To Rule in Amber (20 page)

"Shall we return later?" she asked in that sultry voice.

I laughed. "Even gods need to rest. But maybe, just you, in an hour…"

She smiled and darted off.

Alone now, I pulled out my deck of Trumps, flipped through it quickly, and pulled out Aber's card. I raised it and concentrated on the image, and almost instantly I reached him.

"Oberon!" he said, sounding altogether too cheerful for his own good. He had been sitting at a worktable painting a new Trump. "You look exhausted. How are things going with the army?"

"I
am
tired. But things are going well here." Briefly I told him of the progress I had made in raising an army in Ceyoldar. "It looks like I'll be bringing back tens of thousands of warriors. What's happening there?"

"The weirdest thing," he said, shaking his head. "Dad came back without any troops and without Freda. He wouldn't tell me what happened, except that he ran into problems. He retired to his workshop."

"Without Freda?" Mental alarms went off. This definitely sounded like trouble. "Where is she?

Did you contact her?"

He shrugged helplessly. "I tried, but couldn't reach her. I don't know if she's busy, or…"

Uneasy now, I began to pace. "What else did Dad do?" I asked. "Could he have been a spy from Chaos? A shape-shifter, perhaps?"

Aber hesitated. "No… I'm fairly certain it was Dad."

"How?"

"He, er, went out of his way to insult me. Called me a layabout and a worthless piece of horseflesh. Among other things."

I chuckled and relaxed a bit. That did sound like our father.

Aber continued, "But then he asked where you were - he didn't seem to remember you all left yesterday. Like I said, it was strange. He seemed confused, but he wouldn't admit it. I thought his concussion might be bothering him again, or…"

I nodded thoughtfully. "Hmm. But with an imposter running around, we must be careful. Is he still there?"

"I left him in his workshop fifteen minutes ago."

"What was he doing?"

"Damned if I know. I didn't feel like hanging around and getting insulted, so I left."

I frowned as another possibility occurred to me. "Maybe you should get Doc Hand again…"

He shrugged. "If you ask me, Dad could use a few
more
blows to the head. Maybe it would knock some manners into him."

"Okay. Keep an eye on him. I'm going to try to reach Freda. Maybe she knows what happened to him."

"All right. For all we know, his mind started to go again, so she sent him home."

I nodded. "Do me a favor - post a guard on his workshop. Watch him. Let me know if he tries to leave Amber."

"Okay."

I covered his card with my hand, breaking our connection. Then I took out Freda's card and concentrated on it. It took her a moment to answer. She was somewhere in near darkness; I had to squint to make out her tired-looking face.

"What is it, Oberon?" She sounded half asleep. "It's past midnight here."

"What happened to Dad?" I asked. "Did you send him home?"

"What are you talking about?" She blinked and yawned. "I didn't send him anywhere."

"I just talked to Aber. He says Dad just got back to Amber, and he's acting strangely. He can't remember anything."

"Impossible. Wait a moment." She rose, turned up an oil lamp, and went into the hall in her dressing gown, carrying the Trump. "We are both staying in a comfortable inn. Dad should still be in the next room."

I waited impatiently while she pounded on his door. Then Dad whipped it open, bare sword in hand. He had a wild look in his eye. Leaning out, he glanced up and down the hallway.

"What's wrong?" he demanded.

"Oberon says you just returned to Amber," she told him. "Have you left your room tonight?"

"Certainly not!"

To Freda, I said, "Get back to Amber, both of you. See if you can find that imposter and hold him. I'll return tomorrow morning with troops… a lot of them."

She nodded curtly. "I will let you know if we catch him," she said. Then she broke the connection.

I put her Trump down and began to pace again. It seemed Uthor and his spies knew a lot about us… enough to fool Aber, anyway. Showing up and heaping abuse on him appeared to have been exactly the right thing to do.

Well, it wouldn't work for long. Never mind Kelionasha - I had to get ready to leave Ceyoldar.

At dawn, I planned to be on the road to Amber.

When Freda called me again an hour later, I was on the road leading King Aslom's forces down out of the city. I spurred my horse and rode twenty feet ahead so I could talk to her privately. "We have him!" she announced. "Father caught him in his room. He is bound now, magically and physically."

