On the way out I decided to check Brand's armoire to see whether he had a hat to go with what I was wearing. I opened it and discovered a dark three-cornered one with a golden feather, which fitted me perfectly. The color was a little off, but I suddenly recalled a spell which altered it. As I was about to turn away, something to the rear of that top shelf which held the hats glinted for a moment within my Logrus vision. I reached in and withdrew it.
It was a long and lovely gold-chased sheath of dark green, and the hilt of the blade which protruded from it appeared to be goldplated, with an enormous emerald set in its pommel. I took hold of it and drew it partway, half expecting it to wail like a demon on whom one has dropped a balloon filled with holy water. Instead, it merely hissed and smoked a little. And there was a bright design worked into the metal of its blade-almost recognizable. Yes, a section of the Pattern. Only this excerpting was from the Pattern's end, whereas Grayswandir's was from a point near the beginning.
I sheathed it, and on an impulse I hung it from my belt. His old man's sword would make a neat coronation present for Luke, I decided. So I'd take it along for him. I let myself out into the side corridor then, made my way over a small section of collapsed wall from Gerard's quarters and back past Fiona's door to my dad's rooms. There was one thing more I wanted to check, and the sword had reminded me. I fished in my pocket for the key I'd transferred from my bloody trousers. Then I decided I'd better knock. What if...
I knocked and waited, knocked again and waited again. In that nothing but silence ensued I unlocked the door and entered. I went no farther than that first place. I'd just wanted to check the rack.
Grayswandir was gone from the peg where I'd hung it. I backed out, closing and locking the door. The fact that the row of pegs had been empty was an instance of obtaining the knowledge one wanted and still not being certain what one had proved thereby. Yet it had been something I'd wished to know, and it did make me feel that final knowledge was nearer than it had been...
I walked back, past Fiona's rooms. I reentered Brand's rooms through the door I had left ajar. I hunted around till I spotted a key in a nearby ashtray. I locked the door and pocketed the key; that was almost silly because anyone could walk in from my room now and my room was missing a wall. Still...
I hesitated before crossing back to my sitting room with its Tabriz stained with ty'iga spit and partly covered by fallen wall. There was something almost restful about Brand's quarters, a kind of peaceful quality I hadn't really noticed before. I wandered a bit, opening drawers and looking inside magic boxes, studying a folder of the man's drawings. The Logrus sight showed me that something small and potent and magical was secreted in a bedpost, radiating lines of force every which way. I unscrewed the knob, found the compartment within it. It contained a small velvet bag which bore a ring. The band was wide, possibly of platinum. It bore a wheellike device of some reddish metal, with countless tiny spokes, many of them hair-fine. And each of these spokes extended a line of power leading off somewhere, quite possibly into Shadow, where some power cache of spell source lay. Perhaps Luke would rather have the ring than the sword. When I slipped it on, it seemed to extend roots to the very center of my body. I could feel my way back along them to the ring and then out along those connections. I was impressed by the variety of energies it reached and controlled-from simple chthonic forces to sophisticated constructs of High Magic, from elementals to things that seemed like lobotomized gods. I wondered why he hadn't been wearing it on the day of the Patternfall battle. If he had, I'd a feeling he might have been truly invincible. We could all have been living on Brandenberg is Castle Brand. I wondered, too, why Fiona, in the next room over, had not felt its presence and come looking for it. On the other hand, I hadn't. For what it was, it didn't register well at all, beyond a few feet. It was amazing the treasures this place contained. Was it something about the private universe effect said to obtain in some of these rooms? The ring was a beautiful alternative to Pattern Power or Logrus Power, hooked in as it was with so many sources. It must have taken centuries to empower the thing. Whatever Brand had wanted it for, it had not been part of a short-range plan. I decided I could not surrender the thing to Luke-or to anyone with any familiarity with the Arts. I didn't even think I should trust a nonmagician with it. And I certainly didn't feel like returning it to the bedpost. What was that throbbing at my wrist? Oh, yes, Frakir. It had been going on for some small while, and I'd barely noticed.
“Sorry you lost your voice, old girl,” I said, stroking her as I explored the room for threats both psychic and physical. “I can't find a damned thing here that I should be worried about.”
Immediately she spiraled down from my wrist and tried to remove the ring from my finger.
“Stop!” I ordered. “I know the ring could be dangerous. But only if you use it wrongly. I'm a sorcerer, remember? I'm into these matters. There is nothing special about it for me to fear.”
But Frakir disobeyed my order and continued her attack on the ring, which I could now only attribute to some form of magical artifact jealousy. I tied her in a tight knot around the bedpost and left her there, to teach her a lesson.
I began to search the apartment more diligently. If I were to keep the sword and the ring, it would be nice to find something else of his father's that I could take to Luke—
“Merlin! Merlin!” I heard bellowed from somewhere beyond my room.
Rising from a tapping of the floor and lower walls, where I had been seeking hollow spots, I returned to my archway and passed through into my own sitting room. I halted then despite another summons in what I now recognized to be Random's voice. The wall which faced upon the side corridor was more than half rebuilt since last I had viewed it-as if an invisible crew of carpenters and plasterers had been silently at work since I had positioned the dreamstone in the gateway to the kingdom of Brand. Amazing. I simply stood and stared, hoping for some betraying bit of business within the damaged area. Then I heard Random mutter, “I guess he's gone,” and I called back, “Yeah? What is it?”
“Get your ass up here quick,” he said. “I need your advice.”
I stepped out into the corridor through the opening which remained in that wall, and I looked upward, Immediately I could feel the capabilities in the ring that I wore, responding like a musical instrument to my most immediate need. The appropriate line was activated as I assented to the suggestion, and I took the gloves from behind my belt and drew them on as I was levitated toward the opening in the ceiling. This, because it had occurred to me that Random might recognize the ring as having once been Brand's, and that could lead to a complicated discussion I'd no desire for at the moment.
I held my cloak close to my side as I came up through the hole into the studio, to keep the blade under wraps also.
“Impressive,” Random said. “Glad you're keeping the magical muscle exercised. That's what I called you for.”
I gave him a bow. Being dressed up made me feel vaguely courtly.
“How may I be of service?'
“Cut the crap and come on,” he said, taking hold of my elbow and steering me back toward the demibedroom. Vialle stood at the door, holding it open.
“Merlin?” she said as I brushed by.
“Yes?” I answered.
“I wasn't certain,” she said.
“Of what?” I asked.
“That it was you,” she responded.
“Oh, it's me, all right,” I said.
“It is indeed my brother,” Mandor stated, rising from his chair and approaching us. His arm was splinted and slung, his face considerably relaxed. “If anything about him strikes you as strange,” he continued, “it is likely because he has had a number of traumatic experiences since he left here.”