“Sorry you lost your voice, old girl,” I said, stroking her as I explored the room for threats both psychic and physical. “I can’t find a damned thing here that I should be worried about.”
Immediately she spiraled down from my wrist and tried to remove the ring from my finger.
“Stop!” I ordered. “I know the ring could be dangerous. But only if you use it wrongly. I’m a sorcerer, remember? I’m into these matters. There is nothing special about it for me to fear.”
But Frakir disobeyed my order and continued her attack on the ring, which I could now only attribute to some form of magical artifact jealousy. I tied her in a tight knot around the bedpost and left her there, to teach her a lesson.
I began to search the apartment more diligently. If I were to keep the sword and the ring, it would be nice to find something else of his father’s that I could take to Luke-
“Merlin! Merlin!” I heard bellowed from somewhere beyond my room.
Rising from a tapping of the floor and lower walls, where I had been seeking hollow spots, I returned to my archway and passed through into my own sitting room. I halted then despite another summons in what I now recognized to be Random’s voice. The wall which faced upon the side corridor was more than half rebuilt since last I had viewed it-as if an invisible crew of carpenters and plasterers had been silently at work since I had positioned the dreamstone in the gateway to the kingdom of Brand. Amazing. I simply stood and stared, hoping for some betraying bit of business within the damaged area. Then I heard Random mutter, “I guess he’s gone,” and I called back, “Yeah? What is it?”
“Get your ass up here quick,” he said. “I need your advice.”
I stepped out into the corridor through the opening which remained in that wall, and I looked upward, Immediately I could feel the capabilities in the ring that I wore, responding like a musical instrument to my most immediate need. The appropriate line was activated as I assented to the suggestion, and I took the gloves from behind my belt and drew them on as I was levitated toward the opening in the ceiling. This, because it had occurred to me that Random might recognize the ring as having once been Brand’s, and that could lead to a complicated discussion I’d no desire for at the moment.
I held my cloak close to my side as I came up through the hole into the studio, to keep the blade under wraps also.
“Impressive,” Random said. “Glad you’re keeping the magical muscle exercised. That’s what I called you for.”
I gave him a bow. Being dressed up made me feel vaguely courtly.
“How may I be of service?’
“Cut the crap and come on,” he said, taking hold of my elbow and steering me back toward the demibedroom. Vialle stood at the door, holding it open.
“Merlin?” she said as I brushed by.
“Yes?” I answered.
“I wasn’t certain,” she said.
“Of what?” I asked.
“That it was you,” she responded.
“Oh, it’s me, all right,” I said.
“It is indeed my brother,” Mandor stated, rising from his chair and approaching us. His arm was splinted and slung, his face considerably relaxed. “If anything about him strikes you as strange,” he continued, “it is likely because he has had a number of traumatic experiences since he left here.”
“Is that true?” Random asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “I didn’t realize it was all that apparent.”
“Are you all right?” Random asked.
“I seem to be intact,” I said.
“Good. Then we’ll save the particulars of your story for another time. As you can see, Coral is gone and Dworkin is, too. I didn’t see them go. I was still in the studio when it happened.”
“When what happened?” I asked.
“Dwrkin finished his operation,” Mandor said, “took the lady by the hand, drew her to her feet, and transported her away from here. It was most elegantly managed. One moment they stood at the bedside; the next their afterimages ran through the spectrum and winked out.”