I felt a rush of excitement. "Can you hold him there until I get back?"

"I think so. He can do no harm where he is."

"Good. I have a hundred thousand warriors with me, give or take a few thousand. Tell Aber to start laying in supplies. Since Uthor knows where we are anyway, he might as well use the Logrus to save time."

"Excellent. I will let him know."

I took me two days to lead King Aslom's forces back to Amber. It was neither terribly far nor a hard march; but the sheer logistics of getting so many people up and moving at the same time took far longer than I would have expected. My own experiences in Ilerium, as one of King Elnar's lieutenants, proved less than adequate to the task. Elnar's army had numbered in the low thousands, and I had commanded scarcely a hundred and fifty men. Here I commanded nearly a thousand times as many.

Finally, though, the horses and wagons and war-chariots and miles-long lines of infantrymen all

came within sight of the forest. A road had been cut straight through to the castle - visible from here only as a faint smudge on a distant mountainside - and we were quickly challenged by a squad of armed men.

I rode forward to greet them.

"It's the king!" one, then another, began to mutter. Quickly they knelt, heads bowed.

"Rise," I said, reigning in my stallion. "You must be vigilant. We caught an imposter at the castle pretending to be my father, Lord Dworkin, two days ago. Challenge everyone who passes, whether you know them or not."

"Yes, Your Highness!"

"You -" I pointed at a sergeant. "What's your name?"

"M-Mevill, Sire!"

"I must go ahead. You will take my horse and escort King Aslom and his men to Castle Amber."

"Y-yes, Sire!"

I rode back to King Aslom and his sons, who had drawn to a halt in their golden war-chariots, and apprised them of my plans. They nodded agreeably. After all, who were they to question the great Oberon?

Dismounting, I turned my horse over to Sergeant Mevill, pulled out a Trump of the caste's courtyard, and stepped through. It must have been quite a sight for Aslom and his sons - more proof, if any were needed, that I was a god.

I found Freda and Dad in the main hall. They hurried over to greet me.

"Is that imposter still here?" I asked.

"Yes," Dad said. "He is trapped in my room. We have been waiting for you before questioning him."

"Good. Let's have a look at him."

They led me upstairs, back to the room whose door I had kicked open three days before. The door hadn't been repaired yet and still hung open.

Inside, someone who looked just like my father sat on the edge of the canopied bed. He had bitten his thumb and was dribbling a thin line of blood slowly onto the floorboards… trying to draw a Trump, by the looks of things. Only it wasn't working. I felt no power coming from the spattered red lines.

He looked up, saw me, and said: "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."

"Very funny," I said. I turned to Freda. "Do you recognize that picture?"

She stared at it, tilting her head slightly. "Yes. It is the Third Tower. It lies well beyond the Courts of Chaos."

"What is it?"

"A place of ancient power and prophecy."

"Prophecy?" That sounded interesting.

She nodded. "Visions sometimes come to those who meditate there. There are thousands of them recorded in the Great Record. Perhaps he knows of a prophecy concerning us, or Amber, and wishes to return and consult it."

The fake Dworkin rose and crossed to the doorway, gazing out at us. Raising one hand, he touched the space where the door would have been, but seemed to run into an invisible barrier.

"He cannot get out," Dad said. "Spells have sealed the room."

"Release me," the imposter said.

"Why? So you can report back to King Uthor?"

"I do not serve Uthor."

"Who, then? Lord Zon?"

"No."

"Or… Suhuy?"

He did not reply this time. I raised my eyebrows.

"So it's Suhuy, then."

"Release me, brother."

"And it's 'brother' now?"

Freda gasped then and clutched my arm. "No… Oberon! They have done something to him -

this is Fenn!"

I stared at him. Stared hard. "Fenn?"

"Yes, brother. You must let me go. Please."

Swallowing, I looked at Dad, who shook his head faintly. I motioned with my head to one side, and we retreated up the hall to where he couldn't hear us.

"Fenn…" Freda whispered. "How horrible."

"I think he looks rather handsome," Dad said with a hint of a smile. "Never better, in fact."

She glared. "This is not a time for jests!"

"At least we know how he managed to fool you and Aber," I said to her. "Fenn would know what to say and exactly how to say it convincingly. Now comes the big question… what do we do with him?"

