She chuckled.
«He must have been testing you,» she said. «The practice has been common knowledge for a long while: And I happen to know he's a cultist himself.»
«Really? How do you know this?»
«He made no secret of it in the old days, before the general proscription.»
«And who might his personal patron be?» I said.
«The Princess Fiona,» she replied.
Curiouser and curiouser…
«You've actually seen his chapel to her?» I asked.
«Yes. Before the ban it was not uncommon to have your friends over for a service whenever you were feeling particularly disgruntled with royal policy.»
«And after the ban?»
«Everyone claimed publicly that their shrines had been destroyed. Many were simply relocated, I think, up hidden ways.»
«And the business of having friends over for services?»
«I'd guess it would depend on how good a friend you're talking about. I don't really know how organized the Amber cult is.» She gestured widely. «A place like this is illegal, though. Good thing I don't know where we are.»
«I guess so,» I said. «What about the relationship between the cult figure and the real thing? I'd say that Mandor really does have a thing about Fiona. He's met her, you know, and I've been present and seen it. Someone else I know stole something belonging to his - patron? - and keeps it in his shrine. And that» - I rose, crossed the altar, and picked up Corwin's sword - is the real thing. I'd seen Grayswandir close-up, touched it, held it. This is it. But what I'm getting at is that my father is missing, and the last time I saw him he was wearing that blade. Would it be in keeping with the tenets of this cult to keep your patron prisoner?»
«I never heard of such a thing,» she said. «But I don't see why not. It is really the spirit of the person that is being venerated. There is no reason the person could not be imprisoned.»
«Or dead?»
«Or dead,» she agreed.
«Then fascinating as all this is,» I said, turning away from the altar, «it doesn't really help me to find my father.»
I moved back to her, across what must have been a representation of Amber, stylized as the pattern on a Caucasian rug, there in the dark and light tile, the Chaotic one far off to my right.
«You would have to ask the person responsible for his blade's being there,» she said, rising.
«I already asked the person I believed responsible. The response was not satisfactory.»
I took her arm to steer her back toward the way to the tree, and she was suddenly standing very close.
«I would like to serve our next king any way I might,» she said. «Though I may not normally speak for our House, I am certain Hendrake would agree to help you bring pressure upon the person responsible.»
«Thanks,» I said as we embraced. Her scales were cool. Her fangs would have shredded my human ear, but it was only a nibble in demonform. «I will talk to you again if I need help along those lines.»
«Talk to me again, anyway.»
It was good to hold and be held for a time, and that is what we did, till I saw a shadow move in the vicinity of the way.
«Masster Merlin.»
«Glait!»
«Yess. I ssaw you come thiss way. Manform, demonform, grown or ssmall, I know you.»
«Merlin, what is it?» Gilva asked.
«An old friend,» I told her. «Glait, meet Gilva. And vice versa.»
«Pleassed. I came to warn you that ssomeone approachess.»
«Who?»
«Princess Dara.»
«Oh, dear!» Gilva remarked.
«You suspect where we are,» I said to her. «Keep it to yourself.»
«I value my head, Lord. What do we do now?»
«Glait, to me,» I said, kneeling and extending an arm. She flowed up it and made herself comfortable. I rose and caught hold of Gilva with the other. I sent my will into the spikard.
Then I hesitated
I didn't know where the hell we were - really, physically, in terms of geography. A way can deliver you next door, or somewhere thousands of miles distant from its point of origin, or somewhere off in Shadow. It would take a while to have the spikard figure where we were and then work out the way back, if we were going to bypass the way. Too long, I was certain.
I could simply use it to render us invisible. But I feared my mother's sorcerous sensitivity would be suf ficient to detect our presence at levels beyond the visual.
I faced the nearest wall and extended my senses past it on a line of the spikard's force. We were not underwater or drifting on a sea of lava or quicksand. We seemed to be in a wooded spot.
So I walked toward the wall and passed us through it when we got there.
Several paces later, in the midst of a shaded glade, I looked back and beheld a grassy hillside, with no singing coming from beneath it. We stood under a blue sky, orange sun nearing its top. There were bird and insect sounds about us.
«Marrow!» Glait exclaimed, unwound herself from my arm and vanished into the gasses.
«Don't stay away long!» I hissed, trying to keep my voice low; and I led Gilva away from the hill.
«Merlin,» she said, «I'm frightened at what I've learned.»
«I won't tell anyone if you won't,» I said. «If you'd like, I can even remove these memories before I send you back to the funeral.»
«No, let me keep them. I can even wish there were more.»
«I'll figure our location and get you back before you're missed.»
«I'll wait with you while your friend hunts.»
I half expected her to continue, «…in case I never see you again,» what with the near skateboarding of Tmer and Tubble off this ever-mortal helix. But no, she was a demure and well-bred battle-maid - with over thirty notches on the haft of her broadsword, I later learned - and she was above stating the distasteful obvious in the presence of her possible future liege.
When Glait returned after an appropriate time, I said, «Thanks, Gilva. I'm going to send you back to the funeral now. If anyone saw us together and wants to know where I am, tell them I said I was going into hiding.»
«If you do need a place to hide…»
«Talk to you sometime later perhaps,» I said, and I sent her back to the temple at the edge of everything.
«Good vermin,» Glait remarked, as I commenced my shift humanward. (It's always easier that way for me than the demon-shift.)
«I'd like to send you back to Sawall's sculpture garden,» I said.
«Why there, Masster Merlin?»
«To wait for a time, to see whether you behold a sentient circle of light. And if you do, to address it as Ghostwheel and tell it to come to me.»
«Where shall I tell it to sseek you?»
«That I do not know, but it is good at that sort of thing.»
«Then ssend me. And if you are not eaten by ssomething bigger, come tell me your sstory one night.»
«I shall.»
It was the work of but a moment to hang the serpent back in her tree. I've never been sure when she's joking, reptilian humor being more than a little strange.
