'Why did you abandon it?'
'I feared that it was killing me.'
He contorted his features into a near-impossible grimace.
'I don't like the sound of this, Corwin. There must be another way.'
'If I knew a better way, I'd take it.'
'Supposing you just followed Benedict's plan and took them all on? You said yourself that he could raise infinite legions in Shadow. You also said that he is the best man there is in the field.'
'Yet the damage would remain in the Pattern, and something else would come to fill it. Always. The enemy of the moment is not as important as our own inner weakness. If this is not mended we are already defeated, though no foreign conqueror stands within our walls.'
He turned away.
'I cannot argue with you. You know your own realm,' he said. 'But I still feel you may be making a grave mistake by risking yourself on what may prove unnecessary at a time when you are very much needed.'
I chuckled, for it was Vialle's word and I had not wanted to call it my own when she had said it.
'It is my duty,' I told him.
He did not reply.
Benedict, a dozen paces away, had apparently reached Gerard, for he would mutter something, then pause and listen. We stood there, waiting for him to conclude his conversation so that we could see him off.
'... Yes, he is here now,' I heard him say. 'No, I doubt that very much. But-'
Benedict glanced at me several times and shook his head.
'No, I do not think so,' he said. Then, 'All right, come ahead.'
He extended his new hand, and Gerard stepped into being, clasping it. Gerard turned his head, saw me, and immediately moved in my direction.
He ran his eyes up and down and back and forth across my entire person, as if searching for something.
'What is the matter?' I said.
'Brand,' he replied. 'He is no longer in his quarters. At least, most of him isn't. He left some blood behind. The place is also broken up enough to show there had been a fight.'
I glanced down at my shirt front and trousers.
'And you are looking for bloodstains? As you can see, these are the same things I had on earlier. They may be dirty and wrinkled, but that's all.'
'That does not really prove anything,' he said.
'It was your idea to look. Not mine. What makes you think I-'
'You were the last one to see him,' he said.
'Except for the person be had a fight with-if he really did.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'You know his temper, his moods. We had a small argument. He might have started breaking things up after I left, maybe cut himself, gotten disgusted, trumped out for a change of scene-Wait! His rug! Was there any blood on that small, fancy rug before his door?'
'I am not sure-no, I don't think so. Why?'
'Circumstantial evidence that he did it himself. He was very fond of that rug. He avoided messing it.'
'I don't buy it,' Gerard said, 'and Caine's death still looks peculiar-and Benedict's servants, who could have found out you wanted gunpowder. Now Brand-'
'This could well be another attempt to frame me,' I said, 'and Benedict and I have come to better terms.'
He turned toward Benedict, who had not moved from where he stood a dozen paces away, regarding us without expression, listening.
'Has he explained away those deaths?' Gerard asked him.
'Not directly,' Benedict answered, 'but much of the rest of the story now stands in a better light. So much so, that I am inclined to believe all of it.'
Gerard shook his head and glared down at me again.
'Still unsettled,' he said. 'What were you and Brand arguing about?'
'Gerard,' I said, 'that is our business, till Brand and I decide otherwise.'
'I dragged him back to life and watched over him, Corwin. I didn't do it just to see him killed in a squabble.'
'Use your brains,' I told him. 'Whose idea was it to search for him the way that we did? To bring him back?'
'You wanted something from him,' he said. 'You finally got it. Then he became an impediment.'
'No. But even if that were the case, do you think I would be so damned obvious about it? If he has been killed, then it is on the same order as Caine's death-an attempt to frame me.'
'You used the obviousness excuse with Caine, too. It seems to me it could be a kind of subtlety-a thing you are good at.'
'We have been through this before, Gerard...'
'... And you know what I told you then.'
'It would be difficult to have forgotten.'
He reached forward and seized my right shoulder. I immediately drove my left hand into his stomach and pulled away. It occurred to me then that perhaps I should have told him what Brand and I had been talking about. But I didn't like the way he had asked me.
He came at me again. I side-stepped and caught him with a light left near the right eye. I kept jabbing after that, mainly to keep his head back. I was in no real shape to fight him again, and Grayswandir was back in the tent. I had no other weapon with me.
I kept circling him. My side hurt if I kicked with my left leg. I caught him once on the thigh with my right, but I was slow and off-balance and could not really follow through. I continued to jab.
Finally, he blocked my left and managed to drop his hand on my biceps. I should have pulled away then, but he was open. I stepped in with a heavy right to his stomach, all of my strength behind it. It bent him forward with a gasp, but his grip tightened on my arm. He blocked my attempted uppercut with his left, continuing its forward motion until the heel of his hand slammed against my chest, at the same time jerking my left arm backward and to the side with such force that I was thrown to the ground. If he came down on me, that was it.
He dropped to one knee and reached for my throat.
Chapter 9
I moved to block his hand, but it halted in midreach. Turning my head, I saw that another hand had fallen upon Gerard's arm, was now grasping it, was holding it back.
I rolled away. When I looked up again, I saw that Ganelon had caught hold of him. Gerard jerked his arm forward, but it did not come free.
'Stay out of this, Ganelon,' he said.
'Get going, Corwin!' Ganelon said. 'Get the Jewel!'
Even as he called out, Gerard was beginning to rise. Ganelon crossed with his left and connected with Gerard's jaw. Gerard sprawled at his feet. Ganelon moved in and swung a kick toward his kidney, but Gerard caught his foot and heaved him over backward. I scrambled back into a crouch, supporting myself with one hand.
Gerard came up off the ground and rushed Ganelon, who was just recovering his feet. As he was almost upon him, Ganelon came up with a double-fisted blow to Guard's midsection, which halted him in his tracks. Instantly, Ganelon's fists were moving like pistons against Gerard's abdomen. For several moments, Gerard seemed too dazed to protect himself, and when he finally bent and brought his arms in, Ganelon caught him with a right to the jaw
