“What do you know?” came the voice I remembered, finally. “You guys look for real.”
“We are,” said his ghost, “and as usual, at times such as this, you’d better hurry.”
“Yeah.” There came a slow tread from within, and when he emerged he was shielding his eyes with his left hand. “Either of you got a pair of shades? The light hurts.”
“Damn!” I said, wishing I’d thought of it. “No, and if I send for them the Logrus might spot me.”
“Later, later. I’ll squint and stumble. Let’s get the hell out.”
His ghost entered the cell.
“Now make me bearded, thin, and grimy. Lengthen the hair and tatter the clothes,” he said. “Then lock me in.
“What’s going on?” my father asked.
“Your ghost will be impersonating you in your cell for a while.”
“It’s your plan,” Corwin stated. “Do what the ghost says.” And so I did. He turned and extended his hand back into the cell then. “Thanks, buddy.”
“My pleasure,” the other replied, clasping his hand and shaking it.
“Good luck.”
“So long.”
I closed and locked the cell door. I hung the key on its nail and steered him to the way. It took us through.
He lowered his hand as we came into the chapel. The dimness must have been sufficient for him to handle now. He drew away from me and crossed to the altar.
“We’d better go, Dad.”
He chuckled as he reached across the altar, raised a burning taper, and used it to light one of the others that had apparently gone out in some draft.
“I’ve pissed on my own grave,” he announced. “Can’t pass up the pleasure of lighting a candle to myself in my own church.”
He extended his left hand in my direction without looking at me.
“Give me Grayswandir,” he said.
I slipped it off and passed it to him. He unfastened it and buckled it about his waist, loosened it in its sheath. “All right. What now?” he asked.
I thought fast. If Dana was aware that I had exited through the wall last time-a distinct possibility, considering-then the walls might well be booby-trapped in some fashion. On the other hand, if we went out the way I had come in we might encounter someone rushing this way in answer to the alarm.
Hell.
“Come on,” I said, activating the spikard, ready to whisk us away at the glimpse of an intruder. “It’s going to be tricky because it involves levitation on the way out.”
I caught hold of him again and we approached the way. I wrapped us in energies as it took us, and I lofted us above the field of blades and flowers as we departed.
There were footfalls from up the corridor. I swirled us away to another place.
I took us to Jurt’s apartment, which didn’t seem a place anyone was likely to come looking for a man who was still in his cell; and I knew that Jurt had no need of it just then.
Corwin sprawled on the bed and squinted at me. “By the way,” he said, “thanks.”
“Anytime,” I told him.
“You know your way around this place pretty well?” he said.
“It doesn’t seem to have changed that much,” I told him.
“Then how’s about raiding an icebox for me while I borrow your brother’s scissors and razor for a quick shave and haircut.”
“What would you like?”
“Meat, bread, cheese, wine, maybe a piece of pie,” he said. “Just so it’s fresh and there’s lots of it. Then you’re going to have a lot of story to tell me.”
“I guess I am,” I said.
And so I made my way to the kitchen, down familiar halls and ways I had traversed as a boy. The place was lit by just a few tapers, the fires banked. No one was about.
I proceeded to raid the larder, heaping a tray with the various viands requested, adding a few pieces of fruit I came across. I almost dropped the wine bottle when I heard a sharp intake of breath near the doorway I had entered.
It was Julia, in a blue silk wrap.
“Merlin!”