And there was: Eregnor. A Begman queen on the Kashfan throne might help smooth over that particular real estate gab. At least, that had been Jasra's thinking, Coral told me. And Luke had been swayed by this, particularly in the absence of the guarantees from Amber and the now-defunct Golden Circle Treaty.

I held her. She was not well, despite what seemed an amazing postoperative recovery. She wore a black patch over her right eye and was more than a little reactive should my hand stray near it-or even if I looked at it for too long. What might have led Dworkin to replace the damaged eye with the Jewel of Judgment, I could not even guess. Unless he somehow considered her proof against the forces of the Pattern and the Logrus in their attempts to recover it. My expertise in this area, though, was nonexistent. Having finally met the diminutive mage, I had become convinced of his sanitythough this feeling in no way served to penetrate those enigmatic qualities that ancient wise men tend to possess.

“How does it feel?” I asked her.

“Very strange,” she replied. “Nat pain-exactly. More like the way a Trump contact feels. Only it's with me all the time, and I'm not going anywhere or talking to anyone. It's as if I'm standing in some sort of gateway. Farces are moving about me, through me.”

In an instant I was at the center that was the gay ring with its wheel of many-spoked reddish metal. From the inside, here, it was like a great web. A bright strand pulsed for my attention. Yes, it was a line to a very potent force in distant Shadow, one that might be used for probing. Carefully, I extended it toward the covered jewel she wore in her eye socket.

There was no immediate resistance. In fact, I felt nothing as I extended the line of power. An image came to me of a curtain of flame, however. Pushing through the fiery veil, I felt my extension of inquiry slowing, slowing, halted. And there I hovered, as It were, at the edge of a void. This was not the way of attunement, as I understood it, and I was loath to invoke the Pattern, which I understood to be a part of it, when employing other forces. I pushed forward and felt a terrible coldness, draining the energies I had called upon.

Still, it was not draining the energy directly from me, only from one of the forces I commanded. I pushed it farther, and I beheld a faint patch of light like some distant nebula. It hung against a background the deep red of port wine. Closer still, and it resolved itself into a form-a complex, three dimensional construct, half familiar-which must be the pathway one takes in attuning oneself to the Jewel, from my father's description. All right, I was inside the Jewel. Should I essay the initiation?

“Go no further,” came an unfamiliar voice, though I realized it to be Coral who was making the sounds. She seemed to have slipped into a trance state. “You are denied the higher initiation.”

I drew back on my probe, not eager for any demonstrations that might come my way along it. My Logrus sight, which had remained with me constantly since recent events in Amber, gave me a vision of Coral now fully enfolded and penetrated by the higher version of the Pattern.

“Why?” I asked it.

But I was riot vouchsafed a reply. Coral gave a little jerk, shook herself, and stared at me.

“What happened?” she asked.

“You dozed off,” I replied. “No wonder. Whatever Dworkin did, plus the day's stress...”

She yawned and collapsed back on the bed.

“Yes,” she breathed, and then she was really asleep. I pulled off my boots and discarded my heavier garments. I stretched out beside her and drew a quilt over us. I was tired, too, and I just wanted someone to hold.

How long I slept I do not know. I was troubled by dark, swirling dreams. Faces-human, animal, demonic, moved about me, none of them bearing particularly cheerful expressions. Forests fell and burst into flame, the ground shook and split, the waters of the sea rose in gigantic waves and assailed the land, the moon dripped blood and there came up a great wailing. Something called my name...

A great wind rattled the shutters till they burst inward, dapping and banging. In my dream, a creature entered then and came to crouch at the foot of the bed, calling softly to me, over and over. The room seemed to be shaking, and my mind went back to California. It seemed that an earthquake was in progress. The wind rose from a shriek to a roar, and I heard crashing sounds from without, as of trees falling, towers toppling...

“Merlin, Prince of the House of Sawall, Prince of Chaos, rise up,” it seemed to say. Then it gnashed its fangs and began again.

At the fourth or fifth repetition it struck me that I might not be dreaming. There were screams from somewhere outside, and steady pulses of lightning came and went against almost musical rolls of thunder.

I raised a protective shell before I moved, before I opened my eyes. The sounds were real, as was the broken shutter. So was the creature at the foot of the bed.

“Merlin, Merlin. Rise up, Merlin,” it said to me-it being a long-snouted, pointed-eared individual, wellfanged and clawed, of a greenish-silver cast of complexion, eyes large and shining, damp leathery wings folded against its lean sides. From its expression, I couldn't tell whether it was smiling or in pain. “Awaken, Lord of Chaos.”

“Gryll,” I said, naming an old family servant from the Courts.

“Aye, Lord,” it replied. “The same as taught you the bonedance game.”

“I'll be damned.”

“Business before pleasure, Lord. I've followed the black thread a long and horrid way to come calling.”

“The threads didn't reach this far,” I said, “without

an awful lot of push. Maybe even not then. Do they now?”

“It's easier now,” he replied.

“How so?”

“His Majesty Swayvill, King of Chaos, sleeps this night with the ancestors of darkness. I was sent to fetch you back for the ceremonies.”

“Now?” “Now.” “Yeah. Well, okay. Sure. Just let me get my stuff together. How'd it happen, anyhow?”

I pulled on my boots, donned the rest of my garments, buckled on my blade.

“I am not privy to any details. Of course, it is common knowledge that his health was poor.”

“I want to leave a note,” I said.

He nodded.

“A brief one, I trust.”

“Yes.”

I scrawled on a piece of parchment from the writing table, Coral, Called away on family business. I'll be in touch, and I laid it beside her hand.

“All right,” I said. “How do we do this?”

“I will bear you upon my back, Prince Merlin, as I did long ago.”

I nodded as a flood of childhood memories returned to me. Gryll was immensely strong, as are most demons. But I recalled our games, at Pit's-edge and out over the darkness, in burial chambers, caves, still-smoking battlefields, ruined temples, chambers of dead sorcerers, private hells. I always seemed to have more fun playing with demons than with my mother's relatives by blood or marriage. I even based my main Chaos form upon one of their kind.

He absorbed a chair from the room's corner for extra mass, changing shape to accommodate my adult size. As I climbed upon his elongated torso, catching a firm hold, he exclaimed, “Ah, Merlin! What magics do you bear these days?”

“I've their control, but not full knowledge of their essence,” I answered. “They're a very recent acquisition. What is it that you feel?”

“Heat, cold, strange music,” he replied. “From all directions. You have changed.”

“Everyone changes,” I said as he moved toward the window. “That's life.”

A dark thread lay upon the wide sill. He reached out and touched it as he launched himself.

There came a great rushing of wind as we fell downward, moved forward, rose. Towers flashed past, wavering. The stars were bright, a quarter moon just risen, illuminating the bellies of a low line of clouds. We soared, the castle and the town dwindling in an eyeblink. The stars danced, became streaks of light. A band of sheer, rippling blackness spread about us, widening. The Black Road, I suddenly thought. It is like a temporary version of the Black Road, in the sky. I glanced back. It was not there. It was as if it were somehow reeling in as we rode. Or was it reeling us in?