“I've a duty to her,” I said, “and I've got to see to it now.”
“All right,” she said, sighing. “I'd better come along and give you a hand.”
“How?” I asked.
“You'd be surprised,” she told me, and she was on her feet and smiling a twisted smile.
I nodded, feeling that she was probably right.
CHAPTER 10
We hiked back along the hallway to my apartment. When I opened the door and summoned the lights, Nayda did a fast survey of the first room. She froze when she saw my coatrack.
“Queen Jasra!” she said.
“Yep. She had a disagreement with a sorcerer named Mask,” I explained. “Guess who won?”
Nayda raised her left hand and moved it in a slow pattern-behind Jasra's neck and down her back, across her chest, then downward again. I did not recognize any of the movements she was performing.
“Don't tell me that you're a sorceress, too,” I said. “It seems that everyone I run into these days has had some training in the Art.”
“I am not a sorceress,” she answered, “and I've had no such training. I have only one trick and it is not sorcery, but I use it for everything.”
“And what is that trick?” I asked.
She ignored the question, then said, “My, she's certainly tightly bound. The key lies somewhere in the region of her solar plexus. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I understand the spell fully.”
“Why is she here?”
“Partly because I promised her son Rinaldo I'd rescue her from Mask, and partly as an assurance against his good behavior.”
I pushed the door shut and secured it. When I turned back, she was facing me.
“Have you seen him recently?” she said in a conversational tone.
“Yes. Why?”
“Oh, no special reason.”
“I thought we were trying to help each other, “ I said.
“I thought we were looking for my sister.”
“It can wait another minute if you know something special about Rinaldo.”
“I was just curious where he might be right now.”
I turned away and moved to the chest where I keep art supplies. I removed the necessary items and took them to my drawing board. While I was about it, I said, “I don't know where he is.”
I set up the piece of pasteboard, seated myself and closed my eyes, summoning a mental image of Coral, preliminary to beginning her sketch. Again, I half wondered whether the picture in my mind, along with the appropriate magical endorsement, would be sufficient for contact. But now was not the time to mess around being experimental. I opened my eyes and began to draw. I used the techniques I'd learned in the Courts, which are different yet similar to those employed in Amber. I was qualified to execute them in either fashion, but I'm faster with the style I learned first.
Nayda came over and stood near, watching, not asking whether I minded. As it was, I did not.
“When did you see him last?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Luke.”
“This evening,” I answered.
“Where?”
“He was here earlier.”
“Is he here now?”.
“ No.”
“Where did you last see him?”
“In the forest of Arden. Why?”
“It seams a strange place to part.”
I was working on Coral's eyebrows.
“We parted under strange circumstances,” I said.
A little more work about the eyes, a bit on the her....
“Strange? In what way?” she asked.
More color to the cheeks...
“Never mind,” I told her.
“All right,” she said. “It's probably not that important.”
I decided against rising to that bait, because I was suddenly getting something. As had occasionally happened in the past, my concentration on the Trump as I put the final touches to it was sufficiently intense to reach through and....
“Coral!” I said, as the features moved, perspectives shifted.
“Merlin..?” she answered. “I... I'm in trouble.”
Oddly, there was no background whatever. Just blackness. I felt Nayda's hand upon my shoulder.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Yes... It's dark here,” she said. “Very dark.”
Of course. One cannot manipulate Shadow in the absence of light. Or even see to use a Trump.
“That's where the Pattern sent you?” I asked.
“No,” she answered.
“Take my hand,” I said. “You can tell me about it afterward.”.
I extended my hand and she reached toward it.
“They—” she began.
And with a stinging flash the contact was broken. I felt Nayda stiffen beside me.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I don't know. We were suddenly blocked. I can't tell what forces were involved.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Try again in a little bit,” I said. “If it were a reaction thing, resistance will probably be high just now, and it may ease up later. At least she says she's all right.”
I withdrew the packet of Trumps I normally carry, shufflied out Luke's. Now seemed as good a time as any to see how he was faring. Nayda glanced at the card and smiled.
“I thought you just saw him a little while ago,” she said.
“A lot can happen in a little while.”
“I'm certain a lot has happened.”
“You think you know something about what's going on with him?” I asked.
“Yes. I do.”
I raised the Trump. “What?” I said.
“I'd be willing to wager, you won't get through to him.”
“We'll see.”
I concentrated and I reached. I reached again. A minute or so later I wiped my brow.
“How'd you know?” I asked.
“Luke's blocking you. I would, too... under the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?”
She gave me a quirked smile, crossed to a chair, and sat down.
“Now I have something to trade with you again,” she said.
“Again?”
I studied her. Something jiggled and fell into place. “You've been calling him `Luke' rather than `Rinaldo,' “ I said.
“So I have.”
“I'd been wondering when you'd show up again.”
She continued to smile.
“I went and shot my eviction-notice spell,” I observed. “Can't complain, though. It probably saved my life. Do I owe you that one, in some roundabout fashion?”
“I'm not proud. I'll take it.”
“I'm going to ask you again what you want, and if you say it's to help me or to protect me, I'm going to turn you into a coatrack.”
She laughed.
“I'd have guessed you'd take whatever help you could get right now,” she said.
“A lot depends on what you mean by `help' .”
“If you'll tell me what you have in mind, I'll tell you whether I can be of any assistance.”
“All right,” I said. “I'm going to change clothes while I talk, though. I don't feel like storming a citadel dressed like this. May I lend you something tougher than a sweat suit?”
“I'm fine. Start at Arbor House, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, and I proceeded to fill her in while I garbed myself in tougher fare. She was no longer a pretty lady to me, but rather a nebulous entity in human form. She seated herself while I was talking and stared at the wall, or through it, over steepled fingers. When I was finished, she kept staring, and I went over to my drawing board, took up Coral's Trump, tried again, but couldn't get through. I tried Luke's card, also, with the same results.
As I was about to replace Luke's Trump, square the deck, and case it, I glimpsed the next lower card and a lightning chain of recollections and speculations flashed through my mind. I removed the card and focused on it. I reached...
“Yes, Merlin?” he said moments later, seated at a small table on a terrace-evening skyline of a city behind him-lowering what appeared to be a cup of espresso to a tiny white saucer.
“Right now. Hurry,” I said. “Come to me.”
Nayda had begun to make a low growling sound just as the contact occurred, and she was on her feet and moving toward me, her eyes fixed upon the Trump, just as Mandor took my hand and stepped through. She halted when the tall, black-garbed figure appeared before her. They regarded each other without expression for a moment, and then she took a long sliding step toward him, her hands beginning to rise. Immediately, from the depth of some inner cloak pocket where his right hand was thrust, there came a single, sharp, metallic click.