“I’m fine.”
“I hear your voice, but I can’t see a thing.”
“Got a blackout on the Trumps. You don’t know how to do that?”
“Never looked into the matter. Have to get you to teach me sometime. Uh, why are they blacked out anyway?”
“Somebody might get in touch and figure what I’m up to.”
“If you’re about to lead a commando raid on Amber, I’m going to be highly pissed.”
“Come on! You know I swore off? This is something entirely different.”
“Thought you were a prisoner of Dalt’s.”
“My status is unchanged.”
“Well, he damn near killed you once and he just beat the shit out of you the other day.”
“The first time he’d stumbled into an old berserker spell Sharu’d left behind for a trap; the second time was business. I’ll be okay. But right now everything I’m up to is hush-hush, and I’ve got to run. G’bye.”
Gone Luke, the presence.
The footsteps had halted, and I’d heard a knocking on a nearby door.
After a time I heard a door being opened, then closed. I had not overheard any exchange of words. In that it had been nearby and that the two nearest apartments were Benedict’s and my own, I began to wonder. I was fairly certain that Benedict was not in his, and I recalled not having locked my own door when I had stepped out. Therefore…
Picking up the Jewel of Judgment, I crossed the room and stepped out into the hall. I checked Benedict’s door. Locked. I looked down the north-south hallway and walked back to the stairway and checked around in that area. There was no one in sight. I strode up to my own place then and stood listening for a time outside each of my doors. No sounds from within. The only alternatives I could think of were Gerard’s rooms, back down the side corridor, and Brand’s, which lay behind my own. I had thought of knocking out a wall-in keeping with the recent spirit of remodeling and redecorating Random had gotten into-adding Brand’s rooms to my own, for a very good-size apartment. The rumor that his were haunted, though, and the wailings I sometimes heard through the walls late at night dissuaded me.
I took a quick walk then, knocking on and finally trying both Brand’s and Gerard’s doors. No response, and both were locked. Odder and odder.
Frakir had given a quick pulse when I’d touched Brand’s door, and while I’d gone on alert for several moments, nothing untoward had approached. I was about to dismiss it as a disturbing reaction to the remnants of eldritch spells I had occasionally seen drifting about the vicinity when I noticed that the Jewel of Judgment was pulsing.
I raised the chain and stared into the gem. Yes, an image had taken form. I beheld the hallway around the corner, my two doors, and intervening artwork on the wall in plain view. The doorway to the left-the one that let upon my bedroom-seemed to be outlined in red and pulsing. Did that mean I was supposed to avoid it or rush in there? That’s the trouble with mystical advice.
I walked back and turned the corner again. This time the gem-perhaps having felt my query and decided some editing was in order-showed me approaching and opening the door it was indicating. Of course, of the two, that door was locked….
I fumbled for my key, reflecting that I could not even rush in with a drawn blade, having just disposed of Grayswandir. I did have a couple of tricky spells hung, though. Maybe one of them would save me if the going got too rough. Maybe not, too.
I turned the key and flung the door open.
“Merle!” she shrieked, and I saw that it was Coral. She stood beside my bed, where her putative sister the ty’iga was reclined. She quickly moved one hand behind her back. “You, uh, surprised me.”
“Vice versa,” I replied, for which there is an equivalent in Thari. “What’s up, lady?”
“I came back to tell you that I located my father and gave him a soothing story about that Corridor of Mirrors you told me about. Is there really such a place here?”