I found myself raising my hand against my will, reaching toward the fingerlike curves, the swirls of the knuckles. He chuckled again. I could feel the force that drew me. I wondered what would happen if I took hold of that strange hand in a special way.

So I summoned the Sign of the Logrus and sent it on ahead to do my handclasping for me.

This may not have been my best choice of actions. I was momentarily blinded by the brilliant, sizzling flash that followed. When my vision cleared, I saw that Dworkin was gone. A quick check showed that my wards still held. I perked up the fire with a short, simple spell, noted that my coffee cup was half full, and warmed its tepid contents with an abbreviated version of the same rendering. I reshrouded myself then, settled, and sipped. Analyze as I might, I couldn't figure what had just happened.

I knew of no one who had seen the half mad demiurge in years, though according to my father's tale, Dworkin's mind should have been largely mended whet Oberon repaired the Pattern. If it had really been Jurt, seeking to trick his way into my presence and finish me off, it was an odd choice of form for him to assume. Come to think of it, I wasn't at all certain that Jurt even knew what Dworltin looked like. I debated the wisdom of calling for Ghostwheel to solicit an inhuman opinion on the matter. Before I could decide, however, the stars beyond the cave mourh were occulted by another figure, much larger than Dworkin's-heroically proportioned even.

A single step brought it within range of the firelight, and I spilled coffee when I beheld that face. We had never met, but I had seen his likeness in many places in Castle Amber.

“I understand that Oberon died in redrawing the Pattern,” I said.

“Were you present at the time?” he asked.

“No,” I replied, “but coming as you do, on the heels of a rather bizarre apparition of Dworkin, you must excuse my suspicions as to your bona fides.”

“Oh, that was a fake you encountered. I'm the real thing.”

“What was it then that I saw?”

“It was the astral form of a practical joker-a sorcerer named Jolos from the fourth circle of Shadow.”

“Oh,” I responded. “And how am I to know you're not the projection of someone named Jalas from the fifth?”

“I can recite the entire genealogy of the royal House of Amber. “

“So can any good scribe back home.”

“I'll throw in the illegitimates.”

“How many were there, anyway?”

“Forty-seven, that I know of.”

“Aw, come on! How'd you manage?”

“Different time streams,” he said, smiling.

“If you survived the reconstruction of the Pattern, how come you didn't return to Amber and continue your reign?” I asked. “Why'd you let Random get crowned and muddy the picture even further?”

He laughed.

“But I didn't survive it,” he said. “I was destroyed in the process. I am a ghost, returned to solicit a living champion for Amber against the rising power of the Logrus.”

“Granted, arguendo, that you are what you say you. are,” I replied, “you're still in the wrong neighborhood, sir. I am an initiate of the Logrus and a son of Chaos.”

“You are also an initiate of the Pattern and a son of Amber,” the magnificent figure answered.

“True,” I said, “and all the more reason for me not to choose sides.”

“There comes a time when a man must choose,” he stared, “and that time is now. Which side are you on?”

“Even if I believed that you ate what you say, I do not feel obliged to make such a choice,” I said. “And there is a tradition in the Courts that Dworkin himself was an initiate of the Logrus. If that is true, I'm only following in the footsteps of a venerable ancestor.”

“But he renounced Chaos when he founded Amber.”

I shrugged.

“Good thing I haven't founded anything,” I said. “If there is something specific that you want of me, tell me what it is, give me a good reason for doing it and maybe I'll cooperate.”

He extended his hand.

“Come with me, and I will set your feet upon the new Pattern you must follow, in a game to be played out between the Powers.”

“I still don't understand you, but I am certain that the real Oberon would not be stopped by these simple wards. You come to me and clasp my hand, and I will be glad to accompany you and take a look at whatever it is you want me to see.”

He drew himself up to an even greater height.

“You would test me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“As a man, it would hardly have troubled me,” he stated. “But being formed out of this spiritual crap now, I don't know. I'd rather not take the chance.”

“In that case, I must echo your sentiment with respect to your own proposal.”

“Grandson,” he said levelly, a ruddy light entering his eyes, “even dead, none of my spawn may address me so. I come for thee now in a less than friendly fashion. I come for thee now, and this journey shall I hale thee amid fires.”

I took a step backward as he advanced.

“No need to take it personally...” I began.

I shaded my eyes as he hit my wards, and the flashbulb effect began. Squinting through it, I saw something of a repetition of the flensing of Dworkin's flesh by fire. Oberon became transparent in places; other places he melted. Within him, through him, as the outward semblance of the kind passed away, I saw the swirls and curves, the straits and channels-black-lined, geometrizing abstractly inside the general outline of a large and noble figure. Unlike Dworkin, however, the image did not fade. Having passed my wards, its movement slowed, it continued toward me nevertheless, reaching. Whatever its true nature, it was one of the most frightening things I had ever encountered. I continued to back away, raising my hands, and I called again upon the Logrus.

The Sign of the Logrus occurred between us. The abstract version of Oberon continued to reach, scribbled spirit hands encountering the writhing limbs of Chaos.

I was not reaching through the Logrus's image to manipulate it against that apparition. I felt an unusual dread of the thing, even at our distance. What I did was more on the order of thrusting the Sign against the image of the king. Then I dived past them both, out the cave mouth, and I rolled, scrabbling for handholds and toeholds when I struck a slope, coming up hard against a boulder and hugging it as the cave erupted with the noisy and flash of an ammo dump that had taken a hit.

I lay there shuddering, my eyes squeezed shut, for perhaps half a minute. Any second, I felt, and something would be on my ass-unless, perhaps, I crouched perfectly still and tried hard to look like another rock...

The silence was profound, and when I opened my eyes, the light had vanished and the shape of the cave mouth was unaltered. I rose slowly to my feet, advanced even more slowly. The Sign of the Logrus had departed, and for reasons I did not understand I was loath to call it back. When I looked within the cave, there were no signs that anything at all had occurred, save for the fact that my wards were blown.

I stepped inside. The blanket still lay where it had fallen. I put out a hand and touched the wall. Cold stone. That blast must have taken place at some other level than the immediate. My small fire was still flickering feebly. I recalled it yet again to life. But the only thing I saw in its glow which I had not seen previously was my coffee cup, broken where it had fallen.

I let my hand remain upon the wall. I leaned. After a time, there came an uncontrollable tightening of my diaphragm. I began laughing. I am not sure why. The weight of everything which had transpired since April 30 was upon me. It just happened that laughter had edged out the alternative of beating my breast and howling.

I thought I knew who all the players were in this complex game. Luke and Jasra seemed to be on my side now, along with my brother Mandor, who'd always looked out for me. My mad brother Jurt wanted me dead, and he was now allied with my old lover Julia, who didn t seem too kindly disposed toward me either. There was the ty'iga-an overprotective demon inhabiting the body of Coral's sister, Nayda, whom I'd left sleeping in the midst of a spell back in Amber. There was the mercenary Dalt – who, now I thought of it, was also my uncle-who'd made off with Luke for points and purposes unknown after kicking Luke's ass in Arden with two armies watching. He had nasty designs on Amber but lacked the military muscle to provide more than occasional guerrilla-style annoyance. And then there was Ghostwheel, my cybernetic Trump dealer and minor-league mechanical demigod, who seemed to have evolved from rash and manic to rational and paranoid-and I wasn't at all sure where he was headed from here, but at least he was showing some filial respect mixed in with the current cowardice.