"He must have his old appearance restored, of course," I said. "Dad… is that something you can do?"

"I am not sure."

"Why is Suhuy sending spies?" Freda asked. "As Keeper of the Logrus, he should not be involving himself in politics."

"Tell
him
that," I said. "If returning Conner to us doesn't count as playing politics, what does?

Unless he wants to play on both sides… by secretly helping us
and
King Uthor, wouldn't he keep everyone's favor?"

"Possibly," Dad said.

"What matters with Fenn is his motivation," I said. "If he came unwillingly, forced by Suhuy to do his bidding, perhaps he can be freed of whatever compulsion is upon him. If he's a willing spy, though…"

They both nodded. Having decided, we returned to Fenn and peered in at him. He had returned to his seat on the bed.

"Well?" he demanded.

"We don't know what to do with you," I said.

"Let me go. I must return to my master."

"Or… ?"

"Or I will die." He said it in such a matter-of-fact voice that I knew he believed it.

I swallowed. "How?"

"He gave me a slow poison. I must return each week to make my report and take a dose of the antidote. If I miss one week, I become weak. If I miss two weeks, I become violently ill. If I miss three weeks…" He shrugged. "So, you can see I have no choice."

"How long has it been?" I asked.

"Four days."

Grimly, I turned to our father. If anyone could help Fenn, he could.

I said, "You have two weeks to find a cure. Don't let him out until he's well or dead."

He nodded gravely. "Yes, Oberon."

Without another word to Fenn, I went to find Aber. We still had to prepare for a hundred thousand visitors.

Late that night, as I lay in bed unable to sleep, I held the spikard and stared at it. The ruby glinted in the dimness. Somehow it reminded me of the jewel around the unicorn's neck.

Dad didn't seem to think it was dangerous. And yet… somehow, it made me uneasy.

As sleep stole upon me, I set it on the table beside the bed and shut my eyes. I would try to find out more about it in the morning.

I slept.

Sometime later, I felt a sharp pain on my finger and came awake. It was the ring, I realized. It had tightened painfully for a second, then released me. How had it gotten on my finger?

It tightened again.
A warning -

I kept my breathing low and even, but strained every sense. A rustle near the door made the hair on the back of my neck bristle. Someone had entered my room.

Slowly I eased my hand under my pillow, careful to make no sound, and curled my fingers around the hilt of a long-bladed knife. Then, in one quick movement, I sat up and threw it.

A satisfyingly loud
thunk
reached my ears as it struck something meaty near the door, then came a louder
thump
as a body hit the floor.

Folding my hands together, I concentrated on light, shaping a ball with my thoughts while holding the Pattern in my mind. When I opened them, a brightly glowing sphere drifted toward the ceiling.

A creature dressed all in black lay on the floor by my door, the hilt of my knife jutting from one eye. I rose, dressed calmly, and pulled on my boots. Then I went over to investigate.

Clearly it was a creature of Chaos. Horns, scaled skin, pointed yellow teeth, red eyes, and thick gray-green blood… akin to the hell-creatures that had plagued my life for so long.

The blades of its knives had been painted with a greenish substance. Poison? Undoubtedly.

Someone wanted me dead. Someone in my very own house. No creature like this one could have gotten past the sentries at the castle doors or on patrol atop the walls. Which meant someone with the ability to use the Pattern or the Logrus had brought it here.

I searched its clothes, felt something hard and cold, and drew out a pair of Trumps. The first showed the Courts of Chaos as seen from an open square. Buildings leaned at odd angles and strange colors filled the sky. I didn't look at it long; I didn't want the scene to come alive. The second Trump showed the hallway outside my door.

So… he had come prepared. Trumps would have provided his way into Castle Amber and then his escape back home once he killed me.

It confirmed my worst suspicions.

Someone in my own family had sent him.

I studied the Trump of the hallway with greater attention. The details had been crudely done, and the brush strokes showed signs of haste, but I still sensed the raw power it contained. Whose work, though? I had seen Trumps drawn by both Aber and our father, but those had been polished works of art in comparison. Could either of them deliberately disguised his work? Or did another family member have the talents needed to make Trumps?