Three paces more, and then it cleared, and she was standing before me, back against the lamppost. A head shorter than I was, she had on a trench coat and a black beret, her hair glossy, inky. She dropped her cigarette and slowly ground it out beneath the toe of a high-heeled black patent-leather shoe. I glimpsed something of her leg as she did so, and it was perfectly formed. She removed from within her coat then a flat silver case, the raised outline of a rose upon it, opened it, took out a cigarette, placed it between her lips, closed the case, and put it away Then, without looking at me, she asked, “Have you a light?”

I hadn't any matches, but I wasn't about to let a little thing like that deter me.

“Of course,” I said, extending my hand slowly toward those delicate features. I kept it turned slightly away from her so that she could not see that it was empty. As I whispered the guide word which caused the spark to leap from my fingertip to the tip of the cigarette, she raised her hand and touched my own, as if to steady it. And she raised her eyes-large, deep blue, long-lashed -and met mine as she drew upon it. Then she gasped, and the cigarette fell away

“Mon Dieu!” she said, and she threw her arms about me, pressed herself against me, and began to sob. “Corwin!” she said. “You've found me! It has been forever'“

I held her tightly, not wanting to speak, not wanting to break her happiness with something as cloddish as truth. The hell with truth. I stroked her hair.

After a long while she pulled away, looked up at me. A moment or so more, and she would realize that it was only a resemblance and that she was seeing but what she wanted to see. So, “What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?” I asked.

She laughed softly.

“Have you found a way?” she said, and then her eyes narrowed. “You're not-”

I shook my head.

“I hadn't the heart,” I told her.

“Who are you?” she asked, taking a half step backward.

“My name is Merlin, and I'm on a crazy quest I don't understand.”

“Amber,” she said softly, her hands still on my shoulders, and I nodded.

“I don't know you,” she said then. “I feel that I should, but... I... don't...”

Then she came to me again and rested her head on my chest. I started to say something, to try to explain, but she placed a finger across my lips.

“Not yet, not now, maybe never,” she said. “Don't tell me. Please don't tell me more. But you ought to know whether you're a Pattetn-ghost.”

“Just what is a Pattern-ghost?” I said.

“An artifact created by the Pattern. It records everyone who walks it. It can call us back whenever it wants, as we were at one of the times we walked it. It can use us as it would, send us where it will with a task laid upon us-a geas, if you like. Destroy us, and it can create us over again.”

“Does it do this sort of thing often?”

“I don't know. I'm not familiar with its will, let alone its operations with any other than myself.” Then, “You're not a ghost! I can tell!” she announced suddenly, taking hold of my hand. “But there is something different about you-different from others of the blood of Amber...,”

“I suppose,” I answered. “I trace my lineage to the Courts of Chaos as well as to Amber.”

She raised my hand to her mouth as if she were about to kiss it. But her lips moved by, to the place on my wrist where I had cut myself at Brand's request. Then it hit me: Something about the blood of Amber must hold a special attraction for Pattern-ghosts.

I tried to draw my hand away, but the strength of Amber was hers also.

“The fires of Chaos sometimes flow within me,” I said. “They may do you harm.”

She raised her head slowly and smiled. There was blood on her mouth. I glanced down and saw that my wrist was wet with it, too.

“The blood of Amber has power over the Pattern,” she began, and the fog rolled, churned about her ankles. “No!” she cried then, and she bent forward once more.

The vortex rose to her knees, her calves. I felt her teeth upon my wrist, tearing. I knew of no spell to fight this thing, so I laid my arm across her shoulder and stroked her hair. Moments later she dissolved within my embrace, becoming a bloody whirlwind.

“Go right,” I heard her wail as she spun away from me, her cigarette still smoldering upon the pavement, my blood dripping beside it.

I turned away. I walked away. Faintly, faintly, through the night and the fog I could still hear the piano playing some tune from before my time.

I took the road to the right, and everywhere my blood fell reality melted a little. I heal fast, though, and I stopped bleeding soon. Even stopped throbbing before too long.

You got blood all over me, boss.

“Could have been fire,” I observed.

l got singed a little, too, back at the stones.

“Sorry about that. Figure out what's going on yet?”

No new instructions, if that's what you mean. But I've been thinking, now I know how to do it, and this place gets more and more fascinating. This whole business of Pattern ghosts, for instance. If the Pattern can't penetrate here directly, it can at least employ agents. Wouldn't you think the Logrus might have some way of doing the same?

“I suppose it's possible.”

I get the impression there's some sort of duel going on between them here, on the underside of reality, between shadows. What if this place came first? Before Shadow, even? What if they're been fighting here since the very beginning, in some strange metaphysical way?

“What if they have?”

That could almost make Shadow an afterthought, a by prod uct of the tension between the poles.

“I'm afraid you've lost me, Frakir.”

What if Amber and the Courts of Chaos were created only to provide agents for this conflict?

“And what if this idea were placed within you by the Logrus during your recent enhancement?”

Why?

“Another way to make me think that the conflict is more important than the people. Another pressure to make me choose a side.”

I don't feel manipulated.

“As you pointed out, you're to new to this thinking business. And that's a pretty damned abstract line of thought for you to be following this early in the game.”

Is it?

“Take my word for it.”

What does that leave us with?

“Unwelcome attention from On High.”

Better watch your language if this is their war zone.

“A pox on both their houses. For some reason I don't understand, they need me for this game. They'll put up with lt.”

From somewhere up ahead I heard a roll of thunder.

See what I mean?

“It's a bluff,” I replied.

Whose?

“The Pattern's, I believe. Its ghosts seem in charge of reality in this sector.”

You know, we could be wrong on all of this. Just shooting in the dark.

“I also feel shot at out of the dark. That's why I refuse to play by anybody else's rules.”

Have you got a plan?

“Hang loose. And if I say 'kill,' do it. Let's get to where we're going.”

I began to run again, leaving the fog, leaving the ghosts to play at being ghosts in their ghost city. Bright road through dark country, me running, reverse shadow. shifting, as the land tried to change me. And there ahead a flare and more thunder, virtual street scene flashing into and out of existence beside me.

And then it was as if I raced myself, dark figure darting along a bright way-till I realized it was indeed, somehow, a mirror effect. The movements of the figure to my right which paralleled my own mimicked mine; fleeting scenes to my left were imaged to the other's right.

What's going on, Merle?

“Don't know,” I said. “But I'm not in the mood for symbolism, allegory, and assorted metaphorical crap. If it's supposed to mean that life is a race with yourself, then it sucks-unless they're real platitudinizing Powers that are running this show. Then I guess it would be in character. What do you think?”