I awoke lying in what seemed a glade under a moonlit sky. I kept my eyes half-lidded and did not move. No sense in giving away my wakefulness.
Very slowly, I moved my eyes. Deirdre was nowhere in sight. My rightside peripheral vision informed me that there might be a bonfire in that direction, with some folks seated around it.
I rolled my eyes to the left and got a glimpse of Luke. No one else seemed to be nearby.
'You awake?' I whispered.
'Yeah,' he replied.
'No one near,' I said, rising, 'except maybe for a few around a fire off to the right. We might be able to find a way out and take it--Trumps, Shadowalk--and thus break the ritual. Or we might be trapped.'
Luke put a finger into his mouth, removed it, and raised it, as if testing the wind.
'We're caught up in a sequence I think we need,' he said.
'To the death?' I said.
'I don't know. But I don't really think we can escape this one,' he replied.
He rose to his feet.
'Ain't the fighting, it's the familiarity,' I said. 'I begrudge knowing you.'
'Me, too. Want to flip a coin?' he asked.
'Heads, we walk away. Tails, we go over and see what the story is.'
'Fine with me.' He plunged his hand into a pocket, pulled out a quarter.
'Do the honors,' I said.
He flipped it. We both dropped to our knees.
'Tails,' he said. 'Best two out of three?'
'Naw,' I said. 'Let's go.'
Luke pocketed his quarter, and we turned and walked toward the fire.
'Only a dozen people or so. We can take them,' Luke said softly.
'They don't look particularly hostile,' I said.
'True.'
I nodded as we approached and addressed them in Thari:
'Hello,' I said. 'I'm Corwin of Amber and this is Rinaldo I, King of Kashfa, also known as Luke. Are we by any chance expected here?'
An older man, who had been seated before the fire and poking at it with a stick, rose to his feet and bowed.
'My name is Reis,' he said, 'and we are witnesses.'
'For whom?' Luke said.
'We do not know their names. There were two and they wore hoods. One, I think, was a woman. --We may offer you food and drink before things begin...'
'Yeah,' I said, 'I'm out a meal because of this. Feed me.'
'Me, too,' Luke added, and the man and a couple of his cohorts brought meat, apples, cheese, bread, and cups of red wine.
As we ate, I asked Reis, 'Can you tell me how this thing works?'
'Of course,' he said. 'They told me. When you're finished eating, if you two will move to the other side of the fire, the cues will come to you.'
I laughed and then I shrugged.
'All right,' I said.
Finished dining, I looked at Luke. He smiled.
'If we've got to sing for our supper,' Luke said, 'let's give them a ten-minute demonstration and call it a draw.'
I nodded.
'Sounds good to me.'
We put aside our plates, rose, moved to the fire, and passed behind it.
'Ready?' I said.
'Sure. Why not?'
We drew our weapons, stepped back, and saluted. We both laughed when the music began. Suddenly, I found myself attacking, though I had decided to await the attack and put my first energies into its counter. The movement had been thoughtless, though quite deft and speedy.
'Luke,' I said as he parried, 'it got away from me. Be careful. There's something odd going on.'
'I know,' he said as he delivered a formidable attack. 'I wasn't planning that.'
I parried it and came back even faster. He retreated.
'Not bad,' he said, as I felt something loosened in my arm. Suddenly I was fencing on my own again, voluntarily, with no apparent control but with fear that it might be reasserted at any moment.
Suddenly, I knew that we were fairly free and it scared me. If I weren't sufficiently vicious, I might be taken over again. If I were, someone might slip in an unsolicited move at the wrong moment. I grew somewhat afraid.
'Luke, if what's happening to you is similar to what's been happening to me, I don't like this show a bit,' I told him.
'Me neither,' he said.
I glanced back across the fire. A pair of hooded individuals stood among the others. They were not overlarge and there was a certain whiteness within the cowl of the nearer.
'We've more audience,' I said.
Luke glanced back; it was only with great difficulty that I halted a cowardly attack as he turned away. When we returned to hard combat, he shook his head.
'Couldn't recognize either of them,' he said. 'This seems a little more serious than I thought.'
'Yeah.'
'We can both take quite a beating and recover.'
'True.'
Our blades rattled on. Occasionally, one or the other of us received a cheer.
'What say we injure each other,' Luke said, 'then throw ourselves down and wait for their judgment on whatever's been accomplished. If either of them come near enough, we take them out just for laughs.'
'Okay,' I said. 'If you can expose your left shoulder a bit, I'm willing to take a midline cut. Let's give them lots of gore before we flop, though. Head and forearm cuts. Anything easy.'
'Okay. And 'simultaneity' is the word.'
So we fought. I stood off a bit, going faster and faster. Why not? It was kind of a game.
Suddenly, my body executed a move I had not ordered it to. Luke's eyes widened as the blood spurted and Grayswandir passed entirely through his shoulder. Moments later, Werewindle pierced my vitals.
'Sorry,' Luke said. 'Listen, Corwin. If you live and I don't, you'd better know that there's too much crazy stuff involving mirrors going on around the castle. The night before you came back, Flora and I fought a creature that came out of a mirror. And there's an odd sorcerer involved--has a crush on Flora. Nobody knows his name. Has something to do with Chaos, though, I'd judge. Could it be that for the first time Amber is starting to reflect Shadow, rather than the other way around?'
'Hello,' said a familiar voice. 'The deed is done.'
'Indeed,' said another.
It was the two cowled figures who had spoken. One was Fiona, the other Mandor.
'However it be resolved, good night, sweet prince,' said Fiona.
I tried to rise. So did Luke. Tried also to raise my blade. Could not. Again, the world grew dim, and this time I was leaking precious bodily fluids.
'I'm going to live--and come after you,' I said.
'Corwin,' I heard her say faintly. 'We are not as culpable as you may think. This was--'
'--all for my own good, I'll bet,' I muttered before the world went dark, growling with the realization that I hadn't gotten to use my death curse. One of these days....
I woke up in the dispensary in Amber, Luke in the next bed. We both had IVs dripping into us.
