Sign of chaos. Chapter 10, 11, 12
CHAPTER 10
We hiked back along the hallway to my apartment. When I opened the door and summoned the lights, Nayda did a fast survey of the first room. She froze when she saw my coat rack.
“Queen Jasra!” she said.
“Yep. She had a disagreement with a sorcerer named Mask,” I explained. “Guess who won?”
Nayda raised her left hand and moved it in a slow pattern-behind Jasra’s neck and down her back, across her chest, then downward again. I did not recognize any of the movements she was performing.
“Don’t tell me that you’re a sorceress, too,” I said. “It seems that everyone I run into these days has had some training in the Art.”
“I am not a sorceress,” she answered, “and I’ve had no such training. I have only one trick and it is not sorcery, but I use it for everything.”
“And what is that trick?” I asked.
She ignored the question, then said, “My, she’s certainly tightly bound. The key lies somewhere in the region of her solar plexus. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I understand the spell fully.”
“Why is she here?”
“Partly because I promised her son Rinaldo I’d rescue her from Mask, and partly as an assurance against his good behavior.”
I pushed the door shut and secured it. When I turned back, she was facing me.
“Have you seen him recently?” she said in a conversational tone.
“Yes. Why?”
“Oh, no special reason.”
“I thought we were trying to help each other, “ I said.
“I thought we were looking for my sister. “
“It can wait another minute if you know something special about Rinaldo.”
“I was just curious where he might be right now.”
I turned away and moved to the chest where I keep art supplies. I removed the necessary items and took them to my drawing board. While I was about it, I said, “I don’t know where he is.”
I set up the piece of pasteboard, seated myself and closed my eyes, summoning a mental image of Coral, preliminary to beginning her sketch. Again, I half wondered whether the picture in my mind, along with the appropriate magical endorsement, would be sufficient for contact. But now was not the time to mess around being experimental. I opened my eyes and began to draw. I used the techniques I’d learned in the Courts, which are different yet similar to those employed in Amber. I was qualified to execute them in either fashion, but I’m faster with the style I learned first.
Nayda came over and stood near, watching, not asking whether I minded.
As it was, I did not.
“When did you see him last?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Luke.”
“This evening,” I answered.
“Where?”
“He was here earlier.”
“Is he here now?”.
“ No.”
“Where did you last see him?”
“In the forest of Arden. Why?”
“It seams a strange place to part.”
I was working on Coral’s eyebrows.
“We parted under strange circumstances,” I said.
A little more work about the eyes, a bit on the hair…
“Strange? In what way?” she asked.
More color to the cheeks…
“Never mind,” I told her.
“All right,” she said. “It’s probably not that important.”
I decided against rising to that bait, because I was suddenly getting something. As had occasionally happened in the past, my concentration on the Trump as I put the final touches to it was sufficiently intense to reach through and…
“Coral!” I said, as the features moved, perspectives shifted.
“Merlin … ?” she answered. “I … I’m in trouble.”
Oddly, there was no background whatever. Just blackness. I felt Nayda’s hand upon my shoulder.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Yes… It’s dark here,” she said. “Very dark.”
Of course. One cannot manipulate Shadow in the absence of light. Or even see to use a Trump.
“That’s where the Pattern sent you?” I asked.
“No,” she answered.
“Take my hand,” I said. “You can tell me about it afterward.”.
I extended my hand and she reached toward it.
“They-“ she began.
And with a stinging flash the contact was broken. I felt Nayda stiffen beside me.