The Chronicles of Amber

call Dworkin’s guards? No, I wouldn’t know whether to trust them. Any of them might be another hell-creature in disguise, and I didn’t want to reveal how much I knew yet. Freda, maybe? She seemed to have her own plots. Aber the prankster? I wasn’t sure what help he could be; I needed solid advice, not Trumps.

That left only Dworkin, and I certainly couldn’t go running to him at the first sign of trouble. It would make me look weak, helpless, unable to protect myself… in short, a perfect target.

Another problem worried me more. If assassins roamed Juniper’s halls disguised as servants, I reasoned, they might just as easily pose as family members. Since I didn’t know anyone in Juniper well enough to tell real from fake, except perhaps Dworkin, I knew how easily I could be fooled by another assassin. Ivinius had come close to succeeding; I didn’t want to give his masters a second chance.

Taking a deep breath, I rose. When in doubt, do nothing you know is wrong. That was one of the lessons Dworkin had always stressed throughout my childhood. I wouldn’t report this attempt on my life just yet, I decided. Perhaps whoever had set me up would reveal himself if I simply showed up alive and well, like nothing had happened.

Surely someone would be curious as to what had happened. I’d have to be doubly watchful.

One problem remained: how to proceed?

Clean up, I decided. I’d have to hide the body somewhere and get rid of it after dark. Perhaps it could be dumped into the moat, or smuggled out into the forest. Though exactly how I might do so, when I knew none of Juniper’s passageways—let alone the safest, least guarded path to the forest—escaped me at the moment.

Details could come later, I decided. For now, it was enough to have a plan.

I dragged the corpse into the little sitting room and positioned it behind a heavy tapestry where it couldn’t be seen from the main room. Hopefully, servants wouldn’t stumble across it before I was ready, and hopefully it wouldn’t begin to stink too much. Then I began tidying up, setting the chair I’d knocked over back where it belonged, picking up Ivinius’s razor and returning it to the tray with the towels, straightening the table with the basin, retrieving the desk and restoring its papers and blotter to their proper order—generally putting everything back the way it had been before the fight. To my surprise, the hardest part came last: mopping up the spilled ink. I cleaned it up as best I could with one of the towels, then covered the spot on the carpet with a smaller rug.

Not a bad job, I finally decided, standing back and studying my work critically. The room looked more or less normal. You couldn’t tell there had been a fight or that I’d hidden a corpse in the next room.

Then I spotted my reflection in the mirror that had saved my life, and I sighed. I still had the residue of a full lather on my face and neck, and it had begun to dry and flake off. Well, I needed to get cleaned up for dinner anyway—no sense in wasting a sharp razor, even if it had been meant to slit my throat.

I returned to the basin and the block of soap, lathered up again with the brush, pulled the mirror over to the window’s light while my beard softened, and began to shave myself with one of the smaller razors, which had a blade about as long as my hand. It gave me something to do while I continued to think things through.

A plan… that’s what I needed right now. Some way to sort friend from foe, hell-creature from servant or relative…

Behind me, a floorboard suddenly squeaked. I whirled, razor up. I should have buckled on my swordbelt, I realized. More assassins, come to finish the job—?

No, it was only Aber, grinning at me like a happy pup who’d found its master. I forced myself to relax. He held what looked like one of Freda’s Trumps in his left hand, I noticed, and he carried a small carved wooden box in his right.

“A present for you, brother,” he said, holding out the box. “Your first set of family Trumps!”

I took them. “For me? I thought Freda was the expert.”

“Oh, everyone needs a set. Besides, she already has all the Trumps she wants.”

“I didn’t hear you come in,” I said, glancing pointedly at the door. The hinges most definitely had not given their telltale squeak. “How did you get in here? Is there another way—a secret passage?”

“You’ve been listening to too many fairy tales,” he said with a little laugh. “Secret passages? I only know of one in the whole castle, and it’s used all the time by servants as a shortcut between floors. Not much of a secret, if you ask me.”

“Then how did you get in here?”

Silently he raised the Trump in his hand, turning it so I could see the picture: my bedroom. He had drawn it perfectly, right down to the tapestries on the wall and the zigzag quilt on the bed.

Suddenly I remembered how the trump with Aber’s picture on it had seemed to move, almost to come alive, when Freda and I were in the carriage. Her cryptic comment about not wanting Aber to join us came back to me, and now it made sense. He had to be a wizard. One who used Trumps to move from place to place. That’s how he had gotten in here without opening my door.

“It’s a good drawing,” I said, taking the card and studying it. He had caught not just the look, but the feel of my bedchamber. As I stared at it, the image seemed to grow lifelike and started to loom before me… I had the distinct impression that I could have stepped forward and been in the next room. Hurriedly I pulled my gaze away and focused on him.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said, chest swelling a bit with pride. “Art is but one of my many talents, if I do say so myself.”

“Are there any more cards like this one?”

“No, that’s the only one I’ve done so far.”

Instead of handing it back, I tossed it atop the pile of dirty towels on the tray.

“You don’t mind if I keep it.” Deliberately, I made it a statement instead of a question. I didn’t need him—or anyone else—popping in on me unannounced.

“Not at all.” He shrugged. “I made it as part of your set, so it’s yours anyway. You should always have a few safe places to fall back on if need arises.”

“Then… thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” He gestured toward the box I still held. “Go ahead, take a look at the others.”

I took a moment to admire the mother-of-pearl dragon inlaid on the top of the box—also his work, it turned out—then unlatched the clasp and swung back the lid. Inside, nestled in a velvet-lined compartment, lay a small stack of Trumps, all face down. Their backs showed a blue-painted field with an intricate gold lion in the middle, exactly like Freda’s.

I pulled all the cards out and fanned them—about twenty-five, I judged. Most showed portraits done much like the ones in Freda’s set. I pulled out Aber’s. He looked even more heroic than in Freda’s set, if possible; here, he held a bloody sword in one hand and the severed head of a lion in the other. Clearly he had no problems with his own self-image.

“They’re terrific,” I said.

“Thanks.”

“You’ll have to show me how they work later, when we have more time.” I put them back in the box, adding the one of my bedroom to the top of the stack.

“You don’t know…” he began. “Sorry! I thought you knew. This morning, someone used my card. Just for a second, I thought I saw you and Freda inside a carriage.”

“That was me,” I admitted. “But it was an accident. I didn’t know what I was doing,”

He shrugged. “It’s not hard. Take out a card and concentrate on it. If it’s a place, it will seem to grow life- sized before you, like a doorway. Just step through and you’re there.”

“And the people?”

“You’ll be able to talk to them,” he said, “but only if they want to talk to you, too. After contact is made, either one can help the other pass across.”

“It works both ways?”

“That’s right.” He nodded. “Just stick out your hand, the person you’re talking to will grasp it, and you step forward. Fast and easy.”

“It almost seems too good to be true!” I said, a trifle skeptical. Why would anyone bother with horses or carriages if a single card could make traveling quick and painless? “Freda said you liked pranks. You’re pulling my leg now, aren’t you?”

“No,” he insisted, “I’m telling the truth. I always tell the truth. It’s just that half