“Oh, my,” I said. “I’ll order the one I’m wearing to conceal itself, also.”
“I don’t think that’ll work,” he said, “though I’m not certain. I’d think they must maintain a constant fluxpin with each source of power, and that would give some indication of the thing’s presence because of its broadcast nature.”
“I’ll tell it to tune itself as low as it can then.”
He nodded.
“It can’t hurt to make it specific,” he said, “though I’d guess it probably does that anyhow, automatically.”
I placed the other ring back in my pocket, departed the niche, and hurried on up the hallway.
I slowed when we neared what I thought to be the area. But I seemed mistaken. The metal forest was not there. We passed that section. Shortly, we came to a familiar display-the one that had preceded the metal forest, on approaching it from that direction.
Even as I turned back, I knew. I knew what had happened. When we reached what had been the area, I stopped and studied it.
“What is it?” my ghostly father asked.
“It seems a display of every conceivable variety of edged weapon and tool that Chaos has ever spewed forth,” I said, “all of them exhibited point up, you’ll note.”
“So?” he asked.
“This is the place,” I answered, “the place where we were going to climb a metal tree.”
“Merle,” he said, “maybe this place does something to my thought processes, or yours. I just don’t understand.”
“It’s up near the ceiling,” I explained, gesturing. “I know the approximate area-I think. Looks a little different now…”
“What’s there, son?”
“A way-a transport area, like the one we passed through to the place of the Jabberwock skeleton. Only this one would take us to your chapel.”
“And that’s where we’re headed?”
“Right.”
He rubbed his chin.
“Well, there were some fairly tall items in some of the displays we passed,” he observed, “and not all of them were metal or stone. We could wrestle over that totem pole or whatever the hell it is, from back up the hall, clear away some of the sharp displays below that place, set the thing up-“
“No,” I said. “Dara obviously caught on to the fact that someone had visited it-probably this last time around, when she almost surprised me. The display was changed because of this. There are only two obvious ways to get up there-transport something unwieldy, as you suggest, and clear away a lot of cutlery before we climb. Or rev up the spikard and levitate ourselves to the spot. The first would take too long and probably get us discovered. The second would employ so much power that it would doubtless set off any magical wards she’s installed about the area.”
He took hold of my arm and drew me on past the display.
“We’ve got to talk,” he said, leading me into an alcove containing a small bench.
He seated himself and folded his arms.
“I’ve got to know what the hell’s going on,” he said. “I can’t help properly unless I’m briefed. What’s the connection between the man and the chapel?”
“I figured out something I think my mother really meant when she told me, ‘Seek him in the Pit,’ “ I explained. “The floor of the chapel bears stylized representations of the Courts and of Amber worked out in tiles. At the extreme of the Courts’ end is a representation of the Pit. I never set foot in that area when I visited the chapel. I’m willing to bet there’s a way located there, and at the other end is the place of his imprisonment.”
He’d begun nodding as I spoke, then, “So you were going to pass through and free him?” he asked.
“Right.”
“Tell me, do these ways have to work both ways?” he said.
“Well, no… Oh, I see what you’re getting at.”
“Give me a more complete description of the chapel,” he said.
I proceeded to do so.
“That magic circle on the floor intrigues me,” he said. “It might be a means of communicating with him without risking the dangers of presence.
Some sort of image-exchange, perhaps.”
“I might have to fool with it a long while to figure it out;” I said, “unless I got lucky. What I propose doing is to levitate, enter, use the way at the Pit to reach him, free him, and get the hell out. No subtlety. No finesse. If anything fails to do what we expect, we force our way through it with the spikard. We’ll have to move fast because they’ll be after us once we start.”