“Keep it up,” I said.
I crossed the room and entered the dragon.
I emerged in a small sitting room, one window looking out over mountains; the other, a desert. There was no one about, and I stepped out into a long hallway. Yes, just as I recalled.
I moved along it, passing a number of other rooms, till I came to a door on my left, which I opened to discover a collection of mops, brooms, buckets, brushes, a heap of cleaning cloths, a basin. Yes, as I remembered. I pointed to the shelves on my right.
“Find the black star,” I said.
“You’re serious?” came the small voice.
“Go and see.”
A streak of light proceeded from my index finger, grew distorted as it neared the shelves, folded itself into a line so thin it was no longer present.
“Good luck,” I breathed, and then I turned away.
I closed the door, wondering whether I had done the right thing, consoling myself with the thought that he would have gone looking and doubtless located the Logrus eventually, anyway. Whatever was to be on this front, would be. And I was curious as to what he might learn.
I turned and took myself back up the hallway to the little sitting room. It might be my last opportunity at being alone for a time, and I was determined to take advantage of it. I seated myself on a pile of cushions and withdrew my Trumps. A quick run through the deck turned up the one I had hastily sketched of Coral on that recent hectic day back in Amber. I studied her features till the card grew cold.
The image became three-dimensional, and then she slipped away and I saw myself, walking the streets of Amber on a bright afternoon, holding her hand as I led her around a knot of merchants. Then we were descending the face of Kolvir, sea bright before us, gulls passing. Then back in the cafe, table flying against the wall…
I covered the card with my hand. She was asleep, dreaming. Odd, to enter another’s dreams that way. Odder, to find myself there — unless, of course, the touch of my mind had prompted unconscious reminiscence… One of life’s smaller puzzles. No need to awaken the poor lady, just to ask her how she was feeling. I supposed I could call Luke and ask him how she was doing. I began searching for his card, then hesitated. He must be pretty busy, his first few days on the job as monarch. And I already knew she was resting. As I toyed with Luke’s card, though, finally pushing it aside, the one beneath it was revealed.
Gray and silver and black… His face was an older, somewhat harder version of my own. Corwin, my father, looked back at me. How many times had I sweated over that card, trying to reach him, till my mind tied itself into aching knots, with no result? The others had told me that it could mean he was dead, or that he was blocking the contact. And then a funny feeling came over me. I recalled his own story, in particular when he’d spoken of the times they had tried to reach Brand through his Trump, being at first unable to because he had been imprisoned in such a distant shadow. Then I remembered his own attempts to reach through to the Courts, and the difficulty imposed by the great distance. Supposing that, rather than being dead or blocking me, he was greatly removed from the places I had been when I had made the efforts?
But then, who was it had come to my aid that night in Shadow, bearing me to that peculiar place between shadows and the bizarre adventures that befell me there? And though I was totally uncertain as to the nature of his appearance to me in the Corridor of Mirrors, I had later encountered indications of his presence in Amber Castle itself. If he’d been in any of those places, it would seem he hadn’t really been too far off. And that would mean he’d simply been blocking me, and another attempt to reach him would probably prove equally fruitless. Still, what if there were some other explanation for all these occurrences and…
The card seemed to grow cold beneath my touch. Was it just my imagination, or was the strength of my regard beginning to activate it? I moved forward in my mind, focusing. It seemed to grow even colder as I did so.
“Dad?” I said. “Corwin?”
Colder still, and a tingling feeling in my fingertips that touched it. It seemed the beginning of a Trump contact. It could be that he was much nearer to the Courts than to Amber, within a more reachable range now…
“Corwin,” I repeated. “It’s me, Merlin. Hello.”
His image shifted, seemed to move. And then the card went totally black.
Yet, it remained cold, and a sensation like a silent version of contact was present, like a telephone connection during a long pause.
“Dad? Are you there?”
The blackness of the card took on the aspect of depth. And deep within it, something seemed to be stirring.
“Merlin?” The word was faint, yet I was certain it was his voice, speaking my name. “Merlin?”
The movement within the depth was real. Something was rushing toward me.
It erupted from the card into my face, with a beating of black wings, cawing, crow or raven, black, black. “Forbidden!” it cried. “Forbidden! Go back! Withdraw!”
It flapped about my head as the cards spilled from my hand.
“Stay away!” it screeched, circling the room. “Forbidden place!”
It passed out the doorway and I pursued it. It seemed to have vanished, though, in the moments it was lost to my sight.
“Bird!” I cried. “Come back!”
But there was no reply, no further sounds of beating wings. I peered into the other rooms and there was no sign of the creature in any of them.
“Bird…?”
“Merlin! What’s the matter?” — this from high overhead.
I looked up to behold Suhuy, descending a crystal stair behind a quivering veil of light, a sky full of stars at his back.
“Just looking for a bird,” I replied.
“Oh,” he said, reaching the landing and stepping through the veil which then shook itself out of existence, taking the stair along with it. “Any particular bird?”
“A big black one,” I said. “Of the talking sort.” He shook his head.
“I can send for one,” he said.
“This was a special bird,” I said.
“Sorry you lost it.”
We walked out into the hallway and I turned left and headed back to the sitting room.
“Trumps all over the place,” my uncle remarked.
“I was attempting to use one and it went black and the bird flew out of it, shouting, ‘Forbidden’! I dropped them at that point.”
“Sounds as if your correspondent is a practical joker,” he said, “or under a spell.”
We knelt and he helped me to gather them.
“The latter seems more likely,” I said. “It was my father’s card, I’ve been trying to locate him for a long’ while now, and this was the closest I’ve come. I actually heard his voice, within the blackout, before the bird interrupted and cut us off.”
“Sounds as if he is confined to a dark place, perhaps magically guarded as well.”
“Of course!” I said, squaring up the edges of my deck and recasing it.
One cannot shift the stuff of Shadow in a place of absolute darkness. It is as effective as blindness in stopping one of our blood from escaping confinement. It added an element of rationality to my recent experience. Someone wanting Corwin out of commission would have to keep him in a very dark place.
“Did you ever meet my father?” I asked.
“No,” Suhuy replied. “I understand that he did visit the Courts briefly, at the end of the war. But I never had the pleasure.”
“Did you hear anything of his doings here?”
“I believe he attended a meeting with Swayvill and his counselors, along with Random and the other Amberites, preliminary to the peace treaty. After that, I understand he went his own ways, and I never heard where they might have led him.”