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.
I took a quick walk then, knocking on and finally trying both Brand's and Gerard's doors. No response, and both were locked. Odder and odder.
Frakir had given a quick pulse when I'd touched Brand's door, and while I'd gone on alert for several moments, nothing untoward had approached. I was about to dismiss it as a disturbing reaction to the remnants of eldritch spells I had occasionally seen drifting about the vicinity when I noticed that the Jewel of Judgment was pulsing.
I raised the chain and stared into the gem. Yes, an image had taken form. I beheld the hallway around the corner, my two doors, and intervening artwork on the wall in plain view. The doorway to the left - the one that let upon my bedroom - seemed to be outlined in red and pulsing. Did that mean I was supposed to avoid it or rush in there? That's the trouble with mystical advice.
I walked back and turned the corner again. This time the gem - perhaps having felt my query and decided some editing was in order - showed me approaching and opening the door it was indicating. Of course, of the two, that door was locked…
I fumbled for my key, reflecting that I could not even rush in with a drawn blade, having just disposed of Grayswandir. I did have a couple of tricky spells hung, though. Maybe one of them would save me if the going got too rough. Maybe not, too.
I turned the key and flung the door open.
«Merle!» she shrieked, and I saw that it was Coral. She stood beside my bed, where her putative sister the ty'iga was reclined. She quickly moved one hand behind her back. «You, uh, surprised me.»
«Vice versa,» I replied, for which there is an equivalent in Thari. «What's up, lady?»
«I came back to tell you that I located my father and gave him a soothing story about that Corridor of Mirrors you told me about. Is there really such a place here?»
«Yes. You won't find it in any guides, though. It comes and goes. So, he's mollified?»
«Uh-huh. But now he's wondering where Nayda is.»
«This gets trickier.»
«Yes.»
She was blushing, and she did not meet my eyes readily. She seemed aware, too, that I was noting her discomfort.
«I told him that perhaps Nayda was exploring, as I'd been,» she went on, «and that I'd ask after her.»
«Mm-hm.»
I shifted my gaze to Nayda. Coral immediately moved forward and brushed against me. She placed a hand on my shoulder, drew me toward her.
«I thought you were going to sleep,» she said.
«Yes, I was. Did, too. I was running some errands just now.»
«I don't understand,» she said.
«Time lines,» I explained. «I economized. I'm rested.»
«Fascinating,» she said, brushing my lips with her own. «I'm glad that you're rested.»
«Coral,» I said, embracing her briefly, «you don't have to bullshit me. You know I was dead tired when you left. You had no reason to believe that I'd be anything but comatose if you returned this soon.»
I caught hold of her left wrist behind her back and drew her hand around to the front, raising it between us. She was surprisingly strong. And I made no effort to pry open her hand, for I could see between the fingers what it was that she held. It was one of the metal balls Mandor often used to create impromptu spells. I released her hand. She did not draw away from me, but rather, «I can explain,» she said, finally meeting my gaze and holding it.
«I wish you would,» I said. «In fact, I wish you'd done it a bit sooner.»
«Maybe the story you heard about her being dead and her body the host for a demon is true,» she said. «But she's been good to me recently. She's finally become the sister I'd always wished she'd been. Then you brought me back here and I saw her like that, not knowing what you really planned to do with her-»
«I want you to know that I wouldn't hurt her, Coral,» I interrupted. «I owe her-it - for favors past. When I was young and naive on the shadow Earth, she probably saved my neck, several times. You have no reason to fear for her here.»
She cocked her head to the right and narrowed one eye. «I'd no way of knowing that,» she said, «from what you told me I came back, hoping to get in, hoping you were deeply asleep, hoping I could break the spell or at least lift it enough to talk with her. I wanted to find out for myself whether she was really my sister - or something else.»
I sighed. I reached out to squeeze her shoulder and realized I was still clutching the Jewel of Judgment in my left hand. I squeezed her arm with my right hand instead and said, «Look, I understand. It was boorish of me to
