When I reached the cross corridor where a left would take me to the stairway or a right back to my rooms, I hesitated. There was a sitting room diagonally across the way, to the left, across from Benedict's seldom used rooms. I headed for it, entered, sank into a heavy chair in the corner. All I wanted to do was deal with my enemies, help my friends, get my name off any shit lists it currently occupied, locate my father, and come to some sort of terms with the sleeping ty'iga. Then I could see about the continuance of my interrupted Wanderjahr. All of which, I realized, required that I now reask myself the now near-rhetorical question, How much of my business did I want Random to know?

I thought of him in the library, playing a duet with his near-estranged son. I understood that he had once been pretty wild and footloose and nasty, that he hadn't really wanted the job of ruling this archetypal world. But parenthood, marriage, and the Unicorn's choice seemed to have laid a lot on him-deepening his character, I suppose, at the price of a lot of the fun things in his life. Right now he seemed to have a lot of problems with this Kashfa-Begma business, possibly having just resorted to an assassination and agreed to a less than favorable treaty to maintain the complex political forces of the Golden Circle at an even level. And who knew what might be going on elsewhere to add to his troubles? Did I really want to draw this man into something I might well be able to handle myself with his never being any the wiser, or ever even bothered, concerning it? Conversely, if I did draw him into my affairs, it seemed likely that he might well lay restrictions on me which could hamper my ability to respond to what seemed the daily exigencies of my life. It could also raise another matter which had been shunted aside years ago.

I had never sworn allegiance to Amber. Nobody had ever asked me to. After all, I was Corwin's son, and I had come to Amber willingly and made my home here for some time before going off to the shadow Earth, where so many of the Amberites had gone to school. I returned often, and I seemed to be on good terms with everyone. I didn't really see why the concept of dual citizenship shouldn't apply.

I'd rather the matter did not come up at all, though. I did not like the thought of being forced to choose between Amber and the Courts. I wouldn't do it for the Unicorn and the Serpent, the Pattern and the Logrus, and I didn't care to do it for the royalty of either court.

All of which indicated that Vialle should not have even a sketchy edition of my story. Any version at all would require an eventual accounting. However, if the Jewel were returned without an explanation of where it had been, then no one would know to come after me on the matter, and things would still be set right. How could I lie if I were not even asked questions?

I mulled that along a little further. What I would actually be doing would be to save a tired, troubled man the burden of additional problems. There was nothing he could or should do about most of my affairs. Whatever was going on between the Pattern and the Logrus seemed mainly important as a metaphysical affair. I couldn't see where much good or bad might come out of it on a practical level. And if I saw something coming, I could always tell Random then.

Okay. That's one nice thing about reasoning abilities. You can use them to make yourself feel virtuous rather than, say, guilty. I stretched and cracked my knuckles.

“Ghost?” I said softly.

No response.

I reached for my Trumps, but even as I touched them, a wheel of light flashed on across the room.

“You did hear me,” I said.

“I felt your need,” came the reply.

“Whatever,” I said, drawing the Jewel's chain up over my head and holding the stone out before me. “Do you think you could return this to its secret compartment beside the fireplace in the royal suite without anyone's being any wiser?” I asked.

“I'm leery about touching that thing,” Ghost responded. “I don't know what its structure might do to my structure.”

“Okay,” I said. “I guess I'll find a way to do it myself then. But the time has come to test a hypothesis. If the Pattern attacks me, try to whisk me to safety, please.”

“Very well.”

I set the Jewel on a nearby table.

After about a half minute I realized that I had braced myself against the Pattern's death stroke. I relaxed my shoulders. I drew a deep breath. I remained intact. Could be that Dworkin was right and the Partern would leave me alone. Also, I should be able to summon the Pattern in the Jewel now, he told me, as I do the Sign of the Logrus. There were Pattern-magics which could only be wrought via this route, though Dworkin hadn't taken the time to instruct me in their employment. He'd suggested that a sorcerer should be able to figure the system out. I decided that this could wait. I was in no mood just now for commerce of any sort with the Pattern in any of its incarnations.

“Hey, Pattern,” I said. “Want to call it even?”

There came no reply.

“I believe it is aware of you here and what you just did,” Ghost said. “I feel its presence. Could be you're off the hook.”

“Could be,” I responded, taking out my Trumps and sorting through them.

“Whom would you like to get in touch with?” Ghost asked.

“I'm curious about Luke,” I said. “I want to see whether he's okay. And I'm wondering about Mandor. I assume you sent him to a safe place.”

“Oh, nothing but the best,” Ghost replied. “Same for Queen Jasra. Did you want her, too?”

“Not really. In fact, I don't want any of them. I just wanted to see-”

Ghost winked out while I was still talking. I wasn't at all certain that his eagerness to please was an improvement over his earlier belligerence.

I withdrew Luke's card and went inside it.

I heard someone passing along the corridor. The footsteps went on by.

I felt Luke's awareness, though no vision of his circumstances reached me.

“Luke, you hear me?” I inquired.

“Yep,” he answered. “You okay, Merle?”

“I'm all right,” I said. “How about yourself? That was quite a fight you-”

“I'm fine.”

“I hear your voice, but I can't see a thing.”

“Got a blackout on the Trumps. You don't know how to do that?”

“Never looked into the matter. Have to get you to teach me sometime. Uh, why are they blacked out anyway?”

“Somebody might get in touch and figure what I'm up to.”

“If you're about to lead a commando raid on Amber; I'm going to be highly pissed.”

“Come on! You know I swore off? This is something entirely different.”

“Thought you were a prisoner of Dalt's.”

“My status is unchanged.”

“Well, he damn near killed you once and he just beat the shit out of you the other day.”

“The first time he'd stumbled into an old berserker spell Sharu'd left behind for a trap; the second time was business. I'll be okay. But right now everything I'm up to is hush-hush, and I've got to run. G'bye.”

Gone Luke, the presence.

The footsteps had halted, and I'd heard a knocking on a nearby door. After a time I heard a door being opened, then closed. I had not overheard any exchange of words. In that it had been nearby and that the two nearest apartments were Benedict's and my own, I began to wonder. I was fairly certain that Benedict was not in his, and I recalled not having locked my own door when I had stepped out. Therefore...

Picking up the Jewel of Judgment, I crossed the room and stepped out into the hall. I checked Benedict's door. Locked. I looked down the north-south hallway and walked back to the stairway and checked around in that area. There was no one in sight. I strode up to my own place then and stood listening for a time outside each of my doors. No sounds from within. The only alternatives I could think of were Gerard's rooms, back down the side corridor, and Brand's, which lay behind my own. I had thought of knocking out a wall-in keeping with the recent spirit of remodeling and redecorating Random had gotten into-adding Brand's rooms to my own, for a very good-size apartment. The rumor that his were haunted, though, and the wailings I sometimes heard through the walls late at night dissuaded me.