«Very well,» she said, shrugging. «What has become so terribly urgent?»
«The succession.»
«The matter is settled. The throne is yours.»
«And whose creature am I to be?» I raised my left hand, hoping they had no way of telling one spikard from another. «This thing confers great powers. It also charges for their use. It bore a spell for control of its wearer.»
«It was Swayvill's,» Mandor said. «I got it to you when I did to accustom you to the force of its presence. And yes, there is a price. Its wearer must come to terms with it.»
«I have wrestled with it,» I lied, «and I am its master. But the main problems were not cosmic. They were compulsions of your own installation.»
«I do not deny it,» he said. «But there was a very good reason for their presence. You were reluctant to take the throne. I felt it necessary to add an element of compulsion.»
I shook my head.
«Not good enough,» I said. «There was more to it than that. It was a thing designed to make me subservient to you.»
«Necessary,» he responded. «You've been away. You lack intimate knowledge of the local political scene. We could not simply let you take the reins and go off in your own direction - not in times such as these, when blunders could be very costly. The House needed some means to control you. But this was only to be until your education was complete.»
«Permit me to doubt you, brother,» I said.
He glanced at Dara, who nodded slightly.
«He is right,» she said, «and I see nothing wrong with such temporary control until you learn the business. Too much is at stake to permit otherwise.»
«It was a slave-spell,» I said. «It would force me to take the throne, to follow orders.»
Mandor licked his lips. It was the first time I'd ever seen him betray a sign of nervousness. It instantly made me wary - though I realized moments later that it may have been a calculated distraction. It caused me to guard against him immediately; and, of course, the attack came from Dara.
A wave of heat swept over me. I shifted my attention at once, attempting to raise a barrier. It was not an attack against my person. It was something soothing, coercive. I bared my teeth as I fought to hold it off.
«Mother-» I growled.
«We must restore the imperatives,» she said flatly, more to Mandor than to me.
«Why?» I asked. «You're getting what you want.»
«The throne is not enough,» she answered. «I do not trust you in this, and reliance will be necessary.»
«You never trusted me,» I said, pushing away the remains of her spell.
«That is not true,» she told me, «and this is a technical matter, not a personal one.»
«Whatever the matter,» I said, «I'm not buying.»
Mandor tossed a paralysis spell at me, and I pushed it away, ready for anything now. As I was doing this, Dara hit me with an elaborate working I recognized as a Confusion Storm. I was not about to try matching them both, spell for spell. A good sorcerer may have a half dozen major spells hung. Their judicious employment is generally enough for dealing with most situations. In a sorcerous duel the strategy involved in their employment is a major part of the game. If both parties are still standing when the spells have been exhausted, then they are reduced to fighting with raw energies. Whoever controls a greater quantity usually has the edge then.
I raised an umbrella against the Confusion Storm, parried Mandor's Astral Club, held myself together through Mom's Spirit Split, maintained my senses through Mandor's Well of Blackness. My major spells had all gone stale, and I had hung no new ones since I'd begun relying on the spikard. I was already reduced to reliance on raw power. Fortunately, the spikard gave me control of more of it than I'd ever held before. All I had to do was force them to use up their spells, then all trickiness would be removed from the situation. I would wear them down, drain them.
Mandor sneaked one partway through, hurting me in a brush with an Electric Porcupine. I battered him with a wall of force, however, slamming him into a system of revolving discs that flashed off in all directions. Dara turned into a liquid flame, coiling, waving, flowing through circles and figure-Bights, as she advanced and retreated, tossing bubbles of euphoria and pain to orbit me. I tried to blow them away, hurricane-wise, shattering the great porcelain face, uprooting towers, family groups with holes in them, glowing geometries. Mandor fumed to sand, which filtered downward through the structure upon which he sprawled, became a yellow carpet, crept toward me.
I ignored the effects and continued to beat at them with energies. I hurled the carpet through the flame and dumped a floating fountain upon them. Brushing out small fires in my clothing and hair, I forced my consciousness through numbed areas in my left shoulder and leg. I fell apart and drew myself back together again as I mastered Dara's spell of Unweaving. I shattered Mandor's Diamond Bubble and digested the Chains of Deliverance. On three occasions, I dropped my human form for things more suitable, but always I returned to it. I hadn't had a workout like this since my final exams with Suhuy.
But the ultimate advantage was obviously mine. Their only real chance had lain in surprise, and that was gone now. I opened all channels on the spikard, a thing which might have intimidated even the Pattern - though, now I thought on it, it had gotten me knocked senseless. I caught Mandor in a cone of force that stripped him down to a skeleton and built him back up again in an instant. Dara was harder to nail, but when I blasted her with all of the channels, she hit me with a Dazzlement spell she'd been holding in reserve, the only thing that saved her from turning into a statue as I'd intended. Instead, it left her in mortal form and restricted to slow motion.
I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. Lights danced before me.
«Congratulations,» she said, over a span of perhaps ten seconds. «You're better than I'd thought.»
«And I'm not even finished,» I replied, breathing deeply. «It's time to do unto you as you'd have done unto me.»
I began to craft the working which would place them under my control. It was then that I noticed her small slow smile.
«I'd thought - we might - deal with - you - ourselves,» she said as the air began to shimmer before her. «I was - wrong.»
The Sign of the Logrus took form before her. Immediately, her features grew more animated.
Then I felt its terrible regard. When it addressed me, that pastiche-voice tore at my nervous system.
«I have been summoned,» it said, «to deal with your recalcitrance, oh man who would be king.»
There came a crash from downhill as the house of mirrors collapsed. I looked in that direction. So did Dara. Mandor, just now struggling to his feet, did also.
The reflective panels rose into the air and drifted toward us. They were quickly deployed all about us, reflecting and re-reflecting our confrontation from countless angles. The prospect was bewildering, for space itself seemed somehow bent, twisted now in our vicinity. And in each image we were surrounded by a circle of light, though I could not detect its absolute source.
«I stand with Merlin,» Ghost said, from somewhere.
«Construct!» the Logrus Sign stated. «You thwarted me in Amber!»
«And a short thwart for the Pattern, too,» Ghost observed. «It sort of balances out.»
«What are your wishes now?»
«Hands off Merlin,» Ghost said. «He'll rule here as well as reign. No strings on him.»
Ghost's lights began cycling.
I pulsed the spikard, open on all channels, hoping to locate Ghost, give him access to its energies. I couldn't seem to make contact, though.
«I don't need that, Dad,» Ghost stated. «I access sources in Shadow myself.»
«What is it that you want for yourself, construct?» the Sign inquired.
«To protect one who cares for me.»
«I can offer you cosmic greatness.»
«You already did. I turned you down then, too. Remember?»
«I remember. And I will remember.» A jagged tentacle of the constantly shifting figure moved toward one of the circles of light. There was a blinding rush of flame when they met. When my vision cleared, however, nothing
