«I think I would enjoy living in Amber,» she remarked as we went along.
«Me, too,» I replied. «I've never really done it for any great length of time.»
«Oh?»
«I guess I didn't really explain how long I'd spent on the shadow Earth where I went to school, where I had that job I was telling you about…,» I began, and suddenly I was pouring out more autobiography to her - a thing I don't usually do. I wasn't certain why I was telling it at first, and then I realized that I just wanted someone to talk to. Even if my strange suspicion was correct, it didn't matter. A friendly-seeming listener made me feel better than I had in a long while. And before I realized it, I was telling her about my father - how this man I barely knew had rushed through a massive story of his struggles, his dilemmas, his decisions, as if he were trying to justify himself to me, as if that were the only opportunity he might have to do it, and how I had listened, wondering what he was editing, what he had forgotten, what he might be glossing over or dressing up, what his feelings were toward me…
«Those are some of the caves,» I told her, as they interrupted my now embarrassing indulgence in memory. She started to say something about my monologue, but I simply continued; «I've only seen them once.»
She caught my mood and simply said «I'd like to go inside one.»
I nodded. They seemed a good place for what I had in mind.
I chose the third one. Its mouth was larger than the first two, and I could see back into it for a good distance. «Let's try that one. It looks well lighted,» I explained. We walked into a shadow-hung chill. The damp sand followed us for a while, thinning only slowly to be replaced by a gritty stone floor. The roof dipped and rose several times. A turn to the left joined us with the passage of another opening, for looking back along it I could see more light. The other direction led more deeply into the mountain. We could still feel the echoing pulse of the sea from where we stood.
«These caves could lead back really far,» she observed.
«They do,» I replied. «They twist and cross and wind. I wouldn't want to go too far without a map and a light. They've never been fully charted, that I know of.»
She looked about, studying areas of blackness within the darkness where side tunnels debouched into our own.
«How far back do you think they go?» she inquired.
«I just don't know.»
«Under the palace?»
«Probably,» I said, remembering the series of side tunnels I'd passed on my way to the Pattern. «It seems possible they ' cut into the big caves below itsomewhere.»
«What's it like down there?».
«Under the palace? Just dark and big. Ancient…»
«I'd like to see it.»
«Whatever for?»
«The Pattern's down there. It must be pretty colorful.»
«Oh, it is all bright and swirly. Rather intimidating, though.»
«How can you say that when you've walked it?»
«Walking it and liking it are two different things.»«
«I'd just thought that if it were in you to walk it, you'd feel some affinity, some deep resonant kinship with it.»
I laughed, and the sounds echoed about us.
«Oh, while I was walking it I knew it was in me to do it,» I said. «I didn't feel it beforehand, though. I was just scared then. And I never liked it.»
«Strange.»
«Not really. It's like the sea or the night sky. It's big' and it's powerful and it's beautiful and it's there. It's a natural force and you make of it what you will.»
She looked back along the passageway leading inward.
«I'd like to see it,» she said.
«I wouldn't try to find my way to it from here,» I told her. «Why do you want to see it, anyhow?» '
«Just to see how I'd respond to something like that»
«You're strange,» I said.
«Will you take me when. we go back? Will you show it to me?»
This was not going at all the way I'd thought it would: If she were what I thought, I didn't understand the request. I was half tempted to take her to it, to find out what she had in mind. However, I was operating under a system of priorities, and I'd a feeling she represented one concerning which I'd made myself a promise and some elaborate preparations.
«Perhaps,» I mumbled.
«Please. I'd really like to see it.»
She seemed sincere. But my guess felt near-perfect.
Sufficient time had passed for that strange body-shifting spirit, which had dogged my trail in many forms, to have; located a new host and then to have zeroed in on me again and be insinuating itself into my good graces once more. Coral was perfect for the role, her arrival appropriately timed, her concern for my physical welfare manifest, her reflexes fast. I'd have liked to keep her around for questioning, but I knew that she would simply lie to me in the absence of proof or an emergency situation. And I did not trust her. So I reviewed the spell I had prepared and hung on my way home from Arbor House, a spell I had designed to expel a possessing entity from its host. I hesitated a moment, though. My feelings toward her were ambivalent. Even if she were the entity, I might be willing to put up with her if I just knew her motive.
So, «What is it that you want?» I asked.
«Just to see it. Honestly,» she answered.
«No, I mean that if you are what I think you really are, I'm asking the big question: Why?»
Frakir began to pulse upon my wrist.
Coral was silent for the space of an audible deep breath, then, «How could you tell?»
«You betrayed yourself in small ways discernible only to one who has recently become paranoid,» I responded.
«Magic,» she said. «Is that it?»
«It's about to be,» I replied. «I could almost miss you, but I can't trust you.»
I spoke the guide words to the spell, letting them draw my hands smoothly through the appropriate gestures. There followed two horrible shrieks, and then a third.
But they weren't hers. They came from around the corner in the passageway we had recently quitted.
«What-?» she began.
«-the hell!» I finished; and I rushed past her and rounded the corner, drawing my blade as I went.
Backlighted by the distant cavemouth I beheld three figures on the floor of the cave. Two of them were sprawled and unmoving. The third was seated and bent forward,, cursing. I advanced slowly, the point of my weapon directed toward the seated one. His shadowy head turned in my direction, and he climbed to his feet, still bent forward. He clutched his left hand with his right, and he backed away until he came into contact with the wall.
He halted there, muttering something I could not quite hear. I continued my cautious advance, all of my senses alert. I could hear Coral moving at my back, then I glimpsed her accompanying me on my left when the passage widened. She had drawn her dagger, and she held it low and near to her hip. No time now to speculate as to what my spell might have done to her.
I halted as I came to the first of the two fallen forms. I prodded it with the toe of my boot, ready to strike instantly should it spring into an attack. Nothing. It felt limp, lifeless. I used my foot to turn it over, and the head rolled back in the direction of the cavemouth. In the light that then fell upon it I beheld a half-decayed human face. My nose had already been informing me that this state was no mere illusion. I advanced upon the other one and turned him, also. He, too, bore the appearance of a decomposing corpse. While the first one clutched a dagger in his right hand, the second was weaponless. Then I noted another dagger - on the floor, near the live man's feet. I raised my eyes to him. This made no sense whatsoever. I'd have judged the two figures upon the floor to have been
