess. Will that satisfy him?”
“Perhaps. How dangerous does that make him?”
“Very. When he gets the full hang of things. Still, he must realize that this place will be heavily guarded even against someone such as himself — should he decide to return. I suspect he’ll stay away. Just Sharu — in his present circumstances — would be a formidable obstacle.”
I went on eating.
“Julia will probably advise him not to try it,” she continued, “familiar as she is with the place.”
I nodded my acceptance of the notion. We would meet when we met. Nothing much I could do now to forestall it.
“Now may I ask you a question?” she said.
“Go ahead.”
“The ty’iga…”
“Yes.”
“Even in the body of the duke Orkuz’s daughter, I am certain that she did not just walk into the palace and wander on up to your apartments.”